The Bone House Page 9

  'I'm sorry to hear it,' Cab said. 'Why go from golf to teaching? I assume you could coach or give lessons or something along those lines. You'd make a lot more money, wouldn't you?'

  'I was a professional golfer, Detective. When you've done that, the idea of helping fifty-something investment bankers go from a thirty- six to a twenty-eight handicap doesn't sound too attractive.'

  'And teaching?'

  'I like working with kids. I like the flexibility of having my summers off. You may not think there are athletes who enjoy painting on the beach or talking about Henry Fielding or Chaucer, but you know what? Some of us do.'

  Without changing the expression on his face, Cab struck like a snake. 'Tresa Fischer ended all of that for you, though, didn't she?'

  He saw Gale's hand lightly cover Bradley's wrist, as if to send his client a message. Stay calm.

  'That wasn't Tresa's fault,' Bradley said.

  'Whose fault was it?'

  'I'm not sure it was anybody's fault. If you're a male teacher these days, people have a bias to believe just about anything bad that gets said about you. It doesn't matter whether it's true.'

  'That must be infuriating. I mean, first you lose one career, then another. I'd be pissed off at somebody.'

  Gale leaned forward. 'Excuse me, Detective, but this doesn't seem to have a lot to do with your investigation.'

  'I'm interested in your client's state of mind, Mr Gale. I think if I were in his shoes, I'd be angry at how I was treated.'

  'I was,' Bradley admitted before his lawyer could stop him. 'I am. But that has nothing to do with Tresa or Glory.'

  'Did you have a sexual relationship with Tresa Fischer?' Cab asked, watching Bradley's face.

  'No.'

  'What about Glory Fischer?'

  'No.'

  'Have you ever had sex with a girl under eighteen?'

  Bradley cocked his head. 'What, in my life? Do you want to know when I lost my virginity? Do you want to know everybody I dated in high school?'

  'I think we'll skip that question, Detective,' Gale interjected.

  'I'm suggesting that athletes and teachers both have to deal with underage girls, Mr Bradley,' Cab went on. 'You've had girls making passes at you your whole life. You've had girls trying to manipulate you. Come on, it must happen all the time. It has to feed your ego.'

  'I'm married to a mature, beautiful, independent woman who's a hell of a lot smarter than I am,' Bradley retorted. 'That feeds my ego.'

  Cab pursed his lips in surprise. He hadn't expected that response, and it sounded sincere. However, he'd known some accomplished liars in his life. Starting with a girl in Barcelona named Vivian Frost.

  'Many athletes look at women with contempt, Mr Bradley. You figure if they don't respect themselves, why should you?'

  'I wanted something more meaningful, Detective, and I found it. I hope you're as lucky as I am.'

  'Well, here's my problem. Glory Fischer is dead. You lost your job, and you're pretty much hated in the community where you live, al because of the Fischer family. You had a room overlooking the beach where Glory was killed. Those are big coincidences.'

  'Wrong,' Bradley snapped. He ticked off his responses on his fingers. 'The Fischer family did not fire me. The principal and the school district did. I bear no ill will at all toward Tresa or her mother, and certainly not toward Glory. It's no coincidence at all that I'm at the same hotel as Tresa, because she's a dancer, and my wife coaches dance. As for my hotel room, half the rooms in the building overlook the beach.'

  'But you were out on the beach last night, weren't you?' Cab asked. 'You met Glory Fischer there.'

  Gale jumped in quickly before Bradley could say a word. 'Sorry, Detective, that topic is off limits.'

  'Excuse me?'

  'Mr Bradley will not answer your questions about where he was overnight,' Gale informed him sharply. 'I've instructed him to say nothing. We're not saying he went out on the beach, we're not saying' he didn't. We're not saying he met Glory, we're not saying he didn't. No info. No answers. Nothing.'

  'In other words, he was out there,' Cab retorted.

  'In other words, if you think he was out there, then you better be prepared to prove it,' Gale said. 'We're not going to do your work for you.'

  'We have a witness who saw him.'

  Gale wasn't fooled. 'Good for you, Detective. If you have a witness, you trot him out. In the meantime, Mr Bradley isn't answering any questions about his actions last night. The most important thing is that Mark did not kill Glory Fischer.'

  'If he was out there, then he may know something that can help our investigation,' Cab reminded him. He looked at Mark Bradley.

  'Did you think about that, Mr Bradley? A girl is dead. If you didn't kill her, someone else did. If you're the kind of man you say you are, then I'd think you would feel a moral obligation to tell us anything you saw.'

  Cab saw a genuine conflict in Bradley's face. The man wanted to talk. Or maybe Bradley thought he was smart enough to deflect suspicion by appearing cooperative. It didn't matter. Gale shut it down.

  'We're done, Detective,' the lawyer announced. 'Obviously, if Mark knew anything that would be relevant and important to your investigation, I would have advised him to share that information with you. You can conclude from his silence on this matter that he doesn't.'

  'Neither of you is in a position to make that call,' Cab told him. 'Mr Bradley, if you saw Glory Fischer on the beach and you did not kill her, then you can give us a time at which we know she was alive. That will help us pinpoint the time of death.'

  Bradley glanced at Gale, who shook his head.

  'Give me some help here, Mr Bradley,' Cab insisted. 'I think you're a man who stands up and does the right thing.'

  Gale got out of his chair and reached for Bradley's arm. 'Let's go.'

  Bradley remained seated, staring calmly at Cab. 'Theoretically,' he began.

  'Mark, stop.'

  'Theoretically,' Bradley continued, ignoring his attorney, 'on nights when I can't sleep, I sometimes get up and clear my head around two thirty in the morning. But if I do, I'm usually back by a few minutes after three.'

  'Did you do that last night?' Cab asked. 'Did you arrange to meet Glory?'

  'No, I didn't.'

  'But you did see her on the beach.'

  'That's it, Detective,' Gale interrupted. 'Mark, we're going. Now. Come on.'

  Bradley got to his feet, still staring at Cab. He was sending him a message, and it was obvious to Cab that his suspicions were correct. Mark Bradley had been with Glory Fischer in the middle of the night.

  'I'm going to send a police officer to your hotel room to make sure nothing is removed. Based on your responses today, I'm sure we'll be able to get a search warrant.'

  'My responses?' Bradley asked.

  'I think a judge will conclude what you and I both know to be true. You left your room last night. You met Glory Fischer.'

  'Mr Bradley isn't changing his travel plans to accommodate your fishing expedition,' Gale told Cab. 'Tomorrow, he and his wife are going home to Door County.'

  'Running away won't get you off the hook, Mr Bradley,' Cab said.

  'I never run away,' Bradley snapped.

  'I'm glad, because I may just follow you back to Wisconsin. If you won't talk to me, I'm sure there are people who will.'

  Gale smiled at him and steered Bradley toward the door. 'If you go, enjoy the view, Detective. Just don't have any conversations with Mr Bradley. I'm sure you know that anything he tells you wouldn't be admissible, now that he's represented by counsel.'

  'Of course.' Cab added, 'Tell me one other thing, Mr Bradley.'

  Bradley stopped and looked at Cab suspiciously. 'What?'

  'Exactly why do they call it "Door" County?'

  Bradley laughed without humor. 'The peninsula juts out into the water between Lake Michigan and Green Bay. The area where the waters come together at the tip of the land is extremely treacherous. A lot of people h
ave lost their lives in those waters. So the passage got the French name Porte des morts.'

  'I'm afraid I studied Spanish and German, not French,' Cab said.

  'It means Death's Door.'

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sheriff Felix Reich drove his Chevy Tahoe off the Washington Island ferry, and the vehicle clanged over the ship's metal gate on to the mainland at the tip of Door County in Northport. The crossing through the Death's Door passage had been rough, but Reich had made the journey thousands of times in his life, and he was immune to the jockeying of the waves. Most of the travelers on winter midweek mornings were locals who had iron stomachs even in the worst weather. On this crossing, Reich had shared the ferry with only three other vehicles bound for the peninsula.

  Reich turned off Highway 42 beyond the port on to a gravel road known as Port des Morts Drive. He drove between winter trees that clawed for his truck with bare branches. Through the web of trees, Reich could see secluded, expensive waterside houses hugging the cliff tops, but there was hardly anyone in residence to admire the panorama below them. Most of the owners only arrived during the high season, leaving the empty land to the small tribe of year-round residents in other months. Even in summer, most tourists didn't venture beyond the main highway or travel north of the shopping towns like Fish Creek, Ephraim, and Sister Bay. When you got as far north as Gills Rock and Northport, you were usually alone.

  He drove to the very end of Port des Morts Drive, where he parked in a sheltered turnaround. He got out of his Tahoe and walked up a muddy dirt driveway toward Peter Hoffman's log home. It was a small house on a large lot that was thick with mature oak trees. Pete had lived there since he and Reich returned from Vietnam together. His friend kept it impeccably maintained; the house was his hobby and his passion. There was not much else in Pete's life, not since the loss of his wife to cancer seven years ago. Not since his retirement.

  Not since the fire.

  Reich rang the bell, but the quietness of the house told him that Pete had left for his morning hike. He knew where to find him. He got back in his truck, retraced his path for a quarter-mile, and turned toward the water at Kenosha Drive, which led into the county park. Toward the end of the short road, he could see the bay through the grove of towering spruce trees, and under the dark sky, the water was so blue it was almost black. He parked in the dormant grass, where remnants of snow clung to shaded patches of earth. Ahead of him were two gray benches, angled toward the water. Sitting on one bench was Peter Hoffman.

  Reich climbed down from his truck. He could see his breath. The morning was cold, with a gusty breeze that had tossed the island ferry like a whale heaving up and down through the waves. Even in summer, it was cold here, but he never felt the cold himself, or if he did, he shut it out of his mind. At sixty years old, he woke up every morning with a bone-deep aching in his limbs, but he didn't let it stop him from the chores of the day: shoveling his island driveway, splitting and chopping wood for the fireplace, or lifting weights religiously in his basement gym. As far as Reich was concerned, he may as well have been forty-five.

  He wore a brown sheriff's department uniform, which fitted perfectly and was pressed into sharp creases. He hadn't gained a pound in years. His badge glinted like gold on his chest, and he shined his boots to a high polish every night, cleaning off the grime of the job, which took him into muddy, dusty corners of the county. His white hair was cropped to a half-inch length and was as flat as it had been in his Marine days. He wasn't tall, about five feet eight, but he had fought and beaten men who were thirty years younger and fifty pounds heavier over the years. He figured he still could.

  Reich watched the water with a grim expression. You could live here your whole life, as he had, and find something different in the colors of the waves every day. On the horizon, he saw the rocky outline of Plum Island and, beyond it, the low shelf of Washington Island, where he'd bought his home in the 1970s and stayed there, alone, unmarried, ever since. He felt a kinship with the island and the rocky passage to the mainland, but he was no romantic about it. Every season, they fished out the bodies of those who underestimated Death's Door.

  Not saying a word, Reich sat down on the bench opposite Peter Hoffman, who didn't look at him. Tree stumps dotted the clearing around them. Spidery shadows from the birches made a web in the grass. Pete drank coffee from the plastic cup of a Thermos, and Reich could see steam clouding above the mug. He could also smell whiskey on his friend's breath.

  'Pretty early for the sauce, Pete.'

  Pete held out the Thermos. 'You want some?'

  Reich shook his head. He liked to drink, but never on duty and never when he was flying or driving. And not at nine in the morning.

  'You heard?' Reich asked.

  Pete swallowed his doctored coffee and wiped his mouth. His eyes were focused way out in the bay. He nodded, but he didn't say anything.

  'Glory Fischer,' Reich murmured. 'Like that little girl didn't suffer enough.'

  Pete took a loud, ragged breath. Reich thought his friend might cry. He was worried about Pete and had been for the better part of a year. When they'd served together, Pete had been just like himself, a hard nail you could pound and never bend its shape. That had stayed true for most of their lives. Both of them were natives, which made them a rare breed in Door County. They could practically see each other's homes across the four miles of the passage. They'd hunted, fished, and gotten drunk together more times than Reich could count. They had identical values about God, life, and evil that had stayed rock solid while the rest of the world went to hell.

  But this was not the Pete he knew. The old man drinking on a bench in the early morning. Letting himself go. Drowning in his sorrow. Limping around his empty house, thanks to the bullet he'd taken when he stepped in front of a rifle aimed at Reich in 1969. His rigid bearing had begun to slump, and only his hair, which was still oddly black, resembled the man who had been Reich's best friend for his entire life. Pete was eight years older, and he looked as if he, like the water, was at death's door.

  'I talked to Delia,' Reich told him. 'She's been in Florida with Tresa and Troy Geier for a couple days, trying to get the local cops off their asses. She'll be home today. Tresa's not going back to River Falls this term. She's staying here.'

  'Good thing,' Pete rumbled.

  'Delia and the cops think it was that son of a bitch who was banging Tresa,' Reich added. 'The teacher. Mark Bradley. He was down there at the hotel. The cops are pretty sure he was on the beach with Glory.'

  Pete turned to him with bloodshot eyes. 'Is he going to get what he deserves this time?'

  'If I have anything to say about it, you're damn right he will.'

  The two men sat in silence. The wind roared between them, waking up the trees. Early-season birds chattered in agitation. Peter Hoffman pushed himself off the bench, and his body swayed unsteadily. Reich made a move to help him, but Pete waved him away. Pete leaned against a tree stump and overturned his Thermos, letting the coffee splash into a puddle in the dirt. He straightened up as well as he could and looked down at Reich with immense sadness.

  'It's going to come up again, isn't it?' Pete asked. 'The fire.'

  'I imagine it will.'

  'I really thought we were done with it. I thought it was over.'

  Reich said nothing. He knew the fire wasn't the kind of event that was ever really over. No matter how much you tried to lock the past in a cellar, it found a way to get out. That had been true for Pete since it happened, and it was hard to blame him. He'd lost his oldest daughter. Two of his grandchildren. All of that, the year after his wife succumbed to a slow, horrible disease. It was like having his whole life leveled to the ground with napalm.

  'I guess the fire got Glory after all,' Pete went on.

  Reich shook his head fiercely. 'This has nothing to do with the fire or with Harris Bone. Mark Bradley is the one who did this to Glory, and I'm not going to let him throw up a smokescreen.'
>
  Peter Hoffman shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the sky through the tangle of trees. 'Harris Bone,' he said fiercely.

  Reich found himself getting angry with his friend. 'We can't change the past, Pete. This is about getting justice for Glory. OK? We owe it to that girl. We were the ones who found her.'

  It was over before anyone knew.

  It was over before there were sirens and lights and before a single high-pressure fire hose blasted water over the super-heated remains. By the time a neighbor near Kangaroo Lake awoke in the middle of the night and smelled the sharp aroma of burning wood in the air, and called 911, the Bone house was gone, its walls consumed into ash, its roof caved in over scorched Sheetrock and stone. The fire was complete in its destruction.

  That night, Felix Reich and Peter Hoffman had been playing poker with two of Felix's deputies in a farmhouse east of Egg Harbor. The air had the deadness of summer, humid and warm. Mosquitoes and moths clung to the screens. Their T-shirts were wet with sweat. They were on County Road E, only three miles west of the home where Pete's son-in-law lived. Harris Bone was married to Pete's daughter Nettie, father to his grandchildren Karl, Scott and Jen. That was the man's only redeeming quality in Pete's eyes.

  Reich knew that Pete had little time for his son-in-law of seventeen years. Harris had taken over his mother's liquor store in Sturgeon Bay after she passed away, but it had failed when a larger competitor opened in town. Since then, he had spent most of his life on the road, scraping together money as a vending machine salesman around the state of Wisconsin. Even when he was home, there was no peace. He and Nettie tore into each other like feral cats. It was a house painted over with thick coats of bitterness and bile.

  In truth, Reich knew that Nettie was no prize, but you didn't say that to a friend. He'd listened to her pick apart her husband for years. Harris was a failure. He wasn't religious enough. He wasn't successful enough. He didn't know how to work with his hands. He was always wrong. Reich, who'd never wanted a wife and never missed having one, felt the tiniest sympathy for Harris every time he was in the house, listening to the man's ego get chipped away by this tiny, overbearing woman, who dominated his life from her wheelchair. The boys had begun to pick up the same habits, running down their father to win their mother's approval. For Harris, being home in that house must have felt like being in a cage.