Behind the Bonehouse

by Sally Wright

  Earl told her all of it. The history of what he’d seen, and heard, and what he’d found at Carl’s and at Equine, of all the folks he’d talked to, and the circumstantial evidence that’d piled up as he went, and what the labs said later.

  He told her what had just come to light, what Garner and Alan had given him that week. And then he sat and stared at the pasture beyond their small backyard where their grown kids’ old gray pony tossed his head and swished at flies as the sun burned up the strip of west woods on the far side of his paddock.

  Cassie didn’t say anything when he’d finished. She let the silence stretch out between them as she picked up the bowl Earl had all but licked, and set hers inside it, then put both on the wicker table at her end of their wooden swing.

  She looked so small sitting next him, her toes just touching the concrete floor, as she hummed a tune from one of the big bands she’d loved when she was young.

  His legs were stretched out, keeping the swing swaying, while two male hummingbirds did aerial combat around the feeder outside the screen beside Cassie. “Well?” Earl didn’t look at her when he said it. “You’re fixin’ to say somethin’. You might as well go on.”

  “I got a good notion what you’re gonna do.”

  “Even when I don’t?”

  “I do. Just like when you fussed and fidgeted buying the pickup last year. You read every car magazine, and you traipsed all over creation, looking at this one and looking at that, and I knew you’d get you a Ford just like the time before.”

  Earl didn’t say anything more. He set the swing to swinging again and drank off half his tea.

  “I know what kind of man I married.”

  “A de-mobbed kid who had to drive a gravel truck, and couldn’t get elected dog catcher.”

  “Didn’t keep me from marryin’ you.”

  “Nope.” He squeezed her right hand and held it on his knee. “But whether you or me likes it or not, this here’s an election year, and I gotta deal with the County Attorney, who ain’t an easy man.”

  “Guess it comes down to why you’d want to be sheriff.”

  “You know why I do it.”

  “Yep, and that’s why I know what you’re gonna do.”

  Earl didn’t say anything.

  And Cassie asked what he would’ve done different.

  “Interviewed every damn employee at Equine Pharmaceuticals. Gone to every locksmith and hardware store in a sixty mile radius. Checked the private payphone owner here and in Midway. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Just worked with Bell Telephone, and let the rest ride.”

  “I know, but with the robberies, and all, with all the rich folks in the whole county up in arms, it didn’t look like you had time. And didn’t you just tell me two of ’em at Equine who knew somethin’ important were outta town for weeks?”

  “The janitor and the secretary with the typewriter thingy that got took.”

  “Well, then.”

  Earl didn’t say anything. He leaned back and knitted his hands together on the back of his head.

  Cassie watched him and sighed before she spoke. “The County and the Commonwealth Attorneys were looking for a case that would be real high interest, and they didn’t just climb on the bandwagon they pushed it fast as it could go. I ’member when you first talked to Lou here in Woodford, you weren’t ready to arrest Alan, and he jumped ahead.”

  Earl drank the last of his tea and set the glass on the floor.

  “Could you use this as an example of why the Sheriff’s Department needs more funding?”

  Earl didn’t answer.

  And Cassie kissed the work shirt between her and his shoulder. “Never mind. You are who you are, and you’ll do what you’ll do.” She looked up at Earl with the smile on her face she’d had when she was three, when he’d lived down the street from her and their folks played cards every Friday.

  He patted her thigh with his huge left hand, then covered her hand with his.

  Cassie squeezed it back, then went to answer the phone, hoping it wasn’t one more call that’d take Earl out into the night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tuesday, June 9th, 1964

  It was 7:30 when Earl parked his wife’s pickup in the circle by Jo and Alan’s front porch and climbed out as though his back were killing him. He bent over anyway, even though it looked like it made it worse, so he could talk to Emmy and rub behind her ears. He hauled himself up, one hand on his driver’s door, and stared at the old brick farmhouse, at the black shutters and white-framed windows, at the old handmade glass, wavy and bubbled in the small narrow panes.

  He told himself to stop putting it off, to go and get a move on. And he straightened his shoulders, and tucked the back of his work shirt farther in his jeans, as he climbed the steps with Emmy beside him, trying to lick his hand. He knocked on the door, and rocked back and forth on his boot heels, his thumbs stuck inside his belt, till Jo opened the door.

  “Earl.” Jo looked as though her heart had hit her ribs as soon as she saw who it was, and how hard it was for Earl to look her in the eye.

  “Evening, Jo. Wonder if I could talk to you and Alan.”

  She stood where she was, holding on to the door, before she could wave Earl in.

  Alan was sitting at the far end of the dining-room table, and Earl sat down on his right, on the long side opposite Jo. He eased himself into the chair, then sat straight up, not touching the chair back, his hands gripping his knees.

  Jo said, “You look like your back hurts.”

  “Threw it out Sunday stackin’ wood for the winter. Anyway, the reason I come, I want to tell you folks right to your face that I come to believe the evidence you dug up provides real good reasonable doubt that you’re guilty of Carl’s death.”

  Jo said, “Thank God!” while Alan watched Earl without saying a word.

  “I b’lieve you had nothin’ to do with Carl Seeger’s death. Nothin’. That he went out of his way to set you up real deliberate.”

  Jo was sitting so tensed in her chair, holding her breath as she held on to Ross, that when she made a small strangled sort of sound she didn’t even notice.

  Alan said, “I appreciate you coming out to tell us.” He said it almost formally, with a quiet sort of private restraint, as Jo put Ross in his high chair.

  “I’m real sorry for the part I played in your troubles. I will say that Lou Wainwright, the County Attorney, he moved faster than I thought we oughtta, in arresting you and all. But I played my part too, and I sure do regret it. And if I had it to do over, I wouldda interviewed all the folks at Equine with a whole lot more attention.”

  “I don’t blame you. I don’t. I blame Carl.” Alan folded his napkin and laid it by his plate.

  “I’m fixin’ to talk to Lou tomorrow. I got a meetin’ set up with him and the Commonwealth Attorney, and I’m askin’ Garner to meet with us too, and then my intention is to meet with the Circuit Court Judge as soon as can be, and put all this behind us.”

  Alan stared at Earl, then looked over at Jo, before he took a very deep breath and let it out fast.

  “The thing workin’ in our favor, is that neither one of them attorneys is gonna want go to court and lose. No sir, ’specially not durin’ a campaign. All you gotta prove is reasonable doubt, and you done that, good and proper. If that don’t make ’em go along, I’ll be real surprised. We gotta do what’s right, there ain’t no doubt about that. And it won’t take ’em long to figure out how to make hay out of this for their own campaigns.”

  “Human nature being as self-serving as it is.” Jo handed Ross a bottle, and helped him prop it up.

  “I figure we need to make a real big public point of how we’re releasin’ an innocent man, talkin’ to the TV and all, and givin’ interviews to the papers. If Garner will go along, and do the interview with us, it’ll look real good for everybody.”

  “Except Alan. There’ll be folks around here all his life who still think he’s guilty.”

 
“Jo.” Alan looked at her as though he thought it would’ve been better if she hadn’t said that.

  But Jo didn’t look like she agreed.

  “She’s got a point, Alan. If I could turn back the clock, I would. I feel real bad for what you’ve gone through.” He was watching Jo when he said it.

  And she let him watch in silence.

  “Jo?” Alan was staring at her.

  After a long awkward silence, she sighed and nodded her head. “I know. I believe you, Earl. I know you didn’t want to hurt us. It’s just been really hard to bear.” She could feel herself getting ready to cry, and she gritted her teeth and took control.

  Excerpt From Jo Grant Munro’s Journal

  Saturday, June 13th, 1964

  It’s almost midnight. After a day of peace. Of looking forward to the future too, for the first time in awhile. Yesterday at nine in the morning Earl Peabody, the County Attorney, the Commonwealth Attorney, and Garner Honeycutt held a press conference and told the world that Alan was absolutely innocent of Carl Seeger’s death.

  They said the Circuit Court Judge presiding over his case had officially dismissed it. That recent evidence absolved Alan and indicated that Carl had intentionally killed himself after having constructed a string of evidence to deliberately incriminate Alan.

  Bob Harrison called the Versailles paper and asked to be interviewed, which they did that afternoon. The TV people came out to the farm yesterday too, and I actually got to tell them how their assumption that Alan was guilty made the whole experience harder than it had to be. Much to my amazement, some of it got on TV.

  Alan’s interview was aired last night, some at six o’clock, and then again at eleven, and they did it reasonably neutrally.

  Toss enjoyed talking to them about how Carl had gotten an IRS investigator who was a personal friend to come and torment us, as well as Equine, which—and I have to give him credit—he did without mentioning Terry by name.

  Interesting too, that the only thing old Terry has found that we should be doing differently is that when I drive the truck for my architecture business, I should keep mileage records, with separate ones too when I use the truck for the broodmare business. That, of course, amounts to nothing, since I never deducted my mileage as a business expense, having never given it a thought.

  Anyway, that was yesterday. Today we invited Spencer and his girlfriend, Becky and Buddy and their twins, Jack and the Harrisons, and Jane Seeger, Vincent Eriksen too (who naturally didn’t come), Garner and his wife, and Earl and his (who had other plans), plus Esther Wilkes and Charlie Smalls (who didn’t come but sounded glad that we’d asked them) to come for dinner to celebrate here on the farm.

  I got a lot done ahead, and then Becky came over to watch Ross in the afternoon, and Alan and I rode Sam and Maggie. I worked Sam on the flat for half an hour, and then we went cross country, giving Maggie a chance to build her endurance without asking too much.

  We rehashed all of it, this time with a kind of overwhelming relief I can’t begin to describe. To have Alan here with me, with his good name restored—I think we’re both so grateful it feels like a sacred thing.

  It’s a gift from God, the way we see it. A reconciliation with justice and mercy we’d almost come not to expect, and couldn’t truly appreciate till we’d gone through something this extreme.

  There’re so many things that could’ve kept Alan from being cleared. If Vincent hadn’t forgotten to empty the lab trash for the first time in his life, he wouldn’t have seen Carl in Alan’s office. If Vincent hadn’t agreed to talk—and I think I know how close he came to not being able to. If Jack hadn’t been driving past the parking lot right at the very moment when Carl was by Alan’s car. If the lab secretary hadn’t been able to say exactly when the typeface disappeared. If, when Alan went to all the hardware stores and locksmiths, the person who’d waited on Carl hadn’t been there the day Alan came in (if he’d taken the day off, or moved to another job, or hadn’t been observant enough to recognize Carl and remember what he’d said), where would we be now? If Spencer hadn’t known the guy who owned the public phones, and he hadn’t been willing to go out of his way to search through the records. If Buddy hadn’t known Vincent well enough to persuade him to talk—so much might not have come to light that would’ve left Alan condemned for life.

  I know this is a cliché, but I really do get chills when I think of it, and the hair stands up on my arms.

  Then … having dinner with all these folks who went out of their way for us, was overwhelming. I had to go out to Sam’s paddock about nine and kiss him on the nose and feed him a carrot and pat him for awhile, and let myself reorganize quietly in private.

  The food turned out as well as I could’ve hoped. We did my grandmother’s potato salad, with charcoal grilled ribeyes, and green beans and bacon, followed by homemade rhubarb pies, with fresh strawberries on top of good vanilla ice cream. Summer on a plate. Horses watching over fences. Emmy chasing sticks. Iced tea and root beer floats and cold beer and good champagne and Châteauneuf du Pape from Alan’s mother’s family.

  We all walked around and looked at horses. We sat by the pond, near the bonfire Alan’d built that we lit just before dark. We told stories of our families from long ago, when they came to Kentucky from the east and the south, and why we feel the way we do about the land we live on.

  Alan never talks much at a party. We can talk to each other for hours on end, but we both like conversations with one person, or two or three, not big groups at once (small talk having been repellent to both us from infanthood on).

  But tonight was different. These people saved us. And Alan talked to everyone for a long time, singly and in groups, laughing and grilling and handing out food, as though the reprieve he’d been given had opened a floodgate of wanting to show how much he appreciated the ones who’d had enough faith in him to stand against public opinion in the towns we love where it counts.

  Anyway, it was humbling. It was an honoring of the hope they’d given us when we’d thought we’d live lives as outcasts, condemned to the fringes, gossiped about and mistrusted, forced to build impenetrable shells to protect us from human hatred.

  As I sit here and write this down, not being able not to, with Alan snoring quietly on his side of the bed ten feet across the room, I feel as though nothing else that will ever happen could be as painful as what we’ve gone through.

  I know that’s not true. And it’s frightening to even think it. Like it’s tempting fate in a dangerous way. But I have such a sense of relief, I want to sit here and wallow in it while I still can.

  Of course, the phone rang a second after I wrote that, and I answered before it woke Alan.

  Butch, naturally. Telling us this time that he won’t let Alan get away with it. He’ll make us pay for what Alan did in ways we can’t imagine.

  How pathetic is that? Losing his wife and his children, wasn’t that enough? I mean why can’t he put his life back together? I don’t wish him ill. Not like I did Carl through all this (which probably did me more harm than it clearly could’ve done him). No, I really wish Butch could stop drinking and do something useful. He fell prey to Carl. And whatever Korea did to him, which Alan thinks must’ve been significant from what he could tell when he worked with him.

  The call was unsettling, though. It’s not that I can see him doing anything dangerous, but it was a different kind of call. A threat this time. Unspecified. When before it was mostly gloating.

  Monday, June 22nd, 1964

  Butch Morgan woke up in the chair in the family room when the phone rang. He didn’t make any move to answer it, but he pulled himself up, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and laid his head in his hands. His mouth was dry and his eyes burned and his hand shook when he reached to turn off the lamp.

  When he’d gone to the bathroom and made coffee and put on his work boots, he walked into the backyard where he’d built a mound of dirt the year before so he could shoot in the backyard. There was a sawho
rse in front of it, where he’d set beer cans and bottles, and an old tree trunk post beside it where he sometimes nailed paper targets.

  He’d nailed one up the day before, two days after he’d gotten fired from the gas station in Lexington, when he’d seen the picture in the paper.

  Alan Munro was grinning at his wife, his arm around her shoulders, wearing a suit and looking smug, like he’d gotten away with murder.

  Butch smiled as he walked toward the photo. He’d put thirty rounds in it the night before, and he stood and considered his handiwork while he finished his mug of coffee.

  He thought about adding a belt of bourbon to the next cup, but he told himself to wait till later. There was work to be done that only he could do. Work that would right a collection of wrongs. And he’d have to wait to celebrate until the deed was done.

  Jo spent that morning at the farmhouse she was redesigning south toward Shaker Town on a bluff above the Kentucky River.

  The floor plan had been accepted by the owners, and she met with the general contractor who’d be doing the carpentry and bringing in the subs.

  They talked about the moldings that had to be copied inside and out, and the best way to hide the heating ducts and electrical outlets, and who they should use to mill the lumber.

  It was at a stage she really enjoyed, and she was whistling to herself when she got home. She chatted with Becky, who’d come to watch Ross, and then gave her rhubarb from Toss’s garden, and a bag of lettuces too.

  She worked in her office between the dining room and the kitchen while Ross took his afternoon nap and she finished the laundry.

  It’d started raining by four thirty, and was pelting down hard, blowing in from the west by a quarter to five—which was when the phone rang for the first time all day.

  She was changing Ross’ pants, but she got to it by the sixth or seventh ring, and heard a faint breathless labored sort of voice that identified itself as Stoker Randolph, her neighbor from down the road.