Beeline to Trouble

by Hannah Reed

  With that order, she trotted off.

  “Did you see the way she treated me?” Holly said. “Like a servant.”

  “Please don’t tell me she’s really part of the team?” I said.

  Holly nodded. “You should have seen Effie’s reaction when Nova ordered her to carry her bag upstairs. And it’s obvious the other members of the team can barely tolerate her. Thankfully, she went up to her room early with a headache, because she was about to give me a major one. I’m trying to stay calm and reserve judgment, but I see the way she looks at Max.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” I said, hopefully. “You’re a hard act to follow.” That last part was perfectly true. Holly and I have a lot in common in the looks department—same eyes, height, etc.—but somehow she carries herself differently, more refined maybe, and is truly beautiful where I’ve always considered myself mildly pretty.

  Soon after, Max elbowed his way through the door with a pot of coffee in one hand, a cup in the other.

  Max Paine is passionate, intelligent, and has more than his fair share of dark hair, which I like on a man. Holly and Max stand almost head to head, and I’ve always suspected that one of the main reasons Max fell in love with my sister is because she’s his equal in every way—strong, smart, and with a passion that matches his own. Except Max is all dark and swarthy and Holly is blond and fair. They started out their life together in classic post-college poverty, until they found out how good Max was at climbing ladders—corporate ones, especially.

  Max’s face lit up at the sight of his wife. He kissed her even before putting down the load in his hands. That put me more at ease regarding his houseguest’s possible secret motives. My sister’s husband better keep having eyes only for her, or he’d have me to answer to.

  “Look at this beautiful table,” he said, taking in the offerings with much more appreciation than Nova had. “Did you do all this yourself, gorgeous?”

  Holly’s eyes darted to me. She spotted my almost imperceptible nod of conspiratorial consent, so she went ahead and took the credit for breakfast. My sister was going to owe me big-time after this weekend.

  “I better get going,” I said. “It’s going to be a busy day.”

  “I was hoping for a tour of your hives this afternoon,” Max said to me. “My guests have expressed interest in your apiary.”

  “Really? They’re interested?” I loved to show off my bees. It wasn’t every day that someone came along and actually requested a tour. Usually, when they find out my backyard is a mini airport for flying insects, they run in the opposite direction. My bro-in-law had just scored major points with me.

  “Absolutely. My flavorists are also naturalists,” Max told me. “They excel in the natural sciences. Besides, they might find inspiration for a new flavor combination. Honey combined with something unique and exciting? Who knows? Anything is possible. Would later this morning work?”

  “Perfect,” I said, without thinking about the meal I had to prepare for them later.

  “It’s a plan then,” Max said.

  Holly followed me out to my truck. “You saved me this morning,” she said. “But we still have a long way to go. Don’t forget about dinner.”

  “Relax,” I said, thinking, Oops, too late.

  “What are you thinking of serving?” Holly was full of eager enthusiasm.

  “A surprise,” I said. Which was true. Whatever it was would be a surprise to me, too.

  Three

  On the way out, I saw Chance Anderson, Holly’s gardener, trimming around a stand of day lilies near the entrance to the driveway. I stopped the truck, rolled down my window, and Chance’s large frame straightened from his task. We spent a few minutes chatting about flowers, him leaning against my truck, me admiring his handwork.

  “Everything looks great,” I said. “You have a magic touch.”

  I could tell how proud he was.

  “Just trying to keep up with the Joneses.” He laughed. “Max’s orders.”

  “That guy . . .” I said, shaking my head, letting the sentence die a natural death. Even the gardener recognized Max had an issue with size.

  Chance Anderson is fun, relaxed, muscular, and perpetually tanned from working outdoors. Holly and I share the opinion that the sexiest men on the planet happen to be construction workers. I mean really? How many of us mind slowing down for road work? Not this girl. And Holly thinks Chance would have that same appeal if he’d lose a few pounds.

  After silently agreeing with Holly’s assessment of Chance, I said good-bye and drove off.

  The road through Chenequa is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever traveled. It’s a winding, charming pathway through towering hardwoods with brief glimpses of all those mansions along the lake. Wildflowers frame the sides of the road in magnificent displays of color from early spring to late fall.

  When I spotted a four-wheeler stopped along the roadway just off one of our many trails, parked right next to a particularly rich patch of flora, I suspected what was going on even before seeing the coneflowers and columbine bunched in the woman’s greedy garden-gloved hand.

  “That’s illegal,” I shouted out the window, pulling over and throwing open the door, pounding over to the woman, who was wearing a safari hat with a strap under her chin and wielding a pair of shears. “You can’t pick wildflowers here.” This wasn’t my first encounter with a violator. Wisconsin has an aggressive wildflower protection law. Not everybody knows that, so I’ve taken it upon myself to inform them when I bust the thoughtless buggers red-handed.

  The woman had a narrow face and froglike protruding eyes, which she used to give me a hard stare. Then she said, “Who says I can’t pick these?”

  “The Department of Natural Resources,” I answered, not really sure whose jurisdiction this particular crime fell under.

  She actually had the nerve to bend over and snip off another flower, a beautifully formed purple coneflower.

  I hate when people think they can take what doesn’t belong to them, especially when they know better. And this woman was now properly informed. She slowly added the coneflower to her bouquet as though intentionally mocking my effort to stop her. I wanted to thump her for the smirk on her face.

  “I’m reporting you.” I was getting seriously ticked off. “What’s your name?”

  “Oh, give it up already. Get back in your piece of junk and drive on home.” She did a brush-off wave with her hand.

  While this wasn’t the first time I’d gone out of my way to protect the natural world from human predators, usually when I explain the law to them, they become contrite and apologetic, not outright hostile like this piece-of-work. Where was local law enforcement when you needed it? Knowing our police chief and his motivations, probably hiding down some driveway, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting five-overers rather than actually doing some good for a change.

  “Look,” I said, with a tone that hopefully conveyed logic and reason, “take what you’ve already picked, but leave the rest alone, okay? I’m sure you didn’t intend any harm.”

  Her gaze wandered over to a wild monkshood, one of our most valued and protected flowers. Believe me, as a beekeeper, I know my natives, and this one was not going to die at her hand.

  “Don’t even think it,” I warned her, a big part of me wishing I’d breezed right past her without stopping. This day was not progressing on track.

  She made her move.

  I made mine.

  Wearing flip-flops (my favorite footwear) during a confrontation on unstable terrain isn’t the best idea, but this wasn’t exactly a well-laid plan.

  I tripped and grabbed wildly for something to steady myself, which turned out to be the woman’s hat. The strap around her chin stretched, and I heard her gurgle, the same sound my grandmother’s dog Dinky makes when she yanks too hard at the end of her leash. A sort of gagging, strangling sound.

  I really had been trying to stop the woman without getting aggressive. Really I had.

  “G
et away from me,” she croaked when I quickly released the strap. She pushed me away from her and hurried for her ATV with the flowers still in a firm grip.

  Because a woman can never be too careful, I thought, What if she has a gun in a storage compartment somewhere on the ATV? Or some other kind of weapon, like pepper spray?

  But I decided I’d take my chances. Refusing to even think about consequences, I hustled to keep up, wishing my sister was with me. Where was Holly when I needed her? Not around, that’s where.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grab you like that,” I said, moving faster than her, blocking access to the four-wheeler. “But I’m still reporting you. What’s your name?”

  “Get out of my way,” she said, her buggy eyes almost popping out of their sockets. “And mind your own business. Do-gooders like you drive me nuts. Did you ever stop to consider that I might have a permit to pick these?” I could see the lie in her eyes. Before I had a chance to open my mouth, she continued, “No, of course you didn’t. Self-righteous busybodies like you make me sick.”

  I decided to smirk right through the name-calling, realizing the absurdity of her claim. She went on, “Is this how you locals always treat visitors?”

  I was about to blast her with my personal opinion of this particular visitor, but I was getting a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Visitor? We have lots of visitors but still . . .

  I groaned inwardly, because that would be just my kind of luck to have a run-in with one of the Paines’ houseguests. Please tell me it isn’t so.

  “Now will you get out of my way?” she said, as though reading my mind.

  I moved aside, momentarily speechless at the audacity of the woman.

  She reached over and started the engine then turned back to me. “Oh, and here, if these are so important, you can have them.” And she shoved the flowers right in my face before climbing onto the ATV.

  It didn’t help my growing concern when she tore off in the direction of my sister’s house. And suddenly that particular four-wheeler seemed more than vaguely familiar to me. Maybe the clue was a “Queen Bee Honey” sticker on the back. Exactly like the one I’d stuck on Holly’s machine last time I’d ridden it, right after I’d ordered a box of bumper stickers to promote my honey business.

  Worse, the woman had left me holding the flowers, i.e. the bag, which was exactly when the police chief decided to pull up behind my truck, the tires of his car crunching on the gravel shoulder.

  I have to admit, living in the same town I was born and raised in has its ups and downs.

  One of the major downers got out of his vehicle, and glared at me with his hands on his hips. Or at least I suspected that Johnny Jay was glaring—hard to tell behind those mirrored sunglasses he always wore. Power and control were sport to him, and his reflective shades were just one of many props he used to exercise them.

  I’d gone from kindergarten through high school with Johnny Jay, and I didn’t like him any better now than I did then. Usually I choose to ignore him when he comes strutting along. Unfortunately, he always chooses to badger me.

  I pretended not to notice him, hard to do when he was right there in front of me, but I made the effort by refusing to establish eye contact.

  “Picking wildflowers is illegal, Fischer,” he said, scribbling something on a clipboard. “First I’m going to write out a citation. Them I’m confiscating the evidence.”

  “I didn’t pick these,” I said, sounding lame even to me. “Some woman on an ATV did.”

  He glanced up from the clipboard, “More lies from our Story,” he said, putting special emphasis on my name. “When are you going to grow up?”

  Then he ripped off a sheet of paper and handed it to me.

  I couldn’t believe the amount of the fine. “That’s way overboard!” I complained.

  “It costs more when the offender knows better.”

  While I was staring in sticker shock at the price for a medium-sized bouquet of flowers, I heard a click and looked up in time to see that he had taken a photograph of me with the incriminating wildflowers.

  “Hand them over,” he ordered.

  “They better not show up on your dining room table,” I said, reluctantly offering them up.

  “You don’t get a say.”

  “I’m not taking this lying down.”

  “Rumor has it, that’s all you’ve been doing lately,” he had the nerve to say. “With Hunter Wallace.”

  “I’ll see you in court.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure. But I tell you, I could use a break from dealing with you, so I’m heading up to the Boundary Waters.”

  The Boundary Waters, way up north, is as remote as you can get. The fishing is good but everything has to be helicoptered in. There aren’t even any toilets or any phone service, that’s how isolated it is. Johnny Jay went at the same time every year and the whole town looks forward to the break. Ten days without the police chief was ten days in heaven.

  “I’d be packed and gone right this minute,” he said, “if I hadn’t had to stop and handle another Fischer incident.”

  And with that, Moraine’s unpopular police chief drove off, leaving me with an expensive problem to deal with.

  Thanks to that woman.

  Wait until I caught up with her again.

  I used my cell phone to call Holly.

  “Breakfast is yummy,” my sister said, chewing into the phone. “Thanks for bringing it for us.”

  “Anytime. Listen, tell me, is one of your guests out trail-riding on one of your ATVs this morning?”

  “That would be Camilla Bailey. She’s one of Max’s team members. Oh, here she is, just back from her ride. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said, hanging up and thinking that this was going to be a really long, stressful day. On one hand, I knew where to find the culprit, so I could make her pay the fine instead of me. On the other hand, her group was visiting my beeyard this afternoon and I’d have to be polite to her. And later I was actually preparing dinner for the Battle-Ax, and her teammate the Ice Queen.

  I wished I hadn’t gotten out of bed this morning.

  Four

  Some days, there isn’t a thing you can do but try to get through them all in one piece without too much drama and disaster. This was definitely going to be one of them.

  Johnny Jay’s sneers, plus the pricey ticket he gave me for an act committed by someone else was just one more example of a sucky day happening no matter what I did to try and stop it.

  In regards to his allusion—my real name is Melissa Fischer, but I’ve been called Story as long as I can remember. Mainly because I could look my elders straight in the eye and bald-face lie with such a sweet, angelic expression, it took a long time for them to finally catch on.

  I admit it.

  I used to make up stuff.

  But Johnny Jay is wrong. I have grown up. Telling the truth is always the best path—I’ve learned the hard way—even when the consequences can be more painful than a bunch of angry honeybees defending their hive.

  Nonetheless, in spite of my good intentions to tell the truth, the first thing I said to Patti Dwyre when I saw her in The Wild Clover later was, “Love your tattoo.” I’d turned right around and lied mere seconds after mentally expounding on the benefits of truthfulness and priding myself on my changed ways.

  But when it comes to paying compliments, dishonesty is still a gray area for me. How can I not lie sometimes? Pretending not to notice something as obvious as Patti’s tattoo wouldn’t work. Not wanting to cause hurt feelings should justify the occasional fib, right?

  P.P. Patti, which stands for Pity-Party Patti (the reason becomes apparent quickly), is my next door neighbor and a cub reporter for the local newspaper. She might be inexperienced in investigative journalism, but she makes up for it with unconventional enthusiasm. She views herself through rose-colored glasses, in which she’s a step above one of Charlie’s angels. The rest of us see her more as a cross between Inspector Clou
seau, Maxwell Smart, and a reincarnated medieval torturer.

  Patti’s mode of attire is always dark. “Shadow wear” she calls it. Today she wore an ebony halter top and a black ball cap, along with a homemade press pass around her neck that she’d made with items from an office supply store. Her pockets are always filled with techno-surveillance electronics, making her hips appear wider than they really are.

  The tattoo I was faux admiring ran along her upper right arm.

  Everybody in The Wild Clover drew closer to see what Patti had done to herself.

  “A snake?” Milly Hopticourt asked after looking it over and breaking the silence. She’d just arrived with fresh bouquets of flowers from her garden to restock a bin near the entrance. In addition to being the one who would bail me out of the menu situation, Milly supplemented her retirement by growing flowers, and we shared the proceeds from the bouquets she sold at the store. “A cobra, I believe,” Milly added with perfect confidence after another moment of study.

  Patti rolled her eyes. “Noooo,” she said. “It’s a dragon. Like that woman in the book, the one who sticks it to everybody with her incredible technical skills. It doesn’t look anything like a snake.”

  “I thought it was a lizard,” Carrie Ann said, staring at it right along with the rest of us.

  “That must have really hurt,” I added.

  “Drunk at the time, I bet,” Carrie Ann, the recovering alcoholic, said, looking like she hoped it were true. My cousin seems to find unnatural delight in learning about other people’s alcoholic missteps.

  “Can’t anybody say one nice thing about it?” Patti said, with a monster whine in her voice. “Story is the only nice one around here. I went through a lot to get it, almost passed out even. The least the rest of you could do is pretend to like it.”

  “Okay,” Stanley Peck said, coming into the store just in time to join in. Stanley is a widower and the only other beekeeper in Moraine. “I’ll say I do.”