Golden Malicious (Apple Orchard Mystery) (15 page)

“This is something new. Some commercial builders think the economic tide has turned, and some of the properties along Route 202 look more attractive now. This is all very preliminary, but I have to take it seriously on behalf of the town. I’m meeting with one of them this morning, early. Just one more thing to add to the to-do list.” He stood up. “I really need to get going.”

“So do I. Are we okay?”

He finally smiled. “Yes, we are.”

Meg and Bree were wrapping up the watering for the day, well past the lunch hour, when Meg’s cell phone rang.

It was Christopher, and he sounded excited. “Meg, the inspectors will be here shortly, and there’s something you might like to see.”

All she wanted at the moment was a very long drink of something with a lot of ice in it, not a jaunt into the woods to hunt for bugs. “What is it?”

“The APHIS people brought their insect-tracking dogs! They’re going to give them a run in the town park, if you’d like to watch.”

“I had no idea there was such a thing,” Meg said, stalling. She was hot, sweaty, and tired. How much did she care about watching dogs hunt for bugs?

“It’s a fairly new effort, but the team has demonstrated some success in other areas. People will still do the standard visual inspection, but they want to see how well the dogs’ finding correlate.” He must have sensed her reluctance, because he added, “Please don’t feel you must come—it’s just that I’m tickled by this new-old technology. I can fill you in later on the results.”

Meg smiled to herself. Christopher’s enthusiasm was infectious, and she hated to let him down when he was so eager to share it. “Hang on a sec.” She covered the phone with her hand. “Bree, are we about done here?”

“I guess. What, you want to go play again?”

“Not exactly. Christopher wants me to watch dogs hunt beetles in the town park here.”

“Oh well, if it’s for science . . .” Bree grinned at her. “Go. I can finish up. You can tell me all about it over dinner. Your turn to cook.”

Meg told Christopher she’d meet him at the town park, then went slowly down to the house, feeling as though she was wading through the thick air. The sky was almost yellow; the grasses in the Great Meadow below looked yellow, too. In the kitchen she drank down a glass of ice water quickly, then a second one more slowly, and splashed water on her face and arms. No point in cleaning herself up: it didn’t matter how she looked to the scientists or inspectors or whatever they were. She was just an interested observer. She filled a water bottle with more cold water and set off for the town park, which lay beyond the town center, on the west side of the main road. It was easy to find.

Meg pulled into the parking lot, reluctant to leave the air-conditioned cocoon of the car, but Seth was there, and he’d already seen her and motioned her over. When she got out and came close, she said, “Do you know, I’ve never been here before? Of course, I don’t have a lot of time for recreation. How’d your meeting go this morning?”

“With the developer, you mean? That was just exploratory. We went over what properties the town controls, and he told me what his company is looking for. He asked about the park here, and I told him that it’s heavily used, plus there are restrictions on its transfer that would make it complicated to purchase.”

“What does he want to build?”

“Primarily homes, with maybe a few offices along the highway. We didn’t get into details, but he said he’d talk to me again, or the board if we wanted a formal presentation. I didn’t commit to anything.” Seth looked over at the gathering of scientists. “I think they want us.”

As they started to stroll toward the waiting group, Meg asked, “What did Christopher tell you?”

“He said he wanted a good test site for the dogs that the state is bringing in. This is Granford’s largest public park, plus a lot of it is wooded, so it seemed like a good place to start.”

“What happens if they find something?” Meg asked.

Seth shook his head. “I haven’t had time to find out. One step at a time, okay?” He watched as Christopher’s car pulled up near Meg’s, followed by a van with government license plates. The driver of the van and the passenger climbed out and came around to open the side door, and two dogs jumped down and started running in circles with their noses to the ground. As their handlers were gathering them up, yet another van appeared, disgorging several more people. The whole gathering looked incongruous in the middle of the near-empty park.

Christopher was the last to get out, and he spoke with the others before approaching Meg and Seth. “Seth, these are the members of the State Plant Health Inspection team, and they’re here to perform a Level 1 survey of your town park.” He named them all, and then he introduced Seth. “This is Seth Chapin, a Granford selectman—he’s representing the town. Seth, we’ve already gone over Jonas Nash’s woodlot. Since he already allows access to the public, it wasn’t a problem.”

“What did you find?” Seth asked.

“We found evidence of a small infestation there,” one of the inspectors said directly to Seth. “That was the site where the first example was found, right?”

“Yes,” Meg answered him. “I’m the one who found it there. I’m Meg Corey—I run an apple orchard a couple of miles from here.”

“Good to meet you, Meg. Thank you for reporting it so promptly,” the lead inspector replied. “A lot of people wouldn’t have.”

“I’m a farmer, so I have to pay attention to insects. When I found it, I . . . was a little distracted, but when I remembered the beetle again, I told Professor Ramsdell here, and we went back and retrieved it.”

“We’re lucky you noticed it. We did find more insects there.”

Poor Jonas
, Meg thought. He couldn’t seem to catch a break.

“What do you need to do here?” Seth asked.

“Check out the trees, both in the wooded parts and those that are freestanding. Since it’s too early to tell where the initial infestation site is, we need to look at a broad area.”

“The Nash property is a couple of miles away. Can the insects fly that far?”

“They are capable of flight, but usually they’re brought in by way of firewood, or they hitch a ride on vehicles. Do you allow cooking fires in the park here?”

“We do,” Seth said. “We hold various events here, which sometimes involve barbecues, and there are a limited number of camping sites.”

“All possibilities for introduction of the insect,” the inspector said cheerfully. “Shall we get started? Let me introduce the dogs—we use shelter rescues and give them special training . . .”

Meg dropped back to let Christopher and Seth listen to the scientist. After their first flurry of activity, the dogs had settled down to business, each managed by a handler. Seth led the group away from the highway, toward the wooded area at the back of the park. As Meg watched the people in front of her, she thought how odd it was that this group of federal and state officials, not to mention dogs, had gathered to hunt . . . insects. Or, as her reading had informed her, “foreign invaders,” bent on munching their way through tasty native trees. She looked around her: the trees looked reasonably healthy, under the circumstances, but she wouldn’t recognize an insect-damaged tree even if she fell over it. She did notice that the underbrush looked dry, but when the town was clamoring for so many other municipal services from a limited staff, brush-clearing probably landed at the bottom of the list. Did the fire department keep an eye on campers’ and partiers’ fires here? At least the fire department was close by, maybe a quarter mile down the highway.

Meg continued to hang back, watching the dogs in action. Two of the humans aimed binoculars at the tops of trees, while a third recorded their comments and clicked what appeared to be a GPS unit—marking the location of each tree? The dog handlers, in contrast, were focused on the ground, and when one or the other dog nosed a patch of something, they made a note of that, then pointed out the tree to the binoculars people. They all spent more than an hour in the forested part, where at least there was some shade, then headed back toward the camping area, where the dogs appeared to find little that interested them. By the end of the second hour the group seemed ready to fold up their tents and leave. They conferred with Christopher, thanked Seth, made general “we’ll be in touch” noises, loaded up their vans, and pulled away.

When Christopher, Seth, and Meg were alone again in the dusty parking lot, Seth asked Christopher, “What did they tell you?”

Christopher looked concerned. “There is clear evidence of infestation here, which means that there are now at least three identified sites in Granford, and possibly more. They wouldn’t commit to the age or the extent because they wanted to go over their data first, but said they’ll get back to me. Since they have confirmed these sites, they will need to extend the perimeter of their search—they are required to examine all potential host trees within at least a half-mile radius of the initial find, and when they find more, a half-mile beyond the outermost find. There are more details, but that’s the short version.”

“So we’re in the middle of it, right?” Seth said. “And this may spill over into other towns?”

“That may already have happened. Beetles are not known for respecting human boundaries.”

“That’s going to make Granford real popular,” Seth said, sounding depressed. “They have any clue how this started?”

Christopher smiled ruefully. “They’re government employees. They aren’t about to guess until they have a lot more data. But it’s safe to say that the creature is here and it must be dealt with. I’m sorry if that increases your municipal burdens, Seth.”

Seth shook his head. “Not your fault. That’s the way our luck’s been running for a while now. We just can’t seem to get ahead. You’ll let me know when they report back to you, Christopher?”

“Of course. No doubt they’ll send you a copy of their report as well. Meg, I hope you enjoyed this little excursion?”

“Uh, sure. I still wonder if things would have been better if I’d just kept my mouth shut.”

“Ah, but you’re an essentially moral person, Meg, and you did the right thing. I need to get back to campus and see what I’ve missed. Nice to see you both, although I might wish the circumstances were more pleasant.”

After Christopher had pulled away, raising yet more dust, Meg asked Seth, “What does this mean for Granford?”

Seth shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess I’ve got some homework to do. You going home now?”

“I guess. Bree tells me it’s my turn to cook. Want to join us?”

“If it’s no trouble,” he answered.

“At the moment, my plan is to light a fire and throw a chicken at it. I might tear up some lettuce. All I can see in my mind is a large pile of ice cubes. But we’ve got to eat.”

“That we do. I’ll meet you there. Mind if I bring Max over?”

“No problem. Think he’d make a good candidate for a bug-sniffer? Maybe you can rent him out.”

“Max?” Seth raised one incredulous eyebrow.

Meg laughed. “Sorry—what was I thinking? See you in a bit.”

She went home and immediately jumped in the shower. Fifteen minutes later, half of it spent standing under the cool running water, Meg was back in the kitchen, wearing the lightest-weight cotton dress she owned and standing in front of the open refrigerator. Chicken—check. She should flatten it and marinate it a little before sending it out to the grill. At least six kinds of lettuce from the local farmer’s market, mainly because they were pretty, along with some small but colorful peppers. A half-full container of crumbled feta cheese. That was salad—done. And there was plenty of ice cream for dessert.

Why was the heat so exhausting? She and Bree weren’t doing anything more difficult than they had been doing earlier in the summer, but it seemed to be taking more out of them. Should she give in and indulge in another window unit air conditioner for the first floor? Where would she put it? As she had told Seth, she’d probably find an excuse to spend all her time in whatever room it landed in, leaving her apple trees—including the baby ones they’d planted with such high hopes only a couple of months earlier—to die a lingering and untimely death. She couldn’t let that happen. She’d just have to toughen up and keep hydrated, just like her trees.

Seth rapped on the screen door shortly after six. “Hey,” he said, letting Max into the kitchen before him. Max promptly flopped onto the wooden floor, plastering as much of his belly against it as he could. “You look nice.”

“Thank you. You look exhausted.” Meg smiled. “Come on in and get something cold to drink. I’ve started the grill, so the chicken’ll take maybe half an hour.”

Seth rummaged in the refrigerator until he found a cold beer, then dropped into a chair. “Thanks. I’d probably be having cold cereal at home, except I’m out of milk.”

Bree came into the room and knelt to greet Max, who grinned and slobbered at her but didn’t stand up. “Hey, Seth,” Bree said. “How’d your afternoon go? I haven’t heard the story from Meg yet.”

“Granford has bugs—that’s the headline. Apparently the state inspectors have now found three local infestations of Asian longhorned beetle, and there may be more.”

“So what’s that mean?” Bree said, grabbing a cold soda from the refrigerator.

“I don’t know yet. More inspections, I’m pretty sure. I’d bet that somebody is going to want to cut down some trees, although I couldn’t tell you how many. Which means somebody else will protest. That’s the way it goes.”

“And you’re supposed to keep it all in order, right?” Bree grinned at him. “You don’t even get paid for the job.”