The Bone Orchard: A Novel

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it seemed the wrong moment to press him to clarify himself. “Do you remember who I am?”

“A warden?”

“You can call me Mike.” I was shocked that he had any memory of our conversation, given his off-the-charts blood-alcohol level. “Why don’t you go back to bed, Kurt. Get some sleep. In the morning, I’ll drive you down to Portland to see her.”

“I don’t think I can sleep.”

“Do you want me to make us some coffee?”

“What I want is a drink.”

“I don’t think that’s a great idea. Why don’t you come with me out to the kitchen and we’ll see what Kathy has in her refrigerator.”

He rubbed his one good eye and puffed out his cheeks before sucking them back in. He didn’t say another word but rose shakily and plodded down the narrow steps. The sour smell of alcohol drifted behind him.

There was a draft in the kitchen, coming from the direction of the mudroom. I made a fire in the woodstove, using newspaper flyers and fatwood from a pine box in the corner. Kurt settled himself at the antique table, which tilted in his direction when he rested a forearm on it. He bent down to look at the uneven legs.

“I need to fix this.”

Kathy had told me he was a carpenter. I wondered how he’d pursued his vocation when he’d been without a driver’s license for so long. According to Morrison, Eklund was a habitual motor vehicle offender. That hardly came as a surprise.

I made coffee in the fancy Bunn machine that had been Kathy’s big splurge a few years back. Then when the woodstove began to steam, I fried eggs in a cast-iron griddle. I’d hoped for some toast, too, but the bread in the bread box had acquired a bad case of the blue splotches.

Kurt watched me quietly, sipping black coffee. He removed his dusty Nordic sweater. His long underwear was wet and yellow under the arms and in a stained crescent above his sternum. When he rolled up his sleeves, I saw that he had patches of rough red skin on his elbows.

“Do you mind if I open a window?” he croaked. “It’s like a sauna in here.”

I found the room chilly myself. “Go ahead.”

He raised the window above the soapstone sink and stood there, his arms braced on the counter, staring down the hill. “Red sky at morning,” he said.

There was a glow like a distant wildfire burning beyond the hills to the east, but elsewhere the sky was still dark and dense with clouds.

“How much do you remember about last night?” I asked him.

“There was a woman with you. She said someone shot my sister.”

He still didn’t seem entirely sober to me, but he seemed coherent enough to attempt a conversation. I set two plates on the table and sat down to eat. After a moment, he took the chair across from me and lifted a fork.

“Do the cops know who did it?” he asked.

“Not yet. I was wondering if you had any ideas.”

“She’s a warden. She’s made a lot of enemies in twenty-eight years. Start at the beginning.”

“She never mentioned a name to you? Someone in particular who had threatened her?”

He cocked his shaggy head and studied me with his one working eye. The retina was the same shade of hazel as his sister’s, but the sclera was a sickly yellow. “Katarina and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”

Katarina? I’d always thought her first name was Katharine. “You know about the shooting she was involved with a few days ago?”

“Of course I know. I was here when she came home that night. She was very upset. She pretended not to be, but I could tell she was. This wasn’t the first time she had to kill someone in the line of duty, you know?”

“She told me about the Decoster shooting.”

“Then you know how it’s haunted her. Most cops never shoot one person in their career. What do you think it’s like killing two people?”

I had a good idea. “How long have you been living here, Kurt? Your driver’s license says you live in New Sweden. “

“A few weeks. What is this, an interrogation?”

I hadn’t intended the conversation to go in that direction, but Eklund was such an ornery character, it was hard not to treat him with hostility.

“I don’t think the detectives who are investigating your sister’s case even knew you were living here.”

“What does it matter to them?” He hadn’t touched his eggs.

“They need a complete picture.”

“Kathy’s been putting me up until I get some steady work. I asked her for asylum, and she gave it to me.”

My fork paused between the plate and my mouth. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”

“What? Asylum?” he said. “I’m an expert on the subject. Ask me anything. ‘Bedlam’ was originally slang for the Bethlehem Royal Hospital in London. Bellevue Hospital in New York treated Eugene O’Neill and Norman Mailer. The blues legend Lead Belly died there. Psych wards are my specialty.”

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Since I have no clue who you are, Mike, or what you’re doing in my sister’s house, it seems like it should be me interrogating you.”

“I’m a friend of your sister. I used to be one of her district wardens.”

“Used to be?”

“I was here the night she got shot. I arrived a few minutes after it happened. The shooter was still here, though. Whoever he was, he blew out the windshield of my Bronco. You probably missed it on the way in. It’s the vehicle out there with all the holes in it.”

He placed his hands flat on the table and made a smacking noise with his lips. “I’m sorry if I seem like I’m being a dick. I’m hungover and not feeling particularly good about myself in general this morning. The shrinks at the VA say I have a major depressive disorder. I always tell them, ‘How happy would you be if you were a chronic alcoholic with one eye?’” He began to laugh in a way that reminded me of a comic book villain. He held up both hands, palms outward. “These mitts of mine are going to start shaking soon if I don’t get a drink.”

“Maybe you should eat some of your eggs.” The grease had already congealed around the whites.

“I have no stomach for it anymore.”

“Maybe you should check into rehab.”

“Interesting suggestion. Never heard that one before.”

Without another word, he wandered down the hall to the nearest bathroom, leaving me alone in the dimly lit kitchen. I eyed his untouched plate of fried eggs, knowing he wouldn’t eat them now. I decided to help myself.

When he came back, he headed straight for the pantry and emerged with a bottle of amaretto. He twisted the metal cap and kept pouring until his coffee mug was mostly booze. He raised the cup to his mouth, watched me the whole time like a kid deliberately hoping to provoke a scolding.

I remained quiet.

“I expected you to try to stop me,” he said.

“It’s not my house,” I said. “I can’t let you drive today, though. Where are your car keys?”

“Under the driver’s seat.”

Dawn was brightening the window above the sink, but the sun still hadn’t risen. I’d need to fetch those keys if I didn’t want him to sneak off while I was taking a shower. And I should check Kathy’s patrol truck, too.

“You never answered my question,” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“You weren’t here the night Kathy was shot, and you weren’t here the next day when the house was crawling with state police detectives and evidence technicians. Then you come back shit-faced in the middle of the night? Where were you, Kurt?”

He took another swig from the mug and set it down on the tabletop. “I see you ate my eggs.”

“Are you going to answer me?”

“I found a card game at the VFW in Sennebec.”

“You were playing poker for two days?”

“You don’t play, do you?”

“I learned a long time ago that I am a poor loser.”

“Two days at a table is nothing for me if they keep the drinks coming.” When he smiled, he showed stained teeth that looked unnaturally long, and I realized it was because the gums had pulled back from the roots.

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Something’s puzzling me. If someone told me that my sister was on her deathbed in the hospital, you couldn’t stop me from rushing off to see her. I wouldn’t be sitting here getting drunk and making wisecracks.”

“You have a sister?” he asked.

“I have a stepsister.”

“And when was the last time you saw her?” He seemed to be playing a game with me—a game with rules only he understood.

“Last year, at the wake following my mother’s funeral.”

He’d expected a different reply from me, I could tell. “I don’t like hospitals,” he said.

“That’s your answer?”

“When I was eighteen years old, I remember waking up in the Twelfth Medical Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, Vietnam. It was across Highway One from a petroleum dump and artillery battery. I had no idea how I’d gotten there, but when I woke up, I discovered that I was missing an eye. They had to tie me down, I heard. I’ve never trusted doctors since they plucked my eye out.”