Poison Apples (36 page)

He sighed. “Another time. I have to go now, Bertha. It’s been a very, very long day. A lot of things have happened. Things you don’t even know about.”

“What? What things, Colm? Have they found out who hurt Rufus? He was one of us, Colm. We need to know.” She pulled at his arm.

“Listen to the late news,” he said, and ushered her up the walk to her door. Back at the car, he left the windows wide open. He didn’t want to smell of perfume when he got back to the mortuary. Perfume didn’t mix with formaldehyde.

Chapter Seventy-four

Moira carried Opal’s suitcase over to the bus, where the driver swung it down into the bottom. “You’re sure you don’t want to stay for the harvest supper? Your last chance,” she murmured, knowing the girl was set on going home. Opal had hardly said a word to anyone since Adam’s drowning.

They had pulled up the white Volvo—the only living things inside were a thousand hairy webworms, crawling about in a sealed container. Adam’s body was swollen and blue, his hands still clutching the wheel as though he would drive through the water into some other world—to find his brother, perhaps, for Emily had told her mother the whole story now, and Ruth told Moira. “Because you have to know,” Ruth had said. “Whatever you want to tell Stan about the brother’s suicide or not is up to you.”

She didn’t say it accusingly, as if it were Stan’s fault that this terrible sequence of deaths had followed his own harassment—a harassment that Moira, wrapped in her own grief, had been largely unaware of. But the deaths had begun with Adam’s brother, Trevor, hadn’t they, driving too fast, drinking, killing her child? What would a jury, a psychologist, say about cause? It was as though Adam, by drowning, had atoned for Carol’s death—the final irony. How strange life was.

Stan would know about Rufus and Adam. But Adam’s reasons for damaging the orchard? She’d have to think about that. She had time. The harvest supper was tomorrow night. Then she’d decide.

Opal stood behind her, her hair frizzing about her face, her red sweater pulled tight over her breasts, the Guatemalan bag thrown over a shoulder. Should she hug the girl? After all, Opal was a niece. She was such a confused girl! Yet without her mischief they might never have known the cause. Opal had been a catalyst, one of the Fate sisters. Although the girl didn’t look at it quite that way, she supposed.

“Got your ticket?” Moira asked. She’d bought the girl’s ticket with her own money; she hadn’t wanted to ask Annie May. Her sister-in-law had been in a tizzy anyway, when Moira called to say they were shipping Opal back. “Lindley needs the rest. Opal won’t give it him. She’s always after him about what he does.”

About being a doctor? Moira had wondered. But what was wrong with that?

The girl just nodded, and sniffled a little. She stood there a moment and Moira put out a hand, squeezed her arm. “I’m glad to hear your dad’s better. You can go back to a normal life now.”

“Normal?” the girl said. “With my father going back to doing abortions? Oh yes, Mama told me. Already he’s talking about going back. I hate it that he’s doing that! I’ve lost friends over it. I’ve lost a boyfriend. Papa’s on a list. He’ll get us all killed. Maybe even you, you’re his sister-in-law,” she said meaningfully.

Moira was stunned. She hadn’t known that, about the abortions. Did Stan know? Probably. It was one of those things he wouldn’t want to talk about. Annie May was Catholic. Of course there would be dissension in the family. Annie would be worried sick.

“He’s a brave man, your father,” she told Opal. “He’s doing what he thinks is right.” She realized she still had her hand on the girl’s arm, and Opal hadn’t brushed it off. “You take care, now. You come again.”

“Up here?” Opal said. “Never. I never want to set foot in that orchard again. Never. Never!” She wrenched away from Moira’s arm and swung her red-stockinged legs up onto the bus. When it pulled away out into Route 7, Opal’s face was set resolutely forward. For a mad moment, with her red sweater and red bow on the back of her hair, Opal resembled the cardinal that had tormented them for so long. Moira half expected the girl to turn and hurl her thin body at the window.

Back home, Moira found Stan on his feet, painfully facing a detective. He wouldn’t be caught sitting down, in spite of his condition. She wanted to run and hug him, tell him she was his partner, she was on his side no matter what they said he’d done, no matter what he
had
done. When she put out a hand to steady him, though, he shook his head. He wanted to face this alone.

For a time she didn’t understand what the officer was saying. Something about the Blazer, about fibers. Tangerine fibers, the color of the coat Cassandra was wearing, a match for it. They were found on the front bumper of the Blazer. Their Blazer, the one Stan was driving the night the woman was killed? What other Blazer could he be talking about? She stood closer to Stan, she could feel his body trembling beside hers. But he stood there resolutely. And on his own. He wasn’t touching the walker.

“Sit down, sit,” the detective said. His name was “Bump, Orrin Bump, ma’am. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. But we have that man in custody. We have his Blazer.”

What Blazer was he talking about, for heaven’s sake? She didn’t understand. Out of politeness, she offered a cup of coffee. Coffee before handcuffs. She shivered. He wouldn’t do that, would he? Take a sick man into custody? Stan was sitting down now—after, that is, the detective was seated. Independent to the last.

“No coffee, ma’am, for me. I’m on my way in five minutes. It was Chief Fallon sent me to tell you the good news. One of those apples, though, I might take that. The wife’s always after me about eating fruit. You know. That food pyramid or something?” He smiled at the absurdity of a food pyramid.

Good news, he’d said? What good news? She passed him the fruit bowl. “These are Red Russets, that’s what they’re picking now. This is the last day of picking. The Jamaicans go home Saturday. Tomorrow night’s the harvest supper. Next week your wife can come and pick drops, though.”

She was talking too much. The officer was smiling. Why was he smiling? Stan’s mouth was hanging open, as if it were a moment of discovery. “Is tha’ tha’ min-ster’s Blazah?” Stan said. “His Blazah ran over tha’ woma?”

“Yes, sir,” Detective Bump said. He turned to Moira. “As I was explaining to your husband before you came in, it was a Blazer, like yours, only black, a year older. Same brand of tires. But belonged to that minister, the one with the aliases, Arnold Wickham his real name. We’ve got him in custody, but not for long. He’s wanted in five states. The only thing here is, well, we can’t prove if he was the one driving. He says not. Says he let some of his church members drive—now and then, you know. So .. .” He bit into the apple, murmured his pleasure through appled teeth.

It was finally coming together. Moira took a bite of the Russet she’d been squeezing in her hand. The flesh was firm and sweet, it gave her succor. “You mean,” she said, choosing, chewing, her words—she had to be sure everything was clear—”that it wasn’t Stan’s vehicle at all that hit that woman—it was that minister’s? And the fibers you found that matched the coat that woman was wearing were on the minister’s front bumper? Which means that Stan”—she glanced at her husband; was he frowning, after all this good news?—“is cleared?”

“Yeth, ma’am,” the detective said through his apple. He was standing now, offering to shake Stan’s hand. But Stan’s hands were clutching the walker, his legs failing him. “Gotto proo it,” he was arguing, “proo is tha man, tha minster dri-ing. Oh course he dri-ing!”

Bump looked at Moira for interpretation.

“Stan says of course it would have been the minister driving. It was his car. It was full of women. Haven’t you asked them?”

He had, he said. “Every female member. Actually there were two men among the members, but we don’t have the names. The women say they don’t remember who was driving. They say he’d let others drive the car to pick up signs, that sort of thing.” He paused, swallowed the mouthful of apple. “But ma’am, sir, we’ve got him on ten other counts. He’ll be punished, you can be sure of that. He’s up for murder on one of the counts, if we can prove he shot that doctor down in Birmingham. We know he wounded a Canadian doctor. He goes on trial there next month. He’ll get his comeuppance.”

“Goto proo it,” Stan insisted. “Proo he wa dri-ing!”

Detective Bump blew out his cheeks, waggled his head. He’d brought good news and now they wanted more. More than he could give. “We’ll keep trying, you can be sure, sir. We’ll try to determine who was driving. That’s the best we can do.”

At the door he looked to Moira for help. “We’ve questioned every active member,” he said. “No one will talk. I don’t know what more we can do. At the least he was an accessory to the fact.” He had the apple core in his hand; she wondered if he wanted to go home and plant it. “We can’t even call it homicide, you know, ma’am, it could have been an accident. She could have run out, sudden-like, into the road and the driver didn’t see.”

“But she was struck from behind—the autopsy determined that. And the car wouldn’t be going too fast in that parking lot— it could have stopped for a woman passing. It had to be deliberate. Well, keep trying,” she said, and held out her hand for the apple core. He smiled, and put it in his pocket. He didn’t want to trouble her.

“Thank you anyway,” she said, “for coming to tell us,” and he took her outstretched hand.

When he left, her palm was full of apple seeds. She took it for a good omen.

Chapter Seventy-five

It was time, Moira decided, to talk to Stan. He’d had good news, he might as well hear the bad. “Sit down, Stan,” she said. “I want to tell you about Adam Golding. About why he did this to us. Not that what he did excused anything, oh, not at all!”

“The poin’,” he said, “get to the poin’.”

So she would—she did, and quickly. “He hanged himself,” she told Stan. “That boy, Trevor, hanged himself. Adam told Emily Willmarth that. Trevor was his half-brother, you see. I never knew that, did you? That Trevor hanged himself?” Stan’s shocked face told her that he didn’t. “He was young, Stan, and full of remorse, hurt, guilt—oh, I’m sure of that! He loved Carol, that’s what Adam told Emily. He loved our Carol. We have to ...” She stopped. She was going to say,
We have to forgive, not persecute,
but Stan knew that. Deep in his heart, he knew it. He was thinking about it now, she could see from his tortured face, what he’d done: the harassment, the lawsuit. Keeping the boy away from the funeral, she remembered that, too. Stan had made a phone call. ...

“I’ll get us both a cup of hot chocolate,” she said. “It’s chilly out there today!” She wouldn’t say any more unless Stan brought it up. But he shook his head at the mention of chocolate; turned away, head hanging. He needed to be alone, she knew that. He needed to think. He had all the pain he could handle for now. His orchard damaged, the stroke, his head man in intensive care, and the shock of hearing about the suicides, his role in them
...

She watched him shuffle off toward his window seat. He dropped heavily into it, put his head in his hands. She sipped her hot chocolate. He sat with his thoughts for a long, long time. She scrubbed the kitchen floor, ran the dishes through the dishwasher. Finally the house was quiet, the cardinal was outside with his lady cardinal at the feeder. The Butterfield twins passed by the window with a large crate of apples. The crate tipped and an apple fell out. “Hey!” Stan stood up with a shout.

“Wano ge dress,” he told Moira, “go out ina orshar. Hafto, wi Rufa gone ...”

“Then go. Go, they need you,” she said.

It was the last day of picking. The boss should be in charge. Both bosses, she decided, and she stuck a feed cap on her disheveled hair, pulled the visor tightly down on her forehead. She’d be ready when Stan was.

Chapter Seventy-six

After school on Friday Emily got off the school bus at Seymour Street, near her sister’s apartment. Tonight was the harvest supper, she had to make a salad to share with the others. But first she had to see Sharon. She had to talk to her, try to straighten out things in her head, come to terms with them. But, as usual, Sharon was racing about the place, boiling applesauce for the baby girl, changing the toddler’s diaper. “He has no interest whatsoever in the potty,” she complained. She held up a soiled diaper. “The portable potty,” she described the diaper. “For boys on the go.”

“Sharon,” said Emily, easing into a chair with her bandaged ankle. “I need to talk.”

“Stinky, stinky,” Sharon told Robbie, and the boy grinned and ran away, bare-bottomed. Sharon chased him with a clean diaper.

“I need to talk. Please, Sharon. I need your help.”

“Just a min,” Sharon said. “I want to hear, I really do, we’re in a bit of a mess at the moment.”

Sharon changed the diaper and the child sprang away, ran to the
TV, and turned it on and off, on and off. Sharon shrugged. “I give up. Let him break the damn thing.” She put her hands on Emily’s shoulders. “Look, Emily, I know it’s hard for you. I know you had feelings for that guy. I saw you together one time downtown, first at Amigo’s, and then going into the Alibi. You didn’t know I was there. What’d you use, a fake ID? That wasn’t Pepsi-Cola you were drinking.”

“Sharon, I’m not here to listen to a lecture. I need to know why he did it, why he drove into the lake like that.”

“He was scared, that’s all. Scared shitless. He couldn’t face the bars—I mean the steel ones. A life in prison. Maybe he couldn’t face his family. Have you met them?”

“No. His father came to Vermont after they dredged up the car, took Adam’s body back to Connecticut. He didn’t want to talk to us.”

“Of course not. Terrible, what his son did. And then driving into the lake like that. My God! Maybe Adam had a death wish. It happens. It was lousy, that’s all, for all of you.” Sharon pulled the child away from the TV “Enough, Robbie. Here, play with your telephone.” Upstairs the baby girl was waking from her nap, screaming for “Mama, Mama.”