Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

The photographs from that last roll were now of greater interest than any film that might be recovered with the rest of his brother's bones.

He lowered the album back into the hole. The boards were replaced, and the closet floor was restored to the way he had found it. Oren returned to his own room to find a clean change of clothes laid out on the bed. Just like old times.

Thank you, Hannah.

But where were the blue jeans he had worn yesterday? He ransacked all the drawers, knowing all the while that this was futile. By now, his dirty clothes had certainly made their way to the laundry room in the basement. Hopping on one foot, then the other, he pulled on the clean pair of jeans as he moved down the hallway. Pants zipped up, he descended the stairs three at a time, calling out, "Hannah!"

"Down here," said a distant voice.

He opened the cellar door and rushed down the cold cement steps to find the housekeeper pulling a load of wash from the dryer. No, no, no!

He bent over her wicker basket and found his jeans still warm from the dryer. He searched the watch pocket for the fur of a yellow dog, his only tie to the grave robber who had left the jawbone on the porch. And, of course, it was gone.

He sat down on the floor and covered his eyes with one hand. Of all the screwups he had ever-

"You should have more faith." The housekeeper squatted down beside him. She looked around at the cluttered shelves, an old trunk and storage boxes that had not yet found their way to the attic. "Oh, the memories in this cellar. Do you recall that little tree frog you crammed into your pocket when you were six years old?" She pointed to the small window in the door of the washing machine. "I'll never forget him-plastered to the glass, spinning round and round. That frog looked so surprised." She patted Oren's hand. "I guess that was the only time I didn't go through your jeans before I washed them." She reached into a deep dress pocket and produced some loose change, a few ticket stubs from his travels-and the fur of a yellow dog.

"You're a goddess." He took the ball of fur from her hand and held it up to the light of a basement window. "Do you know anybody who owns a dog this color? I found this on the porch steps right after the-"

"That dog doesn't belong to anybody." She returned to the dryer to load in a fresh batch of wet laundry. "He's a stray. At night, I leave him scraps down by the garden shed."

Now he made sense of the barking on the night when the jawbone was left on the porch. "That stray is your burglar alarm?"

She nodded. "Beats wiring up the house. The judge would never let me do that."

"I'm sure there won't be any more late-night bone deliveries. So I guess you can stop feeding the stray."

"Oh, the dog has other uses. One day the judge will invite that mutt into the house. And I'll be dragging Horatio's stuffed carcass out the back door for a proper burial."

"Good plan." Oren stared at the useless ball of fur in his hand. "I love the photograph you gave me. Did I thank you for it?"

This made her smile.

He carried her laundry basket to the folding table. "I remember the morning Josh took that shot." He watched for signs that Hannah knew it was the day that Josh went missing, but there was nothing in her manner to give this away. "When you had the film developed, the drugstore gave you a pack of standard-size prints, right? Where are they now?"

"Oh, who knows? That was a long time ago. It's not like you're asking me what I did with the morning newspaper."

And now he knew she was hiding something, for Hannah's memory was flawless, archiving even the stunned face of a frog drowned in a washing machine over thirty years ago. "Could those pictures be in the attic?"

"In Josh's darkroom? No, too risky. The judge is always up there looking through old pictures. He would've pitched a fit if he knew I had that last roll developed. I told you he didn't want Josh's things disturbed."

And it was unlike Hannah to repeat herself. She was stalling for time. He could almost see the bright work going on behind her eyes as she hunted for the right response.

And now she had it. I remember this much," she said. "I looked over the pictures before I left the drugstore. That shot of you two boys was the only one I cared about. I ordered the enlargement right then and there. So I would've left the negatives with the druggist. Maybe I left the whole envelope, negatives and prints, too. It's possible I never got them back."

"Do you remember anything about the other pictures?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, Oren. It was so long ago." Then you didn't see anything worth showing to William Swahn?"

She jerked her head to one side, her eyes wary and searching the stairs. Satisfied that they were alone, she turned back to him. Her voice was low, almost a whisper. "The judge doesn't need to know about my business with Mr. Swahn."

"You've known this guy for a long time, but you call him mister? That's not like you. And Swahn calls you Miss Rice. He might be the only one in town to use your last name since I was three."

"So what else did he-"

"I know you gave Swahn all of Josh's negatives when you asked him to find me an alibi witness."

"And he did."

"He overdid it." Oren held up two fingers.

"Two witnesses?" Here she paused, sensing that he was not buying her pretense of surprise. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her house-dress, Hannah's version of a pout. "I think Mr. Swahn might have mentioned that."

"And he told you their names."

"No, he only told me that two women went to the sheriff with two different stories. Well, I could see where that might be worse than no alibi at all. Then Mr. Swahn called me one day and said everything worked out all right. One of those alibis held up."

"Was Swahn still working on my alibi when you developed Josh's last roll?"

"Oren Hobbs." Her tone carried the threat of no dessert and no television tonight. "Let it be." And now she must have remembered that she could not even stop his allowance anymore. Both hands flew up in surrender, but then she turned her face to the cellar window. "The judge is home."

After a few moments, he heard the sound of tires on the gravel driveway.

Hannah walked to the foot of the stairs, looking up, listening for the front door. She turned to him, silently asking if they could end this now. No, not quite yet.

The librarian's madness appeared to have an off-switch.

The barbells sat on the floor, and Mavis Hardy sat in a chair, her hands folded in a ladylike fashion, as she answered a question for Ferris Monty. "Both of the Hobbs boys were readers, but the judge had a bigger library than this one. I think they came here because their father had better taste in literature-no science fiction or horror genre."

Ferris noticed that her hands were clenched tightly, as if holding on to something precious, or merely holding on. After scribbling a line of shorthand in his notebook, he lowered his reading glasses. "Did the boys get along well?"

"They did. Oren had a few years on his brother, but that didn't matter. In some ways, Josh was a hundred years older. That little boy listened to people like he really cared about what was going on in their lives. I miss that child. I didn't see much of him after he turned ten-except from a distance… the way I see everyone now."

And this must be the marker for the year when life had soured for the librarian.

There was no need to consult his old notes. By the time Joshua Hobbs turned ten years old, Mavis Hardy had evolved into the monster of the public library. Ferris remembered that year very clearly. The librarian was the one who had drawn him to Coventry in hopes of covering a sensational murder trial. Her homicide case had ended too soon and too softly, a few words spoken in open court for the public record and a quiet dismissal of charges.