Meadowlark

by Sheila Simonson

  Trust a farmer. I hadn't even noticed the plants. Three neat houseplants, one hairy, two with shiny leaves, sat on one of the wide sills. I walked over and stuck finger in the soil supporting the hairy plant. "Feels dry."

  "That's a succulent," Bianca said crossly.

  "Oh." I had so far avoided killing my Boston fern. Otherwise, my relationships with plants had been fleeting. I looked at the other sill. "Oops."

  "What?"

  Hugo had placed a small cushion on the sill. It didn't cover the whole surface. A drinking glass sat in one corner. It held three cut daffodils. They had wilted.

  Bianca expelled her breath with a whoosh that ruffled her bangs. "He wouldn't leave flowers to die like that. That means he hasn't been here in two or three days."

  "No." I had a bad feeling about the daffodils, though Jay would probably have shrugged. Everything else looked cared-for. "Hugo's missing, all right. Better notify the police."

  Bianca groaned. "Why did it have to happen now?"

  There was no answer.

  She looked at me, eyes intent. "Will you come to the farm now?"

  I started to say 'yes' and caught myself. "What could I do?"

  "Help me question the staff and the interns. Help me look for him. You're an outsider. You might spot something. Please."

  I drew a breath. "No."

  "Keith will be at work."

  I stared. "I suppose he told you..."

  Her cheeks were red. "He didn't have to. I know Keith. You were uncomfortable at dinner, and you left as soon as you could afterwards."

  I caught myself again. I had been about to apologize. I did feel sorry for Bianca, but she had chosen to seat me next to her husband.

  My silence got to her. Her shoulders sagged. "Well, thanks."

  "Hugo will turn up."

  Tears welled. "If he doesn't I'm dead."

  I sighed. "Look, I'll come out Saturday afternoon, if you like, for a couple of hours. That's if he hasn't reappeared. Meanwhile, I'll ask Jay to do some checking through the sheriff's office."

  Her face brightened. "Can he do that?"

  "He's a reserve deputy and does consulting for their crime scene people."

  "Oh. Okay. Thanks." She didn't sound hopeful.

  I wasn't either. Tracing a man who didn't drive a car or use credit cards was going to be difficult. I called Jay to tell him we had a missing tenant.

  Chapter 4

  I drove out to the farm Saturday afternoon around three. I wanted to see it in daytime anyway. Bianca had asked me to stay overnight, an offer I declined flat, with no qualms. Hugo's continued absence was worrying but hardly an emergency. Bianca had admitted everything was set for the workshop.

  The farm nestled in a meander of the Coho River. The tidal stream emptied into Shoalwater Bay three marshy miles west of the entrance gate. Above the open gate hung an arch of heavy timbers with the pokerwork legend Meadowlark Farm dangling on a slab of red cedar.

  I drove straight up to the cattle guard, past a pasture full of ewes that looked as if they were about to produce quadruplets. A few spindly lambs, much whiter than their mamas, watched me chug uphill. At the cattle guard the graveled road dipped and rose in a wide curve toward the house. The exterior of the huge edifice was stained gray, an unfortunate effect. Bianca's house looked like a beached whale.

  I parked in front of the main entrance and rang the bell. Nobody answered it. I turned around on the porch, a stylized verandah, and surveyed the countryside. It was at that stage when deciduous leaves are just beginning to show and sun-yellow forsythias and daffodils gild unexpected corners. A faint haze misted what looked like an apple orchard to my left, and, to my right, as promised, the house gave on a spectacular view of the estuary. As was true everywhere in the region, the dominant winter color was the dark, dark green of conifers, fading to blue in the distance. Wintergreen.

  "Lark?"

  I started and turned. Marianne Wallace stood in the doorway, looking anxious. "She's still out rounding up the kids."

  I was supposed to help Bianca question the interns about Hugo. "Okay," I said. "My car...?"

  "You can leave it where it is today. The car barn's around back." She gestured to her left. "Come on in."

  "Thanks." I stuffed my keys into my shoulder bag and followed her through the main hall. She waved at the coat rack, and I shed my jacket and purse. "Where are we supposed to conduct the inquisition?"

  She was moving at the unhurried pace that seemed typical of her. "Kitchen, we thought. I made coffee and spiced cider." She led me across the dining room and through the swinging door that opened on the kitchen.

  I stopped on the threshold, one hand on the door. "Nice."

  "It is nice," she agreed. "Coffee?"

  "Cider sounds better." I sat on a blond chair by the big butcher block table and admired a room that managed to be high tech and friendly. The color-scheme was blond and hunter green.

  Marianne ladled a cup of cider for me and gave me a cinnamon stick as a swizzle.

  I inhaled deeply. "I love cinnamon."

  "It's cassia."

  "Huh?"

  "Most of the cinnamon used in this country is really cassia. Tastes the same. Much cheaper."

  I hadn't the foggiest idea of the origin of spices and herbs other than garlic. I sipped.

  "I'm worried about Hugo."

  I stared at her, curious.

  Marianne's round, pretty face drooped with distress. "Do you think you'll be able to find him soon?"

  "I don't know. Not if he doesn't want to be found."

  She poured herself a cup of black coffee and perched on a stool by the gleaming Jenn-Air range. "He should never have moved out. I told him so."

  I said, "I think there are too many people for him here."

  "Yes, some of the time, but it was Del, too."

  I raised an encouraging brow.

  She sighed. "Del's always riding Hugo 'bout one thing or another. Del don't know when to quit. I miss Hugo. And he's real..." She groped for words. "Real fragile. I worry about him not eating. He gets absent-minded about it, and then he has one of his stomach attacks. And riding the bike to town in the dark--that's dangerous."

  I murmured agreement. "Have you known Hugo a long time?"

  She considered. "Since we came six years ago. I can't say I know him. He's a quiet man. But I like him. He's got patience."

  That observation startled me. Del and Angie had given me the opposite impression, of a man fanatical to the point of rigidity. My own impression of Hugo, though, was closer to Marianne's. Maybe he had a split personality. Maybe, like most people, he was just inconsistent.

  A door opened, and I heard scuffling and talking outside the room.

  Marianne said, "That's Bianca and the kids in the mudroom. They'll wash up and come in in a minute." She rose and began filling mugs with cider.

  "Can I help you?"

  She flashed a smile over her shoulder. "It's no trouble."

  Bianca burst in. "Del had them out with the sheep, Marianne. He wants Jason and Bill again in an hour, and Angie... Oh, hi, Lark. Sorry we're late." She wore her farmer get-up and red plush booties instead of boots. I gathered she kept the slippers in the mudroom. "I hope the kitchen's okay. We have to keep the conference room clean for the workshop."

  "Fine with me." I settled back to watch the first student enter, a bold-looking young man with brown hair and bright brown eyes. His color was high. Not, I thought, from shyness. He was followed by a smaller, slimmer boy with darker hair and eyes.

  "Jason and Bill," Bianca said by way of introduction.

  Jason, the one with lighter hair, stared at me, and I made a discovery. He was the driver of the pickup that had landed in the ditch the night of our dinner at the farm. I didn't think he recognized me. The other kid gave me a tentative grin.

  Marianne set a huge platter of homemade scones in the center of the table then returned with a stack of ceramic plates in bright colors and matching cloth napkins.
She set a big butter dish and a pot of what looked like blackberry jam in front of Jason, who did not hesitate to dive into the scones. Knives materialized. Marianne's sleight of hand fascinated me, and the others had entered before I registered their presence.

  I nudged Bianca. "Where's Mike?"

  Marianne said, "He drove to Astoria to pick up supplies for the workshop." She sounded defensive. Bianca said nothing.

  Marianne handed mugs of spicy cider around, poured Bianca a cup of coffee, and retreated to her stool.

  Bianca pulled a chair beside me. The rest had disposed themselves around the table, Jason and Bill on my right. The scones--I snagged one--vanished like snow in a chinook wind.

  Bianca sipped coffee and murmured the others' names as they munched and chattered and eyed me curiously. On her left sat a small dark girl in a navy blue sweatshirt. Mary Sadat. Mary nibbled, lady-like, with downcast eyes, and said nothing. Beside her, two married students from the Evergreen State College, a couple of years older than the others, fed each other bits of scone. Adam and Letha Carlsen, he blond, she brunette, both ostentatiously grubby and rather plain.

  The girl perched on the chair opposite me distinguished herself by ignoring the scones. I couldn't help staring at her. She wore cerise spandex leggings, a gray B.U.M. sweatshirt over a cerise turtle neck and a lethal tangle of gold chains. Carol Bascombe, Bianca murmured, clucking a little.

  Carol was using a white hair pick to fluff what I've always thought of as bordello hair. It was sunstreaked, though we hadn't seen the sun since February third, and each long tendril had been separately permed or tweaked with a curling iron into a riotous tumble. Carol looked as if she had just risen from the rank sweat of an enseamed bed. I'm sure her hair was clean but the illusion of steamy sex was impressive. I wondered if hair that long constituted a hazard in a farmer. Carol had pouty lips, capped teeth, a perfect nose, and luminous gray eyes just then clouded with anxiety.

  She pricked at a clump of hair, it fell into place, and the anxiety vanished. She beamed at me. "Hi, I'm Carol. Are you going to find Hugo the Growth?"

  Jason and Bill guffawed and the married couple smirked. Mary Sadat raised dark eyes from her cup.

  Bianca said, "Kids, this is Lark Dodge. She'll be running the workshop. Meanwhile, we're trying to figure out what happened to Hugo. When did you see him last, Carol?"

  Carol wriggled. "Saturday. I was like driving to Kayport, and I passed his grotty bike on the road. He was supposed to supervise the digging and composting Monday morning, but he didn't show at eight, did he, Jase?"

  "No, and we weren't going to hang around waiting for him, either." Jason was sitting a little too close to me. He sounded as righteous as a bank executive with a tardy loan applicant. I expected him to announce that he was a busy man, but he just said, "I had a botany test at eleven, so I sat in my rig and studied."

  Bill said nothing. He was eating the last scone. I looked at the duo from TESC. "How about you two?"

  The woman, Letha, said, "We thought about it when Bianca told us Hugo was missing. He supervised us Saturday morning, made me redig my bed. He seemed normal to me." She wrinkled her uninteresting nose. "As normal as Hugo gets. The man has no affect." She cast Carol a slightly scornful glance as if to say, Read my thesaurus.

  Carol was renewing her cerise lipgloss.

  Adam, the husband, said with an air of conscious tolerance that was going to be annoying when he reached middle age, "Hugo's okay, honey. He's just real focused."

  Bianca said, "Mary?"

  Mary Sadat's olive skin flushed a darker shade. "Mr. Groth ate dinner at my parents' restaurant Saturday night. I was waiting tables. I saw him but we didn't talk. It was busy."

  I smiled at her. "What time, Mary?"

  She ducked her head and crumbled her scone. "Around eight, I think."

  "Anybody see him Sunday?"

  They exchanged glances but nobody said anything.

  I was about to pursue the reasons for their silence when the door to the mudroom swung open and Angie burst in.

  "Shoes!" Bianca shrieked.

  "Oh, sorry." Angie stepped back to the open door. She yanked her wool beret off, running a long hand through hair too short to tousle. "I found Hugo's bike."

  Bianca stood up. "Where?"

  "Behind that stack of boxes by the flower house." She met my eyes. "That's one of the big greenhouses. The bike's just parked there, leaning against the framework of the building."

  "Out of sight?" I asked.

  Angie nodded. "The boxes hide it."

  "You mean that humungous pile of flats?" Carol's voice rose. "Mary and I spent two hours stacking those grotty old things last Saturday. I broke a fingernail."

  Mary said, "The bike wasn't there Saturday."

  Everyone looked at her.

  She blushed. "I guess that's obvious."

  Bianca made a soothing noise. So did I. People would always soothe Mary.

  "What time did you finish the crates?" I said.

  Carol twiddled her hair pick. "Around four."

  "Hugo's rain pants are still wadded up in the saddlebag," Angie said. "I checked."

  Bianca paled. Somebody shifted again. A chair creaked.

  I was getting a bad feeling. Beside me, Jason and Bill sat quiet. I said, "Did anybody see Hugo Monday at all?"

  Silence.

  "What was he scheduled to do Monday?"

  Bianca hunched on her chair. "He was supposed to show the interns how to prepare the raised beds for planting. We don't do much with that kind of cultivation because it's so labor intensive it doesn't pay. But it is interesting. We were doing heirloom beans there this year, among other things. Hugo intercrops beans with blue corn--"

  "Heirloom beans?" I drew a blank.

  "Natural seed-stock." Angie scowled at me. "Is anybody besides me going to hunt for Hugo?"

  Bianca stood up slowly, as if her bones ached.

  I said, "You ought to call the sheriff."

  "No!" Bianca swallowed hard and avoided my eyes. "I mean not yet."

  Angie said, "We could search the outbuildings."

  Bianca nodded. "Marianne, will you call Del? Tell him I need Jason and Bill--and why."

  Marianne lifted a cellular phone from the counter and left the room, extending the antenna as she passed through the swinging door. The interns stared at Bianca, eyes wide. Mary Sadat teared up.

  "Hugo may be with Trish. That's his ex-wife. She lives in Raymond." Bianca's voice lacked conviction.

  I shoved my cider cup back and laid my napkin on the table. "I thought you called her."

  "I did. Twice."

  "Would she lie?"

  Bianca threw up her hands. "No. I'm just looking for a comfortable solution. Something's wrong."

  "The last time anyone saw Hugo was Saturday night at the restaurant," I mused. "If the bike's here, he made a trip out from town after that. Does he work on Sundays?"

  "We all do if there's a crop to harvest or something else urgent. Otherwise we take Sundays off."

  "So he probably rode out Monday morning--"

  "But why would he hide the bike behind the crates?" She shook her head. "Something's wrong." She looked around at the silent students. "Let's do this methodically. Pair up. Jason, you and Bill search the sheep sheds--"

  "We'll check the ice house, too," Jason said.

  "Okay. Afterwards, go find Del. Tell him to poke around in the old barn. Angie, you and Mary can search the greenhouses. Carol--"

  "I gotta leave at five, Mrs. McDonald."

  Bianca's jaw muscle jumped. "Then go look in the car barn. Adam and Letha, you, too. Look around the machine sheds. I'll join you in a few minutes. And call. He may be hurt or sick--"

  "Or dead," Carol said, voicing everyone's thought. We all looked at her. She wriggled.

  I said, "Since I don't know the place I won't be much use in a search."

  Bianca nodded. "Go on, kids. I need to talk to Lark. Then I'll join Carol and the Carlsens. It
's four. Come back here by dark--five thirty, say--and report in."

  I waited until they'd left, then I said, "You need the sheriff--and dogs, probably. This is a big place and Hugo could be anywhere."

  Bianca shivered. "Anywhere or nowhere. It's been six, no...seven days."

  "He could have parked the bike here and taken a local bus. You said he disappeared before."

  Bianca hesitated then nodded. "I hope that's what happened this time, too. He starts feeling hemmed in and just takes off. If so he'll turn up at Trish's sooner or later. But the bike... It bothers me. Of course, the last time it happened he was living here, at the old house--"

  "Maybe he's there now."

  "We tore it down."

  I got up and walked over to look out the large window above the sink. I could see a field strewn with sheep. A couple of metal sheds lay beside it. Farther on lay another field with a small wood structure at its edge, possibly the ice house. Jason and Bill were already hiking toward the metal sheds, making good time. I supposed they were in a hurry to go home. As I watched they split up and each took one of the sheds. At that distance I couldn't distinguish which boy was which. "You really ought to call the sheriff now, Bianca."

  "If Hugo's just done another walkabout I'll feel stupid, and he'll be mad at me for making a fuss."

  I tried to imagine Hugo red-faced and shouting.

  Her shoulders slumped. "Okay. I'll call the cops when Marianne brings the phone back." She joined me at the counter and pulled a drawer open, fumbling the tiny telephone book from it. "What do I say?"

  I repressed irritation. "Report a missing person. And you don't need the phone book. Dial 911."

  The swinging door pushed in. "Hi. Seen Mom?" Mike Wallace was carrying an armload of cartons. He set them on the table and gave me a shy smile.

  I smiled back.

  Bianca said, "Angie found Hugo's bike near the greenhouses, Mike."

  Mike's eyes widened. "But--"

  "I sent the interns out to search."

  "You think something happened to him, don't you?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did Mom..." His voice trailed, and he flushed red. His glasses had steamed and he took them off. Without them, he looked like a half-fledged owl.