Bonegrinder

by John Lutz

  Alan and Kelly walked past the opposite edge of the clearing, beyond the wind-bent trees.

  Kelly quickly removed her clothes. Alan had taught her something about modeling, and she obeyed his instructions smoothly and efficiently, striking practiced poses, accentuating the smooth, tanned lines of her body for the camera.

  “Down by the water,” Alan said, “just barely into the water.”

  Kelly walked down the bank until her feet were submerged to her ankles. The water was pleasantly cool, moving with a gentle tugging motion not discernible on the surface.

  “Good,” Alan said. He squinted at her through the camera’s viewfinder, then walked down to her. He stooped and applied handfuls of water at strategic spots on her body to bring out the highlights, rubbing clinically so there would be no droplets. Kelly stood very still. Back up on the bank, he checked again through the viewfinder.

  “How about ‘September Morn’?” she asked half jokingly, assuming the classic nude pose.

  He waited until she broke the pose before triggering the shutter, freezing her graceful natural movements. The trick was in the surprise. He tripped the shutter several times, rapidly.

  Sidestepping a few feet to his right, he studied Kelly again through the camera. “Use any pose—”

  A low, rasping sound came from the thick woods near the bank on Alan’s left.

  “Alan!” Kelly moved up onto the bank. Alan lifted an open hand for silence.

  Kelly felt suddenly cold, exposed and vulnerable. On her arms she noticed the most exaggerated gooseflesh she had ever seen. She had never felt more nude.

  The woods near the bank were silent; perhaps nothing—

  Again the sound came, softer this time, but just as unidentifiable.

  Kelly moved closer to Alan. He was examining his camera. “Three more frames …” she heard him mutter.

  “Alan, let’s—”

  “Be quiet!” His voice was a sharp whisper, alive with fear and hope. He looked hard into her eyes, his own reflecting the blue-green glare of the lake. “Stay here where you’re safe, Kel! Promise me you’ll stay right here!”

  “For God’s sake, Alan—”

  But he was walking softly away from her, toward the woods, toward whatever they both had heard. Kelly watched his back, the camera strap dark against the red tan of his neck. She wanted to scream his name, knew that if she did he would never completely forgive her. Her body was bent with cold trembling, and she knew what people meant when they talked about flesh crawling.

  Without turning his head Alan disappeared into the woods.

  Her back to the calm lake, Kelly stumbled to where her clothes were folded on the grass. For the first time in her life she began to put on her shoes before anything else. And the shoes were suddenly too small, unyielding to her frantic efforts. She’d managed to get the left one on, unlaced, when Alan screamed.

  Kelly stood erect, paralyzed. A loud thrashing sound came from the woods near the bank, where Alan had disappeared. Kelly took a step toward the sound, another—she had to help him some way.

  The thrashing grew louder. Kelly stopped and felt an icy explosion of horror in her heart. Through the trees she could see a huge, dark form in violent motion. Alan screamed again, in an old woman’s voice, a mindless, trailing shriek.

  Backing away, Kelly stepped on something sharp with her bare right foot. She hardly noticed the pain. Behind her there was a sound like a large branch snapping.

  Her breath shrieking in soft mimicry of Alan’s final scream, she ran.

  Web Hooper saw her running down the lake road toward his red pickup truck. In his surprise he stepped down so hard on the brake that he rose partway out of his seat as the truck stopped. He watched Kelly with intrigued amusement until she drew nearer, then he was stunned by the terror in her eyes.

  Wintone got the story out of her with difficulty. Kelly’s lips were so rigid and distorted with fear that she could hardly talk, and when she did manage to pronounce words, they burst in almost incoherent disorder from her. She sat on the bed in her motel cabin, wrapped in the dirty wool blanket that Web Hooper had thrown over her.

  Luke Higgins was there. With Wintone’s permission he gave Kelly a glass containing a good measure of apricot brandy and coaxed her to drink. The scent of the brandy mingled with the scent of grease from the blanket.

  The brandy seemed to help, and the shivering lessened.

  Craig Holt stood at the foot of the bed, puffing on his pipe and calmly watching Kelly through the smoke. He had been in the cabin with Luke Higgins when Wintone arrived. “Do you remember where it happened?” he asked around the pipe stem.

  Kelly didn’t answer, stared at Wintone. She was fighting going into shock, trying to comprehend what had happened.

  “It might help if you took us there,” Wintone said.

  “I don’t … know if I can.”

  “Would it be easier if we drove back to where Web picked you up?”

  She started to speak, then nodded.

  Wintone helped her to her feet, watched her get some clothes from one of the dresser drawers and make her way into the tiny bathroom. A full five minutes passed before she emerged dressed in brown slacks and a faded striped blouse. Wintone reminded her that she was wearing only one shoe, and she nodded, walked to the closet and put on a pair of light tan sandals.

  “If you want,” Web Hooper said, “follow my truck an’ I’ll show you where I found her.”

  Holt rode in the truck with Hooper, Wintone and Luke Higgins following in the patrol car with Kelly. Wintone stayed well back, away from the dust raised by Hooper’s old red pickup, as they turned onto the lake road and drove for about a mile and a half. Kelly sat quietly, her hands clasped between her thighs just behind her knees.

  Then Hooper’s truck pulled to the side of the road, and Wintone parked the patrol car behind it.

  “I came out of the woods farther up that way,” Kelly said, pointing through the dust-smeared windshield. Wintone honked the car’s horn, motioning to Hooper to drive farther along the road. When Kelly pointed a second time, Wintone tapped the horn ring again and braked behind Hooper’s parked truck.

  As they got out of the car, Wintone looked at the woods where Kelly had pointed. This was a particularly wild area, not half a mile from where the Larsen boy had been killed.

  Kelly led the way, pausing from time to time to get her bearings. The walking, the mental game of backtracking her panicky flight, seemed to help her regain her composure. Wintone knew she was steeling herself for the fear that would grow in her as she approached the spot where she’d last seen her husband.

  It took them over an hour to find the clearing on the lake bank. Kelly stood in the center of the grassy clearing, in bright sunshine, and pointed toward thick woods at the edge of the bank.

  Wintone told Web Hooper to stay with her, then walked forward with Holt and Higgins on either side of him. The only sound was that of the tall grass whipping at their boots.

  When they entered the woods, Wintone felt the chill of the sudden shade. Immediately he saw what looked like trash strewn about the ground among the trees just ahead. As they approached slowly, he made out some bits of brown paper, a torn red-and-white checked strip of material, shredded pieces of canvas. In the center of the scattered debris was a large, shapeless mound of what looked like more rubble, tattered canvas and twisted pieces of aluminum. Extended almost straight upward from the midst of this was something mottled red and slightly crooked. Wintone stopped without being conscious of it, stood staring as he realized he was looking at an arm minus the hand.

  “Merciful God …” Luke Higgins said in a strangled whisper.

  “Best not let that girl see this,” Wintone said. A tangy, coppery taste was coating the sides of his tongue, creating saliva. Alone, he walked forward to examine the body more closely.

  He saw that the bent aluminum had been the framework of a large canvas backpack, which was shredded now with its contents spread
about the ground. Alan Greer’s badly crushed and torn body lay on its side in an awkward death posture, his ruined face frozen in a grotesque expression of horror.

  Higgins and Holt walked over slowly to stand by Wintone. Higgins’s face wore nearly the same expression as the dead man’s. Holt appeared almost bored, but the flesh near the left corner of his compressed lips was ticking rapidly.

  “What do you suppose? …” Luke Higgins said.

  “I can’t suppose anything,” Wintone told him. “Don’t move around here, neither of you. Back off the same way you walked to the body.”

  Holt was bent over, picking up something.

  “Leave it!” Wintone snapped.

  But Holt had already straightened, looking guiltily at Wintone.

  “What are you holding?” Wintone asked him.

  From out of sight at his side, Holt held out a thirty-five millimeter camera. “Greer and I were working together on a book,” he explained. His cheek was still marked by a square of adhesive tape and one eye was faintly ringed with purple.

  “It’s evidence,” Wintone told him. “I best take it.”

  “I’m under the auspices of the U.S. government! …”

  Wintone held out his big hand palm up. “Investigation of a death by violence takes precedence. You know it.” Wintone wasn’t sure of his words, but then neither was Holt.

  Holt bit off whatever else he wanted to say, handed Wintone the camera and backed away. The camera appeared undamaged and contained a roll of film that had been used but for two frames.

  “Go back and tell Web Hooper to take the girl to the motel,” Wintone said to the two men who were now standing some ten feet from him. “Then either phone or have Hooper drive into Colver an tell ’em to send someone out for the body.”

  “You stayin’ here alone?” Higgins asked.

  “I’m gonna be lookin’ things over careful,” Wintone told him. “Do me a favor an’ see that the girl’s treated right. Get in touch with Doc Amis an’ Sarah.”

  Higgins nodded, his round face still distorted in a look of disbelief. “Should I … tell the girl what we found?”

  “When she sees you,” Wintone told him, “she’ll know for sure.”

  When he was alone, Wintone examined the area around the body, walking head down in slow circles. The ground was disturbed, but there were no clear prints. Lake water lapped only a few feet from where Wintone stood, and he examined the bank, thinking that the mud might have been worked up. There were marks in the ooze, but nothing distinct.

  Wintone took another careful look around the death scene, then he moved as close as he could to the sunlight and sat with his back against the cool hardness of a tree trunk, waiting for the sound of human footsteps. He was still holding Alan Greer’s undamaged camera. While Wintone was curious about what the undeveloped film might contain, he was too experienced to be hopeful.

  Over an hour passed before a sudden crashing in the woods made Wintone practically leap to his feet. He stood leaning away from the sound, surprised by the watery weakness in his limbs. Then low, leafy branches parted and Frank Turper stepped into view red-faced and perspiring, followed by two men carrying a portable stretcher. Wintone showed them the body.

  The next afternoon Wintone sat at his desk staring at Kelly’s detailed account of the events surrounding Alan Greer’s death. The printed words before Wintone told him little that might be of help, but he hoped that by linking them with the package of developed photographs that had just arrived by messenger from the State Police lab, he might be able to learn something.

  He peeled back the thick nylon-reinforced tape that sealed the brown package and spread the photographs on the scarred, dark wood of his desk top.

  The prints were developed and packaged according to the order in which they’d been taken. The top photos were of the lake, some detailed studies of old buildings. Wintone recognized Seth Perkins’s silo.

  The nude photographs of Kelly Greer were examples of her husband’s art—tasteful and sympathetic. Wintone gazed at them with an aching heart and a loneliness for Etty. Despite a gulf of years, there was a similarity between Etty and Kelly that transcended physical resemblance … or maybe the similarity was in Wintone’s mind.

  He gently arranged the photographs in a stack, all but the last one, the final costly shot taken with Alan Greer’s camera. Wintone picked up that photo, had to hold it at various angles to determine top from bottom.

  The last print revealed blue sky and the blurred high limbs of overarching trees, as if the photographer had been falling when the shutter was triggered. In the lower right corner of the photo was something dark, something with an almost glazed luminosity to it and textured like smooth, wet stone.

  That was all.

  No clue as to what the rest of the object might look like; it was simply as if one corner of the photograph had been blacked out.

  Wintone studied the photograph, trying to imagine what it was that the lens had caught in the corner. Due to the camera’s movement and the awkward upward angle of the photograph, it was impossible to judge height or width.

  The sheriff put the photo aside, sat back and again reviewed Kelly’s account of everything that had happened from the time she and Alan left Higgins’ Motel. He could glean nothing from any of it.

  Without looking directly at them, he picked up the artistically posed and photographed pictures of Kelly and slid them back into the package. Then he set out to return them to her.

  During the drive to Higgins’ Motel, Wintone wondered what he should do with Alan Greer’s last photograph. Holt would be pestering soon to find out what the camera’s film had contained. Wintone could simply lie to him, tell him the last frame had shown only a view of the lake, but then when the photograph was made public—as it would have to be eventually—Wintone would be open to criticism for withholding the facts.

  He decided to stall Holt for a while, keep the newspapers out of it as long as possible. Wintone could imagine what some irresponsible members of the news media could construct out of that final photograph. And he dreaded Baily Howe’s and Mayor Boemer’s reactions.

  Wintone parked the patrol car in the shade in Higgins’ Motel’s lot and walked with crunching footsteps across gravel to Kelly Greer’s cabin. As he approached, he saw that the curtains were drawn closed, but the side-window air conditioner was laboring with a high-pitched, faintly gurgling hum. Wintone had only to knock once and the door opened. Kelly was wearing the same brown slacks and faded striped shirt she’d had on before, but her dark hair was smoothly brushed now, and there was no sign of grief on her face except for the redness about her eyes. She stepped aside for Wintone to enter.

  The cabin’s interior was dim and almost cold. Wintone thought Kelly probably hadn’t opened the door or looked out a window all day. She parted the curtains now in the front window to admit harsh light that seemed to set her on edge. Her left hand clutching her right wrist as if to restrain that arm, she stood looking expectantly at Wintone.

  “I brought these,” he said, holding out the package of photographs. “Thought you might want ’em.”

  She opened the package and examined the contents without any expression of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

  “Thank you,” she said to Wintone. She smiled at him, for him.

  “Are you … all right?” he asked.

  “Better.” She said it as if it meant nothing.

  “Time’ll help,” Wintone told her.

  She nodded with skeptical politeness. Another smile survived for a while, but her eyes were misted. “My father’s driving here from Memphis to take me home.”

  Wintone was glad to hear that she had family to take care of her. “Before you leave,” he said, “if there’s anything else you can tell me …”

  She shook her head. “Craig Holt asked me the same thing.”

  “He been botherin’ you?”

  “Not really. He might if I’d let him.” She walked over and looked ou
t between the parted curtains, as if to reassure herself that existence was possible outside the cabin. The reassurance seemed to leave her unmoved. “Alan had been drinking strawberry wine that afternoon,” she said almost dreamily. “He had one of those goat-bladder containers, and it amused him to try to drink like a Spaniard …”

  Wintone remembered this from her original statement, but didn’t interrupt her.

  “I’m the one who wanted him to relax, forget about his work for a while. I tell myself he might not have gone into the woods to investigate that sound if he hadn’t been drinking, but I don’t know …”

  “He’d have gone, Mrs. Greer,” Wintone said firmly. “I don’t think you should have any doubts about that.” But he knew she’d doubt; some part of her would doubt forever.

  A car crossed the parking lot outside the cabin. Wintone stared at Kelly and listened to the slowly revolving tires crunch loosely packed gravel. It was like his soul breaking up inside him. “You’re young …” he said to her.

  She faced him and nodded. “I guess I’ll hear that a lot over the next few days.”

  “’Cause it’s true.”

  “You lost your wife in an accident not long ago, didn’t you, Sheriff?”

  “I figured you’d heard. Most everybody has.”

  Kelly tilted her head, the light from the window softening her long hair. “What you said,” she told him, “it means something to me. And it means something to me that you brought me these photographs.”

  Wintone was struck awkward by her gaze. He gave her a quick smile, a good-bye nod, and walked to the door, his business finished.

  She followed, stood squinting in the bright sunlight of the open door as if she might any second turn back inside to escape the glare.

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” she said. “You’ve been … more than thoughtful.”

  Wintone couldn’t work his words past the tightness in his throat. He walked to the patrol car, listening to the gravel beneath his feet.

  He didn’t have to look back to know she was still standing hesitantly in the cabin doorway, watching him, as he drove from the lot.

  Back at his office in Colver, Wintone sat at his desk, sipping a cup of strong coffee and pondering. Something was hanging fire in the back of his mind, some realization he knew he should have grasped but hadn’t.