Strawberry Yellow (10 page)

Why was Mas Arai hanging around in Watsonville, when he was clearly a city boy? Jimi had spent most of the day following Mas and his strange, beat-up Ford truck. In the
inaka
, pick-up trucks were ubiquitous, everywhere. But ones like this, fashioned via Frankenstein-type surgeries, indicated a man who didn’t care what other people thought.

And he claimed that he was taking a break by working in the packing shed at Sugarberry. Didn’t make any sense. No sane man vacationed in a packing shed. Suspicious, Jimi had asked the packing shed manager what was up with the hiring of Mas Arai. Turns out that Minnie Arai had made a special request. Of course. Jimi had heard that she couldn’t believe that Shug died of natural causes. No one was listening to her. No one except perhaps Shug’s second cousin.

As Jimi returned to the house from his truck, he passed four stone markers. Four buried baby sisters. This Mas Arai may be trouble, he murmured to his four sisters.
But don’t worry, don’t worry
. He wouldn’t let anyone, especially an Arai, keep him from what he needed to do.

C
ecilia’s offhand comment about Laila put Mas in a bad mood. For as much as he thought Laila’s involvement with Billy was wrong, Billy himself was more to blame. He was the married one; he was the one who had broken his vows. If anyone could be blamed for Billy’s marital woes, it would have to be Billy.

All Mas knew was that he didn’t want to be played as a chump. He didn’t know exactly what Billy’s game was, but it clearly wasn’t a game with any set of rules. Back in his room, Mas didn’t bother to turn on the light. He sat in the darkness at the minuscule desk, feeling his knees almost touch the wall. Rosa’s words had soaked in, more than he’d wanted to let on at the time.
Your people killed Laila
, she’d said. Was there any truth to her accusations? And what about Billy? He’d taken Mas into the Stem House after having a fight with Laila, and he’d conveniently kept all these secrets from Mas and maybe from the police. This all had to stop. Now.

Outside Mas heard the sound of high heels against the vinyl walkway. The stride was quick; this one was in a hurry. During his stay at the motel, he’d often heard the slow, unsure steps of a drunken trucker or the sliding of children’s tennis shoes. This sound was different. Mas lifted the edge of the plastic curtain. It was Cecilia, in a tight animal-print dress and shiny black pumps. Not studying clothes, that’s
for sure. As she darted up the staircase that went up to the fourth floor, he wondered who she’d dressed up for. There was a pool up there, wasn’t that what the desk clerk had said? Cecilia, however, did not look like she was going for a late-night swim either. Perhaps she was on her way to one of those private parties.

Whatever it was, Mas knew he wasn’t invited, which was more than fine by him. He just feared being disturbed by the syncopated beat of electronic music or perhaps yelling and laughter by young men and women. Thankfully, however, all he heard was the hum of the wall heater, which lulled him blissfully to sleep.

The next morning, Mas called Minnie and found out that Billy had gone to work—his first day back since Laila was found dead. Whether he liked it or not, Mas’s next destination had to be Everbears. He couldn’t just sit there as suspicions dangled like overripe fruit. They had to be picked before they dropped and destroyed anything that was potentially good.

As Mas drove south on Highway 1 to Everbears, he felt like he wasn’t in Watsonville anymore. It turned out to be more than a feeling, for he soon passed a sign that said, “Welcome to Moss Landing.” With its oceanfront location and humble pier, Moss Landing was a sleepy former port town. Mas was surprised that a strawberry distributor would be located in such a place, but maybe Everbears wasn’t your typical farm co-op.

Instead of a nondescript prefabricated building, Everbears occupied a converted warehouse clad in aluminum siding. A tangled metal sculpture, apparently in the form of a
strawberry, was a clue that it was not co-op business as usual in this place. Across the street was a fenced empty lot with a sign declaring the property was the future location of Forever Resort. A resort? In Moss Landing? Resorts were for Hawaii, not for Pajaro Valley.

The Everbears’ signature logo, a white strawberry flower that would eventually turn into a juicy piece of red fruit, was everywhere on this one block, even on the sign for Forever Resort.

Inside, a large white paper globe hung from the lobby ceiling to light the room. It looked like a Japanese lantern from a summer festival, quite a difference from the harsh, bare fluorescent bulbs at the Sugarberry offices. The floors were made of bamboo. Mas detected a scent of something musky emanating from a pot on the receptionist’s desk.

While the receptionist was finishing up a phone call, Mas took a look at a framed magazine article on the wall. “High-Tech Whiz Sets His Next Sights on Berries,” the headline read. Within the story was a photograph of a pasty-faced young man with long, stringy hair.

As Mas continued to wait, Oily walked into the lobby. He was wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants. “Mas, what are you doing here? Thought you were spying on Sugarberry.”

Minnie must have told him, Mas figured. “Lookin’ for Billy.”

Oily smiled, but somehow it looked to Mas like there was no genuine feeling behind it. “Sure thing. I’ll take you to his office.”

They went through a door in back of the receptionist area and walked down a narrow hall that also had a stylish
bamboo floor. They finally came to a door with a sign that said “Research and Development.”

“He’s in there,” Oily said, turning as if to leave.

“How about you?” Mas had expected Oily to come with him.

“I can see that this is family business. Best if I leave it to you two to hash it out.”

Mas opened the door and found himself in a white room, one side lined with desks. On the other were industrial refrigerators and a table with a microscope and blender. On the wall between the two sides was a long whiteboard covered with writing arranged in charts that looked like family trees.

Billy was sitting at one of the desks, speaking to someone whose back was turned to Mas. As soon as Mas walked in, Billy rose from his chair. “Mas.”

Shug’s son did brief introductions. “This is the owner of Everbears, Clay Gorman. Clay, this is Mas Arai. My father’s relative. He’s in town for the funeral.”

Clay Gorman was wearing a long-sleeve gray t-shirt. He looked like the delivery boy instead of the boss. Clay didn’t bother to extend his hand, so Mas didn’t offer his. Instead, he slightly bowed his head, as if Mas was straight from Japan.

“So we’re on the same page on this, right, Billy?” Clay said, completing his conversation. Mas narrowed his eyes. The skinny neck and shoulders, Mas had seen those before. The mourner at Shug’s funeral who was right in front of Mas at the incense line.

Clay awkwardly bowed again and left the room.

“Sorry, he’s got some social issues,” Billy explained. “Lived
in Tokyo for a while and is crazy about things Japanese, anime,
go
.”

Mas nodded. Oh, the boy was one of those. Likes to talk to computers and robots more than human beings. Mas continued to take in everything in the room. On Billy’s desk sat about a hundred strawberries on a white cutting board, all cut in half. Each berry was tagged with a number and name. “Whatchu doin’?”

Billy quickly blocked Mas’s view of the board of strawberries. Strange.

“I thought you were working at Sugarberry.”

“I was,” Mas said. “Been meeting some
omoshiroi
people. Like dis woman Rosa.” Mas didn’t like her, but he could honestly say that she was interesting.

“Rosa Ibarra?” Billy’s face turned dark. “I think
she
was the one who hurt Laila.”

Mas shuffled in his workboots. Yet she was saying precisely the same thing about Billy.

Billy folded his arms. “Sometimes I thought that she was in love with Laila. Ever since we’ve been together, Rosa made it her mission to go after me and my family.”

“She say you and Laila
kenka
,” Mas said, and then realizing that Billy might not understand, he repeated himself in English. “You fight.”

“Yeah, we fought. Especially recently.”

“You fight dat night.” The night Laila was killed.

Billy sat back at his desk, clearing the way for Mas to see his severed strawberries. “She told me she’d seen my father before he died. He accused her of stealing his computer, of attempting to get his scientific secrets.” Mas then
remembered that Minnie had mentioned that Shug had just purchased a new computer, which apparently had replaced the stolen one.

“She’d been following my dad. He hadn’t been going to his consulting office—he’d been going to Linus Verdorben’s place in Castroville. Strange place next to his father’s old body shop and closed-up gas station. Verdorben has some fields over there, too. The Masao test plants. Laila said she got hold of a strawberry plant—took one up to UC Davis to have some friends do some tests. The day she died . . .” Billy’s voice wavered, “she was supposed to show me the results. She said it was important. I told her I didn’t want to hear it—my dad’s funeral was the next day, for God’s sake. I just took off in the middle of our fight. Went to the liquor store to get some beer and drank for a while. Then I felt a need to go to the Stem House. Just for old times’ sake. Dad always said his best years were in that house.”

“We have some good time,” Mas agreed.

Billy lifted his chin up and Mas noticed that his eyes were still bloodshot. “He always spoke highly of you, by the way. Always did.”

Mas pressed his lips together. He wasn’t here to fish for compliments, just to uncover the truth.

On the desk was an Everbears mug, from which Billy took out a pencil to play with. “So I never found out what Laila wanted to tell me. I’ve been going through her things, her papers. The police have her computer. And then I found her cell phone in her car. That’s when I heard these threatening calls on her voice mail.”

Mas shivered. It was as if the temperature dropped.

“It was a man’s voice. Saying that he would hurt her if she stayed in Watsonville. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me or report it at the time. But she did save the messages; she must have taken the threats seriously.” Billy held the sharp end of the pencil out, like a miniature saber. “I dropped off Laila’s phone at the sheriff’s office this morning. They’ll be checking her records. They will get this sonofabitch.”

Mas didn’t care much one way or the other. Maybe that’s why Billy was spilling his guts to him, because Mas really didn’t have any strong opinions when it came to Laila Smith.

“Nobody understands, you know. My kids. My family. Her family. Her friends. But we had a special connection.”

Oh, yah
, Mas said to himself. In his seventy-odd years of living, he knew all about so-called “connections.” They usually led old men down a path of destruction. Billy must have read Mas’s facial expression, because he shook his head.

“No, it wasn’t like that. I mean, yes, she was gorgeous. And young. But it was much more than that. She was so, so—alive and curious. Open about life. It was starting to rub off on me, too. We talked about going to Latin America, Chile. See how other cultures dealt with food production. Maybe write a book together.”

Book?
Kuru-kuru-pa
, thought Mas. There was no doubt that Billy had lost his mind.

“I was going to tackle the science part of it; she, the political side. Our party politics didn’t match, but we were both committed to getting the best food to the most people. Really. It’s really her passion that got her killed.”

Billy’s eyes took on a glassy sheen and Mas, embarrassed by any sign of emotion, looked down. He noticed something
else sticking out from the mug on Billy’s desk. A white plastic knife with the words, “Masao,” clearly written in Shug’s hand. “
A-ra
—” he couldn’t help to exclaim. This was a marker from the missing strawberry plants next to the Stem House. The ones that Shug had bred and named after Mas.

Billy frowned and followed Mas’s gaze. “It’s not what you think,” he tried to explain. “I mean, yes, I took them that night when I left the Stem House. But it’s only because they were my father’s. I wanted something of his.”

Mas was unconvinced.

“I was curious. I mean, Laila was talking like these plants were revolutionary. I don’t know who the parents were for these plants—yet.” Billy gestured toward the chart on the whiteboard. “Every variety has a family tree, an initial mother and father.”