FOX HOLLOW FARM
Katherine Fallon
In the 80s and 90s, Herb Baumeister killed between 11 and 21 gay men in or around Indianapolis, depositing their bodies on his 18-acre property, Fox Hollow Farm, or off the side of I-70. Those buried on his property were strangled with a garden hose in his pool house, lined with mannequins. Upon being discovered, Baumeister fled and committed suicide, but never admitted to the murders. He was unhappily married with three children during the span of the killings; many reporting on the case have questioned his wife's involvement and/or ignorance.
Julie, they question how
you didn’t know your husband
was strangling gay men
with a garden hose
while you were at the lake
with his children. Eleven
found, four identified, a possible
death count of twenty-one
before he disappeared
and put a bullet through his brain,
and most days, you looked right
at him, worked beside him,
and saw nothing out of sorts.
Did you know he kept a cake
in a desk drawer, opening it
not for hunger but to watch
rot creep across it? Did you
know about the early piss on his
teacher’s desk, the dead crow
he left there, too? What about
your pool, lined with plastic
party-goers, mannequins
dressed for celebration,
all facing the water as spectators
to whatever deep dive whoever
would end up taking? He told
the one who got away: they keep me
company, alone in the mansion,
which, full to the brim, apparently
held no trace of you, Julie. Did he
choke you, too, then, teach you
of the pleasure of thresholds, the rabid
wish to cross them? All told,
5,500 teeth and bone fragments
were found on your property,
alone, never mind the weed-thick
ditches of I-70. You were the one
that proved his route matched
the trail of bodies, and still, it was
easier to blame you for missing it
than to blame him, in his sickness,
for bringing it all to bear.
about the writer
Katherine Fallon’s poems have appeared in Meridian, Empty Mirror, Permafrost, Colorado Review, and Foundry, and others. Her chapbook, The Toothmakers' Daughters, is available through Finishing Line Press, and her full-length collection, Gold Star, is forthcoming through Eyewear Publishing. She assists in editing Terrible Orange Review, teaches in the Department of Writing & Linguistics at Georgia Southern University, and shares domestic square footage with two cats and her favorite human, who helps her zip her dresses. Find her online at katherinefallon.com or on Instagram @ghostelephants.