Mad Season (4 page)

He put his father’s black wagon in park—the Body Wagon, his father called it, making a joke of everything, you had to do that in the mortuary profession. The old Horizon refused to start, clutch or something—Colm wasn’t a machine man, more of a random-abstract, he called himself, frankly. And here was Ruth now, coming out of the barn: handsome woman, wide hipped, in mud-spattered jeans, baggy sweater that couldn’t hide her heavy breasts, chestnut hair in a flyaway bun. He was early, she’d want to change probably before breakfast. He knew barns: a cow slaps its tail and you’re hit with a sloppy joe sandwich, urine and dung.

He hunched down in the seat to wait.

When he knocked on the door fifteen minutes later she was ready for him, made a face at the car. “Are you lugging a body? Why were you just sitting out there? Think I didn’t recognize the town hearse?”

He looked at her, sheepish: a clean pink shirt open at the neck, hair around her face, skin lightly freckled and perspiring, though he could still catch the scent of barn. There was an air of excitement about her, of hurry, nervousness maybe. The doughnuts were offered on a cracked blue willow plate, warm and shiny with sugar.

She sat there, stirring her coffee, waiting for him to speak. She was never one for small talk, even when they went together in high school. They’d dance, just holding on to each other, not saying a word. What happened, anyway? Well, sure. Pete. Pete cutting in on them one day; Pete on the football team; a frat man at the university. How could a scrawny guy in glasses, on the short side, with an out-of-style crewcut, compete? Corn-Pete, the irony of the pun.

“You’re done in the barn?” he asked, hearing his words hollow against the noise in his chest. “You’re doing the milking yourself with, uh, Pete gone? Jeez, I’m sorry about that, Ruth.” He was embarrassed now that he hadn’t at least called her before this. Not that he hadn’t thought about it a hundred times, just never got up the nerve. The Larocque assault gave the excuse.

Her face went through a dozen changes, came out bright as sun on a tin roof. “Well, how gone is gone? We don’t know yet. We’re in limbo here. Working our arses off. Tim helps with the milking, though. But Pete wants me to sell. Got any clients want a farm? I heard about some developer ...”

Her face was flushed after the long speech, the mug trembled in her fingers. They were long fingers. He supposed they’d play a sensitive tune on the cows, he’d read that women got more milk out of a cow than men, there was that affinity.

Jeez, the feel of a woman’s fingers came on him nights. Horny nights: jerking off and then remembering the bodies down in the basement. He’d never really get used to those bodies—dead, he sometimes felt, like his middle-aged libido. But he couldn’t leave his father alone, a man in his seventies.

“Farm’s a lot of work,” he said, “with a family, too.” He felt the old outrage. He’d never been crazy about Pete, too full of himself. The kind that never grew up.

“I didn’t mean to sound off,” she said. “It’s all right, really, things are working out—were till yesterday. Colm, I want to find who did it to them, Lucien and Belle. I can’t wait around for the police. I feel violated myself. Will you help?”

She took a breath. He smiled at her passion.

“The police haven’t a clue yet. No witnesses except Lucien and Belle, and Belle unconscious. What can we do, Colm? Who can we talk to?”

She saw him looking at the window. “Finish your coffee and we’ll go out and find them. Tim’s a madman. Has to get in three hundred trees before it rains, he says. And we’re not done with the sugaring.”

“Tell about the Larocques,” he said. “Tell me what you know about who worked there, came there, knew them well.”

She didn’t speak for a minute, bit into a doughnut, stared out the window. The men were stretching a line across the field, attaching it to markers. They were good workers, he saw that. Good workers weren’t usually criminals. Though you never knew.

“One thing I’ve got to tell you,” she said finally. “It’s Vic’s discovery, I should let him tell you, he’d like that. But you won’t see him till later.”

He waited, took a swallow of coffee. It was good coffee, strong and flavorful. He was feeling comfortable now.

“The money,” she explained. “The money they stole, it smelled of barn. Strongly I mean, hand to pocket, fragrant with cow. Kept it down in the seams. I gather it was his bank. I suppose he liked to feel it there, safe.”

“Hand-y bank,” he said, and she grimaced. “You haven’t changed, Colm. That’s supposed to be a pun? Anyway, Lucien sent Vic after a pipe once, and he saw. And smelled. Oh, and just this morning Tim said the police found a small stash—five hundred dollars—in the barn, up on a beam! So the assailants didn’t look there. Though they might have found something elsewhere, Lucien hinted at that. No wonder Belle complained.”

“Or they were in a hurry, afraid to look further.”

“Yes, well, anyway, Marie—his daughter—banked it for them, for when Lucien gets home.”

“In her account?”

“I don’t know. Certainly not Lucien’s! But she’ll surely give it back. Well, I don’t suppose that’s the only money in town smelling of cows, but most men bank their money, they don’t take it to the barn or stuff it in pocket linings.”

“How long does a smell like that hang on?”

“Pretty long. Smell these?” She brought out a pair of boots from the pantry.

He pretended to be knocked out.

“I haven’t worn them in two months, they need new soles.”

“That helps. Well, good for Vic. Tell him that.”

“You tell him. He was afraid the police would think he took the money because he knew where it was. They’re due here late morning, you know, to ask questions. I’m not looking forward. That Mert who was there yesterday, I don’t want him questioning Vic.”

“Wasn’t Vic in bed?”

“Sound asleep. And snoring—he has a touch of asthma, on top of his other troubles.”

“What else?” he asked. “About the Larocques?”

It wasn’t an unusual story: French Canadian couple, married late with one child, practicing Catholics like his own parents, which meant Sunday Mass and forget the rest of the week except for a holy oath or two. Marginal farm with maybe twenty head, no milking parlor, no pipe line, outmoded stump fence, a single tractor to do the jobs—practically nineteenth century, Colm thought. Hand to mouth. Or hand to pocket, for the milk money anyway. There were friends, but not many. Ruth supposed she was Belle’s closest friend; a neighbor, she should get over there more often, she felt guilty for not going. Belle lived for the farm and Lucien. For the granddaughter, Michelle.

“Though Marie doesn’t visit all that often. She’s more sensitive than Belle about the Indian blood.”

“The husband?” Colm asked. “I see him at fires.”

“Harold? He’s a piece of cake. Plump, shy, worships Marie. But out of work and hates it, walks around like an ostrich, head in the dirt. He’s a tinkerer, has a toy train in his basement. Marie gripes. She says he’s a kid about fires. Loves to hang around them. Like you, Colm?”

“I only go when I’m fired up,” he said (he tried too hard for that one). “And it’s not because of Bertha.”

He saw her smile. They both knew how Pete’s sister Bertha came on to Colm in high school, though she was two years ahead. He’d felt like the dog his mother had once that was adopted by a goose. Everywhere the dog went, the goose went. Until one day, in a fury, the dog bit off its head.

Well, he wouldn’t do that to Bertha. She was harmless enough. Just annoying, “frustrated” was the word. He’d run into her in the pharmacy once, she’d hid from him. Then he found her in the front seat of his car. Had to talk her out of there.

“Anyhow, Harold’s a trained accountant. But who in this town’s got enough money to have him add up the wealth?”

“No Grange for Belle and Lucien, no community functions?”

“Grange no, there’s a pecking hierarchy there like everyplace else. I got Lucien to run for selectman, and he lost. As for travel— they went to Alberg once, to see her cousin. Belle identified with the Abenaki, it surprised even her. They were trying to get their fishing rights back, had a problem with gambling. Of course Belle has no sympathy with that. She’s a no-nonsense, get-your-work-done-and-go-to-bed woman. Well, there’s a tiny TV—Marie gave it to them. As far as I know they seldom watch it. They’re in bed by eight, up before dawn. They’re farmers, for godsake!”

“No enemies.”

“You asked that before, I don’t know of any. Tim and Willy have helped over there on occasion. Pete and I took over when Lucien went in for a hernia operation last fall. The milk truck comes every third day. There’s the mailman, the gas man, salesmen—I can’t think of anyone else. He might have had a high school boy help out during harvest, I think I saw one this fall. I couldn’t help, I needed Tim here.”

“You don’t know who this boy was?”

“No, but maybe Emily does. Or—”

“Or?”

“Her boyfriend, Wilder, Wilder Unsworth. Family came up from Long Island last year. Something about the oldest getting into drugs, Emily says. Like it hasn’t hit Vermont too! It’s the youngest, Garth, who’s been tormenting Vic. He’s not the only one. There’s another—Marsh—father’s a prof at the college. Well, Wilder’s all right, I guess, at least Emily thinks so, and she’s a sensible girl, as adolescent girls go! He’s smart in school, pleasant enough when Emily brings him in here. But distant. He’s attracted to Emily—but not to the farm. I worry about it, that he’s using her.”

“How do you know?”

She gave him a fierce look. “How does one know anything? He—he has a kind of wrinkle in his nose. Doesn’t look me in the eye, like I’m one of the cows, dressed up in boots.”

She bit hard into a doughnut. “I’m sorry, Colm, I’m all caught up in Vic’s trouble. You can imagine what it’s like to be a sensitive fifth grader living on land you lived on all your life, grandfather before that, and some kid comes up and says you’re dirt. You should know that. You’re Irish.”

“My grandfather knew.”

She looked sympathetic. She knew the story. How he was a town cop, killed by a booze runner up in Burlington—they had his picture on the wall down at the station. Colm was ten years old then, Vic’s age. It was good to talk to someone who knew one’s story. Comforting. “Do they say that to you, Ruthie?”

“I’m an adult. They don’t dare. But I see how it is in town meeting. They sit together, the flatlanders—well, not all, I shouldn’t stereotype, there’s a lot of well-meaning ones—but asking questions, criticizing. Like how could we run things the way we do? How could we vote down the school budget, this agency, that agency, like we don’t care about the poor, the disabled? It’s just that we don’t have the money, we’re trying to survive ourselves. My God, they’re driving us off our land! And you’re helping, Colm Hanna, you’re in real estate.”

He threw up his hands to ward her off. She didn’t smile, she was too wound up. “That farm, other side of Larocque’s, goes for five hundred thousand dollars. Five hundred thousand! Midwesterner put a couple thousand into it, now he’s reselling it for a windfall. No local can afford to buy it.”

He sighed. He knew. The farm broker up here now, panting after the realtors, they’d all had her out looking—all but him, he made sure Ruth knew that. Someone, some developer behind her, he didn’t know. He wouldn’t be tainted with that brush. One day he’d explain it to Ruth, why he was in real estate.

Maybe he just liked to walk the land, that was all. How else could he walk on other people’s property? And how was it their property anyhow, he asked himself: they took it from the Indians. From Belle’s forebears.

Or was it anybody’s property—ever?

Her nose was shiny with indignation. She laid her hands on the table, the long hard fingers gripped together; she looked toward the window like she hoped someone might come to interrupt their conversation. Was he boring her? He worried about that. He wasn’t some gregarious Pete.

He followed her gaze, saw the men outside, progressing slowly along their line, their bodies jerking up and down like oil rigs. As he watched, one of them broke the pattern to do a somersault.

Suddenly she laughed. It was a spontaneous, merry laugh that made him smile. “That crazy Willy,” she said. “He never could do a somersault.”

He smiled, too. She was always laughing back in school when they went together. She was so full of it then, she even laughed at his puns—his English teacher graded him down, the old fart.

“Great doughnuts,” he said. “Can I have the recipe?”

She lifted an eyebrow, still smiling.

“I do the cooking. Dad never learned. Though I admit, food doesn’t mix with formaldehyde.”

“I’ll write it out for you. Though I don’t use a recipe.” Her smile squeezed a dimple into her cheek. It was nice to see it. He supposed she’d gotten out of the habit with Pete.

Jeez, how could that guy walk out on this woman!

* * * *

They went out to the muddy fields together—he should have worn his rubber boots. She introduced him to the men, then left. She had accounts to do, she said, then she was going to the hospital to see about Belle and Lucien. There was still a little time to make up for neglect, wasn’t there? They could compare notes later?

Ruth had a way of looking directly at a man, holding his gaze. It was disconcerting, but exciting. He wondered if she’d fight for her husband the way she fought for this boy. Or was she too proud for that?

“I can do a somersault,” Willy told him. “You wanna see? Tim been teachin’ me how. I can do it. Mostly I can.”

“I saw you,” Colm said, “out the window.”

Tim laughed. “He can do bettern’ that if he wants. He don’t always remember to tuck his head under, right, Willy? Right? Now get that pail of trees over here, huh?”

Tim didn’t stop work. He thrust his shovel in the earth, then Willy dropped a thready tree root in the hole. The shovel slid out and Tim thumped it down with his boot heel.

“You don’t mind if I ask a few questions,” Colm said. He picked up the pail and moved it for Tim. He felt like a Realtor now, no, a detective. He read stuff at night: Dobyns, Mayer, Gill, that Irish detective. He’d learned one thing: the nicest guys can have secrets, rotten things in the core. The one you least suspected did it. Who could that be in this case?