Bone by Bone

8

Oren had come face-to-face with the subject of his brother's finest photographs. This was the Letter Man. The scar was not gruesome, but faint, and just as Josh had described it-a jagged A carved into the left cheek. The scar had not been visible in pictures taken of the man's profile, for Josh had captured the ordinary side of William Swahn. None of his brother's work had ever been titled, and so it had been the boy's secret pun to sell the Letter Man portraits to the postmaster.

"What fascinates you, Mr. Hobbs? Could it be my mutilation?" Swahn's dark eyebrows arched with anticipation, probably awaiting the guilty shift of feet or the blush of a gawker caught in the act.

"No, sir. I recognized you from the photographs in the post office." Oren wondered if that trio of pictures was still hanging there after all these years. My brother never knew your name, and neither did I-until just now."

Swahn settled into an armchair and laid the cane across his legs. "I understand you're with the Army's Criminal Investigations Division." This was said with contempt, a virtual announcement that the two of them would never be close friends, for a cop was a cop, and this man's hatred of police was old and very precious to him.

"No, sir. I left the Army." Oren stared at the cane, the symbol of a life derailed-all that they had in common.

"I'm told that CID agents wear street clothes during an investigation, and they don't have to salute superior officers. That must've given you quite a sense of power."

"Mostly, I just liked the idea of wearing my cowboy boots on duty." And now the pleasantries were officially over. "I know you investigated my brother's disappearance. The sheriff thinks my father hired you."

"Judge Hobbs?" A puff of air escaped Swahn's lips in a mild show of incredulity. "How much sense would that make?"

"None at all. He would've hired a first-rate agency before he'd use an ex-cop with only one year on the job. For all I know, my father did hire somebody, but it wasn't you."

Swahn's nod was almost imperceptible, the small acknowledgment of a glove thrown down, a contest begun. "Judge Hobbs never hired an investigator. I would've noticed that kind of activity in a small town. And he never asked for help from the state Justice Department-even though he had the political pull to call them in." The man addressed the handle of his cane. "Don't you find that odd?" He raised his eyes to Oren's. "By that, I mean your father's lack of interest."

"Josh was a missing person. There was no evidence of foul play."

"Of course there was." Swahn's tone said, Liar. "Everyone knew that boy didn't run away. Your brother had a bank account, but he left his cash behind. He didn't take any clothes, either. And we both know he wasn't lost. This town has a wonderful reputation for finding people who lose their way in the woods. They always found you, didn't they?"

Oren ignored the question, knowing better than to fall into this old trap of turnabout, the interrogation of the interrogator. He had to wonder about Swahn's inside information; no newspaper account would have mentioned an abandoned bank account. And how would this man know that Josh had not packed any clothing? His brother's knapsack had never been found.

"Now," said Swahn, "if I wanted to bury an investigation, I'd do what your father did. I'd leave it in the hands of the County Sheriff 's Office.

That department is a joke, and I'm sure that made it easier to whisk you out of town-out of the sheriff's jurisdiction." He raised his cane to point it toward Oren's chest, his heart. "When Judge Hobbs sent you away that summer, did he suspect you of killing your brother?" The tip of the cane settled to the floor, and Swahn rested both hands on the silver handle as he leaned forward. "Or do you think that venerable old man murdered his own child?"

The next shot belonged to Oren. He sat down in an armchair and leaned back into the plush upholstery. Outwardly, he was unrattled, a man in repose and almost drowsing. "Hard to believe you were a cop." He let that settle in as a blunt insult and then added, "You don't talk like one." His adversary's accent made him a transplant from the world of upscale Bostonians, possibly uprooted in childhood, for the geographical marker was faint. This and the advanced college degrees would have been enough to alienate William Swahn from his brother officers; he was so obviously not cut from the same blue cloth. "You sound more like a college professor."

"I'm a guest lecturer at Berkeley. My area is criminology, but I'm sure the sheriff told you that."

What else had Cable Babitt failed to mention about this man?

"How well did you know my brother?"

"I never met him."

This could be true despite the evidence of the Letter Man photographs in the post office, three shots taken at close quarters. His little brother had been a thief of sorts, stealing people's images and running off with them. Sometimes a subject would hear the click of the camera and turn to see an empty space where a boy had been standing.

Oren rose to his feet and turned to the shelves, pretending interest in the titles on the book spines, while he considered the source of Swahn's inside information. "Let's talk about your client."

I told the sheriff-several times-no one paid me to-"

"I didn't ask who paid you." Oren faced Swahn, wanting to see the man's eyes when he said, "Hannah Rice was the client." Satisfied with the reaction, he pressed on. "Hannah couldn't afford the day rate of a PI, but then-you're not a licensed investigator." He turned back to the shelves and trailed one finger from book to book, as if this matter meant very little to him. "And you don't need money, do you? That's why she picked you." He glanced back over one shoulder. "Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe you thought she came here because you were so smart?"

Swahn's eyebrows rose in a subtle touché, and the man almost smiled with approval-almost. "I don't pretend to know how Miss Rice's mind works. She's the only walking enigma I've ever met. And there's something about her speech. She's not from this part of the country, is she? Sometimes, when she's tired, I think I hear the ghost of a southern accent."

That touch of the Southland in Hannah's voice had begun to die off in the early years of Oren's childhood, along with idioms and odd words. He shrugged and splayed his hands and said, "As far as I know, Hannah's always lived in Coventry."

This evidently passed as truth, for the older man seemed disappointed.

When billeted in the state of Tennessee for the duration of a manhunt, CID Agent Oren Hobbs had gotten a taste of the food and the regional dialect. He had realized then that Hannah Rice must have hailed from there, and this had led to another revelation: He knew every vital statistic in the life of the runaway soldier he hunted; he knew nothing about the woman who had raised him.

As a boy, he had been comfortable with the notion that the housekeeper had sprung to life on the day his mother was buried. At the age of three, Oren had been too young to remember Hannah's arrival in Coventry, but he knew the story told a hundred times: The judge had laid his dead wife to rest in the family plot and returned to his house in the company of neighbors, whose extra arms were needed to carry casseroles and baby Joshua. Oren had played the little man that day and walked everywhere on his own two toddler's legs, bumping into everything, "-blinded by tears, and batting away every hand that offered comfort." Those were his father's words.

Judge Henry Hobbs had always told the tale in the same way, word for word. "So we come back from the cemetery, and there's young Hannah- a stranger and a trespasser-standing on my front porch like she owns the place." The story had been repeated until the children's eyes had glazed over, and this segment of oral history was burned into their little brains. "Real brassy for a runt housebreaker," the judge would always say.

The young stranger, Hannah Rice, had greeted the funeral party and served them a feast made from scratch materials found in the pantry. Her bite-size bits of finger food-with three flavors apiece-lingered for years in the memories of all those present on that long-ago afternoon, but the fine coffee had been enough to ensure Hannah's legend in the neighborhood.

Her suitcase had been unpacked in the upstairs guest room hours before her future employer had even known of her existence, and the judge still had no idea who she was at the close of the funeral supper. That evening, while she cleaned up after the mourners, the judge had thought to ask for her name. Days later, they had come to terms on a salary, but he had never pried into her past.

That would have been rude.

Apart from a core of third- and fourth-generation lifers, there had always been a coming and going of residents. Some were attracted by the raw beauty of the coastline; others sought the privacy of in-country woodlands. One abiding charm of the place was the whole town's lack of curiosity about the outside world-as if a citizen's life had not begun until they set foot in Coventry. A fair number of outsiders had come here to hide themselves away until they could reinvent their lives or rest up from a chase. After a month or a decade, some of these people would decamp with no word of goodbye or forwarding address, but others stayed long enough to be buried in local ground. After thirty-four years, Hannah appeared to have staying power.

Oren had become curious about her past, but he loved that little woman dearly, and he would never ask for her story, nor would he betray the fact that she had surely been a fugitive.

Henry Hobbs spoke to his housekeeper's back as she pulled down two coffee mugs from the cupboard. "Why did you do it, Hannah? I know you convinced the boy to come home. Why now of all times?"

"You have to stop calling him boy." It was her custom to deflect every rebuke with one of her own. "I know how you hate change-oh, don't I know it-but boys will grow into men." She set the mugs on the table and turned to the window that looked out on the meadow. "At least the reporters are gone." She sighed. "That's one small mercy. They're all following Ferris Monty. He took them on a walking tour of Coventry."

"My idea." Addison Winston's voice preceded him down the hall, and now he materialized in the doorway. A puff of smoke and a whiff of sulfur would not have surprised Hannah.

"Don't worry about Oren," said the grinning attorney. "After all this time, there can't be much of a case against him."

The judge rose from his chair, knocking it over in his rush to make a stand. "There's no case-period!" He pounded the table to bring this point home. "There never was a case against Oren." The old man stomped out of the kitchen, though the effect of this angry exit was somewhat blunted by the crepe soles of his sandals.

Addison Winston's professional smile never faltered. He stared at the old-fashioned coffeepot percolating on the stove, and then he turned to Hannah, willing her to offer him a cup of her wonderful brew. Hands on hips, her eyes narrowed to tell him that this was not going to happen.

He handed her a business card. "You never know when you might need a lawyer. The pressure's on. The sheriff will have to arrest somebody."

She never glanced at his card, but let it hang there in the air. "How many years have I known you, Addison? I've got your number." She had taken this man's measure long ago. "And I know what you do." Nothing good.

Far from taking umbrage with her tone and a double entendre or two, his eyes lit up, and he was laughing when he left her.

"So the sheriff found Josh's body." Swahn tapped his cane on the floor for punctuation. "Of course, it's murder. If there were any possibility of an accident, you wouldn't be here, Mr. Hobbs. So there was an obvious cause of death. A bullet wound? A blow to the head?"

Oren shrugged, allowing the other man to believe that he had not yet seen his brother's body. "The coroner hasn't made a finding yet."

"That should be interesting. Our new county coroner used to be a dentist."

"I'd like to see all your interviews with the locals," said Oren. "The sheriff won't let me read his."

"Perfectly understandable. You're his prime suspect."

"And yours, too?"

Swahn was deaf to this question, or maybe he thought a countering jab just too easy. He reached out for the telephone by his chair and placed a call. The person at the other end of the line must know the sound of his voice, for all he said was, "The judge's son is here." After listening for a moment he said, "If you wish." He hung up the phone and rose from his chair with a grimace of pain. "I'll get my files."

No need to ask who had given the instruction to play nicely with Oren.

Thank you, Hannah.

The older man limped across the room, opened a narrow door and stepped into the cage of a small elevator. The gears clicked and whirred and carried him upward. The ironwork of the cage dated it back to an era long before Swahn's purchase of the house. This conveyance on the premises must have been a great selling point. Climbing stairs would pose a problem for a man who winced as he walked. But an elevator could also be a technology trap for a hermit.

When the former owner was alive, she had two small boys to keep track of her. Who was looking after Swahn?

Oren had his answer when he ran one finger over a tabletop. Not a day's worth of dust had collected there, and the wood floor around the area rug had the shine of fresh waxing. Swahn's wealth and his handicap were two more indications of a full-time cleaning lady on the payroll, and that woman might be worth an interview.

The passing minutes were spent reading book titles in earnest this time. Many were familiar. Most of them related to the field of criminology, an interesting choice for a man whose natural enemy was the police. The sound of gears signaled the return of the elevator. It slowly settled to the floor. The man in the iron cage stood beside a carton piled high with file holders and envelopes. Oren was quick to cross the floor and help with the unloading.

"I hope you plan to stay awhile," said Swahn. "None of this material leaves my house."

"Fair enough." Oren lifted the box and carried it to the center of the room.

With both hands gripping the cane, Swahn lowered himself to the floor and sat down in an awkward pose, one leg drawn in and the twisted one sticking out, unable to bend at the knee. The two men emptied the contents of the carton to cover the surrounding carpet with manila folders, large envelopes and banded bundles of paper.

Oren leafed through a stack of typed interviews. Each one was clipped to a photograph. "My brother took these pictures." Some of these same compositions were framed on the walls of the judge's house. "But Josh didn't make any of these prints."

They lacked the crisp perfection that Josh had achieved by manipulating his negatives. The boy's attic darkroom had been a place with a language of its own, words like dodging and burning to play down bright lights and coax lost details from areas of gray. Other things came back to Oren, a memory of that room bathed in red light and the array of bottles, some of them intensifying chemicals. And there were special grades of paper and filters to push the contrast of every picture into the darkest shadows, the brightest highlights.

Almost magic.

He looked down at the print in his hand. This was-ordinary.

"It's a bad job, I know," said Swahn. "Miss Rice loaned me the negatives, and I ordered these prints from the drugstore in town. No comparison to Josh's work. He was gifted in a dying art form. I don't think he would've cared for the age of digital cameras."

Oren picked up a photograph of a birthday ball. In this shot, the stout hotelier, Evelyn Straub, was in her thirties, still lean and fine, her short skirt showing the endless long legs of a former Las Vegas showgirl.

Swahn leaned over to glance at it. "Your brother was probably ten when he took that one, and I'm not just guessing by Mrs. Straub's age. It's the perspective of a child looking upward. That angle changes subtly as he gets taller." He looked down at the other pictures spread out on the rug. "Even though Josh doesn't appear in any of these pictures, it's like watching the boy grow up."

Oren noticed that only his brother was referred to by his given name. Even Hannah, a longtime acquaintance, was always called, more formally, Miss Rice. Was Swahn only comfortable with the dead, or had he lied about never meeting Josh?

"I think your brother knew his killer."

The photograph fell from Oren's hand.

"According to your housekeeper, the boy was carrying a camera the last time she saw him."

"He always took one of his cameras when he left the house."

"But this one wasn't his pocket camera," said Swahn. "It was the old Canon FTB, the heavy one. Why would he carry that dead weight on a hike in the woods? The boy wasn't a nature photographer. Look at these images-only people. That was his subject. Did he take pictures of you that day?"

No." Oren saw no need to mention the picture Josh had taken before they left the house, the portrait of two brothers that Hannah had framed in silver.

Miss Rice said she packed a lunch in Josh's knapsack… but nothing for you." Swahn waited a moment for the explanation. It never came. "I understand that you and your brother went your separate ways after a while. So Josh had his own plans for the day. And he obviously intended to take pictures in the woods-but the boy only photographed people." Swahn allowed the import to settle in for a moment, and then he said, "Beer?" Without waiting for a reply, he slowly rose to his feet, using the cane as a climbing pole, and limped out of the room.

Oren emptied a bulky envelope containing pictures that had not been married up with interviews. Nowhere in this lot was a standard print of the photograph that Hannah had enlarged for his homecoming present. Every detail pictured in that silver frame was fixed in memory, and it brought to mind the interview with Cable Babitt shortly after Josh had gone missing.

"Talk to me, son," the sheriff had said to him then. "I need to account for your time." The judge had answered for Oren, saying, "Cable, you can't expect the boy to know where he was at this hour or that hour. What teenager wears a watch on a Saturday?"

In the silver-framed portrait of two brothers, Josh had been wearing a wristwatch.

Swahn returned with two bottles. He leaned down and handed one to his guest. Oren accepted the cold beer, but hesitated to pop the cap and drink with the man-given his errand in this house. He stared at the telephone, as if this would make it ring.

"Expecting a call, Mr. Hobbs? Oh, shot in the dark, a call from Sheriff Babitt?"

One casual wave of Oren's hand took in the surrounding paper storm. "Did you share all of this with the sheriff?"

Swahn set his own bottle on a table by a chair, but he remained standing. "I gave him everything that might help with the investigation."

"But not everything, right? You held out on him."

"Is that what Babitt told you? I suppose this means I'm on his shortlist."

"I'm sure you are." Oren glanced at the phone. How long did it take the sheriff to make a simple call? He chose his next words carefully, aiming to rattle and topple a cripple. He studied the man's face, hoping for giveaway tics and other tells when he said, "A cane makes a good weapon."

Swahn never blinked, nor did he miss a beat. "That it does." He leaned his walking stick against a small table and made an effort to stand up straight, though it caused him pain, and he could not quite achieve it. One shoulder was lower than the other because of one leg twisted inward. The hand that had held his cane was empty but still frozen in a curl. Beginning with the scarred face, all the damage ran down the left side of Swahn, a man broken by half. "You thought I might do a lot of hiking in the woods?"

"If my brother's grave is near a road-you'll make my shortlist."

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.