Bone by Bone

The man retrieved his cane. 'So Josh was buried… and Sheriff Babitt said more than you let on.' The atmosphere of the room had changed; the air was charged. 'He also passed along some old rumors, didn't he?' The tip of the cane rose in a warning. 'Please don't deny it. I'm aware that he's been digging into my past. So now you think you know all about me.' Swahn lightly touched his scar, the jagged A, a show-and-tell exhibit for AIDS. 'And you've just got to know-in addition to my other crimes- rampantly fucking men and spreading disease-was I also in the habit of diddling young boys in the woods?'

'Were you?'

The telephone rang, and Swahn ignored it, though it sat on a small table only inches from his hand. 'I believe it's for you.'

On the third ring, Oren rose from the floor and approached the phone, skirting the man. He picked up the receiver and said, ' Hobbs.' After listening to the sheriff for less than a minute, he answered the only question. 'No, that's not a case of cops being tidy.'

Hanging up on Cable Babitt, he turned to his host. 'About those old rumors. It surprised the hell out of your ex-partner when he found out you were gay. Jay Murray heard that rumor during his interrogation by Internal Affairs-after you were attacked. So tell me if I've got this right. You believe a whole precinct full of cops conspired against you for being a gay man with AIDS.' Oren splayed his hands. 'But your own partner never heard that rumor? How is that possible?'

'I can't discuss this with you.'

'Of course not. You signed a nondisclosure agreement with the LAPD. Lots of money at stake if you talk.' Oren sat down on the couch and stretched out his legs. 'You and Jay Murray rode together for a year. All that time, and it never occurred to him that you were gay. He just took you for an overeducated geek, an awkward kid who had no shot with women. You don't believe that? You were a rookie. So your first partner would've been an older guy, a mentor. I bet Murray gave you more advice about women than police work. Am I right?'

He was right. He could see the first fault line in Swahn's composure. Gears were shifting behind the man's eyes as he considered this one true thing.

'You were set up that night.' Oren raised his beer bottle and took a swig. 'You were just wrong about everything else.' He pointed at the scar on Swahn's face. 'Cops had nothing to do with that.'

Ah, this was heresy. Was the man gripping his cane a little tighter with that damaged hand? Yes. But Swahn said nothing. Continued silence was worth millions, and Oren was counting on that. He could bang away at his leisure and never have to dodge a counterpoint.

'Your ex-partner made some cash for calling in sick that night. I'll tell you how I know. According to Murray 's tax records, he left the force without a pension. He was terminated right after you were ambushed. That's what the sheriff called to tell me. So there was no time for a formal department hearing. That's how I know Jay Murray lost his pension in a plea bargain. He was looking at jail time for taking a bribe, and there had to be solid evidence. Detectives probably tossed his place and found the payoff money. You think Murray knew what was going to happen to you that night? Give me a break. Calling in sick was like painting a target on his own chest. So what's left? The dispatcher, who conveniently disappears before she can make a sworn statement-a civilian dispatcher. And that's how I know-when you called in for help that night-you got the same woman who sent you into that ambush.'

Oren knew that he had guessed right when the man's eyes flickered with new interest.

'Swahn, you can't believe that cops passed the hat around the station house for the dispatcher's go-away money. Maybe you think they killed her?' Could he be more sarcastic? No. 'Cops are not that stupid.' He stared at the scar on Swahn's face. 'And whoever did that to you is smarter than you are. That's one case that'll never be investigated.'

He saw confusion in Swahn's eyes, fleeting-gone now.

'The dispatcher never relayed your call for help. Those cops you hate so much, they never knew you were in trouble. If they had, they would've turned out for you that night. And they would've turned LA upside down to find the guy who hurt you. But you closed the case yourself-the day you took the settlement, the hush money.'

The older man's stance was weighted to one side, and it seemed that the breath of one more word might knock him down. But no.

Resurrection time.

'Old business,' said William Swahn, too cavalierly dismissing a quarter-century of hatred for every cop ever born. His lips pressed together in a line of new resolve-fresh anger. Oren would not be allowed to get away with attacking this very personal mythology. That much was in the man's face.

Payback was coming.

'Let's return to the case at hand… your dead brother. Poor Joshua.' Swahn settled into the nearby chair and stared at his cane, hefting its weight in one hand and paying special attention to the heavy silver handle. 'You're right. This is a good weapon. And, since you favor the idea of death by bludgeoning, that tells me there were no bullet holes in Josh's remains. Too bad. You see… the seclusion factor always troubled me. Privacy for a murder can be had in any enclosed space. Why would the killer pick a meeting place in the deep woods? Obviously, he wasn't worried about the sound of gunfire. No gun. Maybe he didn't want anyone to hear the screams. Some murders, the crudest, the most perverted kind, require more privacy- more time. I was hoping it was a quick death. Apparently… it wasn't.'

First blood from a master of retaliation.

Oren settled to the floor and sat there-very still. His own scream was an interior noise that only he could hear.

And Swahn was not done with him yet.

The man was leaning toward Oren and into that range for exchanging ugly little secrets, almost whispering when he asked, 'Did your brother seem apprehensive that day? Josh asked you to come with him, didn't he?'

No. In fact, it had been Oren's idea to go along on that hike.

'So you started out together that morning,' said Swahn. 'And then you left your little brother. You left him there all alone in the deep woods. I always wondered why.'

Oren closed his eyes. He was not remembering it; he was reliving it. From the moment they entered the woods, Josh only wanted to get away from his older brother.

'Miss Puce wouldn't allow me to question you when you were a teenager.' Swahn leaned closer to his guest, too close. 'You were in very bad shape in those days. After Josh disappeared, you were always running off into the woods. Sometimes it took days for the townspeople to find you. What drove you, Mr. Hobbs? Was it guilt? Didn't you just want to die?'

That part was true-still true.

A second pot of coffee had been delivered to the tower room by the maid, Hilda.

Sarah Winston eyed it with chagrin. She opened the drawer in her bedside table and pulled out an empty bottle. Turning to the open door, she called out to her daughter. 'This was full when I went to bed last night. You poured it out, didn't you, Belle?'

Isabelle Winston stood outside on the deck with a telephone in hand, its long cord trailing a few feet beyond the doorway. She barely paid attention to her mother. The phone's receiver was pressed to one ear, and she could not listen to both of her parents at once-not with the other distractions of hummingbirds hanging in the air, dive-bomber starlings and the piping whistles of orioles. She ended the call when her mother joined her outside.

A bird came to light on the older woman's shoulder, a common enough occurrence, but her daughter always marveled at it. Sarah turned her face to the lark and mimicked its short song of flutelike notes. The bird sang back to her and took flight. Isabelle was the one with an ornithologist's credentials, but her mother was so well acquainted with these wild things that they bid one another hello and goodbye.

'They never come to me.' Isabelle stretched out one hand to a nearby feeder. Wings unfurled and flapping madly, the birds flew off to the next seed holder farther down the railing. 'They never light on me.'

'And they never will,' said Sarah Winston, as if they had not held this conversation many times. Endlessly patient, she said to her only child, 'But this is a good thing, Belle. You're so animated, so alive. No bird would ever mistake you for a tree limb or a post-a lifeless thing.' Never spoken were the final words, like me.

Yet Isabelle always heard them.

'Did your father tell you who was taken away in that coffin?'

And now Isabelle realized that her mother knew nothing about the bones. There was no radio in the tower. There never had been. Her mother only listened to the birds. 'The coroner's van came for Josh. They found his remains.'

'At the judge's house?'

'Yes. Someone's been leaving the bones on the old man's porch late at night.'

The coffee cup crashed to the deck. Birds flew off in alarm, screaming. And her mother screamed.

9

I found out what they want.' Dave Hardy stood at the door to the sheriff's private office. He raised his voice to be heard above the noise from the street-side window. 'That maggot, Ferris Monty- he told them you arrested Oren Hobbs.'

Traffic in Saulburg was snarling, horns honking. The parking lot was full, and latecomers double-parked in front of the building. One reporter brazenly pulled up onto the sidewalk. Cable Babitt stood at the window, frowning. 'I suppose it would be wrong to shoot them.' He glanced back at his deputy. 'Son? Just make them all go away.'

'How?'

Cable joined him at the door and pointed to another deputy in the outer room. 'Take John with you. Go out there and ticket the crap out of all those cars and vans. Then you can just let it slip that Oren's gone somewhere else-anyplace that's not Saulburg.'

Outside on the street, while writing tickets and slapping them on windshields, the new recruit, Deputy Faulks, flirted with the pretty woman who tagged after him, microphone in hand. When they were within earshot of two other reporters, he answered her twice repeated question. 'My guess? Hobbs is probably hiding out in the Coventry Library.'

The newswoman tilted her head to one side. 'You're kidding, right? Why would he go there?'

Her colleagues were turning their heads, staring at the deputy, and he called out to them, 'It's the perfect hideout! Nobody in Coventry ever goes to the library!'

Three reporters raced for their cars. Others in the pack picked up the scent and followed. But one camera was still filming when Deputy Faulks turned around to receive a bloody nose from Dave Hardy's fist.

'Cop fight!' yelled the cameraman.

The radio was tuned to a local jazz station. The delivery boy had come and gone. And civility was provisionally restored at William Swahn's house.

Oren sat on the floor, eating a slice of hot pizza and drinking a second cold beer with his host. He had not given up any details of the sheriff's case, not a word about finding the bones of a second victim. For now, the prospect of a multiple homicide was only a rumor on the radio during the newsbreak.

Swahn appeared to give the idea no weight. 'Next, they'll be saying there's a serial killer in the neighborhood.'