Bone Deep

David Wiltse
1

The rains began in April-the usual innocent sprinkles that accompanied spring-and they did not stop until mid-June, growing more severe with time. It rained by day and night, four days a week, five days a week, in a persistent shower that seemed to pause only to gather strength before continuing to pour. The winter had been hard, one of the worst on record, and at first the waters seemed to stand upon the face of the earth as if in a pan, unable to penetrate the still-frozen subsoil, as if Connecticut had been transported to the permafrost of Siberia. But then they sank and did their annual restorative work underground, replenishing the wells and the reservoirs and the water table. Lakes filled again and ponds began to swell. Rivers rose and the countless rills and streams that wound their way through the backyards and open woods of the little town of Clamden took on unaccustomed vitality.

When the earth had drunk its fill, water once again stood on the surface of the soil with nowhere to go. It drained into basements and spread across lawns, creeping up to the highlands many feet above the rivers, eating under roadbeds until the pavement buckled, then caved into potholes.

In the orchard, the stream forming the lower boundary of the property raged and foamed, ripping away at the bank, which crumbled and dropped into the tide, swelling the waters still further. Water surged over the sheared bank, climbing acquisitively up the slope that led to the trees, devouring more land with every day, splashing around the base of the nethermost trees, invading soil already sodden.

After five weeks of almost continuous rain, the rising waters in the orchard lifted out the first of the young fir trees, a four-foot-high dwarf that now would never decorate any child's Christmas tableau. The swollen stream carried it to the Saugatuck River, whose waters were already cluttered with debris from the floods. Water dug deeper into the hole remaining where the uprooted tree had once stood prying loose a plastic trash bag that rested there. The tree's roots had penetrated the bag over the years, and as the pressure of the water forced them reluctantly up and away, they'd torn the holes in the plastic still further. Buoyed up from the earth and teased by the continually lapping water, the contents of the bag sloshed back and forth in their confines, jostling each other, nudging the holes to widen even more.

On the day the rains ceased, the waters began to drain toward the streams and creeks. As the ebbing currents pulled at the bag one last time, a bone floated out from the gray plastic, was caught temporarily by the larger joint at one end, then slipped away altogether and was carried to the stream, which tumbled and spun it upon its still-frantic flood through the town of Clamden.

Thomas Terence Terhune, Clamden Chief of Police, carried a small cardboard tray holding two coffees and two bagels to his car. He set the tray on the car's roof as he opened the door and glanced at the clearing skies before sliding behind the steering wheel with some difficulty. His progress was encumbered by the radio, flashlight, and pistol attached to his belt-the hardware of police work.

"Might as well have been a carpenter," Tee said, adjusting the radio so it rode on his hip and not the small of his back, "instead of a highly respected peace officer."

"You'd make more money. Carpenters get about five hundred dollars an hour these days."

"I thought that was plumbers," Tee said. "Plumbers are not underpaid either, as I understand it." Tee handed one of the coffees to John Becker. "While it is true that my salary is not grand, you forget that as chief of police I have excellent opportunities for graft."

"Done any good graft lately?" Becker asked.

"You're drinking some of it."

"Did you extort this cup of coffee, or was it offered as a bribe?"

"I merely suggested she could give me a refill now instead of making me come back for it. But that's not all. Free coffee alone would not be enough to keep me in this job. Please note the difference between my bagel and yours."

"Your bagel has a very large and unhealthy glob of cream cheese on it,"

Becker said.

"You call it a glob, I call it a dollop. Some would refer to it as a shmear. However, you miss the point." Tee lifted a finger triumphantly before continuing. "Trained observer that I am, I saw the significant detail. While my bagel has cream cheese-now listen up, this is significant-yours does not."

"Good Lord, you're right."

"You mock."

"No, it's astounding. Did they teach you this in your six-week course on cop studies?"

"You still don't get it, do you?" Tee said. "Now, while it's true that you asked for a plain bagel-and got onenot only did I not specify cream cheese on mine, but I wasn't charged for it either."

"Free cream cheese."

"It might seem a small thing at first glance, but add it up over the course of a career."

"It would come to tens of dollars."

"And thousands of calories, don't forget."

"The things you cops get away with."

"You poor slugs in the FBI don't get opportunities like this."

"If only someone had told me these things when I was starting out, I would surely have chosen to be a small-town COP."

"Chief cop. This is not within the grasp of an ordinary officer."

"I know," said Becker, looking out the window. "I've been watching what is in the grasp of an ordinary cop."

Tee followed Becker's gaze. Across the parking lot of the tiny shopping plaza that constituted the Clamden town center, another policeman leaned out the window of his squad car, talking to a teenaged girl.

"The little prick," Tee said heatedly.

"McNeil?"

"I've warned him about the high school girls. I'm going to have to jump all over his ass."

"He's just talking," Becker said.

"Shit." The girl was a willowy blonde with classical features and a vacuous look. As befitted the current style, she was dressed like a farm worker, in overalls several sizes too large and work boots that would never know a day's labor. As she talked, she laughed, tossing her head back so that her ruler-straight hair flapped gently against her body, halfway down her back. Her pelvis was pressed against the car's front door.

"She doesn't seem to be unhappy," Becker said.

"She's a kid," said Tee. "What does she know? She's one of the Jorgensens, Corliss or Angela, I forget which. Father drinks. We've had to drive him home and pour him out of the car more than once. Probably abuses the kids one way or another-drunks usually do. The mother's useless, works in the city somewhere, just seems to accept whatever's going on. Not surprisingly, the girl's a mess and looking for trouble."

"What does she do, Tee? Hang around on the street corner and smoke cigarettes?"

"Boy, are you out of touch. First of all, you may not have noticed, but there aren't any street corners in Clamden to hang out on. The kids hang out here at night."

"At the center?"

"It's one of the places. They sit on their cars and congregate like a flock of starlings. And all of them smoke. I mean all of them. And drink. Starting at thirteen, fourteen. Kids are not what they used to be when we were young."

"So what makes Jorgensen any different?"

"She's fucking McNeil, for one thing. And doing some coke now and then.

Maybe more, I wouldn't be surprised. She's on her way. That's how McNeil got to her in the first place, I'm pretty sure. He responds to a neighbor's complaint about the noise, goes to a house where the parents are away and finds dozens of teenagers, drunk and drugged and generally out of control. He brings the kids who belong to the house to the station. The rest of them he lectures, scares a little bit, paints himself as a good guy for not running them in too. He picks a girl who's holding more than the others, or the one who seems more willing to oblige him-whatever it is he looks for-he takes her off in his car, strikes a deal. It's got to be somebody he knows isn't going to tell her parents a cop came on to her. Preferably someone who doesn't talk to her parents at all. He gets some head in the front seat, she gets to go free, and things develop from there. Suddenly the girl has a thirty-five-year-old boyfriend, and a gun-carrying boyfriend at that.

And a married man. Heady stuff for the right kind of kid. Or the wrong kind of kid. Easy pickings for McNeil. In a year or two she goes off to college and he finds somebody else. I warned him last time I was going to cut his nuts off if he kept at it."

"Judging by his behavior, I'd guess he still has them."

"The man has a severe hormone problem. I'm not sure castration would take care of it."

"Are you thinking of doing a Bobbitt on your own man?"

"It would make him a better cop. It seems a small price to pay for enhanced performance on the job."

"You ever consider just firing him?"

"We've got a union, you know. McNeil's been on the force ten years. I can't fire him without explanation, and that explanation would require involving at least half a dozen local families. They wouldn't be too happy about that. Plus, the bastard is a very smooth talker. I mean, You wouldn't know it, the way he'd talk to you-he's very macho, stud-cop, around men-but when he talks to women he's a different person.

I mean, he even has a different vocabulary. I know, I've overheard him on the phone to some of them. He sounds almost like another girl talking to them, and I don't mean gay, there's nothing swishy about it, he just sounds so-tuned in to them. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Not smooth, a woman can spot smooth. He's-sincere, I've seen him when he didn't know I was there, but he's showing off for one of the other cops.

I mean, he's pretending to jerk off or he's rolling his eyes at something she says, then when he talks into the phone he's just so… soothing, reassuring, I don't know what to call it. I'm telling you, if I brought any of the parents into this, I'd be afraid to let him talk to the mothers, he'd have them on his side in a second. Besides, some of those kids are out of college now, some are married-how are they going to feel about being displayed as examples of teenage stupidity?"

"Probably not willing volunteers."

"Probably not. I wouldn't want the lunacy of my adolescence put on display either."

"Not to mention the lunacy of your later years," Becker said. "If I recall it, you had a certain fondness for skirts yourself.",I was a sociable guy."

"If you call running after them with your tongue hanging out 'sociable,' then you certainly were. It always amazed me that you didn't step on it and render yourself speechless."

"You're talking?" Tee demanded, shifting awkwardly behind the wheel.

"You?"

"I've always been a friendly sort," Becker said, grinning.

"You deceive yourself Friendly is 'Hi, how are you?" A polite smile, stay and talk for a minute, buy somebody щ a cup of coffee, ask about his vacation. That's friendly. Friendly's a unisex thing, you can do it with anyone. I am friendly. What you are is horny."

"Only when I was single."

"You were single a lot."

"Unlike your good self," Becker said.

"That's right. I am a married man. Always have been. Since the dawn of time. That ring has always stayed on my finger, it's now grown into the bone like an implant, I couldn't get it off if I wanted to, unlike McNeil over there. The sonofabitch wears a wedding band made of Velcro, I think. Meet somebody in the afternoon, zip it's off, go home to the wife after work, and zip it's back on again."

"Everything all right at home?" Becker asked.

"Fine-what do you mean?"

"It seems to me you used to be a bit more understanding about this kind of thing, a little more live-and-let-live. Even admiring, sometimes.

Not to say envious. You getting old, Tee?"

"Of course I'm getting old. So are you, let me point out. You're two years older than I am."

"I'm two years younger than you are."

"When were you born?"

"You say first."

"You're too clever for me," Tee said. "No wonder you're in the FBI."

"That's also why I'm so much better-looking than you are." Becker grinned.

Tee patted his stomach, which was straining against the shirt material.

"I have gone for the distinguished-and very appealing-look of authority.

It goes with the uniform."

"It's working. You're getting more distinguished looking with every glop of cream cheese."

The Jorgensen girl tossed her head and laughed again, then stepped away from the patrol car. McNeil backed away from the curb and drove slowly out of the parking lot, eyeing the teenagers as he went. A few of the girls allowed their gazes to linger on him before turning away and clustering around the Jorgensen girl, who smiled enigmatically.

"Seriously, John, am I the only one who finds this offensive? Maybe I am just getting old, but these girls are underage and that fucking charmer is taking advantage of them. Again and again and again."

"It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you have a fifteen-year-old daughter, could it?"

"I think about her, sure. Ginny knows I'd skin her alive if she does any drinking before she goes to college, but that doesn't mean she won't find trouble to get into… You think that's all there is to it, I'm making too much of it because I have a daughter?"

"No, you're not the only one offended, Tee. It is sleazy, maybe worse."

"What would you do if some kid like that came on to you?"

Becker laughed. "I'd find Karen and tell her about it and you can be sure that kid would never bother me again."

The police radio crackled briefly; then a woman's voice said, "Central to Chief Terhune." Tee indicated himself with a thumb.

"That's me," he said to Becker. "I am the chief.. Go ahead, Central."

"You hired someone named Central to be your dispatcher? It sounds like Maureen to me."

"She loves to have me speak to her in Cop," Tee said. "It gives her chills."

"What did you say?" the woman's voice said on the radio. "I'm with John Becker," Tee said into the microphone.

"Oh," she responded, as if Becker's presence accounted for any strangeness in the communication. "Chief, we got a call from Mrs. Leigh at Three-three-three Lions Drive. She says she knows you."

"I know Mrs. Leigh-what's the problem?"

"She's got something she wants you to look at. I asked her did she want you specifically or just any cop. That's when she said she knew you.

Should I send McNeil?"

"I'll take it, Maureen. What's the problem?"

"She wants you to look at a bone."

"Say again?"

"She wants you to look at a bone. It washed up in her backyard and she says it looks funny."

"That would be the funny bone," said Becker. "Maureen, did you mention to Mrs. Leigh that I am en gaged in a high-level criminological conference with Special Agent Becker, local celebrity and failed comedian?"

"No, I told her you'd probably be there in a few minutes."

"Notice the respect in her tone?" Tee asked Becker.

"Is that what that edge in her voice is? The note that sounds vaguely like contempt?"

"I see that you are a lousy judge of respectful tones. I hope this falling doesn't carry over into any other aspect of your life."

"I'm not good with wines, either."

"Does any of this have to do with me?" Maureen asked.

"Okay, I'll check it out… Central." Tee replaced the microphone and turned to Becker. "You see the serious matters that befall a chief of police? Bone patrol. You want to go along?"

"Hey, I'm on vacation."

"Does that mean yes?"

"I can't think of anything more stimulating than watching an underpaid professional at work."

"You don't get this kind of excitement working with the Feds, do you?"

"We get paid extra for hazardous work," Becker said "Who is Mrs. Leigh and what is her problem with bones?"

"Probably wants to sue somebody for befouling her yard. All those houses on Lions Drive have got a branch of the Saugatuck running through their backyards, admittedly not a very large branch most of the time, but if it rains for forty days and nights you've got to expect something is going to wash up on your patio eventually. That's the risk you take living on the river, isn't it?"

"Which doesn't mean you can't sue somebody," Becker said. "If you try hard enough."

"As long as it's not the local cop."

Tee drove past the library and onto the series of inter connecting streets that honeycombed the Connecticut forest and called itself the town of Clamden. A woodchuck emerged from a stone fence, stood on its hind legs, and watched the police car pass as Becker regarded it in turn. Becker had often thought that it was debatable whether Clamden was the dominion of the people who lived there or of the large populations of deer, raccoons, woodchucks, and squiffels-not to mention the few coyotes that had taken up residence in the past few years. Raccoons tested the security measures on all garbage cans and occasionally ventured into houses. The deer, protected by strict hunting regulations and local leash laws on all the dogs, dined fearlessly on gardens, azaleas, and roses, browsing their way with arrogance through forest and yards alike, insolent as cats.

The persistence of the forest only an hour's drive from New York City was testimony to the affinity of New England's soil and weather to trees, and to the power of jealously protected local zoning regulations.

The citizens of Clamden had chosen to live in the woods-and had passed the laws and assumed the tax burden necessary to protect those woods.

They looked with some pity at the neighboring towns that provided them with such amenities as supermarkets, shops, restaurants, and movie houses but lacked the sylvan joys of the surrounding forest. For those who wished to do so-and Becker was one-Clamden was a most convenient spot to fake the simple life. Tee was contemplating life of a more complicated nature.

"Would you really tell Karen if someone came on to you?" he asked.

"I tell her most things."

"Yeah, but what don't you tell her?"

Just things I forget," said Becker.

"You really talk that much?… I talk to Marge, but there are some things… Say you're having a conversation with a good-looking woman and you suddenly realize she's coming on to you. You don't do anything, you understand, but you're pretty sure you're getting signals. Are you saying you'd tell Karen about that?"

"If I was sure I knew what was going on, yeah, I'd tell her. Knowing Karen, she would have noticed it already anyway. I wouldn't say anything just because somebody smiled at me, though. I'd have to be convinced it was a real come-on. Women are usually subtle enough to leave themselves a way out. It's easy to misunderstand." Tee fell back into silence.

"Did something happen you want to talk about?" Becker asked tentatively, after a moment.

"Yeah, something happened. No, I don't want to talk about it… I'd rather talk around it."

"Fair enough."

"You had. Tee started, reluctantly. "Never mind.

"Go ahead."

"Forget it. Another time."

"I'm here now," said Becker. "I had what?"

"Nothing."

"I hate talking to men, you know that? The minute you get into something other than sports or just plain bullshit, they all clam up tight as a duck's ass. Christ, Tee, we've known each other since high school. What can you say that's going to surprise me?"

"It wouldn't surprise you."

"Suit yourself," Becker said.

"I guess I probably will," Tee replied before lapsing into a silence that lasted until he pulled into a driveway.

A slight young woman in jean cutoffs and a halter came out of the house, lifting a hand in greeting before going back inside. Becker got out of the car, then paused as he saw Tee hesitate.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm not quite sure how to explain your presence," Tee said.

"I should stay in the car?"

"And miss the excitement? I just wonder do I say I brought a pal along for the fun, or introduce you as Special Agent Becker and congratulations, this is now a federal case, or what?"

"Why not just call me Dr. Watson?"

"Is somebody sick?"

Mrs. Leigh stepped out of the house again, this time holding a large bone at arm's length. She gripped the bone with a wad of paper toweling and her hand was encased in a rubber kitchen glove and her movements were gingerly and delicate, as if she found the job extremely distasteful.

"I found this in my backyard. Can you imagine? Who knows what kind of diseases you could get from a thing like this. What if my children had found it first? It's appalling."

Becker noticed a distinctive southern rhythm to her voice even though the words were unaccented, as 1 was educated the tones of Alabama out of her speech, but not the lilt.

"To have a thing like this just wash up, it's not as if I lived on the Jersey shore, Captain. I don't expect used syringes in my backyard, not in Clamden, no sir, that's not acceptable."

"It looks more like a bone than a syringe, Mrs. Leigh."

"Well, of course it's a bone, Captain. But it's a dead bone and they carry germs."

"Do they?"

"It stands to reason. Whatever it died of."

"Any viruses or bacteria that infected the organism while it was living would be dead within a few days if not a few hours," Becker volunteered.

"Well, how do you do?" Mrs. Leigh declared, as if Becker had suddenly materialized in her front lawn. Her eyes were the palest blue and gave her a slightly unearthly look when viewed straight on. The pupils seemed to melt away under scrutiny and dissolve into a hole which led to an alternate universe where many things were possible. They were mesmerizing, fascinating eyes, eyes the hue of a wolf's, and when she grinned at him tauntingly, Becker realized that she was a very dangerous woman. She was very thin, yet her upper arms had the well-cut look of weight training. Becker could imagine her striding along the road in her shorts and halter, swinging hand weights in an exaggerated motion.

"I'm John Becker," he said. "Oh, yes," she said. "You don't look the way I thought you would."

"I don't look the way I wish I did either," Becker said.

She gave him her left hand, turning it over and squeezing his briefly.

"I wouldn't be too quick to change if I were you," she said, grinning slightly.

"Mr. Becker is…" Tee halted lamely.

"I know who Mr. Becker is," Mrs. Leigh said. "Everybody in town knows who Mr. Becker is, even if we haven't seen him before. He's a celebrity."

"Not really," said Becker.

"Of course you are, don't be modest. You killed all those people, didn't you?"

Becker recoiled, his face darkening.

"Don't be embarrassed," she said. "They were all bad people, I'm sure."

"They were all serial killers," Tee said, "but it's not his favorite topic. "

"I am sorry, will you forgive me?" She touched his arm with the hand that wasn't holding the bone. The motion made her ribs stand out against the skin. "Now you must forgive me or I'll feel just awful."

"No problem," Becker said, managing a wintry smile.

"Thank you," she said, giving Becker a lingering look before turning again to Tee. She thrust the bone toward the chief, waggling it impatiently.

"Well, take it, Captain Terhune. You don't expect me to hold it forever, do you? It may not have the germs that killed it, but it could have other germs, couldn't it?"

"I'm not a captain," Tee said, taking the bone, holding it carefully by the paper toweling.

"Well, you certainly should be. I'd make you a colonel. " Tee laughed.

"Chief is good enough for me."

"You're two of the most modest men I've ever met," she said with delight. "I can't tell you how refreshing that is. My husband is-well, let's not get into that."

"Do you want to show me where you found the bone?" Tee asked.

"Why certainly. Just come along here."

As she walked toward her backyard, the woman touched Tee's arm several times as if for balance, although Becker saw nothing in the terrain to have disturbed her equilibrium. Alone with Becker in the car again, Tee said, "So, what do you think?"

"An attractive woman," Becker said. "A hand ful, I'd guess, but nice-looking."

"I didn't mean the woman," Tee said impatiently. "Well then, otherwise-I'd say you have a problem."

"That's what I was afraid of." Tee laid the bone carefully on the back seat of the cruiser. "It's human, isn't it?"

"Looks that way to me," Becker said. "Humerus."

"May be funny to you, not to me."

"I mean the humerus bone."

"God, I love an educated man. That anything like the upper arm in American?"

"Very similar."

"Shit. I'll have a doctor check it out, but it is human, isn't it?"

Becker nodded. "Maybe we have a cemetery flooded. That'll be pretty."

"At least you know where to start looking," Becker said. "Where is that?"

"Upstream."

"I probably would have thought of that eventually, but see, you didn't even hesitate. Quick. Quick as a Fed." Tee reached for his radio.

"I'm sorry about that comment she made," he said, changing his tone. "I hope it didn't upset YOU."

"Of course it upset me," Becker said. "How would you like to be a celebrity because of the people you killed?"

"Well… sorry. "

"Not your fault."

"She's kind of outspoken."

"Who is she, anyway?" Becker asked.

"Mrs. Leigh? Just, you know-do we say housewife anymore? A nonworking mother? Full-time parent, something like that. Husband does something with magazines in the city. Probably can't really afford to live here, but they're doing it for the schools for their kids, that type of deal.

"How do you happen to know her?"

"Hey, I'm the chief. I know lots of people… She had a prowler once, I think it was. Or she imagined she had a prowler. She's a little on the neurotic side, maybe you picked up on that… I don't really know her."

"Anything else you want to tell me about Mrs. Leigh?" Becker asked.

"Why should I?" Tee looked at Becker, his face a mask of puzzlement. "I hardly know her."

Becker nodded, looking out the window. "What? What?"

Becker shrugged. "Nothing. Reading too much into things is an occupational hazard."

"Having people be friendly with the chief of police is an occupational hazard too. Personally, I'd rather have them all scared and troubled by a guilty conscience in my presence, but some of them just get friendlier than they have a right to be. What can I do?"

"Kind of nice to see somebody wearing shorts after all this rain, isn't it? I would have thought it was a little cool for that kind of outfit."

"Maybe it's what she wears around the house," Tee said.

"Maybe… but I thought she was out in her yard. That's how she found the bone."

"Good Christ, John, does your mind work like this all the time?"

"Pretty much," Becker said. "It must be hard to live with."

Becker smiled. "You've got to find the right mate. Fortunately, I have."

"Fortunately for you. How about her?"

Becker's smile broadened. "If Karen isn't happy, I'll just work harder." Tee stared at Becker. "Man, you've changed. Karen's been the best thing in the world for you."

"I know it. I have blossomed like a flower."

"It's made you kind of weird, too."

"She's brought out my feminine side, as they say." Becker grinned.

"Well, keep that part to yourself while you're in this car. I'm sworn to enforce the law." Tee stared at him a moment longer before speaking into the radio.

"Maureen, find out what doctor we've got on call this month, would you?

I need a specialist, a what-do-you-callit?"

"Orthopedic surgeon?" Becker suggested. "An orthopedic surgeon," Tee repeated into the radio. Then, to Becker: "Why a surgeon?"

"The bone's been cut," Becker said. "On the end. Looks like someone went at it with a knife."

"Well, shit twice," said Tee.