Mind Your Own Beeswax

by Hannah Reed

  Carrie Ann nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Gunnar was hauled in for questioning last night.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m not sure, but it has something to do with Lauren Kerrigan and Hetty Cross. Hunter ordered him to appear at the sheriff’s office.”

  “Ordered? That doesn’t sound like Hunter.”

  “Gunnar called to tell me he was going and said he was worried because he didn’t have anybody to vouch for his whereabouts when Lauren and Hetty were murdered.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all. Hunter can’t think Gunnar did it. Johnny Jay . . . oh, never mind.” I almost said Johnny Jay killed them. But it might be a smart move to lay off him for a while, at least publicly.

  “I bet the cops are going to round us up one at a time,” Carrie Ann said, with wild eyes. “Everyone who was in The Lost Mile the night Wayne Jay died. You. Me. T. J. Gunnar, who they already have. Hunter doesn’t count since he’s the rounder-upper. We’re all under suspicion.”

  Carrie Ann, in my opinion, was in some kind of delusional state. That’s what happened to alcoholics. Lost brain cells. Delusions.

  “That’s nonsense,” I said. “He doesn’t think one of us killed Lauren. The Wayne Jay tragedy happened a long time ago. And if that night does have any bearing on what happened here now, it still has nothing to do with us. Besides, why do you care if he wants to ask you questions? You didn’t do anything wrong, did you?”

  “No, but . . .” Carrie Ann let the rest of the sentence hang.

  Now that I thought back, Carrie Ann had been missing in action in the late afternoon and evening when Lauren and Hetty died. She had refused to stay and help at the store, saying she had a meeting. And the next morning, she’d had alcohol on her breath. Where had she been? Not at an AA meeting, that was for sure.

  “I’m lying low until this is over,” Carrie Ann said.

  “You don’t have anything to hide. Besides, you’re scheduled to work this morning.”

  “Ali has to take my shift. I can’t.”

  I sighed. Staff rotations were starting to resemble musical chairs without the accompanying peppy melody. “Ali works at the dental office mornings,” I told her, adding as much authority to my voice as I could. “You’re stuck. It’s time to open, but run home first and change your clothes and put on fresh makeup. And hurry.”

  As I opened the store’s doors for the day, I really hoped my cousin would come back. Carrie Ann had been doing really well with her recovery as long as nothing out of the ordinary happened to shake her calm. It seemed like she couldn’t handle a single bit of adversity or conflict without slipping back into her old ways.

  But I didn’t have any more time to think about Carrie Ann and her problems because customers began overrunning the store. Since everybody knew that The Wild Clover was where all good gossip was accumulated and dispersed, and since last night we’d had information overload, the locals were filing in to exchange tidbits. Also, I was sort of an instant celebrity, basking in my fifteen minutes of fame and glory.

  Which lasted only about five minutes because Mom arrived with Grams.

  “I went out of my way to leave you alone last night,” my mother said, which wasn’t even close to true. I had just refused to answer my cell phone, but she should realize I could still see how many times she’d tried.

  When I hadn’t answered, she started calling Holly, who told her I was asleep and refused to wake me.

  Mom went on, “We need to have a little talk.” That’s mother code for “You’re in big trouble, Missy.”

  “Mom, see the line of customers here. Not now, okay.”

  “Well if it isn’t Helen Fischer,” someone said to Mom, drawing her attention away from me. “I heard you were taking over the store!”

  “Not exactly.” My mother’s eyes shot over to my narrowing ones. “I’m helping Story keep things on track. That’s all.”

  “You must be very proud of your daughter. She’s a real trooper.”

  “Tough as nails,” someone else said. Was that a compliment? Or a criticism? Hard to tell.

  “Too bad she had to go through what she did, but thankfully justice was served,” another customer said.

  “We should name a street after her.”

  “She was breaking the law!” I heard someone say just when I thought the entire world had sided with me. I turned to see Lori Spandle standing behind me, glaring. That had been her flapping lips. Figures.

  Mom humphed and elbowed her way in to take over at the cash register.

  Grams, wearing a fresh daisy in her bun, took snapshots of me with various combinations of customers and promised everybody copies. My grandmother would be an avid photographer until the day she died, which I hoped was a long way off.

  Milly came in to get the morel mushrooms I’d picked so she could work her recipe magic, since the next newsletter due date was coming up soon and our customers expected it right on time.

  “Can you make something with morels and honey mixed together?” I wanted to know, thinking everything went well with honey from my beehives.

  Milly made a face. “Doubt it. Some things simply don’t go together, even if they look alike.”

  I hadn’t thought of their similarities until Milly mentioned it. Morels did have a certain honeycomb-like appearance.

  Holly showed up before her regularly scheduled time, gaining her extra credit from Mom, who didn’t know today was the first time ever that my sister had been on time, let alone early. That girl sure could work our mother.

  The scratches on my face from the wild rose bush were still inflamed and red, a fact pointed out by Grams.

  “They look infected, sweetie pie,” she said. “Did you put honey on them?”

  “I totally forgot to do that.” Honey was more effective than hydrogen peroxide when it came to dealing with germs. What I should have done was spread honey on a gauze pad and tape it to my cheek overnight.

  “It’ll heal right up and you won’t have a scar.” Grams went to my honey display, selected a small jar of honey, popped it open, and waited for me to apply it to my facial wounds.

  “Right now? You want me to put it on here? Now?” I said. “I’m working. I’ll look silly.”

  Mom humphed, like I couldn’t possibly look more foolish than I already did. Or at least that was my personal take on her sound effects.

  “Go on,” Grams said. “Do it.”

  So I did, smearing honey along the thin tears in my skin. My grandmother can’t be denied. She’s too precious.

  The store stayed busy through the morning. Carrie Ann never did come back and, at this point, I had to assume she had fallen off the wagon and our family would have to plan another intervention.

  During one lull, I took Dinky outside for a pee break. While I carried her outside, she licked pretty much all the honey off my face. Since that animal’s tongue had been in some pretty disgusting places, I rewashed my face when we came back inside and dabbed on more honey to offset any critter infections.

  Congratulations and sympathies for what I had endured continued to pour in, with the occasional negative reaction. Why is it that one or two snarly comments can destroy the mood induced by multiple positive ones? I refused to let them, since the negatives came from the same people I expected dirt from, like Lori Spandle.

  Or Mom, when she muttered under her breath, “Anything for attention.”

  An anonymous bouquet of flowers arrived. Some residents had taken Johnny Jay’s speech about how he was forced to use physical aggressiveness as absolute gospel and wanted to know what I had done beforehand to cause him to rough me up like that.

  “Johnny Jay doesn’t need a reason to get nasty,” I announced. “And he had to release me without a single charge. Isn’t that enough proof of my innocence?”

  Once my televised event had been talked to death, comments swung to Moraine’s double murders and who might have committed the crime.

  At le
ast half the residents now thought Johnny Jay had killed Lauren and Hetty, many coming around to that decision after witnessing his temper toward me on live television. A few customers thought Norm Cross had some answering to do. Others weren’t expressing opinions, deciding to wait and see how things played out.

  However, most of us expected an arrest sometime soon.

  The sooner, the better, if you ask me. Pity-Party Patti might want to solve the case single-handedly to ingratiate herself with the local newspaper, but I was perfectly willing to let the proper authorities handle it.

  And with Sally Maylor in charge and Hunter’s expert assistance, I really hoped for a rapid solution.

  For a while I forgot about my precarious position. And my mother was too busy to turn her full attention in my direction. By the time Ali and the twins arrived midafternoon to take over, I was exhausted. Ready for a hot bath, a cup of honey-laced tea, and a quiet evening at home.

  Only that wasn’t about to happen.

  Because Dinky had disappeared.

  Twenty-three

  “I really don’t want to part with your sweet little Dinky yet,” I said into the phone, lying up a storm. “I really want to have her a little longer, if that’s okay with you. We’re bonding.” Which wouldn’t have been true even if I had known where she was.

  “That would take a load off my mind,” Norm said, on the other end. “And I know you’re taking really good care of her. She couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “The best,” I agreed before hanging up.

  “You what?!” Holly said when I told her.

  “The little rat fink can’t be far,” I said, hearing panic rising in my voice. “Oh my God, how did this happen?”

  “Shhh. PLS (Please). Keep your voice down. If customers find out you lost Dinky, someone is bound to tell Norm.”

  “I didn’t lose her. She escaped.”

  “I’ll check around inside the store. Maybe she’s under the cheese counter looking for crumbs or a handout. You check outside.”

  “’K. No wait, she has to be in the store. She couldn’t have snuck out the storage room door and through the back door, too.”

  “Don’t assume anything.”

  How had this happened? And when? I had been taking her outside every three hours to accommodate her minuscule bladder and the last time had been—I glanced at the time—a little over an hour ago. So she must have gotten loose sometime in the last hour. Someone must have gone into the back room for supplies and hadn’t been diligent about closing the door all the way. The mangy little mutt!

  Holly went one way, I went the other. We met in the middle of the store. No Dinky.

  “Dinky, want a treat?” I said in a whisper, hoping customers wouldn’t catch on. Rustling open a bag of doggy treats didn’t produce a real dog, either.

  I ran outside and immediately lost the bet with myself that I’d find her rummaging near the Dumpster. She wasn’t there, so I circled the building and scanned the neighboring cemetery for any tiny balls of movement. All the while thinking I was burned toast if I didn’t find her.

  Thinking she might have been smart enough to find her way to my house (which was a stretch, but I was desperate), I trotted the two blocks. Circled the house. Circled my ex-husband’s ex-house. Circled mine again. The pipsqueak was still missing in action.

  Was it possible to piss off any more people than I already had? Lori Spandle had verbally threatened to kill me when I ruined her house showing. Johnny Jay wanted my head on a platter for multiple reasons, the latest being a video totally embarrassing him and causing his forced leave of absence from his job. And if I had permanently lost Norm’s dog, which was all he had left now that his wife was gone, I’d have to run away and never come back.

  This couldn’t be more terrible.

  I slipped into my house and called Hunter’s cell, careful to keep my voice calm, although a band of tension wrapped itself around my forehead and was getting tighter by the minute.

  “How’s the investigation going?” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

  “It’s going.” Hunter had on his professional law voice, so I knew he was busy.

  “I heard about Gunnar. What’s up?”

  “Story, I really can’t discuss this subject with you.”

  Okay, then. Wow. I was out of the loop. “I was just thinking about Ben,” I said, implementing my plan. “Is he home by himself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re working?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought I’d go over and pick him up. We could spend some time together.”

  “Really?” He was all warm and fuzzy now. “That would be great. This case is taking all my time. I feel bad about leaving Ben alone so much.”

  “I’ll go right over, if that’s okay.”

  “More than okay. You remember where to find the key to the kennel?”

  “Yup.”

  With that, I rushed back to the store to get my truck, drove north of town, taking the Rustic Road up the hill, passed Holy Hill, turned into Hunter’s driveway, and released Ben from his kennel out back.

  Ben jumped into my passenger seat without any coaxing at all, and we were off.

  My plan better work or I was in so much trouble.

  The drive back to my house seemed to take forever.

  “Smell this,” I said to Ben, showing him the latest pee stain on my bedroom floor. I’d dabbed it up but hadn’t had time to give the wood floor a scrubbing, a good thing considering the circumstances. Hopefully, tracking dog Ben would get a scent from it. “And smell this,” I held out a bath towel I’d used to dry Dinky after she’d been rained on.

  Ben sniffed and sniffed, then gave me a knowing, confident gaze that meant he was ready to get down to business. Or at least, that’s how I interpreted it.

  “Ready?”

  As soon as I opened the door, Ben went to work in my yard. He’d automatically assumed that was his starting point and I’d failed to mention where I’d done the actual dog losing. For all I knew, he understood everything I said.

  “Not here, Ben,” I said to him. He kept going in circles.

  “What’s going on over there?” P. P. Patti yelled from her backyard.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Since you’re home from work, I better take over for Holly and start protecting you like I promised. But come over here and help me first. I have slivers in my fingers from some rotting wood I carried and it’s going to get all infected and wouldn’t you know it, they’re in my right hand, which is my strongest. I’m useless with my left. Why does everything always happen to me?”

  “I have Ben to protect me today. He’s a police attack dog. Ben can take down the biggest, baddest villain. I won’t have to worry about Johnny Jay for the rest of the day. And I’m in a real hurry. Or I’d help.”

  “You can make time.”

  “I really, really can’t. I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Well, then what should I do about these slivers?”

  “Go to the store. Holly will get them out.”

  “Okay then. Well, you let me know when you need me.”

  “Right.”

  “Ben, let’s go.” I had his leash in one hand, which I snapped on him, and the towel in the other. We hurried to the store. Or rather I did. Ben, on his harness and leash, kept up without breathing any harder. I snuck into the back of the store where I’d last seen Dinky and we started the sniffing process over again.

  Ben led me directly to the Dumpster, which must have been Dinky’s first stop just as I had predicted, then across the street, through a few backyards and along the river. Once we were out of the residential area, I set him free. Sometimes he sniffed like he was looking for Dinky’s scent floating in the air. Other times his nose was to the ground. Once he stopped and really took his time smelling around, alert and excited, and I would have bet a buck Dinky had left her pee mark in the vicinity. Amazing, since she usually reserved
that for inside my home or store.

  Then we turned toward The Lost Mile with Ben zigzagging along. It didn’t take long for my brain to catch up with Ben’s. He was leading me to Norm’s house.

  Of course Dinky had headed home. How dense could one woman be? Although I really didn’t think the dog had it in her. Even the two blocks to my house should have been a tremendous strain on her pea brain.

  Ben beat me there and immediately started barking.

  Sure enough, Dinky was stretched out on Norm’s moss-covered, rotting porch, cool and calm as can be, patiently waiting for her owner to return.

  Good thing he wasn’t home or I’d have some explaining to do.

  “Bad dog,” I said to Dinky, who didn’t care in the least.

  “Good Ben.” The K-9 cop’s tail wagged.

  I glanced at the house and thought about my options, a no-brainer really when entrenched as deeply as I was in the current drama. Norm’s door sprang open when I turned the knob, not like last time when the house had been locked up. That might mean Norm wouldn’t be gone long. I’d have to hurry.

  And I really hoped the unlocked door meant the alarm wasn’t activated. At least if it was, Johnny Jay wouldn’t be the one responding and I had a perfectly good reason to be there. Or I’d come up with one, if necessary.

  In Dinky and I went. “Stay, Ben,” I said, knowing he’d remain close by for as long as I asked him to. Dinky was another story. Totally untrained and wild. I wasn’t giving her the opportunity to escape my clutches again by leaving her outside. She probably wouldn’t run off, but I wasn’t taking any more chances.

  I lost her the minute we got inside, when she scampered around a corner and disappeared. So I gave up and made my way to the spare room to get another look at the lantern collection and poster board.

  This time, I read each of the articles. Except for the one about the campers, all were based completely on superstition rather than any actual facts. Wild noises not attributable to local animals, unexplained lights and movement at night, a “creepy sensation” as one person put it in an interview.