Bone by Bone

by Carol O'Connell

  She dismounted and guided the horse through the trees where there was no clear path. High in the branches, warbling songsters were drowned out by a magpie’s whining, quizzical song.

  Maag? Aag-aag?

  And then came a rapid fire of notes.

  Wah-wah-wah-wah?

  Sections of yellow tape were visible between tree trunks. And now she heard human voices. Drawing closer, Isabelle could see that the tape cordoned off an opening in the ground. Two teenagers, wearing T-shirts with university logos, knelt beside the hole, sifting dirt through screens. A third student used a soft brush to dust away the dirt from an object in her hand.

  A bone?

  So this was the grave of Josh Hobbs and a nameless stranger – here in the place her mother loved best among the million acres of forestland.

  Isabelle tightened her hold on the reins, and the horse shied in sympathetic anxiety.

  Oren stared at the photographs on the wall of Ferris Monty’s study. He stood close behind the gossip columnist, who was scrolling through a file on his computer.

  ‘You see?’ Monty ran one finger down a list on the screen and paused at mentions of individual students. ‘They were all at UCLA that same year. Here’s William Swahn – something of a prodigy, barely fourteen when he got his first college degree. Here ’s the librarian. She was in her twenties then. And Sarah Winston was twenty-four.’ One finger tapped the screen on this line. ‘This is her maiden name.’

  ‘That’s it? You’ve got nothing on Ad Winston.’ Oren’s eyes traveled back to the damning pictures on the wall.

  Ferris Monty rose from his chair and removed these prints of the bank photographs to stack them facedown on his desk. ‘Concentrate on the photos at the post office. Before William Swahn was mutilated, I believe he had a relationship with Sarah Winston.’

  ‘When they were at UCLA? He was a little boy.’ Oren folded his arms and watched Monty’s frustration grow with this little piece of bait. ‘I don’t see Mrs Winston as a pedophile.’

  ‘Not then.’ Monty paused to purse his lips and perhaps to censor his next words. ‘Later.When the child grew up – that’s when they had the affair.’

  ‘The alleged affair,’ said Oren. Apparently Swahn’s nondisclosure agreement had teeth and staying power. Ferris Monty’s research had never turned up a rumor that the man was gay.

  ‘All right,’ said Monty. ‘It’s speculation. But what if it’s true? What if that relationship continued after Swahn moved to Coventry? What if Addison found out about Mavis passing Swahn’s love letters to his wife? I know a woman’s bones were found with Joshua. Suppose Addison meant to kill Sarah . . . and he murdered a stranger by mistake? And let’s say your brother was following her that—’

  ‘You think any man could mistake a stranger for his own wife?’

  ‘He could’ve hired one of his criminal clients to kill her – someone who didn’t know her.’ Monty was like a dog vainly watching Oren’s face for signs of approval.

  Civilians and their damn theories, their television ideas of murder. First Millard Straub was hiring an assassin to murder Evelyn, and now Ad Winston was the one voted most likely to put out a contract on his wife.

  ‘I know the dead woman was hit from behind.’ Monty waited for payback on this offering. Getting none, he made another. ‘And she’s been identified. That’s how I know she had light blond hair . . . like Sarah Winston’s. I have a very reliable source.’

  ‘Someone in the sheriff ’s office? Maybe a deputy?’

  Monty puffed out his chest in a small show of courage. ‘I would never give up a source.’

  ‘You bought your information from Dave Hardy.’ Oren knew he was right. Ferris Monty’s eyes popped a bit too wide; he probably knew the penalty for bribing an officer of the law, and he would not fare well in prison. This little man was having a very bad day.

  After a short canter down the fire road, Isabelle found an old picnic spot, a favored stop on the solitary horseback rides of childhood. She tethered Nickel to a tree and spread a blanket on the ground. Seven birder logs were laid out in chronological order. Upon opening the first one, she labored over the code of pictures and birdcalls. At the time of this entry, her mother was still happy to be alive.

  The insanity began later, after Isabelle had worked her way through the pages of winter and spring. A day in early June had begun with a delicate bird that had no song. The blue-eyed lark lay on the ground, broken wings spread at odd angles. Its eyes were closed.

  In death?

  There was blood on the young bird’s face just below one eye. The sun was shining.

  Isabelle’s mind turned toward the trio of student grave diggers in her mother’s favorite clearing. The year on the book spine was right, and the page was dated to that fatal Saturday. How could the lark be anyone but Josh Hobbs?

  What could her mother know of Josh’s death on that afternoon? The town had not gone looking for the boy before nightfall. And what of the blood? This journal entry had been written two decades before the disappearance had been called an act of violence.

  Nowhere on this page or the next was there any sign of the stranger buried with Josh. The omission of a second victim argued for her mother’s innocence. Isabelle rationalized the journal entry as a story come by secondhand.

  On all of the following pages, Coventry was grotesquely altered. It was always night, a nightmare town of birds with animal claws instead of talons. Their beaks were filled with long teeth.

  And her mother had lost her mind.

  It might be best to replace the birder logs on the tower bookshelf, to hide them there in plain sight. But what if the investigation should lead to an interrogation of her fragile mother and a search of the house?

  She could destroy these books, but that might also damn her mother in the cover-up of a crime. At some later date, this evidence might be needed to prove innocence – or madness. Isabelle’s mind continued to work along criminal lines as she decided to hide the journals in the care of an honest man.

  Taking a shortcut through the woods, Oren neatly sidestepped a recent deposit of horseshit. And so it was natural to be thinking of Isabelle Winston, the only one who had ever used the hiking trails as bridle paths. In summers past, he and Josh had sometimes encountered her on horseback. The girl had always waved hello to his brother. Oren, of course, had been beneath her notice.

  A path forked off the trail and led him out to the fire road. He was headed downhill and homeward when he heard the sound of a horse ’s hooves. Oren was hopeful as he turned around.

  And there she was.

  He saw her red hair on a distant rise – and the same silver horse.

  Impossible.

  That stallion had been old when the rider was a teenager.

  Well, it was a day for ghosts, human or equine. And it was long past time to have a few words with Isabelle Winston. He stood in the middle of the dirt road and waved her down as she came trotting toward him, not slowing any, but riding faster, cantering, then galloping, galloping.

  That horse was huge.

  Oh, shit!

  He dove into the woods, lost his footing in a tangle of deadwood and landed hard, all the wind knocked out of his chest as horse and rider sped by him. A near miss. And the lady never looked back.

  Oren lay there for a while, idly ruminating. Isabelle was definitely escalating the violence. How would she top this?

  He picked himself up and brushed the leaves and dirt from his clothes. It was a slow walk home. There was much to think about. His mind wandered back to a valentine from his childhood, the one mailed to him in an envelope with an eastern postmark but no return address and no signature. As a twelve-year-old boy, he had opened that heart-shaped card to read the words I hate you! writ large and bold. It had smelled of horse. He had kept it for years.

  More than an hour had passed before he reached home. At the end of the driveway, it was a surprise to see the silver stallion tied by reins to a tree in the yard. Isab
elle Winston pushed the screen door open. Eyes fixed on her horse, she failed to see the man with the foolish grin on his face, standing below her on the porch steps. She passed him by. After untying the horse’s reins, she swung up into the saddle in one graceful motion and rode away across the meadow.

  When Oren entered the house, Hannah was standing over a pair of saddlebags on the living-room carpet. She crooked one finger, and he followed her down the hall to the kitchen, where the judge was seated at the table. Three cups had been laid out and emptied.

  So Isabelle had stayed long enough for coffee.

  Small leather-bound books were piled at the center of the tablecloth. The judge held one open and offered his son a glimpse of drawings and lines of writing. ‘These are Sarah Winston’s birder logs. Her daughter thought we should keep them for a while. I don’t think the girl has much faith in Cable Babitt.’

  ‘That ’s not exactly what Belle said.’ Hannah set out a clean cup for Oren. ‘She said Cable’s a fool, and he shouldn’t get near these books.’

  ‘In any case,’ said the judge, ‘I gave her my word that her mother’s journals would be handled with care and in confidence.’ His fixed stare made it clear that his son was also bound by this oral contract.

  Hannah turned her attention to a fresh pot of coffee percolating on the stove. ‘Those journals were written around the time Josh went missing. Belle Winston wants you to know that this is all you get from her. And there’s no point in trying to question her mother. If you show up at the lodge, Belle won’t even open the door. She ’ll just shoot you right through the wood – right where you stand.’

  The judge lowered his reading glasses, something he did in serious moments, though he was smiling. ‘The girl was very clear about that, Oren. She will shoot you.’

  ‘I believe it. She tried to run me down with her horse.’

  Hannah poured coffee into his cup. ‘I wish you two would get married and take the fight indoors.’

  Oren opened one of the small books and read the neat script of Sarah Winston’s notes on the songs and movements of – a dodo with a pipe? He looked up at his father to silently ask, What?

  Judge Hobbs adjusted his bifocals, the better to study this drawing. ‘I believe that’s Cable. He gave up his pipe a few years ago.’ The old man looked down to resume his perusal of the journal in his hands, and he idly turned the pages. ‘Belle Winston is an ornithologist, and she thinks there ’s something here.’ He held up the open book to show his son a graceful pink heron with long slender limbs of human form. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say this is Evelyn Straub in her prime. Longest legs in town.’ He pointed to the companion page filled with handwriting. ‘Sarah’s notes are less clear. There’s lots of shorthand for one thing and another, terms I’ve never heard before. It might make more sense to another bird-watcher.’

  ‘We can go see Mavis Hardy at the library,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Nobody in Coventry goes to the—’

  ‘Oren.’ The judge held up one finger as a warning. ‘Don’t.’

  Hannah nodded in agreement as she opened one of the journals. ‘I hate it when people say that, even if it’s true.’ She looked up at Oren. ‘So you’ll talk to Mavis? She used to go birding all the time back in the days when she was still on the thin side.’

  ‘You mean before she started planning to murder her husband?’

  Hannah closed the book and slammed it on the table. ‘Mavis can help you. Nobody in this county knows more about birds than she does. And, incidentally, that poor woman did not do murder.’

  ‘What? She spent a long time getting ready for it.’ Oren remembered a summer day when he and Josh had come upon Mrs Hardy working out with weights in the library, building muscles, adding bulk. And the following summer, she had been arrested on a charge of murder. ‘Name one thing on her side.’

  ‘Mavis looked out for her son,’ said Hannah.

  Oren folded his arms, telegraphing disbelief. ‘She made Dave’s life a living hell. She castrated that kid all over town.’

  ‘She probably saved his life.’ Hannah’s voice was getting testy.

  Judge Hobbs, the peacemaker, lightly touched his son’s arm. ‘Remember when Dave broke his leg? You were in the third grade that year. Well, that didn’t happen falling off a bike. It wasn’t enough fun beating his wife. Colin Hardy had to go after that little boy.’

  Oren had better recall of a later event, the day the coroner carried the corpse of Dave’s father out of the house. The librarian’s hands were raw, her face swollen and her eyes triumphant. ‘She spent a year planning it. That makes it a premeditated murder.’

  ‘Says who!’ Hannah’s tone did not imply a question. As punctuation, she banged one fist on the table, and a spoon bounced to the floor. ‘Half the town – the half that’s male – they’ll never forgive her. Mavis scared them that day. That was her real crime. Men,’ she said, using this word to sum up the ills of the world. ‘Mavis didn’t sneak up on that bastard while he was sleeping, did she? No, she did not. Her husband was fully dressed for work. And I don’t want to hear the lie that Colin Hardy was falling-down drunk and helpless. It was eight o’clock in the damn morning. So don’t you call it murder. That woman went into a knockdown fight with a man – a fair fight. She matched him pound for pound – and with her bare fists, she beat him to death.’

  The housekeeper rose from the table and turned her back on him to fuss with a pot on the stove. Her voice dropped into the guttural range of Pay-attention-or-else. ‘You will show respect when you visit the library – no matter what Mavis does or what she says. She ’s been fighting this town all alone for so long, she just doesn’t know how to stop. I don’t care if Mavis beats the crap out of you, Oren. You will be a gentleman.’

  After Hannah had said her piece, the silence was loaded. There was nowhere to fit in a contradiction, and only a fool would try. The judge would not meet his eyes. Oren was on his own. This canny little woman had reached deep inside him, made certain adjustments to his spine and caused him to sit up a bit straighter.

  The workday was done, and Dave Hardy had changed into his T-shirt and jeans. He was straddling a barstool in Coventry, the first watering hole of his evening. The other patrons were watching the evening news with the sound turned off, as usual.

  Odd old ducks.

  None of them called for the volume to be turned on, not even when they recognized the limping figure of a cripple pursued by screaming reporters. The regulars of the Coventry Pub sat in silence, drunkenly, blissfully unaware of worse things being done to William Swahn – what the pictures alone could not tell them.

  This was the same film the deputy had seen earlier in the day at another bar, and he was the only one in this room who knew the words that went with the broadcast. The phrase – a person of interest – had been repeated three times, though Sally Polk had only said it once. And, by snatches of film, Swahn was made to limp across that parking lot with each repetition.

  In the earlier version of this news broadcast, it had been clear that the CBI agent had waded into the fray to draw the reporters away from their victim, William Swahn. In this new job of film editing, she seemed to be orchestrating the whole event, even stirring up the crowd to chase down the man with the cane.

  It was a clear case of slander against both of these people, but Dave Hardy did not care. He had no sympathy for Swahn, and he hated that Polk woman.

  A million other viewers could only rely on the pack of lies their eyes were telling them.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was that gloomy hour when house lights were burning bright, but drivers were still debating the need for headlights. Daredevil Hannah would be the last to turn hers on.

  Oren watched the streets crawl by his passenger window.

  Before the library had become a town joke, Josh had often walked this same route with him, and they had made better time on foot. In Coventry, time and distance were not quantified or qualified in terms of as the crow flies, but
by the saying, If only snails had wings. Oren would rather have spent this evening reading Sarah Winston’s cryptic journals in privacy, but he was on a mission to mollify the little woman behind the wheel.

  The old Mercedes rolled past the church, and Hannah sighed. ‘I miss the Reverend Pursey’s sermons. You haven’t forgotten that crazy old fool, have you?’

  ‘I remember him.’ Oren was not likely to forget Amos Pursey – ever. The minister had worn his Sunday robes seven days a week to fly around town, waving his arms and ranting about the end of days. ‘He must be the black bat in Mrs Winston’s drawings.’ Oren had been a month shy of seventeen when that old madman had accosted him on the street and proclaimed him to be an archangel appointed by God to smite the town.

  It was a revelation that Hannah had heard any of the minister’s sermons. ‘You went to church?’

  ‘I used to – now and then.’

  ‘But why? You’re an atheist. No – wait. You told me and Josh that God was an atheist.’

  ‘No, I said a real smart god would be an atheist. Who needs the pressure of being perfect? I favor the kind of Creator who drinks beer now and then, someone you can talk to. Now the Reverend Pursey – crazy old bastard – he fancied a miracle worker with a hit-man angel.’

  ‘Hannah, why does this place attract so many loonies?’

  ‘Tolerance. It’s Coventry’s finest quality. So, despite what Amos Pursey thought, no god would ever smite a town that sheltered that nutcase preacher.’ Hannah brought the car to a stop in front of the library. ‘My other theory is that we all take turns being the lunatic.’

  ‘It ’s after hours,’ said Oren. ‘No lights in the windows.’

  ‘She’s there.’ Hannah glanced at her wristwatch. ‘Mavis is always there, day and night. Has been for years. Nobody knew about it for the longest time.’

  Oren dared not speak the reason: Because no one in Coventry ever goes to the library. But Hannah hushed him anyway.