Behind the Bonehouse

by Sally Wright

  “It did. But I’m the one Carl hated. He thought every attempt I made to improve processes in the lab, which is what I was hired to do, was nothing but a personal attack.”

  “So that’s gone on awhile.”

  “Almost two years. Pretty much since the day I arrived. And then I found out two weeks ago—when the auditor showed up here unannounced—that Carl had also gotten him to investigate Jo and me, and her part-time architectural business, and the broodmare-care business Toss runs with her. Carl was a vindictive person, Earl. And he’d started a vendetta against me.”

  “Anybody corroborate that?”

  “Sure. Bob Harrison. His lawyer. Jo. Does it need corroboration?”

  “Would you say Bob holds a grudge?”

  “No. I mean he’s disgusted by Carl, like you’d expect. But nothing out of the ordinary. He’s reacted like an honest man faced with someone who’s dishonest who’s done him deliberate harm. You have to learn to see it for what it is, and then go on about your business. Bob’s worked for a big pharmaceutical company. He’s had his own equine vet practice. He’s taught in vet schools. He’s got all kinds of experience with business politics and career ambition, and he knows how to walk away.”

  Earl didn’t say anything else for a minute. He just gazed out at the pond, tapping his index fingers on the arms of his chair. “Carl said it was you who’d been threatenin’ and tormentin’ him. Said he feared for his life at your hands. Not those words exactly, but that’s the gist of it.”

  “What! Where’d he say that?”

  “In a journal he hid for safe keepin’.”

  “Crap.” Alan stared at Earl for a minute, his heart picking up speed, a wave of heat rolling up his chest, cresting against his face. “May I see the journal?”

  Earl hesitated and crossed his arms before he said, “Don’t figure it’d be proper for me to let ya see it.”

  Jo walked out of the kitchen, and stood behind them, right at the back of the arbor. “Earl, your deputy’s here. Pete somebody.”

  “Phelps. Thanks. Would you mind tellin’ him to wait in his truck? I’ll be there in a second.”

  Jo nodded and went back in the house, before Alan said, “What’s going on Earl?”

  “You ever seen this?” He handed Alan the plastic bag holding the black enamel pen with the engraved gold rim.

  Alan looked at it without taking it out, and said, “Jo gave it to me as a wedding present. It’s been missing a couple of weeks. I had it in my desk in the lab, and then it just disappeared. I came to work and it was gone. I lock my desk when I leave at night, and my office too, so having it go missing didn’t make sense. I asked people in the lab if they’d seen it, thinking maybe I left it someplace, or it fell out of my pocket. So they’ll pro’bly know how long ago that was. Where did you find it?”

  “Under Carl’s bed. Right under his body.”

  “No!” Alan swung his chair around to face Earl, his face red and his green eyes on fire, his hands crushing the arms of his chair. “I didn’t put it there! I’ve never even been in his house. I can’t believe you’re telling me this!”

  “I gotta ask ya, ya know I do. Where was you last night?”

  “Do you really think I’d murder Carl and kill his cat? Earl! Come on! You know me. I’d never do something like that.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. I wouldn’t. But I gotta do my job.”

  “I know. Damn. I know you do.” Alan sat frozen for a minute. He even ignored Emmy when she came up and laid her head on his knee. “I got home from work a little before six. I changed my clothes, and was going out for a walk with Emmy when the phone rang, and a man’s voice said it was Virgil Shafer calling, and that a horse Bob had injected with an experimental vaccine that morning was having a bad reaction, and he couldn’t get Bob on the phone. He said he’d called another vet to come out, but I should come too.

  “I jumped in the car, and drove out McCracken Pike as fast as I could.” Alan stopped and stared at Earl. “Nobody was there. Nobody. The horse was fine too. So I figured it was a crank call. Or something more sinister that didn’t make any sense. Anyway, I got Virgil on the phone about ten last night, and he said he never called. He and his family had gone to a potluck supper and Wednesday night service at their church. That the horse had had no reaction at all, and somebody was pulling my leg.”

  “That make any sense?”

  “No, it doesn’t. I can’t think of anybody who would’ve done it as a joke.”

  “What about the other guy ya mentioned. Butch.”

  “I s’ppose he could’ve done it, but it doesn’t sound much like him. He’s drinking a lot and kind of having trouble organizing anything. At least from what I can tell.”

  “How was he with Carl?”

  “As far as I know they were commiserating with each other for having been treated unfairly. Strange, don’t you think? When they were the ones who stole the formulas and were trying to go into business to compete with Bob?”

  “Was Jo here when you got the call?”

  “She was driving Jack Freeman up to Cincinnati to catch a plane to France.”

  “Toss?”

  “Nope. He brings the pregnant mares in about five during foaling season, then goes on home for dinner. He comes back around nine or so, to keep an eye on them during the night.”

  “So somebody who knew you folks, and the farm here and all, could know that?”

  “Yeah. They wouldn’t have known Jo was going to be gone, necessarily. Even if she’s working away from home, she’s usually home by six. And whoever it was would have to have known that the horse was inoculated yesterday.”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “No. Right now I’m in a state of shock.”

  “Somebody did see your car last night on McCracken Pike, there where it gets to be Elm Street, so you explainin’ why you was there’s a real good thing.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t.” Alan was breathing fast, his eyes boring into Earl, both feet tapping the old brick floor.

  “Is it true that you accosted Carl at Keeneland during the races?”

  “Geeze, Earl. It sounds like you’re actually seeing me as a serious suspect!”

  “I have to, Alan. I do. Not that I believe it. But I gotta follow through.”

  “I know. I know.” Alan set both hands on his head and held them there while he spoke. “Yes. I did confront him at Keeneland. It was right after the IRS guy showed up here and started the ‘investigation,’ and Carl walked up to me and said, with an intentionally insulting smirk on his face, how he heard I was in trouble with the IRS. He’d set the whole investigation up! And him saying that was a deliberate slap in the face. Rubbing salt in the wound might be a better way to put it. So I did yell at him. And I regretted it afterwards. And I went to his house a couple days later to apologize. He was there. His car was in the drive. But he wouldn’t come to the door. So I wrote him a note of apology and stuck it in the front door.”

  “But you don’t have a copy?”

  “No. I just grabbed a legal pad out of my briefcase and wrote him a quick note.”

  “You ever been in Carl’s house?”

  “No. Never. I told you that a minute ago.”

  “Right. I gotta have Pete get your fingerprints. And get a sample of your handwriting too. I’m just doing that with everybody. Miz Seeger too, ’cause you never know what you’ll find, and I’m just trying to anticipate every eventuality.”

  “Fine.”

  “Then I’d like to get your permission to examine your house and your car. You don’t have to let me do that. You could make me get a warrant. But if you’ve never been in Carl’s house, we can use what we find to clear your name. If there’re no fragments of carpet in your shoes, or dirt from his grounds in your car, and that kinda thing, it’ll help you prove your innocence.”

  “Fine with me. Whatever you have to do.”

  “You folks use Selectric typewriters at Equine?”


  “We have a couple. Maybe three or four.”

  “Ya got one here?”

  “No. Why would you ask that?”

  Earl didn’t say anything for a minute. He seemed to be considering how best to answer as he finished his tea and stared at the pond, then leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs, clasping his hands between his knees. “I think it’d be better if I didn’t explain. It’d make it better for you in the long run.”

  “Really!”

  “Down the road, if it comes to it, would you be willin’ to take a polygraph test?”

  “Of course I would. I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Good. I reckon you folks use some kinda gloves in the lab for doin’ experiments?”

  “Yeah. We use B&D plastic disposable syringes too, just like the one you showed me.”

  “That saved me a question. Thanks. And I figure it’s to your credit for bein’ real straightforward.

  “I didn’t kill him, Earl. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “I hear what you’re sayin’. And I thank you for all the help. I better get movin’, though. You willing to show me your clothes and your shoes? I’ll set Pete to looking through your car. I’d like to see your desk too, along with the rest of the house.”

  “Wherever you want to start.”

  “Oh, yeah. One other thing. Were you an assassin during World War II?”

  “It’s not what I did, no.”

  “Can ya tell me more than that?”

  “You ever hear of Wild Bill Donovan?”

  “He the guy who started some behind-the-scenes outfit that turned into the CIA? An intelligence group, kinda like the Brits had?”

  “Yeah. I worked for him in Europe. Jo’s brother did too. There were demolition groups in uniform. And intelligence agents who weren’t.”

  “Must still be pretty hush-hush. I never hear nothin’ about it.”

  “It is. I can’t legally talk about it. But I didn’t assassinate anyone.”

  Earl left with the paddock boots Alan had worn the night before, and the black lace shoes he’d worn to work that morning. Pete Phelps took a sample of dirt from the driver-side floormat, and searched through every other part of the car, and might’ve taken something else—from what Jo could tell, as she watched from the porch, without any idea what was happening.

  Alan came out, and was standing beside her, when Earl and Pete drove off—Earl in his sedan, Pete in his pickup, decals starting to curl on both Pete’s doors.

  “What’s going on, Alan?” Jo had begun to feel sick, even before she stared at the hard closed-up worry that had taken control of his face. She’d never seen him at a loss before. But that’s where he was now.

  “Pray, Jo.”

  “I will. For what?”

  “Help. I don’t know exactly. But I’m beginning to think Carl figured out a way to make it look like I murdered him.”

  “What!”

  “We need to give some thought to who we’d use as a lawyer if I need one. Somebody who does criminal work, not just civil.”

  “Alan!”

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry, Jo. We’ll talk about it tonight. I’ve got to get back to work and tell Bob what’s going on too.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Earl Peabody had called Jane Seeger at home shortly after he left Carl’s house that morning. It turned out to be her day off, so he arranged to meet her at her house at two that afternoon.

  She’d been a few years behind him in school, but he’d known her since they were kids, and he figured talking to her would be pretty straightforward. She’d started out as a down-to-earth sort of practical person, naïve in a way when she was young, but less so now, from what he could tell, since she’d moved back from Indiana. But then Earl figured you either learned the lessons of living longer, or got run over in the road.

  ’Course, he also figured if you stayed a cop long enough, you’d see so much crazy meanness you could start to thinking there weren’t many decent folk left on top of the earth. It caused him to worry some, and question his wife too when he did or said something that scared him into thinking he was losing hold of his heart.

  But when he was driving to the office from Alan’s, he got to thinking about his dad. How he’d lost the farm and had to move to town because of the Depression with hardly a word of complaint. And then he started wondering how many young folks in 1964 knew how good they’d got it. Or would’ve been able to face hard facts the way folks before them had, too many days to count.

  He knew he couldn’t answer it. And he told himself to concentrate on organizing the evidence to get it driven up to Frankfort to the state police lab before the end of the day. He’d gather materials at Equine that afternoon too, and get them up there the next day, hopefully before noon.

  Talking to Janie an hour later gave him more to go on, at least in terms of picturing Carl as a flesh-and-blood person. It surprised him in some ways too, because her divorce had just come through, and he’d expected a lot of emotion from Jane, and bitterness most likely too.

  She seemed cooler than he’d figured. Analytical almost. Like she’d been figuring Seeger out over time, and had long ago lost the love and the illusions she said she’d had at the start. She told Earl she’d gotten to the point a long time before that she didn’t expect hardly anything from Carl, and had stayed to honor her vows.

  The respect had been the first to go, because she’d seen for herself, a couple years in, that he was kind of a vortex of a person. Which made no sense to Earl, and he’d asked her what that meant.

  “He took a tendency that’s a part of all of us, and shrunk himself down so it was all there was. He saw the whole of life—every person, every object, every opportunity, or kindness, or slight, only as it applied to him. Nobody was seen for who they were on their own, but only in terms of how they affected him—beneficial or harmful, one thing or the other.

  “When Carl met me back in Bloomington, he saw that if he married me, my sister’s husband could help him get a scholarship to IU, and provide a place for us to live rent free. So he went ahead and married me, with no more thought than he’d give to buying a pair of shoes.”

  Jane said she’d also seen years before that he’d lie when it suited him. When something he wanted would come of it, or something unpleasant would be avoided. “And when I asked him to do the one thing for me that would’ve meant the most to me, the answer was no, the instant I asked, and hasn’t wavered since.”

  Janie didn’t tell Earl what she’d asked for, but he could see it was still an open wound. And he asked if she’d been surprised when Carl stole the formula, partly just to change the subject.

  “That was simply the last straw. That, and his total lack of guilt, much less a sense of thankfulness to Bob Harrison for choosing not to prosecute. But even so, I don’t hate or despise Carl. I feel nothing much but weariness when I think of him, and regret that I stayed so long.”

  She said she hadn’t talked to him for more than a month, and she was glad Esther Wilkes had decided to quit. Carl spoke to Esther with such condescension and impatience, it was time Esther was actually appreciated for the fine work she did.

  When Earl asked if she knew Alan Munro, she said she’d met him only once, but she knew Jo slightly, and liked the little she’d seen. “Bob Harrison I do know, and he certainly behaved with professionalism and consideration. He was determined to put the situation behind him as quickly as possible without excessive legal entanglement, and I can understand that. But it might’ve done Carl an unintended disservice. It protected him once again from the painful results of his own behavior.

  “He’s been running from those his whole life long, and going to court might’ve helped him. Losing his job was something, but he rationalized it, and explained it away to his own satisfaction so he didn’t have to take any blame.”

  Earl asked what she knew about his death. And if Carl brought chemicals home from the lab. And if Alan Munro had seemed hostile, or t
hreatened Carl in anyway.

  Jane stirred her coffee before she answered, and then stared down at her hands. “Suicide would be a surprise. Other than that I can’t say. I never knew Carl to bring substances home from the lab, and as far as I know Alan Munro never treated Carl in any way that was anything but professional. Carl fought against Alan from the day Alan arrived at Equine. Primarily because, from what I could tell, Carl was secretly afraid Alan knew more than he did, and he wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

  When Earl asked how the divorce had gone through as fast as it had, she said, “Because I asked for nothing. Not the house, not the furniture, no money whatsoever. I took two rose bushes and three camellias and an antique stone dog from the garden beds in back, and left the rest of my past behind.”

  Jane gave Earl a sample of her handwriting, and let herself be fingerprinted, and agreed to come to the office on Friday to give him a formal statement.

  Then Earl finally asked where she’d been the night before.

  “I was working on the research desk in the history library at UK from one p.m. until nine.”

  She’d said it quietly, before sipping her coffee, a furry brown puppy asleep by her feet, and she’d looked to Earl like a woman who’d settled into her own life exactly the way she wanted. Like she’d thought a lot about what mattered, and found some sort of peace that didn’t depend on anyone else, but facts she’d faced herself.

  That’s what Earl told his wife on the phone that afternoon, when he’d called to say he’d be late coming home. That when he’d asked Janie how she felt about Carl’s death, she’d looked at the wall behind him for a minute, then opened a drawer in the table by her chair and pulled out a spiral notebook.

  “I feel nothing about his death for me. I’m not sad, or glad, or relieved. The tragedy was his. He wasted what he was given. He never saw that anything was a gift. Or there was any better way to live.”

  She’d said, “This may sound strange to you, Earl. And I surprised myself when I did it. But after I left Carl I copied out every reference to forgiveness in the Bible in this notebook. And when I was done, I was done with it. With the hurt, and the anger, and the wanting him to suffer I’d felt before.”