Poison Apples (11 page)

“Well, I’ll name him, then,” she said, watching the goat nibble the grass, which was already considerably thinner in the area where he was tethered. “I’ll call him. . . Munchy. Munchy the goat. Hello, Munchy,” she said, and patted the goat on his hairy head. It felt surprisingly soft.

“We munch ’im, all right. At de harvest supper,” said Derek, guffawing, and Emily sighed. It was like the young bulls she and Vic would grow fond of at home, and suddenly the bull would be gone, and she knew where—to the slaughterhouse. Her mother was a softie, of course, she always managed to be in town when they came to take the male baby away.

“Don’t serve me any of your Munchy,” she said, making a face. Derek laughed, of course, and spotting Adam striding down the path, Emily ran off.

They were working in the southeast orchard today, Adam told her, he and Emily and Millie were picking together. The Butter-fields were in a different quad. “I need to talk to you. I have an idea,” he went on, and something leaped in her throat, like a bird wanting to get out and fly.

She strapped on her bucket and followed him down through the orchard. Millie was already there, waving at them from a ladder. It was a beautiful day; it had rained at dawn and now the air was sweet and fragrant as perfume. No, sweeter. The apples seemed larger and redder this year, perhaps because of all the rain in May and June. It was as though her whole world were an apple: Golden Delicious, thank you, and she had only to bite into it to taste the universe.

She waved at Rufus as he drove past. His tractor was pulling a small wagon filled with crates, into which they’d unload the picked apples. He looked straight ahead, granite-faced as usual. Adam stuck an elbow into her ribs, and she laughed. “I’ve tried telling the guy jokes,” he said, “and he just nods and grunts. I don’t think he knows how to smile.”

“Too bad,” she said. Nothing could break her good mood today. She’d gotten an A on an American history test—her teacher would recommend her for any college she wanted to go to, if she decided to go next year, and
if
she could get a full scholarship; the sun was out; and she was with Adam. Adam, who thought she was pretty—he’d told her that only yesterday.

“You’re a pretty girl,” he’d said. “You going to run that farm yourself one day?” And right then she decided that she wasn’t— though he meant it in a positive way. “I don’t intend to farm,” she’d said. “Mom says we can choose, Vic and me. We’re not committed. I mean, my dad has already quit the farm. He doesn’t want anything to do with cows.” Adam had smiled. He understood the lure of the city, he said.

“So what do you want to do with your life?” she asked him now, as she picked the lower branches of a Macintosh tree, taking care to ease the apple gently off the tree as Rufus had taught, and into her bucket. True, she thought, it wasn’t a day for thinking ahead; rather, for living the moment—as her sister Sharon was always repeating, although Sharon had two children now and
had
to live moment by moment, diaper by diaper. Emily didn’t think she wanted that life, either—at least, not for a long time.

“Join the Marines,” Adam said.

“What?”

“Just kidding. I don’t know. Go to New York, I think. This winter. After I save up enough money. Get a pad there. Greenwich Village, Soho. Do some music. Make some money.”

“How? Doing music?”

He shrugged. “I’ll think of something. Things happen in the city. Opportunities. You don’t get them in a place like this.”

“What brought you up here, then? To this orchard? If you like the city so much?”

But he was being silly now, doing a little dance step with the ladder over his left shoulder, looking like a fireman about to throw it against a burning building. His ponytail danced behind him. She could imagine him in fringed leather breeches and beaver cap, the way her forebears had looked two hundred years ago. They cultivated apples on their land, too. For now, though, Adam was gorgeous in his jeans and the periwinkle-blue shirt that matched his eyes. “The wind,” he threw back over his shoulder, “the wind blew me here. The wind will blow me back.”

She laughed, and ran after him as he moved to the next tree. “But what’s that idea you had, that you wanted to talk to me about?”

He turned suddenly, looked serious, his eyes blue-green lakes. “A trip. A little trip. Not far. To the Valley Fair, up in Essex. It starts next week. I have a friend there, we can spend the night. Maybe go to Montreal Sunday.”

She gasped. “But the apple picking? How can we stay the night? They need us here.”

“Oh, just for a short weekend. We can beg off.”

She took a quick breath, her heart galloping in her chest. “When?”

“Week from Saturday? We get Sunday off anyway—half of it. There’s a guy in Montreal I want to see, he has a band. I sing a little, you know. I drum. I was in a band back home. I thought he might need an extra guy. After apple picking, I mean. I need to earn some bucks before New York.”

She was thrilled. “I didn’t know you were in a band!”

He smiled, came toward her, kissed her lightly on the lips. She heard Millie hoot, up in a tree. “Mmm, nectar,” he said. “So you’ll come along?”

She thought of her mother, the chores. She couldn’t tell her mother she was going for a weekend with a boy—with a man, she amended. Where would they sleep? Her mother would want to know that. And then she’d look into Emily’s eyes and Emily would back down. She couldn’t tell her mother she’d already slept with a guy, with Wilder, before he’d left for private school—though they hadn’t gone
all
the way. Wilder had wanted her to, but somehow. .. she couldn’t. For one thing, he didn’t have a condom, and she didn’t want to get pregnant! And then Wilder got mad, and she was angry, too, that he didn’t understand her concerns, and they parted with hard feelings.

No, she couldn’t tell her mother she was going to Essex, and then Montreal with Adam. But she was going, she knew that, oh yes, she was going, all right. It would be fun—more fun than she’d ever had with Wilder, who was so serious. He wanted to be a dull old lawyer—unlike Adam, who was a musician, an artist, a poet... well, as good as. He was grabbing her two hands now, looking deep into her eyes, and, “Yes,” she said, “yes, I will. I’ll find a way.”

“So let’s get picking,” he said, boogying off, as if he were hearing a rock beat in his head, and she danced after him, the bucket bumping on her chest, echoing her heartbeat. She would pick, pick, and with every apple she’d make a wish.

And every wish would have Adam Golding’s name on it.

Chapter Twenty-three

When Colm Hanna stopped at the Willmarth farm he found Ruth with Tim and Tim’s foster boy, Joey, planting hemp. They were putting in a dozen plants in a square foot of earth; the result, according to Ruth, who looked flushed and perspiring in a blue cotton shirt, would be tall, thin, reedy plants that would produce “a modicum of THC.”

“Meaning ‘Tender Heartfelt Care’?” Colm asked facetiously. And Tim, an aging hippie in a cowboy hat that Colm found an amusing antidote to the traditional feed cap, explained, “Tetrahydrocannabinol. What gives you that marijuana high.”

“Ah,” said Colm. He’d read about the controversy in the legislature. Hemp and marijuana were the same plant; it still wasn’t legal to plant hemp in Vermont. “My conservative dairy farmer,” he said, putting an arm around Ruth. Her shirt was damp in the center of her back; she smelled slightly bovine. Even so, there was that corn and milk fragrance about her throat—it was on her breath. He withdrew his arm, squeezed her elbow.

“Heck, industrial hemp has less than one percent THC,” she said. “And it’s only a matter of time before they legalize it. We’re just getting ahead of the crowd, that’s all.”

“But in September? I mean, who plants in September?”

“That’s just it. They won’t think of looking now.”

“We’ll cover ’em up good,” said Tim, packing in dirt around the roots.

“Cover ’em up good,” said Joey, who loved to repeat Tim’s words, but with a slight whistle because of missing teeth. Tim pulled a packet out of his pocket. “Hemp brownies. Try one?”

“Jeez,” said Colm, “better not. I’m off to Dad’s. He needs help laying out. A new body. I can’t be ... like, on a buzz.” Colm had been in college in the sixties, he’d tried it all: pot; LSD—once, though he was still subject to panic attacks; speed to get him through those physics exams....

Ruth smiled, and winked at Tim. “Green Horizons Hempseed Snackfoods Company,” she announced. “They sell brownies, edible hemp seeds, sneakers, hats, you name it. That new hemp store in Branbury—I bought Vic a pair of socks. Look, I’m not going out of dairy farming. I just need to diversify. They use industrial hemp for food, cloth, rope. We’re starving here, Colm, you know that. Pete’s making noises about my buying him out. Now eat the damn thing and relax. And tell me what body you’re laying out. I hope it’s not Aaron Samuels. Or is it that school board woman?”

He nodded. He was on his way over now, he’d dropped in for a quick cup, hoping she was between milkings; didn’t know about “this illegal stuff. I’ll call you, Ruthie.” He started off across the field, waved.

She ran after him. “Colm. Sorry about the coffee, but we have to get these plants in. Look, that woman—Cassandra. It’s Moira Earthrowl’s husband who’s being accused of running her down. They’re investigating now. Have you heard anything about it down at the police station?”

“They’ve got a new detective on it, I think. Guy named Bump.” He grinned. “It figures.”

“Well, see what you can find out. There’s something weird going on in that orchard. A lot of stuff that might be accidental, might not. I worry about Emily, for one thing.”

“What’s the orchard business got to do with the dead woman?”

“I told you, didn’t I? Stan is paranoid. According to Moira he thinks Cassandra’s church is behind some of the shenanagins. He’s had hate calls from that Messengers minister.”

“Jeez. I’ll talk to Fallon about it.” Though the chief was talking retirement again; more and more he was off fishing or bowling, leaving it to the underlings.

She held out her open palms in a gesture of not knowing. “Oh, and Colm, check out a developer named Mavis Dingman, would you? I’ll tell you more when I’ve time to sit down.” She ran lightly back to where Tim was stamping in the plants.

Hemp, he thought, Ruth was crazy. Someone would tell, she’d be fined, or worse. He imagined visiting her in the local lockup. He’d take her hemp brownies. Where’d she say they made them? Some snackfoods company? He laughed out loud and bit into the brownie Tim had given him. It was damn tasty. One percent pot, but hell, he’d chance it. He jogged over to the blue Horizon—his Irish cap blew off and he chased it down an incline, clapped it back on. Then stepped into a puddle that splashed his new plain blue Lands’ End shirt.

Now it was striped with mud and cow shit.

* * * *

Home at the mortuary, he found his father and the cosmetic woman putting the finishing touches on Cassandra Wickham’s face. It was oddly unbruised, considering the fact she’d been hit in the back, they said, and would have Fallon face down. Though she might have Fallon on her side. At any rate, he had his father photograph the body front and back, just in case. It was to be an open casket, of course, her church would want that; it would want the blooming cheeks, the lipstick, the eye shadow. After all, she was a martyr now.

“Gorgeous,” he said, and Fern, the cosmetic woman, beamed. His dad scowled, he knew an ironic tone when he heard it. “We’re doing our best. This is the way they want it,” his father said, sounding tired, off his sense of humor. When the phone rang: “Answer that phone, Colm, will ya? And then I need help setting up chairs.”

It was Roy Fallon. “You’re just the one I wanna talk to,” the chief said. “Afraid I’d get your dad, he never gives a straight answer. Not that you do,” he added. “Anyway, just wanna say, Stan Earthrowl’s car hit something, all right—marks on the front bumper. We’ll check ’em out. But we need the body, want an autopsy. It can’t go underground yet.”

“The church won’t like that,” Colm said. “The wake’s tonight, funeral tomorrow. You should’ve told them right away.”

“Hey, we thought it might’ve been an accident, you know that, Colm. But we got a witness, see? Some woman called up, saw the whole thing, she claims. She says Earthrowl deliberately swung around to hit her—that dead woman, I mean. So it’s murder. We gotta investigate, um, we might find the way the tires—the way the body, um...”

Roy Fallon seldom finished his sentences. It drove Colm nuts. It reminded him of his brief schoolteaching days where he never finished a sentence himself, left it open for the students to respond. “In the Battle of Gettysburg, the South .. .” And the students would shout out, “lost,” or “fought like madmen,” or whatever. Jeez, it was a zoo. The principal came in one day and accused Colm of losing all discipline. He’d quit before he was fired.

But his father was hollering. “What was that call, Colm? Not another body, I hope. I mean, Fern here says she can’t do any more this week. And I can’t put on lipstick. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! I can hardly bend over to do the embalming, Colm. This arthritis, it’s in my right hip. Sometimes the leg just collapses. Collapses, Colm! Hey, you got a tongue? Who called?”

“I’m trying to tell you, if you’ll stop talking. It was Roy Fallon. He wants an autopsy on the body. They suspect homicide.”

“What? My God! They’re coming at seven tonight for the viewing. She’s all ready for them. That minister will sue, you watch, he’ll hit the ceiling. He’ll sue, I said.”

“Go ahead and have the wake. But the burial will have to be postponed. Dad, it might be homicide. You can’t obstruct—”

“Justice,” his father finished. “Justice, hell. Why didn’t he tell me in the first place? Before Fern came all the way down from Winooski. Right, Fern?”

“They don’t care,” Fern said, snapping shut a tube of red lipstick. “They don’t care about nobody but themselves.” She pushed away “the police” with both hands. The pointed fingernails, Colm observed, could gouge out anyone’s eyeballs. It was fortunate she was working on a corpse.