Bonegrinder

by John Lutz

  On the opposite bank he had no trouble locating the trail of blood he’d tracked along to get there, and he followed it back the way he had come.

  It was almost eleven o’clock when Wintone returned to Colver. As he climbed out of the patrol car in front of the office, old Bonifield and Frank Turper approached him.

  “We been lookin’ fer you,” old Bonifield said. He spat chewing tobacco very near Wintone’s boot toe.

  “We’d like to know if you come up with some plan of action,” Turper said. “Time keeps passin’ an’ nothin’s gettin’ done.” His voice was high with exasperation.

  Still dazed from both his confrontation with Bonegrinder and the cider he’d drunk, Wintone pushed past the two men, walked unsteadily to the office door and fumbled with the lock. The key seemed to fit only halfway.

  “Least he could do is answer,” old Bonifield said.

  “Tomorrow …” Wintone said thickly.

  Turper cursed. “Now listen, Sheriff! …”

  But Wintone had the door open and was stepping inside, swinging it shut.

  “Least he coulda done was talk to us,” he heard old Bonifield say. “Whatever his condition.”

  Wintone didn’t bother to turn on the lights. He made his way through the familiar, dark office to the back room. He shed his clothes, let them lay formless where they dropped, and stretched out on the groaning cot. The cot seemed to sway soothingly, as if riding gently undulating water, but the sensation was soon lost in sleep.

  In the morning Wintone returned to where he had lost Bonegrinder’s trail, this time skirting the finger of water to reach the opposite bank. It was all much simpler by daylight.

  But he had no more luck than the night before; he couldn’t even locate the blood he’d seen near the base of a tree.

  Wintone stood in the shaded woods with the shotgun propped trigger up on his shoulder. He was sure Bonegrinder was dead. He’d seen enough lost blood to guarantee that. Most of his shots had to have hit, even fired as they were in stark panic.

  The only doubt in Wintone’s mind was as to whether the thing he’d slain conformed to his theory. He told himself that it must, that the only thing to do was to proceed as if it did. Verification would come. Eventually word of last night would get out, and Baily Howe’s reward seekers would be more numerous in the woods than squirrels.

  Wintone returned to the patrol car, unloaded and broke down the shotgun. Then he drove toward Higgins’ Motel to talk to Bill Peterson.

  THIRTY-THREE

  PETERSON HAD BEEN LYING on the double bed in the motel cabin with his head propped on the pillows, watching a game show on television. From the doorway Wintone looked over Peterson’s shoulder into the room, saw the fresh indentation on the fluffed pillows, heard a feminine scream of glee as an announcer whose voice fairly dripped syrup kept up a steady yammer about everything the contestant had won.

  “It’s about your wife,” Wintone said to Peterson, who was looking at him with guarded curiosity from the dimness inside the doorway.

  Peterson stepped back so Wintone could enter, turned off the TV. He was barefoot, wearing only slacks and a sleeveless undershirt, and he hadn’t yet shaved. “You’re lucky you found me in,” he said to Wintone. “I’m leaving this afternoon. The autopsy was yesterday, and I’m returning with Cheryl … with my wife’s body to Saint Louis.”

  “I know,” Wintone said. “I checked.”

  The faintest light of alarm glimmered in Peterson’s eyes. He raised a hand to smooth his uncombed hair. “What exactly do you want, Sheriff?”

  “I found somethin’ in the lake, Mr. Peterson.”

  The glimmer returned, stayed longer.

  “On the bottom, right below where your wife was killed, I found what you used to kill her.”

  Peterson’s mouth opened, remained open. Stunned, he sat on the edge of the bed, but rose almost immediately. He stood with his arms hanging limply, his hands fluttering at his sides. “Do you realize what you’re saying? …”

  “What I found,” Wintone said, “is a lead-weighted glove fitted with four sharpened bone claws. Homemade. Must weigh eight or ten pounds.”

  Peterson had recovered most of his composure. His face was hostile. “Coincidence. I don’t know anything about what you’re saying.”

  “You figured all you had to do was kill your wife with that weighted glove, toss it overboard and blame her death on Bonegrinder. It’d be just like the other cases you seen in the newspapers.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this and I won’t,” Peterson said, but he made no move to stop Wintone.

  “The glove itself mightn’t convict you,” Wintone went on, “but together with your account of the attack an’ description of Bonegrinder, I’d say there’s a plenty strong case. What happened is, I killed Bonegrinder last night, an’ soon as the body’s tracked down it’ll prove that nothin’ resemblin’ what you described coulda been in deep water or anywhere else that day. Among other things, Mr. Peterson, the attack on your wife was the only one that took place in deep water. Her death was the only one I couldn’t make fit the pattern, the reason bein’ that you killed her.”

  Peterson had balance. He knew now where he stood, and he was actually grinning at Wintone. “I deny that, of course.”

  “’Course you do, but that don’t alter the fact you killed your wife.”

  “You’re getting me confused with yourself, Sheriff. Maybe your problems have affected you mentally, interfered with your ability to do your job.”

  Wintone took a step forward and Peterson seemed to get smaller and farther away without budging, but the desperate grin stayed glued to his face. Remembering his run-in with Holt, Wintone clenched his teeth, forced calm on himself.

  “Oh, it doesn’t sound so good when you’re the one being told you killed your wife,” Peterson said, picking up confidence. “But I’d like to know what the hell’s the difference. You’re a county sheriff, is that it?”

  Wintone surprised himself with the readiness of his answer. “The big difference is you planned and executed the murder of your wife.”

  “Well, you don’t sound so convinced yourself, Sheriff. And if you’re telling me the truth about Bonegrinder, if you did kill something, I suggest you wait until it’s found. Otherwise I’m afraid you don’t have a very persuasive case.”

  Wintone knew Peterson might be right. He’d hoped that when confronted with the evidence of the deadly glove, Peterson might confess, but Peterson was grittier and wilier than Wintone had thought.

  “I don’t know anything about this glove you described,” Peterson went on,” and I’m sure that where you found it isn’t exactly where my wife’s death occurred. Anyone could have made that glove, dropped it in the lake. Anyone at all.” Peterson had passed beyond confidence now and was working up anger.

  “I think,” Wintone told him, “you’d best come along with me.

  Peterson’s building anger faded; he gave Wintone an incredulous, wide-eyed look. “For what?”

  “As of right now,” Wintone said, “you’re under arrest for suspicion of murder.” He drew a rectangular card from his breast pocket and began to read Peterson his rights.

  “Jesus!” Peterson said. “You do that out here in the sticks?” He bolted across the room, tried to push Wintone aside so he could make the door. With a sweep of his huge arm, Wintone hurried Peterson along, but not in the direction he wanted to go. Peterson slammed into the wall two feet to the left of the door frame, danced sideways out the door and walked in an aimless circle holding both hands to his head. He was dragging his feet, raising a surprising amount of dust. Almost gently, Wintone pulled Peterson’s hands behind him and clamped the handcuffs into place.

  Then he stood Peterson in the sun and finished reading him his rights.

  “How could you’a figured it out?” Frank Turper asked Wintone the next evening at Mully’s.

  “Talked to Claude Borne’s widow,” Wintone said, sipping the beer Luke Higgins
had bought him, “then I recollected how it was where the Larsen boy got killed, and I knew somethin’ had traveled south besides the tourists.”

  “You best explain yourself,” old Bonifield said.

  Wintone didn’t bother to look at him. “What I remembered was that the bait on the Larsen boy’s fish hook was covered with ants. When I’d examined it I saw it was somethin’ he’d made up himself with sorghum or molasses—somethin’ sweet. Then I talked to Helen Borne an’ found out Claude had taken sweet cider the night he was killed. Soon after, Alan Greer was killed an’ young Kelly told me he’d had some sweet wine in a goat bladder, spilled it on himself an’ his backpack. I got to thinkin’, maybe the jug Claude had with him hadn’t got cracked when he was attacked, maybe it was cracked before an’ the sweet cider was leakin’ off into the lake water.

  “That meant the only death I couldn’t make fit was the Peterson woman’s. Her husband’s account of what killed her an’ the fact it happened in deep water threw me. An’ when Peterson told me what they’d had with them that day in the boat he mentioned nothin’ sweet.

  “Then I remembered Peterson had said somethin’ about him and his wife not gettin’ along lately.”

  “He did say they’d made up, though,” Luke Higgins pointed out.

  “Said it after she was dead,” Wintone told him. “I got to figurin’ maybe Peterson had used Bonegrinder to cover up his own murder of his wife. So I searched the lake bottom an’ found the weapon he used. I knew then that once I’d killed Bonegrinder an’ proved my theory was right, it would cinch Peterson’s guilt for his wife’s murder.”

  “Can’t prove it now, though,” Bonifield said. “That’s why you had to let Peterson go.”

  “That’s true,” Wintone admitted. “But it’ll be proved if Bonegrinder’s found.” But he knew himself that if Bonegrinder hadn’t been found yet, it wasn’t going to happen. The woods in the area where Wintone had last seen Bonegrinder had been teeming with reward seekers; they had found nothing but more blood markings. Whatever scent there had been for tracking dogs had faded. Bonegrinder might have traveled for miles before dying, and Wintone knew the deep wild had a way of keeping its secrets. There were woods simply too thick for searchers to comb.

  “Peterson’ll stay free,” Bonifield said. “Man kills his woman, walks around like the rest of us—it ain’t right, in God’s eyes nor no one else’s.”

  “So after eliminatin’ the Peterson woman’s death, you figured it was sweetness,” Mully cut in on Bonifield from behind the bar, “an’ you used sweet cider to bait the thing.”

  Wintone nodded. “An’ sweetness drives bears crazy, especially starvin’ bears like this big one that couldn’t get his usual food supply ’cause of the way the forest fire up north had burned an’ deformed him, burned most of the fur off his hide an’ ruined that back paw—the one that left the print— so he could hardly walk on it. Animals are prone to habit, even if they’re hurt an’ bedeviled. Bonegrinder took to the lake first off probably ’cause the water eased the pain of his burns, comin’ outa the shallow water only to search for food till the pain drove him back. He could only snag a fish to eat now an’ then there in the shallows, so he was probably gettin’ hungrier by the day. Larsen boy likely had more of that sweet bait on him, maybe in his pocket—which would explain why the bear mauled his hip an’ leg—an’ we didn’t find it ’cause it was eaten.”

  Bonifield cackled and shook his head. “If it were a bear, how come nobody’s found it?”

  “Had to be a bear,” Wintone said. “You seen the blood yourself.”

  “Remember you was drinkin’, Sheriff. An’ we know how you are drunk. Maybe you was so scared you wanted what you seen to be a bear.”

  “I wasn’t drunk,” Wintone said flatly.

  “Maybe it ain’t dead,” Frank Turper said. “Or crawled off in a cave an’ died, or to some deep part of the woods where nobody’s been.”

  “Or maybe it weren’t a bear,” Bonifield said.

  “Bear or not,” Luke Higgins said, “it was somethin’ an’ it’s most certain dead. Them that wants can believe it was a bear. Thing is, far as we’re concerned, it best have been a bear.”

  “It best have been,” Frank Turper put in, amidst other murmured agreement.

  Old Bonifield lapsed silent.

  Mully set up another cold beer for Wintone, but the sheriff shook his head and slid off his bar stool. He’d spent a long day full of questions, congratulations and nosy reporters, and he was tired and wanted to go to bed. Wintone hadn’t told anyone he didn’t feel good about what he’d done, not like he’d expected. He felt a loss.

  “So it was only somethin’ wounded an’ tryin’ to survive,” Mully said, slowly gliding a rag over the bar where Wintone had been drinking.

  Wintone pulled the weight of his sweat-soaked shirt away from his body as he started toward the door. “Ain’t we all now?”

  “Speak fer yourself, Sheriff,” old Bonifield said, swigging hard at his beer.

  Wintone stepped out into the hot night and hesitated, wondering if he should go home to sleep or bed down in the back room at the office. Not that it made a difference.

  Had it been a bear he shot? Already the memory of that night had become less vivid, touched by time, taking on new images and new meanings in the darkness at the base of his mind. He remembered what Higgins had said: “Them that wants can believe it was a bear.” But would they ever really, completely, believe?

  It had to have been a bear, Wintone told himself, but he knew there wasn’t much that had to be. He’d never be sure, not really sure. There was so much he’d never be sure about.

  Wintone stood for a time in the heat not knowing why, beneath Mully’s buzzing electric sign and the circling night moths zigzagging their way to frantic, silent death. Then he turned and walked toward his office.

  A Biography of John Lutz

  John Lutz is one of the foremost voices in contemporary hard-boiled fiction.

  First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in 1966, Lutz has written dozens of novels and over 250 short stories in the last four decades. His earliest success came with the Alo Nudger series, set in his hometown of St. Louis. A meek private detective, Nudger swills antacid instead of whiskey, and his greatest nemesis is his run-down Volkswagen. In his offices, permeated by the smell of the downstairs donut shop, he spends his time clipping coupons and studying baseball trivia. Though not a tough guy, he gets results. Lutz continued the series through eleven novels and over a dozen short stories, one of which—“Ride the Lightning”—won an Edgar Award for best story in 1986.

  Lutz’s next big success also came in 1986, when he published Tropical Heat, the first Fred Carver mystery. The ensuing series took Lutz into darker territory, as he invented an Orlando cop forced to retire by a bullet that permanently disabled his left knee. Hobbled by injury and cynicism, he begins a career as a private detective, following low-lifes and beautiful women all over sunny, deadly Florida. In ten years Lutz wrote ten Carver novels, among them Scorcher (1987), Bloodfire (1991), and Lightning (1996), and as a whole they form a gut-wrenching depiction of the underbelly of the Sunshine State. Meanwhile, he also wrote Dancing with the Dead (1992), in which a serial killer targets ballroom dancers.

  In 1992 his novel SWF Seeks Same was adapted for the screen as Single White Female, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. His novel The Ex was made into an HBO film for which Lutz co-wrote the screenplay. In 2001 his book The Night Caller inaugurated a new series of novels about ex-NYPD cops who hunt serial killers on the streets of New York City, and with Darker Than Night (2004) he introduced Frank Quinn, whose own series has yielded five books, the most recent being Mister X (2010).

  Lutz is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and his many awards include Shamus Awards for Kiss and “Ride the Lightning,” and lifetime achievement awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Private Eye Writers of America. He lives in
St. Louis.

  A two-year old Lutz, photographed in 1941. The photograph was taken by Lutz’s father, Jack Lutz, who was a local photographer out of downtown St. Louis.

  A young Lutz with his little brother, Jim, and sisters, Jacqui and Janie.

  Lutz at ten years old, with his mother, Jane, grandmother, Kate, and brother, Jim. Lutz grew up in a sturdy brick city house that sat at an incline, halfway down a hill; according to Lutz, this made for optimal sledding during Missouri’s cold winters.

  Lutz in his very first suit, purchased for his grade school graduation.

  Lutz’s graduation photo from Southwest High School.

  Lutz sitting on the front porch of the first house he and his wife, Barbara, ever owned. According to Lutz, the square footage rendered the house smaller than his last apartment; nevertheless it was an important milestone and tremendous relief—there was no one upstairs to abuse their stereos or bang on the floor (or to complain when they did the same).

  On January 6, 1966, Lutz officially became a “professional writer” with his first story sale to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. After the publication of his first story, Lutz quickly became a regular contributor to the magazine. Lutz has said that he enjoys writing, “as much as when I began. It’s a process that lives and grows.”

  Lutz in St. Louis with his daughter Wendy.

  Lutz in his home office in the early eighties. When asked about his discipline and writing practice, Lutz has said that “being a writer is like being a cop; you’re always on, even off duty.” In the late sixties and early seventies, he published four books and many celebrated short stories.

  Lutz in the mid-eighties, crafting the first twists and turns in the Fred Carver series. Lutz published a Fred Carver novel nearly every year from 1986 to 1996, steadily building a cult following for the series. In his younger days, he wrote all of his fiction on an IBM Selectric typewriter nestled next to his most prized possession: a 1904 roll top desk.