Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

  Eustacia was lying down now, breathing hard in her contractions, the amniotic sac bulging out from the birth canal. Ruth hoped it would break soon, hoped the birth would be normal, feet-first. She didn’t want to have to call Dr. Greiner. She had a pile of unopened bills on her kitchen desk.

  Hearing footsteps coming through the barn door, she yelled, “Tim, please, I’m fine, I told you. Go do your thing.”

  “Can I?” It was Colm’s voice, making out to be sexy; she didn’t know whether to laugh or growl. Then suddenly, she laughed. Oh, but she was too prissy, getting worse with Pete’s absence. She had to change her ways.

  “You may not want to watch this,” she warned as he stalked in. He was dressed in white cotton pants and a pale blue shirt, a blue feed cap. “What is this—Midsummer’s Eve?”

  “Only clean ones I own,” he said. “I need a woman.”

  Another remark to ignore. The Irish in Colm, she supposed—generations of patriarchy. Eustacia was bellowing softly now with the quickening contractions, the calf’s feet— for it was coming feet-first, thank heavens—emerging and then contracting, the birth fluids leaking out into the hay. “Draw up a pail if you’re planning to stay,” she told Colm, and then had to laugh when Eustacia suddenly urinated—she had to jump back herself.

  “Jeez,” said Colm, then added, “Why I’m here—if I can distract you a minute—Mac’s at Fay’s—safe.” She nodded, she knew. “Oh, and the tire prints match. I just called headquarters. But Bagshaw insists he only gave Glenna a lift. He was driving by, he said, and she was coming down the path from the woods, waving her arms. Said he let her out at the convenience store in East Branbury, because he had to get home; he didn’t know she’d disappeared from Rockbury. Didn’t know she was there in the first place, he said. And then, according to Fallon, he went into a bunch of gibberish. Something about some woman named Annie. In and out of reality—poor old guy. Anyway, Fallon has sent a man to interview the clerk at the convenience store.”

  “Do you believe him—Bagshaw?” She’d wasn’t sure that she did. After all, the man had taken a shot at her. There’d been something else going on in his head; she’d have to sit down and think about it.

  “Well, I’m inclined to, I guess. But you can’t rule him out. He did bury those birds—or at least the feet and beaks. I went with Fallon to have a look. We don’t know whose property that garden’s on—it’s right between the two places. Of course Bagshaw says it’s his land. We’ll need a deed. But your friend Kevin Crowningshield holds the key to that. He says he owns the land the Healing House is on.”

  “He inherited it. Is that supposed to be suspicious?” She glanced at him, sitting there, leaning back against the stanchion, looking smug. Already, the metal pail was tipping back. She hoped he’d go plop in the dung; it’d serve him right. “And I know he didn’t poison his wife. Alwyn Bagshaw did, I’ll bet—those birds. How did he kill them anyway?”

  “We don’t know they were poisoned. He could have shot them.”

  “All those shots? The neighbors would’ve been up in arms.” She got up, hands on her hips. “And, Colm, Emily saw the birds in his wheelbarrow. Through Vic’s telescope. She told me last night. She didn’t realize at the time what they were, but now it adds up. She’s ready to testify.”

  Eustacia was bellowing, Ruth had to shout to make Colm hear. It wasn’t the time for polite conversation—if that’s what they were having. It was time to break the amniotic sac. If he couldn’t take it, he’d have to leave. “Watch out,” she warned Colm, who jumped up at the spurting liquid; and then, “Okay, girl,” she told Eustacia, “let’s get going.”

  But the calf was in no hurry, and Ruth sat back down again to wait.

  “He lived here a couple of years, in Branbury, right?” Colm asked, sitting back on his pail.

  “Who?”

  “Your friend. Crowningshield.”

  “Colm, he’s not ‘my friend.’ I don’t like the inference. He’s simply a man who’s lost a wife he loved. He needed someone to talk to. So I gave him an ear.”

  “That’s all you gave him.”

  “Back off, Colm! What assumptions are you making here?”

  But he was getting serious now; she knew the look—the black brows beetling. “He lived here in town for a time, right?”

  “Before he married, that’s all. He worked for Killian’s Precision up in Vergennes; that’s how he met Angie. I mean, when they met. She lived here.”

  “Next to Bagshaw’s?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not then. She lived in town somewhere. Why do you want to know this?”

  He leaned farther back on the metal pail; any minute, it would tip—irreversibly. She couldn’t wait. “I’m just curious, that’s all. Killian Precision, huh? They made airplane parts. For the air force.”

  “So?” She patted Eustacia’s rump. The contractions were slowing. “This will be awhile longer.”

  Colm got up, wiped hay off his rear end, and the pail clanged down on the floor. He put out a tentative hand to pat Eustacia’s sweaty flank. “Good luck, old girl,” he said.

  “That was sweet, Colm. She’s eyeballing you, see?”

  “Or maybe she wants to butt me. You think?”

  “If she doesn’t, I might.” She grabbed his arm when he almost walked into a pile of dung.

  “Jeez,” he said. “This is a dangerous place. I hope you’ve got lots of health insurance.”

  She laughed. “Health insurance? For farmers, barns and cows come first. Forget the health insurance.”

  “Kill-i-an Pre-ci-sion,” he said again, making six syllables out of it.

  This time she let him walk, plop, into the manure.

  She gave him one more volley before he moved out of hearing. “Colm, Pete’s coming. Halloween, nice timing? Maybe he can tell you more about Killian Precision. He had a cousin worked there.”

  He didn’t even turn around this time, but she was sure she saw his shoulders slump. She was sorry then. Suddenly, she wanted to run and hug him, but now he was out of sight.

  * * * *

  Colm walked along the road, over to the Flint farm. He needed the walk; he was getting flabby: He slapped his belly and it wiggled. From now on... well, after today, anyway, he’d start watching his calories. His father did most of the cooking in their household—red meat and baked potatoes, night after night. Maybe a spoonful of peas—never a salad. The Irish diet. Ruth was trying to get him off red meat, of course— beef, anyway. She wouldn’t even down a beef bouillon cube. Said she might be eating one of her own bull calves. Though she paid her hired man, in part, with a side of beef.

  He’d put off seeing Mac since Fay called with the news of his return. He smiled. She’d put one over on the old man. Said he had a scowl a mile wide on his face when Hartley arrived with Boomer, though Fay suspected Mac was almost— almost—relieved to be found. The old man wasn’t going anywhere now; Colm was pretty sure of that. Fay and Hartley were keeping a close eye on him. Mac seemed subdued, according to Fay. After all, he was anemic, and frail-looking—all skin and bones. And maybe, just maybe, he was worried about Glenna.

  Jeez. Who should he meet coming out of the Flint house but Kevin Crowningshield, as dapper as ever. A smile on his face—”pumpkin grin,” Colm called it. Thrusting out his hand to shake Colm’s, as if they were bosom buddies. Reluctantly, he took it.

  “The police called. Just now. It was Bagshaw all the time. Bagshaw used a poison called superwarfarin to kill those birds. They found it on the feet—that’s how they absorb it from the feeding perch—through the feet. He’d admitted it, too, used some kind of perch he bought through a catalog—Killabird or something. It’s illegal in this state.” He withdrew his hand, grimaced. “But it doesn’t bring Angie back.”

  “Killabird uses fenthion—that won’t harm humans,” Colm informed Crowningshield. “But superwarfarin will— especially if the victim is on blood thinners. He evidently used it when the fenthion ran out. That’s why i
t took so long to recognize the poison in her system.” He heard his voice expressionless. Crowningshield hadn’t hurt his wife, so why was he so down on this guy?

  The man’s voice got throaty; his breath sounded raggedy. “She could have been saved. I blame them all. I blame those women at that Healing House for not letting me see her. I blame Bagshaw, blame the police for dragging their feet, blame the doctors. ...” His fists were clenched so hard, the bone shone through the knuckles.

  Colm cleared his throat. It was unfair of him to judge the man this way, he supposed. Crowningshield was obviously in pain. He just didn’t like him, that’s all. With some men, you had bad vibes. Ruth, of course, would say he was jealous. Maybe he was.

  “It was my land, too,” Crowningshield went on, blowing his nose, lifting his chin, his shiny black shoes planted on the porch floor. “I showed them the deed; I got it from the lawyer.”

  “Already?” said Colm.

  “Well. . . well, I have to settle things. While I’m here. I mean, I have to get back to Chicago. My work. I’ve been away from it too long. The work will help.”

  Colm nodded, went on into the house. He heard Crowningshield’s rented car start up, and then turn off— engine trouble? He was sorry for the man, and yet angry. The guy would be contacting a Realtor next, he bet, but Colm was pretty sure he himself wouldn’t be the one called. Selling the Healing House land out from under the women. Making a bundle, no doubt. With Bagshaw in trouble, maybe Crowningshield could buy up the land next door, as well. Develop it.

  Jeez, but Colm hated real estate. Why was he in it— except to walk the land, escape the mortuary? Of course, it was nice to see a young couple’s faces when they signed for their first home, though he winced at the mortgage they took on their backs. Like carrying a hump around with you for thirty years. Maybe he should go back into teaching. He’d tried for a time, but the kids ran all over him. He was a patsy for any excuse: “The computer ate my paper....” Yeah, right! He’d take a test, he decided. See what career he was really suited for. In his late forties? Still living with his dad? Jeez.

  He found Mac slumped over the kitchen table, stirring a cup of hot cocoa, a soggy marshmallow in the middle. There were a couple of half-smoked cigarettes in an ashtray. The old man squinted up at Colm with a sly smile.

  Colm decided not to scold. Anyway, he still had Crowningshield on his mind. “Ever seen that guy before? The one who just walked out the door? Ever see him back when you lived here?” He looked out the window. The man had the hood up, was peering in at the engine.

  Mac shrugged. “Looks slightly familiar. Might have seen him around town sometime. Not around here, though.”

  “Killian Precision ring a bell? Got any more of those marshmallows?” Then he put a hand on his belly. He didn’t need them. He slid into a chair across from Mac.

  Mac thought a while, slurped his cocoa. “Couple guys I knew worked there, one of the Bagshaws, I think.” And when Colm looked interested, Mac added, “I said, I think. Think. I don’t know. Now let’s get back to me. You got me; I give up. I can’t run anymore. You wanna tell the police I killed that guy in the hole? I’m yours. I need a long nap.”

  “I don’t want to tell them anything, Mac. I just want them to know you’re alive. So Glenna won’t be a suspect.”

  “If she’s not a suspect, then I am. Ever think of that, buddy? I ran off—somebody put that guy in the hole. They’ll point the finger at me, right?”

  “If you didn’t do it, you don’t have to worry.”

  “Oh, I have to worry all right,” said Mac, brooding into his cocoa. His whiskers dipped into the cup and came up brown.

  “One of the Bagshaws worked at Killian Precision. Do you recall when?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Time passes. It blurs. You can find out if you go there.”

  “It’s no longer in operation.”

  “So? There are ways. I don’t have to tell you; you’re a—”

  “Pseudo-detective,” Colm interrupted. That was his career now. Pseudo-detective. Jeez.

  Mac laughed, a wheezing sound that spit out cocoa onto the vinyl tablecloth.

  Fay would be glad when Mac left, Colm bet. She wouldn’t get any rent out of him. He heard her upstairs, running a vacuum.

  Mac was looking serious again. “I saw him in Alibi—that’s where I saw him. Younger version, of course.”

  “Who?”

  “That guy who just left, Crown something. You asked me, right? He got in a fight, yeah, fisticuffs. Bartender had to heave the two of ’em outta there. It was a good one.” He smiled at some image he was projecting on the white wall.

  “Two? Who was the other? What was the fight about?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “Who was the other? I asked.”

  “Oh. Well, I think—one of the Bagshaws, the womanizer, that one. Maybe that’s what the fight was over, a woman. Most likely.”

  “That’s all you know? You don’t remember when, or what they said to each other?”

  Mac sighed, swallowed his marshmallow. Colm watched it lump its way down through his throat. Then he said, “It was just before I left. Month or so maybe, I don’t know. Couple of weeks. Then that guy, that Bagshaw—he came here to the farm.”

  “Go on.”

  Mac stood up suddenly, spilling the cocoa. “Nothing, just nothing. Had business here, that’s all, I guess. He sold fertilizer or something. That’s all I know. I’m sick of answering questions. If we’re going downtown, let’s go. Get it over with. Show ’em I’m me, Mac MacInnis. Do I have to take out my teeth? Prove to ’em Glenna didn’t kill me?”

  “Hopefully, it will help Glenna.”

  “Yeah, hopefully,” Mac said, his face a mask, and snatching a dark red cardigan sweater from the back of the chair, sighing loudly, he plodded to the door. “Let’s get it over with, I said, okay?” He pulled out a cigarette. “I need a nap.”

  * * * *

  Chief Fallon sat back in his swivel chair, peeled a banana. Bananas contained fiber, iron, he told Colm; his chiropractor advised him to eat them. For one thing, he had a bad back: “Last week, I put something, um, out. The wife finds me flat on the floor—I can’t move. I have to crawl to the, um—”

  Colm repeated his request to see Alwyn Bagshaw, and finally Fallon sent him over to the jail, where they were holding the man. “Sure, ask away. And good luck. We can’t get anything out of the son of a gun. He just raves on about some Antichrist. We got him a lawyer, but now the guy’s telling him to plead not guilty. When we’ve got him against the wall. He’s guilty as hell of offing those birds. That’s crime enough around here. Wait till the Audubon Society gets hold of that one. Poisoning birds.”

  “What about those women? Angie Crowningshield? Two others with traces of it in their systems? Lucky for them we found out when we did.”

  “You got a point there,” Fallon said. “You got a point.” And as Colm left the office, he yelled, “That Flint woman, he swears he left her at the convenience store. The clerk says he never saw her. I got a man interviewing the neighbors. Okay, see if you think Bagshaw’s telling the truth. He’s senile, a little nuts. Raves on about some Annie, says she ruined him. There was an Annie, someone he went with back when. One of our detectives checked on it. She lives in California now. Alive and well, right? Hasn’t seen old Bagshaw for twenny years. The old man lives in the past. So go, um, ask... At least your man MacInnis has his act together. If it really is old Mac.” He grinned. “I’ve got him on hold here until...”

  Colm shut the door on the rest of the sentence. He was concerned about Mac, and Glenna, too, yes, but obsessed— he had to admit it—with Kevin Crowningshield. With unanswered questions, like Denby Bagshaw’s relationship with Crowningshield. Why would Crowningshield want to stay at the Flint place, a marginal farm? He had money, so why not stay at the inn? Was there some reason behind that? Nothing obvious—yet. Colm just wanted to know some things, that’s all.

  Though
Fallon was right. Bagshaw just rambled on, raving about the Healing House. “It ain’t right; it ain’t normal,” he whined at Colm. “Them women, prancing about half-naked. I don’t hold with that. Where’s the men? You tell me where’s the men? Woman needs a man to keep her down. Like Annie ... But I fooled her. I fooled Annie.”

  “I want to know about your brother,” Colm interrupted. He started up the small recorder in his pocket. Hoped the battery worked. Colm wasn’t very good with machines. Of course, it wasn’t an official interview. “Denby. He worked at Killian Precision?”

  Alwyn slitted his eyes. “Why you want to know that for?”

  “He drowned,” Colm said. “Back in ‘75, it was in the Independent. I looked up an old copy. Wasn’t that a bit odd? I mean, just the year before, he dove off the rock at the quarry and landed on some woman, half-drowned her. That was in the papers, too. Would he dive off if he couldn’t swim?”

  Alwyn considered, ran a hand through his white hairs. Colm noticed that his left middle finger stuck up, like he was always giving someone the finger. In a way, it was true. “Yep, yep, he could swim all right. But his truck couldn’t. He drowned in his truck. Body floated off into the lake. Try dredging up that big lake?”

  “You know Glenna Flint’s husband, Mac?”

  “Maybe I do.” Alwyn slumped back on the bench. “Well, he’s dead. Buried in that hole. Sure. Look, I’m tired. I got problems. Police took me outta my home. They can’t do that. A man’s got a right to his privacy. Get me outta here!” He stretched out a hand. The backs looked clawed, like bird feet.

  “You didn’t think of those women’s rights, did you? When you burned those birds? Buried what was left in that garden?”

  “It was my property. I got a deed, too. It’s in my closet. If they let me out, I’ll show ’em. They got no right coming on my property.”

  “It was half-yaw property; we have a deed from next door.” Colm was guessing. He needed time to go check on Crowningshield’s deed. He’d go after this interview. “Some of the bird remains were on the, um, Crowningshield property.” It was a nice lead-in. “Ever seen him before? Kevin Crowningshield? He was the dead woman’s husband. He owns the property now. So he says.” Colm held a photo under Bagshaw’s nose. Fay had taken it, smart lady.