Death Bee Comes Her

by Nancy CoCo

“Maybe she was having a secret affair,” Joan suggested.

  “What!” Mr. Snow stood. “Don’t you say that. Don’t you even think that. My Agnes would never cheat on me. Get out!”

  “I’m so sorry,” Joan said and blushed. “I overstepped.”

  “Get out!” Bernie shouted at her. “I want to be alone. Out! Out! Out!”

  I had never seen the women in Oceanview move so quickly. Bernie wasn’t a tall man but he commanded a room. I guess after being mayor for so long he knew how to take charge. I quashed the urge to flee with the rest of them and lagged behind. “I brought you a casserole,” I said. “My Aunt Eloise wanted me to send on her condolences.”

  “Thanks, but, until I know who did this to my Agnes I’m not going to take any more condolences.” He studied the group of shocked and exiting women. “And quit your gossiping. As far as I’m concerned, every single one of you is a suspect.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” I said as gently as I could. “They don’t know this was murder and even if it was it could have been random. Agnes might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and gotten mugged.”

  “I doubt that,” he said and glared at me. “You found her. You said she had no obvious wounds. That doesn’t sound like she was mugged to me.”

  I swallowed hard and decided to retreat. “Right. Please let me know if you need anything.”

  “I’ll thank you and the rest of you to stay away. That’s what I need,” he said with a full bluster. “You know what? As far as I’m concerned you and your aunt were no friend to my wife and therefore are no friend to me. Now leave!”

  I left feeling embarrassed. Social awkwardness was kind of my nemesis. No matter how hard I worked on saying the right thing at the right time, I usually failed. I’d come to comfort a grieving man and left concerned that Mr. Snow thought I or my Aunt Eloise might have had something to do with Agnes’s death. Frankly, bees were much easier to understand than complicated human interactions.

  Winter Pet Paw Wax

  4 ounces beeswax

  ¼ cup calendula oil

  ¼ cup coconut oil

  ¼ cup olive oil

  Melt over low heat. Pour into a heat-resistant container wide enough for your pet’s paw to fit comfortably. Cools in 20 minutes.

  Use by rubbing paws on top of the wax right before you take them out. It is safe for them to lick and keeps the snow, ice, and antifreeze off their skin. It also moisturizes dry pads.

  Chapter 3

  I arrived back at the shop to find Jim Hampton waiting for me at the door. “Hello,” I said. “Do you have more news?”

  “I do,” he said with a serious look. “I would like you to come with me to the station.”

  “I’m sorry? Why? I told you everything I know.”

  “We’ll take the squad car.” He pointed to a police cruiser that sat at the curb.

  I felt panic start to set in. “But, why?”

  “We’ll discuss that down at the station.” He took me by the arm. “I don’t want to have to handcuff you in front of your neighbors.”

  I noticed a small crowd had formed. Panic turned to embarrassment as I noticed tourists and shop owners alike stepping out of the stores along Main Street and craning their necks to see what was going on. I let him lead me around the back of the car to the seat behind the driver. He did the whole thing where they hold down your head as you sit to ensure your safety. I could feel the heat of a blush rush up my cheeks. I refused to bow my head in shame. I had nothing to be ashamed about.

  Jim got in and spoke to dispatch, then turned to me. “Buckle up.”

  I did as he asked and he drove the few blocks to the police station. A local television crew was parked outside along with a reporter and a photographer from the Oceanview Gazette. Unfortunately, I knew both of the Gazette employees. Alicia Lankson had been a grade behind me in school. She had been a popular girl, cheerleader, student council president and prom queen. I had been a goody two-shoes, a nerdy girl who ran for treasurer but never got elected. The photographer was Mitchell Grimes. He was in his twenties and sometimes stopped by the shop to buy candles for his mom.

  “Officer Hampton,” Alicia called out. “Are you arresting Wren Johnson?”

  “No one’s being arrested,” he replied and maneuvered me out of the car and toward the police station door.

  “Is she a person of interest?” Alicia called out. “Is that why you picked her up in a squad car?”

  Horror went through me at the idea of even being suspected of murder. When he came to my apartment to question me, I took it seriously, but I had never been afraid he would arrest me.

  “No comment,” he said. “We’ll be making a statement later this evening.”

  Jim ushered me into the station, behind a door, and down the hall to a small room. There was only a table and two chairs in the stark room. “Have a seat,” he said.

  I swallowed and sat, grateful he hadn’t handcuffed me. “What’s this about? Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You can always call a lawyer,” he said and took a seat across from me. “But it’s better if you just answer my questions honestly.”

  I noticed a light blinking on a camera in the corner above his head. “Am I being recorded?”

  “It’s for your safety.”

  I put my hands on the table and clasped them tightly together. “What is this all about?”

  “Do you make your lip balms by hand?”

  “Yes, everything in my shop is handcrafted with care. If I don’t make them, then local artists do.”

  “And is this your label?” He pulled out an evidence bag with the label I had pulled from Agnes’s hand.

  “Yes, that’s what I told you.”

  “Did you make these on a printer?”

  “Why?”

  “Could someone else have printed this label?”

  “No, you see this little gem here on the underside? I have them on all my labels. It’s sort of my own secret thing.”

  “You are the only one who knows about this gem mark?”

  “Well, yes, I think so; I mean, my printer who creates my labels does and probably my aunt and Porsche since they help me place the labels sometimes.”

  “And is this what the label was on?” He pulled out a second evidence bag. This one had a tube of lip balm.

  “I’m not sure, can I look at it closer?”

  “Don’t touch it,” he said and held it closer.

  I studied it from different angles and then sat back. “I can’t say. This could be anyone’s lip balm. I don’t have anything to distinguish my lip balm unless you test what’s inside. I can tell you exactly the proportion of ingredients inside one of my lip balms. If those aren’t there, then it could be any lip balm in the world.”

  He pulled the bag away and pushed a pen and pad of paper toward me. “Write down the ingredients in your lip balm and the formula.”

  “Well, now that’s proprietary.”

  “I’m going to be straightforward with you. This lip balm is what killed Agnes,” he said. “Write down your ingredients and the proportions or I will be forced to arrest you for the murder of Agnes Snow.”

  “What? How? I test all my lip balms. There’s no way it could kill anyone . . . unless they were highly allergic to bee products. If that’s the case, then they wouldn’t be shopping in my store.”

  “The ingredients and the proportions.” He pointed at the paper.

  “Fine.” I wrote down my recipe. “The flavors vary so it might have rose or lavender or clover or citrus. Also my application tubes are BHP free and made out of one hundred percent bioplastics.”

  “What are those?”

  “They are made of vegetable products instead of petroleum products and will biodegrade. It’s better for you and better for the environment.” I pushed the paper toward him and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’d like to call a lawyer now.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I was going to let you go.”

  “Fine
.” I stood.

  “Good.” He stood and I was suddenly aware of how close he stood. Which was strange because I wasn’t attracted to him. Right? I felt heat rise in my cheeks.

  “Why did you haul me down here in a squad car? I would have told you that at the shop.”

  “It’s procedure and you almost didn’t tell me. Bringing you here was to show you I’m serious. I’ll get the door.”

  I hurried through and he walked me out into the lobby.

  “Listen, Wren, don’t go out of town for a few days. I may have more questions for you.”

  I swallowed hard. “I’m not going to go anywhere. I own a business here. I’m trying to build a life here.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  I left the police station and stepped out into the cool evening air. The television crew still hung out. I made a sharp left around the building, ducked down through an alley, and around the next block. The thing about Oceanview is that, like many Oregon coast cities, it was very walkable. I dialed my aunt as I walked.

  “Wren,” she answered. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “Officer Hampton took me in for questioning. I’m going to need a lawyer. Is there anyone I can call?”

  “Bobby Hanson,” she said. “He put together my estate papers. I’ll text you his number.”

  Aunt Eloise loved new tech. She was always up on the latest gadgets, and phones were no different. Aunt Eloise even taught classes at the senior center to help all her friends keep up on new technology.

  “Thanks.” I heard a car behind me and glanced over my shoulder. It was a blue MINI Cooper. Inside was Alicia, the Gazette reporter. She pulled up even with me and rolled down her window.

  “Hey, Wren, are you okay? Do you need a ride?”

  “I’ll call you back, Auntie,” I said and hung up my phone. “I’m fine. Just walking home.”

  Her dark brown eyes were full of sympathy. “Officer Hampton let you go so that’s a good sign. Come on, get in.”

  Just because Alicia was a reporter didn’t mean I shouldn’t talk to her. I went around and got into her car. She pulled back into the street and navigated the short distance to my shop. It was late and Porsche had closed up for the day.

  We parked. “I have some wine,” she said. “We can order takeout. It’s the least I can do as a friend.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I have to make some phone calls.” I hated to put her off but I needed some time alone to figure out what happened and how I was going to deal with it. “It’s been a very long day.”

  “Listen, I’m not here to be judge and jury. I’m trying to be your friend. I would really like your story. You know, have you tell your side of things?”

  “Talk tomorrow?” I got out of the car.

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m here for you, if you need me. This is awful and I don’t want you to feel alone.”

  “Thanks.” I opened the shop and punched in the security code. Everett was there to greet me. “Hey, handsome.” I scratched his head. “I bet you’re hungry. Come on, let’s get you some tuna.”

  My apartment was a sanctuary from a day that was turned upside down. I opened a can of tuna for Everett, plopped it in his bowl, and put it on the floor in the kitchen. When I made the phone call to the lawyer, I got dumped into voice mail so I left a message. Then, I climbed into a hot tub of bubbles to soak my day away.

  * * *

  I didn’t sleep much. I’m not sure anyone would have slept after discovering a dead person and then being questioned as a killer. At 5 a.m. I was up, searching for allergies to my ingredients. Could one of my natural ingredients have killed Agnes?

  As far as I could tell the answer was no. I was pretty sure that if Agnes was allergic to my ingredients, she wouldn’t have been using the lip balm. Then again, maybe Jim was just fishing for leads. After all, he had told me that the lab could take weeks or months, and he picked me up the same day I found Agnes.

  I perused the local news. Alicia had written an article on Agnes’s death. It made the front page of the paper. We didn’t get a lot of dead bodies in town. I noticed that she didn’t mention my name at all. I was thankful, although Oceanview is a small town. Everyone already knew.

  Porsche texted me. “Are you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  “What about your kids?”

  “Jason is handling them.”

  Porsche lived a few blocks away in a cute beach bungalow. Her husband, Jason, worked for a local company. I was surprised he was home on a Wednesday.

  By the time I was showered and dressed, Porsche was at my back door with coffees and a bag of donuts. “I brought you fuel,” she said. “I’m guessing you haven’t eaten.”

  “No,” I said as she walked into the kitchen. Everett ran to greet her, winding through her legs and telling her all about what happened since the last time he’d seen her. His meowing could get quite loud.

  “Sit, have some coffee and eat something.” She pushed me toward the kitchen table. My apartment kitchen was basically cupboards against the back wall with a window over the sink and the door out on the right side. My table was a 1950s chrome set with a Formica top and red vinyl coverings on the chairs.

  “Yes, Mom,” I teased and took a seat. If I was to be honest, the coffee and donuts helped settle my stomach.

  She poured Everett some breakfast and came over, taking a seat at the table. “All right, what’s the plan?”

  “Plan?”

  “Yes.” She sipped her coffee. “I know you have a plan. Spill.”

  “I don’t have a plan,” I said ruefully. “I’m completely in the weeds.”

  “Okay, I guess I can understand. Yesterday was a shock and then I heard that Bernie threw you out of his house.”

  “Yes.” I felt the heat of embarrassment rise up in my cheeks again. “He thinks I might have killed Agnes. Then Officer Hampton took me down to the station for questioning.”

  “Yep,” she said and grabbed a cinnamon donut. “I heard all about that. This must be a nightmare. We need a plan. First things first, are you a person of interest?”

  “All he told me is that Agnes was killed by a tube of lip balm. And there was one of my labels in her hand so the assumption is that it was my lip balm that killed her.” I shuddered as I said it out loud. “Wow, I guess that means I am a person of interest.”

  “No, I’m not buying it,” Porsche said. “You need motive. Where’s your motive? I watch television. You need motive, means, and opportunity.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “You don’t have any of those things . . . well, maybe means.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would I use my own lip balm product to murder someone? No one will buy another lip balm from me. Besides, I want to know how he knew it was the lip balm that killed Agnes. He told me the lab wouldn’t get to the test results for days.”

  “Maybe they smelled bitter almonds around her mouth,” Porsche said. “Everyone has watched some television show where the victim is killed by poison and the hero smells almonds.”

  “So, I put almond oil in my balm,” I said.

  “Bitter almonds smell different than sweet almonds. Someone may have known the difference.”

  Confused, I asked, “How do you know what bitter almonds smell like?”

  “I was a biology major in school, with a botany minor.”

  I knew that, it was one of the reasons I hired Porsche. She knew as much about bees as I did. “Oh, right, did they teach that?”

  “One of the classes I took as an elective was on natural poisons,” she said and sipped her coffee. “I’ve had an interest ever since.”

  “So, if Agnes was killed by cyanide in the lip balm,” I said, “and most people know that cyanide smells like bitter almonds, why would she use it?”

  “Maybe she’s one of the one in four people who can’t detect it?”

  “How would the killer know that?” I asked. “None of this is ma
king sense. I thought maybe she was allergic to my bee products, but, if she was, then it would be considered an accidental death, right? I mean, I’m not liable for someone’s allergic reaction to my products. Everyone knows it contains bee by-products. It’s in the name of my shop.”

  I had intentionally named my shop “Let It Bee” so that people would remember it and understand immediately what the shop was all about. My interest in bees came about while visiting a friend’s farm. They had several beehives on the property to help pollinate their cherry trees. My friend had told me that there were beekeepers who rented beehives out to orchards and blueberry farms to ensure pollination. I found that really interesting. Then, while I was in college, the story was reported that bees were disappearing and dying all over the country, and I became all about the bee.

  I had my own hives that I rented out to local farmers. Of course I couldn’t keep them in town, but I had great contacts who were happy to rent out space on their land for hives.

  “I don’t know how the killer would know,” Porsche said, and then rested her elbows on my table and put her chin in her hands. “Maybe it was something else.”

  “I guess beeswax and almond oil would be great ways to apply a lethal dose of any poison, but most poisons are bitter and hard to mask. Besides, who, besides you, knows enough about poison to use it? And who wanted to kill Agnes?”

  “I think we need to find out the answers to those questions,” Porsche said. “Before you’re arrested for murder.”

  Havana Brown enthusiasts use the term

  “Chocolate Delights” when describing the beautiful

  chocolate brown cat with bright green eyes. The

  breed is known to be affectionate,

  intelligent, and sometimes mischievous.

  Chapter 4

  “I’m not a trial lawyer, Wren,” Bobby Hanson said as he took a seat across from me. Bobby had called me at 9 a.m. and asked me to come in and see him. “Not usually, anyway. I specialize in legal documents.”

  “You’re the only lawyer I know,” I said. “And then only through Aunt Eloise.”

  “Didn’t you need a lawyer when you started your business?”