Poison Apples

by Nancy Means Wright

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Emily stood for a long time at the fork in the path, and then took the left one to the bunkhouse. Adam was there alone, writing something in a notebook. He looked up, startled. She sat on his bed, grabbed his hand. “It’s Opal,” she said. “She’s on her way to see Rufus. To tell him what she saw.”

  “What? Saw what?” He looked tense, as though something were trapped inside him, something he couldn’t get out. His fingers drew circles on the notebook paper.

  “You. Coming out of the storage shed. The night before the paraquat spraying. With a key, she said.”

  The cheek muscles relaxed. “Oh that. I was looking for a bandanna I’d left in there. I’d gone in earlier to help Rufus put away some insecticide; I was in a hurry, the bandanna got caught on a nail. I knew where he hid the key.” He smiled at Emily. “She thinks I was getting the paraquat?”

  Emily smiled, too. She stroked his palm. Of course that was all. She remembered now: She’d been there herself—it was two weeks ago, she thought he was meeting Opal and he wasn’t, he was going after that bandanna. Why, he’d waved it at her! She squeezed his hand.

  “What were you doing anyway,” he asked, his eyes narrowing, “talking to Opal? I thought you two didn’t get along.”

  “Well, I—it was those cows you said she slashed. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I thought she might have pulled up the hemp, too. I wanted her to know I knew. I didn’t want any more damage. My mother’s running the farm alone, you know. It’s not easy for her!” She heard her voice rise. Then realized she was actually defending her mother, and she said, “Oh,” and then coughed.

  She decided, too, at the same moment, that Opal hadn’t slashed her mother’s cows at all; for one thing, the girl was too petite. She had no car. She kept a knife for protection, not for slashing cows. Anyway, why would she walk all the way over to Cow Hill Road in the dark? Adam had got it all wrong.

  Emily thought of Opal on the eve of her wedding and then that man saying he couldn’t marry her. She couldn’t imagine the humiliation, the pain of it.... She asked, “Why did you say she hurt our cows?”

  Adam pulled his hand away, swatted a fly. “I don’t know. I guess I thought maybe she did when I saw that knife. Because she let the goats go, everybody knows that. She’s a mischief maker.”

  Emily stared at him. “Adam, you can’t go around accusing people of things unless you’re sure. You have to have proof.”

  “Don’t lecture me,” he said, getting up off the bed. “Opal’s gone off to tell Rufus what she thinks she saw by the storage shed—without any proof, I might add, it’s her word against mine—and I’m not going to be here when he comes huffing up to accuse me.” He jumped up, pulled on his jacket.

  She clutched his arm. “You can’t hide! If you’re not guilty of anything, you don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m not hiding, damn it. I need to think, that’s all. I’m going into town. I just don’t want that guy bugging me. He’s paranoid. He’s a monomaniac. Apples, apples, apples, that’s all he thinks about. How much yield? Is there a tiny bruise on that apple? Then it’s only good for cider. It’s your fault, Golding. You did it. You bruised that apple. He’s had it in for me ever since I came here. But I stuck it out because—” He stopped, yanked at a faulty zipper.

  “Because .. . what?” she said. Then, in a softer voice, standing beside him, stroking his wool sleeve: “Because of me, Adam?”

  He looked at her as though surprised to see she was still there. “Partly, yes,” he said.

  “Only partly? What was the other part, then? Adam?” she called to him out the door, but he was already gone, waving her off, running around to the parking lot.

  “Got to pick something up in town,” he said. “I’ll be back. I’ll see you.”

  She followed him, still calling, wanting an answer to her question, but he was already in the white Volvo, driving noisily away.

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Opal waited until Adam left the bunkhouse and then she went in. She’d seen when he came back from town an hour before: He’d dropped the car keys in his pocket, tossed the jacket on the bed. When he went into the bathroom at the other end of the bunk-house, she had her chance. She tiptoed in, snatched the keys, dashed out; crouched in the bushes, waiting, until he left with his guitar—for the toolshed, she supposed. It was so easy. He merely threw on the coat, didn’t reach in the pockets, didn’t need keys to go to the toolshed.

  When he was out of sight, she ran to the Volvo. It was just a hunch, but she’d seen him by the post office when she went in town with Aunt Moira; he was carrying out a large box, one he stashed in the rear of his car. He’d slammed down the rear door when Moira came out of the post office, waved, and Moira waved back.

  Opal wanted to know what was in that box. It could be anything: a snow parka, winter boots, books, or maybe ... a snake. Something to turn loose in the orchard. One never knew.

  But Adam had put the finger on her, and she was putting it right back. No one would ignore Opal Earthrowl. No one would get the better of her! If it was only books or boots or a snow parka in the box, it could be added to. More paraquat, maybe, or one of those other powders and sprays down in the orchard—because Opal knew where Adam kept the key he’d had made. She’d followed him back that day she saw him with the key; she’d seen him slip it under the rubber mat beneath the driver’s seat. It didn’t mean she was sneaky; it meant survival. You had to be cunning to survive in this world.

  Quick as a weasel she unlocked the back. There was a car jack, an axe, a coil of rope. And under a gray blanket. .. the box. She slit open the outer seal with her kitchen knife. And, ahhh! saw, at once, she wouldn’t have to enter the storage shed, after all. Everything Rufus would want to see was in this box. And it was— she grimaced—horrid. .…

  She taped the box shut—she had been prepared for any emergency; draped the blanket back over it. She shut the rear door and tossed the car keys through the open bunkhouse window, onto the floor by his bed.

  As if they had simply fallen out of his pocket.

  Chapter Sixty-three

  “Tell ’at girl t’stay outa orshard buznee,” Stan told Moira where he sat at the window, and Moira said, “What?” Most of the time she was able to decipher what Stan had to say, but today she had other things on her mind. A pile of medical bills in the mail at the P.O. box, and then, at home, a police detective, waiting with a warrant to search through Stan’s clothing. What had Stan been wearing the night Cassandra was killed? he wanted to know.

  And why had they only come for that now? she’d asked. How could she remember after all this time what he’d been wearing? Stan wouldn’t remember, either; he was on amphetamines, he was on Prozac—Dr. Colwell had put him on it to allay the depression that came with the aftermath of stroke. Finally she’d given the detective and his female colleague three pairs of pants, two shirts, an outdoor jacket, and a pair of brown loafers she thought Stan might have been wearing that night. They could analyze those for hairs or fibers or whatever.

  Stan was still their prime suspect, then. It was like that British mystery series she and Stan had watched, feeling neutral at the time, above suspicion themselves. It was just a show, a TV show—that’s why people watched mysteries, she supposed. They could sit, safe, in their cozy living rooms.

  But this was no TV show, this was for real.

  “Obul, tha nieze amine, Obul,” Stan said, pointing a trembly finger, and Moira said, “Oh, dear, what’s she doing now?” She went to the window, saw Opal standing behind Rufus, trying to attract his attention. But Rufus was having none of it. He was talking to three of the Jamaicans, gesticulating, waving his arms. Describing, she supposed, something they had or hadn’t done. The Jamaicans just looked at him impassively. Derek had his arms folded, and Zayon and Desmond held their arms rigidly at their sides. The confrontation went on for several minutes, while Rufus lectured and pointed. Finally Opal tapped him on the shoulder and he wave
d her off, not looking at her.

  As she wheeled about, angry as a swatted wasp, Adam Golding’s white Volvo squealed to a leafy stop in the driveway. He called to Opal, and the girl came slowly over to the driver’s window, stood there, a mocking smile on her face, her hands on her skinny hips. There followed what appeared to be a heated discussion. Opal stamped her foot and shook her head, her black pigtail flying about her head like a lasso. But all the while she was smiling—Moira thought of a cat, pitched into a bucket of cream. Opal started to turn away, and Adam’s hand reached out and grasped her arm. For a moment they stared at one another; then the hand let Opal go and the girl laughed and spun about, and walked with dignity back to the house.

  “Opal,” Moira said sternly when the girl came in, “you mustn’t interrupt Rufus when he’s talking to the men. We’re behind in the picking and Rufus takes it all personally. I suppose we’re lucky he does. He’s the best orchard man in Branbury, everyone says so. And we want to keep him,” she said pointedly.

  Stan. nodded his head, frowned at his niece.

  Opal waited for the speech to be over, then stomped upstairs. She had a letter to write, she said. Moira wanted to run after and shake her—the girl could be infuriating! It was Opal, she suspected, who had unraveled the scarf she was weaving for the Jamaicans—more than once she’d caught her examining the loom. She had a mind to call the girl’s mother and tell her she was putting Opal on a bus. There was too much trouble in the orchard without adding more. Resolved, not wanting to ask Stan, for he was asleep now in his chair, she marched over to the phone, picked it up to call Annie May.

  But the line was busy. Annie May was talking again, to a girlfriend, who knew? She banged down the phone and went to her loom. Oh no! But this time she’d made the mistake herself, she was sure: broken the pattern with the wrong color thread. Sighing, she leaned back in the chair, her hands dropped, useless, in her lap.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Ruth paused on the threshold of the Branbury Inn, where her ex-husband was staying. Outside, the leaves were turning pale red and orange; it was getting on toward leaf-peeping season, he would be paying a small fortune for the room. She knew he was there, she’d seen him at the video store when she was coming out of the Grand Union; she followed in her pickup to the inn—she felt like a spy. Even so, she had to see him. She wasn’t going to give in to his demands. She’d buy back her half of the farm acreage if it took her a lifetime to pay! Her renter friend Carol Unsworth had given her a small loan, enough to get her through a month’s payment anyway, while she searched for other ways out. Colm would help, of course, but she wouldn’t use him unless desperate. Although after three months she probably would be! Colm didn’t have one hundred thousand dollars, either. She couldn’t mortgage the children! She might have to sell out after all.

  The receptionist rang up Pete’s room; when she knocked on Number 128 the door opened, but it wasn’t Pete who stood there. It was that woman, that developer, Mavis Dingman, whom she’d met at the Earthrowls’. Colm had interviewed the woman, but she was too smooth, he’d said: “Can you hold on to a handful of molasses?” She was wearing purple-flowered rayon pants with wide bottoms and a long slinky pale blue rayon top—or was it silk? Ruth wasn’t up on the latest fashion. Anyway, it didn’t look like business dress. Was Pete cheating on his actress friend?

  “I was just on my way,” she sang out when Pete introduced her. “Call me, Peter, when the lawyers settle on a closing date for Larocque’s.” With a knowing smile at Ruth, she flowed out.

  “Animal,” Ruth said to Pete. “Predator. Pouncing on an old man’s farm, slicing it up into pieces like a side of beef!”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Pete said. He was smiling, but nervous:

  She heard the change jiggling in his pocket, where he’d stuck a hand. “Only a few houses, I told you. It’ll be an exclusive development. Ten, twenty acres apiece. Nice landscaping. You’ll never see the houses for the new trees.”

  “And how long does it take to grow a tree? Damn you anyway.”

  He motioned for her to sit down, but she wouldn’t. She was here on business. Anyway, there was only one small red-flowered easy chair and then the double platform bed, where Pete was settling down. She wasn’t going to join him there!

  “I’m here on business myself. To give you the first month’s payment.” She thrust a check for five thousand dollars at him. It landed on his flabby belly, and he turned it over.

  He whistled. “You think you can do it, do you? Hundred thousand? In twenty-four months? Somebody give you a loan?”

  “Never mind.” It was none of his business how she got it.

  “This could have been a check to you,” he said, getting up, taking it over to the desk. “For a down payment on a town house. A flight to the Caribbean. You haven’t been out of Branbury in years, have you? Not since our trip to England that time? We had a good time then, Ruth.”

  It was true, they had. It was ten years ago now, it was right after Pete’s father died, leaving them a little money. It was like a weight had been lifted from them, the father had been part owner of the farm, was something of a martinet. He knew how the farm should be run, and Pete wasn’t running it the “right” way. They’d laughed their way through the British Isles, gone to bed early nights, made love every night.

  But things started to go wrong when they got back: blight on the corn, low milk prices, the herd buyouts. Then there was that film made in town, the bit part Pete had, the actress who lured him down to the city. And Pete not unwilling to go.

  The old bitterness welled up in her throat again. She walked over to him where he stood by the desk, still gazing at the check as though it might disintegrate in his hands. “Before I go, Pete, there’s something I have to know.”

  “If it’s about the farm,” he said, “ask Tim. He’ll know. I’ve been out of it too long now. Got other things on my mind. This little partnership I’ve gotten involved in.”

  “That’s exactly it,” she said, facing him squarely, hands on her hips. She was suddenly aware that she still had on her farm boots; Pete’s New York shoes smelled of polish. But never mind. “I want to know who the third partner is. Besides you and that oily woman. Why is it such a secret? I think Lucien has a right to know. So do the Earthrowls. Come on, now, tell me.” She looked him directly in the eye. They’d had three children together, for God’s sake! He owed her something. Some honest answers.

  He turned and walked across the room, looked out the window, blew out his cheeks. She stood behind him. Finally he turned, groaned. “Okay, if you can keep it to yourself. Promise?”

  She hesitated; the name might or might not be useful, one never knew. But she had to know it. She promised.

  “It’s Rufus Barrow. He’s related to my, um, female partner. This is a small town, all these old families are mixed up together. I hate to say it, Ruthie, but I think there’s a Barrow somewhere in my own past. It’s not any dirty secret, damn it—that he’s a partner, I mean—he just didn’t want people to know. Especially the Earthrowls—and don’t you go telling them! They’d just cause trouble, Rufus says. You promised, now.” He gripped her arm. It hurt, and she yanked away from him.

  He followed her. “Come on, Ruth, have a drink, a little sherry. You used to like sherry. Let’s be friends. Talk about the kids. I—I’ve missed them, Ruth. Emily, Sharon, Vic. How’s Vic getting on in school now? I want to get him down to the city, show him around. Get him out of the boondocks.”

  But she wasn’t going to let him seduce her, make her sorry for him. Pete was the enemy now. Until she completed the farm payments—if ever. Until she found out why Rufus was involved, how he was involved. Why would Rufus even want to be a partner in a development company—a fifth- or sixth-generation Vermonter, brought up on an orchard? Why would he be a party to this exploitation of the land?

  But then, so was Pete a Vermonter. His father would turn over in his grave to know what his son was doing. For once she fel
t a certain warmth for that old curmudgeon. He’d be on her side in this battle.

  “No, thank you,” she said to the sherry Pete was pressing on her, and she slipped gratefully into the hall and then out into the cool leaf-bright afternoon.

  She opened her mouth wide; practically drank in the fresh Vermont air.

  “Hey,” young Joey said when she got home: late, late for prepping the cows, “hey, Ruth, it all done. Emily got the cows all ready, Tim in there now doin’ the milkin’. I’m goin’ back in there t’help him, he said tell you go inside, relax. Re-lax.” He grinned at her out of his sunburned face, then waved and whistled his way back into the barn. At the door he doffed his feed cap, stuck it on backward, to show how “with it” he was. Hay wisps were stuck in his hair.

  She waved back. Joey was a sweetheart. He operated on five cylinders better than most people on six. How lucky she was, with Tim and Joey for helpers. How could she ever, ever consider selling the farm? And Emily: Emily doing the propping— unasked. Although there might be a reason for that. The girl still had some explaining to do.

  She found Emily in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor. She had to smile, had to remember what it was like when she went to high school. It was senior year when she and Pete stayed out till three in the morning; her mother was waiting up in the rocking chair, she’d been rocking and rocking her distress. But when Ruth tiptoed in, her mother was sound asleep. And Ruth didn’t wake her, just crept on upstairs. She’d told some crazy story the next day about why she was out so late. She’d forgotten now what it was.

  “Well, Em, what’s this all about? You and that floor aren’t usually such good pals.”

  “I had all this extra energy, that’s all.” Emily looked up contritely; stood up. She inhaled as though she were preparing to make a speech. “Look, Mom, I know I told you I wasn’t going to the fair, I was staying over with Hartley Flint. And I didn’t intend to go. .. .” She hesitated. “No, that’s not true. Hartley couldn’t come home from college this weekend, and, well, Adam Golding asked me to go with him. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you liked him. I don’t know why you don’t like him, except that he’s older than I am. But he’s a good person, he really is. And we—we had fun together—at the fair. We did some rides and we went to the snake show. Adam likes stuff like that. I mean, animals.” She looked pleadingly at her mother for support.