Bone Deep

11

Tee's wife, Marge, walked in and out of the kitchen and through the living room, carrying soiled laundry one way, clean laundry the other, back and forth over the course of the evening while the washing machine pulsed and throbbed in its cubicle off the kitchen and the clothes dryer, which was out of alignment and badly in need of shims under its base-a chore that Tee had been promising to tend to for the better part of five years-sent shock waves vibrating through the floorboards and into Tee's feet. Tee sat in his armchair, long since past noting the hyper agitations of the dryer, and contemplated his wife as she made her periodic passages. In her late forties, she still did not look old to him. Not young, either, but in that limbo of indeterminate age when the wrinkles still added character to the face and not just years, when the skin tone still responded to exercise, but with diminishing resilience, when life itself seemed to be attenuated in a sort of declining crawl that lasted a decade or two before the long free-fall of true age began.

Tee knew that he was in the same stretch of life himself, that he was in fact several years older than his wife, and yet he felt there remained in him a vital flame of youth that he no longer saw in Marge. Middle age might last an age, but it would not last forever, and to Tee's mind his wife was nearin the end of it while he had just begun.

Her hair was dyed an unnatural blonde and cut boyishly short and her neck shaved nearly to the bump at the back of her skull in a fashion that was common to many women of her age. Tee hated it and looked upon it as a signal of defeat. Women who cut their hair that way were giving up, he thought.

He watched her, her thickening body moving heavily and purposefully past him, and thought of Mrs. Leigh's graceful run, her slender, muscled limbs-and hated himself.

The phone rang but neither Tee nor Marge moved to answer it. They knew it would be for their daughter. For the hours from three in the afternoon until midnight it always seemed to be for Ginny. The ringing stopped after the second tone-Ginny never answered on the first ring, it would seem too eager. But this time Tee heard her call out, "Dad!" from her upstairs bedroom.

"Don't answer her," Marge said. "Make her come to you and speak in a normal tone of voice."

"Dad!" I "I can't hear you. You'll have to come here and speak to me," Tee said softly. "Phone!"

Tee reached for the extension by his chair but let his hand drop when he saw Marge shake her head in disgust.

"How is she ever going to learn if you give in to her all the time?"

Tee lifted his hands as if at gunpoint. "I didn't pick up!"

Ginny called out, "Dad!" one more time and then, after a lengthy pause, she walked into the living room. She was dressed, as usual, as if prepared to slide under a car and change the oil. Her jeans and T-shirt were several sizes too large, her shoes were a designer's profitable take on work boots. She was, to Tee, inexpressibly beautiful.

"Phone," she said. With the door to her room left open, the sound of tortured guitars and electronic instruments filled the house. "Thank you, darling," he said, lifting the receiver. The slurred and half-swallowed accents of the inner city assaulted his ear. "Chief Terhune?"

"Yes?"

"You a hard man to find. Had to do some work to get your number."

"I'm easy to reach at work in the daytime," said Tee. "Don't want to talk to you there, Chief," said the voice. "Too many people listening at work."

"Who is this?"

"Jus' say I be a friend."

"How about just saying your name, friend?"

"Sumpin' you ought to know, Chief. Sumpin' about McNeil."

"Officer McNeil?"

"Yeah, Officer McNeil. Dickhead McNeil, ol' Pussy hisself You know who I talkin' about."

"What about him?"

"Look in his garage."

"What do I want to look in his garage for?"

"Jus' take a look around there, Chief. See what you see. Maybe you find sumpin' innerestin'."

"What am I looking for?"

"Depend what you want. Man got a garage like a warehouse, you find whatever you looking for in there. You looking for a man be doing your hos?"

"Who is this?"

"Don't be tellin' McNeil you got a call though, Chief. You want to hear from me again, don't tell ol' Pussy. I can help you out, I can tell you lots of things-if you don't tell McNeil. But first you take a look in that garage. It be worth your trouble, I promise you."

The line went dead in Tee's ear.

"Is something wrong, Dad?" To his surprise, Ginny was still standing in the archway leading from the living room.

"No, honey."

"You look worried."

"It's just business," Tee said. "I just hate getting calls at home, that's all."

She nodded. "Good." Ginny smiled at him, the radiant, soul-lifting smile of youth, and Tee felt weak with love.

"How's the homework?" he asked.

"Just about done," she said, and left as if his question had banished her. Tee wanted to call out to her not to go, that he had not meant it that way. Their moments of communion had become less and less frequent as she made her way deeper into adolescence. He missed her and longed for the close relationship they had once had, even as he saw it receding further and further from him. Marge had less of a problem with it, she tended to be sterner and harder on the girl than Tee, and yet he knew that her mother was the one she turned to in crisis, it was her advice she sought, her comfort she needed more than Tee's. They kept secrets from him, he realized. Sometimes inconsequential feminine things, perhaps larger issues, he didn't know. But he did sense that in the past few years there had grown up a kind of conspiracy against him, a "Don't tell Dad" and "We won't bother your father with this" cabal that excluded him and bruised his feelings.

When Ginny's door was closed and the level of noise fell by several decibels, Tee picked up the phone and called police headquarters. He asked when McNeil was next on duty and was told he had the shift starting in the morning from eight to four. He knew that McNeil's wife worked during the day.

He hadn't been invited to the man's house for years. Tee tried to remember if McNeil had a dog.

He waited until he knew that McNeil was nestled into the speed trap on Clamden Road before he set out himself. He drove down the steep hill that led from the town center toward the Merritt Parkway and saw McNeil's car snuggled just off the main road at a spot where the careless driver would have let the gravity of the hill accelerate his vehicle to illegal speed. At the base of the hill Tee turned left and began to weave along the back roads to McNeil's domain. He called the house before he arrived and let the phone ring a long time, assuring himself that Mrs. McNeil had not chosen this day to stay home sick. The walls of the garage were lined with tools, bicycles, chairs, snow shovels, gardening implements, a mattress still encased in plastic, skis and poles, boots, biking helmets, baseball bats, all of the residue of a family life, all of it hanging from hooks or stacked neatly in piles pushed snug against the sides of the building. A yellow slicker hung next to the door leading into the house, a surprising splash of color in the gloomy room. A roll of carpeting next to the garage door cast one of the few discordant notes in an otherwise compulsively neat display.

The carpet appeared too old to save, too ragged and tattered to serve any function that made it worth the storage space-which made it look significant to Tee. He shoved it to the floor in the empty space reserved for a car and unrolled it. Using his flashlight, Tee went over the carpet slowly, running his fingers through the worn fibers. He found nothing and rolled it up and replaced it.

What the hell am I doing? he wondered. Crawling around on a smelly rug, searching for some mysterious clue toto what? "A man be doing your hos?" It wasn't quite English, but Tee had chosen to think it meant something about Johnny's girls from the orchard. Why? Because he was already inclined to think that way, he admitted to himself Because too many things about McNeil troubled him.

He began a methodical search, tapping for hidden compartments, running his hand along rafters and the top of a storage shelf holding cans of paint, each meticulously marked.- Smelly rug? he thought suddenly. He returned to the carpet and pressed his nose against it. The odor of car exhaust made him cough. Not surprising in a garage. Or was it…?

He was not after smells, he realized, and just as suddenly he knew what he was seeking. He was looking for a knife. A small worktable attached to one wall was topped by a pegboard on which hung a variety of tools, many of them marked with their outlines drawn on the board. There were no vacant outlines, everything was in its place. Drawers in the table held nails, screws, nuts, bolts, each in its original box or in glass jars, appropriately marked. A supplemental plastic chest of drawers sat atop the table. Tee searched the drawers and found string, twine, electrical cord, wire, fuses, extension cords, three-pronged plug adapters, telephone lines, spares and extras of all kinds, each tidily arranged and in its place. McNeil should have been in hardware, not police work, Tee mused, thinking of the chaos of his own garage.

The bottom drawer held knives. A cornucopia of knives, a catalog display of knives: sportsmen's knives, kitchen knives, specialty knives, blades without handles, knives with replaceable blades. They ranged in size from a massive Bowie knife to a penknife no longer than the last joint on Tee's little finger. Not one of them was rusty, Tee realized, and not one was dull. McNeil had taken great care with each of them.

But what possible use?

Tee studied the collection, seeking the right instrument. The sharpest, thinnest blade of any utility was that of an artist's knife, a razor edge with a pronounced triangular shape at the cutting end. Tee remembered using one decades before, when carving models from balsa wood. He lifted it, held it against the light. Was it strong enough to cut through flesh? Certainly. Durable enough to maneuver through a human joint? Probably not, but then it didn't have to be. The blade was replaceable. A small box of refills sat in the drawer. The head of the instrument was also detachable from the four-inch-long shaft.

Without the blade attached, the shaft and head were shorter than a pencil and no thicker. They could be carried anywhere and never be noticed. With a piece of tape over the cutting edge, the blade, less than an inch long and wafer-thin, could be concealed in a wallet, in a shoe, in the lining of a coat, anywhere at all.

This blade looked factory-new. He turned it in the light from the overhead bulb. Not a nick, not a scratch, not a sign of wear. There would be nothing to see under the microscope, either, Tee was certain.

Whatever else McNeil might be, he was scrupulously clean.

Tee was surprised at how much he was suddenly prepared to think McNeil capable of. How had he come so quickly to the dangerous thoughts he was now contemplating? McNeil had deliberately not searched the orchard that held the bones. McNeil had been going out of his way to pass the orchard on the morning he found Tee there-but then so had Tee. Did that mean he was returning to the scene of the crime? It was a stretch, Tee knew it, and yet… Tee had said to him that seven or eight all pairs had left their employers without warning in the past eight years, McNeil had claimed a much lower number. When Tee did the research, he found that the number was six. Did that mean McNeil was trying to mislead Tee? Not necessarily. Even the anonymous phone call had not linked McNeil to the Johnny Appleseed bodies. What did "doing your hos" mean, anyway?

The sound of movement outside the window startled Tee. If he was found making an illegal search of McNeil's home, any evidence would be tainted. He inched toward the window, his right hand touching the butt of his service automatic, a weapon he had never even unholstered in the line of duty in Clamden. His skin prickled and Tee realized that he was not just alarmed-he was frightened. The noise came again — and Tee forced himself to control his breathing as he eased to the window and peeked out.

A large raccoon squatted on its haunches outside the shed that was attached to the garage, tugging at the door with its surprisingly delicate forepaws, trying to get at the garbage within. Fat and self-assured, it regarded Tee through the window, looking curious rather than frightened. Its bandit eyes peered at him for a moment, then dismissed him as an irrelevancy, returning to its quest for garbage.

Several yards away, poised at the edge of the treeline and scarcely visible, a deer in its summer buff had lifted its head from browsing to watch Tee and the raccoon. Tee knew there would be more deer close by, frozen into position until they determined that the face in the window was no threat they would take more convincing than the raccoon-and he would never see them until they moved. When he left the garage, the raccoon moved off slowly, waddling away as if aggrieved by the human trespass on its garbage rights. The deer stared at Tee a moment longer before bounding off in a flight that seemed quick yet unpanicked, almost casual. Tee caught sight of three other deer, each moving deeper into the trees. They were cautious, not alarmed, and did not bother to flash the white of their tails in their panic sign. Tee felt mildly insulted.

Metzger drove the lonely roads of predawn Clamden, cruising slowly, looking, without much expectation, for the unusual, the furtive, the stealthy. It was too late for the drinkers, the partygoers, even carousing teenagers; too early for the commuters to rouse themselves for the daily trek to the city. At this hour the town was sound asleep, which was exactly the way the residents and the police wanted it. He swung past the recycling center and made an arc along the lengthy sweep of unpopulated acreage that made up Converse Park, one of the six tracts of nature preserve in the town. A long dirt road led to the parking area, which was little more than a dirt rotary where people could nose their cars off the road far enough for others to pass. A wooden sign declared the area off limits after dark, but it was an injunction honored as much in the breach as the observance. Schoolchildren in science class, hikers, and dog owners walked the forest trails by day.

Lovers came at night in the warmer months. Teenagers tended to shun the outdoors for their trysts, preferring cars and beds, but older people seemed more romantic and hiked among the flora to make love on the loamy earth. The cops left them alone. Embarrassed citizens could become both vituperative and litigious. There were no other cars in the parking area and Metzger pulled to the side and shut off his headlights. He put his head back against the seat and glanced at his watch. It was 3:40. In twenty minutes, at the top of the hour, his watch would beep and he would waken, if not truly refreshed, at least able to finish the shift.

Deep in the woods, Captain Luv had seen the sweep of the approaching headlights and had doused his flashlight before the beam came over him.

He saw the headlights vanish, then waited to hear the slam of a car door but heard nothing beyond his own breathing. Even the insects were still at this hour, their mating chorus long since finished. More mating going on in the car, Luv reasoned. He waited longer, making- sure the adulterers were preoccupied with each other, then switched his flashlight back on, resting it on the ground so its light stayed low.

The grave was only half dug, but he had been lucky in his choice of burial sites the ground was moist and easily penetrated. There was nowhere in Connecticut where stones didn't pepper the earth, but he had encountered no large rocks, nothing big enough to delay him. He moved the flashlight so that it perched on the edge of the hole. To secure it into place he shifted the trash bag, creating a cradle for the light amongst the mobile body parts.

Metzger awoke to the tinny beep of his wristwatch and saw a shaft of light in the woods shining straight up the trunk of a tree as if emerging from a rent in the earth. For a brief moment it resembled something from science fiction and Metzger thought crazily of aliens arriving. Then the light wavered before plunging abruptly earthward and disappearing. Metzger opened the car door and immediately cursed himself for not removing the key from the ignition first. The door alarm sounded annoyingly before he pulled the key loose. He heard the dull clink of metal on stone; then all was silent. Metzger reached inside and shut off the ceiling light that had gone on automatically when the door was opened. He looked toward the source of the sound and thought he saw a faint glow along the ground, almost as if a company of fireflies were massing. Then that light, too, was extinguished.

He stood beside the car for a long time as a growing sense of unease pervaded him. There were no other cars in the parking area. Whoever was in the woods must have parked somewhere and hiked in. That did not sound like lovers. Metal on stone did not sound like lovers either. It sounded like someone digging. After a long time Metzger started into the woods as silently as he could.

Luv heard the sound of the car alarm and saw the interior light. The lovers had gotten out of the car, perhaps to gain more legroom. Perhaps to venture into the woods, He turned off the flashlight and waited. He was not worried. If they came toward him, he would deal with it. He did not know how; he did not need to know how. Yet.

Luv had encountered a large stone in his digging. It lay two feet down, squarely in the middle of the grave, and seemed, as he groped around it searching for an edge, as spacious as a sack of potatoes. The loss of his orchard cemetery with the pretilled land was proving a more serious problem than he had thought.

He heard the footsteps coming slowly toward him. They were moving at an unnatural pace. Someone was trying to sneak up on him. Luv grinned at the idea. The idiots. Who did they think he was? He was Luv, too good, too smart, too inspired to be caught. He relished a challenge, didn't they understand that? That is why he did it in the first place.

Let them try to find him. He was the will-o'-the-wisp, the phantom lover, able to do whatever he liked and to vanish without a trace.

Suppressing a groan from the effort, he lifted Inge's corpse in his arms and moved deeper into the woods.

Metzger wished he had the dog with him. He felt as if he was going to bump into something with every step, and each sound that he heard made him think how vulnerable his back was. His fingers itched to turn on the eighteeninch flashlight, but he knew that to do so prematurely would ruin his chance of surprising whoever it was he was after.

When he reached the spot from which he thought the peculiar light had emanated, he stopped, listening. He did not delude himself that he had been all that quiet in his approach. He had stumbled a couple of times and gasped in surprise as he fought for his footing. Twigs had broken under his feet, leaves had rustled. Still, if someone had been digging, he would have been making enough noise on his own to cover Metzger's.

The problem was he had heard no indication of digging since the first rasp of shovel on stone-if that was what he had heard. He began to wonder if he had not simply awakened too early, dragging some part of a dream's illusion with him into consciousness. His apprehension sliding into embarrassment, Metzger stood still for as long as he could bear it, listening for any sign of another living thing. After a moment he saw a shape materialize in front of him over his head. The shape grew within the darkness, coming straight at him with speed, looming larger and larger. With a gasp, Metzger ducked and an owl swooped silently over him, winged death. As he stooped, his foot moved forward and suddenly lost its grip on the earth. Metzger stumbled, arms flailing, and fell into a hole. Even as he fell he could hear the squeal of something small giving up its life to the owl.

Back in the car, Metzger looked at the time. Dawn would be upon him in less than an hour and he could assess the damage to his uniform then.

The damage to his pride was already evident enough. He had gone down face first, breaking his fall with his arms, and with good fortune the flashlight had preceded him into the hole. He did not like to think about having to find the flashlight in the dark, crawling about on hands and knees in the dirt that had been piled up beside the hole, Metzger drove back down the winding dirt road leading away from the preserve. It was the sort of incident he was supposed to record on his activity report, and the kind of thing most cops would omit. There was little incentive to include material that made you look like ai ass. He could imagine how much unpleasant fun McNeil would have with the occurrence if he knew about it. On the other hand, someone had taken the trouble to dig a hole in the woods in the middle of the night. Before the discovery of the Johnny Appleseed bodies it would have been easy enough to shrug off. There were a lot of strange things policemen saw that were never mentioned and never explained. But now, since the bodies had been discovered, it might have an entirely different significance. Or not. Metzger shriveled when he imagined McNeil's nasty laugh.

Metzger drove a mile in each direction when he came back to the main road, making a note of every parked car. There were none along the side of the roadway, but there were several in driveways. It was unlikely that it meant anything, but he wrote down the license plates and the house addresses, thinking to match them up later when he had time. When no one else was around to ask him what he was doing. If it turned out there was no good reason to report his incident in the woods, his close encounter with aliens-that was the take McNeil would have on it, he realized. A light coming from a crack in the earth, an eerie glow like massed fireflies? McNeil would make him look like an idiot, and it wouldn't be hard. He already felt like one. No, if there was no good reason to report it, he would not, he decided. And if any of the license plates were where they shouldn't be, if the cars were stolen, if anything was out of the ordinary, then there would be time enough to report it. He would find a way to explain the delay. The chief was understanding.

Luv watched the car's lights creep away to the south, then turn and head slowly back to the north. He sat just inside the treeline where it came down to the road, resting his back against the trash bag. He was winded and sore from the two-way hike carrying Inge's remains, but he felt exultant as he saw the lights moving toward him in one last sweep. Luv eased himself slowly onto the ground, careful not to make any sudden movement to catch the driver's. He knew how difficult it was to see anything clearly eye in the headlights of a moving car. He had but to remain still on the ground-could probably even have stood bolt upright-to be undetected. This time past Luv saw that it was a police car, and stifled a laugh. Run, run, as fast as you can, he thought merrily. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. Grunting with the effort, he lifted his burden again and moved as quickly as he could toward his waiting car. He would put Inge back in the trunk and wait for another chance to get rid of her. He would not let the police, of all people, panic him into doing anything precipitous. He knew how they worked, they would not be hard to avoid. There were hundreds of square miles of woodlands to choose from and he would not be interrupted again.

But Inge would have to wait for another night, he had to get home to his wife before she awoke. She took two sleeping pills every night and slept like a bear in winter, then complained all day that she never got a wink.

He staggered the last few yards to his car, his labored breathing breaking the silence of the night. If I had known how hard this was going to be, he joked to himself, I would have taken up another line of work. Luv was in a wonderful mood; the stupid cop had turned an ordinary bit of business into an evenin of excitement. It was almost better than luvvving.