Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [71]
“You want some dessert?” she asked.
“What’ve we got?”
“I could offer you a bowl of ice cream or some peanut butter cookies.”
“How about both?” he asked.
“My, but you’ve worked up an appetite today. What about your cholesterol?” she reminded him.
“I’m not sure I want to live that long anyway. Especially not without ice cream and cookies.”
She gave a nervous little laugh. An odd sound in the house. This house had never heard much laughter. She pulled the ice cream out of the fridge, ran the scoop under the hot water, and dug out three nice round scoops for him. Then she put two cookies next to the ice cream in a bowl and handed it to him. She gave herself one scoop and stood up at the counter, eating it.
“Come and sit down,” he told her.
“Naw,” she said. “If I sit down it’s just that much harder to get up again. I want to get this kitchen clean before I go in and watch my show.”
She liked to watch the quiz shows on TV. Normally he would go out into the barn and putter around, but tonight he had different plans.
She grabbed his bowl away from him as soon as he was finished and put it in the soapy water in the sink.
He stood up and walked to the window. Clouding up a bit. Tomorrow was the big day. It would have been fifty years ago the Schulers were killed. His wife didn’t know a thing about it. He had never talked to her about it. He had never talked to anyone except his mother. He wondered what his wife would say if she knew what he had been doing. Soon she might get an inkling of what he was made of.
“There’s something I’d like to show you in the basement,” he told her.
Turning from the sink, she gave him an odd look. “In the basement?”
“Wipe your hands and come on down.”
“Can’t you bring it up?” she asked. “My show’s almost on.”
Firmly he took her arm. She resisted for a moment, then gave in as she always did. He walked her over to the basement door and opened it.
She looked wild-eyed at him. She hated the basement. As he started her down the stairs, he said soothingly, “I’ll help you down. Don’t worry. What I want to do won’t take a minute.”
CHAPTER 22
Claire knew that Charles Folger lived up the bluff from her, but she hadn’t realized he lived so close. She figured, as the crow flew, his house was probably only two miles away, but as the road wound, it was more like six miles. As they rounded a bend a few miles down the bluff from Folger’s house, they caught sight of a view of the lake.
“What’s that body of water?” Tyrone asked.
“Lake Pepin,” Claire said, surprised he didn’t know. “That’s right, you came from the east and you haven’t had a chance to see the lake yet. The lake is really the Mississippi River, but since it runs so wide and deep they call it a lake for this twenty-three-mile stretch.”
“This is a first. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Mississippi before.”
“Since it meanders between St. Paul and Minneapolis, I’ve spent my life crossing it. My dad made us spell it out every time we went over it and, of course, as a kid saying the ending, I-P-P-I, seemed pretty risqué.”
As the road took another turn, they lost the lake. Claire came to Folger’s driveway and drove to the end of the lane. Two cars were parked in front of an open garage. Claire remembered hearing that Folger was married. She wondered what his wife must be like to be able to put up with him.
When Claire got out of the patrol car and looked over at the house, she saw that Folger was sitting on his front porch, watching them. He didn’t stand up, he didn’t give a howdy wave; he just watched.
Tyrone came around the car and they walked up to the porch together. “Mr. Folger, may we have a word with you?” Claire asked.
The older man glared, but motioned to two hard-backed wooden chairs sitting next to his on the porch. When she had seen him at work, he had worn a button-down shirt and dress pants. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and had put on tennis shoes, but otherwise was dressed the same.
Claire took