Bone Harvest Read online

  The truck bumped over the ruts in the dirt parking lot. He pulled right up to the building, trying to park the vehicle as close to the wall as possible and as far out of the sun. If he planned it right, he wouldn’t need to turn the air-conditioning on when he drove the deputy back to the sheriff’s office.

  “The cooperative is open today?” she asked.

  “Yeah, this is a busy time for us right now. Farmers working nonstop in the fields. We cut hours way back in the winter.”

  He hopped out of the truck. Before he could walk around to open the door for the deputy she had climbed down. He guessed he should treat her like a cop and not like a woman. She followed him into the store.

  At the entrance, she stopped and looked around the warehouse. He looked around it too, trying to see it the way she might. Nothing fancy about the place. They had opened the back sliding door and a nice breeze was moving through the space. Riding lawn mowers were lined up face-out from along the far side of the warehouse. They were having a sale on picnic tables and there were a couple set up near the cash register. A sweet dusty smell, a mixture of birdseed and various ground meal products, filled the air.

  He glanced over at the register. Tim was ringing up a pile of items for Kate Thompson and her bevy of six kids. He remembered that his son wasn’t working today.

  Watkins turned and looked at him. “Where are the pesticides kept?”

  “We keep them locked in the back.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “A precaution that didn’t exactly work.”

  “Have you ever had anything stolen before?” she asked.

  “The occasional item, like any retailer. Small hand tools such as wire cutters or hammers, things that fit into pockets. A few years back, some guy tried to walk off with a lawn mower. We caught him halfway down the next block, pushing the thing as fast as he could go. That’s about it.”

  “Would it be possible to resell these pesticides?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know who’d buy them. It’s not like there’s a black market for pesticides. But it’s possible.”

  “So do you think someone stole them for use on a farm?”

  “More likely, but it’s an odd time of year to use either one. Not so much the Caridon, but certainly the Parazone.”

  “How did the burglar get into the warehouse?”

  “I think he must have had a key. There was no sign of forced entry into the building.”

  He walked her back to the storage area. “However, he didn’t have a key to the storage area, so he pounded the lock right off the door.” He pointed at the fastener hanging by its hinges, the door bashed in like it had been hammered on. A chair was pushed up to the door to keep it closed. He pulled the chair away.

  “How did he do that?”

  “One of our mauls. We found it lying right on the floor by the door. Don’t worry. We didn’t touch it. I put it in a big bag and set it in my office.”

  “Who all has a key to the warehouse?”

  “Petey and I. Our manager, Cliff Snowden. Any one of our past employees might have a key. Who knows how many are floating around.” He stopped for a moment and then added, “And the two young guys who sometimes open up. Tim Loch and Ray Sorenson.”

  “Is Ray any relation?”

  “He’s my son.” That was the second reason he had a bad feeling.

  She looked at him and nodded, not saying anything.

  “There’s one more thing you have to see. He left something for us. We haven’t touched them. Only Petey and I know about this. We’ve kept it quiet.” He ushered her into the storage room and pointed at the shelf where the pesticides had been.

  There, sitting on the shelf in a row, were seven oddly shaped cream-colored pellets, all about an inch long.

  In midwinter, when cold froze everything out of the air, Rich forgot what a July night could smell like. In order to store it up, he closed his eyes to take in the scents more fully. The smells rode the humid air as if they had been simmering all the warm day—a frothy stew of sweet wild roses, soft grasses, even a hint of the earth’s dankness. A potent brew.

  When Rich opened his eyes, he saw that the soft blue was falling from the sky, the lake was turning a darker teal, and the bluffs on the far side of the river had gone somber green like the underside of pine boughs. He sat on his side porch, watching the sun set. So close to the summer solstice, it was past nine o’clock when it finally went down.

  He was waiting for Claire.

  Claire had called twenty minutes ago and said she was on her way.

  He wasn’t going to get mad. That did no good. And he certainly understood, because, from time to time, his pheasant business called for long hours with little regard to his personal life.

  But he didn’t feel he was in the right mood to ask her to marry him.

  He had to work up to it. He wanted her to be in the right place. He wanted it to be a moment they could both remember with pleasure in the long years to come. So he had tucked the ring into the top drawer of his dresser. It would come out again soon. He didn’t want to put it off for long.

  Claire’s patrol car pulled into the driveway. She jumped out and rushed up the steps. Because of her haste, he worried that she needed to check back into the department, that she wouldn’t be able to stay. But then she kissed him and swung around to stare in the direction he had been looking. The last glint of the sun lay across the horizon like a thin red thread.

  “I didn’t completely miss the sunset,” she said, leaning into him. His arms automatically went around her waist.

  “Nope.”

  She turned in his arms and kissed him again, more slowly, with more feeling. He felt as if he had been waiting for her for a long time. Somehow they fit together.

  Then she pulled back and smiled up at him. “I haven’t completely missed our date, either, have I?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Are there still things to eat? I’m famished.”

  “I waited for you.”

  “You are the best guy. What have I done to deserve you?”

  “Existed.” He could tell that she was pumped up about whatever had taken her away the whole day long. When she got her teeth into something, she seemed more full of energy, as if her whole life had been elevated a notch or two.

  He enjoyed watching her dig into what she was doing, but he did worry sometimes about the toll it might be taking on her. Then he laughed at himself. Doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers probably all had more stress in their lives. Serious crime didn’t happen very often in Pepin County, the smallest county in the state of Wisconsin.

  The table was set for two. The ice had melted in the water glasses, but that didn’t matter.

  “I’m going to go change,” she told him.

  She ran off to his bedroom, where she kept a few pairs of pants and some shirts. He had given Claire her own drawer.

  Earlier in the afternoon, when he realized she might not be on time for dinner, he had modified the menu. Boiled potatoes became cold potato salad. He had made a pheasant ragout that could be reheated rather than the grilled pheasant he had planned on.

  He turned the heat on under the ragout. He brought out the fresh loaf of bread he had bought at the farmer’s market that morning, and then the plate of thick-sliced tomatoes.

  She appeared in a tight white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair was loose. She looked lovely.

  “Wine?” he asked.

  “You bet.”

  He poured them both a glass and they clinked them together. After taking a sip, he started serving their food. She looked at him over the rim of her glass and smiled. “This looks wonderful.”

  “What went on today?” he asked. He could tell she was dying to talk about it.

  She launched right in. “Somebody stole two kinds of pesticides from the Farmer’s Cooperative. Do you do any business with them?”

  “Once in a while I get some feed from the co-op. Who’s in charge over ther
e this year? Sorenson?”

  She nodded, then added, “He’s pretty upset.”

  “He’s a very conscientious guy.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I think he feels responsible. And these are no lightweight pesticides we’re talking about here. He gave me the warning labels off both the products. I looked them over before I left the office tonight. Both of them are fatal if you mishandle them. You probably know all this, country boy that you are.” She lifted her fork and took a bite of the ragout. “This is beyond good.”

  “Any ideas who did it? Someone got a grudge against the cooperative, against Sorenson?” he asked.

  “Could be. We’ll start out by checking anyone who has a connection to it, including former employees. One of the kids who works there is Sorenson’s son.”

  “Awkward.”

  “I’ve got a lot of people to talk to tomorrow. We fingerprinted the place, but I’ll be surprised if we find anything. Unless it was some kids doing it for a prank. Anyone serious would make sure they didn’t leave any prints.”

  “I don’t like the idea of some kid running around with those products. Thank God school isn’t on. Can you imagine what could happen if a kid decided to fumigate the school?”

  “I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Somehow pesticides don’t seem glamorous enough for a kid to use. Probably someone who decided they’d been paying high prices for all these products long enough. We’ll check on all the farmers who have bought these products in the past. Someone down on their luck? Who knows?”

  “Well, if anyone can find out what’s going on, you can.”

  “I hope so. If some farmer decided to steal them and then just use them on their fields, we might never know.”

  Claire was holding something in. He could tell.

  She took a sip of wine and then looked up at him and said, “Whoever did it left us a little memento to think on.” Claire paused as she swirled the wine around in her glass. He saw fear in her eyes as she said, “Bones.”

  It was exactly twelve o’clock. The second of July. Time for step two. It had to be done the way it had to be done. He sat in the truck and waited until it was three minutes after midnight.

  He had mixed the spray carefully. He had read the sheets on it a couple times over. One fluid ounce for three gallons of water. He poured it into the pump that he had used to spray fertilizer on his lawn. It was all loaded into the back of the truck. He had an old tarp wrapped around it so it wouldn’t tip over.

  You had to be very careful with this stuff. He knew that. It was like handling dynamite. Never get too cocky. It would come back on you. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and long pants even though it was still close to eighty degrees out. He had his waterproof gloves in the truck. And he had brought an old pair of sunglasses, even though the sun had already gone down. Might look funny, but he didn’t think anyone would notice.

  He didn’t think anyone would be around.

  The town died at night. A few bars had a scattering of cars around them, but there wasn’t much to do in Durand anymore after dark, not like it had been when he was a kid. Then there had been restaurants and movie theaters. Friday night had been the night everyone went to town. Didn’t happen anymore.

  He checked his watch again. Time to get in place to do the next step. This was step two. He had thought about it and this needed to be the second step. Everyone would understand when they knew the truth. It would all make sense.

  He drove the truck up the hill on the west side of town, away from the Chippewa River. No one even passed him on the road. He drove past the sheriff’s department, kept going up the hill, then pulled over on the shoulder for two minutes. There were three cars parked in front of the building. He would have to risk it. It would only take him one minute. He had practiced.

  He drove back to the sheriff’s department and parked right in front. That way if someone drove by, they would think he was there on business. For this run he was driving an old truck he had put in storage and he had rubbed mud on the license plates so it would be hard to read. Better to be cautious.

  After taking the pump out of the back of the truck, he put on his gloves and sunglasses. He kept the pump hidden in the brown-paper grocery bag with just the nozzle sticking out. He walked around the side of the building and came to the front stairs.

  In front of the building, next to the stairs leading up to the doors, was a big flower garden. He knew the names of all the flowers because of his mother: petunias, roses, snapdragons, pansies. Allysum encircled the others. He loved the smell of that small white flower. Intoxicatingly sweet.

  He had to be careful not to breathe.

  He looked at his watch: 12:07.

  He took a deep breath, then held it. Seven passes over the garden, a thick mist coming out of the end of the nozzle.

  There had been seven of them. He wanted no one to forget that.

  CHAPTER 3

  Had there been a frost last night? Debby Lowe wondered as she stared at the remains of the flower bed. For a moment she could think of no other explanation for what was in front of her eyes. She was standing outside the Pepin County office building that included the sheriff’s department, where she worked as a receptionist.

  Friday afternoon, when she had left work, the flowers had looked fine—the allysum mounding up nicely, the snapdragons taller than she had ever seen, the marigolds full of bright orange flowers and many buds. She had been using Miracle-Gro and it was doing the trick. She watered them religiously, checking on them often.

  Debby had planted all the flowers herself after consulting with the design person at the garden center. The sheriff had let her take on the job of planting the garden as part of her normal workload. She couldn’t believe her luck that she was going to get paid to garden. She loved it more than anything else in the world and dreamed that someday she might be able to take classes and go into landscape design.

  Debby remembered her last glance at the flowers—they had filled the bed with their bright colors. This morning they looked blasted. Dried, shriveled, straw-colored growths. Had they been through some sort of small nuclear winter?

  What could have happened to her flowers?

  Had someone done something to them? Sprayed them with weed killer? Why would anyone do such a mean thing? She felt like sitting down on the sidewalk and howling; then she got mad.

  She ran up the steps with determination. She would not let someone get away with this awful act of vandalism. The deputy sheriffs weren’t the only ones who could solve a crime.

  She walked up to her desk and stopped only long enough to drop her purse on top of all her work. Judy gave her a look, but Debby didn’t want to talk to her. She was going to take it right to the top. She strode through the department and knocked on the door to the sheriff’s office.

  His voice boomed through the door, “Come on in.”

  When she pushed into the room, she was surprised to see four faces turn her way: the sheriff’s, two deputies, and an older man she had seen before around town, but whose name she didn’t remember.

  Debby felt her lips quiver. She wasn’t accustomed to all this attention. But the flower bed was her responsibility. Gathering herself together, she thought of what her bed of flowers looked like now—not even good enough for compost. All her work for the last two months destroyed.

  “Debby?” The sheriff rose from behind his desk as he said her name. His face was full of concern for her. Everyone in the room seemed to be staring at her.

  She tried to say something, but the words stuck in her throat. They were all waiting for her to speak.

  Such a horrible little act, killing the flowers in the bed in front of the sheriff’s office. It worried Claire. It felt bigger than what it appeared. She sensed a terrible anger behind the devastation.

  A group of people gathered around in front of the flower bed as if standing at a funeral. Debby sobbed and Judy tried to comfort her. As soon as they could determine that the bed wasn’t
still lethal, they should pull up all the plants so Debby wouldn’t have to look at them anymore.

  Claire wondered how long it would be before the ground could be planted again.

  Ron Sorenson crouched, examining the destroyed flowers. “It could be our guy. Hard to tell by looking. But the desiccation is consistent with Parazone. I don’t know what else would work this fast or this effectively.”

  “If it is Parazone, is it still dangerous?” she asked, not knowing if that was the right term to use.

  “Well, this product has an REI of at least twelve hours. Do we know what time this happened?”

  “All I can tell you for sure is it happened after dark and before morning. What do you mean, REI?”

  “Sorry. Restricted-entry interval. Depending on how heavy it was sprayed, people should stay away from it for twelve to twenty-four hours.”

  “So should we all be standing here?” she asked him.

  “Probably not.”

  Claire relayed the information to the sheriff and he shooed everyone back into the building, except Claire and Sorenson. They stepped back from the garden and continued to look at it.

  “What can you tell me?” Claire asked.

  Sorenson pulled on his nose and stared at the devastated flower bed. “Whoever it was knew what he was doing. He covered the whole bed and he did it pretty evenly. The desiccation is thorough and complete. That’s how Parazone works. It dries up all the green plant tissue. I figure he used a pump sprayer to do such a small area and to get such an even application. He didn’t get much on the lawn. The grass around the bed doesn’t look bad at all. He was very careful.”

  Claire was amazed, as she often was, by what an expert could tell you about a subject you knew nothing about. She would have noticed little of what Sorenson had seen. “So he knows what he’s doing.”

  Sorenson nodded.

  “I’m not sure that makes me feel better,” said Claire. She handed him a pair of plastic gloves. “I thought we both might need these.”

  “I’ll pick a plant and give it to our agronomist. He should be able to tell for sure what pesticide was applied to this bed.”