Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

Oren followed his host to the last narrow alley of archives, and they walked through more recent history. "So you kept everything? Inventories, too?"

"Oh, it's much more than just a collection of receipts and inventories. It's the heart of the town, a history of what ailed Coventry for more than a hundred years. Prescriptions from 1887 will tell you that the town's first mayor didn't sleep well at night, and that might be the sign of a guilty conscience. And there were potions and poultices for bullet wounds, too.

He paused to give Oren a sly wink. "Outlaw days. There's some who'll tell you that period never ended. And then there were nerve tonics for the lunatics and stimulants for depression. Outlaws and mental cases have always been a big part of our customer base. You could lose your mind in Coventry, and that was nobody's business but your own. The same held true if you robbed a bank-as long you did it in some other town."

The old man stopped by a shelf for the 1980s and donned his bifocals to run one finger over the dates on box labels, drawing closer to the end of the decade and the year when Josh disappeared. At last, he came to the right boxes. He pulled them off the shelves, frowning when help was offered. "I can manage." One by one, he settled four cardboard cartons on the floor. "History, that's what it is."

Oren hunkered down beside the boxes and lifted one lid to turn back folders and loose papers. "I'm not sure about the exact date. It was an order for black-and-white photographs. Does that help?"

"Oh, yeah. That would've been rare even twenty years ago." Mr. McCaully opened one of the other cartons and perused the contents. "I remember Mr. Swahn bringing in a slew of negatives and contact sheets. It was a big order."

"That's not it," said Oren. "I already know about that one. I'm interested in a single roll of film. Hannah brought it in to have it developed. She ordered an enlargement, too."

With no hesitation at all, Mr. McCaully opened another box, and his hand went straight to one folder. He opened it and skimmed through the papers, plucked one out and smiled. "This is it. A receipt for the development of twenty prints, all standard-size." He pulled out another sheet. And here's another one of Hannah's orders. This one's for an eight-by-ten enlargement."

Oren took the folder from the old man's hand. It contained only paperwork-no forgotten photographs. "I know she had to leave negatives with you to get that enlargement made. Any chance she left the pictures, too? Maybe she forgot to pick them up when the enlargement came in?"

The retired druggist smiled. "Over the years, a few tourists have forgotten to pick up their orders, and all of those photographs are stored in these boxes. But you won't find the pictures from Hannah's roll. I'm eighty-seven, Oren, and I'm not senile yet. I saw Hannah at least once a week. Don't you think I would've remembered to give her the other prints?"

Oren was distracted by the date on the paperwork. The housekeeper had led him to believe that years might have passed by before she developed Josh's last roll of film. And now he understood how Mr. McCaully had found this record so quickly-why the date would stand out in the old man's mind.

"Sir, does the drugstore still close at six o'clock?"

"Always has, always will."

On this date, the days were long. At six o'clock in the evening, the sun still shone. Oren remembered that it was dark when he returned home- without his brother. The townspeople had gone into the woods with flashlights blazing to search for a lost boy.

Long before the alarm was sounded, Hannah had brought Josh's last roll of film to the drugstore.

While Oren searched for the housekeeper in the back rooms of the house, calling her name, Hannah was out front, starting up the Mercedes with the spare keys. At the sound of the engine, he came barreling through the porch door on the run. And then he stopped.

She smiled and waved and rode away.

One mile later, Hannah nosed the car onto the old fire road and headed uphill. When the Mercedes pulled into the cabin's parking lot, the yellow Rolls-Royce was no longer there, but most of the witchboard people had stayed to play, and that was strange at this late hour. She rolled through the lot and then down to the rear of the cabin, where Evelyn Straub was waiting with a worried look about her-not her nature.

Trouble?

"Thanks for coming back." Evelyn fumbled with her key in the padlock of the crawl-space door. "We need some privacy."

Hannah followed her into the small room in the cabin's foundation. She sat down in one of the wicker chairs and then looked up to the ceiling, listening to the faint chanting of letters.

"D-O-Y- "

"I've never known them to stay so late."

"They won't go home," said Evelyn, "and there's never a shotgun around when you need one. I'm sorry to drag you out here again, but I didn't want the judge around when I talked to you, and I don't think this can wait till morning."

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm in a tight spot." Evelyn settled into the chair next to Hannah's, her eyes turned toward the ceiling, listening.

"O-U-S-T-"

"I heard they found a woman's bones in Josh's grave."

Hannah leaned toward her. "A woman, you say? How do you know that?"

Evelyn pointed to the ceiling and the room above. "They all know. They heard it from the witchboard half an hour ago."

"Well, then it must be true," said Hannah, leaning heavy on the sarcasm. "And when did you become a believer in psychic nonsense?"

"I-L-L-L-"

"I knew about the woman's bones this afternoon. I heard it from one of Cable's deputies. Dave Hardy always stops by my hotel bar when he's in town. I give him free liquor, and he talks up a storm. He'll tell me anything, but there was one thing I couldn't ask. I know Oren went out with the search party today. He was there when they found the grave. Did he mention seeing anything odd in that hole? Maybe some clothes?"

"Shopping for anything in particular?"

"A yellow rain slicker. Plastic would hold up for twenty years in the ground. The damn things are indestructible."

"O-V-E-M-"

Upstairs the witchboard people were stamping their feet to the rhythm of the chant.

"That's new," said Hannah, looking upward. "So tell me more about this yellow slicker that can't wait till morning."

"E-O-R-"

"It ties back to a statement I gave the sheriff twenty years ago. I told him that Oren spent the whole day with me. I said Josh went on alone, heading uphill on the hikers' trail. Cable asked if anybody else came by, and I said no. How can I go back on that now? How can I tell Cable I made a cup of tea for a strange woman that same morning and sat with her for half an hour? Next he'll think I made up the whole thing, and he'll toss out Oren's alibi."

"E-N-I-"

"I see," said Hannah. "What do you know about this woman?"

"She was a day-tripper. I only remember that because she checked her watch against a bus schedule. She didn't want to miss the last ride home. Before she left, she pulled a yellow slicker from her knapsack. There was a shower that day. Didn't last long, but it was raining when she finished her tea."

"M-H-E-"

Evelyn looked upward, irritated now. "I might have to set this place on fire to get rid of those idiots." She turned her eyes back to Hannah. "I made that woman a map of the old hiking trail that runs past my cabin and all the paths that connect it to the fire road. I let her out the back door and watched till she was out of sight… heading uphill."

"Where the bones were found." Hannah nodded. "What did this woman look like?"

"R-E-O-"

"Her hair was blond, a real light shade. I only remember that because it looked natural. And she was tall. Everything else was ordinary-her face, her clothes. I couldn't tell you what she was wearing that day-apart from that yellow slicker." Evelyn opened her purse. "I can show you. I've been carrying a picture around. I was hoping to catch you alone tonight."