Poison Apples (7 page)

Now the phone was ringing. “Tim,” Ruth shouted at her hired man—he was just coming in the door, back from the first cut of corn. Tim pushed back his cowboy hat, wiped his brow with a sweaty hand, and nodded. He sized up the situation and answered the phone. “Hang on a minute, I’ll see if she’s here.”

Ruth started to signal no, but Emily was up, running to the door. “Adam Golding is coming over—we’re going out. I have to wash up, change.”

Already, Ruth thought, the girl was back to life, thinking of a boy. The young got over things quickly. Well, more or less. There was the divorce, of course: Emily hadn’t got over that.

She nodded at Tim and went to the wall phone. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the smell of cows and manure. Usually she hardly noticed the odor, except when she first came in from the outdoors. Tonight, for some reason, it was potent. She stretched the phone line as far as it would go, kicked wide the barn door; breathed in the evening air. What day was it? She couldn’t think. Saturday, yes. Saturday night. Emily would want to stay out late, the pickers had Sunday morning off. “Hello?” she said.

Moira’s musical voice filled her ear. There was the slight hint of Irish: Moira had been born in Ireland, came over with her parents at age ten. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I haven’t got back to you,” she was saying. “Things have been hectic here. You’ve probably heard some of it. My niece arriving, and then those messages I told you about. And now ...”

“Now?” Though Ruth couldn’t remember what messages. Moira hadn’t told her exactly, had she?

“Now that teacher has gone and shot himself...”

“I know,” Ruth murmured. “Emily told me.”

“And Stan’s in an uproar. He’s gone off to see that woman. That school board woman who was persecuting [there was that word again] the teacher. Cassandra, her name is. I don’t recall the surname.” She paused, caught her breath.

“And you’re afraid Stan will do something rash.”

There was a silence, a slight laugh. “Yes. These days ... I hardly know him. He’s so mad at the world. I tried to stop him, tell him to think things through, but he stomped out. He knows where she lives. I just hope .. . she won’t be there.”

“I’ll come over,” Ruth said. “Tim’s doing the milking tonight. We can talk. You haven’t told me yet about those messages, after you picked up your niece.”

“I’ll make you a hot cup of tea. Or wine—would you rather?”

“Tea will be fine,” and Ruth hung up.

* * * *

Emily was still upstairs when Adam Golding arrived. His shoulders were slightly forward as he entered the kitchen door, as though he were afraid of what he’d find there—a cross mother-of-the-girl, a smell of manure, a chicken scurrying across the pine floor?

Ruth looked at him, appraising. But he smiled, an easy, pleasant smile that tried to tell her how at home he felt in her kitchen. “We thought we’d take in that new movie in town.”

“What is it?” she asked, for something to say.

But he couldn’t remember, just knew it was something about weddings. He laughed, shrugged. Weddings weren’t exactly his thing, the shrug said. But Emily wanted to see it. That, of course, was precisely what Ruth worried about. Emily had college to think about. Ruth didn’t want her to take a year
off
after high school, was afraid she’d get sidetracked. She wanted her to finish college and graduate—unlike herself, married after two years, plunged into farm life, into motherhood. Even Sharon, her firstborn, had quit three years into college, run off with a man nine years her senior. She’d promptly divorced him and married a man four years her junior. You couldn’t control your children’s lives!

Ruth surrendered, offered a soft drink. But Adam spread his hands, that easy smile again. Where in hell was Emily? But she could hear the water running in the upstairs sink. The girl was brushing her teeth, most likely, to a pearly white.

“Where are you from?” she asked Adam. She might as well give the inquisition. Of course he’d anticipated it. The answers came quickly.

The family hailed originally from the Midwest, came east when his mother died. Ruth said, “Ah.”

“But Dad remarried, they settled down in  the Boston area.”

“Brothers? Sisters?” Ruth asked.

“Sisters? Oh sure, two older sisters, Ellie and Esther. They’re married now, with kids. I have no brother,” he said, as though it was something he regretted. And Ruth could understand that, she’d had no brothers herself, only an older sister who’d moved to California, whom she rarely saw. Adam looked less confident now, he was biting his lower lip with his teeth. He looked vulnerable. Ruth decided that she liked the boy—if you could still call him a boy.

Emily came dashing down the stairs, her eyes lighting up to see Adam. She was wearing a pale blue mohair sweater Ruth had never seen before. A recent acquisition? Because of Adam? “Hi,” she said brightly. “Mother, you’ve met Adam?”

You know I have,
Ruth wanted to say, but nodded instead and smiled. It was Adam’s second visit. The last time he’d only come to the front porch, whistled up at Emily’s window. How had he known which window? Was this a real romance? Something out of Romeo and Juliet? Oh dear. Ruth didn’t care for that.

“Remember you have morning chores,” she called after Emily. “Don’t be out late,” and knew that Emily would hate her saying that.

But Emily just waved a hand in the air as though the reminder had gone right over her head, and they were gone, racing off in Adam Golding’s white Volvo. It looked well traveled, a dented fender, but it was a monied kind of car. Ruth worried about that. Now the phone was ringing. And she’d promised Moira she’d go over. And she had to pee, all those things at once. She should give in, buy one of those cordless phones she could take into the bathroom with her. But there were other priorities. There was a sprawl of unpaid bills on the kitchen table.

Upstairs in the bathroom she could hear the phone ring. It was such a tyrant! Well, let it ring, she thought. Seconds later the voice boomed on the answering machine. It was Colm Hanna. He wanted to come over. He was coming over. Where was she anyway? He’d tried the barn phone, Tim said she was in the house. “Not answering the phone? That’s a bad sign,” Colm’s voice said. “It means you’re getting to be antisocial, withdrawing.” Of course, he didn’t say where he was calling from. The real estate office? His father’s funeral home? The police station, where he worked part time? “Moonlight in Vermont” was Colm’s motto. “Moonlight in Vermont—or starve.”

“My God,” she said, “that man.” She washed her hands, then put in a call to the mortuary—but it was his father who answered:

“Hanna’s Funeral Home,” sounding weary, and so she left a message. “In case he comes there first. If not—he’ll have to find me gone,” she said, and William Hanna said, the usual non sequitur:

“When’s Colm gonna stay home and take over for me here? Is he waiting for me to drop in my tracks?”

Well, she couldn’t answer that.

Chapter Fourteen

Stan rammed the pickup into the curb in front of the Wickham woman’s house. This was the place, all right, he’d driven past a dozen times since last spring, his chest heating up each time, and always it was the same: immaculately kept lawn with one of those cheap pink plastic flamingos stuck in the center of it, a row of stiff orange marigolds lining the straight stone walkway, pink impatiens thick in the two window boxes. The house was a bland white ranch with black shutters, no character to it, according to Stan, who loved his orchard farmhouse—anyone at all might be living here. A chameleon. A criminal. A Medusa with her snaky dyed-red ringlets.

He’d yank off that wig, expose her for what she was. A killer in the name of God, in the name of morality. A hate crime, that’s what it was. He slammed the car door, strode up to the front door, rang the bell. It gave off a high shrill sound that split his eardrums; it was the bell Cassandra Wickham would have chosen, a dead ringer for her own voice. He rang again. And again. Then rattled the door. It was locked. Like Cassandra Wickham’s mind. Locked tight, so no new idea could get in. He went to a window, peered inside. The living room was neat, bland as the house: a yellow flowered sofa, a matching yellow chair, matching mahogany end tables, a large TV set on a stand on wheels. Sears, Montgomery Ward—one of those. Bought to match. He rang, again and again. No one answered.

He was annoyed, as though he’d made an appointment and the person had missed it, deliberately so. He ran back to the Blazer, revved up the engine; it raced, like his heart. He was out of vermouth for his Manhattan; it was five-fifty, the liquor store would still be open. He sped through a yellow light, it turned red when he was halfway—why were there three traffic lights in this small town? And a fourth about to go up. Lights, traffic, this was one of the reasons he’d left Connecticut. And of course to find peace, to work with his hands, to calm his heart. And now—this woman.

The liquor store was in the Graniteworks, down by Otter Creek. It had once been a gristmill, he’d read, built by the town’s forefather, Gamalial Archer, with, he supposed, a waterwheel to utilize the falls that rushed just beyond. The miller wouldn’t recognize the place now, an electric gathering of shops: a pharmacy, a fish store, the Vites Herbs shop, Dr. Raymond Brace, dentist. And next to the liquor store, the Planned Parenthood building. Seemed an irony, as though liquor helped make the babies, and Planned Parenthood undid them. Well, he had nothing against the latter—they helped women in trouble, Moira said, she gave them money now and then.

There were a dozen figures in front of Planned Parenthood. They were carrying homemade crosses, and placards with huge Magic Markered lettering.
MURDERERS
, KILLERS, they were labeling the people inside. GOD
LOVES
LITTLE
CHILDREN
, one placard read, as though He didn’t love the woman who was walking out now, with her man, her head bowed to avoid the eyes of the protesters. Even the man looked sheepish, as though he’d committed a crime. The protesters were praying audibly, a crew of mostly women. They’d been on Samuels’s porch, he’d heard, before he shot himself. What business did they have there? When the man and woman got into the car, when the lights went out inside Planned Parenthood, the group moved over in front of the liquor store.

The leader was a man in black: black shoes, black tie, black jacket. Only his shirt was white. Was he some kind of minister? Black and white, that said something about him. The women followed, one of them—yes! the Wickham woman. Protesting the liquor store now. Trying to shut it down. Trying to take away what he loved, what he needed; to leave him dry, thirsty, his lips parched. He got out of the car, ran over, tried to wrench away the sign from the Wickham woman. When she hit him with it, he shoved her against the side of the door and she cried out. He grabbed her arms and shook her: “Who’s the killer?” he yelled. “Who’s the murderer here?”

Someone grabbed him from behind. He pushed the person off, raced back to his car. His heart was slamming against the walls of his chest, the landscape was a purple bruise. He had to calm down or he’d have a heart attack, his doctor brother had warned of that. He laid his head on the steering wheel, gulped in air. Looked up finally to see them coming, a dozen of them, like blurred ghosts, waving their signs, coming at him from the side. He didn’t want anything to do with them now, he’d be the next victim. Where in hell was the key to the Blazer? He fumbled in his pocket; finally found it. He backed blindly out, then forward, hit something—a curb? He heard the squeal of tires behind him, a lot of hollering; he drove off.

Then he realized he’d never gone into the liquor store, and he wheeled about in someone’s driveway. A black SUV passed him, fall of people, almost sideswiped him, blundered through a red light. Stan stopped at the light, heard cars honking behind him. He was surprised now to see it had gone green. He lunged ahead. A police car passed to his left, sirens squealing. They were breaking up the picketing, he supposed, down in the Graniteworks. He didn’t want to be there. He’d drive to Vergennes, there was a liquor store there. And no one praying at it, he hoped.

Chapter Fifteen

A red car was in the orchard driveway when Ruth arrived— she’d walked the mile and a half from her farm. It wasn’t that she needed the exercise: Exercise was all she got all day, every day, milking, graining cows, calves—she had muscles! But she needed to think. She couldn’t think in the pickup. Cars went too fast. It was the feet that helped the thought process. Left right, left right.. . clear the brain! But Moira had another visitor, someone in a shiny red automobile. Ford, Corvette, Subaru—Ruth didn’t know the difference, she didn’t know cars. Unless it was a John Deere, and who’d ever heard of a John Deere sports car?

But Moira expected her, and so she knocked. And was practically yanked through the door, the woman was so glad to see her. “She didn’t phone first,” Moira whispered. “It’s a developer. Someone wanting our orchard.” She looked frazzled, her cheeks were apple-pink.

Ruth had to smile. “It’s routine, I’ve learned that by now. They’re always after my farm. I say, ‘Thank you, but no thank you.’ ‘But you deserve a rest, dearie,’ ” she mimicked in a loud whisper. “ ‘Go to Florida, we’ll pay a good price.’ Sure,” she said to Moira. “Sure. They’ll screw you, turn you into fodder for the pigs.”

The woman, who’d overheard, gave a false laugh. “Oh no, no, that’s not it at all. We have a business just like you do. I mean, we’re just giving you an opportunity—if you’re interested.... I just happened to be in the neighborhood,” she told Moira. “I’d heard about your, well, troubles. I just thought, um ...”

Moira was too polite. She nodded, took the card the woman offered. Ruth would have got rid of the woman at once. In the dairy business you had to be straightforward—no time for small talk. Moira was from downcountry. She was still starry-eyed about Vermont living. The good life: apple pies and tofu. Ruth’s flatlander friend Carol Unsworth had been that way, but now she had one hundred sheep, her hands were like work gloves. Carol Unsworth’s sheep on Ruth’s land helped keep the farm alive.