Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

Spell undone, Dave rolled back his shoulders and gripped the shovel in both hands. "Odd thing, Oren-that jawbone showing up the same time you do."

The judge rose from the porch steps and walked toward the deputy, eyes on the shovel. "You can't dig up my garden. Those bulbs will never bloom if you-"

"That's enough, old man." Dave freed up one hand to point at the porch. "Now go back and sit down. That's an order!"

The whites of Hannah's eyes got wider. One did not disrespect Judge Henry Hobbs-not in this town. The old man hesitated, and there was confusion in his face, silently asking how this could be happening to him. Hannah's hands went to her hips in a pose that conveyed to Dave Hardy, Now look what you've done.

Dave marched toward the far end of the flower bed and never saw his predictable demise in the eyes of Oren Hobbs, who descended the porch steps-slowly-angry and focused on the deputy.

Poor deputy.

Hannah Rice had always loomed large and mighty, even after Oren and Josh had grown taller than she was. The slightest pressure of the housekeeper's hand on any part of a boy that she could catch had been enough to restrain the two youngsters. And this influence of hers had lasted into their teenage years. It simply had never occurred to either of them that, once caught, they could ever get away from her.

And now he felt Hannah's small hand closing over his right fist, the one he favored for beating the crap out of Dave Hardy. Oren stood very still, powerless to go anywhere. He looked down to catch her brief smile, the equivalent of rolling up her sleeves in anticipation of doing some damage.

Hannah trained her eyes on the deputy and worked her old magic, hurling words across the length of the flower bed with the crack of lightning bolts. "Put that shovel down this instant!"

Dave looked up. The shovel hovered.

The housekeeper lowered her voice for the next salvo. "Don't you make me call your mother."

Run, Dave, run.

Apparently, the deputy's mother still held the office of town monster, a woman in the habit of publicly castrating her own son in ten words or less. Oren recalled that Mrs. Hardy had sometimes rhymed her lines, and, around town, she had been much admired as an obscene poet.

"I can have Mavis over here," said Hannah, snapping her fingers, "just like that."

Once, it had been rumored that Dave's mother was a vessel of demonic possession. More rational townspeople had argued that, in any arrangement of that sort, Mavis Hardy would be the possessor and not the possessed. Dave dropped the shovel.

A jeep rounded a stand of trees by the driveway and parked in front of the house. The star of the County Sheriff 's Office was painted on the vehicle's door, and Cable Babitt was behind the wheel. The sheriff cut the engine and climbed out. He was grayer now, but still shaped like a pear with a moustache. He wore an amiable smile while he slammed the jeep's door-the only warning of things to come. In his quiet, almost genteel, manner he lowered a hammer on the deputy without raising his voice. "You're late for work."

"No, sir." The deputy stood at attention, his back ramrod straight. "I picked up the call before I left the house this morning. I'm on the job."

"Out of uniform? I don't think so, Dave."

The younger lawman picked up his shovel, his proof of innocence. "I'll get changed right after I dig up this-"

"No, no, no!" the judge called out from the porch steps. He was more his old self again when he shook one fist at the deputy. "There're no bones buried in my garden!"

Cable Babitt strolled over to the porch and tipped his hat to the retired judge, a greeting of friends, both local boys grown into old men, though Henry Hobbs was senior by twelve years. "Morning, Henry. What've you got here?" The sheriff picked up the jawbone and turned it over in his hand. He held it up high as a lure to draw his deputy closer. "Well, Dave, you're half right. There's no sign of exposure-lots of staining. This bone was buried all right, but not around here. You see this reddish coloring? It comes from iron-rich soil. That puts the burial site to the north and straight up." He pointed to the high mountainside of deep woods tapering to bald rock. "There's a streak of iron ore up there."

Iron ore?

Oren wondered how the sheriff had come by that bit of arcane knowledge. Coventry had its roots in a small mill town. There had never been a mining operation within a hundred miles of here, nor even a hint of iron deposits in this northern neighborhood of California.

Sheriff Babitt jerked one thumb toward the deputy's pickup truck, and this was enough to send Dave Hardy on his way.

When the truck had disappeared around the stand of trees, Oren stood toe-to-toe with the sheriff. "Iron ore? You knew about that jawbone before I called it in." This was more than an accusation; it was bait. He studied the older man's face, looking there for signs of a lie in the making. "Maybe you already had one of Josh's bones. You'd need a sample to get a soil analysis for-"

"That's enough, Oren. I've got a few questions for you."

Showdown -or maybe not.

Hannah, an experienced wrangler of boys and men, worked her way between them. "Oren, I need you to run an errand in town." She pressed an empty pharmacy bottle into his hand, then faced the porch and shouted to the judge, as if he might be deaf, "I'm sending Oren into town for your pills-your heart medication!"

Henry Hobbs, who was not deaf, nodded with some puzzlement. "No idea where the car keys are."

"I do," said Hannah.

Oren followed her inside and down the hall to a room with Dutch-blue walls and white cabinets. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was unchanged except for a new refrigerator of stainless steel and a matching dishwasher. Apparently, the judge was a failure at patching up worn appliances, and here he had fallen short of his insane mission to stop time.

"You might've guessed-it's the same old car in the garage." Hannah retrieved a stepladder from the broom closet. "But the judge keeps the engine in real good condition. If you ask me, I think it runs better than brand-new models." She kicked off her wooden clogs and mounted the metal steps to climb on top of the counter. "Even the poor white trash in this town drive those cars. They never die-they just get passed down and around." Bare feet firmly planted on the countertop, she opened a cupboard door. "I swear if Coventry had a town flag, the emblem would be a Mercedes hood ornament."

The tiny woman rose up on her toes to reach a high shelf. After moving a few canisters out of her way, she pulled out a tea tin, extracted the car keys and handed them down to him. "It's still a one-drugstore town. You know the way."

Startled, Oren wondered if Hannah did this each time she took the car out, but he only pocketed the keys, asking no questions. It was that kind of a day.

In Coventry 's insular idea of geography, the northwestern town perched on a cliff at world's end, where the earth fell away in a wicked drop to a rocky coastline. An elderly man posed close to the edge as a companion photographed him against blue California sky and the Pacific Ocean; he leaned one shaky hand upon a metal rail installed to prevent witless tourists from falling to their deaths. Across the street, a pastel row of small art galleries and boutiques was waking up to the morning trade, opening shutters and raising shades. These buildings were dwarfed by the Straub Hotel with its four flights of windows capped by attic gables.

Every street was lined with the cars of weekend travelers, and it was Oren's good luck to find a parking space.

On the hotel verandah, a stout gray-haired woman was ensconced in a high-back wicker chair. Deep frown lines gave her the air of one who took offense at all that she surveyed, and her ample flesh hung in jowls and a double chin. Imperious, she presided over the comings and goings of hotel guests, giving each a curt nod, as if to say, Okay, I've acknowledged you. Now move on! And they did.