Oink

by J. L. Newton

  “Have you seen a ten-year-old girl dressed like the Bride of Frankenstein?”

  The owner of the store, who was wearing gothic black, looked puzzled.

  “There are so many kids in and out. I haven’t noticed.”

  I hurried back to my spot in the sidewalk and looked up and down the block. The streets seemed to hold fewer ballerinas now—more monsters, more skeletons, and more ghosts. I looked up the street. A crowd had gathered in the parking lot that divided the blocks of stores, as if people were gathered around a sight. Were they gathered around Polly? Had something happened to her? My chest constricted.

  “Please,” I said. “Please, let her be all right.” Life without Polly stretched before me, empty, incomprehensible. I ran to the crowd and edged my way in. Parents and their costumed children were packed tight.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Excuse me. I’m looking for my daughter.” A woman dressed as a witch looked at me with sympathy and made room for me to move past her.

  “What does she look like?” she asked. Her own daughter was holding her mother’s hand.

  “She’s dressed like the Bride of Frankenstein in white.”

  The woman looked round the crowd.

  “There?” she said, pointing.

  And there Polly was, looking cheerful despite her white face and black mouth, watching a man dressed as a mime riding a unicycle. I made my way to her side, my chest emptied of blood.

  “Polly! Why did you wander off like that without telling me?”

  “Mom, I did tell you.” She wrinkled her forehead at me. “Maybe you didn’t hear me because you were thinking too hard.”

  I had been thinking too hard. It was a problem from which I sometimes suffered.

  “You’re right.” I gathered Polly to me. “But, shake me out of it next time before you take off, okay?”

  “I will. Don’t worry, Mom.”

  I’d upset Polly too.

  “It’s okay. It’s my fault. It’s just … what would I do without you?” I’d had a brush with death, but now the blood surged in me again. Polly was safe, was at my side, still with me, and suddenly everything seemed within my reach. As a flock of small birds made its way across the pale sky, I felt I could do anything. Perhaps, I could even find out what I didn’t yet know about the case of Peter Elliott.

  Corn Bread with Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese

  1 cup coarse cornmeal (also packaged as “polenta”) but regular cornmeal will also work

  2 cups buttermilk

  1 to 2 tablespoons oil, butter, or a combination thereof

  2 cups onion in a ¾-inch dice

  1¾ cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

  1½ tablespoons baking powder

  ¼ teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon salt

  6-ounce log of goat cheese, at room temperature

  3 large eggs, at room temperature

  2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

  2 tablespoons honey

  ¼ cup granulated sugar

  2½ cups fresh or frozen corn kernels

  2 tablespoons bacon fat, vegetable oil, or butter

  The night before baking the corn bread, soak the cornmeal in the buttermilk. Cover and leave at room temperature overnight. (Although this step is optional, you might appreciate it if you use coarse cornmeal or if you often find corn bread on the gritty side.) If you don’t do this in advance, mix them before you start the next step.

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Heat a large sauté pan to medium and coat the bottom with 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil, butter, or a combination thereof. Add the onions and cook them until they’re well caramelized with browned edges. Season with salt and set aside.

  Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

  In a large mixing bowl, beat the goat cheese until fluffy.

  Add the eggs one at a time and scrape down the bowl between each. (It may look a little curdled at this point, but don’t worry. It all comes back together in the oven.)

  Add the melted butter, honey, sugar, and cornmeal/buttermilk mixture and mix until smooth. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined and then gently stir in the corn kernels, mixing them until the ingredients are evenly distributed.

  Place two tablespoons of bacon fat, vegetable oil, or butter in a 10-inch round cake pan (you can also use a cast-iron skillet, 9 by 13-inch baking pan, or a 12-inch square pan).

  Place the pan in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes, until the fat gets very hot. With good pot holders, remove the pan and tilt it to grease the corners and sides.

  Pour in the batter, spreading it evenly, and sprinkle the caramelized onion evenly over the top.

  Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the corn bread is firm and springing (the baking time will depend on the size and type of pan) and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

  Allow the bread to cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before slicing it into squares or wedges.

  Serve immediately.

  Adapted by permission of Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/03/caramelized-onion-and-goat-cheese-cornbread/. Corn Bread with Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese was originally published on SmittenKitchen.com. All content and photos © 2006–2016 Smitten Kitchen LLC.

  Chapter 14

  As I drove west on Paintbrush Boulevard the next morning, passing a bicycle path, bordered by a double row of olive trees, a single red-tailed hawk flapped twice, launching itself into air. The sight of a hawk’s glide always brought me to life, making me feel as if I too were capable of soaring. On the other side of the trees, where Arborville became more rural and the university stretched into seemingly endless flat fields, I began to look carefully to the right for a craftsman bungalow with green trim, and when I found it, I turned into its long and dusty driveway. I was visiting Tess for a “cup of tea,” which was her way of telling me that the visit would not be long. On the phone I’d told Tess only that I had important information about the poisoning, something I wanted to share in person. I hoped Tess, who had an insider’s view of scientific protocols, could shed more light on what rules Lorna and Peter had actually broken.

  I got out of the car to the sound of chickens erupting into clucks from somewhere in the back. Tess and her husband maintained a small organic farm, and I could see a barn and, just in front of it, a large garden. A pathway, lined with rosemary, lavender, and sage, led to a front porch where a scarecrow dressed in farmer’s clothes was stuffed onto a swinging bench. A row of carved pumpkins lined one side of the doorway, displaying the outlines of a ghost, a frowning tree, and a startled owl. Tess answered my knock, alight with her usual energy.

  “Thanks for letting me come. You’ve got a charming place here.”

  “We’ll have some tea and I’ll show you around. I made corn bread.”

  “Without Furadan, I hope.”

  “I swear. It’s clean, and it’s made of genetically engineered corn.”

  I must have looked surprised because Tess went on to explain.

  “I make a practice of cooking with GMOs. It’s my way of showing that I believe in my own and my colleagues’ research and in the research of scientists the world over who’ve found that the GMOs on the market so far are safe.”

  Two tabby cats sauntered toward me and entwined themselves around my ankles.

  “Hi, kitties,” I said, scratching them both behind their ears. I sometimes wished that Sadie could abide a feline.

  We went through the living and dining rooms, where toys belonging to Tess’s children were tucked into various corners, and entered the kitchen, which was large with wide windows looking onto the garden. A wooden country table stood in the middle, with a vase of yellow and purple wildflowers at its center. Tess put a teakettle on the stove and gathered cups and boxes of herbal teas from an overstuffed kitchen cabinet. The place felt homey, felt like the house of a woman who had her feet on the ground.

  Afte
r Tess poured tea and she and I were comfortably face-to-face, I gave her the details of my visit to Lorna Vogle. Tess’s eyebrows rounded into her forehead as she listened.

  “This is astonishing.” Tess went on to explain the legalities of what Peter and Lorna had done. “Peter has broken absolutely every rule. Lorna knew and even though she’s vice provost, she didn’t tell anyone! She’s in such terrible trouble.”

  “I think we should keep this quiet until the police decide what to do with her.” The idea of exposing Lorna’s painful love story to everyone on campus seemed distasteful to me now. “Bad as it was to think of making Peter sick, Peter’s deal with Syndicon is part of a much wider and more harmful pattern of behavior.”

  Tess nodded. “It’s incredibly frustrating because GMO technology could do the world such good. It could address the problem of world hunger and, in fact, it already is. There’s a rice being developed right now that is enriched with beta carotene. It could massively cut down the number of children dying from vitamin A deficiency around the world.” Tess took a large sip of tea, as if clearing her throat. “My husband and I have been thinking about a way to combine genetic engineering with organic farming. Organic farming is about using fewer pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, but up to now that’s meant losing a large percentage of the crop. To feed the world at the rate it’s growing we’d need to double crop yields by 2050.”

  I liked hearing Tess talk. It made me feel hopeful about the future.

  “The worst thing for the environment is farming.” Tess leaned over the table. “It destroys the native ecosystem and uses fertilizers and irrigation. Fertilizer runoffs from large farms get into water tables and cause massive algae blooms in the oceans. But we have to farm because we have to eat.” Tess’s cheeks had turned their peony rose again. “And even with organic farming you have to degrade the fields with plows and tractors. Organic farms are labor-intensive and require large tracts of land. If it were to become widespread, it would destroy even more land and use even more water.”

  “Oh, the corn bread.” Tess jumped up, brought a pan to the table, found some small plates, and cut us each a square. The corn bread, still warm and crumbly, tasted sweet and healthy.

  “But if we could develop crops that were more efficient in using nitrogen or water and that improved the health of the soil, we’d go a long way toward feeding the world.”

  “Is it that corporations like Syndicon have given genetic engineering as a whole a bad name?” I asked.

  “When I ask most people about their objections, it comes down to that. I hate Syndicon. That’s where their anger comes in. A lot of people object to the way corporations like Syndicon own seeds and technologies and use that for their own profits. Some of their seeds produce large yields, but we can’t rely on corporations to help subsistence farmers. It’s not in their self-interest. That’s where foundations and publicly funded research come in. Seeds and technologies developed in the public domain can and are being freely shared with developing nations.” The rose in Tess’s cheeks deepened. “What matters is to create sustainable agricultures that can feed the world without damaging it.”

  Despite all the bad things I had heard about GMOs, I was inclined to believe Tess. Syndicon’s did not need to be the only model of how new technologies could work.

  “You give me hope,” I said, taking another bite of the corn bread. I chewed it slowly, savoring its mild flavor. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you about.” I went on to tell Tess about Peter’s uneasiness over the summer, before Save the Fields had left its mark.

  “A friend of mine suggested that someone might be after Peter’s data.”

  “It sounds possible. Peter was involved in a number of shady operations. Perhaps he tied himself, in some way, to shady characters as well. That can get you in a lot of trouble.”

  A high bleating sound from the yard interrupted the course of our conversation.

  “That’s our goat,” Tess said. “Come, I’ll show you around.”

  * * *

  I slouched comfortably in my reading chair that afternoon with the completed essay on shrimp and grits. I was going to proof it one last time, but just as I picked up my favorite pencil—Ticonderoga 2½, not too hard, not too soft—the phone rang.

  “Emily Addams?” a voice with a Spanish accent asked.

  “Teresa?” I wasn’t expecting a call from Peter’s wife.

  “Yes. Emily, the police just left my house. While I was at the hospital this afternoon, someone broke in and went through Peter’s study. They took his computer and pried into a locked drawer.”

  “Were they looking for his research?”

  “Peter didn’t keep information about his research at home. It’s in his office. I think I should go there. Whatever the issue is, I want to know about it first. I owe him that.”

  “I’ll come with you. Do you have a key to Peter’s office and the building?” It was Sunday, and many places on campus would be locked.

  “Yes, he had an extra set made for me.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  Fifteen minutes later I rang Teresa’s doorbell, and Teresa answered, wearing a black sweater and black jeans just like me.

  “We match,” I said. “We look like we’re dressed for Halloween.”

  “We need skeletons down our fronts. Tomorrow’s El Dia de los Muertos.”

  I tried to imagine the two of us as the bony folk figures that marked the holiday. I envisioned a skeletal, but still lovely, Teresa dressed in a long fuchsia skirt with yellow roses in her hair. At the end of her life, Miriam had been skeletal as well, but she had retained her fragile beauty, had worn a Japanese bed jacket printed in rosy flowers, had pinned her hair into a fashionable knot on top of her head. Miriam had died on the first of November. When I thought of her, I felt my own life pressing against the kitchen knife of our shared mortality.

  “Let’s take my car,” Teresa said. “I have a parking permit for Bauman Hall.”

  Teresa turned right off Wild Deer Lane and continued past the squat tan buildings of the elementary school that Polly had attended, finally crossing Paintbrush Boulevard, where Ceanothus separated the main campus from the roads to the airport and the fields.

  “You’re a neighbor and a colleague,” Teresa said. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “I’m glad you did. You shouldn’t have to do this by yourself.”

  Teresa, I thought, must have been reluctant to call Juan Carlos, with whom she was most certainly involved, lest she run into any of Peter’s colleagues while getting to his office.

  “How’s Peter?”

  “He’s out of the coma and the doctors think he’ll be talking soon.” Teresa paused, bit her lip, and looked at her long hands on the steering wheel. On her left hand was a slender golden wedding ring and on another a small gold band set with an emerald. I’d read somewhere that emeralds were plentiful in Colombia.

  “There’s something funny going on. I’ve been seeing a pair of men in black suits lounging around the front entrance to the hospital or sometimes sitting in a car parked close to the lobby. I didn’t make much of it until today when I got home to find the front door was unlocked. I called the police right away. I didn’t even go in until they came. The men were missing at the hospital this afternoon when I visited Peter. I told the police about them.”

  “That was smart. But you didn’t tell them about Peter’s office?” Did Teresa think she could protect Peter somehow?

  “If there’s something they’re after in his work, I want to know it first.” Teresa glanced at me as if pausing before a leap.

  “Peter and I haven’t been happy for a long time, but I owe him some loyalty.” Her teeth curled over her full lip again. “Especially because I’ve become involved with someone else.”

  “Juan Carlos Vega?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I put some things together.”

  “You have a lot of intuition. I sensed that
about you the day you came to my house.”

  Teresa turned left and drove two blocks to the parking lot at Bauman Hall. The department of Plant Biology wasn’t far away.

  We walked swiftly, not talking much, entering the building with Teresa’s key, and taking the elevator to Peter’s office on the second floor. Teresa opened the office with a second key and closed the door. Peter’s office was not what I expected, not the office of a man who carried corn bread in his pockets. It was large and extremely neat. The lustrous mahogany desk facing the door was almost bare, except for a laptop, a lamp, a pad of paper, and a pen. A matching bookcase on the back wall held rows of books, all neatly shelved. A brown leather couch sat to the right of the door with a reading lamp, a small table, and a large, round stone that looked like a giant paperweight. So this was the couch Peter had used with Mei Lee. I couldn’t help wondering if it pulled out to a bed. An office smelling faintly of books and furniture polish was hardly a romantic environment.

  “Spartan,” I said.

  “Yes, Peter’s office is a little island of order in a very messy life.”

  I tried the desk drawers. Two were locked. “Do you have the key to these drawers?”

  “No, Peter wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Where could he have put a key?” I scanned the office. There were no containers or boxes. I began to walk around the room, looking under the couch, lifting its cushions, raising the large stone paperweight, moving the lamp, and feeling along the top of the door. Where else did TV detectives look? I studied the bookcase. There was something a little off. Every book was lined up straight except for one on the lower right corner. I walked to the bookcase, stooped, and carefully pulled out the book. A small key fell to the floor.

  “I’ll bet this is it.” I unlocked both the drawers, and Teresa kneeled down to examine their contents. The smaller one contained a set of computer disks. The bigger drawer held hanging files. Teresa slipped the set of CDs into the tiny purse she wore across her chest.

  “Peter’s lab notes,” she said, “but let’s see what he has in these files.” She removed some files and settled into the couch, legs folded, hair cascading around her face, and began to read. I turned on the computer.