Plum Gone: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by A. J. Carton

Author:A. J. Carton [Carton, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14: Thursday Afternoon – The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval

It was well past 2:00 p.m. when Steve finally exited Highway 5 for the 210 towards Coachella. Half an hour later, they pulled into a Motel 6 on the outskirts of town.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned car, Emma felt like she’d slammed into a wall of hot air that knocked the breath out of her lungs.

“Ouch!” Steve grimaced when his fingers touched the scorched car door handle before grabbing her overnight bag from the back seat of the car.

“Hot,” she stated.

“Hundred and one, according to my dashboard thermometer,” he replied. “You travel light.”

“One night,” Emma answered. “Remember?”

Steve checked them into their rooms. Heading back outside to find the stairs to the motel’s second floor, he called over his shoulder, “Meet you at the car in five. This is a pit and dump the bags stop. We’re meeting Carillo at the Citrus Road facility in fifteen.”

A few minutes later, Emma found her room at the far end of the first floor outdoor corridor. Its window faced the area assigned for parking semi trucks. She imagined their headlights illuminating the room’s scuffed walls in the middle of the night.

She quickly erased that image from her head, dumped her overnight bag on the queen-sized bed’s stained blue quilt, and entered the bathroom to wash her face. Then she changed from her T-shirt into a thin cotton short-sleeved blouse, grabbed her purse, locked her door and met Steve back at the car.

The heat had permeated its interior in just the few minutes they were gone. The air inside the car was now thick enough to chew.

They drove southeast of Coachella. In just a few minutes the town had disappeared. All they could see was fields in every direction.

“How do they grow things here?” Emma exclaimed. “It’s so hot and dry.”

“Wells,” Steve answered. “Someone named Rector drilled wells here. Around the turn of the century. I read about it last night. At first, the place was called Woodspur because the railroad stopped near here to pick up lumber from nearby Indio – aka Indian Springs.”

“And Coachella?” Emma asked. “Is that a Native American name?”

Steve shook his head. “The story goes that the name was a mistake. A misspelling of a Spanish word, conchilla. Which means little shells. Apparently Rector, who owned the land, wanted to name the town Conchilla after a bunch of little shells found in the sand around here. But whoever printed the town prospectus misspelled the name. The developers didn’t want to delay the announcement, so Rector accepted the misspelled name and the town’s been known as Coachella ever since. Funny, huh?”

“Sad,” Emma shrugged, thinking of Blissburg’s unlucky namesake – an eighteen year old gold seeker shot in a quarrel. And of California’s random place names that seemed, suddenly, to mirror the state’s reckless development: Weed, Cool, Yreka.

“Sad compared to the old Spanish names,” she added. “Like the missions named after saints - or angels.”

Steve shook his head. “All depends on your point of view, Emma.

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