A Dime a Dozen (21 page)

At the door Karen spoke softly.

“This is the most animated I’ve seen Pepe in a long time,” she said. “You seem to have a real way about you.”

I thought of her own personality and how her natural reticence became a calm sort of centeredness that was attractive to Adriana. Different traits drew out different children, I supposed, and a woman like Karen offered a gentle spirit I knew most kids would find appealing.

“Thanks,” I said. “So do you.”

We shook hands, and I was struck with the thought that if I lived here, she and I would probably become friends.

“You enjoy your tour of the orchard,” she said. “Danny’s new there, but he’s really catching on. You’ll find it all very interesting, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I know I will,” I replied. “Thanks for suggesting it.”

I thought about Karen and Danny, wondering again if they were a couple. They had seemed friendly enough at the Webbers’ party.

“Hey,” I said, “would you like to come on the tour with me, by any chance?”

To my surprise Karen’s demeanor immediately changed. She stiffened, and her face flushed bright red.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, taking a step back. “Danny can show you around by himself. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Uh, okay,” I said, wondering about her odd reaction. “Well, thanks again for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “It was my pleasure.”

As I stepped out and she shut the door behind me, I saw that her face had tightened into an expression I simply couldn’t read. I wondered what on earth that was all about, and if I had somehow said something wrong.

I reviewed our final conversation in my mind as I walked toward the car. I finally decided her odd reaction must have something to do with either Danny or the orchard. Either way, I didn’t have time to worry about it now. I had more important things going on—not the least of which was a visit to Tinsdale Orchards, the place where Enrique Morales had last been seen alive.

Nineteen

I turned into the orchard at 5:05 p.m. Hoping Danny wasn’t a stickler for punctuality, I slowed significantly as I drove up the long and winding driveway, past the big house, and up the hill to the group of buildings that was there. Once I reached the parking lot, I saw that this wasn’t some small-time apple farm. This was big business.

“I thought I heard a car out here,” Danny said, coming around the corner with a smile. “I’ve been listening for you.”

We shook hands as I apologized for being a few minutes late.

“No problem,” he said. “Usually, the orchard is deserted by this time of day, but tonight a lot of the workers are on overtime. They’re trying to pack up the last of the apples to make room for the ones that’ll be coming out of storage in the morning.”

“Do you have time to do this now? I could always come back later in the week.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” he said. “Really, I’m just hanging out to help monitor the room as it equalizes. We got a new fan in there, and we’re not sure how it’s going to affect the timing.”

“Okay.”

He gestured toward the side of the building.

“Come on,” he said. We’ll use the cart.”

He led me around the corner to a waiting golf cart, albeit one that had been modified for farm use. I made a joke about my backswing as I climbed into the passenger seat. He laughed, slipping behind the wheel and starting it up.

“Before we begin the official tour,” I said. “I’d like to ask a favor.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I wonder if you’d mind taking me to the high block.”

“The high block? Way up there? I can show you trees like those right here.”

“Actually,” I said, “I want to go up there because that’s the place where Enrique Morales supposedly disappeared.”

He studied me oddly for a moment.

“You’re not one of those thrill-seeker types, are you?” he asked. “Like, a crime junkie?”

“A crime junkie?”

“Sure, every crime scene has them. You know, people who hang around and put flowers on the ground and cry for people they never met.”

“No,” I said. “My request is purely logical. The Webbers are friends with Luisa, and they’ve asked me to look into her husband’s disappearance.”

“Well, okay,” he said. “But it’s been a long time since it happened. I don’t think you’ll find anything.”

He put the cart in gear and followed a paved path that ran uphill between rows of trees.

“I’m not sure of all the details,” he said over the sound of the motor, “but it was my understanding that this guy skipped town. Didn’t he send his wife a ‘Dear John’ letter or something?”

“Yes, but that letter is highly suspect,” I said. “It’s doubtful it actually came from him. They think foul play was involved.”

Danny turned from the paved path onto a dirt one, and we bounced along potholes and ruts, still climbing upward. Eventually, we got to the highest tier of cleared land, and then Danny swung the cart around and pulled to a stop.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” he said, “this is the high block.”

We got out of the cart, and I watched as he pointed out the perimeters of this section of the orchard. In front of us, the boundary stretched to the end of the tier, just to where the ground dropped by about ten feet. To our left and behind us, the block was bordered by dense woods thick with kudzu, and to our right, it was lined by the road that went down the mountain. The little Su Casa building, which sat nestled against the side of the hill, was in the next tier down.

“I didn’t realize that building was on Tinsdale property,” I said.

“Oh, sure, orchards donate space all the time. The McKinney Orchards gave an even bigger piece of their land for one of the migrant dormitories.”

“Interesting.”

“Anyway, as you can see,” Danny said, “there’s not much to look at up here.”

“Did you help with the search?” I asked, walking back toward the woods.

“No, I didn’t move here until a month or two after it happened. But people still talk about it. It’s like this big mystery. ‘What happened to the migrant man?’ I say he took a powder on the wife and kids and is living the high life down on some beach in Mexico.”

“Oh, yeah,” I replied sarcastically. “Those migrants sure live the high life there.”

We reached the end of the property, and I stared up at the deep, dense woods.

“I’m sure they searched up in here,” I said. “Though it couldn’t have been easy.”

“They did two searches, didn’t they?” Danny asked. “The orchard workers first and then the next day the cops? Neither search turned up anything.”

I wondered if it would be worth returning to this place alone, later, and digging around a bit in the brush. After all this time, there probably wouldn’t be any clues remaining, like torn clothing or bodily tissues. But I kept feeling there must be a well or a hole or some fissure in the earth that had simply swallowed Enrique up. For all we knew, his bones were mere yards away from us, hidden by soil or kudzu.

“Well,” I said, turning around, “I guess you were right. There really isn’t much to see here. Except, of course, that gorgeous view.”

We walked together back to the cart, looking at the mountains in the distance topped with cloudy cotton puffs.

“So why did the Webbers ask you to look into this? Are you, like, a cop or something?”

“No,” I said, hesitating. I never liked to play up my private investigator qualifications because they usually put people on their guard. “I’m not a cop, just a very detail-minded person. I came here to help out with some of their migrant programs, and they thought I might be able to come up with an angle no one had thought of before.”

He was about to ask me another question when static burst from the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.

“Danny, you there?” a voice crackled.

Danny pulled the walkie-talkie loose, held it up to his mouth, and spoke.

“This is Danny. Go ahead.”

“The tractor broke down again. I need you to come and get me. I’m down by the house.”

“I’m on my way.”

Danny clipped the walkie-talkie back onto his belt and gave me an apologetic smile.

“We gotta go give the foreman a lift. Then we can officially start your tour. Are we done here?”

“Sure,” I said, climbing into the cart. “Thanks for showing it to me anyway.”

“You’re welcome. Hang on.”

He put the cart in gear, and we sped back down the dirt path at top speed. The ride was actually quite fun, with a few dips that left my stomach in my throat. By the time we got down to the bottom of the hill, the beautiful Tinsdale home was plainly in view. Danny slowed and turned onto the long driveway that led up to the house.

Up close, the place was still impressively large, but it held signs of wear I hadn’t noticed from the road. Weathered paint. A rotted window frame. Weeds in dried-up flower beds. The orchard was thriving with activity, but I had to wonder why the mansion was in such disrepair. Lack of money? General neglect? It didn’t make any sense.

Alongside the house, in the middle of the driveway, sat a huge green John Deere tractor. Nearby, a man was leaning against a wall, and when he saw us coming, he held up his hand. Danny pulled to a stop near him and got out of the driver’s seat to climb into the back. As the man sauntered toward us in jeans and dirt-covered boots, I thought the foreman looked vaguely familiar, as though I had seen him somewhere before. With a dark tan, weathered features, and sun-bleached hair, he was a picture of the rugged outdoorsy type. As he climbed in behind the wheel, Danny introduced him as the foreman, Pete Gibson. I had been planning to speak with him soon and get more information about Enrique’s last day, so I was happy to make his acquaintance.

“Pete, this is Callie Webber,” Danny continued. “Dean Webber’s daughter-in-law. She’s here learning about the migrants, and Karen suggested we give her a tour of the orchard. I was just gonna show her around.”

Pete looked at me for a long moment, the expression on his face unreadable.

“Karen suggested it, huh?” he said finally.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been doing some research on the different migrant charities in the area, so I’m interested in how they all come together.”

He studied me for a moment, working his jaw.

“Well, I think we can give you an idea,” he said finally. “Danny, how’s SR3 doing?”

“It’s at thirteen percent.”

“Then I guess it won’t be ready till tomorrow. That gives us plenty of time for a tour. Sure, we’ll give you a nice tour.”

He turned forward, put the cart in gear, and took off up the drive-way. Somehow, I had the feeling that Pete had now become my selfappointed tour guide, though he didn’t seem very happy about it.

“You know anything about apple growing?” he asked me loudly over the noise of the wind rushing past. He was driving much faster than Danny had, and I held tightly to the rail.

“Not a thing,” I said.

Making a sharp turn to the right, he headed down toward the lowest field, the one with what looked like the youngest, smallest trees. Pete slowed the vehicle and began talking in mostly scientific terms about the variety of growing methods the orchard employed. He pointed out the distance between the tree trunks, telling me that the close proximity was a new approach, something they hadn’t done before.

“You’ll see the older trees in the middle block,” he said. “They’re much farther apart than these will be. These will grow up so close together they’ll almost be more like apple bushes than apple trees. It’s a new method we’re trying, but it’s supposed to be very land-use effective.”

He continued to talk about width and height and separation, and I finally realized this was going to be a much more thorough tour than I had bargained for. I glanced back at Danny, who rolled his eyes.

Pete was onto the subject of the bees they brought in annually for pollination when I stopped listening and decided simply to look around and enjoy the drive. At least, the more he spoke, the more my eyes were being opened to the complexities of growing apples. I also hadn’t realized what a cooperative effort was involved, as several different sections of the orchard had been given over to the University of North Carolina for research and testing.

“It’s a very symbiotic relationship,” Pete said. “We provide the land and the trees, they do the research, and we all benefit from the knowledge.”

Once we had made the rounds of the trees, Pete drove us back up to the compound of buildings and slowly pulled through the open center aisle of an equipment shed. Looking around at the big machines housed there, I felt positively dwarfed on both sides.

Pete drove out the other end of the shed before pulling to a stop beside the door of one of the bigger buildings.

“Now I’ll show you the storage,” Pete said. “Danny, you can check the Orstat while we’re here.”

“Sure,” Danny said, giving me a wink as he walked away.

“Karen said something about a controlled atmosphere?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Pete replied. “Here, I’ll show you.”

He pulled open the door of the building and we stepped inside. As we did, I was hit by a thickly sweet apple smell, as if the air were filled with a concentrated apple perfume. We found ourselves in a long corridor lined with odd-looking doors on each side.