The Bone House (39 page)

    He
noticed something else, too. From the woods at the rear, a second set of
footprints made impressions in the long grass leading toward the back door.

    Two
visitors. One in front, one in back.

    Cab
approached the porch warily. He saw tools strewn across the floor and patches of
sawdust. The front door was closed. He climbed the steps, but he couldn't see
inside, because the drapes were closed across the windows.

    He
rang the bell. When no one answered, he pounded loudly.

    'Mr
Hoffman!' he called. 'It's Cab Bolton.'

    There
was no response from inside.

    Cab
nudged the door with his shoulder. When it didn't open, he took a handkerchief
from his pocket and carefully twisted the knob. The door was locked. He stood
on the porch, hands in his pockets, and surveyed the yard. To his left, beyond
the house, he saw a detached garage. The door was open; a car was parked
inside. Rutted tracks led in and out, but they didn't look recent. Hoffman
hadn't driven anywhere today.

    His
gut sounded an alarm. He reached inside his coat and extracted his service
Glock, which he cradled loosely in his hand. He descended the steps and
followed the house to the rear, noting the footsteps in the grass, which were
mostly indistinguishable, with no visible tread marks. The rear door of the house
was ajar. Beyond the door, the frame of the roof angled upward, and huge
windows looked out on the water. In the yard, he saw a lonely deckchair beneath
the shade of a mammoth oak tree, near the sharp drop-off to the shore. In the
stretch of gray-blue on the horizon, he spotted a dot of white where a ferry
cruised through the passage toward Washington Island.

    Cab
approached the open door and called again. 'Mr Hoffman!'

    The
door led into the dinette area of the kitchen. At the doorway, he stepped out
of his loafers and crossed the threshold in black socks. He was near a butcher
block table placed in front of the windows. The kitchen was on his right. The
house was warm, and in the shut- up space, he smelled the metallic smoke of
gunpowder. Above it was something fetid, a dead smell of excrement and blood.

    Cab
swore under his breath.

    He
followed the hallway toward the front of the house, passing doors for two
bedrooms on his right and stairs to a loft. At the end of the hallway, the
house opened up into a large living room with a high ceiling. He saw the body
lying halfway on the carpet behind the front door. Unspent shotgun shells
gleamed in the floor. Blood made a spider on the tile of the foyer and soaked
into a pool in the fibers of the carpet. Peter Hoffman was a limp mess of
sprawled limbs. He had no face. The blast from the gun had obviously been dead
on into his skull while the man lay on the ground.

    Cab
reached for his phone. He was about to call Felix Reich when he stopped.

    He
knew what would happen when the crew from the sheriff's department arrived.
Reich would take a statement and get him out of the house, which was exactly
what Cab would do if it was his own turf. Before he was banished, Cab wanted to
know if Hoffman had left behind any clues about what he intended to tell him.
Whatever information the man had, it had been enough to get him killed.

    He
backtracked to the kitchen. Based on the cane and pushed-back chair, he concluded
that Hoffman had been sitting at the dinette table before he made his way to
the front door and was shot. There was nothing on the table except a pen and an
open bottle of Jameson's. On the kitchen counter, he saw the man's bulky key
ring and a pair of glasses. He checked the master bedroom, which was impeccably
neat, and spotted a computer and printer on one wall. When he lifted the top of
the printer, the glass was clear. The wastebasket beside the desk was empty. He
pulled open the top drawer and found pens, paper clips, staples, and a neatly
folded Door County map. That was all.

    He
did a quick review of the filing cabinet near the man's desk, but the folders
mostly revealed tax and property records, which would take hours to study in
detail. He nudged the computer mouse with the knuckle of his finger, but the
computer had been powered down.

    Cab
frowned. Nothing.

    He
checked his watch and knew the clock was ticking. He needed to call the
sheriff. He made his way back to the living room and stared down at Peter
Hoffman.

    'What
did you want to tell me?' he said aloud to the corpse at his feet.

    At
that moment, the body began to sing to him in Steven Tyler's voice. It was an
Aerosmith song. 'Dude Looks Like a Lady.'

    Cab
started in surprise before realizing that the music came from the dead man's
pocket. It was a phone. Cab bent down and used two fingers to reach inside
Hoffman's right pocket and slide the phone into his hand. He answered
neutrally. 'Yeah?'

    'Hello?
Mark? Who's this?'

    'You
first,' Cab said.

    'This
is Hilary Bradley. I don't know who you are, but I think you've got my
husband's phone.'

    Cab
shook his head in sad disbelief. This wasn't going to be a happy call, it's Cab
Bolton, Mrs Bradley.'

    
'Detective?
'
He could hear her freeze with shock and surprise. 'How on earth did you get
Mark's phone?'

    He
didn't answer her question. 'Do you know how he lost it?'

    'No,
I don't.'

    'Where
is your husband now?'

    'As
far as I know, he's on the ferry back to the island. What's going on? Where did
you find his phone?'

    'I
can't tell you that right now.'

    'Excuse
me?'

    'You
won't be able to get it back.'

    'Why
not?'

    'I'm
sorry,' Cab said. 'That's all I can say.'

    'Is
something wrong?'

    'I'm
sorry,' he repeated. 'I have to hang up now. It would be better if you didn't
call this number again.'

    He
ended the call before she could say anything more. She'd know what it was all
about soon enough. The sheriff was going to be out for blood, finding Mark
Bradley's phone in the pocket of Peter Hoffman, lying dead in his own house.
Peter Hoffman, who was Reich's lifelong friend. Peter Hoffman, who swore he had
information that could help put Mark Bradley behind bars.

    He
bent down next to Hoffman's body. As he slid the phone back into the dead man's
pocket, his fingers grazed something else. Paper. He extracted a single folded
sheet with his fingertips, and when he unfolded it, he found an enlargement of
a map showing a small portion of the NorDoor section of the county stretching
west to east from the town of Ellison Bay to Newport State Park. Nothing was
written on the page itself.

    Curious,
Cab reached into Hoffman's pocket again and dug to the bottom. This time he
found something metal. He pulled it out and cupped it in his hand.

    It
was a key.

    Hilary
saw Mark's face as he drove off the ferry and knew that something had gone
terribly wrong. He drove by her, oblivious to everything around him. His face
was pale. His eyes were blank and distracted. She hit the horn to get his
attention, and he pulled off the road when he spotted the Taurus. He got out
and walked toward her. He climbed into the passenger seat, but when she hugged
him, he sat motionless, not responding.

    'What
is it?' she asked. 'What's wrong?'

    'Peter
Hoffman's dead,' Mark told her.

    'Oh,
my God, what happened?'

    'I
don't know, but I know who they're going to blame for it.'

    Hilary
stared at the ferry port. They were behind schedule, and she knew they'd be
rushing to get the half-dozen cars on board. 'Back up, back up,' she told him.
'What the hell's going on?'

    Mark
ran his hands through his hair. 'Hoffman confronted me at the market. He was
spouting off about how I'd killed Glory. It got physical. He hit me. Cracked me
right in the jaw.'

    Hilary
closed her eyes. 'What did you do?'

    'I
pushed him, and he fell. Everybody saw it happen.'

    'You
mean he died? Right there?'

    'No,
no, no, no, but everyone knows there was a fight.'

    'Mark,
you're not making any sense. What happened to your phone?'

    'I
dropped it at the store when Hoffman hit me. When I realized it was gone, I
called my number, and Hoffman told me he had it. So when the ferry was delayed,
I drove to his house. I wanted to apologize, get my phone back, and get the
hell out of there. But he was dead. Someone blew his head off. It was so recent
that I could still
smell
it. It must have happened in the fifteen
minutes or so between when we talked and I drove over there.'

    'What
did you do?'

    'I
left. I ran.' He added, 'I didn't kill him, Hil. It wasn't me.'

    Hilary
cupped her hands in front of her mouth. Her mind raced. 'They already found
your phone,' she murmured.

    'What?'

    'I called
you. I forgot about your message. Cab Bolton answered. He must have been at
Hoffman's house, which means he found the body
and
your phone.'

    Mark
shook his head. 'They're going to crucify me.'

    Hilary
wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she wasn't going to fool either of them
with false hope. He was the obvious suspect. The accusations, the fight, the
phone calls, all of it played against him, and all of it could be proved by
witnesses and records. She felt a sense of uneasiness herself, however much she
tried to pretend she was immune. Hesitation. Doubt. Every time she quelled it,
something happened that pushed her deeper into shadow.

    He
saw it in her face. 'Even you're wondering if I'm a murderer.'

    'I'm
not.'

    'You're
thinking, he's got a temper. Hoffman pushed him too far, and he lost it and
killed him.'

    'Don't
talk that way, Mark.' She didn't want him to know what was in her head. He
did
have a temper. He
had
been pushed too far. None of that mattered
now.

    Mark
reached out and covered her hand. 'I'm not lying. I didn't do this. Any of
this. Not Glory. Not Hoffman.' He stared at her and added, 'Not Tresa, either.'

    'Tell
me exactly what you did at Hoffman's house.'

    'I
wasn't there for more than a minute or two. I drove to his house from the port.
I walked up the driveway, and I saw that the front door was open. I called
Hoffman's name, but he didn't answer. I went inside and found him in the
hallway on the floor.'

    'What
did you do next?'

    'I
got the hell out of there. I slammed the door behind me, and I ran to the car
and went back to the ferry port.'

    Hilary
glanced at Mark's hands. He was wearing leather gloves. 'Did you have the
gloves on when you went inside the house?'

    'Sure.'

    'So
you didn't leave fingerprints?'

    'I
guess not.'

    'What
about footprints?'

    Mark
nodded. 'I left plenty.'

    'Get
rid of your shoes,' she told him.

    'What?'

    'Drive
to a deserted beach before you go home. Throw them into the lake as far as you
can. Make sure no one sees you.'

    'That's
crazy. I'm not going to do that.'

    'Mark,
we can't let them prove you were there. The footprints are the only things to
put you at his house. Get your clothes in the washer; too. You may have tracked
blood from the scene.'

    'Hil,
forget it. I borrowed a phone at the pier. I called my number, and I pulled out
of the ferry line. You don't think people will remember that? If I try to cover
it up, it will only make me look guilty.'

    He
was right, but Hilary didn't want to hear it. Her voice rose as she felt anger
and despair carrying her away. 'You can't give them rope to hang around your
neck. They're not going to care about the truth. All they want is to put you in
prison. They want to take you away from me, and I am
not
going to let
that happen.'