The Keeper of Bees ARC

by Gregory Ashe

  “No, Mr.—no, Rob. Just a nice young man. Oh. Wait. He did have freckles. I remember that. Lots of ’em.”

  “Freckles, all right.” A stab of disappointment went through Somers, but he forced himself to focus. “And you’re sure he’s the one that picked up the truck. How the Christ did it get to Ames?”

  “Well, you didn’t check the GPS?”

  “Check the GPS? Well, Christ, of course I did. But I can’t get anything to come up on this goddamn machine. I figured it was busted.”

  “No, I’ve got it right here. Made two stops, just like you’d expect with an in-town move. Went to—hold on. It doesn’t have a street address, but I can give you the coordinates.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  She read off the coordinates, which Somers jotted on a napkin. Then she said, “You ready for the second stop?”

  “You’re telling me this truck is still in Wahredua?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s just the GPS being broken, that’s what it is. They stopped somewhere and busted it and then they drove off.”

  “Rob, I’m telling you, it’s still here. The signal is still active.”

  “Well, sweet Jesus, I’m going to call those Ames cops and hand them their asses for ruining a perfect day for golf.”

  “Here, before you go, let me give you those numbers.” She read them to him, and he copied them below the first set.

  “Doll, you’re perfect. You tell that bitch sister of yours that I’m going to make the two of you swap. You ought to be running that place if she’s going to leave you to do all the work. Sorry again about being an asshole.”

  “Oh, that’s all—”

  He hung up and stared at the numbers. Then he shouted, “Connie!”

  Connie let himself through the door carefully, closing it behind him to minimize the chance of someone seeing into the room. “I know your stupid, white, entitled self didn’t just make me come running at your beck and call.”

  “Hey, buddy. Can I borrow your phone?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to look up these coordinates.”

  “I want it back,” Connie said, passing over an iPhone. “That’s new.”

  “You’ll get it back. Geez, where’s the trust, Con?”

  Connie mumbled something that sounded like ten different versions of dumbass.

  Ignoring him, Somers plugged in the coordinates. The first matched the Sexten Motors factory building where he and Yarmark had found evidence of the Keeper’s preparation. The second matched the Chem building on Wroxall College’s North Quad. The same place where Somers and Hazard had found Rory, Phil, and Mitchell.

  “That arrogant son of a bitch,” Somers said. “He’s doing it again.”

  “Doing what again?”

  Somers called Hazard, but the call went immediately to voicemail. He tried again with the same result. After a moment of deliberation, Somers decided not to leave a message in case Riggle or Park somehow got access to Hazard’s phone.

  After hanging up, Somers said to Connie, “I’m going to give you a note for Emery. I need you to find a way to get it to him. But only him. Nobody else, no matter what. If the cops show up asking about me, you can tell them whatever you want—”

  “I don’t know any dumbasses that match that description, Officer,” Connie said.

  Somers grinned and finished, “—but only Emery gets this note. I’ll write his number here too, but you may have to track him down the old-fashioned way.”

  Connie gave him a thumbs-up.

  Grabbing the Pepsi and the remaining bottle of water, Somers said, “Thanks, Con.”

  “You owe me.”

  “I owe you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To stop this fucking maniac.” And Somers knew he had to hurry; every minute that passed carried Dulac’s victims a little closer to death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  JULY 5

  FRIDAY

  2:16 PM

  SOMERS FOUND THE U-HAUL truck parked on the edge of campus. He rolled up the back door, hand on his gun, but the truck was empty. He checked the cab—both doors unlocked—and found nothing there either.

  He expected a few looks as he walked across Wroxall’s quad toward the Chem building, but he was surprised to find that campus was almost empty. It was summer term, sure, but Wroxall still had a decent enrollment in June and July. Then he remembered that it was a holiday weekend. It was probably for the better. He’d forgotten to wash out the hair dye, and whatever the color was called—Grandfather’s Saddle was what he thought he’d seen on the box—the few times he caught a glimpse of himself, he thought he looked like he was going through a particularly bad midlife crisis. Worse, his head was starting to itch. And he was still swimming inside the enormous panda t-shirt and the lady track pants with more pandas. So, yeah, he thought maybe he’d get a few looks as he made his way through the building.

  But he’d also forgotten that he was going to a college. The few people that he did see on the quad barely noticed him. He passed a nonbinary person with so many piercings in their brows, nose, and lips, that Somers prayed they never got too close to a microwave—or anything with a magnet, for that matter. He traded glances with a huge guy wearing a muumuu, and the guy, who was probably twenty, eyeballed Somers’s shirt briefly and gave him double thumbs up. Somers passed a gaggle of girls in what he guessed was an anime-influenced take on Victorian apparel, complete with parasols. A guy with a bad dye job and a panda shirt? Hell, he was probably dressed more conservatively than the dean.

  The main doors to the Chem building were unlocked, and Somers made his way through the halls without seeing anyone. It was easy enough to get to the building’s basement; the door at the top of the stairs wasn’t locked either, and he headed down before his luck ran out.

  Fluorescent tubes were mounted on the walls, and they gave the basement hallway a flickering yellow glow. The linoleum was off-white and covered in skid marks left by cheap casters; one of the carts with the offending wheels was pushed up against the wall, loaded with tools, small pieces of drywall, spackle, and mesh screens—somebody had been repairing drywall. Behind one of the locked doors, some piece of machinery chugged to life with a lot of shrieking and thumping. Whatever it was, Somers figured somebody should probably take a look at it soon.

  He made his way down the hallway, passing locked doors that led to supply rooms and storage spaces, each assigned to various departments that used the Chem building. As he left the machine behind, the quiet grew until it seemed to devour each footstep. His blood buzzed in his ears. The last time he had come here, he had been with Hazard. He remembered, when they got to the sub-basement, Hazard stopping him, saying something bullshit and macho about not ever letting Somers get hurt. Today, though, Hazard wasn’t here. Today, Hazard was, Christ, hopefully somewhere safe.

  Today, Somers was going to have to face the Keeper himself. He still couldn’t wrap his head around Dulac being the killer, although so many things that had seemed strange over the last year now made sense: his obsession with Somers, the collection of photographs, the strangely aggressive sexual commentary. When Somers tried to think about it, the pain was too intense. He had liked Dulac, in spite of all his faults. He had trusted him. And worst of all, he had been a fool. Now it was time to make things right.

  Somers could hear, in his mind, what Hazard would say about that: he’d talk about Die Hard. He’d talk about the toxic mythology of the lone hero, the over-developed masculine ego, hell, he’d probably slip something in there about penis envy, although Somers had a penis, so he wasn’t really sure how Hazard would connect the dots. He knew, at a gut level, that Hazard would tell him he was doing something stupid. The lone hero, that was fine for books and movies, it was fine when it was just a story. Hazard would tell him to be smart, place an anonymous call, let the police check out the sub-basement.

  But Dulac—the
Keeper—had fucked with Somers’s life. Somers couldn’t turn to the police because he was now a wanted fugitive. Sure, an anonymous tip might work. But it might not. The Keeper had slipped away from the last murders; Somers didn’t want to leave any opportunity for the Keeper to slip away again. And this asshole, no matter how tricky he was, wouldn’t expect Somers. Right now, this asshole was probably patting himself on the back, pleased that he had Somers on the run, so proud of himself for framing Somers and disrupting the investigation. So Somers was going to handle this himself, while he still had the advantage of surprise. And the rest of it, the drugs, they’d figure out once the Keeper was in custody.

  He had reached the door to the sub-basement, secured by a heavy padlock. This was the part where things got tricky. If Somers had been Hazard, he would have had a plan—for that matter, if Somers were Hazard, he would have just used a bump key or picked the lock or known how to jimmy the door off its hinges. Somers wasn’t Hazard, though. He’d come this far, and now he just had to figure out how to get the rest of the way.

  If worse came to worst, Somers thought, he could always try to break the lock with the butt of the Glock, although it would be hell on a fine piece of engineering. He reached out and tugged on the lock to see how solid it was. Pretty solid. A padlock, which secured the door from the outside, meant the Keeper probably wasn’t waiting in the basement. But it was a good possibility that the Keeper was keeping his victims down there—Mitchell and Nico, and maybe others. Somers considered the problem for a minute. Then he walked back to the cart he had spotted. He picked through the tools, came up with a nice claw hammer, and carried it back. He was pretty sure he could break the padlock off. He might even rip the hasp out of the frame.

  Groaning, he stopped, went back, and got a screwdriver. Thank God Hazard wasn’t here, or he’d never hear the end of this. It took him two minutes to unscrew the hasp from the frame, and he wasn’t even in a rush. No need to break the padlock when he could just detach the whole locking mechanism from the frame.

  Somers tried one last time to wrap his head around the Keeper’s decision to use this space again. It was brash and defiant; a slap in the face to Hazard and Somers, a bold statement that this was the Keeper’s place. It was, bottom line, a fuck you.

  From down the hall came the sound of a door opening and then the rumble of casters. A custodial worker, Somers guessed. He didn’t give himself any more time to hesitate. Drawing the Glock, Somers slipped through the doorway, pulling the door shut behind him. A deadbolt was set on the inside of the door, and Somers threw it home, just in case the custodian decided to investigate the loose hasp. Then Somers went down the steep flight of stairs; a second door met him here, the boards old and warped, and it stuck slightly as Somers forced it open. He stepped into the cool, damp darkness beyond. The smell of limestone and mold met him.

  The sub-basement was a low-ceilinged honeycomb of rooms—at one point, it had served a similar function as the storerooms on the level above. Here, though, the doors had been removed, leaving a maze of shadowy cells that disappeared into darkness. Somers cursed himself for not thinking of a flashlight. Laying one hand on the wall, he felt the chill, the porous wetness of the stone, and the toolmarks left from quarrying. Then, guiding himself along the wall, he moved into the darkness.

  Somers tried to control his breathing; everything he did seemed too loud. The leather soles of his oxfords whispered against the stone no matter how quietly he tried to move. The rasp of his palm on the wall, felt more than heard, still seemed as loud as a circular saw. Something in the building whined, a low, droning noise that made him think of the bees that had been down here.

  When he passed the first cell, something hit him from the side. Somers went down, his head cracking against the limestone, and stars exploded in his vision. The attacker caught his wrist, slamming it once, twice, but Somers held onto the Glock. Training and reaction kicked in, and he rolled, bringing his free hand up and clubbing hard against the side of his attacker’s head. They tumbled together, and Somers came up on top, shouting, “Don’t move, don’t move, I will fucking blow your head off.”

  The figure beneath him went still.

  And then, out of the darkness came a familiar voice, “John-Henry?”

  It was Nico.

  And then the dull whine registered, and Somers scrambled off Nico, stumbling to the ancient door. He threw it open, sprinted up the stairs, and hit the door at the top with his shoulder. It held fast. He fumbled with the deadbolt at the top, cleared the bolt, and tried again. Nothing. He threw his weight into the door again. It didn’t even budge.

  When the sound of the drill cut off, Somers heard laughter on the other side of the door. He knew, now, what had happened: the Keeper had been waiting for him, and once Somers had stepped into the sub-basement, the Keeper had secured the hasp to the door jamb again. That hadn’t been a custodian coming down the hall; it had been the Keeper. The whole thing had been a trap, and Somers had walked into it like a fool.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  JULY 5

  FRIDAY

  3:09 PM

  THE NURSE’S NAME WAS Melinda Rasmussen. She went by Mellie, and she lived in a vinyl-sided ranch in an old neighborhood on the outskirts of town. Hazard cruised the street and studied the home. The flowerbeds around the house held peonies and hostas and daylilies, but the peonies drooped, and the leaves of the hostas looked burned along the edges from drought, and the daylilies had been swallowed up by weeds. In every window, the curtains were drawn tight. The July air was heavy and sticky and still; wind chimes hung from the eaves, silent.

  At the end of the block, Hazard turned, drove another hundred yards, and parked. He took out his phone and saw that he had missed a call during the drive. He didn’t recognize the number. It was the third or fourth call like that, and Hazard had missed all of them for one reason or another. The caller had refused, so far, to leave a message. He considered calling back, just to see who it was, but didn’t.

  Then Hazard called Cora and asked her to get Evie from preschool, and he disconnected when she wanted to talk about Somers. He powered down the phone just to make sure it didn’t start ringing in the middle of a B&E. Then he got the Blackhawk out of the gun safe, slipped on the shoulder holster, and tugged on a windbreaker. It had been easy to get Rasmussen’s name and information. Hazard had spent the last eight months building a network of informants. Some were holdovers from his days on the police, while others were former clients, and others were simply men and women he had convinced, with favors, secrets, and cash, to help him. Lela Mae Burrows worked at Wahredua Regional Hospital, and when Hazard had given a description of the woman in the convertible, explained her connection to Cynthia Outzen, and asked for a name and address, Lela Mae had sent him an email from a burner address within fifteen minutes.

  Now Hazard cut across the neighbor’s lawn. It was quiet this afternoon, and the sun was hot through the thin t-shirt; somewhere, a sprinkler was lazily spit-spit-spitting, and then, inside the house that Hazard was passing, a phone rang, and a woman’s voice, muffled through patio doors, said, “I know, can you believe it?”

  He kept going. The lots here were unfenced, and so it was a simple matter to cross over into Rasmussen’s backyard. A cement apron held a patio set, the paint flecking to release tiny rivulets of rust, and terracotta planters held staked tomatoes and thyme and green onions. Weeds grew thickly here too. Rasmussen even had a banana tree, the poor thing thin and wobbly, the bananas green in their tight clusters. The windows along the back of the house had curtains drawn too. Double patio doors led into the house, but the large panes of glass set into the wood were blocked. As Hazard got closer, he realized that the fabric hanging inside the patio doors was a pair of kid’s bed sheets, printed with a dog and a cat in the middle of a boxing match, the dog reeling back and maybe down for the count. Footwork, Hazard could have told him. It was all about footwork.

  The curtains in the front mig
ht have had some sort of innocent explanation—maybe Rasmussen had a nosy neighbor—but every possible way of seeing into the house was blocked. The patio doors, with their bed sheets, were evidence that Rasmussen had been determined to keep something hidden.

  Sweat ran freely down Hazard’s face; more of it soaked his tee at the shoulders. He could smell the sweat, mixed in with the thyme and the green onions. As he jogged the length of the house, broken pieces of the cement driveway crunched underfoot; that was the only sound besides the spit-spit-spit of the distant sprinkler. No Chrysler convertible at the back of the house. Hazard checked around the side. Nothing. Instead of a garage, the house had an aluminum-frame carport, and that was empty too. Hazard went back to the double patio doors and made his decision.

  He pulled out a thin leather wallet where he kept the essentials, found a modified slim jim, and worked it between the patio doors. Double doors like these, especially when they had so much glass in them, were basically ornamental. They wanted to fall open at the slightest touch; you just had to give them a nudge. A moment later, the door on the right slipped open, and Hazard pushed his way inside.

  The kitchen was small, cramped, with an awful octagonal pattern in the linoleum and with heavy wooden furniture that looked like it belonged to another generation. Someone had burned breakfast sausage; the smell hung in the air, and the pan, with charcoal chunks of meat still stuck to it, was submerged in greasy water in the sink. A clock ticked, and then the A/C came on, breathing cold air against Hazard’s face. He listened a moment longer, and then he moved.

  As best he could, Hazard moved silently, but the house was old, and the floor creaked every time he took a step. He wanted to find a home office or its equivalent—some place where Rasmussen kept important documents. A phone bill, a bank statement, receipts. Anything that might tell him how Rasmussen was helping Dulac and why. It was no small task to provide a hospital patient with the means of suicide; Rasmussen had made herself an accomplice to murder, Hazard would argue, even if she hadn’t known the full extent of what Dulac was doing. Was Dulac blackmailing her? Had he bribed her? Or—Hazard thought of his theory that two people might be committing the Keeper killings—or was Rasmussen a psychopath too? Were she and Dulac working as partners?