Bone Harvest (7 page)

“I’ll try.” Meg was glad she had said it. But once was enough. You didn’t need to repeat things with Rich. He got them the first time. “I think it’s going to be hot tomorrow. It’s hot today.”

“It’s supposed to be hot on the Fourth of July. With plenty of mosquitoes and maybe even a thunderstorm thrown in.”

“No thunderstorms. Just fireworks. That’s enough.”

CHAPTER 8

Often Earl Lowman dreamed of lakes—deep, clear, sweet-sprung lakes. But when he woke, as he did on this hot July day, he was still in Tucson, Arizona—108 degrees at midday—where the one river that had once flowed through the town, the Santa Cruz, had dried up long ago, and the water table was dropping inches a year, causing the ground below his house to sink.

He turned his head on his pillow and read his alarm clock—5:07
A.M.
—noting that it would go off in eight minutes. If he wanted to take a walk, he had to get up. Once the sun rose at six, it rapidly got too hot to be outside. He threw the sheet off his legs.

But the dream of the lake held him in bed for another few minutes. He thought of wading up to his waist in Lake Pepin; he remembered jumping off the old oak tree that bent over the Rush River and plunging into the spring-fed waters. He would love to swim again in fresh water.

Most afternoons Earl wandered down to the community pool and swam a few laps, but it was not the same. The water was chlorinated and way too warm. No one else even bothered to swim in the pool. They stood in the water and gabbed. The heads of other old people bobbed around in the pool like idling ducks on a dirty pond. Earl Lowman wondered what had happened to his life.

After thirty years as a deputy sheriff for Pepin County, he had retired down in Tucson with his wife, Florence. Three months after they had moved into their new town home, Florence had died. Stroke. That was ten years ago. His one daughter was living in Seattle and his son still lived in Durand, Wisconsin. Earl and his son, Andy, hadn’t spoken in ten years—since Florence’s death. She was the one who had stayed in touch with Andy. Earl had no reason to go back to Wisconsin, but he missed it.

He pulled on a pair of gym shorts that weren’t too dirty and dug out an old T-shirt. Wandering into the kitchen, he hit the button on the coffeemaker. He set it up the night before so all he had to do was start it brewing in the morning. He pulled open the front door and found the
Arizona Daily Star
on his doorstep. After pouring himself a cup of coffee and adding artificial sweetener to it, he set the paper and the coffee on the table on the back patio and went in to make breakfast.

He ate the same thing every day. It made life easy. He took out a frozen waffle and put it in the toaster. He poured some maple syrup into a jug and heated it in the microwave. When the syrup and the waffle were ready, he put them on a plate and took them out to the table on the patio.

He ate because he knew he should, not because he was hungry. He didn’t seem to be hungry for anything anymore. Fresh sweet corn and ripe tomatoes sounded good to him, but were hard to get in Tucson. Tomatoes didn’t grow well down in the Southwest. All the tomatoes he got at the store were from Mexico, and who knew what they put on them down there.

Earl looked at the date of his paper—July the fourth. He had seen in the community bulletin that there would be a potluck at the center tonight. Maybe he’d go. Maybe he wouldn’t. There were a lot of older women who gave him the eye, but he wasn’t having any of that anymore. He felt too old.

After Florence died, he had dated a nice woman who lived two blocks away. She had even stayed over one night, but they hadn’t really done anything except kiss. But she moved back to Atlanta to be closer to her daughter. He understood. Family became important when you got older.

He stabbed at his waffle a couple of times, then let it be. Maybe he wouldn’t walk today. It was a holiday, after all. He felt tired. Maybe he’d just crawl back in bed and sleep and then start the day all over again.

Carrying his dishes into the kitchen, he felt exhausted by all he didn’t have to do. No lawn to mow, no gutters to clean, no one to worry about.

He sat down at the dining room table and buried his head in his hands. He was a lonely old man and he had no one to blame but himself.

Maybe he should call one of his kids. Maybe he’d catch Andy if he tried now. He wouldn’t be out in the fields yet.

Before he could change his mind, Earl picked up the phone and dialed his son’s number. Marie, his wife, answered. “Lowman’s.”

“Hey, Marie. It’s Earl.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then her voice came across strong, worry lacing it. “Earl. My goodness, but it’s been a long time since we heard from you. Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine. Just thought of calling, holiday and all.” Might as well get right to the point. “Is Andy there?”

Again there was a pause. Earl knew what was happening. Andy was sitting right there drinking his coffee and shaking his head at Marie, telling his wife to say he was gone. “I’m sorry, Earl. You just missed him.” She stopped for a moment, then asked in a cheery voice, “Are you doing anything for the Fourth?”

“Not much to do down here. What about you?”

“Oh, just having hot dogs. Then we’ll take the kids down to see the fireworks. Down to Fort St. Antoine. They’ve got the best, as far as I’m concerned.”

“That should be fun.”

“Yeah, we enjoy it.” She cleared her throat. “Warm down there?”

“Plenty warm. I suppose you’re getting a little warm weather up there, too?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s summer, you know. Hot and muggy. But a nice breeze today. That makes a difference.” Her voice ran down and then she said, “There was a strange letter in the paper today. Andy figured it was about the Schuler murders. Something about finding out the truth. Had the date—July seventh, 1952. Were you working for the sheriff when that happened?”

“Oh, yeah. I remember it well.” The Schuler murders—that sure came out of the dark to ambush him. He tried as hard as he could never to think of that time in his life. “I was low man on the totem pole in those days. Didn’t have much to do with it.”

“Not much else going on.” Marie gave an embarrassed cluck. “Nice to hear from you, Earl.”

“Well, thanks, Marie. Say hi to the kids and tell Andy I called.”

“I’ll do that, Earl. You try again.”

He hated this sham and decided to speak his mind. “Do you really think I should bother?”

“Yeah, I do. I think you should. Who knows? Glad you called. ’Bye now.”

When he hung up the phone, he stared down at his hands.

He remembered driving to the Schulers’ farm to return the saw he had borrowed from Otto.

He remembered what he had found there.

This was another reason he didn’t want to go back to Pepin County.

He remembered the fingers. He would never forget the pile of fingers.

Arlene Rendquist had been born on the Fourth of July. Fifty years ago this day. Named after her little cousin, who had died a few days later: Arlette. Her mother had been brokenhearted, wanting the two cousins to grow up together. Bertha, her sister and Arlette’s mother, had been killed too. Terrible tragedy, her mother had always said. Every year her mother would be reminded of it on Arlene’s birthday.

Arlene wondered what her husband, Larry, would get her for her birthday. She wondered if he had even remembered. He hadn’t mentioned a thing, and she decided she wasn’t going to bring it up.

Larry worked for the railroad. It was a good, steady job, but dirty. He was sleeping in today, since it was his day off. He had gone out and tied one on with the boys last night. She didn’t mind so long as he didn’t come home all soused up and wake her up, hoping to party a little more. She was getting too old for that kind of behavior. He was too. He was more apt to sit quietly at home, nursing a six-pack these days, than go out with his buddies.

Arlene finished folding the laundry and decided she had done enough work around the house to have earned the right to a little rest and another cup of coffee. She walked out to the mailbox to pick up the paper. Even though it was a holiday, the
Durand Daily
would be there.

The day was perfect. Eighty degrees. Fluffy clouds in the sky. She wondered if her dad would stop by today. He lived a half mile down the road, and even though he was eighty, he was still farming. He had over five hundred acres of land. Larry said that when her father died, they could sell his land and retire to Florida. But Arlene knew that her dad might well live to be a hundred. She wouldn’t put it past him to outlive them all. Dad was made of tough stuff.

She pulled the newspaper out of the box and walked up the driveway. Dad would probably show up about suppertime, wondering what they were eating for the Fourth. She thought she’d make hamburgers. No big deal. Taste as good as anything.

When she got into the kitchen, she could smell the coffee—a burnt odor that she didn’t find altogether unpleasant. Last cup in the bottom of the coffeemaker. She poured it into her favorite mug, the one labeled,
SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED
, that Larry had given her for Christmas a few years ago. She had gotten such a charge out of it.

She went out and sat on the front steps. Such a day as this should be enjoyed. Reading the paper, she started with the first page and read it front to back. Even the ads. You never knew what you might find for sale. There was a letter to the editor that caught her eye because Harold Peabody had written a disclaimer above it, indicating that he didn’t usually print a letter without a signed name, but he was making an exception. She had to read the letter twice, but she could see why Harold had published it. It gave her the shivers. She wondered if her dad had seen it yet.

It had to be about the Schuler murders. The date was right. They never did know the truth about what happened. Sometimes her mom would talk about the incident, saying that she missed her sister Bertha every day of her life. “She was a good wife and a good mother and a good sister and she could bake a peach pie like you wouldn’t believe.” High praise from her mother.

One time, after her mother had died, and Arlene and her father had gone out to look at the old homestead, Arlene brought up the murders with her father. He wouldn’t talk about what had happened. All he’d say was that it was a sad story that didn’t bear repeating.

Her parents had inherited the Schuler farm. Otto Schuler had had no family in the area. All his relatives were still in Germany and couldn’t be found. Her dad farmed the land, but he didn’t want to rent out the house. He did little to keep it in repair, but he kept a roof on it. Her dad claimed no one would want to live in it after what had occurred there. Finally, he rented it to the Danielses not long ago.

When Arlene was little, she would sneak over and climb into the house through a broken window. The house was kinda spooky. There had been brown stains on the kitchen floor that she imagined came from the blood of the murdered children—her five cousins. She would have had a different life had they lived. She would have been part of a big family. As it was she was raised all by herself.

Hearing a noise, she lifted her head to see her father’s truck come barreling down the road, raising a cloud of dust behind it. He pulled into the driveway and drove right up to where she was sitting.

“All through working for the day?” he asked her.

“Just taking a break. You want a cup of coffee?”

“Naw, just thought I’d check and see if I was welcome for supper.”

“You know you always are, Dad. Come by around six.” She shook the paper at him. “You see the
Durand Daily
yet?”

“No, I don’t bother with that paper. Nothing in it I want to know about.”

“There’s a letter that I think might be referring to the Schuler murders.”

He stared at her.

“Says that they want to find out the truth about what happened.”

He shook his head. “They’re dead and gone. What good’s the truth now? It’s too late.”

Opening the door to the basement, he smelled the scent of darkness. He found it a comfort, allowing him to feel safe and away from the world. He stepped down the first step and closed the door behind him. This was another of his holy places—the basement. His wife never went down into it, hating the cold and damp. They kept the freezer out in the garage and she stored all her canned goods in the pantry, so she had no reason to go down there.

It wasn’t even a full basement. The old farmhouse had been built in pieces, and the basement was only under half the house. It was built of old limestone and seeped water most of the summer, but he liked it down there. His father had built a workshop in the room right under the stairs and now it was his. He still kept all his father’s tools in their proper places. A diagram drawn in pencil on the wood backboard made it easy, outlining each tool hanging on its nail.

Above the tools hung his mother’s graduation picture. In it she wasn’t smiling; she was watching. He knew she finally understood what he was doing. Even she had to admit the time had come.

Upstairs, his wife was stretched out on the couch, watching one of her soap operas. He couldn’t tell one from the other, even though she would talk about them as if the people lived just down the road and he saw them at church every Sunday. They filled her life and he was glad of it. She needed something.

He had a lemon, a jug of water, and a little vial. He had brought down a good cutting knife from the kitchen. Slicing the lemon into quarters, he had decided, would be the way to go, as a quarter was the best size for squeezing the fruit. Plus, four was a good solid number. He had always liked it. It might be his favorite number. Like an animal that moved on four legs, it seemed alive and solid.

He cut and squeezed until he had gotten all the juice he could out of the lemon. Not as much juice as he had hoped, but it would do. He added a cup of water, then dumped the contents of the vial into the jug. After screwing the top on tight, he shook the jar and the dark granules dissolved. Then he poured as much of the liquid as he could fit into a silver flask, the old drinking flask of his father’s.

The next step would be taken tonight. Even though he would be the one to carry it out, he could not control what would happen. Four times seven was twenty-eight. It was always twenty-eight. You counted the numbers, you followed the steps.