Plan Bee

by Hannah Reed

  “She’s not exactly an antique,” Tom said, moving it to his knee so the barrel pointed at the ceiling. My eyes swept the immediate vicinity in case he had bullets close by. I didn’t see any. “She’s vintage.”

  “Oh, right,” I agreed, like I had a clue what the difference was between antique and vintage.

  He gave the weapon a final swipe with a rag and propped it against the wall. “What brings you here?” he asked.

  For a panicked second or two, I still couldn’t remember. Then it came to me.

  “I came to apologize for my bad behavior last night. You must think I fist fight on a regular basis, but I don’t. Really I don’t. And I’m sorry I upset you and Mom.”

  Tom stood up. I realized how tall he was, as though I was seeing him for the very first time. He literally towered over me. I started backing up, not willing to turn away. My imagination took off with visions of him grabbing that rifle and using it on me.

  “I appreciate that,” he said. “We’ve been retail neighbors for five years. I know you aren’t normally a rabble-rouser.”

  I recognized rabble-rouser as one of Mom’s more descriptive words. She must have called me that last night after witnessing her oldest (and dumbest) daughter behaving like a maniac. “Well, thanks for accepting my apology,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Then I noticed something else. He was wearing the same blue button-down shirt he’d had on the night I first saw him and Mom at Stu’s. “I see that bloodstain almost came completely out.”

  Tom looked down at his shirt, to the faint outline where he’d supposedly “cut” himself the same day I’d lost a body that turned out to belong to his brother.

  With that I blew out of the antique store, went around to the back of the corn stand, and called Hunter. The first thing he said was, “I heard about last night. If you wanted to get physical with someone, you could have called me.”

  Great. Even Hunter had found out!

  “Where are you?” I asked. “I need you down at Tom’s antique store right away.”

  Of course he asked why. I told him about the rifle, about it maybe being the same kind that had shot at Patti’s house and about the washed out bloodstain. Then, tipping my head and looking up over the corn stand and antique shop, I spotted another piece of condemning evidence.

  “And he has a hickory nut tree in his backyard,” I finished. “Right behind his apartment.”

  “Well that tree thing cements it.” Did I hear amusement in his tone?

  “You have to handle this.”

  “Call your police chief, Story. I’m working.”

  “He’s not taking my calls.”

  “Just don’t call 9-1-1. Call the nonemergency number.”

  “Pleeeeeze?”

  Hunter sighed into the phone. “Exactly what do you want me to do?”

  “Just check out the rifle. Figure out how to match its bullets to the one over at Patti’s.” Hunter wasn’t always this dense.

  “Story, you’ve been watching too much CSI. Can’t you stay out of it?”

  “Pleeeeeze?”

  “All right. I’ll go over and talk to Tom. But I’m not accusing him of anything. If I sense something wrong, I’ll contact Johnny.”

  “Can you come over right now?”

  “Why not? I don’t have anything better to do.”

  “I heard the sarcasm.”

  “You owe me.”

  I grinned in spite of the grimness of the situation. My debts to Hunter were mounting. We’d have to come up with some kind of payment plan, and I had just the thing. But it would have to wait.

  Speaking of waiting—he sure took his time. It felt like forever before he pulled up in his SUV. He saw me hiding out behind the corn stand, gave me a wink, and strolled into Tom’s store. I got into his SUV and shared the passenger seat with Ben. “Hey, big guy,” I said to my canine friend. “What’s new?”

  He gave the end of my nose a big slurpy tongue kiss. I stroked his ears and neck.

  “I sure hope Hunter agrees with me that Tom has some explaining to do.” I continued to talk things over with Ben, explaining why I’d gone to Tom’s store in the first place and what I stumbled over while inside. I’m positive Ben understood all of it.

  A little later, Hunter came out and got in the driver’s seat. He stared straight ahead. His face was twitching.

  “Well?” I wanted to know, tugging on his sleeve. “Say something. Anything.”

  Hunter turned to face me, and like the rest of the people in my life today, started laughing. And he wouldn’t stop.

  “Ben,” I said. “Tell Hunter I don’t appreciate being laughed at.”

  Ben gazed at me, then at Hunter.

  Hunter wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands.

  “Did you see the rifle?” I asked. “Did you?”

  Hunter nodded, and I could tell he was choking back another laugh-out-loud response.

  “And?”

  “It’s a Daisy air rifle.”

  And he cracked up again.

  Twenty-three

  This much I knew for sure—my knowledge of guns was extremely limited, so when Hunter finally got himself under control, he had to explain what a Daisy air rifle was. Although the air part had already clued me in that it couldn’t have shot out Patti’s window from across the river.

  “It’s a kid’s BB gun,” he said. “They still make one called the Red Ryder, but most of them are collectibles now.” Hunter burst out laughing again.

  I got out, slammed the door, and walked back to my store.

  I wanted to tell my mother to stop seeing Tom immediately, but I still couldn’t believe the transformation in the woman I’d been at odds with for so long. All it took was a little romance to soften her crusty, hard edges. But why couldn’t she have picked a different man?

  I called her, but instead of making demands that she ditch Tom, I said, “We’re a little shorthanded at the store. Can you help?”

  Now, those who know me might find that request a little bizarre on my part, since I’ve been spending years trying to keep my mother out of my store. And for good cause. But how else was I going to keep tabs on her? She agreed to come over, and arrived soon after.

  “You asked Mom to come in and work?” Holly said, stomping into the back room. “What are you, nuts?”

  “It’s very temporary,” I said.

  “Do you know what she’s doing right this minute?”

  I suspected that I really, really didn’t want to know. “Dusting?” I guessed. “Reorganizing the toilet paper display out by the door?” She’d done that before.

  “No. She’s taken over the cash register and she’s giving away honey sticks with every purchase.”

  “That isn’t like Mom,” I said.

  “This is the new Mom, remember? What will she give away next?”

  Was Mom about ready to give away the store? “Trust me,” I told my sister. “It’s a temporary situation.”

  “Where are you going?” Holly noticed when I shut down my computer, something I had to do these days to keep Carrie Ann from playing social media games all day.

  I picked up Dinky, grateful for summer and the twins. Running the store and the beeyard was tough when they weren’t there to pitch in. “Since we have extra staff, I’m going home to work in the beeyard,” I said. “Want to come?” Like Holly would ever say yes.

  Holly turned and walked away. “No thanks,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll help Mom hand out free honey sticks.”

  Outside, I spotted Johnny Jay poking around in the cemetery. So! He’d finally figured out that Ford hadn’t been killed in the fireplace, that Tom’s brother had died someplace else. Gee, too bad he had such a late start when he could have been right on top of the case if only he’d listened to me. Leaving Dinky leashed to a hook on the side of the store, one I’d specifically designed for dog owners, I slithered along the building to get a good look without him seeing me.

 
; A few kids ran past, right in front of him. One of them jumped over a headstone.

  “Hey,” Johnny Jay yelled at them, but they kept going. “What’s the use,” I heard him mutter to himself. What’s the use is right. If he’d believed me in the first place about the body in the cemetery, he could have handled it properly. But now so many people had been in and out of there, he’d never find clues even if they reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

  He was standing at the center of the actual crime scene. I was convinced of it. Ford Stocke had been murdered right there next to the crabapple tree. Then he was hauled away almost right in front of my eyes. If the killer got away with this murder, it was all on Johnny Jay’s thick-skulled head.

  I saw Stanley Peck drive up, so I went back to the front of the store, and invited my beekeeping friend to join me in the apiary. Stanley’s never in a big hurry, especially now that he’s a widower and retired. He fell into step with Dinky and me.

  “How much longer will Noel be in town?” I asked Stanley.

  “He’ll be around till next week. He’s working on something top secret. I’m afraid to ask what.”

  “At least he isn’t into drugs.”

  “Drugs might be more wholesome,” Stanley said. “I worry about him. He’s had one or two accidental explosions.”

  “Put him in riot gear,” I suggested.

  The honey house in my backyard is one of my favorite places on earth. It’s where I’ve spent long hours immersed in the sweet aromatic smell of honey, creating different forms of this liquid gold to offer to my customers. I was proud of my product. Honey isn’t wasted nutrients like sugar. It has many great B vitamins as well as calcium, iron, potassium, and more.

  And honey has honest-to-goodness healing properties and naturally retains moisture. So lately, I’ve been experimenting with it in special beauty treatments, like skin lotion and cleansing scrubs. I haven’t perfected those enough to sell them yet, but I’m working on it.

  Before Stanley and I entered the honey house, I released Dinky from her leash. We watched her sniff around.

  Then Stanley pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me, saying, “I found a bead. Holly said it might be from a scarf you own.”

  Sure enough, the bead Stanley held out looked very similar. “Close, but not quite. This one is silver,” I said. “Mine are topaz. Where did you find it?”

  Stanley looked sheepish. “I cut through the cemetery earlier,” he said. “I used to walk all the way around out of respect. But since everybody else does it…” He let the sentence die out.

  The location surprised me. “I wonder how it got there.”

  Stanley shrugged.

  Then we heard a strange sound coming from the other side of the cedar hedge, the one that separated my house from Patti’s. Stanley and I looked at each other, both of us listening hard to a growly, moany sound. Then a weakly voiced, “Mmmhhhmm.”

  Dinky heard it, too, and barked.

  “What is that?” I said to Stanley, figuring it out as soon as I said it and doing a Patti-style leap through the shrubs.

  My neighbor was on the ground facedown, wearing plaid pajamas. And she’d been tied up tight. And gagged with duct tape. And her eyes were wild. She squealed when I pulled off the tape—a little too roughly, but I was worried.

  Stanley whipped out a pocketknife and cut away at the rope, being careful not to cut Patti.

  “Oh no! I can’t move,” Patti said when she was released from the bindings. “I’ve been like this for hours and hours and my muscles are paralyzed.”

  “Just relax,” Stanley said. “We’ll work ’em slow.” Then to me, “You better call the cops.”

  “Do I have to?” I said. “Can’t you handle this?”

  “Make the call,” Stanley said.

  “No, don’t!” Patti yelled. “We don’t need cops.”

  “Make the call,” Stanley said again, overruling her.

  So while he coaxed Patti into a sitting position, I used my cell phone to call the nonemergency police number, since my word was as good as toilet paper in emergency dispatch.

  “They’re sending somebody over,” I said when I hung up, relieved that they had taken me seriously this time. At least I hoped they had. I was even more relieved when Officer Sally Maylor showed up instead of the chief. By then we had Patti propped up on her back steps with a glass of water in her hand. Sally wanted her to fill out a report.

  “I can barely move my hand to drink this water,” Patti said. “How can I hold a pen and write? I’m still getting over the shock of thinking I was paralyzed.”

  “I’d think you’d be more shocked at being tied up so long,” I said, taking the glass from her. “What happened?”

  Sally butted in, “Let me ask the questions, Story. Okay?” But nobody needed to ask anything from that point forward, because we couldn’t have stopped Patti if we tried.

  “This morning the delivery truck brought the new telescope I ordered,” she began. “Which I was expecting, and paid a whole lot extra to have shipped extra fast. I was in these jammies, so I called out the front door and told the driver to leave it by the back door.

  “The box was big and I was trying to get it through my door when I was attacked from behind. Someone grabbed me and before I knew it, I was all tied up on the ground. That was around nine o’clock.”

  She really had been tied up for hours.

  “Did you get a look at your attacker?” Sally said.

  But Patti wasn’t focusing on Sally. She jumped up at that point, forgetting about her paralysis. “It’s gone! My new telescope is gone and I didn’t even get it out of the box. What kind of crazy lunatic is running around this town? You’d think a place like Moraine would be safe, but no!”

  “So,” I said, cutting her off before she got too far off topic. “Did you see who jumped you?”

  Patti shook her head. “I might have passed out.”

  “Since when do you pass out?” I asked her. To my knowledge the only fainter in our bunch was my sister Holly.

  “I could have been drugged,” she suggested.

  “Let’s take you into the hospital and have you drug tested,” Sally said.

  “No, thanks, I take that back. What if I was choked until I passed out?”

  Sally studied Patti’s neck. “No marks.”

  “Well, whoever it was sure knew how to use rope,” Patti said, obviously embarrassed that someone had trussed her up and she hadn’t been able to do a single thing to stop it.

  “You didn’t see anything?” Stanley said. “Not one detail that might help Sally?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be observant?” I said. “Since you’re a reporter and all?”

  Patti shrugged that off, but she had a theory about the type of individual who would attack an innocent woman like herself.

  “I’m sick and tired of all those do-gooders who still think they are entitled to private lives. This is the age of transparency and they need to get with the program. Nobody has the right to stop me from gathering personal information!”

  Sally and I exchanged looks of disbelief, then Sally stood back with her arms crossed and said, “Patti, you and that damn telescope have obviously made a few enemies and one of them really doesn’t want you to set up another observation tower. We’ll check around, but our chances of catching the guy are slim.”

  “I wonder if my homeowner’s policy will pay for another telescope,” Patti pondered.

  “My point is,” Sally said, “maybe you should give the telescope obsession a rest.”

  “And give in to aggression? No way! Next time, I’ll be ready.”

  “Next time,” I said. “You might be dead.”

  Twenty-four

  It wasn’t until later in the day, after I’d spent some much-needed time catching up in the honey house, that I remembered the conversation with Stanley and how he had found a bead in the cemetery. I’d shoved it in my pocket whe
n we heard Patti moaning from her side of the cedars.

  I fished it out and held it up. What did Stanley have, X-ray eyes? Because it wasn’t that big. Although it was crystal, so maybe the sun caught it just right and Stanley spotted the reflection.

  And it wasn’t until even later, after I’d closed up the store and walked home under a rising full moon with Holly and Dinky, that I remembered something else: Dinky had gobbled up something that night in the cemetery. I’d tried to stop her, but I’d been too late. And she’d upchucked it after we got home. At the time, I hadn’t thought anything of it, since she tended to eat just about anything and everything.

  But what if it was an important clue? I didn’t have any solid facts to support that assumption. The idea presented itself out of nowhere, just rose up and struck me in the head like a sudden bolt of lightning.

  Before I got a chance to follow up on that thought, P.P. Patti arrived at my house wearing her pajamas and carrying a pillow and a duffel bag.

  “After what happened to me,” she said, “I can’t stay home alone.”

  What could I say? Nothing, that’s what. I had a houseguest whether I wanted one or not.

  I’d already taken the trash outside, so I hustled out there with Holly and Patti trailing behind. I pulled out the top garbage bag, got down on my knees, opened it up, and rummaged around. It really smelled ripe.

  “What are you doing?” Holly asked, holding her nose.

  “I have to check something out.” There it was. I came up with the wadded paper towel I’d used to clean up Dinky’s gooey mess.

  “I’m going to be sick,” Holly said when I pried it open and she got her eyes on semidigested stomach stuff.

  “If you had a dog,” I said, “you wouldn’t be such a sissy. Besides, I have natural ruggedness that I must have inherited from Mom.”

  Wow. That came out of nowhere. My ruggedness statement was a huge improvement in my attitude toward my mother. Before today, I would have shuddered to think I shared any qualities, good or bad, with her. This was a giant step in the right direction. And unlike Holly, I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I was on the right path.