Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [8]
Such a horrible little act, killing the flowers in the bed in front of the sheriff’s office. It worried Claire. It felt bigger than what it appeared. She sensed a terrible anger behind the devastation.
A group of people gathered around in front of the flower bed as if standing at a funeral. Debby sobbed and Judy tried to comfort her. As soon as they could determine that the bed wasn’t still lethal, they should pull up all the plants so Debby wouldn’t have to look at them anymore.
Claire wondered how long it would be before the ground could be planted again.
Ron Sorenson crouched, examining the destroyed flowers. “It could be our guy. Hard to tell by looking. But the desiccation is consistent with Parazone. I don’t know what else would work this fast or this effectively.”
“If it is Parazone, is it still dangerous?” she asked, not knowing if that was the right term to use.
“Well, this product has an REI of at least twelve hours. Do we know what time this happened?”
“All I can tell you for sure is it happened after dark and before morning. What do you mean, REI?”
“Sorry. Restricted-entry interval. Depending on how heavy it was sprayed, people should stay away from it for twelve to twenty-four hours.”
“So should we all be standing here?” she asked him.
“Probably not.”
Claire relayed the information to the sheriff and he shooed everyone back into the building, except Claire and Sorenson. They stepped back from the garden and continued to look at it.
“What can you tell me?” Claire asked.
Sorenson pulled on his nose and stared at the devastated flower bed. “Whoever it was knew what he was doing. He covered the whole bed and he did it pretty evenly. The desiccation is thorough and complete. That’s how Parazone works. It dries up all the green plant tissue. I figure he used a pump sprayer to do such a small area and to get such an even application. He didn’t get much on the lawn. The grass around the bed doesn’t look bad at all. He was very careful.”
Claire was amazed, as she often was, by what an expert could tell you about a subject you knew nothing about. She would have noticed little of what Sorenson had seen. “So he knows what he’s doing.”
Sorenson nodded.
“I’m not sure that makes me feel better,” said Claire. She handed him a pair of plastic gloves. “I thought we both might need these.”
“I’ll pick a plant and give it to our agronomist. He should be able to tell for sure what pesticide was applied to this bed.”
After pulling on her plastic gloves, Claire reached into her pocket for a plastic bag. “I’ll be doing the same with the crime bureau.”
Sorenson looked over at her. “A word of warning—when you get near the plants, try not to breathe.”
“Okay.” She pulled on her gloves, inhaled deeply, and went in for a plant. She tugged at a large marigold that was right in the middle of the patch. It must have had roots that went down to China. She was almost ready to give up on it when it came loose from the soil and she landed on her butt.
That was when she saw the hint of white in the flower bed. She needed to breathe, so she stuffed the plant into her bag, stood up, and backed off again.
Sorenson had his plant in a bag and he appeared ready to leave.
“Wait a minute. I think I see something.” Claire pulled another plastic bag out of her pocket and, again, took a deep breath. She walked in toward the flower bed, ducked her head down so she was on the level she had been when she was sitting, and examined the white object again. She inched up to it, put her gloved hand in the bed, and came out with a white bone the length of a matchstick.
No way of knowing if it was human or not until the lab reported on the bones she had already sent in to them.
She looked over at Sorenson and held up the bone. “I think it’s our guy.”
Harold Peabody loved coming in to work on Sundays. It was so quiet in the newspaper office. He had worshiped at his typewriter for many years. The town shut down and his office on Main Street was his private sanctum. Neither of his two reporters ever bothered to show their faces on Sundays.