Stolen Honey

by Nancy Means Wright

  She accepted the cup of fragrant tea Donna proffered. She thought briefly of what she’d wanted to tell the girl’s mother about the Perkey connection. But the mother wasn’t here, and once again, as the old man padded into the room, she put the thought aside.

  Chapter Seven

  Gwen was making honey cakes in the kitchen when Olen Ashley drove up in an unmarked car. She was glad of that; he was here to interrogate Leroy. Leroy was fragile. She’d sensed it as they worked together in the beeyards. She’d heard the short quick breaths he took, the groans as he emptied out the dead bees. She wanted to think it was a bear or heifer that had knocked over those hives. Or an accident of some kind—she always lost bees on the apple orchards when the orchardists sprayed or, for that matter, the farmers. But there had been no aerial spraying at Willmarth’s, an organic farm.

  Stop worrying, concentrate on your work, she told herself. She was making a honey cake with soybeans. You had to heat the honey, stir in a gelatin mixture until it dissolved; then beat it like crazy and roll in soybeans after it was thoroughly chilled. She was just putting the cakes into the refrigerator when Olen banged through the kitchen door. He was breathing heavily. Obviously the interview with Leroy hadn’t gone well. She wanted to lift his mood; she told him she might make a honey cake out of mountain laurel—toxic to humans. She’d send it to her neighbor Harvey Ball. “If you want to get rid of someone, here’s the way to do it,” she quipped. But Olen just looked at her and growled; he lowered his hulk onto a stool. He said, “I’m not planning to bake a honey cake with mountain laurel. And you better not say that out loud to anyone else.”

  “Oh, Olen, it was just a joke. Lighten up a little. Here. Have some walnut fudge.”

  He usually liked her walnut fudge. Today he shook his head. “It’s Leroy, isn’t it?” she asked. “What did he tell you?”

  He spread his thick fingers on the cutting board. She had a moment’s fantasy that she might chop them into small pieces, mix them into a salad. She looked, bemused, into his earnest face. He was disturbed. Well, damn it, so was she.

  “Nothing, that’s just it,” he said finally, lifting his fingers from the board, flexing them. “He just repeated what he’d told us when we found the body. He was there when the pair arrived; he saw the boy, uh, abusing Donna. Leroy kicked him with a foot—nothing to really hurt him, he said—nothing to cause the kind of dark bruises we saw. And then he told Donna to go into the house. Left Noble face down in the mud. Figured the boy would come to, go home on his motorcycle. But...”

  “But?” She drew a breath. She waited.

  Olen groaned. “He was lying, I’m sure of it. It was the way he wouldn’t look me in the eye. The way he kept licking his lips. Little things—after a while you get to read the signs. Leroy dragged him into that nightshade, must’ve done. It was Leroy responsible for his death, damn little prevaricator.”

  His fingers were tapping on the cutting board, tracing the curve of a knife cut where Brownie had tried to whittle a bear out of a hunk of hardback. “Speaking of nightshade,” he went on, “that marijuana, Gwen—”

  “I don’t smoke it,” she said, “can’t you explain that to the police? Lessen my fine a little?”

  “It’s the law,’ he said stubbornly. “You can’t grow marijuana. It’s illegal.”

  “I know that. But will they be coming around again? Can’t I grow it in a jar?”

  Olen groaned, dropped his face in his thick-veined hands. “You drive me crazy, Gwen, you know that? If it weren’t for your father...”

  “If it weren’t for my father, what? You wouldn’t come around anymore?”

  He met her eyes. His were dark brown, like walnut fudge. “You know the answer for that, Gwen. You know. I don’t have to say it, do I?”

  “No. And please don’t,” she said softly, and went to clean up after the honey cakes.

  * * * *

  The supervisor of the Brookview Women’s Reformatory was a huge man—not fat, but big all over: a beefy neck, an oversized head with eyes like black buttons, and thick horn-rimmed glasses that gave him a startled, owlish look. The hands were baseball mitts: A baseball—or a neck—would be quickly swallowed up inside them. His hair was the color of garlic salt, his skin weathered but not wrinkled—he might be fifty-five, even sixty. His name was Richard Godwin.

  He didn’t look up when Camille entered. He was busy, his desk strewn with papers. Filing cabinets lined the walls. They were alphabetized, she saw. She would like to get him out of the room, search the files—but Godwin looked as though he’d developed roots in his desk chair.

  When finally, uninvited, she dropped into a facing chair, he said, “Yes?”

  She introduced herself; she had made an appointment. She would be brief, but firm. She wanted to know when Annette Godineaux had been released for the last time, where she’d gone. Was she alone, or were there relatives, her children, perhaps, along with her? Most of all, she wanted to know whether or not Annette had been sterilized. “And if so, had she given her assent or was the procedure forced on her?”

  He looked up, his face stern, self-righteous. “Lady, this institution has never forced an inmate into anything like sterilization.” It wasn’t done anymore, he insisted, “the old law went off the books in ’73.” He smacked his giant hands together; she felt the reverberation in her neck. As for Annette, “The files are confidential.” Then, his face reddening with his indignation, “Of course she would have given her consent! Vermont law demands it. My father—um, my predecessor—would never have forced an inmate into such a procedure. And I can tell you one thing, young lady. He would have advised against it, oh, yes.” Godwin had obviously learned his lesson from the Holocaust. He would be politically correct.

  “Your father was supervisor before you?”

  “Happened so.” He looked defiantly at her. “He passed on in ’70. I took over.”

  “He would have known Annette Godineaux, then, he would have admitted her?”

  “He came here in ’32. If she was admitted then, he’d have known her. Now, look, Miss ...”

  “Wimmet,” she said. “Ms. I called yesterday. I spoke to your secretary.”

  “Yes, now I recall. From the college.” His voice softened, grew indulgent, as though she were some flighty young student. “Well, it’s all in the past, isn’t it? What do you want to dig it up for? Like I said, the law’s off the books. Back then, well, this Godineaux woman was obviously a petty criminal. Had to be, if she was in here. Probably unable to take care of her, uh, offspring. Not that I hold with such a law, but there are some it might make sense for. For the children’s sake, I mean.” He drew a snuffly breath, shuffled papers on his desk. His fingernails shone pinkish; he’d obviously polished them. Her own were down to the quick—from typing and nerves.

  “I might have evidence that she was sterilized in this institution. And that the patients didn’t always give their consent.” She hadn’t finished reading and recording the diary yet, but somewhere there would be a definitive statement.

  His face was a closing door. “I said our files are confidential. Are you a relative?”

  “I don’t believe so. Are you?” Flushed with her audacity, she plowed on. “Godwin? Godineaux? Was there a slight name alteration somewhere?”

  He rose up; the shadow on the wall behind was enormous. She’d struck a nerve. The father, she conjectured, had had Annette sterilized, so that he could write off that potentially decadent branch of the family. He took a step toward her, his arms crossed on his massive chest. He was busy, she would have to leave. She wasn’t going to get anywhere today. Well, she would finish recording the diary, find proof, confront him again. She wanted the whole truth for her paper.

  Outside the office, she felt she’d climbed a beanstalk, escaped from the giant. But she’d have to catch him sleeping if she was to defeat him. She imagined she felt his hot breath on her neck even as she hurried down the long hallway. Almost to the main door, a hand grabbed her sl
eeve; it was a young woman, hardly more than a girl, holding out the other hand—for what? A coin? A touch of friendship? Camille pulled a five-dollar bill from her wallet, pressed it into the prisoner’s palm.

  The girl-woman held her eyes for a moment, then, blinking, pocketed the money and scurried off.

  * * * *

  Camille’s late afternoon visit was just as frustrating. She was trying to explain to Eugene Godineaux that she was only doing research, that she wouldn’t use his name in her paper, should it be published, but he was deaf to her entreaties. He wanted her out of the house. The “house” was a trailer up in the mountains of Ripton, half a dozen smudgy-faced kids hanging about, an exhausted-looking mother in a drab green housedress sprawled on a dirty beige plush sofa, legs splayed as though, with so much to do, so many things and people to tend to, she didn’t know where to begin and was therefore rendered immobile.

  An old woman squatting over a basket of potatoes looked Indian, with her brown complexion, gray-black hair pulled back on her head and pinned up in a braided coil. She seemed to be the only one actually working in the place. It might be the Depression thirties still in this household, except for the giant TV squealing out a soap opera and a computer on a rickety corner table where a boy with acute acne was playing a video game.

  A child’s cry in a far corner of the house took the man out of the room for a moment and the woman on the sofa whispered, “Nicole was the one got away, Nicole got a husband. Pauline can tell you what you need to know. Go see Pauline.”

  “Where does she live—Pauline?” Camille asked, dropping her business card in the woman’s lap. Pauline, Camille had discovered in her research, was Annette’s granddaughter. Nicole was Pauline’s mother. “And where can I find Nicole?”

  The woman opened her mouth to reply but was silenced in midsentence by a .22 rifle, lifted up off the wall gun rack in an explosion of anger and pointed at Camille. “Git out,” the man shouted. “We don’t wanna be part of your goddam research.” He backed Camille to the door with the gun; she went. He followed her to the car, the gun at her head. She wanted to scream, she wanted to shoot him. For a long moment she thought that maybe she was all wrong, that the eugenics survey had something to say for it, that men like this were degenerate, unfit to propagate.

  He was running after the car, firing shots in the air. “Don’t even try to write about us Godineaux, don’t even try!” he bellowed, and she drove erratically down the mountain, taking the first curve too wide, twisting the wheel frantically to avoid plunging into the river that surged and fumed one hundred feet below.

  She was mad, she was furious. When she saw the TAKE BACK VERMONT sign outside a house near the foot of the mountain, she veered into the driveway, jammed on the brakes, flung herself out of the car, and yanked up the sign. She knew what it meant: It was a protest against the civil union legislation the Vermont legislature had recently passed, giving basic human rights to gays and lesbians.

  “Homophobes!” she shouted. “You killed her. You killed my Esther!” She scurried across the road with the sign and slung it down the embankment. She stood there, watching it slide toward the river, gasping for breath. Finally it hit a rock and broke up.

  She ran, crazy-legged, back up to the car. A small boy was on the porch shouting for his mother. Camille revved up the engine, roared off down the hill; saw the woman in her rearview window, shaking her fist, yelling.

  “Lesbian,” her lips seemed to say. “Pervert.”

  * * *

  When Colm Hanna happened to “drop in” that evening, Ruth told him about the damaged hives. The two were sitting in her kitchen as usual; the TV was blaring in the living room where Vic, done with his homework—so he said—was watching Wheel of Fortune. She heard him yell out, “Chicken every Sunday!” and wondered where on earth he had heard that phrase.

  “My mother used to do that,” Colm told her, “every Sunday. And beans or scrambled eggs the rest of the week. A habit left over from the Depression. Mother was always sure the bad times would come back.”

  “It did, in our house,” Ruth said. “Though I don’t dare cook a chicken or Vic will think it’s one of his. He’s into chickens in a big way now. More coffee?”

  He shook his head. “But I could use one of those Otter Creek Ales. I’ll get it,” he said, motioning her back into her chair. “Maybe it was the chickens knocked over those hives,” he suggested, grinning, as he returned from the kitchen. “Ten of them together could do it.” He leaned back in his chair, guzzling his beer. He had that contented look that meant he was here for an evening of togetherness. She didn’t mind, really; it was just that she had paperwork to do. She was behind in everything these spring days, what with plowing and discing, getting ready for May planting, and two cows freshening any given week.

  Now here was Emily plodding downstairs, looking pointedly at Colm as though he might disappear if she stared him down. Emily liked Colm, but she’d never wholly given up on her father coming back. Tonight, though, Colm was simply a rival for her mother’s time.

  A cry went up from the living room TV and then a raucous cheer as someone raked in a pile of money. Colm took the hint. “I’ll listen in with Vic. I could use ten thou.”

  “I guess,” Ruth said. “After you lent me that amount to pay off my ex.”

  “That’s me,” Colm said from the doorway, “Mister Flahool.” She smiled. “Flahool” was an Irish word; it meant generous, throwing around one’s money. Colm was generous, she had to admit that; it was one of his good points.

  “Right,” she called back. “So what do you need to know about farming?” she asked her daughter. “If I can’t answer your questions, I’ll make something up.”

  “It’s not really about that,” Emily said. “Not yet anyway. I just wanted to talk about what’s been going on. I don’t like what happened with the hives. And there’s more. I don’t want you to get hurt from all this. I mean, I’m the one who made Donna go to that frat party.”

  “Whoa, hold on. You asked her as a friend, she went. It could have been you coming home on that motorcycle. It could have been that boy dead in our hemp garden. It just happened, that’s all. Now tell me what the latest is. Other than the hives.”

  Donna told her about the graffiti on the bicycle and Ruth’s stomach turned sour. She banged her knuckles together. “I hate that, hate that!” she cried. “It happens over and over. Why can’t people let people live?”

  The TV roared with excitement and Colm hollered, “I got it right! Lemme on that program. I’ll buy this farm back for you, Ruthie. The fat lady in sneakers just won twenty thou.”

  Ruth sighed. The world on the brink of disaster and Colm would calm it with a glass of beer. An unkeepable promise. He should be a politician. “Why didn’t you want Colm to hear about this?” she asked Emily. “Did Donna go to the police?”

  “That’s just it. She made me promise not to tell anyone. She thinks it’s Shep’s frat buddies getting revenge. Their house is off bounds, but they still meet. There’s some old guy in town who was a frat brother, he lets them meet there. The college administration is using Shep Noble’s death as a lever to break up all the fraternities. So the boys are fighting the college with the help of a couple of old ex-Zekes.”

  “Who are these ‘old’ guys,’ do you know?”

  “No, but Billy Bozeman will tell me. He’s still after me. The more I ignore him, the more he gets in my way.”

  “I hope he’s not a stalker.” Ruth was suddenly alarmed.

  “No, he’s just a jerk. I can handle him.”

  “I’m not sure I like that, either. You can’t encourage him. Remember that last one you brought home and he tried to commit suicide on our front steps?”

  “Just a little blood, he was bluffing.” She lowered her voice. “And don’t go telling Colm Hanna about that graffiti. Donna doesn’t want her Uncle Olen to know, either. Already he keeps showing up on campus, following Donna around like he’s her big protector. She do
esn’t like that.”

  The living room was quiet now. Colm was standing in the doorway, his ears sticking out through his wild hair. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow about that paper,” Emily told her mother. “I have to have a proposal in by tomorrow. It’s about the impact of farming on the town, what’s happening to the family farm. I figure you have strong ideas about that.”

  “You bet your boots I have. You want me to write the paper for you?”

  Emily stood hesitantly at the foot of the stairs. Was her mother serious? When Ruth grinned, she said, “Okay. I didn’t expect you to do that. But I do need you for a source.”

  “You got me,” said Ruth. Vic strolled in from the living room and she swatted his bottom. “Get that homework done, kid, and then take a shower.”

  “And get all smelly again cleaning the calf pens in the morning? What’s the point?” He started up the stairs.

  “Well, take the shower in the morning if there’s time.”

  “There’s never time.”

  “Then get up a half hour earlier. At least you get picked up later than some of the others. Brownie is picked up an hour before you, Gwen says.”

  Vic came down a step. “He’s been skipping lately. And I think I know why. Something that happened on the bus.”

  “What was that? Tell me.”

  “The kids started hissing his name, ‘Brown Bear.’ Then when we were getting off the bus someone called his sister a murderer. Jeezum!”

  “And what did the bus driver do to stop it? What did you do, Vic?”

  “She—she tried. I guess I did, too.”

  “You guess?”

  Vic hung his head. “I could of tried harder. I was afraid they’d get after me, too.”

  “And call your sister a murderer? Come on. Vic. You have to stand up and speak out. I’ve taught you that, haven’t I?”

  Ruth was really worked up now. Mad at Vic, mad at the bus driver, mad at the frat boys, mad at whoever had vandalized the Woodleaf hives. “Shit, shit,” she said, and saw Vic scamper upstairs, knowing she was in one of her “injustice” moods. “I’d like to—”