A Whisper of Bones

by Ellen Hart

  As he drove away from the building, he began to muse on all the smug, overfed, swaggering demigods of his youth. His grandfather had introduced him to John Wayne. Frank had never connected with him. He seemed too old. Too ridiculous and blatant. But Bruce Willis and Clint Eastwood had been an entirely different matter. He fed at the trough of their hard-core fearlessness. While Frank feared everything in his pathetic life—spiders, taunts from fellow students, his growing girth, his mother’s expectations—these men feared nothing. He wanted to be them. And he loathed them. And that was, in essence, his problem. He’d never had a straight, singular, entirely unexamined thought in his life. He lived in his head, dragging his heart behind him like a forlorn teddy bear. That was going to change.

  Glancing at the ax resting next to him, propped against the passenger’s seat, he smiled. There was nothing to be afraid of. Not anymore. Everything was the way it should be. He called Wendy on his cell phone. It was just after ten. She was already at school, but this was her free period. He was bursting to tell her the good news.

  He waited through five rings until her voice mail picked up. “Damn it,” he snarled. Then, remembering that he wasn’t going to snarl anymore, that he was in a post-snarl world, he clicked the phone off and called the number again. He did that three more times until she answered.

  “I can’t talk, Frank. I’m at school.”

  “But this can’t wait. I just got out of an awesome meeting with the art director.”

  No reaction.

  “Wendy? Are you there?”

  “Do you have any memory of what happened this morning? What you did?”

  “Huh? Oh, you mean the stool? Hey, I’m sorry about that. Won’t happen again.”

  “You got that right, buster.”

  “Buster?”

  “I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you frighten me. I can’t live with you, because I never know when you’re going to snap.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard myself snap.” He snickered. He was in such a good mood that even her carping couldn’t shake him.

  “You’re not hearing me. When you put your fist through a wall or throw a chair, you’re telling me I could be next.”

  “Oh, come on. I’d never hurt you.”

  “Really? Because that’s not what I see. It’s only a matter of time before the wall becomes my face.”

  “Calm down. Let’s talk about it over dinner. Someplace really nice. How about that sports bar on Lexington.”

  “I’m moving back in with my parents.”

  The comment was so unexpected, so utterly ridiculous, that it caused him to run a red light. “What? Say that again?”

  “Don’t come home tonight. My two brothers are coming by to help me move my things.”

  “You’re not listening to me, Wendy.”

  “Go stay with your mother. And don’t call me again. I can’t deal with you right now. Oh, and please, please, Frank. Get yourself some help before you do something terrible.”

  He’d already done something terrible. Didn’t she realize that? It was like asking him to close the proverbial barn door after the proverbial horse—or was it a proverbial cow—was long gone.

  “Wendy? Wendy?” He pounded the steering wheel, continuing to shout her name until, with his throat constricting and his heart hammering, he realized she’d cut the line.

  30

  “Yes, captain my captain?” said Cordelia, draping herself against Jane’s office doorway. “You rang?”

  “I’ve never heard anyone combine Walt Whitman and Maynard G. Krebs before,” said Jane, closing the cover on her laptop.

  “I was quoting Lurch from The Addams Family, but it’s six of one. They’re both famous for the line.”

  “You are such a consumer of mass culture.”

  “Don’t be annoying. I am a creature of the mind, of deep and impossibly lofty philosophic thought. I just happen to watch a lot of TV. Now, you summoned me, but you failed to tell me why.” She sauntered over to one of two chairs in front of Jane’s desk and sat down. “I hope it’s not bad news about Julia.”

  “No, she’s doing much better this morning.” Jane wanted to tell Cordelia about Lena, but didn’t feel it was right to do it in a text or over the phone. After she delivered the bad news, Cordelia’s shoulders sank.

  “Such a shame. I liked her. She had ’tude.”

  “One of the police officers on scene was leaning toward suicide. One of the neighbors, Butch Averil—”

  “The muscular one? Kind of cute, if you like good looks and dazzlingly white teeth.”

  “He said it made no sense to him. She wasn’t the least bit suicidal.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I have no idea. I will say, I don’t trust anything that comes out of her sister’s mouth.”

  “Eleanor? Pillar of the Lutheran community?”

  Jane spent the next few minutes giving Cordelia a blow by blow of the conversation she’d overheard between Eleanor and Sergeant Corwin of the PPD. “Either Eleanor is lying or Britt is. Their stories can’t both be true.”

  “Wait wait wait. Eleanor admitted that Timmy actually existed?”

  “She did.”

  “And that Stew Ickles fathered both Timmy and Britt?”

  “That was the story.”

  “And … and the grandfather accidentally murdered him?” Cordelia fluffed her hair, giving the situation some thought. “That last part seems awfully convenient.”

  “Isn’t it. Britt said she remembers seeing her father after they returned from the funeral. She even has that photo taken at that train museum. If he was still alive then, Eleanor’s father couldn’t have murdered him.”

  “So if it wasn’t the father, who was it?” asked Cordelia.

  “It had to have been someone in the family. With my own ears, I heard Lena say she had nothing to do with it. So, if our time line is right, and Stew died sometime after Britt and her mother returned home from the funeral—when Pauline and Stew were in the midst of a divorce—that only leaves three other people who could have done it. Eleanor. Her son, Frank. Or Iver.”

  “Well, four if you count the newly arisen Timmy.”

  “But he was only six years old at the time.”

  “Perhaps he was precocious. Or big for his age.”

  Jane shot her an exasperated look.

  “I’m just saying it’s possible. And what was the motive?”

  “I can think of several, but all of them would just be guesses.”

  “Does Britt know about Lena’s death?”

  “No, I left her a voice mail message, asked her to call me. This is her last full day at the conference. I’m sure she’s crazy busy.”

  “Boy, the news about Timmy is going to blow her mind.”

  Jane was more worried about how she’d take the news of Lena’s death. “Look, the officer I talked to last night pressed me about how long I’d been living at the house. I had to tell him that I was a PI. Or, maybe I didn’t have to tell him, but … it came out. Butch Averil was there, so I figure it’s only a matter of time before the family finds out. I’m busted, Cordelia. I can’t go back there. But … Olive Hudson can. In fact, she has to.”

  “Listening at keyholes is a specialty of Olive’s.”

  “That would be good, but there’s something else. You know that young blond kid, Quentin Henneberry, the one who rented the other large bedroom?”

  “I saw him waft by once or twice.”

  “There’s something odd about that guy. When I was leaving my bedroom this morning, after I’d packed my bag, I noticed something on the floor next to the credenza that sits between my room and his—right next to his doorway. It was a little digital recorder. About the size of a large paperclip. I priced them once because I was thinking of buying one. It can store something like ninety hours of recordings. Why would he put that outside his room? What was he trying to capture? Eleanor? I mean, from what I was able to observe, she goes up to
her room around nine, closes the door, and doesn’t come out until morning.”

  “What about secret assignations with Iver? It’s always possible. Maybe the kid’s kind of kinky and wanted to record a little senior hanky-panky.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that.”

  “Well,” said Cordelia, slapping her thighs and standing up. “I will head over there tonight, sniff around, do my Olive Hudson routine, for which I expect, at the very least, a Golden Globe nomination, and give you a full report in the morning.”

  “By the way, I’ll need to stop by tonight and pick up my dogs.”

  Cordelia sighed. “Hattie won’t be happy. She’d take in every bunny, chipmunk, squirrel, duck, goose, and raccoon in the metro area if she could. Did I tell you she’s talking about becoming a field biologist when she grows up? I suppose that’s slightly better than her yearlong infatuation with astrophysics, and the earlier obsession with bugs.” She gave a shudder. “Why oh why can’t she be interested in, oh, I don’t know—Theater of the Absurd, Elizabethan court masques, or epic poetry. Something normal. Something practical.”

  “Where there are no wood ticks,” said Jane.

  “Precisely.”

  “You’re a good auntie, always encouraging her to be what she wants to be.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Cordelia. “I’m a saint.” Throwing a grin over her shoulder as she headed for the door, she added, “Saint Cordelia of Thornfield Hall.”

  * * *

  Jane spent the remainder of the morning in her office, drinking copious cups of coffee to stay awake while she attempted to catch up on restaurant business. Shortly before noon, she removed her reading glasses, leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms high over her head. Julia was never far from her mind. She had every intention of spending the afternoon at the hospital, though it was too early to leave just yet. She placed another call to the mysterious Dixie in Charlotte, North Carolina, Stew’s onetime girlfriend, but once again had to leave a voice mail message.

  As she turned her attention to the monthly profit and loss statement, the name Karen Ritter popped into her head. Bringing up Facebook on her laptop, Jane typed the name in and waited for the page to appear. Instead of “friending” Karen, she decided to leave her a private message.

  Karen, hi. My name is Jane Lawless. I’m

  a private investigator. I’ve been hired by Britt

  Ickles, Lena Skarsvold’s niece, to look into

  certain family matters. I understand that you’re

  a friend of Lena’s. I wonder if there’s any way we

  could meet and I could ask you a few questions.

  Jane left her cell phone number and her number at the restaurant, and then signed off. She switched over to her own page to see if there were any new posts. While she was reading something from her niece, Mia, she received a response from Karen.

  Jane, hi. Karen here. Yes, Lena and I were

  once great friends. We haven’t seen each other

  in years, but keep in touch via Facebook. Sure,

  I’d be happy to meet with you. I must admit,

  I’m curious about what you’re “investigating.”

  Tonight would work for me, as long as it’s

  early. I’ll be out and about, so I could meet

  you. Just tell me where and when.

  Jane responded, thanking her, suggesting six o’clock, and then giving her the address of her house. Karen might not have much to add to what Jane already knew, and yet finding an old friend of Lena’s seemed like something she needed to check out.

  31

  Looking up at the withered old face reflected in the mirror across the room, Eleanor let the book slip from her hand. She’d been reading Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson for several weeks, never making much progress because she had so many other thoughts pressing on her that she had a hard time concentrating for more than a few minutes at a time. She’d begun reading the book after a friend from church had quoted Johnson to her. “At seventy-seven it is a time to be in earnest.” Eleanor had missed the date by three years. Perhaps the time for an earnest evaluation of her life had come and gone. It was hard to look into the darkness surrounding her now and see anything very clearly.

  The doctor who had pronounced Lena dead said that an autopsy would need to be performed. As a nurse, Eleanor understood that unattended deaths required it, and yet the thought of her sister’s body being put through that kind of indignity made her sick at heart. She pleaded to be allowed to take Lena’s body to a funeral home, where she could be prepared for burial. They’d done a blood test and knew she’d had an excess of alcohol in her system. That and a Tylenol overdose mixed with frigid night air had surely been the cause of death. What more did they need?

  “Lena,” she whispered, looking up. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

  Eleanor had always felt that, when analyzing a problem, it helped to trace it back to its origin. But that was part of her dilemma. Where had it started? With Lena’s bad decision to sleep with Pauline’s boyfriend? With Stew Ickles arriving at the house? Was the attempt at a cover-up the beginning? Or, as Eleanor feared, was it the one singular, horrific, self-serving lie she’d told that was the genesis of all that came after. She didn’t know. She couldn’t say. She began to cry.

  Rising from her chair, she drifted to the door and then out into the hall. She didn’t see the young renter until she’d almost bumped into him.

  “I’m sorry about your sister,” said Quentin.

  “Thank you.” She walked past him down the stairs. She was having trouble focusing. Iver was angry at her. He’d said as much. If she lost him, she’d lose the only thing that kept her going. No, that wasn’t true. She still had Frank. Her son had always been the one part of her life she would do anything to protect, no matter what the cost. Now, it appeared, it had cost her everything.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  She adjusted her glasses. Frank was lying on the couch in the living room. She hadn’t heard him come in. “Oh,” she said. “You startled me. When did you get here?”

  “I saw that you’d called me a bunch of times. Thought I should come by. Hey, before we get into … whatever … could you make me a sandwich?”

  The ordinary request calmed her. “Of course I can. But all I have is peanut butter or bologna.”

  “Bologna would be good. With extra mayo. And maybe some mustard. Actually, I’m kind of hungry. Could you make two?”

  “Come into the kitchen,” she said. She found her apron on the hook behind the door and tied it on.

  Frank pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. He played with the saltshaker as she worked at the counter. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s Wendy. We had another fight. She’s moving back in with her parents. I’ll go home tomorrow, but I’ll need to stay here tonight.”

  “You can always stay here, you know that. This is your home. In fact, maybe it’s time you move in permanently. Now that Lena’s gone—”

  His head snapped up.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I forgot that you didn’t know. That’s what I’ve been calling you about. She attempted suicide last night. She died this morning.”

  “Died?”

  “Yes. It’s all such a shock.”

  He turned his head, looked out the window. “How’d she do it?”

  “Booze. Tylenol. She went out onto the porch and somehow managed to fall off. She landed in the snow.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “No, one of the renters did. Jane.” She walked over and set the plate of sandwiches in front of him, along with a glass of milk.

  “Thanks.”

  “You see, honey, there’s no reason now why you shouldn’t move in here. This is your house. I don’t have much money, so this will be your inheritance. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”

  “I don’t want this place,” he said, cocking his head.

  �
��Of course you do.”

  “I don’t.” He took a bit of the first sandwich, wiped a hand across his mouth and then downed half the glass of milk. “This house is nothing but a white elephant. A money pit. Why would I want to take that on? In fact, why don’t you get rid of it? Move somewhere else. You’re too old to take care of a place this big.”

  “But Frank, this is our family home. It’s been handed down for generations.”

  He stuffed half a sandwich into his mouth, chewed. “Why, of all places on earth, would I want to live here, especially after what happened. Lena was right. It’s a freakin’ nightmare house.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Of course he would live here. This was his birthright. His legacy. She’d preserved the house, scrimped and saved every penny to pay the taxes and keep it from falling into ruin. Everything she’d done was for her son.

  “Was that the front doorbell?” asked Frank.

  “What?”

  “Do you have your hearing aids in?” Looking annoyed, he got up and left the room. A few moments went by before Eleanor heard Butch’s voice. She stood and walked into the living room.

  “Sorry,” said Butch, removing his baseball cap. “I was hoping I could get an update on Lena’s condition. Novak was wondering, too.”

  “She’s dead,” said Frank, still chewing. “Died this morning.”

  “Would you like to join us in the kitchen?” asked Eleanor. She could see how upset he was at the news. “I made a pumpkin pie yesterday.”

  “How … how did she die?”

  “Pills and booze,” said Frank. “And frigid weather. A lethal combination.”

  “So … it was definitely a suicide?” asked Butch.

  “What else would it be?” asked Frank, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “You think one of us murdered her?”