Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [5]
“He’s my son.” That was the second reason he had a bad feeling.
She looked at him and nodded, not saying anything.
“There’s one more thing you have to see. He left something for us. We haven’t touched them. Only Petey and I know about this. We’ve kept it quiet.” He ushered her into the storage room and pointed at the shelf where the pesticides had been.
There, sitting on the shelf in a row, were seven oddly shaped cream-colored pellets, all about an inch long.
In midwinter, when cold froze everything out of the air, Rich forgot what a July night could smell like. In order to store it up, he closed his eyes to take in the scents more fully. The smells rode the humid air as if they had been simmering all the warm day—a frothy stew of sweet wild roses, soft grasses, even a hint of the earth’s dankness. A potent brew.
When Rich opened his eyes, he saw that the soft blue was falling from the sky, the lake was turning a darker teal, and the bluffs on the far side of the river had gone somber green like the underside of pine boughs. He sat on his side porch, watching the sun set. So close to the summer solstice, it was past nine o’clock when it finally went down.
He was waiting for Claire.
Claire had called twenty minutes ago and said she was on her way.
He wasn’t going to get mad. That did no good. And he certainly understood, because, from time to time, his pheasant business called for long hours with little regard to his personal life.
But he didn’t feel he was in the right mood to ask her to marry him.
He had to work up to it. He wanted her to be in the right place. He wanted it to be a moment they could both remember with pleasure in the long years to come. So he had tucked the ring into the top drawer of his dresser. It would come out again soon. He didn’t want to put it off for long.
Claire’s patrol car pulled into the driveway. She jumped out and rushed up the steps. Because of her haste, he worried that she needed to check back into the department, that she wouldn’t be able to stay. But then she kissed him and swung around to stare in the direction he had been looking. The last glint of the sun lay across the horizon like a thin red thread.
“I didn’t completely miss the sunset,” she said, leaning into him. His arms automatically went around her waist.
“Nope.”
She turned in his arms and kissed him again, more slowly, with more feeling. He felt as if he had been waiting for her for a long time. Somehow they fit together.
Then she pulled back and smiled up at him. “I haven’t completely missed our date, either, have I?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Are there still things to eat? I’m famished.”
“I waited for you.”
“You are the best guy. What have I done to deserve you?”
“Existed.” He could tell that she was pumped up about whatever had taken her away the whole day long. When she got her teeth into something, she seemed more full of energy, as if her whole life had been elevated a notch or two.
He enjoyed watching her dig into what she was doing, but he did worry sometimes about the toll it might be taking on her. Then he laughed at himself. Doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers probably all had more stress in their lives. Serious crime didn’t happen very often in Pepin County, the smallest county in the state of Wisconsin.
The table was set for two. The ice had melted in the water glasses, but that didn’t matter.
“I’m going to go change,” she told him.
She ran off to his bedroom, where she kept a few pairs of pants and some shirts. He had given Claire her own drawer.
Earlier in the afternoon, when he realized she might not be on time for dinner, he had modified the menu. Boiled potatoes became cold potato salad. He had made a pheasant ragout that could be reheated rather than the grilled pheasant he had planned on.
He turned the heat on under the ragout. He brought out the fresh loaf of bread he had bought at the farmer’s market that morning, and then the plate of thick-sliced tomatoes.
She appeared in a tight white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair was loose. She looked lovely.
“Wine?” he asked.