Bonegrinder (26 page)

The bloody trail ended at a dark finger of lake water, narrow and overgrown with algae and reeds. His feet set wide, Wintone stood panting, peering out past the wavering edges of the lantern’s glow. The black-green water seemed disturbed, but in the darkness Wintone couldn’t see if the thick reeds had been parted or bent to reveal recent passage. There was no sound in the woods here, only a stillness as solid as the tree trunks.

Holding gun and lantern high, Wintone waded into the cool water.

Quickly the water was well above his waist, and he was entangled in the tall reeds that not only hindered his movements but obstructed his vision. He parted the reeds before him with the long shotgun barrel as he waded. What felt like a large insect crawled across the back of his neck, and unseen things plopped into dark water to avoid him. He lost his sense of direction and was soon wading in a pattern determined by the ease with which he could move through shallower water.

Eventually the water was below his waist, then to his knees, and the growth of reeds became sparse, then disappeared. He was on the opposite bank.

Holding the lantern low, Wintone walked in a crouch, skirting the marshy line of the bank, ignoring the vines that tried to snake his ankles, the whiplike branches that brushed his face and upper body. The cold lake water had apparently stemmed Bonegrinder’s bleeding, at least temporarily. Or perhaps Wintone had lost the trail in the shallows. He could find no trace of blood on the bank, no sign of Bonegrinder’s exit from the water.

Wintone turned suddenly toward the tall reeds, toward the dark width of water he would again have to cross. Shadows and silence there.

Slowly, involuntarily, he moved backward with uncoordinated steps, up away from the bank.

Then, on the rough bark at the base of a tree, he saw a small drop of scarlet. He went to it and examined it, touched it and found that it was half-dried blood. With a whispering rush of air, he let out the breath he’d been holding.

Eagerly Wintone searched the woods in the area of the blood, but he found no other sign, no second marking of blood to establish direction. He extended his search to include a wider area, but without result.

For now, he would have to give up.

Turning away from the woods, Wintone walked along the bank until he reached a spot where the passage across looked easiest. His shadow trailing him like a wake, he held the lantern before him and entered the dark, still water.

On the opposite bank he had no trouble locating the trail of blood he’d tracked along to get there, and he followed it back the way he had come.

It was almost eleven o’clock when Wintone returned to Colver. As he climbed out of the patrol car in front of the office, old Bonifield and Frank Turper approached him.

“We been lookin’ fer you,” old Bonifield said. He spat chewing tobacco very near Wintone’s boot toe.

“We’d like to know if you come up with some plan of action,” Turper said. “Time keeps passin’ an’ nothin’s gettin’ done.” His voice was high with exasperation.

Still dazed from both his confrontation with Bonegrinder and the cider he’d drunk, Wintone pushed past the two men, walked unsteadily to the office door and fumbled with the lock. The key seemed to fit only halfway.

“Least he could do is answer,” old Bonifield said.

“Tomorrow …” Wintone said thickly.

Turper cursed. “Now listen, Sheriff! …”

But Wintone had the door open and was stepping inside, swinging it shut.

“Least he coulda done was talk to us,” he heard old Bonifield say. “Whatever his condition.”

Wintone didn’t bother to turn on the lights. He made his way through the familiar, dark office to the back room. He shed his clothes, let them lay formless where they dropped, and stretched out on the groaning cot. The cot seemed to sway soothingly, as if riding gently undulating water, but the sensation was soon lost in sleep.

In the morning Wintone returned to where he had lost Bonegrinder’s trail, this time skirting the finger of water to reach the opposite bank. It was all much simpler by daylight.

But he had no more luck than the night before; he couldn’t even locate the blood he’d seen near the base of a tree.

Wintone stood in the shaded woods with the shotgun propped trigger up on his shoulder. He was sure Bonegrinder was dead. He’d seen enough lost blood to guarantee that. Most of his shots had to have hit, even fired as they were in stark panic.

The only doubt in Wintone’s mind was as to whether the thing he’d slain conformed to his theory. He told himself that it must, that the only thing to do was to proceed as if it did. Verification would come. Eventually word of last night would get out, and Baily Howe’s reward seekers would be more numerous in the woods than squirrels.

Wintone returned to the patrol car, unloaded and broke down the shotgun. Then he drove toward Higgins’ Motel to talk to Bill Peterson.

P
ETERSON HAD BEEN LYING
on the double bed in the motel cabin with his head propped on the pillows, watching a game show on television. From the doorway Wintone looked over Peterson’s shoulder into the room, saw the fresh indentation on the fluffed pillows, heard a feminine scream of glee as an announcer whose voice fairly dripped syrup kept up a steady yammer about everything the contestant had won.

“It’s about your wife,” Wintone said to Peterson, who was looking at him with guarded curiosity from the dimness inside the doorway.

Peterson stepped back so Wintone could enter, turned off the TV. He was barefoot, wearing only slacks and a sleeveless undershirt, and he hadn’t yet shaved. “You’re lucky you found me in,” he said to Wintone. “I’m leaving this afternoon. The autopsy was yesterday, and I’m returning with Cheryl … with my wife’s body to Saint Louis.”

“I know,” Wintone said. “I checked.”

The faintest light of alarm glimmered in Peterson’s eyes. He raised a hand to smooth his uncombed hair. “What exactly do you want, Sheriff?”

“I found somethin’ in the lake, Mr. Peterson.”

The glimmer returned, stayed longer.

“On the bottom, right below where your wife was killed, I found what you used to kill her.”

Peterson’s mouth opened, remained open. Stunned, he sat on the edge of the bed, but rose almost immediately. He stood with his arms hanging limply, his hands fluttering at his sides. “Do you realize what you’re saying? …”

“What I found,” Wintone said, “is a lead-weighted glove fitted with four sharpened bone claws. Homemade. Must weigh eight or ten pounds.”

Peterson had recovered most of his composure. His face was hostile. “Coincidence. I don’t know anything about what you’re saying.”

“You figured all you had to do was kill your wife with that weighted glove, toss it overboard and blame her death on Bonegrinder. It’d be just like the other cases you seen in the newspapers.”

“I don’t have to listen to this and I won’t,” Peterson said, but he made no move to stop Wintone.

“The glove itself mightn’t convict you,” Wintone went on, “but together with your account of the attack an’ description of Bonegrinder, I’d say there’s a plenty strong case. What happened is, I killed Bonegrinder last night, an’ soon as the body’s tracked down it’ll prove that nothin’ resemblin’ what you described coulda been in deep water or anywhere else that day. Among other things, Mr. Peterson, the attack on your wife was the only one that took place in deep water. Her death was the only one I couldn’t make fit the pattern, the reason bein’ that you killed her.”

Peterson had balance. He knew now where he stood, and he was actually grinning at Wintone. “I deny that, of course.”

“’Course you do, but that don’t alter the fact you killed your wife.”

“You’re getting me confused with yourself, Sheriff. Maybe your problems have affected you mentally, interfered with your ability to do your job.”

Wintone took a step forward and Peterson seemed to get smaller and farther away without budging, but the desperate grin stayed glued to his face. Remembering his run-in with Holt, Wintone clenched his teeth, forced calm on himself.

“Oh, it doesn’t sound so good when you’re the one being told you killed your wife,” Peterson said, picking up confidence. “But I’d like to know what the hell’s the difference. You’re a county sheriff, is that it?”

Wintone surprised himself with the readiness of his answer. “The big difference is you planned and executed the murder of your wife.”

“Well, you don’t sound so convinced yourself, Sheriff. And if you’re telling me the truth about Bonegrinder, if you did kill something, I suggest you wait until it’s found. Otherwise I’m afraid you don’t have a very persuasive case.”

Wintone knew Peterson might be right. He’d hoped that when confronted with the evidence of the deadly glove, Peterson might confess, but Peterson was grittier and wilier than Wintone had thought.

“I don’t know anything about this glove you described,” Peterson went on,” and I’m sure that where you found it isn’t exactly where my wife’s death occurred. Anyone could have made that glove, dropped it in the lake. Anyone at all.” Peterson had passed beyond confidence now and was working up anger.

“I think,” Wintone told him, “you’d best come along with me.

Peterson’s building anger faded; he gave Wintone an incredulous, wide-eyed look. “For what?”

“As of right now,” Wintone said, “you’re under arrest for suspicion of murder.” He drew a rectangular card from his breast pocket and began to read Peterson his rights.

“Jesus!” Peterson said. “You do that out here in the sticks?” He bolted across the room, tried to push Wintone aside so he could make the door. With a sweep of his huge arm, Wintone hurried Peterson along, but not in the direction he wanted to go. Peterson slammed into the wall two feet to the left of the door frame, danced sideways out the door and walked in an aimless circle holding both hands to his head. He was dragging his feet, raising a surprising amount of dust. Almost gently, Wintone pulled Peterson’s hands behind him and clamped the handcuffs into place.

Then he stood Peterson in the sun and finished reading him his rights.

“How could you’a figured it out?” Frank Turper asked Wintone the next evening at Mully’s.

“Talked to Claude Borne’s widow,” Wintone said, sipping the beer Luke Higgins had bought him, “then I recollected how it was where the Larsen boy got killed, and I knew somethin’ had traveled south besides the tourists.”

“You best explain yourself,” old Bonifield said.

Wintone didn’t bother to look at him. “What I remembered was that the bait on the Larsen boy’s fish hook was covered with ants. When I’d examined it I saw it was somethin’ he’d made up himself with sorghum or molasses—somethin’ sweet. Then I talked to Helen Borne an’ found out Claude had taken sweet cider the night he was killed. Soon after, Alan Greer was killed an’ young Kelly told me he’d had some sweet wine in a goat bladder, spilled it on himself an’ his backpack. I got to thinkin’, maybe the jug Claude had with him hadn’t got cracked when he was attacked, maybe it was cracked before an’ the sweet cider was leakin’ off into the lake water.

“That meant the only death I couldn’t make fit was the Peterson woman’s. Her husband’s account of what killed her an’ the fact it happened in deep water threw me. An’ when Peterson told me what they’d had with them that day in the boat he mentioned nothin’ sweet.

“Then I remembered Peterson had said somethin’ about him and his wife not gettin’ along lately.”

“He did say they’d made up, though,” Luke Higgins pointed out.

“Said it after she was dead,” Wintone told him. “I got to figurin’ maybe Peterson had used Bonegrinder to cover up his own murder of his wife. So I searched the lake bottom an’ found the weapon he used. I knew then that once I’d killed Bonegrinder an’ proved my theory was right, it would cinch Peterson’s guilt for his wife’s murder.”

“Can’t prove it now, though,” Bonifield said. “That’s why you had to let Peterson go.”

“That’s true,” Wintone admitted. “But it’ll be proved if Bonegrinder’s found.” But he knew himself that if Bonegrinder hadn’t been found yet, it wasn’t going to happen. The woods in the area where Wintone had last seen Bonegrinder had been teeming with reward seekers; they had found nothing but more blood markings. Whatever scent there had been for tracking dogs had faded. Bonegrinder might have traveled for miles before dying, and Wintone knew the deep wild had a way of keeping its secrets. There were woods simply too thick for searchers to comb.

“Peterson’ll stay free,” Bonifield said. “Man kills his woman, walks around like the rest of us—it ain’t right, in God’s eyes nor no one else’s.”

“So after eliminatin’ the Peterson woman’s death, you figured it was sweetness,” Mully cut in on Bonifield from behind the bar, “an’ you used sweet cider to bait the thing.”

Wintone nodded. “An’ sweetness drives bears crazy, especially starvin’ bears like this big one that couldn’t get his usual food supply ’cause of the way the forest fire up north had burned an’ deformed him, burned most of the fur off his hide an’ ruined that back paw—the one that left the print— so he could hardly walk on it. Animals are prone to habit, even if they’re hurt an’ bedeviled. Bonegrinder took to the lake first off probably ’cause the water eased the pain of his burns, comin’ outa the shallow water only to search for food till the pain drove him back. He could only snag a fish to eat now an’ then there in the shallows, so he was probably gettin’ hungrier by the day. Larsen boy likely had more of that sweet bait on him, maybe in his pocket—which would explain why the bear mauled his hip an’ leg—an’ we didn’t find it ’cause it was eaten.”

Bonifield cackled and shook his head. “If it were a bear, how come nobody’s found it?”

“Had to be a bear,” Wintone said. “You seen the blood yourself.”

“Remember you was drinkin’, Sheriff. An’ we know how you are drunk. Maybe you was so scared you wanted what you seen to be a bear.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” Wintone said flatly.

“Maybe it ain’t dead,” Frank Turper said. “Or crawled off in a cave an’ died, or to some deep part of the woods where nobody’s been.”