“Liquid gold in the chiles!” It’s Ernie’s turn to shout. “How could there be liquid gold in the chiles?”
“I don’t know!”
I take the seat across from Rudy and lean forward, elbows on the table. His talk of liquid gold in the chiles brings me back to my suspicion that Rudy’s the one who slipped Mari the drug. “Are you sure the chiles you delivered to Cruz weren’t a cover up for what you were really selling? Liquid gold, maybe?”
“You think I’m dealing liquid gold? Man, I’m not that stupid!”
A point to be debated, but before I can say anything else, Amelia bursts out, “Wait a minute! Was that you? Did you give my sister liquid gold and then come to the hospital to see if she had any memory that the beer you gave her made her sick?”
Rudy looks confused, and I realize that if he’s telling the truth he was holed up here the whole time Mari was in the hospital and has no idea what happened. Amelia looks like she wants to kill him. Before she can throttle her boyfriend I fill him in on the details. He looks completely surprised by the story. He’s either a freaking brilliant actor or he truly has nothing to do with what happened. I close my eyes, thinking of what to do next. Then it comes to me: Dolores said the guy who came to the hospital had a tattoo.
“I have an idea,” I say. “Give me a second.” I find Dolores’ number and dial, maintaining the peace by holding everyone’s curiosity as I wait for her to answer.
Someone picks up and says hello on the first ring, but it’s not Dolores. It’s Clem.
My first panicked reaction upon hearing Clem’s voice for the first time in three days is to hang up, but with everyone watching me, I offer a shaky hello and then, not knowing what else to say, add, “I was calling your mom.”
“She’s in the shower. I answered for her.” He pauses, a long silence into which I read about eight million different things. “Funny that you’d call my mom and not me.”
“I know, right. Ha ha?” I glance at the people in the room who are waiting to hear the brilliant idea I have that will shed light on Mari’s hospital visitor. I hold up my finger, indicating I need a second, and turn my back. “I’m not alone right now, but I really want to see you. Dahlia said you needed space and I thought you didn’t want to talk to me, so I didn’t call, but now I’m talking to you and…” Dahlia’s right. I do ramble. “When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow evening. I’ll be there for dinner,” he says. “Hang on, my mom’s out of the shower.”
“Baked macaroni tomorrow night at six?” I quickly say before he can hand over the phone.
I think I can hear a smile in his voice when he agrees. “Okay. Baked macaroni. I’ll come by your room tomorrow. Here’s my mom.”
I say hello to Dolores, ask how she is, and get to the business of the call. “I’d asked you about a guy who came to see Mari in the hospital. You told me he had a tattoo. I wonder if you remember anything about the tattoo like which arm it was on, or what it was of?”
“I can’t tell you which arm,” she says, “but I remember it was of some kind of animal. An eagle maybe, or was it a bear? It was one of those big tattoos, meant to look scary. Your sister Mari’s a sweetheart. I hope that helps with whatever you’re trying to find out.”
“It helps a lot. Thanks.” I hang up, then turn to Rudy. “Roll up your sleeves.”
“Why?” he says, scooting his chair back.
“Because I said so.” I shoot him a look. He glances at Amelia who gives him the same look. He sighs and caves.
I hold up Rudy’s tattooed arm, then tell Amelia what Dolores told me. Amelia and I stare at the small red Zia Sun symbol, like the one on the New Mexico flag, tattooed onto his arm. No bear. No eagle.
“Looks like it wasn’t Rudy who came to the hospital,” I say.
Amelia, apparently not yet willing to accept Rudy’s story and the nine-day disappearance of her boyfriend, stomps out of the kitchen. Ernie and Buck follow. I go to the window and look out over the chile fields, at the orange streaked sky and cottonwood branches thrashing in the wind. There’s one way to know for sure if what Rudy’s saying is true.
I turn back to him and say, “You have any more of those chiles you stole from Cruz?”
Thirty
While Rudy tracks down Amelia to make nice or to have it out or whatever, I sit on a couch in a small out-of-the-way room at the back of the house. It’ll be a while before the anti-lovebirds make up (if they do) and then there’s the whole no-gas situation Amelia has to deal with, so I have some time before we go.
I pick up the chile Rudy claims was laced with liquid gold and turn it over in my fingers, studying the green color, feeling the smooth texture. Virg said they don’t know where liquid gold is coming from. Maybe this is the answer. Maybe Bulldog’s buying the chiles from Esha and spiking them, and that’s what he was doing in his trailer. Maybe he’s using jimson weed, the local plant, to make the drug. But if Bulldog is lacing them, I think, sitting up and looking again at the chile, wouldn’t he do that after he buys them? Rudy stole them before Bulldog got his hands on them. Then again, who knows what else Bulldog could’ve done or if Rudy’s even telling the truth?
I stare at the chile for a long time, debating what I’m about to do. Being an addict’s daughter I’ve never been tempted to test fate and experiment with drugs or alcohol. So what if the chile is spiked and I eat some and develop a taste for liquid gold? I get that addiction isn’t a single gene, but still, I think, blinking on an image of Mom high and passed out in some shithole apartment where we lived, her clothes dirty and smelling of cigarettes and puke—drugs suck.
Forget it. There has to be another way.
I turn on the TV and sink back into the sofa. Instead of staring at the problem of Rudy’s story and the chile head on, I zone out and loosen my mind, let my brain recalibrate and see what comes to me. I lounge through two sitcoms, no idea what they’re about—both because they’re not about anything and because there’s something about the chile lingering in the back of my mind just out of reach. When the second show ends, no idea what time it is, still no sign of Rudy and Amelia, I turn off the TV, close my eyes, and try to catch that nagging thought.
And then it comes to me in one synaptic blast. How could I not have seen this before? Rudy wasn’t the only one who tasted one of Bulldog’s chiles. Mari cooked one into the stew she brought to the party. Worse, Mari wasn’t the only one who ate the stew.
I get up and pace, heart thundering, an adrenaline tremble in my hands as I take myself back to the night of the party: Mari, Clem, and I are standing together outside the kitchen when two girls come by. One of them is saying how good the chile stew is. Mari’s stew. The one she made with the chile she took from Rudy. My breath quickens. That girl was Eslee. The one who died of a liquid gold overdose.
I race through the house, looking for Amelia to tell her this news. Rudy was telling the truth. Liquid gold wasn’t slipped into Mari’s beer. She accidentally ate it in the stew she cooked. Virg said it’s hard to regulate the dosage of the drug. Mari used the whole chile. There was too much liquid gold in the stew. That’s why Eslee died.
I’m too amped up to think straight or work though the details of how this happened. I just know I need to find Amelia. I call her name, but she doesn’t answer. I prowl the house looking for her, tapping open doors as I go, but I can’t find her or Rudy anywhere. When I crack one door, I find Ernie asleep, Buck at his feet. I check my phone—nine-thirty. I don’t care how late it is. We have to get back to Santa Fe and tell Virg about Bulldog and the chiles.
I run outside and stumble up the driveway in the dark, calling for Amelia. Her truck is gone, and she’s nowhere in sight. Did she and Rudy ditch me? Did they go off on some little jaunt to make up or more likely to kill each other? I’m seeing metaphorical angry red, as I realize Amelia left me here for her guy. That’s when I notice something st
inging my eyes. More than that, it’s hard to breathe. I think it’s my sympathetic nervous system pumping out stress, making me wheeze, and I turn back to the house. That’s when I see it.
It’s not my nervous system messing with me.
Ernie’s chile fields are on fire.
I don’t think. I run. Down the driveway. Huffing toward the fields through a disorienting haze of heat and smoke. My eyes burn. Smoke chokes my lungs. Through the smoke I see a figure, a flash of blond, at least I think I do. I scream for help, but no answer. I quickly push the apparition from my mind for more urgent matters. The wind is fanning the fire, pushing the flames toward Ernie’s house. He and Buck are inside.
I tear off to the house and burst through the door, shouting Ernie’s name.
Buck barrels out of the bedroom, barking. Ernie’s a step behind in his pajamas. I don’t have to say anything. The fire speaks for itself.
“Is anyone else in the house?” I shout.
“I don’t know,” Ernie says, standing there in bare feet. “I don’t think so…I…”
“Go check!” I order, taking control. Buck, second in command, continues to bark until Ernie shakes himself from his shock and turns back to look.
The second he turns, I yank my phone from my pocket to call 911.
***
I stand at a safe distance at the top of the driveway as firefighters combat the blaze. Hot orange flames shoot up against a black sky, hiss through swirls of smoke. My lungs and eyes burn as I listen to shouts and sirens, worrying the fire will take Ernie’s house. But the firefighters manage to keep the land from igniting and by midnight they have the blaze contained, smoldering down to sparks and ash. The fields are charred, but the house is safe and nobody is hurt.
I’m exhausted and dirty and parched, and all I want to do is collapse and sleep for two years, but I was the one who made the call and the cops want to speak to me. I cooperate the best I can, but my memory of the events is shaky. All I recall is that it was around nine-thirty when I discovered the fire and I’d been outside looking for Amelia. As I tell the cops this part, I remember something else. The reason I was looking for Amelia was because I wanted to tell her about Bulldog and the chiles. I wanted to get back to Santa Fe and talk to Virg. When the fire happened, I never made the call.
It’s one in the morning, but the second I finish my interview I dial Virg’s number. He doesn’t answer—big surprise, given the hour—so I leave a message and tell him my theory about Bulldog, liquid gold, and the chiles. When I hang up, I go back to the house and find Amelia standing at the door, waiting for me.
“Where were you?” I ask as I climb over a soot-stained step and collapse onto the porch.
“Rudy and I went for a drive so we could talk.”
“I thought you were out of gas,” I snap, still irritated that she left.
“He filled the tank. I’m really sorry for disappearing,” she says, and for once sounds contrite and not angry.
Her eyes are red—from smoke or exhaustion or tears I have no idea and I’m too tired to ask, also too tired to keep being pissed. “I think Rudy’s telling the truth about the chiles,” I say, then realize Amelia never knew about the chile Mari stole from Rudy at the Farmers’ Market. I break the news to her as gently as I can, explaining that Mari used one of the drugged chiles to make the stew.
I don’t need to see her face to feel her reaction. “So Bulldog laced the chile that almost killed my sister and killed Eslee,” she says when I finish. “I’m going to kill him.”
“I already called Officer Virgil, the cop who interviewed us the night of the party,” I assure her. “I told him what I think. Let’s not go killing anyone. Let’s sleep and start fresh in a few hours.”
Amelia agrees and we go inside. She and Rudy curl up on the couch like puppies. I fall asleep in a recliner chair, but my dreams are restless, my sleep filled with combat and questions, and at first light I’m up. I steal into the kitchen and find Ernie sitting at the table, a piece of paper next to him, staring out over his burned fields.
I sit next to him and see the paper is the note from UpsideDown! The note sparks something I’d forgotten—the flash of a person through the flames. I can’t believe I forgot that. Holly with her blond hair and radical tactics. Was she the one who burned the fields?
I finger my phone and think of calling Virg again, but his focus needs to be on Bulldog. The fire is a totally different thing. I could call the local cops, but they’ll think I’m making it up if I go to them now and tell them that I saw someone last night. I take my hand off my phone and, as I do, realize the real reason I don’t want to go to the cops about this. If I tell them about Holly I’ll never get a chance to talk to her—procedures, due process, whatever. But I’ve already spoken to Holly Redding about GMOs, and not just about any GMOs, about the GMO chile my boss engineered. This fire is personal. I want to talk to her myself.
I tiptoe into the sitting room where Amelia and Rudy are still sleeping and quietly pick up her purse. I’m digging through the pockets for her keys, trying not to make a sound, when I feel a hand on my shoulder and jump. Amelia’s eyes are open, and she’s looking at me.
“What’re you doing, Guera?” she whispers into the shadows.
“Going to talk to Holly,” I sigh, too tired to lie.
She slips out from under Rudy’s arm and sits up. “You can’t do that. She’s crazy. She could be dangerous.” She keeps her voice low, careful not to wake her snoring boyfriend. “What if she has a gun or something?”
I don’t think Holly’s that kind of crazy, but then again, I have no idea what kind of crazy she is. It’s too late to back down, though. I have a plan and I’m sticking with it. “The world’s full of what ifs,” I say firmly. “I’m going.”
“Fine, then I’m coming with you.”
“No way. You just said she could be dangerous.”
“And you just said the world’s full of what ifs.”
“No,” I say again.
She reaches into her pocket and dangles her keys. I lunge for them, but she snatches them away. “You want to go, I’m your ride.”
***
At seven-thirty Amelia and I reach the address that she Googled for Holly Redding. We walk up a graveled path bordered by a nicely maintained garden and approach the turquoise blue front door. I knock. Nobody answers. I glance at Amelia and knock again.
Two more knocks, and finally the door cracks open. Holly stands cautiously in the opening. “Can I help you?”
“I met you the other day,” I say, before she can decide we’re selling magazines or religion and slam the door. “I came to UpsideDown! I’m Faith Flores. This is Amelia.”
She nods at Amelia, then gives me a wary look. “I remember. What are you doing at my house?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Ernie’s chile fields.”
“I already spoke to the cops about the note.”
She starts to shut the door, but Amelia shoots out a hand and blocks it from closing. “And what about the fire?” she says.
Holly looks surprised. “What fire?”
“Oh, come on,” I say, riled, but what was I expecting? That she’d just admit to being an arsonist? “Someone burned the GMO chiles last night.”
Now she really looks surprised, scared, too. “You can talk to my attorney,” she says, and starts to close the door for a second time.
“Should I also talk to your attorney about the fact you barged into SCPG last week and made threats against Dr. Richmond’s genetically modified chiles?”
She doesn’t open the door any wider, but she doesn’t shut it, either. “Okay, no more games. Who exactly are you?”
“I’m an intern at SCPG.” I feel Amelia’s eyes on me as I squint against the sun peeking up over the house. “I saw you there last week. I heard you talking to Dr. Richmond. Why did y
ou barge in?”
“Barge in?” She scoffs and jerks open the door wider. I get a flash of pretty ochre-colored walls behind her, but then she’s up close and in my face and all I see is eyes, nose, and hair. “I didn’t barge in. Esha Margolis invited me. She e-mailed me and asked me to come. She said that her boss wanted to talk to me.”
“Esha e-mailed you?” I say, confused by this version of events, but I stick to my story and keep on the questions. “I heard you say that you’d do whatever it takes to stop her, and then the chiles went up in flames.”
“I know what I said,” she shoots back. “Haven’t you ever said something out of anger when you were provoked?” She glances at Amelia, who’s letting me take the lead, then back at me. “Look, Faith. UpsideDown! will take action, but the radical tactics are the past.”
“You told me you weren’t mainstream,” I persist. “You said that UpsideDown! does what other environmental groups won’t.”
“Right, and we’re not mainstream. What I meant is street theater. Costumes. Marches. Not arson.”
“And what about the note you wrote to Ernie?” Amelia says. “It was from UpsideDown! You said you weren’t afraid of playing with fire.”
She gives a sharp laugh. “Do you really think if I was going to burn down someone’s fields I’d write them a note first and tell them I was going to do it? Please. Look. I’m not perfect, okay? My tactics might be unusual. That doesn’t mean I’d set fire to someone’s fields. Besides,” she adds, “I was working late last night. There were two people with me. I’m glad to give you their numbers and you can check for yourself, if that will satisfy you and get you to leave me alone.”
“Well, if you didn’t do it,” I say, taking this in, “who did?”
She holds my eye without flinching. “I’d say someone with something to hide. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” This time she does close the door.
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