Plan Bee

by Hannah Reed

  “It’s complicated. It would be better if I could explain the whole thing all at once,” I told him.

  “Fine, save it then. We’ll talk tonight.”

  Soon after I hung up, Holly arrived decked out in a new outfit, new shoes, new highlights—the works. I checked the time. “Only a few hours late today,” I said, dripping with sarcasm. “Shopping? Getting your hair done?”

  “Max’s coming home tonight. I have to look good for him.”

  My spoiled, rich sister didn’t have a clue what real work and commitment entailed. And my mother? Where was she? Oh yes, she was out smooching with her jailbird boyfriend.

  A word of caution: Never, ever go into business with family members. Not that I did that on purpose. Somehow they all gravitated here after the store was a success, apparently a common occurrence in small businesses.

  I sat in my office, intent on removing myself from all nuts—hickory, mental cases, and murder suspects, but I started feeling like an alcoholic who needed a drink, like a user who needed a fix. Sweat formed on my forehead. I got the shakes. I couldn’t stop thinking about the murder investigation and how I could make a difference. I was sure of it. I had information that the authorities could use. If only Johnny Jay wasn’t the authority in this case.

  When Carrie Ann was drinking heavily, she told me how it was, that every morning she had good intentions. This was the day she’d stop. And she meant it. Every morning. Then by early afternoon, her resolve began slipping. By three o’clock the urge was strong. Just one drink, no more. By four she couldn’t wait any longer. By five, she was on her third.

  That was me at the moment. Back and forth with urges. The sane part of me wanted to share every last bit of information with Hunter and Johnny Jay and let one of them figure out the rest. Not that the chief would listen to me, but that shouldn’t be my problem.

  By five o’clock, when the twins arrived and took over, the urge to interfere was getting even stronger. I tried calling Patti again. No answer still.

  I arranged a powwow at Stu’s Bar and Grill with my sister, mom, grandmother, and cousin. And since I was joining Hunter there a little later, I made the meeting for an hour earlier than our rendezvous, because my cop boyfriend wasn’t invited to this particular get-together.

  I walked over with Holly and Dinky. As usual, Stu looked the other way when I snuck Dinky into a corner table. Mom came in a few minutes later, followed by Grams and Carrie Ann.

  “I haven’t had a drop to drink,” Carrie Ann said, immediately going on the defensive when she saw the family assembled, assuming this was one of our interventions. Like we’d actually have one at a bar. “I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles.” She raised her right hand and put the other one over her heart.

  “Sit down,” I said. “This isn’t about you.”

  “Thank God.” She slid in.

  The bar was hopping, thanks to the happy-hour crowd. Grams took a picture of Stu behind the bar before joining us.

  “That Stu is one sweet man,” Grams said to me. “You’re attached at the hip to Hunter Wallace, another fine catch, but Stu needs a woman to spend time with. If things don’t work out with Hunter, you have a backup.”

  “Stu has a girlfriend,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but that relationship isn’t going anywhere. How about you, Carrie Ann? Why aren’t you after that cute man?”

  I jumped in before Grams got too focused on matchmaking. Besides, I had a feeling Carrie Ann was quietly reconciling with her ex-husband, Gunnar; but even if she wasn’t, would dating the owner of a bar be such a good idea for a recovering alcoholic? I thought not. Knowing this group, it would be hard to bring them back to the matter at hand once they started pairing off residents.

  Stu took orders—nonalcoholic drinks for all of us out of respect for my cousin and lots of heart-clogging appetizers. Before leaving to place the order, Stu gave me a wink that made me realize he’d heard our conversation about him.

  “I need help,” I said to the group.

  “You’re pregnant,” Holly said.

  “No!”

  “That’s certainly a relief,” Mom said.

  “I’d go to Johnny Jay with my problem,” I added, “but he hates my guts.”

  That comment got a flurry of active consideration. Stu delivered our drinks and said, “Johnny Jay is hot after you.” Then he walked away.

  “That’s right,” Grams agreed. “The chief is in love with you.”

  I snorted iced tea all over the table and grabbed a napkin to mop it up. “It’s true,” she insisted. “He’s behaving like a little boy, being mean to get your attention.”

  “Whatever,” I said, refusing to even consider such a ridiculous idea. “I can’t go to him. So I’m telling you instead and we can all figure out what to do.” That we part felt good. I didn’t have to handle this all alone. I planned to drag them in, too.

  Stu delivered our food and while we dug in, I brought them up to date on the things I knew but they didn’t, starting with Ford and how I realized he had a partner of some sort.

  “He made a slip when I asked him how long he’d be staying,” I told them. “He said ‘we.’ ”

  That brought a few blank stares.

  I plowed ahead. “Like he had someone working with him. You know, a coconspirator.”

  Mom said, “That’s hardly evidence, Story.”

  I nodded and moved on to bigger and better stuff. Like Patti’s attacker, which everybody knew about, including the hickory nuts, but it was worth repeating before I hit them with another big tidbit. “Bob Petrie has a hickory nut tattooed on his arm. I bet he’s the one who attacked Patti. And he was in jail with Ford! That must’ve been where they plotted to rob Tom together.”

  Everybody stared at me.

  “We have to band together to help Tom,” I rushed on. “And to help Mom.”

  “But how?” my sister asked.

  “If we prove what I just told you, we might be able to change public opinion’s perception of Tom, maybe prove he was only protecting himself from two known criminals.”

  Mom shook her head. “Tom didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Grams agreed, but that wasn’t a big surprise. She always thought the best of everybody.

  Carrie Ann joined in, siding with Mom, too.

  Holly looked over at me and didn’t commit to one opinion or the other.

  Lately, my thoughts had been churning in the same direction as theirs, in spite of all the evidence against Tom. The idea that he might really be innocent zapped me like little pricks of electric connections in my head.

  But my mind argued back, bringing up a very good point. I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud.

  “What do you mean, ‘but he had blood on his shirt’?” Carrie Ann said, so I had to explain what I was talking about, how Tom showed up at Stu’s with a bloody shirt.

  “Oh, that,” Mom said casually, exposing her index finger, which obviously had been cut and was in the process of healing. “Tom and I had a cocktail before heading over to Stu’s that night. I sliced myself in Tom’s kitchen while I was cutting a lime. He bandaged it for me and got some of my blood on his shirt. We didn’t notice until you pointed it out.”

  I looked around the table, at each one of Tom Stocke’s cheerleaders. It wouldn’t hurt to approach this problem from a different angle by starting with the assumption that Tom was totally innocent; not just that he’d killed his brother in self-defense, but that maybe he hadn’t killed Ford at all. Hard to imagine, because lately there was just too much stacked against him.

  Once I opened up my mind to the possibility, though, and painted the big picture, I had a brainstorm. I was pretty sure I knew why Patti’s telescope (or telescopes in this case) had been targeted for destruction.

  Thirty-seven

  I muttered something vague about continuing our discussion later and hustled down Main Street. I remembered my Dinky obligation, so I used my cell phone to call back to Stu’s and ask Grams
to take care of Dinky, who I’d left there in my moment of brilliant enlightenment.

  I tried Patti again without a response, which had me worried. P.P. Patti was usually hanging around, waiting for the right moment to swoop in and land, like a buzzard circling roadkill. No way would she disappear for this long on purpose.

  At her back door, I banged hard and loud. Nothing. Then I angrily kicked a pile of hickory nuts, scattering them across the yard before turning to face my ex-husband’s empty house. I had a creepy feeling that Patti’s snooping had led to more trouble for her. And that Clay’s house had something to do with it.

  The house was locked up tight, and I didn’t have a key. Theoretically, Lori and my ex should be the only ones with access. Except dumb Lori had rented out the house to a criminal element. That meant Ford had had a key, and who knew who else, like his partner, could’ve made copies to come and go any old time.

  According to Hunter, anybody can get into a locked house without a key if they want to bad enough, and I planned on doing just that. Some people are natural experts at picking locks, using common items like bobby pins or credit cards. Based on my past efforts, which included attempts with paper clips and safety pins, I wasn’t one of them. The only way in for me was through a window.

  I went around the outside of the house, testing windows, and ended up smacking one of the ones in back with a hammer from my toolbox. I hadn’t expected a little tap with a hammer to sound quite that loud. I held my breath like that would make a difference in whether or not I’d been caught. No one came running, which was good news. The bad news was that unfortunately, the glass in the window had cracked but not shattered. The only way in was to hit it a few more times.

  I went home and returned with a towel, draped it over the end of the hammer, and banged away. Eventually the glass dropped in cascades around me. With the towel around my hand to protect myself, I pulled out large shards still embedded around the edges, then hefted myself up, and swung a leg over.

  Judging by the amount of noise I had just made, I safely assumed that no bad guys were waiting inside or they would have shown themselves by now. So I swung my other leg over.

  Breaking and entering was becoming my standard mode of operation. I wished I could blame Patti for that, but she wasn’t around to take the rap. She’d said she was up to something and didn’t want to tell me what. At the time, I felt relief; now I really wish she’d clued me in to her plan. I was worried about her.

  Nothing had changed inside my ex-husband’s unoccupied house in the days since I’d discovered Ford’s body there. His camping gear was still scattered in the kitchen and bedroom. Johnny Jay had had the truck removed from the driveway during the initial investigation, but had left the interior of the house as he’d found it.

  There’s something about basements that as a general rule, men love and women dislike intensely. A certain fascination that they have, which we just don’t get. Men tend to go rushing down the steps as soon as they get an opportunity. Women would really prefer not to. Also, basements in Wisconsin are damp. Mold grows quickly and spreads its tentacles over everything if you aren’t careful. Then there are bugs—spiders, millipedes, stink bugs, beetles, and all kinds of other tiny terrors.

  I’m a big fan of some insects, considering the number of honeybees in my backyard, but some species give me the willies.

  So I considered skipping the basement.

  Any sane woman would.

  But if Patti were along, she’d lead the charge downstairs, though I do question her mental stability. That’s why I had to go down. Because she wasn’t here to make the first move, because I could hear the scorn in her voice if I told her I didn’t want to. She’d taunt me about calling Hunter and having him take care of it for me, about depending on some guy again.

  Patti’s imaginary badgering produced enough resolve for me to tackle the basement. I didn’t chicken out even when I flipped the light switch at the top of the stairs and nothing happened. Not a single lightbulb went on down there.

  It wasn’t exactly pitch-dark. The basement had old-fashioned ground-level windows set inside window wells, not the best source of light, but better than nothing. So I could see in a sort of late-dusk outline sort of way. I used my cell phone for a little added light, didn’t stop to consider why the electricity was off in case that gave me enough of an excuse to abort my mission, and went down.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I tripped over something soft and barely stayed in control, physically and emotionally. I smothered a bloodcurdling, hair-raising scream of terror, teetered in the balance, found my footing, and noted that the thing on the floor was only a crumpled blanket, not a body.

  I picked it up, wondering what the heck a blanket was doing on the basement floor. It concerned me. At this point I wanted to let my instinct for flight take over, so I could run away, and come back with my family for support. My other choice involved seeing it through like a grown woman.

  Before I could hightail it up the steps and out the door, I saw motion in a corner. I took a step forward. “Who’s there?” I said, forcing myself forward, refusing to listen to the more cautious part of my cerebrum.

  I was greeted by thrashing and snarling. A wild animal of some sort? Maybe a gigantic raccoon? Now I wasn’t so sure the thing was human. In fact, I was sure it wasn’t.

  So I tossed the blanket over the top of the animal and kicked with my flip-flopped foot, connecting with something through the blanket. An almost-bare foot just doesn’t have much power, though, and the thing didn’t stop struggling. Part of its lower extremities popped through the bottom of the blanket. Only it didn’t have paws or claws like I’d expected.

  It had a foot and a shoe. And I recognized that shoe.

  Ripping the blanket away, I came face-to-face with the rabid, foam-dripping creature.

  It was P.P. Patti Dwyre.

  She was tied up with tape across her mouth exactly like last time. Only this time, her eyes were taped, too. While I experienced a sense of déjà vu, I slowly removed the tape, careful not to rip out her eyelashes.

  “Are you okay?” I said, fumbling with the ropes, realizing how useless my efforts were without better lighting or a knife to cut the bindings. Shining the little bit of light from my cell phone into her face wasn’t helpful. She blinked rapidly and squeezed her eyes closed.

  “Now I know how a blind mole feels,” she said, her voice cracking. “Get me out of here.”

  “What are you doing down here in the first place?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Patti said. “Just relaxing after a long day.”

  She hadn’t lost her spunk or her sarcastic tongue, that was for sure.

  “The knots are too tight. I’ll have to go for help.”

  “No! Don’t leave me here alone.”

  “I’ll call for help.” Remembering the phone in my hand, I hit speed dial. A phone inside one of Patti’s pockets rang. At this point, I had to admit, I was pretty frazzled.

  “You’re calling my phone,” she wailed.

  “I’m shook up. Stop yelling.” I tried again. For a damsel in distress, Patti sure was bossy.

  “And don’t call that cop boyfriend of yours,” she said. “Not until you hear what happened.”

  I disconnected before it rang on Hunter’s end. “This is ridiculous. You shouldn’t be dictating terms. Do you want help or not?”

  “My arms and legs are numb. I can’t feel them.”

  “You’ll get feeling back as soon as we get the ropes off, once you start moving them. Just like last time. I’m going to go upstairs and get a knife from the kitchen.”

  “This is an empty house. There isn’t any kitchen equipment unless you dig through some of that camping stuff.”

  I worked the ropes again, feeling for a loose end. “I should call 9-1-1.”

  “No! We don’t need local cops butting in.”

  I gaped at her. “You’re roped up like a cow in a rodeo, blindfolded, and gagged. I can’t even im
age what would have come next if I hadn’t found you. Why don’t you want me to get help? Who did this?”

  “Just get me untied and I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

  I gave up on freeing Patti. “Either I call for help right this minute, or you’ll have to stay alone while I run home and get a knife.”

  “Go, but hurry.”

  And with that, I pounded up the basement steps.

  Thirty-eight

  Once Patti was free and we were away from Clay’s house, she seemed to take her imprisonment in stride, which was a really scary indicator of her ranking on the crazy meter. Either the woman was full-blown certifiable or her need for finding news was off the charts. Or a little of both.

  It made me wonder even more about her background since she clearly had a high degree of tolerance for the most unpleasant situations. After being stuck in a basement all day, bound, gagged, and blindfolded, without food, water, or bathroom facilities, she sure had bounced back quickly.

  “I suspected something was going on over there,” she said from a seat at my kitchen table, a hot cup of herbal tea in front of her. “I mean, why else go after my telescope unless something was going down within its range?”

  “That’s exactly what I came up with,” I said, although she’d certainly beat me to that realization.

  “So this morning I went on another search mission. When I went into the basement, somebody must have hit me with something because when I woke up I had a huge headache and I was all tied up and duct-taped. I never even got a look, but I heard voices. More than one person, I’m sure of it.”

  “Male or female voices?”

  “Hard to tell. They were whispering.”

  “You were tied up exactly the same way as last time,” I said, getting an ice pack out of the freezer and handing it to her. She applied it to the back of her head. “So it must’ve been the same person both times. You must have some idea who’s after you.”

  Patti shook her head.

  This was unbelievable. Patti had been physically attacked twice by a nasty and violent person, both times in broad daylight, and she still couldn’t come close to identifying him? Patti wasn’t a lightweight and the person who manhandled her had to be even tougher.