Done with this drivel, he turned to his unfinished book, an exercise in humility and an act of devotion to a young artist, who had felt nothing but revulsion for his biographer. The thick manuscript on his desk only needed a proper ending-the truth.
At the sound of a rap, rap, rap, he parted the drapes to look out the window. How prescient of Sally Polk to pick this moment to come knocking on his door.
Oren pulled the evidence carton from the trunk of the black Taurus. He carried it up the porch steps and set it down at the feet of his visitor, Sally Polk. The cardboard box was clearly stamped with the initials of the agency that owned it, the California Bureau of Investigation.
"You owe me," said Agent Polk. "I got all the bodies released for burial." She sat down in the rocking chair and settled a purse on her lap. "And I loaned Miss Winston a state trooper to get her through this day. That boy has orders to shoot reporters on sight."
"Thank you," said Oren. "I didn't think she'd want any help from me." He ignored the mystery box that sat between them.
Sally Polk rocked slowly, and her words were unhurried. "The judge came in to claim the remains of Mary Kent. Him and me, we had a nice chat."
"You've been feeding my father brownies?"
"Lots of them. It was a nice long chat. He's worried about you. He says you have a penchant for taking on blame that doesn't belong to you." She opened her purse and pulled out a small notebook. "I got a pathologist's preliminary finding on William Swahn." She flipped to a page of neatly printed lines, ripped it from the spiral and handed it to him. "Massive internal injuries that didn't come from the fall. That man was as good as dead before you got to the house."
"I would've been there sooner if I'd checked the answering machine when we-"
"Hindsight should be against the law." Sally Polk said this in a tone that would brook no contradiction. "You're not at fault. One of Cable's deputies called him at home last night. He was only a few minutes away from the lodge, plenty of time to save those people. But he thought I was behind it-a trick to get him out of his house so I could search it. And of course, Isabelle Winston blames herself."
Oren nodded his understanding. Lessons from Hannah-guilt always followed a death in the family. "I heard you arrested Cable."
"But I'm not sure what to charge him with yet." Tired of waiting for Oren to take an interest in her carton, she bent down to open it and retrieved a large plastic evidence bag. Inside it was a wad of bright green canvas. She pulled it out and spread it on the lap of her flowered dress. "Can you identify this knapsack?"
"It can't be Josh's. It doesn't look twenty years old."
"It's been in Cable's toolshed all these years. He kept it to back up your alibi-or so he says. He told me Mrs. Straub made a statement to account for your time that day. And her story places Josh on a trail by himself."
Oren kept his silence and waited for Evelyn's old lie to come unraveled.
Sally Polk folded the green canvas into her evidence bag. "The sheriff says he found this knapsack not too far from her cabin. But I've only got his word on that. He's been up half the night, running his mouth. Oh." She paused for a quick smile. "And he gave you up."
"He told you I took the red folder."
"With Mrs. Straub's statement."
In lieu of a lie, Oren shrugged this off. "If that's all-"
"Well, no. He said there were other statements in that folder. Isabelle Winston gave you a second alibi. So one woman's story saves your ass, but two of them can hang you. It's lucky the sheriff kept the knapsack to back up Mrs. Straub. Too bad he never vouchered it as evidence." She lowered the evidence bag into the carton at her feet. "He also spilled his guts about leaving Josh's bones for your father to find." She picked up another evidence bag, a smaller one. But then she put it back in the cardboard box and closed the flaps, as if having second thoughts about showing it to him.
Yeah, right.
"Let's say the bones were left for bait," said Sally Polk. "That's one way to get you back here-so Cable could draw a target on your chest. Well, then Mrs. Straub's statement and that knapsack could be worth something. You think the sheriff was planning to sell them to your father, maybe to pad out the old retirement fund?"
Oren admired the lady's logic, but he shook his head. "Ever hear of Hanlon's Razor? It goes like this-never attribute to malice that which can be put down to stupidity."
"Amen," she said. "Cable Babitt's got a long history of stupidity." With a slap to the arm of the rocker, she said, "Okay, we'll go with that. But I'm still investigating the sheriff's department. It'll take quite a while to clean up all his messes." She opened her purse and dipped in one hand, then looked up to give him a slow-spreading grin. "I need an outsider as interim county sheriff-just till the next election." She pulled out an envelope and handed it to him. "That's from the Justice Department. You've been drafted."
"I don't want the job."
"But you'll take it." The clasp on her purse clicked shut. "My ace card is Hannah Rice." Her eyebrows arched to say, Gotcha. And now she waited for his reaction.
She would wait forever.
He had known this day would come; he had that much faith in Sally Polk. Hannah was his only weakness, and he worried over this tiny hostage, but he would never let it show.
"It's a colorful town you've got here." The CBI agent looked out over the meadow. The chair rocked. The clouds rolled by. "A girl couldn't ask for more suspects. Like your housekeeper for instance. She's been flying below the radar all her life. No driver's license, no Social Security number. Housework is probably the only kind of job she could get. Sounds like a fugitive to me. I could look into that… or not."
"Nobody in this town would believe anything bad of Hannah-even if it was true. And you're running a bluff."
"Okay, I lied." She said this with the shrug of one shoulder, giving in way too easily. "I already did a background check. There's no record of any woman born under that name. It's an alias. I bet you didn't know that… Your father didn't."
"And he didn't care, did he?"
"Don't you want to know what she's done?"
Seconds ticked by in silence, and then Oren was declared the master of the waiting game, the staring contest, and he also won for the widest smile.
"Okay, there's no warrants out on your housekeeper." The CBI agent put up both hands in a show of good-natured surrender. Once more, she bent down to open her carton. "Lucky for me, I always palm two aces." She pulled out the second evidence bag, the small one. The metallic object inside was partially obscured by paperwork. "Cable thinks Ad Winston killed that lady tourist and your brother. So we know that's gotta be wrong." She handed the bag to Oren. "My people found signs of recent digging behind the Winston stable. That was in the ground."
The small bag was heavy. When Oren turned it over to see what the documents had hidden, he was looking down at a ruined camera, corroded and crusted with dirt.
"There's damn few legible markings," said Sally Polk, "but I know it's an old Canon FTB. When I send it to the lab, they'll raise the rest of the serial number. The stamp that imprints the metal goes deeper than the corrosion. But you knew that. You're a cop." The agent opened her purse and pulled out a county sheriff's badge. "My cop." She polished the gold star with the hem of her flowered dress.