Bent Road by Lori Roy Read Free Book Online Page B

footprints on her kitchen floor, Ruth takes a bottle of ammonia from under the sink and sets it on the counter so she won’t forget to clean them when the men leave. Next, she checks the timer she set for her banana bread. It’ll be ready in seven minutes and she hopes the men will be gone by then.
    “Sorry to barge in like this,” Floyd says, pushing the creamer across the table to the other two men.
    Ruth pours three cups of coffee.
    “Mostly these two fellows are going to ask the same questions I have.”
    One of the men, the larger of the two and the one who doesn’t bother to take off his hat, pulls out a small pad of paper. He taps a pencil on the edge of the kitchen table and tips his head to one side, giving Ruth a sideways glance. “Won’t take long, ma’am,” he says.
    The other man, who is no bigger than Floyd, nods down at the floor. “Sorry about this mess.” Then he pours cream in his coffee and after checking the sole of each shoe, he glances up at Ruth and smiles with closed lips.
    “More questions?” Ruth asks, standing at the kitchen sink where she can watch out the window for Ray’s truck. Floyd must have waited until Ray left for the day because not five minutes after he pulled away, Floyd drove up with these two men in his car.
    “These fellows are from Wichita. Work for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. They’ve been down here helping us search for Julianne seeing as how we haven’t gotten so far.”
    “That’s good,” Ruth says. “That’s very good.”
    “Where’s your husband off to this morning?” the larger man says. He knows Ray is gone without asking.
    “Smells mighty good,” the smaller man says, nodding at the stove where two loaves of banana bread are baking.
    “The Stockland Café,” Ruth says, answering the larger man’s question. “Always has breakfast there on Saturday mornings. And then to the farm.”
    Their own land is too small to make a living from, so Ray has leased the Hathaway place since Mr. Hathaway died fifteen years earlier. It’s a twelve-mile drive toward town and usually, almost always, keeps Ray away until dusk.
    The larger man studies his pad of paper. “That’s the Hathaway place you’re talking about?”
    “Yes,” Ruth says, glancing out the window before letting her eyes settle on the center of the kitchen table. “Goes there every day.”
    The larger man asks most of the questions. They are the same ones Floyd asked on his three other trips to the house. A few days after Floyd’s first visit, he came back with a black notebook and a ballpoint pen and said he hadn’t taken notes the first time, would Ruth and Ray mind going over the questions again. He said that most folks in town were getting the same visit. The third time he came, he asked how many acres Ray figured he had between the two farms and did he know of any place that might put a young girl in trouble. A fellow who lived over near Stockton found a soft spot on his land that must have been an old shaft or a dug-out foundation. Nothing in there but the fellow never would have found it if he hadn’t looked. Floyd offered to help Ray check over his land and the Hathaways’ since Mrs. Hathaway couldn’t be expected to do it. “Can look plenty good on my own,” Ray had said, so Floyd tipped his hat and didn’t come back again until today.
    “Sure I can’t clean up for you, ma’am?” the smaller man says, waving a hand toward the muddy footprints.
    He’s the kinder of the two and seems to believe Ruth when she tells her story about strawberry pie and a quiet evening at home. The larger man doesn’t believe so easily. He shakes his head when he scribbles in his book like he knows what he’s writing isn’t true. Floyd has surely told them about the past, about how Ray only married Ruth because Eve died. The men from Wichita, especially the larger one, look at Ruth like most of the people in town do, like anything bad she has to bear is her own doing so she