Poison Apples

by Nancy Means Wright

  The man took his sweet time opening up. An eye squinted through an oblong slit in the door. When it finally opened, Colm saw a large rectangular living room furnished with black leather sofa and chairs, gold-framed biblical paintings, including one of the female with a tray of apples he’d seen in Bertha’s house. Only this one was an oil, not a print. It looked expensive. Where had he gotten the money for it? Turnbull gave a fleeting smile through perfect white teeth. He was dressed in black: black gabardine pants, carefully creased; white shirt with a striped blue and black regimental tie; black jacket. Colm could see the belly where it pouched over the belted pants. He sucked in his own.

  Turnbull was a little breathless, he had things to do, places to go. He kept glancing at his large black leather watch. He wore a diamond ring on his pinkie. Colm sat down in one of the black chairs—was suddenly tipped back. How to sabotage your interrogator. He thought he heard Turnbull snicker. “I’m afraid you pushed a button with your hand.” The man creaked back on the leather sofa, he had the upper hand. Colm struggled with the switch, finally popped it; the chair swooshed up, almost hurling him onto the white carpet.

  A white carpet, Colm thought, as though Turnbull never came in with dirt on his shoes. He thought of Ruth, stomping in from the barn in her “milking” boots; she’d make short work of this white carpet! Turnbull glanced at his watch again. “I have an appointment at ten,” he said pointedly. He didn’t say where, with whom. He gave an artificial smile. He was a handsome fellow—in his early fifties, maybe, hard to tell. He would charm the women, of course.

  Colm was aware of his own open shirt. He’d dressed in a hurry that morning: had on kelly green cords with a royal blue shirt. His socks weren’t the same length—jeez. Why was he nervous? Who was he dealing with here? His feet found the carpet, he sat sunk in the chair. “I understand Turnbull is not your real name,” he said, hearing his voice coming from the root of the seat.

  There was a moment of silence. He half expected the man to intone a prayer. “Where did you hear that?” said Turnbull. Or Chris Christ.

  Colm shrugged. “One of your, um, parishioners. She said your real name is Chris—Christopher?—Christ. Why did you change it?”

  Chris Christ (if that was the real name) looked down modestly, straightened his tie. The chin dropped into two folds. He didn’t look so handsome now; he might have been any gray-haired minister with a parish. But the eyes, when they stared into Colm’s, were cold; the pupils were like brown hard-shelled eggs. “I decided to take my stepfather’s name,” he said. And that answered that.

  The rest of the questions he answered exactly, briefly, no elaboration. He had a deep, fall-bodied voice, a slight accent Colm couldn’t place—it wasn’t New York, it didn’t sound New England. His breath came in short gasps between answers. Colm could imagine him in a responsive reading: Takes my breath away, a parishioner would say. He was from Iowa originally, he said;

  came east to Bible college, heard the calling. He founded the Messengers of Saint Dorothea, “oh, four years ago now.” He’d sensed a “spiritual need” here in Branbury, one the other churches couldn’t fulfill. No, it wasn’t affiliated with any other church, it was his own. It was a Christian church, yes, of course! He tithed, ah yes, one had to—twelve percent. Some pledged more of their income, of their own volition. The church was small but growing. Mostly women? Colm asked.

  “Well, perhaps. Although we’ve a few men. Most men don’t attend any church, do they? Too bad. They fall by the wayside, like that teacher, that Aaron Samuels. Jewish, of course, but had the synagogue if he wanted, didn’t he?” When he said “synagogue,” Colm thought, it sounded like “cw-a-gogue.” As for Unitarians—well, they weren’t a “church,” were they?

  But here was a nice lead-in to the real subject: Cassandra. Colm understood that “there was an, um, misunderstanding between Cassandra and, um, yourself.”

  This time he’d put Turnbull (couldn’t call him Christ) off balance. A few fine drops of sweat sprang up on the man’s forehead. The black wing tips did a soft shuffle on the white carpet. He almost spit out the words. “There was no serious misunderstanding. And I can’t see where that would concern you.” The eyes shot bullets at Colm.

  “It does where a homicide is concerned.” Colm was relaxing now, he rose up a little in his seat. If he’d had a badge, he would have flashed it—he wasn’t exactly a full-time cop. But it only took a phone call to Fallon. He’d already explained that to the man when he set up the interview.

  Turnbull sighed, and gave in. “It’s nothing, really. Cassandra is—was—a relative, second cousin on my mother’s side. She’s one of the reasons I came to Branbury; she made over her barn for our church, helped bring in members. Cassandra is—was—a go-getter. She was the church treasurer, had been an accountant in her professional life. But I found the books weren’t exactly .. .”

  “Robbing the till?” Colm suggested. He was enjoying himself now. It was like being in a play, he supposed, like the one play he’d got dragged into acting in by Bertha back in high school: nervous as hell at the start, hands shaking; then by the third act having the time of his life. He’d actually tried out for another show, got turned down—fortunately. He had a hard time memorizing lines, to tell the truth.

  “Borrowing a little. She called it that, she’d put capital into the church, improvements; she thought she was entitled to take it out. I’m sure she’d have paid it back. We had a few words, I made her understand. But then—that madman, things happening so fast, that Earthrowl, running at her ...” He was waxing eloquent now: the melodious voice, the evangelist’s quaver, gazing at the white ceiling as though a pair of angels would suddenly descend. “Ye have plowed wickedness, Earthrowl,” he intoned. “Ye have reaped iniquity.”

  “The stories differ,” Colm said. “There’s no hard evidence. Nothing to indicate that Earthrowl even hit her. He thinks he bumped a curb in the Graniteworks; that would account for the adhesion in a front tire, a scratch on the bumper. There was nothing to indicate he’d struck a person—no hairs, no fibers.”

  The interview disintegrated then, Turnbull rising up, a meeting he couldn’t miss; if he could be of more help, why, then .. . Oily, sure of himself, the white carpet with its black leather furnishings a metaphor for the man’s mind. Black and white, nothing in between. Colm had picked up some church literature at Bertha’s: anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-black—skin, that is, not furniture. All neatly tied up with quotes from the Bible. He supposed it gave the outsiders a sense of belonging to a group; all the anti’s made them feel positive about themselves.

  On the way out he met a young postwoman, putting the mail in the porch box. When she left, after a surprised “Hello, there, Mr. Hanna,” he riffled through quickly. Bills, bank statements— he appropriated one from a Boston bank—he’d steam it open, get it back in the mail—who would know? A neighbor, getting the wrong mail. There was a letter from a lawyer; he kept that, too, stuck them inside his jacket. Jeez, a lime-green jacket, he was a vision in Technicolor—Ruth would laugh. He’d steam the letters at her house. He was in the mood for a doughnut. Coffee. The good smells of her farm kitchen. Anyway, he had something else on his mind. He wanted her to go to the Valley Fair with him Saturday—after milking, of course. Take in the sights, eat some of that cotton candy. Go necking, maybe, on one of the whirly wheels. She’d scream, cling to him, and—

  “Jeez,” he moaned. “Oh, jeez.”

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Emily was enthralled with the fair. She’d been summers to the local Field Days but never to the big statewide fair. There’d always been so much to do at home, in the barn, in the fields. Now, with Adam at her side, looking gorgeous with his blond hair tied back with a black grosgrain ribbon, the black STEPPENWOLF T-shirt he’d bought at a stall and slipped on over his red-tailed hawk T-shirt, the tight black jeans and Birkenstock sandals—oh, it was heaven. Simply heaven. And oh, the sounds and smells and colors! The
cotton candy that was spreading now, like thick pink moss, over Adam’s chin, the odor of popcorn, fried chicken, even the familiar animal dung. The neon dazzle of the rides, the voices hawking games: “Three shots for a dollar—pick out your stuffed animal!” Adam won an enormous furry Pooh bear by tossing a quarter into a plate in the center of a tent; she couldn’t do it, her quarter bounced out each time. “You’re the only one did it this afternoon,” the vendor told Adam, and she glowed in his small triumph, was thrilled when he presented it to her with a mock bow.

  She felt giddy, she felt free; chores, jobs, schoolwork dropped away with each moment of Adam’s company. They watched the parade: A clown tossed a lollipop at her and she stuck it in her mouth, sucked down its cherry sweetness. They watched the horse pull: sturdy draft horses pulling flat sleighs full of concrete—two pounds of rock for each pound of horseflesh—it was like old-time farming, a man said behind her. “That’s how it was clearing land two hunnert years ago, and no tractors, by God.” She felt the immensity of it, the smallness of the self among all these people who were descended from Russian, Irish, Polish, Hungarian immigrants. She thought of them coming over in steerage with small hard potatoes and smelly cheeses in their flour sacks. Even a dozen people with Humane Society placards protesting the horse pull didn’t lessen her joy.

  Or the thought of rattlesnakes, when Adam said, “This is tame. I’m for the snake pit.”

  “Why not?” she said, feeling a frisson of cold in her spine. She let him pull her over to a tent that announced the West Texas Rattlesnake Show. They took adjoining seats close to the arena where a man in a white cowboy hat was stuffing a diamondback snake into a plastic tube. “Believe me, folks, they live better than I do,” he bawled through the loudspeaker, and the crowd laughed. He told them that almost four hundred years ago Samuel de Champlain sent a dispatch to his native France from the Champlain Valley in Vermont, saying, “The snakes in this new world have bells on their tails.” The crowd roared and clapped. And Emily felt history humming around her.

  It was a scaly copper and brown snake, maybe two feet long— the snake man displayed its rattle, and Emily could hear the ratatat hiss; it sounded like a playing card stuck in a window fan. There were nine more snakes in a plastic garbage pail, waiting to be hooked up with a long-handled prong and shown to the crowd. They came from a man in rural Texas who was known as Rattlesnake Jim. He got his rattlers, the snake man said, by dragging them out from under the houses. There were as many as two or three hundred rattlers for every house! Emily gasped, while Adam laughed and wriggled out onto the edge of his seat, eyes squinting, to see the reptiles. It was as though he loved the danger of it. For a time he seemed to forget she was there.

  After a while, though, she was ready to leave; the snakes were getting to her. She wished they hadn’t gotten that front-row seat! “Let’s go to the petting zoo,” she suggested. Even now, at almost eighteen, she loved the petting zoo at Field Days. The soft snuggly bunnies, the goats with their silly pointed beards like Chinese mystery men, the peacocks unfurling green and blue tails like giant fans, the sweet baby lambs and chicks. Who could resist?

  But Adam said there was no time for the petting zoo if they were to eat supper at his friend’s place and get to the rock concert by eight o’clock. And didn’t she want at least one ride—on that Flip’n Out?

  Of course she did. Anything to get out of the snake pit and back into the good smells and sights and shouts of the fairgrounds. Back to the rides: the great slide, the Ferris wheel, the bumping cars, the roller-coaster, and oh, the Flip’n Out.

  “Come on, scaredy pants, you’ll love it,” Adam said. “You’ll be with me. I won’t let you fall out.” And he didn’t, of course, though she thought she’d lose the hot dog she’d eaten for lunch, the cotton candy—it felt queasy in her stomach. Up and over and under in the long shiny bucket—for that’s what it looked like, felt like, a bucket on the John Deere tractor, recklessly hurling itself into space. Even with Adam’s arm tight around her waist she was a rocket heading for a black hole somewhere. “Adam! Make it stop! I’m getting sick!”

  But Adam just laughed, held her tighter; she was on a one-way flight, the wind shrieking in her ears. . . .

  Back down on the ground, she was physically sick. There was a Porta Potti nearby; she barely made it, heaved up everything, the basin was pink with throw-up. Afterward she was spent, she let an amused Adam lead her to the car; she didn’t know where he was taking her, she was in his hands.

  “Jesus,” she heard him say, as he yanked her along. “Your mother and that guy. Get in the car!” She caught a glimpse other mother and Colm Hanna, climbing out of his blue Horizon, along with Vic and his friend Gerry Dufours. Oh no, she thought, she’d told her mother she was spending the day and then the night with a friend. She’d told her Adam wasn’t coming, after all. Now Vic was waving, hollering her name; bad luck. She pretended not to see him, ducked into the white Volvo. Adam threw her bag and the Pooh bear he’d won for her in the backseat—it was crowded with stuff, something spilled on the floor. She tried to clean it up and he said, “My talc, I’ll do it later,” and she shrugged. They careened out of the grassy parking lot, onto the highway; she leaned back against the seat. It was as though she were on that Flip’n Out again: She gave up all control.

  When they parked on a side street minutes later, she gave him her hand, let him lead her up three flights of stairs. He had a key, he turned it in the lock and they were in a medium-sized room, its walls and windows hung with tie-dyed sheets. Adam flicked a switch and a dozen red and blue bulbs lit up. The room smelled of pot, and for a quick moment Emily wished she were back on the Flip’n Out, soaring up into clean, bright space.

  Adam went into the bathroom, stayed there for what seemed a long time, and when he came back, she saw he was bare-chested. “Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

  “With you in the room?” he teased, and she smiled. She took the Pepsi he thrust at her—he was pouring something into it from a green bottle. She put up a hand to protest, she was still woozy from the rides; but when he looked at her, with scolding lips, she tasted the drink. It was bitter, but afterward, warm in her stomach. She felt more relaxed now, a little relaxed, anyway, in this strange one-room apartment; she sat down on the king-sized bed—there wasn’t another place to sit in the room, except on the floor. Adam dropped down beside her, leaned back on a pillow, sipped his drink. His eyes looked bleary, tired, and she wondered what he’d been doing in the bathroom, if he was on something. She and her school friends didn’t do drugs—maybe it was their 4-H training.

  “Your eyes look old,” she said. “Old and wise, like Father Time.”

  “Not me. I’ll never be old,” he said. “Trevor didn’t get old. He didn’t have a chance.”

  “Trevor? Who’s Trevor?” she said. He was sounding maudlin—the alcohol seemed to do that to him, it made him maudlin. She pushed close beside him on the bed, she could feel his lungs working through the thin ribs. “My brother,” he said. “Was.”

  She said, “What? You never told me you had a brother.” “I couldn’t. Not till now,” he said. “I tried once—but it hurt... . We were born the same day, November seventh. Weird.” He turned his head away from her, seemed to drift into another world. He groped for an apple he’d brought, bit into it.

  She propped herself up on her elbows, amazed. “You were twins? You never said!” Twins were like one person. When one fell in love, the other fell in love. When one died, the other .. . What had he said about not getting old? What was he thinking of? “What? What happened, Adam?”

  He offered her the apple and she bit into it, it was warm and sweet-tasting where he’d eaten.

  “Not twins,” he said. “We were half-brothers. My father was in love with another woman the time I was born—she had his son. Then when my mother died, he married her—the other woman, Julie’s her name—she was good to me. That’s what was so weird about it, so sort of... predestined. She brought Tre
vor to the marriage, we pretty much grew up together. I didn’t know we were half-brothers till I was eighteen! Then they told me. We were close right from the start. Trevor had brown hair. When I was twelve I dyed my hair brown. I wanted to be Trevor. Sometimes ... I was.”

  “Really?” She couldn’t imagine wanting to be Vic and run around chasing stars and chickens. She gave back the apple, and Adam turned it around to the place where she had eaten. He bit into it with a crunching sound.

  “You can’t imagine what he was like. He had smarts, more than me. Great looks—the girls went bonkers over him. He played the piano, the guitar—like the music came out of his soul. That was Trevor—all soul. We did everything together. Music, drugs, we thought alike. If he wanted to leave a party, it just took one look and we were gone. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It was his car, the old Volvo. And then—then he fell for that girl, that Carol....”

  She was beginning to understand. The girl took Trevor away. Adam was hurt. Alone. It was like he was half a soul. Oh, the loneliness! She wanted to help him, to show him he wasn’t alone, that he had her. She didn’t want him to talk about Trevor anymore. She’d be his Trevor. She stroked his chest, traced the soft hairs down to his belly button. She felt bold now, needy, like she was swimming through wild seas. She unbuckled his belt and he let her; he lay back like a baby. She slipped her hand down into his underpants, felt the thick wiry hairs. He was still eating the apple. She touched his penis. It was like a small animal, pulsing, growing under her hand. She felt her own chest expand, her breasts taut and heavy, like a whole tree full of apples.