The Bone House Part 13

This was the girl that everyone thought Mark had murdered.

'I'm sorry,' Hilary murmured. 'Tresa never mentioned it to us.'

'Well, I'm not surprised. We all treated it like it had never happened. I think the idea was, if you didn't talk about it, it didn't exist. Everyone was trying to spare Glory. Who wants to remember listening to a family burn to death?'

'Did she go through therapy?'

'I hope so, but people aren't big on that around here. It's like a character flaw if you have to see a shrink.'

'It must have been hard on Tresa, too,' Hilary said.

'Sure it was. She became the forgotten sister.'

Hilary shook her head as she considered the wreckage of the Fischers and Bones. People were fragile things. You scratched the surface and found pain everywhere. When something bad happened to someone, it had a ripple effect, washing away other lives as the circles got larger.

The two women continued walking slowly toward the school building. They were already late for the next cla.s.s.

'So Mark's paying the price for Harris Bone,' Terri told her. 'That's part of what's happening here. People around here are sensitive to the idea of a man getting away with murder. They don't want to see it happening again.'

Hilary stopped and put a hand on Terri's shoulder. 'Getting away with murder? What are you talking about? You said they found Harris Bone at the ruins.'

'They did. Harris was tried, and he got life in prison. A lot of people wished we had the death penalty in Wisconsin. Most of us thought life in prison was too good for him.'

'That's not the same as getting away with it.'

'I know, but Harris escaped,' Terri said. 'He got away as they were taking him to the Supermax facility in Boscobel. He's been on the run ever since. He's out there somewhere, hiding.'

Chapter Sixteen.

Amy Leigh's room in Downham Hall at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay looked out on the remnants of a cornfield from the previous harvest season. Beyond the rows of broken stalks, she could see the line of barren winter trees marking the Cofrin Arboretum that ringed the entire campus, isolating it like an island protected by an enchanted forest. It was late afternoon on Tuesday, but the ashen sky made the day look later than it was. Cla.s.ses had begun again, and she had psychology books piled on her bed that she needed to read, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. Rather than working, she kept looking outside at the desolate field and thinking about Glory Fischer and Gary Jensen.

She'd thought about nothing else but the two of them since the bus arrived back in Green Bay: the girl who'd been found dead on the beach in Florida and the coach who always seemed to be stripping her naked in his head when he looked at her.

'Gary and his wife went rock-climbing in Utah in December,' Amy murmured, studying the article she'd pulled up on the Internet. She wasn't even aware that she'd spoken aloud until her roommate rolled over on her back on the opposite bed and groaned.

'Are you on about this again?' Katie asked.

Amy took the pen from her mouth. 'His wife died. She lost her grip during the climb and fell more than two hundred feet. There was no one in that area of the park but the two of them. If you wanted to murder someone and get away with it, can you think of a better way to do it? Who knows what really happened out there?'

Katie laid the textbook on her bare stomach. She wore a sports bra and loose-fitting sweatpants. 'I remember you telling me that Gary looked devastated when you saw him on campus in January.'

'People can fake that. What if she found out the kind of man he was?'

'What kind of man is he?'

'He's a pig. He comes on to all the girls.'

'So do half the older men in the world.'

'It was in the papers after she died,' Amy said. 'The police in Utah investigated her death.'

'The police are going to investigate any time somebody falls off a cliff. They didn't charge him with anything, did they?'

'No.'

Katie sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. 'Look, Ames, just because your coach is a jerk doesn't mean he's some kind of serial killer. First he kills his wife and now some girl in Florida he doesn't even know? Does that make any sense?'

'I just wonder if I should tell someone. I mean, I think I saw Gary with Glory Fischer.'

'You think?'

'OK, I'm not sure.' She added, 'This is personal for me now. Because of Hilary.'

'She was your coach. You haven't seen her in years.'

'Yes, but you saw the news,' Amy said. 'They're looking at her husband. He's the prime suspect.'

'Well, he knew the girl, and he had a room right near where she was killed, and he had a grudge against the family. Sounds like he deserves to be a suspect.'

Amy took a strand of her curly blond hair and twisted it between her fingers. She shook her head. 'I remember him. He was a nice guy. Hilary wouldn't marry anyone who could do something like that. She's way too smart.'

'Wow, don't tell me you're that naive,' Katie said. 'If you're going to be a psychologist, you better learn real fast that you can't trust people just by looking at them, you know?'

'Yeah, I know.'

Her roommate got off the bed and grabbed a Green Bay sweatshirt from the top of her laundry basket and shrugged it over her skinny torso. She peeled off her sweatpants and squeezed her bare legs into a tight pair of jeans. Sitting on the bed again, she laced up her sneakers. As she bent over, her gla.s.ses skidded down her nose.

'I'm going to dinner,' she told Amy. 'You want to come with me?'

'I'm not hungry.'

'You sure?'

'Yeah. You go.'

'OK, whatever. See you later.'

Katie left Amy alone in the room. Amy got up and paced back and forth between the walls, then tried to clear her mind with a series of yoga positions. It didn't help. She sat down at the desk again and reread the story in the Green Bay paper about the death of Gary Jensen's wife four months earlier. It was the kind of accidental tragedy that happened every day. There was nothing suspicious about it. She was making Gary into a monster in her head for no good reason.

Amy called up the home page of Facebook on her computer. She had almost four hundred friends on the network, including everyone from her high school cla.s.s and dozens of dancers she'd met from schools across the country. She did a search and found the profile for Hilary Bradley, who was one of her friends, and clicked over to her former coach's home page.

Hilary's profile photo showed her on a bicycle somewhere on a tree- lined road. She had a big smile, her long hair blew behind her, and her blue eyes were hidden behind sungla.s.ses. She looked happy. Amy figured the photo had been taken where she lived now, in the rural lands of Door County. Hilary didn't look as if she had changed much in the three years since Amy had known her in high school in Chicago. She was pretty and blonde, like Amy, and she was tall and full-bodied, which was also like Amy. That was one of the things she'd liked most about Hilary. She wasn't a stick. She didn't make any apologies for her figure. She'd always told Amy that you could be a big girl and still be graceful and s.e.xy.

Amy read Hilary's status on Facebook, which had been posted from a cell phone only a few minutes earlier. Hilary had written: I'm having the same bad dream, and I'd really like to wake up. I'm having the same bad dream, and I'd really like to wake up.

She didn't have any trouble understanding what Hilary meant. The previous year, she had followed the trail of events on Hilary's page as her husband faced accusations of having an affair with a student. Now it was deja vu.

Amy clicked on one of the photos on Hilary's profile, which showed Mark Bradley painting on a Door County beach. Amy had barely known Mark in Chicago, but the girls who had had him as a subst.i.tute teacher had all fallen for him. He was the kind of teacher who inspired crushes. The strong, sensitive type. Handsome. Creative. He had it all. You wanted romance, but you also wanted someone who would make you feel safe in a dark alley. That was Mark Bradley.

Amy thought about what her roommate had said. You can't judge people just by looking at them. She hated to think that her head was upside down about Glory's death. Gary Jensen might be nothing more than an innocent man whose wife had died in an accident, leaving him alone and bereft. Mark Bradley, solid, s.e.xy, married to Amy's idol, might be the evil one. The killer. That was the obvious answer, and the obvious answer was usually the truth.

You can't trust your instincts. Katie was probably right about that, too. Amy didn't have anything except her instincts to tell her what to think. She knew Hilary. Through her, she felt as if she knew Mark. She knew Gary, too.

Instincts.

Amy thought about sending Hilary a message on Facebook, to let her know that she was thinking about her and Mark. She wondered if she should mention her suspicions, but she didn't. Instead, she closed her computer and picked up her cell phone from the desk. She hesitated before dialing. Her breathing came faster. She felt the way she did before stepping out on to the floor of the arena for a performance.

'Amy, what the h.e.l.l are you doing?' she asked herself aloud.

Rather than answer herself, she punched the b.u.t.tons on the phone and waited. When he answered, she heard the slippery charm in his voice, and her skin crawled.

It was Glory Fischer I saw you with. I know it was.

'Gary? It's Amy Leigh.'

Gary Jensen had no problem picturing Amy's face and body when she called. She was one of the girls he most enjoyed watching during her workouts in the gym. He liked it when her face glowed with the sweat of her routines and her legs and arms bulged with strength. She had full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were usually the enemy of a dancer, and even a tight bra couldn't stop them from swaying seductively. Her blonde hair would grow damp and paste itself to her skin. She was very attractive.

He knew she didn't like him. She'd never made a secret of it. She listened to him and followed his instructions as a coach, but she was cold whenever he talked to her. Most of the girls played the game with him and flirted back at him when he made his advances, but Amy never did. He was surprised and curious to get her call.

'h.e.l.lo, Amy,' he said. 'What's up?'

'I have some ideas for new moves,' she told him. 'Some really hot stuff. I figure we're going to have to take it up a notch to win next year, right?'

'That's true,' he said, listening to the pitch of her voice. She spoke haltingly, which was unusual for Amy. She was typically among the most confident girls on his team.

'I was thinking, maybe I could talk to you about it,' she went on. 'Maybe we could get together.'

'Of course,' Gary said. 'I'd like that.'

'Could we meet somewhere tomorrow?'

'I wish I could, but tomorrow's not good for me. I have a meeting outside the city. What about Thursday night? I'm going to be reviewing videotapes of the dance performances from the compet.i.tion. Why don't you come by my house, and we'll look at them together? I'd like your input.'

He heard hesitation on the other end of the line. Then she said, 'Yeah, all right. I'll do that.'

'You know where I live, don't you? It's near the end of Bay Settlement across from the county park.'

'I know it.' He expected her to hang up, but she added after a long pause, 'Hey, Gary, I know I should have asked this before, but how are you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, it hasn't been very long since you - you know, since you lost your wife, and I know how hard that was. I felt really bad for you. I just wanted to make sure you're OK.'

'That's kind of you to say, Amy. I wouldn't say I'm OK, but I'm dealing with it.'

'Good.'

'I'll see you on Thursday.'

He hung up the phone. He stroked his chin with two fingers, thinking about the girl's nervous manner and wondering about her real agenda. Part of him was suspicious at the timing, coming so soon after Florida. She'd mentioned his wife, too. He didn't like that.

He was in the master bedroom of his turn-of-the-century house, which he had bought five years ago when he moved to Green Bay. The wallpaper was a heavy pattern of burgundy and gold. The bedroom set, which came with the house, was made of walnut, with imposing four-poster columns on the queen bed and a matching ornate bureau that stood beside the window like a grim soldier. Mich.e.l.le had nagged him to sell the furniture, so they could redecorate the room and make it lighter and happier. They'd never had the chance.

Gary peered out through the floor-to-ceiling curtains at the empty road beyond the yard.

He still had flashbacks of Mich.e.l.le falling. He could see the terror in her eyes as she screamed. He'd cried, seeing it happen, watching her die. At that moment, he'd thought about throwing himself after her. There were still days when the pain and loss were almost impossible to bear.

If only there had been another way. If only she hadn't learned the truth.

Gary dialed his phone and watched the road, which grew darker as dusk fell. When he heard the familiar voice, he said, 'It's me. We may have a problem.'

Chapter Seventeen.

Mark Bradley wore a white mask as he repaired the damage done to their house by the vandals. He wished the cowards had come while he was home and given him a chance to fight. On Tuesday, while Hilary was back at school, he'd swept up the gla.s.s and debris, hauled the broken furniture out to the street, and sc.r.a.ped down the walls. By late Wednesday, he had torn out the carpet and covered the living room in two coats of fresh paint. At least he no longer had the word staring him in the face.

KILLER KILLER.

While the paint dried, he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and took it out to the screened three-season porch at the rear of the house. He sat down in the wrought-iron chaise, which squealed under his weight. Before he drank, he realized he was still wearing the white painter's mask. He peeled it from his face. He tilted the bottle and took a long swallow. His neck was tired and sore, and he rubbed it with his fingers.

That was when he felt the small b.u.mp of two scabs on his skin. Scratches.

Mark closed his eyes and felt a cold sweat of fear form on his body. 'Son of a b.i.t.c.h,' he murmured.

He remembered Glory on the beach and felt the girl hanging on to him as she wrapped her hands around his neck. Her long nails drove into his skin, hurting him. Leaving a mark.

He knew what that meant.

The police in Florida had gathered skin cells from inside his mouth with a cotton swab and bagged the sample and labeled it. They would hunt under Glory's dead fingernails and find skin there, and a.n.a.lyze the tissue, and match it. One name would come out: Mark Bradley.

They'd know he had been there. On the beach. With Glory.

Mark put the bottle down. His taste for beer was gone. He stared through the dormant trees at the gray water of the harbor a hundred yards away. In two months, when the leaves unfurled, the beach would be invisible behind the birches. He couldn't help but wonder if he would be here to see it, or if they would have arrested him by then.

They can prove you were there. They can't prove you killed her.