Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

"You think any man could mistake a stranger for his own wife?"

"He could've hired one of his criminal clients to kill her-someone who didn't know her." Monty was like a dog vainly watching Oren's face for signs of approval.

Civilians and their damn theories, their television ideas of murder. First Millard Straub was hiring an assassin to murder Evelyn, and now Ad Winston was the one voted most likely to put out a contract on his wife.

"I know the dead woman was hit from behind." Monty waited for payback on this offering. Getting none, he made another. "And she's been identified. That's how I know she had light blond hair… like Sarah Winston's. I have a very reliable source."

"Someone in the sheriff's office? Maybe a deputy?"

Monty puffed out his chest in a small show of courage. "I would never give up a source."

"You bought your information from Dave Hardy." Oren knew he was right. Ferris Monty's eyes popped a bit too wide; he probably knew the penalty for bribing an officer of the law, and he would not fare well in prison. This little man was having a very bad day.

After a short canter down the fire road, Isabelle found an old picnic spot, a favored stop on the solitary horseback rides of childhood. She tethered Nickel to a tree and spread a blanket on the ground. Seven birder logs were laid out in chronological order. Upon opening the first one, she labored over the code of pictures and birdcalls. At the time of this entry, her mother was still happy to be alive.

The insanity began later, after Isabelle had worked her way through the Pages of winter and spring. A day in early June had begun with a delicate bird that had no song. The blue-eyed lark lay on the ground, broken wings spread at odd angles. Its eyes were closed.

In death?

There was blood on the young bird's face just below one eye. The sun was shining.

Isabelle's mind turned toward the trio of student grave diggers in her mother's favorite clearing. The year on the book spine was right, and the page was dated to that fatal Saturday. How could the lark be anyone but Josh Hobbs?

What could her mother know of Josh's death on that afternoon? The town had not gone looking for the boy before nightfall. And what of the blood? This journal entry had been written two decades before the disappearance had been called an act of violence.

Nowhere on this page or the next was there any sign of the stranger buried with Josh. The omission of a second victim argued for her mother's innocence. Isabelle rationalized the journal entry as a story come by secondhand.

On all of the following pages, Coventry was grotesquely altered. It was always night, a nightmare town of birds with animal claws instead of talons. Their beaks were filled with long teeth.

And her mother had lost her mind.

It might be best to replace the birder logs on the tower bookshelf, to hide them there in plain sight. But what if the investigation should lead to an interrogation of her fragile mother and a search of the house?

She could destroy these books, but that might also damn her mother in the cover-up of a crime. At some later date, this evidence might be needed to prove innocence-or madness. Isabelle's mind continued to work along criminal lines as she decided to hide the journals in the care of an honest man.

Taking a shortcut through the woods, Oren neatly sidestepped a recent deposit of horseshit. And so it was natural to be thinking of Isabelle Winston, the only one who had ever used the hiking trails as bridle paths. In summers past, he and Josh had sometimes encountered her on horseback. The girl had always waved hello to his brother. Oren, of course, had been beneath her notice.

A path forked off the trail and led him out to the fire road. He was headed downhill and homeward when he heard the sound of a horse's hooves. Oren was hopeful as he turned around. And there she was.

He saw her red hair on a distant rise-and the same silver horse.

Impossible.

That stallion had been old when the rider was a teenager.

Well, it was a day for ghosts, human or equine. And it was long past time to have a few words with Isabelle Winston. He stood in the middle of the dirt road and waved her down as she came trotting toward him, not slowing any, but riding faster, cantering, then galloping, galloping.

That horse was huge.

Oh, shit!

He dove into the woods, lost his footing in a tangle of deadwood and landed hard, all the wind knocked out of his chest as horse and rider sped by him. A near miss. And the lady never looked back.

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, Hannah was standing over a pair of saddlebags on the living room carpet. She crooked one finger, and he followed her down the hall to the kitchen, where the judge was seated at the table. Three cups had been laid out and emptied. So Isabelle had stayed long enough for coffee.

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." Hannah set out a clean cup for Oren. "She said Cable's a fool, and he shouldn't get near these books."

"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.

Hannah turned her attention to a fresh pot of coffee percolating on the stove. "Those journals were written around the time Josh went missing. Belle Winston wants you to know that this is all you get from her. And there's no point in trying to question her mother. If you show up at the lodge, Belle won't even open the door. She'll just shoot you right through the wood-right where you stand."

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."

Hannah poured coffee into his cup. "I wish you two would get married and take the fight indoors."

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."