Bone by Bone by Carol O'Connell

for?” He waved both hands, his fat fingers fluttering to shoo them on their way.
     
 
Oren Hobbs walked the last half-mile to Paulson Lane and stopped by a postbox with no name, only a number stenciled on the side. All of the homes in this area were set well back from the road and hidden by dense foliage. William Swahn’s house was still in hiding when Oren came to the end of the long driveway. Thick vines camouflaged the high stone walls and reached up to a slate roof. What passed for a front porch was a Grecian portico supported by columns thick with ivy, and its marble steps and floor were veined with encroaching moss.
    He stood before an oak door with a small, square grille of ornate iron at its center. There was no outside furniture, no chairs that might invite a visitor to stay awhile. There had never been anything inviting about this place.
    He remembered it well.
    Twice a week, he had come here with Josh when they were still in elementary school. The judge had sent them to this address on Good Samaritan duty. In those days, an old woman had resided here, and the boys had been charged with the mission of verifying that she was still alive and well and possessed of all her faculties, neither raving nor starving.
    Oren pressed the doorbell. The ringer was loud so that the former tenant could hear it from every corner of her house. He waited for the new owner and listened for sounds of movement within. The householder was certainly at home. A car was parked in the driveway, a Mercedes. What else? It was the unimaginative choice of Coventry, and the previous tenant had also owned one.
    The Hobbs boys had never been allowed inside the house. Oren and Josh had always spoken to the elderly woman through the iron filigree at the center of the locked door, rather like an interview with a cloistered nun. They had never seen her face, only her backlit shadow in a frame of light that made a square halo about her wispy unkempt hair. One morning, she had not come to the door, and they had reported this to the judge. In the afternoon, the boys had been told that the old woman was dead.
    The current owner must be stone-deaf. Oren pressed the bell again, and this time he leaned on it, listening to the shrill ring reverberating throughout the house. After one full minute of this, a small square panel opened in the center of the door, and a shadowy head was outlined there behind the iron grille. Seconds ticked by. Evidently, no hello was forthcoming.
    “Good afternoon,” said Oren. “Sorry to disturb you, sir.”
    “Apology accepted,” said the shadow man, and the panel was closed.
    Oren waited for the massive front door to open—and he waited. Two minutes passed before he pressed the bell one more time—and for a long time. When the panel opened, he said, “I need to talk to you, Mr. Swahn. It’s about Josh Hobbs.” The panel was closing, and he rushed his words. “Wait! Please! I’m not a reporter. I used to be a cop—like you.”
    “I hate cops.” The square panel closed with a slam.

Seven
    Oren Hobbs walked down the driveway, intending to hike the quarter-mile home, but the sheriff’s jeep was waiting for him by the side of the road. The passenger door hung open as an invitation to climb inside. When he had settled into the front seat, he stared at the windshield as he spoke to Cable Babitt. “I’m guessing you left something out of Swahn’s file.”
    “Oh, the most interesting parts of my files are the things I leave out.” The sheriff started up the engine. “He wouldn’t talk to you, huh? Well, don’t feel bad, son. I never had any better luck.”
    “You knew Swahn was a cop hater.”
    “Oh, yeah. Lord knows he’s got reason.” The sheriff pulled into the road and drove off at the leisurely pace of a man going nowhere. “Next time you talk to him, I’d leave cops out of the conversation.” He made a right turn, and they traveled the back roads for a mile before he said, “One other thing I left