Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [82]
Watkins went to the door and asked someone to bring in some bottles of water.
“Sorry about your son,” Tyrone said.
“He’s come around. He’s doing better. I think he’s going to be fine. He’s a strong guy.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah, sometimes it breaks your way and sometimes it doesn’t.”
Watkins came back in with three bottles of water and handed them around. “So you were just walking into the kitchen.”
“Yes. You know what I saw if you’ve seen the photographs from the crime scene.”
“Let’s hear you describe it.”
“Well, first I saw Bertha Schuler. She was a lovely woman. Beautiful plain face, wonderful smile. Everyone fell in love with her. She was lying on the floor. Someone had shot a hole the size of a fist in her chest. Not too far from her was the baby. They were dead. There was no question of that. I called the sheriff’s office. Told them what I found.”
“Did you look around?”
“Not right away. I was sick, I was scared, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted someone else to be there with me. I had never seen anything like what was in front of me and have never since.” He took a sip of water.
“And then?” Tyrone nudged.
“I was outside, breathing the air and trying to figure out what to do, when Mr. Schuler walked out.”
Tyrone’s pencil dropped on the table. Claire set down her water bottle. They both said, “What?”
“He had a gun in his hands.”
“Was it aimed at you?”
“No. I think by then he felt like he had done his work. He looked at me and said, ‘I killed them. ’‘All of them? ’I asked. He said yes. I asked him why. He stood above me on the steps and said, ‘I can’t make it work. We shouldn’t be here. Lindstrom is trying to take our land. I cannot fight him. Folger and Wahlund are threatening to run us out of town. It has been too hard and I wanted my family all to be safe. Now they will go to heaven and I don’t have to worry. ’He handed me the gun. ‘You have come along in time, my friend. Will you please shoot me? ’“
“He asked you to shoot him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“Not at first. I tried to talk to him. But it became clear that his life was over. He had killed everything that had meant anything to him.”
“Did he tell you why he cut off their fingers?”
“Yes, he said to keep them with him. He wanted to have part of them with him because he said he would not be going to heaven. He knew that.”
“Then did you shoot him?”
Earl felt tears come to his eyes. This was the hard part to describe, but he would try. “He asked me so nicely. Calmly. He told me what a favor I would be doing him. He said he was going to go hang himself in the barn or shoot his own head off, but now I could save him that. I told him I couldn’t. He looked at me sadly and then he turned and started to walk toward the barn. I had the gun in my hands. I turned and saw Bertha lying on the floor, her hand reaching out toward the baby. I watched Otto for a moment and then I shot him in the back.”
“By this time the sheriff was coming?”
“Yeah, as soon as I shot Otto Schuler, I knew I couldn’t tell anyone what I had done. They wouldn’t understand. I hardly did. I threw the gun down into the cistern.”
“What about the fingers?”
“When I came back, they were gone.”
“What? The fingers were gone? What had happened to them?”
“I never figured that out. All I could think was that maybe an animal came and got them.”
Watkins said, “Or maybe someone took them.”
Earl looked at her. “Who?”
“I think someone else was at the farm, someone who had come for dinner, and they got away.”
“Who could that have been?”
Watkins went over what he had said. “You said you had your uniform on and they saw you shoot Otto Schuler. Maybe they thought you had killed everyone. No wonder they wouldn’t come forward if they thought a deputy had killed the family. Maybe they didn’t feel safe telling the sheriff.”
Tyrone jumped in. “Did you tell anyone what happened?”
“My wife. I finally had to tell my wife. She understood, or she