"I never said my book was about murder. I said it was about a tragedy in a small town. The effect it had on the-"
"But that's not your style, is it, dear? You write the gossip behind the headline news, and I think you're damned good at it. I make a point of reading your column. Call me a fan."
"Thank you, but I wasn't always a gossip columnist. I began my writing career as a serious novelist. Now here's another point to consider. Oren's father was an active judge in those days. And he came from an old California family-lots of money. He could've used his influence to get Oren out of town and beyond the reach of the sheriff."
This information about Henry Hobbs seemed to make no impression on her. She gave him a kindly smile as she sat down behind her desk. "A novelist? You don't say. Well, I thought all your books were nonfiction- true crime. What sort of novels did you write? Murder mysteries?"
Oh, God. He imagined that crime genre must be her idea of literature.
"I only published one novel," he said, teeth on edge. Stupid woman. "And it didn't have a single murder." And now he intended to lead her back to the matter at hand, the stuff of his current book. "I think it's obvious that Cable Babitt cooperated-no, he conspired to send Oren away."
Sally Polk pushed the plate of cookies across the desk. "Joshua Hobbs was only fifteen years old." Her eyes gleamed with genuine interest. "Were there lots of young boys in that old novel of yours?"
Apparently, the sheriff had called ahead to warn his people off. No one took notice of Oren when he entered the private office alone and locked the door behind him. He pulled Cable Babitt's keys from his pocket and opened the credenza to plunder the man's files.
The pile of old case folders made less than an hour's read-a waste of time, mostly rumor and hearsay. William Swahn had done a more thorough job of interviewing the people of Coventry. Oren had already formed an opinion of the sheriff's incompetence, but there must be more evidence than this. Turning back to the credenza, he opened the lower drawer to thumb through unrelated files, looking for something out of place, and he found an unmarked red folder.
Revelation.
The sheriff had lied to him about never committing the old alibi statements to paper.
There had been no formal interview with young Isabelle Winston, perhaps because Cable Babitt was, at core, a kind man. The teenager had submitted her four-page story in longhand, a schoolgirl script of curlicues and rampant sex in the deep woods with Oren Hobbs. Its content was the stuff of romance novels and bad movies. The wording described nothing more than a young girl's lack of experience, and it inadvertently exposed her as a virgin. Twenty years ago, the sheriff had probably slipped this statement into a drawer and smiled as he let her go unpunished for lying.
Oren moved on to alibi number two, a more official document. Evelyn Straub's statement had been transcribed from a taped interview, only one page of words neatly typed. He recognized her signature below the final line.
EVELYN STRAUB: Usually, I screwed the boy at the hotel. There's always an empty room to use. There was only one time at the cabin. I never took anyone there for sex. It was special. But that day, I made an exception.
SHERIFF BABITT: Why? I need something I can believe in, Evelyn.
EVELYN STRAUB: Too many birthdays, Cable. I'd just broken every mirror in that cabin. And then I looked through a back window and saw Oren out there on the trail. I needed him. I just needed him.
SHERIFF BABITT: And what about Josh?
EVELYN STRAUB: He went on ahead. He took that old hiking trail that runs past the cabin.
SHERIFF BABITT: So Josh goes up the trail by himself-believing God knows what-and Oren was fine with that?
EVELYN STRAUB: I think Oren stayed with me that day because I was crying. And my feet were bleeding.
She went on to describe the details of her crime: the carnal knowledge of a boy.
To make her lie more credible, Evelyn had told the truth. Except for the mention of Josh, she had perfectly described a memorable day. He recalled those broken mirrors-her fear-the bloody cost of vanity. He had carried her up the stairs to the bedroom so that the broken shards could not cut her soles anymore. After laying her down on the bed, he had washed her bleeding feet and bound the wounds with strips of old sheets. At the end of a day in that bed, their names were still Hey Boy and Mrs. Straub. They had seen the moon sail past the bedroom window, and the light of the sun had awakened them in the morning. But he had been sixteen years old on that day, not seventeen. And she had described their first time together-not the last.
A full year would pass before Josh was lost and Oren was banished. On long nights in far-off New Mexico, he had sometimes lain awake and wondered if the mirrors had gone after her again and left her bleeding.
The next page was another interview. Though the sheriff had led him to believe otherwise, apparently William Swahn-another man without an alibi-had made a formal statement.
All of the previous coroners had been funeral directors. Dr. Martingale, DDS, was the first dentist ever elected to that county office. At the burial site in the woods, the new coroner posed for a photo opportunity with the press, and he smiled broadly, knowing that fame was only as far away as the dinner hour and the evening news.
The sheriff's evidence officer had no need of a dentist's skills in the excavation of bones, but the reporters had used Dr. Martingale as a human shield when they broke through the line of yellow crime-scene tape.
And now, at the request of a cameraman, the coroner obligingly jumped into the grave. "More bones," he said, holding one high for the camera.
An angry deputy yelled, "Get the fuck out of there!"
The press corps salivated. Though the obscenity would be bleeped for the television audience, four-letter words were the finest kind. Cameras whirred and still photographs were snapped as the humiliated Dr. Martingale climbed out of the hole.
State troopers arrived en masse to herd reporters back behind the enemy line of the fallen crime-scene tape. The next people to cross the line carried screens and trowels, soft brushes and other tools for unearthing the dead. Reporters identified them as university students and their archaeology professor. The group's official escort was a gray-haired middle-aged woman in a shapeless flowered dress. "Call me Sally," said the agent from the California Bureau of Investigation.
A reporter yelled, "I thought this case belonged to the County Sheriff 's Office! Is this a turf war?"
"Oh my, no," said Special Agent Polk in a folksy tone of Perish the thought, "We're just here to lend a hand."
The county sheriff was not available for comment. According to his deputies, he had left the scene on a matter of urgent business elsewhere.
Cable Babitt was hard at work in his own backyard. He squatted before the open door of his toolshed, swinging a hammer and bringing it down on the edge of his shovel-clang-obliterating a distinctive nick, the mark of a grave robber.
When he was done with this chore, he entered the shed and unlocked a tin cabinet. He stood there for a while, eyes adjusting to the poor light, and then he opened the small metal door to expose a most precious object. It had been protected by dusty plastic and darkness these past twenty years. He unwrapped the knapsack. Marred by only a few spots of old dried blood, it was still as green and bright as the day Josh Hobbs had dropped it in the woods.