Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [49]
Claire rubbed at the mark, feeling it with her fingertips. She was afraid she knew what had caused the old grooves.
The fingers had been cut off as they lay dead in their warm blood. The terrible marks were still on the wood floors.
CHAPTER 15
The new issue of the Durand Daily was so in demand that people weren’t waiting for the paper to be delivered at home; they were coming into the front office to buy a copy. The story of the poisonings in the park took up most of the front page. Sarah had done an excellent job on the piece. The headline read: PARK POISONINGS POSSIBLY STOLEN PESTICIDES.
Harold had given her the opening of the story, but she had written the rest of it on her own. He especially liked the way she had quoted him. She was going to be a fine journalist. He hoped she would stay with him long enough so he would get a chance to teach her the tricks of the trade.
Harold was standing at the counter talking to Mrs. Plummer when Deputy Watkins came in and asked for a paper.
“On the house,” he said, handing it to her. “Although you certainly know the breaking news story.”
She tossed her quarter in the jar. “Best money I’ve ever spent.” She stood there, reading the paper, until Mrs. Plummer left. Then she looked up. “I’d like to talk to you. Do you have time now?”
“Yes, of course. Come into my office. There’s not much privacy here.” He walked her through the outer office and then shut the door behind her as she followed him into his space.
As soon as she sat down in the chair, she burst out with, “I keep thinking about the fingers.”
As usual she impressed him, leaping right to the heart of the matter. Harold could see she wanted to solve this one. She knew the poisonings were just an outcropping of the terrain she must travel to solve the real mystery—what had happened to the Schuler family. “Yes, the fingers. They are puzzling.”
“Why would the killer do that—chop off all their fingers—what purpose did that serve?”
“I think, my dear deputy, that if you knew the answer to that question, you would know it all.”
“You were at the scene, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was there. But the sheriff’s men kept us out of the house.”
“So you were at the murder site early on?”
“Nothing had been disturbed. Lowman had called the sheriff, and I heard about the call minutes later.”
“Who told you?”
“I had my connections.”
“Tell me about it, what the scene was like.”
He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. The old wet spot in the corner still hadn’t been painted over even though the leak had been fixed. It always looked like a spotted cow to him. He enjoyed looking at this flying cow. He had driven by cows on his way out to the farm. In fact there had been cows in the farmyard. They had gotten loose from their stanchions and wandered out.
He brought his head back down and started his account. “There were cows out in the yard milling about. They had gotten loose from the barn. It was frantic. Too many people were there. The sun was setting and a pale ghostly light settled over the farm. I remember everyone whispering like they didn’t want to wake the dead.”
Claire had her notebook in her hand, but she wasn’t taking notes. She was listening, just as he wanted her to do. Listen, take it in, be there for a few moments. That was the way to figure it all out.
“They wouldn’t let us in the house. I sneaked around and got a look in the barn, but didn’t see much, the boy’s shoes sticking out from under a blanket. I walked around to the front trying to see if I could talk to the sheriff, but as you can imagine he was very busy.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Earl Lowman was still there. He was the one who found the bodies.”
“Yes, I know.”
“He wasn’t needed. They told him to go home, but he couldn’t seem to leave. He was in deep shock. I could hardly believe he was still on his feet.