Golden Malicious (Apple Orchard Mystery)

by Connolly, Sheila

  “Firmly in the middle, I’d say. You’re probably more cautious than I am.”

  “True. But I like your enthusiasm.” Seth was certainly more upbeat than Meg was, and his positive attitude drew people to him with their problems. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? “On a less cheerful topic, has anybody heard anything new about that dead man?”

  Seth shook his head. “I touched base with Art briefly today. He still thinks Marcus is going to write it off as an accidental death. In the absence of any real evidence, he can’t prove otherwise.”

  Meg sighed. “I suppose it makes sense, but it feels . . . unfinished, I guess.”

  “There’s nothing for us to do,” Seth replied. “You don’t really want this death to be a murder, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. I just don’t like unexplained deaths,” Meg said.

  Nicky appeared with a tray full of colorful summer salads, house-made breads, cheeses, and sliced fruits, so talking stopped for a while. When the platter was bare, Meg leaned back, content. “This was exactly what I needed. Especially having someone else do all the peeling and slicing.”

  “I agree,” Seth said. “Dessert, or are you ready to go home?”

  “Home, I guess. I need to check in with Bree about the plan for tomorrow. You don’t happen to have any rain gods on your buddy list, do you?”

  Seth smiled. “Sorry, no. You’re on your own there. Ready?” He tossed some bills on the table and stood up.

  Walking outside, the heat felt like a slap in the face. It was fully dark, but the temperature hadn’t dropped more than a couple of degrees. Global warming? It wasn’t just highs and lows; it was extremes everywhere. Early snowstorms that ripped limbs off of trees because they were still covered with leaves. Torrential rains that dumped a foot of water in a day. There had even been a tornado that ripped through Brimfield and Monson, too close for comfort. What was next? A plague of locusts? Frogs falling from the sky? It all felt wrong.

  “You’re quiet,” Seth commented as they made the short drive home.

  “I’m thinking about apocalyptic disasters,” Meg replied.

  “Indigestion?”

  “No, just frustration. I may be doing what my local forebears did in the orchard, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have to contend with such weird weather.”

  They pulled into her driveway. Lights in the kitchen indicated that Bree was home and probably still up. “You coming in?” Meg asked.

  “Sorry, but I’ve got some sketches to make before I go back over to Donald’s in the morning. Rain check?”

  “Of course—but bring some rain with you, please. Are you driving the van home?”

  “No, it’s loaded up and ready for tomorrow. I’ll walk—maybe it’ll be cooler that way.”

  “Be safe,” Meg said. She watched him walk away until he disappeared into the darkness, then turned to go in the back door.

  As she had suspected, Bree was sitting at the kitchen table with various farm catalogs and computer printouts spread out in front of her. She looked up when Meg walked in. “You alone?”

  “You mean, is Seth here? No, he went home. Bree, do you have a problem with him being around?”

  “No, not really. At least he cleans up after himself. I’m just trying to figure out where you two are going with this.”

  First Rachel, and now Bree? Meg wasn’t sure how to answer her. “Why can’t we just go on the way we are?”

  Bree shrugged. “If it works for the two of you. Look, I’m no expert. Michael and I see each other a couple of times a week, maybe, and we’re good with that. I’m not going to go all gooey and say he’s ‘The One’”—Bree made air quotes—“but you and Seth are different. Older.”

  “Bree, we’re not exactly ancient. I’m less than ten years older than you.”

  “Yeah, but you’re still different. Traditional. So’s Seth—he likes to do things by the book, even if the book was written in 1873. I think it’s kind of sweet.”

  Meg wrestled with how to respond. Bree probably saw them more clearly than they saw themselves. And since she was living under Meg’s roof, she had a right to be interested. But Meg had no easy answers for her. “Uh, okay. Look, if we decide to make any changes, you’ll be the first to know. This is your home, and I owe you that.”

  “No, this is your home, and I happen to live here. No offense, but I never assumed this was permanent. I mean, I like living here, and it’s convenient, but things can change and I’m cool with that.”

  “Would you move in with Michael?”

  “Not where he’s living now, that’s for sure. But I don’t think I feel the same way about him as you do about Seth.”

  Which was how? Meg didn’t voice the question. She wasn’t conducting a survey, asking other people to define her relationship with Seth. Things were good the way they were—for now. Weren’t they?

  She decided to change the subject. “How was the movie?”

  “Cool. Thermodynamically, that is, not cinematically. That’s what counted.”

  “What’s all this?” Meg asked, waving at all the papers on the table.

  “The water pump for the spring is acting up, and I’m trying to see if there’s an easy fix, or if we should just give up on it and replace it if it’s way past its useful life.”

  One more expense she didn’t need. “Does that mean we have to make a decision about the whole irrigation system, if we have to replace the pump?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. You should ask Christopher, or ask him to recommend somebody who can give you an opinion. And an estimate. I wish there was a better way to handle this, Meg, but we’ve been using the pump a lot this summer because it’s been so dry, and I think it’s just been too much for the poor thing. If we get more rain, we might be able to keep it going until next year.”

  “So if we use it too much now, it might give out. But if we don’t, the crop will suffer, and even some of the trees.”

  “That’s about it. Ain’t farming grand? You fix one thing, and something else blows up.”

  “Sounds about right. Remind me again why we do this?”

  “People gotta eat.”

  The landline phone rang, and Meg recognized Christopher’s number. “Hi, Christopher. Were your ears burning? Bree and I were just talking about you. Why are you calling so late? Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing that you need to worry yourself about, Meg, but I thought you’d like to know that the experts have found more small infestations by the Asian longhorned beetle in Granford, at Nash’s sawmill and the town park, and the identification for both is confirmed. You’ve been vindicated, although it’s not happy news for forest owners in the vicinity. I wondered if you’d like to tour our research facility here and see how we address the problem?”

  “Sounds interesting—when were you thinking?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Meg looked at Bree and mouthed, “Tomorrow?” Bree nodded and mouthed back, “Afternoon.”

  Meg spoke into the phone again. “Bree gives me permission to come over in the afternoon. What time is good for you?”

  “Say, two o’clock?”

  “Great. And if you have a little spare time, there’s something else I’d like to talk with you about.”

  “I’ll see if I can arrange it. See you tomorrow, Meg.”

  “What’s up?” Bree asked.

  “He says they’ve found more of the Asian longhorned beetles in Granford. I’m still not sure what that means, but it doesn’t sound good. Christopher’s going to show me the research labs at UMass. Although I’m not sure how much I really want to know about those insects—they are kind of big.”

  “Nice to know you were right, isn’t it?”

  “I guess, although I think I’d rather have been wrong. I’m going up to bed now—we’ll be busy in the morning, right?”

  “Right. Unless and until it rains.”

  11

  The next day, the weather hadn’t changed. Meg had never thought she’d
be tired of seeing blue sky, but then, she hadn’t been a farmer before. In this July’s persistent heat she found herself getting up earlier and earlier in the day simply because it was cooler then, and she could enjoy a cup of hot coffee and a light breakfast. Often she wandered out to visit with the goats—and more important, refill their water trough. Even they were less frisky these days, usually resting in the shade of their shed all day long.

  Meg trudged silently up the hill to where Bree waited with the water tank attached behind the tractor, parked next to the spring house. She was almost afraid to look at the trees: would she recognize water stress if she saw it? To her inexperienced eye, there were fewer apples ripening than there had been the year before, but Bree had told her that that could happen with fruiting trees with or without drought. And setting fruit was unpredictable even under the best of circumstances. From her own reading she knew that in the early twentieth century Baldwins had been the orchard apple of choice, but they had one serious flaw: the trees bore only every other year. When the Hurricane of 1938 had severely damaged a lot of orchards, many farmers had opted to replace the Baldwins with more dependable Macintosh trees—with a sigh of relief, Meg surmised. It was, after all, a business, with no room for sentiment. You could count on Macintosh apples. Meg found them a bit boring, though, and enjoyed her few heirloom varieties, glad that they were gaining in popularity in regional farmer’s markets. It would be a real shame to let them all die out.

  Standing next to the springhouse, or more accurately, houses—one older, where the spring had emerged naturally who knew how long ago, and one newer, which housed the pump and connecting equipment they were using—Meg turned to survey her domain. The Great Meadow looked deceptively green. It was still damp enough to encourage plants, but Meg knew that in a normal year, there would be standing water and it would more closely resemble a swamp, with abundant cattails. Already the air was hazy in the distance, even though the sun had barely cleared the tree line to the east.

  “You ready?” Bree asked.

  “I guess. How long do we have to keep doing this?”

  “It depends on the weather, duh. In the long run, normally I’d test at intervals. There are lots of factors in determining how much water your orchard needs, including your soil type, the kind of tree, and whether it’s new or well-established. Then there’s how long and how much to irrigate. It’s a complex calculation, not just ‘water from eight to ten every day.’”

  “Have I mentioned lately how glad I am to have you on board, Bree? Because I’ve still got an awful lot to learn.”

  “You’re lucky to have me, and I’m lucky to have Christopher nearby for backup. Although he’s pretty busy these days, which is good for him and for the university, but he’s harder to pin down. What are you two doing this afternoon?”

  “Are you jealous? I told you, he said he’d show me the insect research labs at the university, as a treat in return for my first sighting of this ALB creature. I’m not sure I relish the idea of spending time in a lab surrounded by large insects, but he thought he was doing me a favor, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Besides, I can pump him for more information on irrigation.”

  “That is a bad pun.”

  “What? Oh, sorry. I will explore our irrigation options with him, okay?”

  “Sure. I love free advice.”

  Five hours later Meg and Bree had finished watering, but Meg was surprised when Bree headed the tractor back to the springhouse. She followed obediently. Bree attached one hose to the coupling—then turned the hose on her, drenching her.

  “What was that about?” Meg demanded, laughing, when Bree cut off the water.

  “I haven’t given you my hyperthermia lesson yet, and I want to make sure you remember.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hyperthermia. Heatstroke. Heat stress, heat fatigue, heat exhaustion. Call it whatever you want, but when you’re working outside for hours in weather like this, you’re at risk.”

  “Okay,” Meg said cautiously. “How would I know?”

  “You stop sweating, for one thing. You may feel faint or dizzy. You could have cramps if you lose too much salt. Oh, and of course your temperature goes up—way up.”

  Meg shook water out of her hair. “Thank you so much for telling me now. Why’d you wait so long?”

  “Because it hasn’t been this hot for this long before. Anyway, it can creep up on you, so pay attention. Keep drinking water, and splash some on yourself. Or I’ll have to turn the hose on you again.”

  “I bet you loved that,” Meg muttered. “Okay, okay, I’ll be careful. Right now I’m going to go get lunch.”

  Meg went back to the house, while Bree returned the tractor to the barn. She found sandwich fixings—and remembered to rehydrate herself, now that she’d done it for her trees. One more thing learned. Heatstroke was not something one faced on the streets of Boston, and it never would have occurred to her. She checked her watch and finished her sandwich quickly. Despite Bree’s drenching, she still wanted to grab a real shower before heading to Amherst to meet Christopher.

  On the ride to Amherst she reveled in the brief time spent in her air-conditioned car, and upon arrival, she felt lucky to find a parking space fairly close to Christopher’s office. Even so, she was dripping with sweat by the time she reached the building that housed his department.

  When she presented herself at his door, he was quick to commiserate. “Ah, you poor child. You New Englanders are ill accustomed to this weather.”

  “While you look ridiculously cool,” Meg retorted. “I hear good things about this newfangled air-conditioning stuff.”

  “Your house is not air-conditioned?”

  “It hadn’t been invented in 1760, and nobody’s bothered to update the place. It’s on my wish list, and I’ll probably get to it in maybe five years, assuming my apple trees survive this drought. I’ve got one cranky window unit in my bedroom, but I’ve got too much to do to spend time hiding out in that room just to keep cool. At least Bree’s room has cross-ventilation, which mine doesn’t.”

  “Why don’t you sit and cool off for a few minutes before I take you down to the lab? You said there was something else you wanted to talk about?”

  “Yes, there is. Can you tell me why, in all the years you managed the orchard for the university, you never installed an irrigation system?”

  Christopher smiled. “Believe me, I thought about it. But it’s a rather convoluted history. There was an experimental orchard on this campus, years ago, but those in higher positions decided that they needed that land for a new dormitory. I argued that having full-time access to an orchard was important to our agriculture program here, and that was when the lease arrangement with your family came about, as a compromise solution.”

  “I think you told me about that, when I first took over the place. And?”

  “So we had our orchard, but since the university did not own the land, they declined to invest in any capital improvements, such as installing an irrigation system. Besides, I had plenty of free labor available from the ag students, so it did not seem as urgent as some other projects.”

  “What about the spring and the pump there?”

  “That, my dear, was the fruit of some creative bookkeeping—I think I labeled it something like ‘Supplies.’ It was the best I could do at the time.”

  “Well, thank you for that, at least. Still, Bree and I are spending a whole lot of time and energy trying to keep the trees irrigated, and we’re exhausted. But I can’t afford to install a system this summer.”

  “I truly sympathize. What about this: perhaps I can corral some students who are around this summer and ask them to help out? And I’m more than happy to assist you in planning for a system next year.”

  “If my trees survive that long,” Meg muttered glumly. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. You’ve been a terrific help. I’m just hot and tired and frustrated. Be honest with me: is this drought going to
go on? Is this the new normal?”

  “I wish I could tell you, Meg, but I’d have to be God. This is indeed an unusual weather pattern for this region. There are those who argue that this is one manifestation of global warming; others who claim that it is a normal if unfortunate variation from the norm, but all will be well—sometime. It makes little difference to you farmers, on a day-to-day basis.” He looked at her critically. “Are you ready to take the tour, or would you rather sit here a bit longer?”

  “Door Number Two, please. Can you explain what’s going on with this beetle menace, before I go meet them up close?”

  “Of course. How much do you know, so I won’t repeat myself?”

  “I did some online research, so I know the basics, and Bree has filled me in. But the closest infestation has been in Worcester. I didn’t think this thing flew very far or fast, so what’s it doing here?”

  “Worcester is perhaps fifty miles from here, as the crow flies, but I would agree that it didn’t fly here. As I may have already told you, usually the first insects are carried in, in packing crates or other wood products.”

  “Bree said something like that.”

  “I’m glad she’s been paying attention. Unfortunately, most infestations that have been found were well-established before they were noticed. The Worcester site was discovered after the pest had spread some ten miles in all directions, which meant it had begun years earlier. It originated in a packaging center, where many wooden crates passed through. I mention that only to say that the beetle could have arrived in Granford some time ago, but no one was looking for it, so it went undetected. We may never determine the source.”

  “There aren’t people out there monitoring forests for pests like this?”

  Christopher sighed. “Would that it were so. Unfortunately, there is the problem of chronic underfunding and understaffing in cases like this. Most of the insects, including the ones in Worcester, have been found by ordinary homeowners who happened to notice an unusual creature and made an effort to report it—which in itself requires some persistence. It is an imperfect system.”