Poison Heart by Mary Logue Read Free Book Online

most of them. We brought them all down from the Cities.”
    That wasn’t such a good idea, Claire thought. Bringing in more-expensive labor from the Cities when there were contractors begging for work in Pepin County.
    “I know you’ve been buying up a lot of land. Any chance this could be tied to one of your deals?”
    “I doubt it. I’m offering over market value. Everyone seems real happy to work with me.”
    “Well, I’ll keep checking into it. The vet said the elk could be moved anytime. The wound is superficial.”
    “Why don’t you talk to the caretaker, Jim Bartlett? Set it up with him when he can come and get the animal. That’s what I pay him for. He can show you where the elk was when he was injured. What do I owe you for keeping the elk?”
    “Not a thing. We’ve enjoyed having Harvey, once we knew he wasn’t going to die on us. The vet said she’d just send you the bill.”
    Reiner pulled out his checkbook. “I insist on giving you a little something.”
    Claire shook her head again. “Just being neighborly.”
    “I hate to be in your debt.”
    Claire looked at him, wondering. “Why is that so awful?”
    “Just doesn’t feel right.”
    “Well, if you’d like, you could bake us a cherry pie.”
     
    Claire drove back down the long winding driveway to the caretaker’s house. She parked, and at the sound of her car, a stout tree trunk of a man came out of the garage. He wiped his hands on his jeans as he walked toward her.
    Claire introduced herself and told him that Reiner had said she should talk to him.
    The first words out of his mouth were what she had expected to hear from Reiner. “How’s the elk?”
    “Good. The vet said he doesn’t have an infection in the wound and didn’t lose that much blood.”
    “Scared the shit out of me.”
    “What?”
    “Come and see what I walked into.” He turned and led the way around the back of the garage and over to a pen. “We keep Harvey in here, separate from the females. Until he’s needed.”
    “Not much fun for him.”
    “I know. He gets everything he needs—food, shelter, even a harem. But not a lot of excitement, no reason to use his antlers.”
    Claire looked into the enclosure and saw that the two trees that stood inside of it were rubbed barkless at about Harvey’s head height. “He’s been using them on the trees instead.”
    “Yeah, it looks like it feels good. An itch satisfied.” Jim pointed. “I walked out to feed the herd and saw the fence line was broken. I can’t figure why they would cut the fence when they were going to shoot him.”
    The strands of barbed wire flopped free, three strands cut through and hoof marks leading out of the pen.
    “They also cut the wires into the fence that held the whole herd. When I first walked out, I saw the cut fence, I saw Harvey was gone, and then I saw the other fence was cut too. I couldn’t see the herd, so I wasn’t sure if they had discovered the break and taken off. I walked back over the hill and there they were, grazing. But Harvey was gone.”
    “Any ideas who might have done this?”
    “Not really. I’d say just some prank a kid would play, but there really aren’t that many kids around here.”
    Claire looked at the big guy. “Anybody mad at you?”
    “Oh, I suppose. But not mad enough to do this. And I don’t know how they think this would hurt me. Harvey’s not my elk.”
    “You’d be blamed?”
    “Is that what’s happening? Does Reiner think I did this?”
    Claire hurried to reassure him. “I didn’t get that impression at all.”
    “To tell you the truth, I think he’s getting a little bored with the elk. At first when he bought the herd, he’d come visit them most every time he was here. Now he hardly ever stops by, and he’s been complaining about their feed bills. Says the market has not been good to him. He’s no longer worth a hundred million, just seventy-five.”
    Claire walked around and checked the barbed wire. Not much to see, but it