Mind Your Own Beeswax

by Hannah Reed

  “He thinks I had something to do with Lauren’s death.”

  Hunter snorted. “Johnny Jay can’t hold you for questioning when we don’t have all the facts. Especially since there’s a chance, slight, but still a chance, that Lauren shot Hetty, then turned the gun on herself. That would pretty much close the case.”

  “I didn’t do anything to get arrested over,” I said.

  “Jay claims you contaminated the crime scene. How did you manage that? And what were you doing there in the first place?”

  So I told him about my swarm and falling out of the tree.

  “I can imagine the whole scene,” Hunter said, a big goofy grin on his face, like he was really enjoying himself. “You need grace lessons. Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been a klutz.”

  “That is so untrue,” I lied.

  “Let’s take dancing lessons together. That might improve your coordination and we could have some fun at the same time.”

  “Maybe later,” I hedged. “I’m really busy with the store and my bees right now.” Not that I wouldn’t really enjoy spending time in Hunter’s arms, but I had two left feet when it came to dancing, and that whole refusing to follow thing applied to other aspects of life as well. Something about my body always wanted to lead.

  Hunter pulled up in front of The Wild Clover and double-parked. Judging by the number of cars pulling in and out of parking spaces and customers going in and out of the store, we were doing some good business. When tragedy struck, my store became a hub of activity, a meeting and commiserating place. And current events certainly qualified as tragedy, with two deaths at once.

  I turned to Hunter. “You’re not convinced Lauren killed herself after murdering Hetty, are you?”

  “Some important characteristics of suicide aren’t there,” Hunter said.

  “Like what?” I made the mistake of asking.

  “Lauren didn’t leave a note. She didn’t contact anyone in advance, either. She didn’t shoot herself in one of the typical places like in her head, the shot wasn’t angled up, the shot went right through her clothes when most suicides will lift up their clothes first . . .”

  Well, that certainly was more than I needed to know. “So you’re thinking both were murdered?”

  “Johnny Jay is determined to wrap up the case fast. I say we’re going to investigate all possibilities. He wasn’t too happy with my department or me. Getting the guy to cooperate hasn’t been easy.”

  “Why are you even dealing with Johnny? He’s a jerk, he’s too emotionally involved, and if he isn’t officially part of the investigation, why not blow him off?”

  “It’s a mess, that’s why. Hetty was killed on county land, but Lauren’s body was found on town property. We’re forced to collaborate with the town official, and unfortunately that’s Jay.”

  “Oh isn’t that wonderful news.”

  I gave the man a well-deserved, parting hug for springing me from the town jail and headed into the store . . .

  . . . only to find one of the twins bagging groceries and my mother behind the cash register. She had been trying to insinuate herself into my business, both my personal and my professional life, ever since I’d moved back to Moraine. Just let me turn my back for one minute, one time, and there she was, acting like she owned the place. Give that woman a foot in the door and she seizes control of the whole building. And as everyone knows, there can be only one queen bee.

  The Wild Clover was my hive.

  We stared at each other. “Hi,” I said. My voice sounded weak.

  “You weren’t minding the store,” she said, reading my thoughts, knowing perfectly well she wasn’t welcome to intrude like this, but doing it anyway. None of the Fischer women could be called passive bystanders in the game of life. And my mother was a master player.

  “Where on earth were you?” she asked. “I can understand taking a few hours, but . . .” Mom checked her watch.

  “I’m here now,” I said, before she could dive into a lecture about my poor business practices. “Thanks for helping. I’ll be right back to take over.”

  I scurried for the back of the store.

  Holly turned from straightening a shelf, saw me, and grinned. “FTF (Face To Face),” she said, too low for Mom or any of the customers to hear. “I thought we’d be having all our future conversations through those jail phones. Stanley was pretty upset about Johnny Jay arresting you.”

  “I’m not arrested anymore. What’s Mom doing here?”

  “Grams and Mom stopped in after church and decided we needed major help, since you weren’t around and business increased even more after they found Lauren’s body. I tried to stop them, I really did, but NFW (No Freaking Way) were they leaving. It’s kind of a miracle they didn’t hear about your latest brush with justice at church this morning.”

  “Where’s Grams now?” If Grams was in the vicinity, she could pack up Mom and put me back behind the cash register of my own store.

  “She went home to whip up casseroles. One for us later, one for Rita Kerrigan and another for Norm Cross.”

  In all the drama, I’d forgotten about Hetty’s husband, Norm, and how he must be coping with all this. I really hoped the casserole was low-fat, because every time Norm came into the store, he bought lots of bacon and sausages and anything else that made major contributions to clogged arteries. Real butter, whole milk, ice cream, beef liver. And he weighed a ton.

  If we had taken bets on which one would depart this world first, my money would have ridden on Norm. But then I hadn’t figured tragic endings into the equation.

  Speaking of bets. That reminded me of my cousin and the bet we’d had that all of the seats at my candle-making class would be filled.

  “Where’s Carrie Ann?” I asked, already feeling several inches shorter, a condition that presented itself whenever I had to deal with my mother on her terms. I felt like a visitor in my own store. “Didn’t she show up?”

  “She’s in the storage room, having a big talk with Gunnar.”

  “Gunnar’s in the back with Carrie Ann?”

  “No, they’re on the phone.”

  “What are they talking about?”

  Holly shrugged. “Probably the same old. Their kids and Carrie Ann’s visitation rights.”

  “Who taught Mom how to use the cash register?” The golden rule popped into my head. Whoever watched over the money controlled the place.

  “Really, Story,” Holly said, “you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to scan groceries these days. It’s all computerized. And she’s a fast learner.”

  “Can you get her out of here?”

  “Maybe.” Holly had a smug look on her face like she was at least one step ahead of me, maybe more. “But only if you never ask me to help with your bees ever again.” She grinned slyly.

  “Great. Cut me off at the knees when I’m already down. When I’m crawling to you for help.”

  “Promise.”

  “Fine. You win.” I slammed into the storage room, before Holly could see the lie in my eyes.

  Carrie Ann was draped in my office chair. She sat up straight when she saw me. “Gotta go,” she said into the phone and hung up. Her eyes were red and swollen. She stood, then promptly fell into my open arms. I could smell fresh booze breath. “When they found Lauren’s body,” she said, backing away, wiping her eyes, “it hit me harder than I thought it would.”

  I shrugged and shook my head in a sad way. “I don’t even know what to say to make you feel better. Except that drinking isn’t the answer.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Buy some breath mints. That will cover it up.”

  “Don’t tell anybody. Please. I’m not going back down that horrible road.”

  “Everybody has relapses,” I said, not really sure that was true. “I’ll tell you what? You owe me since I won our bet, so you can pay me back by calling your sponsor.”

  Who happened to be my sort of boyfriend Hunter, who had a past of his own, but had
straightened out and hadn’t touched a drop for years and years.

  “Thanks. You’re sweet for understanding. I’ll call him after work.” Carrie Ann broke her grasp on me. “I don’t know what got into me. Not that I wished her dead or anything, but I never liked Lauren Kerrigan from the very beginning.” She wiped her eyes again.

  That was a real understatement. Lauren and Carrie Ann had always sniped at each other. They didn’t have complementary personalities and it didn’t help that Lauren was always flirting with Gunnar even when she was with T. J.

  “Gunnar was looking for you last night,” I said.

  “I know. He told me.”

  I didn’t ask where she’d been, figuring it wasn’t any of my business, and she didn’t volunteer any more information.

  By the time Carrie Ann and I returned to the front of the store, more customers had gathered and I saw Stanley in the middle of the group. He gave me an apologetic, helpless shrug, and by the time I realized why, it was too late to duck.

  But in a place like Moraine, it was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

  My mother, scowling when she turned to me, said, “Arrested? You were arrested? Oh dear God!”

  Twelve

  Here’s what I firmly believe about mother/daughter relationships:

  • They work best at a distance. Living close to each other is a recipe for disaster (in my humble, but experienced opinion).

  • There is less conflict if you don’t have clashing personalities, which my mother and I definitely do.

  • From my personal observations, oldest daughters have the most complicated relationships with their mothers.

  • Younger sisters, on the other hand, are spoiled rotten.

  “I wasn’t arrested,” I said to the gathering group since they were all listening in. I avoided direct eye contact with my mother. “Johnny Jay wanted to consult with me, like a debriefing. That’s all.”

  Stanley gave me a puzzled look. I attempted to display a certain expression, sort of a brow-knitting plea meant to convey a message just for him. It was supposed to say, go along with me, don’t pursue this subject any further please!

  “Okay, then,” Stanley said, either catching on or letting confusion reign. “Good to know. I guess I better check my facts next time.”

  “Another false rumor,” someone from the back said, sounding disappointed.

  “Rumor?” P. P. Patti walked in just in time for her favorite topic: gossip. “Did I miss something?”

  “No,” Aurora Tyler, owner of Moraine Gardens and my neighbor across the street, said. “We thought Story had been arrested, but here she is.”

  Aurora, late fiftyish, had long, naturally gray-streaked hair, wore flowing psychedelic clothing and thick sandals, preferred accessories made from hemp, and had a firm grasp on anything that didn’t lead to a realistic viewpoint. Clairvoyants, magic, vortexes, flying objects. Bring ’em on.

  According to Aurora, she’d been involved in a fatal car accident in the Arizona desert. Before her lifeblood drained away, a flying saucer came to the rescue, beamed her up to their ship, restored her life, and returned her to earth as good as new.

  “Did everybody hear about Lauren Kerrigan?” Patti said, anxious to have the scoop ahead of the rest. That wasn’t going to happen today.

  “We heard,” Stanley said.

  Patti shuffled into the middle of the group. “Two women shot dead almost in our backyard! It could have been any of us, if you think about it.”

  “Nothing is random,” Aurora said to Patti and anybody else who cared to listen. “Every present and future event is determined by a chain of occurrences from the past.”

  “Huh?” Patti said.

  “Aurora means,” I explained, slightly disturbed that I understood what she was trying to say, “everything that happens to you or me or anybody else is predetermined. We can’t control the outcome.”

  “So you think Hetty and Lauren were going to die no matter what?” Patti scowled and shot me a look that said Aurora was off her rocker (and this coming from Patti!).

  “Free will simply doesn’t exist,” Aurora said firmly, before wandering off to shop. At Aurora’s request, I carried a full array of tofu, tempeh, and seitan at The Wild Clover. Anything for my customers, especially one with alien blood flowing through her veins.

  Milly Hopticourt, The Wild Clover newsletter editor and recipe tester, finished arranging bouquets of spring flowers from her massive flower gardens. We stocked them at the front of the store where they were a big hit with people walking by. And not to show favorites, Aurora’s native plants were for sale in pots right outside the door, too.

  “Maybe Lantern Man killed them,” Stanley said to a chorus of snickers mingled with just as many ahas. The snickerers couldn’t completely buy into the idea of a ghost wandering the old logging trail, but they still wouldn’t set foot in The Lost Mile. The aha-ers were totally convinced that evil incarnate walked the woods.

  “Just so it’s perfectly clear,” I said. “I didn’t make up Lantern Man.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Mom added.

  “I believe he’s real,” Milly said.

  “He exists,” Stanley insisted.

  Stanley’s comments generated some lively discussion. While they debated whether or not a ghost could actually kill (based on the damage Lantern Man had done to camping equipment, the possibility seemed to exist in some of their minds), I worked on a more immediate problem—how to remove Mom from my store.

  “Shouldn’t you go help Grams make casseroles?” I said to her. “She’s getting up there in age. That’s a lot of work for one woman. Three casseroles might be more than she can handle.”

  “We chopped and measured everything early this morning,” Mom said. “She just has to mix the ingredients together and put them in the oven. We were going to freeze one for later, but now we’ll take that one over to Rita, the poor woman. A mother shouldn’t ever have to bury her child. So sad.” That was the extent of Mom’s fluffy side. She clapped her hands together and said, “Now, let’s get back to work.”

  I used my cell phone to call Grams.

  “Do you need help?” I asked.

  “No, precious. Everything is in the oven, cooking away. But you’re so sweet to offer.”

  So that was that, at least for today. Mom was on the clock and she wasn’t punching out any time soon.

  Customers kept coming in the store all afternoon, congregating up front or outside on the Adirondack chairs I’d arranged once the weather had improved. Some of them went into the old choir loft, which I’d converted into a cozy area for weekly events, like the seniors’ Monday afternoon card games. Customers stayed up there all afternoon playing gin rummy and throwing around more murder theories than cards.

  And the theories and motives grew wilder as the day progressed. After a while, I couldn’t listen anymore.

  Lori Spandle came in to open her mouth in an ongoing effort to get thrown out of my store.

  “That Hunter Wallace is one sexy man,” she said, knowing full well I was seeing him and wanting to ruffle my feathers. She stuck her big boobs out as far as they went. “Too bad I’m married.”

  “That never stopped you before,” I replied.

  Lori flounced away.

  The only regular customers I didn’t see before we locked up at five o’clock were the families of the victims, who were presumably grieving and making funeral arrangements, and Stu Trembly, who probably had more business than I did over at his bar and grill. Good thing it was Carrie Ann’s day to work or who knows how far she would have slipped into a pitcher of tap beer over there.

  “I need your help,” I said to her after we locked up, before she could get into her car and drive away.

  Carrie Ann looked beat. “Now what?”

  I had one of Grams’s casseroles in my hands. I’d offered to take it over to Norm Cross before joining the rest of my family for dinner. Mom hadn’t argued.

  “Help me del
iver this casserole to Norm,” I said to my cousin.

  “Sure, why not. I don’t have anything better to do.”

  With that, we hopped into my ten-year-old, rusted-out pickup truck and headed north out of town. “I can’t believe this old bucket of bolts is still running,” Carrie Ann said.

  “Watch what you say about her!” I said, laughing. “I take good care of my baby.” Which was true. She never had to wait past her due date for an oil change.

  We crossed the bridge over the Oconomowoc River, followed the curve onto Creamery Road, then cut south again. I could have walked to Norm and Hetty Cross’s house faster than I could drive there, since there wasn’t any quick-and-easy access to their property from the main road.

  The prefabricated home they owned hadn’t aged well. Set back among large shadowy trees, corrosion had done its work and I could see rusty joints and sagging where there shouldn’t be any. The front steps consisted of cement blocks and a few planks of mossy pine.

  Norm opened the front door as soon as we got out of the truck. He filled every inch of the doorway.

  “We brought you a casserole,” I said.

  “Come on in.” Norm backed up, creating enough space for us to cram in.

  I’d never been inside his house before. The last time I’d been on this property, I’d been half the size I am today and Hetty had escorted me back the way I came, yanking my ear while I squealed, leaning into her to relieve the pain. Now I was all grown up and inside the Witch’s lair.

  Or rather her kitchen, which smelled of recently fried bacon. Neither Hetty nor Norm would have earned any clean house awards. Norm made room on the counter by pushing aside objects with a full sweep of his arm. I set the casserole down.

  And promptly fell over something alive, wiggling on the floor. It had wrapped itself around my legs, throwing me off balance, and I was down before I knew it. The thing attacked, diving on my chest, raking its claws on my skin, and attempting to attack my face. I hid behind my hands and felt paralysis setting in.