by Jean Stone
But, no, they did not make honey cake. “Sorry,” the clerk said.
Annie chose a blueberry muffin, Kevin a cranberry-orange one.
Next stop was the Scottish Bakehouse, whose menu offered succulent treats that were more Brazilian than Scottish. But, no, they did not make honey cake, either. The baker hinted that because they used fresh, local ingredients whenever possible, the cost of local honey would make a cake too pricy.
After a third and then a fourth stop, Annie refused to get discouraged. Then she came up with another idea. “Forget this,” she said. “We’re taking a side trip up island to Aquinnah.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because I have a friend named Winnie, a wonderful Wampanoag lady, who showed me how to handcraft natural soaps. One of her brothers has a few beehives. He might know someone who makes honey cakes.” She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of him earlier.
* * *
Winnie wasn’t home, but her sister-in-law, Barbara, was. Barbara was the nurse who worked in the hospital maternity department; she was married to Orrin, Winnie’s beekeeping brother.
“He’s not here, either,” Barbara replied when Annie asked for Orrin. “Ever since he decided to keep bees and do less fishing for a living, I swear he’s fishing more. Even with his godawful arthritis. But he should be back soon. Once the sun starts heading over the yardarm—which, to him, means anytime after noon—he’s pretty much done with the fish.” She laughed. “He always says that ‘yardarm’ thing even though he has a trawler, not a sailboat. He likes the way that it sounds.” She snickered in a loving way.
They stood in the sprawling, unkempt yard. In addition to the main house, there was a small stone house where root vegetables were sheltered after the harvest; next to that was Winnie’s studio, then a separate, round brick kiln that had a stovepipe rising through the top. Leaning against the main house, a stack of framed mesh screens looked like they could be part of Orrin’s beekeeping venture. The hives, however, were out of sight, safely tucked away on the expansive land. Annie felt that, even more than on Chappy, up island showcased the Vineyard at its most genuine; she was glad to be able to share it with her brother.
Then a van rumbled into the driveway.
“Oh!” Barbara exclaimed. “Looks like the yardarm got shorter today!”
Orrin climbed out of the vehicle, gave the group a wave, then went to the back and pulled out a couple of plastic coolers. “Stripers for dinner!” he called. He had the off-balance waddle of a fisherman, as if one foot were on land and the other at sea.
“Did they come from Squibnocket?” Kevin asked, then gave Annie a wink. She had no idea he knew anything about Vineyard fishing, or any fishing for that matter. Especially since he’d said that being on a boat made him seasick.
“Yup. Wasque’s still closed.”
“Nesting birds. I heard about that.”
Annie was so surprised by her brother’s comment that for a second she forgot why they were there. Apparently, Kevin had really been enjoying his time on the island, talking to lots of people while doing Earl’s rounds.
“You staying for dinner?” Orrin asked. “Got four big ones here.”
“I’m sorry, but thanks.” Annie jumped into the conversation before Kevin accepted. “We’ll take a rain check, though. By the way, this is my brother, Kevin.” The men shook hands and Annie cleared her mind. “We stopped to ask you about your beekeeping. Well, about the honey, anyway. I just learned it can be tainted if bees get the nectar from something poisonous, like mountain laurel. Is that true?”
“True enough. Usually the bad nectar winds up being mixed with so much from other sources that the effects are minor. But once in a great while it can stay fairly concentrated.”
“How would a beekeeper know it’s tainted? And if you sold your honey to a bakery and they put some in cakes or cookies, how would anyone know they were poisonous before they got sick?”
Though he lacked a couple of front teeth, Orrin’s smile was broad. He held up an index finger. “First of all, it’s rare that people get sick from it. Animals, yes. People, not so much. But to be on the safe side, we always do taste tests. Every batch of raw honey that goes out of here gets a foolproof test. I spoon out a sample, dip my finger in, take a taste, then, as they say, voilà! It’s not exactly rocket science: If the honey’s bitter then it’s bad—you can tell right away.”
It was interesting that he’d used the same word to describe it that both Fiona and the Google entry had: bitter.
“Does that answer your question?” Orrin asked.
“It does. Thanks. Have you heard that any on the island was tainted lately?”
“I sure have. Rodney, over at Sweet Everything Farm in Chilmark, on the west side of town. He lost the whole batch he was putting up for the Ag Fair.”
Annie knew that, for over a century and a half, the Ag Fair ran for a few days in August. It was famous for its carnival rides and contests, its sheep shearing and skillet tossing, and for the tons of items that were judged, from apple pie to watercolors, and apparently, to honey. She’d been asked to enter her natural herb-and-flower soaps but had declined because she’d had a feeling her summer would be busy. An understatement, she thought now.
Returning to the problem at hand, Annie asked if Orrin knew whether or not Rodney had sold any of the honey to a local bakery.
He shrugged. “About all I can do is tell you how to get to his place.”
“Fair enough,” Kevin said. “And one of these nights, we’ll be back for striper.”
Annie smiled at the thought that her brother apparently intended to stick around.
Chapter 18
Sweet Everything Farm had a hand-painted shingle that hung on the tree belt where the long driveway began. Cornfields seemed to rise up from the fertile earth in every direction, as if it were the most natural thing to do. They found Rodney in one of several barns, slicing into a bale of hay. He was short and stocky and, over a T-shirt, he wore denim overalls that made him resemble Elmer Fudd.
Annie introduced herself and Kevin and said they’d come by way of Orrin Lathrop. “I’m doing research for a book,” she said with a smile. “Orrin said you had a bad batch of honey recently. I’m trying to incorporate that into a plot.”
He pursed his lips as if he were about to kiss someone. “You write murder mysteries?”
“I do,” she said with a light laugh. “And I’m intrigued by the thought that a food source as pure as honey can be poisonous. I might have a character who wants to try and kill someone with it.”
Rodney scratched his chin, then said, “It would be tough for anyone to know how much honey it would take to be fatal. One or two bad batches pop up on the island every couple of years. Maybe there are more, but they’re destroyed as soon as the beekeeper discovers it tastes bitter.”
There was that word again.
“Anyway,” Rodney continued, “lucky for me, my bad batch didn’t get far.”
Kevin stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “What happened? Did your taste test tell you it was poisonous?”
Rodney broke the hay apart with his foot, then tossed a bundle over the wall of an empty stall. Annie supposed the small herd—there were eight stalls in the barn—was grazing outside in the summer sun. “My allergies were bad one day. So my taster was off.” He wiped his palms on his jeans, raised one of his fingers, and tapped his tongue, much the way Orrin had done.
“We only sell raw, organic honey,” he continued. “Straight from the hive, unfiltered, not pasteurized. As much as I hated losing the whole batch, my guardian angel must have been watching out for me that day, because only Myrna got sick. From now on, she’ll be double-checking me.”
“Who’s Myrna?” Annie asked.
“My wife. I potted a few jars of the honey the day before Myrna left for her sister’s on the Cape. She measured two heaping cups and made two cakes. She does it every July so her sister has them for the big picnic she throw
s on the Fourth. Myrna wanted to take the early boat, so I drove her down to Vineyard Haven. On the way she mentioned she’d skipped breakfast. I told her to get something at the snack bar on the boat. But Myrna hates to spend a dime. Anyway, while she waited to get on, she opened one of the boxes and broke off a hunk of cake. She knew while she was chewing it that it tasted bad, but the passengers started boarding, so she swallowed fast and climbed up the ramp.”
“She got sick on the boat?” Kevin asked.
“Not real sick—it takes longer than the forty-five-minute trip to Woods Hole for that, and a lot more than she ate. But as soon as her stomach got queasy, she knew why.”
“Because the cake tasted bitter,” Annie interrupted.
“Right. You wanna talk to her? I gotta head out to check the corn. But she’s up at the house making strawberry jam before they’re done growing for the year.”
“I’d love to talk to her. Kevin, you want to come with me?”
Kevin decided he’d rather follow Rodney around. “Unless you mind,” he said to him.
“Can’t be any worse than the damn goats,” Rodney said. “Try not to eat any fence posts along the way.” He snorted, obviously amused at the line he might have said to tourists more than once. Then he grabbed a wheelbarrow and led them from the barn, pointing the way for Annie to get to the house.
* * *
As red as the barns and with clean white trim, the house featured a long porch where a row of Adirondack chairs sat, as if poised for visitors. Annie knocked on the screen door while wondering if she should tell Myrna the truth. Because the woman knew the types of reactions someone might have from ingesting tainted honey, maybe she’d be able to judge whether or not Fiona’s tale was plausible. But wary of getting anyone—like Colin Littlefield—into trouble if he did not deserve it, she decided to keep the details to herself.
Myrna wiped her hands on her apron and opened the door. She stepped outside and Annie explained why she was there, or at least a watered-down version.
“So you didn’t make any other cakes from the bad batch?” Annie asked.
“No. I make more at Rosh Hashanah. And Easter and Christmas. Mostly we sell the raw honey to the natural food stores on the island.”
“But you didn’t sell any of it to them, either?”
“No,” Myrna replied. “No cakes. No jars.”
“What did you do when you realized it was bad?” Rodney, of course, had already explained it, but Annie supposed a real detective would want a statement straight from the “witness’s” mouth.
“I chewed the first bite and knew right away what I was tasting. But passengers were boarding, and I was already in line, so I swallowed fast. I knew I hadn’t eaten enough to kill me. I went into the ladies’ room and tried to throw it up, but I’ve never been good at doing that on demand. Anyway, by the time we pulled away from the pier my stomach felt upset. It might have been all in my head, but I needed to get home to tell Rodney so he could burn the rest of the batch. I knew he’d be out in the fields and he doesn’t carry his cell phone out there. We fight about that sometimes, but . . .” She shook her head in silent annoyance. “Anyway, I stayed on the boat and made the return trip.”
“What happened to the cakes?” Annie asked.
“I trashed them on the boat. No. Wait. I stayed put in the ladies’ room on the way back in case I wound up getting sick, you know? A woman in there asked me if I was okay. I was leaning against the sink; I might have looked a little green. She probably thought I was seasick or something. Then my stomach rolled. I pointed to the counter where I’d put the boxes. I said, ‘Those cakes are poisonous,’ then I bolted back into a stall. She asked me if I wanted her to get rid of them. I said sure. It never occurred to me I should bring them home for Rodney to examine. I just wanted them out of my sight.”
“Do you remember what the woman looked like?”
After a thoughtful few seconds, Myrna said, “No. But I guess she was about medium height.” Coming from a woman who was nearly the same short stature as her husband, Annie didn’t think that was terribly specific. “She had light-colored hair. Blond, maybe.” She pressed her lips together as if in concentration. “I do remember that right when we were about to pull into Vineyard Haven, I came out of the ladies’ room, and I saw her standing by the staircase, talking with a man. I thought they were together. But later, when I walked down the ramp, I saw the same guy drive his car off the boat. The woman wasn’t with him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I didn’t have my car, and I felt better by the time we got off. Because I couldn’t get ahold of Rodney, I decided to take the bus home. I didn’t see the woman again, but when I walked toward the bus stop, I saw the man drive off the boat—and, yes, he was definitely by himself. He was easy to spot because he was in a Porsche.”
* * *
On the way back to Edgartown, Annie couldn’t stop talking. If her ex-husband, not Kevin, had been sitting in the passenger seat, there was little doubt he would have told her to shut up.
“So I guess this means we believe the dead bridesmaid after all?” Kevin asked when she finally stopped to take a breath.
“It’s hard not to, isn’t it? Which leaves the big questions: Who was the blonde on the boat who took the cakes? What did she have to do with Colin Littlefield? And why did Colin disappear if he wasn’t guilty? Not to mention, where the heck is he now?”
If only she could call John, Annie knew she would feel better. But he’d be gone at least another week, and she didn’t want to interrupt . . . whatever. She had always been cautious not to overstep boundaries with anyone, and when it came to John, she still had no idea what those boundaries were. It would have been nice, however, if he would call.
Then she realized her thoughts were becoming redundant. Trish would go through an entire blue pencil deleting them.
“I think it’s time for you to talk to the bridesmaid again,” Kevin said, cutting short her moment of self-pity. “Besides, I’d like to meet her.”
Annie turned at Beetlebung Corner in the direction of West Tisbury. “I hate to say this, my wonderful brother, but I think it would be better if I went alone.”
He clutched his heart, feigning hurt. “You’re kidding, right?”
She tried her best to look apologetic. “No. Something tells me Fiona isn’t a big fan of men. She might be more honest with me if it’s just the two of us. At least this time. Okay?”
“No. I want all the dirt.”
She laughed. “I’ll come and get you when I’m finished.”
“Cross your heart?”
She did.
“When you’re done, will you meet me at the Newes? You gypped me out of brunch, but I’ll buy you a late lunch.”
Annie glanced at her watch. She couldn’t believe it was already after three o’clock. “It might be too crowded to get a seat. People tend to linger on weekends.”
“Then I’ll sit on the stone wall and wait outside.”
“You win, brother. The Newes it is.”
Then the traffic ahead suddenly clogged, though none was coming from the other direction.
“What’s going on?” Kevin asked, as if Annie might know.
But she did know, or rather, she guessed, based on things she had heard. In less than a minute, her guess was validated as one, two, three large silver SUVs with darkened windows came from the direction of the airport.
“The president,” Annie said. “Or rather, the former president.”
“Which one?”
“Don’t know, but I was told to be on the lookout in the summer.”
“Right,” Kevin replied. “I almost forgot we’re on the Vineyard.”
They waited a few more minutes before the line was allowed to move. “I heard the traffic was much worse,” Annie added, “when either of them was actually in office. It’s a good thing no one here except me is ever in a hurry.”
* * *
When they arrived at the Kelley House
, Annie didn’t bother to look for a place to park. She dropped Kevin off at the pier (thus saving the On Time’s four-dollar passenger fare), then swung around and got in line for the ferry. By some miracle, only five cars were waiting, so the round trip wouldn’t take long. Once she made it to the Chappy side, she’d return as a passenger. Annie had finally figured out that living on Chappy often required improvising.
Kevin had dutifully waited; they walked past the Old Sculpin Gallery and the Anchors, the Edgartown Council on Aging, past the Whale Tail, then around the corner to the Kelley House. Annie was impressed with how quickly her brother had learned to navigate his way around.
At the front door of the hotel, she ducked into the lobby, while Kevin progressed up the short hill toward the pub. Before messaging Fiona, Annie decided to text John. Since the trip to Sweet Everything Farm, she’d felt a strong, no, an urgent need to connect with him. The whole situation had begun to feel criminal.
She sat on a soft leather chair that faced the fireplace and admired the striking gallery of photographs adorning the walls. As much as she would have liked to inspect them more closely, she knew she would be procrastinating. The sooner she messaged John, the sooner this could be resolved.
With a resigned sigh, Annie typed: Hope all is going okay. She couldn’t say, “Hope all is going well,” because how could having brought his thirteen-year-old daughter to have an abortion be anything close to “well”? If you have a chance, I’d love to talk. Your mom is good. But . . .
She stopped. The story about Fiona and the honey was too complicated to relay in a text. Would it really be wrong if she called him?
Turning to avoid the front desk clerk, she stared at her screen. Her pulse started to race; she felt as if she were a girl again and that it was her first time calling a boy. She remembered that her “first time” had been when she’d called Brian. She’d prayed his parents wouldn’t answer, or that he hadn’t forgotten who she was, though he’d called her three times since the summer. She’d wanted to ask if he’d go to the harvest dance at the public high school with her even though he went to Milton Academy. She remembered the cold, damp sensation in her hands—clammy hands, she’d read somewhere. She’d dialed the number at Brian’s house, twice. She’d hung up both times. On the third try she took a deep breath and dialed again.