Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

"Back in the eighties," said the sheriff, "AIDS was a death sentence. And all these years later, Swahn seems healthy enough-except for a bad limp. According to the police report, he walked in on a drug deal in progress, and took a bullet in the leg. Hardly made a blip on the evening news. The department press release left out what was done to his face. And here's the kicker-I heard that drug dealer hacked off Swahn's balls."

Not likely.

Oren had interfaced with many police departments on joint investigations where the Army had an interest. In or out of the military, drug dealers had never been prone to starting cop wars in any era. Nothing about this story rang true. Too many rumors passed for fact, and way too many police officers were involved to keep any gory details out of the newspapers. "This isn't right."

"That's what I say," said the sheriff. "And it's the cover-up that proves the crime."

Oren shook his head, though the other man probably took this gesture for shock and awe instead of disbelief.

"Here's another thing you might find interesting," said Sheriff Babitt. "William Swahn sued the LAPD, and it was settled out of court for a pile of money. I know he paid cash for his house. And I got a niece in State Revenue-she tells me Swahn gets a real nice income from his investments. But you won't find the settlement in the public record. It was handled real quiet with nondisclosure agreements. That proves the cops were in on it."

No, it did not.

However, Oren had no plans to point out flaws in logic and reason. The man beside him had won his first election with the bare minimum of requirements for the job. Apparently, the sheriff's skill set had not improved any.

"I've got no idea who outed Swahn." Cable Babitt made another turn of the wheel. "Jay Murray said it wasn't him, and I believed that much. Never occurred to him that his partner was gay. First time Murray heard mat rumor was during his interview with Internal Affairs."

Finally-a fact that could be documented. " Murray was interrogated right after the ambush?"

Oh, yeah. He said the sun was just coming up through the window of the interrogation room when the detectives lit into him. That's when they told him his partner was a gay man with the plague. Well, Swahn never mentioned a girlfriend in the year they'd been riding together, but Jay Murray thought the kid was just inept with the ladies."

"What about the dispatcher who sent him out on that bogus call?"

"Oh, she disappeared. The woman never made it home from work that night. Now I figure that's just cops being tidy. But Swahn still won his settlement. I suppose it helped that Ad Winston was his lawyer. And those two stayed tight. I know it was Ad who put him onto this house."

They had come full circle. The jeep rolled to a stop beside William Swahn's mailbox on Paulson Lane. The sheriff leaned across Oren to open the passenger door. "Go back in there, son. Get what you can. Kiss him on the mouth if that's what it takes. Just bring me something useful."

Oren kept his seat, disinclined to follow any orders from this man. "You think Swahn's a likely suspect in my brother's murder. Why?"

"You know how this works. I can't-"

"You can't even tell your own people, can you? That's why there are no copies of the files. You've got what-five, six detectives countywide? One of them should be interrogating William Swahn. But you want me to break your suspect."

The sheriff had bungled something badly, or he had stepped outside the law; one of these two things must be true. Cable Babitt needed an outsider who would not mind working in the dark, someone with something to lose-a good soldier who would ask no questions.

But Oren was not in the Army anymore.

And now he planned to finish this man off, to knock him down with a civil tone. "Oh, and that old alibi of mine-the one you're holding over my head? Screw that."

A few seconds passed before the older man appeared to understand that he was not in charge here-he never had been-and there was cause for worry.

"I need leverage." Oren climbed out of the jeep and issued his first order to the sheriff. "Find out when Swahn's ex-partner left the force. And I need to know if Jay Murray got any part of his pension. Don't call the LAPD.

I don't want rumors. Use your niece in State Revenue. She can get that off Murray 's tax records." Walking away without turning back, he barked his final order. "Call me here as soon as you've got facts!"

Oren pressed William Swahn's doorbell, but there was no sound. Evidently the loud ringer had been disconnected for the sake of peace. He knocked and then banged on the door with his fist.

The small square panel opened behind the grille. This time, the householder was the first to speak. "You've got ten seconds of my time."

"Josh Hobbs was my brother."

"I already knew that. You look like him." The panel closed. The ten seconds were gone.

Oren shouted, "My brother's bones were found today!"

He heard the click of a lock being undone, a bolt drawn. The front door opened wide, and Oren was ushered inside with the wave of a silver-handled cane.

This sunlit house was far from the cave-like hermitage he had once imagined for the old woman who had died here when he was a boy. At the far end of the vast foyer, a marble staircase tapered up to the second-floor landing, where a large window framed blue sky and treetops. On the parlor floor, the rooms had pairs of ornate wooden doors built to the scale of giants.

Oren saw only the back of William Swahn's denim shirt and jeans as his host led the way in stocking feet. The man was tall with a slender build, the iron gray hair of middle age-and that cane was no prop. He leaned heavily on it and walked with a gait slightly out of control, as if his house pitched and tossed upon a roiling sea. This stirred an old memory in Oren, but he could not connect that signature limp to a face. Perhaps this man was someone he had, once or twice, seen around town and then only from a distance.

They entered a corner room, large and airy, filled with light from tall, arched windows, and it housed more books than could be found in the town library. The built-in shelves lined every bit of wall space. More volumes lay open on an antique writing desk, and others were stacked up on the floor.

William Swahn turned to his guest and used his cane to point to an armchair. "Sit down, Mr. Hobbs."

Oren remained standing, staring, unable to look away.

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.