Marianne reentered and set the phone on the table. "Del said he'd look in the old barn. The floor's rotting. Maybe Hugo fell and broke his leg." Marianne's eyes were pink as if she'd been crying. "Hugo used to climb up to the loft. He said it reminded him of home." She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. "Mike, take those boxes to the conference room. I need to clear the table before dinner."
Mike said, "I'm going out to Dad."
"Put the boxes away first," Bianca said. "Then you can help me search the machine sheds."
He hefted the cartons. "Okay, but I bet Mom's right. Hugo's in the old barn." The door swung closed behind him.
Bianca picked up the phone and dialed 911. They put her on hold a couple of times. I watched her bridle her impatience. Eventually she explained the situation to somebody, listened, glum, to the response, and said, "Thanks." She set the device back in its cradle. "They'll send a car this evening." She looked from Marianne to me. "I'm going out. I have to do something."
I nodded. I was feeling edgy myself. "I'll wait here."
"Thanks." She headed out to the mudroom, and I could hear her thumping around. Eventually the outer door slammed.
I took another look out the window. It was getting dark fast, and I saw no sign of Jason and Bill. I drifted back to the table.
Marianne pulled a tray from a narrow cupboard near the sink and joined me. She began clearing the mugs onto the tray.
"Tell me about Hugo." I wadded a couple of napkins. "Where do you want these?"
"Hamper." She pointed and took her tray to the dishwasher.
I stuffed the napkins in the hamper. "Bianca says this isn't Hugo's first disappearance."
"Third." She ran a sponge under the hot water tap, squeezed it, and began wiping crumbs from the surface of the table. "People get to him. He can't stand being crowded."
"Do you mean literally?"
She stared at me and resumed wiping. "He don't like a lot of voices yammering, that's for sure. Neither do I. But I think what really pushes him is..." She broke off, shook her head, took the sponge to the sink and rinsed it. "It's hard to put into words. Bianca likes holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Earth Day, the Fourth of July. She gathers everybody. It's nice. The kids--I mean Mike and her three and the interns, too--they like it a lot and the rest of us don't mind. Keith pulls out his guitar. There's lots of food and music and chatter."
"And it gets to Hugo?"
"Yes. He can't take it. It's like he can't breathe. Sometimes he goes out on the deck and just leans on the rail and inhales. I've seen him. The two times he disappeared were holidays."
That made sense. A holiday phobia is common enough. Sometimes enforced bonhomie bothers me, too. I relaxed a little. I wanted to believe Hugo had gone away of his own free will. "Do you think the upcoming workshop triggered him off?"
Marianne sighed. "I guess so, but I'm surprised."
"Surprised?"
"The feeling's different this time. Sure, there's that reception the first night, but Bianca told Hugo he didn't have to come to it. Apart from that there isn't any reason for him to tense up. He isn't living here now. Besides..." She opened the oven.
"Besides what?" I asked, distracted by the savory aroma.
"If he was going to bolt, he'd leave just before the conference starts. Friday or Saturday." She put on a padded glove and pulled a vast casserole from the oven.
"What's that? It smells great."
"Shepherd's pie."
I watched as she glazed the surface with a smidgen of butter. The crust looked like mashed potatoes. She popped the ceramic dish back in the oven. I tried to imagine being organized enough to produce high tea for ten followed by a complete dinner for six a couple of hours later.
She glided to the refrigerator and began pulling vegetables out. Marianne never seemed hurried and, if she was harried, it was not because of her culinary responsibilities. She took a plastic salad spinner from a cupboard and began rinsing greens.
"May I help you?" I asked again.
"No, thanks. There's coffee if you want it."
I poured a mug of coffee.
"Cream's in the fridge."
"Thanks." I laced my cup with cholesterol. "You said Hugo was fragile."
"Did I?"
"Earlier. Did you mean physically or emotionally?"
"Physically, I guess." She twirled the spinner. "It was Agent Orange."
Something clicked. "The skin condition?"
"That and the stomach problems. His wife kept having miscarriages, too. That's why they split. She couldn't take it."
I set my coffee cup down. Marianne was hitting close to home. As far as I knew Jay hadn't been exposed to Agent Orange. Still, what if he had been and didn't know it? I lifted the cup and sipped. "That's so sad."
Marianne cocked her head. "Yes, it was. But Hugo's not sad, really. Just quiet. He likes his work."
"No chemicals."
"No pesticides and no chemical fertilizers." Marianne's air of precision reminded me of her comment about the cinnamon. She didn't sound belligerent or pedantic, just precise. "Hugo's crew is boat people," she added, giving the greens a last critical twirl.
"What?"
"The crew for planting and harvest. Weeding, too. They're refugees. Bianca used to hire Mexicans." She took a huge ceramic salad bowl from the cupboard and began tearing lettuce into bite-sized pieces. "The year before Del started working for her, the Immigration people raided Bianca's crew. Most of 'em were illegals. She had to pay a big fine, and the story got into the paper. It was embarrassing. She decided to work with the Vietnamese after that. They have green cards."
"Boat people--that was a long time ago. They must be middle aged."
"They are. Hugo says they were peasants, couldn't read and write their own language. There were classes for them at the college, but a lot of them dropped out of the program after a couple of years. They're women mostly, and they do what they've always done--farmwork."
I turned that over in my mind. "But Hugo--"
"Hugo gets along with them okay. He talks their language a little." She took out a French knife and began slicing a purple onion. She broke the slices into perfect rings.
Mike galloped through to the mudroom at that point without dallying for small talk. I heard the door slam as he went out.
Marianne finished her salad and carried the bowl to the dining room. Eventually she allowed me to help her set the table. I felt useless and resentful of Bianca for dragging me out to the farm.
Why had she wanted me? As a witness? She must have known I would be of no practical help. Of course she hadn't expected to find the bike. I pictured Hugo's sturdy mountain bike. He took good care of it. If he had meant to abandon it at the farm, wouldn't he have left it in the car barn? Not, I supposed, if he wanted to avoid pursuit. My mind made tight circles of speculation.
"You going to join us for dinner?" Marianne smoothed a napkin.
"No. My husband's taking me out on the town."
She sighed. "Lucky."
The telephone rang. I followed her back to the kitchen.
"Yes," she said into the receiver. "Yeah, she's still looking. Did you check the barn?"
I deduced she was talking to Del. She made an affirmative noise. "Half an hour." She hung up. "Del and the boys are coming in. They didn't find nothing."
I didn't think they'd had enough time for a thorough search. Outside, a car started after two grinding whines and drove off. I checked my watch. Five fifteen.
At five thirty Bianca and Angie came in and other cars left. Bianca looked discouraged.
"No luck?"
She grimaced. "Zippo. It's awfully dark. I think you're right about needing bloodhounds. I keep imagining Hugo unconscious in a corner of the old barn." Marianne turned the oven down. "Del said there was no sign of Hugo at the barn."
I stood up. "The deputy will probably wait until morning to do a police search. Do you want me tomorrow, Bianca?"
"I wish you'd
stay now--"
I shook my head. "No, Jay and I have a commitment. I will come out tomorrow, though, if you need moral support."
She nodded, drooping.
"I'll show myself out." I went home, feeling futile and obscurely used. I was sorry for Bianca, though. Her distress seemed genuine.
When I returned to the farm the next morning, a sheriff's deputy and a dozen volunteers from the Search and Rescue team had already set up a systematic search of the grounds.
I drove around to the back of the house and parked on the asphalt between a county van and a cop car. Marianne must have been watching for me because she was standing by the car, dressed for a hike, by the time I got out.
"Hi. Bianca and Angie are showing the deputy the bicycle. Do you want to come out to the old barn with me?"
I pulled on a pair of wool gloves. "Sure."
"I brought a flashlight." She showed me a small but powerful electric lantern. "Del says it was too dark in there yesterday to see much."
"Where are the interns?" I locked my door and stuffed the keys in my jacket pocket.
"Out with the rescue team. So are Del and Keith."
We began walking along the dirt track that led to the fields and sheds I had seen the day before from the kitchen window. "Where is the barn?"
"'Bout half a mile--over the ridge past the broccoli field and the ice house."
As we walked along I could see figures in the distance moving slowly, eyes to the ground. They were coming toward us, so I supposed they must have begun at the farthest field. They had probably already searched the barn.
Marianne was not in a talkative mood. Neither was I. It was misting out, and the air carried eerie sounds--crows cawing, a log truck shifting gears on the highway, the occasional shout from one of the searchers. We passed the two metal sheds I had seen Jason and Bill enter the day before. My boots beaded water and the legs of my jeans were damp. I wished I'd worn a longer jacket. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and trudged along. Marianne set a good pace.
"That's broccoli," she announced as we approached a smallish shed. Behind and beside it, I could see rows of plants so heavy with moisture they looked gray in the dim sunlight. They were well-grown. I had heard that some crops wintered over or were planted in January.
Like former President Bush, I am not a fan of broccoli, though I will eat a dutiful portion if necessary. The field looked as if it could supply the broccoli needs of a whole regiment of Republicans. The ice house, unstained cedar with a tarpaper roof, abutted the field.
"What's that?" Marianne stopped, head cocked.
"Sounds like an electric motor." The rain was coming down harder, and I wanted to keep moving.
"Somebody must've turned on the ice machine." She strode to the ice house door. I followed.
The door was latched but not locked. She yanked the door open, switched a light on, and clucked. "Look at that. Knee-deep in ice. Bianca will have a fit."
I entered behind her, stepping into a puddle. There was a fug in the air, as in cold unlit spaces. Mold. Rotting plants. Something else. "A fit? Why?"
"We don't need ice until we cut the broccoli. It has to be iced before it's trucked out. But we won't start the first harvest until the end of the week."
The room was divided roughly in half, with a storage area, then empty, to the left and an icemaker with a catch-basin roughly the size and depth of a large hot tub on the right. The tub was heaped with fresh ice. A scatter of cubes so new they hadn't begun to melt strewed the wet floor. The walls and ceiling of the ice house showed foil-sheeted insulation. It was colder inside the building than outdoors.
A rough table of unfinished planks leaned against the near wall. A row of short-handled, wide-bladed knives gleamed above the table. Three scoop shovels in a neat line rested against the edge of the ice machine.
I walked over to the hill of glistening ice cubes. "Smells like my refrigerator."
"Yeah." Marianne wandered into the storage space and looked around. "Wait till Bianca sees the electric bill. I'd better shut it off." She moved back toward the entrance.
I was looking at the ice. "Maybe somebody wanted to store something..." Abruptly my heart slammed into distress mode. I picked up one of the shovels and began scraping ice off onto the floor.
"No, oh, no." I don't remember which of us said that.
We stood for a frozen moment staring at my excavation. The toe of a filthy sneaker showed through the ice. I had found Hugo Groth.
Chapter 5
The shovel I had used to clear away the ice clattered to the concrete floor. For perhaps half a minute Marianne and I stood staring into the bin. I thought I could see the distorted outline of Hugo's body, but that may have been imagination. The sneaker, however, definitely held a foot. I could see the sock and a bit of pale skin. I imagined I could smell death.
The ice machine whirred. Marianne breathed raggedly. I didn't breathe at all. Then, as we stared, the machine clacked. Fresh ice cubes cascaded down until they buried the shoe. The process must have been triggered by the level of ice in the bin.
I grabbed Marianne's arm. "We have to get out of here." I pulled her across to the door and out into the drizzle.
"Oh, God, he's...it's...like a meat locker!" Marianne covered her mouth.
"Don't think. Don't even try to imagine what's in there. We have to get help."
Marianne turned away from me, gagging, and threw up on a clump of grass. I clenched my eyes shut, willed my stomach not to respond.
"I'm s-sorry." She had found a tissue and was wiping her mouth. I took a gulp of air and counted to thirty, slowly clearing my mind. Across the open broccoli field the crows cawed. A truck rumbled on the state highway.
I exhaled on a slow count. "We have to get help. One of us should stay here to be sure nobody else enters the building. The other will have to go find the deputy. You said Bianca was showing him Hugo's bike."
"Yes. They're at the flower house."
"Where are the greenhouses?"
"Over... Never mind. I'll go. I don't want to stay here alone." She started off, wide shoulders hunched in her red jacket, tissue still pressed to her mouth. She had gone half a dozen paces when she stopped dead and turned around. "I'm an idiot. I can use this."
She pulled a portable phone from one pocket, extended the antenna, and punched in a number. Her hands shook so hard she almost dropped the phone, but I heard it buzz and a voice reply.
"It's Marianne. Lark is with me. We found Hugo." Quack, quack from the phone. "No. He's dead. In the ice house." Silence. Quack, quack. "I told you, in the ice house!" Marianne began to sob. "He's buried in ice. Somebody turned the machine on." Quack.
Marianne, still weeping, retracted the antenna. "That was Bianca," she choked. "They're coming."
"Was the deputy with her?"
"Yeah." She drew a quivering breath. "Dale Nelson."
I knew Dale. I had met him the previous summer under unpleasant circumstances. We got along. Jay had worked with him on that case and at least two others, and Dale was now a detective sergeant. He had been the senior patrol officer for the county when we met. If Dale had responded to Bianca's call, either she had pull or she was very persuasive.
She was very persuasive. I knew that.
"Give me the phone, please, Marianne. I need to call my husband."
Marianne handed me the transmitter. She didn't hesitate, but, even so, I felt defensive.
"Jay helps the sheriff's evidence team on difficult cases. This one will be a stinker because of the ice. How the hell does this work?" I had been avoiding cellular phones. I ripped off my wooly gloves and stuck them in my pocket.
Wordless, Marianne showed me the Talk button. I tapped in our number. When the phone began to ring, I held it to my ear and looked around me. The Search and Rescue team would be approaching the broccoli field from the east. So far they were hidden behind the ridge at the far rim of the field.
After half a dozen rings Jay answered.
I said, "It's Lark. We found Hugo's body."
He cleared his throat.
"Dale Nelson's here--at the farm, I mean." I explained where I was and what I had found. I'm sure I was incoherent.
"Jesus. I'm coming out. Warn Dale." He paused. "Are you all right, Lark?"
"Physically unharmed and perfectly safe." But sick at heart.
"I'm sorry, darling." Jay almost always hears what I don't say.
My eyes teared, and I broke the connection.
Marianne was crying hard, her hands covering her face. I stuffed the phone into her jacket pocket and touched her shoulder. "Come on, Marianne. We should move out of this area."
I led her a few yards down the road and stood for awhile patting her and making sympathetic sounds. I felt numb, but little jolts of awareness warned me of the reaction that was bound to come. I was fiercely glad I had not got to know Hugo well.
The wait seemed interminable, but no more than ten minutes passed before I saw the revolving blue light of Dale's car. He was not using the siren. There was no real reason to use the light either. He pulled the car over and parked on the grassy shoulder a good distance from us. He and Bianca got out. So did Keith McDonald.
Bianca ran to us. She was crying, and she and Marianne clung to each other. McDonald and Dale moved at a less impetuous pace. They had the identical look of men trapped in a female emotional display. The hell with them. The situation demanded emotion.
I went up to Dale, and we shook hands. "It's in the ice house?" Dale, improbably fair and pink-cheeked, always looked guileless. His eyes were worried, however.
I described what I had found, and he thanked me for not mucking up the crime scene, though we had trampled the area by the door and done God knew what damage inside. I told him Jay was coming.
He looked even more worried. He was carrying a battered 35 mm. camera by the strap. The camera swung in a tiny arc. "I dunno, Lark. The county budget--"
"Think of him as my husband," I snarled. "He won't charge you." That was unfair. Dale thought of Jay as a mentor, and the sheriff's budget was in bad shape from the earlier investigations.
Dale flushed. "I always like to have Jay's opinion of these things. Speaking of which, I'd better have a look."
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