Meadowlark (7 page)

"Fine with me." I settled back to watch the first student
enter, a bold-looking young man with brown hair and bright brown
eyes. His color was high. Not, I thought, from shyness. He was
followed by a smaller, slimmer boy with darker hair and eyes.

"Jason and Bill," Bianca said by way of introduction.

Jason, the one with lighter hair, stared at me, and I made a
discovery. He was the driver of the pickup that had landed in the
ditch the night of our dinner at the farm. I didn't think he recognized
me. The other kid gave me a tentative grin.

Marianne set a huge platter of homemade scones in the
center of the table then returned with a stack of ceramic plates in
bright colors and matching cloth napkins. She set a big butter dish
and a pot of what looked like blackberry jam in front of Jason, who
did not hesitate to dive into the scones. Knives materialized.
Marianne's sleight of hand fascinated me, and the others had entered
before I registered their presence.

I nudged Bianca. "Where's Mike?"

Marianne said, "He drove to Astoria to pick up supplies for
the workshop." She sounded defensive. Bianca said nothing.

Marianne handed mugs of spicy cider around, poured
Bianca a cup of coffee, and retreated to her stool.

Bianca pulled a chair beside me. The rest had disposed
themselves around the table, Jason and Bill on my right. The
scones--I snagged one--vanished like snow in a chinook wind.

Bianca sipped coffee and murmured the others' names as
they munched and chattered and eyed me curiously. On her left sat a
small dark girl in a navy blue sweatshirt. Mary Sadat. Mary nibbled,
lady-like, with downcast eyes, and said nothing. Beside her, two
married students from the Evergreen State College, a couple of years
older than the others, fed each other bits of scone. Adam and Letha
Carlsen, he blond, she brunette, both ostentatiously grubby and
rather plain.

The girl perched on the chair opposite me distinguished
herself by ignoring the scones. I couldn't help staring at her. She
wore cerise spandex leggings, a gray B.U.M. sweatshirt over a cerise
turtle neck and a lethal tangle of gold chains. Carol Bascombe, Bianca
murmured, clucking a little.

Carol was using a white hair pick to fluff what I've always
thought of as bordello hair. It was sunstreaked, though we hadn't
seen the sun since February third, and each long tendril had been
separately permed or tweaked with a curling iron into a riotous
tumble. Carol looked as if she had just risen from the rank sweat of
an enseamed bed. I'm sure her hair was clean but the illusion of
steamy sex was impressive. I wondered if hair that long constituted a
hazard in a farmer. Carol had pouty lips, capped teeth, a perfect nose,
and luminous gray eyes just then clouded with anxiety.

She pricked at a clump of hair, it fell into place, and the
anxiety vanished. She beamed at me. "Hi, I'm Carol. Are you going to
find Hugo the Growth?"

Jason and Bill guffawed and the married couple smirked.
Mary Sadat raised dark eyes from her cup.

Bianca said, "Kids, this is Lark Dodge. She'll be running the
workshop. Meanwhile, we're trying to figure out what happened to
Hugo. When did you see him last, Carol?"

Carol wriggled. "Saturday. I was like driving to Kayport, and
I passed his grotty bike on the road. He was supposed to supervise
the digging and composting Monday morning, but he didn't show at
eight, did he, Jase?"

"No, and we weren't going to hang around waiting for him,
either." Jason was sitting a little too close to me. He sounded as
righteous as a bank executive with a tardy loan applicant. I expected
him to announce that he was a busy man, but he just said, "I had a
botany test at eleven, so I sat in my rig and studied."

Bill said nothing. He was eating the last scone. I looked at
the duo from TESC. "How about you two?"

The woman, Letha, said, "We thought about it when Bianca
told us Hugo was missing. He supervised us Saturday morning, made
me redig my bed. He seemed normal to me." She wrinkled her
uninteresting nose. "As normal as Hugo gets. The man has no affect."
She cast Carol a slightly scornful glance as if to say,
Read my
thesaurus.

Carol was renewing her cerise lipgloss.

Adam, the husband, said with an air of conscious tolerance
that was going to be annoying when he reached middle age, "Hugo's
okay, honey. He's just real focused."

Bianca said, "Mary?"

Mary Sadat's olive skin flushed a darker shade. "Mr. Groth
ate dinner at my parents' restaurant Saturday night. I was waiting
tables. I saw him but we didn't talk. It was busy."

I smiled at her. "What time, Mary?"

She ducked her head and crumbled her scone. "Around
eight, I think."

"Anybody see him Sunday?"

They exchanged glances but nobody said anything.

I was about to pursue the reasons for their silence when the
door to the mudroom swung open and Angie burst in.

"Shoes!" Bianca shrieked.

"Oh, sorry." Angie stepped back to the open door. She
yanked her wool beret off, running a long hand through hair too
short to tousle. "I found Hugo's bike."

Bianca stood up. "Where?"

"Behind that stack of boxes by the flower house." She met
my eyes. "That's one of the big greenhouses. The bike's just parked
there, leaning against the framework of the building."

"Out of sight?" I asked.

Angie nodded. "The boxes hide it."

"You mean that humungous pile of flats?" Carol's voice rose.
"Mary and I spent two hours stacking those grotty old things last
Saturday. I broke a fingernail."

Mary said, "The bike wasn't there Saturday."

Everyone looked at her.

She blushed. "I guess that's obvious."

Bianca made a soothing noise. So did I. People would always
soothe Mary.

"What time did you finish the crates?" I said.

Carol twiddled her hair pick. "Around four."

"Hugo's rain pants are still wadded up in the saddlebag,"
Angie said. "I checked."

Bianca paled. Somebody shifted again. A chair creaked.

I was getting a bad feeling. Beside me, Jason and Bill sat
quiet. I said, "Did anybody see Hugo Monday at all?"

Silence.

"What was he scheduled to do Monday?"

Bianca hunched on her chair. "He was supposed to show the
interns how to prepare the raised beds for planting. We don't do
much with that kind of cultivation because it's so labor intensive it
doesn't pay. But it is interesting. We were doing heirloom beans
there this year, among other things. Hugo intercrops beans with blue
corn--"

"Heirloom beans?" I drew a blank.

"Natural seed-stock." Angie scowled at me. "Is anybody
besides me going to hunt for Hugo?"

Bianca stood up slowly, as if her bones ached.

I said, "You ought to call the sheriff."

"No!" Bianca swallowed hard and avoided my eyes. "I mean
not yet."

Angie said, "We could search the outbuildings."

Bianca nodded. "Marianne, will you call Del? Tell him I need
Jason and Bill--and why."

Marianne lifted a cellular phone from the counter and left
the room, extending the antenna as she passed through the swinging
door. The interns stared at Bianca, eyes wide. Mary Sadat teared
up.

"Hugo may be with Trish. That's his ex-wife. She lives in
Raymond." Bianca's voice lacked conviction.

I shoved my cider cup back and laid my napkin on the table.
"I thought you called her."

"I did. Twice."

"Would she lie?"

Bianca threw up her hands. "No. I'm just looking for a
comfortable solution. Something's wrong."

"The last time anyone saw Hugo was Saturday night at the
restaurant," I mused. "If the bike's here, he made a trip out from
town after that. Does he work on Sundays?"

"We all do if there's a crop to harvest or something else
urgent. Otherwise we take Sundays off."

"So he probably rode out Monday morning--"

"But why would he hide the bike behind the crates?" She
shook her head. "Something's wrong." She looked around at the
silent students. "Let's do this methodically. Pair up. Jason, you and
Bill search the sheep sheds--"

"We'll check the ice house, too," Jason said.

"Okay. Afterwards, go find Del. Tell him to poke around in
the old barn. Angie, you and Mary can search the greenhouses.
Carol--"

"I gotta leave at five, Mrs. McDonald."

Bianca's jaw muscle jumped. "Then go look in the car barn.
Adam and Letha, you, too. Look around the machine sheds. I'll join
you in a few minutes. And call. He may be hurt or sick--"

"Or dead," Carol said, voicing everyone's thought. We all
looked at her. She wriggled.

I said, "Since I don't know the place I won't be much use in a
search."

Bianca nodded. "Go on, kids. I need to talk to Lark. Then I'll
join Carol and the Carlsens. It's four. Come back here by dark--five
thirty, say--and report in."

I waited until they'd left, then I said, "You need the
sheriff--and dogs, probably. This is a big place and Hugo could be
anywhere."

Bianca shivered. "Anywhere or nowhere. It's been six,
no...seven days."

"He could have parked the bike here and taken a local bus.
You said he disappeared before."

Bianca hesitated then nodded. "I hope that's what happened
this time, too. He starts feeling hemmed in and just takes off. If so
he'll turn up at Trish's sooner or later. But the bike... It bothers me.
Of course, the last time it happened he was living here, at the old
house--"

"Maybe he's there now."

"We tore it down."

I got up and walked over to look out the large window above
the sink. I could see a field strewn with sheep. A couple of metal
sheds lay beside it. Farther on lay another field with a small wood
structure at its edge, possibly the ice house. Jason and Bill were
already hiking toward the metal sheds, making good time. I
supposed they were in a hurry to go home. As I watched they split up
and each took one of the sheds. At that distance I couldn't distinguish
which boy was which. "You really ought to call the sheriff now,
Bianca."

"If Hugo's just done another walkabout I'll feel stupid, and
he'll be mad at me for making a fuss."

I tried to imagine Hugo red-faced and shouting.

Her shoulders slumped. "Okay. I'll call the cops when
Marianne brings the phone back." She joined me at the counter and
pulled a drawer open, fumbling the tiny telephone book from it.
"What do I say?"

I repressed irritation. "Report a missing person. And you
don't need the phone book. Dial 911."

The swinging door pushed in. "Hi. Seen Mom?" Mike Wallace
was carrying an armload of cartons. He set them on the table and
gave me a shy smile.

I smiled back.

Bianca said, "Angie found Hugo's bike near the greenhouses,
Mike."

Mike's eyes widened. "But--"

"I sent the interns out to search."

"You think something happened to him, don't you?"

"I don't know."

"Did Mom..." His voice trailed, and he flushed red. His glasses
had steamed and he took them off. Without them, he looked like a
half-fledged owl.

Marianne reentered and set the phone on the table. "Del said
he'd look in the old barn. The floor's rotting. Maybe Hugo fell and
broke his leg." Marianne's eyes were pink as if she'd been crying.
"Hugo used to climb up to the loft. He said it reminded him of home."
She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. "Mike, take
those boxes to the conference room. I need to clear the table before
dinner."

Mike said, "I'm going out to Dad."

"Put the boxes away first," Bianca said. "Then you can help
me search the machine sheds."

He hefted the cartons. "Okay, but I bet Mom's right. Hugo's
in the old barn." The door swung closed behind him.

Bianca picked up the phone and dialed 911. They put her on
hold a couple of times. I watched her bridle her impatience.
Eventually she explained the situation to somebody, listened, glum,
to the response, and said, "Thanks." She set the device back in its
cradle. "They'll send a car this evening." She looked from Marianne
to me. "I'm going out. I have to do something."

I nodded. I was feeling edgy myself. "I'll wait here."

"Thanks." She headed out to the mudroom, and I could hear
her thumping around. Eventually the outer door slammed.

I took another look out the window. It was getting dark fast,
and I saw no sign of Jason and Bill. I drifted back to the table.

Marianne pulled a tray from a narrow cupboard near the
sink and joined me. She began clearing the mugs onto the tray.

"Tell me about Hugo." I wadded a couple of napkins. "Where
do you want these?"

"Hamper." She pointed and took her tray to the
dishwasher.

I stuffed the napkins in the hamper. "Bianca says this isn't
Hugo's first disappearance."

"Third." She ran a sponge under the hot water tap, squeezed
it, and began wiping crumbs from the surface of the table. "People
get to him. He can't stand being crowded."

"Do you mean literally?"

She stared at me and resumed wiping. "He don't like a lot of
voices yammering, that's for sure. Neither do I. But I think what
really pushes him is..." She broke off, shook her head, took the
sponge to the sink and rinsed it. "It's hard to put into words. Bianca
likes holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Earth Day, the Fourth of
July. She gathers everybody. It's nice. The kids--I mean Mike and her
three and the interns, too--they like it a lot and the rest of us don't
mind. Keith pulls out his guitar. There's lots of food and music and
chatter."

"And it gets to Hugo?"

"Yes. He can't take it. It's like he can't breathe. Sometimes he
goes out on the deck and just leans on the rail and inhales. I've seen
him. The two times he disappeared were holidays."