Free Innuendo by R.D. Zimmerman

cock ring, and a pinkish latex butt plug. Ignoring the paraphernalia, Rawlins saw a handful of pencils and pens on the other side of the drawer, some paper clips, a rubber band, a checkbook, and a small spiral notebook with a red cover.
    A rush of relief surging through him, Rawlins reached for the notebook, then just as quickly caught himself. Glancing back, he ascertained that neither Glass nor the guy was either watching or photographing him, but were both still focused on the corpse and its immediate environs. Knowing that he'd never have another chance, Rawlins lowered his hand into the drawer, cracked the small notebook, and saw the small, neat handwriting, page after page.
    Oh, Christ, it was all in here, wasn't it, just like he'd said it was.
    And without another moment's hesitation, Rawlins shut Andrew's diary, carefully lifted it from the drawer, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

7
     
    It was their nightly ritual.
    While the water power of the mighty Mississippi had once made Minneapolis the milling capital of the world, the title, due to the advent of the gasoline-powered engine, had been lost decades earlier. A substantial share of the world's grain was still grown in the upper Midwest, of course, and the most important thing to the people who farmed the land even today was simply and absolutely one thing: the weather.
    So as they did every night just before ten, John and Martha Lyman sat down in their living room and turned on the television. They lived in a white three-bedroom rambler that John's father had built some thirty years ago when he'd torn down the old farmhouse that had stood for almost seventy years. They'd wanted something new. Something modern. A few of the conveniences, because, after all, they did live almost one hundred miles west of The Cities and the land did stretch boringly flat for as far as the eye could see and the mind could imagine.
    And while what happened in Minneapolis and St. Paul was of little concern to those who lived out here on the plains, the weather forecast was critical. Particularly now. It was mid-September, and things would start changing fast. The first snows could come anytime, really, though usually nothing stuck until after Halloween. After that, pretty much anything went. Two years ago the summertime high had been one hundred and five above, while the wintertime low had been forty-four below.
    “Don't forget tomorrow night's the parent-teacher conference,” said Martha, sipping some strawberry herbal tea as she sat down on the couch, a plaid thing done in orange and green.
    She was a trim, reasonably handsome woman, with shoulder-length blond hair that she usually pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a wool sweater and, as she did most days, blue jeans. A busy woman, her days were filled with two things, the farm and their children, two of whom still lived at home.
    “You're not going to be late again tomorrow, are you?” she asked.
    Relaxing in the brown imitation leather recliner to her right, her husband replied, “Nope.”
    He'd been gone all day until just a little while ago. Off doing some business, he told her. It was something about a loan for a new piece of equipment, though she didn't much like the idea of that. It had been John's grandfather's farm, and while they owed no money on the land, trying to keep this place going was more than a challenge. For over five years now they'd been trapped in a cycle of horribly low prices, grisly weather, plant diseases, not to mention a bad dip in the export market. In the last two years alone six nearby families had gone bankrupt.
    Glancing at her husband, she saw a big man, his skin weathered, his shoulders thick, and his jaw square. He'd put on weight, no doubt about that. And too much of it, for sure. She still saw it in him, though, the cute high school guy she'd fallen in love with. And they were still in love and they were going to make it, right? Right?
    Actually, she thought, sadly staring into her