by Hannah Reed
“Look over there.” I pointed to Aurora’s potted flowers where honeybees buzzed from petal to petal. “Honeybees. They aren’t inside an observation hive. They’re free to fly wherever. We can’t control nature’s creatures; they have free will. Besides, these aren’t yellow jackets. In another month, wasps will be all over the place, landing on our food and stinging plenty of us. But honeybees, as I’ve said over and over, don’t attack unless they’re defending their hive from intruders.”
How many times have I had to remind people? Hundreds? Thousands?
“Nevertheless, they have to go,” Grant said, crossing his arms and putting as much authority into his voice as he could muster.
I hate when my bees are messed with, so I took him to the mat with the only weapon I had at my disposal. “Then I say DeeDee has to go, too.”
DeeDee Becker is his wife’s (much) younger sister, and Grant, in an unbelievable show of blatant nepotism, had crowned DeeDee the First Annual Honey Queen of the Harmony Festival. But DeeDee has been caught shoplifting in my store repeatedly, and eventually I’d have to permanently ban her from The Wild Clover. I couldn’t bring myself to press charges against her though, even if she was Lori’s sister. But no way did she deserve that title, the klepto.
Okay, I have to admit I’m a bit jealous, a tish disgruntled. As the town’s only actual beekeeper (not counting Stanley, but he’s a guy), that Honey Queen crown should’ve rightfully gone to me! Not DeeDee! Anybody but her! “DeeDee goes, too,” I repeated.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Grant said, eyes narrowing. “Are you threatening me?”
“No,” I said. “I’m threatening the Honey Queen. How will that look in The Reporter?” The local paper, The Reporter—or The Distorter, as I call it—would eat up the shoplifting charge, chew it up as big-time news, and spit it right out on the front page. “I can see the headlines now. ‘DeeDee Becker, Sister-in-law of Town Chair, Caught Stealing.’ ”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Yup. I really would.” Was I bluffing? Probably. “We have several of her sticky finger episodes on our hidden camera,” I lied. The Wild Clover didn’t really have hidden cameras.
But Grant believed me. His face did a few amazing twitches before he got it under control. “Fine!” he said, then turned and retreated.
I assumed that meant my bees stayed.
As Grant stalked away, I noticed that over on the cemetery side of The Wild Clover, Aggie Petrie was setting up to sell her junkyard wares. Even though Aggie doesn’t even live in Moraine, for the last two years she and her husband, Eugene (who serves as her gopher and is majorly henpecked in spite of his years as a big tough marine), and their son, Bob, and his wife, Alicia, have shown up at the Harmony Festival, claiming Aggie’s trashy items are priceless treasures. But it was common knowledge that she found them mostly in Dumpsters and on Milwaukee city curbsides on trash pickup days.
We can thank our town chair Grant Spandle for breaking the tied board vote two years ago. We—meaning the vendors who live, breathe, and work in Moraine—have all complained plenty at the monthly meetings, knowing if we don’t nip this in the bud, more of us will be challenged by outsiders. How could he let non-residents show up at our annual festival and compete directly with us? What if he let another honey producer set up on the other side of Main? Moraine isn’t nearly big enough for two of us.
But shake a few dollar bills in Grant’s face and he’s all yours.
I strolled over to greet the Petries anyway, reserving my hard feelings for Grant. I scooted around a broken tricycle and a rusty push mower.
“Come right in,” Aggie said, shaking a cane at me, which we all knew she only used for effect. “Get first dibs before the crowds come and haul it all off,” she said, hawking like a seasoned carny. Since she never bought anything from me, I didn’t have any problem reciprocating by ignoring her sales pitch. The last thing I wanted to do was support a business that took customers away from us local shop owners.
“Hi, Aggie,” I said. “I just came over to say hello. How have you been? You look good.” Aggie hadn’t changed much in the last year. The crow’s-feet in the outer corners of her eyes had deepened and she’d shrunk another inch or two thanks to a bad case of brittle bones and spine compression, but her personality hadn’t changed one bit.
“If you aren’t going to buy anything, beat it,” Aggie said. “I have work to do, can’t be jawing with other vendors. What’s in it for me?”
Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I could have said, since that image was going through my mind. Instead I asked, “Where’s Eugene?”
“Making water,” she said, eyes rolling toward a line of Porta Pottis down the street.
Um, okay, then. “Well, tell him I say hi,” I said.
“If I remember,” Aggie said.
After that, the applecart my mother had been concerned about almost overturned.
Because Tom Stocke was barreling toward us. And he didn’t look one bit happy.
Three
What can I say about Tom?
He isn’t homespun like many of us. In fact if he has a past, he didn’t bring it with him. In the five years he’s lived in Moraine and operated his antique shop, uninspiredly called “Antiques,” we haven’t even found out where he originally came from. Presumably he was married once, since he wears a plain gold wedding ring, which sort of implies that he’s a widower. Or divorced and unwilling to face the truth. Or… anyway, we just don’t know.
The most exciting thing about Tom was that right after he moved here, he won the Wisconsin lottery and walked away with a chunk of change amounting to three million dollars (although I’m sure taxes sucked off a good part of it). That made for some awfully good gossip, but nothing really seemed to change with him personally. He still runs his antique business by himself, still lives in a small apartment attached to the back of his store, drives a used car with a lot of miles on it like the rest of us, and pretty much blends into the woodwork, which is where he seems to feel most comfortable.
Tom never answers a personal question directly, preferring to weave around sensitive subjects with unrelated anecdotes until people tend to forget what they asked him in the first place. Makes me think he’d be a really good politician and a potential candidate for next spring’s election. Grant Spandle has got to go.
Anyway, Tom minds his own business, and we used to try to mind his, too. Until we realized it was useless, and since we didn’t have a choice, we decided to take him at face value.
Which isn’t saying much on the physical side. Tom looks like a post office wanted poster. He has a big broad face with a flat crooked nose that looks as though it’s been rearranged a time or two. Nobody is born with a nose like that. But he doesn’t cause trouble in the community, didn’t even shown up to defend himself when we went to bat for him at the town meetings regarding competition from Aggie Petrie.
Gruff, quiet, polite in a sort of reserved yet friendly way.
Usually.
Except now he looked mad as a hornet (not to be confused with a honeybee).
“Aggie Petrie.” He rolled to a stop. “Rumor has it you are bad-mouthing me to some of my regular customers.”
“Not you personally, Tom. It’s that junk you’re pawning off as antiques.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Had Aggie really just said that? She had to be kidding, right?
Tom’s eyes darted across one of Aggie’s tables. “Junk? Who’s calling whose wares junk?”
Aggie came up to about Tom’s armpits, but she wielded that cane like a club and had a hyena’s cackling nerve. “Your stuff is pure garbage!” she said.
Tom’s face turned bright red from internal heat getting ready to combust.
Suddenly, I remembered that according to my mother, my job was to make sure the festival ran smoothly, keep that applecart from tipping over. Darn. Today was my day for wading into conflicts, and I really, really hate conflicts.
&n
bsp; “Please, you two,” I reluctantly joined in. “There’s room here for everybody.” That wasn’t a bit true, but what else could I say?
“No, there isn’t,” Aggie said, agreeing with my unspoken opinion about how much room we really had. “And get your patronizing mug out of our business.”
“Me?” I said. “Are you talking to me?”
Tom had a finger in Aggie’s face. “I’m warning you…”
“What’s going on here?” Eugene Petrie arrived on the scene with his son and daughter-in-law.
“This man is threatening me,” Aggie said to Eugene. Seeing that we had observers, she hid her cane behind her back and said to Tom, “You bully!”
By now, we had enough spectators to draw even more unwanted attention our way. Get the right amount of people clumped together, and everybody else within range would hone in on the ruckus, too.
Aggie noticed them, and decided to turn the attention into an opportunity. I swear I saw dollar signs ring up in her eyes. “I have business to attend to,” she said, turning her attention to the bystanders, and completely ignoring Tom’s accusation and my attempt to smooth things over.
“Come on, Tom,” I said, giving him a gentle nudge to get him moving.
We’d just turned our backs on Aggie’s theatrics when I heard a blast.
“Cherry bomb,” Tom said, turning and grinning like a big kid when he saw Noel take off from behind Aggie’s booth.
Eugene, after a stunned moment, recovered and chased after Noel but soon realized that he’d never catch up.
“Scared the bejesus out of me,” Aggie said. “And scared off customers.”
Coming back, Eugene said, “Wait till I get my hands on that kid.”
“Never going to happen,” Tom muttered, suddenly in a much better mood. Then he chuckled and said to me, “My brother and I used to do the same thing when we were kids, sneak up on unsuspecting adults and try to cause trouble. In fact, my brother actually made his own bombs.”
“So does Noel,” I said.
“If you two would re-create your altercation with Aggie,” I heard from behind me, “I’ll get it on video.”
I turned to see my nosy neighbor Patti Dwyre, aka Pity-Party Patti, aka P.P. Patti, with her homemade press pass dangling from her neck.
“Count me out,” Tom said, walking off.
Patti earned the Pity-Party part of her name by whining incessantly about the condition of her life, which is exactly the same as the rest of ours. It’s all perception, how we view the challenges in our lives. Patti isn’t very good at taking life in stride, though she’s been slightly less whiny since snagging her job as a local reporter, an occupation right up her alley.
My house is one long block from Main Street on Willow. Patti is my neighbor on the east side. Not to be confused with my ex-husband’s, Clay’s, vacant house on the west. His property is up for sale, listed with Lori Spandle, who isn’t doing a very good job of selling it. And he’s been threatening to move back here from Milwaukee if it doesn’t sell soon. (Oh no—now that I thought about it, what if Lori was intentionally stalling the sale to get Clay back into Moraine and into her cheating arms? That would not be good.)
Anyway, Patti has a telescope in her window, electronic gadgets up the kazoo, and an overly inquiring mind, making her the closest thing to a P.I. we have in Moraine. Her reporter gig with The Distorter is new, so she’s eager to make a lasting impression. Sometimes she goes overboard.
Patti also dresses like the rest of us—jeans, tees, hoodies—but unlike my rich sister, who comes across like a catwalk model, my neighbor prefers dark, brooding colors. “In my line of work, I need to blend in,” she once explained. That means all in shades of black, with lots of pockets, gadgets on a belt, and a ball cap pulled down to either shade her eyes or hide her features, depending on the situation.
If Tom reminds me of a most-wanted poster, Patti looks like the bounty hunter chasing him down for the reward money.
Patti flipped on her pocket-sized video recorder and tried to make a pass over Aggie’s table with it, but Aggie caught on and snagged Patti’s arm with her cane. “No photographs,” she said, almost causing Patti to drop the recorder.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with everybody today,” I said to Patti while we walked back to my booth. “Everybody’s so snappy.”
“Full moon,” Patti said. “Brings out the beast in all of us.”
“Doesn’t that apply only to nighttime? It’s a gorgeous sunny day. Everybody should be happy.”
“Full moons bring out the worst in people no matter what time it is,” Patti went on. “Violence, suicides, accidents, everybody’s more aggressive than usual, but more so after dark.”
“Mom’s ripping into me,” I said, ticking off my complaints, sounding suspiciously like the woman I was talking with. “Aggie and Tom are arguing, even Holly is more snarly than usual.”
“You’re lucky,” Patti said, putting some whine into her voice, the Pity-Party part of her personality floating to the surface like this was some kind of contest between us to see who had it rougher. Because if it was a competition, Patti intended to win. “You have family and friends and a boyfriend,” she said. “Look at me; I’m all alone.”
This was my cue. We’d been through this same scene before. “I’m your friend, Patti.”
“You keep saying that, but we don’t hang out like friends.”
That was certainly true. Patti was weird, impulsive, and whenever we did get together, got me into more trouble than I really needed. I managed to make enough of my own problems without any outside interference.
“What’s Hunter up to tonight?” Patti asked.
“I’m not sure,” I made the mistake of saying, instantly wanting to take the words back. Hunter and I had spent time together the night before and didn’t have any plans for later tonight since I was immersed in the festival and managing the store, my booth, and the educational honeybee hive. But if I had to choose someone else to spend time with, it wouldn’t be Patti.
“How about hanging out tonight then?” Patti said, brightening. “We could check out all the full-moon mental cases together. I might even dig up a story.”
“Gee, that sounds like fun,” I said, thinking exactly the opposite, “but I have so much work with the festival. I have to move everything inside, including the bee observation hive, and…”
“See? We aren’t real friends.”
“Of course we are. Okay, all right, I’ll go wherever you want, at least for a little while.” Was I easy, or what? But I just couldn’t stand the pathetic expression on her face for one minute longer.
Patti’s face transformed instantly into a big, wide, excited grin. “Good. And just because you’re my best friend, I’m going to share some news with you that I think you’ll appreciate knowing, even though it isn’t exactly the best news.”
I’d begun to turn away, my mind more on Stanley’s observation beehive and the three-deep group of interested spectators surrounding it. I wanted to be over there with them, telling honeybee stories. The first thing I would talk about was the way my bees sounded when they were busy and happy, which for bees went hand in hand. I can tell by the low frequency when I walk among my hives. They actually sound happy as they fly over to inspect me. And if their collective mood changes because of some perceived or real threat, they warn me with a loud, shrill, high-pitched sound.
What Patti said next stopped me in my tracks, and if I were a honeybee, I’d be piercing the air with the same hostility they reserved for their worst enemies.
Because Patti said, “Something’s going on over at your ex-husband’s house. I think Clay is back.”
Please, say it ain’t so! Please!
I instantly experienced all the physical symptoms of a woman suffering a major heart attack. Since I’d experienced these same feelings many times during our marriage, I wasn’t too worried about my actual health. But I felt clammy, sweaty, and light-headed just thinking about the
jerk.
An anxiety attack threatened. To describe my immediate future as “impending doom” was Patti-like overkill, but imagine something two degrees milder. And I was sick to my stomach remembering some of the stunts he’d pulled. I should have burned down his house as soon as Lori Spandle mentioned that he might come back.
Not that Clay was some kind of monster. He didn’t drink excessively or blow through our money during our marriage. He wasn’t abusive, either physically or mentally—unless you want to count the long list of embarrassing affairs. Sadly, the man had an uncontrollable sexual addiction. Or so he said. And I was supposed to be understanding and supportive, even when he propositioned every one of my female relatives. My guess is that his so-called sexual addiction didn’t really exist as a certifiable medical condition. Certain people just don’t have any self-control, so they try to shift responsibility away from themselves. Clay fit that bill.
Having my ex-husband living next door had sucked big time, and I was not going back to that bad situation even if it meant extreme measures. Like, as I said before, torching his place.
After all, I have Patti for a friend. She’d jump at the chance.
And I had the effects of a full moon to blame if I was caught.
Four
“Are you absolutely sure he’s back?” I asked P. P. Patti, collapsing into one of the Adirondack chairs in front of The Wild Clover.
“Someone’s over there. That’s all I know. Who else could it be?”
“Didn’t you use your telescope to get an ID?”
She shook her head.
Leave it to her to miss an opportunity to use the thing when it counted the most. Patti swung that thing in every direction, which was the main reason I had solid, thick shades on all my windows.
“It’s daylight,” she informed me. “I can’t see inside windows until night.”