Harvest of Bones (32 page)

“Ruth,” he said, leaning forward, reaching out to her as if she were a little girl needing a hand to cross the street, “Mac MacInnis has confessed. Did you know that? Oh, yes. It wasn’t Glenna at all. It was Mac. He admitted it. What more do you want? He killed him out of jealousy, or some craziness. I’ll admit I was surprised. I would have put money on Alwyn. But, well, you have your murderer. What are you dragging up this other stuff for? Making Emma suffer by talking about it again? Making me...”

“I’m sorry,” she said, putting a hand on his. “I just had to know, that’s all. I just wanted to hear from you. It was Colm who dug up the Emma business. He had to, I mean,” she said, defending her friend, “in case it wasn’t Mac. We’re still not sure, you know; we’ve no definitive proof.”

“You thought Emma might have done it, that Denby got her pregnant and she was getting her revenge—or her father, someone who acted for her—that it?”

“Maybe.”

It was easier to let it lie like that. Easier than telling the whole truth. That Colm had it in for Kevin, wanted to implicate him. She was angry now, at Colm.

“If you knew how it was—I couldn’t tell Angie about Emma—it made the guilt worse, keeping it in. Did Emma tell you I sent money? Every Christmas? Pretending to be an uncle so her husband wouldn’t know? I did, Ruth, I did. If she’d had the child, if she’d insisted—well, I’d have paid for that, too.”

“Of course,” she said. She was glad when the telephone rang; when Vic called to her from upstairs, needing help with his math; when Sharon came home, big as the side of a barn, looking exhausted, dragging Ruth’s grandchild behind her.

“Nana,” little Robbie said, and Ruth scooped him up in her arms, hugged him to her. “Ice cream?” he said hopefully, and, ignoring Sharon’s frown, Ruth said, “Yes, sweetheart, right in the freezer. Nana will get it.”

“One spoonful, then,” Sharon said, frowning. “And make it vanilla. I don’t want him up half the night with a chocolate buzz.”

“You know,” Kevin whispered, following Ruth into the kitchen, “there was some question as to whether it really was my baby—she went out with some other guy just before she met me. Once even, I heard, with Denby. That’s how the rumors started. I’m the one who took responsibility.”

Ruth stared at him, couldn’t think of anything to say. Something unripe in her throat.

After Kevin left, after she dished out homemade vanilla ice cream for her grandson—two spoonfuls, since Sharon was out of the room—she called Colm. But Colm was out, his father said. “Gone to see some woman. I’ll have him call you back. Um, here it is: Stackpole, Emma Stackpole. I suppose she wants to sell her house. They call all hours of the day and night. If Colm would take over here for me ...”

“Don’t they die all hours of the night?” she asked, irritation building up inside at Colm’s errand.

There was a faint laugh. “Oh, yes, absolutely. But they usually hold off bringing them here till morning. They’re not going anywhere, anyway, are they?”

“I suppose not,” she said, thinking of Glenna—wherever she might be. In some ditch, on the side of a mountain, in somebody’s barn, asleep, or worse ...

When she put down the phone, it rang at once. But it wasn’t Colm; it was Emily. “Mom, I’m at a football game—at the high school. They’re undefeated, you know.” Ruth didn’t know—she couldn’t keep up with things. “Great,” she said.

“With Hartley, Mom. Hartley was on the search, I mean, but when her parents arrived, she had to take time out—they keep bugging her, you know.”

“Well, all right, Em. But come home right after, will you? I’ll need you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow, I promised to go on the search with Hartley. I mean, it’s more important than school, Mom! But Mom, Wilder’s here. And guess what? Without Joanie Hayden. And he wants to sit with us. But I won’t be too eager.”

“I wouldn’t be. After all, he left you for that diamond-in-her-nose.” Ruth had to give her daughter
some
motherly advice. Was it enough?

But Emily had advice for her mother, too. “When Dad comes, you will be nice to him, Mom? You will, um, consider what he has to say? I mean, I’ll listen to Wilder anyhow; I’ll consider.... Mom? Answer me, Mom.”

“Of course I will,” said Ruth, feeling a headache coming on. “I’ll consider. I’ve been considering—more than you realize.”

“Thanks, Mom. Thanks. I gotta go now. Here’s Wilder.”

“Hi, Ms. Willmarth. How are you?” Wilder’s voice cracked through the wires. “Hi,” Ruth said, and then there was a peal of laughter, and Emily yelled, “Remember what I said, Mother,” and hung up.

Ruth sat still for a few minutes afterward, couldn’t seem to move her feet.

“Nana’s crying,” little Robbie told his mother, who was coming out of the bathroom, and Sharon ran to Ruth, knelt down to put her arms around her. Ruth felt her daughter’s hair warm and soft like spilled milk on her knees. “Was that Dad? Let him have it, Mother. What are you waiting for? He’s not coming back. To stay, I mean. He’s not. You have to face reality.”

Ruth nodded. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell Sharon it wasn’t Pete at all, but Emily. That somehow that made it even worse.

“Mother, I need help,” Sharon cried, struggling to get up off her knees. “This baby’s gravity is down. Help, Mom!”

Smiling through her tears, Ruth pulled on Sharon’s arms. Together they got mother-cum-child up out of the chair. “Whew,” said Sharon. “Any day now, this kid’ll be knocking on the door. Jack better get his ass back here. What do you suppose it is—girl, boy, or calf?”

“Quick,” said Hartley, “there they are. Run, Emily!” She yanked on Gandalf’s leash. Then she cried, “Whoa, baby, whoa. Not quite
so-o
fast.”

“You can’t avoid your parents forever.” It was Emily, shouting, dropping behind. They were in East Branbury. Most of the searchers had given up on the area—for one thing, it was raining, a kind of sleet. Hartley’s hair and shoes were soaked. But if she’d been drugged, Hartley figured, Glenna wouldn’t have staggered very far from Bagshaw’s.

“Besides,” the girl confided to Emily, who had finally caught up, “I have an appointment at eleven-thirty for a head and neck massage. Some energy work, too. I made it days ago. In that Healing House. I can slip in—it’ll only take an hour.”

“You’re kidding,” said Emily. “A massage? Energy work? What do you need that for?”

“It helps you think,” said Hartley. “It relaxes you so the brain cells can operate. So you can face the world. Face your parents, you know.”

“I know,” said Emily, “oh, I know.”

“I know you know,” said Hartley. “Your dad coming up, right?”

“Right. I’m a wreck thinking about it. My mother can be so, so stubborn sometimes. Not always thinking of
us,
you know.”

“I know. Well, maybe she can work you in. Isis, I mean. After she’s through with me. I mean, I’ll lend you the money.”

“Well... maybe.” Emily leaned against a stump to catch her breath. They were on a dirt road behind the Healing House. “Can you slow that dog down a bit? I’m beat. I had to do chores before I came here. I’m so wet, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

They were on somebody’s farmland, Hartley saw. She didn’t know whose. The place looked run-down, “marginal as heck,” she said aloud; it had a FOR SALE sign stuck sideways in the ground in front of a clump of frostbitten bushes. A mangy dog barked at them but wagged its tail when it saw Gandalf, and then ran off at a clumsy gait. Gandalf strained at his leash; he was a wet gray ghost. A single white silo leaned toward them ominously, as if it would strike if they came any closer. A gray barn badly in need of paint squatted beside it. Its cupola told of better days, before the pigeons took over. The birds squabbled and flapped over the girls’ heads. Hartley peeked inside a dirty window and a workhorse swung its gangly neck in her direction. She had just turned away when a young boy burst out of the barn.

“Nobody here—they moved,” he said. “I’m jest feedin’ this old mare. She’s mine now, but Mom say she got to stay here till somebody buys the place. And don’t seem like nobody’s gonna.” He glared suspiciously at the two girls.

“You haven’t seen a white-haired woman, have you?” Hartley asked. “She’s disappeared, and we’re part of a search party.” But the boy just shook his head. “Seen nobody,” he said. “Nobody wants out in this weather,” and he trotted off down the road.

The house was unpainted, its windows boarded up; the porch had three slats missing right in front of the door. “Gandalf—come back!” Hartley whistled and clapped her hands. But the dog had pulled its leash out of her hands; he leapt across the hole in the boards, hurled himself against the door. It banged open from the impact.

“It’s still somebody’s property—in residence or not,” said Emily.

“Aunty might be in there!” cried Hartley. “Are you with me or not?”

“I’m with you. But I’m thirsty. And I’d like to rest a minute.”

“Come on, then. They’ll have a kitchen faucet, anyway.” Gandalf was already in, racing around a small square room decorated mainly with dust and cobwebs. The walls were a bright pink, as if someone had tried to beautify the place. “Someone’s been here,” Emily said. “Look. Footprints on the floor. Big ones. I mean, there were men in here. Couldn’t be Glenna.”

“Glenna wears size eleven.”

“No kidding?”

“She does. But she wasn’t wearing boots when she left the hunting cabin. These are boot prints. Glenna was wearing sneakers. Purple-and-white Adidas. My stepmother bought them for her.”

“Your stepmother isn’t all bad, then? I mean, she worries about Glenna? About you?” She turned to face Hartley.

Hartley considered. “Well, she can be all right. Sometimes. She just doesn’t understand me. You know?”

“I know.”

“I bet they were here then, the searchers. Those are their tracks. And obviously—”

“They didn’t find anything.”

Hartley leaned against the wall, groaned. But Gandalf seemed excited. He stumbled up a set of rickety stairs, and the girls followed. There were two bedrooms, both empty, except for a faded lounge chair that the mice had taken over, and an ancient “Victorian wardrobe. The single bathroom was clean enough, but empty of water. Though there was a yellowy puddle of what looked like urine in the bottom of the empty toilet.

“Some guy, probably, from the searching party. Could’ve gone outside. Disgusting,” Hartley said.

“Basement?” said Emily, and they ran back down again. Gandalf knocked into Hartley and sent the girl sprawling. “Cut that out, beast,” she yelled, while Emily giggled.

But there was no sign of life in the dugout basement— human life, anyway. Only a pair of mice skittering past a dead possum, its long pink nose flattened against the hard cement.

“No Glenna here,” Emily said, and Hartley dropped down on the broken step.

“There’s the barn. The silo?”

“But that boy didn’t see her. Anyhow, why would she be in there when there’s a whole house?” Emily argued. “I mean, why would she stay in a place like this? Why wouldn’t she just go home? Old Bagshaw’s in jail.”

“Well, she doesn’t know that. She obviously escaped, thinking he was still in the house.”

“After all that shooting when they came to get him?”

“She was probably drugged then. There was poison in that cocoa, you know—that super-something. The police found it. And God, Emily, you know yourself she was panicked she’d get put back in that mental place—that Rockbury.”

Emily held up her hands in surrender. “Okay.”

“But Gandalf,” Hartley mused. “He was so superexcited.”

“Mice. Aren’t those greyhounds trained to catch rodents?”

“I guess.” Hartley looked at her watch. “Hey, it’s eleven already. The Healing House is only half a mile from here. I don’t want to miss that massage. We’ll come back here after, okay? Look in that silo? What do you say?”

“I say, good idea. My throat’s a desert. At least they’ve got water there.”

“It might be poisoned.”

“Don’t say that! I want to live to see my dad.” Emily put a hand to her mouth and pretended to gag.

“Rest in peace.” Hartley folded her hands, bowed her head. “Back on that leash, Gandalf, baby. We’re heading for the goblins of the Misty Mountains!”

“Misty is right,” said Emily, throwing up her jacket hood against the sleeting rain. “I wish I was back home in the warm cow barn.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I don’t.”

* * * *

JIMMY’S JUNKS the sign read. It was a graveyard for old cars, Colm saw, situated on a slope that led down to the New Haven River. He wondered how many ancient parts floated away each spring after the rains. Fords, Dodges, Corvettes—there was no class division here: All were welcome. You just had to be a derelict. The paths of glory lead but to the junkyard, he misquoted from some long-ago poem. Rust in peace.

And here was old Jimmy himself, sauntering out to greet him, waving a stick that served as cane, eyeing the ‘87 Horizon where it sagged in the driveway, its door dented in where Colm had skidded into a beech tree one icy day last winter. But Colm had another mission today. It was Jimmy’s place that Denby’s truck had gone to when they hauled it up out of Otter Creek back in ‘75. At least he assumed so: Jimmy’s was the only junkyard in town at that time. Today, there were half a dozen crowding the landscape.

He was correct on that point, Jimmy acknowledged, grinning out of a gold-glinty mouth, thumbs stuck into a pair of red plaid suspenders. “Sure, they brought it here. But I ain’t got it now.” He guffawed. “I mean, that were over twenny years ago, man; I’d just got in the junk business. I knew Denby Bagshaw, never liked the fellow anyways. He almost done in my own sister, you bet he did. I’d of killed him for that, he’d knocked her up. Well, they never found Denby’s body—just the wallet, washed up on shore. Never really looked, you ask me. Who in hell cared?”

Of course, the truck had long ago been broken down for parts: “It wan’t worth fixing, all that time in the water,” Jimmy allowed. “You want, I can tell you who bought parts. Got it all down in the book—well, in my head anyways. Don’t pay to keep it all in the books, you know.” He winked, and Colm knew what he meant. He paid his own snowplow man in cash. Some things never got reported.