Buzz Off

by Hannah Reed

  Lori’s bee veil was still on the grass. She’d forgotten it in her hasty retreat. I picked it up and put it on the patio table.

  “You just got added to Lori’s list, too,” I said to Stanley.

  “Once she goes after you, she never backs down. I’m finding that out the hard way.”

  “She doesn’t bother me a bit. Let her start in on me. We’ll see who’s toughest.”

  At that, I opened my arms and rushed Stanley. While I was giving him a happy hug for saving the situation from escalating to who-knew-where, Hunter came around the side of the house with his dog, Ben, and stopped in his tracks. I still had Stanley in a bear hug. Looking over his shoulder, I saw Hunter take a step back as if he wanted to hustle back around the corner except that I’d spotted him already.

  I let Stanley go. What did Hunter think? That he’d interrupted us in a romantic clench? Stanley was much older than me. And, more important, definitely not my type.

  But Hunter and Ben weren’t by themselves. I saw the rest of the C.I.T. squad behind him, and Johnny Jay creeping around the other side of the house, on the driveway that separated my house from Clay’s.

  This was it. The moment I’d feared. They were going to arrest me and throw me in jail, leaving my bees vulnerable to Lori’s deadly spray can. Not to mention that my own pathetic life was in ruins.

  “You don’t need all this backup,” I said quietly to Hunter, not moving a muscle. “There won’t be a scene.”

  “It’s standard procedure,” Hunter said with a serious expression. I looked at the dog, who seemed ready for action. Maybe too ready. The last thing I wanted was that dog unleashed on me.

  I put my hands up in the air, hoping that would calm the animal, praying he understood the universal gesture of surrender.

  “Where did the shot come from?” Hunter said. I slid a look at Stanley, who put his hands in the air, too.

  “It went off accidentally,” Stanley said, prepared to own up and admit his illegal action.

  “It didn’t come from inside the house?”

  “Of course not,” Stanley said. He looked around at the rest of the law enforcement officials. “You didn’t have to bring the entire team just because of one little shot.”

  Hunter shook his head, frowning, then ran his blue eyes along our raised arms, and said, “You need to wait inside your house, Story. You, too, Stanley.”

  Then I noticed that every member of C.I.T. had his attention focused, not on Stanley and me, but on Clay’s house.

  “What’s going on?” I finally asked, lowering my arm.

  “We’re arresting your ex-husband,” Hunter said. “Now please go inside.”

  Fourteen

  Attitude is important. So is positive thinking. I was finding both mind-sets a little hard to master at the moment. My emotions were all over the place. First, I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to prison for life. Fear peeled from my shoulders like the final stages of a bad sunburn when the healing starts. I wouldn’t be hauled down to the station in handcuffs and accused of a crime I didn’t commit. But my stomach knotted thinking about my ex and murder and how I could have been the one who popped out of the cattails with sightless eyes.

  My ex-husband had killed his girlfriend. My feelings about his inability to physically harm another human being had been wrong, wrong, wrong.

  I knew I was sentencing him prematurely but I couldn’t help myself. In the United States of America the accused party is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but that wasn’t really how it worked in people’s minds. The reality was more like this: guilty until proven innocent, and good luck with that.

  It took Johnny Jay and Hunter no time at all to haul Clay out of his house and send him off in a squad car. Then another team of professionals went inside, wearing gloves and carrying equipment boxes.

  “They’re searching for clues,” Stanley said, watching from the window.

  “Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t want to give Johnny Jay any reason to turn his attention my way, remembering what Clay had said about the police chief thinking we were in it together. The only positive thought I could drum up was that Clay’s arrest would be the hot topic of conversation today, not me or my bees. They were safe for now. No one was going to sneak into my backyard with all this action going on.

  Deputies posted outside didn’t stop me and Stanley from leaving; according to them, the danger had passed. But when we saw the crowd forming on the corner of Willow and Main, we did a quick U-turn and snuck through the back of Moraine Gardens. I went to the market, and Stanley got in his car and drove away.

  I stood on the sidewalk, staring up at The Wild Clover’s stained-glass windows, remembering the days when the building’s congregation met inside to sing praise to God. I could almost hear the steeple bells ringing again.

  Ray Goodwin’s truck pulled in, and I quickly approached.

  “There’s nobody to help unload,” I said, thinking my voice sounded a little shaky. “Except me. Do you need help?”

  “No, that’s okay,” Ray said, swinging a crate of apples down from his delivery truck onto a dolly.

  “If you would plan your deliveries for later in the day, after three, the twins are usually here.”

  “I said it’s no problem. What’s going on down the street?”

  “My ex-husband was just arrested for murdering his girlfriend.”

  “No kidding.” Ray didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He was as speechless as the rest of us.

  I noticed the swelling on the side of Ray’s head, right next to his eye. “I heard you were stung. That’s a nasty one. Did you put ice on it?”

  Ray gingerly touched the spot with his fingers. “Of course,” he said, but I doubted him.

  “A paste of baking soda and water would have helped, too.” Beekeepers had a variety of remedies for reducing the swelling of bee stings—meat tenderizer and water, raw onions, ammonia, even toothpaste could do the trick.

  “The other bee got me on my finger,” Ray said, showing me the spot. It wasn’t nearly as swollen, but stings to the fingers really hurt, I knew from experience.

  “How did Stanley take out the stingers?” I didn’t really care one bit after what had just happened with Lori and then Clay’s arrest, but I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts.

  “How did you know he helped me? Doesn’t this town have anything better to do than gossip all day?”

  “Just tell me what he used.”

  “Tweezers,” Ray said, going back to stacking boxes of apples.

  “Well, that’s your problem,” I said. “When he squeezed the stingers, they were still loaded with poison. He pumped more venom into you by mistake. Next time, scrape the stinger out like this.” I demonstrated by sliding my thumb along my hand. “Or use a credit card to scrape it out.”

  “I hope there isn’t going to be a next time,” Ray said.

  “What were you doing to aggravate them?” I couldn’t help asking, thinking he had to have provoked them the same way Lori had when she’d banged through my apiary en route to Clay’s house that time.

  “Nothing unusual. Quit defending them. Admit it, sometimes bees just sting for no reason that we can figure out.”

  I refused to respond, mostly because he had a legitimate point. Instead I said, “Have you talked to Lori Spandle lately?” I asked.

  “No, why?”

  “Your bee stings happened at a very convenient time for her. She’s trying to turn the town against my bees.”

  “I don’t have any problem with your bees,” Ray said. “I’ll talk to her and tell her that if it will help, tell her it’s no big deal what happened.”

  I nodded. “That might help,” I said, although truthfully, I didn’t think anything could slow that woman down.

  Ray and I went in the back door together. Carrie Ann was lounging against the cash register, talking on her cell. I heard her say, “See you tonight, then. And thanks, Hunter.”

  “Hey,”
I said, still feeling a lingering, foolish loss when I thought of Hunter, and how I should have caught his pass a while ago and run with it before he and my cousin hooked up.

  “What are you doing here?” Carrie Ann asked, putting her cell in her back pocket. “I thought you were supposed to be off.”

  I inhaled discreetly but didn’t detect even a whiff of tobacco smoke. “I have to work off some stress. Johnny Jay just arrested Clay.”

  “I heard already. Patti’s making calls, spreading the news like hot butter on fresh popcorn.” Carrie Ann had a nutty, desperate look in her eyes. “It’s an awful situation. You poor thing!”

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to make it much longer without a smoke.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “As long as I stay busy, it’s not so bad. Oh good, here come more customers.”

  I left her to her demons and made sure Ray put the cases where I wanted them. Then I went to work, placing apples in attractive piles, trying to keep my mind off everybody’s troubles. September’s harvest brings Cortland, Gala, McIntosh, and Jersey Mac apples to the market. Next month Ray will deliver Honey Crisps, Spartans, and Empires, to name just a few.

  Milly came in looking for the bunches of wild grapes I’d promised to bring for her so she could work up a new recipe for the newsletter.

  “I forgot,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I have other things on my mind.”

  “I can imagine. I heard about Clay’s arrest.” Milly picked up a shopping basket and fingered the Cortlands. “I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I’m okay. It’s not like we are still married.” Thank God!

  “These apples look good.”

  “Don’t they? Hey, if you’re going to be in the store for a little while, I’ll go pick you some grapes right now.”

  “Sure, I’m planning on sticking around to hear the scuttlebutt about the arrest,” she said, moving toward the cash register where Carrie Ann and a customer were swapping notes on the limited information they had to work with.

  I selected a choice apple for a quick snack, got a plastic bag from the back room, and was walking out the front door when I heard Carrie Ann say something about Clay’s womanizing.

  “What was that you just said?” I took two steps back, noticing that the customer was Sally Maylor. She’d been the one in dispatch I’d talked to right after the interrogation by Johnny Jay. I thought about the comment she’d made about Johnny holding a grudge against me because I had turned him down for prom. I suspected it went deeper than that, but I could be wrong. Johnny Jay wasn’t a deep kind of guy.

  “I’m so sorry you overheard us,” Carrie Ann said to me. “We try not to bring up unpleasant things about him when you’re around.”

  “Besides,” Sally said. “Carrie Ann knows I can’t talk about official business. Johnny Jay would fire me on the spot. Have a nice day, you two.”

  I stuck around until the checkout counter cleared, then began to grill Carrie Ann. “If you know something I don’t, you need to tell me,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you know and what you don’t, so how am I supposed to figure out what to tell you?”

  “I know about Lori Spandle and Clay messing around when we were separated.”

  “So does everybody in town, except Gary, Lori’s husband. That woman has been after your men since grade school.”

  Which was true. Lori had had enormous boobs from the age of twelve, and she’d pointed them at every one of my boyfriends.

  “And I know about enough of the times Clay cheated on me.” I was starting to regret my curiosity. “If it’s past history, I guess I don’t want to know after all.”

  “You were split up the time I’m thinking of.”

  Nothing like whetting my curiosity. “Who then?”

  “Nobody. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “Come on.”

  “I said nobody.”

  “Clay was after every woman in Moraine. Nothing you say will come as a surprise.”

  “He hit on me once,” Carrie Ann said, then instantly slapped her hand across her mouth. “See what withdrawal does to a woman,” she said through her fingers. “But don’t worry, I didn’t do anything about it. You’re my cousin. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Who else?” I gave her my best I-really-mean-it glare. Quit trying to spare my feelings. Clay never did.”

  “If you must know, the rumor is it’s Grace Chapman.”

  “Grace and Clay?” I thought about quiet, plain Grace. “Really?”

  Carrie Ann nodded. “That’s what’s going around. Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t start it and I don’t know if it’s true. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “I don’t believe it for one second,” I declared.

  But I did.

  Fifteen

  Clay and Grace! I tried to look at the issue from all sides instead of instantly believing that Grace had cheated on Manny. And what about her husband, my friend? Manny hadn’t discussed their marriage much, but when he did, it was in a good light. He certainly never complained about Grace.

  I could see, though, how Clay’s charm—and he did have it if he put his mind to it—might entice some of the local women who didn’t get much male attention. But Grace didn’t seem like the fling type, and to my knowledge there wasn’t a woman in the entire town who didn’t have Clay’s number by now.

  Small town gossip can start with one tiny comment and balloon out into something entirely different. I knew that. Especially when it came to someone like my ex-husband, who had been giving big juicy grist to the gossip mill from the beginning.

  The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to believe it.

  I decided to put it out of my mind, pretend I’d never heard it. Grace, with all her righteousness, would never do such a thing. She wouldn’t hurt Manny that way.

  Wild grapes grow on thick, woody perennial vines along the roadways and pasture edges, winding up trees and bearing their fruits in abundant clumps. I waded in behind my house and moved downstream to my secret picking spot tucked in along the edge of the river. There they were, growing up as high as twenty feet, mingling with the hardwoods and red sumac.

  About wild grapes:

  • They grow along fences, forest edges, roadsides, and waterways.

  • Wild grapes look like very tiny purple-blue Concord grapes. Since they are so small, gather them in the clusters they grow in, not individually, or it will take all day.

  • If eaten straight from the vine, they have been described as tart, tangy, sour, bitter, yucky. Not everyone’s idea of a tasty raw snack.

  • The leaves are edible; stuffed grape leaves (rolled with rice) are delicious.

  • Wear gloves if you don’t like purple stains on your fingers.

  • Pick off any grapes that don’t look good, then cook the rest, stems and all, for juice, jam, jelly, or wine.

  • Raisins are dried grapes. It’s amazing how many people don’t know that.

  After breaking off as many bunches as I thought Milly might need, I sat on a large rock on the riverbank with my feet swishing through the water, eating my apple, watching wildlife, and emptying my mind of all thoughts, which took some effort.

  After idling away some more time, I remembered Milly was probably still waiting at The Wild Clover for me. So I tossed down my apple core as a treat for some lucky animal and headed back just in time to see Grams, Mom, and my sister enter the market. Rats! I wanted to hide. A visit from all of them together couldn’t be a good thing.

  “This is a family intervention,” my mother said after I handed Milly the bag of grapes and Mom had ushered the family behind closed doors in the back room. “We are here to help you through this time of crisis.”

  I glanced at Holly. She kept her head down and her eyes averted. A slight shake of her head reassured me that the information about the tip from the library was still a secret.

&
nbsp; “I can’t believe that nice young man killed anybody,” Grams said, always believing the best of everybody whether they had a good side or not.

  “It’s obvious that Clay did commit murder, Mother,” Mom said with a hint of frustration. “Nice man, indeed! We have to do damage control, if that’s even possible at this late date. The family’s reputation is at stake. “

  “Talk will die down,” I said. “Clay was just arrested. Everyone’s excited at the moment, but things will return to normal. You’ll see.” Eventually, that was, after all his indiscretions were exposed and analyzed every which way. After that, theories about his motive would fly through the air, and doubt would set into people’s minds. “He isn’t my worry anymore,” I said.

  “At a time like this we must appear united,” Mom said matter-of-factly. “Holly is going to help you with the store.” That was Mom’s way of saying my sister had to keep tabs on me so that I wouldn’t get into any more trouble that reflected poorly on our family’s good name.

  “I’m perfectly fine with things the way they are,” I said. “I’m refusing Holly’s help.”

  “You can’t do that,” Mom said with total authority. “She owns Clay’s shares since she gave you the loan. I read the contract. Until the money is paid back, she can protect her investment as she sees fit. And she’s exercising her option to become involved. Besides, your business here is expanding. It’s too much for one person to handle.”

  “And what do you say about all this, Holly?” I waited for my sister to grow a spine. I also wondered where exactly the loan agreement was. Who reads all that tiny print?

  “Mom’s right about the contract,” Holly said. “BC (because) Max is gone so much these days, I’d kind of like to work with you. Besides, you’re going to need extra help when you buy Manny’s beekeeping equipment and go into honey production.”

  She gave me a wink along with the bribe that spoke volumes. Holly would lend me more money to rescue the honey house, and I’d give her a reason to feel useful. My market was doing well, so I’d be able to pay off the loan at some point. After that, she and I would be back on equal footing and we’d see where things went from there. The unspoken plan wasn’t half bad.