Death of a Bad Apple (11 page)

He actually blushed, perhaps thinking it was a compliment.

“Any idea how the fire started?” I asked him. Three fires—or more—in such a short period of time certainly had me curious.

He started to answer, but Tiffany cut him off.

“The chief thinks someone set it on purpose. He said some kind of aerosol was used. He smelled it.”

“But they don't know who did it,” Crystal added, “and until this firebug is caught, we're all going to have to stay on high alert.” She started to turn back to Adam, but he had stepped away during our brief chat and was talking to Paula.

Flirting was more like it. Paula kept pawing him and Adam was grinning like an embarrassed teenager.

Crystal frowned.

I glanced at Tiffany, but she wasn't paying attention to any of us. Her eyes were elsewhere. Once again I followed her gaze. She was looking at the man in the shadows.

I was beginning to get creeped out by this guy who called himself Nathan “Appleseed” Chapman. I'd have to ask Dillon to do a little fact-checking on Nathan's so-called credentials and quasi claim to fame. I couldn't help wondering what was going on between him and Tiffany.

There I went again, but then, curiosity came with the territory. It's just that mine often got me into more trouble than I expected.

I headed back to the Dream Puff truck and found Jake packed up and ready to go. The Big Yellow School Bus had already left, and I guessed Aunt Abby and Dillon were waiting for us at the café. As we drove to the restaurant, I told Jake what I'd learned from Crystal—that the fire chief thought the fire was deliberately set. That caused the question: Who was the firebug? And why was he—or she—doing this?
The letters GMO popped up in my mind, and I wondered if that was the underlying cause. Would GMO companies do something this extreme to drive out the apple farmers and take over the business?

“Maybe Wes can make some sense of all this when he gets here,” Jake said, referring to Detective Shelton, as we pulled up to the large parking lot of the Peel and the Core. The school bus was already parked at the far end of the large lot, along with a number of RVs and other oversize vehicles. Jake drove into an empty double-wide slot alongside the other rigs and shut off the engine.

“Darcy?”

Lost in thought, I looked at him. “Yes?”

He smiled. “I said, I hope you're hungry.”

“Sorry, I didn't hear you. My mind's so scattered with all that's happened today.”

He placed a hand on my knee. “Are you all right? I know you were scared in that maze. But I'm sure the employees keep track of everyone who goes in and comes out. There are probably some secret shortcuts they can use if someone panics or gets injured and needs to get out quickly.”

I thought about Tiffany and Nathan's secret meeting inside the maze. Maybe there
were
some secret
areas that only a few people knew about. But truthfully, being trapped in the maze while thinking it was on fire wasn't foremost on my mind at the moment. I couldn't get over that last image of Tiffany gazing at Nathan, who stood in the shadows. There was something going on between them and I was dying to know what it was.

He squeezed my leg. “Anything else on your mind?”

“What? Oh no, nothing.” Since I didn't have anything concrete about the connection between Tiffany and Nathan, it wasn't worth sharing with Jake again at this point. But I was determined to find out more about them, especially Nathan. His public persona as head of the festival seemed a little too smooth, and I suspected it hid a secret that perhaps Crystal sensed.

“Okay, shall we?” He stood up from the driver's seat and led the way to the side door of his Dream Puff truck. He helped me down the steps, and I waited while he locked the place up. With his hand on my back, he guided me to the café, then held open the door so I could enter.

From the outside, the restaurant looked like an ordinary wood-framed ranch house, only this particular house sported a carved wooden sign that read
WELCOME TO THE PEEL AND THE CORE
. It hung over the front door and featured an apple peel on one side of the lettering and an apple core on the other. I had no idea what to expect when I went inside, but I certainly didn't expect what I got.

The interior looked like an old-fashioned country
store, loaded with knickknacks that were set out on every available surface—windowsills, countertops, shelves, benches, and even the tables. Naturally all of the items featured an apple theme. There were blown glass apples, apple dolls, apple-shaped candles, apple tea towels—you name it, they had it in apple. The walls were painted to look like apple trees with faux branches and papier-mâché apples that appeared to grow out from the tree trunk murals. The place was packed. I could barely hear the country music playing in the background.

Not seeing Aunt Abby and Dillon in the waiting area, I glanced around and spotted them in a booth at the back of the restaurant. They were waving their arms in the air like construction workers at a roadblock. I nodded, pointed them out to Jake, and we headed over.

After navigating around several tables on my way, I sat down next to Aunt Abby and set the apple-red napkin on my lap. “Popular place,” I shouted, hoping they heard me over the noise, loud conversations, and music. “You're lucky you got a table.”

“You can thank Dillon for that,” Aunt Abby said. “He knows one of the waiters. Went to school with him.”

“Nice going, Dillon,” I said.

Dillon's long-haired ponytailed friend came over to take our order. Dillon introduced him simply as J.J. and I thought I recognized him. He turned out to be one of the kids working at the maze. I ordered an apple wine—the only kind of wine they
served—while Jake and Dillon ordered apple beers, and Aunt Abby asked for tea. J.J. promised to return with our drinks and then take our food orders.

I looked over the menu, a stained eight-page booklet, touting all their specialties. Naturally everything had an apple touch. The pork chops came with applesauce, the ham and Swiss sandwich was on apple bread, and the chicken salad combined apples with walnuts. Much like Aunt Abby's school bus menu, the restaurant promised down-home cooking with a twist—apples.

When J.J. returned, I ordered the chicken salad, Jake had the pork chops, and Aunt Abby opted for butternut-apple harvest soup, which sounded delicious. Dillon asked for the burger with a side of apple fries dipped in caramel sauce.

As soon as J.J. walked away from the table, a couple sat down in a booth across from us. I immediately recognized Paula Hayashi and Adam Bramley.

Hmmm.

I held up my menu so they couldn't see me and whispered to the others, “Guess who just sat down behind you guys!” They all began looking around.

“Don't look!” I hissed.

Jake turned back, but Dillon continued to scan the restaurant until he spotted the couple. He shrugged. “So? It's that chick who's staying at the inn with us—the one who found the dead guy's body—and the guy who came and told us about the fire.”

“Shhh!” I hushed him. “They'll hear you!”

Dillon rolled his eyes and took a gulp of his beer.

I peeked at them from behind my menu to see if they had spotted us yet, but they looked deep in conversation. Actually Paula was doing most of the talking while Adam more or less nodded from time to time. It was hard to hear them with all the noise in the café, so I couldn't make out anything they said. From Paula's animated expression and gestures, I wondered what she was so excited about.

After our food arrived, I tried to watch them surreptitiously as I picked at my food, hoping maybe I could make out snippets of their conversation. I even tried to lip-read Paula, but she moved her head too much for me to catch anything. Were they on a date? I wondered. Was Paula actually attracted to this balding, overweight farmer who had to have twenty years on her?

And what was it about older men and younger women in this town?

I was about to give up trying to listen in when I had an idea. Making sure to avoid Paula's view, I signaled Dillon's waiter friend over to our table.

“Is everything okay?” J.J. asked. He looked concerned that we might not be satisfied with our meals. In fact, I had hardly touched mine.

“Oh yes, fine,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I was just wondering if you grew up in Apple Valley.”

“Yeah. Been here my whole life, 'cept when I was at UC Davis. Now here I am with a college degree in business and I'm still waiting tables and working at festivals. Why?”

“I was wondering what your take is on the GMO apple competition.”

He shook his head. “Funny you should ask. One of those GMO companies made my dad an offer he apparently couldn't refuse and he sold the place to them. Shocked the heck out of me. I'd gone to college to learn the business so I could take over the farm, then boom. I come home and there's no more farm.”

“Your dad sold your farm to a GMO company?” I asked, making sure I heard him correctly.

“Yep. Company called Eden Corporation. Most of the other farmers won't sell to them, but my dad said he needed the money so he took it. I think he figured those GMO companies are inevitable, so why not get the best money he could?”

“Do you know what Eden is planning to do with your farm?”

He nodded. “They've already started. They tore down a bunch of the buildings and got rid of the old processing machinery, then replaced everything with all new state-of-the-art stuff.”

“Have you been back to the farm and seen all the changes?”

“Nope. Only driven by. They're being very CIA about it. Everything's like this big secret. It's all fenced now, and I heard they won't let anyone inside that doesn't work for them.”

Interesting, I thought. “Why all the secrecy, do you think?”

J.J. shrugged. “They probably don't want any of the
other farmers to know how they grow the apples. Someone might burn the place down if they knew.” He laughed.

Burn the place down?

“Thanks, J.J.,” I said.

“Sure. Just don't mention I told you any of this. Like I said, a lot of folks around here aren't happy with my dad for selling his farm.”

“I won't,” I said.

“More water or anything?” J.J. asked before leaving us.

We shook our heads. I sneaked a peek at Paula to see if we'd attracted any attention by talking to J.J., but she seemed oblivious of us and enthralled with her dining companion.

“Are you going to eat your dinner?” Dillon asked.

While I'd been talking to J.J., I hadn't noticed that Dillon had wolfed down his dinner, pulled out his laptop, and was typing away on the keyboard.

“Seriously?” I said to him, nodding to the computer. “Can't you just text like everyone else?”

“Yeah, well, while you were pumping J.J., I was doing a little research. I think you're gonna want to hear this.”

“What?” I leaned in to hear him better over the noise.

“Dude, I was just checking out Eden Corporation. The CEO there is some dude named Reuben Gottfried.”

“So?”

“So, here's a picture of him.” Dillon turned the
laptop around so I could see the photograph he was referring to. “Look familiar?”

Aside from the absence of a beard and glasses, he looked a lot like the murder victim, Roman Gold.

Reuben Gottfried. Roman Gold.

Whoa. I started to say something, but Dillon held up a finger. “So then I did a search for Roman Gold. Wanna know what I found?”

Dillon continued to amaze me the way he could find out things few people knew. I had to admit, it was nice having a computer savant in the family, even if he was annoying most of the time.

“Of course! What?”

Dillon gave an “I know something you don't know” smile. So immature.

“Dillon!” I insisted.

“Can I have the rest of your dinner?”

“No!” I snapped, and pulled the plate toward me.

“Then buy me the apple hot fudge sundae and I'll tell you.”

“Deal! Now spill it!”

Dillon hunkered down into his conspiratorial mode and glanced from side to side for spies or whatever. Aunt Abby and Jake leaned forward to hear when he finally began, “Dude, first of all, I couldn't find anyone named Roman Gold in any of the Internet searches I did. I found Roman gold coins, but that's it. Maybe that's where he got the name.”

“So you think Roman Gold is a fake name?”

“Looks that way. But that's not all. I checked the
news outlet he said he was writing for—the
Sacramento Bee
. No one there by that name.”

“Why would he lie about his name and about his job?”

“I did a little more digging,” Dillon continued, but stopped when J.J. appeared to clear our plates. I waited impatiently until he was done. Before he left the table, Dillon put in his order for the hot fudge and apple sundae, and so did Aunt Abby. When J.J. finally left, I leaned in again.

“What else?”

“So, I checked out that chick we were talking about. . . .” He nodded toward Paula.

“Is that a fake name too?” I asked.

“No, it's real,” Dillon said, covering the side of his mouth. “But she's not a photographer for the
Bee
. She's not even a freelance photographer.”

This was getting good.

“Who is she, then? Reuben's wife? Girlfriend? What?”

“She's a VP at Eden Corporation.” Dillon more or less mouthed the words.

“Are you sure?”

“Check it out.” He turned the laptop to reveal her corporate photo. Bingo.

“Wow!” I said, taking it all in. Aunt Abby's eyes were wide with interest. Even Jake looked impressed.

“And guess what?” Dillon added.

“There's more?” I asked, growing irritated at Dillon. Getting information from him was like peeling an apple with a fingernail.

“She works under, Reuben Gottfried. Dude, she's second in command.”