The Bone House

by Brian Freeman

'Yes, sure.'

  'Are you a full-time employee at the university?' Cab asked.

  'That's right.'

  'Do you do anything other than coach?'

  'I also teach physical education.'

  'Did any other university employees participate in this trip to Florida?'

  Jensen shook his head. 'No, it was just me and the students. We contracted with a local bus service for a vehicle and driver.'

  'Did anyone else share your hotel room with you in Florida?'

  'No, it was just me.'

  Cab's eyes flitted to the ring on Jensen's left hand. 'Your wife didn't come with you?

  'Sorry, I'm no longer married,' Jensen explained, twisting the ring. 'My wife passed away last year.'

  'I'm very sorry.'

  'Thank you.'

  'So on Saturday night, you were alone in your room?' Cab asked.

  'That's right.'

  'Tell me what happened.'

  Jensen took another swig from his can of Coke. 'I couldn't sleep. You know what hotel beds are like. Around two thirty or so, I took a cigar out on the balcony and figured I'd relax with a smoke. My room faced the Gulf. Great view. Big moon. I think I was on the tenth floor. Anyway, I sat outside for about half an hour or so. I don't know what time it was, but at some point, I saw a man walking from the hotel down to the beach right below me.'

  'Can you describe him?' Cab asked.

  'I wish I could. It was pretty dark. He looked like a fairly big guy, but from that height, it's hard to tell. All I saw was his yellow tank top. It was bright, so it was easy to spot. I'm not sure I would have remembered him, but I saw him again a while later, down close to the water. It looked like he was making out with a girl.' 'Where did this girl come from?' Cab asked.

  Jensen shook his head. 'I don't know.'

  'Did you see her leave the hotel?'

  'No, I only saw the guy. I noticed her for the first time when the man approached her on the beach. He came from the north, and she was already there when I spotted them. I couldn't see anything about her, other than it was a girl in a bright bikini.'

  'Are you sure it was the same man you saw leaving the hotel?'

  'Well, it was the same shirt,' Jensen said.

  Cab stopped and looked up at the water-stained ceiling as he heard a heavy thud on the floor overhead. Jensen's face seized with dismay.

  'I'm sorry, did you say you live alone now?' Cab asked.

  The coach looked embarrassed. He spread his hands as if to say: You caught me. 'I live alone, but I'm finally at a point where I don't always sleep alone, Detective.' 'Ah.'

  'You can see why I was a little surprised when you showed up. I was sort of occupied, if you know what I mean.'

  'I understand,' Cab told him. 'Just to confirm, you didn't have anyone in the hotel with you in Florida. Right?'

  Jensen nodded. 'That's right.'

  'What happened when this man in the yellow shirt approached the girl on the beach?' Cab asked.

  'They talked for a while,' Jensen said. 'Then it was more than talking.'

  'Meaning what exactly?'

  'I could see them kissing.'

  'Are you sure that was what they were doing?' Cab asked.

  Jensen hesitated. 'I just assumed it was what they were doing. Their arms were wrapped around each other, so that's what it looked like. You don't think he could have been hurting her, do you?'

  'You tell me.'

  Jensen rubbed his hands over his balding head. 'I'm really not sure. I mean, you see two people together like that, you assume they're making out, but now that I think about it ...' His voice trailed off, then he started again. 'I don't know, maybe she was struggling. I hope I'm wrong. I hate to think I was watching him kill that poor girl, and I didn't do anything.' 'What happened next?' Cab asked.

  'I went back inside and went to bed.'

  'You didn't stay on the balcony and watch?'

  Jensen smiled. 'I'm not a pervert, Detective. I wasn't going to hang around to see if they had sex. Besides, by that point, I could barely keep my eyes open.'

  'What time was this?'

  'It must have been a little after three. I remember noticing the clock shortly after I got back in bed, and it was just about three fifteen.'

  'Could you identify the girl or the man you saw?' Cab asked.

  'No, as I told you, it was too dark.'

  'Have you seen a photo of the girl who was killed?'

  Jensen nodded. 'Yes, I've seen photos of her in the paper.'

  'Do you remember seeing her at all during the time you were in Florida?'

  'No, I don't. I'm not saying I didn't, but there were teenage girls all over the hotel. I don't remember her specifically.'

  'Have you told anyone else about what you saw?' Cab asked.

  'No, I didn't give it a thought until I saw what had happened. Then I called your department.'

  'What about the girls on the Green Bay team? Did any of them mention seeing anything unusual in Florida? Have you heard any discussion among them about the murder or about the girl who was killed?'

  'No, I haven't.'

  'I'd like a list of the girls who were on the school trip with you. As long as I'm in the area, I'd like to interview them personally.'

  'You mean today?' Jensen asked.

  'If that's not a problem.'

  'No, no, no problem. I could just jot down a list from memory right now, if you'd like. I don't have their contact information, though. You'd have to get that from the university.'

  'That would be fine,' Cab told him.

  'It'll take me just a minute.'

  Jensen got up and opened a kitchen drawer and retrieved a notepad and a pen. He scribbled names on the paper, then hesitated with his pen poised in the air, as if he was trying to remember. 'I heard you have a suspect,' he told Cab. is that true? Is that the man I saw?'

  'I can't comment on that,' Cab said. 'It would be much better if you didn't read any more articles about the case, Mr Jensen. You shouldn't talk to anyone about it either. If this goes to trial, you'll need to testify, and you'll be asked about things that might have influenced your memory.' 'I understand.'

  He finished writing, tore off the page from the pad, and handed it to Cab, who studied the list of names.

  Tracey Griffiths

  Bracey Berard

  Katie Baumgart

  Nancy Gaber

  Sally Anderson

  Paula Davis

  Michelle Palmer

  Lenie Korbijn

  Laura Hansen

  Carol Breidenbach

  Deb Bodinnar

  'This is the whole team?' Cab asked.

  Jensen nodded. 'Those are my girls.'

  Cab folded the paper and slid it into the pocket of his suit coat. He stood up. 'Thank you for your help, Mr Jensen. I think that's all for now. If I have any more questions, I'll give you a call.' 'Of course.'

  Jensen led him out of the kitchen. As the coach opened the front door, Cab glanced up the stairs, and Jensen followed his eyes and gave him an awkward smile.

  'I'll let you get back to what you were doing,' Cab told him. 'Thank you. Good luck with your investigation, Detective.' Jensen closed the door, and Cab ducked through the swaying trees to the Corvette. He climbed inside, eyeing the dirty sky, which promised to open up in heavy rain before it was night. The wide street was empty of traffic. The upstairs level of Gary Jensen's house was barely visible through the thick web of maple branches, but he could see curtains drawn across all of the windows.

  He wasn't impressed with Jensen as a witness. The man qualified everything he'd seen with 'maybe' and 'I'm not sure', as if he'd begun to regret opening his mouth in the first place. A smart defense attorney like Archibald Gale would shred him on a witness stand. There was also something about Jensen's demeanor that made Cab uneasy. He didn't like him.

  He retrieved the coach's list from his pocket. He wanted to know what the rest of the Green Bay dance team had seen in Florida. He was ready to drive
back to the university, but before he pulled away from the curb, his phone rang.

  Cab heard a raspy voice when he answered. 'Detective, my name is Peter Hoffman.'

  He searched his memory and was coming up blank when the man added, 'My son-in-law was Harris Bone.'

  'Yes, of course, Mr Hoffman,' Cab said. 'What can I do for you?'

  'We need to meet.'

  'I know. You're on my list. Where do you live?'

  'I'm not far from the ferry landing in Northport. When can you be here?'

  Cab checked his watch. 'I'm about ninety minutes south of you right now, Mr Hoffman. I'm in Green Bay, and I have some other interviews to conduct in the next few hours. Can I come by your place first thing in the morning?'

  'This can't wait,' Hoffman told him curtly.

  Cab paused. He was curious. 'What is it you want to talk about?'

  'I have information for you, Detective. It's urgent.'

  'What kind of information?'

  Hoffman practically spat into the phone. 'I can help you prove that Mark Bradley is the man who killed Glory.'

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mark waited at the pier in Northport for the three o'clock ferry back to Washington Island. He couldn't see the boat out on the water through the fog and haze. His jaw ached where Peter Hoffman had connected with an uppercut of his fist, and he worked it carefully with his hand, feeling a loose molar. He sat and fumed, angry at himself for losing control. It didn't matter that he'd been assaulted and provoked by the old man's threats. He wished that he had ignored Hoffman and pushed his way out of the store. Instead, news of their altercation was probably already flying through the county.

  Impatiently, Mark got out of his truck. His Explorer was the second vehicle in line for the ferry, and no one had pulled up behind him. It would be a quiet ride back to the island. He walked with his hands in his pockets down to the end of the pier, where he stared out at the white boulders of the breakwater and the choppy waves in the passage. The island wasn't even five miles away, but it was invisible on the mist-shrouded horizon. The afternoon sky was threatening and black. It mirrored his mood. The bright spirit in which he'd started the day, in Hilary's arms, had descended into a storm of depression.

  He realized that he hadn't called Hilary yet to tell her what had happened between him and Peter Hoffman, but he wondered if she already knew. Their friend Terri in Fish Creek was a lightning rod for gossip, and if word of the fight had reached her, her first call would have been to Hilary. On the other hand, if his wife knew, she would have called him. His phone hadn't rung all day.

  Things were going from bad to worse. Their lives were spinning out of control. He didn't know how to stop it.

  Mark reached into the pocket of his jacket but discovered that his phone wasn't where he usually kept it. He patted all of his other pockets and couldn't find it. Thinking that he had left it on the passenger seat of the truck, he tramped back from the shore to his Explorer. He checked the front seat and the glove compartment and then under the seats, but his phone was missing.

  He remembered that he'd dropped it in the farmers' market when Hoffman hit him. In the confusion, he'd never picked it up again. He cursed and shook his head. There was no time to drive back to Sister Bay. If he skipped the three o'clock ferry, the last ferry of the day wasn't for two more hours. He'd have to let his phone go until tomorrow.

  He walked twenty yards to the ticket booth for the ferry. The crews on the boats and at the pier all knew him. In the old days, they'd shared jokes and talked sports with him while he waited, but not anymore. They were like everyone else now, believing the rumors. The fat man in the booth, Bobby Larch, slid open the customer window when Mark tapped on it. He was reading a copy of Playboy, eating fries from a styrofoam box, and drinking a bottle of Baumeister's cherry soda. His daughter Karen had been in Mark's English class during his first year teaching in Fish Creek, and Bobby had told Mark back then how much Karen had raved about his class. He was her favorite teacher.

  None of that mattered now. In the days since Tresa, every parent looked at him as a predator.

  'Hey, Bobby,' Mark said.

  The man barely looked away from his magazine. 'What do you want?'

  'Can I borrow your phone?'

  'Why?'

  'I lost mine,' Mark told him. 'Come on, Bobby, I want to call my wife.'

  Bobby shrugged and dug in the pocket of his dirty jeans. He handed a Samsung flip-phone to Mark. It was warm and greasy.

  'Thanks,' Mark said. He added without thinking, 'How's Karen doing? Is she in college now?'

  Bobby didn't answer and slid the booth window shut with a bang.

  Mark dialed his home number. The phone rang over on the island, but after four rings, the answering machine took the call. He left a message: 'It's me. I lost my phone if you've been trying to reach me. I'll be on the three o'clock. I'll see you soon.'

  He decided to dial his own mobile number to see if someone had found his phone and turned it in at the market. He wasn't anxious to be showing his face in there again after what had happened.

  Mark dialed.

  A man answered on the second ring and said in a gravelly voice, 'Who is this?'

  'This is Mark Bradley. I think you've got my phone.'

  'Bradley,' the man said. 'I was wondering when you'd call me.'

  Mark recognized the voice now. He wished he hadn't dialed the number. It was Peter Hoffman. The old man must have picked up his phone at the store and kept it. Instinctively, Mark's temper, which he'd tried to tame all day, flared again. He struggled to keep a lid on his emotions.

  'Mr Hoffman, I'm sorry about what happened between us. Really. I hope you're OK.'

  'Don't you worry about me, Bradley. I just hope that glass jaw of yours is broken.'

  Mark didn't take the bait. 'I didn't call to pick up where we left off. I just want to get my phone back.'

  'I've got it right here,' Hoffman said.

  'I don't know why you took it with you. I wish you'd left it at the store.'

  'I could have done that, but then you wouldn't have had to face me again, would you? If you want your phone back, you can come and get it.'

  Mark checked his watch. The ferry was due in ten minutes. Hoffman's home wasn't far, but he doubted that he had time to go to the man's house and make it back to the port in time. He also didn't think it would be a simple matter of Hoffman handing him the phone. The man wanted another confrontation.

  'I have a ferry to catch.'

  'In other words, you don't have the guts to look me in the eye. I suppose tomorrow you'll send your wife to collect it.'

  Mark grimaced, because that was exactly what he'd planned to do. Hilary wouldn't let him cross Hoffman's doorstep. Not with what had already happened.

  'Good night, Mr Hoffman,' he said.

  'Yeah, you hang up, Bradley,' the man cut in. 'Go back across Death's Door and get a good night's sleep. But let me tell you something. I already talked to that detective in Florida. He's coming to see me.'

  'Good for you.'

  'When he knows what I know, he'll be heading out there to arrest you, Bradley.'

  Mark slapped the phone shut, cutting off the abuse from Hoffman's mouth. He got out of the truck. He smelled the approaching downpour in the thick air. He shivered and hiked to the ticket booth, where Bobby Larch slid open the window and took back his phone.

  'Thanks,' Mark said.

  'Whatever.'

  'Is the ferry on time?'

  'Bobby shook his head. 'Nah, it'll be ten to fifteen minutes late getting in.'

  Mark returned to his Explorer. He switched on the radio, and the local rock station was playing a song by the Black Eyed Peas. That wasn't his kind of music, and he normally would have changed the station, but as he listened, the beat of the song thumped in his head. The refrain, repeated over and over, was the title of the song, and he found himself responding the more he listened to it.

  Let's Ge
t It Started.

  That was right. He wasn't going to lie down for anyone anymore. Whatever happened would happen.

  When Mark checked his watch, he saw that the ferry delay gave him time to drive to Peter Hoffman's home and see the man face to face. He pulled out of the ferry line, did a sharp U-turn, and shot through the flat ribbon of curves toward Port des Morts Drive.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The house was dead still, the way it always was.

  Peter Hoffman sat at the butcher block table in his kitchen and drank whiskey straight from the bottle as he listened to the silence. His need for quiet was a holdover that he'd never been able to shake from his days in the war. He never played music. He rarely watched television. He wanted to hear exactly what was happening outside so that he could detect anything out of place. His ears were attuned to every sound that the house made, every trill of every bird, every shriek of wind, hiss of snow, and drumbeat of rain. There were times when his wife had insisted on playing symphonies on the stereo, but he'd found that he couldn't stay in the room with the noise. Since she'd died, he'd lived in silence, listening and waiting.

  Forty years had passed, the war was long gone, and he still expected an enemy to come from somewhere. If they did, he'd hear them.

  Hoffman had a map of Door County laid out in front of him. Next to it was the metal ring on which he kept his bulky set of keys. He held on to keys long after he didn't need them anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to remove them from the ring and throw them away. He still knew the lock associated with each one. His 1982 Cutlass. The strongbox where he'd kept his insurance and mortgage documents, when he still had a mortgage. Nettie's house, Nettie's garage, before the fire.

  He picked up the ring and found the key he was looking for. It was a small silver key, the kind that opened a heavy padlock. It was in good condition, but the lock to which it belonged was dirty and rust- covered where it lay in the dirt, exposed to the fierce elements. In the early days, he'd gone there every few months to check on it, but he'd never opened the lock. He'd tugged on it to make sure it held good, and then he had left. Eventually, he'd realized there was no reason to keep coming back. All he was doing was torturing himself.