lady?”
“Wendy Soderstrom. Her place, but she’s not from around here.”
“You know the family?”
“Yeah, went to school with her husband, Hugh,” Aldrich said. “Played football together. Conference champs last two years. Heckuva linebacker.”
“She said it was her husband.”
“Hugh? God Almighty. I was afraid of that. Good Lord,” Aldrich whispered. “I was hoping it was one of the hired hands, I mean, since it had to be somebody. Big farm.”
“Maybe you can get the pastor’s wife to take Mrs. Soderstrom out of here, escort her to the hospital. She’s got to be in shock. It looks like she tried to pick him up. Do they have any children?”
“No, but they were trying,” Aldrich said. No secrets in rural Iowa.
Schumacher stumbled back to us, looking sheepish because his humanity had overcome his training. Nothing to be ashamed of. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. Organization and process began asserting themselves. I looked around to keep from looking at Schumacher. He didn’t need eye contact. Not now.
The two-story Soderstrom farmhouse, big, square, and white-framed, boasted a broad front porch furnished with a swing hung from the ceiling and a scattering of Adirondack chairs, weathered gray. Good place to kick back at the end of the day. A gray stone chimney dominated one end of the house. Secured high up on the chimney, a big, wrought iron letter “S” announced ownership. Green shutters. A small satellite dish perched on the green-shingled roof. Frilly white curtains framed the windows, upstairs and down.
The farmyard included three white barns with green roofs and a wide, open-faced garage housing trucks, tractors and machinery. White grain silos stood like bleached Pringles potato chip cans. Evidence of wealth everywhere.
The wind picked up, soughing through the trees. Pretty sound. Peaceful. I looked at the sky. Storm clouds building, thunderheads rolling in from the west. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. A sudden, rough breeze drove back some of the sick feeling I was fighting from my aching leg. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes. I’d rather have pain any day over nausea, but when I have both, I can be irritable.
We stared at the body. Schumacher turned away. “Better get a body bag, John,” he mumbled.
“Looks like he fell off the tractor and got run over,” Aldrich said. “Size of that mower, man, what’s left of him, musta bled to death in seconds. Exsanguination. God Almighty, Gene, this is terrible,” he said. He edged toward the body as Schumacher brought the body bag.
The two men snapped on latex gloves and walked over to the dead man. Hugh. They hesitated, then expertly, reverently, placed the remains in the bag, zipped the envelope shut, positioned themselves at each end of the heavy brown vinyl container, and lifted. They lugged the body to their vehicle and swung it inside, grunting in unison. They peeled away their gloves, dropped them in a bio-waste container just inside, and slammed the doors shut. Aldrich was weeping.
Schumacher edged over to the women and said something to Molly Heisler, who had positioned herself so that the young widow was shielded from the moving of her husband’s body. Heisler nodded and stood, then helped the other woman to her feet. The women, hanging onto each other, struggled to the passenger side of the mini-van. Heisler opened the door and helped the other woman inside and shut the door, then scrambled around to the driver’s side, seemingly unconcerned about getting blood smears in her spiffy van. Good for her. She drove off.
The EMS truck, silent and somber, followed the van down the lane.
I took another deep breath, felt better as the nausea backed off just a little, and looked around the farmyard, admiring the obvious pride of ownership. The wind kicked up again and the first drops of rain, big and thick, typical prelude to a