Snoop to Nuts (12 page)

Hawley Harvey wasn’t happy.

“Saw lights on in here, when they shouldn’t be turned on. Wish you ladies would think about the electric bill before coming on over here to sit and gab.”

He frowned and shuffled his feet as we got up to file out past him.

“This is a place of worship, ladies. Not a coffeehouse,” he called after us then slammed the door to the church on us. I heard a key turn.

Since I had to drive Miss Amelia back out to the ranch, I figured I might as well spend the night there. I stopped at the darkened Nut House to run up to my apartment and get a change of clothes for the next day, as well as some files I was looking at—in case I got a chance to work. Martin Sanchez was taking care of the watering and monitoring for what could be disease or bug infestation, but I was beginning to feel the old ache to be with my trees. I’d just started tests on a tree with scab fungicide and desperately wanted to keep close watch and make careful notes.

When we were on our way out to the ranch, I called Hunter to give him the information Selma had given us and ask about news from Tupelo.

Though it was only nine o’clock, Hunter sounded as if he’d been sleeping—maybe in front of the TV. He wakened quickly when he heard my voice.

“Sheriff there told me about Shorty Temple and the years he was in prison. If the parson went to the sheriff’s office about those letters, they’ll have a record. Probably have something by morning. You want me to come by?”

“I’ll be out at the ranch,” I said. “Just call me.”

*   *   *

It felt good to be at home, in my old room. A small, square space I’d plastered with posters of Third Eye Blind and U2 and Wilson Phillips. And a big poster that ran almost to the ceiling of Elvis Presley. Not that I’d had a crush on him or anything. It was Mama, insisting every girl should have a poster of Elvis because she’d been to one of his concerts in Dallas and never forgot it. There was a little bit of a shrine feeling to the room now, Mama not touching it, maybe thinking if she left it just the way it was, I would move back home. The thing with Mama was she didn’t see why I had to move out in the first place. Even though I was finished with college and just about to start the climb up to thirty, Emma figured I should live at home until I was whisked off to Never-Never Land with a charming prince. I still smiled at our confrontation the day I announced that the apartment above the Nut House would suit me just fine. Emma’d been incensed, a daughter of hers, living in town, alone, in that big old Nut House building.

“Why, Lindy Blanchard, what would your daddy say if he was alive to see what you’re doin’?” Mama had demanded, going so far as to stamp her foot.

“Daddy would be saying,
‘You go, girl. Time you got on with living.’
Last thing Daddy would’ve wanted was me waiting around to snag some cowboy of my own.”

That quieted Mama, who knew that was exactly what Jake Blanchard would have said. An independent man, he expected his children to be just as independent and all along planned for me to go to college and follow any path I wanted to follow.

I dug in a dresser drawer for a pair of pajama bottoms and a washed-out T-shirt. After a shower, teeth and hair brushed long enough, I climbed into bed and feel asleep fast, hardly aware that there were no creaking stairs or old aching walls around me.

When I awoke the next morning, the sun was already up. I heard voices coming from the living room. While I lay there stretching in the sunlight coming in the uncovered windows, there was a knock at the door.

“Lindy?” Bethany stuck her head in the door. Her voice trembled. “You gotta come downstairs. Sheriff Higsby’s here talking to Meemaw. Oh, Lindy. There’s more trouble.”

I was out of bed and grabbing clothes from hangers. I figured I’d better take time to wash my face, brush my teeth, and comb my hair, but the jobs were done fast.

Everyone was gathered in the living room. Sheriff Higsby sat hunched forward in a chair that looked too small for him. Miss Amelia sat with her back straight, fierce, pale eyes on the sheriff. Mama and Justin and Bethany stood at different places in the room, all three with their arms crossed in front of them and all three looking mad enough to spit. Jeffrey Coulter hung out near the archway to the front hall. His arms were crossed over his spotless white T-shirt. If a man could be said to look bored in the midst of disaster, Jeffrey was looking miserably bored.

The sheriff struggled to get up when I entered the room. He was burdened with his sidearm and handcuffs and wide belt tucked under his burgeoning stomach. He had difficulty pushing off from the little chair. I waved him to stay seated.

“What’s this about, Sheriff?” I walked over to stand beside my grandmother, my hand on her back.

“Complaint, Lindy,” he said and slapped a clipboard he’d laid on his lap.

“What kind of complaint?”

Miss Amelia looked up at me. “Ridiculous, Lindy. Not worth any of us paying attention to—”

“I’m real sorry I had to bring this out, Miss Amelia. You know I wouldn’t do it if . . . well, it’s part of my job.”

“I understand, Sheriff.” Miss Amelia managed a weak smile.

“I’m asking again, what kind of complaint?” I demanded, feeling as if I were caught in some Alice in Wonderland scene of manners and deportment.

“A dog’s dead.” The sheriff looked down at his clipboard as if hiding embarrassment.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s that got to do with my grandmother? Dogs die every day.”

“Seems the owner thinks he was poisoned. She’s demanding the dog be tested for hemlock.”

“Hemlock? This is crazy . . . Who . . .”

“Freda Cromwell. Called it in last night. Sam had to go over and take a look at the animal.”

“That dog was about nineteen years old, wasn’t he?” Justin, astounded, demanded.

The sheriff nodded. “Freda’s hysterical. Can’t believe King Charles is dead and won’t believe it’s by natural causes. Made a couple of wild statements about spotted hemlock taking out Blanchard enemies. And how she’s been against the Blanchards and they’re turning on her, killing off her dog. She’s even saying she expects to be next.”

“Can’t be soon enough,” Justin growled just at hearing level.

Miss Amelia gave him a look all the kids in the family knew well.

“I can see why poor Freda’s upset,” Miss Amelia said. “That English springer spaniel’s been almost blind for years. You’ve got to give it to Freda, she took good care of him. In a way you could say King Charles was her only close friend.”

“Not just blind, but fat as a sausage,” Justin groused. “How long did she think he was going to live?”

“Now, Justin. Freda’s got her problems—”

“As if you don’t!” Emma was incensed.

“I had to come out here, Miss Amelia.” Sheriff Higsby stood and slapped his clipboard at his side so it rang against his .38. “Miz Cromwell insisted. She’s having the autopsy done today. I’ll call Doc Winslow later. See what he finds.”

“You know what he’s going to find, Sheriff.” Mama stood to lead him to the door. “Unless that poor old blind dog wandered close to the river and chewed on the spotted hemlock, the veterinarian’s going to find nothing but old age.”

The sheriff chuckled on his way out the door. “That’s what I imagine, Miss Emma. And I’ll be sure that news gets around town before Freda gets a posse out after you.”

With the sheriff gone and nobody hungry for breakfast, I thought maybe I could take a couple of hours out in my greenhouse, maybe take a walk through my test gardens where the older cultivars were transplanted and some of the newer ones were being weathered off.

“You want me to call Treenie and ask her to open the store today?” Emma, pushing her cropped hair up with her fingers, asked Miss Amelia.

Meemaw frowned and stood, stretching to her full five feet nine. “Don’t you dare. I’m leaving right now.”

“Mama, nobody would blame you for taking time off. Never imagined people of Riverville would turn like this.”

Miss Amelia made a scoffing sound. “It’s not the ‘people of Riverville,’ Emma. It’s just Freda Cromwell and some others being themselves. If Freda couldn’t find a way to set herself in the middle of a problem, she’d keel over, stick her toes up, and take her last breath.”

“I sure hope you avoid that woman. She comes into the store today, you tell her to get out and stay out.”

Miss Amelia shook her head and lifted an eyebrow at her daughter. “Nope. Why, I’m thinking I’ll pay a condolence call on Freda. Let her know how sorry I am about King Charles.”

She looked around at her family’s shocked faces. “Well, I am sorry for him dying. I always felt bad for old King Charles, living with Freda. I swear, blind or not, that dog would roll his eyes every time he saw me, like he was hoping to be rescued.”

“You’re going to give her a heart attack, she sees you on her front porch,” I warned, only half kidding.

“Think I’ll take her a pecan pie.”

We all laughed.

“Bet you anything gluttony trumps fear of being poisoned,” she added.

I shook my head and made my way out to my truck, then around by the river road to my greenhouse. I could just as well talk to Hunter out there as in the house.

Sometimes the noise people make gets to me. I’m no hermit, but the one thing about trees is they don’t say dumb things. I’ve got no Freda Cromwell tree in my test garden complaining and accusing me of paying more attention to the other trees and crying crocodile tears and telling lies that would get her attention. If I ever had a tree like that, I’d rip it out by its roots and choke the little thing until it turned up its toes . . .

It felt good to walk between stainless steel tables lined with new cultivars in pots of all sizes. The smell of earth and water and the heat of the greenhouse were what I knew best. For the last five years, since getting my master’s in biological and agricultural engineering at Texas A&M, I’d had the same dream. For too many years, growing up on the farm, I’d seen the heartbreak of trees that didn’t bud, of trees riddled with scab fungus or powdery mildew, vein spot,
articularia
leaf mold, and on and on. I’d seen years when the meat inside the pecans turned brown and rotted. Years when pink mold destroyed the crop. The pecan trees were prone to one thing after another, from too much water to none at all, to aphids and other insects burrowing into the bark.

Too many ranchers went far into debt and never recouped their losses. Some lost their farms. If I could stop even part of that heartbreak, all my years of study and hard work would be well worth it.

I reached out to turn a pot and then to brush dirt from the shining tables to the floor. I didn’t hear Martin Sanchez until he was standing behind me.

“Good to see you.” Martin removed his hat and dipped his head.

I returned the greeting.

A short man with a thick head of steely white hair, Martin had a smile that was always wide and warming. As long as I could remember, the Sanchez family had lived in the plain old house that had been the original Blanchard home on the ranch—the place where Jessie and I both grew up.

Martin quickly reported on the new cultivars we’d recently transplanted to the test grove to harden off. “Doing well,” he said. “I’ve cut back on water.”

I nodded. I felt this particular tree, one from California that I’d crossed with the native Pawnee, was showing signs of particular strengths, like a few of the others in my test grove. Not just drought resistance, but resistance to some of the fungus diseases, too.

Martin lingered awhile then said he had to get back out to the groves. He was meeting Justin—a spraying program getting under way.

“But, Lindy . . .” He stopped on his way out through the gleaming tables. “Could you come by the house today? Juanita said if I saw you, I should ask—whenever you can. Jessie told her something. Well, I’ll let her explain. I was only half listening . . .”

I nodded. It would be a pleasure to stop and see Juanita. My mouth watered at the thought of Juanita’s hot chocolate, and maybe a pan de yema, a sweet roll native to Oaxaca, Mexico, where the family was from. If Juanita heard I was coming, she’d have it ready for me. Juanita never failed.

It was close to eleven o’clock when Hunter called and my work for the day was suddenly over.

“You coming back to town? We gotta talk. I’m starving. How about The Squirrel in forty-five minutes? Can you make it?”

“I want to stop and see Juanita first.”

“Okay, make it an hour. I heard from Tupelo and we’ve got to go over some things pretty quick.”

*   *   *

The front porch of the Sanchezes’ house was a hanging garden. Pots of blue periwinkles and violet Laura Bush petunias hung from the ceiling. Terra-cotta pots stood along the porch floor. Everything looked freshly washed and alive. Juanita, in a large straw hat to protect her head from the strong sun, stood watering in a round bed of bright yellow daylilies and startling Mexican hat ratibida.

For a minute I suffered my familiar garden envy, having no time myself for flowers and bushes, but always meaning to do something around the ranch house, or some of the barns. Or maybe stick flowerboxes on the front windows of my greenhouse.

“Ah, Lindy!” Juanita, her pretty face stretched into a wide smile, greeted me. She threw down the hose she held in order to put her arms out and hug me as tightly as she could.

“Come in. Come in,” the pretty woman insisted. “I made pan de yema. Martin told me you might be stopping by. And a pot of chocolate. Just like when you were a little girl.”

Unable to resist, I followed Juanita up the high front steps and into the living room, where a round mahogany table covered with a massive lace tablecloth took up most of the central space.

Juanita fussed for the first ten minutes, setting out her sweet rolls on a pretty Mexican plate, then delicate cups for the hot chocolate. She didn’t sit until I had sunk my teeth into the roll set on my plate and taken a sip of the sweet and thick Oaxacan hot chocolate that could make me swoon.

“You like it?” Juanita asked as always, then beamed at my quick nod, my mouth too full for words.

When the chocolate was half gone and the roll demolished, I tipped my head and grinned at Juanita. “Martin said you wanted to see me but I’m thinking you just knew I was in need of some of your hot chocolate,” I teased.

Juanita shrugged and grinned. “Always that. Ever since you were little—coming to my front door: ‘Can I have hot chocolate, Miss Juanita?’”

We laughed and then Juanita’s face grew serious. “Jessie asked me to talk to you. She heard something at the library yesterday. If you want to stop by and see her . . . Anyway, she said a few of the older people were gathered in the vestibule—neither coming nor going. You know how people use the library as a meeting place.” She waved a hand at the thoughtlessness of people who should only be there to take out books. “Anyway, she overheard one of the women say she was worried about something happening at the church. Jessie tried to hear but there were kindergarteners in for their first library card and she couldn’t concentrate. Maybe it was nothing but the usual grumbling parishioners, but she thought—because of what happened to the parson—that you should, maybe look into it.” She spread her hands. “Jessie didn’t know whether to call you or just butt out. That’s why she thought maybe if I saw you . . .”

I expressed my appreciation at anything being brought to my attention that might help Miss Amelia.

“I know. Can you imagine? I heard what that awful Freda Cromwell was saying about her old dog dying. That’s a shame. The woman doesn’t think before she opens her mouth.”

I got up to go. “Miss Amelia was stopping by Freda’s house this morning, to pay a condolence call, and bring her a pecan pie.”

Juanita rolled her large, dark eyes and put a hand to her mouth, covering a laugh. “Good for Miss Amelia. Can you imagine the problem that woman will have? Trying to turn down a free pecan pie?”

I was out of there—after another fierce hug—and on my way into Riverville, out the red dirt ranch road to the highway. I rolled the truck window up and turned on the air-conditioning. The day was heating up. Probably over a hundred by afternoon.

I ran a hand through my hair and dug sunglasses out of my purse on the seat beside me. There was a lot to think about.

But right then, despite myself, I had to smile. All I could concentrate on was Hunter Austen, waiting in town to buy me lunch and look at me in that new way he’d been looking lately.