Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [10]
The clock on the wall struck the hour and his mind came back to the office. Every wall lined with bookshelves, every bookshelf filled to the point of collapse. Agnes didn’t dare set foot in the place. She was afraid that a pile of books might fall and bury her.
More and more often he felt himself leaving the world around him to dwell in the landscape of his mind. At least he had seen no evidence of Alzheimer’s. He just tended to drift off frequently.
He didn’t believe one could think too much. As he got older, he felt his mind enlarge. Not the real shape of it, but its ability to sense how large everything was and take it in. He loved this feeling. The universe was bigger than human beings. That was all there was to it. They could come or they could go, but the universe would endure forever. That was as close to religion as he got.
He pulled himself back to the task at hand. He needed to get the column done. What had gone on fifty years ago this week? The Korean conflict was just heating up. McCarthy was beginning to make his presence felt, and wasn’t it a shame he was one of the senators from Wisconsin. Even though he hadn’t voted for him, Harold had always felt bad that his home state had inflicted that madman on the country.
Harold pulled out a stack of papers and started reading through the ones from the first week in July 1952. One article jumped out at him. He leaned closer and read it through. It had been the biggest crime that had ever taken place in the county. He remembered the incident well. Reporters had descended upon Durand from all over the country to get the news. It had horrified the state for many months. It had never been solved.
CHAPTER 4
The boy was growing out of his body. Claire watched him come into the sheriff’s department and then stood to let him know she saw him. Ray Sorenson. He was his father’s son—taller than his father, over six feet, hair like dried wheat, big hands, sunburned nose. Not a handsome kid, but one with potential. He just wasn’t put together right yet. Time would tell.
As he walked toward her, he hunched his shoulders and dragged his feet. If he stood up straight and tall, he would be closer to being a man, Claire thought. Maybe he wasn’t ready for that yet.
“My dad said you wanted to talk to me.” His eyes were on the floor.
“Thanks for coming by, Ray. I’m a deputy sheriff for the county. Claire Watkins, but you can just call me Claire. I assume you know what happened at the cooperative?”
He nodded, standing with his weight on one side of his body and then shifting it to the other side. His cutoff jeans hung loose and low on him; she imagined them caught on his hipbones. A big black T-shirt covered the top of the jeans so nothing inappropriate showed. Nike tennis shoes with the shoelaces trailing and the tongues hanging out completed the ensemble. But he looked clean.
“Sit down.” She pushed a chair his way and he sat. “Can I get you a Coke?”
Ray raised his head at the suggestion and she saw that his eyes were like his father’s—light blue, like cornflowers. A Scandinavian blue. They seemed to draw light to his face. “Yeah, a Coke would be great.”
“Hot out there, isn’t it?”
She walked to the vending machine and got them both a Coke. She didn’t usually drink colas, but decided to make an exception on this hot summer day. Also, it would be good to join him in a drink—he might talk easier.
She handed him the Coke and he popped the tab and drank half the can in one swallow. “Thirsty?” she asked.
“Yeah, I just got up,” he told her. “Didn’t have time to eat anything. This is breakfast.”
“Ray, please sit down. I need to ask you some questions.”
He folded himself into the chair next to her desk.
“Where were you Friday night?”
She could see his face fall in on itself. “Just out.”
“I’m not your parents. You don’t need to worry about what you tell me. I’m not going to give you a scolding. This is serious. I do need to know where you were and what you were doing. Were you with your