Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

"We can go see Mavis Hardy at the library," said Hannah.

"Nobody in Coventry goes to the-"

"Oren." The judge held up one finger as a warning. "Don't."

Hannah nodded in agreement as she opened one of the journals. "I hate it when people say that, even if it's true." She looked up at Oren. "So you'll talk to Mavis? She used to go birding all the time back in the days when she was still on the thin side."

"You mean before she started planning to murder her husband?"

Hannah closed the book and slammed it on the table. "Mavis can help you. Nobody in this county knows more about birds than she does. And, incidentally, that poor woman did not do murder."

"What? She spent a long time getting ready for it." Oren remembered a summer day when he and Josh had come upon Mrs. Hardy working out with weights in the library, building muscles, adding bulk. And the following summer, she had been arrested on a charge of murder. "Name one thing on her side."

"Mavis looked out for her son," said Hannah.

Oren folded his arms, telegraphing disbelief. "She made Dave's life a living hell. She castrated that kid all over town."

She probably saved his life." Hannah's voice was getting testy.

Judge Hobbs, the peacemaker, lightly touched his son's arm. "Remember when Dave broke his leg? You were in the third grade that year. Well, that didn't happen falling off a bike. It wasn't enough fun beating his wife. Colin Hardy had to go after that little boy."

Oren had better recall of a later event, the day the coroner carried the corpse of Dave's father out of the house. The librarian's hands were raw, her face swollen and her eyes triumphant. "She spent a year planning it. That makes it a premeditated murder."

"Says who!" Hannah's tone did not imply a question. As punctuation, she banged one fist on the table, and a spoon bounced to the floor. "Half the town-the half that's male-they'll never forgive her. Mavis scared them that day. That was her real crime. Men" she said, using this word to sum up the ills of the world. "Mavis didn't sneak up on that bastard while he was sleeping, did she? No, she did not. Her husband was fully dressed for work. And I don't want to hear the lie that Colin Hardy was falling-down drunk and helpless. It was eight o'clock in the damn morning. So don't you call it murder. That woman went into a knockdown fight with a man-a fair fight. She matched him pound for pound-and with her bare fists, she beat him to death."

The housekeeper rose from the table and turned her back on him to fuss with a pot on the stove. Her voice dropped into the guttural range of Pay-attention-or-else. "You will show respect when you visit the library- no matter what Mavis does or what she says. She's been fighting this town all alone for so long, she just doesn't know how to stop. I don't care if Mavis beats the crap out of you, Oren. You will be a gentleman."

After Hannah had said her piece, the silence was loaded. There was nowhere to fit in a contradiction, and only a fool would try. The judge would not meet his eyes. Oren was on his own. This canny little woman had reached deep inside him, made certain adjustments to his spine and caused him to sit up a bit straighten.

The workday was done, and Dave Hardy had changed into his T-shirt and jeans. He was straddling a barstool in Coventry, the first watering hole of his evening. The other patrons were watching the evening news with the sound turned off, as usual. Odd old ducks.

None of them called for the volume to be turned on, not even when they recognized the limping figure of a cripple pursued by screaming reporters. The regulars of the Coventry Pub sat in silence, drunkenly, blissfully unaware of worse things being done to William Swahn-what the pictures alone could not tell them.

This was the same film the deputy had seen earlier in the day at another bar, and he was the only one in this room who knew the words that went with the broadcast. The phrase- a person of interest -had been repeated three times, though Sally Polk had only said it once. And, by snatches of film, Swahn was made to limp across that parking lot with each repetition.

In the earlier version of this news broadcast, it had been clear that the CBI agent had waded into the fray to draw the reporters away from their victim, William Swahn. In this new job of film editing, she seemed to be orchestrating the whole event, even stirring up the crowd to chase down the man with the cane.

It was a clear case of slander against both of these people, but Dave Hardy did not care. He had no sympathy for Swahn, and he hated that Polk woman.

A million other viewers could only rely on the pack of lies their eyes were telling them.

It was that gloomy hour when house lights were burning bright, but drivers were still debating the need for headlights. Daredevil Hannah would be the last to turn hers on.

Oren watched the streets crawl by his passenger window.

Before the library had become a town joke, Josh had often walked this same route with him, and they had made better time on foot. In Coventry, time and distance were not quantified or qualified in terms of as the crow flies, but by the saying If only snails had wings. Oren would rather have spent this evening reading Sarah Winston's cryptic journals in privacy, but he was on a mission to mollify the little woman behind the wheel.

The old Mercedes rolled past the church, and Hannah sighed. "I miss the Reverend Pursey's sermons. You haven't forgotten that crazy old fool, have you?"

"I remember him." Oren was not likely to forget Amos Pursey-ever. The minister had worn his Sunday robes seven days a week to fly around town, waving his arms and ranting about the end of days. "He must be the black bat in Mrs. Winston's drawings." Oren had been a month shy of seventeen when that old madman had accosted him on the street and proclaimed him to be an archangel appointed by God to smite the town-

It was a revelation that Hannah had heard any of the minister's sermons. "You went to church?"

"I used to-now and then."

"But why? You're an atheist. No-wait. You told me and Josh that God was an atheist."

"No, I said a real smart god would be an atheist. Who needs the pressure of being perfect? I favor the kind of Creator who drinks beer now and then, someone you can talk to. Now the Reverend Pursey-crazy old bastard-he fancied a miracle worker with a hit-man angel."

"Hannah, why does this place attract so many loonies?"

"Tolerance. It's Coventry 's finest quality. So, despite what Amos Pursey thought, no god would ever smite a town that sheltered that nutcase preacher." Hannah brought the car to a stop in front of the library. "My other theory is that we all take turns being the lunatic."

"It's after hours," said Oren. "No lights in the windows."

"She's there." Hannah glanced at her wristwatch. "Mavis is always there, day and night. Has been for years. Nobody knew about it for the longest time."

Oren dared not speak the reason: Because no one in Coventry ever goes to the library. But Hannah hushed him anyway.

"Dave lives in his mother's house." Hannah nodded at the library. "And Mavis lives in there."

"That's insane," said Oren. "Why didn't Dave do something?"

"He tried. He wanted to get her locked up in a state mental ward, where they drug people senseless and stack 'em up like cordwood. The judge stopped him. Your father doesn't believe in God, but he's got the concept of hell down pat. He thinks she's better off in the library, and so do I." Hannah rolled up the right sleeve of her sweater, and then, with a wave of her hand, she said, "Let there be light."