The Summer Bones (36 page)

A single red leaf blew upward and teased the top of the gleaming coffin. It caressed the surface, skimming lightly in the chill wind, and then lifted off and was gone, like a playful ghost.

So many funerals,
Damon thought as he stood with bowed head and clasped hands.
So much death. Hallie Helms, Emily, Ronald, and now Gran.
If he closed his eyes, he could swear the image of Ronald Sims putting the gun into his mouth and pulling the trigger was burned permanently into his lids—blood and tissue flying, attacking the pale walls, the smell of it, the horror of the frozen second of realization at what had happened, the shouting, the questions.

At least this death had been kind, a stroke that flooded the mind with endless sleep—nature's mercy killing—a relief to all, especially with the looming menace of a nursing home on the horizon. No one had wanted to make that decision, but in the last month it had nearly been forced on them.

At his side, Victoria stirred, clutching a handkerchief like it was a lifeline. She'd cut her hair differently; it now swung becomingly at her jawline, effectively hiding the tiny scar above her temple. The emotional scars were a little harder to hide.

Nearly three months had passed.

He'd barely seen her. Two fleeting trips to Mayville were all she'd managed since she'd been released from the hospital. And even then she had chosen to stay in Indianapolis with her mother rather than at the farm—unprecedented behavior. He had understood her need to return to Chicago. He'd understood why she felt a compulsive need for her job, her education, her safe space, her avoidance of anything that reminded her of Emily or Ronald. His world had been violated as well. He had also stood there in that hallway and felt his life blowing past like a wisp of smoke.

The service ended. People began to drift away, leaves scattering in dead piles in answer to passing feet.

Victoria stood, head averted, the white handkerchief a compressed wad in her hand.

He said quietly, “Are you coming back to the farm? My mother wanted to know. She's fixing dinner for everyone.”

“No.”

“Then I'll drive you to Indianapolis.”

“There's no need. My mother—”

“You can't avoid me forever.”

That brought her head up finally, her eyes to his. “Damon, I'm not—” She faltered. It was so obviously a lie she didn't continue, just stopped and made a helpless gesture with her hand.

He reached out and touched her face, a feather brush of his fingers. They were still standing by their grandmother's grave, the crowd thinning and deserting the cemetery. “We need to talk.”

Her answer was small. “Yes.”

* * * *

Damon drove carefully, almost too much so, with his hands gripping the wheel tightly. Victoria watched that deliberate control and recognized it for what it was. He was hurting and she was the cause, and her guilt didn't eliminate her cowardice. How easy it was to look at him and see the lover of her dreams—handsome, intelligent, and infinitely patient.
My God, he's patient.
She bit her lip and looked away.

It was so complicated. She hadn't needed Michael—hurting himself from her defection—to tell her that. His cold, cutting analysis of how the tiny Mayville community would view their relationship—speculation on the confusion of their children, the possible legal tangles of a marriage, all of it just confirmed her doubts. “What about the genetic repercussions, Victoria?” he'd asked grimly. “Or have you changed your mind about having children at all?”

She hadn't told him Kate's secret. Like Damon, she felt it wasn't hers to tell. So much cruel truth resided in what he said anyway. She felt numb. Landscape flashed by her window, all gold and red under the gray October sky.

Damon finally spoke, the first words into fifteen minutes of silence. “There is a farm for sale by Greensboro. I've gone to look at it twice. I'm thinking of buying it.”

A crow flew across the road, the swooping shadow running off into a shorn field of corn stubble.

She turned, looked at him in astonishment. “What?”

“It's close to Indianapolis and still not that far from Mayville. I've got some money saved and I—”

“But you've worked so hard.” Her hands twisted in her lap. “And what about Grandpa? He can't possibly run the place with just Jim Bailey.”

“Rachel and Jeff just found out his plant is closing. He's going to need something. They're going to have to sell their house and a hundred others are in the same boat. Who knows how long it will take? If they came to the farm Jeff could help out, eventually take over. The house is too big for just the old man and me. It's ridiculous. The house needs … people. They need a place, and with the baby, it seems perfect.”

“I—”

He interrupted hastily. “I've thought about this … so much. No one will know us there. The house is nice, small but with room to add on, and the land is good. I could work it, rent more land if I need to, and still help out Jeff if he runs into trouble. We'd be close enough for you to drive to Indianapolis if you got on with a paper there. We could have everything, Tori, like you said you wanted, together.”

Silence—a glimmer of light into her personal darkness, the car speeding onward. She felt almost light-headed. She put her hands on the seat, braced herself, and took a swift breath. “Leave your home? Start over? I can't ask you to do this, Damon.”

He smiled, a brief, charming offering of hope. “Sweetheart, you have it backward. I'm asking you.”

* * * *

It was twilight; an aching, grave autumn twilight that filled the horizon with gray fading into inky black. Danny was relieved to see that the farmyard was empty and clear. The Paulsens had gone home, as he was hoping they had. He parked in a deep shadow by an oak tree and asked himself once again if what he was doing now really needed to be done.

The old man sat on the back porch even in the chill of the evening. He rocked almost imperceptibly in a scarred chair, booted feet firmly on weathered boards. He lifted a hand in brief greeting as Danny got out and walked slowly across the grass. The air smelled of smoke and dying vegetation.

“Elmer.”

“Danny.” A white eyebrow twitched but his gaze was fixed on the distant fields beyond the barn. His chair continued to creak, a slow rhythm of contemplation.

“Sorry to bother you. Mind if I sit a minute?”

“Not at all.”

Danny eased himself into a lawn chair and wondered what on earth he was going to say. He decided on, “Nice evening. We won't get many more like this, will we? How was the harvest?”

“It went.”

“Good year?”

“Not bad.”

They sat for a long minute.
It would be easier,
Danny thought bleakly,
if Elmer Paulsen would ask why
I came.
Not that he was sure how he would answer that question. A search for the truth, perhaps, he would say. Not justice—that was too simple—but a need to tie it together and set it free. To confirm that he was a good cop, knew his stuff, and had seen the facts as they were without prejudice or bias. Without that—without the job—losing Laura was pointless.

It was very quiet. The leaves piled near the porch steps rustled softly.

“I expect,” Elmer spoke clearly, “that this winter will be hard.”

Momentarily confused, Danny asked, “Snow?”

“No. With Mildred gone. This winter will be hard.”

Danny's gaze snapped upward. “I'm sorry, sir. I expect you're right.”

“Not the days so much, but the nights. The house is so quiet.”

Danny couldn't think of a thing to say.

Paulsen's pale blue eyes did not waver from his study of the cornfield. “We lived together for sixty years.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'd have done anything for her.”

Danny looked into that weathered, uncommunicative face and nodded slowly. “I think I know what you mean. I love … loved … my wife very much.”

A nod. That was all.

“We checked Sims' car,” Danny remarked, feeling for the opening, not knowing how to go. “Routine, of course.”

The older man did not blink.

“We use forensics for so much now. It's incredible what they can tell us. Blood, hair, fabric matches. We can pretty much reconstruct a scene just from evidence that escapes the naked eye.”

Elmer sat, gnarled hands resting lightly on the arms of his chair. His fierce gaze had not shifted.

“Emily's case was unusual. We found blood in Sims' car that could have proved he killed her and transported the body to the pond, but we also know that Victoria was in that car, and bleeding—identical twins muddy the waters. I'm not an expert, but I understand that the evidence, as it stands, would make it hard to prove that it was Emily in that car after she was killed.”

No response.

“And there is the matter of the bricks and fencing wire. Sims might have known where they were, that is possible. He'd been here before, though knowing the contents of the barn might be stretching it. It's not neat, but it works. He followed her, killed her in a fit of jealous rage, and drove here with the body in the back of his car. Then he sunk her in the pond. It was a good plan. If it weren't for the dropped shoe, we still wouldn't know where she was. We would still be waiting.”

Paulsen didn't speak.

“But her injuries were not consistent, the medical examiner says, with a simple head trauma incident. There were a lot of broken bones, crushed ribs. Sims might have hit her with his car. We tried to get a match from the bumper or front fender of the Mercedes, but no go. It's possible, of course, that the evidence is so old that it has been obliterated.”

The chair creaked. The wind whispered past the porch.

Danny said quietly, “But I don't believe that Ronald Sims killed his wife.”

The old man stopped rocking. One of his hands bunched convulsively on his knee. He cleared his throat roughly. “What do you believe, then?”

It was so hard to say it. If he was wrong … but then again, the facts—cold, hard, and unrelenting—told Danny he was right.

The words came out slowly, in a reluctant trickle. “Sir, I think that your wife killed Emily Sims. I think she hit her with her car and never knew it happened. I know about that accident last summer and could see myself that she wasn't very capable of driving, even back in August. I think she drove away and left her granddaughter lying in this very driveway. Maybe Emily realized she'd left that briefcase behind, and came back for it and your wife didn't see her. That part will always be speculation.”

Elmer Paulsen didn't move. His eyes simply examined the shorn stubble of the fields with an intensity that could have meant anything.

Taking a breath, Danny expounded. “And I think you found the body when you came back to the farm for lunch. It shocked you … you knew instantly what had happened … you panicked and decided to protect your wife by hiding the body. It wasn't a nap that kept you for two hours—even your hired hand said you never took long lunches like that—it was driving your granddaughter's car out to that field and then walking back. It always bothered me that Ronald Sims would feel comfortable carrying the body to the pond. I mean, he knows how people come and go here, he knows that Damon or yourself are in and out constantly. But you … you knew they were out in the fields and your wife was gone. You knew you could hide the body and no one would be the wiser.”

Silence. The leaves, the fields, the growing dusk settling into night surrounded them.

Why
did I even come?
Danny felt empty suddenly, like a deflated balloon. He had thought that saying it would make him feel better about everything—from Ronald Sims committing suicide to his own inability to actually arrest and blame someone in this case. But he didn't feel better. He felt worse, like an idiot, like a child.

He stood, fumbling in his pocket for his car keys, wondering how to apologize to a man for accusing his dead wife of murder on the day of her funeral. It would be very difficult to prove his theory.

At his movement, Elmer finally transferred that unwavering gaze. “Are you done, Danny?”

“Yes. Sorry. I'll be on my way.”

“Stay.”

Danny went still. “Stay?”

“Sit awhile.”

“Yes, sir.” He sat again, taking a deep breath. A bat whirled past, so close that Danny felt the tiny wind of its wings on his face.

Elmer Paulsen spoke thickly. “This is a complicated world, isn't it? All these gadgets to show you who is calling before you answer the phone, or to send signals from space, or to tell one person's blood from another—it's hard, sometimes, to adjust. I'm outdated.” A small smile, maybe, hovered around the old man's lips.

It was Danny's turn to not speak. He waited.

“My world,” said Elmer, “was a simpler one. You made decisions and stood behind them—like marriage. You got married and stayed married, once upon a time.”

Danny winced; his divorce papers were being duly processed by the courts.

The thick brows twitched. Paulsen said heavily, “That child was dead. I couldn't save her. I made a decision.”

Danny swallowed. “Yes.”

“Mildred was just a little forgetful then. Most of the time she was fine. The whole thing was my fault, really. I should have taken her keys sooner—right after that accident.”

A nod.

“She adored Emily. It would have killed her to know what she'd done. And she still would have known, then. Near the end, she was different.”

I was right.
Danny exhaled, controlling his expression. “I understand,” he murmured.

“Do you?” It was a sharp question, a need to know. The gnarled hands didn't move.

Do I?
Having spoken, Danny wasn't sure. He loved Laura, but had lost her. Wasn't sure where it all had gone wrong. Not positive he wouldn't make the same mistakes again, the same bad decisions.