Poison Apples (37 page)

Emily clomped upstairs behind her sister. “But he had me, Sharon. He loved me, he told me so. The night we—we were together.”

Sharon wheeled about on the stairs. “You slept with him? I thought Wilder was your man. My God, Emily, you hardly knew Adam!”

“Don’t get all moral on me, Sharon, I was in love with him. I don’t sleep around. Wilder and me, we never once—I mean, not all the way. But Adam was different. I loved him, Sharon.”

At the landing Sharon took her sister’s hands. “I didn’t know that, Em. Hey, I didn’t know it was that far gone. Oh, sweetie
...
But you don’t love him now, do you? I mean, we’ve got a heavy issue here. Em, you have to let it go.”

The baby’s cries increased in volume and Sharon released her sister. “Come tonight, okay? Around nine o’clock? When the kids are in bed, we can talk. Okay, Em?”

“Okay”

Emily left Sharon’s place with the question burning in her chest. Did she love Adam now? Could you love someone who’d
caused a man’s death? Stabbed another man and then drove away? What if they hadn’t crashed into the bushes, slowing the car so she could get out? Would he have driven her with him, into that cold lake?

What was it like, she wondered, to drown?

Out in the street a boy roared past on a motorcycle, his red hair bushed out under the black helmet.

“Oh, Adam,” she whispered. “Why did you do it?” Bartholomew’s kind, wrinkly face flashed into her mind’s eye; then Rufus, lying bleeding on the bundkhouse floor; then Moira Earthrowl, struggling to survive a daughter’s death, an orchard’s ruin—the white apple flesh bruised and brown from worms and maggots.

And suddenly she felt betrayed—as though a handsome prince had opened his arms to her, but once she was inside his embrace, he’d turned into a raging, avenging beast.

The motorcycle disappeared around a bend, but long afterward, while she stood there on the sidewalk, she could hear the earsplitting grind of its engine in her head.

Chapter Seventy-seven

Colm was getting nowhere in his interview with Wickham
.
The man was full of false pieties. He was actually proud of what he’d done: stalking a Canadian doctor, shooting him in the leg; “saving” (as he termed it) women heading into Planned Parenthood clinics. “I wouldn’t so much as offer a handkerchief,” he declared, blinking those hard-boiled eyes, “to a wounded provider.”

He sat there like a wounded martyr himself, a crucified Wickham. Outside the town jail, where they were holding him before giving him up to authorities in Alabama, five women, true to the end—Bertha among them, the hypocrite!—were praying. Wickham had God on his side: His squared shoulders, the upthrust
chin, all declared his righteousness. Right and wrong, absolute and unchanging. Only one shiny black wing tip, fidgeting on the hardwood floor, cast doubt on his probity.

Colm wanted to walk out right then, leave the fellow to the FBI, but he hadn’t asked a key question: about the Earthrowl
orchard, the April spraying. Adam’s father had told police his son was home at that time, not in Vermont at all. Who could have done it, then? Not Rufus
,
he was sure, who wanted the orchard pristine for his heavenly apples! Colm asked the question. He got an answer half expected, but nevertheless stunning.

“It was simply a matter of substituting the Roundup for the usual fungicide,” Wickham said. “Cassandra did that. She knew the orchard, she and Rufus Barrow had the same grandfather. It was my idea, of course.” He smiled his pearly white smile.

“It was for the greater good,” he proclaimed. “You might not understand. And you know, don’t you, that Earthrowl’s brother is a murderer?” When Colm made a sound, he held up a hand. “An abortionist, yes. You didn’t know that?” He looked pityingly at Colm in his kelly green corduroys and scuffed boots. “Those of us destined for Paradise will do all in our power toward that glorious end.”

“It doesn’t matter that people’s livelihoods are destroyed in the process, their lives?” Colm thought of Aaron Samuels—out of the coma, yes, but his profession lost, his good health gone.

“Lives? But that wasn’t my church. When we saw that other forces were at work—
”

“By ‘other forces,’ you mean another man? Adam Golding: felling trees, spraying more poison, spreading maggots? He worked right into your hands, did he? Did your dirty work for you?”

“God’s work, yes. God works in mysterious ways, He—”

“Right,” Colm said; he’d go to mass Sunday; he didn’t need a sermon today. He had one more question. “Who was driving your Blazer? The night Cassandra was killed?”

Wickham shook his head, he was smooth as black ice. “Cassandra and I had stayed behind to pick up the signs and crosses. There wasn’t room in the Blazer—too many church members. We arranged to go back to the church in her car. I wasn’t looking to see who was driving mine.” He spread his hands to show how magnanimous he was, how trusting.

“You must have seen Cassandra struck, then, if you were standing there; you must have seen the Blazer drive away. Which one of your, um, members would have done that? Would have hit a human being and then driven away like she was some small animal in the road?” Colm was angry now, angry at the man’s lack of concern, his cool in the face of tragedy.

“I told the police what I saw,” Wickham maintained. He sounded almost bored. “I had gone back into the store to leave pamphlets. When I came out... I found Cassandra.” He paused, made a steeple out of his hands. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

The black wing tip was tapping out a beat now. Colm checked his watch, switched off the tape. He’d had enough of Wickham.
The man was sick. Colm was glad he’d be taken away.

Wickham called to him as he started out. “You can lock me up, but you won’t stop me,” he warned. “There’s another soldier ready to take my place. Another soldier of God. We’re at war, you see. A war against Satan. A war against sinners like you.”

Outside, Colm took in gulps of fresh air.

He smiled to see Honey Fallon swinging along up the walk. She was wearing a pink pantsuit; her hair was in the usual upheaval. “Hi, there,” she said. “I sure enjoyed that butterscotch sundae. It stayed with me all day. Look!” She pointed to a stain on her blouse that she’d washed “in vain,” she said.

“Honey,” Colm asked, “were you in that church Blazer the night Cassandra was killed?”

“Why, sure, I was. You mean before or after she got it?”

“Both. I just saw Wickham, your sainted minister. He claimed he didn’t know who was driving.”

“Why, honey,” said Honey, “it was Rufus, that’s who was driving. It was Cassandra called him, made him quit work at five-thirty.”

“Whoa. Why didn’t you tell me that before? Or tell your husband?”

“But you never asked! Either of you. Anyway, I didn’t see anything—except Rufus when he got in the driver’s seat. I was in the back—there were eight of us crammed in there, some of us on thin cushions. If someone hit us from the rear—curtains!” She drew an imaginary veil across her face.

“But Rufus didn’t stop. No one saw her running out in front of the car?”

“Wee-ell, I heard someone up front holler, felt a bump. Rufus said he’d hit the curb. It was get
ti
ng dark by then, you know. Then the minister started hollering, claimed Stan Earthrowl had hit her and run. But later Roy said she was hit in the back. That was weird, wasn’t it? I suppose she was headed for her car. Well, it’s all over now.” Honey stifled a yawn. “Golly gee, I was up half the night—Roy snoring? I bought him one of those anti-snore gizmos, he won’t wear it, says it pinches his nose. Well, nice to see you, Colm. Glad you guys pinched that devil. Still…” She hesitated. “He sure was good-looking. I mean, he could be on TV.”

“Oh, he will be. He will be on TV,” Colm assured her, and headed toward his car.

“Keep praying, ladies,” he told the group of kneeling women as he passed by. “He’s going to need your prayers.”

“Colm, it’s not what you think,” Bertha said, getting up with a groan, stumbling after him. “We were praying for Rufus, and then someone drove us here. ...”

But Colm waved her away.

Chapter Seventy-eight

Ruth was fixing a large leafy salad with onion rings and red pepper and ripe red tomatoes out of her own garden for the harvest supper. Emily had promised to do the salad, but the girl had come home from school and gone directly to bed. She wasn’t feeling well, she said, her ankle hurt. Ruth sensed it was more mental than physical: the shock of the stabbing, the abduction, the Volvo sinking into the lake. Of course, Emily hadn’t gotten completely over that boy. Even killings and suicides couldn’t change feelings that quickly. When it was over, this harvest supper, she’d sit down with Emily: They’d have a long talk, mother and daughter.

The phone rang. Things always interfering: with thoughts, with resolves. If she wasn’t careful, the time for Emily would slip away. And self-healing could leave scars.

“I’m coming over, Ruthie,” Colm said, “just wanted to warn you. I’ve been invited to the harvest supper. But afterward, I want some time. With you, alone. We need to talk, Ruthie. It’s hell living alone, don’t you think so? No, don’t answer. I won’t ask now. I’ll be over in ten minutes. Oh, and Ruth? I found out something. It was Rufus driving that Blazer. Yup! It was Honey told me. It was just before she defected. Honey was sitting in the rear, felt a bump, couldn’t see what, who it was.”

“Oh,” Ruth said. “No accident, you think? From what you told me.”

“My thought exactly. Great minds? Rufus didn’t want his orchard turned into houses. This was his chance. Make it look like an accident.”

“Will it stand up in court?”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we? When he gets out of the hospital. He’s gaining, I understand.
.
.
.
But those women—some of them must have seen her killed. The ones in the front. Why, you could arrest the whole bunch for collusion, accessories before the fact! They all wanted the orchard for a path to Paradise, right? Hmm. I wonder exactly where Bertha was sitting in that Blazer. Don’t make me go back there and ask. Please, Ruthie?”

She laughed. “Okay, relax.”

“Oh, and Ruth, they found a small arsenal in Wickham’s
attic. Guns, knives, explosives. It could have been him slashed your cows. Jeez, I knew there was something else I didn’t ask him. But he was responsible for the Roundup spraying last April, Golding took over after that. So Ruthie ...” His voice got softer. “We can talk afterward? After the harvest supper? About you know what?” He waited; she could hear him breathing. She sighed. “I know, Ruthie. You’ve got Emily there. See you in ten minutes.”

Ruth held the phone, buzzing, in her hand. Everyone wanted time with her, wanted a bite out of her. Who was she, Mother Earth?

“Mom,” said Vic, crashing through the kitchen door, “that bull calf is gone! I hoped we could keep him, just this one—I mean, for a little longer. Why’d you get the vet and everything and get him all fixed up if you were going to sell him right off?” He looked at her through huge indignant eyes.

“You say that every time, Vic. You know as well as I, sweetheart, why we had to. We can’t have a bull running around here, humping cows. Look, I need celery for this salad. Get it out of the fridge for me, please?”

There was a certain satisfaction in the thought of celery. It was green and crisp and clean, with that leafy ruffle at the end. She cut into a stalk, heard it squeak. When she looked up again, Vic was gone, she heard the TV squalling out in the living room. It drowned out the celery. It softened the memory of the bull calf.

Chapter Seventy-nine

Emily needed an ending, and it wasn’t the harvest supper. She had to know something. She had to know who slashed her mother’s cows, who tampered with the tractor—if it was Adam. If so, it would have been a final violation—of her heart. Adam had said he was sorry about Bartholomew, maybe even Rufus, though he hadn’t said. It was just the way Rufus had barreled in, accusing him like that.
..
.
And Adam did have a temper, she’d seen that for herself. But the cows, the tractor brakes, she couldn’t imagine him doing that. It would have been like striking
...
her. He wasn’t
all
beast, was he? She’d been struggling with her thoughts since his death.

She sat on the porch step. Crimson maple leaves swirled about her head in the soft October wind. Colm Hanna was in the kitchen with her mother, he was helping her pack up a salad, they were on their way to the Earthrowl’s. She could hear them talking through the screen door. They were talking about that minister. About Aunt Bertha, who’d pulled up the hemp. Could it have been Aunt Bertha, then, who slashed the cows? Fooled with the tractor? After all, she’d been brought up on this very farm!

She almost smiled. It was muddy in the pasture, the tractor was greasy. Aunt Bertha wouldn’t want to soil her shiny pumps. It had to be a man, Colm was saying, her mother agreeing. Maybe Rufus, her mother said—he’d wanted the orchard for himself, didn’t want any interference. And he’d run down that woman, Cassandra, his own relative, her mother said.

“If it was Rufus,” she heard Colm say, how’re we going to prove it? Oh, and Fallon says Wickham had an alibi for the night the cows were knifed: He was in Plattsburgh, picketing a health clinic.Most likely it was—”

The step creaked when Emily shifted position, and Colm’s
voice stopped. She imagined her mother giving him a signal:

Emily’s out there. Don
’
t let her hear. Poor Emily.

She knew what they thought. They thought it was Adam who had slashed the cows, damaged the tractor. He had that knife, she’d heard Colm Hanna say. But he wouldn’t hurt the farm where Emily lived, he wouldn’t! Still, she had to know.

She hobbled back into the kitchen on her bandaged ankle. The doctor had given her crutches, but she could move faster without them. Her mother and Colm were talking about her father and his girlfriend now, Colm loved to hear about that relationship; he wanted to marry her mother. Emily had some reservations about that.