do was find Jefferson’s son and give him the news, then head home. The drive wasn’t that bad, and it beat bouncing from hotel to hotel, hoping to find one with a room open.
“I’m just here to pass a message to someone,” I said. “He lives on Highway 135. Is that nearby?”
She nodded and pointed. “Just keep going up the hill. Van Buren turns into 135.”
I thanked her and walked back out to my truck, drove to the front of the parking lot, and saw that it was going to be about a five-minute wait just to pull back into the traffic.
“All this for leaves,” I said, looking around.
But, damn it, the leaves were spectacular. Crimson, orange, and burgundy splashes everywhere you looked, climbing the hills and surrounding the town. The crisp air smelled of them, too, and of rain and wood smoke. I’m not much of a country boy, and in places surrounded by pavement I’ve always been able to find the kind of moments of beauty that other people find deep in the woods, but I do acknowledge that if there’s one season that the city really kills, it’s autumn.
Matthew Jefferson lived less than a mile up the road, his home one in a cluster of four log cabins off a circular gravel drive. The mailboxes were bunched together at the end of the drive, and I didn’t see any numbers on the cabins themselves. I’d gotten out of the truck and was standing in the driveway, looking for a hint to the numbering system, when the door of the largest cabin opened and a gray-haired woman walked out and headed for a Honda parked nearby.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you live here?”
She looked at me warily. “I rent here, yeah. Don’t own it, though.”
“I’m looking for one of your neighbors.”
“Oh.” She smiled and shifted a purse that must have weighed sixty pounds from one shoulder to the other. “Most people that stop by this time of year are trying to buy the place. Doesn’t matter if there’s no For Sale sign, they stop. We just rent, and we still get about ten offers each year.”
“Won’t get one from me. I’m just looking for a guy named Matt Jefferson. You know him?”
“Matt? Sure. He lived in Number Two for a long time.” She pointed at the cabin directly behind me.
“Not anymore, though?”
She shook her head, and I wanted to shake my own, having just made a six-hour drive to check out a dead address.
“You wouldn’t have any idea where he went?”
“Sure. He moved into a little apartment where he works.”
“What does he do?”
“Picks apples.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Up the road, near Morgantown. Big orchard there, and Matt runs the—what do you call it?— harvesting?”
“Harvesting,” I echoed. “He runs the apple harvesting operation.”
“Uh-huh.”
When last heard from, Matthew Jefferson had been in law school, the son of a prominent and wealthy attorney, his stars appearing perfectly aligned. Now he was running the apple-picking operation in a small Indiana town? That was an interesting detour.
“Can you tell me how to find the orchard?”
She gave me directions, and after the sixth time she said “make another left” I decided I’d better go back to the truck for some paper and a pen.
Even with the written directions, I was almost an hour finding the place. Intersections were spaced out conveniently at about every six miles, so if you missed a turn, you were a while figuring it out. Fortunately, many of the roads were also lacking signs, so missing a turn was easy. There were no gas stations around, either, so I took comfort in knowing that if I didn’t find the place soon, I’d have to venture ahead on foot. I thrive under pressure.
Eventually, though, I rounded a bend in the road and spotted a hand-painted sign that said: THE APPLE EMPORIUM—THREE MILES, TURN LEFT. These people were wise enough not to even bother with a street name, no doubt knowing that the corresponding sign would inevitably be missing. I went three miles, hung a left, and found the orchard.
The main building was a long red barn, the doors slid open to reveal rows of barrels and crates overflowing with apples, a stack of pumpkins on the front porch, everything shaded by tall trees. Overhead, clouds were building, the sun that had been out at the start of my drive now tucked behind a thin veil of gray. I walked down to the barn and through the big open doors. Inside, women were holding apples up to the lights and frowning at them, checking for any slight imperfection. Two teenaged girls were working cash registers at the front of the barn, but the lines were long. Surely, there was a manager or supervisor around. I moved through the rest of the barn, then followed a sign that said CIDER MILL and walked outside.
Rows of late-season flowers bordered a stone path that led down to a gazebo overlooking a large pond. Across the pond, the trees spread over the hills, their hues somehow seeming even brighter now that the clouds had gathered. No one else was outside; the whole place was still and private, and I looked down at the gazebo and thought it would probably be a hell of a nice spot to kill an afternoon and a bottle of champagne. Good thing Amy had decided not to come along, or I might have been tempted to do just that.
I walked around the rear of the building, still in search of the cider mill, and as soon as I rounded the corner I ran into a tall metal machine making a soft churning noise. A redheaded woman turned to me, holding a tray of small paper cups filled with a walnut-colored liquid.
“Try a sample.”
“Actually, I’m looking for—”
“Try a sample,” she repeated, and the look in her eye suggested she could arrange to have something bad happen if I refused—have me dipped in caramel and covered with nuts, maybe.
I grabbed a paper cup and took a sip.
“Good, isn’t it?” she said, watching my face.
“My knees almost buckled.”
“Day-fresh,” she said. “Now, what can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for the manager, or owner?”
“I’m both. Kara Ross.” She couldn’t shake hands because of the tray, but she made a little bow with her head. “What can we help you with?”
“I need to speak with one of your employees. His name’s Matt Jefferson.”
“Really?”
“Doesn’t he work here?”
“Oh, yes, he sure does. I just never see any visitors for him. Matt’s a pretty quiet guy. He runs our picking operation.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He’s actually out working right now. We’ve had to expand to another growing site a few miles down the road. Supply and demand, you know?”
“Can I find Matt at this other growing site?”
“It would be better if you could wait an hour or two. Unless it’s urgent.”
I shook my head. “It’s important, but I can wait. He’ll be coming back here?”
“Yes, he lives here. Follow me.” She walked past the cider mill and into a dim hallway. An old dog was sleeping in the middle of the hallway, but Kara Ross stepped over it as if it didn’t exist, and I followed suit. Back in the barn’s main room, Kara Ross set the tray down on the counter and turned to me.
“I’ll leave a note on the door for Matt if you’d like,” she said. “I’ll be gone when he comes back.”
“When will that be?”
“He’ll work until sunset,” she said. “Come by around, oh, seven. He should be here by then.”
She found a pad of paper shaped like an apple and held her pen poised over it. “What should I write?”
It didn’t seem appropriate for Jefferson to find out his father was dead through a note written on apple- shaped stationery and stuck to his door. Finding out he was a millionaire would be a little better, but, still, I thought
