Bonegrinder (23 page)

Holt was bent over, picking up something.

“Leave it!” Wintone snapped.

But Holt had already straightened, looking guiltily at Wintone.

“What are you holding?” Wintone asked him.

From out of sight at his side, Holt held out a thirty-five millimeter camera. “Greer and I were working together on a book,” he explained. His cheek was still marked by a square of adhesive tape and one eye was faintly ringed with purple.

“It’s evidence,” Wintone told him. “I best take it.”

“I’m under the auspices of the U.S. government! …”

Wintone held out his big hand palm up. “Investigation of a death by violence takes precedence. You know it.” Wintone wasn’t sure of his words, but then neither was Holt.

Holt bit off whatever else he wanted to say, handed Wintone the camera and backed away. The camera appeared undamaged and contained a roll of film that had been used but for two frames.

“Go back and tell Web Hooper to take the girl to the motel,” Wintone said to the two men who were now standing some ten feet from him. “Then either phone or have Hooper drive into Colver an tell ’em to send someone out for the body.”

“You stayin’ here alone?” Higgins asked.

“I’m gonna be lookin’ things over careful,” Wintone told him. “Do me a favor an’ see that the girl’s treated right. Get in touch with Doc Amis an’ Sarah.”

Higgins nodded, his round face still distorted in a look of disbelief. “Should I … tell the girl what we found?”

“When she sees you,” Wintone told him, “she’ll know for sure.”

When he was alone, Wintone examined the area around the body, walking head down in slow circles. The ground was disturbed, but there were no clear prints. Lake water lapped only a few feet from where Wintone stood, and he examined the bank, thinking that the mud might have been worked up. There were marks in the ooze, but nothing distinct.

Wintone took another careful look around the death scene, then he moved as close as he could to the sunlight and sat with his back against the cool hardness of a tree trunk, waiting for the sound of human footsteps. He was still holding Alan Greer’s undamaged camera. While Wintone was curious about what the undeveloped film might contain, he was too experienced to be hopeful.

Over an hour passed before a sudden crashing in the woods made Wintone practically leap to his feet. He stood leaning away from the sound, surprised by the watery weakness in his limbs. Then low, leafy branches parted and Frank Turper stepped into view red-faced and perspiring, followed by two men carrying a portable stretcher. Wintone showed them the body.

The next afternoon Wintone sat at his desk staring at Kelly’s detailed account of the events surrounding Alan Greer’s death. The printed words before Wintone told him little that might be of help, but he hoped that by linking them with the package of developed photographs that had just arrived by messenger from the State Police lab, he might be able to learn something.

He peeled back the thick nylon-reinforced tape that sealed the brown package and spread the photographs on the scarred, dark wood of his desk top.

The prints were developed and packaged according to the order in which they’d been taken. The top photos were of the lake, some detailed studies of old buildings. Wintone recognized Seth Perkins’s silo.

The nude photographs of Kelly Greer were examples of her husband’s art—tasteful and sympathetic. Wintone gazed at them with an aching heart and a loneliness for Etty. Despite a gulf of years, there was a similarity between Etty and Kelly that transcended physical resemblance … or maybe the similarity was in Wintone’s mind.

He gently arranged the photographs in a stack, all but the last one, the final costly shot taken with Alan Greer’s camera. Wintone picked up that photo, had to hold it at various angles to determine top from bottom.

The last print revealed blue sky and the blurred high limbs of overarching trees, as if the photographer had been falling when the shutter was triggered. In the lower right corner of the photo was something dark, something with an almost glazed luminosity to it and textured like smooth, wet stone.

That was all.

No clue as to what the rest of the object might look like; it was simply as if one corner of the photograph had been blacked out.

Wintone studied the photograph, trying to imagine what it was that the lens had caught in the corner. Due to the camera’s movement and the awkward upward angle of the photograph, it was impossible to judge height or width.

The sheriff put the photo aside, sat back and again reviewed Kelly’s account of everything that had happened from the time she and Alan left Higgins’ Motel. He could glean nothing from any of it.

Without looking directly at them, he picked up the artistically posed and photographed pictures of Kelly and slid them back into the package. Then he set out to return them to her.

During the drive to Higgins’ Motel, Wintone wondered what he should do with Alan Greer’s last photograph. Holt would be pestering soon to find out what the camera’s film had contained. Wintone could simply lie to him, tell him the last frame had shown only a view of the lake, but then when the photograph was made public—as it would have to be eventually—Wintone would be open to criticism for withholding the facts.

He decided to stall Holt for a while, keep the newspapers out of it as long as possible. Wintone could imagine what some irresponsible members of the news media could construct out of that final photograph. And he dreaded Baily Howe’s and Mayor Boemer’s reactions.

Wintone parked the patrol car in the shade in Higgins’ Motel’s lot and walked with crunching footsteps across gravel to Kelly Greer’s cabin. As he approached, he saw that the curtains were drawn closed, but the side-window air conditioner was laboring with a high-pitched, faintly gurgling hum. Wintone had only to knock once and the door opened. Kelly was wearing the same brown slacks and faded striped shirt she’d had on before, but her dark hair was smoothly brushed now, and there was no sign of grief on her face except for the redness about her eyes. She stepped aside for Wintone to enter.

The cabin’s interior was dim and almost cold. Wintone thought Kelly probably hadn’t opened the door or looked out a window all day. She parted the curtains now in the front window to admit harsh light that seemed to set her on edge. Her left hand clutching her right wrist as if to restrain that arm, she stood looking expectantly at Wintone.

“I brought these,” he said, holding out the package of photographs. “Thought you might want ’em.”

She opened the package and examined the contents without any expression of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

“Thank you,” she said to Wintone. She smiled at him, for him.

“Are you … all right?” he asked.

“Better.” She said it as if it meant nothing.

“Time’ll help,” Wintone told her.

She nodded with skeptical politeness. Another smile survived for a while, but her eyes were misted. “My father’s driving here from Memphis to take me home.”

Wintone was glad to hear that she had family to take care of her. “Before you leave,” he said, “if there’s anything else you can tell me …”

She shook her head. “Craig Holt asked me the same thing.”

“He been botherin’ you?”

“Not really. He might if I’d let him.” She walked over and looked out between the parted curtains, as if to reassure herself that existence was possible outside the cabin. The reassurance seemed to leave her unmoved. “Alan had been drinking strawberry wine that afternoon,” she said almost dreamily. “He had one of those goat-bladder containers, and it amused him to try to drink like a Spaniard …”

Wintone remembered this from her original statement, but didn’t interrupt her.

“I’m the one who wanted him to relax, forget about his work for a while. I tell myself he might not have gone into the woods to investigate that sound if he hadn’t been drinking, but I don’t know …”

“He’d have gone, Mrs. Greer,” Wintone said firmly. “I don’t think you should have any doubts about that.” But he knew she’d doubt; some part of her would doubt forever.

A car crossed the parking lot outside the cabin. Wintone stared at Kelly and listened to the slowly revolving tires crunch loosely packed gravel. It was like his soul breaking up inside him. “You’re young …” he said to her.

She faced him and nodded. “I guess I’ll hear that a lot over the next few days.”

“’Cause it’s true.”

“You lost your wife in an accident not long ago, didn’t you, Sheriff?”

“I figured you’d heard. Most everybody has.”

Kelly tilted her head, the light from the window softening her long hair. “What you said,” she told him, “it means something to me. And it means something to me that you brought me these photographs.”

Wintone was struck awkward by her gaze. He gave her a quick smile, a good-bye nod, and walked to the door, his business finished.

She followed, stood squinting in the bright sunlight of the open door as if she might any second turn back inside to escape the glare.

“Thank you, Sheriff,” she said. “You’ve been … more than thoughtful.”

Wintone couldn’t work his words past the tightness in his throat. He walked to the patrol car, listening to the gravel beneath his feet.

He didn’t have to look back to know she was still standing hesitantly in the cabin doorway, watching him, as he drove from the lot.

Back at his office in Colver, Wintone sat at his desk, sipping a cup of strong coffee and pondering. Something was hanging fire in the back of his mind, some realization he knew he should have grasped but hadn’t.

He decided to spend the next hour or so reviewing the file on each Bonegrinder death, hoping to strike the key that would clarify the thing that was hazy and undefined on the edge of his consciousness, and to forget his conversation with Kelly.

Wintone was just pushing himself up out of his swivel chair with a downthrust of his powerful arms when the office door opened and old Bonifield came in. He stood for a while framed in the open doorway, chewing his tobacco with a stern-jawed intensity that matched the excitement in his blue eyes.

“Shut that damned door!” Wintone told him, standing all the way erect.

“Ain’t no need to get het up,” Bonifield said, closing the door with deliberate, slow care.

“Ain’t no need to stoke this place up like a furnace, either,” Wintone said.

Bonifield walked slowly, casually about the office, studying individual objects as if they were pricetagged. He had some bit of information so precious that he hated to let it go.

But he would let it go; that was why he had come here. Wintone was patient. Nothing ever entered Bonifield’s mind that didn’t eventually find its way out through his mouth.

“Thought you might oughta know they found Cheryl Peterson floatin’ in the lake,” Bonifield said.

Wintone walked out from behind the desk.

“Who found her?”

“Couple’a fellas from Branson,” Bonifield said, shifting his egg-sized wad of tobacco to his left cheek. “Body’s down at the doc’s now.” He grinned at Wintone, walking to the door and opening it to spit tobacco into the street. He took his time about closing the door.

The telephone rang and Wintone answered it, still looking at Bonifield.

“Doc Amis here, Billy. The Peterson woman’s been found.”

“I know,” Wintone said. “I’m on my way.”

Bonifield held the door open for him.

W
INTONE STOOD WITH
D
OC
Amis over Cheryl Peterson’s body. The time in the lake water had taken its toll, and Wintone swallowed back the hollow revulsion that climbed his throat.

“She died when the back of her head was crushed,” Doc Amis said, motioning with a forefinger toward the now bloodless injury amidst the tangle of drying hair. The forefinger moved with Doc Amis’s words. “She’s also got these deep slash-marks on her face, neck and shoulders. The rest of what you see is the result of her being so long in the lake.”

Wintone turned away from the body, knowing he’d have no difficulty recalling details. “You sure it’s her?”

Doc Amis nodded. “Reasonably so. What you see here would have fit her description.” He pulled a white sheet up over the pale form on the table. “You’ll have to get the husband to make a positive identification.”

“I know,” Wintone said. “He heard yet she’s been found?”

“Not to my knowledge. You better tell him before somebody else does.”

Wintone walked from the small, cold room, Doc Amis behind him. The reception room was empty, Sarah’s desk bare.

“Where’s Sarah?” Wintone asked the doctor.

“She’s off today. Some personal business to tend to.” His arms straight, hands gripping the desk edge, Doc Amis sat on the end of Sarah’s desk. “She gave me her notice earlier this week.”

Wintone felt the coolness again that he’d felt in the room with Cheryl Peterson. Something dead. “Didn’t know that.”

Doc Amis nodded. “Going to Chicago with that Craig Holt. Can’t blame her for giving up on things here, this little town … She’s not going to be easy to replace.”

“I suppose not.”

“You driving out to pick up Peterson now?”

“Sure.”

“You okay, Billy?”

“Heat,” Wintone said. “Just the damn heat.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to rest awhile,” Doc Amis said, standing up straight. “Nobody I know of ever got used to looking at what’s in the next room.”

“You ain’t met the exception in me,” Wintone said. He pulled a red print handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, saw Doc Amis staring at him with concern. “Just the heat,” he assured the doctor again. He folded the damp handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. “I’ll be back in a short while with Peterson.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Doc Amis said, “but I won’t be looking forward to it.”

“Seems like there ain’t no easy jobs,” Wintone said as he went out. He tried to ignore the sensation of loss that was gaining its grip on him.

Peterson hadn’t struck Wintone as the sort who would break down and sob; he was more the type who either angered or kept his deepest emotions inside himself. But he had sobbed. Of course, who could predict how anyone, even oneself, would react to what Peterson was put through?