Thirteen
Early Monday morning before work, still stinging from Holly’s barbs and the angry tirade I’d had to endure, I sat down at my patio table with a cup of red clover tea. My sister hadn’t been exactly sympathetic, although eventually she’d settled down. We both were pretty sure the liar who claimed to have seen me would never come forward. But even without eyewitness evidence, Johnny Jay might think I had sufficient motive. Jealousy, he’d tell the jury, Story Fischer couldn’t bear to see Clay Lane with another woman.
I wondered how the authorities knew for sure Faye had been murdered. For that matter, how were they so positive Manny’s death was an accident?
How many death certificates are prepared every year where the cause of death is either accidental or natural? Bunches, I bet. And how many of those innocent-seeming incidents could have been murder? Who knows?
Consider the elderly. When they die alone at home, none of the family members think an autopsy is important. Grandpa died of old age. Right? But what if Cousin Frankie had been adjusting Grandpa’s medication? Or feeding him arsenic? Or helped him along with a pillow to the face? Who would be the wiser?
And those so-called accidental deaths? Say someone’s husband falls off his roof still clutching his beer and lands right on his head? An accident, right? But what if he was pushed? Or what if the missus, sensing her lucky day, finished him off with an additional bang to the head?
I couldn’t stop thinking bad thoughts and concocting gruesome scenarios. I glanced over at Clay’s house, wondering how safe I was.
Last night Holly had demanded that I rearrange my priorities. She wanted to know what I had been doing looking for nests and collecting dead yellow jackets in plastic bags when I was close to becoming the most wanted woman in Moraine. Being wanted was not a good thing under these circumstances, but I didn’t plan on letting it get that far. If only I could think of something to make this all go away.
I could go on forever with what-ifs and if-onlys. Life and death were filled with hard questions and elusive answers. I could have explained to Holly that since I couldn’t bring back Manny or Faye, rescuing hundreds of live honeybees was the only way I could feel useful. But she would have poked holes in my dream.
To cheer myself, I walked through my garden, picking ripe vegetables. I’d planted the garden for my own use, not for the produce aisle at The Wild Clover. Every year I experimented with different plants. The early crops like lettuce, peas, arugula, and radishes were done for this year. My fall crop consisted of:
? Tomatoes—heritage pineapple tomatoes grown from saved seeds and Romas because I can throw them in the freezer right from the garden.
? Ground cherries—they form inside a husk and taste like a cross between a tomato, a cherry, and a pineapple. And they make an awesome pie.
? All my favorite things for making salsas—sweet green peppers, Anaheim and poblano peppers, onions, and tomatillos.
? Beets—both red and golden. I make the best beet soup in the Midwest.
? Squash—both summer and winter.
? Potatoes—fingerlings and red golds.
I set an armful of ripe garden veggies on the patio table, then drizzled some honey into a five-gallon bucket and set it out for my bees, the same way Manny had given his honeybees a treat, right before his death. I stared longingly at the spot where I’d kept my kayak, wondering when I’d get it back and if so, if I’d ever take it out again without seeing the image of Faye’s lifeless body inside, not to mention Clay and Faye doing you-know-what in my kayak.
I was listening to the music of the bees buzzing when I heard human voices rising above the familiar hum. Lori Spandle’s shrewish voice stood out above the din. She rounded my house wearing her bee veil, and she had a gang right behind her.
I had a feeling I was going to lose a few store customers this morning.
Clay came out of his house and watched from his porch. P. P. Patti Dwyre slipped through the cedars separating her house from mine. But to give her a teensy amount of credit for a change, she didn’t join Lori’s group. Instead she lingered near the shrubs within hearing range.
“What are you doing with her?” I said to Stanley Peck, using my head to indicate Lori. Stanley towered over the rest of Lori’s bunch, making it hard for him to conceal himself. He looked embarrassed, as well he should be. I peered to the back, counting heads. Seven in all. The group seemed so much larger.
“I’m making sure things don’t get out of hand,” he said.
Lori turned to him. “Who went and made you sheriff?”
Stanley squirmed under her glare but didn’t say anything more.
“You’re either with us or against us,” she added to her mob, mostly for Stanley’s benefit, before turning her attention back to me. “Ray Goodwin was stung yesterday while he was making a delivery run.”
“Since when does Ray work on Sundays?” I asked. Ray averaged two deliveries each week, sometimes more, showing up whenever it suited him. But he’d never come around on a Sunday.
“The economy is tough,” someone said. “We all do what we have to.”
“What’s his route schedule got to do with anything?” Lori said impatiently. “The important thing is he was stung. Twice.”
“Yellow jackets,” I announced.
“Tell her, Stanley,” Lori said, hands on her hips.
“He came to me afterward,” Stanley said, unable to meet my eyes. “I know a little something about barbed stingers. I took the stingers out for him.”
Jeez. I couldn’t blame this one on yellow jackets if the stingers were left behind.
“Where did this happen?” I wanted to know.
“At Country Delight Farm,” Lori said. “He was picking up apples for today’s deliveries.”
Country Delight Farm was less than two miles out of town and specialized in fall produce—apples, pumpkins, cider—along with autumn activities like corn mazes and hayrides. “I don’t see Ray here with you.” It figures that busybody Lori would interfere in Ray’s business instead of worrying about her own! “If he had a problem, he should come to me,” I said.
“We’re representing him,” she said. “Your bees are a danger to our community and to our lives.”
“My bees don’t roam as far as Country Delight Farm,” I lied.
“Stanley says different,” she said.
“Well, she asked,” Stanley said with a faint whine when he saw the look I gave him. “So I looked it up. Bees can go farther than two miles if they want to.”
“We are going to take care of this right now,” Lori said, producing a spray can from out of nowhere.
People can be dumb as dirt, especially dopey, overly aggressive real estate agents named Lori. “You can’t spray bees during the day,” I said. “Not that I would let you do it at any time, day or night.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lori moved forward, taking my statement as the challenge I meant it to be. If she sprayed my honeybees, some of them would die, but the rest would go on attack and we’d have to run for our lives. And if they didn’t kill Lori, I would.
To end an already bad situation, I gave Lori a push backward, putting some muscle into it because she was moving forward fast, and I wanted to do more than stop her in her tracks. We were surrounded by spectators, everybody focused on Lori and me. I felt like a chicken in a ring.
Lori stumbled and flew back, looking like she would fall down if I so much as nudged her with my index finger, then she regained her footing and came up with her veil askew. She flung it off, and I noticed that her round face had turned the color of my ripe Roma tomatoes lying on the patio table. Her eyes shot daggers at me.
“Back off,” I warned, when I saw that she was readjusting herself for another attack. “Somebody restrain her. Please.”
Everybody looked stricken. Nobody moved.
Lori came directly at me, with the poisonous spray can pointed at my face. Was she insane? Would she really spray bee poison in my face? Finally her mob of “do-gooders” decided to react. Several hands clutched at her when they realized what she was up to.
“Clay!” I shouted. “Call the police!”
“That won’t be necessary,” Stanley yelled, as a shot exploded. Everyone froze. My ears rang like my head had been banged on both sides with cymbals. A few people dove for the ground. Some had their hands over their ears and stunned looks on their faces and round O’s for mouths.
I blinked a few times and shook my head to clear it.
Stanley kept his loaded pistol raised in the air for effect. “Clear out!” he said. “Now! Especially you, Lori.”
“We never would have come along,” someone else grumbled, “if we’d known that Lori was going to get physical. We were just supposed to talk it out.”
“You can’t fire a weapon in town,” Lori shouted at Stanley. “Are you crazy?” But she backed off and put the spray can away. Then she pointed at me. “Story Fischer attacked me, and you all saw it. I’m calling you as witnesses when I sue her butt for assault.”
“Story was only protecting her property,” Stanley said. By now the pistol had vanished to wherever he’d kept it hidden before. “You’ll be lucky if Story doesn’t file charges against you. Now, go! Get out of here.”
My uninvited backyard guests cleared out, except for Stanley. P. P. Patti ducked back through the hedge; I was sure she was racing for her phone and the gossip freeway. I saw Clay go back inside without lifting a finger to help. Another mark against him.
Lori’s bee veil was still on the grass. She’d forgotten it in her hasty retreat. I picked it up and put it on the patio table.
“You just got added to Lori’s list, too,” I said to Stanley.
“Once she goes after you, she never backs down. I’m finding that out the hard way.”
“She doesn’t bother me a bit. Let her start in on me. We’ll see who’s toughest.”
At that, I opened my arms and rushed Stanley. While I was giving him a happy hug for saving the situation from escalating to who-knew-where, Hunter came around the side of the house with his dog, Ben, and stopped in his tracks. I still had Stanley in a bear hug. Looking over his shoulder, I saw Hunter take a step back as if he wanted to hustle back around the corner except that I’d spotted him already.
I let Stanley go. What did Hunter think? That he’d interrupted us in a romantic clench? Stanley was much older than me. And, more important, definitely not my type.
But Hunter and Ben weren’t by themselves. I saw the rest of the C.I.T. squad behind him, and Johnny Jay creeping around the other side of the house, on the driveway that separated my house from Clay’s.
This was it. The moment I’d feared. They were going to arrest me and throw me in jail, leaving my bees vulnerable to Lori’s deadly spray can. Not to mention that my own pathetic life was in ruins.
“You don’t need all this backup,” I said quietly to Hunter, not moving a muscle. “There won’t be a scene.”
“It’s standard procedure,” Hunter said with a serious expression. I looked at the dog, who seemed ready for action. Maybe too ready. The last thing I wanted was that dog unleashed on me.
I put my hands up in the air, hoping that would calm the animal, praying he understood the universal gesture of surrender.
“Where did the shot come from?” Hunter said. I slid a look at Stanley, who put his hands in the air, too.
“It went off accidentally,” Stanley said, prepared to own up and admit his illegal action.
“It didn’t come from inside the house?”
“Of course not,” Stanley said. He looked around at the rest of the law enforcement officials. “You didn’t have to bring the entire team just because of one little shot.”
Hunter shook his head, frowning, then ran his blue eyes along our raised arms, and said, “You need to wait inside your house, Story. You, too, Stanley.”
Then I noticed that every member of C.I.T. had his attention focused, not on Stanley and me, but on Clay’s house.
“What’s going on?” I finally asked, lowering my arm.
“We’re arresting your ex-husband,” Hunter said. “Now please go inside.”