“You got that right.” Bible slapped his knee. He was so damn good at this. “Now, fava beans. Are those the same as broad beans? I thought they had some kind’a toxin.”
“Yes, phytohemagglutinin is a naturally occurring lectin.” Wexler paused, but only to take in a breath. “There are low concentrations of the toxin in the bean. What you do is you boil them down for ten minutes. But that’s where the process gets interesting.”
Andrea waited for Dean Wexler to hit his stride. She slid out her iPhone. She wanted a photograph of Star. The girl had parents somewhere. They would want to know that she was still alive.
Wexler droned, “In their wild state, they’re around the size of a fingernail, which is too small for the consumer market.”
Andrea wondered how she could track down Star’s parents. Or if it would even matter. The woman was standing in a room with three law enforcement officers. If she wanted help, all she had to do was open her mouth.
Unless she was too afraid.
“Favism,” Wexler continued, “is an inborn error of metabolism. Fava can break down the red blood cells, which can be very dangerous, particularly in newborns.”
Andrea guessed that Wexler had been the type of teacher that kids found cool but adults found stupefying. She turned her head. Star openly stared back at her. The woman’s eyes were like glowing crystal balls in her sunken face. Her lips were parted. The sickly sweetness of her breath smelled like cough medicine and rot.
She was looking at Andrea’s phone.
“Star,” Wexler commanded. “Bring me a glass of water.”
Again, Star moved robotically, as if following a sub-routine. Walk to the cabinet. Stop. Take out a glass. Stop. Walk to the sink.
Andrea turned her back to the woman, which was exactly what Wexler seemed to have been waiting for.
He told Bible, “Let’s get to the point. I have work to do.”
“Sure,” Bible said. “So, tell me about the application process for your volunteers.”
“It’s not very complicated. Entrants write an essay. They must have an interest in organic farming, preferably some studies already completed in the field. You might have gathered we’ve got a stellar international reputation. We get the cream of the crop.”
“Must be hard to winnow it down to a dozen or so every year.”
Wexler saw where this was going. “Bernard, the farm manager, goes through the applications. He’s the one who chooses the volunteers.”
Bible asked, “They all women?”
“What’s that?”
“All the applicants,” Bible said. “Are they all women, or does Bernard weed out the men?”
“You’d have to ask him that.” The smug look was back on Wexler’s face. He clearly accepted all of the credit and none of the blame. “For the last thirty-five years, Nardo has been completely in charge of the selection process. I helped set up the parameters in the very beginning, but I can’t tell you the last time I read an application, let alone performed an interview.”
“Nardo interviews ’em?” Bible asked. “What, he flies over to Europe and—”
“No, no. It’s all through the computer. FaceTime or Zoom. I don’t know the particulars. Where the ads are placed. What questions are asked. Why some people stick around for another year, why some decide to go home.” Wexler looked up at Star. She stood beside him with a glass of water. He pointed at the side table and waited for her to place it on a coaster. “Once Nardo chooses the lucky few, he sends them the details and they book their tickets and fly over. I barely even meet them anymore.”
Star walked back toward the kitchen. Flour dabbed her shallow cheek. Her skin was so white that it barely left a shadow. Andrea heard the swish of her bare feet across the floorboards. She moved like a ghost. Again, her eyes went to Andrea’s phone.
Bible asked, “The volunteers have to pay their own way?”
“Of course. We’re not their employers. We provide them with the opportunity to learn a high-level skill that has practical applications to their ongoing coursework when they return to university.”
Andrea leaned back against the counter. She unlocked her phone. She placed it on the counter with the screen side up, then pushed it back with her elbow so that Star could take it.
“Is it all farming?” Bible asked. “Or do they work in that factory up the road, too?”
“That’s where the beans are processed,” Wexler told him. “It’s mostly automated, but there are still things that have to be done by hand such as packing and taping boxes. Logging them in for shipping. Loading them into the trucks.”
“High-level skills with practical applications,’” Bible quoted.
“Precisely,” Wexler said, not picking up on the sarcasm. “We give them valuable skills before they are released back into the world. Anyone can sit behind a desk and read a textbook. This was the problem I saw every day when I was teaching. Why make someone read about a subject when they can put their hands in the soil and understand the earth in a metaphysical way?”
Andrea heard a rolling pin squeaking behind her. The smell of yeast filled the kitchen. She glanced down at her phone. It was exactly where she had left it. The screen had gone black. The phone was programmed to lock after thirty seconds.
“Funny how you said that,” Bible told him. “‘Released back into the world’. Does that mean you cut off those ankle bracelets before you let them go?”
“I’ve told you all that I know,” Wexler said. “Cheese, when will I get my field back? We have work to do.”
Stilton clearly didn’t like the nickname any more when Wexler used it. “When I’m damn good and ready.”
“What about Alice’s parents?” Bible asked Wexler. “I assume you’re going to notify them.”
“I wouldn’t know how.”
“Nardo, then?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Andrea debated about whether to unlock her phone again. Was Star trying to send her a different message? Andrea looked at her hands, her shorts. What had Star been trying to signal?
“We could take notifying her parents off your hands for you,” Bible said. “Maybe there’s some letters or a phone in Ms. Poulsen’s personal belongings. People have all kinds of information on their phones.”
“Don’t you need a warrant for that?” The corners of Wexler’s mouth twitched with his familiar smugness. “Probably not the best idea to ask for legal advice from a cop.”
“I prefer to be called either Marshal or Deputy,” Bible said. “Cops are generally like Chief Stilton here. They handle state-level issues like traffic tickets and DUIs. I’m at the federal level, so that covers things like wage theft, conspiracy to commit forced labor, sexual coercion and sex trafficking.”
The room went so silent that Andrea could hear the oven ticking as it warmed up.
She tried not to startle when something small and solid pressed against her elbow. She waited until the rolling pin started to squeak again to look down. Star had pushed Andrea’s iPhone away.
“Did Ms. Poulsen live over there in the bunkhouse?” Bible asked. “We can just pop over and—”