When I’d been down here before, Frank or Roberta had been on a tractor in the distance, but the fields were empty this morning. I was in luck when I pulled into the yard: a man was working on a tractor parked in front of a dilapidated outbuilding. Beyond him was another building with a bit of a parking lot around it, a large picture window, and a sign proclaiming “Wenger’s Prairie Market.”
I don’t know the etiquette for visiting a working farmer in the middle of the morning. I walked across the yard and watched at a respectful distance—close enough to talk, but not breathing down his neck. He wasn’t working on the tractor, but a piece of machinery attached to it, something with wide, sharp teeth. One of the teeth had broken and he was having a hard time getting it out of its slot. He kept slamming at the bolt with a hammer, not bothering to look across at me.
“Need a hand?” I asked politely.
He looked up. “You a mechanic?”
“No, but I can hold the bolt in place while you whack it with your hammer.”
“Can you, now? You ready to get grease all over those fancy clothes?”
I was wearing a jacket and a blouse over my jeans, but I had a T-shirt in my car. I went back and changed under cover of my open car door, draping the jacket and blouse across the passenger seat. As I returned to him, I saw movement behind the picture window in the Prairie Market. A woman about my own age, with skin sunburned a reddish brown, was hurrying out to join us.
“The market isn’t open on weekdays once the school year starts,” she said.
“I didn’t come for the market; I came to talk to you and your husband, if you’re the Wengers.”
“Who are you, anyway?” she said.
“V. I. Warshawski,” I said. “Are you Ms. Wenger?”
“You out here selling something? We have all the insurance we need.”
Frank Wenger, as I assumed he was, said, “She’s set to help me undo this bolt, Bobbie. If she’s selling something, wait until we’re done before you throw her off the land.”
I squatted next to the machine. The ground was baked hard, with deep ruts from all the big wheels that had come through when the soil was wet. I made sure I had both feet planted in one of the ruts before taking the bolt wrench from Wenger. I kept my arms bent so that my biceps would absorb most of the shock. Even so, it took every ounce of strength I had not to let go when he whacked it. Five furious strokes, and I felt the bolt turn.
“Okay, got it,” he said. “You’re stronger than you look. You a farm gal?”
“Nope. City all the way. I don’t even know what this thing is we’re working on.”
“Disc harrow. Need it to chop and mulch the stalks, such as they are, once we’ve got the corn harvested—such as it is. What can we do for you, city gal?”
I sat on the edge of one of the deepest ruts, rubbing my arms. “I’m a detective, from Chicago. I’m the woman who found Derrick Schlafly’s body in the cornfield.”
“You tell Doug Kossel you were out here?” Frank asked.
“Yes, sir. I stopped at his office first thing. Of course, we’ve been speaking on the phone off and on since I found the body. He sent me to find one of Ricky’s old Chicago playmates, which I did, but now I’m back here, looking for a missing person.”
“Only missing persons in our lives are our daughters,” Frank said.
“Oh?” I pretended I hadn’t looked up his family. “How long have they been gone?”
“Since we saw them at Easter,” Roberta said sharply, while Frank laughed. “We don’t know anything that can help you, and I’m in the middle of making up Halloween displays.”
My hands were covered with grease, but Frank had a roll of paper towels near him. I wiped off as much as I could and went back to my car. Using one of the towels I kept for the dogs, I pulled a photo of Martin out of my case and walked back to the Wengers.
“His mother was one of the people living in the Schlafly place,” I said, holding it out with the towel still in my hand. “He’s been gone for some weeks now. I’m wondering if he came down here to see her.”
“You look across the field here and tell me how much you see, then ask me again what I notice about my neighbors,” Roberta said.
I followed her finger to where she was pointing at the Schlafly house, a small gray structure in the distance. People like to be thought above nosiness and gossip. City or country, the ones who protest most about it are the ones who are probably the nosiest, but I murmured sympathetically.
“You farm these fields, Sheriff Kossel told me. It must have been a worry, all those chemicals Schlafly and his pals were cooking with.”