Apparently, the deputy's mother still held the office of town monster, a woman in the habit of publicly castrating her own son in ten words or less. Oren recalled that Mrs. Hardy had sometimes rhymed her lines, and, around town, she had been much admired as an obscene poet.
'I can have Mavis over here,' said Hannah, snapping her fingers, 'just like that.'
Once, it had been rumored that Dave's mother was a vessel of demonic possession. More rational townspeople had argued that, in any arrangement of that sort, Mavis Hardy would be the
A jeep rounded a stand of trees by the driveway and parked in front of the house. The star of the County Sheriff 's Office was painted on the vehicle's door, and Cable Babitt was behind the wheel. The sheriff cut the engine and climbed out. He was grayer now, but still shaped like a pear with a moustache. He wore an amiable smile while he slammed the jeep's door-the only warning of things to come. In his quiet, almost genteel, manner he lowered a hammer on the deputy without raising his voice. 'You're late for work.'
'No, sir.' The deputy stood at attention, his back ramrod straight. 'I picked up the call before I left the house this morning. I'm on the job.'
'Out of uniform? I don't think so, Dave.'
The younger lawman picked up his shovel, his proof of innocence. 'I'll get changed right after I dig up this-'
'No, no, no!' the judge called out from the porch steps. He was more his old self again when he shook one fist at the deputy. 'There're no bones buried in my garden!'
Cable Babitt strolled over to the porch and tipped his hat to the retired judge, a greeting of friends, both local boys grown into old men, though Henry Hobbs was senior by twelve years. 'Morning, Henry. What've you got here?' The sheriff picked up the jawbone and turned it over in his hand. He held it up high as a lure to draw his deputy closer. 'Well, Dave, you're half right. There's no sign of exposure-lots of staining. This bone was buried all right, but not around here. You see this reddish coloring? It comes from iron-rich soil. That puts the burial site to the north and straight up.' He pointed to the high mountainside of deep woods tapering to bald rock. 'There's a streak of iron ore up there.'
Oren wondered how the sheriff had come by that bit of arcane knowledge. Coventry had its roots in a small mill town. There had never been a mining operation within a hundred miles of here, nor even a hint of iron deposits in this northern neighborhood of California.
Sheriff Babitt jerked one thumb toward the deputy's pickup truck, and this was enough to send Dave Hardy on his way.
When the truck had disappeared around the stand of trees, Oren stood toe-to-toe with the sheriff. 'Iron ore? You knew about that jawbone before I called it in.' This was more than an accusation; it was bait. He studied the older man's face, looking there for signs of a lie in the making. 'Maybe you already had one of Josh's bones. You'd need a sample to get a soil analysis for-'
'That's enough, Oren. I've got a few questions for
Hannah, an experienced wrangler of boys and men, worked her way between them. 'Oren, I need you to run an errand in town.' She pressed an empty pharmacy bottle into his hand, then faced the porch and shouted to the judge, as if he might be deaf, 'I'm sending Oren into town for your pills-your
Henry Hobbs, who was not deaf, nodded with some puzzlement. 'No idea where the car keys are.'
'I do,' said Hannah.
Oren followed her inside and down the hall to a room with Dutch-blue walls and white cabinets. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was unchanged except for a new refrigerator of stainless steel and a matching dishwasher. Apparently, the judge was a failure at patching up worn appliances, and here he had fallen short of his insane mission to stop time.
'You might've guessed-it's the same old car in the garage.' Hannah retrieved a stepladder from the broom closet. 'But the judge keeps the engine in real good condition. If you ask me, I think it runs better than brand-new models.' She kicked off her wooden clogs and mounted the metal steps to climb on top of the counter. 'Even the poor white trash in this town drive those cars. They never die-they just get passed down and around.' Bare feet firmly planted on the countertop, she opened a cupboard door. 'I swear if Coventry had a town flag, the emblem would be a Mercedes hood ornament.'
The tiny woman rose up on her toes to reach a high shelf. After moving a few canisters out of her way, she pulled out a tea tin, extracted the car keys and handed them down to him. 'It's still a one-drugstore town. You know the way.'
Startled, Oren wondered if Hannah did this each time she took the car out, but he only pocketed the keys, asking no questions. It was that kind of a day.
In Coventry 's insular idea of geography, the northwestern town perched on a cliff at world's end, where the earth fell away in a wicked drop to a rocky coastline. An elderly man posed close to the edge as a companion photographed him against blue California sky and the Pacific Ocean; he leaned one shaky hand upon a metal rail installed to prevent witless tourists from falling to their deaths. Across the street, a pastel row of small art galleries and boutiques was waking up to the morning trade, opening shutters and raising shades. These buildings were dwarfed by the Straub Hotel with its four flights of windows capped by attic gables.
Every street was lined with the cars of weekend travelers, and it was Oren's good luck to find a parking space.
On the hotel verandah, a stout gray-haired woman was ensconced in a high-back wicker chair. Deep frown lines gave her the air of one who took offense at all that she surveyed, and her ample flesh hung in jowls and a double chin. Imperious, she presided over the comings and goings of hotel guests, giving each a curt nod, as if to say,
He should know this senior citizen. She knew him.
Though the lady wore sunglasses, he sensed that her eyes were tracking him when he left the car and stepped onto the sidewalk. As he came closer, she graced him with a smile and lowered the dark glasses. Her smile quickly slipped away, and Oren knew that he had failed a test of some kind. The woman raised one clenched fist and slowly extended her middle finger as an invitation for him to perform an unnatural act upon himself. And by this hand gesture alone, he recognized her. He had been a teenager the last time they met. Then, she had been a woman in her forties with a lean body and long hair the color of lions.
He approached the hotel steps, calling up to her, 'Hello, Mrs. Straub.'
She leaned forward, causing the wicker to creak with the sudden shift of her bulk. Her voice had the husky quality of booze and cigarettes when she said, 'Oren Hobbs, we've had sex in half the rooms of my hotel. I think it's time you called me Evelyn.' Impervious to the peasants, a startled pair of guests, Evelyn Straub donned her sunglasses. She sat well back in her chair and turned her face away from him.
This audience was clearly over.
Thus dismissed, he gave her a wave, almost a salute, and continued down the sidewalk toward the drugstore. As always, the traffic moved slowly, not even close to the posted twenty-five miles per hour. By some mystical agreement of tourists and residents alike, all the drivers slowed down at the sign that welcomed them to town. Yet Oren was mindful of the slowest car, the one keeping pace with him. In sidelong vision, he noted only that it was black and low-slung, for his eyes were fixed on the pharmacy bottle in his hand.
This was not the judge's medication.
Another name was printed on the label. He recognized the drug, and he knew why it was prescribed. When had Hannah's days become so stressful? High anxiety and three strong locks on the front door-what else had changed during all the years of his exile?
The black car still crawled beside him. Now it put on a short burst of speed to capture a freshly vacated parking space up the street. Oren raised his eyes as the car door slammed-and he missed a step.
The summer girl always had that effect on him.
Isabelle Winston left her black sports car to face him down on the sidewalk half a block away. There was great purpose in her stride as she moved toward him. Though the morning was a cool one, a light, white cotton dress swirled above her knees, and he saw the flash of red toenails on sandaled feet. Her hair was shorter but still the color of raw carrots. Her freckles could not be seen at this distance; Oren took them on faith. He slowly released all the breath in his lungs.
The first time he had come near her, she had smelled of horses and, in later summers, a succession of perfumes, a different scent each time they met. Now she was almost close enough to inhale. As the gap between them narrowed, he averted his eyes and edged closer to the storefront side of the pavement, unwilling to risk touching her in passing.
And so they fell into their old childhood dance, the look-away two-step.
He watched her reflection in a shop window as she came abreast of him. In the glass, he saw her pause just long enough for her left foot to lash out in his direction.
A direct hit to one shin!
His legs tangled, and he was tripping, falling. The ground flew up to meet him with the painful crack of his kneecap on the cement and the vision of stars that came with a bang to the head.
Oren rolled onto his back and raised himself up on one elbow to watch the summer girl, now a woman in her thirties, as she moved on down the sidewalk. There was never a backward glance to gloat over the damage she had done to him, and he thought that spoke well of her character.
5
The rear doors of the coroner's van hung open, waiting to receive his child's remains-to
Judge Henry Hobbs dangled his feet from the wide stump of an ancient tree. He had the meadow all to himself. His housekeeper had been so distracted by the events of the morning, she had allowed him to sit here in the sun without a baseball cap to shelter his bald head, and now she had deserted him for an interview with the sheriff. The judge could only watch his own front door from a distance, forbidden to enter it.
The old Mercedes rolled past the house and parked where the gravel driveway widened into a turnout. His son left the car and walked toward him, not hurrying any. Apparently, Oren had completed Hannah's odd errand, for he carried a small, white bag imprinted with the drugstore logo. The prescription for his heart medication only interested Henry Hobbs because he had no heart ailment and took no pills of any kind. The pharmacist would have apprised Oren of that fact, and now the boy would want to know what Hannah was playing at.
His son idly shifted the bag from one hand to the other as he sat down to share the generous expanse of the stump. Oren pretended interest in the clouds passing by overhead when he said, 'I saw Mrs. Straub in town-just to say hello.'
In the ensuing silence, the judge had to smile, for now they had a game. His son was enjoying the tension of a query that could not be voiced. Obvious questions were against the rules.
However, declaring his housekeeper to be a bold-faced liar would be rude, and bad manners were also against the rules of the game.
Oren set the pharmacy bag on the stump-and the mystery of its contents hovered in the air between them.
