Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [29]
“Why ever not?”
He didn’t need his mom to get all nosy on him. “Hasn’t come up.”
“Rich, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. It’s no big deal. It will happen and you will be among the first to know. Claire’s been busy with work. I wanted to pop the question at the right moment.”
“Of course, that’s important.”
“I’ll let you know.” He decided it was time to change the subject. “Hey, Mom, what do you remember about when that farm family—the Schulers—were all murdered? You were living down here at that time, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was, and it was just awful. Why do you want to know?”
“Well, it’s a long story, but it’s come up in Claire’s work, and she was asking me about it.”
“Well, that was right after I married your father. I had just moved out to Fort St. Antoine to live on the farm. And I was scared to begin with, having been a city girl and all. Everything scared me—the animals, the thunderstorms, the trains at night—you name it. I was so young.” His mother’s voice faded off.
“Then this horrible massacre happened and I was petrified. They never found out who did it. Can you imagine? All I could think of at night was that he might take it into his head to come and kill us all at the Haggard farm. Wasn’t so very far away from where the Schulers lived. Everyone was scared.”
“Were there any rumors about who did it?”
“Well, the Schulers weren’t very well liked. Otto Schuler was a recent immigrant from Germany, and anti-German sentiments were still running high after the war. His English was very bad and he wasn’t a very good farmer. Most everyone liked Bertha, but Otto was too proud to ask for help. I think they were deep in debt. Close to losing their farm. Then all the kids. Although everyone had a lot of children in those years. As far as who did it, I never heard of particular accusations. Although I’m not sure I would have. I was still pretty new to the community.”
“Well, if you think of anything else, let me know.”
“Well, if you propose tonight, you let me know.” With that, she hung up.
Ray Sorenson woke up with a boner. He ached with desire but he was alone in his twin-sized bed and he could hear his mother down in the kitchen, putting the pots and pans away loud enough to wake him up. He didn’t think he should do anything about it.
First he looked at his watch, which he always wore except when he took a shower. Ten o’clock—not so late. Then he lifted up the sheets, stared at his “soldier,” as Tiffany liked to call it, and apologized to it for having to ignore its demands.
He shouldn’t have thought of Tiffany. He ached all the more. She was one hot girl, or woman, as she wanted to be called. He had heard of guys who had to beg their girlfriends to even touch their privates. Tiffany was different. She had shown him what it was all about, giving him a blow job in the custodian’s closet when they stayed after school one day. When she had decided it was time to go all the way, she had brought the condoms. Plural, because she said he was such a stud.
She had moved here from Chicago and explained that the kids were all doing it there. She wouldn’t tell him how many guys she had been with before him. “What do you care?” she would say. “I’m with you now.”
Sometimes he actually felt a little used. She said she thought he would be good in bed because he had such nice, strong hands. Tiffany made no bones about the fact that she was leaving Pepin County—and wouldn’t be looking back—as soon as she graduated. “I don’t belong here,” she would tell him. “I’m not sure which coast I’m going to go to.”
The first time she said that he hadn’t realized she had been talking about New York or Los Angeles. He thought she meant she wanted to live by the ocean. He had learned to not talk too much around her. She liked him quiet and ready. He never knew when she might want his services.
His mother’s voice reached him. “Ray?”
He sat up in bed, knowing he’d better answer her or she’d come up and barge into his room. That thought caused his soldier to