Poison Heart: A Novel of Suspense

Chapter 1

Claire Watkins sat on the steps of her new home watching the bluff line as the sky filled with light. A little over a month ago, right before school started, she and Meg had moved in with Rich Haggard in his family homestead, an old farmhouse along Highway 35 about half a mile from the center of Fort St. Antoine. The farm was the last house in the village to the south.

Since moving to the Wisconsin countryside, Claire had grown familiar with the movements of the sun and the moon. She knew when each celestial sphere came up, and where, and she knew how their orbits changed with the seasons. The sun would crest the top of the bluffs around seven-thirty on this cool September morning.

The hot cup of coffee in her hands sent up a warm cloud of steam. She breathed in the aroma of freshly ground beans. Rich knew how to make good coffee. He had spoiled her for the rotgut stuff that was brewed at the sheriff's department.

Although most of the summer flowers were done, she could still see drifts of purple asters blooming in the sandy fields along the highway. Their color was startling and alive in the early morning air. The last flowers of the season. Soon the leaves would start to turn.

She felt awfully happy, and it scared her.

Claire knew the fragility of such happiness, knew it could be lost with the next breath. She scarcely dared breathe. She could hear Rich out in the barn, feeding his small flock of pheasants. Meg was upstairs sleeping in on this Saturday morning. They were coming together as a new sort of family.

She went over a mental list of what she had to do today. She needed to put an ad in the shopper to rent out her house. Rich had told her not to worry about it until she was settled. She was starting to feel settled. She should take a walk down along the railroad tracks and pick a bouquet of asters. Her uniforms needed cleaning this weekend. She still found it odd to think of herself as back in uniform.

Four years ago, she had left her job with the Minneapolis Police Department, taken a job as deputy sheriff for Pepin County, and moved down to the small town of Fort St. Antoine. The latest census had said there were 142 residents, which didn't include the weekenders. Half the town's homes were owned by part-timers who lived in the Twin Cities.

The first two years working in Pepin County had been hard: Claire had missed the Cities, missed the police department, missed working with other women officers. But she was starting to feel comfortable in this small community, an hour and a half from the Twin Cities, on the banks of the Mississippi River.

She had left the Cities because her husband had been killed. At that time, she'd had little thought of finding another man to take his place. Then Rich Haggard had walked into her life. She still remembered the first time he had come over to her house and brought her some morels. She was such a city slicker she hadn't even known what to do with the freshly gathered mushrooms. Now that didn't really matter, because Rich was a much better cook than she was.

They were very officially a couple. Marriage had been talked about, but she wanted to see how they worked as partners first. So far the only thing about Rich that really bugged her was that he often felt the need to tell her how to do things.