The Bone House

by Brian Freeman

'That's a good philosophy.'

  'I called your lieutenant about you, Detective,' Reich informed him, as he twiddled his glasses in his fingers.

  'That must have been an interesting conversation.'

  'It was. He tells me you're smart, but you don't play well with others.'

  'That's fair,' Cab agreed.

  'He also says you're stubborn, indifferent to authority, and condescending.'

  'Guilty.'

  'He told me about your mother, too. That explains a lot. I figured you were either rich or on the take. Most cops don't rent Corvettes.'

  'They don't own Cessnas, either,' Cab pointed out with a smile.

  'I'm not saying having money is a crime,' Reich replied. 'I've got a plane, I've got a boat, a couple of trucks. My family was smart enough to snap up a lot of real estate around here back when it was cheap. I could retire, but I don't want to sit on my ass all day.'

  'Then we have something in common,' Cab said.

  'That's about the only thing, Detective. What can I do for you?'

  'I heard about the accident on the island.'

  'You mean the Bradleys?'

  'Yes. Are they OK?'

  'Bruised but fine.'

  'Do you have any idea who was responsible?' Cab asked.

  'I'm not sure how that concerns you. This is a local investigation.'

  'Mark Bradley is a suspect in my homicide case.'

  'Well, it looks like someone almost cut your case short. Some cops wouldn't lose sleep over that.'

  'I don't want a vigilante killing a man and his wife on the basis of rumors,' Cab replied. 'If he's guilty, I want to prove it and put him behind bars.'

  Reich nodded. 'I agree.'

  'Washington Island isn't a big place. No one came or went last night unless they had a big boat, right? With your history around here, I would think you'd already know who did this.'

  Reich's frown lines deepened into canyons. 'You can be indifferent to authority and condescending in your own jurisdiction, Detective. Not with me. Not on my turf.'

  'Fair enough, you're right. I'm sorry.'

  'For your information, the truck used in the accident was stolen from an island farm. We're checking it over now. I can think of a couple dozen hotheads who know Delia Fischer and might have done this, but they're not likely to be stupid enough to admit it to me. Don't worry, I'll get them.'

  'I'm sure you will.'

  'Is that all you wanted, Detective? Because if so, I'm pretty busy this morning.'

  'I promised to keep you up to date on my own investigation,' Cab informed him. 'We've located a couple new witnesses among the people who were at the hotel on Saturday. Apparently Glory had a big argument with her boyfriend, Troy Geier, a few hours before the murder.'

  Reich snorted. 'Troy? You're wasting your time.'

  'Maybe so, but he wasn't straight with me. I'm going to talk to him again.'

  'What else do you have?' Reich asked.

  'Another witness saw a man on the beach with a girl in the right location and time frame. They were physically involved. Based on the description, we think it was Mark Bradley. I want to talk to the witness myself, but if it pans out, it's significant. If we can combine it with DNA evidence, we'll be on the way to making a case that hangs together.'

  'Excellent. I appreciate the update, Detective. As I said, my men and I are happy to help if we can.'

  'There's something else,' Cab told him.

  'What?'

  'I ran into Hilary Bradley yesterday afternoon. She told me about Glory Fischer and the fire.' Cab nodded at the poster on Reich's wall. 'She told me about Harris Bone, too.' 'So?'

  'So I'm surprised you didn't mention it to me, Sheriff,' Cab said. 'I asked if there was anything else I should know about Glory Fischer.'

  'I don't see how a six-year-old crime is relevant to your investigation.'

  'Harris Bone is still at large. That makes him a suspect.'

  Reich shook his head dismissively. 'Harris?' A suspect? You think he just happened to be in Florida and happened to run into Glory Fischer?'

  'Strange things happen. Glory saw someone she knew. We have a witness who said she looked scared.'

  Reich pushed his leather chair back and got up. He kept a coffee- maker on the credenza on the opposite wall, and he poured himself a cup in an oversized mug from a restaurant called the Viking Grill. It smelled strong. He gestured at Cab with the pot, but Cab shook his head. Reich sat down and sipped his black coffee.

  'What makes you think it was Harris?' Reich asked.

  'Frankly, I don't believe it was. I don't believe in straw men when I've got a suspect like Mark Bradley who was out on the beach and has ties to the girl's family. However, I also know what reasonable doubt looks like, and I know what a good defense lawyer would do with this information. If I don't look into it, I'll have to explain why on the witness stand.'

  'Lawyers,' Reich said, in a voice that sounded as if he was spitting. 'OK, what do you need? What can I tell you?'

  'First, I need anything that can help us figure out if Harris Bone was staying at or working in the hotel in Naples under a new identity. Photos"; fingerprints, DNA, background, whatever you have.'

  Reich nodded. 'My chief deputy can pull together materials for you from our files. I'll make sure you have it by noon.'

  'Thank you. Second, I want to know more about him. What happened that night? What kind of man burns up his family?'

  Reich studied the poster of Harris Bone on his wall, and his face darkened. 'I'll be honest with you, Harris is about the last thing in the world I want to talk about. A lot of people here were hoping we'd finally turned the page on the fire. You know what that kind of crime does to a community. The scars linger.'

  'I know.'

  Reich pointed at a 1960s-era photograph near the Wanted poster that showed two dirty men in uniform, their faces green with camouflage, arms around each other's shoulders. 'That's me and Pete Hoffman. Pete saved my life overseas. More than once, in fact. Harris killed Pete's daughter and two of his grandchildren, and he did it in a horrible way. Pete never got over it. It ruined his life. I don't like to see my best friend having to deal with that grief all over again.'

  'I understand. If I can spare him, I will, but I can't make any promises. Right now, the biggest thing standing between me and a case against Mark Bradley is Harris Bone. It may be a distraction, but it's real.'

  'I hear you. I know how the game is played.'

  Cab got up and examined the photograph of Harris Bone. The man's eyes were devoid of emotion, like a robot's. He was handsome but empty. 'Did you know him well?'

  'Who, Harris? Sure, he was a good-looking guy, but mousy and quiet even as a kid. I knew his parents, Lowell and Katherine; they ran a liquor store here in town. Harris took it over when Katherine died, but he didn't have much of a business sense. Pete told Nettie right from the start that the guy was a loser. Nettie didn't listen. Kids never do, right?'

  Cab sat down again. 'What about his wife? What was she like?'

  'Nettie was a pretty little thing. Kind of a God nut, like Pete. Church every Sunday, always reading the Bible to the three kids, hosting prayer groups at their house. Harris played along. I never knew if he believed it, or if it was just talk. You could never be sure with him. It didn't stop him from running around, either. Nettie told Pete that Harris was cheating on her. Not that I really blame him. Sounds like Nettie didn't have much interest in sex even before the accident.'

  'Accident?' Cab said.

  Reich nodded. 'Car accident. It was bad. Harris was driving, and Delia Fischer's husband, Arno, was in the passenger seat. The wives were in back. They'd all been out to dinner here in Sturgeon Bay and were heading home. They'd had too much to drink. Harris lost control on a slick curve and drove into a tree, full speed. Arno died. Nettie wound up in a wheelchair. Delia was lucky, just a couple broken bones. Same with Harris. After that, Nettie was even worse. She made life hell for Harris.'

  'Wait
a minute, are you saying Glory Fischer lost her father in that accident?' Cab asked. 'Harris Bone killed her father?'

  'Yeah. Some families get lucky, and some just keep getting hit by lightning. That's Delia. You can understand why I want that woman to get some justice for her daughters.'

  'This makes it a hell of a lot harder to do that,' Cab told him. 'The more connections between the Bones and the Fischers, the more a jury might wonder if Glory really did see Harris at the hotel that night. It gives her an extra reason to want to see him captured. And to be afraid of him.'

  Reich scoffed. 'These families were neighbors. They lived across the street from one another. Their kids played together. That's all it was. Glory was too young to understand that her father's death had anything to do with Harris. Even Delia didn't blame him. They'd all been drinking.'

  Cab wasn't convinced. 'Go on,' he said. 'What about the fire?'

  'What do you want to know? You want me to psychoanalyze the son of a bitch? He set the fire and then watched it burn like it was some kind of backyard barbecue. Nettie and the boys died. If it wasn't for Delia, Jen would have died, too.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Jen spent the night with the Fischers. Delia knew how bad it was for the girl at home. All the fights. It wasn't just Harris and Nettie, it was the boys, too. They picked up the poison from their mom. Delia took pity on her, and it's a good thing. Pete still sends Delia flowers every year to thank her.'

  Cab didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, when he sensed Reich's impatience, he said, 'This is ugly, Sheriff. You know how ugly this is.'

  'I do.'

  'I came here ninety-five per cent convinced that Mark Bradley killed Glory Fischer.'

  'Trust your instincts,' Reich told him.

  'That's the problem. My instincts don't like this one little bit. If Glory saw Harris—'

  'She didn't.'

  'Sometimes you bump into your past at the worst possible time,' Cab pointed out.

  'You said you have a witness. Bradley and Glory were kissing on the beach.'

  'I still don't like the coincidence.'

  The sheriff leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. 'Detective Bolton, I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. This is your case, not mine. My only interest is making sure that Delia Fischer doesn't have to grieve for her daughter without seeing her killer punished. I'd hate to see the ghost of Harris Bone getting in the way of that.'

  'So would I.'

  Reich turned his head sideways. With his index finger, he pointed to a two-inch jagged line on his skull where the hair didn't grow. 'You see that scar?'

  Cab nodded. 'Looks bad. Did you get it in Vietnam?'

  'No, I got it in a field about forty miles south of here. That's where Harris Bone cracked my head open with a rock when I let him out of the car for a piss as I was getting ready to dump him in Supermax for the rest of his stinking life. When I woke up, he was long gone. So you know what, Detective? Part of me hopes I'm wrong, and you're right. I hope Glory really did see that son of a bitch in Florida, and I hope you find the rock he's hiding under, and I hope you bring him here and leave me alone with him for five minutes. That's all I want, five minutes. Harris Bone and I have unfinished business.'

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Amy Leigh sat on a bench near the trails of the Cofrin Arboretum, unwinding after her run. Beside her, Katie wore sweats and a T-shirt adorned with the school's Phoenix logo. Despite the frigid morning, sweat trickled from her bobbed black hair down the line of her jaw, and her shirt was stained with a triangle of sweat too. Her glasses kept slipping down her nose. Katie lit a cigarette. She always smoked after the two of them jogged, which Amy hated.

  Cars came and went on the circular drive around the perimeter of the campus. The school was perched on a bluff a few miles outside downtown Green Bay. The city was gray and industrial, haunted by hard-scrabble, beer-drinking cheeseheads who worshiped at the shrine of Lambeau Field, but the university itself was an enclave of green athletic fields and brick academic buildings ringed by the lushly wooded nature preserve.

  The two girls stretched out their legs and relaxed. A bright red cardinal flicked among the bare branches of the trees and sang to them.

  'You still going to Gary Jensen's house tonight?' Katie asked.

  'Yeah.'

  'You want me to go with you?' 'No, I'll be OK.'

  'I'm still not sure what you think you're going to accomplish.'

  'I just want to see how he reacts,' Amy said.

  'What, you're going to blurt out, "Hey, Gary, did you strangle that girl on the beach in Florida?'"

  'No, don't be stupid. I want to drop some hints and see what he says. I'll know if he's lying.'

  Katie shook her head. 'Some liars are pretty good at it, Ames.'

  'We'll see.'

  Her roommate shivered as the cold air began to overtake the warmth of the run. 'I did a little poking around on my own.'

  'About Gary?'

  Katie nodded. 'I had coffee with a secretary in the PhyEd department. I said it was for a follow-up story on the dance competition in Florida, but we did a little gossiping, too. Mainly about Gary's wife.'

  'What did she tell you?'

  'Well, the rumor is he was having an affair. Hot and heavy.'

  'You mean before his wife died?'

  'Yep.'

  'Who was the other woman?'

  Katie shrugged. 'Don't know. It may not even be true.'

  'I can't believe no one told the police.'

  'People aren't going to call the cops about hunches and suspicions. That's all you've got, you know. I haven't found anything to link Gary to Glory Fischer. You saw him with a girl who may have been Glory, but maybe not.'

  'I heard him coming back to his room late, too.'

  'Are you sure? My room was a couple doors down, and I didn't hear anything.'

  'It was him,' Amy insisted. 'I heard his door open and close.'

  'It doesn't prove anything.'

  'I know.'

  'Did you talk to your old coach about any of this? Hilary Bradley?'

  'Not yet. I don't know if I have anything to tell her.'

  Katie stood up and tugged her damp shirt away from her chest. She stubbed out her cigarette on the ground. 'Well, don't make an ass of yourself.'

  'Yeah.'

  'You coming back to the room?'

  Amy shook her head. 'I'll do a couple more miles.'

  'Jeez, you're extreme. I'll see you later tonight.' 'OK.'

  Amy watched Katie head across East Circle Drive toward the dorms. She got up and stretched her legs, which had begun to tighten in the cold morning air, and then she followed the path back into the arboretum. The asphalt was slick, and she walked rather than risk twisting an ankle. Fifty yards later, she came to a T-junction where the path ended at a soft trail made of bark, moss, and dead leaves. The trees grew over her head, and the trail was dim and narrow, as if she were disappearing into a train tunnel. Where the trail curved, she couldn't see round the next bend.

  She took a few tentative steps, but she stopped with a strange sense of discomfort. The down on the back of her neck stood up, as if the little hairs were iron filings drawn by a magnet. She felt eyes following her from somewhere in the forest.

  'Hello?' she called.

  Amy turned round slowly. She was alone, but the trees were big and wide enough here to hide someone. Those were crazy-making thoughts; she was letting herself get paranoid. She inhaled, smelling nothing but mold and the dewish sweat of her body. She didn't hear anything. '

  She waited. Everything was still. There's nobody, she told herself.

  Amy shook off her fears and jogged. She got into a rhythm as she ran, enough to crowd out other thoughts. Running was pure escape for her, in which she was conscious of nothing but the noise of her breathing and the vibrations as her feet hit the ground. She made two loops round the east section of the arboretum, following the border of the e
scarpment. It added almost two miles to her route, and when she finished the circle for the second time, she slowed to a walk as she cooled down. Her face was flushed. Her blond curls were frizzed.

  She wasn't far from the trail that led back to the perimeter road when she felt it again. Eyes. Like a voyeur watching her.

  She was sure she wasn't alone.

  'Who's there?'

  Behind her, a male voice growled the way a bear would, and Amy spun with a choked scream. Twenty yards away, a student she knew from one of her psychology classes giggled as she fended off animal kisses from a bearded, long-haired boy. They broke apart as they saw Amy and heard her squeal. They were innocent. They were nobody. Amy wanted to laugh in relief, but she was breathing too hard.

  'You OK, Amy?' the girl called.

  'Oh, yeah, fine. You startled me.'

  'Sorry.'

  Amy smiled at them, the couple out for a kissy stroll. She wished she had a boyfriend of her own for that kind of hike. It made her think she should find someone to ask out on a date, but there never seemed to be time with classes, work, and dance. She knew that was a crock, though. She just didn't want all the hassles of a relationship.

  She left the two of them alone. At the junction, she turned back toward the campus road. It was time to get back to her dorm room. She needed a shower, and she had a class in less than an hour.

  Kinesics. Learning to read body language.

  Amy was almost at the bench where she'd sat with Katie when she heard a car engine on the shoulder of the road. She emerged from the trees in time to see a Honda Civic hatchback make a fast U-turn off the grass and head toward the Bay Settlement entrance to the campus.

  She only caught a glimpse of the side of the driver's face, but she recognized him. It was Gary Jensen. He'd been in the woods with her.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mark Bradley painted on the bone-white rocks jutting out into Lake Michigan. He'd been standing in front of his canvas for an hour, and his fingers were numb and raw. It was late morning on Thursday under a cold, weak sun. The wind off the lake drowned out every sound except the screech of gulls, which flocked near the beach and dove into the water for fish. When he looked at the sky between brushstrokes, he saw the rusting white tower of the Cana Island lighthouse poking above the tops of the dormant trees.