Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [23]
“Wow,” Claire said.
He was both pleased and surprised at her exclamation. It was to the point, but he wanted her to react more to all his work. He pressed his hands down on his desk and said, “That’s what I think.”
“You could be a profiler.”
At first Harold didn’t know what she was talking about. The first thing that popped into his mind were those old black cameo paper cutouts that were done of someone’s profile. Then he remembered that he had seen a TV show called Profiler. A woman solved crimes by studying the criminals’ behavior. He chuckled.
“I’m serious. Criminal profilers look at exactly the things you analyzed. I studied it a bit at the police academy. Let me ask you a few more questions. Do you think he’s a farmer?”
Harold scratched his thinning pate. “Could be. Probably if he’s lived in this area for fifty years. Seems like everyone used to be a farmer. If he’s not, he’d know quite a bit about it. Enough to be able to know how to use those pesticides.”
“Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“I’m afraid I do. As I’ve said, he’s riled up. He’s been on simmer about this happening for fifty years, and it looks like he’s about to blow.”
“What do you think he’ll do next?”
Harold leaned forward. Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. “Talk about the man all you want, but what you must do is outguess him, know where he’s going to be, know what he’s going to do before he does it.” He listed the acts thus far. “First he stole the pesticide. Then he destroyed the flowers. Next he killed the birds.”
He paused. Claire waited.
“I’m afraid it’s escalating,” Harold said. “I’m afraid he’ll move on to something bigger. It could be cows; it could be horses.” Then he forced himself to say what he was really afraid of. “It could be people.”
“Yup.” Claire tapped her pencil on the front of his desk. “That’s what I’ve been thinking, too. Imagining the things he might do makes me sick. We are all so vulnerable. This is a place where people leave their keys in their car in case someone needs to borrow it. Doors are unlocked. People are used to being friendly.”
“It’s worse than that,” Harold told her. “This man is one of us. He knows our ways. He knows where to get us.”
“Want to venture a guess who it might be?”
Harold had been afraid she would ask him that. He had a couple thoughts, but wasn’t sure he was ready to tell her. “Let me think on it. This is serious business. I hate to run my mouth off about people and get them in trouble. It was obviously someone affected by the Schuler murders.”
“Do you think it’s the killer?”
Harold puffed out his lips. “More than likely. If he’s still alive, he’d be an old man like me.”
“Well, if you have any more ideas, let me know, the sooner the better. This guy is on a timetable.”
“Where will you be tomorrow?”
“With my daughter. Watching the fireworks. But you can always reach me on my cell phone. If the bluffs don’t interfere.” Claire gave him her number. “Also, any information you can give me on the Schuler murders would be appreciated. I’ll go to the cold cases and pick up the file on that.”
“I’ll put together articles from the time it happened.”
“Thanks, Mr. Peabody.”
“Harold.”
She stood. “After I’ve talked to the sheriff, I’ll let you know what you can put in the paper.”
Harold came around his desk to walk her to the door. This was the only false step she had made in their meeting.
“That won’t be necessary.” The deputy turned to look at him. He continued: “It’s running. The note is running. Consider it a courtesy that I let you know about it before you read it in the paper.”
Meg heard about the chickens from her friend Katlyn, who lived near the Danielses. Katlyn said that everyone said that maybe Rich’s pheasants would be next to be killed. Meg said that Rich had a huge security fence and that no one could get in to hurt his pheasants. When she hung up the phone, she was surprised that she had lied. It was not like her.
Meg walked over to the refrigerator, opened the freezer, and pulled out a lime Popsicle. Then she went onto