Bone Harvest (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

Sorenson opened the passenger-side door to his pickup truck and watched Watkins climb in. Nice-looking woman. His wife had once been as handsome. After all but one of the kids had left home, she had continued cooking for a big family and then ate most of it herself. She had filled out well past what could be seen as attractive. He still loved her, but he didn’t like looking at her as much as he once had.

As he walked around the truck and climbed in his side, he thought about what the neighbors would think if they saw him driving through town with a strange woman. Part of him liked the idea. But it made him nervous that he had to be working with a woman on this problem. He was used to the company of men.

“How long have you been president of the cooperative?” Watkins asked him once they were settled in the truck and he had turned onto the main street.

“A year. We take turns.”

“At being president?”

“Yup. Nobody really wants to do it. It just means more work. Take today. I should be out in the fields. Here I am dicking around with this burglary business.” He needed to watch himself. “Excuse my language.”

The woman deputy laughed. It was a nice, solid laugh, no pretense. It came from her stomach but had a little sweetness in it. “Hey, don’t worry. I was a cop in Minneapolis. I’ve heard everything.”

He felt a smile tug at his lips. “I bet.”

They rode for a few moments in silence. Sorenson debated whether he should turn the air-conditioning on. He tried to use it as little as possible. Cost him in gas and he wasn’t sure it was good for his health. When it was hot, he thought it was better if you stayed one temperature. But he worried that maybe the deputy was uncomfortable.

“Cool enough for you?” he asked.

“I’m fine. After that winter, I’ll take all the warm days we can get.”

“The corn is sure liking it.”

“More than knee-high, isn’t it?” she commented.

“Mine’s up to my thigh,” he told her with pride. Most of his field was in feed corn, but he had planted a few rows of sweet corn close to the house. He could hardly wait until they could start eating it. Super Sweet, it was called, and the name was accurate.

“Tell me about these pesticides,” she said.

“Well, like I said, one’s an insecticide and one’s an herbicide. Both of them are pretty common. Caridon is used mainly against grasshoppers and some weevils. We’ve had a few this year. Doesn’t look like they should be too bad. Parazone is used as a general herbicide; controls weeds and grasses. It’s usually applied to the fields a few weeks before planting, when the weeds are about half a foot high.”

“Is it too late in the season to use it now?”

“I’d say.”

“Do you have any ideas about who did this?”

“I’d hate to say off the top of my head.” Sorenson kept his eyes on the road. The cooperative building was coming right up. He was wondering who was working today. He tried not to think about Ray, his seventeen-year-old son. He had been getting in trouble lately. What made Sorenson nervous was that he didn’t know where the kid had been last night. He hoped Ray was just hanging out with his friends. Although that could be what was getting him in trouble—his friends. He wanted to talk to his son before he accused him of anything.

The truck bumped over the ruts in the dirt parking lot. He pulled right up to the building, trying to park the vehicle as close to the wall as possible and as far out of the sun. If he planned it right, he wouldn’t need to turn the air-conditioning on when he drove the deputy back to the sheriff’s office.

“The cooperative is open today?” she asked.

“Yeah, this is a busy time for us right now. Farmers working nonstop in the fields. We cut hours way back in the winter.”

He hopped out of the truck. Before he could walk around to open the door for the deputy she had climbed down. He guessed he should treat her like a cop and not like a woman. She followed him into the store.

At the entrance, she stopped and looked around the warehouse. He looked around it too, trying to see it the way she might. Nothing fancy about the place. They had opened the back sliding door and a nice breeze was moving through the space. Riding lawn mowers were lined up face-out from along the far side of the warehouse. They were having a sale on picnic tables and there were a couple set up near the cash register. A sweet dusty smell, a mixture of birdseed and various ground meal products, filled the air.

He glanced over at the register. Tim was ringing up a pile of items for Kate Thompson and her bevy of six kids. He remembered that his son wasn’t working today.

Watkins turned and looked at him. “Where are the pesticides kept?”

“We keep them locked in the back.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“A precaution that didn’t exactly work.”

“Have you ever had anything stolen before?” she asked.

“The occasional item, like any retailer. Small hand tools such as wire cutters or hammers, things that fit into pockets. A few years back, some guy tried to walk off with a lawn mower. We caught him halfway down the next block, pushing the thing as fast as he could go. That’s about it.”

“Would it be possible to resell these pesticides?”

“Maybe. I don’t know who’d buy them. It’s not like there’s a black market for pesticides. But it’s possible.”

“So do you think someone stole them for use on a farm?”

“More likely, but it’s an odd time of year to use either one. Not so much the Caridon, but certainly the Parazone.”

“How did the burglar get into the warehouse?”

“I think he must have had a key. There was no sign of forced entry into the building.”

He walked her back to the storage area. “However, he didn’t have a key to the storage area, so he pounded the lock right off the door.” He pointed at the fastener hanging by its hinges, the door bashed in like it had been hammered on. A chair was pushed up to the door to keep it closed. He pulled the chair away.

“How did he do that?”

“One of our mauls. We found it lying right on the floor by the door. Don’t worry. We didn’t touch it. I put it in a big bag and set it in my office.”

“Who all has a key to the warehouse?”

“Petey and I. Our manager, Cliff Snowden. Any one of our past employees might have a key. Who knows how many are floating around.” He stopped for a moment and then added, “And the two young guys who sometimes open up. Tim Loch and Ray Sorenson.”

“Is Ray any relation?”

“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.

“You bet.”

He poured them both a glass and they clinked them together. After taking a sip, he started serving their food. She looked at him over the rim of her glass and smiled. “This looks wonderful.”

“What went on today?” he asked. He could tell she was dying to talk about it.

She launched right in. “Somebody stole two kinds of pesticides from the Farmer’s Cooperative. Do you do any business with them?”

“Once in a while I get some feed from the co-op. Who’s in charge over there this year? Sorenson?”

She nodded, then added, “He’s pretty upset.”

“He’s a very conscientious guy.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I think he feels responsible. And these are no lightweight pesticides we’re talking about here. He gave me the warning labels off both the products. I looked them over before I left the office tonight. Both of them are fatal if you mishandle them. You probably know all this, country boy that you are.” She lifted her fork and took a bite of the ragout. “This is beyond good.”

“Any ideas who did it? Someone got a grudge against the cooperative, against Sorenson?” he asked.

“Could be. We’ll start out by checking anyone who has a connection to it, including former employees. One of the kids who works there is Sorenson’s son.”

“Awkward.”

“I’ve got a lot of people to talk to tomorrow. We fingerprinted the place, but I’ll be surprised if we find anything. Unless it was some kids doing it for a prank. Anyone serious would make sure they didn’t leave any prints.”

“I don’t like the idea of some kid running around with those products. Thank God school isn’t on. Can you imagine what could happen if a kid decided to fumigate the school?”

“I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Somehow pesticides don’t seem glamorous enough for a kid to use. Probably someone who decided they’d been paying high prices for all these products long enough. We’ll check on all the farmers who have bought these products in the past. Someone down on their luck? Who knows?”

“Well, if anyone can find out what’s going on, you can.”

“I hope so. If some farmer decided to steal them and then just use them on their fields, we might never know.”

Claire was holding something in. He could tell.

She took a sip of wine and then looked up at him and said, “Whoever did it left us a little memento to think on.” Claire paused as she swirled the wine around in her glass. He saw fear in her eyes as she said, “Bones.”

It was exactly twelve o’clock. The second of July. Time for step two. It had to be done the way it had to be done. He sat in the truck and waited until it was three minutes after midnight.

He had mixed the spray carefully. He had read the sheets on it a couple times over. One fluid ounce for three gallons of water. He poured it into the pump that he had used to spray fertilizer on his lawn. It was all loaded into the back of the truck. He had an old tarp wrapped around it so it wouldn’t tip over.

You had to be very careful with this stuff. He knew that. It was like handling dynamite. Never get too cocky. It would come back on you. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and long pants even though it was still close to eighty degrees out. He had his waterproof gloves in the truck. And he had brought an old pair of sunglasses, even though the sun had already gone down. Might look funny, but he didn’t think anyone would notice.

He didn’t think anyone would be around.

The town died at night. A few bars had a scattering of cars around them, but there wasn’t much to do in Durand anymore after dark, not like it had been when he was a kid. Then there had been restaurants and movie theaters. Friday night had been the night everyone went to town. Didn’t happen anymore.