Bone by Bone

by Carol O'Connell

  On screen, the late Sarah Winston was crying as she posed a question for the lost boy. ‘Did you suffer?’

  Isabelle waited out the string of letters chanted by the players around the table, and she strung them all together to whisper Josh’s reply. ‘All day long.’

  Over the rims of coffee cups, Hannah and the judge discussed the long-overdue burial of Horatio. They turned to the kitchen window as Oren rode by in the open cab of a small yellow tractor. Extending out from this noisy machine was a long metal arm with a mechanical elbow and a dangling bucket with jaws and teeth.

  Henry Hobbs frowned. ‘I believe that backhoe belongs to the cemetery.’

  ‘I’m sure he ’ll give it right back,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Remember the good old days – when we buried our pets with shovels?’ The judge kept his eye to the window. ‘Where ’s the boy going with that thing?’

  ‘I thought we’d bury Horatio down by the garden shed. And Oren’s not a boy.’ She smiled at the yellow stray waiting in the open doorway, still hesitant to enter any room except by invitation. ‘Why don’t you name the dog Boy?’

  ‘Come here, Boy,’ he said, and the dog ran to him to be petted and scratched behind the ears and to lick the old man’s face. ‘Boy it is.’ The judge looked out the window, following the backhoe’s progress toward the shed. ‘That grave should be on higher ground, closer to the house. The water table rises after spring rains.’

  ‘I’ll mention that to Oren.’ The housekeeper handed over the car keys. ‘Can you drive to the bakery in Saulburg and pick up a special-order cake? It’s got Horatio’s name on it.’

  That made him smile. ‘Nice touch. I’ll be back in an hour or so.’

  Oh no, you won’t.

  ‘There’s a few more things I need.’ She tacked on a grocery list for the Saulburg supermarket and other errands that guaranteed long waiting lines.

  When the judge’s car was safely down the road and the noise of the backhoe had also died off, she made a telephone call. Then, after taping a note to the front door, she went down to the garden shed, where the dead Horatio had been waiting patiently these past two days.

  The backhoe was nowhere to be seen and neither was Oren. The opening in the ground was roughly squared. She would judge it to be maybe three feet wide, a tad more in length – and insanely deep if one only wanted to bury a dog. The mound of excavated dirt was almost as high as she was tall. Hannah looked over the edge of the hole to see her muddy reflection at the bottom. But Oren had not struck underground water; a garden hose with a dripping nozzle lay coiled by the shed.

  The yellow mongrel padded down the path to join her. He stood by her side and licked her hand in a show of worship for the giver of food. Dog and woman raised their heads at the sound of the approaching vehicle. It rolled up the driveway and disappeared behind the house. The engine died. The driver would need time to climb the porch steps and read the note on the front door. Hannah watched the second hand crawl around the face of her wristwatch.

  The dog was also waiting – anticipating – every muscle tensed, sniffing the air, sampling a breeze and catching the scent of a man.

  The deputy rounded the side of the house. This was his day off – no uniform, no star, no gun. ‘You weren’t real clear on the phone, Hannah.’ Dave Hardy was unshaven and surly for being called out of bed on a morning when he had planned to sleep late. Eyes hidden behind dark glasses, he walked down the path and stopped at the edge of the freshly dug hole. ‘What’re you up to?’

  ‘Oh, I thought we’d bury Horatio today.’

  He turned toward the two animals, the red Irish setter, the dead one stuffed in a pose of sleep, and the live yellow dog drawing close to Hannah’s side. Dave inclined his head to look down at the gaping hole. ‘You could toss ten mutts down there.’

  ‘It is deep. That surprised me, too.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘Now that I see it, I think maybe Oren dug this pit for you, Dave.’

  The deputy stiffened. Like a man made of wood, all of one piece, he turned around to face the house, no doubt checking the back windows. He slowly revolved to take in the meadow and the surrounding woods. When he looked her way again, the housekeeper could see herself, two tiny Hannahs reflected in his dark lenses.

  ‘Oren knows you killed his brother.’ And now she repeated the words she had said to him on the telephone. ‘How fast can you run, Dave?’

  The man forced a smile. ‘The way I heard it, Josh died because he saw Ad Winston murder that lady tourist. Ad just killed the wrong woman is all – a woman with the same color hair as his wife.’

  In the spirit of a helpful correction – no anger – she said, ‘You murdered the wrong woman.’ Her hands dipped into the deep pockets of her denim dress, and her fingers wrapped around old photographs. ‘Millard Straub paid you to kill his wife.’

  Dave stood up a bit straighter and rolled back his shoulders. ‘Nobody could’ve mistaken that tourist for Mrs Straub. Her hair was the wrong color.’

  ‘That tourist could’ve been bald for all it mattered. She wore a yellow rain slicker. The hood covered her hair when you came up behind her and caved in her skull with a rock.’

  The deputy’s head snapped back, as if she had slapped him.

  Hannah pulled a photograph from her pocket. It was only an old shot of Horatio in his puppy days, but it would do for a prop. She stared at this image and focused on the memory of another photo destroyed long ago. And then she told her first lie. ‘This is a picture of you, Dave.’

  He removed his dark glasses, wanting her to see his eyes, and there was a warning note in his voice. ‘Don’t tell me that came from the film in Josh’s camera.’ Oh, no, said his smirk – he knew better.

  ‘You mean the roll Josh shot in the woods – the day you killed him? No, you ripped out that film. You had to jerk it free from the spool . . . and you tore it.’

  He lost his smirk. The sunglasses dropped from his hand.

  The yellow dog was deadly quiet, lips drawing back to show his fangs.

  Hannah held up the photograph, only showing Dave the back of it. ‘This one ’s from a roll Josh finished before you murdered him. I found it hidden in his sock drawer. Oh, that boy and his secrets.’

  Dave stood on the lip of the pit, legs bent, ready to jump it, but the dog crouched low to change his mind. Then Hannah startled him with magic, the minor trick of a second picture finding its way out of a pocket to materialize in her free hand. ‘This one’s a shot of you following Evelyn Straub at a street fair.’ She fanned out the back sides of three more photographs, and – more magic – the three became one. ‘Here ’s a picture of you turning around to see Josh with his camera pointed right at you. And don’t you look mad? The boy was following you. So you couldn’t kill Evelyn then. Not that day.’

  With no sudden movements to set off the dog, Dave edged along the side of the pit to get at her. His sunglasses were crushed underfoot. His right hand was on the rise.

  To rob her or beat her?

  The deputy froze. His eyes were on the crouching dog, its bared teeth. So quiet. There would be no bark of warning. ‘Hannah, I was just a kid that summer. Nobody’s idea of a hit man. Why would—’

  ‘You were perfect for the job, a bully all your life. And there ’s nobody in this town who hates women more than you do. Who would know that better than Millard Straub? You worked in his hotel every day after school. He was a lot like your father – the meanness, the cruelty – almost like a second daddy.’

  ‘I hated that old man.’

  ‘But you loved his money. He paid you to spy on his wife, didn’t he? That’s how he knew she was cheating on him. But Millard never tried to cut Evelyn out of his will. No need. He just hired himself a killer – a boy who’d work cheap.’

  ‘Nobody paid me to—’

  ‘I bet you would’ve done it for free, but you were paid. Millard kept a wad of cash in the hotel safe. That money disappeared when you left town. Evelyn thought you stole
it, and that’s what she told the sheriff, but Millard dropped the charges that same day.’

  More pictures appeared in her hands, and Hannah spread them like playing cards. She stared at them but did not see them. She was calling up memories of other photographs. ‘Here’s one Josh took in the locker room the night you went after him. My, you look angry. You didn’t want him following you around anymore. You had places to go, a woman to kill.’

  Dave folded his arms. His smile was twitchy. ‘Hannah, those pictures are worthless.’

  ‘You think so?’ She shook her head. ‘The first time I saw them, I wanted to burn them.’ And she had burned them – all but Oren’s homecoming present. She had not been able to part with the photograph of the two brothers. ‘It’s all here,’ she lied, thumbing through her pack of props like pages in a book. ‘Like a story. The boy only had one reason for following people. Josh wanted a shot of your secret, and that’s all his brother ever needed to know. When Oren was a boy, I was so afraid he ’d see these pictures and beat you to death. He almost killed you back in high school – that fight in the gym.’

  She stuffed the photographs in her pocket and sighed. ‘Well, the damage is done. He ’s seen them all . . . and now he ’s crazy dangerous. I tried to warn you.’

  ‘Hannah, where is Oren?’

  ‘Behind you.’

  There was no time for Dave Hardy to turn his head. A shove to his back sent him sprawling, arms waving, falling.

  He landed on his feet, crouched knee-deep in water, shoes sloshing and sliding. The close sides of the pit were slimed with mud. Dave reached up to grab a wet tree root, and it slicked through his fingers. Footing lost, he slumped down a muddy wall, legs folding until his kneecaps were higher than his chin and poking out of the brown water. His clothes were soaked, his face and hair splattered. Looking upward, all he could see was a crude square of blue sky, and he yelled, ‘I could ’ve broken my damn legs!’

  Oh, God, the water was cold. His teeth clicked, his body shook.

  Rising to his feet was slippery work in this dank, narrow space, and the wet blue jeans weighed him down. Twice, his shoes shot out from under him before he managed to stand. Flattened back against a wall, he craned his neck. All he could see was the high mound of earth piled near the hole. He stretched out both hands but could not reach the top. He jumped for the edge, and the mud sucked off his shoes and socks. But he had glimpsed the back of Oren Hobbs as the man steeped a shovel into the dirt pile.

  Hannah’s head leaned into the bright blue square above, and her voice was fearful. ‘You should’ve run. I warned you.’ She drew back as a spade of earth rained down on him.

  ‘Hey!’ Dave brushed loose dirt from his clothes. The rest turned to mud in his wet hair. He raised his face to yell again, and another load from the shovel filled his mouth with soil. He spat it out and wiped his eyes. ‘Knock it off!’ Hands raised to ward off the next spray, he had his first look at Oren’s face – so cold. What lifeless eyes – eyes of a machine that could lift a shovel and—

  Ploff.

  The deputy lost his barefoot traction. Sliding down the slick wall and landing hard on his backside, he clenched his teeth on grit. Shaking – so cold – he hugged his knees and lowered his head when the shovel appeared in the sky-blue opening. Dirt crumbled down from his hair to melt in the water when he lifted his face to the light and yelled, ‘Hannah! Call him off!’

  Or turn him off. Switch off that thing with the shovel.

  ‘I tried.’ She reappeared, head and shoulders, to lean over the hole. ‘No use.’ Her fingers curled over the edge. ‘Oren knows that Josh and the tourist died close to Evelyn’s cabin.’

  ‘What? The grave was in the clearing. Nowhere near that cabin.’ Dave saw the shovel too late to duck his head. He gagged on the dirt, and his breakfast beer came stealing up his throat for a second tasting. Above him, the mute shoveler worked with an easy rhythm. Steep and lift, and ploff went the dirt.

  ‘Josh and that woman died on the old hikers’ trail.’

  Before he could ask how Hannah knew this, she read his mind and said, ‘Oren told me. He’s been watching videotapes of the witchboard people – all day, all night – no sleep.’

  Dave looked up at her, his eyes wide in a mask of mud. ‘The witchboard people? Are you crazy?’ More dirt hit his face to blind him and fill his mouth. He vomited up his last liquid meal, and the hole reeked of beer and bile. When his eyes were wiped clear, Hannah was gone. ‘No!’ he called out to her. ‘Don’t leave me!’

  Don’t leave me here with Oren, crazy Oren.

  Scrambling to raise himself, Dave braced his ice-cold hands on the slippery walls. He could see her standing beside the man with the vacant eyes, lunatic Oren, who worked like a robot to fill his hole. Steep and lift and—

  Hannah squinted, as if trying to see the mechanical man more clearly and from a great distance. ‘I don’t think Oren can hear me anymore.’

  Ploff.

  She hunkered down at the edge of the pit. ‘The witchboard people knew everything – bits and pieces here and there. Oren put it all together.’

  ‘Help me!’ A downdraft swept his wet body with cool morning air. His teeth clicked. His hands trembled. ‘Hannah, I know you don’t believe in that séance crap.’

  ‘Oren does.’ She looked down at him with such pity. ‘He knows you went up to the cabin that day. You waited awhile – just to make sure Evelyn was alone. It was raining when you saw a woman leave by the back door – a woman in a yellow slicker. You thought you were following Evelyn.’ She backed away and disappeared as more dirt came down.

  ‘Hannah!’ he screamed.

  ‘Josh was following you.’ Her voice was behind him now. He whirled around, bare feet slipping in the muddy water. His fingers raked grooves in the wall of dirt as he was falling – splash! – into freezing water. He looked up to see Hannah’s face framed in the square of blue sky.

  ‘Josh saw you kill that poor woman. But Oren says the boy didn’t take a picture of the murder. Is he right, Dave?’

  The sound of shoveling stopped.

  Hannah crouched low to peer at him, as if her answer might be written on his face. And then she nodded in a knowing way. ‘You didn’t know Josh was behind you – not yet. The boy could’ve backed off and saved himself and run. My Josh could run so fast. You never would ’ve caught him.’

  Dave twisted his head to look behind him. Above the edge of the pit, he could see the handle of the shovel as it was lodged in the mound of dirt, and there it stayed. Oren, the robot, was also listening to Hannah.

  ‘It took time for Josh to set up the perfect shot,’ she said. ‘The boy was so quiet while he looked down at his camera to line up the little numbers on the lens. And then he looked up to focus, and he waited . . . You rolled the body over . . . and saw you’d killed the wrong woman. The look on your face, a rock in your hand, the dead woman’s eyes staring back at you. Josh just couldn’t help himself. It was his nature to catch that moment. No power on earth could’ve stopped him. . . . You heard the camera click.’

  Ploff. Steep and lift. Ploff.

  Dave’s voice was pleading, breaking. ‘Hannah, call for help.’ Where was she?

  Oh, Christ, don’t leave me.

  She came back to him and leaned over the edge. ‘I told you – Oren’s seen the witchboard tapes. The year you came back to Coventry – that’s when you went to your first séance in the woods. Everybody in town went to at least one. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it.’

  ‘The sheriff sent me out there to check up on the psychic.’

  ‘That’s what Evelyn thought – just Cable’s silly idea of an undercover cop. But Oren says you didn’t act like one. You never joined the players. You stood at the back of the room, hiding in the dark, listening. Were you scared that a message from a dead child would give you away?’ Hannah smiled, but there was no mistaking her expression for happiness. ‘Scared now?’

  Ploff.

  ‘Han
nah!’

  ‘I tried to help you,’ said her disembodied voice. And then her face appeared again, but her eyes were raised to stare at the madman with the shovel. ‘You should ’ve run. Oren knows that Josh died slow.’ Hannah lowered her gaze. ‘You dragged out that child’s pain all day long.’ She drew back from the edge.

  ‘Hannah, don’t leave me!’ He struggled to gain his feet. Half bent, he held up his arms to ward off the next spadeful of dirt. If he could not stand, he would die in this stinking hole. Every shovelful of earth thickened the water, and he could not climb upon mud to save himself; he could only sink. How long would he be able to lift his feet before they were encased in mud? He screamed, ‘Hannah!’

  The walls seemed closer now, suffocating, and he looked up with the mad idea that the square of blue light was growing smaller – farther away – closing up. Mud from his hair dripped into his eyes. The light went out.

  The yellow dog looked over the edge, ears flattened down and snarling.

  Oren smelled piss and shit and vomit. The dog smelled fear.

  The man in the hole rallied, rising to a stand and reaching high to grab the tree root. His bare toes dug into the muddy wall, scrambling, frantic for purchase. Dirt caved in all around the root, and the deputy fell, legs folded under him and covered over by the small avalanche. Dave Hardy raised his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked down at the place where his limbs should be. Oren watched the deputy twist and strain, but Dave Hardy could only free his arms; he could not move his buried legs. Panicked, manic, as fast as he could scoop the dirt away, Oren piled on more.

  Ploff, ploff, ploff.

  He lowered the shovel and stood back as Hannah leaned over the hole.

  ‘My memory is long,’ she said to the deputy. ‘The proof was in your hands. Your knuckles were red and raw . . . from doing murder in woods.’

  ‘That happened in a fight with Oren.’ Dave ’s voice was weaker, and his words came out like a whine. ‘You saw it, Hannah. You were in the gym that night.’