Bone by Bone

by Carol O'Connell

  The next photograph caught him with one hand protecting his eyes.

  Flashlights clicked on to illuminate two of the largest state troopers Cable had ever seen. Or maybe it was his fear that made them into giants. One of them relieved him of the shovel, and he heard the metallic click of locks as the other one cuffed his hands behind his back.

  Sally Polk was still wearing her party dress, but she had traded her high heels for hiking boots. She bent down to pick up the plastic bag and opened it to pull out a bundle of canvas. ‘What a coincidence. It’s the same color as my dress. Bright green. Cable, isn’t that how you described it in that old missing-person report?’ She placed one arm around his shoulders to pose for a photograph with her trophy suspect. ‘Well, Josh’s knapsack gets around, doesn’t it? First your toolshed, then the woodpile. Oh, and thank you so much for moving it off your property. I don’t think there’s a judge in this county who would’ve given me a search warrant for your place.’

  ‘I know this looks bad,’ said Cable.

  ‘Bad or stupid – one of those things.’ Sally Polk said this without much conviction for either case. She held up the green knapsack. ‘You couldn’t just throw it away, could you? No, you had to keep a souvenir.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Ferris Monty polished his final column for the tabloids that paid his wages. Soon the lost boy would disappear from the headlines, and so would the author’s byline. His last contribution to the scandal sheets was a story of love and death one night in a castle made of logs.

  Two bodies were found on the terrace, a man and a woman lying close together. It is said by a highly placed source that William Swahn and Sarah Winston were lovers who died in a suicide pact, a common enough event. Even the beauty-and-the-beast aspect does nothing to electrify this tragedy. Only one thing places the story beyond the pale, almost beyond credulity: A third victim, a lawyer, died of a broken heart.

  He reread the words, and none rang true, though his source had been none other than Isabelle Winston, who had stopped just short of alluding to Rapunzel in her tower. However, fairy tales often passed for journalism, and he owed Isabelle this favor, this lie. In deference to her, he had scratched out the best line, stolen from the Rolling Stones, his expression of sympathy for the devil.

  Done with this drivel, he turned to his unfinished book, an exercise in humility and an act of devotion to a young artist, who had felt nothing but revulsion for his biographer. The thick manuscript on his desk only needed a proper ending – the truth.

  At the sound of a rap, rap, rap, he parted the drapes to look out the window. How prescient of Sally Polk to pick this moment to come knocking on his door.

  Oren pulled the evidence carton from the trunk of the black Taurus. He carried it up the porch steps and set it down at the feet of his visitor, Sally Polk. The cardboard box was clearly stamped with the initials of the agency that owned it, the California Bureau of Investigation.

  ‘You owe me,’ said Agent Polk. ‘I got all the bodies released for burial.’ She sat down in the rocking chair and settled a purse on her lap. ‘And I loaned Miss Winston a state trooper to get her through this day. That boy has orders to shoot reporters on sight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Oren. ‘I didn’t think she’d want any help from me.’ He ignored the mystery box that sat between them.

  Sally Polk rocked slowly, and her words were unhurried. ‘The judge came in to claim the remains of Mary Kent. Him and me, we had a nice chat.’

  ‘You’ve been feeding my father brownies?’

  ‘Lots of them. It was a nice long chat. He’s worried about you. He says you have a penchant for taking on blame that doesn’t belong to you.’ She opened her purse and pulled out a small notebook. ‘I got a pathologist’s preliminary finding on William Swahn.’ She flipped to a page of neatly printed lines, ripped it from the spiral and handed it to him. ‘Massive internal injuries that didn’t come from the fall. That man was as good as dead before you got to the house.’

  ‘I would’ve been there sooner if I’d checked the answering machine when we—’

  ‘Hindsight should be against the law.’ Sally Polk said this in a tone that would brook no contradiction. ‘You’re not at fault. One of Cable’s deputies called him at home last night. He was only a few minutes away from the lodge, plenty of time to save those people. But he thought I was behind it – a trick to get him out of his house so I could search it. And of course, Isabelle Winston blames herself.’

  Oren nodded his understanding. Lessons from Hannah – guilt always followed a death in the family. ‘I heard you arrested Cable.’

  ‘But I’m not sure what to charge him with yet.’ Tired of waiting for Oren to take an interest in her carton, she bent down to open it and retrieved a large plastic evidence bag. Inside it was a wad of bright green canvas. She pulled it out and spread it on the lap of her flowered dress. ‘Can you identify this knapsack?’

  ‘It can’t be Josh’s. It doesn’t look twenty years old.’

  ‘It’s been in Cable ’s toolshed all these years. He kept it to back up your alibi – or so he says. He told me Mrs Straub made a statement to account for your time that day. And her story places Josh on a trail by himself.’

  Oren kept his silence and waited for Evelyn’s old lie to come unraveled.

  Sally Polk folded the green canvas into her evidence bag. ‘The sheriff says he found this knapsack not too far from her cabin. But I’ve only got his word on that. He’s been up half the night, running his mouth. Oh.’ She paused for a quick smile. ‘And he gave you up.’

  ‘He told you I took the red folder.’

  ‘With Mrs Straub’s statement.’

  In lieu of a lie, Oren shrugged this off. ‘If that’s all—’

  ‘Well, no. He said there were other statements in that folder. Isabelle Winston gave you a second alibi. So one woman’s story saves your ass, but two of them can hang you. It ’s lucky the sheriff kept the knapsack to back up Mrs Straub. Too bad he never vouchered it as evidence.’ She lowered the evidence bag into the carton at her feet. ‘He also spilled his guts about leaving Josh’s bones for your father to find.’ She picked up another evidence bag, a smaller one. But then she put it back in the cardboard box and closed the flaps, as if having second thoughts about showing it to him.

  Yeah, right.

  ‘Let ’s say the bones were left for bait,’ said Sally Polk. ‘That’s one way to get you back here – so Cable could draw a target on your chest. Well, then Mrs Straub’s statement and that knapsack could be worth something. You think the sheriff was planning to sell them to your father, maybe to pad out the old retirement fund?’

  Oren admired the lady’s logic, but he shook his head. ‘Ever hear of Hanlon’s Razor? It goes like this – never attribute to malice that which can be put down to stupidity.’

  ‘Amen,’ she said. ‘Cable Babitt’s got a long history of stupidity.’ With a slap to the arm of the rocker, she said, ‘OK, we’ll go with that. But I’m still investigating the sheriff ’s department. It ’ll take quite a while to clean up all his messes.’ She opened her purse and dipped in one hand, then looked up to give him a slow-spreading grin. ‘I need an outsider as interim county sheriff – just till the next election.’ She pulled out an envelope and handed it to him. ‘That’s from the Justice Department. You’ve been drafted.’

  ‘I don’t want the job.’

  ‘But you’ll take it.’ The clasp on her purse clicked shut. ‘My ace card is Hannah Rice.’ Her eyebrows arched to say, Gotcha. And now she waited for his reaction.

  She would wait forever.

  He had known this day would come; he had that much faith in Sally Polk. Hannah was his only weakness, and he worried over this tiny hostage, but he would never let it show.

  ‘It ’s a colorful town you’ve got here.’ The CBI agent looked out over the meadow. The chair rocked. The clouds rolled by. ‘A girl couldn’t ask for more suspects. Like your housekeeper for instance. She ’s
been flying below the radar all her life. No driver’s license, no Social Security number. Housework is probably the only kind of job she could get. Sounds like a fugitive to me. I could look into that . . . or not.’

  ‘Nobody in this town would believe anything bad of Hannah – even if it was true. And you’re running a bluff.’

  ‘OK, I lied.’ She said this with the shrug of one shoulder, giving in way too easily. ‘I already did a background check. There ’s no record of any woman born under that name. It’s an alias. I bet you didn’t know that . . . Your father didn’t.’

  ‘And he didn’t care, did he?’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what she’s done?’

  Seconds ticked by in silence, and then Oren was declared the master of the waiting game, the staring contest, and he also won for the widest smile.

  ‘OK, there’s no warrants out on your housekeeper.’ The CBI agent put up both hands in a show of good-natured surrender. Once more, she bent down to open her carton. ‘Lucky for me, I always palm two aces.’ She pulled out the second evidence bag, the small one. The metallic object inside was partially obscured by paperwork. ‘Cable thinks Ad Winston killed that lady tourist and your brother. So we know that’s gottabe wrong.’ She handed the bag to Oren. ‘My people found signs of recent digging behind the Winston stable. That was in the ground.’

  The small bag was heavy. When Oren turned it over to see what the documents had hidden, he was looking down at a ruined camera, corroded and crusted with dirt.

  ‘There’s damn few legible markings,’ said Sally Polk, ‘but I know it ’s an old Canon FTB. When I send it to the lab, they’ll raise the rest of the serial number. The stamp that imprints the metal goes deeper than the corrosion. But you knew that. You’re a cop.’ The agent opened her purse and pulled out a county sheriff ’s badge. ‘My cop.’ She polished the gold star with the hem of her flowered dress.

  ‘And the digging was recent,’ said Oren. ‘So you think this was planted behind the stable?’

  ‘Could’ve been moved there from some other hole.’ She held up the sheriff ’s star to admire its shine. ‘You can see that camera’s been in the ground for a long, long time. I took it to a photographer. Famous guy – he’s got a summerhouse right here in Coventry. He couldn’t read much off those little numbers on the lens, but he had enough to work out the – what do you call it?’

  ‘The F-stop?’

  ‘Right. The F-stop was low. The lens was wide open, and the number for the shutter speed was as high as a pro could go without a tripod. Thanks to corrosion, every moving part on that camera is frozen in place. Assuming nobody screwed with the settings, Josh was in a shadowy area when he took his last shot.’

  ‘Deep woods,’ said Oren. ‘Not the clearing. And the knapsack puts him on the trail near the cabin.’

  She nodded. ‘The focus of that lens places the boy within a few yards of what he was aiming at.’

  And his brother only took pictures of people.

  Sally Polk took the evidence bag away from him. ‘I’ve got more.’ She opened the carton flaps wide to show him a stack of photographs clipped to sheets of paper – Swahn’s collection. Atop a pile of file holders was a thick manuscript bound by a rubber band. It bore the name of Ferris Monty, and there were many Post-its for page markers.

  She closed the flaps. ‘I could have a real good time with this stuff. All I need now is a suspect – and that red folder.’

  Oren had finished ransacking his brother’s darkroom. Next, he planned to tackle the other side of the attic, where trunks and boxes were stacked up to the rafters. He hunkered down to open the seal on an old storage carton, and then he heard the bumps on the steps. Rising, he walked to the stairwell to see Hannah climbing upward and dragging his trunk behind her.

  ‘You’re a lot stronger than you look.’ He descended the stairs to relieve her of this burden. He found the trunk surprisingly light now that she had unpacked his civilian clothes. It only contained twenty years of his life, a dress uniform, his decorations and the only personal items, Hannah’s letters from home.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ She reached the top of the stairs and stared at the mess on the other side of the open door to Josh’s darkroom. ‘You’re still looking for those missing pictures? Any luck?’

  He settled the trunk on the floor. ‘I’ll never find them, will I, Hannah?’

  She deigned not to hear this. ‘I hope you’re not planning to upset the judge with—’

  ‘No, this is between you and me.’

  ‘Good.’ Bending low, she grabbed a leather handle and dragged the trunk toward the shadows on the far side of the attic.

  To hide it?

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked. ‘That could’ve waited another day.’

  She stood upright, arms folded. ‘Tell me something, Oren. How much do you miss the Army?’

  He hesitated for a moment, and then he fashioned the softest lie that came to mind. ‘No one misses the Army, Hannah.’

  ‘Then we’ll put all these old memories away.’ She stooped low to grab the handle once more.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ He crouched beside his trunk. ‘There’s one little thing I keep forgetting to check.’ He opened the lid and sorted through the contents until he found a packet of envelopes addressed in the housekeeper’s handwriting.

  ‘You kept my letters,’ she said. ‘How sweet.’

  ‘Not all of them, just the most recent ones . . . but you already knew that.’

  He smiled, and she smiled. And now they had a game.

  Oren leafed through the packet, reading every postmark. He pulled a letter from its envelope to scan the opening lines. ‘This is the one. This is why you couldn’t wait to stash my trunk up here.’

  The woman could hardly hide it – as she had surely hidden the pictures from Josh’s last roll of film. Letters missing from this trunk could not be easily explained away. He waved this one like a flag. ‘It’s the letter you wrote to call me home.’

  She shook her head, as if confused – as if Hannah could ever be confused. ‘That was a while ago, Oren. I remember it took a bunch of letters to get you here.’

  ‘This one was mailed weeks before the first bone was left on the porch.’ Oren held up the envelope to show her the postmark, his proof. ‘It can’t be a coincidence that you asked me to come home when—’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She smiled. ‘I wrote that letter after Sarah Winston’s daughter came back to town. It looked like Isabelle planned to stay awhile this time. Well, she wasn’t married, and you weren’t married—’

  ‘Hannah, don’t even try to tell me this was all about matchmaking.’

  ‘All right, I won’t.’ Indignant, she marched to the attic stairwell, and her wooden clogs made more noise than necessary as she descended to the floor below. Then she put on some speed – and she was fast. Oren was lagging behind her as she made it down the next flight of steps to the ground floor.

  And there the interrogation of Hannah Rice ended.

  The judge sat in the front room, fitting the yellow stray with a collar. He looked up at his housekeeper, saying, ‘We ’ll have to come up with a name for this dog. Any ideas?’

  ‘I got an idea,’ she said, and the old man never raised an eyebrow as the little woman dragged the stuffed carcass of the late Horatio out of the room and down the hall, heading for the back door.

  Oren was pressed into offering his father a few suggestions for likely names, and then he caught up to Hannah down by the garden shed.

  She handed him a shovel. ‘Let me know when the hole’s deep enough.’

  The housekeeper raced back up the path. So fast. Oren had to run to catch her, and now he held her by the shoulders. He stood behind her, bending down to whisper in her ear. ‘Hannah, you know who killed Josh. I can even name the hour when you put it all together. It was the night of the séance . . . when you went back up there for a talk with Evelyn. She told me about the tourist in the yellow slicker, a woman wi
th pale blond hair. The one who stopped by her cabin on the day Josh—’

  ‘Evelyn shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘You told her not to tell. You were afraid I’d lose my alibi, and you worked so hard to get it for me. Well, it ’s gone, Hannah. Last night at the ball, I tore up Evelyn’s statement and gave it back to her. So now there’s a lot riding on those old photographs – Josh’s last days. He went to some trouble to hide them – so they were important. I need them. Where are they?’

  She was helpless to answer him, hands flailing, words failing her.

  Custom of the house forbade the obvious question: Hannah, what have you done?

  THIRTY-TWO

  Evelyn Straub escorted her visitor into the crawl space beneath the cabin, where two ancient television sets had been running for a day and a night, scanning years of séances.

  The back wall of shelves had once been filled with videocassettes. Now there were wide gaps where some of the tapes had been pulled out and stacked on the floor between two wicker chairs. Evelyn held one in her hand, hesitating to play it. The younger woman’s grief was only days old – still raw. ‘Are you sure you want to see this?’

  Isabelle nodded.

  Evelyn fed the old cassette into the slot below a TV screen and then depressed the play button. The two women sat down to watch the image of Sarah Winston taking a turn at the Ouija board. Sarah had been the first of the players to raise a question of murder.

  ‘Any day now,’ said Evelyn, ‘Sally Polk will get a search warrant for this cabin. I thought you might want the tapes of your mother . . . to keep them . . . or burn them.’

  Late last night, Oren Hobbs had stressed the option to burn this evidence of guilty knowledge, and Evelyn had wondered why. ‘Just being tidy,’ he had said to her then. And what else had he done to thwart the CBI agent’s investigation?

  Isabelle leaned closer to the television set, as if to climb inside the glowing box with her dead mother. Her fingertips touched the barrier glass.