A Welcome Grave by Michael Koryta Read Free Book Online

business
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    “Good?”
    I nodded. “Perfect.”
    “I’ll leave it on his door. When you come back, this part of the building will be closed. I’ll show you where his apartment is.”
    “Great. Thanks for the help.”
    “No problem.” She smiled up at me. “You know, we sell that cider you liked so much.”
    “Give me ten gallons and a long straw.”
    I bought a quart of the cider and a bag of honey crisp apples. A wise tactical move—always keep the locals happy. Then Kara Ross took me around the side of the building again to leave the note on the door to Jefferson’s apartment, which apparently occupied the loft room of the converted barn and looked out on the pond and woods beyond. Not bad.
    “Man from Cleveland here . . . family business,” she read aloud and then laughed. “I bet he’ll be intrigued.”
    It was an obvious hint that she wanted to know details, but I wasn’t giving them out to anyone but the junior Jefferson. It wouldn’t hurt him to be intrigued for half an hour or so until I showed up.
    “Sure that note won’t blow away?” I said.
    Kara Ross carefully applied tape all around the apple-shaped piece of stationery, until the wind could no longer work on a free edge. Then she stepped back and looked at it with satisfaction.
    “No way he’ll miss it now.”
    “Good,” I said. The wind had picked up, stirring dry leaves around our ankles, and I was glad the note wouldn’t end up in the middle of the pond. I wanted to be sure Jefferson’s son would know I was coming for him.

5

    I drove to Morgantown along a road that embodied autumn the way only a painting or postcard usually will for people who live in the city. Crimson and auburn trees lined cornfields gone weathered and broken, a pale gray sky hanging over it all. The clouds had thickened even in the short time I was at the orchard, spoiling the chance for a nice sunset. The wind was cooler, but no rain fell.
    Morgantown was more of what I’d seen in Nashville, only without the obvious design toward tourism. As I sat at one of the two stoplights, waiting for a green light, I thought that if you snapped a black-and-white photograph of the street ahead of me, and captured the stone buildings with their colored awnings and plate glass windows, only the modern cars would clearly separate it from the 1950s. One business sign boasted about handmade furniture; another offered shagbark syrup. It was one of those places that made you glad to be off the beaten path, away from interstate exits with seven chain restaurants and two truck stops.
    I killed some time walking around the little town, checking out shops and nodding at passersby, then found a restaurant and wasted forty more minutes on dinner. Dusk settled as I drove back to the orchard, the brilliant shades of the trees fading into muted browns and casting long shadows over the road.I left the windows down, but the air coming into the cab of the truck was cold enough to make me wish I’d asked for another cup of coffee for the road.
    The big barn at the orchard was dark—the doors shut, the parking lot empty except for a few farm vehicles. Floodlights near the parking lot entrance lit up displays made from dried cornstalks, haystacks, and gourds, and a scarecrow hung from a post beside the barn. I parked the truck and rolled the windows up, the windshield fogging immediately as the interior temperature warmed.
    Outside, the silence made me pause next to the truck. I live in an apartment beneath which traffic passes at all hours of the night, sometimes with stereos pounding or sirens wailing. A quiet night is one where I can’t hear a woman having an animated cell phone conversation in a convertible or the loud laughter of men coming out of the bar up the street. Here, the only sound was the wind. It didn’t whistle or howl, just offered a quiet, constant rustle though the leaves and over the grass.
    I walked up to the barn’s front porch, my shoes slapping off the boards,