Bone by Bone

by Carol O'Connell

  Her eyes were on the darkroom’s open door. ‘I told you, that’s the last place I would’ve put those old pictures.’

  He nodded absently. Inside the room, only inches away, was a drawer that he might search, but it was too far to travel just now.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  ‘I had your black suit dry-cleaned,’ said the housekeeper.

  ‘I’m not going to the birthday ball.’ Hannah’s clogs were coming up behind him, and he could hear determination in every step.

  ‘The judge wants you to come with us. Come – just to make your father happy for one night.’

  ‘He thinks I killed Josh.’

  The wooden clogs came to a halt. ‘You can’t believe that.’

  ‘That’s why he sent me out of town. He was right to blame me. Josh and I had a fight in the woods that day. He wasn’t just stalking strangers. Sometimes it was people we both knew, and I called him on it. The last time I saw my brother, I was chasing him down, and I was angry.’

  Josh had shown him a photograph of two lovers on the porch of Evelyn’s cabin – one captured instant of a slow kiss. Oren had torn this picture to shreds. And then he had reached for his brother.

  ‘I know he was afraid of me. He ran off. I followed him. I hunted him all day long. And I would’ve found him if he was only lost . . . but he was hiding from me. He was scared.’

  Each detail of that day into night was so clear. The judge and Hannah had waited dinner, though the hour was late. They were sitting at the kitchen table when he came banging through the back door, out of breath and sweating – and bleeding, his face badly scratched by low-hanging branches after sundown.

  The judge had been surprised to see him this way – and alarmed – and slow to ask him where his brother was.

  That was the first time Oren had felt fear. He felt it now, standing in the open doorway of the darkroom – a time machine. Josh might still be wandering the woods, only missing his supper. The judge must be worried. It was so dark outside.

  Hannah was shaking him back into the solid world, where it was morning.

  A truck larger than a moving van caught Sarah Winston’s attention. What now? All the flowers and the rented furniture had already been delivered, and the caterer’s vehicles had arrived an hour ago.

  She drank her breakfast slowly, for this single glass was the only alcohol she would be allowed all day. ‘Happy birthday to me.’

  The rear door of the giant truck was rolled up, and two large men climbed inside to stand among tall blocks of ice. They slowly moved one of the blocks toward the edge of the truck bed and onto a waiting forklift. This small yellow machine and its massive cargo turned and rolled across the grass, then up a wide plank and through the open doorway of the lodge.

  As she followed the forklift inside, she felt the cold chill of air conditioning cranked to Arctic temperatures. Awaiting the ice block was a standing army of men and women with chain saws and more traditional carving tools. Addison was in their midst, talking to a man with a clipboard.

  Delighted, Sarah called out, ‘Ice sculptures!’

  Her husband whirled around and smiled, as if he had not seen her for years and years. He walked toward her. ‘Not to worry, Sarah. These artists work very fast. They’ll be done hours before the first guest arrives.’ He put one arm around his wife’s shoulders and guided her through the doors to the foyer. ‘It’s too cold in here, I know. Can’t have the ice melting before the ball. But there’ll be at least a thousand candles lighting this room tonight. That should take the chill off.’ He closed the doors behind them. ‘Promise me you won’t go in there again. I want the sculptures to be a surprise.’

  She kissed his cheek and climbed the stairs, glass in hand, sipping her way toward the tower room, where she had found a new hiding place for contraband. If she were to turn around right now, Sarah knew she would see the maid close behind her. Hilda must find it miraculous that her employer’s wife could nurse one drink all morning. And the legend of the bottomless glass would grow into evening.

  ‘It never fails,’ said Hannah. ‘Guilt always comes with a death in the family.’ The housekeeper pointed Oren toward an old trunk in a silent invitation to sit down.

  She stood over him, hands on hips and great concern in her eyes. ‘This is how I remember the day. Josh asked me to make him a sandwich for his knapsack. But not you. So I know it was a last-minute idea – you going into the woods with your brother. You were keeping close tabs on him in those days. I bet Josh was the one who started the fight.’

  When Oren hesitated, she leaned down to peer into his eyes and smiled, liking what she saw. ‘I’m right. That boy meant to ditch you from the moment you set out for the woods. He had plans of his own that day – plans you wouldn’t like.’

  She paced in front of him, hands behind her back and talking in the listen-up mode. ‘Your life started going off the track long before that day. I lay the blame on your mother for dying young. If she’d lived, she would’ve taught you how to dance and talk to little girls. You would’ve had an actual conversation with Isabelle Winston. The two of you should’ve had four kids by now. Incidentally, it’s not too late for that. I realize that Belle seems a bit harsh, maybe even homicidal—’

  ‘There are no pictures of my mother.’ As a child and a teenager, he had never questioned the loss of her. Other boys had mothers, but he and Josh had Hannah. ‘No photographs. I can’t remember what she looked like.’

  ‘Of course there were pictures,’ she said, ‘dozens of them. The first time I walked into this house – uninvited – well, you know that old story – I saw your mother looking back at me from every wall. The judge cried all the time in those days. He couldn’t walk into a room without seeing reminders of her. So, a week or so after her funeral, real late at night, I collected them all and brought them up here.’

  Hannah pulled a trunk away from the wall to get at the boxes behind it. ‘The next morning, the judge woke up, looked at the walls, then took a deep breath and got on with his life. We never talked about it.’ She opened a box and pulled out framed photographs, handing them to Oren, one by one. ‘You can see how pretty she was, but that ’s not what people remember best. You ask and they’ll say she loved to dance.’

  The housekeeper picked up a small wooden chest. ‘This is why I came up here.’ She lifted the tiny latch, opened the lid and pulled out a frayed teething ring. ‘This was your stuff. Nothing of Josh’s. You two weren’t so much alike when you were small. He was on the frail side, but you always looked like a little man in training.’ She plucked a picture from the box and held it up to him.

  He stared at the snapshot of a baby no older than two. Hannah placed the small chest in his hands and backed away a few steps as he pored through the contents. There were a few small toys, a lock of hair tied by a ribbon, and photographs of husband and wife taking turns with the camera to picture themselves with their first baby.

  ‘That’s the judge’s invisible box,’ said Hannah, ‘the one he carries around when he walks in his sleep. It’s the only box in the house that opens with a latch. You saw the way he opened it in the kitchen the other night. I told you I’d seen it before. Last night, he carried it to the cemetery to ask for a miracle. Do you get it now?’

  He shook his head.

  She threw up her arms. ‘That first time in the kitchen, he said to your dead mother, “Our child is lost. I need another miracle.” You’re the lost child, Oren.’

  ‘No, that was Josh. The judge blamed me for—’

  ‘He never did.’

  ‘He sent me away. He couldn’t stand the sight of me.’

  She silenced him with one finger pressed to his lips. ‘After a time, the judge came to terms with the idea that Josh was dead. But not you. You just would not give him up – always tearing around those woods – days at a time. There was a danger that you might die out there, half starved, no water. Maybe there’d come a day when we couldn’t find you and bring you safe home. Your father
sent you away to finish school in a place with no trees – so you couldn’t get lost again. It was your idea to stay away – to join the Army. That mystified him, and it hurt him, too. That old man loves you beyond reason, and he missed you every single day that you were gone. The reason he kept the house like a damn museum – that wasn’t on account of Josh. He wanted everything to be the same on the day when you found your way home.’

  Isabelle had spent half the morning in bed, using a pillow to muffle the sounds of workmen inside the house and out in the yard. She had spent most of the night reading the more recent birder logs written years after the disappearance of Joshua Hobbs – her mother’s obsession. The town had become smaller and more claustrophobic on each succeeding page. Some birds had eyes that glowed in the darkness as they traveled single file up the mountainside, and these were the witchboard people.

  Showered and dressed, she unlocked her bedroom door. Last night was the first time she had ever thought to lock it. But she had gone to bed with no fears for her mother. She had believed Addison when he professed to love his wife – madly.

  Isabelle’s fear had come later, page after page of it.

  When she smoothed out the bedding, she found a journal in the folds of the sheet. This was the one that had given her nightmares. She held the small book in one hand, weighing the consequences of its destruction. This one might be more dangerous than the journals she had left in the care of the judge. One day soon, she and Oren Hobbs must talk, but not of this. She planned to fling it into the sea.

  This journal began with a séance in the woods. Wings spread, a young lark hovered over a table ringed with monsters, and it sang for them, ‘Oren, help me. Find me. Take me home.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  On the night of Sarah Winston’s annual birthday ball, the lodge is more dazzling than the Sun King’s Palace. Strings of bright lights outline every beam, every window and wall; they run along the rooftop and upward to describe circles around the high castle tower.

  So wrote Ferris Monty many years ago when these were all the details he could glean firsthand as an outsider looking in. And tonight – oh, tonight – he piloted his yellow Rolls-Royce up the winding driveway, fairly bouncing on the front seat, giddy as any ten year old with Cinderella dreams.

  The car keys were handed off to a valet, and Ferris approached the lodge, resplendent in a new suit of red velvet, his nose held high. He was drunk with anticipation as he stood before the doorman, a large thug in a tuxedo, and handed over his personal invitation from Isabelle Winston – a true princess. The thug stood to one side, and Ferris was allowed to enter. Crossing the crowded foyer, he was accosted by a waiter bearing a tray of champagne flutes. Glass in hand, Ferris sauntered into the massive front room and the babble of conversations riding below the music of an orchestra. The bandstand was next to a gigantic window with the view of a second ballroom under the stars. Beyond that outdoor dance floor was a parking lot of luxury cars and ancient wrecks. Ferris wondered how many trees Ad Winston had killed to accommodate the vehicles of more than a thousand guests.

  A tourist in fantasyland, he saw the most amazing sights looming over him, a flock of birds, gigantic and fanciful, carved in ice and presiding over platters piled high with lobster tails and giant shrimp. The cold air rising from these sculptures warred with the heat of a chandelier lit with hundreds of electric candles. It was like staring into the sun.

  The walls were lined with real candles in sconces, with tables for two, and others had chairs for six. The orchestra changed its tempo to a livelier beat and the floor quickly filled with people. All around him, designer finery danced with secondhand clothes. Outlaw movie folk and grafting politicians commingled with store clerks and construction workers. A pedophile rock star danced past him. Oh, and there, bald as a cue ball, was a famous model – a killer drunk driver – in the arms of the postmaster.

  When the newspaper syndicate tired of the story about a lost boy’s bones, here, swirling round him, was enough material to provide months of columns and television interviews. And somewhere in this gathering was an ending for his book.

  His pen vibrated in his pocket.

  Oren pulled out a chair to seat Hannah at the table reserved for the judge’s party.

  ‘Odd,’ she said, looking up at the ice statues. ‘They’re less scary when they’re monster size.’

  ‘I don’t think our hostess agrees with you.’ The judge nodded toward the solitary figure only a few yards distant, a woman with pale upswept hair, glittering combs to hold it, and a long gown of that same champagne shade.

  Sarah Winston stood frozen at attention before one of the giant birds, like one piece of art regarding another. The ice sculptures were all recognizable from her private journals, and now she stared at each of them in turn, astonished and clearly viewing them for the first time.

  ‘This is Addison’s work,’ said Hannah.

  Apparently the lawyer had also read the lady’s journals and selected these images from the darker pages. All of the giant birds had fangs. Shaken, Mrs Winston reached for a drink from the tray of a passing maid, who defied her employer, lifting the wineglasses high and carrying them out of reach.

  Oren realized that, more than anything on earth, Mrs Winston wanted that drink, but all the gold bangles on her wrists would not buy it. And this was also Addison’s work.

  Alice Friday stopped by the judge’s table and leaned down to Oren. ‘Look over there!’ She pointed to the far side of the room, calling his attention to Mrs Winston’s daughter. ‘That ’s the woman who tried to kill you.’

  Oren turned to catch Isabelle staring at him, and she quickly looked the other way.

  ‘No need to dive under the table.’ Evelyn Straub, an imperious figure in a long blue gown, sailed stately past him on her way to the caterer’s bar. ‘The girl doesn’t have a pocket to hide a gun – not in that slinky dress.’

  Ferris Monty had surmised that the woman in the maid’s uniform was not one of the caterer’s people. She was Sarah Winston’s warden, a snatcher of drinks, a spoiler of fun. The maid’s head turned in all directions, and there was panic in her eyes. Her employer’s wife had vanished.

  He smiled with the secret knowledge of Mrs Winston’s hiding place, for he had witnessed the lady’s disappearing act. Ferris rounded a screen of potted foliage and saw two women standing on a small, secluded terrace, their heads close together in conversation.

  Friends? Well, this was the mismatch of the century.

  Mavis Hardy was so altered, he hardly knew her. She was a bare-armed amazon in sequins. And she was barefoot – the only outward sign of a mind gone awry. The madwoman had forgotten her shoes. Ferris was oddly touched by this, and he regarded her dirty bare feet as wounds.

  As a gossip columnist extraordinaire, he had only to glance at that gown to recognize the designer, and that particular fashionista had died years before the close of the last century. However, even secondhand, this dress was well beyond the purse of a librarian – but not Sarah Winston, her companion and, no doubt about it, her benefactor.

  One problem – the gift of a used dress would hardly fit the style of a multimillionaire.

  And now he realized that the ballgown had been given to Mavis Hardy long ago when it was new, for here were all the signs of a reunion. The women embraced, drank wine and wept.

  William Swahn returned Isabelle’s wave. The black strapless gown was out of character for a woman who seldom wore lipstick. And the thigh-high slit was daring. So grown-up.

  He missed the little girl, the shy redheaded wanderer always looking for love and a safe place to catch her breath. As a child and a teenager adrift among strangers – and only one old friend – she had always come to his table, demanding asylum. Tonight she resumed this old custom and sat down with him again. She stared at the giant ice sculptures. They worked an unnerving effect on her.

  William lifted one hand to flag down a waiter bearing wineglasses. ‘I saw Oren Hobbs come in with the j
udge and Miss Rice.’

  Isabelle pretended not to hear this as she lifted two champagne flutes from the waiter’s tray.

  ‘There ’s a law against what you did, Belle.’ He had intended this as a tease, a friendly rebuke for her recent streak of violence against a certain young man. When she turned to him with guilty surprise, he decided upon a different tack, an older offense. ‘You lied to the sheriff – that alibi for Josh’s brother. I know you had a crush on Oren Hobbs when you were a child, but that was—’

  ‘I never did.’

  ‘Of course you did. But I can’t believe it lasted five years. You were sixteen years old when you gave him that fake alibi.’

  So why the lie to save Oren Hobbs? Had she known the boy was innocent? Did Isabelle have a suspect of her own in those days? If so, it must have been someone close to her, someone she would never give up to the sheriff.

  William Swahn sat well back in his chair, pushed there, as if revelation had punching power.

  Later, at the keyboard of his computer, Ferris Monty would describe his companion as a vitriolic hamster who drank a lot. The town councilwoman accepted his invitation to sit down at his table.

  ‘I don’t gossip,’ she said.

  But they all said that.

  In answer to his question on the out-of-town guests, the hamster replied, ‘Those are Addison’s clients. Don’t you read Rolling Stone or Forbes? Criminals, every last one of them.’ When queried on the history of the ball, she told him that this very table had once been reserved for the late Millard Straub. ‘Mean little prick. He sat here with his oxygen tank, and no one said a word to him all night. But his wife danced every dance and had a high old time. There she is now.’

  Ferris turned to see Evelyn Straub standing at the caterer’s bar, a grande dame in midnight blue and pearls.