Golden Malicious (Apple Orchard Mystery)

by Connolly, Sheila

  “Hey, Max, want to come with me?” Max jumped up and put his paws on the fence, panting. She took that as a yes. “Okay, let me find a leash for you and we’ll go over to my house.”

  She found a long leash hanging on a nail on a wall near the pen, then let Max out and attached the leash to his collar. “Let’s go, boy.”

  Max willingly followed her to the car and jumped into the backseat. Meg wondered just what was going on. She pulled out her phone and tried all Seth’s numbers: no answer at any of them. What now? Water for Max, first. Could she leave him in her house? She still had errands to do, but she couldn’t take Max along and leave him in the car.

  She headed home, then opened the back door for Max to jump out, and led him in the back door. Seth’s van was not parked in her driveway, eliminating one hope. Bree was still in the kitchen, and she looked surprised to see Max.

  “What’s up?”

  “No sign of Seth, but Max was outside in his pen, and I don’t think Seth would have left him out all day, in this heat.”

  Finally Bree registered some concern. “That’s not like Seth. I can see him blowing off Donald, but not Max.”

  “You haven’t heard anything?”

  “Nope. You still going to do those errands?”

  “I thought I would, and I might swing by town hall to see if they know if Seth was working on something for the town. Can you keep an eye on Max? I shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

  “Sure, no problem. He’s good company.”

  Meg set off again, this time toward town. Might as well stop at town hall before buying food, which would wilt in minutes if it sat in her car in the sun. She pulled into the small parking lot at the side and went in the front door. “Hi, Sandy,” she greeted the woman at the desk inside.

  “Hey, Meg. What brings you here?”

  “I’m looking for Seth. Have you seen him today?”

  “Nope, but he’s not here every day. You probably know his schedule better than I do. Did you need something in particular?”

  Meg debated about how to answer that without sounding like a nervous idiot. “He missed an appointment this morning, and that person called me looking for him—I didn’t know what to tell him.” Then she recalled that Seth had mentioned something about checking for bootleg power lines. “Wait—were you the person who was looking at those electric bills? Something about someone siphoning off electricity? Would he be working on that?”

  “He told you about that?” Sandy looked surprised. “Normally it wouldn’t be noticeable, but with everybody pulling power for their air-conditioning at the moment, we’re pretty much up to maximum usage, and every bit counts.”

  “I hadn’t even realized we had a municipal system until Seth told me.”

  “Sure—always have, since about 1900. None of the bigger companies has offered the town a better deal. Most of the time we don’t pay much attention to it—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?—but this little jump showed up, and I started looking back and found it had been going on for a while, so I told Seth. He said he’d look into it, but he didn’t seem to think it was urgent.”

  “Sounds about right.” If it wasn’t urgent, there was no reason for Seth to have ditched his appointment with Donald, who was paying him, to run around the back roads looking for unauthorized power lines. “Any other fallout from this drought, for the town?”

  “Fire company’s been keeping busy. Doesn’t take much to start a fire these days, and then it moves fast because everything’s so dry.”

  “I know—there was a small one near my place a couple of days ago. It was the first time I’d seen the fire department in action. I thought they did a great job—showed up fast.”

  “I think they’re still grateful for the new municipal building the town put up a couple of years ago, so they’re on their best behavior. Anything else I can do for you, Meg?”

  “No, I don’t think so. If you see Seth, tell him Donald was looking for him. Of course, maybe they’ve already connected by now. I’ll let you get back to work, Sandy.”

  “Good to see you, Meg.” The phone rang and Sandy turned to answer it, so Meg left. She braced herself to step from the relatively cool interior of the town hall building to the sweltering heat outside, and she stopped on the top step for a moment to adjust. The town hall building, once a gracious Victorian summer home, sat on a rise, and below her lay the town green, ringed with sugar maples. Meg felt a pang of alarm: how far away was the town forest and park? If there were insects there, would the trees around the green fall within the mandatory clearance area? Would the state come in and take down the maples? That would be a true loss to the town, stripping it of one of the more appealing aspects.

  She returned to her car and made her rounds, picking up food and other necessary supplies. It was after four when she returned. Bree came out as Meg was unloading the car.

  “Let me grab those,” Bree said, reaching for some bags.

  “Thanks. No word?” Meg didn’t elaborate; she didn’t need to.

  “Nope. Not at town hall?”

  “No.” They shuttled their burdens into the house and distributed them, mainly in the refrigerator. When they were done, Meg said, “I’m going to call Art.”

  “Isn’t that kind of extreme? I mean, seriously—it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.”

  “Maybe, but Art’s our friend, and he knows Seth. I’ll just ask if he’s seen him. Maybe something came up about David Clapp and he talked to Seth.”

  Bree shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

  Meg went to the cooler front of the house and speed-dialed Art’s personal number.

  “What?” he barked. “Oh, sorry, Meg, I didn’t see it was you. Problem?”

  “I can’t find Seth.” It sounded stupid to her ears even as she said it.

  “What do you mean, you can’t find him?” Art sounded exasperated, and Meg couldn’t blame him.

  “He missed an early appointment at Donald’s, and nobody’s seen him today. And he left Max outside his place in the heat.”

  “Huh. Doesn’t sound like Seth.” Art’s tone changed to one of concern.

  “You haven’t seen him or heard from him?” Meg asked, trying not to sound pathetic.

  “Nope, not today, but that’s not unusual. He took the van?”

  “He did—his car’s at his place, but I haven’t seen the van anywhere.”

  “I’ll keep my eye out for it, then, but apart from that there’s not much I can do. We’ve got plenty of other problems—mostly small fires popping up.” He covered the phone with his hand and yelled something at someone else, then returned. “Sorry, Meg, gotta go. I’m sure Seth’ll turn up.” He hung up, leaving Meg listening to dead air.

  What was she supposed to do now? Other than worry?

  24

  All right, admit it, Meg—you’re scared. Seth wouldn’t just walk away from his responsibilities, even if he wanted to, so for him to be out of touch this long meant he had to be in some sort of trouble. But what on earth could she do? She’d called everyone she could think of; she’d looked for him at his house, and she could see his workplace from where she sat, so she knew he wasn’t at either. Unless he was deliberately hiding in his own basement and avoiding people, there weren’t a lot of other places to look for him. Besides, he wouldn’t have abandoned Max. Something had to be wrong.

  She jumped when the phone she was still holding rang in her hand. She recognized the number. “Art?”

  “Yeah. I found Seth’s van—it’s parked a few yards off the road that runs north of town, heading toward the Butterfield house. No sign of Seth, but I don’t have time to check it out—there’s a fire west of there that’s blowing smoke over the highway, and I’ve got to go direct traffic.” He hung up abruptly, leaving Meg with a lot of questions.

  She took a deep breath. All right, the location made sense. Seth would probably have taken that road on his way to Donald’s house for his early appointment. But why would he have
stopped, and where could he have gone? Art hadn’t given her much to work with. He’d made it clear that the van hadn’t been in an accident, and even if it had, Seth would have let someone know. Had he left his phone in the van? That might explain why he hadn’t answered all day. But if whatever it was had happened early in the day, on his way to meet Donald, why hadn’t he surfaced by now? Had he gone for a walk in the woods and gotten lost? Unlikely: Seth had grown up roaming these woods, and he knew his way around. And why would he have stopped if he was on his way to an appointment?

  Meg checked her watch again. It was past four, so there would be at best four hours of daylight left. She could go find the van, since Art had said it was just off the road, but what was she supposed to do when she found it?

  Max. Meg almost hit herself in the forehead. She had Seth’s dog, who would no doubt be eager to help find his master. He wasn’t a trained tracker, but he could find Seth, couldn’t he?

  “Bree?” she called out.

  “Yo?” Bree replied from upstairs, then came tumbling down the back stairs. “What’s up?”

  “Art spotted Seth’s van on the north side of town, empty. He’s busy trying to manage the traffic around some fires up that way, so he couldn’t check it out. I’m going over to where the van is now, and I’m taking Max—maybe he can find something.”

  “You want me to come?” Bree offered.

  Meg was torn. Two sets of eyes could be useful, but Bree probably wasn’t any better at tracking someone in a forest than she was. “Why don’t you stay here and hold down the fort? If you hear from Seth, or anybody else, you can call me.” Meg patted her pocket to reassure herself that her phone was there. “I don’t know how long I’ll be—if Max doesn’t pick up a trail, then I don’t have any other ideas.” Meg took a hard look at Bree. “You think I’m overreacting.”

  “I . . . don’t know,” Bree said reluctantly. “Maybe. But better safe than sorry, so you go ahead. I’ll be here.”

  “Fine.” Meg was itching to head out the door, but she reluctantly acknowledged she didn’t know the roads of Granford all that well, and she should take a look at a map before setting off. She pulled out the most detailed local map book she had and opened it on the kitchen table. Her house lay at the southernmost end of Granford, and Seth’s was maybe a mile north of that. If he had left from his house, how would he have driven to Donald’s? Donald’s house was about as far as you could get from hers, in the northeast corner, and only one local road led in that direction—the road that some idiot driver had been taking far too fast when he swerved and hit Donald’s house.

  The map showed a lot of forest in that direction. Once past the town center, the whole north end of Granford was forested, running up the mountain and on into Amherst. Some of the green areas on the map were marked as state park, or actually, multiple parks. Wasn’t Jonas Nash’s sawmill up that direction? Would Seth have stopped to talk to him and . . . gotten diverted?

  Wait, Meg—are you thinking Jonas might have done something to Seth? She had trouble believing that, but could she say she was a hundred percent sure that Jonas wasn’t involved in David Clapp’s death? He’d known David. If David had come to him after finding a beetle, Jonas could have lashed out at him. But wouldn’t he have done a better job of hiding the body? He had plenty of places to choose from. Meg shook her head to clear it: she had no tangible reason to suspect Jonas Nash of anything, but if she was going that direction, she could swing by the sawmill and see if Seth had been there. Besides, she was running out of ideas: from her brief look at the map, she couldn’t see anything else that would distract Seth on his way to Donald’s house.

  At least she should be able to find the van easily enough, and that was a start. “Come on, Max.” Max looked up at her eagerly from where he had flopped on the kitchen floor. “Let’s go find Seth, okay?”

  The mention of Seth’s name brought Max to his feet. Meg grabbed the leash from the doorknob where she’d hung it and led Max out to her car. He seemed to sense that something was happening, and jumped into the backseat willingly.

  Meg started the car and pulled out of the driveway, heading for Route 202 north. She could tell that there were fires somewhere nearby: the heat haze that had become normal was now intensified by a smoky smell, even through the air-conditioning, and the air seemed hazy. She wondered where the actual fire was. Or was there more than one? Art had said that it was close enough to the highway for the smoke to affect driving. He had sounded harried, and he wasn’t even a firefighter, but he did have to manage the situation and make sure that the fire trucks had clear access by road. What if the fires were far off the road? Meg had no idea how anyone would handle those. Contain them and let them burn themselves out?

  The air grew thicker, with a peculiar yellow cast. Max whined in the backseat—picking up on her anxiety, or troubled by the unfamiliar smells? In the center of town, rather than follow the highway Meg turned on a smaller local road that she knew led north and would intersect with the road leading to Donald’s house. She could only hope that it wouldn’t lead her into the fire’s path.

  There were few other cars on the road. She easily spotted Seth’s van after she’d made the turn onto the second road and passed beyond the small cluster of houses and a cemetery near the intersection. Art had misspoken: the van was not pulled onto the verge, but rather, it was turned into what looked like the beginning of an overgrown, unpaved lane, perpendicular to the road. She pulled up behind it and got out of the car. There was smoke in the air, but not too thick. Nothing but silent woods in sight. She made her way over to the van and peered inside. Nobody there—no surprise. The doors weren’t locked; the keys weren’t in the ignition. The parking brake was engaged. She would have laughed at herself if she hadn’t been so worried. What had she expected? Signs of a struggle? Bloodstains? She had to shut her eyes for a moment at that thought. Meg, you’re getting too far ahead of yourself. Obviously Seth had parked here and then gone . . . somewhere.

  Meg stepped back from the van and looked around her. There was nothing resembling a path, except for the rutted lane, which didn’t look as though it had seen much use anytime recently. Still, it was a sign of civilization, and it led away from the road, deeper into the woods. Whose land was this? Meg wondered. Where was the nearest house? She had no idea.

  Still in the car, Max began barking, probably annoyed at being ignored. She went back to the car to let him out, making sure his leash was securely attached to his collar—all she needed was to lose the dog in the woods now. She wasn’t sure Max would come to her if she called. She knelt down in front of him and looked him in the eye, glad there was no one to see her acting so foolish. “Max, find Seth. Got it?”

  Max barked again, once, and set off along the lane, pulling hard on the leash, and Meg had to rush to keep up. She should have changed back into her work clothes, including her work boots, before setting off. Her sneakers were adequate, but she kept tripping over roots and fallen saplings, which in turn slowed Max down as he strained forward. After a few minutes she forced him to stop, which he did reluctantly, and listened for a moment. Nothing, save a crackle in the underbrush off to one side that could be any of a number of small woodsy creatures. There was no wind here in the trees. No sound of cars or planes—or sirens. Max barked again, startling a large black crow that took off with a squawk, flapping noisily.

  What do you think you’re doing, Meg? she asked herself. You’re a city girl, lately an apple farmer, but right now you’re bumbling around without a clue. She might be the least qualified person in Granford to find someone in the woods.

  Still, she had to do something, and this was the only thing she could think of. Max was still pulling on his leash, so she let him have his head again. He was intent on following the rough lane, which was good—if they set off cross-country through the trees, she’d be hopelessly lost in minutes. After a while she noticed what she assumed were electric wires, strung on poles parallel to the lane. She hadn’t noti
ced them before. Did that mean that someone actually lived in this direction? Seth had guessed that someone might be bootlegging electricity from the town—maybe that was what he had been pursuing when he had walked into the woods and disappeared. If he had walked into the woods. What if this was just some huge scam, designed to make it look as if he had disappeared, when in reality he had been skimming funds from the town for years and was at this moment on a plane for some island paradise with no extradition, with a healthy bank account waiting for him?

  Meg, you’re getting hysterical! Something like that was completely beyond Seth Chapin. Honest, decent, hardworking, caring, efficient, responsible Seth Chapin. He had to be here somewhere. Max certainly thought so, as he kept pulling her forward, deeper into the woods. The lane followed a more or less straight path, shifting now and then around a tree that had probably been there for a century or more. Meg tried to visualize the map, but all she could remember was a lot of green space at this end of town. Maybe she could pull out her smartphone and call up a map app and zero in on any structures nearby with aerial photographs. Maybe she should have thought of that before she set off on this insane hike. As it was, the phone screen was too small to be of much help, and if the aerial images were current, all she would see would be the tree canopy. Lots of trees, in full leaf, which would block the view of anything on the ground.

  How long had she been following this blasted lane, and how far had she gone? A half-mile? A mile? She had no idea. Max had not lost enthusiasm, and finally she noticed what looked like a thinning of the trees ahead. Another minute and she realized it was a clearing. When she emerged into the open space, she saw that in the center was a ramshackle wooden building that hadn’t seen paint in a long time, if ever. It was more than a shack but something less than a house. It looked as though it had been thrown together from whatever scrap materials had been handy, and it was weathered so that it blended into the background.