Plan Bee

by Hannah Reed

  “Johnny Jay,” I hissed. “I specifically requested a quiet arrival. Why ruin the rest of a perfectly wonderful festival by scaring people away? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Cut the crap and show me what you claim you found.” Tough talk, but at least he reached into his SUV through the open window and turned off the bells and whistles.

  “Where’s the ambulance?” I asked.

  “Here it comes. And it better be needed.”

  The ambulance made lots of noise as it raced up Main Street from south of town with a fire truck right behind it. And I heard more emergency sirens in the distance, all running every noisemaker they had. How could I have forgotten how gung-ho our emergency workers really are?

  By now, customers were pouring out of Stu’s Bar and Grill down the street to check out the situation. So much for discretion and a low profile.

  “I tripped over a body in the cemetery,” I told Johnny, keeping my voice low.

  “Dead?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I think so. He was covered in plastic.”

  Johnny eyed me carefully. “How do you know it’s a man?”

  “I don’t. I’m just assuming.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Brent came out of the store. Johnny addressed him next. “Tell the ambulance crew to stay put at the curb until I say otherwise.”

  “And please take care of Dinky for a few minutes,” I said to Brent, passing the small dog over to him.

  “What’s going on?” somebody from Stu’s called out.

  “Stay where you are,” Johnny called back to them.

  “Better do as he says,” somebody else said. “He’s armed and dangerous.” I recognized the voice as belonging to Stanley Peck, who probably was more armed and dangerous than the police chief.

  Johnny had a flashlight in one hand and kept his other hand on his gun belt as we walked slowly and cautiously into the cemetery.

  “Over there,” I said, heading for the crabapple tree, staying to the side of Johnny instead of in front, just in case he opened fire. Our police chief wasn’t impulsive or rash, but walking in front of a man who doesn’t like you and who’s carrying a weapon is just plain stupid.

  It wasn’t completely dark yet and with the moon beaming down like its own sort of pale sun, I didn’t need a flashlight to see that I had a slight problem.

  Or maybe a major one.

  Because the body was gone.

  Six

  “Fischer,” Johnny Jay ranted, “you’d better have an explanation for calling out my police officers, my ambulance, and the town’s firefighters on a wild-goose chase.” Johnny Jay was hopping mad. He jerked Dinky’s leash from around the tree trunk and gave me an exasperated glare. “I could arrest you for pulling a stunt like this.”

  “That belongs to me,” I said, reaching for the leash. “I’m dog-sitting.”

  “I know that, Fischer. Only I hear Norm isn’t coming back to town. That makes you a dog owner, not a sitter. Too bad the dog can’t speak up and take your phony-baloney side. That’s the thing with you. You never have any real witnesses to back up your outrageous claims.”

  “When I called, I specifically told your dispatcher to keep a low profile. It’s not my fault you sent all the big guns.”

  “Start explaining. NOW!”

  “Just shine your flashlight on the ground,” I advised him. If we didn’t find an enormous puddle of blood or a smoking gun lying on the grass, I was in such big trouble. “Maybe we’ll find a clue.”

  Johnny Jay snorted and made all kinds of threatening noises. “You and your cock-and-bull stories. You want a clue? I’ll give you a clue.” He held up a pair of handcuffs. I was familiar with them from certain past events. “What does it mean when I get these out?”

  I heard murmurs across the street where the contingency from Stu’s was watching and waiting to see what entertainment might unfold between the two of us. By now, the ambulance and fire trucks had pretty much blocked off Main Street to vehicles, rerouting traffic, but the bar had been busy and all of Stu’s customers were congregating as close as possible on foot.

  “The grass right here is compressed,” I said. “See? Somebody was lying here, just like I told you.” Actually, the grass had been cut recently and looked short and perky, but I had to at least try.

  A paramedic from the ambulance walked over. “Do we have an emergency or not?”

  “Not!” Johnny yelled. “Clear out.” Then he looked over at Stu’s customers. “And, all of you, get off my street, or I’ll Breathalyzer every last one of you. Public drunkenness is a crime in my town.”

  That’s our police chief, unhampered by any normal human longings for things like honor and respect. Give him power and control and he’s perfectly happy. Johnny might not know how to make friends, but he sure knew how to disperse a crowd. Everybody vanished.

  “So Fischer,” he said next. “I suggest you file a report. I’ll get the paperwork out of my vehicle.”

  That surprised me. Johnny Jay had put away his handcuffs, wasn’t going to arrest me, and was actually cooperating for once. Something was up. I followed him out of the cemetery against my better judgment and waited while he took his sweet time getting a clipboard, pen, and form for me to fill out.

  “Once you complete this,” he said, clicking open the pen and handing it to me, “I’ll be able to officially investigate.”

  “About time,” I said, poised to fill out the form. “Only this pen isn’t working.”

  “I’ll get another one.”

  “Stop!” I heard right behind me. “Don’t do it!”

  I’d recognize that grating voice anywhere. Patti Dwyre! My neighbor has an unhealthy fascination with stealth, sneaking around on tiptoes and blending into the woodwork, always coming up behind her target. She’s managed to scare the daylights out of me more than once.

  This time was no exception.

  The useless pen went flying out of my hand.

  Johnny Jay attempted to give me a new one.

  Patti grabbed it instead. “She isn’t interested in filing a report.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, attempting to take the pen away from her. “Of course I’m filing a report.”

  “If you do,” she said, “the police chief will nail you for filing a false report.”

  I glanced at Johnny Jay and caught the smirk on his face just before he hid it.

  “Is that true?” I said, getting really ticked off. Uncontrollable rage bubbled to the surface before I could stop it. Everybody has a breaking point. He’d found mine.

  “I stumble over someone on the ground in the cemetery,” I said, getting right in his face. “A body. Foul play could be involved, for all we know. And you can’t even shine your damn flashlight around the area. You’re way too busy messing with me. Two can play this game, you know. I ought to file harassment charges against you! And entrapment charges! And incompetency charges!” Although I wasn’t sure he could be charged for that.

  “You better lower your voice, Story Fischer,” he said, grabbing the clipboard. “And just so you know, filing a report for a crime that didn’t occur and wasting taxpayer’s valuable dollars by fraudulently calling for emergency services is a misdemeanor.”

  Patti was right. He had been setting me up!

  I realized that I was wasting my time and energy trying to be cordial to Johnny Jay. He didn’t deserve respect or consideration from me in the future ever again. Not that he’d had any from me in the first place, come to think of it. Well, the gloves were coming off. And round one was going to be mine.

  “Johnny Jay,” I said. “Remember that day in high school when you asked me to prom?” That day, when I turned him down flat, was what many residents think started the war between the two of us. They don’t realize that Johnny Jay and I have been enemies since the playground years. “I am so glad I said no. Hunter had then, and still has, more sex appeal in his big toe than you’ll ever have in your entire body.
”

  And just in case that wasn’t the event that made him so mean toward me, if he was gunning for me because I went out of my way in the past to protect little kids from his big bully tactics, I said, “And I was the one who turned you in to the principal and got you suspended for bullying Eddy Arts.”

  “Fischer,” Johnny Jay said after a moment of silence while he absorbed my claim, “you’re nuts.”

  And he got in his SUV and drove off.

  “Wow,” Patti said. “I didn’t know you had it in you. A full moon suits your personality.”

  “I’ve had a really bad day.”

  “Kind of juvenile behavior though, digging up stuff from way back when.”

  “Johnny Jay brings out the worst in me.”

  Brent came out of the store with Dinky. “I’ll lock up,” he offered.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking Dinky from him. “That would be great.”

  “Come on.” Patti took my arm. “Let’s end this day on a better note.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked. All I really wanted to do was go home, take a shower, and read a good book.

  “We’re going to find that body.”

  “You believe me?” At least someone did. Even if it was only a dirty-laundry digger.

  “Of course I do! How could I doubt my best friend?”

  I really wished Patti would stop with the best-friend routine. Did real friends need constant affirmation? Not that I was aware of, although I’m certainly no expert. With the store and my bee business, I rarely had the extra time for regular girlfriends. When I have a spare moment, I usually take a long, hot bath or spend a few hours with Hunter if he’s available.

  “Besides,” Patti continued. “I’ve got a story either way. If we don’t find a body, I still have you and the police chief going nose to nose.”

  “I’ll deny it.”

  Patti held up a pocket-sized camera. “Pictures,” she said.

  Darn it. Maybe we should try to chase down the missing body instead. My family wouldn’t be too happy if I made the local Distorter in a negative way.

  “Where are we going to look?” I asked, suspecting this was a bigger problem than Patti realized. “The body could be anywhere.”

  Patti scowled in thought. “You think it was a guy, right?”

  I nodded. “Guy shoes.”

  “What kind?”

  “Um… brown ones.”

  “Gee, that’s helpful,” Patti said. “And you’re sure he didn’t get up and walk off?”

  “Not exactly, no, I’m not sure. But why else would he be covered up with a garbage bag like that and not even react when I tripped over him?”

  “Tell me the whole thing, front, middle, and back.”

  So I did as we walked back to my house. Patti waited while I took care of making sure that Dinky was fed and watered and comfortably tucked in for the night.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Patti said once we were back outside. “We have a missing unconscious person.”

  “Yup.”

  “Maybe dead, maybe not. Either way, let’s assume he needed help moving from the spot where you found him. Based on the evidence we have, that is.”

  “Right,” I said, opening the driver’s door of my trusty blue pickup truck. “Somebody strong, probably another man.”

  As we drove off something strange happened to me.

  I started doubting myself. What if I hadn’t seen what I thought I saw? What if it was only a figment of my imagination? What if the full moon had cast a spell on me and I’d invented the whole thing? The only proof I had, and it was really, really weak, was Dinky’s incessant barking and determination to get into the cemetery. She’d known something was there. Although, usually she was such a scaredy-cat around trouble, she should have been running away from, not toward, the source.

  Did that imply something? Did she know the guy wasn’t a threat? Could she smell death?

  Since it wasn’t like the little troublemaker was ever going to answer my questions, I gave up. My sister was the one studying human behavior; I’d have to ask her opinion on my sudden vacillation.

  After driving around aimlessly in the dark without a plan of any sort, I had a brainstorm.

  “I know!” I said to Patti. “What we need is Hunter Wallace and his dog.” Ben, Hunter’s K-9 partner, had helped me out of a jam once when I lost Dinky. Not that I’d shared that particular fact with Hunter, since losing her had been irresponsible on my part and I’d exposed enough flaws in front of him without adding any of the hidden ones.

  “What a brilliant idea!” Patti shouted. “Ben can guide us to the body.”

  “I need you,” I said when Hunter answered his cell phone, deciding on the spot to wait until he arrived to go into more detail.

  “I love it when you need me. Where are you?”

  “In the cemetery.”

  “Okay, that’s a little kinky.”

  “Just hurry.”

  And that’s how we ended up back in the cemetery, waiting for my boyfriend and his dog to arrive. I really hoped they would find some answers.

  Seven

  Hunter Wallace carries a badge, but although he lives on the outskirts of Moraine, he doesn’t have a whole lot of jurisdiction in my town, especially concerning local issues. Hunter works for the county, which is larger and more organized, but he’s dealt with Johnny Jay before and has his number just like everybody else.

  Johnny Jay controls our small community with tight reins and loose ties to other law-enforcement agencies. Cops from surrounding towns know our police chief is difficult to work with, and they give him a wide berth, which is exactly what Johnny wants. His motto regarding his crime-fighting peers is basically “What they don’t know can’t hurt me.”

  At the same time as my main man arrived, Holly’s Jag roared up and my sister jumped out.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked her, afraid that I already knew the answer.

  “Damage control,” she said. “Mom knows.”

  Those were the words that always sent chills up and down my body. Here’s what would have happened, as it always does: Somebody from Stu’s Bar and Grill, most likely a local with a big mouth, called up one or two of his family members to tell them how Story Fischer and Johnny Jay were going at it again and did they want to bet on the outcome. One of those newly informed individuals would’ve then punched in my grandmother’s phone number and blabbed to Grams. Mom, having hearing more acute than any known species on the planet, would have overhead part of the conversation and forced the rest of the facts out of Grams.

  Mom would then have called up Holly and read her the riot act about family responsibilities and how everybody knows Story’s a loose cannon and this was on Holly’s watch, blah blah blah, thereby transferring blame to Holly and making her feel crappy.

  Anyway, Holly, Hunter, and Ben converged at the exact spot where I thought I’d found a body but now seriously doubted myself.

  “Hey, sweet thing,” Hunter said, giving me a smile as he said it. Our relationship had just advanced to the “honey, babe, sweet thing” level, and it felt good. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking at the unlikely assembly in the cemetery.

  Patti had already combed the area with a high-powered flashlight from her “I Spy” tool kit. We hadn’t found a single thing out of place, nothing to support my claim. I shared that disappointing information with my sister and Hunter, along with the story about tripping over a leg, the tarp-covered body that turned up missing, and how Johnny Jay didn’t believe me and tried to nail me with criminal charges. All the while I was explaining, Hunter had his eyes on the ground, flashing a beam of light from his own flashlight among the grave markers.

  He looked cool and hot at the same time, something I never failed to notice no matter what the situation. Rugged, confident, lots of leather (I love leather—the smell, the look) when he rode his Harley—though tonight he wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and biker’s boots, having pulled up in his S
UV instead since Ben, his four-legged companion, hadn’t perfected the art of riding on the back of a motorcycle. Although he was smart enough to learn.

  The dog gazed at me with total self-confidence, just like his sexy partner.

  Ben is a Belgian Malinois and is fully trained in everything he needs to perform police work—obedience, endurance, and agility. He’s a mean, lean fighting machine when he’s on the job. And a big cuddly teddy bear when he’s not. Ben is sensitive and devoted to his partner. Hunter and Ben can read each other’s reactions like any other cop partners who’ve been working side by side for a very long time.

  Me? I never have a clue what passes between them.

  Speaking of clues that might save my credibility, I had an important question. “Ben can track a missing person, right?” I asked. “Even if that person is dead?”

  Hunter’s eyes cut from the ground to me. “If he has the tools to work with.”

  “Like what kind of tools?” Patti said from the shadows. I’d almost forgotten she was with us, she blended so well into the background and had been totally quiet until now.

  “A scent to go by, I bet,” Holly said, on the ball. “Something that belongs to that person.”

  Hunter nodded.

  Nuts, we were back to square one. I didn’t have a starting scent for Ben to work from.

  “Are you sure of what you saw?” Holly said to me, and all my doubts about my sanity came rushing back.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I’m absolutely, positively sure.” A person has to appear firm on the outside, even if the inside is going to mush. Besides, if I wishy-washed, I’d look foolish and Hunter might not even try to help.

  “We might be in luck,” Hunter said. “But only if this alleged person bled.”

  I really didn’t like that “alleged” part. Hunter must have sensed my distress, because he looked at me and said, “I just mean that it’s only alleged until it’s confirmed. Cop talk.”