late. When Zeke found out, he was in L.A. and he came home right away.”
Dena pulled in a sharp breath. “Oh, I didn’t know.” That must have been awful. Why would a woman choose to ignore her illness? Had she wanted to die?
“How old was Mrs. Cabrera?”
“Fifty-six, I think,” Manny said.
“Oh.” Dena’s chest tightened. That was such a loss. She must have married very young. “Zeke was an only child?”
“Mr. Cabrera he die when Zeke is—” Irma lowered one hand to the approximate height of what Dena figured was a six- or seven-year-old.
“Why was Zeke living in L.A.?” Dena asked.
“Law school, then the big snobby firm where he was a junior partner,” Manny said, and rolled his eyes. “Crazy…all those books…all that study—”
“Yes, it’s a hard profession,” Dena said. He hadn’t mentioned law school, and she’d imagined him at Harvard, not an L.A. school. “How long was Zeke away? I mean, did he ever live here as a young man?”
Manny shook his head. “Not much. Vacations. He went to Cal Poly Pomona for his undergrad.” He laughed. “Isabella made him get a Bachelor of Science in Fruit Industries. I don’t think they even have that program anymore. Then he got an M.A. in—”
“Manny!” Irma said, and then followed with a couple of heated sentences in Spanish.
“Sorry,” Manny said. “Mama thinks I’m a gossip.”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry,” Dena flashed an apologetic glace Irma’s way. “All I meant was…if Zeke wasn’t here, who managed the farming business?”
“Isabella.” Manny took another swig of soda. “And Rocky. He’s worked here since he was like my age, or younger, and—”
“He is good worker. He knows more about farming than Zeke,” Irma said. “Good farmer.” She looked behind her down the long hall. “Maybe is not right. To talk about family—”
Dena felt the friction, or was it loyalty? She appraised the kitchen. “Did they build this house? It’s gorgeous.”
Irma smiled, relaxed her stiff shoulders. “Yes. When they come here is nothing—” she waved her arms “—only desert. No haciendas. They build, and they plant together. Is beautiful, no?”
Dena nodded. “I love this kitchen,” she said, and turned to appraise it fully. “It’s so spacious. And I love the black wrought iron treatments.”
Irma went back to the sink with a smile, and Dena turned to Manny. “And they all lived here?” she asked softly.
Manny shook his head. “There’s an old ranch house, much smaller, out near the lake. The grandfather and his older brother lived there. It’s abandoned now, they died years ago. One day Zeke will have it pulled down.”
“Oh. I’d love to see it.”
“Well, you’d have to ask Rocky. He has the key. He keeps it locked, otherwise vagrants could get in there, next thing they’d be homesteading, is what he says. Rocky likes—”
“You finish, no?” Irma asked, and bustled across the room.
“Yes, thank you,” Dena made a quick mental note to include the ranch house on her trip to check out the horse trail to old Cyril’s place. “It was delicious.”
Irma shot a dark warning at Manny and then carried the plate to the sink. Manny averted his eyes. He turned his soda can around and around, as if reading the ingredients.
“Manny,” Dena said, and kept her voice soft. “Do the local Latinos not like Zeke? Are they, suspicious, or something?”
“Well, it’s—” he said, and lowered his voice. He shot a quick look in his mother’s direction. “—superstition, the farmhands are simple folk, not well-educated. They get scared easily. They think the land is evil.”
So that’s it. They’re afraid to come on the land.
“Tell me a bit about the competition down here. Are there other big farms? And do they compete for business?”
“Maybe they do.”
“Would anyone try to undermine Zeke’s business?’
“I don’t think so,” Manny said. “It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone. It would be a huge risk.”
Irma turned around. Her eyes roamed over the table, met Dena’s for a split second, and she returned to whatever she was doing with the vegetables.
“What about West Coast Citrus?” Dena asked, her voice almost a whisper. “Are there any problems there?”
Manny made a face. “The old guy, Cyril, he goes to our church. He says things that are, well, not things you could sue someone for, but—”
“Suggestive, sowing seeds of doubt? Implying guilt?” Dena asked. Manny didn’t look away.
“Yeah, he’s a mean old bastard.”
“Thanks. I want to help Zeke but I have to get a good feel for all of the players in the community.”
“Yeah, small towns—” Manny crushed his empty soda can in one