Apples For Vinegar Read online

  “I noticed them on the way in,” Frank said. “I’m really interested in the root balls. Do you think I could get a closer look?”

  “Sure. I guess.”

  “Would you like something to drink?” Karen asked Helen. “I was just about to start a pot of coffee for Jerzy. Or I could make us some tea.”

  “I’ve had my quota of caffeine for the day,” Helen said. Not wanting to snub Karen’s hospitality, she added, “But a glass of water would be much appreciated.”

  Karen smiled back. “How about you, Mr…”

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said. “I should have introduced myself. Frank Terfel.” He held out his hand. “Call me Frank.” Helen was impressed how smoothly her husband covered Jerzy’s boorishness. She doubted Jerzy even noticed.

  Karen seemed to barely touch fingertips with him. As far as Helen could tell, cool handshakes appeared to be the norm in the neighborhood.

  “We’re going to look at the trees in the top orchard,” Jerzy said.

  “Take Sheila with you,” Karen said when Jerzy had open the front door. He whistled and an Australian shepherd came bounding from the next room.

  “What a beautiful dog,” Helen gushed.

  “Thanks,” Jerzy said as he and Frank left.

  “We just got her,” Karen said. “She’s still a puppy. At least she came housebroken.”

  “I heard your last dog was killed. It’s smart to get another one right away for your daughter’s sake. Children don’t understand—”

  “Oh, Mate was Jerzy’s dog. A one-man dog. He tolerated Kyla, but that was it.”

  “Jerzy must have been upset about losing him.”

  “Oh, yes. But not as much as Ben. He thought Zad killed him and said we should get even.”

  She led Helen through the next room, a long oak table defining it as a dining room, the jalousie windows covered with sun-hazed plastic attesting to an earlier life as an enclosed porch.

  “Do you agree?” Helen asked.

  “About what?”

  They entered the kitchen.

  “That Zad killed Jerzy’s dog?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I’ve heard he blamed Jerzy for poisoning his dog.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” She took an old-fashioned stone jug from the refrigerator, poured a glass of water, and handed it to Helen. “It was just a tragic accident.”

  The kitchen was brighter than the two rooms Helen walked through. The wainscoting and cabinets, painted glossy white, reflected sunlight shining unobstructed through the drawn-sheet glass in the two windows above the sink. A few of the panes didn’t have the distortions of the others and must have been replaced since the house was built. Helen wondered how they had gotten broken. A baseball? A stone? Old houses had stories they didn’t tell. “You have a lovely home.”

  “Oh, thank you. My grandfather built it. We can take a tour later if you’d like.” She took out a paper filter from a counter drawer and fitted it into the basket of a coffeemaker. “This won’t take me a minute. Jerzy said your husband’s interested in photos of my ancestors. I pulled out one of the family albums. It’s on the dining table.”

  “Frank really appreciates your helping him out.”

  “I appreciate that someone is interested in our family, and what we’ve been trying to do here for over a hundred years. Farming is a vocation. Don’t you think? My father said working the farm was as much a calling from God as his father’s preaching.”

  Helen could imagine it was also a way for Karen’s father to vindicate his own choices in the face of his father’s claim of a superior life dedicated to God, a life that demanded everyone, especially his son, sacrifice for it.

  Karen interrupted Helen’s thoughts. “Would you like to look through the album while we wait?”

  The album lying on the table in the next room was outsized, perhaps a foot-and-a-half wide and at least half as much high. Its cover was imitation leather, red and imprinted with a tooled design. Embossed gold leaf in an Arte Deco script announced its purpose: PHOTOGRAPHS. Helen and Karen sat side by side and positioned the album between them.

  Helen opened to the first page where two stern faces stared back at her. The man was seated holding a paper in his lap and wearing a black suit, waistcoat and dark tie, its pattern obscured in the old photo. His worn shoes and Stetson hat suggested a workingman. Helen imagined the paper was the deed to the property he’d just purchased. His determined gaze dared anyone to stop him from making a success of it. The woman was, if anything, even more formidable. Her hair was the steel gray that red takes on in vintage photos. It must have been long but was tied in a severe bun; no intricate, demanding Gibson Girl look for her. The woman’s eyes were so pale the pupils disappeared in the faded print. Karen had inherited the hair and the eyes, but not the strength of visage.

  “Those are my great grandparents, Ada and Elmer. They moved up from Oakland because it was getting too crowded.”

  “Like Jack London.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Sometimes Helen regretted her impulse to say whatever popped into her head. “Jack London, the writer, he said something similar.”

  “Oh.”

  Frank’s return released Helen from the awkwardness. “Oh, good. You’re back.”

  “Is Jerzy coming?” Karen asked.

  “He said he needed to get back to work.”

  “What about his coffee?” Before Franks had a chance to answer, she said, “I can bring him a cup later.”

  “Karen’s letting me see her family albums,” Helen said. “Come look.”

  He stood behind her, bending over to focus on the album.

  “Like I told your wife,” Karen said, “those are my great grandparents.”

  Frank studied the photo. “How about your grandparents?

  Karen flipped several pages, then withdrew her arm from in front of a photo.

  Anyone who’d lived in Sullyton for any time would recognize the supercilious face of Pastor Bailey. In most of the photos, he looked more the smug politician than fervent cleric. Yet there was something different in the one Karen showed them. He appeared next to his wife—Agatha if Helen remembered correctly—he sallow and paunchy in a checkered short-sleeve shirt, she swathed in a burgundy shawl. They appeared to be at the beach, their images pale and indistinct in over-bright sunlight, a snapshot blown up beyond the limits of its resolution. Even so, Helen saw love in the old man’s face.

  “This is my favorite picture of them,” Karen said. “There’s lots of official ones of him, and some of her, if you want to see those. But this was the last one taken just before she died. Cancer. My dad took it.”

  All three stared in silence. After a respectful moment, Helen asked if there was a photo of Karen’s father.

  Karen again reached for the album and flipped toward the end. “He didn’t like having his picture taken. This is the best one.” She pushed the album back in front of Helen opened to a color photo of a man standing in front of a tractor. His clothes—a black and red sweater and khaki pants with legs that ballooned out from a narrow waist—and Brylcreem’ed pompadour suggested he was young enough to still be concerned about his looks.

  “He’d just bought the tractor,” Karen explained. “You can see how happy he was. He was just twenty-five, and the fifties were the peak for apples around here.”

  “What happened?”

  “To the tractor? I don’t know. I guess—”

  “No, I mean to the apples.”

  “Oh, demand for Gravensteins just faded away. They started shipping apples from anywhere in the world. At first people didn’t realize it was happening. Of course, that was all before I was born.”

  “Is there a picture of your mother?”

  “Next page. It’s their wedding picture.”

  Helen guessed the photo was taken in the sixties. Karen’s father had aged ten years since the previous photo. His wife—Karen’s mother—seemed much younger although
it was hard to tell with the face obscured by bangs, cat-eye glasses and a toothy smile so wide it devoured her other features. It was clear that Karen’s looks came mainly from her father’s side of the family. “They were a handsome couple.”

  “My father was quite a bit older, but my mother was the one who died first.”

  Frank straightened and, with a hand on one hip, twisted in a way that told Helen his back was bothering him after bending to look over her shoulder. “We’ve imposed on you both too long,” he said. “We should let you get back to your lives.”

  “Oh, no. I enjoyed it. It was an excuse for me to revisit my family’s photographs. You know how it is. You stick an album on a shelf and never look at it until some relative visits. But to be honest, family visits have dwindled over the years.”

  Helen closed the album and stood.

  “Still, those pictures are a treasure.” Frank picked up the album. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your entrusting them to me. Like I told Jerzy when I called, I need to sit with them for a while, give them time to speak to me. I promise I’ll take good care of them.”

  “I’m sure you will. Take as much time as you need.”

  Album in hand, Frank and Helen thanked Karen again and left.

  In the car, Helen asked, “Get any inspiration from the roots?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t realize how big apple tree roots are.”

  ELEVEN

  It had been five days since Delyth met with Robert, and she was beginning to doubt he’d follow through with his promise of more information about Keir Foley. His refusal to identify himself or give her his contact information only added to her suspicions. And without proof, there would be no story.

  She didn’t believe it would have anything to do with the Ajnabee murder. All the other suspects they’d interviewed seemed intent on pointing the finger at someone else, muddying the water so they could slither through the weeds undetected. If Robert wanted to divert suspicion toward Foley, it was strange he’d do it by bringing up a kidnapping that happened three years before.

  Yet, unless Robert was forthcoming with some amazing info, she might forever toil writing obits and weather reports. She was counting on him to incriminate Foley in something else, something illegal or, at least, unethical. Now, it seemed even that slight hope was dwindling.

  All week she’d answered her phone with equal parts hope and dread. When it turned out not to be the call, initial relief resolved into disappointment only to be replaced by anticipation that the next call would be him, the cycle repeating each time the phone rang. Until Friday when she picked up and Robert’s calm, smug voice asked, “Are you ready for our call?”

  “What? Now? I thought you were going to give me time to arrange for an interpreter to be here.”

  Robert laughed. “Don’t worry. My person will call you tomorrow at one.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday, my day off. It’d be suspicious if I came in.”

  “You can say you’re investigating a story. Isn’t that what reporters do?”

  “It’s clear you don’t know how newspapers work, especially for the low woman on the totem pole.”

  “Okay. He’ll call you at home.”

  Delyth didn’t want to give him her cell number, the only personal number she had. She realized it wasn’t any more risky than his knowing her work number, knowing where she worked, knowing what she looked like, but her reaction was not rational. Fearing it would lead him to say they should drop the whole thing, she asked, “Could I call him instead?”

  He hesitated for a second, although it felt more like a full minute to Delyth. “We can do that. Do you have something to write down a number?”

  She read the number back. “I’ll have to tell him you’re the one who gave me his number. What name should I use?” She thought it a clever way to learn his last name.

  Except he responded, “He’ll know what the call is about,” then hung up.

  Not willing to be so easily thwarted, she pressed the Caller Identification button then Talk. After a single ring, she got a robotic woman’s voice saying, “We’re sorry. The number you dialed is out of service.” Then a dial tone.

  It had to be working: he’d just called her on it. He could have blocked her office number on some clever app, so she took out her cell phone and dialed. The same out-of-service message. She looked up the number on a reverse directory. The newspaper subscribed to a premium service that promised information on ninety-percent of all US adults, but Robert appeared to be among the missing ten-percent.

  Here was a man intent on maintaining his anonymity. All she could do was call the number he’d given her and hope for the best.

  ◆◆◆

  Dinner that night would be the first time she and Josh had seen each other since Sunday when he agreed to help her with the Mexican call. As the week passed, Delyth was surprised that she kept thinking about how he smelled. For all his fastidious ways, he didn’t wear scents of any kind. He was careful to shower before he saw her, so she had to be close to sniff out his warm, salty-sweet self. She wasn’t sure how one could smell salty or sweet, but that was the best she could do. Perhaps she’d confused his smell with his taste. She left work Friday afternoon looking forward to finding out.

  She showered, changed and got to his house right on time. When he answered the door, he was still in his suit. He leaned in to peck her cheek. She caught a slightly earthier whiff than the one she’d been looking forward to. “I just got home,” he explained. “Give me a minute to shower.” He walked toward the back of the house. “Are you okay on your own for a while?” From his bedroom he called, “Why don’t you open some wine?”

  “What kind?”

  “Whatever.”

  She found a Pinot Gris in the refrigerator, and poured two glasses. Carrying one to the bedroom, she called into the bath, “I’m leaving a glass on your nightstand.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I won’t be five minutes.”

  She heard the shower turn on. He’d laid out jeans and a white oxford shirt. Beside them was his briefcase. The thought that she shouldn’t look inside seemed to precede the realization that she could take a peek. She wouldn’t use anything she might see in an article. She was just curious where he was with the case. And it was safe; she would hear him in the shower. She reached down toward the center clasp. For a moment she questioned whether she should avoid leaving fingerprints. If you’re worried about that, she told herself, you probably shouldn’t be doing this. But her hand was already there. She pressed the button. The hasp flipped open with a snap. She pulled out a folder and opened it. Lying on top was a transcript of Josh’s interview with Ben Dudda.

  Delyth read through it quickly. Jerzy was in the room as well as the female officer from juvenile services. Delyth had expected the questions to be about Jerzy’s alibi for the night of Ajnabee’s murder. Instead, it was Ben’s confession for trashing Ajnabee’s grow equipment the night before the murder. He blamed Ajnabee for shooting his father’s dog, and was upset with his father for not doing something about it. His real anger seemed aimed at his “father’s wife”—as he called Karen—for “breaking Jerzy’s balls with her religious bull crap.” So Ben decided to take matters into his own hands, and hit Ajnabee where it hurt. There was a lengthy back-and-forth between him and Josh getting to the details of his sneaking into Ajnabee’s garage and destroying equipment and plants. He admitted to taking a baggy for his own use but he got rid of it when he heard of Ajnabee’s murder. Toward the end of the second page, Delyth was getting to questions about Ben on the night of the murder when she heard the shower stop.

  Fearing Josh might pop in dripping wet and catch her in the act, she hurried to replace the sheets and close the briefcase. She left the room feeling sordid. Back in the kitchen she took a gulp of wine hoping to clear her conscience.

  While she waited, she busied herself emptying the bag of groceries he’d left on the counter. The hodgepodge of items didn’t tell her what they were having o
ther than it probably included asparagus. There was also a pint of dark chocolate gelato getting soft in the bag. It was unlike Josh not to put the ice cream away; he really must have been late. She stowed it in the freezer. Sitting at the island, she stared into space trying to make sense of what she’d just read, but she couldn’t get past how rotten she felt about herself.

  Josh came in carrying his wine glass in one hand and running the fingers of the other through his wet hair, coaxing it into the loose style he wore off duty. “I thought some spring pasta primavera. ’Tis the season, after all.”

  “Fine.”

  “Are you okay? You seem kind of down.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She forced a half smile. “I was just wondering how it’s going to work tomorrow.” She’d phoned Josh right after Robert’s call, but Josh hadn’t given her any details.

  He stood across from her. “Shouldn’t I make dinner first?”

  “Can’t you do both?”

  “Okay, if you insist.” But he didn’t do anything about dinner; instead, he stood watching her, waiting for her to start.

  “Were you able to find out anything about the number he gave me?”

  “Other than it’s from the Puerto Vallarta area, no luck.”

  She nodded, not expecting anything different. Robert was too careful. “How about the interpreter?”

  “Marta will be here at noon. She’s a friend; she’s okay with keeping it on the QT.”

  He took a sip from the wine glass she’d delivered to the bedroom, which reminded her of what she’d done right after that delivery. She resisted the urge to tell him, to apologize; instead, she said, “I want to thank you again for helping me with this. I mean, it’s a little… I don’t know… it’s kind of unconventional for you. No other cop…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence; Josh was unlike any other cop she knew.

  “I keep telling myself it’s okay because the murder isn’t in my jurisdiction, but to be honest, I am a little uncomfortable about it.” He took another sip of wine.

  Delyth waited, expecting him to renege on their deal. Strangely, at that moment she would have been relieved if he had.