Read Online Bone Harvest by Mary Logue - Free Book Online Page A

mouth and she closed her eyes for a moment. Harold could tell she was visualizing the scene. She knew murder scenes; she knew farms. She was putting them together in her mind.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “Someone came and shot the whole family. A neighbor, who happened to be a deputy sheriff, went over to return something and he found them. But they could never figure out who did it or why. Had the whole county stirred up for months.”
    “I can imagine.” Claire shook her head and then asked, “What do you think?”
    He wouldn’t bite on such an open-ended question. “About what?”
    “About the note. About the man who’s doing this.”
    “Sure it’s a man?”
    “About ninety-five percent sure.”
    “That’s quite a bit. I happen to agree with you.”
    Claire didn’t say anything more. She waited for him to continue. Good interviewing technique. Harold was pleased with this woman deputy. She knew her stuff. She took her time. Especially in this new age of technology, you needed to know how to take your own time.
    Harold gathered his thoughts. He had thought of little else since he had read the note. “What do I think about him? I’ll tell you what I’ve figured out from his note. He’s slightly obsessive-compulsive. That’s shown by the numbers at the top of the note. He’s polite. He was raised well. And I’m sure that he’s an older man. He’d have to be if he’s been around for at least the last fifty years.” He paused.
    Claire had been following his words closely. She gave one brief nod and said, “Right.”
    Harold continued. “For other reasons, he’s got to be an older man. He addressed me as Mr. Harold Peabody. Anyone under forty wouldn’t do that. Titles have just about disappeared from daily life. Also, he asked that I put it in the paper— please. Again a nicety that shows he’s generally a civil man. But something’s got him horridly riled up. He’s religious. He reads his Bible. Might be the only book he reads. He has a mission. He thinks that God is backing him on this one. He might do anything.”
    “Wow,” Claire said.
    He was both pleased and surprised at her exclamation. It was to the point, but he wanted her to react more to all his work. He pressed his hands down on his desk and said, “That’s what I think.”
    “You could be a profiler.”
    At first Harold didn’t know what she was talking about. The first thing that popped into his mind were those old black cameo paper cutouts that were done of someone’s profile. Then he remembered that he had seen a TV show called Profiler. A woman solved crimes by studying the criminals’ behavior. He chuckled.
    “I’m serious. Criminal profilers look at exactly the things you analyzed. I studied it a bit at the police academy. Let me ask you a few more questions. Do you think he’s a farmer?”
    Harold scratched his thinning pate. “Could be. Probably if he’s lived in this area for fifty years. Seems like everyone used to be a farmer. If he’s not, he’d know quite a bit about it. Enough to be able to know how to use those pesticides.”
    “Do you think he’s dangerous?”
    “I’m afraid I do. As I’ve said, he’s riled up. He’s been on simmer about this happening for fifty years, and it looks like he’s about to blow.”
    “What do you think he’ll do next?”
    Harold leaned forward. Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. “Talk about the man all you want, but what you must do is outguess him, know where he’s going to be, know what he’s going to do before he does it.” He listed the acts thus far. “First he stole the pesticide. Then he destroyed the flowers. Next he killed the birds.”
    He paused. Claire waited.
    “I’m afraid it’s escalating,” Harold said. “I’m afraid he’ll move on to something bigger. It could be cows; it could be horses.” Then he forced himself to say what he was really afraid of. “It could be people.”
    “Yup.” Claire tapped her pencil on