Poison Heart (3 page)

As he woke up more, he got agitated. The fingers of his good hand picked at the blanket that covered his lap, and his lips mouthed words, but nothing came out. He shifted in his wheelchair and groaned.

“What, Dad?”

He looked at her with pleading in his eyes.

“What do you want?”

He moved his hand.

“Are you thirsty?”

He shook his head and moved his hand again. She knew he was trying to tell her something. What could he want?

“Do you want something?”

He nodded and held out his hand.

“Something you hold in your hand?”

He nodded again.

Margaret wanted to understand. He had never tried this hard to communicate with her before. “A comb?”

He groaned and shook his head. Then he looked down at his hand and moved it across the arm of his wheelchair. It looked like he was trying to write.

“Dad, do you want to write something?”

He quickly nodded.

Margaret opened her purse and pulled out a pen. She handed it to him, and he started to write on the wheelchair arm.

“Wait, Dad, wait. I’ll get you a piece of paper.” Margaret looked around the room and found a notice about activities left by the staff. The back was blank. She found the tray that they put over his wheelchair when they wanted him to work on something. When the tray was in place, she set the paper in the middle of it and took his hand and put it in the middle of the paper.

He started writing. She was so excited, she thought of running out in the hall to tell someone. Her dad could write. But when she looked at what he had written, she couldn’t make any sense out of it. If it was a word, all the letters were written one on top of the other, making it illegible.

“Dad, you need to keep moving your hand when you write. Let me try to help you.” She took his hand, but he pulled it away and went back to writing in a very tight space. Then he looked up at her.

It still was a small mound of scribbles.

She took his hand. “Let’s try this. Go.”

As soon as he formed a letter, she gently moved his hand, giving him room to form the next.

Margaret could tell the first letter was
f.
The next letter looked like an
o,
and the next letter looked like an
n,
and the final letter she couldn’t read at all.

He looked up at her, expectantly.

“I can’t quite make out the word, Dad. Is the first letter
f
?”

He nodded, and his hand started writing again without her help.

This time she could make out the first two letters:
f-a.

Margaret was afraid she knew what he was writing. But she wanted to be sure. “Dad, let me help you one more time.”

She held his hand and guided him and he wrote out
f-a-r-m.
She could read the
m,
although it looked more like an
n.
She had said nothing to him when she heard that Patty Jo was thinking about selling the farm. She didn’t want to worry him.

“Farm?” she asked.

He nodded, happy.

“Are you worried about the farm?” she asked.

He nodded again.

Margaret didn’t want to lie to her dad. She hardly knew how to do it. “I think it’s fine, Dad. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Now she needed to make sure that was true.

CHAPTER 3

Rich’s heart sank when he saw the elk standing at the top of his driveway. Its large, antlered head hung between its legs in a stance he recognized. Years ago, when he had shot a deer and it finally stopped running, it had stood like that, an arrow in its chest, waiting for what was to come. He had never gone hunting again.

There were two elk farms in the area—the nearest was on the Reiner estate, and he figured that had to be where this animal came from. He wanted to see how close he could get to the animal. The fewer people around, the better. A bull elk could be dangerous. But he needed to get closer to assess the animal’s problem. Slowly and evenly, he walked toward the elk.

When he was about ten yards away, Rich stopped. The smell of the animal wafted toward him—rank, musky, a bit of the swamp in it. He could see the wound on the elk’s neck and hear its labored breathing.

The tan-and-black bull elk was one of the biggest he had ever seen. He guessed it weighed in at over eight hundred pounds. The rack was a good eight-pointer, which probably meant the elk had been around for at least eight years.

He turned and walked back down the driveway to the car. Leaning into the car, he answered Claire and Meg’s questions before they were asked.

“Yes, it’s still there. It’s still alive, Meg. Claire, call Kate Jenkins. She works out of the Wabasha vet clinic. And then call our friend Mr. Reiner and ask him if he knows where his elk stud is. If it’s missing, ask him how tame the animal is and has it ever been haltered. And ask him what could have happened to it.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Meg.

Claire looked at him, cell phone in her hand.

“I’m going to go sit quietly near the elk and watch him. If he takes off for the woods, I’ll probably follow him. You two stay here and wait for the vet.”

Claire grabbed his sleeve. “Wait for me to make these calls. Then take the phone with you. That way you can call and tell us where you are.”

“Good idea.”

Kate Jenkins was available and said she’d be right over. A minor miracle. Rich had reason to hope.

Mrs. Reiner said she didn’t know anything about the elk. They were her husband’s thing, she explained, and he wasn’t home. Claire asked her to have him call, and handed the phone to Rich.

“Be careful.”

“As careful as you always are,” he said.

“Can we go inside?”

“Yes, but use the back door. We don’t want to spook this guy. But would you wait until the vet shows up? Then bring her in through the house.”

Rich walked back up the driveway, as cautiously as before, no sudden movements. The bleeding appeared to have stopped, but if the elk started running again, it might reopen its wound.

Rich sat on the bottom step of his front stairs, about fifteen yards from the elk, and watched it. The elk raised its head high enough to take a look at Rich. It didn’t seem afraid, but Rich did not take that for a good sign. It could mean that the animal was past the point of fear.

Then the animal did an extraordinary thing—it took a step toward Rich. He couldn’t believe it and stopped breathing. The elk kept looking at him. If Rich hadn’t known better, he would have guessed it was trying to ask something of him. He didn’t know how tame elk could be. He had never been around one before. Maybe it wasn’t afraid of humans. That would make tending to it a lot easier.

From where he sat, Rich had a good view of the neck wound. It was possible that the animal had run into something and hurt itself, but it looked like someone had intended to bring down this animal. The neck was a vital area, and if a shot hit the neck bone or struck an artery, it would kill quickly. What he couldn’t figure was why anyone would shoot this elk. It had to be a captive animal. The last native elk in Wisconsin had been killed off about a hundred years ago. Didn’t make much sense that someone would shoot at it.

After that one step toward him, the elk stopped moving. It hung its head again, and Rich waited with it, worrying that if it fell to its knees, it would never get up again. Rich felt as though he was meditating—breathing with the animal, willing it to stay on its feet. For a while, he forgot that he existed as a human.

After half an hour, he felt a hand on his shoulder. When he turned he saw the vet, Kate Jenkins.

“You’ve found Harvey,” she said.

“Harvey?”

The elk lifted his head at his name.

Jenkins went on. “Reiner’s stud elk. Tame as a dog. Bottle-fed. Probably just standing there waiting for something to eat. You got an apple?”

Rich walked into the house to get one.

Bridget picked up the phone to call her sister, Claire. She was hesitant to make the call because it would seem so final. Just as she was about to punch in the number, she saw her daughter, Rachel, holding on to the table leg.

Rachel looked over at Bridget, let go of the table leg, and took a step all by herself. Her first step. Bridget hung up the phone to watch her daughter. What an amazing creature this just-turned-one-year-old girl was. And, as usual, her father was not there to see it happen.

For the last year, Chuck had been gone more than he was around. Bridget knew he was busy with his work. These were not new problems, but they had gotten worse since Rachel was born. Sometimes he seemed afraid of Rachel, especially when she cried.

Watching her smiling baby totter toward her, Bridget didn’t understand how anyone could help but love her to death.

About three months ago, Bridget had sat Chuck down and had a long talk with him. She’d told him how his behavior made her feel, and she’d suggested some things they could do to try to make him more comfortable. He was reluctant even to talk about it. He seemed to think it was her job to take care of the kid. She was starting to pick up more hours at the pharmacy again, and she needed help.

Two months ago, Bridget had set up an appointment with a marriage counselor. Chuck hadn’t shown up. Bridget had gone to the counselor for four sessions, then stopped. The marriage counselor had wished her luck.

A month ago, she had screamed at Chuck in the middle of their front yard. He had stayed out until after midnight, and she’d gone outside to meet him when he drove his truck into the yard. He’d been drunk, but not outrageously so. He had even been in a good mood. Bridget had surprised herself when she told him to go find someplace else to stay for the night. She said that anytime he didn’t make it home until after midnight, not to bother coming home. She meant it. For a week, he got home before midnight; then, three nights in a row, she didn’t see him. What was really sad was she didn’t even care where he had been.

Rachel stopped halfway across the room. She tottered, looking as though she might fall, then put out her foot and took another step.

A week ago, Bridget had hired a babysitter for Rachel. She and Chuck went to a fish fry in Nelson. After two beers, she told Chuck she didn’t think it was working anymore. He nodded in agreement. She asked him what he wanted to do.

“We’ll get through this, Bridge,” he said. “It’s just a phase. You know, new baby and all.”

“New baby?” Bridget found her voice rising. “Rachel is almost a year old. She’s hardly a baby anymore. In case you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh.” He seemed surprised. “Why do you have to talk to me like that? You sound like my mom.”

“Just what I don’t want to be. Your mom.”

“Speaking of my mom, she’d like to come by and see Rachel this weekend.”

“Do you hear me when I talk? Don’t you think we have a problem?”

“If you’d just calm down.”

That was when she lost it. She looked at this man she had loved so dearly, who had been such fun to be with, who had called her his little chickadee. They couldn’t even talk to each other anymore. She had married him believing he was the man she would grow old with. She didn’t want him to see her cry, and she didn’t have anything else to say. She stood up and walked out, leaving the waitress balancing her plate of walleye and fries in her hand.

The next day she called Chuck at work and said that she would be moving out of the house, asked him to stay away until then. He agreed, but said he had to come home to get some clothes while she was at work.

Rachel, her dark hair flying around her head like a feathery halo, fell into Bridget’s arms at the end of her first steps.

Bridget held her close. “My big girl. You are the best. You are the best walker and the best child anyone could ever want. I’ll love you enough for two. That’s all there is to it.”

After she set her child down on the floor, she walked to the couch and picked up the phone. She dialed her sister’s new number. When Claire picked up the phone, Bridget asked her, “Have you rented out your house yet?”

Claire said no.

“Good,” Bridget said, “I’d like to move in.”

Later that afternoon, Claire got a call from Margaret Underwood, asking for her help. Halfway through their conversation, Margaret started to cry. Even though Claire didn’t know the woman, she felt horrible for her. After listening to her concerns, Claire called the sheriff, got his okay to check out the situation, and drove right out to the Underwood farm.

The leaves fluttered off the hood of her car as they flew down from the trees in the autumn wind. The sun was shining as though it would never go away, not even in the darkest of winter days. Claire knew that was a lie, but she still enjoyed it.

Margaret must have been watching for her, because she walked out of the house as soon as Claire pulled up. She was a large woman with honey-gold hair lightly sprayed with gray. She had beautifully shaped eyes, deep blue. Close to Claire’s age, she guessed. She could see why Margaret and Ruth were friends. They were both good examples of the back-to-the-land, earth mother type.

“Do you want me to drive?” Margaret asked as she came up to the car.

“No, I might as well. After all, this is official business.” Claire didn’t mention that it would be better to have someone less emotional behind the wheel. “Hop in.”

Margaret’s husband came to the door of the house and waved goodbye. A wiry man, he looked about the same size as Margaret.

Margaret pointed him out to Claire. “That’s Mark. I couldn’t ask him to do this with me because I’m afraid if he was in the same room with my stepmother, he’d kill her.” Margaret gave a nervous laugh and went on. “Not really. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, but it would be hard on him to stay civil.”

“Do you both work at home?” Claire asked, steering them to a safer topic.

“Yes, we raise goats. We make goat cheese and sell their milk. If you’d like to try it, I could give you some cheese when we get back to my house. We’ve got some new feta that’s just ready.”

“I’d love that. Ruth raves about your cheeses.” Claire had turned back down the road. “I’m not sure where your stepmother’s house is. Tell me where to go.”

“It’s not far. Just on the other side of the church. It was so nice to be close to Dad. But now I try not to drive by the home place. I don’t like to see Patty Jo if I can help it. And the soybean fields are a disgrace.”

“I gather your stepmother’s difficult?”

Margaret sighed. “She can be.”

“Was she always?”

“No, not really. At first, I was glad she was friends with Mom and Dad. She helped them out a lot. Now I can see she made it so they couldn’t live without her. She made herself indispensable. Dad really depended on her after Mom died. They married within a month. Maybe I should have stepped in, but I wanted him to be happy.”

“Sounds like a good decision.”

“I don’t know. I can’t help thinking about how different things might have been if Patty Jo hadn’t come along.” She grew silent as they drove past the church, then she pointed. “There’s the house.”

Claire turned into the driveway. The house looked like many of the farmhouses in the county, a big white four-square—four rooms up and four rooms down, with a screened-in front porch that ran the width of the house.

“Does she know we’re coming?” Claire asked.

Margaret nodded. “Yes, I called. I wanted to be sure she’d be there. I told her I had something to ask her, but I didn’t tell her what. I didn’t want her to have a chance to think of an excuse.”

“So she’s not expecting me?”

“All I said was that I was bringing a friend. I didn’t tell her you were a deputy. She wouldn’t have liked that.”

“That’s fine, but she’ll find out soon enough.” Claire had put on her uniform per protocol. The sheriff always wanted them dressed in uniform on any department business.

As they walked up to the house, a plump woman with frizzy blond hair came to the screen door in the porch. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Claire was surprised by how young the woman was, maybe sixty. And by how much makeup she was wearing. Especially the bright pink lipstick. Farm women seldom wore lipstick unless they were going to town.

“Hello, Patty Jo,” Margaret said when they reached the bottom of the steps.

“Margaret, who is this?” Patty Jo’s voice had an edge to it as she looked at Claire.

“Claire Watkins. I asked her to come along. She works for the sheriff’s department.”

“Obviously. Why ever did you feel it necessary to bring a police . . . person with you?”

“Patty Jo, we need to talk.”

“Come on into the porch, but don’t let the flies in.” Patty Jo held the door open.

At one end of the porch was a swing filled with striped pillows. It looked like the place to be on a summer night. A small table was set up with wicker chairs around it, but Patty Jo didn’t invite them to sit. They all stood by the front door.

“This is very nice,” Claire said, thinking how convenient it would be to have a screened-in porch like this when the mosquitos got bad. “You must spend a lot of time out here. Especially on a day like today.”

“It’s all too big for me,” Patty Jo said. “Now that Walter is in the nursing home, I can’t keep it up. I’m selling the place. Margaret, I hope you heard about that and the auction.”

“Yes, Patty Jo. That’s why I wanted to come by.”

“Well, I’m glad you have. I’ve decided to give you the trunk. I think your father always wanted you to have it. As long as you were coming over, I thought you could take it with you.”