Bone by Bone

Oren lay there for a while, idly ruminating. Isabelle was definitely escalating the violence. How would she top this?

He picked himself up and brushed the leaves and dirt from his clothes. It was a slow walk home. There was much to think about. His mind wandered back to a valentine from his childhood, the one mailed to him in an envelope with an eastern postmark but no return address and no signature. As a twelve-year-old boy, he had opened that heart-shaped card to read the words I hate you! writ large and bold. It had smelled of horse. He had kept it for years.

More than an hour had passed before he reached home. At the end of the driveway, it was a surprise to see the silver stallion tied by reins to a tree in the yard. Isabelle Winston pushed the screen door open. Eyes fixed on her horse, she failed to see the man with the foolish grin on his face, standing below her on the porch steps. She passed him by. After untying the horse's reins, she swung up into the saddle in one graceful motion and rode away across the meadow.

When Oren entered the house, Ha

Small leather-bound books were piled at the center of the tablecloth. The judge held one open and offered his son a glimpse of drawings and lines of writing. "These are Sarah Winston's birder logs. Her daughter thought we should keep them for a while. I don't think the girl has much faith in Cable Babitt."

"That's not exactly what Belle said." Ha

"In any case," said the judge, "I gave her my word that her mother's journals would be handled with care and in confidence." His fixed stare made it clear that his son was also bound by this oral contract.

Ha

The judge lowered his reading glasses, something he did in serious moments, though he was smiling. "The girl was very clear about that, Oren. She will shoot you."

"I believe it. She tried to run me down with her horse."

Ha

Oren opened one of the small books and read the neat script of Sarah Winston's notes on the songs and movements of-a dodo with a pipe? He looked up at his father to silently ask, What?

Judge Hobbs adjusted his bifocals, the better to study this drawing. "I believe that's Cable. He gave up his pipe a few years ago." The old man looked down to resume his perusal of the journal in his hands, and he idly turned the pages. "Belle Winston is an ornithologist, and she thinks there's something here." He held up the open book to show his son a graceful pink heron with long slender limbs of human form. "If I had to guess, I'd say this is Evelyn Straub in her prime. Longest legs in town." He pointed to the companion page filled with handwriting. "Sarah's notes are less clear. There's lots of shorthand for one thing and another, terms I've never heard before. It might make more sense to another bird-watcher."

"We can go see Mavis Hardy at the library," said Ha

"Nobody in Coventry goes to the-"

"Oren." The judge held up one finger as a warning. "Don't."

Ha

"You mean before she started pla

Ha

"What? She spent a long time getting ready for it." Oren remembered a summer day when he and Josh had come upon Mrs. Hardy working out with weights in the library, building muscles, adding bulk. And the following summer, she had been arrested on a charge of murder. "Name one thing on her side."

"Mavis looked out for her son," said Ha

Oren folded his arms, telegraphing disbelief. "She made Dave's life a living hell. She castrated that kid all over town."

She probably saved his life." Ha

Judge Hobbs, the peacemaker, lightly touched his son's arm. "Remember when Dave broke his leg? You were in the third grade that year. Well, that didn't happen falling off a bike. It wasn't enough fun beating his wife. Colin Hardy had to go after that little boy."

Oren had better recall of a later event, the day the coroner carried the corpse of Dave's father out of the house. The librarian's hands were raw, her face swollen and her eyes triumphant. "She spent a year pla

"Says who!" Ha

The housekeeper rose from the table and turned her back on him to fuss with a pot on the stove. Her voice dropped into the guttural range of Pay-attention-or-else. "You will show respect when you visit the library- no matter what Mavis does or what she says. She's been fighting this town all alone for so long, she just doesn't know how to stop. I don't care if Mavis beats the crap out of you, Oren. You will be a gentleman."

After Ha

The workday was done, and Dave Hardy had changed into his T-shirt and jeans. He was straddling a barstool in Coventry, the first watering hole of his evening. The other patrons were watching the evening news with the sound turned off, as usual. Odd old ducks.

None of them called for the volume to be turned on, not even when they recognized the limping figure of a cripple pursued by screaming reporters. The regulars of the Coventry Pub sat in silence, drunkenly, blissfully unaware of worse things being done to William Swahn-what the pictures alone could not tell them.

This was the same film the deputy had seen earlier in the day at another bar, and he was the only one in this room who knew the words that went with the broadcast. The phrase-a person of interest-had been repeated three times, though Sally Polk had only said it once. And, by snatches of film, Swahn was made to limp across that parking lot with each repetition.