The Bone House Part 19

Cab got up and examined the photograph of Harris Bone. The man's eyes were devoid of emotion, like a robot's. He was handsome but empty. 'Did you know him well?'

'Who, Harris? Sure, he was a good-looking guy, but mousy and quiet even as a kid. I knew his parents, Lowell and Katherine; they ran a liquor store here in town. Harris took it over when Katherine died, but he didn't have much of a business sense. Pete told Nettie right from the start that the guy was a loser. Nettie didn't listen. Kids never do, right?'

Cab sat down again. 'What about his wife? What was she like?'

'Nettie was a pretty little thing. Kind of a G.o.d nut, like Pete. Church every Sunday, always reading the Bible to the three kids, hosting prayer groups at their house. Harris played along. I never knew if he believed it, or if it was just talk. You could never be sure with him. It didn't stop him from running around, either. Nettie told Pete that Harris was cheating on her. Not that I really blame him. Sounds like Nettie didn't have much interest in s.e.x even before the accident.'

'Accident?' Cab said.

Reich nodded. 'Car accident. It was bad. Harris was driving, and Delia Fischer's husband, Arno, was in the pa.s.senger seat. The wives were in back. They'd all been out to dinner here in Sturgeon Bay and were heading home. They'd had too much to drink. Harris lost control on a slick curve and drove into a tree, full speed. Arno died. Nettie wound up in a wheelchair. Delia was lucky, just a couple broken bones. Same with Harris. After that, Nettie was even worse. She made life h.e.l.l for Harris.'

'Wait a minute, are you saying Glory Fischer lost her father in that accident?' Cab asked. 'Harris Bone killed her father?'

'Yeah. Some families get lucky, and some just keep getting hit by lightning. That's Delia. You can understand why I want that woman to get some justice for her daughters.'

'This makes it a h.e.l.l of a lot harder to do that,' Cab told him. 'The more connections between the Bones and the Fischers, the more a jury might wonder if Glory really did see Harris at the hotel that night. It gives her an extra reason to want to see him captured. And to be afraid of him.'

Reich scoffed. 'These families were neighbors. They lived across the street from one another. Their kids played together. That's all it was. Glory was too young to understand that her father's death had anything to do with Harris. Even Delia didn't blame him. They'd all been drinking.'

Cab wasn't convinced. 'Go on,' he said. 'What about the fire?'

'What do you want to know? You want me to psychoa.n.a.lyze the son of a b.i.t.c.h? He set the fire and then watched it burn like it was some kind of backyard barbecue. Nettie and the boys died. If it wasn't for Delia, Jen would have died, too.'

'What do you mean?'

'Jen spent the night with the Fischers. Delia knew how bad it was for the girl at home. All the fights. It wasn't just Harris and Nettie, it was the boys, too. They picked up the poison from their mom. Delia took pity on her, and it's a good thing. Pete still sends Delia flowers every year to thank her.'

Cab didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, when he sensed Reich's impatience, he said, 'This is ugly, Sheriff. You know how ugly this is.'

'I do.'

'I came here ninety-five per cent convinced that Mark Bradley killed Glory Fischer.'

'Trust your instincts,' Reich told him.

'That's the problem. My instincts don't like this one little bit. If Glory saw Harris-'

'She didn't.'

'Sometimes you b.u.mp into your past at the worst possible time,' Cab pointed out.

'You said you have a witness. Bradley and Glory were kissing on the beach.'

'I still don't like the coincidence.'

The sheriff leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. 'Detective Bolton, I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. This is your case, not mine. My only interest is making sure that Delia Fischer doesn't have to grieve for her daughter without seeing her killer punished. I'd hate to see the ghost of Harris Bone getting in the way of that.'

'So would I.'

Reich turned his head sideways. With his index finger, he pointed to a two-inch jagged line on his skull where the hair didn't grow. 'You see that scar?'

Cab nodded. 'Looks bad. Did you get it in Vietnam?'

'No, I got it in a field about forty miles south of here. That's where Harris Bone cracked my head open with a rock when I let him out of the car for a p.i.s.s as I was getting ready to dump him in Supermax for the rest of his stinking life. When I woke up, he was long gone. So you know what, Detective? Part of me hopes I'm wrong, and you're right. I hope Glory really did see that son of a b.i.t.c.h in Florida, and I hope you find the rock he's hiding under, and I hope you bring him here and leave me alone with him for five minutes. That's all I want, five minutes. Harris Bone and I have unfinished business.'

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Amy Leigh sat on a bench near the trails of the Cofrin Arboretum, unwinding after her run. Beside her, Katie wore sweats and a T-s.h.i.+rt adorned with the school's Phoenix logo. Despite the frigid morning, sweat trickled from her bobbed black hair down the line of her jaw, and her s.h.i.+rt was stained with a triangle of sweat too. Her gla.s.ses kept slipping down her nose. Katie lit a cigarette. She always smoked after the two of them jogged, which Amy hated.

Cars came and went on the circular drive around the perimeter of the campus. The school was perched on a bluff a few miles outside downtown Green Bay. The city was gray and industrial, haunted by hard-scrabble, beer-drinking cheeseheads who wors.h.i.+ped at the shrine of Lambeau Field, but the university itself was an enclave of green athletic fields and brick academic buildings ringed by the lushly wooded nature preserve.

The two girls stretched out their legs and relaxed. A bright red cardinal flicked among the bare branches of the trees and sang to them.

'You still going to Gary Jensen's house tonight?' Katie asked.

'Yeah.'

'You want me to go with you?' 'No, I'll be OK.'

'I'm still not sure what you think you're going to accomplish.'

'I just want to see how he reacts,' Amy said.

'What, you're going to blurt out, "Hey, Gary, did you strangle that girl on the beach in Florida?'"

'No, don't be stupid. I want to drop some hints and see what he says. I'll know if he's lying.'

Katie shook her head. 'Some liars are pretty good at it, Ames.'

'We'll see.'

Her roommate s.h.i.+vered as the cold air began to overtake the warmth of the run. 'I did a little poking around on my own.'

'About Gary?'

Katie nodded. 'I had coffee with a secretary in the PhyEd department. I said it was for a follow-up story on the dance compet.i.tion in Florida, but we did a little gossiping, too. Mainly about Gary's wife.'

'What did she tell you?'

'Well, the rumor is he was having an affair. Hot and heavy.'

'You mean before his wife died?'

'Yep.'

'Who was the other woman?'

Katie shrugged. 'Don't know. It may not even be true.'

'I can't believe no one told the police.'

'People aren't going to call the cops about hunches and suspicions. That's all you've got, you know. I haven't found anything to link Gary to Glory Fischer. You saw him with a girl who may have been Glory, but maybe not.'

'I heard him coming back to his room late, too.'

'Are you sure? My room was a couple doors down, and I didn't hear anything.'

'It was him,' Amy insisted. 'I heard his door open and close.'

'It doesn't prove anything.'

'I know.'

'Did you talk to your old coach about any of this? Hilary Bradley?'

'Not yet. I don't know if I have anything to tell her.'

Katie stood up and tugged her damp s.h.i.+rt away from her chest. She stubbed out her cigarette on the ground. 'Well, don't make an a.s.s of yourself.'

'Yeah.'

'You coming back to the room?'

Amy shook her head. 'I'll do a couple more miles.'

'Jeez, you're extreme. I'll see you later tonight.' 'OK.'

Amy watched Katie head across East Circle Drive toward the dorms. She got up and stretched her legs, which had begun to tighten in the cold morning air, and then she followed the path back into the arboretum. The asphalt was slick, and she walked rather than risk twisting an ankle. Fifty yards later, she came to a T-junction where the path ended at a soft trail made of bark, moss, and dead leaves. The trees grew over her head, and the trail was dim and narrow, as if she were disappearing into a train tunnel. Where the trail curved, she couldn't see round the next bend.

She took a few tentative steps, but she stopped with a strange sense of discomfort. The down on the back of her neck stood up, as if the little hairs were iron filings drawn by a magnet. She felt eyes following her from somewhere in the forest.

'h.e.l.lo?' she called.

Amy turned round slowly. She was alone, but the trees were big and wide enough here to hide someone. Those were crazy-making thoughts; she was letting herself get paranoid. She inhaled, smelling nothing but mold and the dewish sweat of her body. She didn't hear anything. '

She waited. Everything was still. There's n.o.body There's n.o.body, she told herself.

Amy shook off her fears and jogged. She got into a rhythm as she ran, enough to crowd out other thoughts. Running was pure escape for her, in which she was conscious of nothing but the noise of her breathing and the vibrations as her feet hit the ground. She made two loops round the east section of the arboretum, following the border of the escarpment. It added almost two miles to her route, and when she finished the circle for the second time, she slowed to a walk as she cooled down. Her face was flushed. Her blond curls were frizzed.

She wasn't far from the trail that led back to the perimeter road when she felt it again. Eyes. Like a voyeur watching her.

She was sure she wasn't alone.

'Who's there?'

Behind her, a male voice growled the way a bear would, and Amy spun with a choked scream. Twenty yards away, a student she knew from one of her psychology cla.s.ses giggled as she fended off animal kisses from a bearded, long-haired boy. They broke apart as they saw Amy and heard her squeal. They were innocent. They were n.o.body. Amy wanted to laugh in relief, but she was breathing too hard.

'You OK, Amy?' the girl called.

'Oh, yeah, fine. You startled me.'

'Sorry.'

Amy smiled at them, the couple out for a kissy stroll. She wished she had a boyfriend of her own for that kind of hike. It made her think she should find someone to ask out on a date, but there never seemed to be time with cla.s.ses, work, and dance. She knew that was a crock, though. She just didn't want all the ha.s.sles of a relations.h.i.+p.

She left the two of them alone. At the junction, she turned back toward the campus road. It was time to get back to her dorm room. She needed a shower, and she had a cla.s.s in less than an hour.

Kinesics. Learning to read body language.

Amy was almost at the bench where she'd sat with Katie when she heard a car engine on the shoulder of the road. She emerged from the trees in time to see a Honda Civic hatchback make a fast U-turn off the gra.s.s and head toward the Bay Settlement entrance to the campus.

She only caught a glimpse of the side of the driver's face, but she recognized him. It was Gary Jensen. He'd been in the woods with her.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Mark Bradley painted on the bone-white rocks jutting out into Lake Michigan. He'd been standing in front of his canvas for an hour, and his fingers were numb and raw. It was late morning on Thursday under a cold, weak sun. The wind off the lake drowned out every sound except the screech of gulls, which flocked near the beach and dove into the water for fish. When he looked at the sky between brushstrokes, he saw the rusting white tower of the Cana Island lighthouse poking above the tops of the dormant trees.

He didn't mind that Cana was the most over-photographed, over- painted landmark in Door County. What he created never looked much like the original subject. His work was dark, with swirls of primary colors and blurry images of angels against black skies. He wasn't a religious man, unlike Hilary, and he didn't know why his brain told him to paint angels. Even so, he didn't question it.

His family and friends had never understood his art. He was an athlete, and that meant his interests should have ground to a halt at the last page of the daily sports section. One of the qualities that drew him to Hilary was that she didn't put him in a box or maintain a preconceived notion of who he was. She'd never believed he could be one thing and not another.

Mark turned his head, and his neck stabbed with pain. His left shoulder was tender where the seat belt had locked against his torso in the accident. The doctor at the island's medical clinic had suggested that he and Hilary take a day off to recover, but with no serious injuries, they'd both declined. Mark had replaced the tires on his Explorer and taken the two of them across the pa.s.sage on a mid- morning ferry. Their friend Terri Duecker had offered to lend them a car.

Hilary drove to school in Terri's Taurus. Mark drove to Cana.

He realized he was hungry. He'd packed a lunch in his backpack. He covered up his canvas and carried his materials up the beach to the open lawn surrounding the lighthouse. It was immediately much quieter and warmer in the sun. He sat on a red picnic bench on the far side of the lawn, where he took out a turkey sandwich and a bag of grapes. He put up his canvas near the bench and studied his latest painting as he ate.

His sandwich was almost gone when a shadow fell across the brown gra.s.s from the trail that led to the causeway. He turned and saw a teenage girl watching him.

It was Tresa Fischer.

Mark tensed. 'Tresa, you shouldn't be here.'

'I know.'

The girl came closer anyway. The bench faced the lighthouse tower, and she sat down on the same side, inches away from him. She rubbed the red paint on the bench nervously with the pads of her fingers. She wore a loose-fitting purple sweats.h.i.+rt over her skinny frame, and her wrists looked like matchsticks jutting out of the cuffs. Her s.h.i.+ny red hair covered most of her face in profile.