Poison Apples (30 page)

“What about the baby?” Emily whispered. “How far along were you?”

“Oh, three months. It didn’t show. I went to a clinic. I had to. I couldn’t tell my mother that! She’d kill me. She and my father argue about it all the time. My life is in danger, too, you know, because of what my father does.”

“In danger? What
does
your father do?”

Opal didn’t answer that, so Emily said, “How sad—that man lied to you, then. About being able to marry you.”

“He was upset I left him, he kept calling. I thought he might get violent, follow me up here. That’s why I need the knife. It’s just an old kitchen knife.”

“But you can’t label everybody bad from Jamaica just because of Aureliano. These are good men here; they have wives and children, they work hard.”

Opal frowned. Her lips were set in a straight line. She wasn’t going to change her mind. Aureliano was bad. Therefore, so were all Jamaicans. Emily got up; she felt unsteady on her feet. “I’m sorry about all that, Opal. I really am. I’m sure Aureliano must have been upset, too. I mean, he wanted to marry you, right?”

“He
said so, but I don’t know. He got caught, was the way he put it, he got on a merry-go-round—his mother pushed him into that marriage. But I’m not sorry for him. Oh no, I’m not!” She picked up her sketchpad and started off. “I’m not sorry for Adam, either. He’s a liar. I never slashed those cows. And he said he’d take me to the Valley Fair with him. And then he
took you!”

She strode out, chin up, her black hair floating about her head in the wind. “Rufus will hear about this. About Adam’s being in the storage shed. You’ll see. Adam won’t betray any more females!”

“Wait, wait, Opal!” Emily cried, running after the girl. “Don’t tell Rufus. It isn’t fair! What evidence do you have? So Adam was in the storage shed. He works here. It was probably something he needed. You didn’t see him do anything.”

“Who says I didn’t?” Opal threw back over her shoulder, and ran on up the path, a slight figure who looked like she might blow away in the next breeze. The geese followed her, squawking, and Opal yelled, “Shut up. Shut up, you stupid beasts, or I’ll wring your scrawny necks!”

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 waved 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.”