The Murder of a Queen Bee

by Meera Lester

  “So . . . in late February, Fiona went exploring on Doc Danbury’s property, looking for wild mustard. There’s also a forty-acre parcel that shares a boundary with the doc’s land at the back, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, the doc told Fiona about the caretaker’s cabin but assured her that no one lived back there anymore, so she felt safe searching alone for wild herbs. She’d gone pretty far when she wandered upon the creek and figured she’d also look for mushrooms and native herbs along its shady banks. She heard a twig snap. She said she spun around and was shocked to see a man watching her. He stood about six feet tall, had salt-and-pepper hair and a scruffy beard, and was dressed in a blue flannel shirt and stained jeans. She noticed one of his work boots had been wrapped in duct tape. He carried a pickax.”

  “Hold on,” Kat said. “Was he working back there? Clearing the creek, building something?”

  “Fiona didn’t say, but she told me she wasn’t afraid, at least not at first,” said Abby. “They talked a bit, and then he became aggressive. He dropped the ax, lunged at her, and tried to drag her toward his cabin. She screamed and fought, and they fell. She threw dirt in his eyes and wrenched herself free.” Abby caught her breath and swallowed hard, realizing how far-fetched the story sounded.

  “Was that when she hit him with the pickax?” Kat said.

  “Yes. After she had wrestled free, she grabbed the ax, took a wild swing, and hit his head. She said blood gushed out. The man staggered and fell. She said she ran all the way home and pounded on the doc’s door.”

  “What did Dr. Danbury do?”

  “Nothing. He didn’t answer the knock. Fiona said he often drank a lot. Maybe he’d passed out.”

  Kat cleared her throat. “And then what did Fiona do?”

  “Retreated inside her cottage,” said Abby. “After that, she added a couple of new slider locks on the inside of her cottage door, but she still didn’t feel safe . . . so she moved into her store for a while and slept on a fold-up cot in her office.”

  Abby waited for Kat’s next question, but Kat remained silent. She had to be pondering the merits of Fiona’s story.

  After a moment, Abby said, “You know, she felt guilty for leaving the man bleeding like that and not knowing how badly he might be wounded. But, Kat, she feared for her life. I think that same man just sideswiped me less than an hour ago. Clearly, Fiona didn’t kill him.”

  Kat cleared her throat. “I’m not convinced the two incidents are linked. And given that Fiona is gone, the story you’ve just relayed is hearsay, as you well know.”

  “I believed her,” said Abby. “If you could have seen her . . . hands shaking, her lip trembling. It was like she was living through it all again. But, listen, I need you to run that plate. My situation at the moment is dicey.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Abby. Don’t tell me you followed him home.”

  Abby chewed her bottom lip. “He might be squatting in that caretaker’s cabin.”

  Kat maintained a calm tone but exhaled a heavy sigh. “You see, this is what Chief Bob Allen was talking about, for crying out loud.”

  Abby recited the license plate number for Kat. “Sorry. I wouldn’t ask, but . . .” Abby tried to think of some humble pie thing to say or offer to do for Kat.

  “Oh, just hang on a sec,” Kat muttered.

  Abby waited in silence.

  Momentarily, Kat spoke again. “The registered owner is Timothy Joseph Kramer. It’ll take me a few more minutes to cross-reference to see if he has any prior contact history with law enforcement.”

  “I’ll wait.” It was a relief to know that Kat still had her back.

  Abby stared at the cabin door. For a split second, she thought she detected movement. Yes, the screen door inched open. The man stepped out. He held a rifle. Abby’s heart pounded in double time as she watched the man lift the gun to his shoulder and take aim at the 3:00 position. Then, to her horror, the man swung the barrel around and pointed it straight at her.

  Abby dropped the phone. She thrust the Jeep gear into reverse and backed up. Cranking the steering wheel to the right, she floored the gas pedal. The crack of a gunshot rang out. She instinctively dodged. Ignoring the dips in the road, which thrust her body and Sugar’s upward with such intensity that her head banged on the car’s ceiling, Abby pressed on. One thought occupied her mind: Get away from that nutcase as fast as you can.

  She drove to the main road and steered in the direction of Fiona’s cottage. Approaching a turnout, Abby pulled off the road, taking comfort in the line of cars now passing her. Sugar panted hard. Who could blame her? Poor thing had experienced nothing but pandemonium this morning. Abby gave her a vigorous rub on her neck and back.

  “Whew! That was close, baby girl. Remind me not to follow a rat into its hole when there is only one way out.”

  Kat came back on the line. “Abby? You there?”

  Abby picked up the phone. “Yes.”

  “Sorry that took so long.”

  “Listen, Kat, he got a gun from inside that cabin.”

  “Gun? He’s armed?”

  “And dangerous. Took a shot at me.”

  “Abby, get out of there. Now. I’ll send a couple of officers to pick him up. Says here Kramer has a warrant for assault and breaking and entering. I’ve already notified the county sheriff.”

  Abby breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Listen, I can meet your officers if you like.”

  “Not necessary. What I want is for you to get off that mountain. There’s no point in you staying in harm’s way. We’ve got the doc’s address, and one of the officers I’m sending grew up not far from there.”

  “Right. Listen . . . it’s good to know you’ve still got my back,” said Abby.

  Now wouldn’t be the time to tell Kat that Abby hadn’t yet finished her business in the mountains. There was still the location of Fiona’s car to check out. The police would have collected the car, of course, and taken it to the impound lot. But a visit to a crime scene could produce intangibles, such as a feeling, an intuitive insight, or a previously overlooked connection.

  Sugar hunkered down on the seat; her large brown eyes focused on Abby. The dog whined.

  “You put up with a lot today, sweetie pie. I promise I’m going to make it up to you.”

  After driving past the landmark red barn, Abby took the next cutoff to Kilbride Lake. She knew Fiona hadn’t filed a report against Timothy Kramer, but she wondered if the assault on Fiona had been the only contact between the two. Might Timothy Kramer have had the motive to kill Fiona? Had he been stalking her? Was that why Fiona had wanted to talk to Abby and Kat? Had Fiona believed that she needed police protection from Kramer?

  Abby put Sugar on the leash, and they took a long walk along the old Indian trail still used by the canal patrol officers and forest rangers. When Sugar seemed sufficiently exhausted and had slurped her fill of water, Abby secured the leash with an extension that allowed Sugar to rest in the dappled sunlight. Ambling away from Sugar and the Jeep toward where Fiona’s car had been found, Abby walked slowly, eyes on the ground. She had not gone far when her cell went off. She didn’t recognize the number. But after the call clicked off, she listened to the message. The volume of the man’s voice rose only slightly above the din in his background. “Hope you got my postcard, Abby. It’s been a while . . . way too long. Can’t wait to see you. You know who this is, right?”

  She stiffened. Her heart galloped. Oh, she knew who it was, all right. Hearing Clay Calhoun’s husky voice took her instantly back to Valentine’s Day the year before, when he’d left her in shock because he’d accepted a job on the East Coast. After planting a perfunctory kiss on Abby’s cheek—as though he’d be home by dinner—Clay had driven off into his new life. Around the edges of her heart for months afterward, Abby had felt an inner wound that no herbal poultice could heal.

  Her thoughts raced. What postcard? There had been nothing from him since he left. And what did he mean b
y “Can’t wait to see you”?

  Abby shook her head in dismay. Who knows what he meant by that? She congratulated herself for not taking the call. Talking with Clay would only confound her; it would be too confusing, and it was a conversation she didn’t want to have. Right now, she had murder on her mind.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, Abby arrived at her mailbox on Farm Hill Road. After pulling down the hatch of the metal box with the chicken on top, she reached in and retrieved the contents, then flipped through the bills and the assorted junk mail. Then she saw it—the postcard. Her stomach knotted. Inhaling and letting go a long exhale, she flipped over the picture of Seattle’s Space Needle to read the sprawling handwriting on the reverse. Large-size letters, big ego—that was Clay.

  The memory of her heart breaking flooded her thoughts. The back of her eyes burned with tears, as if Clay’s good-bye were happening all over again in the present moment. A little voice inside her head whispered, You don’t have to read it now. She tossed the mail onto the seat and drove forward, wheels crunching on the gravel. After rolling to a stop, Abby got out and let Sugar race to gulp from her water bowl just inside the gate. She followed Sugar through the gate to the patio table facing the back of the property and the acre behind. Tossing the mail onto the patio table, she sank into a chair. Sugar barked and pawed at the door.

  “No, sweetie. We’re not going inside just yet. Get down now. Down. Let me rest here for a few minutes.”

  Sugar was relentless with the barking and pawing, so Abby walked to the aluminum garbage can at the corner of the patio, removed the lid and a rawhide bone, and tossed the bone across the yard. With Sugar chasing after it, Abby tried once more to relax, sinking into the chair.

  The breeze stirred the hollow copper rods of a wind chime that had been harmonically tuned to play an ecclesiastical-sounding melody. Clasping her hands behind her head, she leaned back, closed her eyes, and drank in the sounds of the farmette’s healing presences. Contented chickens clucked as they scratched in the dirt. A blue jay screeched as it flitted from the firethorn bush to the olive tree. Squirrels chattered their kuk-kuk-kuk as they scampered along the roof. Sugar whined, apparently wanting Abby to get up and play. After such a harrowing day, here, at last, was bliss.

  Abby’s thoughts drifted, but soon something she had seen moments ago began to trouble her. Then a realization took hold. The vertical blinds at the sliding glass door were closed. She had left them pushed back when she and Sugar had departed for the feed store. But she remembered locking the door. Suddenly, alarm bells sounded. Eyes flew open. Panic ensued. To close those blinds, someone had to have gone inside. Maybe was still in there.

  Adrenaline pumping, she sucked in a deep breath and let it go. Abby rose slowly and crept to the fence, where she’d left a steel flat-headed tamper used to flatten the earth when patching the lawn. With the tamper raised in an assault position, she reached for the patio door handle, quietly pushed the door along the track, and stepped through the long blinds.

  In the middle of the kitchen stood a hot pink six-drawer tool cabinet on locked wheels. A drill in a matching shade of pink and its charger rested on top of the open toolbox atop the cabinet. Frowning, Abby placed the flat-headed tamper on the floor next to the double ovens, took a step forward, and studied the toolbox. “What in the world? Who would . . . ?”

  “Like it?” asked a familiar husky voice emerging from the bedroom hallway.

  Abby looked up at her intruder, feeling her body shake against her will. “Darn it all, Clay! You’re as crazy as ever. There’s a law against breaking and entering. I could have killed you!” She knew deep down she would have let him in, had she been there, but it angered her that he was in her house without her permission.

  She stared at him. Dressed in a white polo and jeans, he looked tan and fit, and taller somehow than his five feet, eleven inches, but he still exuded that rugged vitality and those good looks, which she’d always found irresistible. The smile had evaporated off his face, but as he strode into the kitchen, those dark eyes still beamed with excitement at seeing her.

  Sugar came bounding in through the open door. In an unusually vocal defense of Abby, she sounded a high-pitched alarm. Now Abby understood why the dog had made such a ruckus before. Sugar had known someone had come onto the property and had entered the house.

  “I see you got a new protector,” Clay said, crouching and holding out his open palm for Sugar to smell.

  The dog backed up and barked nonstop.

  “I’m a friend, not a foe,” Clay said in a tone that clearly conveyed a calm self-confidence. But Sugar was having none of his small talk.

  “It’s okay, Sugar Pie,” Abby said. She wheeled the tool cabinet aside, and Clay stood up. In one swift movement, he reached out and tenderly touched the hair at Abby’s temple, letting a finger pull forth a reddish-gold curl.

  Abby froze.

  He clasped a hand beneath her chin and tilted her face upward. “I’ve missed you, woman.” He leaned in for a kiss, but a quick maneuver enabled Abby to avert it. She turned toward the slider.

  “We can’t do this, Clay,” Abby said, unable to face him. “Over a year of not hearing from you.” Her voice cracked. She busied her shaking hands with opening the blinds.

  Sugar sniffed Clay’s loafers, his socks, and pant legs before retreating backward a few steps. She gave another fierce yip, yip, yip, as if to say, “You don’t get a pass yet, mister.” After running past Clay to the bedroom, the dog quickly returned, then gave a final yip as she trotted outside.

  Abby left the slider ajar but slid the screen door shut. She watched Sugar chase a butterfly to the back fence, where the ten-foot Sally Holmes spilled over in a perfusion of blooms. A memory came flooding back to Abby of her planting the rose from canes Clay had gotten from a neighbor after she first bought the farmette. She shook off the memory and wondered how Clay had managed to get himself and the tool cabinet to her place. Maybe by taxi, since his truck wasn’t on the property? But the question remained, but how did he get in? The realization came suddenly. He must have used his old key. Abby mentally chastised herself for not changing the locks, but what was the point now? The more pressing question was, why had he come back?

  “I always told you one day I’d have to go, Abby. I never lied about that. But, Abby . . . Abby, turn around. Look at me.”

  He stood near enough for Abby to smell the soft notes of his Armani cologne. Like it or not, her body had longed for his presence. His hand stroked her hair, pulled the elastic band from the ponytail, letting her curls tumble loose, and then taking hold of her shoulder, he spun her around to face him. With both of his hands on her shoulders, she had nowhere to run.

  Galvanized by the intensity of his gaze, Abby struggled to quiet her heart—make it still and unfeeling.

  “If I could ever promise anyone a lifetime, Abby, it would be you. You are like a root of one of your plants, deep and strong and stable.”

  Abby felt her cheeks color under his gaze and waited for the but . . . and the excuse that would surely follow.

  “But my spirit is restless. It’s a curse,” he said. He released his grip on her shoulders and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Abby, you awake each day with the certain knowledge that you are exactly where you belong. But for me it’s the opposite. Four walls are thresholds I have to break through. I wish I could settle. Why do you think I choose work that takes me all over God’s creation? I keep thinking I’ll find that one place where I belong. Put down roots. But I don’t. I can’t. I guess I’m flawed that way.”

  Despite her best efforts at control, Abby’s heart hammered. “But what you did, it . . . was unthinkable. We never talked about your leaving. I thought you were happy here. And I thought you’d at least write or call or stay in touch. At least that.”

  Rubbing a palm over his cleanly shaven cheek, he spoke in a tone tinged with emotion. “I’m here now.”

  The ache in her chest moved to h
er throat. Abby swallowed against the lump that had formed. She pushed back. “It’s not that simple, Clay. We can’t just pick up and carry on like nothing happened. Why did you even come back?”

  His face took on a tortured look. He swallowed. “The truth?”

  “Of course, the truth,” she said, her tone rising. “Always the truth.”

  “It’s pretty simple. I tried living without you. It turned out to be harder than I ever imagined. I hoped that you’d forgiven me, that maybe you’d give me another chance.”

  Abby felt a shudder pass through her. “Just like that? You didn’t think to check with me before just showing up? Before breaking into my house?”

  “I didn’t break in. I used to live here, remember? And I could never part with the key. Call it fate or whatever, but my inability to give it back maybe suggests that deep down I wanted us to have another chance.”

  “And how do you know I haven’t moved on, Clay? Found someone else who makes me happy? You don’t know, and yet you waltz in here like that could never happen.”

  His eyes registered hurt. “Is there someone else?”

  Abby sighed. “That’s not the point.”

  When he spoke next, his tone seemed tinged with regret and longing. “I kept thinking about the way we used to dance through this old house before we got the flooring in—from the front door right out the back and into the field. We danced under the moon and danced even when there was no moon. I thought a lot about our dreams of building that wine cave, planting wine grapes, laying a massive stone courtyard, and filling it with pots of lime trees. You know, like those trees that shade the gardens of that place you always talked about wanting to visit in France.”

  “The Midi,” she said. “Where they filmed Chocolat.”

  A hint of a grin flashed across his face. “So they’re still showing films like that at Cineflicks, are they? That place is probably the only theater in small-town America that still serves homemade treats at the concession stand.”

  It was a point of civic pride for Abby, but she said nothing, knowing that it was possible he was baiting her.