Earth Colors Page 25

  I became aware of a distant howling and woofing that was growing steadily louder. A moment later, sprinting around a bend in the road ahead of a second chorus of dogs came Agent Wardlaw, moving remarkably quickly for a man with a gut. The canines were closing on him, and after he took one quick glance back, we saw his hand go around to his belt in search of his firearm.

  Fred stepped out into the road with his rebar raised in the universal gesture of threat known to all dogs. “Don’t pull your pistol, man! You think the dogs are bad; you don’t want to meet their owners! Em, Jenny, Nigel, get back in the vehicle, and leave a seat for this fool.”

  We dashed to Fred’s vehicle and jumped in. I stared in horror as the lead dog got a mouthful of Wardlaw’s pants leg and threw on the brakes. Wardlaw kept coming, now slowed by seventy pounds of deadweight.

  Fred stood in the middle of the road, his arm still raised. “Don’t shoot, man! Bludgeon the thing with it!”

  Wardlaw swung and bashed the dog on the head with the butt of his pistol, knocking the animal senseless, but the other dogs were almost upon him. Snatching a panicked look at them over his shoulder, Wardlaw stumbled and fell straight into a thatch of greenbrier. The dogs leapt, bit, clung.

  Fred dashed to him and brought the rebar down hard on the head of the nearest cur as Wardlaw thrashed, catching himself even deeper into the briars. Fred dispatched a second dog, and a third. Those that were still conscious backed out of reach of the rebar and bared their yellow teeth at Fred, growling. “Nigel! Get me the machete!” he hollered, not taking his eyes off the dogs.

  Nigel reached under Fred’s seat and produced a long knife in a sheath. “Surely he doesn’t expect me to get out of this vehicle,” he murmured, even as he opened the door and stepped out. He crossed the distance quickly on his long legs and started whacking at the briars, dancing a two-step with Fred as they worked to keep the dogs out of reach. Once they had the agent loose, all three men dashed to the vehicle and hit it like thunder, slamming the doors behind them, a half-beat ahead of the remaining dogs. We watched as, one by one, the dogs Fred had knocked cold came back to consciousness and staggered to their feet, barking as if they had never been away. Nigel gave them all the finger. The dogs circled and growled and barked a while longer, sniffed indignantly, and then trotted away.

  “I thought we were at the edge of their range,” Fred said conversationally, fastidiously placing his rebar and machete in their stowage positions. “Well, all in a day’s fieldwork. Haven’t had to use my machete in quite that way since I took out a six-foot rattler while I was doing my doctorate at U.T.” He was hardly even breathing hard.

  Wardlaw, on the other hand, was gasping for breath.

  “Good morning,” I said to him. “Or is it past noon?”

  Wardlaw ignored me, intent instead on the confetti that had been his pants and shirt. “Shit,” he muttered, picking a length of the whiplike brier from his clothing. “I hate greenbrier.”

  Fred reached an arm over the seatback to offer a hand in greeting. “Agent Wardlove is it?” he inquired. “I’m Fred Petridge.”

  “Wardlaw,” rasped the agent, ungraciously keeping his hands to himself.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said.

  “Oh, this is getting marvelous!” Nigel pashed. “Simply marvelous. Fred, you old pebble hack, you never told me you had live entertainment on your fieldtrips. Heavens, I would have come out ages ago had I known!”

  Jenny sat squeezed between Agent Wardlaw and the exultant Nigel, her shoulders pulled up tight to protect herself. “So, now, Emily,” she said slowly, “perhaps it’s time you told us more about your friend here. I mean, what exactly is going on? I thought I was coming out to learn some geological heritage, and now we’ve got—”

  Wardlaw grinned nastily at me. “You mean Hansen ain’t explained that she’s a double agent?”

  “Up your butt, Wardlaw!”

  He sat back and cackled. “Oh, yes, this woman poses as a geologist, but in fact she’s working for—”

  “Enough, Wardlaw, or I’ll tell your ma you’ve been eating Twinkies again!”

  He stopped and considered the situation, the brown slime he had for brains working turgidly through a plan. I fixed a drop-dead-forever look on him, but he pulled back his lips to expose almost all of his teeth and said, “Em here is working for William Krehbeil the Third, aka Tert. So tell us, darling, what’s that got to do with geology?”

  How sad I was to be armed with only my mouth and my fingernails. I realized he had me. So I shut up.

  Jenny fixed an indignant look on me. “You know Tert Krehbeil? But you said you’d only happened by his family farm yesterday, like it was some kind of an accidental meeting. You got me telling you their family tree, and all the particulars of their situation with trying to save the farm! Where was that at?”

  Agent Wardlaw’s grin had turned into a death’s-head rictus. “I’d like to know that myself, Ms. Hansen. Why not share it with us all?”

  Everyone in the vehicle was now staring at me. How I do hate being the center of attention. How I detest being caught out in a lie. How I loathe having to answer to people like Agent Wardlaw. “Show them your badge,” I said, turning the heat on him.

  He was more than pleased to do so. Fred and Jenny took in this information with hesitation, but Nigel yanked his identification out of his hand and took a nice, close squint. “Oh, blimey!” he cooed. “This is the real thing!”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “And I am a real geologist. Am I not, Wardlaw.”

  “Yes, you are,” he agreed.

  “And my boyfriend is in fact an agent for the FBI, when he’s not being a reactivated reservist in the Middle East.”

  “That is true.”

  “And I am doing nothing illegal, but you think that if you follow me, you’ll find out something about the activities of certain people I might know, who shall go nameless,” I said. “Because U.S. citizens are still, even in this era of the so-called Patriot Act, entitled to due process under the law and our federal constitution, and are considered innocent until proven guilty and are entitled to their privacy.”

  Wardlaw’s fat lips pulled into a sassy little pucker.

  Nigel said, “Quite right, Emily. Ever since the Magna Carta, things have been getting better for humanity. We’ve developed English Common Law, much better than Roman law, under which it is ‘woes betide the accused.’ Of course, your current administration is wont to play fast and loose with things in the name of fighting terrorism, but that can’t be why Agent Wardlaw is following you through the serpentine barrens, can it?”

  Wardlaw shifted his intimidating gaze onto him.

  Nigel said, “Hell, man, quit looking at me like that! I have a perfectly valid green card, I’ll have you know, and I’ve paid U.S. taxes to the last farthing every year I’ve worked here!”

  Now Wardlaw turned his glare on me. “Who are these people?”

  I shook my head. “Wardlaw, I think your line here should be more like, ‘Hey, thanks for saving my butt from the dogs,’ or, ‘Would you please drive me back to where I hid my pursuit vehicle so I can hide my head in shame at having been such a lousy tracker and leave you all alone so you can get some honest work done?’”

  Wardlaw closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

  “I’ll take you to your car,” said Fred. He started the motor and pulled out onto the road. “I’m Dr. Petridge of the Pennsylvania Geologic Survey, and this is Dr. Iago of the same. Sitting next to you is a private citizen who can introduce herself to you or not as pleases her.” His tone was pleasant but firm. I was liking him better and better.

  Jenny gave Wardlaw a look that would freeze ether. Wardlaw said nothing.

  A quarter-mile down the road, we found the federal vehicle. Fred stopped to let Wardlaw out. “We’re on our way to the Krehbeil mine,” he informed him. “It’s a podiform chromite deposit. It arises from the gradual differentiation of more disseminated chrome ores in serpent
ine, which is a metamorphosed basalt, in this case a pillow basalt, a term used to signify the shape taken by such mafic extrusives when they cool underwater. Now—”

  “Can the lecture,” said Agent Wardlaw, as he climbed out of the vehicle. “I’m just interested in what Em’s doin’ here.” He tried once more to look intimidating by planting his feet wide apart and thrusting his chest and gut our way, but his attempt was ruined by the fact that he kept glancing all about for the pack of dogs.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you,” said Fred. “We’re out here doing fieldwork. This is what geologists do when they are trying to learn something about the history of the earth. It’s a free country, and you are welcome to join us, but to get where we’re going, your leather-soled shoes would have you sliding down some fairly steep slopes, and I don’t feel I know you well enough to offer to do a tick check when we return.”

  “And all of this is about is paint pigments,” I told Wardlaw. “You assumed that everything I was doing in the East had to do with what you are interested in. But no, this is research for my master’s thesis. Now, if you prefer, I would be pleased to give you my cell-phone number, and you can give me yours, because I would be surprised if the reception is all that good out here, so we’re going to be playing some phone tag. Or I can just call you when I get set up with a room for the night, and you can come by for a moment and I’ll spill the whole day’s intellectual riches to you, right down to the last podiform chromite deposit. I’ll even bring you a copperhead, if we find any.”

  Wardlaw had found his sardonic smile again. “I already got your damned cell-phone number,” he said ominously. “So just tell me where you’re staying, and your dossier will be up-to-date.”

  I opened my mouth to say something creative, but Fred said, “Jenny booked you a room at the Cameron Estate Inn.”

  “It has the best heritage value within easy driving distance of the Survey,” Jenny chimed in.

  “Thank you,” I said, through clenched teeth.

  “It’s in Mount Joy,” Fred informed him. “Not far from Middletown, where the Survey is. We’ll be back by quitting time, so Em should be there by six, if you insist on harassing her any further.”

  And that was it. Wardlaw shoved off, I supposed in search of a replacement for his shredded pants, and the rest of us continued on into the serpentine barrens, but my mind was already focused on spending the coming evening in the town where Hector Krehbeil lived.

  23

  YOU REALLY GET TO KNOW SOMEONE QUICKLY WHEN YOU DO A tick check together.

  Jenny Neumann and I stripped down in the women’s room at the Pennsylvania Geologic Survey, right down to our birthday suits. It seemed that she lived alone, and, as the only one who might be waiting for me at the Cameron Inn was someone I would not on a bet ask to search my hide for ticks, I was more than pleased to swap searches with her. She was very thorough, even checking my hair with a fine-toothed comb she had in her picnic basket.

  As she leaned close to my scalp, she said, “So, you have an interest in the Krehbeil family.”

  “I’m not sure how to answer that,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll talk and you listen, and we’ll see where it goes from there. I’m finding them a rather difficult bunch to work with, and the thing is, I want to get them that Ag easement, whether they’re with me or against me. But they’re not making it easy.”

  “And you’re hoping I have some insight into the family that might help you.”

  “Anything would help just now. The application was in Mr. and Mrs. Krehbeil’s name, and, like I said, he’s gone now and she won’t be with us forever. Deirdre seemed quite interested in the idea of following through—she’s lived there all but the few years she was married, and her grown children live there with her now, so it’s her home, see—but lately she hasn’t been returning my calls. William the Third doesn’t come around to visit, so I’ve never met him. He lives in Philadelphia, right?”

  That much I could give her. “Right. He owns an art gallery there.”

  “That tallies. His grandmother founded it. Then there’s Hector, and I haven’t managed to get through to him. And there’s Cricket, but she doesn’t come around much either.”

  “What’s the story there?”

  “I knew her in high school. Wandering soul. Disappears for years at a time. No one really knows where she goes or when she’ll return. Deirdre said drugs, but it sounded like she was just trying to get me to think ill of her. She’s the youngest by quite a stretch—it’s almost twenty years between Deirdre and Cricket.”

  “And Deirdre’s the only one who ever married or had kids?”

  “That’s what they say,” said Jenny. “So anyway, I was kind of wondering if you might want to help me find Cricket.”

  “Why me?” I asked, as I shook out my underpants and climbed back into them.

  “Because you’re a detective.”

  “I’m a geologist.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re not. I saw how you handled that FBI guy. He’s onto you because you’re onto the Krehbeils, and God knows what he’s got on them, but the whole idea is to make sure their farm doesn’t get cut up into McMansions, regardless of what happens to the family. You see, it was William the Second’s ardent wish that the farm be preserved, and—”

  I held up a hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to justify this to me. If that’s what you want and it doesn’t hurt anyone, and if even better yet it helps keep Lancaster County from being totally overrun with BMWs and burger stands, then all the better.”

  She seemed embarrassed nonetheless. “It’s just that you seemed to handle yourself so well with that guy. I could really use some help with this file.”

  “That ‘help-me’ act may work on the guys, Jenny, but you should never kid a kidder. Besides, I like you, and I figure that helping you might be helping me. So why not? I can pose as your assistant, and that would explain why I’m so interested in the family.”

  Jenny clapped her hands together. “Oh, thank you!”

  “What did William Krehbeil Secundus die of?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He seemed healthy enough when he first applied for the easement, but then he got sick and died.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “I don’t know. I hear he wouldn’t go to the hospital.”

  “A family trait,” I said. “Perhaps they can’t tell the medical ward from the mental ward. Surely they suffer a collective insanity, and they could get a bulk deal—maybe have a wing all to themselves.”

  “Pride goeth before a fall,” said Jenny. “When people hang on to something that tightly, it’s usually because they’ve got it confused with their own self-worth. Funny thing is such clinging tends to turn them kind of mean.”

  “You seem to know the Krehbeils better than you said, too.”

  “I knew Cricket in high school, remember? She was a nice kid. Kind of sad. Didn’t have a clue how to defend herself. Girls would insult her and she’d just stand there and take it.”

  “So you think that’s why she left?”

  “Yeah, she just couldn’t take any more. I’ve always hoped she’d learn a little emotional ju jitsu and come home, but maybe she’s made a nice life for herself somewhere.”

  We finished knocking our clothes clean and putting them on and returned to the parking lot in the front of the building where the men had just finished unloading the gear from the state vehicle. Nigel turned and faced Jenny. “O, Vision of Post–Ground Truth Loveliness, will I ever see thee again?”

  Jenny smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure you will, especially if you come out and help Fred and me with some of our heritage projects. We could really use your help with all that GIS business. You could help us in a number of ways, mapping out resources, correlating ownership patterns, showing—”

  Nigel’s mustaches spread over clenched teeth. “I was thinking of something involving alcohol and a slice
of rare beef.”

  Jenny patted him on the arm. “That’s lovely, Nigel, and I’d love to, really. Just this evening, however, Em and I are going to interview Hector Krehbeil.”

  I said, “We are?”

  Jenny smiled. “Why yes, looking for Cricket, remember?”

  “So where’s this Hector chappie?” said Nigel. “We can knock him off over cocktails and be on to the steak house, no problem.”

  “Hang on a mo’,” I said. “Let me see if I can whistle him up.” I suppose it was showing off, but I went to my car and dug through my duffel bag for the little notebook in which I had written down Hector’s phone number and dialed.

  Hector answered on the second ring. “Forsooth,” he declared.

  “Hector?”

  Jenny had wandered over to see what I was doing. When I said his name, she went on point like a little bird dog.

  “Oh. Yes, who is this? I thought it must be James. But you are clearly not he.”

  I said, “Hector, this is Em Hansen, Faye’s friend. You remember, you called me by mistake … .”

  “Oh, yes. Well, Miss Hansen, sorry to say, I can’t chat just now.” He sounded excited, not dismissive.

  “Something up, Hector?”

  “I shall trod the boards this evening and I must get ready. Ergo, anon.”

  “The boards? Oh yes, that’s right, you’re an actor. Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “Where do you trod boards? I’d like to see you act.”

  “Actually, there will be no boards, only a pale limestone floor. It’s a rather rustic theater in a pub right here in my home duchy. A bit far for you to come. So, prithee, if thou wilt excuse me …”

  “Hector, I’m in Pennsylvania. Can we get together after the show?”

  His voice sped up and the faux Elizabethan English evaporated. “I really don’t know. I really am quite preoccupied. You’re on a cell phone, right? Oh, wait, you’re breaking up—”

  The connection was broken. I stared into the illuminated face of the cell phone. The sly fox had dumped me.

  Jenny looked on expectantly. “He cut you off, eh?”