Poison Apples

by Nancy Means Wright

  “Let’s start with motive,” said Ruth. “You mentioned a grudge. Who might it be? A worker? Your manager? Someone from the past?”

  Moira was quiet a moment, considering. The coffee cup was quivering in her hands. “That’s just it. I don’t know. Except for that school board woman, of course: Stan had been after her for persecuting poor Mr. Samuels. But she’s gone now. And the paraquat incident came after her death. So...” She spread her fingers, shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s the worst of it. I don’t know.” She looked beseechingly at Ruth.

  “The Messengers minister’s not dead. Bertha’s alive and crazy, you bet she is! Those other women, the praying ones. They’re still possibilities, right? With that minister whipping them up? Telling them what to think, how to act?”

  “I guess so. Yes. Though I haven’t heard from that minister, well, for several days now. He could be just a kook—or he could be a serious threat. So many things happening—so fast.”

  “Then who would want you out of the orchard? That was your second thought. Somebody with a grudge.” The coffee was good. Ruth was almost enjoying the discussion. Then felt guilty that she was complacent, at Moira’s expense. Bartholomew, poor fellow, was dead. The Jamaicans were upset—and worried probably about themselves as well. Moira’s husband was still in the hospital. Ruth shouldn’t ask too many questions. But the woman did need help!

  There was a pecking at the window, a flash of red as the bird flew off, Ruth could see it crouching on a nearby branch as though it were spying, deliberately provoking, waiting for the next opportunity to spring at the glass. Moira glanced at it fearfully, then gave a short laugh. “I could say that does. It’s just a bird. But like a symbol of something worse, some fate that wants us out of here. Or wants in to get at us.”

  “Oh, Moira,” said Ruth. Someone had to be practical here. Although Moira was no Bertha; she didn’t believe in any devil. Moira was embarrassed at her own superstition. “I know, I know,” she said. “But sometimes, at night... Anyway, well, there’s Rufus. He’s a silent, almost surly kind of fellow. Never owned his own orchard, but would like to, I think. He hasn’t got the capital, that’s the problem, he’d have to buy it cheap.”

  “Mmmm. He might think you’d sell cheap because of all the problems here. And he could cause the problems. He surely knows all about what maggots and paraquat do to apples.”

  Moira sighed, gulped her coffee as though it would help clarify her thoughts. “He was a kind of legacy when we bought the orchard. There’s no telling what Rufus thinks behind the mask he wears.” She ran a hand through her thick hair, it fell back into her face. Her nose was shiny with perspiration. “Then there are those developers, your ex-husband. His uncle owned this orchard, he says.”

  “He did, yes. Though I can’t quite see Pete planting maggots and poisoning apples. After all, I lived with the man for more than twenty years! For all his faults, well, he’s an honest man. Though I don’t know about this Mavis he’s partners with. And there’s a third partner. A silent partner—I’ve got to find out who that one is. Pete’s always been the cozy one, won’t tell me something that’s going on because ‘women blab’—to quote Pete.” She curled her fists into her lap, remembering. Maybe the divorce was a good thing after all. She was starting to grow, wasn’t she? Like one of those wild rosebushes she’d planted behind the house that never bloomed until she cut away the rest of the taller, hardier bushes around it? And it went crazy the next spring with deep red blossoms.

  “That minister,” Moira said, her hands cupped tight around her coffee mug, “maybe he’s your silent partner.”

  “We can’t rule anything out,” Ruth said. “I mean, even Bertha. She’s Pete’s sister, after all. Even though he’s always put her down. Even Pete’s father put her down. Maybe that’s why she’s so vulnerable to these kooky religions—needing someone to pay attention to her. I need to remember that myself. But blood is blood. And Bertha belongs to that sect.”

  “What’s the man’s background, anyway?” Moira asked. “Does anyone know where he came from?”

  “No, but I’ll try to find out. I’ll put Colm Hanna on his case. The police would have access to old files. Maybe he’s a wanted man—killed his old mother to get the family jewels.”

  Moira gave a choking laugh. Then put a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t be laughing. I’m still feeling swept away on a tide. I can’t believe Bartholomew died! It seems like a nightmare I’ll wake up from. And I can’t sit here just thinking about my own problems. I’ll have to contact his wife. Stan has an address somewhere. What kind of burial do you think she’d want?”

  “You’ll have to ship the body back to Jamaica, I’d think. Or the ashes. Do you know what religion he is?”

  “I think Methodist. Yes, definitely Methodist. He got talking once about his childhood in Jamaica. His family was one of the few non-Catholic ones; his mother sent him to a school where he had to prostrate himself before the British flag. He had to memorize whole sections of Milton’s Paradise Lost—can you believe it?”

  “I can’t. I could hardly get through Milton myself senior year in high school. I do recall sympathizing with Satan, though. But don’t tell Bertha!” And both women smiled.

  Ruth got up and took her empty cup to the kitchen. “I’d better let you get on with the arrangements. Maybe one of the other men knows Bartholomew’s wife, can talk to her. Do you want me to help interrogate the men about the poisoning?”

  “Would you? I’d appreciate that. And you’re right, I’ll ask the men for their help. They’re frightened, that’s another concern. We have to keep them calm, keep them assured, keep them safe!”

  “You’re all right? Do you want me to stay longer?”

  “No, I’m okay. I was just feeling overwhelmed at the sudden death, the shock of it. But I can cope. The coffee helped. And talking to you.”

  Ruth nodded, got ready to leave. “I forgot to ask how Stan is.”

  “Stable. We’ll be bringing him home in a few days, as long as he keeps up the physical therapy and lets Rufus run the orchard. I can’t imagine him trying to deal with all this. I don’t want to tell him about Bartholomew, not yet. Oh, that poor, dear man! I didn’t know about that heart condition.” She turned her face away.

  “Call, will you, Moira? If I can do anything at all? I could at least question Rufus. I know him a little, the family goes back generations.” Ruth thought of Emily. She’d be glad when the season was over and Emily was back in school fall time. After all, her senior year—the girl needed to give time to her studies.

  Outside on the porch she saw the niece, Opal. She was cradling her guitar, hugging it to her like a child, her eyes fixed on the mountains. When Ruth spoke, she didn’t look up, just went on humming, tapping a foot, as though she were hearing the music in her head.

  “I think your aunt could use your help here,” Ruth said, but Opal didn’t answer. She was strumming the guitar now, a jazzy reggae kind of beat, an ironic requiem for Bartholomew’s death.

  Ruth felt a surge of anger at the girl’s indifference; then took a breath and climbed into the green pickup, revved it up with a “Thanks for starting, Green Baby.” At least the old bucket was still going, in the face of too many deaths.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  In the morning a contingent of pickers, headed by Zayon, who was now Number One man, appeared at Moira’s door. They were all talking at once, so rapidly in Jamaican patois she could only look from one to the other, say, “What? Please .. . speak slowly... I want to help you, but. .. one at a time, please ….”

  She had just had a tearful return call from Bartholomew’s wife, who wanted the body sent home at once, and she had made arrangements with Hanna’s Funeral Home. At least she hoped she had understood the whole message. The woman had kept shouting, “Heart, heart, I tell him to stay home, the bad heart!” Then she had burst into tears, and Moira wept with her.

  Now, she understood, the men wanted two things. They w
anted assurance that the police would find the source of the orchard malice—”Or we not to stay here, mum. You find him, find him, lock him up!” There was a chorus of yeas. And secondly, they wanted to have a funeral celebration that night for Bartholomew, even without his body present. “Music dat he love, good eating,” Derek said, and the others loudly echoed the wish.

  Of course she agreed to both. “The police are fully aware. They’ll keep a watch on the orchard. There’s a police car moving slowly past even now,” and she pointed. “You’ll be safe,” she insisted, although she didn’t know that, did she? She could only try to convince the others. The men didn’t want to leave Vermont, she knew that. They wanted, needed the money. The money from this fall’s picking was more than they would make in a whole year at home.

  “And we want to give Bartholomew a proper memorial,” she said—not knowing quite what to expect. “You tell me what to contribute in food. I’ll take you into town this afternoon, we’ll shop together.”

  They left then, pacified for the moment, talking excitedly among themselves, planning, she supposed, for the evening’s wake. Could she call it a wake?

  But she wasn’t prepared for the noisy send-off they finally gave their leader. Of course, reggae was nothing if not loud, Derek explained, stomping his feet to the up-tempo beat. The police would visit at least once a month back home, he said, “count of de noise you make. You car radio be turn up loud so everybodies dat drive by know you Jamaican, not tourist.”

  Adam Golding, coming up to her, looking serious, filled her in further. Reggae was based on American soul music, he said, but with inverted rhythms and prominent base lines: “A lot of the performers are Rastafarians,” he said, “like Zayon over there.”

  And there was Zayon, with his carefully cultivated dreadlocks, playing the drums. He seemed almost a part of the drum, his head nodding down into the taut skin. Adam was a musician himself, he told Moira, he was an admirer of Eric Clapton, who had adopted a form of reggae.

  “You’ve been there?” Moira asked. “To Jamaica?”

  “Couple of times,” Adam said, shrugging, and began to play his guitar. Was there a slight odor about him and Zayon of cannabis? She hoped not, but there was the sensation that events were wholly beyond her control now, events that had been set in motion, that she couldn’t stop—like that cardinal banging at her window.

  Oh, but she was superstitious today!

  Now, there was a new beat: something called ska, a Jamaican dance music, according to Ezekiel, a small, wiry man in his thirties. “De blue beat,” Ezekiel said. “We dancing for ole Bartholomew, he like dis music.” And he whirled about in a stiff pair of new blue jeans, stamping his feet. Zayon battered the dRufus, coming in on the second and fourth beats. Derek played an imaginary horn, while Adam was caught up in the rhythm of his guitar.

  And there was food—the men had spent what seemed a small fortune in the Grand Union and in the natural foods co-op. She’d given them the whole day off—in spite of Rufus’s disapproval. Nothing, even death, must stop work, the latter’s face had warned. They were already behind schedule and the Jamaicans were due to leave in two weeks. But she ignored him; the shopping trip took three hours. Every last bit of seasoning or exotic fruit had to be found. There was fruitcake, made in her own kitchen because the men needed two stoves going at the same time. It was a moist, dark, rich treat filled with tiny soft fruits and raisins. There were plantain tarts, bread pudding, and sweet potato pudding. There was salted codfish, pepperpot stew, and peppered shrimp—Moira couldn’t eat it for the spicy seasoning. There was a drink made of soursop and lime juice, pineapple and orange—as far as she could identify. And Tia Marias, the delicious coffee liqueur she’d always had a fondness for.

  The feast would go on all night, she feared, and then what would happen at eight o’clock Tuesday morning when the pickers were due at work? Rufus would be beside himself! She would go to bed, at least: She was learning to pick apples. Derek had given her lessons, grinning at her acrophobia up on the ladder, but patiently teaching her how to pick: how to leave the stem after picking, so that the apple would not dry out; how to take it with all the fingers and not just the fingertips, lifting the apple upward, then turning the hand slightly as you lift. She rehearsed it in her mind. How to break the stem from the fruiting spur without pulling the stem. There was so much to learn! And she was determined to keep the orchard going in Stan’s absence. She’d never be able to take Bartholomew’s place; like the other pickers, he was swift, easy, graceful. But she’d try. And she’d teach Opal, too, she would! The girl had to pull her weight around here. The orchard was in crisis....

  Opal passed by as Moira returned to the house, ready for bed without even a bath—she didn’t have the energy for it. The girl had her guitar, lured, most likely, by the sound of the music in the bunkhouse. She stood in the open doorway of the bunkhouse, a little shy, perhaps, or maybe afraid to go in to a place where a death had so recently occurred. Or maybe unwilling to let go of her prejudice. Moira felt sorry for her—but it was hard to feel sorry. The girl had done everything she could to make things difficult for her aunt and uncle: deliberately leaving her bed unmade, refusing to eat the food Moira served her. . . Opal was a fast-food, Pepsi-Cola addict—a product of the “modern world.” And how depressing for the modern world!

  At the path into the lower orchard Moira paused, suddenly needing to take a walk in the chill evening air; she veered into it. The orchard was lovely and quiet down here, only the thin sounds of drum and guitar drifting rhythmically through the trees. It was a cold late September night, partially lit by a crescent moon; the apples hung on the trees like dark shiny balls. If she picked one, a fairy might pop out and grant her three wishes.

  What would she wish for then? She considered. Carol back and alive in their lives? No, that was impossible, she must choose her wishes carefully, practically. First of all, she wanted Stan well and hopeful—yes, that was the priority. Next, their world back in order again, the evil in the orchard banished—only Jamaicans crooning in the trees, and bins full of ripe red apples to take to the Shoreham Co-op. And the third wish? What? Well, her brother-in-law, Lindley, out of the hospital and in good health, and Opal back with her parents and Moira at her loom, weaving good and beautiful thoughts into every piece. Peace. In her home and in Ireland, where her relatives still lived in Ballyvaughan; and peace everywhere in the world. How many wishes was that? At least a dozen! Moira the daydreamer.

  She continued on down the path toward the Winesap apples. She couldn’t bear to think of some of them poisoned. They could still be—illegally—sold, Rolly Butterfield had told her that; the poison was inside the apples, it hardly showed in the skin. Last spring Stan had grafted Winesaps and Gravensteins onto Red Delicious, and they took. Imagine! Three kinds on a single tree. It was like grafting a Jewish nose onto a Chinese face onto a Caucasian body. There would have to be tolerance then, none of this prejudice that Opal had evidently been reared on. Moira would try it herself next spring—grafting Granny Smith onto Rose Beauty; Roxbury Russet onto Elstar. The names themselves were lovely: Spigold, Paula Red, Newton Pippin .. .

  Now where was she? She’d made several turns among the trees, she was a bit disoriented. It was black now, the moon had gone under the clouds. Was anyone about who could orient her? She stopped, listened. Heard a crunching sound. Man or fox? She’d seen a gray fox only last week, dashing across the dirt road in front of the orchard. She held her breath. The sound came closer. She leaned into a tree, waited—nervous now, wanting to sneeze, holding it. It might be ... him. The one who’d sabotaged the orchard.

  And then he came by, a dark figure—masked? She couldn’t tell. His head was down, he had something in his hands. What was it? Should she scream? But then—he might turn on her. She waited until he was gone, down the path; then she followed, quietly as she could; every twig and dry leaf on the path shouted out. But the trees were silent; they gave out no secrets.

  She
heard footsteps crunching along from another direction. It was a smaller person this time—a woman, a girl? What was everyone doing out in this dark night? Were they leaving the funeral feast? Or were these outsiders, persons not associated at all with the orchard?

  Again she hid in the branches of a tree and waited. But the smaller figure had retreated, had seen her perhaps. When she got back to the fork in the path, it was Opal standing there, gazing up into the night sky. Had it been Opal, that second figure? Maybe so. Then who was the first?

  Or was this simply her imagination? Was it some sort of assignation? Someone Opal was going to see—perhaps one of the Butterfield twins?—and Moira was about to spoil it.

  The music had stopped, for the time being anyway; the men were eating, drinking, celebrating Bartholomew’s life—in their own way, of course. Food and music. Opal was only interested in the Jamaican music, not in the men.

  “Opal,” she called, and the girl gave a cry of surprise. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Have you been taking a walk? It’s a grand night. Cool but fragrant.”

  “No,” the girl said. “I just came from the bunkhouse. They’ve stopped playing. They make too much noise in there anyway. The place smells. That man died in there! I’m going to bed. You said I have to help pick tomorrow. I don’t know how.”

  “We’ll give you a lesson. And you’ll need your rest. I’m sure they’ll end the party early, though Derek tells me funerals sometimes last three days in Jamaica!” She rather liked the thought. Three days was not too long to celebrate a whole lifetime, was it?

  Opal muttered something, ran on ahead, and Moira returned to the house, to her loom. The thought of a romantic tryst out there in the trees made her feel lonely. She needed to weave. She took up the shuttle. And gasped. Someone had pulled out a number of her threads, destroyed the pattern. Who in the world did this? She’d have to unravel the whole piece, begin all over again. She felt like Penelope, threading and unthreading the loom, discouraging the suitors, while she waited for her husband to come home. How alike they were, she and the ancient Greek, Penelope! Both with missing husbands. Except that Moira had no suitors, wished for none—heavens, no.