Death By A HoneyBee (A Josiah Reynolds Mystery)

by Abigail Keam

  It wasn’t long until there was a big boom with the sky lighting up like a Fourth of July jamboree. I waited as the shadowy figures of Taffy and Nancy ran past me. What a surprise waited for them. Knowing they were distraught and screaming, I started my van, keeping the lights off, and drove through the fields until I could get back on the driveway.

  Making another call to the police, I reported an explosion and said that it looked like a fire had been set on my property. I also gave a description of two females. The dispatcher told me to stay on the phone until the police arrived and to stay in the house.

  “Oh, no, here they come again! I can see them through the window,” I cried before turning off the phone again. Racing the car to the house, I threw open the front door and turned on the lights. Running into my bedroom, I tore off my dew-sweat-stained beesuit and boots. Frantically, I grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of my closet. After getting out my taser baton, I checked on Baby in his crate. He was agitated but all right.

  Merde – the gate! The police can’t get in. I called again. The dispatcher, now angry that she kept getting cut off, ordered me to stay on the line. She reported that the police had found a burning car by the front gate but they couldn’t get onto the property. I gave her the code and several minutes later, I saw the flashing lights of the men in blue. I was actually happy to see them this time. Officers stepped out of their cruisers and lowered their heads as if any moment a spray of bullets would come their way.

  “Stay in the house,” they yelled. I slammed the door shut.

  Twenty minutes later, I opened the door in response to a firm knock. Standing in my doorway were four handsome policemen holding two handcuffed, disarrayed women –Taffy and Nancy. “We caught them.” One of the officers held up a red gasoline can. “They had this,” he added. “Looks like they were going to burn you out. You know them?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry to say that I do.”

  “You set my car on fire!” screamed Nancy.

  “You’re the one holding a gasoline can,” mused the officer in charge.

  “What was on fire?” I asked.

  “A car which they say is theirs.”

  “No other brush fires on the property?”

  “The fire department is going through the property right now. Perhaps you would like to show them your property line.”

  I certainly would. I got in a police car and was soon joined by more husky young men doing their best to protect me from two “lawbreakers” who were now stuffed into the back of a police van.

  Nancy stared out of the back window at us passing by.

  “I wonder if that girl is really crazy?” I said. “Why would she set her own car on fire?”

  “My guess is so that you would come out of the house to investigate.”

  “Then what?”

  “They also had duct tape.”

  “Oooh,” I said faintly. “They weren’t kidding around.” I didn’t point out to the officer that the girls had no way to get home. Maybe he had seen so much criminal stupidity that he didn’t question this angle. Perhaps he thought they would just steal my van after they were finished with me.

  Finished with me! That had a horrible ring to it. What was the purpose of the duct tape? Tie me to a chair while they poured gasoline over me? Would Taffy really go that far? The police evidently thought so.

  I gave an officer my statement about how I was in my house when I heard unusual sounds and the motion lights came on. I was completely believable when I described how I looked out the window, seeing two shadowy figures lurking outside, one of them holding something large in her hands lurking about the house. I called the police the first time. Then I heard the explosion. The police seemed satisfied with my story. I also mentioned that Taffy’s father had died on my property some months ago. Perhaps this was an attempt at revenge? Just a suggestion. I was enjoying myself. I should have taken up lying earlier in life as a hobby.

  After the police left, I let Baby out of his crate and fed him some sliced roast beef. Heating up a Lean Cuisine dinner for myself, I topped if off with a quart of chocolate ice cream. The Baptist in me knew I was going to hell, but the problem was I didn’t feel guilty about how I had set those girls up. It seemed like they were going to do worse to me. I shuddered when I thought of the duct tape and its possible use with the gasoline. Was Taffy so daffy that she thought I really killed her father and wanted revenge? Where was Daffy Taffy’s mother in all this mess? So much for getting rid of bad karma.

  22

  My mother taught me to never judge a book by its cover but I do . . . doesn’t everyone? I should have known better that things on the outside may look differently at its core. It’s not like I didn’t have real life lessons in this.

  At the age of six, Brannon attended a party at the home of his neighborhood’s avant-garde couple. The husband was a hip radio announcer of a jazz show while his beautiful wife was a noted songwriter of the Carole King ilk. They threw parties to which they invited fascinating people to their street’s upper-middle-class world of Swanson TV dinners and Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights. As they had a child Brannon’s age, Brannon was allowed to participate by being a companion to his friend if they could prove themselves to be charming entertainment for what was really the cast of an Andy Warhol party. Be cute . . . but not oxbnoxiously obvious.

  Apparently, one of the guests did not think the cherubic attitude was something that he wished to condone. A waxed mustachioed man called Brannon over, telling him to hold out his hand. Thinking he was going to receive money or maybe candy, little Brannon was more than happy to extend his plump greedy little palm towards the gentleman who was smoking a Turkish cigarette in a long cigarette holder. The gentleman grandly took his cigarette holder out of his mouth and flicked ashes in Brannon’s hand. “Now go away, little boy,” he requested.

  Astonished, Brannon took the ashes to show his friend. Even at that age, Brannon realized the man was trying to insult him. Wiping his hands on his friend’s clean shirt, Brannon stomped home crying.

  It wasn’t until years later that he realized that he had been given a treasure – a vintage slice of life with Lord Buckley, the famous Beat comedian, which could be retold at countless dinner parties, cocktail parties and business dinners, never failing to make him looking charming or bring a smile even to the dullest face at the table. I mean, who doesn’t like to hear about children being humiliated by a hip fifties comedian whose battle cry was “hipsters, flipsters and finger poppin’ daddies, knock me your lobes”?

  I have taken this story to heart . . . that something nasty can turn out to be a trove of enchantment. I am still looking for the silver lining in Brannon’s treachery, but it may still come. It was with this attitude that I went to the Fayette County hoosegow, which looks like a horse barn, to see Taffy after she had called me. She had something important to tell me.

  “Tell me on the phone,” I had said.

  “No, I got to see you, Miss Josiah,” she replied. “Got to tell you in person.”

  Figuring that she was going to try to get me to drop the charges, I pulled my resolve together and proceeded to the jailhouse in my rickety van. I hoped that it was not merely a setup, only to come out to find my van stolen from the jail’s parking lot; I knew Nancy was already out on bail. I wondered why Taffy was not. It was going to be an interesting chat, as I waited patiently while my body and purse were wanded before I entered the core of the building. I got the feeling lots of people bring tape recorders as the guard pulled mine out, looked at it, looked at me, and put it back. He whispered something as he handed the purse back to me. I nodded, but had no real clue as to what he was saying. I guess the guards worried more about guns, blades and drugs smuggled in.

  Not that the Bluegrass area is a hotbed of crime, but we do have our share of citizens who name their little girls Adolf Hitler, take in fifty cats and then forget to feed them, participate in illegal cockfights, tuck marijuana plants away in our state parks, and leave mutilated
bodies by the river. Most of our murders are alcohol-driven domestic affairs, usually relatives killing their dearly loved ones. Kentuckians get angry when the outside world stereotypes us as violent or stupid, but sometimes the stereotype fits. Now I was going to meet one of its queens – Daffy Taffy.

  I checked into the lounge bathroom in order to switch on the recorder, then proceeded down the hall where I would meet Taffy. Unfortunately, it was a large room where the prisoners could mingle with the visitors. I was hoping for a thick glass wall with hand phones. Taffy was sitting in an orange plastic chair tugging at her hair, looking absent- mindedly at the cement floor.

  I walked up to her. “Hello, Taffy. You wanted to see me.”

  She gave me a quick nod and showed me to a scarred table that stood away from everyone.

  “It’s nice that you came . . . considering,” said Taffy.

  “I admit I thought it odd that you called me. Why are you still here? Why aren’t you out on bail?”

  Taffy had the grace to look ashamed. “Mommy won’t get me out. Says for me to stay here until she is ready. Ready for what is what I would like to know.” She looked around at the other inmates visiting their families. “I want out. I hate this place.”

  “I hope you’re not asking me to get you out.”

  Taffy looked sheepishly at me. “I know you think I’m a bad girl.”

  “I think you were going to harm me is what I think.”

  “Oh no, that wasn’t the plan,” Taffy said quickly.

  I put the tape recorder on the table. “Well, before we come to what you want, we are going to do a little horse trading. Tell me what I want to know and then we’ll see if I help you at all.”

  “That seems fair. I tell you what you want, then you’ll call my mother and talk to her?”

  “I won’t make that promise. I have to see, but if you don’t answer my questions with the truth, then I won’t do anything at all except try to see that the police keep you here. Where is that nutter friend of yours – Nancy?”

  “She had some money saved up and paid her bail. She didn’t have enough for me too.” Taffy rubbed her forehead. “She’s the cause of all this mess. I wish I had never met her.”

  “I just want you to know that I have alerted the Fayette County District Attorney that I am meeting you. If anything happens to my farm while I’m here . . then they will pick up little Miss Nancy again.” It was true that I had told Officer Kelly about this meeting and he agreed to watch my property while I was on my little mission.

  “This is on the up and up, Miss Josiah. I swear. I’ll do what you want. Ask me anything. Just help me with my mother.”

  I turned on the tape recorder. “Why have you been harassing me – the letters, the car accident?”

  Taffy paled.

  So I was right – she was not denying the letters or the accident.

  “I don’t know why really. Daddy’s death on your farm. I didn’t understand why he would be there. And there was the incident where you pushed him into a glass case. I can’t explain it. I was just angry. I didn’t really mean any harm. It was Nancy that goaded me into writing the letters,” she gushed.

  “And Brutus is an honorable man,” I quoted sarcastically.

  “Huh?”

  “First of all, I did push your father but only after he had pushed me. I don’t take kindly to men bullying women. It makes me mad. But I had nothing to do with your father’s death. I had no idea that he was on my property and that he was in need of any type of medical assistance. Had I known, I would have tried to help him. To that, I will swear on the Bible. I had nothing to do with your daddy’s death.”

  “Nancy said you had to have something to do with it and that you were getting away with it because you’re rich and your daughter has connections.”

  “Let’s leave my daughter out of this. Nancy is wrong. It wasn’t me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why did you use a typewriter?”

  “The printer for my laptop was broken so I used Daddy’s old typewriter.”

  “What is your relationship with Nurse Nancy?”

  Taffy shrugged. “She’s into chicks.”

  “Are you?”

  “Not really, but I was between boyfriends . . . and I thought – what the hell. I was willing to experiment.”

  “How has it been?”

  “At first, it was good.” She grinned. “And the sex wasn’t too difficult to get used to. In fact, it was fun but she is so bossy. Nancy has all these weird ideas about people. She had been pushed around a lot between foster homes and such when she was little, so she hates anyone who has it better. I’m not like that.”

  “So from what you are telling me, all these ideas were from Nancy, and you went along with them?” I asked to clarify. I was going to point out that Nancy was old enough to be her mother but I am sure that Tellie had already had this conversation with Taffy.

  “I couldn’t say no to her. There was no point. She’d just keep badgering me until I gave in,” Taffy pouted.

  “Did it ever occur to you to talk to me?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Now I know I should have.”

  “Those letters you sent about my husband were hurtful.

  They also kept the cops on my ass.”

  “That’s how Nancy knew you. She said she was a nurse

  when your husband was sick and you were so mean to him that you caused him to die. She was so sure you had something to do with Daddy’s death too.”

  “My husband died from a coronary episode which stemmed from heart disease. Did she tell you that he had a mistress who led him to desert his daughter and me?”

  “She didn’t put it that way.”

  “Of course not, it depends on whose viewpoint you take. He never thought of the pain he was causing his wife and daughter. He just cared about his new squeeze. Let’s not waste time on my late husband. So far, I’ve got that you were having an affair with Nancy Wasser because you were bored and she talked you into believing that I had something to do with your father’s death. Does that get it?”

  Taffy nodded, her cheeks a hot pink.

  “Say yes or no.”

  “I would say that sounds about right.”

  “That the two of you conspired to write letters to the police and to myself accusing me of killing your father and my husband?”

  “I didn’t think it would really do you harm,” whined Taffy. “I just wanted the police to investigate, just to be sure, you know.”

  “Why the old English in the last letter?”

  “Nancy thought it would throw suspicion off from us. That’s all.”

  “And that the two of you thought it was okay to push me to the brink of death by driving my Mercedes off the road after the Harvest Ball.”

  “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Did Nancy?”

  “No.”

  “The two of you had nothing to do with chasing me down on Ironworks Pike and forcing my car into a fence?”

  “No!”

  “How do you know Nancy didn’t? How do you explain the fact that her car has a dent in the front?” I lied.

  “We were at the ball together. You saw us. She never went after you.”

  “Were you two together the entire night after Matt and I left?”

  Taffy looked at the guard and mouthed that she wanted to leave. I grabbed her hand.

  “Answer me, Taffy, or I will not help you with your mother.”

  The guard shifted his feet while placing his hand on his pepper spray. He shook his head at me. I pulled my hand away.

  “Well, we were going to leave too. She said she had to go to the bathroom and then she was going to get the car.”

  “Whose car?”

  “My Mom’s. She was using our new car that night and I was to use her old one.”

  “She was using the Prius?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so you were using your mom’s old car, the Suburban. Was Nancy gone a long
time?”

  “She said she had trouble finding the bathroom. The line was long so she decided to warm the car up for me and drive it closer to the front door and then went to use the bathroom.”

  “That didn’t seem odd to you?”

  “No, she could be thoughtful like that.”

  “Did your mother’s car have any scratches or dents?”

  “Never looked.”

  “Your mother say anything?”

  “No, except that she didn’t want me to see Nancy no more. She warned me that Nancy was no good and would get me into trouble.” Taffy started to sniffle. “She was right. Look where I am.”

  “Okay. Let’s go back. Nancy went to the bathroom, got lost and then went to get the car, letting it warm up. So she was gone fifteen to twenty-five minutes,” I said, putting the pieces together.

  “Yeah.”

  “Or even thirty minutes?”

  “I dunno. I wasn’t watching the clock.”

  “Could she have been gone thirty minutes?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What about coming to my house with a gas can and duct tape?”

  “What was just a prank really to get you back for the way you and Matt treated us at the ball. Nancy said you insulted us and then you took off with our drink glasses. Nancy didn’t like that. At the most, I thought we’d set some shed on fire.”

  “Whose idea was it to bring the duct tape?”

  “Nancy’s,” answered Taffy distractedly while picking dirt from underneath her fingernails.

  Snapping my fingers, I said, “Taffy, stay with me. What was the tape for?”

  “Never asked.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “You poor dumb kid. Don’t you realize that bringing duct tape made it look like you were going to murder me?”