Bonegrinder

by John Lutz

  Wintone spun and struck wildly at the wood wall at his left, retaining enough sense to open his fist an instant before it struck. Pain bit like a thousand teeth into his palm as the shock traveled down his arm.

  He hoped the pain wouldn’t stop as he walked toward the office, toward the desk-corner portrait of Etty, Sarah at his side.

  TWENTY-SIX

  BAILY HOWE STOOD AT his wide window overlooking the valley, watching the sunrise as if it were occurring for his personal inspection. A low-lying incandescent haze was visible now on the horizon, but Howe knew it would soon be burned off by the sun, devoured by scorching rays to leave an unblemished sky like the inside of a finely glazed blue bowl to reflect the heat.

  Howe lowered his gaze to the valley. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, peering down at the sloping carpet of distant green treetops. To his extreme right he could see a narrow blue cove of Big Water Lake.

  Despite Sheriff Wintone there still were searchers down there, Howe was sure. He narrowed his eyes as if he could see them below, teeming like social insects obeying a directive of instinct. They were that, really, and the instinct was greed. He had pressed the correct button, and they had responded. If only there were more of them …

  Howe took a last look at the brightening sky, turned away from the window and walked to the brown leather sofa. He sat down, stretched out his legs and methodically lighted a slender, greenish brown cigar.

  It was simply a matter of receiving credit. This time Howe had been clever enough to arrange it so that he alone would come out on top. No matter who found Bonegrinder, it would be at Howe’s direction—he would possess the monster. Unless whoever it was might be fool enough to refuse a quick, sure ten thousand dollars.

  Howe drew on his cigar and frowned. In a fashion, Sheriff Wintone had refused the reward. At least he said he would refuse if the money were offered under the table. The sheriff was that most dangerous of men: a simple, idealistic fool. Men like that were constantly getting in the, way.

  A movement outside the window caught Howe’s attention, and he turned his head to see several large, black crows flapping past outside almost at eye level. He had often sat out on the balcony and brought such crows down with a shotgun. But there was really little sport in it. The crow, that wiliest and most gun-wise of birds at lower altitudes, was simple to kill at this level, where it presumed itself safe.

  As with crows, so with men.

  Howe got up, carried ashtray and smoldering cigar to the small telephone table. He dialed and stood patiently with the receiver at his ear. After several rings Sheriff Wintone answered.

  Howe noticed that the sheriff’s voice was rather thick and slow, the voice of a man recently awakened and still tired. All to the better, Howe thought. “Sheriff, this is Baily Howe.”

  A pause. “Mornin’, Mr. Howe.”

  “I’m calling in regard to the Bonegrinder matter.”

  “I figured.”

  “I was hoping you’d had time to think things through, perhaps see the magnitude of what you’re hindering. When you left here, I was sure that you’d eventually have the insight to realize that the solution to the Bonegrinder mystery might be the most important thing that has ever touched our lives.”

  “What are you askin’, Mr. Howe?”

  “That you stop intimidating the people who want to find Bonegrinder. You’re making the entire operation extremely difficult.”

  “I’m not intimidatin’ anyone, Mr. Howe. I’m only doin’ my job an’ upholdin’ the law.”

  “There’s such a thing as being too inflexible, Sheriff.”

  “That holds true for everyone.”

  “Is there any possibility of you changing your mind about the way you’re dealing with this situation?”

  “None, Mr. Howe. We’ve already had a man accidentally shot out on the lake.”

  “I suspected that was what prompted your program of strict, unreasonable enforcement. I don’t understand how you can let a single unfortunate accident impede an endeavor of this … this possible scientific import.”

  “I want to keep it to a single accident, Mr. Howe.”

  “But don’t you see—”

  “No, Mr. Howe, I don’t.” Impatience had put an edge on the sheriff’s voice.

  Howe sighed loudly into the receiver. “All right, Sheriff, I tried. I thought I should try one last time. Since you can’t see it from the reasonable perspective, I want you to know I respect your integrity and persistence, however misguided you may be.”

  “I thank you for that, Mr. Howe.”

  Was there irony in the sheriff’s voice? Howe realized Wintone didn’t believe him. The sheriff was a cynical man; Howe had to give him that.

  “Have you heard anything on the Peterson woman?” Howe asked.

  “Not a sign of her, but we’re still looking.”

  “A tragic thing, that.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, Mr. Howe.”

  “Oh, you needn’t think I don’t have compassion, Sheriff— it’s just that I also recognize priorities.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, the sheriff’s way of telling Howe that he chose not to argue.

  “The law is explicit and that’s that,” Howe said. “Given the narrow point of view, you’re only performing your duty. I can’t fault you for that. Good luck, Sheriff.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Howe.”

  Again the irony in Wintone’s voice. It lingered in Howe’s ear as he replaced the receiver.

  Howe went into the gun room and got his custom-made Browning twelve-gauge shotgun from the polished cherry-wood cabinet. He fed shells into the magazine, then carried the loaded gun outside to his private shooting range. Humming tonelessly, he loaded the English-made target thrower that automatically flung clay pigeons at irregular intervals and in varying arcs.

  Howe took a few shots to reorient himself to the feel of the gun before he began shooting in earnest.

  When he had shattered six clay pigeons in a row, he walked back inside and made another phone call.

  At noon that day Mayor Boemer phoned Wintone and asked him to walk down to his office above the new souvenir and antique emporium. Wintone wasn’t surprised. He knew where he stood, and it wasn’t where the mayor could catch him unawares.

  Mayor Boemer had Wintone wait while he went through his act of pretending to read something at his desk. Wintone took a chair, noticing that the pale green office had been freshly painted. An American flag had been mounted alongside the state flag on one wall. Wintone sat quietly.

  When the mayor became impatient, he set the paper he’d been holding aside, rested his elbows on his desk top with his hands clasped and looked at Wintone. The mayor’s white hair was swept straight back and still damp, as if he’d just combed it. “There’s been talk,” he said.

  “That’s how things get around,” Wintone replied.

  “Well, things have been gettin’ around that are causin’ us a problem. An’ don’t pretend you don’t understand what I’m sayin’. Folks are demandin’ action on this Bonegrinder thing.”

  “I keep hearin’ that,” Wintone said, “but when I ask just what action folks are demandin’, nobody seems to have any inklin’.”

  Mayor Boemer dropped his hands out of sight below his desk, leaned back in his chair. “That’s ’cause you’re supposed to have the answers, Billy. Unreasonable or not, that’s the way it is, an’ I got no choice but to demand you come up with some answers, take the proper action.”

  Outside the office window the leaves of a hickory tree broke the pattern of sunlight that shadowed the closed drapes. Silence seemed to fill the room while Wintone sat and waited.

  “Understand,” the mayor continued in an unsteady voice, “I’m under pressure myself, Billy.”

  “From Baily Howe?”

  “From my constituents. I’m the mayor, an’ I got responsibilities … just like you got as sheriff. Comes a time a man has to be unbendable.”

&nb
sp; “A man with Howe as a backer could play politics in this state,” Wintone said, “maybe go fairly high.”

  Boemer’s ruddy face clouded over, looking more like rain than the sky had looked for a while. “I won’t deny Howe’s talked to me, but he’s a citizen with a right to demand action. And it’s my obligation to demand action from you.”

  “Strong word, ‘demand.’”

  “Then let’s say I got a suggestion to make to you, one that’ll maybe solve both our problems.”

  Boemer did show promise, Wintone mused. Already he was nimble at passing the buck. The mayor’s problem, really, was Wintone.

  Boemer struck a firm attitude. “I know you’re acquainted with Craig Holt,” he said. “He’s not only an expert on folklore, but he’s authorized by the government to investigate these goin’s on. I think it might be a good idea if you teamed up with him to find Bonegrinder.”

  “Holt’s a writer an’ researcher,” Wintone said. “What he ain’t is any kind of stalker.”

  “But he knows his subject; he’d have ideas.”

  “I’ve heard some of his ideas.”

  “Don’t you understand, Billy? This way, if you don’t find Bonegrinder it’s not just you failin’, it’s the U.S. government.”

  “The U.S. government is failin’ without me. All I’ve seen Holt do is run around these parts with that portable recorder an’ those instruments he takes out on the lake.”

  “He ain’t no fool,” Boemer said. “An’ he seems to know how to go about gettin’ what he wants. He was in town no time an’ he had everybody talkin’ to him an’ was puttin’ it to Sarah Ledbetter.”

  Wintone stood up and paced through the dappled pattern of sunlight on the carpet. “The whole thing sounds like a bad idea. You tell Baily Howe that was my reaction.”

  Boemer stared at Wintone, his face knotted in frustration. Wintone stopped pacing and looked at him, and the mayor looked away.

  “Not long ago it was a pacifyin’ statement you wanted from me,” Wintone said, “not action.”

  “We had a different cat to skin then.”

  “Well, you made your suggestion,” Wintone said, and stood to leave the office.

  “You think hard on it, Billy,” Mayor Boemer said, as the sheriff closed the door.

  What Wintone thought about on the walk back to his office was Sarah. He was still trying to sort out the effects of last night. It all clashed in his mind: the guilt, the agony, the pleasure collided and changed things like the accident. Or had it changed anything at all?

  His mind caressed the soft memory of Sarah, her body so smooth and pale yet surprising in its warmth. Etty, ghostly but real, had been with them last night, they both knew, and she would always be with them unless Wintone let her go.

  When Wintone got back to the office, he pulled the blinds closed and sat heavily in the squeaking swivel chair behind his desk. He didn’t regret his words to Mayor Boemer, but he wondered what he would do if he actually did lose his job. Law enforcement was all he’d learned much about in his lifetime. He’d have to stay in the field somewhere.

  He might have to leave the area, if Baily Howe and Mayor Boemer got their way. If they weren’t thrown some and slowed by Wintone’s unwillingness to give ground. Boemer was leery of Wintone’s capacity for vengeance and might influence Baily Howe. Howe could help Boemer politically, and help him a lot, but Wintone had the ear of the press and could hurt the mayor by taking a strong stand against him. Any smart man feared an enemy with nothing to lose. And Boemer was smart enough to know that.

  Wintone drummed his fingertips almost silently on the smooth, familiar desk top. He wondered what action he could take against Bonegrinder. Spending his days on the lake cradling a high-powered rifle was hardly a solution. An organized search party was out of the question, with Howe’s reward-seeking maniacs still prowling the area. And none of the deaths offered any avenue of investigation.

  The situation would be simpler, Wintone thought, without people like McKenna and Holt getting in his way. And people like Alan and Kelly Greer for him to worry about.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  KELLY GREER PADDED BAREFOOT across the sun-faded linoleum to the window of the motel cabin. She was wearing nothing but a robe and despite the heat she held it clutched around her body as if the terry cloth were some kind of armor. The green, sun-washed view outside had taken on an ominous aura lately, like a killer’s bright smile.

  She turned to Alan, who was seated on the bed worrying over an assortment of photography equipment spread out on the white sheet. The sheet was still wrinkled from their lovemaking of the night before, and it seemed almost an insult to Kelly that he should now be using it as an impromptu work table.

  “Haven’t we been here long enough?” she asked. “You’ve taken hundreds of pictures.”

  Alan held up a color filter and examined it, one of his eyes screwed shut. “You frightened?”

  “It isn’t only that. Probably nothing’s going to happen. At least nothing that anybody understands or can do anything about. Bonegrinder isn’t going to be found, and you’re not going to be able to photograph whatever it is.”

  Both eyes open now, Alan smiled at her. “If I were as sure of that as you are, I’d start packing.”

  Kelly walked over to him, stepped playfully on his bare foot with her own. “I’m spooked, I’ll admit it. I don’t like to be threatened by what I can’t understand.”

  He put down the filter and looked up at her. He was wearing only a pair of threadbare walking shorts, and insect bites among the coarse red hair on his chest glistened with the thick ointment he’d used to treat them. “Why don’t you go back, Kelly, wait for me? I can find somebody driving to Kansas City; you could go with them.”

  “It’s you I’m worried about, and I’d worry more at a distance.”

  Alan shrugged; he’d known it was useless to ask.

  Kelly put her hands in the robe’s baggy pockets and stood with her feet apart, as if enjoying the cool smoothness of the linoleum. The cabin was still shaded and fairly cool. The color TV at the foot of the bed was on, silent and unwatched, its picture rolling.

  “That poor Peterson woman,” Kelly said. “How do you explain it?”

  “I can’t,” Alan said. “That’s one reason I’m staying.” He swiveled his body and lay down on the clear side of the bed, clasping his hands behind his head on a wadded pillow. “That one got to me a little, especially after I talked to Peterson. You’re not the only one who’s slightly spooked, but I have to stay and see this out. Especially now.”

  “Why especially now?”

  “Craig Holt,” he said. “We’ve agreed to collaborate on a book. I can’t run out on that commitment. Anyway, Holt is no small-fry, and since he’s connected with the government it should help sell the project to a publisher. It could be a major break for us.”

  Kelly dug her hands deeper into the robe’s big pockets and shook her head. “Holt is just like you, only he has his tape recorder and instruments.”

  “He has a curiosity,” Alan said, “and a trained mind. His knowledgeable text and my photographs should be the most comprehensive coverage of what’s happened here.”

  “And of what might happen,” Kelly said uneasily.

  Alan’s angled glance found her from half-closed eyes. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “We can make this whole thing more tolerable for you. We’ll spend more time together, maybe hike out and go on a picnic. You might even wind up having fun.”

  Kelly sat next to him on the edge of the bed. “I don’t want to interfere with your work or be a stone around your neck, Alan.”

  He grinned, settled his head and knitted hands farther into the pillow. “You said yourself I’ve got plenty of good shots. I can let up some now, see what happens next. It was what I’d planned to do anyway.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I wouldn’t lie.”

  She bent and kissed his sunburned forehead. “I guess you wouldn’t.
”

  He watched her as she rose from the bed. She seemed to notice for the first time that the TV was on and turned it off on her way past. Then she walked again to the window, her figure lending grace to the long robe.

  “Maybe we could do something tonight,” she said, “drive someplace.”

  “Sorry, can’t tonight. I have to meet with Holt to work out a format.”

  Kelly nodded but continued to stare out the window.

  Alan drew a chest-heaving breath and sighed, as if trying to throw off a weight. “Don’t worry,” he said, “it’ll work out.”

  He sat up again, careful not to disturb the equipment on the bed, selected a lens and held it to the light. Kelly appeared in the lens, small and far away. Alan had the feeling that if he shouted loudly at her image, it would slowly turn its head, barely hearing him.

  “Why don’t we get out of here now?” Alan said, putting down the lens. “Go for a drive.”

  Kelly smiled at him and said that was a good idea.

  Alan laced his dust-streaked white deck shoes and watched her get dressed. She put on a yellow halter and a pair of cutoff jeans, tilted back her head and shook her hair so that it whipped in slow motion against her graceful back. She brushed her long hair hurriedly, and they were ready to leave.

  “Don’t forget your camera,” she said when they were at the door. But he already had it.

  The dust-coated white Volkswagen labored up steep and winding hills, gained speed almost joyously on the downgrades. The woods grew close to each side of the dirt road, shading it for long stretches, sometimes joining leafy branches above as if to conceal the road from the sun’s eye. The unremitting hammer of the Volkswagen’s engine was loud among the crowded trees, changing tone and volume now and then when the road broke from the woods to overlook green valleys or cleared hillsides.

  “There is a certain beauty here,” Alan said, gearing down the car to take a steep grade. “I can see how if you were born and raised here you wouldn’t want to leave.”

  “Or couldn’t leave,” Kelly said beside him. “It might be difficult to adapt.”