A Whisper of Bones

by Ellen Hart

  Tearing her eyes away from Cordelia, Berengaria said, “I’m traveling with a few of my newest vintages. If you have time, Ms. Lawless, I’d like to get your thoughts on them.”

  “Please, call me Jane. And yes, I’d love that.” She removed a business card from the back pocket of her jeans and handed it over.

  “I’ll call and we’ll make a date. You’re invited, too,” she said, inclining her head toward Cordelia. “If you can bring yourself to drink a few wines that aren’t sweet.”

  “I imagine there will be compensating factors,” said Cordelia, matching Berengaria’s smile with an amused one of her own.

  Jane returned to her plate of food, now cold and completely unappetizing. She reached for the breadbasket.

  “My gaydar just exploded, crashed, and burned,” said Cordelia, waving air into her face.

  “You think she’s a member of the tribe?” Had they been standing near a pile of birch logs, Jane was sure the sparks from the encounter would have ignited a conflagration bigger than the historic Chicago fire.

  “I need a cigarette,” said Cordelia. “I am utterly and totally smitten.”

  Jane buttered a piece of sourdough. “If that’s true, then my advice would be, don’t mention the fact that your favorite beverage is black cherry soda. You also might want to dig out your copy of Wine for Dummies and do some serious studying.”

  6

  Frank paused for a moment on the stairway landing between the living room and kitchen. He’d been upstairs taking a shower and was on his way back to the basement to get dressed when he heard someone banging on the piano. The old upright sat tucked against the stairs. Gazing down at the little girl plunking away on her god-awful song and then over at a sour-faced Lena, Frank came to the conclusion that there were worse ways to make money than tax preparation.

  Frank saw himself as an underachiever. His mother had encouraged him to attend college, even saying she’d do whatever she could, on her nurse’s salary, to help him pay for it. She wanted him to get into a respectable, moneymaking profession—lawyer, doctor, dentist, banker—but all Frank could manage in his youth was a two-year accounting degree, which got him exactly nowhere. He knew what he wanted to do, but he also knew that it would mean he’d have to live in his mother’s basement for the rest of his natural life. Accounting, at the very least, gave him a few options.

  The fact that his second marriage was coming apart meant that he was about to fail on another front. He wasn’t willing to admit that it was over. Wendy had given him an ultimatum yesterday: Grow the hell up or get out. Okay, so he wasn’t much good at being an adult. In fact, he wasn’t much good at anything these days. Something had to change and he figured that something had to be him.

  After finding some clean clothes in the basement closet, he left his bed unmade, an empty, rumpled bag of potato chips peeking out from under the covers, and made his way up to the kitchen. The pathetic banging continued, the perfect soundtrack to his morning depression. His mother and Iver Dare, the senior pastor at Cumberland Park Lutheran in Saint Paul and an old friend, were seated at the round oak table, enjoying a cup of coffee and one of his mother’s caramel rolls.

  “Morning,” grunted Frank.

  Iver glanced at his watch. “I believe this is technically afternoon.”

  “Did you sleep all right?” asked Eleanor.

  Frank got down a box of Cocoa Krispies from the cupboard. “Yeah. Thanks.” He dumped the cereal into a bowl and then moved over to the refrigerator to get some milk.

  “I have good news for you,” said Iver.

  “That would be unique.”

  “You know that mural you painted in the church basement?”

  Of course he remembered it. It was one of the few times he’d been paid to do what he loved. Murals weren’t in high demand back in the eighties, when he still thought he could make mural painting his career. All the walls in the basement were covered with his handiwork. As a teenager, he’d spent every spare minute down there learning his craft. He’d paint one mural, snap a Polaroid, then gesso over it and paint another. Until he gave up. What was the point? With the exception of his mother, nobody gave a rat’s ass.

  “Yes,” said Frank between bites. “I remember it.”

  “We have a new member. His name is Walter Mann. He came to me after services last Sunday asking if I knew anything about the person who painted it.”

  “He wants to have me arrested?”

  “No, no, of course not. He was very impressed. He’d like to talk to you. I hope you don’t mind. I gave him your phone number.”

  Frank chewed his cereal. He would bet money that the guy would never call. And even if he did, it would be a couple compliments and that’s it.

  “Actually,” said Iver, pushing away from the table. “He gave me his card. I think it’s in my coat. Let me get it for you.”

  As soon as they were alone, Frank sat down next to his mother. He pointed to her ears and asked, “You got your hearing aids in?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking concerned.

  “Listen up, then. I found Lena on the porch last night with Butch. She’d been drinking. I could smell the alcohol. She said it was Butch, but I was standing almost directly in front of her. It was Lena, I know it.”

  His mother’s expression turned serious.

  “You have to talk to her.”

  “I can’t believe, after all these years, she’d start up again.”

  “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. You know what she’s like when she’s drinking.”

  Eleanor began twisting the napkin in her lap. “I don’t know. Maybe I should ask Iver to talk to her.”

  “I say we search her bedroom. Find out where she’s hidden the bottles and get rid of them.”

  “Who’s buying them for her?”

  “Butch? Novak? Who knows? Who cares? She’s getting it somewhere and it has to stop before she blats out something she can’t take back.”

  Iver returned to the room and handed Frank the business card.

  “Thanks,” said Frank. He studied it for a few seconds. “I better get going or I’ll be late for an appointment.”

  “Will you be staying here again tonight?” asked his mother.

  “I don’t know.” He felt in his back pocket for his wallet.

  “I’ll go down and tidy up your room, just in case.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Please don’t.” The idea that his eighty-year-old mother would offer to make his bed was humiliating. He should have taken care of it himself. He sucked so bad at life. Digging into his pocket for his car keys, he couldn’t leave fast enough.

  * * *

  Frank figured that if he kept his 1997 Chevy Suburban long enough, it might actually be worth money one day. As it was, with just over two hundred thousand miles on it, it was a rolling piece of junk. But it was big and spacious, necessary for a big spacious guy like himself. And because he could still find repair parts on the internet, he kept fixing what was wrong. The rust was a different matter.

  Parking in a lot outside a one-story brick building just off Stinson Boulevard, Frank pushed the driver’s door open with his foot, cringing at the sound of screeching metal. He entered through a glass security door and walked into a large waiting room. Seeing half a dozen people sitting in the room, he squeezed himself into a chair next to an aquarium. Even the angelfish had little interest in him. He felt like Eeyore, the old, gray, stuffed donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Or, put in more contemporary language, he was a walking, talking, human buzz kill.

  “Frank?” said the receptionist, motioning at him. “Dr. Bachelder will see you now.”

  Frank had been coming to the Forrester Clinic of Family Psychology for a couple of months. His therapist, Dr. Craig Bachelder, was an older man who reminded him of Pastor Dare. Bachelder might be a decade younger, with shaggy silver hair and horn-rimmed glasses, while Pastor Dare combed his thinning gray hair straight back from a high forehead and wore wire ri
ms, and yet beyond the physical, they were brothers under the skin. Both men were bookish, natural mediators with soothing voices and calm, almost Zen-like demeanors. Sometimes it felt to Frank as if the two men had been let in on a secret that had escaped the rest of humanity—knowledge that allowed them to negotiate life with an equanimity lesser mortals found impossible.

  Frank took a seat on an uncomfortable chair with a rigid back across from Bachelder’s more comfortable leather recliner. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “When you called, you said something about a fight with your wife.”

  “Yeah,” said Frank, crossing his legs and then uncrossing them. “It was a bad one. She told me to leave. Didn’t want to talk to me again until I’d had a chance to speak with you.”

  “I see. I wish I had more time to give you today. Why don’t you tell me what the fight was about?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual marital crap. Something small that escalated. But … we said things that will be hard to take back. She got really angry, went after my relationship with my mother. Said she was sick of living with a man like me.”

  “A man like you?”

  “She thinks my mom bosses me around too much.”

  “Does she?”

  “Well, sometimes. I think Wendy was also talking about my depression.”

  “Are you still taking the medication I prescribed?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course.” He wasn’t. He might not be sure of much, but he knew a pill wasn’t going to solve the kind of problems he had.

  “You know, Frank. I’ve been seeing you for what”—he checked his notebook—“almost seven weeks. Several times you’ve alluded to something that happened in your past that continues to haunt your present, and yet, whenever I move the conversation in that direction, you refuse to talk about it. It makes me wonder why you’re here.”

  “I—” He didn’t know what to say. His wife had suggested seeing a therapist, but Wendy suggested lots of things he never acted on.

  “I don’t usually make this kind of blanket statement, but … since we don’t seem to be making any real progress, I’m going to just say it. You’re a very angry man, Frank.”

  “I am?”

  “Depression is often anger turned inward. Sometimes it’s easier for us to handle our anger if we can diffuse or deflect it. The problem is, you can’t bury your feelings forever. They have a way of leaking out. Are you afraid of your anger, Frank?”

  He took a breath, held it.

  “This fight you had with Wendy. Did it get physical?”

  “You mean, did I hurt her? I didn’t lay a finger on her. I’d never do that.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “Look,” said Frank, leaning back in his chair. “If I am angry, it’s at myself, nobody else.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’m a failure.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way. I don’t deserve happiness.”

  Dr. Bachelder closed his notebook. “This … thing that happened. Was it a long time ago?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Were you a child?”

  He hesitated, his eyes skirting the room. “I was thirteen.”

  “And your father died when you were—”

  “He was killed in Vietnam. He deployed when I was a baby. I don’t even remember him.”

  “Thirteen can be a difficult age, especially without a dad.”

  “Tell me about it. But knowing that isn’t getting me anywhere with my wife. I need your advice. Should I stay away for a few days, give her some time to cool off? Or maybe … I mean, I was thinking I could bring her flowers.”

  “Do you love her, Frank? Do you want to work things out?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Does she know anything about this problem in your past?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Tell me. Are you generally open with her about what you’re feeling?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah. Sometimes.”

  “You might want to ask yourself this question. Do you think your lack of openness makes her feel cut off from you?”

  “Now you sound like my wife. I’m never going to be anybody’s open book. Take it or leave it.”

  “There’s the anger I was talking about. The truth is, Frank, it’s hard to live with silence. If you give Wendy the choice between taking you with your silence or leaving you, how would you feel if she chose the latter?”

  This wasn’t getting him anywhere. Rising from his chair, he said, “Thanks for nothing.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Bachelder, rising with his notebook tucked under his arm. “I hope you’ll come back so we can continue our conversation. But, as always, the decision is yours.”

  On his way back through the waiting room, Frank’s cell phone rang. Fishing it out of his pocket, he swept a finger over the screen. “Hello?” he said, holding it to his ear.

  “Is this Frank Devine?”

  “Yeah?” He pushed through the glass door and stood leaning against the hood of his Suburban.

  “My name is Walter Mann. I’m the executive editor at Rupert A. Wilson Publishing. I wonder if you’d be willing to stop by my office sometime in the next couple of days. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Give me a sec.”

  Frank heard voices in the background, several people all speaking at once.

  When Mann came back on the line, he said, “I’m afraid I have a situation here that requires my immediate attention. Let me have my secretary call you and we can set up a time to get together. That work for you?”

  “Sure. I guess.”

  “Wonderful. Hope to see you soon.”

  As Frank opened his car door and slid into the front seat, he wondered what fresh horror this guy was about to bring into his life.

  7

  Twilight was beginning to settle over Saint Paul as Jane parked her SUV a block away from the home of Britt’s aunts, Eleanor Skarsvold Devine and Lena Skarsvold. She’d surveyed the area to get the general lay of the land, but wanted a closer look at the house before she drove back to her restaurant to begin some online research.

  As she made her way down the cracked sidewalk, a chilly wind scattered dry leaves across her path. The closer she got to the end of the block, the more obvious it became that the Skarsvold property was terribly rundown. The house sat farther back from the street than the other houses along Cumberland Avenue. It had elements of the Arts and Crafts style, with tall gables and a broad porch flanked by large, square posts. Once upon a time it had likely been sided with wood, though somewhere along the line someone had covered it with stucco, now cracked and badly discolored. Much of the paint on the dark green window trim had pealed off long ago, revealing whole sections of rotted wood. Many of the screens were rusted. A few were missing. Around the perimeter was a tangle of vines and dead shrubs partially covering a crumbling fieldstone foundation. In a neighborhood where the rest of the homes were smaller but well tended, the Skarsvold place stood out.

  Jane paused for a few seconds, gazing up at the once stately home, hands in her pockets, wondering what it had looked like when it was new. Was it poverty, neglect, or something else that had caused such a decline? Whatever the case, the house, with its low, curled roofline over an unscreened porch, seemed dark and brooding, as if the people inside were hiding from the world. And that was why the FOR RENT sign stuck into the grass on the boulevard seemed so incongruous.

  ROOMS AVAILABLE

  WEEKLY MONTHLY

  INQUIRE WITHIN

  Jane glanced up as a pickup truck rolled around the corner and pulled to a stop across the street. A workman in white painter pants, white cap, and a dark hoodie hopped out. A second later a light came on over the door of one of the houses and a woman stepped out onto the concrete stoop, calling, “We need at least three more gallons.”<
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  “Aw, crap. I only got two.”

  The woman in the doorway shrugged, disappearing back inside.

  Seeing Jane, the man waved. He slammed the cab door and then trotted across the street. “You looking for a place to rent? The bedrooms are nice, not real big, but clean. I’ve seen ’em.”

  “You live around here?” asked Jane. The guy was skinny, middle-aged, with a bushy mustache.

  “Rich Novak,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m the block captain. I live in that colonial revival back there.” He turned and pointed. When he saw Jane look at the house where the woman had just emerged, he said, “The wife and I are rehabbing that one. It’s a Foursquare. Got it for a super price.”

  “You flip houses?”

  “Well, yes and no. I’m a mechanic. But yeah, in my spare time, I like to stay busy with side jobs to make a little extra. This is our first try at rehabbing.”

  “Good luck,” said Jane.

  “It’s a nice neighborhood, in case you’re wondering. Two old ladies own that place.” He nodded toward the house. “They rent out rooms to make extra money.”

  “You know them?”

  “Oh, yeah, for sure. They’re quiet. Keep mostly to themselves. Someone’s always home, so if you want to look, I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem.” He hesitated. “You from around here?”

  “No,” said Jane.

  “Just traveling through?”

  “You could say that.” She wondered if he gave everyone the same kind of interrogation.

  “Hey, come on, Richard,” called his wife, sticking her head out the front door. “If I’m gonna keep goin’, I need that paint.”

  “When the ball and chain calls, I gotta obey.” He grinned. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  Jane tried not to cringe. She loathed that sort of reference to a wife or girlfriend. She waited as he ran back across the street, reached into the bed of his truck, and retrieved the paint. As he went inside, she made a quick decision. The lawn sign gave her a way into the house to meet Britt’s aunts. It seemed like such a stroke of luck that she couldn’t ignore it.

  A sign under the front doorbell said, NOT WORKING. PLEASE KNOCK. Jane rapped on the wood next to a lace-covered oval of glass. A few seconds later, a single, bony finger hooked back the lace. The door opened, revealing a plump elderly woman with a halo of white hair. “Can I help you?”