Bone by Bone

'I know Ad Winston was your lawyer,' said Oren. 'All that settlement money. You must've been a grateful client. Is that why you never interviewed him or his wife?'

After calmly wiping his hands on a napkin, Swahn finished his beer. 'He was your lawyer, too, Mr. Hobbs.'

What?

'You didn't know?' Swahn wore a satisfied smile. 'Judge Hobbs retained him for you right after Josh disappeared. Wise move. You wouldn't give a reason for leaving your little brother alone in the woods. And you wouldn't tell anyone where you were all day and half that night. Your father was probably holding his breath, waiting for the sheriff to turn up at the door every second of every day. He wanted to be ready if it came to a trial. So he hired the best lawyer in the state. That's why I didn't interview either of the Winstons. They couldn't talk to me.'

One old mystery was solved for Oren. This explained why he had been left alone after one brief and fruitless interrogation by the sheriff-after time had been allowed for the scratches on his face to heal.

Swahn picked up a sheet of paper attached to a photograph of Evelyn Straub. 'You probably noticed-this interviews very short. I'm sure you wondered why. When did this woman ever censor a thought in her head? Absolutely fearless. It took me an hour to find her soft spots and break her.'

Evelyn? Oren suppressed a smile. He wanted to laugh at this man, this amateur. Interrogation was not a criminologist's game, and he would pit Evelyn Straub against the best of the best in his own trade. The lady was made of unbreakable stuff. He waved off the proffered piece of paper. 'I read it. Seems light.'

'Most of her conversation was never typed up for my files.' Swahn pulled out a small notebook. 'However, I do have a more complete version. It concerns your lack of an alibi for the day your brother disappeared.' He fanned the pages to show the handwritten lines-so many.

Oren was backing up in his mind, bracing.

Swahn glanced at the first page of his notes. 'I had the feeling that Mrs. Straub knew all your secrets.' He looked up and paused for a beat. 'And she probably knew about the other women you were sleeping with.'

Oren sipped his beer, appearing only mildly curious and keeping to a boyhood habit of never confirming or denying those rumors.

Leaning back against the side of a chair, Swahn dragged out this lull. 'Mrs. Straub was very attractive in those days. These past twenty years, she hasn't aged well. And that's odd. You know she has the money to stay young forever.'

Absently turning a page in his notebook, the man never took his eyes off Oren. 'Your housekeeper asked me to find you an alibi witness. That was my job. She had no inside information about your affairs, but she had eyes. Miss Rice knew the effect you had on females. When she first came to me, her focus was on your refusal to say anything in your own defense. It was her theory that you might keep silent to protect a married woman. So I didn't just single out Mrs. Straub. I talked to all the women posed with you in Josh's photographs. Unfortunately, my efforts backfired. Two women came forward. The two alibis should've cancelled each other out. But the sheriff believed one of those stories. Hers.' Swahn tapped the photograph of Evelyn Straub.

'You had good taste, Mr. Hobbs. She was a pretty woman in those days. I liked her. Very jaded-very hip. I figured she was only in it for the sex. A teenage boy never runs out of juice. No real emotion in play. That's why I thought the sheriff believed her when she told him you spent the whole day in her bed. But I was wrong. Later, I discovered she had a prenuptial agreement. If she was caught cheating on her husband, she'd get nothing in a divorce settlement. Mr. Straub was an old man-good as dead. His wife only had to bide her time for another year. But she put everything on the line for you.'

Swahn flipped another page, though he never looked down at the lines written there. 'I never told Mrs. Straub how I found out about her affair with you. I suppose she assumed that you betrayed her. For all I know, she still believes that. But after I talked to her, she went to the sheriff anyway. You were only seventeen-probably younger the first time she took you to bed-the underage son of a judge. That woman risked a lot more than money.' He leaned forward, the better to study the younger man's face when he asked, 'Did she tell the truth? Or did she risk everything to lie for you?… Did she love you, Mr. Hobbs?'

Oren looked at his watch. 'Time to go.' He brushed pizza crumbs from his jeans as he stood up. Extending a hand down to his host, he helped the man to rise from the floor.

Swahn seemed deeply disappointed. He had dug his hole, his trap of words, and covered it over with twigs and branches, but Oren had not fallen in.

That wasn't an idle question.' Swahn's limp worsened as he followed his guest into the foyer. 'It doesn't matter if Mrs. Straub lied or not. Just consider what she stood to lose.'

Oren opened the front door.

Mr. Hobbs, either this woman loved you-or she needed an alibi as much as you did.'

'Thanks for the beer and pizza.' Oren stepped outside, escaping. He was walking down the driveway when he glanced back.

Swahn had followed to the edge of the portico and now called out to him, 'When you report back to the sheriff, ask him about Mrs. Straub's seances in the woods. The judge and Miss Puce go out there to commune with your dead brother.'

Oren stumbled and then moved on.

10

The phantom spiders had been vanquished by the doctor from Saulburg.

While Sarah Winston slept off a sedative in the tower room, her husband and daughter stood outside on the deck. Isabelle focused a telescope on the winding fire road. In the twilight hour, the running lights of vehicles made them visible through the scrub pines of the foothills. These were the witchboard people.

'Yes, it still goes on.' Addison Winston swirled the whiskey in his glass. 'Since when do you care what happens in Coventry? When was the last time you paid us a visit, Belle? I can't seem to remember the decade.'

This failed to make her angry, but he liked a challenge.

She looked up from the telescope. 'Those people didn't used to meet in the woods.'

'Well, they have for the past fifteen years. And you'd know that if you'd bothered to come home more often. However, your mother so enjoyed the crummy little postcards you sent her from Europe.' Addison held the binoculars up to his eyes and wondered why the spookfest in the woods should interest Isabelle. 'They're heading up to Evelyn Straub's old cabin. You were just a little girl when she built that place.'

As he recalled, Evelyn's last name had been Kominsky back in those days. Well into her thirties then, she had aged out of her showgirl career and snagged an elderly millionaire for a husband. And these days? Well, the woman had gone to hell from the hips up, and her long legs were not on display anymore, but they tended to linger in a man's memory. Evelyn's best quality was the heart of a pirate, and this alone was enough to make her worthy of his admiration.

'Did you ever go to one of the seances?'

'Yes, I took your mother once. Everyone in Coventry went to at least one of them. Some people go back again and again.' The witchboard group was an old one, but hardly exclusive. He drained his glass and rattled the ice cubes. 'Any other town in America would've formed a bowling league.'

The parade of vehicles had almost cleared the pygmy forest of scrub pines. He lifted his wife's binoculars and trained the lenses on one straggler. 'You see that jeep following them from a distance? That's the sheriff. Evelyn's place is the only cabin on that fire road. If she catches Cable, he's toast. Legally, he shouldn't be within a half-mile of that seance.' Addison 's grin spread wide. 'I smell a lawsuit.'

The jeep disappeared under a canopy of tall trees as it climbed the mountain into denser foliage. The show was over, and Isabelle abandoned the telescope to lean back against the railing. 'How did Mrs. Straub get involved with seances? She doesn't seem the type.'

'She's not. However, the lady does have an eye for opportunity, and her pet psychic is worth a fortune.'

'How much does she charge?'

'Not one dime,' said Addison. 'The seances have always been free.'

The Coventry Pub was a quiet place. A television set was bolted to the wall over the bar and always tuned to a local news station. By custom of long standing, the bartender never turned on the volume until the sports coverage was nearing airtime. So five steady patrons, sports fans all, were watching an anchorman moving his mouth in silence. They liked their news delivered this way-so restful.

And now they were startled by the image on the screen.

'That looks just like our library,' said the bartender, stepping up to the set for a closer look. 'Can't be.'

A customer squinted and then donned his spectacles. 'Sure it is. Hey, Fred, turn on the sound.'

The bartender turned the volume up high, and an anchorman's voice boomed out of the box to tell them that this was indeed film coverage of the local library. It was also the scene of a standoff with a fugitive from justice. Unconfirmed was the rumor that the escapee was armed.

One of the men stepped outside for a look at the library two doors down and across the street. He called back to his fellow patrons, 'Just a van parked out front and a couple of guys standing around the phone booth, smoking cigarettes.' He walked back inside, looked up at the screen and scratched his head.

The picture of the library was replaced with coverage of a California race for the senate, and the volume was turned off again. Fresh beers were served up and down the bar, and reality was restored to the Coventry Pub.

'I'd never take my own car up here.' The sheriff steered the jeep through a turnout to avoid a large cavity in the dirt road. He gave his passenger a wary glance. 'I understand how you feel, son. If I'd known that Hannah and the judge were sucked in, I would've kept tabs on the seances. But I still say Alice Fridays harmless.'

'Psychics are never harmless.' Oren Hobbs had already made it clear that psychics were the precursors to blowflies lighting on a fresh corpse, and their favorite prey was the parent of a murdered child.

'This one's different. I learned a lot about the psychic trade when your brother disappeared. All the pros turned out. I must've talked to twenty con artists. Alice was the only one with a Ouija board. Now that's one way to separate hustlers from amateurs. Pros won't use 'em. There's no money in a board game that anybody can play at home.'

'What about Evelyn Straub's connection?'

'When Alice Friday moved into the Straub Hotel, the other guests really liked the nightly Ouija board sessions on the verandah. So Evelyn cut a deal with the woman-free room and board and some walking-around money.' The closer Cable got to the cabin, the thicker the trees and ferns- almost there. 'It's just a gimmick to fill the hotel off-season. Now some people got hooked on the seances, but there was no charge. As long as nobody got fleeced, I never saw the harm.' He had never foreseen a day when rock-solid people like Hannah and the judge would go looking for Josh in a witchboard.