Poison Apples (8 page)

“There haven’t been any troubles this couple can’t take care of,” Ruth said when Moira just stood there, gazing down at the developer’s card. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have an appointment here, Ms. Earthrowl and me.” She nodded the woman off. The woman looked somehow familiar—why was that? The red clock stockings, the red jumpsuit, the red lipstick. Or did they all shop at the same mall? The developer who’d been partly responsible for those barn fires three, four years ago had left town. A short jail sentence, then parole. She was let go to set more fires. Ruth found it unconscionable. Maybe she was prejudiced. Even so ...

“But it has your name on it,” Moira said when the woman had gone. “Her partner, I mean—one of them—they call themselves Three Partners, though only two are listed. Mavis Dingman, Peter Willmarth. Isn’t that—isn’t he ... ?”

Ruth snatched up the card. Peter Willmarth. How many Peter Willmarths were there in the world? Peter, her ex-husband, ex-dairy farmer, a developer now? But he lived in New York with that actress. Or would-be actress. The one who’d once ridden elephants in the circus—my God. Was that the way she rode Pete, in bed? Ruth had never met her, didn’t want to. Would the woman have the gall?

“I’ll find out what this is about. Believe me, I’ll find out,” she told Moira. “This is the first I’ve heard. Whoa . .. now how about that tea?” Someone was knocking on the window; it seemed to be decorated with black cardboard owls. She squinted.

“It’s that cardinal again,” Moira said. “The bird just plain disregards the owls Stan made. It circles the whole house now, like a wake-up call. Like a warning.”

“Nice owls,” Ruth said, and they were: cleverly drawn.

“Stan has a knack for drawing. I’ve told him he should take a class, do something with it. But he . ..” Her sentence trailed off. Moira waved her arms as if to say,
What can you do with men?
And she went after the tea. Outdoors, in an evergreen, the cardinal stared at Ruth with a beady eye and then flung itself against the window glass.

“Someone should wring its neck,” a voice said, and Ruth looked around in surprise. A girl paused in the archway between rooms, dark frizzy hair with a pigtail in back, a guitar in her arms—the niece, Ruth supposed. The girl gave a little smirk and then walked with dignity out the front door. Ruth heard her on the porch, tuning up the instrument, then singing to it in a high sweet voice that negated her words about the bird. She recognized it as a Joan Baez protest song. So Joanie was still around. Ruth found herself humming in spite of herself.

“You, too?” Moira said, coming out with a tea tray. She set a plate of brownies on the kitchen table.

“It’s almost suppertime,” Ruth murmured, but took one anyway. It was rich and sweet in her mouth. “And, yes, I did the sixties thing. Well, actually the early seventies. I was in college then. But it ended when I got married. Pete supported the war I’d protested. He loved any war, actually. Battle of Saratoga, Battle of Shiloh, Iwo Jima. Armageddon. No, I’m kidding about Armageddon. But he took his maps and books with him when he left.” Left, she thought. But was he back? He’d come back for the divorce proceedings, then left for New York again. He’d said nothing about forming any partnership with a developer.

Here was a new twist. “I’ll definitely look into it.” When Moira looked confused, she added, “Pete’s being a developer now, I mean. It figures, in a way. He still owns half the farmland here, it was part of our settlement. I get the profit from the milk sales—when there is a profit; he owns half, pays his share of the taxes that I can’t afford. Which makes things... complicated. Of course, he wants me to sell. Maybe that’s why he’s become a developer! My God. Maybe that’s it.”

Moira looked sympathetic. “The developer’s the least of our worries here. We can always say no. Though I don’t know what Stan would say. He might get discouraged with all this mischief going on. I still haven’t told him about the message from that minister.”

“It was a minister?”

“Oh yes, I think so. Some kind of minister, anyway. He’s called twice now. Quoting from the Bible. Sinister kinds of things, apocalyptical—speaking of Armageddon. I’d call the police, but Stan doesn’t want them. That’s why I was glad when you said that you might, well, help a little. I don’t want to exploit you.” She gripped her teacup in two hands as if to steady it.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you do that,” Ruth said, and smiled. “That minister’s a charismatic fellow, I gather—at least to my sister-in-law. We won’t convince Bertha to speak against him, though—he might send her straight to hell!”

Moira was still gripping the cup. In a minute, Ruth thought, she’d break it. Ruth told about Emily. How upset she was over the scandal, the teacher’s pogrom. “Emily thinks he was genuinely trying to help that boy. That he wasn’t.. . coming on to him, it wasn’t sexual harassment.”

“I’m sure not. Once Carol had a crush on a history teacher. She stayed practically every day after school to get help. It’s hard. It’s hard for the teacher. To know exactly how to handle a crush like that. I taught a couple of years myself. The student-teacher relationship is a funny one. Intimate, rewarding. But dangerous. Can be, anyway. You going to eat that brownie? Come on, Ruth. You’ll never get fat in your work!”

“I’m getting to that age.” Ruth patted her stomach, then sucked it in. It was still pretty taut, after all. There. She’d talked herself into it. She did love chocolate.

Outside, a car pulled up with a grinding of brakes. “It’s Stan,” Moira said, getting up. “I know the Blazer. It needs a tune-up. Thank God he’s back.”

Ruth rose with her. “I have to be off anyway. I have to get supper for Vic.”

“No, wait. I don’t know what kind of mood he’ll be in—it’ll be easier if you’re here. Just a few minutes more?” She reddened, sat back down, and Ruth waited, patted the cat that was rubbing against her leg—smelling cream, maybe.

Stan looked agitated, his shirttail was out. There was a bruise on his left cheek. He nodded at Ruth, went to the refrigerator, yanked out a tray of ice. The women were quiet. He pulled a bottle of whiskey out of a paper bag and shakily poured—and poured—or so it seemed to Ruth.

“She wasn’t home?” Moira said, sounding hopeful.

Stan looked at her, as though for a moment he didn’t know who she was. Then he said, “No, no, she wasn’t there. She—I saw her down at the Graniteworks, picketing.”

“That’s all?”

“What do you mean, all?”

“You didn’t do anything? Try to interrupt the picketing or something crazy like that? They resort to violence sometimes, you know.”

“I did. Of course I did. You know I would. I didn’t come up here to be kept out of any store. Drugstore, liquor store, whatever.”

The door opened and the niece came back in with her guitar. “We can see that, Uncle Stan,” she said, nodding at the glass in his hand, and he glanced at her, started to retort; then he tightened his lips, sank into a chair, drank. It was as if he’d been walking in a desert, he seemed that thirsty.

“Opal,” Moira said, “I want you to meet Ms. Willmarth, she’s Emily’s mother. You know Emily, who works here?”

“Oh yes,” Opal said. “I know Emily. She home?” she asked Ruth, with a sly look. The girl was pretty, Ruth thought, but there was something defensive about the way she thrust up her chin, crossed her arms over her breasts—as if she wore a coat of armor under the red ribbed sweater.

“I’ve been out of the house,” Ruth said, wary, not wanting to give Emily’s movements away. “Last I knew, she was home.”

A fleeting smile came over the girl’s lips. She wheeled about and ran upstairs.

The phone rang. Ruth got up to go. Moira rose, too, spilling her tea into the saucer. “I’ll get it,” she told Stan.

Ruth waved good-bye. She was glad of a break so she could leave. She had to get home to make supper. Besides, it wasn’t exactly comfortable with Stan here. “Thanks, thanks so much,” she said, and kept going even when Moira said, “No, no, it can’t be!” into the phone.

* * * *

Back at the farm, Ruth found Colm’s ancient two-toned blue Horizon parked by the silo—an amateur paint job at best. It was missing a hubcap and a few other essentials. How long was he going to keep driving that thing? She was glad to see Colm, though, she wanted to tell him about Pete. She didn’t like the sound of it, Pete’s involvement with this developer.

But he had news for her, too. “Moira called,” he said, putting an arm around her waist. His fingers dug a little into her body, like a cat kneading flesh.

“Moira? But I just came from there.”

“She said. There was evidently a phone call just as you left, She thought you should know.”

“What? Know what?”

“It was from that minister. It seems that woman is dead. The one with the Greek name: Cassandra, the one who was harassing Samuels. She was hit by a car. According to the minister— Turnbull’s his name—it was Stan Earthrowl’s Blazer.”

“No!” Something struck Ruth in the pit of the stomach. “Oh God, poor Moira. What did Stan say? Was it really his car? I just saw him. He seemed ... all right.” She thought a minute, saw his white face, the way he threw down that drink, his hand trembling. He wasn’t all right, not at all.

“She didn’t say.” Colm was holding her impossibly tight, and she didn’t object. A moment later she heard Vic skipping down the stairs, too fast, the way he always did, and she pulled away from Colm.

“What’s for supper?” Vic asked.

“Misery pudding,” she said, and Vic said, “What?”

Chapter Sixteen

Morning, and Stan was sleeping like a baby beside Moira. He was making sonorous sounds. One would think it was just an ordinary Sunday morning, church perhaps—though Stan was a nonpracticing Jew, and Moira didn’t attend St. Mary’s very often now. Though today she felt the need. She needed to sink to her knees and mumble the liturgy, feel the good numbness, chant along with a hundred others, the priest in his fatherly white robe. He would take care of her. He would keep the birds out of the house.

They’d gotten in late last night from the police interview. It had all happened so fast: the phone call from that minister, the police wanting to take Stan into custody. They hadn’t been able to hold him, there was no proof—”Not yet,” Chief Fallon had said, quite ominously—that croaky voice! The minister had been a witness, but admitted he hadn’t
seen
Stan run the woman down. He’d described Stan breaking up the picketing at the liquor store, pushing Cassandra into the door front. Then when they went after him, a matter of defense, the man said—a handsome gray-haired fellow with blazing blue eyes, a deep melodious voice that would mesmerize his flock—Stan peeled off. Cassandra, foolish woman, the man said, had run at the car and Stan knocked her down.

At least it had to have happened that way, the man—Turnbull—said. He’d gone back into the store to leave pamphlets. The next he knew, he heard a scream, he turned to look, and the woman was down on the pavement. He’d run to her, she was lying in a Z—

“In a what?” the chief had asked. “Curled up,” Turnbull responded, “like a fetus, she was struck in the back. The back!” he’d hissed, the voice warmed up to a fine pitch. “The back!” as though she’d been exploited, martyred, in her innocence. He’d called an ambulance; then he’d left in Cassandra’s car. The rest of his group had already taken off, he explained, in the church vehicle. “I went to the hospital. To pray,” he added, with a hard look at Stan.

And all Stan could do was shake his head. The woman was nowhere near his car when he left. Well, she must have been, he conceded. He did recall seeing her, at one point, run toward the road. “She was crazy!” he shouted. There was a slight slur in his voice. The chief was smiling a little, or so it seemed; it was hard to tell, there was a single dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling. “Was there anyone else in the parking lot?” he’d asked. “Any people getting in or out of their cars?” He was so relaxed, so laid back, that chief. The faster and louder the minister spoke, the softer Chief Fallon’s voice sounded.

Once the chief turned to smile at Moira and somehow she was calmed. It was as though they were in the office of Stan’s old high school principal: Stan had inadvertently thrown a piece of chalk out the window of his classroom, hit a young girl in the neck. She was bruised, but everyone knew it wasn’t intentional. Of course not!

And then, to Moira’s surprise, Turnbull had turned to the chief and said what a nice person the chief’s wife was, how spiritual. And the chief’s nose and cheeks got red, and he said it was late and everyone could go home now, at once; they’d all be in touch. How had that minister known the police chief’s wife?

But the facts were damning. Stan had a grudge against Cassandra Wickham. That it was well deserved wasn’t the question here. A death was a death, a murder was a murder. Murder? Stan was no murderer! She looked down again at his sleeping form, at the way his nose squashed into the pillow where he lay on his side. At the soft dark hairs on his arms and chest. The slow, even breathing.

But last night—he was still an angry man; late in the interview the anger had pushed through again. He admitted interrupting the vigil; he wanted the woman to realize the magnitude of what she’d done. She was a busybody, he’d said, “She’s a two-faced bigot”—as though she were still alive.

And Turnbull, she recalled, just gazed at him with those fiery eyes. “You were angry enough to kill,” he said in his sonorous voice. “God will punish you.” A key ring, or maybe it was a pen, fell off the chief’s desk, as if dislodged by the minister’s words; it clattered to the floor and rang in Moira’s temples.

Finally they left in a taxi. The police were keeping the Blazer: They’d examine the tires, look for blood, fibers, flakes of flesh, she supposed. She lay back on the pillow. “Please, God,” she prayed, “please don’t let them find any blood. Please. Please. ...”

And Stan slept on. He’d gone to bed full of drink, it was his way of coping. She’d tried to jog his memory, but there was no memory. He’d drunk up his memory. And what do we have to go on, she thought, but our memories? Without them it’s like living with a stranger.