The Bone House

by Brian Freeman

  Her phone jangled with music. Katie had texted back. Don't do anything stupid.

  Amy wondered if she already had, just by being here. She threaded through the maze of fat tree trunks to the front door. When she rang the bell, Gary answered immediately. He'd been waiting for her.

  'Amy,' he said with a grin. 'Come on in.'

  The house had a shut-in smell of dust and age, like an old person's house. It smelled the way her grandmother's house always did. The wallpaper was ornate, and it was worn down to the wall in places. The carpet was a dense, plush chocolate brown. Gary led her into a square living room, where the overhead light from an antique brass fixture was dimmed. She saw a piano pushed against one wall, a paisley sofa, and a claw-foot armchair. The room looked out toward the street, but the heavy drapes had been swept closed.

  'It's ghastly, isn't it?' Gary said. 'I think the Addams Family lived here.'

  Amy shrugged, it's just old-fashioned.'

  'It belonged to an eighty-year-old woman. She lived alone. Probably one of those lifelong virgins who had eighteen cats. The dust was incredible. We bought it cheap because the family was anxious to unload it after she died. My wife figured we'd tear everything out, but we never got the chance.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'Sometimes I think about burning the whole house down,' Gary said, 'and starting over.'

  He looked at her as if expecting a reaction. She gave him an uneasy smile. 'Guess the insurance company wouldn't like that.'

  'I guess" not.' He gestured at the sofa. 'Sit down, make yourself comfortable. I'm really glad you came by.'

  Amy sat on the edge of the sofa with her hands in her lap. She thought she looked like a woman at a tea party, with a yardstick up the back of her dress. Relax, she told herself.

  Gary sat down in the armchair and crossed his legs. He wore a burgundy button-down shirt, black slacks, and dress shoes. The skin on his mostly bald scalp was suntanned. On his left hand, she noticed the glint of silver where he still wore a wedding ring. He never took his eyes off her. She crossed her arms over her chest when she noticed his gaze drifting to her breasts. It made no difference. She may as well have been stark naked.

  'You did really well in Naples,' Gary told her. 'You bring a real athleticism to your routines. It's a pleasure to watch you perform. I mean, let's face it, there's a sensual quality to dance, and the best dancers know how to exploit it.'

  'I don't really think about that,' Amy said.

  'No, of course not, it comes naturally. I can see it in the grace with which you move your body.'

  Amy played with her curls and felt uncomfortable. 'Thanks.'

  Gary stood up again. 'I was about to open a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass? Our little secret.'

  'Um, sure, I suppose. Not much, though, I still have to drive.'

  'I'll be right back,' he told her. 'The TV is inside the big cabinet there. I've got the DVD of the team performances in the machine. Check it out.'

  'Yeah, OK.'

  Gary retreated from the living room, and she heard his shoes on the hardwood floor of the foyer. She hurried to the doorway. She heard Gary in the kitchen on the other end of the hallway, behind a swinging door. On her left was a wide winding staircase with a wrought-iron banister leading to the second floor. She noticed a roll-top desk in the foyer with envelopes sticking out of cubbyholes, and she pulled out several of the envelopes to see what they were. Most were bills and bank statements. She wanted something, anything, to connect Gary to Glory Fischer, but she didn't know where to look. Quickly, she yanked his Verizon bill out of the open envelope, but before she could review the dialed numbers, she heard the clink of crystal in the kitchen. She stuffed the bill and envelope back into the slot and ran back into the living room. She could feel a flush on her face, and she was breathing heavily.

  Gary strolled into the room with two glasses of wine in his hands. 'You didn't turn on the TV?' he asked.

  'I couldn't find the remote,' Amy said.

  'It's right on top of the cabinet,' he said, smiling.

  'Oh, duh. Sure.'

  'You OK?' he asked, noticing her jittery demeanor.

  'Yeah, I'm fine.'

  He opened the walnut doors of the cabinet, revealing a wide-screen television inside. He clicked on the power and pushed the play button on the DVD machine. Amy saw the arena at the Naples hotel and heard the chatter of the crowd in the bleachers. On screen, girls from her Green Bay team were rehearsing before their first event. She recognized herself, doing stretches on the mat, her legs spread apart. Gary's camera seemed to focus on her body.

  Gary handed her a glass of wine. 'Here you go.'

  'Thanks.'

  He clinked her glass. 'To you, Amy.'

  She drank a sip. The wine was cold and dry. 'This is great.'

  'I'm glad you like it.'

  'That was quite the week in Florida,' Amy said.

  'I love Naples. Someday I'd love to get a condo down there.'

  'Yeah, that would be great.' She drank more wine in a nervous gulp. 'Did you hear about what happened on Saturday night? A Wisconsin girl got killed. Pretty scary.'

  Gary sat down in the old armchair again and swirled the wine in his glass. 'I did hear about it. Terrible.'

  'She was from Door County. That's not far away.'

  'No, it's not.'

  'I saw her picture in the paper. I think I saw the girl in the hotel.'

  'Really? You saw her?'

  'Yeah, what about you? Do you remember her?'

  Gary shook his head. 'No.'

  'I suppose when you're around a couple hundred teenage girls, they all start to look alike.'

  'If she was on one of the other teams, I'm sure I would have noticed her.'

  'Yeah, probably. It makes you think, huh? Sounds like she was killed on the beach on Saturday night. I was too keyed up to sleep, so I was just lying in bed. If only I'd been looking out the window, you know? Maybe I would have seen something.'

  'Well, you can hardly blame yourself, Amy,' Gary told her.

  'Oh, yeah, I know.' She added, 'I never sleep well at the end of a competition. What about you?'

  'I'm the same way. I toss and turn.'

  'Yeah, my room was next to yours. I thought I heard you coming in late. I figured you couldn't sleep either.'

  Gary got an odd little smile on his face. 'You must have heard somebody else. I was in my room all night.'

  'Really? I was sure I heard your door open and close.'

  'I left to get ice at one point. I forgot about that. That's probably what you heard.'

  'Sure.'

  Gary's eyes were steady; he stared back at her without blinking. His voice was calm, not speeding up, not getting louder. He didn't show any outward signs of guilt or suspicion. Even so, Amy was convinced he wasn't telling her the truth. His explanations came too quickly and too easily. It was almost as if he'd been anticipating her questions and had been practicing all the right answers to deflect her concerns.

  With each sip of wine, she found herself getting a headache. She didn't drink much, and she put the glass down, not wanting to make it worse.

  'It was a beautiful hotel,' she continued.

  'Gorgeous. Very elegant.'

  'I was in the pool so much I thought I was going to grow gills,' she said, giggling. That was a lame joke. Why did she say that?

  'Yes, I remember seeing you there. You look pretty damn good in a swimsuit.' He smiled at her. His eyes glittered.

  'That was my power bikini,' she said, laughing too loudly. 'Didn't I see you talking to a girl by the pool on Saturday night?'

  'I don't recall.'

  'It wasn't one of the Green Bay girls, so that's why I noticed.'

  'If you say so, Amy,' he told her, still smiling.

  'You were wearing your white Phoenix T-shirt.'

  'Well, lots of men wear white T-shirts down there.'

  'Yeah, I guess.'

  Gary's phone began ringing. He glanced at the calle
r ID. 'I'm sorry, I need to take this call. It could take me a couple minutes, do you mind? Make yourself comfortable.'

  Amy waved a hand at him. 'No problemo. It's a great old house. Mind if I look around?'

  'Go ahead,' he said. 'Don't look at the dirty underwear on the floor, though.'

  He answered his phone as he left the living room. As he had before, he exited through the foyer and headed to the kitchen. Amy followed. She was angry with herself for drinking, because she could feel the wine going to her head. The room spun, and she shook herself in order to focus. She could hear Gary's voice on the other side of the swinging door.

  Holding the banister, she ran up the curving steps. She put her foot wrong twice and had to steady herself to keep from falling. At the landing, she swayed. She licked her lips, studying the rooms upstairs. To her left, through an open doorway, she saw a large master bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it had dark, grim decor, with deep red wallpaper and heavy curtains shutting out the light. A Tiffany lamp by the bed cast a pale yellow glow around the room.

  Just as Gary said, the room was messy. His clothes were in a pile near the closet. He hadn't unpacked from the trip, and his suitcase was shoved against a wall. It was open. She bent over it and slid to her knees. Her headache was worse. She rubbed her forehead and realized she was sweating. She dug through the items that had been dumped in the suitcase, pushing through dirty clothes. She saw handwritten notes on the dance competition on a yellow pad. Two hardcover books on sports. A camera. A pair of binoculars.

  When she lifted up a pair of men's safari shorts, she noticed a fringe of pink lace pushing out of a side pocket. She used the tip of one finger to extract what was inside, and she discovered a pair of thong panties. They were flimsy and sexy. As she dangled them on her finger, she also noticed the white T-shirt that Gary had worn by the pool on Saturday night. She picked up the shirt and put her nose close to it. It smelled of sun block and sweat, but more than that, she also caught a strong briny aroma of salt water.

  'Amy?'

  It was Gary, downstairs, calling up to her.

  'I'll be right there.'

  She froze with the clothing in her hands, wondering if she should steal it for the police. Sooner or later, he would wash the shirt. The panties? He'd find them and throw them away. She hung on to the clothes as she tried to decide what to do. The gears in her brain weren't functioning. She felt the room spinning again, and she grew dizzy as she got to her feet.

  'You OK, Amy?'

  'Uh, yeah,' she called. 'I have to use the bathroom.'

  She returned to the hallway and saw an open door on the other side of the stairs that led to a toilet. She went inside and closed the door behind her. She nearly fell against the door as she did, and when she tried to twist the lock, her fingers slipped. She winced as her head throbbed. She spotted a floor-length linen closet, and without thinking, she opened the door and shoved the thong and the T-shirt inside, hidden under a stack of clean towels.

  Amy dug in her pocket for her phone.

  Hilary sat at the kitchen table of Terri Duecker's condo in Fish Creek, with a mug of blackberry tea steeping in front of her, sending up a warm cloud of steam. She knew the rental cottage well. It was their winter residence on weekdays, when the ferries didn't run late enough to take them home. Right now, it felt empty and too quiet, and she was conscious of being alone. She knew she'd made a mistake. An immature, impetuous mistake.

  She'd driven to the ferry after meeting Peter Hoffman, but she'd watched it leave, rather than driving on to the deck. Fifteen minutes later, she'd called and lied to Mark and said she'd missed it. Cab Bolton was right. She never missed a ferry. If she was anything in life, she was organized and efficient about her schedule.

  Terri had looked at her strangely when Hilary returned to Fish Creek, but she didn't ask any questions. She'd simply said, 'Sure,' when Hilary asked if she could stay in the condo for the night. Her face full of concern, she'd also asked if Hilary needed anything, and Hilary had lied again and said no. In truth, she needed her faith back. She needed Mark. She needed to know the truth.

  He'd called twice, and she'd ignored the call both times. She didn't want to talk to him until she knew what she was going to say. Now, in the silent apartment, with the aroma of her tea wafting through the kitchen, she realized she was ducking the hard path and hiding from what she had to do. She was also making a mistake she'd long ago sworn never to make, by judging Mark based on what someone else said, instead of relying on her own instincts.

  She picked up her cell phone, which was lying next to the mug of tea in front of her. She punched the speed dial for their home phone.

  'Hey, I've been trying to reach you,' Mark said.

  'Yeah. Sorry. I was picking up dinner at a restaurant, and then I was talking to Terri. I couldn't grab the phone.'

  'No problem. I miss you here.'

  'Me too.'

  'Is everything OK? You sound strange.'

  'No, I'm fine,' she murmured, but she wasn't fine, and she didn't want him thinking that she was. 'Actually, babes, it was a tough afternoon.'

  'How so?'

  Hilary steeled herself. Say it. That was how it was supposed to work between them. No secrets, it looks like Cab Bolton has a witness. Someone who saw you on the beach with Glory.'

  'Son of a bitch,' Mark said. 'I was afraid of that.'

  'There's more.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, the witness saw you and Glory kissing.'

  Mark was silent. She could hear him breathing. Finally, he said, 'That's why you didn't come home. You believe it.'

  'I don't know what to believe.'

  'Do you need me to deny it? OK, I'll deny it. It didn't happen. I didn't touch her. But if you're not sure, I don't know if it's going to help for me to say so. How can I prove it to you?'

  'You don't need to prove anything to me.'

  'It sounds like I do.' His voice was cold and disappointed.

  'I was wrong to doubt you. I was wrong not to come home. It just knocked me for a loop, coming out of the blue. I needed to get my head together.'

  He was slow to reply. When he did, the angry edge was gone. 'Hil, I'm sorry. You've stuck by me in the past year, when most wives would have sent me packing. You've never wavered. I can't blame you for wondering if you've been a fool when you hear a story like that. All I can say is, whoever this witness is, he or she made a mistake. I did not kiss Glory. No way. I told you that she put her arms around my neck and scratched me, because she was drunk. Maybe that's what this person saw. He misinterpreted.'

  'That's probably it.'

  'It drives me crazy to have this coming between us, because I can never do anything but ask you to trust me.'

  'I do.'

  'You feel really far away,' he told her.

  'I know. I'm sorry.' Hilary heard the beep on her phone that told her another call was coming in. 'Can you hang on? Someone else is calling. Don't hang up. I want to keep talking.'

  'I'll be here.'

  Hilary pushed the flash button on her phone and said, 'Hello?'

  She heard a young voice she hadn't heard in years. 'Hilary? Thank God. It's Amy. Amy Leigh.'

  Amy spoke in hushed tones into the phone in Gary's upstairs bathroom. What was she doing? Her voice slurred, and she was afraid that Hilary would think she was drunk and playing games with her. A few sips of wine, and she was drunk. She tried to concentrate on her words, but she found that her brain and her mouth kept missing each other.

  'I was at the - that is, I was down on - in Florida. Last week.'

  'Yes, I know, Amy, I was there too. You did great. Congratulations.'

  Amy tried to think. Tried to figure out what to say. 'I know what's going on with you. I'm really apology. Sorry. I mean, sorry.'

  'Amy, are you OK?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Have you been drinking?'

  'I guess. That's - that must be it. My coach.' 'What?'

  'My c
oach. My coach. Do you know him?'

  'I've heard of him,' Hilary told her. 'What's his name? Johnson?'

  'Jensen. Gary Jensen. Yes. Gary.'

  'What about him?'

  Amy heard his voice again. He was at the base of the stairs. His voice was suddenly low and suspicious. 'Amy?' he called again. 'Amy, are you up there? What are you doing?'

  She heard him climbing the twisting steps. Getting closer to her.

  'Florida,' she said into the phone.

  'Amy, you're not making any sense,' Hilary told her.

  Amy banged her knuckles against her head. The words wouldn't come. She felt as if she would throw up. Her tongue felt thick. 'Gary,' she murmured. And then: 'Glory.'

  'What?' Hilary's voice was insistent. 'Amy, did you say Glory? Are you talking about Glory Fischer? What about her?'

  Amy couldn't feel her fingers. The phone slipped from her hand and dropped to the tile floor. The plastic back popped off, and the battery skidded away. It was dead. She heard Gary knocking on the closed door. He was inches away from her.

  'Amy?' he called.

  She backed up. The knob turned; he was coming in. She grabbed the shower curtain, and the rings popped from the rod one by one, and she followed the curtain to the floor. The door opened. He stood there, watching her from the doorway. His face showed no emotion or surprise. He knew; he'd been waiting for this to happen. She had to run. Get up, get past him. Except there was nowhere to go.

  Amy crawled two steps, and her knees gave way. She was unconscious as her face struck the floor.

  * * *

  PART THREE

  VENGEANCE IS MINE

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty

  Mark Bradley made the ferry crossing through Death's Door and drove to their favorite open-air market between the towns of Ellison Bay and Sister Bay. It was one of the few farmers' markets that was open year round, baking hot pies daily and lining the shelves with produce canned in the kitchen at the rear of the store. He loved the smell of sugar and flowers and the samples of mustards and cheeses between the open wooden bins. He carried a paper bag through the aisles, filling it as he went. Some of the locals stared at him, but he shrugged it off. He didn't care what anyone thought of him.