by Hannah Reed
“So you want to do the rejecting first, in case he has intentions of leaving.”
I thought again. “Maybe. Geez, what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed. You’ve had some losses—Dad dying, then your marriage failing. You should talk to Hunter. Tell him how you feel.”
“Oh, right, sure.”
“I know you can talk to him about anything. You’re just being difficult.”
I love my sister. When she’s not cowering around honeybees, or sucking up to Mom, or brooding because Max is away so much, she’s the best sister a girl could have.
Thinking of our mother reminded me, though. “Mom came into the store foaming at the mouth,” I said. “Just like the old days before Tom arrived on the scene. And I did just what you told me to do. I stood up for myself.”
“Good girl. And what happened next?”
“I fired her, then she left.”
Holly stared at me. Her mouth even dropped slightly open. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“You told me to set boundaries, so I did. The store is off-limits to her.”
“We didn’t role-play anything about you kicking her out!”
I gave my sister a weak smile. “I know. I made it up as I went.”
Holly tried to smile back. “Well, we’ll work through this, and you have good friends to see you through your trials and tribulations.” Then she laughed out loud because just as she said “good friends,” Patti Dwyer arrived. My neighbor wasn’t exactly a shining example of love and support.
A minute later, Max and his guests began wandering out onto the patio.
Cocktail hour had begun.
Thirteen
Talk was all about Nova, of course. Things like:
What a shock
Never suspected she had health issues
And so young
Odd that the police searched the house
Though probably routine, of course
Had her family been notified
Family? I hadn’t even thought about Nova having a family, or how they would feel when they found out.
“She was divorced,” Max told us, standing with his two remaining team members, each with wineglasses in their hands. “The ugliest kind, according to her. No love lost there. No children from the marriage. And both her parents are dead.”
“No siblings, either,” Camilla added. She had on a shapeless, brown pantsuit from a bygone era. Not once had she glanced my way.
Gil, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes off his coworker, which reminded me of the wedding-ring tan on his finger. Was he a widower? Or divorced? Or a cheater like my roving ex had been? I decided it wasn’t any of my business, though my cynical side suspected the worst.
“I’m sure the police will track down a relative,” Max added. “However distant.”
Patti had actually cleaned up for the event. She still had her all-black thing going on, but this time she wore a sleeveless shift (the first time I’d ever seen her in a dress) and flats, and she’d left her ball cap at home. Unfortunately, the first thing you noticed was the awful flaming dragon tattoo on her arm. That thing was impossible to miss.
“I brought a three-berry pie,” she said, holding it out in her hands.
The pie looked tasty. “You made that?” I asked.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I can bake.”
We went into the kitchen together and Patti left the pie on the counter with Milly.
“I’m going to mingle,” Patti said to me when we had a moment alone, “and get the lowdown on those two visiting characters. If this comes back murder one, I’m all over it like flies on—”
I cut her off. “That’s a good idea—mingle—but don’t upset anybody with any accusations or wild speculations. Try to blend in.”
Sure, right.
“Don’t eat or drink anything,” Patti whispered to me on her way out.
How could I avoid that at a dinner party? I couldn’t help noticing that everybody around me was drinking something. Soon they would be eating everything in sight. Still, knowing about the poisoning wasn’t doing my taste buds any good.
My imagination has always been hard to control, and this time it was going all out. I kept reminding myself that Nova had been the one and only victim. Either it had been an accident or not, but the rest of us were perfectly safe. Probably.
In the kitchen, the steaks were ready for the grill and heavenly aromas were wafting from the ovens, a combination of rosemary potatoes and Milly’s popovers.
Though she wasn’t helping with the food prep, Effie Anderson had arrived to help keep the kitchen clean, an act of kindness that Milly found particularly wonderful; the two women had really hit it off. I took a moment to imagine myself with house help and the hefty bank balance to pay a staff. It sounded wonderful in theory, but realistically, Holly wasn’t any better off happy-wise or health-wise or any-other-wise than me. In fact, I liked my life just the way it was. Especially assuming Hunter and I worked things out.
I served as gopher, helping out where I could. While I worked, I started creeping out over how easy it would be to slip a little poison into practically anything. Then I thought of how many toxins were out in nature and how many were manufactured and how much evil exists, and those thoughts got me even more nervous.
What did I know about Holly’s weekend company? Nothing, that’s what.
Just then, Camilla walked past the kitchen. I scurried after the flower thief.
“What did I do to offend you this time?” Camilla said when she saw me bearing down on her in the hall.
“I hate to bring this up but . . .” I began, skidding to a halt.
She sniped, “Then don’t.”
“I really have to. You’ll be leaving tomorrow and there’s something I need to discuss with you before you go.” I told her what had happened with the wildflowers, how Johnny Jay thought I’d picked them and how he gave me a hefty fine. “Obviously, you should be the one to pay it, not me,” I said, finishing.
All the while I was talking, Camilla had her standard scowl, but as I wrapped it up, something changed. First she made a noise that sounded like an oink. Then she sputtered. My first thought was, oh, no, she’s been poisoned, too. But then she let loose, laughing out loud, rather derisively I thought, definitely not in a nice laughing-with-you kind of way.
“You’re laughing at me?” I said.
“Damn straight,” she said. “You really deserve what you got.”
“For what? For caring about our earth?”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“You owe me for the ticket.”
“Okay, look, I’ll pay the fine.”
“Unless you want to wave your special permit in the police chief’s face. Maybe then he’ll tear up the ticket.” Okay, that was unnecessarily sassy of me. After all, the woman had just agreed to pay the fine. With a bad attitude, yes, but that was no reason for me to get all sarcastic.
Camilla’s nostrils flared as she dug through an oversized purse, pulled out a checkbook, wrote out a check, filling in all but my name, since she hadn’t bothered to learn it. She handed the check over, and stomped off to join the others outside.
“And you’ll tell the police chief what really happened, right?” I called after her, knowing there wasn’t a fat chance of that happening. For one, Camilla and Gil would be gone before Johnny Jay returned from his fishing trip. For two, Camilla couldn’t stand me. The fact that she’d written the check at all was miraculous enough.
I folded the check and tucked it away. In the background, I spotted Patti slipping upstairs to the second floor. That woman would stop at absolutely nothing.
I sighed and went back to the kitchen.
The evening had all the ingredients that make an event spectacular. Too bad Nova’s death had put a damper on things. A perfect view as the sun passed over the lake, soft candles illuminating the warm summer night, plenty of alcoholic beverages, and flowing conversa
tion, thanks to Max’s gift for entertaining. Not that he had much experience on the home front, since his job kept him away so often, but I imagined he did a lot of fine dining with clients during his travels. He smoothly turned the topic away from Nova and on to more pleasant subjects. There was a general sense of relief when we went into small-talk mode. We all needed and welcomed the respite.
Max, a cocktail in one hand, tongs in the other, hovered over the grill like the old pro he was. “You and Milly will eat with us, of course,” he said to me when I stopped to admire his expertise.
“Of course,” I said. “It smells delicious.”
“Milly says no, but we’ll convince her.”
“She’s a stubborn woman,” I said, knowing it to be true. Milly was a sweetheart, but once she made up her mind, it was set in concrete. “And I don’t think she eats much meat.”
“But what will we do with the extras? I know, why don’t you invite Hunter to join us?”
Now, that was a wonderful idea! My man is a certified, official carnivore. Give him a cut of beef and he purrs like a Bengal tiger after a successful hunt. I was starting to relax with my second glass of red wine. The ridiculous thought that someone would try to poison any of us began to fade from my mind. What an absurd idea anyway. The steaks had gone right from the store onto the hot grill. The popovers and salad came from Milly’s own kitchen and my garden, the potatoes had been in my care. Patti had brought the pie. She was just being neurotic with her dire warnings. What else was new?
“Where are you?” Hunter answered his cell phone on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“Home.” It took a moment for me to connect his home with mine. We had an “us” house now.
“I’m at Holly’s,” I told him. “She needed help with tonight’s dinner.”
Silence. Then, “When did you decide we weren’t having dinner together?”
What was this? An interrogation? “This morning. That was Holly’s big problem she was so freaked about.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
Had I forgotten to mention it to him? Now that I thought about it, I had. “I’m sorry, things have been a little off today, what with someone dying in the backyard and all. It slipped my mind.”
I’d had a trying day. I was a bit crabby, too. Where had our total bliss gone? Was I supposed to tell him every little move I made? And apologize for every little thing that bugged him? Okay, I had to calm down. Right this minute, I couldn’t stand being around myself. Time to readjust my attitude.
“Come over. We’re having steaks,” I said, shaking off my mood.
“Steak?” he said. I could hear his tone lightening already.
“And Milly’s making popovers. They’ll be hot out of the oven soon.”
“I’ll be right there then.” Which reassured me. If Hunter wasn’t worried about poisoned food, I wasn’t going to worry, either.
I hung up and turned to find myself almost nose to nose with Patti.
“I found out all about the ‘big secret’ they’re working on,” she stage whispered, finger quoting the big secret part.
“Tell me, what is it? Did you find secret papers up-stairs?”
“No, I found out from that guy Gil. He’s drinking some million-year-old Scotch, and it’s really loosening his lips. You aren’t going to believe this.”
Patti went on to describe what she’d gotten out of the drunk flavorist. Apparently, the team had stumbled upon something amazing during their mixing and matching.
“What they discovered was on the lines of miracle fruit,” Patti said. “Those little red berries that make sour things taste sweet? Vinegar, pickles, stuff like that, they actually taste sweet when they’re combined with the berries. Gil said protein binds with taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes into contact with acids. It tricks the tongue.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s true. Look it up on the Internet. Search for miracle fruit and it comes right up.”
“Okay, so? That’s already been discovered.”
“Yes, but get this.” Patti’s eyes were shining orbs. “This group has figured out how to make vegetables taste like candy!”
I contemplated what I’d just been told. “Wow,” I said.
Patti’s head bounced up and down, reminding me of a bobble doll. “Just imagine kids begging for more broccoli. It could taste just like chocolate or cake frosting.”
Could chocolate veggies tie in with Nova Campbell’s death? “Maybe a taste test did in Nova,” I suggested. “What if she whipped up a combination and tried it out on herself?”
“It’s possible,” Patti said.
Yes! That would mean the carrot juice from my store had nothing to do with her death. Nothing at all. Unless she used it in her experiment, but that wouldn’t count, because it would’ve been her actions, not mine. I really liked this theory best so far.
“Or,” Patti said, “the competition could have murdered her.”
“What competition?”
Patti’s eyes slid left, then right, like we were high-powered corporate spies. Next, she’d be talking out of the corner of her mouth. “You know,” she said, “all the big corporations are cutting each other’s throats to end up on top. If word got out that the team was on the verge of a big discovery, someone might be eliminating them one by one.”
I hated that idea. “But then wouldn’t Max have been the important target?” I reasoned. “He’s higher up. Not only that, do you see any strangers around here? I mean other than the team members? Anybody hiding in the bushes?”
Luckily, just then I heard the familiar sound of Hunter’s Harley coming up the drive. Patti slunk away to do God only knew what.
I watched with admiration as Hunter parked and approached. He looked great in a cotton button-down, chinos, a navy blue blazer and brown loafers. And he was all mine! It still hadn’t totally sunk in.
The rest of the evening seemed to fly by. The food was fabulous—Milly’s popovers were crispy on the outside, custardy on the inside, the arugula salad rocked, and my rosemary potatoes turned out perfect. I sampled every single flavor of cheesecake, and had a small piece of Patti’s three-berry pie. I could tell that Hunter had his ears and eyes open, that part of him couldn’t help being on the job, surrounded as he was by potential murder suspects.
The other part of him thought the steak was the best he’d ever had.
Fourteen
Next morning, I woke up feeling all warm and cozy after a night of . . . well . . . never mind. Moving serenely through my coffee ritual, I let Ben out in the yard to do his thing, harvested the honey from my happy bees, who had already started their busy day, showered, poured another big cup of coffee, left still-sleeping Hunter a love note, and went to The Wild Clover to open up.
What a beautiful day. The big dinner was over, no one had ingested any toxic substances, and Gil and Camilla would soon depart, taking with them any other residual stress and tension that seemed to have accompanied them on their trip. The truth about Nova’s death would emerge, and turn out to be something we could all live with. No murder, no suspects, no worries. A night of love can change this girl’s entire perspective on life.
Even my personal life was back on track. Yes, Hunter and I had made up. Plus my mother was persona non grata and even Johnny Jay wasn’t around to harass me. Inside The Wild Clover, I raised my eyes to the overhead windows where stained glass from the building’s previous life as a church still cast rays of streaked sunlight into the interior. I smiled again, feeling excited and happy about the new day.
Life was good.
Then Lori Spandle walked into the store.
“Find any more dead bodies in your backyard?” she said with a smirk.
I could think of one particular body I wouldn’t mind adding to the compost heap. Or dropping off in the deepest part of the river with lead weights around her ankles.
Lori kept going. “Y
our mother is just about ready to sign on the dotted line. We’re setting up the meeting. Want to witness the transaction?”
“Lori, don’t you have a broom to catch?”
“Who else but another Fischer would live next door to that swarm of dangerous bees? Your mother is used to creepy-crawly things. She has you.”
I punched a finger into Lori’s rib cage, directly between her big boobs. “I’m in the process of eliminating riffraff from my life.” I poked again. “If you aren’t here to buy my products, your name will move to the very top of the list of poor contributors to my general well-being. I’m cleaning house, so shop or get lost.”
“Ewwww. Aren’t we testy today?”
Just then, Stanley Peck showed up and ended the standoff. “Carrie Ann said I should come by to learn how to open up the store,” he said to me, ignoring Lori. “Care to show me how?”
That cousin of mine was turning out to be a top-notch organizer. Who knew that once she came out of her drunken stupor she’d have real people skills? The store looked shiny clean, the displays twinkled, and she was positioning new hires for the future. If she kept it up, I wouldn’t have to worry about Holly’s no-shows or my mother’s too-many-shows. Because they wouldn’t be on the schedule at all.
“What are you standing around for?” Stanley said to Lori, knowing our history. He shoved a shopping basket at her. “Get cracking.”
Stanley has always been a close friend and our shared interest in beekeeping has now sealed our bond forever. He has his drawbacks as a customer service representative, though, which is only one of the hats my staff has to wear. First of all, he doesn’t tolerate BS, which we get a lot of at the store. Second of all, his method of communicating his disapproval typically involves waving a firearm around and threatening to use it. I didn’t want holes in the store’s ceiling.
I made a mental note to look into banning guns from the store, now that Wisconsin has made it legal to carry concealed weapons. I doubt that Stanley has a carry permit anyway, though. He doesn’t believe that the government has any business telling him what he can and can’t do.