Bone by Bone

When Sarah Winston was sober, the tower room was only a circle. On toward evening, it was a wheel, spinning, spinning, taking her nowhere and leaving her with motion sickness. She straightened picture frames on the sections of wall that were not made of glass. It had taken courage to hang photographs and drawings on the walls of a house that rested upon a planet spinning madly while revolving round the sun.

She walked out onto the deck and looked up at the stars. They moved for her. She had that combination of insanity and patience that allowed her to follow their trek across the sky. Spreading the sleeves of her robe on an evening breeze, she reached out to them.

No, not yet. Not tonight.

Sarah lowered her arms, as a bird would fold its wings. It was an act of will to stay when fear argued for leaving, when she need only let go of the earth and let the ether take her. The notion of flight, like the motion of stars, was seductive. She wrapped her arms close about her body, though not for comfort, but to save her own life-for the sake of Isabelle, who came softly rapping at the door, calling, 'Mom?'

'Yes, Belle. I'm here.' Still here. By an act of will, she stayed.

'Maybe she'll feel more like talking in the morning,' said Addison Winston. 'Sarah's a bit shaken up.'

'Not surprising,' said Cable Babitt. 'You'd never expect a thing like that to happen in Coventry.' The sheriff donned his hat as he walked to the door. 'Mr. Swahn said to thank your wife for calling it in.' And now he tipped his hat to Isabelle. 'Lucky thing Oren Hobbs happened to be in the neighborhood tonight.'

'Yes, very lucky.' She stopped smiling after closing the door on the sheriff.

Oren's luck was about to run out.

She opened the hall closet and ripped her jacket from a hanger. She intended to make dead certain that he understood the instructions attached to the birder journals. He was not to go joyriding with her mother one more time. It was going to be so satisfying to hear Oren Hobbs scream in high soprano notes when she-

'Does your mother have another bottle up there?' Addison was facing the staircase.

Isabelle crept up behind him, saying softly, 'I know what you did.'

He turned around, startled for the split second before he recognized this old routine begun in her childhood. Addison had taught it to her, and most often he had been the one ferreting out secrets with those same words. He glanced at the jacket in her hand. 'I'd rather you didn't go down to William's place tonight. I might need help with your mother.'

'I know Mom started drinking the year Josh Hobbs disappeared. The other night-after dinner-were you joking when you wondered if she had an affair with Oren? It's so hard to tell with you, Addison. You've got such an ugly sense of humor.'

'If I'm supposed to be making a connection here, shouldn't you-'

'From the back, Oren and Josh looked a lot alike. Same kind of clothes, and they even had the same walk. Oren was taller, but if you came up behind his brother-alone-in the woods…' She let the rest of her accusation dangle unspoken.

He laughed. He roared. He showed her all his teeth-wide smile. 'Why don't you ask your mother about Josh? She's the one who buried the boy.

Isabelle's jacket fell from her hand.

Addison picked it up from the floor and returned it to the closet, still grinning as he arranged the garment on a hanger. 'So you'll stay. Well, good.'

25

William Swahn refused an ambulance ride to the hospital, and a paramedic led the man indoors to patch his wounds. Oren sat alone on the front steps, watching the show as he nursed his beer.

Men and women in troopers' uniforms bagged the empty bottles found outside and inside the house. Every glass surface was a fingerprint examiner's wet dream.

A few yards away, Cable Babitt stood beside Sally Polk, saying to her, 'Your guys are welcome to all the bottles they can carry. I don't need them. I've got the whole damn thing on film.'

'I like a nice tight case,' said the CBI agent. 'The beer bottle I'd most like to have has a set of prints that might surprise you. Oh, and that film? That's mine now.

In answer to Cable's sputtered, 'You can't do that!' Sally Polk explained that, yes, she could-now that she had charged a Los Angeles TV producer with conspiracy to incite a riot via some creative film editing.

'You can't make that stick,' said Cable. 'That's ridiculous.'

'Oh, dear. You think I overstepped my authority? Well, maybe you're right. But it's gonna take a while to sort out the blame. Meanwhile the scope of the case extends across county lines.' She surveyed the crime scene brightly lit by lights on poles. 'And all of this belongs to me.' Oren decided that he liked Sally Polk.

Morning came with the smell of furniture polish and the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Oren woke up on a couch in the front room of the house on Paulson Lane. Every shard of broken glass was gone, and glaziers stood on long ladders to replace the broken windowpanes.

Swahn's cleaning lady was the mother of one of his old classmates, and now Mrs. Snow reintroduced herself as she worked around his stretched-out body. 'What a night,' she said. 'What a mess.' As he rose from the couch, she brushed him down with a whisk broom. 'Can't have you tracking glass splinters through the house.'

Pronounced clean, she released him, saying, 'Hannah's upstairs in Mr. Swahn's room.' As he climbed the steps, she called out, 'Second door on your right. He's been through a lot, so don't you tire him out.'

'No, ma'am, I won't.'

When he came to the open door of the bedroom, he hung back to watch Hannah changing a bandage on William Swahn's right cheek, exposing a patch of skin that was red and raw. This fresh injury paled the older damage to the other side of his face. Oren backed away from the door and lingered in the hall to listen to a conversation of two old friends, who called each other Miss Rice and Mr. Swahn.

'Well, that paramedic did a real nice job cleaning the wound.'

'Will I look more symmetrical now?'

She laughed. 'When the swelling goes down and the bruising fades, you won't have another scar.'

There was a third person in the room. Oren saw the CBI agent reflected in the mirror over Swahn's bureau.

'This'll cheer you up,' said Sally Polk. 'I got film of a reporter chucking the first rock, and I got his prints on a beer bottle, too. I figure he was just priming the pump-didn't want to wait around all night for his big mob scene. But the whole thing started with a nasty piece of editing on the evening news. I'm gonna bring down a TV network just for you, Mr. Swahn. Won't that be fun?'

'What about the mob? Did you get them all on film?'

'No, maybe half. But the two Oren Hobbs laid out are awake and talking. They gave up three of their friends, but they didn't even know the rest of those guys. A barmaid gave us a few more names. And then we got a slew of fingerprints off the beer bottles they tossed through your windows. Idiots. I can promise you I'll get 'em all.' The CBI agent said her goodbyes and stepped into the hallway, where she met Oren with a friendly smile.

He was certain that she would seem equally friendly on the business end of a gun. 'Nice work,' he said. 'I mean the way you stole this mob case from the sheriff.'

'Well, thank you. And when I get six minutes to catch my breath, I'll find out who killed your brother.'

'Will that be before or after you wind up an investigation of the sheriff's office? I know you're using Josh to get close to Cable Babitt.'

Her smile was still holding, but she was stalling. Weighing the odds? Would a lie well told beat whatever cards he was holding? Her shoulders squared off, and her feet were firmly planted. The lady was waiting for proof of this theory of his.

Oren nodded his understanding. 'The CBI has a field office over in Shasta. But here you are in my county, camped out with the Highway Patrol. So I know you're not investigating them. That leaves the sheriff's office. And the investigation has to be department-wide, or you wouldn't need a gang of troopers for backup.'

Sally Polk adjusted her purse strap, preparing to leave him now. 'If you give the sheriff a heads-up, I'll cut your balls into little pieces and feed 'em to the hogs.' She said this with such warmth, such cheerful goodwill, that she left him smiling.

Oren entered the bedroom, an austere place with no personal items on display. There was a light rectangle on one wall, where a picture frame had been recently taken down, the sign of an extremely private person-or a man with something to hide. That missing picture, once positioned opposite the bed, would have been the last thing Swahn looked at when he put out the lamp at night and the first sight of each new day.

Swahn's brow furrowed as he, too, stared at that empty space, no doubt recognizing his error.

And, of course, nothing got past Hannah. She held a roll of adhesive tape in one hand and, in the other, a pair of closed shears that might pass for the lance of a tiny knight. She hovered over her patient, prepared to take on all comers-even Oren. There was conflict in her eyes, and it pained him to see it. After pulling a chair close to the bed, he turned to her. 'Hannah? Give us a minute?'

'I just gave him a sleeping pill. Can't this wait?'

'It won't take a minute,' said Oren. 'I promise.'

Hannah bent down to William Swahn, laying one hand on his shoulder, and they held the silent conversation of friends for life. She asked by a worried look if she should stay and defend him. Swahn smiled in assurance that there was no need to fight for him-but thanks.

When the housekeeper had quit the room, Oren said, 'I've got a question about those pictures of you in the post office. Josh caught you passing an envelope to the librarian. You dropped it into her tote bag. If it was addressed to Mrs. Winston, I can see why you couldn't just mail it. Half the gossip in town comes from the postmaster.'

Swahn closed his eyes and turned his face away. The interview was over.

When Oren came out of the bedroom, he found Hannah sitting on the staircase. She reached up to hand him a prescription. 'That's for his pain. Could you have it filled at the drugstore? Your father will be here by the time you get back. So there shouldn't be any more questions about those pictures of Mr. Swahn and Mavis.'

'Eavesdropping, Hannah?' He sat down beside her.

'Mr. Swahn's a gentleman. He won't tell you what was in that envelope. But I will. The judge used to do the same thing for years. The line at the post office was the best place for it. Before we had rural delivery, Mavis always picked up her mail at the same time every morning. Coventry didn't have anything as grand as welfare, and Mavis hadn't seen a paycheck for a while. You may have noticed-no one goes to the library anymore. Officially, it was closed for years. But Mavis still showed up for work every day.'

'A creature of habit.'

'Right. And crazy. I'm sure you noticed that, too. So, once a month, people with money-like the judge, like Mr. Swahn-they'd slip her some cash on the sly. It was done that way so she wouldn't