Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [84]
After setting down steaming mugs of coffee in front of each of them, Arlene poured herself a cup of coffee and added a good slug of milk to it and then a heaping teaspoon of sugar. She saw Tyrone watching her production and she broke out into a big smile. “I like to make my coffee a full meal.”
She cut them both big pieces of coffee cake and then a smaller piece for herself. “I’m watching my figure,” she explained. Claire liked this woman who told you what she was doing and why she was doing it.
“But back to your question of who had dinner with the Schulers that night. My mom wasn’t feeling too good, at least that’s what I’ve been told. Having me was hard on her. In those days, women still gave birth at home, especially when they lived on a farm and the hospital was a good half hour away. But Mom was having such a hard time of it that Dad brought her in to the hospital. I’m pretty sure she and I were still there on the day that the Schulers were killed.”
Claire took a bite of the coffee cake and found it to be absolutely delicious, a slight taste of cinnamon. She had to bring her mind back to her questions. “This is excellent coffee cake. Thanks again. What about your dad? Might he have gone over there to eat—considering that your mom was in the hospital?”
Arlene shook her head. “I don’t know a lot about what went on, but from what I can gather my dad and Otto Schuler didn’t get along. My dad didn’t like Germans. He made a slight exception for his own wife, but not always. I remember as a kid him yelling at her if she tried to talk German to any of us. Makes me mad now when I think about it. But the war was hard on everyone. They taught him to kill Germans, and it’s hard to not hate them for a while, I guess. Him and Chuck Folger were thick as thieves in those days.”
“Did they do anything in particular to Mr. Schuler?”
“The way my mom told it to me when I was old enough to understand, they hounded him. Bad-mouthed him around town. Didn’t help him out when he was harvesting. My poor mom. It must have made her feel awful that her husband wouldn’t help out her brother-in-law. I know she loved her sister very much.”
“Did your mom ever suspect your dad had anything to do with the murders?”
Arlene picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee. “She might have. My dad has always been quite closemouthed. Mom might not have been able to get anything out of him. And I’m sure she figured she needed him. She had no skills, except as a farmwife; she had no money, except what he gave her. The land they had inherited went right into the farm. I doubt she could have taken that away from him if she had even thought of divorcing him. Plus, they were Catholic. Divorce was unheard of. My mother found her happiness in her children. In the end, my parents tolerated each other.”
“Was your dad happy to get the Schuler land?”
“Yes, a farmer’s always glad to get more land. Because it was contiguous with his own, it was easy for him to handle. But he let the house just about fall down. I was so happy when he decided to let someone live in that old place. Another few years and it wouldn’t have been worth much.”
Claire thought of the Daniels family living in the house and farming some of the land. “What made him change his mind?”
“My mom died. It made me think that he had done it for her. Kept the place empty so she wouldn’t have to see another family grow up in it. Maybe he was more thoughtful than I would have guessed.”
Meg was glad to hear from her mom. This was the third day of her visit with her grandparents and she was having a good time, but part of her was all the time thinking about her mother. Not exactly worrying, but a niggle was always there. Like a little song that went on and on in her head.
When she heard the phone ring, she stood up from the game she was playing and waited to