by Abigail Keam
Larry nodded.
“I bet they shared confidences with you that they would not share with anyone else as you are retired FBI. You know, buddy-buddy stuff. I bet they told you that they suspected adrenaline poisoning had been used on Richard,” I said, looking closely at Larry.
His face remained that of a poker champ but his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “I didn’t dime on you,” he said evenly under his breath while scanning the room around the room.
“No, you didn’t, but you dimed on them. You figured out what had happened from what they told you, and you warned Tellie. You came to the memorial service and handed her a note to leave town.”
Larry smiled at his wife, Brenda, who glanced at him while talking to Matt. She was flushed and seemingly happy with his attention. “You’re one for the cuckoo’s nest.”
I smiled at Brenda too. Matt was apparently ratcheting up the charm dial. “I don’t think so. She knew too much about how to disappear. Even someone as smart as Tellie would need help with that.” I paused. “Was Richard an FBI informant?”
Larry leaned down his face and kissed me on the cheek. “This conversation is at an end. Read something other than mysteries. It’s affecting your mind.”
“Kiss my big, white fanny, Larry.”
He laughed. “If I wasn’t in mothballs, I’d take you up on that.” He walked over to his wife, who was rubbing Matt’s arm much too often.
Now seated in the parlor around the fireplace, the others carried on a lively conversation about murder for almost an hour. I sat in a sulk next to Larry, who steered our conversation every which way except to the topic I wanted to talk about. After seeing Matt slip June his business card, I rose and announced our departure.
Meriah extended her hand towards mine. “It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope someday soon you will give me a tour of the famous Butterfly House.”
“You’re staying?”
“Yes, if June will put me up. I want to write my next book about murder in Kentucky. I shall have to be here to do extensive research,” she said, looking playfully at me.
“Oh, boy,” I murmured. “Matt, take me home.”
Matt gave June a peck on the cheek and made our excuses. I was tipsy, I admit, but that didn’t keep my mind from wondering what Larry had given Tellie at the funeral.
26
I wanted the death of Richard Pidgeon behind me and forgotten. I surely did not want a famous mystery writer poking around. This weighed heavily on my mind as Matt let me off at the front door while he parked the van. If I hadn’t been half drunk I might have noticed that the front door wasn’t locked. If I hadn’t been immersed in Meriah Caldwell’s remarks, I would have picked up sooner that something was amiss. In the distance, I heard Baby howling from somewhere in the house. That alone should have caused me to wait for Matt, but I didn’t. I walked right into the living room, where Franklin was seated with his hands nicely folded in his lap with his lips tightly pursed.
“Why is Baby in the pantry?” I asked, pretty pissed off. It was then I noticed my cache of hidden tasers piled in the middle of the living room floor along with their batteries. It was only then that I turned to run when something cold and hard poked in my back.
“Too late now,” said a flat, but familiar voice.
I suddenly became quite sober. “What’s this all about, O’nan?”
“We’re going to have a little party – you, me and this funny boy here. Are you alone?”
“Yes. Left Matt off at the cabana. I am supposed to send Franklin to him,” I lied.
“Good, now I want you to sit next to your boyfriend there. Nice and easy. We are going to have a little chat.”
On wobbly legs, I walked over to the couch and sat next to Franklin, who was slightly trembling – or was that me. Once seated, I ventured a look at O’nan. He was dressed in a dirty T-shirt and jeans with the knees worn out. On his feet were flip-flops. His eyes were bloodshot, and his handsome face looked dirty from beard stubble. It didn’t look sexy on him. O’nan held a black Glock nine mm and carelessly scratched his face with its barrel. I knew what kind of gun it was as my daughter carried one just like it. O’nan looked edgy.
“What do you want?”
“An accounting of sorts. We are going to discuss how many times you’ve screwed with me.”
“Let Franklin go,” I demanded. “If he doesn’t go show up, Matt will come looking for him.”
O’nan sneered. “Good, let him come.” O’nan brandished his gun. “I’ve got something for that queer too.”
Upon hearing my voice, Baby increased his howling and
scratched frantically on the pantry door.
“Can’t you shut that dog up?” complained O’nan.
I stood. “Let me put Baby outside. Then you can’t hear him.”
O’nan grinned. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Opening the door so you could sic that monster on me.”
“No, you got it wrong,” I pleaded. “Let me put Baby out so we can talk. Baby, shut up!” I yelled.
O’nan waved me back. “I’m gonna take care of this. Now you both just sit still cause I can see you from the kitchen.” O’nan moved towards the pantry.
Franklin grabbed my hands looking at me wide-eyed. “What’s he going to do? Where is Matt?”
Before I could answer, O’nan yelled at the pantry door. “Hey, shut up in there. Shut up, you stupid mutt!” O’nan kicked the pantry door, causing Baby to throw himself against it, trying desperately to get out.
“O’nan, your beef is with me,” I yelled over the dog’s antics. “Let Franklin take him out.”
“Sit down. I’ll take care of this O’nan style.” He raised his gun.
Franklin and I shouted pleas for O’nan to stop but he fired three bullets through the pantry door. I screamed. When I stopped screaming, I realized that Franklin was crying and hugging a pillow to his stomach. He had vomited on the floor.
O’nan walked back into the living room with a cocky grin in his face.
“Why?” I asked. “That dog was locked up. He couldn’t cause you any harm.”
Sitting on the arm of the couch, O’nan swung a leg over my lap. “Well, you see. It’s like this. You took something from me. Now I’m taking something from you. Makes us kind of even.”
I wiped tears away. “What do you want?” I whispered.
“You know,” O’nan said, “after that lady lawyer of yours filed a complaint against me, I was reviewed by Internal Affairs. Yes, indeed, I was. And you know what? I got demoted. I won’t lose my pension. I won’t lose any pay but I won’t ever make primary detective again – not once something like that goes into a file.” He pointed to himself. “My file.” He pressed his foot into the meat of my leg. “I figure you owe me something - like a pound of flesh. You know, to make things even between us.”
I winced from the pain but didn’t respond. My mind was working frantically but I couldn’t resolve this. How was I going to get out of this one? Had I sinned by letting Tellie go and this was my punishment? Or was this just random cosmic crap? He had Franklin and me cornered . . . but good.
“Hey, faggot!” yelled O’nan reaching across with his leg and poking Franklin with his big toe.
Franklin continued hugging his pillow and wouldn’t look at O’nan.
O’nan laughed. “That’s okay. I know you’re scared. I would be too. Hey, Josiah, why do you hang out with nancy boys instead of real men? You got all those rich society friends, but you hang out with two queers and a really nasty black medusa. Oh, I am sorry – African American. Yeah, can’t offend anyone, can we?”
I looked remorsefully at my pile of tasers. I should have done a better job of hiding them. “Maybe because they don’t hold me at gunpoint in my own house and shoot my dog,” I answered remorsefully.
Looking thoughtful for a moment, O’nan shook his head. “Naw, that’s not it.”
“You’re high on something. You are not thinking straight,” I said tryin
g to reason with O’nan. “You are going to regret this. Why don’t you go into my bedroom and get some sleep? When you wake up in the morning, we can talk about this some more.”
O’nan brandished the gun around my head. “But that’s just it, Josiah. There’s not going to be a tomorrow for you. Don’t you get it? Do I have to expain . . . explain, oh hell, everything to you?”
My eyes widened in fear, but I kept talking. “See, you’re so high, you can’t even speak correctly. Let’s everyone calm down. I’ll fix us all something to eat. Then you’ll feel better.” I rose, knocking O’nan’s feet to the floor.
Furious, O’nan grabbed my hair and pushed me to the floor. I screamed while reaching up and scratching his hands. Suddenly I heard a crash and was released. I looked up. Franklin had smashed my 1952 Blenko glass vase on O’nan’s head. O’nan was down for the count – or so we thought.
Franklin yanked me up, nearly pulling my arm out of its socket. We ran towards the front door but the sound of gunfire made us dive behind the kitchen buffet counter. Covering our heads, we lay splayed on the floor as a spray of bullets hailed over us. Then it was quiet. I peeked around the counter. O’nan was struggling to reload, fumbling with the clip. “Now,” I cried as Franklin and I scrambled towards the front door. But we weren’t fast enough.
I heard Franklin scream out in pain as he took a bullet in the shoulder. I turned my head as blood spurted in my face. I froze. Franklin slid down slowly. He was in shock. I reached for his good arm and began to drag him. Then I heard O’nan next to me.
“Tsk, tsk, Josiah,” he said, gleefully pressing the gun against my temple. “If you don’t stop this moment, I’ll have to finish him off.”
I dropped Franklin’s arm instantly. It fell with a thud on the slate floor. I didn’t know how many bullets O’nan had reloaded into his gun, but even one more bullet was enough.
“You’re nuts,” I said quietly. “Are you really going to play all the way to the end, or do you just want to torture us for a while?”
Bending over to look at an unconscious Franklin, O’nan said, “I think we have passed the playful stage, don’t you? Yeah, I think it is all the way to the end.” He began pacing back and forth in front of me, sometimes stumbling over Franklin’s legs. O’nan had lost his flip-flops and was walking barefoot.
I got a bright idea. “Let me call Goetz. He will know what to do.” I was really hoping that Matt had already called the police and they were on the way. I just had to stall O’nan.
“That putz. I hate his guts. He never said anything but I could tell he thought I was bungling the Pidgeon case. Some of the guys told me that he said that I was overly anxious to turn it into a murder case when it was just a simple heart attack.” O’nan leaned into me. “But we know better, don’t we, honey.” He winked at me.
Suddenly the lights went out. Matt had turned off the electricity. No one knew my house better than I, so I pushed O’nan away and turned to the left, knowing that he was pounding behind me. Slamming doors, I made a beeline towards my bedroom hoping to get enough time to lock its steel door, but he was right on my heels. I could feel O’nan reaching for me. Rushing through the bedroom, I thanked God the sliding glass door was open. Bursting through the screen door, I scratched my skin to shreds. I didn’t stop, though, and ran around the pool when I slipped, plunging into the water. I am not ashamed to say that I peed in my pants from fear. Bobbing to the surface, I coughed up water.
O’nan grabbed my hair again and began to dunk me in the deep end of the pool. Panicking, I struggled to free myself from his grasp until I felt faint. When I ceased resisting, I could hear O’nan laughing manically. He pulled me out of the water by my hair.
“Sweet Lord,” I prayed, “help me, please.” A warm breeze played over my face and my mind calmed with acceptance. This wasn’t just about me. This was about saving Franklin and Matt, who had their lives ahead of them, and perhaps Baby, if he was not dead. It was about leaving my daughter with the legacy that I went down swinging – that I fought to the bitter end.
O’nan was stronger and taller, but I had one advantage. I was forty, perhaps fifty pounds heavier than he - and I was going to use it now. O’nan pulled me up. Finding some leverage with the pool’s concrete ledge, I pressed my weight down, suddenly thrusting against O’nan while digging my head and shoulder into his gut. He grunted. With all my might, I pushed against him. He lost his balance and grabbing onto me, we both fell over the precipice towards the forbidding Kentucky River. Pushing O’nan’s hands away, I reached for branches of young trees growing from cracks in the palisades. I hit a ledge, knocking the breath out of me. Feeling pain rocket through my shivering body, I began gasping for air as an asthma attack started. I couldn’t even call out. The pain was too much. I was starting to black out. There was only so much punishment my poor arthritic body could take. It was over. I could have used that Catholic priest now – yes, we are all here for a short time. Resigned to meet my maker, I faintly heard Matt calling and the distant sounds of sirens. And then nothing.
Epilogue
It was an hour after dawn. Mist still hung near the beehives and the grass shimmered from the dew. Matt pushed through the tall grass noting that he needed to mow the pathways to the beeyard again. Pulling his dinner jacket’s collar up around his neck, he tried to keep the early morning chill from escaping down his neck. Matt’s hands shook as he smoothed the dinner jacket, which was white with various stains of reddish, brown from blood and dirt. The blood was not his own but from his best friend’s and his lover’s. The dirt was from trying to climb down a cliff to reach a dying woman.
How could his life have unraveled in such a short span of time? Eight hours ago, he was sitting in a rich woman’s parlor while sipping on smooth whisky and chatting with beautiful women. Tears formed in his eyes. After so many years of being rootless, his parents dying while still young, Matt had found a home with Josiah and love with Franklin. Was all that lost now?
Matt straightened his shoulders and faced the hives. He had a duty to perform. “Ladies, ladies, wake up,” he called. He scanned the opening to the hives but saw no honeybees peeking out. It would be some hours before they would be active, but he hoped that he would be napping. Matt had to catch a few hours of sleep before he went back to the hospital.
Matt sighed. Hoping he wouldn’t get stung, Matt ran around to the back of the hives and banged on their covers. He jogged fifteen feet in front of the hives. Hearing their angry buzzing, Matt smiled in spite of himself. Bending down, he could see guards and worker bees peeking out. Someone was going to pay for disturbing them at this ungodly hour. A few flew into the cool air, but feeling the chill turned back to the warmth of their hives.
“Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got something important to tell you,” Matt called out to them. “Something terrible has happened. Josiah was attacked and is in bad shape. The doctors don’t know if she is going to make it or not.” Matt stopped and cleared his throat. “The reason I am telling you this is that Josiah made me promise that if anything happened to her – I was to tell you. So I am. If this is some sort of magic thing between a beekeeper and her bees, then do your hoodoo stuff. She needs it. Okay?” Matt could see that most of the bees had gone back up into the hive. “I don’t want you to worry. I will be taking care of you . . . for now.”
Matt rubbed his face, his skin feeling heavy from fatigue, and made his way back to the Butterfly. He hoped that the cops had finished. He would check on the house and then go to his little shack to get some sleep. Later, he would call a cleaning service to clean up the mess and blood once the house was released from investigation. He stood up on tiptoes to look down the hill at the Butterfly. He could still see a few police cars in the driveway. Goetz was outside leaning against a post smoking a cigarette. He still had his pajama top on but it was tucked into his pants like a regular
shirt. Resigned that sleep was maybe still hours away, Matt stumbled down the gentle sloping Bluegrass hill
towards the Butterfly. He needed to find out what was going on. Trying to climb out of his mental fog, Matt knew he needed to sit down and make a list of what needed to be done. The executive director at the Farmers’ Market would need to be notified first. Then Shaneika needed to be contacted. He would make the calls when he got to the Butterfly. The cell in his pocket was dead.
The wind began to whip furiously. Hearing the roar of rotating blades, Matt looked up to see a black MIL MI helicopter descending into the adjoining field. The whirlybird landed with a thud. As Matt ran towards it waving, the door slid open and a tall woman in dark clothing jumped out. The woman, seemingly unconcerned with the motion behind her, waited patiently. Her tight expression was one of concern and anger.
Behind her, three men peered out from the black bird. Their severe expressions were mirrored on the shiny guns in their leather shoulder holsters. After the blades died down, the men began pulling out trunks filled with military-looking equipment. Matt saw the men put on rappelling equipment.
“The cliffs are that way. If you find him alive, bring him to me before you give him to the police. Same if dead,” she barked. “I want him bad.”
Matt watched the men take off for the palisades and knew there was going to be hell to pay for this fiasco, all the way down the line, starting with the police. Everyone involved was going to have a piece of his ass chewed off. Josiah’s daughter had just come home.
