“I don’t want to interrupt,” Clare said, hesitating.
“No, it’s all right,” Trish said. “Todd, you remember Reverend Clare. She’s going to marry Kurtis and me. She came and stayed with us while you were in surgery Saturday.”
Todd, lying propped up on a stack of pillows, was a patchwork of bruises, but already he radiated more energy than Clare would have expected. One of the benefits of being twenty-four, she guessed. “Hi, Reverend Clare,” he said.
“I just wanted to pop in and see how you were doing,” she said, taking his proffered hand. “You gave your family quite a scare there.”
“It gave me quite a scare, too.”
One of the well-dressed men, a fair-skinned blond who had been staring at Clare, snapped his fingers. “Clare Fergusson,” he said.
She looked at him, surprised. “Yes.”
“You’re the one who found Bill Ingraham’s body,” he said.
“Oh, that was just—”
“Nils Bensen,” he said, extending his hand and grasping hers. “This is my colleague Adam Coppela.” Coppela was also blond, although from the coloring of his skin and eyebrows, this was more a monumental act of will than anything to do with his genetic heritage.
“They’re from the Adirondack Pride team,” Todd said, beaming as much as his battered face would allow. “I’m going to be on the cover of their next magazine.”
“That’s right,” Bensen said. “Todd here illustrates the terrible trap of simply conforming to the strictures of the straight establishment.”
Coppela clapped a thick-fingered hand on Todd’s shoulder. “The kid tries to fly under the radar, giving no offense—”
“A promising young businessman, paying his taxes—”
“And what happens? Wham!” Coppela smacked his fist into his palm. Clare and Trish both started. “He gets the crap pounded out of him because he’s queer. You can hide, but you can’t run.”
“I’m going to speak at the next regional meeting,” Todd said.
“You’re going to be our star,” Bensen said, smiling down at Todd like a coach looking at his first-round draft choice. He glanced up at Clare. “Since the story broke, we’ve already gotten triple our usual volume of calls asking about donating.”
“Ah,” she said. “That’s wonderful.”
“Maybe we can do an interview with you as a sidebar to Todd’s article,” Bensen said. He framed a headline in the air. “The church’s official representative speaks out against homophobia.”
Clare raised her hands. “I’m not the church’s official representative. I’m not even sure I’m St. Alban’s official representative. If you want a statement, I suggest you contact the diocesan office in Albany.”
“Yeah, but that’s not as sexy as a young hip priest with—” Bensen broke off, his eyes thoughtful. “You aren’t a lesbian, by any chance?”
“No!” she said, and immediately regretted denying it so fervently. “What I mean is, my sex life is private.” Bensen looked very interested. She felt her cheeks getting pink. “That is, if I had a sex life. Which I don’t. I’m practicing celibacy.”
“You any good at it?” Coppela asked.
“I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but I need to ask Mr. MacPherson to spend a little time with Ms. Nguyen from the district attorney’s office.” Clare spun around and discovered she had been right to expect the police to be here. Chief Van Alstyne was standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised. He looked at Todd. “She’s going to show you some photos for possible IDs.” He speared the Adirondack Pride pair with a look and gestured toward the door. Clare waited until they had cleared the room before she left, passing a petite woman lugging photo albums on the way.
She waited outside the door, hoping to catch him when they were done. She was surprised when he emerged alone only a few minutes later. “Did he make an identification that quickly?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, I just made the introductions. We don’t handle the actual viewing. Someone from the DA’s office who doesn’t know who we’ve tapped shows the pictures. That way, the guy’s lawyer can’t get the ID thrown out because maybe a cop breathed a little too hard when the victim pointed to the right one.”
“Do you have the Elliott guy from the construction job?”
He looked up and down the hall, as if someone might be listening in. Except for an elderly man shuffling along with his IV bag on a pole, they were alone. “Yeah.” He shifted his shoulder and winced. “He’s in custody. He gave up the two guys he says did the jobs with him. One’s a loser named Colvin; we’re trying to track him down through his girlfriend. The other’s more interesting.” He cupped her elbow in his hand and led her farther away from MacPherson’s door. “According to McKinley, the ring-leader was a guy named Chris Dessaint. He’s a guy with a job and a short list, the kind of arrests that happen when you’re young and stupid and get drunk Saturday nights. He and McKinley were up to Lake George a couple of weeks ago and they beat up some gay tourist.”
Clare winced. Suddenly, she felt a lot more sympathy for the Adirondack Pride team.
“Then Chris comes back to McKinley and—get this—says there’s money in beating up gays.”
“What? But Dr. Dvorak wasn’t robbed.”
“Not that kind of money. Payroll. Someone was passing along money and drugs in exchange for assaults on homosexuals.”
“You’re kidding. That’s weird.” She looked up at him. “You think there’s some sort of supremacy group going
