Behind the Bonehouse (34 page)

“She says it's in really bad condition, and if it's where it used to be, it's not far past the bridge on 68, not too far before Shaker Town. She says there's an abandoned bar, or saloon or something, somewhere close by. 'Course we don't know that he's taken them there.”

“No. It's nothing but conjecture.”

“Right, but we've got nothin' else to go on.”

Spencer nodded.

And Alan slipped his 1911 into the holster on his belt and tossed the other holster to Spence. “If the houseboat's as bad as she says, we oughtta take blankets, and maybe clothes for Jo and Ross. It's rocky there, right? High cliffs, on both sides of the river?”

“Yeah. Trees too I think. Where there's ground to grow 'em.”

“I've got rope in the garage we can take. And we better blacken our faces. There's shoe polish in the junk drawer in the kitchen by the fridge. I'll get the other stuff together.”

Spencer said, “What if they're not there? We'll have wasted a whole lottta time.”

Alan froze and stared at the fireplace, before he said, “I'm gonna go on gut feeling with this, even with the risk. If they aren't there, we'll call Earl in and see what he can do.”

Jo was forcing herself to speak slowly and quietly, as though her heart weren't thundering in her chest, and her blood wasn't beating at her brain—as though she were just her normal self discussing a slightly controversial topic with some distant acquaintance. “I think maybe I can understand a little about why it was hard for you when Alan came to Equine. If I'd been you, I would've admired Bob a lot, and really enjoyed working with him. And when Alan arrived it must've looked like he was standing between you and Bob.”

“It didn't
look
that way. That's what
happened
! Bob had been real good to me. He took a chance on me when he hired me, and he worked real close with me from then on, till Alan come between us. And he did it real deliberate.”

“Bob had so much he had to do, though. Don't you think? He must've needed to delegate some work to Alan. Bob's the only one who can work on the antibiotic development, so when—”

“I liked Bob real well. Best boss I ever had. 'Cept for when …” Butch stopped and stared at the table between him and Jo.

“What?”

“When he shot his mouth off about Korea. That got under my skin.” Butch finished the bourbon in his cup, and rubbed his right eye. It was bloodshot and dry looking and he blinked several times before he spoke again. “Bob didn't know a goddamn thing about the war.
Thought
he did. Made me real mad. Figured we shouldda stayed till we won! Shoot! How the hell could we win? Politicians stopped us from goin' north past the Parallel! Red Chinese comin' in by the millions, Russians givin' 'em arms. Wasn't
Bob
watchin' his friends get blown to bits on some goddamn frozen mud hill he didn't give a damn about!”

Jo tried to think of something to say to that, that would keep Butch talking without irritating him even more, and all she could think of was, “Did Bob serve in World War II?”

“Worked with a bunch of scientists fermentin' penicillin. Make him quiet down!” Butch waved his cup toward Ross.

Who was making baby noises, spitting sounds, and “t-t-t” and “b-b-b”, while flopping a cloth diaper on his head as he sat on her lap.

Jo said, “I'm sorry. Could he play with the other cup? I don't have toys in the diaper bag.” She picked Ross up and held him around the waist, letting him stand on her thighs, his face turned towards hers.

Butch watched her without saying anything for almost a minute, then pushed the metal cup across the table with the barrel of his .38.

“How old are your daughters?” Jo turned Ross so he was sitting sideways on her lap and handed him the cup she could only just reach with her elbows tied to the back of the chair.

“Bitch don't let me see 'em hardly.” He was staring at the table, his mouth vicious, his dark eyebrows pinned against his squinting eyes.

“That's not right. You should be able to—”

“Just shutup!”

She did for a minute, watching Butch pour more bourbon and take a large swallow. His face was flushed, and he was sweating, and he spilled some on the table, and then drew circles in it with a dirty thumb.

“Butch? Are you cold? I am, from getting rained on. Ross is too. You think you could start a fire in the Franklin stove?”

“Why? So Alan can smell the smoke?” He smiled a slow crooked smile, and fished a small bottle from inside his coat.

“What is that?”

“This? Dex.” He grinned like a teenage boy who thinks he's gotten away with something daring and forbidden.

“Dexedrine?”

“Keeps me on my toes.” He laughed, but it was harsh and grating, and Ross started to cry. Butch picked up the revolver and aimed it at Ross's head. “Shut him up!”

“Shhh, sweetie. You have to be quiet.” He sobbed for a minute, but then it slowed and softened, and finally, after a couple of gulps and two big sighs, Ross subsided into silence. Jo had already changed his pants, and she poured more formula in his bottle, trying to keep him quiet and get him to go to sleep. “What kind of gun is that?”

Butch took another gulp, then set the handgun down. “Colt .38 revolver. Police model. Used all over.”

“Is the handle wood?”

“Why do you care?”

“Just wondered.” Jo held Ross in the crook of her arm tight against her chest, and willed him to fall asleep, while she searched for something neutral to say. “World War II was hard on folks too.”

“Yeah? They come back to victory parades!”

“That's true. Yeah. But—”

“Alan bring a few guns back, did he?”

Jo didn't know what to say, and she hesitated long enough for Butch to yell, “Did he!” so loud Ross pulled the bottle out of his mouth and started to whimper.

“If you don't want him to cry again you have to talk quietly.”

“You tellin' me what to do, bitch?” He picked up the .38 again and aimed the glossy black barrel straight at Jo's chest.

“No. But I know it's hard for other folks to listen to babies crying, and I'm trying to keep him quiet.”

“Did he bring back guns?”

“Some. I don't know what came from the war, but he has a couple of handguns.”

“Pistols or revolvers?”

“What's the difference?” She was hoping to keep him talking. Trying to keep him from drinking more, and getting more aggressive.

“Pistols have magazines that snap into the grip. People who don't know nothin' call 'em clips. Revolvers are like this.” He pointed to the cylinder and tapped a fingernail on the end of a shell casing.

“Pistols then. That I've seen.”

“Rifles?”

“I think so. Might be a shotgun instead of a rifle.”

“He shoot?”

“He's shot raccoons with distemper, and injured deer. Situations like that. He doesn't hunt, or shoot for fun.”

Butch watched her, then rubbed both eyes before he sipped from his cup.

“Are you holding us for ransom? Or—”

“I don't have to tell you my plans!”

“I know that. I don't mean to pressure you. I've seen you with your wife and girls, and I don't b'lieve you like hurting people. I think you've had a very hard year.”

“Do you? You figure I'm stupid enough to believe you care?”

“Alan didn't kill Carl. Carl killed himself.”

“Because of what Alan did to him!”

Jo was suddenly furious. All the weeks of Alan being wrongly accused of murdering Carl—of hearing him blamed for doing what was right too, the whole time he'd been at Equine—it all rose up hot inside her chest and she couldn't keep it in. “He came in and tried to help Bob! He knows a
hell
of a lot more about chemistry, and how to make a product than Carl ever
could
have, and Carl did
nothing
but fight him, because of his own inflated ego—and then he tried to steal what was Alan's! Dragging you into it too! You ought to be mad at Carl, not Alan! He was trying to help you!”

Butch grabbed the .38 again and stood up, weaving some on his feet, staring down at Jo and Ross with fury on his face.

The rain had begun to slacken a little, and as Alan made the sharp left turn on 68, just past the river bridge, Spencer rolled the passenger window down and leaned out across the door, trying to see down toward the river on the left side of the road.

There was some small building collapsing in the undergrowth not too far past the bridge. But there was nothing more but dripping trees and thick dark weeds and shrubs—until Spencer saw a broken-down sign a few yards ahead and said, “Slow down! There's some kind of building. Let me get out and look.”

Alan slowed to a stop. And Spencer jumped out and disappeared in the drizzling mist.

Then Spencer was back, opening the passenger door and rolling up the window. “There were tracks into what used to be a drive, and I found Butch's car.”

“I'll look for a place to hide this. You keep an eye on his. Right?”

Spencer nodded and headed toward the river.

It was more than a half a mile on, past where the road swept sharply right away from the river, before Alan could pull the car off on the edge of a farmer's field behind a broken-down cabin.

He sprinted back, the coil of rope slung across his shoulders, to where Spencer waited on the edge of the muddy gravel that had once been the drive to the abandoned roadhouse.

Spencer stepped out and stood close to Alan so he could talk quietly and still be heard. “Looks like they went through there. Through the undergrowth here, heading away from the bridge.” Spencer was pointing to the tangled undergrowth on the sloping ground below the rocky hill that climbed almost straight up and edged the side of the road.

Alan whispered, “You watch the car. I'll scout ahead.”

Spencer nodded after hesitating for a second, as Alan pulled his pistol from the holster, his index finger clamped against the trigger guard.

Alan could see where they'd moved through, in crushed leaves and bent branches, and he moved slowly and silently, listening and looking in every direction, as he followed two sets of footprints—Jo's paddock boots, partially hidden by treaded work boots—in mud and grass and gravel and weeds, till they came to a spot where Jo had fallen—or possibly even been pushed—and had caught herself on one hand.

He gritted his teeth, and his green eyes looked dangerous, in the gray light of a rainy woods, a light mist brushing his face, as he watched and walked through the gathering gloom, listening for any change.

When he could see a lighter patch up ahead, he slowed down, and moved even more cautiously when he saw what looked like broken stone stairs ten feet in front. He waited in the shadows six or eight feet away and listened, but heard nothing but the wind in the trees and the dripping of sodden leaves, and the faint whisper of foggy mist settling on the living and the dead.

He slipped closer and pulled a branch out of the way just enough that he could see what was left of the stairs built into very steep ground that rose on his right to the road.

He slid the branch back and shifted another so he could lean forward and look toward his left, down the stairs to the low-lying river, to whatever flatter ground was there stretching along its edge. He was standing on sloping ground, and he dropped down and crawled toward the stairs, till he could see a stretch of sandy ground mixed with stones edging the river, eighty feet or so away.

There, lined up directly with the stairs, was a derelict houseboat, its bow pulled up on shore, its broken glass door staring straight at the stairs, its stern angled in the water.

Alan lay there and listened, and watched the river lap against the warped wooden sides as rain dripped through the porch roof, and two discarded turquoise banquettes rotted in the mist.

Alan tried to estimate the width of the open space on either side of the crumbling stairs, noticing what grew there, how thickly and how high, and how far the flat land lay from the start of the cliff.

He backed up and stood when he could, and made his way back to Spencer, where he'd hidden himself in a cluster of trees not far from Butch's car.

Alan told Spencer what he'd seen, while he re-strapped his pistol in his holster. “We know what's between here and the bridge. If Butch wants to get to his car, this is the way he'll come. We've gotta move past the stairs up by the road, then get down the cliff where he can't see us from the door. We can scout that side from there, and plan our final approach. Jo fell, or was pushed. She had a hard time getting up.”

Spencer nodded, and touched Alan's arm, then started up toward the road, making his way as silently as Alan, till they stood in the undergrowth beyond the stairs at the edge of the narrow road.

Alan tied the rope around the trunk of a large oak, and worked his way backward down the cliff, getting battered and torn by briars and branches, but hidden from below by the trees and shrubs growing on the shallower slope between the cliff and the beach.

Spencer came down behind him, and they crouched and crawled closer to the water, before Alan searched the woods on their right, till he found a fallen limb, maybe eight feet long and four feet wide where its branches spread at the end. He dropped it beside Spencer, then motioned Spencer to stay where he was.

Spencer nodded, and pulled his Colt from the holster underneath his coat.

Alan's pistol was in his right hand again, when he started making his way toward the houseboat with a light rain pelting his face. He crouched in the undergrowth on the edge of the beach, and stared along the right side of the boat at the two windows with a three-foot space between them, the glass in the front one cracked and broken, leaving a hole near the bottom.