One Bad Apple Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  The World of Apples

  Apple Recipes

  An Uninvited Visitor …

  As she approached the old house, she looked at it dispassionately. In the winter dark, it was still lovely, strong and square. The few lights that she had left on were glowing gold. Meg pulled around to the side near the barn, turned off the engine, and slumped in her seat, unable to move. She was tired. No, worse, she was tired and depressed. She had tried to do the right thing, had talked to the state police, had told the truth, but no one had wanted to listen. So she had stood up in public and made her case, but it still looked like no one wanted to believe her. She was the outsider, and the community would close ranks against her. All right, Meg. You can’t sit here all night. She smiled wryly at the image of someone coming by and finding her frozen corpse still sitting in the car.

  She hauled herself out of the car and walked toward the kitchen door, jiggling her keys in her hand. Then she stopped: even in the dim light, it was clear that the storm door hung slightly askew, the lock splintered in the jamb. Someone had broken into her house; someone might still be there. She fumbled in her bag for her cell phone and punched in 911.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  ONE BAD APPLE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2008

  Copyright © 2008 by Sheila Connolly.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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  eISBN : 978-1-436-23932-5

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

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  To Eleazer Warner

  and

  John Chapman.

  Acknowledgments

  Like an orchard, it takes a lot of people to nurture a book to fruition. First thanks go to my agent, Jacky Sach, who took the seed of an idea and brought it to life, and my editor, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez, who polished the draft until it shone. And as always, Sisters in Crime and the wonderful Guppies (especially Lorraine Bartlett) provided bushels of encouragement.

  Since I am not an orchardist, I relied on many people to help me get the details right: Duane W. Greene, Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, and Director of the University’s Cold Spring Orchard, who provided much useful information about orchard management; Richard Pelletier of the Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton, Massachusetts, who shared his orchard’s wealth of antique apple varieties; May Peters of Peters Family Orchard and Cider Mill in Acushnet, Massachusetts, who provides a wonderful example of managing a local orchard; and Joyce Manzello, who educated me about the realities of making an orchard work—and pay.

  On the genealogy side, I have to thank many generations of ancestors who left such a wonderful history for me to find—all the Chapins, Downings, Montagues, Seldens, Sheldons, Shumways, Taylors, Townes, Wakemans, Warners, and Woodfords who settled in western Massachusetts and whose spirits drew me there. Among the living, I’m grateful for the help provided by the Granby Historical Society, the Granby Public Library, and the Granby Town Clerk’s Office.

  And of course I have to thank Marvina and Jon Brook of Muddy Brook Farm in Granby, without whom this book could not have happened. They are the current owners of the house built by my ancestor Stephen Warner, and they let me spend time getting to know the property and the house—including the very interesting basement!

  I should also thank Mother Nature, who made this past season’s apple crop absolutely spectacular.

  Finally, I need to thank my entomologist husband, who has served as my consultant on aspects of integrated pest management, and my daughter, who tramped through a lot of orchards with me and carried a lot of bags of apples.

  1

  “Orchard? What orchard?” Meg Corey stared in confusion at the man standing on her doorstep. He reminded her of a hobbit: shorter than she was, his silvery hair combed forward in an endearing bang now rumpled by the wind, his cheeks rosy, his blue eyes twinkling. “I’m sorry—who did you say you were?”

  “Oh, forgive me. I’m Christopher Ramsdell, with the Integrated Pest Management Department, the Small Fruit Management Project, at the university.” When Meg looked blankly at him, he went on. “Of Massachusetts, at Amherst. We’ve been using the apple o
rchard as an experimental site for, oh, decades now. But I was looking for the Tuckers. Are they no longer here?”

  “The Tuckers were only renting. My mother owns this place, and I’m fixing it up to sell.” Or trying to, Meg amended to herself. Every time she tried to “fix” something, it seemed to generate more problems. Usually expensive ones.

  “Well, then, you’re the person I should be talking to!” Christopher beamed at her, and Meg couldn’t refuse the delightful man a return smile. At least he wasn’t some crazy person, as she had wondered when she first opened the door.

  Which was letting in the freezing January wind. “Uh, come in, I guess. Will this take long? Because I’m expecting a plumber any minute.” She hoped.

  “I’d be delighted. And I won’t keep you, but I’d like to explain exactly what it is I’m doing.” He stepped into Meg’s hallway, and she slammed the door shut behind him—the slamming part was necessary if she wanted the warped, if authentic, four-panel door to close at all.

  “Take a seat.” Meg gestured vaguely toward her front parlor on the right. The lumpy furniture was draped with drop cloths, old sheets, and anything else Meg could find, since she had been scraping, spackling, and sanding for a couple of weeks now. “I’d offer you some coffee, but my sink is stopped up and I don’t want to run any water until I know what the problem is.”

  Christopher was still standing in the middle of the room looking around with clear admiration. “Grand old house, isn’t it? My sympathies on the plumbing problem. Drains are a constant torment.” He rubbed his hands briskly. “Well, I don’t want to take much of your time, so let me get right down to it. I can’t believe you don’t know about the orchard. You haven’t seen it?”

  “I don’t know where to look,” Meg said. “Where is it?”

  “To your west.” When Meg looked bewildered, Christopher waved toward one side of the house. “Up that way. It runs from the top of that rise down to the highway, Route 202. Surely you’re familiar with that. Roughly fifteen acres, and you have perhaps a hundred and fifty trees, primarily apple. And we—by that I mean the research group at the university—and the Tuckers, and the … let me see … I think it was the Lothrops before them, have been managing it for more than twenty years.”

  Meg nodded. “I guess that explains it. My mother inherited this place back in the eighties, and I don’t think she’s been here since. She just sticks the rent checks in the bank. But I found myself at loose ends recently”—no reason why this nice stranger needed to know she’d been downsized out of her job—”and she thought it might be a good time to finally fix up the place and sell it, so here I am. So, what is it you want from me?”

  Christopher cocked his head at her, like a friendly sparrow. “Well, my dear, first and foremost I’d like to introduce you to the treasure that you own.”

  “Now?” Meg’s voice rose in disbelief. It couldn’t be more than twenty degrees outside.

  “Why not? It’s far easier to distinguish trunk and branch configurations when the trees aren’t in leaf.”

  “What about my plumber?” Meg sputtered.

  Christopher smiled. “When did you call?”

  “About half an hour ago.”

  “Then I’m sure he’ll be along in an hour or two. Plenty of time!”

  Meg considered. The less-than-appealing odor of whatever was seeping out of her sink was beginning to filter through the house, even though she had shut the doors to the kitchen. Just like the front door, the kitchen doors of the two-hundred-year-old house didn’t fit very well. Moreover, she hadn’t been out of the house for—she stopped to count—three days, and some bracing fresh air wouldn’t hurt. She could watch for the plumber from outside. And she had to admit she was curious. It had never occurred to her to check out what lay on the far reaches of the property. Since she had arrived she had been focused on the house, and that was more than enough to keep her busy.

  “Okay, I’m game.” Obviously the right answer, if Christopher’s delight was any indication. “Let me get my coat.” And gloves. And scarf. And hat. Taking a walk in western Massachusetts in winter involved a lot of preparation. She slipped her cell phone into her pocket along with her house keys, and returned to the waiting Christopher, who was bouncing like an eager spaniel. “Ready.”

  Outside, Meg pulled her balky door shut and followed Christopher as he set off at a brisk pace, up the low rise toward what he had informed her was west. When he noticed her lagging behind, he slowed and waited for her to catch up. “Forgive me. I spend so much time outside like this, I forget that some people aren’t as accustomed as I. You’ve been here how long?”

  “About three weeks. Since just after the New Year, when the lease on my apartment ran out.” Meg was happy to note that she wasn’t panting—much. Maybe vigorous home renovation was good exercise. “I figured I’d just camp out here and get to work. There’s plenty to be done.” More than she could have imagined.

  Christopher continued to pepper her with questions, not even slightly out of breath. “So you’re telling me that you’ve never walked your property?” His tone implied that such an omission was inconceivable.

  Meg smiled into her coat collar. “No. I’ve had plenty to work on inside. The house is in rather bad shape, but I was hoping to list it for sale before summer.”

  “Then at the very least you’ll be here to witness full bloom— that’s the middle of May around here, weather permitting. It’s truly lovely, you know. Of course, I may be a bit biased, but I think an orchard in bloom is one of nature’s wonders, all the more precious because it’s so brief a phenomenon. Not that an orchard in fruit isn’t equally lovely in its own way.”

  “Christopher, you’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Ah, you’ve caught the accent. No, my dear—I was born in England, but I’ve been here for most of my life now. And yourself?”

  “I grew up in New Jersey, but I’ve been living in Boston since college.” She paused to catch her breath. “What is it you’re doing to the trees? You’re not spraying them with anything nasty, are you?”

  “Oh, no, no. In fact, we spray as little as possible, or preferably not at all, although I’m afraid some spraying is unavoidable in apple management. I’m in integrated pest management: working with nature and natural enemies, and spraying only when we have no alternative. You’re not familiar with the process?”

  “No—I’m a city girl, through and through.”

  “Ah, well, you can learn. Here we are!”

  They had reached the crest of the rise, and the land sloped down before them. Meg could see sparse traffic moving along the highway maybe five hundred feet distant. Between where she stood and the highway, neatly spaced rows of trees spread out in a long, narrow strip parallel to the highway. The trees were uniform in height, although they varied from slender young trees to craggy gnarled ones whose age she could only guess at. She could see a few lingering, shriveled apples on nearby branches.

  “So this is it?” she said.

  “It is indeed. Isn’t she grand?” Christopher spoke with a paternal pride.

  “Grand” would not have been Meg’s first choice of word. “I guess. Sorry, but it looks kind of dead.” Now that she was here, she realized she’d been driving right by it for weeks, and it had never even registered on her radar. An orchard. Her orchard. It had taken her a while to even get used to the idea of owning the barn behind the house (although from the way it was leaning, she wasn’t sure when it would stop being a barn and start being a pile of rubble). But an orchard was a living thing, with a past and a future. It needed care and attention, as Christopher seemed to be telling her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that meant—dealing with the house was more than enough for her at the moment. But still … her own apple orchard. It was an appealing idea. Oops, Meg, bad pun. She tuned back in to what Christopher was saying.

  “Oh, not dead at all. Just dormant. Wait a month or two and you’ll see.”

  “How
much land does this take up?” she asked.

  “As I said, about fifteen acres. It’s about a quarter mile to the next property there, to your north.”

  Meg could feel Christopher’s eyes on her, anxious. It was obvious that he really did care about this field of scraggly trees. “Well, then, tell me about it. What am I looking at? What’s so special about this orchard?” Meg asked, her breath forming clouds in front of her face.

  “Ah, my dear, where to begin?” Christopher all but rubbed his hands in glee. “This orchard has been here nearly as long as the house. No, the individual trees aren’t two hundred years old, but some of the species have been planted and replanted over time. You’ve got some real treasures here. Tell me, what do you see?”

  Meg, bewildered, turned to survey the trees before her. “They’re, uh, trees.”

  “Yes, but look closely. You see that one there?” He pointed, and Meg followed his finger obediently. “Stayman Winesap— see the thick trunk, the slightly purplish cast to the bark? And over there, Rome Beauty—you can tell by those drooping limbs. What do you know about apples?”

  “Only what I see in the supermarket—Delicious, McIntosh. Aren’t there some new ones with funny names? Mutsu, or something like that?”

  Christopher snorted. “Dreck. Commercial pap. Bred for their ability to withstand shipping across country, only to sit in warehouses for months on end. By the time they reach a store, they all taste like packing peanuts. You, my dear, are in for a treat come harvest time. There’s such an array of flavors—subtle but delightful.I envy you the experience of encountering these for the first time. Ah, hold on!” He swung a small pack from his shoulder and rummaged through the contents. He emerged with an apple about the size of a baseball and shaded from red to a speckled yellow. Christopher polished it on his pant leg and offered it to her with a flourish. “Try this.”

  Meg took it from him. “Do I eat it?”

  “Of course you do.”

  “What is it?” Meg thought it was a good idea not to eat things she couldn’t identify, especially when they had been given to her by someone she’d met only an hour earlier.