'Let him through!' Robert yelled from behind. He pushed past Rich and stepped directly in front of the policeman. 'I don't know how things work in Phoenix, but here in Rio Verde, we have a free press.
Understand?'
'I have orders--'
'Fuck your orders.' .......o:
'It's okay,' a voice said from inside the stall. 'I meant civilians.
Keep out civilians.'
'I just need a quick picture of the outside of the stables, then I'll get out of your way.' Rich nudged his brother with an elbow as he walked past. 'I'm on your side. All the way.'
Mr. Overbeck was waiting for her on the porch steps in front of his house, and Sue recognized him from the restaurant as he stood up. She'd never known his name until today, but he'd come in quite often for lunch over the past year or so.
He smiled as she got out of the car, obviously recognizing her as well.
'I didn't know you worked for the Gazette.' 'I just started.'
'Are you still working at the restaurant?'
'Yes. Both.' '
'That's great. Your parents must be very proud of you.' 'Yes,' she said.
'Well, come on in. You want something to drink? Coke? Water? 'No, thank you, In fact, I'd like to see the trees first, if you don't mind.
So I can get an idea of what you're talking about and take a few photos.'
'Okay. Let's walk around this way.' Overbeck led the way around the side of the house.
Sue looked down at the worn path as she walked. The jagged cracks in the sidewalk looked like horizontal lightning in a gray cement sky. The walkway ended abruptly at the back of the house, and they continued over hard dirt toward a low metal-roofed barn.
'I'm mostly into livestock, but as I told you over, the phone, I got myself a little orchard back here. It's not much, I only got a few trees, but it keeps me in lemons, and I usually have some left over to sell. I've even sold some to your old man a couple times.' They walked around the side of the barn, past an empty corral. 'It's those ones there,' he said, pointing toward a stand of citrus trees behind the building. 'They just died over night.
Yesterday they was strong and healthy, one of 'em just starting to turn. Now look at 'em.'
She saw what he meant. The trees, seven or eight of them, were dead, completely bare, although a circular hill of still-green leaves surrounded the base of each tree. As they moved closer, she could see that the trunks looked shriveled, the bark withered, dry, and peeling.
She felt a wave of cold wash over her, moving from her neck downward.
The trees dried up, her grandmother had said.
Sue took off the lens cap of the camera, raised the viewfinder to her eye, focused, and snapped a picture. She moved the camera to a vertical position and took another.
'Would you mind if I took a closer look?' she asked.
'Go right ahead.'
'Do you have any idea what might have caused this?' Overbeck shook his head. 'Disease is gradual, and even bugs can't do this much damage overnight. I did notice a weird kinda, notch on the side of one of the trees, though. I don't know if all of em have it. I haven't had time to look. I figure that might have something to do with it.' Sue's heart was pounding. 'Could you show me?' 'Sure.' He led the way over to the tree closest, to the barn. Up close, Sue could see that underneath the peeling bark, the wood was dull gray and as wrinkled as a dried apple. 'It's right here.' He pointed just above his head at a large nick on one of the two main brhe forking off from the trunk.
No, not a nick. a t. ' '
She focused the camera, took a picture. Silently, walked over to the next tree. Looking up, she saw, at approximately the same spot, another bite. In the pile of.: leaves at the base of the tree lay two dehydrated lemons.
She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, looked at him. 'I think,' she said, 'that a vampire killed your trees. When she returned to the paper, Rich was at his desk, furiously typing on his keyboard. She heard the rapid fire clicking of keys from behind the modula wall as she walked through the front door. Carole knowingly toward the partition, smiled at her. Good afternoon, sweetie.'
'Afternoon'' Sue said, smiling back.
Rich looked up as she entered the newsroom. She'd been pretty shaken by the sight of the decimated orchard, but she'd stopped off at Circle K and made herself a Cherry Suicide--Orange Crush, Hires Root Beer, Dr.
Pep per, Sprite, and Cherry Coke--and had driven back slowly.
That had given her time to compose herself.
'How did it go?' he asked.
'Pretty good,' she said. She wasn't sure what she should say to him right now, how much she should tell. She thought it would probably be best to let him read it in the story. She'd felt foolish trying to tell Overbeck that she thought a cup hugirngsi had killed his trees, but the rancher had been surprisingly receptive to what she had to say, and though he hadn't wanted to come right out and say so in print, he had agreed to refer to the notches on the trees as 'bites' and to state that they had not been there before the trees' deaths.
She did not feel comfortable talking about vampires to Rich, though.
The editor stood. 'I was thinking. I may be very busy the next week or so, so I want to show you how to develop film so you can do it yourself. It'll save me some time and help me out quite a bit. Did you take a roll of the trees?' Sue nodded. 'Yes '
'Get the rancher with the trees?
She shook her head, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment rush up her cheeks. 'No. I forgot. I'm sorry. Ira'
'No biggie. We may not use a photo with this one any way. But I will use your roll to show you how to develop film. You have fifteen minutes to spare?'
'Yes.'
'Let's do it now then.' He turned down the intensity knob on his terminal. 'Carole?' he called. 'I'm showing Sue how to develop.
We'll be in the darkroom. If Jim stops by, have him knock. Anyone else comes by, tell them to wait.'
'Yes sir, bossI' :
He grinned. 'Knock it off.' 'Yes sir'
'Carole 'Okay, okay.'
Rich stood, motioned toward the darkroom. 'Shall we?'
Sue took the film out of the camera, put the camera-along with her notebook, purse, and pen---on her desk and followed Rich into the darkroom. He shut the door behind her, and for a brief second they were in complete darkness. He flipped on a red light. The illumination was bright compared to the jet-black of a moment before, and she found that she could actually see.
'When you first take the film out and roll it, you have to do it with no lights on at all, not even this safety bulb. This red light won't hurt prints, but it'll still expose film, so until the negatives are in the can, you have to do everything in total darkness. It'll be tough at first, because you have to do everything by touch, but you'll get used to it
'All right. This is what's wound up on your roll. In complete darkness, you pop open one side of the roll, feel for the end of the film, and clip it here like so.' He placed the end of the film strip in the spool and clamped it with a delicate wire clasp. 'Then you roll the film.' He wound the strip around the inside of the spool. 'You place the whole thing in this can here, and then you're set. You can turn the safety light on.'
'Do you have film I can practice on before I use a real roll?'
'Of course.' ' He started explaining about the chemicals and demonstrated how they were poured into the canister through a light-right opening in the lid.
Sue glanced around the darkroom. Hanging by a clothespin from a wire strung over the sink, she saw negatives of a woman, a tall woman with dark curly hair. Sue was not close enough to make out facial features, but she assumed the woman was Rich's wife. She continued watching the editor demonstrate the sequence of
