Telling the Bees

by Peggy Hesketh

  The detective, who had flipped open his notebook and clicked his pen at the ready, took a great measured breath.

  “Well then, Mr. Honig, perhaps you can tell me this: When was the last time you saw our mysterious Mr. David Gilbert?”

  Eighteen

  ROYAL JELLY: A protein-rich secretion that comes from the hypopharyngeal glands of mature workers, it is fed to all worker bees for the first three days of their larval stage, but only to potential queens for the rest of their lives thereafter. It is the steady diet of this substance that turns the ordinary worker bee into a queen.

  Detective Grayson held the photograph up to my face again as if to prod my memory further, though I needed no such prompt. I could have told him without the slightest hesitation that it had been exactly eleven years four months three weeks and four days since I’d last set eyes on David Gilbert.

  “Why don’t we go back to the house?” I said at last, removing my gloves and laying them on the workbench next to my smoker can and brush. “It’s more comfortable inside. I’ll make us a pot of tea and we can talk.”

  “We can do that, Mr. Honig,” Detective Grayson said. “Just promise me you’ll play straight with me this time.”

  “I have never tried to deceive you, Detective.”

  “I didn’t say you did.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  Detective Grayson let out another long sigh that reminded me of the temperamental radiator in our family’s old Buick.

  “Did you know I’ve been with the police department for almost thirty years?”

  I admitted that I had not been aware of this fact.

  “Well, I have,” he said. “And I’m planning on retiring at the end of this year.”

  I was not sure whether to offer congratulations or condolences, but the detective gave me no time to decide. Instead, by way of impressing upon me a certain self-imposed deadline to his investigations, he proceeded to digress into a brief account of his plans to sell his house, buy several reasonably priced acres of land in Idaho, and perhaps take up fishing as a hobby.

  “If you’re looking for a retirement avocation, perhaps you should consider beekeeping. As Saint Ambrose discovered, beekeeping is an excellent way to develop the virtue of patience,” I said with no irony intended. I further told the detective that much like Saint Ambrose, he clearly possessed a keen sense of observation, which had served them both well in their chosen vocations.

  “Okay, Mr. Honig, you win.” The detective uttered a soft laugh—more of a grunt, really. He tapped the photograph one more time. “What do you say we just cut the chitchat and you tell me all about the last time you saw this guy?”

  In the dim light of the honey shed, David Gilbert’s scimitar grin flashed like a glint of steel across the dark contours of his face.

  “October 15, 1981,” I said at last. The detective slipped the photograph back into his jacket pocket and nodded, waiting for me to proceed, and so I did. I told him how I’d stopped by the Straussmans’ house that day to bring them a jar of freshly harvested honey and to tell Claire about a new brand of foundation frames I’d just read about in one of the mail-order catalogs I subscribed to.

  “I don’t believe the company that makes them is still in business, but I couldn’t say for sure as I haven’t had the need to order any new foundation frames in quite some time. Not since I made the acquaintance of young Mr. Sweeny,” I explained. “He lives about three or maybe four blocks from here, just past the railroad tracks. He’s really quite a fine carpenter, especially for this day and age. He builds custom cabinets for a living, I believe, but he has the wherewithal to construct foundation frames for me, and at a fair market price.”

  “Mr. Honig, if you don’t mind, we were talking about the last time you saw David Gilbert.”

  “Of course,” I said, removing a clean rag from a drawer in my workbench. I began to wipe down my smoker can, as was my habit before placing it on a shelf in my tool cabinet next to several cans of motor oil I always kept on hand for emergencies. A place for everything and everything in its place.

  “I was more than a bit surprised to see David Gilbert that day as he hadn’t been to the house for quite some time. Not since he graduated from high school.”

  The detective began to scribble in his notebook as he stood beside me.

  “To be quite honest, Detective, I’d always assumed David Gilbert would go away to college,” I said. “Of course in my day a high school diploma was considered a luxury.”

  “When was that, Mr. Honig?”

  “That would have been the Great Depression, Detective,” I said, “well before your time. Or David Gilbert’s, for that matter. Most of us did whatever we could to help support our families back then. Besides, there was a perfectly fine public library less than a mile down the road, my father used to say, so what did I need with school?”

  “But what about David Gilbert?”

  “Well, after the war it seemed like all the young boys couldn’t wait to leave the family farms and businesses to go off to college. And David Gilbert was such a bright boy, I naturally assumed that’s where he’d end up. But the fool went off half-cocked and joined the Marines just as soon as he turned eighteen.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, heavens, that would have been almost thirty years ago at least. Nineteen sixty-three at the latest?”

  “What happened to him then?” the detective prodded.

  “I believe he was stationed out of state for a spell. Texas, or Arizona, perhaps. Somewhere in the Southwest. If I recall correctly, he got married to a Mexican girl not too long after he reenlisted. Carmella or Carmelina, I believe her name was. Something like that. She wasn’t especially fluent in English, but she was quite a lovely girl. I only met her the one time, but I remember she had a sweet smile and a spark in her eyes such as I hadn’t seen since Claire was a young girl.”

  “Do you remember anything else about her or her family?”

  “Not really. But as I said, I hadn’t seen or heard anything about David Gilbert for quite some time, so I was a bit taken aback to find him and his family, sitting bold as you please, right there in the parlor with Claire and Hilda that day. He and Carmen—yes, I believe it was Carmen—they had a little girl with them. Tina or Tini, I think they called her. Just a slip of a thing, really. Straight dark hair like her mother’s and his, but fair-skinned and delicate. She was a pretty little thing. Quiet, but sharp. You know how you can just tell with some children, even if they don’t say anything, that they’re taking it all in.

  “As far as I could tell, they were all getting along just fine at first. Claire and Hilda had brought out the company tea set, and they were sitting around the parlor chatting about David Gilbert’s travels, and Carmen’s family, and then all at once Claire and him got into a horrible argument. The little girl had gone off with Hilda somewhere else in the house by the time David Gilbert and Claire started shouting back and forth at each other, until Carmen began to cry, and then he went looking for the little girl and as soon as he found her he gathered up their belongings and stormed out of the house with his wife and daughter and that’s the last I ever saw of him or his family. It was the last Claire or Hilda ever saw any of them either, as far as I know.”

  “As far as you know?” the detective repeated.

  “I can’t be certain,” I said, closing the door on my tool cabinet and turning back around to face the detective. “I never spoke another word to Claire or Hilda after that day.”

  I stepped past Detective Grayson and out into the sunlight again. I waited for him to follow, and then, locking the door of the honey shed behind me—a regrettable habit I’d acquired in recent years as the face of the neighborhood had begun to change—I ushered the detective across the yard.

  “So what was this fight all about?” the detective persisted.

  I considered how best to put my answer. I did not wish to air Claire’s dirty laundry in public if I did not have to.


  “They disagreed over the proper way to raise a child,” I said, which was true enough, and enough said as far as I was concerned.

  “Doesn’t seem like much to start a family feud over.”

  “I suppose not,” I said. “But Claire had a way of letting her emotions run away with her.”

  “So what about you?” the detective said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You say you never spoke to Claire after that day,” the detective pressed. “How come?”

  Again, I weighed my words as best I could. “Well, Detective Grayson,” I said, “let’s just say that I allowed myself to be dragged into the fray against my better judgment.”

  “Sort of stuck your nose in where it didn’t belong, eh?”

  “I suppose you could say that,” I replied. “Though, to be quite honest, I did so most unwillingly.”

  “Well, meaning no disrespect, Mr. Honig, but in my line of work I’ve found that despite what anybody says, people seldom do anything they don’t want to do.”

  “You may be right,” I acknowledged. “At least, in the general sense. But I can assure you I had no desire to meddle in the Straussman family’s affairs.”

  “I believe you, Mr. Honig,” Detective Grayson said. “I just have to wonder why you didn’t see fit to tell me about all this earlier?”

  “I was raised to believe that what went on between families in private should stay that way.”

  “Are you sure that’s the only reason?”

  What I was sure of was that Detective Grayson was sincere in his desire to solve this one last troubling case, that it would somehow be a satisfying coda to his long career. I could only hope he might allow me my own motivations.

  “If I thought for a moment that this long-ago spat had been germane to Claire’s murder, I assure you I would have been more forthcoming,” I said.

  “Well, how about from now on you just answer my questions and let me be the judge of what’s relevant?”

  It was a fair request. While I had not deliberately set out to mislead him, I had most certainly allowed him to proceed under some faulty assumptions through my guilty silence.

  I nodded my assent.

  “Okay, then,” the detective said, “what can you tell me about David Gilbert?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “I believe he was stationed at the Tustin Marine Base the last time I saw him, if that will help.”

  “I believe it will,” Detective Grayson said, his voice softening just a bit.

  “Please, let’s go inside where it’s warm,” I said. “I promise I’ll do my best to answer any more questions you have.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Taking the detective’s elbow in my hand, I turned him gently toward the house. As I mentioned before, I never did acquire any real fondness for tea, but the detective’s stomach seemed to be bothering him a bit, judging from the way he grimaced and grabbed at his belt from time to time as we walked. Though having no love of tea for tea’s sake alone, I suggested that a soothing pot of chamomile might do us both a world of good.

  “I should warn you now,” I said as we reached the foot of the porch stairs, “I really don’t know much more about David Gilbert than what I’ve already told you.”

  “We’ll see,” he said as he followed me up onto the porch and through my back door. Once inside the kitchen, the good detective at first declined my offer of toast and honey. But I insisted.

  “It’s eucalyptus,” I said, setting the jar down on the kitchen table next to the plate of buttered toast I had prepared while the water was boiling. “Do you take cream?”

  “No thanks,” he said. “I don’t care for it.”

  “Nor do I,” I said. “I prefer a spot of honey to sweeten my cup. Would you care for some?”

  The detective shrugged. I took his indifference as acquiescence.

  “David Gilbert loved honey on toast,” I said. “I believe that’s why Claire took up beekeeping herself. And by that I mean not just helping us out, which she had been doing on and off since we were adolescents, but taking on hives of her own. That came many years later. She must have been in her mid-twenties by then. Both her parents were still alive, as I recall, but they didn’t get around as well as they used to. Not that they ever spent too much time out in the orchard even when they were able. Mr. and Mrs. Straussman weren’t what you would call out-of-doors types. But then again, neither was Claire, except when it came to bees. My father and I helped Claire set up her first hive, way out there beyond the almond trees,” I said, pointing to the north end of the Straussmans’ orchard, where patches of weeds, nut hulls, and rotted fruit littered the ground.

  The detective’s eyes followed the direction of my gesture. Then he pulled his battered notebook back out of his jacket pocket, where I assume he had replaced it during our walk from the honey shed to the house, and he set it down next to his teacup.

  “It was the eucalyptus honey that did it,” I said, placing a chamomile tea bag in his cup and mine.

  “Did what?”

  “Why, it’s what got everything started,” I replied. “Claire decided she wanted a hive of her own right after David Gilbert’s first taste of eucalyptus honey. It was from a jar I’d given her on her previous birthday—shortly after the war, I believe. No, on second thought, it would have had to have been a bit later than that because David Gilbert wasn’t born until the war was almost over and Claire didn’t start keeping her own hives until he was at least five years old.”

  The detective opened his notebook, and I poured hot water into his teacup and mine. We sat for a moment, allowing the fragrant steam to rise from our cups. I dipped my teaspoon into the jar of eucalyptus honey I’d set on the table and stirred a dollop into the detective’s cup and then another into my own. The aroma was intoxicating. I let my mind wander.

  “I want to surprise him,” Claire had confided. My parents had gone off to church, while I stayed home to clean up the breakfast dishes. Claire had come knocking on our back door just as I was wiping the last plate dry. She seemed surprised when I opened our back door.

  “Is your father home?” she’d stammered. “Or your mother?”

  “No. It’s Sunday,” I said.

  “Of course.” Her shoulders drooped just a bit as she turned to go.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” I said. Holding the door open with my shoulder, I wiped my hands dry with the dish towel.

  “No. No, thank you, Albert.” She started down the porch steps, but then stopped and turned.

  “Do you know how much your father would charge me for one of his beehives?”

  “Goodness, Claire, we couldn’t take your money,” I said, regretting my words as soon as I saw Claire’s jaw begin to set.

  “I don’t need your charity.”

  “Of course not, Claire,” I said. I stepped out onto the porch, letting the door swing softly closed behind me. “It’s just that my family has always believed that bees should never be bought or sold for money. Bees may be acquired through trade, however, and I am sure that providing you with a starter hive and the basic equipment you’ll need would constitute more than fair trade for the all the labor you’ve freely given on our bees’ behalf over the years.”

  This last pronouncement seemed to sufficiently mollify Claire.

  “There’s a nice clearing, out beyond our almond grove,” she said, the barest hint of a smile beginning to play at the edges of her lips. “This is where I want the hive to go.”

  What she didn’t say was that this particular clearing was as far away from her family’s house as physically possible and still be located within the Straussmans’ property lines. Since this was hardly the most convenient placement, I’d naturally assumed it had been chosen to preempt any objections from her parents.

  “We’ll bring everything over this evening after dinner,” I said, feeling rather pleased with myself.

  “I’ll meet you in the grove at seven,” Clai
re said.

  Though I was the junior partner in our family’s beekeeping enterprise, my father heartily endorsed the independent arrangement I’d just made when he returned home from church later that afternoon.

  I had assumed that Claire would bring David Gilbert with her since he had been the inspiration for her sudden decision to acquire her own hive. Yet when my father and I arrived at the clearing at the appointed time, we found Hilda standing silently by Claire’s side instead. I noticed that when she saw that my father had come with me, Claire’s demeanor visibly softened. It was a funny thing. Though Claire was by this time a grown woman who usually projected a hardened air of self-sufficiency, whenever my father was present she tended to remind me of the wonder-struck girl who’d just touched her first swarm.

  “Hilda’s offered to help me tend our hive,” Claire said in that way she had of closing off all further discussion with a simple declarative sentence. Hilda smiled rather nervously, but she nodded her assent, more to her sister than either my father or myself. I was about to wonder aloud whether Hilda’s offer had been as voluntary as Claire made it out to be when I caught a sharp look from my father that stayed any further comment. Perhaps such filial deference from a grown man such as myself might seem strange today, but in my day respect for one’s elders did not come with an expiration date. Nor did common courtesy.

  My father told Hilda he was glad that she’d decided to join in Claire’s enterprise, and with that we began unfastening the ropes we’d used to secure the hive and equipment to the old wooden pushcart we generally used to haul loads of full supers from our outlying hives to our honey shed. My father explained that he was confident we would be able to acquire a replacement swarm over the coming season and so he’d decided to give Claire one of our established hives rather than a small nucleus brood and queen as I’d assumed he would.