Bone by Bone

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 séances?"

"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 séance." 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 séances? 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 séances 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 séances. 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 séances, 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.

As the jeep approached the cabin, Cable began a preamble to his worst fears. "It's been quite a while since I was up here," he lied. "The land changes as years go by. You think you know a place, and then you find out you don't. I wouldn't want to be up here when it gets dark. There'll be a full moon, but you can't count on it-not tonight." He leaned forward to look up through the windshield. "The clouds are already rolling in."

Searching the woods for a teenage Oren Hobbs had once been the pastime of an entire town. After a while, they had ceased to hunt for Josh, giving him up for dead, but young Oren had spent all his days in the forest, hunting for his brother. No matter how many times the boy lost his way, townsfolk would stop what they were doing, shops would close, and people would walk into the deep woods to find Judge Hobbs's only surviving child and bring him home again-and again. They never failed that good old man or the boy. Too often, Oren was found dehydrated and disoriented. So many times the boy could have died, but Coventry would not allow it.

Oren Hobbs nodded his understanding that he should not get lost one more time. "Why did Evelyn Straub move her psychic from the hotel to the woods?"

"That was actually pretty smart. Evelyn gets a tax write-off by using the cabin for business purposes." The sheriff turned onto a private road of hard-packed dirt, slowing to a roll when the roof of the log house came into view. While he still had trees for partial cover, he stopped his vehicle, cut the lights and let the engine idle. "I'm not supposed to be here. Evelyn's got an injunction to keep me off her property. She says police harassment ruins the ambiance. So I've got to get this jeep out of here real fast."

Yet his passenger remained in his seat, patiently waiting for more, and of course more was owed to him.

"Swahn was right," said Cable. "Evelyn's the one who gave you that alibi. She told me you spent the day in the cabin with her. She said Josh went deeper into the woods by himself."

"Who was the other one? Swahn said two women came forward."

"Well, what does it matter now? And son?-just how many women were you sleeping with? You weren't too talkative as a teenager."

Silent then, and silent now, Oren opened the passenger door and stepped out.

"Hold on." The sheriff rummaged through his glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. "Can't remember the last time I changed the batteries. Use it sparingly. If you're smart, you'll start out for home while it's still light."

Oren reached through the open window and took the proffered flashlight. "Thanks."

"If you get caught spying on these people, don't tell Evelyn I was here. That's all I ask."

"I won't get caught."

"One more thing, Oren. On your way out, stay clear of traffic on the road. Evelyn drives the hotel's shuttle van." Cable leaned toward the passenger window. His voice was in the low warning notes. "Son? I know you found your way home from this place more than once, but don't go taking any shortcuts through the woods."

He was talking to the air. Oren Hobbs was gone.

The sedatives had worn off, and Sarah Winston reached for the whiskey bottle held just beyond her outstretched hand.

"Dinner's ready." Using the liquor as bait, Addison coaxed her out of bed and down the tower's narrow flight of steps. As they walked along the second-floor landing to descend the grand staircase, he placed one arm around her shoulders, forgetting for the moment that his wife was merely tired, no longer drunk and in danger of falling.

Well, soon enough.

They entered the dining room, arm in arm, and a drink-a reward- was poured for her.

Isabelle was already seated at the table, head lowered, but not in prayer. She had no religious faith. However, she did believe in walking evil.

"Hello, Daddy."

Long ago, she had called him that to please her mother. These days, the sarcastic tone of this salutation could only be read as Drop dead.

Throughout the evening meal, Isabelle watched her mother toy with food and drink her dinner. The older woman was in a stupor by the time dessert was served. Her husband and daughter talked around her body while she remained upright. When Sarah laid her head on the table and closed her eyes, they conversed over her bowed back. Their argument was an old one.

"I take care of your mother," said Addison.

"You're more like her jailor," said Isabelle. "You killed off every plan she ever had for getting back out in the world."

"Your mother didn't need another college degree. She's beautiful, and beauty is power. I gave her whatever she asked for… just for the pleasure of looking at her." He stared at his wife's sleeping face, her open mouth, the bit of spittle on her lips.

Sarah was awakened for the postprandial brandy, another lure. Steadied by Addison 's arm, she was led to a couch in the cavernous front room, where a window spanned thirty feet to a pitched roof and offered a view of darkening woods.

When an hour had passed, and his wife was at the point of passing out, Addison gently lowered her head to the pillow of his lap. "Tomorrow the weaning begins," he whispered in her ear. "Only a little booze for breakfast and lunch, none for dinner."

When her eyes had closed in sleep, he smoothed the hair back from her brow. He looked up to see Isabelle glaring at him, hating him, and so, of course, he smiled. "One year, I cut her off on the day of the ball. Huge mistake. That was the first visit from the spiders. Three days is about right."

Isabelle's hands curled into fists, a good sign that she was paying attention.

"By the time your mother's birthday rolls around, she'll be able to go all night without a drink. Do you think Oren Hobbs will come to the ball this year?"

"Why should he? He hasn't been here since he was twelve."

Addison doubted that she would be disappointed if Oren never came to another birthday ball. Though Isabelle liked to nurse her grudges, even she could not carry this old obsession for so many years. However, it was worth a dig. "There's a rumor that Oren always had a thing for older women, married women." He looked down at his sleeping wife.

"And you think he slept with Mom?" Isabelle was incredulous.

Or was she jealous?

"Well, I know he didn't sleep with you." He saw heat rising in her face to color it with a flush. "I know what you did, Belle-all those years ago. It's going to come back and bite you."

Isabelle rose from the couch and stood over her sleeping mother. "I don't know why Mom stayed with you. But I know why she drinks. The alcohol dulls your sharp little teeth when you nip at her ankles."

What a roundabout way of calling him a son of a bitch. Isabelle was normally so direct. He looked down at his wife, the woman who shared his house if not his bed. In a stage whisper, he said, "Oh, look. She wakes."

Sarah Winston lifted her head in the manner of a timid animal peering out of a burrow and finding the world unsafe. Her head dropped. Her eyes closed.

Isabelle sank to her knees and stroked her mother's hair. "This is torture. Why do you let her go on like this?"

"Oh, I don't know." He leaned forward with a smile, something between a tease and a leer. "Because I love her madly?"

Rising to her feet, Isabelle crossed the room with long strides and no wave or word of good night.

Addison caressed his wife's sleeping face. He loved her madly.

Deputies Dave Hardy and John Faulks had done a poor job of removing bloodstains from their uniforms. The pink blotches were not the only evidence of a fight. They had been caught on film. Waiting for the fallout from their skirmish on the streets of Saulburg, they stood before the window of an appliance store and watched the images of ten television sets tuned to different channels.

"We're screwed," said Dave Hardy. "If that fight makes it to the evening news, we'll get suspended."

John Faulks was equally worried, and this carried in his voice, but he was also a man in denial. "That guy was just a cameraman, not a reporter." He turned his eyes from screen to screen. "I wish I could remember the name of the news show. I know the station call letters were printed on that camera."

Dave pointed to a TV set at the top of the display. "What the hell is that?"

The screen showed them the still image of a window set in a brick wall. A banner of type ran across the bottom of the screen, telling them what they already knew: the bones of a lost boy had been found in Coventry. And now something different: the hunt for a fugitive was under way.

"I wish we had sound," said Deputy Faulks.

The camera pulled back to show more of the building.

"It's the library in Coventry," said Dave. "Those stupid reporters believed you. They went to the library."

"I'm sorry," said the man beside him. "It was just a joke. How was I supposed to know they'd actually go there. Nobody in Coventry ever goes to the libra-"

"Don't ever say that again." Dave Hardy's fist was raised and promising more than a nosebleed this time.

Evelyn's cabin had once been her shelter from a hateful old man. Millard Straub had punished his wife every day of their marriage-because he was dying and she was not.

Tonight, Oren studied the ruins. Nature was reclaiming the structure, sending tree shoots through broken windowpanes. There were cracks in the foundation, and the porch roof sagged under the weight of a fallen branch. He could smell wood rot from the yard.

There was one improvement. The turnout for the driveway had been expanded into a parking lot. The van belonged to the Straub Hotel, and the sedans would be owned by local people. He judged some of the cars to be twenty years old and older, with cracked dashboards, dents and bald tires. Others were brand-new luxury models. The theme of wealth parked next to poverty played out all over Coventry, where a millionaire might build his mansion next to an acre parcel with a mobile home-or an old knock-down cabin like this one.

The land sloped downward as he moved toward the rear of the property, and the cabin's foundation had been built to accommodate this incline. He remembered concrete footings six feet high at the back end and a large opening used for storing yard tools. Even better, there was a trapdoor that would give him a view of the goings-on in the rooms above. As he rounded the cabin, he discovered that the opening had been enclosed. Behind the wooden steps leading up to the kitchen, he found a metal door set into the new wall of cement, and it was padlocked.

A pity. The old crawl space would have made a perfect spy hole. Now he would have to risk being seen. Oren walked up the back stairs and looked through a cracked windowpane. There was no one in the kitchen. He opened the door and entered the room, stepping light and slow. A rough interior wall was pocked with light leaking through the crumbled mortar between the logs. It offered him a selection of peepholes large and small. He moved silently from one to the other until he found a good view of the gathering in the next room.

No money had been wasted on props for the séance. Spiderwebs hung from the ceiling in ghosty gray curtains, very theatrical, but all too real. Six people sat on metal folding chairs gathered around a flimsy card table. They were encircled by the light of candles on cracked plates that sat on the floor. Other people were seated in shadow on the far side of the room. Evelyn Straub occupied a love seat, and no one dared keep her company.

Oren remembered that small sofa. Once, he had thought the plush velvet upholstery and gilt frame were too grand for this rustic setting. Now the old love seat seemed tired and sad in the lean and the sag of it, and the woman who sat upon it had also gone this route, less recognizable now than her furniture. Even by the kindness of candlelight, he could not find Evelyn Straub in this older woman's face.

Inside the circle of candles, all but one of the people rose up in a body and yielded their chairs. As players from the sidelines took their seats, Oren had a clear view of the table and an uncommon Ouija board. This was nothing bought in a store. The numerals and the alphabet appeared to be handmade. He recognized the small object at the center of the board. Made of rough carved wood, the three-legged heart had a hole at its center to display single characters from the painted lines of letters and numbers.

The sheriff had been right about one thing: the Ouija board was an anomaly. None of the grifters that Oren had encountered ever used one. And tonight he did not draw on his experience as a CID agent. This was a game from his childhood, played in secret places, dark cellars and deep woods. His little brother had loved the game-at first-calling it by its older name, witchboard.

A stick-thin woman, who had kept her chair, now gave instructions to the second shift of players. "Place your fingers on the planchette," she said, and, by fingertips, the other five people touched the heart-shaped piece of wood. "No pressure, mind you. It moves by other forces."

This could only be Alice Friday. Her face had a gaunt, starved look, and her eyes were sunken and heavy-lidded. The woman's voice had a nasal twang of the Midwest and a no-nonsense tone. She might well be giving a lecture on aluminum siding when she said, "Now we'll ask my spirit guide to answer your questions." She raised her head and raised her voice, calling out, "Joshua Hobbs! Are you here with us tonight?"

So Alice Friday used his dead brother to earn her living. Oren would not lay any blame upon Evelyn Straub. It had always been her nature to make money off of everything that moved and everything that did not. Why not the dead?

The planchette jumped on the board, startling people who must be new to the Ouija board. The more seasoned players only smiled. The psychic dryly chanted above the noise of crickets and the sounds of small animal paws scurrying across the ceiling. Six people leaned into the center of the table, and their heads bowed over the board each time the planchette stopped over a letter, and together they spelled out a chant, "I-A-M-N-E-"

Starlight could be seen through the mortar chinks in the upper walls, but Oren stared at another light, small as a star and electric green, and this one was in the floor. A cable fed out of one baseboard and traveled up a wall. He looked up to the ceiling, but it was too dark to find a camera lens in the rafters.

"A-R-S-O-D-A-R-K."

Evelyn Straub rose from the love seat and walked toward the kitchen, moving with the limber grace of a woman who had not grown old and stout. This vestige of her younger days fascinated him. It took a moment to collect his wits, to back out through the open door and softly pull it shut behind him.

Good night, pretty woman.

Mercifully, he was gone before the chanters spelled out, "O-R-E-N-H-E-L-P-M-E."