2577. The hay shed

At the back of his farm Asher had a large shed clad in corrugated iron. He’d stored hay in there, all year round.

Asher had a reputation for being a good farmer. At least his cattle and his farm machinery implied that he was doing very well as a farmer, thank you very much. His farm tractors were not the cheapest available, and his breeding bulls were top of the range.

Of course no one knew, but the front of his stacked hay bales was merely a façade. Behind the wall of bales was an empty space. Well, to be honest, not exactly “empty”. It was where he stored the stolen goods: electrical and computer equipment, kitchenware that included large chest freezers, vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers, a wheel barrow or two along with spades, hoes, and forks, and a good number of fuel run hedge clippers and weed eaters. Microwaves occupied their own corner.  And parked down one end of the shed was the truck he used to collect the items when the home owners were away.

He worked a range of several hundred miles which included many holiday resorts where the owners of houses were away for most months of the year. Even some shops in some of the villages opened only in summer time when customers abounded.

That is why he could afford the most expensive farm machines and the highest quality livestock. He hardly did a scrap of work himself. Most farming was left to Joshua, the farm manager. Joshua drove the truck for him and helped with any heavy lifting.

When Asher died suddenly – some say it was murder – Joshua took over the farm entirely. These days he’s helped by Aaron who used to be the local policeman. He knows the area like the back of his hand.

1487. Make hay while the sun shines

When farmer Murdoch McCook threw his third wife, Delores, into the hay baler, she came out inside a bale more perfectly than Murdoch could ever have hoped. She was seamlessly encased in the hay bale with only a few strands of her dark hair from the top of her head poking out. Murdoch cut the hair off with an old pair of twine scissors.

He then placed the hay bale containing his third wife at the very bottom of the hay barn, and then stacked all the other hay bales over and around it. He wouldn’t see that bale again until the end of the cold season when all the hay had been fed to the cattle throughout the winter.

It was a perfect murder. No detective was going to think of moving a thousand hay bales to discover a body. And even when the hay bale in question was exposed, there was nothing to say his third wife was inside. Apart from the smell. But by the end of winter the smell would have dissipated. And at the height of the stink, the covering bales would mute the stench.

At last farmer Murdoch McCook was free to invite the lovely Claire Louise into his life. And indeed he did. She moved in with farmer Murdoch and began life on the farm.

How quickly time passes. It was soon hay making season again. Farmer Murdoch arranged a space in the barn for a new bale to sit next to the remaining three.