A Whisper of Bones

by Ellen Hart

  Butch’s gaze slid from Frank to Eleanor. “No, of course not.”

  “You were here this morning, weren’t you?” asked Eleanor. “You talked to the police?”

  “Yeah. Mostly the cop wanted to speak to Jane—your renter. She found Lena in the snow. Did you know she was a private investigator? That Britt hired her.”

  “She’s what?” said Frank, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

  “A PI,” said Butch. “Yeah, it surprised me, too.”

  Frank turned to glare at his mother. “Did you know anything about that?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Didn’t you vet her? Don’t you vet the people you rent to?”

  “Well, not extensively.”

  “You’re an idiot. I’m surrounded by idiots.” He grabbed his coat off the couch.

  “Don’t go yet,” said Eleanor. “Please. There’s something important I need to tell you.”

  “I better head back to my house,” said Butch, looking uncomfortable as he slipped his cap back on. “Will you let me know about the funeral?”

  “Just leave,” said Frank, stomping to the door and yanking it open.

  “Yes, I’ll let you know,” said Eleanor. “We haven’t made any plans yet.”

  As soon as Butch walked out, so did Frank.

  Eleanor sank onto the couch feeling utterly defeated.

  32

  When Jane returned to the ICU that afternoon, she was told that Julia had been moved into private a room on the fifth floor. She was watching TV and eating lunch when Jane entered with a bouquet of pink roses.

  “You look so much better,” said Jane, bending over to give her a kiss.

  “And you look awful. Like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

  “Caffeine is my friend.”

  Julia pressed the flowers to her nose. “These are so beautiful. You shouldn’t have.”

  “You mean, I should have.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  Jane was incredibly grateful to see some normal color back in Julia’s cheeks. “I also brought a cribbage board—in case you were up for a game.” Jane glanced around the room. “Where would I find a vase?” She was about go in search of one when Julia reached for her hand. “Let me keep them for a minute. They’re so alive, so fresh. Hospitals are the opposite. Good when you’re sick, but never a place to get well.”

  “That from a doctor,” said Jane, pulling over a chair.

  “No, sit here. With me.” She moved over so that Jane could sit on the bed. “That’s better.”

  “What do your doctors say? Have any of the test results come back?”

  “They all tell me I’m better. That, if everything continues to go well, I’ll be released tomorrow. Or Sunday at the latest. Can you come pick me up?”

  “Just let me know when.” She touched Julia’s cheek, traced the curve of her lips. “Does that mean they think this experimental drug you’re on is working?”

  “Someone has to get lucky. Might as well be me.”

  As they continued to talk, Jane was struck by the casual affection and genuine tenderness in their words. “You know,” she said, her eyes shifting to the window, “sometimes I think I’ve forgotten how to be at peace with myself.”

  Julia laughed. “You’ve never been at peace with yourself.”

  “Really?” But if that was true, then why did she feel that way now?

  “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” said Jane.

  “Go home. Get some rest.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I’ll be fine. Look, neither of us is as young as we used to be. When you’re healthy, it seems like a given, like it will go on forever. It doesn’t. You’ve been so generous with me these last few months. Let me take care of you every now and then. Okay?”

  Jane didn’t want to leave. Being sleep deprived wasn’t the end of the world, and yet the way Julia put it to her, that she wanted to give something back, made it impossible for her to say no. “I’ve got a meeting at six. I’ll come by after I’m done.”

  “Come here,” said Julia, setting the roses aside and drawing Jane close. “No long goodbyes, okay. Not ever. Just a quick, passionate one.”

  * * *

  Butch sat on the futon couch in his living room, staring out the picture window with the Saint Paul paper open on his lap. His usual morning routine consisted of making coffee and then sitting down to go through each of the local newspapers, which were delivered to his front door. Today, however, he couldn’t seem to tame the jumble of thoughts and emotions spinning around inside him. It hadn’t helped his mood when the coffeemaker he’d bought at a secondhand store refused to turn on. He hadn’t been to a grocery store all week, preferring to eat most of his meals out. Thus, he was reduced to drinking a beer. For some reason it tasted so foul that he got up and returned to the kitchen, pouring it down the drain.

  As he sat back down, the doorbell rang and then, only seconds later, someone started pounding. Hearing a familiar voice shout, “Come on, Averil, open up,” Butch trudged over to the door. Novak stood outside, his breath coming in visible puffs. “You heard anything more about Lena?” he asked. “I rang the doorbell next door, but nobody answered.”

  “Might as well come in,” said Butch.

  He stepped inside. “My God, man, ain’t nothing in here. Just a couch.”

  “I travel light.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  Butch scraped the newspapers off the futon, sitting down on one end as Novak dropped down on the other. He sucked in a breath, trying to tamp down his feelings, and delivered the bad news about Lena.

  “Aw, nah. Nah. That reeks, man. Suicide?”

  “That’s what Eleanor said.”

  “Shit.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Wish I had a joint. You have anything?”

  “Sorry.”

  Butch sat silently, refusing to look at Novak, though he could tell the news had hit him hard.

  “You know, like, maybe we should smoke a menthol in her honor.”

  Butch smiled. “I hate cigarettes. Especially menthols.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  They each stared at their hands until Butch made a decision about something he wanted to say to Novak. “You burned that garage down, didn’t you.”

  “What? What the hell?”

  “It never made any sense to me that you kept pushing Lena to sell her house. I finally figured it out.”

  “I was just trying to be helpful, man. Help those two old ladies out.”

  “No you weren’t.”

  “You calling me a liar?”

  “You bought that house across the street so you could flip it. What happens when you’re ready to put it on the market? Somebody comes through and likes what you did, but when they walk out the front door, they get a good look at the Skarsvold place. Nobody wants to buy a house across the street from an eyesore. The way that house looks would take thousands off your profit. So what do you do? Burn the garage to the ground. Maybe it scares the sisters enough so that they decide to leave. At the very least, the insurance payout would be enough to repair some of the worst parts of the place. It’s win-win for you either way.”

  Novak’s chin sank to his chest. “You think I’m gonna admit to arson, man, you’re crazy.”

  “No, but we both know you did it.”

  “You gonna say something to the cops?”

  “Nope. No interest in that.”

  “Well then,” said Novak, wiping a hand across his eyes. “Ain’t nothing more to be said, I guess.”

  “I guess,” agreed Butch.

  “You heard anything about a funeral?”

  “I imagine they’ll have to do an autopsy first. Might take some time.”

  “Why? If they know it was a suicide, why bother?”

  “It’s pretty standard.”

  “It’s bullshit.”

  Butch shrugged.

  “She w
as a friend, you know?” Novak sat for another few seconds and then got up. “I’m gonna be screwed if I don’t get back to work. Later, man.”

  “Yeah, later,” replied Butch, watching out the window as Novak headed across the street to his truck. For the next few minutes, he sat motionless, unwilling or unable to move. When he finally picked up the stack of newspapers, thinking he’d try once again to get through them, a snapshot fell into his lap. It was the only picture of Jenny he had. In the photo, a very pregnant young woman sat on a dock dangling her feet the water. Looking at her sad face always made him feel sad, too. On the back someone had written, “Jenny Nelson, June eighteenth. Day after husband’s deployment.”

  From that one stolen photo, Butch had learned four things. Jenny was married. Her married name was Nelson. She had at least one child. And her husband was in the military. Beyond that, he knew she lived in Minnesota, that she had an older brother, and that her father was gravely ill—or had been a couple months ago. Every photo Butch had taken since coming to the Twin Cities had been downloaded into his computer and compared against the picture of Jenny on the dock. A couple of the women had come close, though in the end, none of them turned out to be her. With a name like Jenny Nelson in a state where, if you shook a tree, at least three dozen Nelsons would fall out, finding her was like finding a Norwegian needle in a Lutheran haystack. He’d done his research. Nailed down as many possibilities as he could. But, three weeks in, he was beginning to think that, unless he somehow got extremely lucky, he would never find her.

  Butch spent the next few minutes finishing up with the Saint Paul paper. Nothing stood out. Turning his attention to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he scanned each section. He always gave special attention to the obituaries, thinking that, if Jenny’s father was ill, he might have died.

  “Oh my God,” he said out loud when he got to the fifth obit on the page.

  Next to a picture of a white-haired man in a business suit was the notice:

  EDWARD MYRON JOHNSON, 71, onetime majority leader in the Minnesota State Senate, died on December 11th after open-heart surgery. Ed was a much beloved Republican lawmaker and businessman in the Twin Cities, serving as a state senator for the last twenty-two years of his life. Ed was blessed with a large and loving family. He is survived by his wife of forty-nine years, Emma Thalberg Johnson of Stillwater, his son, Paul Johnson of Minneapolis, his daughter and son-in-law, Steve and Jenny Nelson of Saint Bonifacius, and his three grandchildren, Chelsea, Dylan, and Michael. The family gratefully declines flowers and donations. Funeral information has not been announced.

  Butch opened his laptop and typed in Saint Bonifacius. Minneapolis was a city of over four hundred thousand people. He knew because he’d looked it up. Looking for Paul Johnson would take time. Saint Bonifacius, as he now saw, only had twenty-three hundred people. It was twenty-five miles west of Minneapolis. He typed Jenny Nelson into the Saint Bonifacius White Pages. There she was. Her phone was listed along with her address: 19840 Andover Lane.

  As he punched the numbers into his cell, his hands began to shake. Four rings. Five. After the sixth, the voice mail picked up. A man’s voice said, “You’ve reached Steve, Jenny, Chelsea, Dylan, and Mike. Please leave a message.”

  Butch froze. After all this time, he didn’t know what to say. Instead of leaving a message, he cut the line, realizing that, now that he’d found her, the one thing he couldn’t tell her was the truth. He had to talk to her in person, to finesse the situation to get the information he wanted. And to do that, he needed to think through the possibilities. He was so close now that his entire body began to thrum with nervous excitement. He’d found her. She was the link. His last chance.

  33

  After picking up her dogs at Cordelia’s house, Jane drove home through the sunny winter afternoon. Retrieving her mail from the box inside the front closet, she glanced through it for a few seconds, then headed for the kitchen, where she let the dogs out into the backyard. She watched them out the kitchen window as she made herself a sandwich. When they came up to the back porch, barking to be let in, she dried their feet and put down some kibble and fresh water.

  It was going on two. Lena’s friend, Karen Ritter, was stopping by around six. Instead of going upstairs to her bed, Jane built a fire in the living room fireplace. She curled up on the couch to watch the logs burn. Mouse eventually came in and took up his usual place on the rug in front of the hearth. Gimlet hopped up on the couch and nestled down next to her, burying her nose under Jane’s arm. As the fire crackled and snapped, and the logs shifted in the grate, Jane drifted off to sleep.

  She woke several hours later to the sound of a doorbell.

  Mouse and Gimlet raced into the foyer as Jane, running a hand through her hair, followed behind. “You two be good now,” she said. “Sit.”

  Mouse sat. Gimlet jumped up and down.

  “Gimlet,” said Jane, pointing a finger at her. “Sit.” They’d been practicing this for weeks, mainly for Gimlet’s benefit.

  Looking momentarily chastened, Gimlet sat down.

  “Good. Now stay.” Jane opened the door.

  “I’m sorry, I’m early,” said a woman in a camel wool coat.

  “Karen?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Not a problem,” said Jane. “Thanks so much for coming.” While she’d been asleep, the bright afternoon had faded into night.

  “Oh, you have dogs,” said Karen, hesitating.

  “I can put them in the kitchen, if you want. Not everyone likes dogs.”

  “Are they friendly?”

  “Very,” said Jane.

  “Then I’m fine,” said Karen. “I wasn’t sure I had the right house. The streets get kind of tangled around here.”

  Jane released Mouse and Gimlet, who rushed up to Karen to sniff and nudge her hands. Once everyone was done saying hello, Jane led the way into the living room. The fire had long ago burned down to ash, though there were a couple glowing coals still giving off tiny bit of heat. As she took Karen’s coat and draped it over one of the chairs by the picture window, she motioned her to the couch.

  “The reason I’m early,” said Karen, sitting down, “is that my daughter called a few minutes ago. She unexpectedly got the evening off and wondered if I’d like to get together for dinner. I said I’d make a meatloaf, so I’ve only got a few minutes.”

  Jane sat in the rocker next to the hearth, the dogs hunkering down around her feet. “This won’t take long,” she said, feeling a flutter in her stomach. She knew that, before she could begin the conversation, she had to tell her about Lena.

  “Dead?” said Karen after she’d heard the news, narrowing her eyes as she gazed up at the mirror above the mantel. “I … I had no idea.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone,” said Jane.

  “No, I understand. It’s just … so sudden. So unexpected.” She paused to remove her glasses so she could wipe her eyes. “You said you found her? Was it an accident?”

  “I haven’t heard the final word on that. One of the policemen at the scene thought it might be suicide.”

  “Oh,” she said, just above a whisper.

  “Were you two close?”

  “Well, no, not for many years. We were friends on Facebook, though that’s not saying much. I haven’t seen her in person since—let me think.” She glanced down at the dogs. “Probably the mid-nineties. We met when we were both waitressing at the Lexington Grill on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve eaten there many times,” said Jane. It was one of her father’s favorites.

  “We worked together for, oh maybe six months before she quit. Even after she left, we stayed friends. I was a dozen years younger, but it didn’t seem to matter because we had so much in common. We double-dated a lot. She always had a new guy. Me, I stuck with the same one.”

  “What was Lena like back then?”

  “Oh, my,” said Karen. “Wild and crazy. She had a motorcycle,
liked to go off for weeks at a time. She’d work a while, build up her savings, then quit and take off for parts unknown. Sometimes with a guy, sometimes alone. She wasn’t the deep thinker type, but she read a lot, mostly science fiction and fantasy. She drank a lot back then, too. She was really beautiful, at least in my opinion. Always reminded me of Demi Moore. And she was funny. Loved music, especially rock. We were always going to one concert or another.”

  Karen stopped and smiled at a memory. “When I first met her, she was living on ramen noodles and bananas. Hated to cook. She was fun to be around—unless she’d had too much to drink. I never understood that. I mean, she had so much going for her. I know she didn’t get along with her sisters. Eleanor was the older one. I met her once and, at least to me, she seemed really nice. She was a nurse, if I remember correctly. Kind of religious, but then, I was raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran, so I had the same background. Never met the younger sister. I think her name was Paula. They’d both gone to college and Lena never had. After a while it occurred to me that she must have felt embarrassed by that, like she hadn’t lived up to family expectations. She saw herself as the black sheep, that’s for sure, and she was darn sure she was going to live up—or down—to that. I know it hit her hard when her dad died. She’d been really close to him, especially when she was younger.”

  “Do you know why Lena and Eleanor didn’t get along?”

  “Some history they had together. Bad blood, you know? It included the other sister, too, although Lena was pretty tight-lipped about it.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I just can’t believe she’s gone. And suicide? No.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Jane.

  “Just … because of something that happened once.”

  Jane waited to see if she’d elaborate. When she didn’t, she continued, “Lena made a friend of one of her neighbors. A guy named Butch. I talked to him early this morning, after the ambulance took Lena away. He said he didn’t believe it was suicide either. He told me she had plans, that she seemed upbeat. I suppose it could have been an accident.”

  “That’s more likely,” agreed Karen. “Suicide doesn’t make sense.”