Beeline to Trouble

by Hannah Reed

  We found Hunter, Mom, Grams, and Johnny Jay all standing outside, watching us get out of the Fleetwood.

  “I told you Story didn’t steal my car,” Grams said to Mom. “She only borrowed it.”

  “For cripes’ sake,” Mom said, addressing me. “You can’t ask permission like a normal person? I just knew it was you, that you would take our only means of transportation. Shame on you. I’ve been filling in Hunter on some of your past antics. He should know what he’s getting into.”

  Hunter looked rather sickly, which is what happens to human beings when Mom launches her grenades in their vicinities. Besides, wasn’t she supposed to be complaining about me marrying Hunter, not the other way around? That was her usual mode of operation—to diss every single person who means anything to me. If she was confiding in my boyfriend, that could only mean she had finally accepted him into the fold.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about this sudden turn of events. I sort of liked the wall dividing our space.

  “You didn’t let Harry Bruno walk out of here, did you?” Patti said to the chief.

  “He’s spending the night,” Johnny Jay told her.

  “Where’s Tom?” I asked Mom, thinking he could talk her down from whatever ledge she’d climbed up on.

  Grams piped in and said, “They’re having a tiny problem.”

  “Tiny!” Mom snorted, sounding suspiciously like I did when I snorted. Reminding me never to snort ever again.

  Johnny Jay inserted himself into our conversation. “I advise you to press charges against these two women,” he said to Grams. “Your granddaughter runs wild. She could use a lesson.”

  That was a big tactical mistake on his part. It’s one thing to threaten me in private. It’s another to do it in front of my family.

  Hunter started working his jaw, a sure sign that he was really ticked off. I gently took his arm and gave him a warning squeeze. Attacking the chief, either physically or verbally, at the police station couldn’t result in anything positive. Hunter stepped down, I felt it in the response of his strong arm muscles. “You deserve a reward,” I whispered to him. “For good behavior.”

  Patti heard and snickered.

  The rest of my family didn’t go as quietly as Hunter. Grams stepped close to Johnny. We never learned what she was going to say to him, because Mom shouldered her out of the way.

  “Oh, cram it,” Mom said to the chief, passing her sourness around in equal shares. “If you had a brain in your head, Johnny Jay, you might be dangerous. Too bad your position isn’t an elected one, or we’d be seeing the back end of you very soon. You might be appointed by the town board, but the board is walking on thin ice, and some of their terms are coming up for vote. I’m going to head a campaign to rid this town of you because, you, Chief Jay, are a nincompoop.”

  Wow! I couldn’t have said it better.

  While I was mentally high-fiving the entire group, Johnny gave my mother a good, hard look, opened his mouth to spew something, changed his mind, turned on his heels, and stomped back inside.

  “That boy should have been disciplined more growing up,” Grams said. “The kid’s parents sat down at the tavern night after night like he didn’t exist. Poor Johnny Jay. Well, there’s nothing more we can do for Holly. Let’s go get some rest, Helen.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said to Mom. “What’s going on with you and Tom?”

  Mom’s mouth was in a hard line as she looked from one of us to another. “It’s personal,” she said, walking away, getting into the passenger’s seat and slamming the door.

  “Call me,” I said to Grams in a conspiratorial voice.

  “Patti needs a ride,” Hunter pointed out to Grams, since he and I were on his bike.

  “We go right past your house,” Grams said to Patti. “Come with us.”

  Grams winked at me as if to say she’d call when she could, and they were off into the night, leaving Hunter and me alone.

  My family must have done quite a number on my man, what with Holly in police custody suspected of murder, plus all that time while Mom bent his ear, because he didn’t ask a single question on the way home, not even where Patti and I had disappeared to. He didn’t ask anything later, either, while we stood in the backyard watching Ben sniff and squirt.

  I think he was afraid of what my answers might be.

  The only saving grace was that Patti decided to spend the night in her own home instead of ours since her stalker wasn’t free to roam.

  Thirty-eight

  Hunter’s job requires irregular hours. He doesn’t work nine to five, and he certainly doesn’t have many weekends off, which suits us just fine because Saturdays and Sundays at the store are so busy. We’d decided to take at least one day of his days off and spend it together.

  And this was our first official one. Carrie Ann and the twins were on the schedule, which was pretty much the only available staff since Mom was moping, Holly was incarcerated, and Stanley had quit. If this kept up, I’d have to hire more help. Or let Carrie Ann worry about it.

  As always, I checked on my beehives, making sure all my little girls were happy, while Ben romped around, drinking from the river, snapping at those little bugs that like to float on top of the water. He ended up taking a swim and drying off right next to me, shedding water like a rotating sprinkler.

  Why do dogs always do that?

  After I’d dried myself off, Hunter and I had our morning coffee on the patio, basking in the warm rays from the sun and planning our day.

  Originally, I’d imagined our special day together would consist of catching up on typical chores like laundry, a little housework, and lawn mowing, then some afternoon fun like a bike ride or something equally relaxing, followed by dinner out and a little romance.

  Instead, my sister was in jail. We found out early that Harry had been released after his lawyers showed up. He’d scheduled a court date and paid his bail. Holly, on the other hand, was still in jail and likely to remain there until Max and his high-powered attorney could get her out. They hadn’t managed that feat yet.

  Which totally sucked. Here was a known mobster with a criminal record as long as Main Street running around free, while a woman who never did a single unlawful act in her life was behind bars. Life just isn’t very fair.

  I was dying to get into her cell and talk to her, ask a few questions about the validity of Patti’s claim that she’d left her water bottle at Holly’s house, because I wasn’t about to trust anything Patti told me. That was for starters. I also wanted to pick my sister’s brain about the Andersons.

  Last night, I’d considered talking to Max about Chance and Effie, but decided that might only upset him further and I didn’t want to be the source of any more of his stress.

  “Were you paying attention last night,” I asked Hunter, “when Patti told us she’d left her water bottle at Holly’s house?”

  “I heard her.”

  “And?”

  “And, you just can’t stay out of it, Story baby, can you?”

  “Do you think I can get in to see Holly?” I asked him next.

  “I doubt it,” my hot man said, looking particularly smoking today. He had on shorts and nothing else but a five o’clock shadow. I love that look. “Johnny Jay won’t want to make either of you two comfortable.”

  “I have to at least try,” I told him. “I couldn’t sleep all night just thinking about my little sister caged like an animal.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Tell me about that morning before Nova died. You were over there when they interviewed everybody who’d been in the house that morning.”

  At first I thought he was going to go into one of his “stay out of it” spiels, so I added, “This is my sister we’re talking about. She’s been accused of murder.”

  I must have sounded pretty pathetic because Hunter began talking.

  Everybody had accounted for their actions between eleven the morning of Nova Campbell’s death and the time they rode together to
my house. Camilla and Gil stayed upstairs in his room until the last minute. Max had worked in his study, only coming out for coffee refills. Holly was in her room. According to Max, Nova came back from her run and went upstairs to shower.

  “Did he see if she took carrot juice up with her?”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “That’s when she was poisoned, though,” I said, thinking about Nova downing the concoction before or after her shower.

  Hunter kept going. “They were due at the house for the tour of your beeyard, so they began to gather.”

  “They showed up late,” I said. “Max called right around the time they were supposed to show up.”

  “That’s because of the women. Max and Gil went out to the car. Camilla showed up shortly after. Holly took her time, so Max called her on his cell and told her to hurry up. But the real holdup was Nova. After waiting about fifteen minutes, Max went back inside to get her. She wasn’t in her room. He searched the house for her then returned to the car, to find she had appeared. Later, when questioned, Camilla said she came from the direction of the garden.”

  “Do you think that’s significant?”

  Hunter shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Where were the Andersons during that time?”

  “Chance was clearing brush. Effie had been in the carriage house.”

  I poured more coffee for both of us from a carafe I’d brought outside.

  “It was really bad luck that Nova died where and when she did,” I said.

  “I’ll say,” Hunter said.

  “Thank you for telling me all this. You get an A+ for cooperating.”

  “I can show you more cooperation. Come here.”

  Before we could act on that, Grams’s Fleetwood pulled into the driveway, inched up, stopped, then inched up some more. Mom, in the passenger’s seat, had her window down and was blasting my grandmother.

  “I’m calling the motor vehicle department on you,” Mom crabbed. “Old people should have to go through retesting every year, both written and behind the wheel. And eye tests. Look at Mabel. Can’t tell a tree from a parking space. You’re going to kill somebody, that’s what you’re going to do!”

  Grams popped out of the car, rearranged the fresh daisy in her bun, put on a smiley face (which I don’t recall her ever having to force in the past), and headed for me. “We have to do something about your mother,” she said. “I can’t take one more minute.”

  Join the club, I could have said. Instead I asked, “Why hasn’t she moved in with Tom yet?”

  By now, Mom was stampeding our way. Grams swirled, held up a warning finger, and my mother’s open mouth actually clamped shut. “Not one more word, Helen,” my usually easygoing grandmother said to her.

  Hunter had vanished from the backyard.

  Grams and Mom parked themselves at the patio table while I hustled into the house to get coffee cups for them. No Hunter in the kitchen, either.

  While serving at the outdoor table, I saw a shadow pass on the other side of the cedars separating my house from P.P. Patti’s. Patti was at it again, eavesdropping, snooping, stalking. I chose to ignore her presence.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Mom, whose lips looked like they had been glued shut. Her arms were folded across her chest in a defensive position.

  “She refuses to move in with Tom,” Grams explained when Mom wouldn’t. “And she waited until after he went to all the trouble of buying her a house to change her mind. A house! Now she won’t go. Tell her the rest, Helen.”

  I stared at Mom, who glared at each of us in turn. Granted, I hadn’t wanted her to move in with Tom; I’d been overcome with shock at the very idea. But I didn’t want this bitter woman as my mother, either.

  “Tell her!” Grams ordered.

  Mom’s lips slowly peeled apart. “Your father visited me,” she said, unfolding her arms to take a sip of coffee.

  That’s my deceased dad she was talking about, the one who hasn’t been around in physical form to talk to us for . . . oh . . . over five years at least.

  “In a dream?” I prompted, seeing that she had stopped after that short declaration, while I needed more information. “He came in a dream?”

  Mom squirmed. “I’m not sure exactly. It seemed so real. But I know this for sure, he specifically told me he wasn’t happy with the arrangement I had with Tom Stocke.”

  “Dad would want you to be happy,” I told her, realizing that was true. “He would definitely understand.”

  “Well, he didn’t understand at all, and I’m not going against his wishes.”

  “See?” Grams said to me.

  “Have you told Holly about this?” I asked Mom, thinking my sister would have some rational advice to offer.

  “She hasn’t told anybody but me,” Grams stuck in there, addressing me. “I don’t discount the truth of her words. Maybe he did pay her a visit. But, Helen,” she turned to Mom, “you read his words wrong.”

  Which wouldn’t be the first time, although hopefully it will be the last with my dad. Mom tends to overanalyze everything anybody says and sometimes her resulting conclusions aren’t even close to the actual intent.

  “What exactly did he say?” I asked.

  “He said, ‘Don’t do it,’” Mom replied.

  “That’s it? Don’t do it. That could mean anything.”

  Mom’s lips went fine-lining again.

  “Would Dad approve if you and Tom got married first?” Was I really participating in this surreal conversation?

  Mom’s face scrunched up. I saw tears coming.

  “Now you did it,” Grams said.

  I heard Hunter’s Harley start up and roar off, while Mom fished around in her purse for tissues, found one, and wiped her eyes. Thanks a lot, I telegraphed to Hunter with a big helping of frustration. What a coward!

  “Tom hasn’t”—sniff, sniff—“asked me.”

  “Ah,” I said, realizing the crux of the problem. “You need more of a commitment from him.”

  That same sneaky shadow on the other side of the cedars caught my attention again. Patti must be slipping. She was usually more covert than this.

  “You go see Holly,” I said to Mom, patting her hand. “That is, if you can get in. And share your situation with her. She’s really good at giving advice.”

  “That Holly is the spitting image of Ann Landers,” my grandmother agreed. “Come on, Helen, let’s go.”

  “Not with you behind the wheel,” Mom said. “I’m not riding in the death seat.”

  I left them there to sort it out.

  And that was only the start of my day off from the store.

  Thirty-nine

  I walked to The Wild Clover just like every workday, but instead of going inside, I went around back and took off in my trusty blue pickup truck, heading for Holly’s house.

  Where I found pandemonium reigning in the Paine household.

  For one thing, Max arrived home about the same time I got there, after having spent the night at the station, hoping for a miracle that would free his wife. What a mess the man was. Hair every which way, rumpled clothing, and tired, haunted eyes.

  A week had passed since his houseguests came to visit with the original intention of a work-free weekend filled with relaxation and team-building. That had fallen to pieces (though at least two of them had been able to figure out a new way to “bond,” ew).

  Apparently Camilla and Gil hadn’t been very happy when the limo didn’t show up to whisk them to the Milwaukee airport. By the time they called the transportation service and discovered the error, it was too late to make the flight.

  Oops.

  When I entered the house, Max was in the process of having his ear bent by the unfortunate grounded passengers, who were surrounded by packed suitcases and dashed plans.

  “Somebody canceled the limousine,” Gil told him. “That’s what I was told when I called to find out where it was.”

  “I’m not staying here any longer,” Cami
lla said, and I wondered what she had to complain about. From my perspective, the only sweat she’d been subjected to wasn’t considered actual work in our society.

  I smelled something wonderful in the air like pancakes or waffles, and saw Effie and Milly cleaning up. I wandered into the kitchen, but found the griddle had been cleaned and put away. Darn. Not a single leftover in sight.

  “Where’s the gardener?” Camilla said, still with some of that not-one-more-second tone. “He can take us to the airport. We’ll try to get out of here on standby, right, Gil?”

  Effie looked up then and said, “Chance is out running errands and won’t be back until later this afternoon.”

  Wasn’t that convenient. The man was a virtual disappearing act. “What sort of errands?” I wanted to know.

  “Personal ones,” Effie said, stone-faced.

  “He wasn’t here yesterday, either,” I kept going, “when Harry Bruno was arrested for stealing the truck. Was he off doing personal business then, too?”

  Effie and I locked eyes. “No,” she said. “He wasn’t.”

  “I’d take you,” Max said. “But I’m only home long enough to shower and change my clothes, then back to the police station.” He bounded for the stairs, and was gone from sight.

  “What about Effie?” I said, thinking this would be the perfect time to do a little sleuthing in the carriage house. “Can’t she take you?”

  “Not her,” Camilla said. Since the clean-up crew was running water in the sink, I was fairly certain her words hadn’t carried.

  “Why not?” I asked back, moving out of Effie’s earshot. Camilla automatically followed me. So did Gil.

  “I hate to be picky,” she said, getting picky, “but your sister did a terrible job training her house help. The woman is surly” (look who was talking!) “and obviously resents her subservient role in life.”

  “But she can drive?” Gil said to Camilla. “Who cares about her personality?”

  “Honestly,” Camilla said to me, “tell your sister she can do better than that woman. Even self-absorbed Nova saw right through her. And not only that, she refuses to cook! Flat out refuses. Insubordination like that would never be tolerated in the business world.”