Buzz Off

by Hannah Reed

  It was beyond me how my cousin could pull off quitting two addictions at once. But it was her business, not mine. Hunter had refused to date smokers in high school and probably still avoided it. Was she quitting for him? I wanted to ask her about AA but I didn’t know if I’d blow a confidence if I did. I was sure she wouldn’t have wanted Hunter telling me.

  “You smell nice, instead of like smoke,” I said, trying to give her encouragement. I knew she expected to be invited in, but I just couldn’t entertain at the moment. “Like lilacs.”

  “Hey, thanks.”

  “I heard hypnotism helps if your willpower starts breaking down.”

  “Ha. I’ll keep it in mind. Right now I’d like to beat my head against a wall. Anything to numb my brain. And my hands. I don’t know what to do with them.” She gave me a studied look. “I heard about what happened. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. “

  “You’re awfully pale.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Okay, if you insist.” Then Carrie Ann got to the point of her visit. “Did you figure out when I work again? I know this isn’t the best time to talk about it with a dead person in your kayak and all, but I need to pay my rent and I’m a little strapped right now.”

  I took a moment to realize how lucky I was that The Wild Clover market was doing well enough that I could hire extra help. Times were tough. The twins needed to pay for college; Carrie Ann had rent due. Financially, I wasn’t in bad shape. Although, if things had gone like Manny and I had planned and we had expanded Queen Bee Honey, my future finances would have been even more secure.

  “Come by the store tomorrow afternoon,” I told her. “We’ll talk about it and work up a plan.”

  With that, Carrie Ann took her leave and went off down the street. I wondered where she was heading—home or to the bar. I hoped it was the former.

  I went back inside and lay low, watching the world through the cracks in the blinds. Cop cars came down Willow Street and parked behind each other. Law officials began canvassing the neighborhood. A team swarmed into my backyard, staying wide of the beehives. They began searching along the waterline. I saw a deputy go into Moraine Gardens across the street. Clay’s car was next door, so he was home. The police chief’s SUV pulled up to the curb. Johnny Jay rang my bell. I had been surprised when none of the others had bothered to check to see if I was home, but now I knew—they must have been ordered to stay clear. It seemed that the police chief wanted first crack at me.

  I decided to ignore him. I was all worn out emotionally and didn’t have the strength to take on Johnny Jay in the manner in which I had become accustomed. When I didn’t answer my door, he went over to Clay’s house. My phone rang multiple times, but I didn’t answer that, either, preferring to let the answering machine take over.

  Nine

  Not only are bullet points important in life, so are priority lists. My heart was heavy from the loss of Manny and the discovery of Faye’s body. All I wanted to do was stuff myself in my bedroom closet for the rest of eternity. But I still had a bee mission to complete. I didn’t want to lose them, too. Time was running out. Before long, someone was going to show up at Grace Chapman’s and take the beehives.

  So when the sun began its descent over the horizon and the cops had finished in my backyard, and when the squad cars disappeared from my street, I cleared my mind of all whiny, self-pitying thoughts and called Grace.

  “Grace, it’s Story Fischer.”

  “My sister-in-law had a few rather unpleasant things to say about you,” she said, making this one of the poorest beginnings to a conversation in my history.

  “I was upset,” I said. “And rightly so, I might add. She was rather unpleasant herself. But please, tell me about the bees. Where are they going?”

  “Someone called and offered to take them off my hands. What else was I going to do with them?”

  “What about giving them to me?” Was Grace really this dense?

  “I never thought you’d be interested.”

  Yeah, right!

  “I love those bees. So did Manny. You can’t give them to just anybody. I’ll buy them from you.”

  “Story, they killed Manny. How could you get up every morning and look out on a bunch of killer bees after what they did? Besides, I’m already getting paid for them. I tried to explain the risk, but this beekeeper didn’t seem worried.”

  “I know they didn’t do anything to Manny. It had to have been—”

  But Grace wasn’t going to listen. “I won’t discuss it with you anymore. I’ve made my decision and I’m sticking to it.”

  “What about the equipment and some of the other things? Can you give me first dibs on the honey extractor and Manny’s journal?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. And, trust me, I’m not doing an inventory any time soon. I never set foot in the honey house when Manny was alive and I’m not changing that now. I’ll allow you to come out and get honey, though. To sell, I mean, and I’m counting on you to be honest with the proceeds.”

  “Of course.” I was so relieved that I let the honesty shot fly by without comment. At least she would be open to working with me in some capacity. But she was one unbending woman.

  “What’s the name of the bee association member who’s taking the bees?” I wanted to know.

  “Gerald Smith,” she said. “He’s coming in an hour or so.”

  “I’m so sorry about Manny,” I said, but Grace had already hung up.

  I knew now what I had to do. My motive was crystal clear and there would be no turning back.

  I was going to steal as many of Manny’s beehives as I could.

  Black is a cool color. For starters, it’s slimming. You can wear it for any occasion—working out, sleeping, dressing up, and for blending in to the dark of night.

  I pulled on black sweats and a black tee. Then added a black fleece after I opened the door and realized that the night air was a bit brisk. I had a black ball cap on my head with my hair tucked up inside.

  I’d left my truck at The Wild Clover, which was standard operating procedure for me. Living two blocks away, I didn’t see the need to drive it back and forth constantly, and I used it more for work than for personal errands anyway. Once I was sure that there were no more cops on the street, I headed out, careful to stay in the shadows.

  I worked on a plan as I snuck over. Beehives aren’t the lightest things to move, so I’d be physically handicapped working alone. And I couldn’t transport all of them in the short time I had. But I could take a few, disappear into the night, then work later on getting the rest of them in a less-covert manner.

  My brilliant plan blew apart when the police chief honed in on me the second I tried to pull my truck out from its parking space at The Wild Clover. Johnny Jay blocked me in, got out of his vehicle, hitched his pants, and approached my truck. I refused to roll down the windows or step out of the truck until he threatened to smash my windshield with the butt of his gun. Then I rolled down the window on the passenger’s side, but only partway. He was standing on the driver’s side, so he had to walk around to the other side.

  “What?” I said, glaring over and acting annoyed, an offensive response I learned from the master of emotional manipulation—my mother.

  “We need to talk,” Johnny Jay said. “Right now.”

  “I’m a little busy.” I glanced at my watch. If I didn’t get moving, Gerald Smith would beat me to Manny’s place and I’d lose my window of opportunity. “Move your SUV.”

  “This isn’t an optional request. We can do it nice and easy or we can do it my favorite way.” He dangled a pair of handcuffs.

  “Where’s Hunter?” I wanted to know. Johnny had local jurisdiction, but Hunter’s Waukesha County credentials might trump Johnny Jay’s. Or so I hoped.

  “Hunter Wallace doesn’t have anything to do with official business in this town,” the police chief said, dashing my hopes. “Other than responding with C.I.T. when we ha
ve a situation.”

  He played with the cuffs.

  “This might be one of those situations,” I suggested.

  “Besides, how do you think a dog trainer can help you? Don’t you know he transferred from being a real cop to the K-9 unit to train mutts?” Johnny snickered, like the K-9 unit and dog training were the lowest of the low.

  When Hunter had shown up with a dog in the back of his SUV, I never imagined police dogs were his full-time job. Since he and I usually stuck to flirting, and more recently to finding dead bodies, that wasn’t a subject we’d covered yet.

  Johnny Jay tried to open the truck door, but I’d locked it. He reached in the window, unlocked the door, opened it, and said, “Get out. Now!”

  After that, I ended up “downtown” just like in the movies. Only the station wasn’t downtown because the new building was way too enormous to fit inside the business section of town. Why is it that every small town thinks it needs its very own, state-of-the-art, big-tax-drain fire station? In Moraine’s case, at least they combined fire with police in the multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded monument. After 9/11, fire and police were high on everyone’s referendum agenda, and that’s how Johnny Jay got his special facility.

  My interrogation was conducted in a sterile conference room that contained nothing more than an empty table, six chairs, and a picture of an eagle hanging on the wall. The police chief grilled me back and forth and sideways about Hunter and the kayak and the ill-fated canoe trip. My story stayed straight and simple, focusing mostly on Hunter as guide and decision maker. I already knew that Johnny Jay was not my friend.

  And based on the intensity of his questioning, chances were good that Faye Tilley had been murdered. I’d been worried about that even though I hadn’t spotted any blood in the kayak or any other signs of an attack. My first thought was, if she had to get herself killed, why did she have to do it in my kayak? Then I felt bad for having the thought.

  But steel bars did not go with any of my outfits, including the black one I was wearing at the moment.

  “I’ve told you what happened at least sixteen times,” I said, exaggerating. “And Hunter told you, too. How much more information do you think you can squeeze out of me? That’s it. The whole deal.”

  “You still haven’t explained why the deceased was in your kayak.”

  Johnny Jay was flopped back in a swivel chair with his feet plopped up on the table, crossed at the ankles.

  “How should I know why she was in my kayak? It was missing. I thought kids took it for a joy ride again. Hunter helped me look for it, we found it, she was in it.”

  “You have to do better than that.”

  I sighed as heavy and disgusted as possible.

  Suddenly Johnny Jay’s feet came up off the table so he could lean into my face. I wanted to smirk and tell him where he could go, but it might not be in my best interest to go with my first impulse. What he said next scared me almost to death. “Let’s talk about the night before,” he said. “And you can tell me what you were doing out on the bank of the river behind your house with Faye Tilley?”

  I felt a chill. That question had come out of nowhere. “What?” I managed to croak out.

  “Someone saw you two, said it sounded like you were arguing.”

  My gasp of shocked indignation sounded good even to my terrified ears. “Who would say such a horrible thing?” Well, who would? This was crazy.

  I saw it in his eyes. Johnny Jay thought I had killed her.

  “Are you trying to tell me it isn’t true?” he demanded.

  “Absolutely not. I mean, er, yes!”

  “Which is it, yes or no?”

  “I wasn’t arguing with Faye. I didn’t even see her. Someone’s lying big-time.”

  “So is the answer yes or no?”

  That’s one of Johnny Jay’s tricks to trip people up. He asks questions that will sink you no matter which response you give. Whether you say yes or no, he comes at you.

  I went on. “Where did that lie come from?”

  Johnny Jay had his head tilted back and he was watching me down his nose. “A tip.”

  “Well, I demand to know who this ridiculous tip came from.”

  “You don’t get to make demands, not even for a lawyer. Unless I decide to arrest you.”

  “And are you arresting me?” I really expected him to say yes once I thought about it—a body in my kayak and not just any body, my ex-husband’s girlfriend’s body. And a tip. Big-time incrimination evidence. So I was surprised when he said, “Not yet. Too bad the tip was anonymous. Once we find the witness, I’ll be paying you another visit.”

  “Then I’m out of here.” I jumped up.

  “Missy Fischer,” he said, getting in the last word. “I’ll be watching you. Closely. We aren’t finished with this.”

  On the way out I stopped in dispatch. Sally Maylor, one of my steady customers and a good person, was working the airwaves.

  “Hey, Sally,” I said.

  “He let you go,” she said, smiling. “Good for you. I was worried.”

  “So was I. So Faye Tilley was murdered?”

  “I can’t say until the chief makes a public statement,” Sally nodded, giving me the answer anyway.

  “Why is he after me?” I asked. “Sure, it was my kayak, but that can’t be enough.”

  “He sure doesn’t cut you any slack, that’s for sure. Maybe the police chief knows how to hold a grudge.”

  “About what?”

  “Now, do you regret turning him down for prom?”

  “That was more than fifteen years ago! You’re kidding, right? Is that really why he gives me such a hard time?”

  “That’s the talk.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Somebody called in a tip,” I said. “Saying they saw me with Faye.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “Who called?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “With all the technology around here”—I gestured at all the gadgets and blinking lights—“surely you can trace a phone call.”

  “It came from a computer—e-mail.”

  “Well, trace it!”

  “We did. It came from one of the library’s public computers, we know that, but the account used to send the e-mail was untraceable.”

  Damn. That meant it could be anyone.

  Ten

  I couldn’t sleep that night, considering that my friend and mentor Manny Chapman was dead and gone, and my ex’s latest girlfriend, Faye Tilley, had been found dead in my kayak. Not to mention the fact that someone was trying to frame me for Faye’s murder and doing a bang-up job of it.

  Worse yet, the most obvious suspect in Faye’s death was the man I’d married and divorced: Clay Lane. He could have argued with Faye. I froze, suddenly recalling the loud voices I’d heard in the night. I remembered the scream that I’d chalked up to a bad dream. Only instead of a nightmare, it must’ve been Faye.

  Could Clay have killed his girlfriend?

  But even if the pieces fit together regarding means and opportunity, I couldn’t come up with a motive strong enough. Why would Clay go to all the trouble? Sure, he messed around on me and on every other woman, too, but when his flings ended, he didn’t really care. He was all passionate and lovey-dovey at the beginning, cold and impersonal at the end.

  If anyone should be dead, it should be Clay. Some woman should have killed him by now.

  Which led me to wonder at the possibility of one of his other women committing the crime. There are all kinds of nutcases in the world; maybe some crazy woman was picking off her competition? Even if, in my opinion, she’d have to be totally insane to go to those drastic measures for someone as superficial as Clay. But whether the killer was Clay or one of his women, based on what Johnny Jay told me about the tip he’d received, someone was trying to pin this on me!

  By the time the sun rose, I was cranky from lack of sleep and ready for hand-to-hand combat with Clay.

  But my numb
er one priority every morning, the very first thing I did even before coffee, was go check on my bees. I did a quick buzz past my honeybees. They were happy and busy.

  Then I banged on Clay’s door until I noticed that his car was missing from the drive. I never was at my sharpest when operating on zero sleep. Clay wasn’t exactly an early riser, so my guess was he had stayed someplace else last night. Was there another woman already? That would be rotten, even for that scum.

  I was so crabby at the moment, I couldn’t stand myself.

  Annoyed that Clay wasn’t home but knowing he never locked his door, I let myself in. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but figured I’d know it when I saw it.

  One thing I will say for the man, Clay kept his lair clean and tidy. Sexy feet and neatness were two attributes I had admired in him once upon a time. But now I’d take a sloppy, loyal man over one like my ex any day of the week.

  Clay lived in several rooms in the back of his jewelry shop. The space wasn’t large—small bedroom and living room, and a very tiny kitchen—so I was through it in less than a few minutes, ignoring the array of sex toys in the nightstand and girly magazines stacked in the closet and next to the toilet. The man needed therapy. Sex addiction is a major relationship buster, as he should have figured out by now.

  His wire-making jewelry workshop would take longer to search. There were a zillion hiding places. His workbench looked like a carpenter’s table—pliers, file hammers, vises, torches, wire cutters—and the shelves above the bench were stacked with containers filled with supplies he needed to create his art: wires in copper, silver, yellow brass, gold, beads, gems. Half-finished projects took up another major section.

  Then there was the showroom where he displayed his pieces, some of which, and I really hated to admit this, were fabulous.