Poison Apples (22 page)

“Was your minister a part of this prayer?” he asked, seeking a lead-in to Turnbull.

Alma looked at him as though he were a dullard. “He’s our spiritual leader,” she said. “What would
you
think?”

“He led you in prayer.” Colm recalled the phrase from some long-ago Sunday school class.

“He did.”

“Did Cassandra Wickham pray under his, um, leadership? I understand they had a falling-out.”

There was a silence. He heard the women breathe. Gertrude’s was a rasping, asthmatic sound, as though she might be in need of a prayer herself.

Finally Minerva said, “Cassandra was different.” Alma gave a slight nod.

“She wanted to be in charge, that’s what it was,” Alma said.

“It wasn’t that,” Gertrude rasped. “It was personal. Something in their past. I heard them arguing once. They came here from the same town, you know.”

“What town was that?” Colm asked. His back was itching, right in the center. He wiggled against the plastic rocker and a spoke snapped loose, stuck into his back. Gertrude glared at him.

Minerva started to answer and was shushed. “You’ll have to ask him,” said Alma. “We can’t speak for him. But I can tell you he’s a good person, a holy person, oh yes. I don’t blame him for criticizing Cassandra. She had a—a sharp way about her, she could be pushy. We didn’t all hold with her going after the school board like that. We believed in prayer to get our way.”

“But Christ—but our minister wanted her to, he sent around petitions when she was running for the board,” Minerva said, waving away a cluster fly.

“Are any of you familiar with the Earthrowl apple orchard?” he questioned. “Was there anything Cassandra might have had against it? Or your minister?”

“We prayed there, didn’t we?” said Minerva, sucking on the end of a little finger. She closely examined a seeming imperfection in the petal-pink nail.

“I used to pick apples there,” Alma said. “Before it sold to those new people. Now they don’t let us go in and pick. They just use those black men. I haven’t been there in three years.”

“Except to pray,” Colm said with a smile.

The women nodded. They didn’t get his irony. The conversation switched to Saint Dorothea then, and he excused himself, making a wide path around the fly sticker. He didn’t want to get into theology. But there was obviously something amiss between the reverend and Cassandra. He’d have to dig into that. He’d have to talk to Turnbull. First, of course, he’d have to do his homework. He’d see what Roy Fallon had dug up. He might even try the Internet, though he wasn’t good at it, he kept running into dead ends, clicking on banner ads. But he’d persevere, for Ruth’s sake.

Gertrude followed him to the door. “The millennium,” she hissed as he groped for his coat. “It’s here. It’s on our doorstep. You have to keep praying.”

“Why, what will happen?” he asked politely.

She gave him a pitying look. “You’ll see,” she said. “Oh, believe me, oh, you’ll see.”

Colm coughed and hurried out.

Chapter Forty-five

Emily was searching through her bureau drawers for something to wear to the Valley Fair. With schoolwork and apple picking, she had to think ahead. She wanted to think ahead. It was as though there were nothing beyond that weekend: two long magical days with Adam Golding.

The pink mohair sweater had a spot on it: a spray of milk or manure or something. Oh, that miserable barn! Well, the blue cardigan would do, and the pale pink shirt. The jeans needed washing, they smelled of barn. She fingered a brooch, a gold pin she’d found in the pasture—someone had dropped it there; she’d asked Wilder’s mother, who rented out land, but it wasn’t hers. Sometimes, of course, local kids walked through—her mother didn’t mind, just so they didn’t spook the cows. So Emily had kept it. But it was too fancy for the blue cardigan. What if they went out dancing—to a dance club? What then? Except for that green ball gown from the Earthrowls that was lovely but wholly inappropriate, she had only one dress, and it was too tight; she’d grown bustier in the past year. She yanked it off the hanger, held it up to her in front of the mirror. It wasn’t even the right color! It was a pale yellow print; with her brown hair she needed something with warmth. She looked best in red. She needed a red dress: a swingy, sexy red dress that would make Adam feast his eyes on her. Where would she get the money for a dress like that? Where would she even find such a dress in Branbury, where the one store that sold women’s clothing had just failed and folded? Anyway, there were no dance clubs in Branbury, Vermont.

She sank back onto the bed, the print dress crumpled in her arms. She was a small-town farm girl, she had to face it. You couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear—she’d heard her mother say that over and over, speaking of her father. Her mother, so sure her father would fail down in the city, unable to keep up with that actress. But it had been over three years now and her father was still with that woman. Still in the city—well, pretty much, although he was back in Branbury for the time being, some business thing. She stretched her arms up over her head, wiggled her fingers. Her father had made it. If he could, she could. Feeling restless, she sprang up, stared fiercely at her image in the mirror. Oh God, she had a zit on the side of her nose! But she could be called pretty, and she had a decent figure: robust, but not too robust. She could do it. She could do anything she wanted. “You can, Emily,” she told herself. “You can do anything you want.”

“I’ve always told you that,” said her mother, appearing embarrassingly, in the doorway. “So what is it you want to do?”

Emily spun about, her neck flushed a deep pink. Why had she left her door open? “Nothing,” she sputtered. “I was just thinking about... a test I have in chemistry. You know I’m not very good in chemistry. I want to pass it.”

“Of course you will.” Her mother sat down on the bed, looked at the crumpled print dress, the pink and blue sweaters. “Trying on your gorgeous wardrobe?”

“What gorgeous wardrobe?” Emily leaned against the bureau. “I was just thinking—I need some new clothes.”

“Well, you’re a working girl. Buy something with your orchard money.”

“Mother, I need that just to live. To pay for books, snacks, movies. It isn’t that much anyway.”

“Go see your father, then. He’s back at the inn. If he has money for a fancy room, he can give you money for clothes.”

Emily didn’t answer. Her mother didn’t leave. “Mom, I have to get over to the orchard. I start picking at nine. I have to be there.”

“It’s only twenty of. I’ll drive you. I need to ask a few questions. About the orchard. You know I’m trying to help out Moira Earthrowl. Find out what’s going on.”

“Mom, I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t seen or heard a thing. Except, well, Opal. Something I promised not to tell. But I don’t think she has anything to do with the really bad stuff.”

“What about Rufus, the manager? How does he strike you?” Her mother was making herself comfortable now on the bed, puffing up a pillow, sitting back against it. Frustration crawled up Emily’s spine. Rufus was Rufus, that was all. She didn’t have much to do with him. “He tells us where to pick, he does his job. He thinks Adam and me and the Butternelds are just kids, he resents us, maybe. Once he called Adam a ‘rich city slicker’— Adam didn’t like it, I could tell. Besides, Adam’s not rich at all, he doesn’t own anything except his beat-up Volvo.”

“Rufus’s grandfather used to own that orchard, did you know that? Do you think he might want it back?”

Emily didn’t know. “He likes his work, that’s all I can tell you. Though sometimes he acts like he owns the place.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, I don’t know. One time I heard him tell Rolly Butterfield to stay away from a certain tree that was still too young to pick. ‘I don’t want
my
tree spoiled,’ Rufus said. I don’t think he really meant, though, it was
his
tree. I mean, I’ve heard Tim call Esmeralda’s
calf
his baby.”

“Yes, sure. I know. So there’s nothing else? No strangers who’ve appeared on the land? And Don Yates—why does he volunteer there, you think? Is he always friendly?”

“Yes, Mom. He’s a nice man. He clowns around with the school kids—the few that have come since the spraying!” She stood up. “Now I’ve got to go, Mom. If I’m late, Rufus will be mad. He’s taking stuff to the Shoreham Co-op today, he wants to make his quota.”

She turned at the bedroom door. Her mother was still sprawled on the bed—it was unlike her to act so lazy. Emily had to smile.

“Mom, it’s that minister to blame, that’s what Adam and I think. He’s got a thing against Mr. Earthrowl—like he thinks he’s some kind of devil. Adam was telling about something that happened down in Massachusetts. In a high school it was, a satanic group that sprang up and put the fix on a kid they didn’t like for some reason. They didn’t kill him, they just played all kinds of mean tricks. Adam and I don’t think anyone is trying to kill anybody here, it just happened poor Bartholomew ate that apple. The minister’s trying to make Mr. Earthrowl realize he can’t go around trying to do in the church or its members. But now that Mr. Earthrowl’s had his stroke, we think the bad stuff will stop.”

“What about my cows being slashed?” Her mother was sitting up now, looking angry. Emily knew that look. She tossed her jacket over her shoulder, glanced at her watch. It was ten of ten, she’d barely get to work in time.

“Mom, there’s a gang of kids in town that vandalize mailboxes, things like that. It’s probably them.”

“My cows aren’t mailboxes!” Her mother was up now, looming tall behind her, her cheeks were shiny-mad.

Emily took off then, she had to. “I’ll be home at five. If I hear anything new, I’ll tell you. But nothing else is going to happen. And next weekend, Mom ...”

She could hear her mother waiting behind her. Breathing hard.

“I’m going to, um, the Valley Fair with Adam. Just for the day, of course,” she said. It wasn’t a lie, was it? It was Essex they’d spend the night in. She couldn’t explain the whole thing now, but at least she’d give it a start. She’d tell her mother the truth, well, later on. Maybe. Her mother was such a fuddy-duddy!

“I’ll drive you, we can talk about it in the pickup,” her mother said, but Emily said, “No, thanks,” and ran heavily down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out into the chill morning. She gasped it in. When her brother Vic came along and hollered, “I got two baby chicks just out of the eggs. Wanna come and see?” she couldn’t answer. She couldn’t seem to breathe.

“What in heck’s the matter with you?” he said, hands on his bony hips. There were rips in both knees of his pants and his sneaker laces were untied. He seemed to think it made him look cool.

“Nothing’s the matter,” she gasped back. “No, everything’s the matter. I don’t know! Tie your dumb shoelaces. Or you’ll fall on your silly face.”

“Jeezum. Get a life,” Vic said, and shuffled his way over toward the chicken pen. And then, when he saw the familiar red Ford Explorer cruising up the driveway, “Hey, Dad!” he cried. “I got baby chicks—I hatched ’em myself. Come’n see!”

Chapter Forty-six

“Well, you might have spent more time with Vic. You never looked at his chicks,” Ruth said, but Pete was obviously here on another mission. She knew what it was: It was an old tune on an old instrument. He wanted her to sell her half of the farm acreage. So he could sell the whole and develop it.

But he was determined to go through the amenities—something he’d apparently learned from Violet, or Iris, or Tulip, or whatever the woman’s flowery name was.

“We talked,” he said, “and I did see his chickens. He’d better keep them out of the barn, though—the inspectors don’t like chickens in with the cows. Hey, these doughnuts are better than ever. I’ve missed them.” He stuffed one in his mouth, smiled at her through sugary teeth. She caught the “them.” He never missed
her,
of course. If he had, if he’d shown the slightest remorse for leaving her . . . they might be friends. She wanted them to be friends: for the children’s sake, as well as her own. But it hadn’t worked that way. Still, she coughed, tried to smile.

She watched him swallow two doughnuts; he mentioned the “unusually warm weather for late September,” reminded her to tell Tim to put “more wood chips around those Scotch pines,” and complained about the way the calf pens looked: “Need repairs, Ruth, a little paint would help. Barn needs painting, too, if we’re going to sell.” She sucked in her breath. He leaned his elbows on the kitchen table, bent his head forward, narrowed his pale blue eyes, and said, “You know why I’m here, Ruth. You know what I want.”

“You’re here about those slashed cows. It was in the paper.” She didn’t know why she’d brought that up, but she had a sudden concern. “Three of them, last Thursday morning. Gypsy was cut in the belly, she hasn’t given a drop of milk since—the shock of it! What do you know about that, Pete? What do those developer friends of yours know about it?”

He drew back quickly, hands gripped in his lap; he was hurt. How could she suspect him or his colleagues? “Gypsy?” he said, as though he’d never known the cow, when he was present at her birth! Gypsy Rose Lee was a ridiculous name for a cow, he’d said at the time, the stripper would “turn over in her grave” to hear of it. “Yeah, I read about it. Kids. Ever hear about kids tipping over cows? That Unsworth kid, I bet, or one of them. Police better get on this one quick.” He shook his head, shook the cow right out of his thoughts; if she was making an insinuation, he wasn’t going to pick it up, he didn’t want any arguments today.

“Ruth,” he said, sounding overtaxed, weary—he’d come all this way to settle something and she was bringing up dry cows. He looked at her brightly. “All the more reason we should sell, Ruth. Bad stuff going on around here. The orchard—already one death over there. Our kids, Ruth. They don’t care for farming— you have to face it. Emily’d love nothing more than to live in town, be like other kids. You got to think of the children, Ruth.”

He reached idly for a doughnut; it stuck in his mouth like a round 0. He was twisting her thoughts again. He was good at that: twisting things she said into what he wanted to hear, what he wanted for himself.