Chapter 6: The Mineral Tub

I took my hand off the farmer's wrist, pulled my glove on, and drew the sheet up to his chin before the truck's engine died.

The coroner got to the back door first, loud and cheerful, and I heard him say "coffee, Del."

Delbert Vandergriff came down the ramp into the cold with a bag of jerky held out in front of him.

He was fifty-two, broad through the shoulders, with a red face and a Carhartt vest.

I knew the warmth of his hand before he took mine.

"Doc," he said. "The Honore Street doctor."

"Terrence was a friend of mine, you know," he went on. "I wanted to shake the hand that told the truth."

"Mr. Vandergriff."

"Del. Everybody says Del."

He took in the sheet, the tray and my gloves in one easy glance.

I watched him decide how long I had been in the room.

"Terrible thing," he said to the body, and then, kindly, to me, "That's a hurt fold, Doc."

"Hogs thrash," he went on. "A man goes down in the straw, four deep claw marks, that's how they all look."

"They don't look like this."

"I'm sure you'd know," he said, smiling. "I tell every widow the same."

"Burn him and bury him quick, because that residue is real," he said. "A Bureau man told me so himself."

There was nothing in his face that I could point at.

That was the thing I understood about him, standing there with the cold coming up through my shoes.

On Thursday night he had stood in that yard with a hand on a living man's shoulder.

He would stand just as warmly beside the grave.

"It's not my decision," I said. "It's the widow's."

"Then let's go ask her, Doc. I'll drive."

"I'll follow," I said.

The farm sat four miles out, down a gravel lane between harvested corn.

The widow was sixty-two, thin, in a man's barn coat, and she met us at the kitchen door with her arms folded over it.

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