Red Hot Deadly Peppers

by Paige Shelton

  “I haven’t seen one farm, yet,” I said. “I think that was originally on my list of things to do today.”

  “What happened?”

  I realized that although Amy was a local resident, her early-to-late work schedule meant she probably didn’t have a lot of time to listen to local radio or television news.

  “Oh. Uh, well, someone who worked at the trading post died today,” I said, wishing I had some way of softening the blow of such news.

  She stopped folding. “Who?”

  “Graham.” I didn’t know his last name.

  “The jewelry guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “No! That’s horrible. What happened?”

  I gave her as many details as I had, though the sense of being a gossip washed through me. I wasn’t a fan of gossip, and I was an outsider.

  “Anaphylactic shock—and he was allergic to pecans?” She repeated the details I’d just mentioned. “Wasn’t he related to Nera, the woman who owns the pecan farm? Cousins, right?”

  “Yes.” I was beginning to wish we hadn’t gone down this road, but when she spoke again, I changed my mind. Suddenly, gossip didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “Hmm, I wonder how that will go over after their recent argument.”

  “You know—knew them well?”

  “Oh, no. Well, kind of. We all know each other, but their yelling match from a couple weeks ago was something everyone talked about. They went to battle right in the middle of the trading post. It was right before opening, before customers arrived, so they didn’t end up in much trouble, but I’m afraid we all spent too much time talking about it.”

  “What was it all about?”

  “No one’s totally sure, but Nera made loud accusations that Graham was an unethical business person. Since he didn’t ask for an autopsy for his father—who would be Nera’s uncle, I suppose—she made it quite clear that she thought he might somehow be responsible for his death. I think she used the word ‘murderer.’”

  I swallowed hard. “How did Graham react?”

  “He actually accused her of somehow being responsible for Jimmy’s death. It was a mean, heated battle. I heard that Nera adored Jimmy; that he was like a father to her for years.” She peered out the window to the Arizona desert for a moment. “It was strange. It was something about peppers or pepper, but as much as we’ve all tried to understand what he was talking about, as far as I know, no one knows what he meant. I guess we never will now.”

  Whatever Graham’s comment had been, it must have had something to do with the pepper plants he and his father were working on, but how could that have been somehow accusatory? I suddenly really, really wished I had a car. I didn’t know exactly what to look for, but I wanted to go back to Graham’s house and nose around a little more.

  I thought about calling Harry. I could tell him I was going stir-crazy and I’d appreciate just hanging out with someone. I’d work up to going back to Graham’s. Two things kept me from making the call. One, I didn’t know him well enough to feel like I could impose. And two, he didn’t seem to be objective when it came to Nera. I was having my own problems with objectivity. I’d offered Nera a ride out of town and I’d based my loyalty on a barely two-days-old friendship.

  There was a third reason I didn’t call Harry; it was sitting in the back of my mind, well camouflaged by my lost objectivity. I was curious, the kind of curious that kicked up its heels at the thought that if I had a vehicle at my disposal I would finish helping Amy with laundry duty and then drive away from the Roadside Motel and into the desert to try to learn the truth about what was going on. I was a sucker for a mystery; the lure of searching for clues and finding answers was almost irresistible to me. This character flaw had gotten me into trouble a few times, and I was trying to temper it at least some, learn from past mistakes. Learn not to jump so quickly into a pool where I couldn’t see the bottom where the danger usually lurked.

  It was probably a good thing I didn’t have a car.

  Just as I folded the last sheet and placed it on the clean stack in the cart, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I excused myself as I squeezed around Amy and left the small room.

  “Hello?”

  “Becca?” the voice said. I hadn’t saved his number to my phone yet, but I was pretty sure that the caller was Harry.

  “Yes. Harry?”

  The next words were bits and pieces. I wasn’t sure if I was in a low-coverage area or if Harry was. The best I could understand, he said something like, “Ca . . . leese. Nera . . . don’t trust . . . at Riggers. . . . ga home.”

  “Harry, we’ve got a bad connection. Where are you?”

  “Pepper . . .”

  “Still not getting everything. Should I call Nera?”

  The line was fuzzy for a long time, but before it disconnected, I distinctly heard him—or maybe it was another male voice, I couldn’t be sure—say, “Run!”

  “Harry? Harry?” I said into the quiet phone. I pulled his card out of my pocket and confirmed that he was the one who’d called, and then tried to call him back a number of times. Each time I was greeted with the fast busy signal of a phone that was either dead or out of range.

  I tried Nera’s number, but it went directly to voice mail.

  “Hi, Nera, it’s Becca. Could you call me as soon as possible, please? It’s urgent.” I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know what else to do. Where was Harry calling from? Was Nera still with the police or at home?

  Should I call the police?

  And tell them what? That Harry had called and we’d had a bad connection?

  “Everything okay?” Amy asked as she approached me.

  I’d walked out to the middle of the dirt parking area, and I probably looked lost and confused.

  “Amy, I’m sorry to ask this. I know I shouldn’t, but do you have a car I could borrow?”

  “We’ve just got the truck, and Nathan drove it to town. He’ll be back in an hour or so, though. We’d be happy to let you borrow it.” She shaded her eyes with her hand.

  An hour suddenly felt like a hundred years.

  I looked in the direction of Nera’s farm. It wasn’t far. I turned back to Amy and said, “How about a bicycle?”

  Chapter Seven

  I would have preferred a bike, but the scooter would have to do.

  It was an older model, probably made back in the days when they called these things mopeds. It was bright yellow with a brown seat that oozed stuffing. Its motor was loud and emitted a large black cloud from burning oil.

  “You have to wear this,” Amy said as she handed me a helmet.

  “How fast does it go?” I asked as I placed the helmet on my head.

  “Not much over twenty, but if I let you leave here without the helmet, Nathan would track you down and plop it on your head. The scooter should get you to Nera’s, but not much farther. There’s a quart of oil in the back basket. Whatever you do, once you stop don’t start again until you top off the oil. But you’ll probably just have to leave it at Nera’s. It sometimes doesn’t start again for a while after it’s been run. Nathan can pick it up with the truck. Happens to me all the time.”

  I blinked as the helmet squeezed my temples and ears. Amy said something else, but I didn’t hear her.

  “What?”

  “You need to get going before you die of inhaling the exhaust. Nathan tells me not to sit still for more than a few seconds.”

  I nodded and propelled myself forward.

  It wasn’t that the scooter was difficult to drive, it was just that I’d never driven (or ridden, for that matter) something like it. I’d never even been on a motorcycle, but I understood that the accelerator was the handgrip on the handle and that the brakes were similar to those on a bicycle. Except that Amy instructed m
e to pump twice on the right brake before pumping the left one. Or was it the left one and then the right one? I wondered just before I got to the road.

  I started with the right one, and it worked! Mostly, at least. It slowed the scooter enough that I could then stop it all the way using the Fred Flintstone feet-down method.

  I turned and looked back at Amy. I decided I needed to get out of there quickly; the expression on her face told me she was having multiple second thoughts about letting me go.

  I waved, smiled, and then took off again—the scooter only sputtered once, though the exhaust cloud did plume bigger.

  In only a few seconds I was the picture of “tooling along.” I stayed to the side of the road, though. Amy said that most drivers were pretty courteous, but that I should stay as far to the side as possible. Once I hit what was probably the twenty-miles-per-hour mark, the scooter no longer felt awkward and foreign. And after a few cars had whipped by me, I began to wonder if I could walk or run faster.

  The helmet was effectively a small, tight oven for my head (so much for the shower), but I understood the need for safety. I was grateful that Amy hadn’t required I put on long sleeves and leather chaps.

  For the most part, I kept my eyes forward and on the uneven ground I was traveling over, but it was difficult not to glance around at the ever-surprising Arizona landscape. To my right was a seemingly infinite desert of saguaro cactuses, though only a few grew on the other side of the road. There, instead, the prickly pear variety had taken hold. None of the environment looked friendly, but something about it appealed to me anyway.

  I wasn’t ready to move to Arizona, but I realized that there was much more to it than flat, boring desert and spiny cactuses, and my realization was only further enhanced as I steered the scooter around a tight curve and then down a fairly steep hill.

  Suddenly, the cactuses were gone, replaced by a landscape that wasn’t exactly like home, but was at least much closer. I knew I’d come upon Nera’s pecan farm. The orchard was patterned in perfectly aligned rows of green trees, and the house was exactly as Amy had described: just like the witch’s cottage in Hansel and Gretel. It was both adorable and slightly disturbing.

  Before I came to the bottom of the slope, I glimpsed a small town’s main drag past the pecan farm, and beyond the town, more farms. But in between Nera’s farm and the town was another farm with short green plants. I suspected this was the Riggers’ pepper farm, but I lost sight of it quickly.

  Once I reached the bottom of the slope, the only thing I could see was Nera’s land and the road ahead of me.

  The farming community offered a stark contrast to the desert landscape; they were like two distinct worlds set next to one another. Even the smells were different, though I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the differences were because the intermittent scents of the scooter’s exhaust fumes overwhelmed everything else.

  As I drove down Nera’s driveway, I was relieved to see her truck in the garage behind the house. I didn’t know how she didn’t hear me coming, but as I stopped the scooter (using a combination of mechanical and foot brakes again) next to the walkway to her front door, there was no sign of her or anyone else.

  I turned the scooter’s key, and the motor shut down with what sounded like a sigh and a couple clicks of relief. I pulled the helmet off and shook my head. I didn’t take the time to look in the one rearview mirror on the scooter’s handlebar, but between my sweat-soaked hair and my presumably soot-covered face and body, I was sure I was a sight to behold.

  “Nera!” I called as I got off the scooter and put its kickstand down. “Nera!”

  No reply greeted me.

  I knew what it was like to own a farm. Most of my time was spent outside or in the converted barn that housed my kitchen. I bypassed the gingerbread house and walked around it.

  “Nera!” I said as I peered out at the lines of trees. I didn’t see or hear anyone.

  I continued around the side of the garage and found a small shed in the back. I knocked on the door and called for Nera again. Still no answer, but the door swung inward and open. The shed was well lit with a number of long fluorescents. The shed’s windows were covered with sheets of plywood. Of course, the heat in the shed should have been stifling, but the temperature, though warm, wasn’t unbearable. I heard the whirr of machinery, and I realized that some device was regulating the temperature inside the shed—a shed that had boarded-up windows. It was then that I noticed something even stranger: the contents of the shed had absolutely nothing to do with pecans. It was filled with pepper plants and assorted supplies, much like those I’d seen in Graham’s house, though unlike Graham’s plants and tools, these were in tact.

  I took a second to think about what I was seeing. What was Nera doing with a shed full of peppers and supplies?

  I didn’t get an answer to my question, but I did find Nera. Or, I guess she found me.

  “Becca, what are you doing here?” she said from the shed’s open doorway.

  “I . . .uh . . . well,” I stuttered.

  Nera sighed and crossed her arms in front of herself. She leaned against the doorframe and said, “Well, I guess you’ve found me out, then. I thought I’d locked this door.”

  I was completely speechless. She even scared the stutter out of me.

  Chapter Eight

  “I should have told you. I’m sorry,” Nera continued.

  I nodded, the wave of fear not subsiding much, but not growing much either. She was apologizing, not trying to poison me with her pecans.

  “You want to come in? I’ll explain why I didn’t tell you what Graham and I had been up to.”

  No, I didn’t want to go into her house. Even with the apology, the chances of being cooked in her oven suddenly seemed more likely.

  But I sure did want to know what she and Graham had been up to.

  “How about we just sit on your front porch and talk,” I said.

  For an instant she looked taken aback. “Oh,” she said, glancing around. “Oh.” She smiled. “I’m sorry, Becca. You’re frightened. I promise you there’s nothing to be afraid of. This probably does look very suspicious, though. I’ll meet you on the front porch. Let me go get us some iced teas.” She stepped back from the doorway, giving me an extra wide berth.

  I didn’t know my knees were shaking until I was out of the shed and trying to look cool and collected as I made my way back around the garage and toward the front porch. Nera glanced back at me but didn’t say anything else before she disappeared through the house’s back door. She smiled sympathetically, though. If my fear truly was unfounded, she was probably laughing now, and I hoped I’d laugh about it later, too. Until then, I was glad to be out of the shed and moving toward the front of the house. By the time I reached the scooter, my breathing was mostly back to normal, but I was thirstier than I’d ever been.

  Nera reappeared, at the front door this time, with the promised glasses of iced tea.

  “Which one?” she asked as she held them both toward me with a smile.

  “I get it. If you poisoned them, we’re both going down,” I said.

  Nera laughed. “Really, I’m sorry, Becca. It didn’t occur to me that you might be scared, but I understand why.”

  I picked a glass, took a big gulp, and then nodded.

  “You drove that?” She pointed at the scooter. “Why didn’t you just call me? I would have come to get you.”

  “I tried. No answer.”

  Nera patted at her pockets. “Shoot, I left my cell phone in the truck. Sorry. Where did you get this?”

  I told her about Amy and Nathan’s limited transportation options.

  And then I told her what Amy had told me about the argument between her and Graham.

  “Yes, that was ugly.” Nera seemed to choke back some tears. “I wish it hadn’t happened
, especially now.”

  “What was it about?”

  Nera sighed and nodded toward the garage and shed area. “That stuff. All that stuff.” She sighed again. “I haven’t been totally honest with you, Becca. But of course you figured that out already. I knew Graham hadn’t been at his house for a few days. He was here, working on that . . . those pepper experiments. It was Jimmy’s project, and I knew Jimmy would want either me or Graham to continue working on it. Graham told me he would, but he didn’t, not really. So I told him I’d set up stuff here and he could stay with me. We’d work on it together, but we’d have to maintain the secret.”

  “Why would you lie about that, or not mention it? What about his allergy? I was under the impression that he couldn’t even be on the farm.”

  “No, he was fine if he didn’t ingest the pecans or their oil. We were very careful. Or I thought we were. You have to understand, Becca, we didn’t want people to know he was here. I didn’t want you to know for your own protection. When we went out to his place earlier, it was just because I wanted to check on Chester. I didn’t know he was locked in the house, though. If I’d known that Graham had forgotten about him, I would have gone to get him sooner. I thought we’d find him outside and I could just bring him here. I also had no idea that Graham had left the place in such a mess.”

  “Why didn’t you want people to know he was here?”

  “I was convinced that Jimmy was killed and it was because of his experiments.”

  “That seems like a stretch.”

  “It isn’t. You’ll have to take my word on that. Medicinal products are big business. If Jimmy had created a new pepper that had even higher levels of capsaicin, he might have been able to set himself up very nicely. But the thing was, he was doing it for the tribe. He didn’t want the money. He wanted it for the tribe, the reservation. Anyway, that’s why I thought Graham and I had to continue. We were cryptic, but that’s what the argument was about. He wasn’t as motivated as I wanted him to be, and he thought I was too motivated. We said some ugly things to each other, accusations made in the heat of anger. But we made up a few days ago.