Fever Tree

by Tim Applegate

  Maggie? Alarmed, Jackie reached across the table, touching her hand. He thought about his sister, an epileptic, who blanked out like this moments before an episode. Maggie! You okay?

  What? She blinked a few times, like a child trying to shake off a dream. What?

  You look like you just saw a ghost, girl. The fuck’s the matter with you? Abruptly she stood up, rocking the table with her leg and spilling Jackie’s daiquiri.

  I gotta go.

  But we just got here!

  I’m sorry, but there’s somewhere I have to go.

  Because Jackie was right; Maggie had seen a ghost. And his name was William Dieter.

  19

  She tossed the book down on Dieter’s bed and started to pace, like a caged animal, back and forth across the room. To the washstand, to the window, and back to the bed again, her jaw clenched, her words bullets.

  So you’re gonna write about us, right? I mean that’s what you’re doing here in Crooked River, right, writing about us?

  What are you talking about?

  Buncha rubes. Buncha hicks. Bet you even got our accents down, our cute little drawls.

  Good Lord, Maggie, these . . . notions of yours. Dieter clutched the arms of the chair he was sitting in, facing his executioner. Write about you? What gave you that idea?

  Whatdya think gave me that idea? She stabbed a finger in the direction of the book. That did!

  Well you’re wrong, okay? Please, sit down, you’re making me nervous. He stood up to offer her the chair, the only one in the room, but she ignored him.

  I suppose it’s all some kinda game to you. Big-shot writer blows into town, pretending to be someone else.

  Now hold on.

  But Maggie wasn’t about to. She plunged ahead, all systems go. And what’s with the name, anyway? Why do you want people to call you Dieter? You’re William!

  No, I’m Dieter. Ever since I was a kid everyone’s called me Dieter, everyone but my dad.

  Oh yeah? Pacing, stalking, to the bed, to the window, to the chair. So what’s he call you?

  Billy. He calls me Billy.

  This didn’t seem to help.

  Great, here I am in a hotel room with some guy named Billy who calls himself Dieter who writes a famous novel then shows up in town and doesn’t tell anyone who he is.

  Dieter lifted his hands in exasperation. Ever since Maggie burst into his room, flinging around her outlandish accusations, the target of her wrath had been backpedalling. But that was about to stop.

  I never lied. Not to you or to anyone else.

  Please. What the hell’s that? I never lied?

  All I’m sayin’—

  What I wanna know, Dieter—and now she finally stopped pacing long enough to turn and confront him—is what the fuck’s going on here?

  To Consuela, who was standing in the hallway with her left ear glued to the wall, Maggie’s question reverberated in more ways than one. What the fuck was going on here? At long last the much anticipated lover finally shows up in the person of Maggie Paterson, who, instead of immediately hopping into bed with our intrepid hero—the way Consuela certainly would have—lashes out at him with a vehemence that shocked even a seasoned housekeeper who had heard her share of vicious arguments erupt behind the Gibson’s closed doors. Redheads! She pressed her ear against the plaster, straining to hear the rest of Maggie’s rant.

  As far as the housekeeper could deduce from the muffled conversation on the other side of the wall, what had triggered Maggie’s fury was a book, a novel called Jaguar Moon. But why would she be angry about a novel? To Consuela it sounded like another dead end, another unsolvable mystery. Then she recalled the sheets of yellow paper filled with indecipherable handwriting Dieter sometimes left on his desk, and all at once the picture became clear. Maggie was mad because Dieter was a writer and he hadn’t told anyone, including her. A writer, for Pete’s sake, he was a famous writer! The housekeeper started to swoon, grabbing on to the door jamb to keep from falling. Wait till she told Mr. Gold!

  After awhile the voices in room 24 grew quiet and the housekeeper scurried down the hallway and slipped into room 26, leaving the door open a crack so she could listen some more. As soon as Maggie left—if Maggie left—she would race downstairs to share the startling news with Mr. Gold. How thrilled, how astonished the manager would be to learn that not only had Maggie Paterson—yes, that Maggie Paterson—visited Mr. Dieter’s room, she had also exposed him as a famous writer traveling incognito down here to little old Crooked River to do some kind of undercover research for his next book. Just think of it, Mr. Gold, a writer, a scribbler, a scribe!

  This explained everything, all those books on his desk, all those notepads. The quiet hours he spent alone in his room, holed up. And the way he spaced out sometimes, staring off into the middle distance, as if at nothing at all. Writers were like that, she supposed, deep.

  Consuela heard the door to room 24 swing open and two pairs of footsteps shuffle down the hallway toward the stairs. For after much coaxing, Maggie had finally agreed to accompany Dieter to Ochoas, the Tex-Mex restaurant where he sometimes met Raul and his friends.

  Hoping to maintain the emotional equilibrium Maggie seemed to have finally reached in the wake of her earlier tantrum, Dieter calmly explained as they crossed the town plaza that he no longer wrote.

  But why? Why would anyone stop writing?

  Dieter shrugged. Ask Harper Lee.

  The woman who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird?

  Right.

  She quit too?

  Quit stung, but what else could you call it? More than anything Dieter wanted to be honest with her. He was tired of all the secrecy, tired of deflecting every personal question aimed his way. At last he was ready to talk, and he had found, he hoped, the right person to confide in. They passed through a modest residential neighborhood, the houses half the size of the ones adjoining the plaza, and stopped at a busy intersection. Across the street, muted lights glowed in the windows of Ochoas.

  Look, I stopped writing because I lost heart, okay?

  Maggie didn’t know what Dieter meant by this, but she knew that he meant it.

  Heart?

  You know, heart, drive. I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t see the point.

  Her voice was gentle now, but still probing. You mean you forgot how.

  No, that’s not it. Dieter smiled, to take the edge off his words. It’s more like I forgot why.

  I don’t understand.

  To tell you the truth, I don’t either. But there it is.

  They waited for a Chevy pickup with a faulty muffler to roar past them before crossing the street. His feelings about it, Dieter admitted, were unresolved. He described the notes he had been compiling for the last few weeks, like an athlete who quits a race but continues to do calisthenics on the sidelines just in case he changes his mind.

  Raul’s wife Marlena, a striking young woman with a long black braid cascading down the back of her white blouse, greeted them at the door. As the hostess of Ochoas, Marlena made it a point to personally welcome every customer, particularly the regulars.

  Dieter! She gave him a quick hug then stepped back to admire, with approval, his companion.

  Marlena, this is Maggie Paterson. Maggie, Marlena.

  Marlena offered her hand. The pleasure, she promised, is all mine.

  When they were seated Marlena offered the two guests their menus, vaguely troubled now. Despite her initial delight at seeing Dieter out on the town with a date, something about his companion bothered her, though she couldn’t pinpoint what that something was. It wasn’t her looks; Maggie’s flame of red hair was quite dazzling, and she had soft, intelligent eyes. And it wasn’t her behavior. She was not the type, Marlena concluded, to put on false airs. No, there was something else causing her concern. She crossed the room and returned wi
th two glasses of water, staring surreptitiously at Dieter’s partner. Then with a sinking heart it dawned on her that Maggie Paterson was the name of Colt Taylor’s girlfriend, and all at once that awful night out on Pheasant Hill Road blazed through her mind. With an inward shudder she saw the broken beer bottle knife through the air and open Colt’s left cheek. And once again she felt ashamed to have let Raul talk her into playing the role of stranded driver on that terrible evening.

  When Dieter asked what the special was Marlena answered, in a soft, subdued voice, carnitas, with plantains. Satisfied, he closed his menu. Sold.

  And for you?

  I’ll have the same, Maggie replied. And bring us a couple margaritas, will you?

  According to the rumor mill, after the incident out on Pheasant Hill Road Maggie and Colt had split up and Marlena wondered now if the attack had caused the separation. Then again Colt Taylor, by any account, was not much of a catch; surely Maggie was better off without him, especially if, in the process, she had snagged Dieter. Walking over to the stainless steel counter that separated the dining room from the kitchen, Marlena glanced back at the two and all of a sudden she felt better about the entire affair. Wildly rationalizing her own complicity, she abruptly decided that Raul’s brazen act of revenge had actually been a kind of matchmaking. After all, if it weren’t for that admittedly unfortunate incident these two might never have gotten together. In a way, Raul had done Maggie a favor by cutting up her man. Brightening, Marlena sang out the order to the cook, who was laboring over the kitchen’s smoky grill—dos carnitas, compinche!

  Maggie looked down at Dieter’s hands resting on the table, confirming his lack of a ring. Her heart thrummed with expectation, but still, she had to get a hold of herself; that particular subject could wait for another time. Right now she just wanted to enjoy his company, have a few drinks and eat her carnitas, whatever those were. And after that? Well after that, who knew?

  Did you order the drinks yet?

  Dieter laughed. You mean you don’t remember?

  Remember what?

  The drinks! You ordered them.

  Of course I did! She slid her scarf off her shoulders and gave it a little twirl before hanging it off the back of an adjoining chair. Because that, she concluded, is what Audrey Hepburn would do in a scene like this, she would act as breezy as Holly Golightly strolling down the streets of Manhattan at sunrise, the world at her feet.

  What’s a carnita, Dieter?

  Carnitas? It’s pork, shredded pork.

  The dinner was superb, spicy shredded pork surrounded by a mound of rice, a pool of pinto beans, and sweet plantains fried to a light char in a pan of clarified butter. To top it off, the margaritas were the best Maggie had ever tasted. She held up her empty glass, still rimmed with a mustache of salt.

  So I bet this is the way they make em in Mexico, huh?

  Depends on what part of the country you’re in.

  Do you miss it?

  Mexico? He thought about that for awhile. I do, sometimes. But you can’t go back again, right? There was a hint of regret in his voice, and it saddened Maggie to hear it.

  Thomas Wolfe.

  What?

  You Can’t Go Home Again.

  He seemed surprised. You’ve read that?

  Uh-huh.

  I didn’t know you were a reader.

  Maggie leaned over, exposing a little cleavage. She hadn’t played a seductress in a very long time. Actually, Dieter, there’s a lotta things you don’t know about me, she purred.

  Pleasantly tipsy, they bid goodnight to Marlena and headed back to the Gibson, taking the circular route along the harbor. Dieter showed her where he liked to sit on the seawall in the mornings and watch the boats.

  So let’s sit, she suggested. She patted the top of the wall.

  Dusk. Along the docks of the marina gusts of wind rocked the keels of the trawlers. Farther out, on one of the sailboats anchored offshore, a young woman tanned bronze by the sun was brushing a coat of marine varnish onto a teak handrail.

  Maggie was silent for a few minutes, enjoying the view. She pictured Dieter sitting here in the mornings watching the deckhands fit out their boats.

  Can I ask you something?

  Of course you can.

  It’s none of my business but I’m gonna ask anyway, okay?

  Fine.

  Just tell me it’s none of my business, okay? If it’s none of my business—

  It’s okay. Dieter placed a finger against her lips, and then removed it. Ask away.

  She looked out at the moon’s pale reflection trembling on the surface of the harbor. Jen. That’s your wife’s name, right?

  Ever since Maggie threw the book on his bed he had been expecting this. Yes, he answered quietly, my wife’s name was Jen.

  With a flush of excitement Maggie noted the past tense. Was. It confirmed what she had suspected all along, that Dieter was recovering from a nasty breakup. This explained his reticence, his refusal to open up. It was simple. He didn’t want to be hurt again, and who could blame him? In a way, he was just like her.

  I saw the what-do-you-call-it, in the book.

  The dedication. I figured as much.

  To Jen, Jen . . . You repeated her name. That was sweet.

  When Dieter didn’t respond, Maggie slowed down. She wasn’t sure how far to go with this. Sometimes a guy on the rebound was so sensitive the slightest tremor could throw him off course. If she probed too deep, he might dance away. And yet she had to know, she just had to.

  So what happened?

  What happened?

  To you and Jen.

  From one of the boats came the sound of breaking glass, followed by a bark of unpleasant laughter. What happened, Dieter murmured, is she died.

  It was as if he had suddenly struck Maggie with his fist, punching the wind out of her lungs. Good God, Dieter, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. How . . . I mean how—

  Did it happen? He shrugged; what else, in the face of such folly, could you do?

  She was driving home from work one night in the rain, he said. A car swerved across the center line . . . It happens, I suppose, all the time.

  He fell silent, grateful that Maggie had stopped talking; because there was nothing more, really, to say, nothing anyone could possibly say. He had already heard all the inconsequential words, all the tired old platitudes that never rang true. Even Ecclesiastes had failed. Blessed are those who grieve, for they shall be comforted. But when? When would the sharp blade of his grief dull into mere sorrow? After the funeral he had walked around for days in an emotional fog, unable to weep, like some kind of zombie. The first time he broke down was a week later, on the trail behind their house. He had hiked that trail with Jennifer so many times, all the way to the end, to the cave of the albino fish. Without warning, remembering those walks, he had begun to cry, and at first it had seemed like a blessing, a cleansing, his penance. Then he couldn’t stop.

  In the doorway of the Gibson, Maggie thanked him for the evening. Then she leaned over to kiss his cheek but at the last moment Dieter turned and their lips met, hungry, famished. When they finally broke apart he asked, in a choked voice, if she would come up to his room.

  With every breath in her body that was exactly what she wanted to do. But it was too soon for that.

  Not yet, she whispered. Soon, but not yet.

  20

  Ten miles south of Crooked River, Colt cruised past one of the county’s original honey farms and thought about his father stacking bee boxes in the glare of a noonday sun. Jesse Taylor: cop, beekeeper, fisherman. Husband. Killer. Dad.

  In the turbulent wake of the accidental shooting of Tina Johnson, Officer Taylor had considered his options for gainful employment. The stingy pension he’d managed to squeeze out of the police department before they let him go only replaced half of the sa
lary he had been earning. To keep up with his house payments he would have to establish a second source of income, and he would have to do it soon. Relatively speaking he was still a young man, and he strongly believed that it behooved young men who had fallen on hard times, whatever the circumstances, to continue to support their families.

  Although he possessed few marketable skills, Jesse had always been interested in honey production, having, as a boy, toiled on one of the local farms. So after a few weeks of serious soul searching—would he really be able to make a go of it?—he secured a loan from the bank, leased a modest plot of land, and set up his bee boxes. Unfortunately, three other honey farms with deep community roots were already well established in the area, and the owners of those farms didn’t take kindly to an interloper like Colt’s dad. In response, they formulated a strategy to monopolize the market and lock Jesse out, effectively forcing the new business, by the end of its first year, to fold.

  Following the failure of the honey farm, Jesse found work in commercial fishing, hiring out as a deck hand on a friend’s shrimper. But shrimping, he soon discovered, was so physically demanding he began to fear that his body would break down. Demanding, draining, debilitating, the hardest work he had ever done. He would trudge home at night so worn out all he could do was grab a bottle of blended whiskey from the cupboard and sit on the front porch downing shot after shot until the soreness in his lower back and the stink of shrimp on his fingers disappeared in an alcoholic fog. When the bottle was empty he would go inside and eat the supper his wife had left out for him—the juices of the meat congealed now, the vegetables cold.

  All his father had ever wanted to be was a cop, and as far as Colt could determine he had been a good one. Clean, dedicated, efficient. For fifteen years his record remained impeccable. And then one evening a call came in alerting the precinct to a potentially explosive situation at an alleged drug house on Mulberry Drive.