Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [2]
Not far now. The steps counted off in his mind as he came up to the indentation in the earth. He wondered if anyone in the county even knew this was here anymore. Gone out of use many years ago. A wooden cover over what looked to be an old pump. He knew what it was. He had been there when it had been dug.
Now he could set the boxes down. He put them right next to where his feet would go. He bent over and lifted the hasp on a slanted wooden door. He raised it up and propped it open with a stick.
When he looked down into the hole, he saw a long, thick bull snake slither across the rock wall of the hole. Just so it wasn’t a rattler, he didn’t care. Regular snakes didn’t bother him. He liked to see them around. They ate other critters. He had only seen one rattler this year, three bull snakes, and fourteen garter snakes. Slow year.
The ladder was in place. He grabbed the boxes and carefully stepped down the ladder into the damp coolness. He had put a plastic tarp on the floor of the hole for the boxes. He set them down and then took off his backpack and put the jug on top of the boxes.
His supplies. He had what he needed. He knew how it would happen. Step by step. They all had a number. But what he didn’t know, what he couldn’t control, was how many people would be dead at the end.
It was inconvenient for Claire, living in Fort St. Antoine and working for the sheriff’s department located in the county seat of Durand, that they were as far apart as two towns could be and still be in Pepin County. She drove the thirty miles at a consistent five miles per hour over the speed limit. All Sheriff Talbert had said on the phone was that there had been a burglary. He hadn’t said where, or what had been stolen, but by the tone of his voice she knew it was important.
The minimum staff was working this Saturday morning. Judy was manning the phones. She looked up from the magazine she was reading and said, “Everyone’s back in the sheriff’s office. They’re waiting on you.”
Claire walked into his office and found two men sitting in chairs across from the sheriff. She didn’t recognize either of them.
The sheriff looked as if he had been pulled from the golf course. He was wearing canary-yellow pants with a blue-and-white-striped polo shirt. “Claire, I’d like you to meet Ron Sorenson and Petey Hauer. They are the president and vice president of the Farmer’s Cooperative. Claire is a deputy with my office and acting as chief investigator.”
The only investigator, Claire thought as she proffered her hand. The two men stood up and shook hands with Claire. She smiled and said hello. She noticed that they didn’t smile back.
She guessed Ron Sorenson to be close to sixty: thinning white-blond hair, sunburned face, and soft blue eyes. Not handsome, but appealing. He had the look of a minister even though he was dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt. Petey—probably not much older than thirty—was chunky, short, dark-haired with deep brown eyes. Reminded her of a chipmunk.
There wasn’t a fourth chair in the room, so she stepped around the men until she was next to the sheriff’s desk and perched on a filing cabinet. The two men took their seats again after she had settled.
“I’m not sure I know what the Farmer’s Cooperative is,” Claire admitted. She had found out early in her career that it never did any good to pretend to know something she didn’t. It always caught her up in the end.
“We sell farm equipment, feed, fertilizer, and weed control to all our member farmers in the area.”
“The area is?”
“Mainly Pierce and Pepin counties.”
Claire turned and looked at the sheriff.
“I called you in, Claire, because they had a break-in last night at the warehouse. Behind their main office. You’ve seen it. It’s that big cream-colored pole barn just about a half a mile east of Durand on Twenty-five.”
“Past the Dairy Queen?” she asked.
All the men nodded.
“What was taken?”
The sheriff