Behind the Bonehouse

by Sally Wright

  Alan tried to talk to Vincent Tuesday night, but he was working in a blind panic after having been gone, and he said he couldn’t concentrate on his work and talk to Alan too. Alan could see he wouldn’t get anything out of him that night, and he also felt even more sorry for him than normal because he seemed so flustered, partly because of the poor job done by the cleaning service while he was gone. Consequently, Alan decided to give Vincent a couple more days before he tried again.

  Spencer called Wednesday night. He’s been working so hard trying to get the buyout of Everett Adams’s van business organized we haven’t seen him hardly at all.

  But he called to say he’s had an idea he thinks might help. He didn’t tell us what it was, because he “doesn’t want to get our hopes up,” but he is “pursuing a line of inquiry” (which he said in an English accent as though he were Sherlock Holmes).

  I was telling him about trying to track down Carl’s doctor, waiting for his son to hear from him and tell us where he’s gone, and Spencer said, “When you do, I’ll drive wherever he is and get a written document.”

  I was speechless—before I thanked him. I’d been worrying about what we’d do, because Alan can’t leave the county. And it’d be hard for me to travel very far with Ross.

  On Thursday, Alan and Bob Harrison went to Vincent Eriksen’s house to see if they could talk to him. Vincent was there, but he didn’t come out. His sister said he was having “emotional difficulties”—perhaps from being away from work, and feeling unsure of accomplishing the work as well as normal, though she said she thought there was more to it than that, but what she didn’t know.

  Bob explained that it was very important that he or Alan speak to Vincent soon to see if he knows anything that might help Alan. She said she’d talk to him, and see what she could do. But that timing was very important with Vincent. If you waited till he was ready, the outcome was always better.

  So. We wait. It makes sense, but it makes me crazy. I’ve been praying for patience most of my adult life, because I was born wanting to move at a hundred miles an hour and when I can’t I fume. Life inside this bonehouse can feel like an endless obstacle course to someone as restless as me.

  Mom used to say that the way a prayer for patience gets answered is that you’re put through a string of situations that make you really impatient, and then you’re made to wait. I see why that works. I just wish there were another way.

  Emmy’s paw isn’t getting any worse, but not much better either, so we’re doctoring three times a day. Sam sliced his flank on a split fence board in his paddock too (which we found with some difficulty and replaced), and when the vet stitched him up, Sam turned his head and looked him in the eye in a considering sort of way, but stood stock still till he was done.

  Monday, June 1st, 1964

  Friday night the phone rang, and a thin wavery male voice asked to speak to Alan. When Alan got to the phone, the other person hung up. Which made Alan and Jo begin to worry. Though whoever it was sounded so unsettled it didn’t seem like a threat.

  Unlike the calls Alan was getting from Butch once or twice a week. They’d gotten more and more vindictive, and he’d begun to sound unhinged.

  Then Saturday morning at eight Jo got a call from Dr. Frazier’s son, Winston. His dad had called from Williamsburg, Virginia, and the son explained what had happened to Alan, and got his dad to agree to stay there, and visit the Williamsburg Inn for messages until someone appeared.

  Jo called Spence, and he said he’d get a neighbor to take care of his horses and he’d leave within the hour. He called at ten that night after having talked to Dr. Frazier, who’d said Carl had looked shocked when he’d heard about the cancer, more or less like anyone. But that then he’d said, with an oddly unpleasant expression on his face, “So I don’t have anything to lose.” The doctor said Carl had laughed then in a way that had made Dr. Frazier uncomfortable, before he’d reached over and grabbed his file off the doctor’s desk and left without another word.

  Spencer asked Dr. Frazier to write down everything he remembered, which he did right away, and Spencer would bring it to them the next day. The Doc said he’d call Winston more often too, in case Garner or the Sheriff wanted to talk to him directly so a time could be arranged.

  The next day, Sunday, Jo got a call from Buddy. He and Becky and the twins had come over on Saturday, to see how Jo and Alan were doing (and so Buddy could look at the yearlings too, with an eye to the July sales).

  Alan had told him their theory about how Carl could’ve gotten into the lab, and how they needed to talk to Vincent to see if he’d seen anything, since the receptionist hadn’t.

  Buddy went to the same church as Vincent, and he said he’d try to talk to him. He called Sunday afternoon and told Jo he’d talked to Vincent that morning, and he’d ended up agreeing that if Alan and Jo came to his house Monday morning he’d be willing to talk.

  It was torturous for Vincent, trying to describe what he’d seen. And though there were stops and starts and much staring off into space in the telling, the long and the short of it was that in March, at two in the morning on the 20th (he’d written the date in his monthly calendar, while he tried to decide what to do), Vincent had realized after he’d left work at midnight, and gotten home and gone to bed, that he hadn’t emptied the trash cans from the lab, which were by far the most critical because of the chemicals, the drugs, the hypodermics, and the glassware disposal, that all had to be handled differently with very precise controls.

  “I got dressed right away. And I drove to work. I went in the back way at 2:40 a.m., through the plant, the way I always do, and along the hall under the mezzanine. It’s a narrow hall, and there’s a door at the end that opens into the long back hall. That’s the hall that goes to the left the length of the lab by the plant.”

  Vincent stopped.

  And Alan nodded. And then said, “I remember.”

  “There’s a window there into the lab that faces the plant wall. And another window in your office, where it sits at the corner by the side hall. And as soon as I started to open the plant door opposite the lab, I saw … I saw movement inside your office.”

  Jo and Alan waited, watching Vincent stare at the street, till Jo finally asked him in a very quiet voice what had happened next.

  “Only the desk lamp was on. I know that for a fact. And I stood there, holding the door only slightly ajar, and I … I saw Mr. Seeger standing by your desk. … I know it was Mr. Seeger. I watched him for quite awhile. Opening drawers and picking something up, though what it was I couldn’t tell.

  “It upset me. Seeing Mr. Seeger. I knew he shouldn’t have been in the building, and certainly not in your office. But I didn’t know how to respond. I thought that perhaps I … I finally chose to leave the building without taking care of the laboratory trash. I knew I shouldn’t have done that. But there was nothing else I could think to do.”

  Vincent said he’d eventually decided that he should talk to Mr. Harrison, but the longer he postponed, the harder it got to make a move. Nothing bad seemed to have come of it. Weeks went by, and then Carl died, so what difference would it make? He went on his first vacation away from home, and then heard from his sister that Mr. Munro had been arrested, and the horror of it paralyzed him. Was he responsible for Carl Seeger’s death by not telling Mr. Harrison? Did Mr. Munro really kill Mr. Seeger? Vincent didn’t think he would, but how could he be sure? And what would happen if Mr. Munro found out he knew something and hadn’t been able to make himself talk? Did he harm Mr. Munro if he didn’t speak up? He didn’t know that what he’d seen mattered, and thinking about it was making him ill.

  But that Monday morning, as hard as it was for him, when Jo and Alan talked with him, Vincent told them everything he knew, and then wrote it down, slowly and carefully, and even told Alan he’d talk to the Sheriff if they thought he should, but he didn’t want to go to his office.

  It made Jo feel awful, watching Vincent torture himself. He looked so sad
, and so apologetic. And then he’d asked Jo if she could forgive him. That maybe if he’d told what he knew, Alan wouldn’t have been arrested.

  Jo thought about that for half a second, because that might indeed have been perfectly true, but watching Vincent suffer in ways she couldn’t fathom, made her say, “You’re a very good man. You did the best you could. There’s nothing that needs to be forgiven.”

  He’d jumped up then and said, “I have to go now.” And rushed into his house, his hands shaking as he picked up his cat and closed the door behind him.

  Jo was worrying about what talking to them might’ve done to Vincent by the time they walked toward their car, which was when Alan said, “He works so hard, and he’s so reliable, and I don’t think we’ll ever know how much that costs him.”

  “Or how much work comforts him too. Don’t you think it gives him a sense of purpose? A way to contribute that makes him feel worthwhile?”

  “I do. I think it helps keep him going. I also think his one piece of information could change the whole case.”

  “I hope.”

  “I’m going to take tomorrow off and drive up to Georgetown. Earl’s men got to the locksmiths in Lexington, and the smiths and hardware stores in Versailles and Midway, but no farther than that. I’ll take a picture of Carl and go up to Georgetown, and Frankfort if I have to, and Louisville after that, till I find the locksmith who made keys for Carl.”

  Tuesday, June 2nd, 1964

  Before Alan got back the next day, Spencer drove over right before supper. He slammed the truck door, and ran up to the house, and Jo saw him from the long drive when she was walking back from the barns. She had Ross with her in his stroller, and Emmy was limping back and forth beside them—though she took off toward the house, faster than Jo wanted her to, as soon as she saw Spence.

  He rubbed her chest and talked to her till Ross and Jo got there, and when Jo saw Spencer’s face, she knew he had good news. But all she said was, “You look hot and sticky. Want an iced tea or a lemonade?”

  “You aren’t going to offer me a bourbon?” He was laughing, looking down at her, a paper rolled up in his hand.

  “No, I’m not! Let’s go sit in back.”

  “Emmy’s foot must be better.”

  “It is. Thank God. It was touch and go for weeks. The vet even talked about having to amputate, before it turned around.”

  Jo put a comforter on the floor of the arbor, and plopped Ross down on that with pillows arranged in a circle around him. He’d just started sitting up, and she didn’t want him to crash over and hit his head on the bricks. “So what is it? You’re grinning from ear to ear.”

  “You ’member last week I said I’d had an idea, but I wasn’t going to tell you what? It’d finally occurred to me that the public phones in Versailles and Midway are privately owned. The owners put up the phone boxes, and collect the coins, and have all the records of what calls were placed.”

  “I’d forgotten, if I ever knew.”

  “Well, I know the guy who owns them in Versailles. And there’s one phone box almost at the corner of Main Street, maybe one block east of Carl’s house, and half a block south.”

  “And?”

  “My friend looked through the records, and at 5:59 p.m. on April 15th, a call was placed from that phone box to your home number.” Spencer’s blue eyes were crinkling at the corners, and he looked like a teenage boy who’d just bought his first car. “So though we can’t prove that Carl placed the call, we can prove that such a call was placed from close by Carl’s house, so that’s some corroboration for Alan’s side of the story.”

  “Thanks, Spence.” Jo’s throat was fighting against her and she swallowed before she could say anything else. “You’ve done so much for us. Driving to Williamsburg, when your own work’s so overwhelming. I don’t know how we can—”

  “’Member helping me two years ago? ’Member how you saved me from the worst mistake I couldda made? That would’ve—”

  “Still.”

  “You would’ve done the same for me.”

  Alan came home after Spencer left, having found a locksmith in Georgetown who recognized Carl from his picture. He’d brought putty impressions of three keys sometime in March, and he’d told him these were to his mother’s house—to an outside door, as well as her bedroom, and her desk. That she’d gotten horribly demented, and she’d lock herself in all the time, and then fall, and he couldn’t get in to help. Carl had said she couldn’t recognize him anymore, and she didn’t want him to have her keys. So he had to get them copied to care for her the way he should.

  Alan had found another locksmith in Franklin who’d made a copy of one key for Carl in late February or early March. And he had written documents from both of them with Carl’s photo attached.

  Jo was stunned, standing stock-still and staring. And Alan wrapped his arms around her and held her head against his chest.

  Friday, June 5th, 1964

  Garner and Alan presented their case to Sheriff Peabody at Garner’s office. Jo stayed home to take care of Ross, who was sick as a dog with stomach flu.

  It was tense—polite and respectful on both sides—but tense. Earl considered the materials they presented and listened to the extract of the case from Garner:

  —Carl Seeger had terminal lung cancer, which gave him a motive for killing himself to avoid suffering. He destroyed the records that revealed his illness and the identity of his doctor, including his engagement calendar and his address book, so no motive for suicide would be obvious.

  —He obtained access to Equine Pharmaceuticals, using impressions of four keys to obtain duplicates (details and documentation attached), where all materials left in his house to incriminate Alan had been procured.

  —He was seen by an eyewitness (document attached) in Alan’s office, taking something out of Alan’s desk early in the morning of March 20th, when the Selectric font ball was also replaced on the lab secretary’s typewriter (document attached).

  —He was seen the morning of his death beside Alan’s unlocked driver’s door (document attached), where he could have deposited the samples of dirt from outside his kitchen door that were found on Alan’s shoes and floormat.

  —A call placed from a public phone box less than two blocks from Carl Seeger’s house (private phone company records attached) to Alan at 5:59 that same evening caused Alan to drive down Carl Seeger’s road, thereby being seen by a witness, leaving him without an alibi for the time of Mr. Seeger’s death.

  —Carl Seeger’s hatred of Alan is well documented (see attached).

  —No evidence exists that places Alan in Carl Seeger’s house.

  Earl took his copies of the materials and rose to leave Garner’s conference room, when Alan asked if he could speak to him alone for a minute.

  Garner left. And Alan and Earl looked at each other from opposite sides of the table, Earl holding the file in one enormous hand, his big brown sheriff’s hat in the other. His face was flushed, and he was sweating, and he seemed to be avoiding Alan’s eyes.

  “Earl, I’ve always had real respect for you, and I think of you as a friend. I don’t hold this against you. I don’t. You had limited resources, and it’s been a complicated case. If Jo and I and Garner hadn’t had help from several other people, we wouldn’t have gotten the new evidence.

  “But this could still drag on. It may not be easy to get the County and the Commonwealth Attorneys to be willing to drop the case. I don’t want Jo to have to go through anymore of this if we can help it.”

  “You’re not askin’ me to do nothin’ outside the normal legal procedures and all?” Earl looked mildly indignant for half a minute, as though he were hoping for something to hold on to that would put Alan in the wrong.

  “No! Not at all. I just know that if you go to bat for us, the case will get dismissed a great deal faster than if you stay on the sidelines.”

  “The case ain’t open and shut. There’re still factors to be considered, that—”
>
  “Like our County Attorney being an ambitious man who’d like to look like an aggressive prosecutor in the middle of an election, and isn’t going to want to admit he’s brought a case against an innocent man?”

  Earl’s big broad face seemed to freeze, even in the heat, and he didn’t blink behind his black-framed glasses for what seemed like more than a minute. Then he put on his hat, and walked out the door, telling Alan he’d talk to him later.

  Excerpt From Jo Grant Munro’s Journal

  Sunday, June 7th, 1964

  The waiting’s getting harder. It’s been two days since Alan talked to Earl, and we keep thinking every time the phone rings it’ll be him saying he’ll talk to the County Attorney and try to get the case dropped.

  It’s never Earl, though. It’s Butch on the phone more than I can bear. Gloating. Still. Telling us what’ll happen to Alan when he gets to prison. He makes me want to say something mean that’ll give me some kind of satisfaction besides just hanging up.

  I don’t, because I shouldn’t. But it’s getting harder over time.

  “Earl?” Cassie Peabody had been watching her husband dry the same plate over and over while he stared out the kitchen window.

  “Yep?”

  “You thinking about Alan?”

  “Some.”

  “Well?”

  “What?”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “It ain’t all that easy.”

  “You think he’s guilty?”

  Earl laid the last plate in the cupboard and hung the dishtowel across the towel bar, then grabbed a clean glass and poured himself iced tea. “You want another glass, Cassie?”

  “I do. Thank you. Well?” Her warm brown eyes were smiling at him, teasing him in a way he knew well.

  “I reckon ya wantta hear about it.”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “It ain’t clear cut.”

  “We got time. I’ll make us some popcorn and bring it out to the screened-in porch.”