5 Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

by Valerie S. Malmont

  "Very nice, Tori," Alice-Ann said, putting my description of the mill in a folder labeled HOUSE TOUR. "All four descriptions have been perfect. Only one more house to go. And Trinity Evangelical Church, of course. That's where we let people use the rest rooms." She glanced at her watch. "I'd better get back to work."

  I followed Alice-Ann through the reading room and down the basement steps to the empty children's section. She went immediately to the low picture-book shelves and began to straighten the books. I wondered why she had complained about the mildew smell at the mill. It couldn't be worse than what she lived with on a daily basis down here in the basement.

  "Alice-Ann, I've got to talk to you. About.. .you know.. .what we found in the springhouse." I didn't want to say the word body out loud. "I'm feeling bogged down with guilt."

  She sighed but didn't look at me. In fact, she seemed totally engrossed with arranging the picture books in alphabetical order by the author's last name. "Don't get me confused," she said.

  "As if the kids care," I said grumpily.

  Alice-Ann stood and wiped dust from her hands onto her slacks. "It makes it easier for me to find what they ask for. Please don't worry about the you-know-what, Tori. In less than two weeks the house tour will be history, and then we'll report it. You know it doesn't make any difference to the you-know-what. He's ...you know."

  "I don't like this. I don't like it at all. It makes me feel guilty. As if I...you know... What if someone finds it? They'll know we were in there, and they'll know we found..."

  "We filled in the rocks in the hole in the wall. And the door is securely locked. Quit worrying."

  "But we don't know...." I began to laugh at the absurdity of our conversation. "Remember that silly thing we used to say when we were kids? Something like: Who knows what the nose knows. That's what we sound like. I'll try to finish the write-ups tomorrow. See you then."

  I bade Alice-Ann good-bye and left her to alphabetize her books, marveling at how she could be so unconcerned about the you-know-what in the springhouse.

  My next stop was the Lickin Creek police station, which was actually a room in the back of Hoopengartner's Garage. This was convenient for Henry Hoopengartner, since he was the elected county coroner, and it also provided a service to the community. Since Hoopengartner's was open twenty-four hours a day, there was always someone there to answer calls for help. The garage was Lickin Creek's own version of 911 service. Historically, the teenaged girls whom Hoop usually hired to answer the phone seldom got the messages right. But that little detail didn't bother the borough council, which paid the rent. A bargain was a bargain.

  Today's secretary and police dispatcher looked a little older than what I was accustomed to seeing behind the gray army surplus desk, but that might have been because she wore her blond hair in an enormous beehive, the likes of which hadn't been seen since 1965. Her eyes were heavily rimmed with black kohl. Her lips were the color of dried blood, and as I walked in she licked lipstick from her front teeth, reminding me of a vampire movie I'd seen recently.

  "Looking for Luscious?" she asked. Without waiting for my answer, she jerked her head toward her right shoulder. "He's in there. Probably taking his after-lunch nap."

  I entered the office and found Luscious diligently working at his computer. "You should leave the door open," I told him, "so that girl outside will know how hard you work."

  "Who cares what she thinks," he said with a bravado that was new. "I get my work done, and the council knows it. That's all that matters. Do you think Garnet's going to stay, or will he go back to Costa Rica?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Garnet. He's coming back for the wedding, I'm sure. And I'm hoping it'll be for good."

  "Oh, that," I said, as if I knew what he was talking about. What wedding? I wanted to scream. Who's getting married? The thought suddenly came to me that Garnet might be coming back to get married, himself. Oh my God! I didn't care, did I? I mean, I knew it was over when I left Costa Rica. Didn't I? Would he really have found someone to marry that quickly? Wouldn't he have let me know?

  Luscious was looking at me strangely. "Can I get you a cup of water? Your cheeks look flushed."

  I shook my head. "I'm fine, and I'm here on official business. I need to find out everything you know about the escaped convict."

  "That's easy." He shuffled through the papers on his desktop, found what he was looking for, and handed several to me.

  I read through them quickly and learned the escapee was one Vonzell Varner, also known as Big Guy. He was forty-one years old, and he had been convicted of murder and federal weapons charges after blowing up several abortion clinics, one with a doctor and nurse inside. He had a long record of arrests and convictions going back to when he was a teenager growing up in Lickin Creek, and had spent time in a juvenile detention center, several county jails, and the State Correctional Institution at Graterford. He was six feet tall, 170 pounds, and had brown hair and brown eyes. No distinguishing facial features, but his arms and hands were heavily tattooed. On his right arm was a map of Pennsylvania. On his left, a severed man's head with a heart beneath it that said mom. From left to right, the fingers of his right hand spelled out KILL, while the left-hand fingers had WWJD tattooed on them.

  "WWJD?" I asked.

  "What WouldJesus Do. It's a popular phrase around here, mostly with teenagers."

  He'd escaped from a jail in Kentucky where he was being held pending sentencing. Vonzell Varner last had been seen in Maryland, heading toward Pennsylvania in a stolen truck, and it was thought he might be coming to see his ex-wife and five children, who lived right here in Lickin Creek. He was known as a mountain man, who could survive long periods of time in the wilderness. He was considered armed and dangerous. The FBI also warned that he might be attaining "folk-hero" status with fringe groups.

  The picture showed a rather ordinary and pleasant-looking man. He had the kind of face you wouldn't notice in a crowd.

  "Wow," I said when I had finished. "How did he escape?"

  "Picked a lock, climbed through an air-conditioning hatch, and walked away. He claims to be invisible."

  "What about federal agents? Shouldn't they be on the lookout for him?"

  "I've had a few in here this morning. They've staked out his cabin up near the Appalachian Trail." Luscious laughed. "They're the people in the brand new, expensive outdoor gear. Not like the real hikers, who look like hell by the time they reach our area."

  "Have they staked out his ex-wife, too?"

  "Of course. If he comes to Lickin Creek, he'll be caught."

  "May I take these papers along?" I asked.

  "Help yourself."

  I walked back to the Chronicle building, feeling the full heat of the day. The weather had gone from too cold to too hot with no transition period. I was grateful to get into Garnet's truck and turn on the air-conditioner.

  The ex-Mrs. Varner lived in an area of the borough that was filled with small, inexpensive townhouses. Most had been covered with aluminum siding, but their tall windows and gingerbread trim were reminders that the buildings dated back to the nineteenth century.

  For the most part, the little houses were well maintained. Several small children played marbles on the sidewalk. With the exception of a fairly new green van, the only vehicles parked on the street were aging pickup trucks. The van had tinted windows, making it impossible to see if anyone were inside, but I thought I saw a shape in the front seat, and I assumed it was a federal agent.

  The woman who answered the door was tall and thin, middleaged, I guessed, with fair hair straggling around her haggard face. Dark circles surrounded her pale blue eyes. Jenny, as she asked to be called, invited me inside, where it was only a few degrees cooler than outside.

  "Sorry about the heat," she apologized. "I don't have no airconditioning. I can get you an iced tea, if you like."

  "Thank you. I would like."

  While she was in the kitchen, I checked out the livin
g room. While the mantel held an array of framed photos of children of various ages, there were none of Vonzell Varner. A gun cabinet served as a divider between the living room and the adjoining dining area, but it was locked. More telling than what I did see was what I did not see; there were no books or magazines in the room, nor were there any toys scattered around as one would expect in a house where five children lived. I heard the clink of ice cubes against a glass in the next room and sat down. There had been no sign of Big Guy, but then there wouldn't be if he were invisible, I thought with a silent chuckle. He could even be sitting right beside me on the couch.

  "Here we are," Jenny said, putting a wet glass on the coffee table in front of me. "Nothing like a cold drink on a hot day. You know I wouldn't of let you in if I didn't know you was that reporter lady from the Chronicle. And I feel safe because the feds got the place staked out. I suppose you'uns is here to ask about my ex. Right?"

  I stirred the tea, looked around for a place to put my spoon, and finally dropped it back into my glass. "What can you tell me about him?"

  "What do you want to know?"

  "What kind of man is he? What was his motivation for the clinic bombings? How long were you married? Anything you want to tell me." I opened my notebook and licked the point of my pencil. "Are your children in school?"

  "I've sent them away. And I'm not telling you or nobody where they are. It's safer that way"

  "Safer? Are you afraid Vonzell would hurt them?"

  "I think he'd do anything to get back at me. And he knows my children are the most important thing in my life."

  "Why would he want to get back at you? What did you do to him?"

  "I turned him in. He blames me for his incarceration. He doesn't think what he done has anything to do with him being in jail." A tear dripped down her right cheek, seemingly unnoticed.

  I said nothing, just waited.

  "I never thought I'd end up marrying a crazy guy and fearing for my life and my kids' lives. I came from a nice family, Tori. Both my parents worked hard so we could live in a classy neighborhood. I was a sophomore in high school and kind of a nerd. You know the type: glasses, braces, arms and legs too long for my body. I never felt like I belonged in any of the groups in school. When I bumped into Vonzell at Sheetz one day after school, everything changed. He made me feel pretty and smart. Pretty soon we was making out at my house after school while my mom was at work, and the next thing I knew I was pregnant.

  "Mom didn't want me to marry him because I was still in high school and he was fifteen years older, but I thought I knew better. Besides, with a baby on the way and me being so young I didn't know what else to do. Vonzell didn't want to at first, but when I found out I was going to have twins, my dad went after him and made him `do the right thing.' At least that's what Dad called us getting married.

  "It wasn't too bad at first. I had to quit school because of being so big, and it was fun having a place of my own and a husband coming home at night. But after the twins was born, he stopped coming home most nights and I was alone with the babies and all of a sudden it wasn't so much fun.

  "The boys was only a few months old when I got pregnant again. That's when he started beating me up, blaming me for the pregnancy. I had our little girl, and I thought everything would be okay because he really loved her. The boys he didn't care so much about, especially when they started walking and getting into everything. And I was too tired to clean up much, so when he did come home he'd yell at me and call me a pig." She paused to wipe her nose with a tissue.

  "Sorry" she said. "I thought I was done with crying. Anyway, I got pregnant again and had another boy. So now I was seventeen and had four kids. I found out Vonzell was using and dealing."

  She was not as old as she looked. I realized she was probably younger than me. "Dealing what?" I asked.

  She allowed herself a smile, as though she couldn't believe my naivete. "Crack. Heroin. Ecstasy. You name it. And I found out he had a record a mile long he hadn't bothered to mention during while we'uns was dating. One night, we had an argument about drugs, and Vonzell hit me and I fell down the stairs. I didn't even know I was pregnant that time, till I woke up in the hospital and the doctor told me I'd lost the baby.

  "After that, Vonzell went real crazy. He decided the reason I'd lost the baby was because God was punishing us for allowing abortions to happen. He said we had to have another baby right away to make up for the one who died. He called it `atonement.' I didn't want to, but he forced me. He wouldn't let me take any of the kids out of the house. Said the devil was out there. Hid all our shoes every time he went out. By the time my fifth kid was born, he'd been gone for a month, and I was glad.

  "When I heard about the bombing at the first clinic, it never occurred to me that Vonzell done it. He came home about that time and swore he'd finished with the drugs. One night, I woke up and found him gone. That was the night of the clinic bombing in Harrisburg, where some people was killed. When he came home early in the morning, he was high from cocaine.

  "The next day he went out drinking with some buddies, and I went through his stuff looking for the dope. I was going to throw it out and take whatever he dished out. Down in the basement, I found the explosives and bomb parts. I didn't waste no time calling the feds'cause I was furious mad at him, keeping things like that in a house where small children lived.

  "They searched his cabin up in the mountains, too, and found a diary where he'd written all about the bombings. He'd even done a couple I hadn't heard of.

  "1 didn't even go to his trial. I never wanted to see him again, and I haven't. He's written me threats from prison, saying exactly what he's going to do to me when he gets out. First he's going to torture the kids in front of me, and after they're dead he'll kill me. I don't care none about me, but I'm not going to let him get the kids."

  "Wasn't he in a county jail somewhere waiting to be sentenced when he escaped?"

  She nodded. "After he finished his term at Graterford, he was rearrested on other charges. That's why he was in Kentucky."

  I'd stopped writing in my notebook before she was half finished. What a horrible life the poor woman had. "Do you have a weapon?" I asked. "To protect yourself in case he gets in?"

  "I got a shotgun under my bed. He shows his head in here, I'll blow him through the wall."

  When Jenny walked me to the door and opened it, I was surprised to find a beautiful, sunny day outside. Inside, I'd been overwhelmed by the darkness. The green van pulled away as I stood blinking on the porch.

  "Where do you think your bodyguard's going?" I asked jenny, wondering why the feds would leave the house unwatched.

  She looked at me wide-eyed. "The federal agent is in the black truck over there."

  For the first time, I noticed a black pickup with a man sitting in the cab reading a newspaper.

  I said good-bye to Jenny, climbed into the truck, and started the engine, and suddenly a question popped into my head. If the man in the black pickup was the federal agent, who had been in the green van?

  Seven

  I had choices. I could go back to the office and write up what I'd learned about Vonzell Varner. Or I could visit one of the local businesses on my list, interview the owner, then go back to the office.

  However, I knew I was only about six blocks away from the Zaleski House and it was calling to me. The truck turned in that direction as if it had a will of its own.

  "Hi there, Tori. Good to see you. Come on in. I was just getting ready to have an iced coffee in the garden. Now, I'll have company," Mrs. Bonebrake said. She held the door open for me, and I had the feeling that my visit was not a total surprise.

  She led me through the house, which was dim but cool despite the heat outside and no running air conditioner. In the kitchen, she poured coffee into a glass, added a large dollop of real cream and two teaspoons of turbinado sugar, then said, "This is how I drink mine. I should have asked first. Is this okay with you?"

  I stopped salivating l
ong enough to nod and accept the glass.

  At the bottom of the garden, three Adirondack chairs faced the creek, a picture-postcard setting. At Mrs. Bonebrake's invitation, I sat on one and immediately sank down so far I thought I'd never get up again. My chin practically rested on my knees.

  Once I was down, she asked, "What can I do for you, Tori? I thought we covered everything about the house the first time you were here."

  I couldn't stop myself from blurting out, "I want to buy your house, Mrs. Bonebrake."

  We stared at each other for a long moment, me in shock, her with a growing smile on her face.

  "How marvelous. I would feel so good about it going to someone who would love it as much as I do. Hold on a minute." With that, she struggled out of the chair and went inside the house.

  What have I done, I thought, over and over. But the sight of the iris in full bloom, the little dock at the bottom of the garden with its upside-down canoe, the buzz of the bees, all calmed me into thinking I'd made the right move.

  "She'll be right over," Mrs. Bonebrake said, when she returned carrying a pitcher full of creamy coffee and an empty glass.

  "Who will be right over?" I asked, as she refilled both our glasses.

  "The real estate agent. She just lives down the street. In fact, here she is now."

  I turned, as best I could in the deep chair, and saw a woman coming through the gate in the picket fence. She closed it carefully, then waved. "Sorry to take so long," she called.

  I glanced at my Timex. It couldn't have been ten minutes since I'd said those fatal words. What did she consider quick?

  Although she teetered down the garden path on three-inch heels, not one blond hair of her upswept'do moved. She seemed to be balancing herself by dangling an enormous purse from one hand and a huge brown briefcase from the other. When she reached us, she put her purse on the table and extended her hand. "Howdjado. I'm Janielle Simpson. With Simpson and Simpson Real Estate."