by Jon McGoran
“We don’t know. Maybe pollen from the genetically modified crops, maybe parasites like mites, some people think it may have to do with cell-phone towers, or those big industrial-scaled bee pollinating operations. Pesticides are almost certainly involved. Most scientists think it’s a combination of factors. The whole reason BeeWatch is here on the Vineyard is because the island has been untouched by CCD. We’re part of an effort to find out why.”
“Because they rely on their native pollinators,” Nola cut in, “instead of bringing in trucks of bees from Georgia or Tennessee.”
“Right,” Moose said, his voice flat. Then he turned to look at her. “Only now we’re starting to see the same thing on the island.”
Nola whipped her head around. “Are you serious?”
He shrugged. “There’s something going on. We have these monitoring stations set up—part of what we’ve been doing is a bee census. We were seeing plenty of bees, just like normal. Then, in the last two weeks, it’s dropping off big time, especially up island, Aquinnah and Chilmark. Still early in the season, but there’s definitely something going on.”
As he said it, his phone issued the opening chord from “A Hard Day’s Night.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, thumbing the phone and raising it to his ear. “Hey, Benjy. What’s up?”
He listened for a second, his shoulders slumping as he did. “Right,” he said. “Okay, I’ll meet you over there.” He put down his phone and turned to look at each of us. “I won’t be able to take you to see the cliffs at Gay Head. It’s a shame, they’re really something.”
“Trouble?” Nola asked.
He pulled over and started the first point of what would eventually be a nine-point U-turn. “Looks like we found our first deadout.”
5
I had only seen Moose drive a handful of times, but this was by far the most urgency he had shown, exceeding the posted speed limit by numbers approaching double digits. I wondered if we were in the midst of some sort of bee emergency.
We made a left into a gap in one of the ubiquitous stone walls and drove down a dirt road between two fields. After a hundred yards the road widened and we parked alongside a handful of cars and trucks, including one immaculately restored fifties-era custard-colored Chevy pickup.
Off to the side was a row of nondescript wooden boxes up on cinder blocks. One of them was open, surrounded by a small group of people, all wearing the same expression of sad concern, tinged with anger.
“These are my friends Nola and Doyle,” Moose announced quietly as we walked up. The air smelled of honey and something else.
To our far left was a heavyset guy with a bushy beard, an open face, and messed-up hair. He held up his arm, and as Moose stepped up, the arm came down and gave Moose’s shoulder a reassuring shake.
Next to him was an older guy, wiry and small with graying hair. His eyes looked red, like he’d been crying.
The guy next to him was young, lean, and unlikably handsome. He eyed us suspiciously at first. Then his eyes hit Nola, and suspicion was replaced with something else as his eyebrows raised about a millimeter. I knew that look. I’d made that look. I’d probably made it the first time I met Nola. I didn’t like the guy anyway, but that look made me like him even less.
Next to him was a gorgeous brunette in what looked like a beekeeping suit, except that it fit her surprisingly well. She had the hood tucked under her arm. I felt my eyebrows notch up a millimeter, but I don’t think anybody noticed.
“So what’s going on, Benjy?” Moose asked the guy who’d patted his shoulder.
“These hives are deadouts,” said the woman in the bee suit, gesturing toward the handful of boxes sitting to her left. A handful of bees bobbed around us in the air, coming in and out of the boxes to her right. My skin prickled, but no one else seemed bothered.
Moose stayed focused on the bearded guy, Benjy. “Is it colony collapse?”
“The bees aren’t gone, but they’re all dead,” she said. “It could be mites.”
The older guy shook his head and sniffled.
She gave him a sad smile. “Sorry, Pete.”
Moose looked over at her, then back at Benjy. “What’s she doing here?”
I was kind of surprised by that. Very un-Moose-like. Her face tightened, like she was controlling her reaction.
Benjy held up a hand. “Annalisa’s here to take samples to help us figure this out, okay? I called her.”
Moose looked away. “Whatever.”
Annalisa stared at him for a second. Then she shook her head and looked at the others. “There definitely seems to be mites involved, but that could be a symptom as much as a cause.” She opened one of the boxes and scraped the inside of it with what looked like a popsicle stick. The smell got stronger. It was like yeast. “I’ll take these samples back to the lab and see if I can learn anything.”
“Thanks,” Benjy said, giving Moose a sidelong look to let him know he was annoyed.
There was an awkward silence, and I felt compelled to fill it. “What’s that smell?” I asked, directing the question vaguely at Moose.
The handsome guy smirked. “That’s the smell of bees,” he said. “There’s a lot going on in those hives. The worker bees bring the pollen and nectar back from the flowers and transform it, feeding the queen and the drones and the eggs, making royal jelly and beeswax, and making honey. Honey doesn’t comes from supermarkets, you know, it comes from bees.”
“Honey comes from bees?” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to dislike the guy just because of his looks.
Nola pinched my arm. Moose looked down and smiled.
“But how do the little plastic bears fit in?” I said in a loud whisper.
The silence returned, slightly more awkward than before.
Benjy glanced at his watch. “All right, we’ve got work to do. Let’s meet at BeeWatch in an hour.”
A bee buzzed right past my ear and I jerked my head back and stepped away.
The handsome douchebag snickered. “Nothing to be afraid of, ace. They’re just bees. If you don’t freak out they won’t hurt you.”
I wasn’t freaking out, and I wasn’t afraid, not really. But it’s not the kind of thing you can deny without making it sound true. I gave him a big smile and tried to hide my evil thoughts.
Before I could say anything that would earn me another pinch, Benjy said, “We need to check the LIDAR stations.” He turned to the handsome douchebag. “Teddy, that okay with you?”
Teddy spread his hands in humble magnanimity. “Mi casa es su casa.” A little heavy on the pretentious accent.
Benjy nodded. “Thanks.”
Instantly, the group split up. As she was turning to leave, the brunette, Annalisa, looked in my direction. It might have been my imagination, but I’m pretty sure her eyebrows slid higher a millimeter or so. Then she stooped to pick up a small plastic toolkit and some plastic bottles. When I looked away from her, Nola and Moose were already walking back to the car.
I caught up with them and climbed into the backseat. Teddy drove by in the restored pickup, and I knew without a doubt he hadn’t done the work himself. He turned to look back at Nola as he drove by.
“Is it bad?” Nola asked as we closed our doors.
“It could be,” Moose replied. He looked worried. “It looks like I’m going to have to work a little bit today.”
“That’s okay,” Nola told him. “We can keep ourselves entertained.”
I thought about making some adolescent remark, but things were a little tense between us, and it didn’t seem to be the time. Besides, sprawling in the backseat, what I really wanted to do was get a little sleep.
“A lot of places are still closed for the off-season,” Moose said, “but there are plenty open, in case you get hungry. Oak Bluffs is very walkable if you get bored.”
I looked out the window just as we pulled past the brunette standing next to a black Nissan Xterra. She was stepping out of her bee suit, and looked
right at me as she did. Then we both looked away.
“So who were all those people?” Nola asked. “I think you’ve mentioned Benjy—he’s your boss, right?”
Moose nodded. “Yeah, that’s Benjy. He’s pretty cool. He’s been up here since last year, starting the census and collecting samples of bees and mites and stuff. He’s a little freaked out these last few days. The guy next to him was Pete Westcamp, the beekeeper.”
“And the girl? Who’s she? Seems to be a little tension between you two.”
I made a conscious effort not to sit forward to listen better.
“That’s Annalisa,” said Moose. “She’s a private researcher with a company called Bee Futures. She’s been here for the last several months, researching native bees and other pollinators. And now researching what’s happening to the hives, I guess.”
“Why don’t you like her?”
“I don’t trust her.”
“Why not?”
He thought about it for a second. “Bee Futures seemed like a cool company, doing some interesting research into the causes of colony collapse disorder, including some that suggested guess what?” He turned to look at me, but kept going. “Pollen from genetically modified crops.” The events back in Dunston had involved genetically engineered crops. “Something about the pesticides inserted into the crops’ DNA—surprise, surprise. So what do you think happens next?”
Nola shrugged. “What?”
“A few months ago Bee Futures is bought up by Stoma Corporation, the fucking evil empire of the GMO set. The owner of Bee Futures sold it and split.”
“What about Annalisa?”
“Well, that’s just it. She stayed where she was, kept right on working.”
“Researching CCD?”
“Well, theoretically. But she’s working for Stoma now. Those guys are evil. They’ve hired Darkstar to do their private security.”
“The private army?” Nola said. “I though they only did military stuff outside the country.”
He gave her a dubious look. “I’ve heard they’re involved all over: corporate security, surveillance. Trying to infiltrate environmental groups.”
Sounded kind of paranoid to me. “You think Annalisa’s doing bad science?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She’s written a few papers over the last few months, mildly interesting, but she’s totally working for the man.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on her?” Nola asked.
“I just don’t trust her, that’s all.”
A couple of seconds later Nola spoke again. “Who was the other guy?”
I sat forward.
“Teddy Renfrew. He’s okay, I guess. His family’s been up here for a while, at least for summers. An activist, working with groups like Friends of the Earth, plus some fringier ones, pretty hard-core, maybe even a little extreme. He’s been busted a few times, which he rarely misses an opportunity to mention. He can be a little douchey but he’s doing some cool stuff and he lets us keep bait stations on his land. He’s got this big organic farm, but he’s doing SPIN farming, small plot intensive, so he doesn’t use tractors or anything. It’s all people-powered. I not sure if he knows what he’s doing, but the farm seems to be doing okay, which is cool.” He shook his head and laughed. “He can be a bit much though, I guess. He’s trying to grow beach plums.”
“Beach plums?” Nola asked.
“Little sour cherry kind of fruit. They grow wild all over the place, but they’re notoriously hard to domesticate. People have been trying and failing for years. It’s just funny that he thinks he’ll be the one to succeed.”
From what I knew about Martha’s Vineyard, land would be pretty expensive for a do-gooder to own a big farm, but I was too tired to say anything. My eyes were drifting closed. As the gentle motion of the car rocked me to sleep, I heard Moose add, “He’s actually looking for skilled help.”
6
The ten minutes I’d slept in the car before Moose dropped us off cast the antique charm of the Wesley Hotel in a surreal light. The old guy behind the desk had the air of someone completely in charge, and I pegged him as the owner.
“Welcome to the Wesley,” he said, giving me a friendly smile before resting his eyes on Nola. He never looked at me again, and didn’t even try to be subtle about checking out Nola. Apparently he was one of those dirty old men who thought other people would consider it adorable that he was a dirty old man. Nola didn’t seem to notice, and I was too tired to care. She gave him her credit card, reminded him that she had asked that they not use any chemicals in the room prior to our stay. He assured her they hadn’t.
The room was historically authentic, meaning it was tiny. The bed might or might not have been comfortable; I was asleep before I actually hit it.
When I woke up, Nola was gone and the angle of the sun had changed considerably. There was a note on the dresser. “Get some good rest. Went with Moose to look at bees. See you soon.”
I was still behind on sleep, but mentally I had already switched over to coffee mode. I freshened up and changed, then went downstairs. The guy at the desk directed me to Mocha Mott’s, a few blocks away.
The breeze coming off the water was cold enough that it watered my eyes. Mocha Mott’s was a few steps below street level on Circuit Avenue, the main street in Oak Bluffs. The coffee was strong, hot, and fresh. I grabbed a copy of the local paper, an old-fashioned wide broadsheet called the Vineyard Gazette, and took a booth. Mixed in with the local politics, land deals, and obituaries, I was surprised to find an article about the bee situation. It repeated much of what Moose had said, but also mentioned a controversy among the local farmers about whether or not to bring in bees from off-island to replace the missing natives.
They interviewed Teddy Renfrew, who was against it, and Johnny Blue, who was for it. At the end of the article, urging both sides not to panic, was Doctor Annalisa Paar, described as an internationally recognized authority on honeybees, mites, and colony collapse disorder. The reporter’s tone was almost fawning, going on at length about the island’s good fortune to have Dr. Paar here when the issue with the bees arose.
Toward the end of the article, I got the feeling I was being watched, and when I put the paper down, I found I was.
“You’re Dr. Paar,” I said. She had an espresso cup in front of her and a clipboard and some papers scattered across the table. But she was looking at me.
“Annalisa,” she corrected. “And you’re Moose’s friend, Doyle.”
I held up the paper. “I was just reading about you.”
She actually blushed. “The reporter was very nice, but perhaps she exaggerated a bit.” She slid her papers to the side. “Care to join me?”
I paused, but then grabbed my coffee and paper and moved to her table. Just an innocent cup of coffee.
“Moose was pretty hard on you back there.”
She let out a soft sigh. “He’s suspicious. I don’t blame him. Sometimes I’m suspicious myself.”
“Suspicious of what?”
“Did he tell you who I work for?”
I could see red Stoma Corporation logos on a couple of the papers in her stack. “He did.”
“We’d been doing really good work at Bee Futures, and I continue to, but Stoma … They haven’t put any pressure on me in any way, but people don’t trust me anymore. I’m not used to that. Academia is not without treachery, but Stoma … I don’t know what to make of them. They make me very nervous.”
“They definitely make Moose nervous.”
She started to laugh, but then something caught her eye and she stopped and looked down.
“What is it?” I said, but she just kept her head down and gave it a little shake.
I turned and immediately knew who she was hiding from. He was standing at the counter, thin, maybe sixty, with gaunt cheeks and a sneer on his lips that didn’t quite go with the haunted look in his eyes.
While he waited for his drink, his thin fingers tapped on th
e counter and his eyes swept the place. I looked away, but I could feel his eyes lingering on me. I heard the door open and close, and when I looked back I caught a glimpse of him through the window as he ascended the steps.
“He’s gone,” I whispered loudly.
Annalisa looked up tentatively. “Sorry,” she said.
“Who was that?”
“Jordan Sumner. Kind of my boss.”
“Kind of?”
“It’s complicated. He’s the head of Bee-Plus, Stoma’s genetically engineered bee program.”
“Genetically engineered bees?”
She nodded. “It used to be his company, until Stoma bought it—just like they bought Bee Futures. They put my company under him and his Bee-Plus division. They have this elaborate research-slash-breeding operation in the Bahamas. Samana Cay, a tiny uninhabited island. I worked there briefly after the takeover. It’s very lovely. I haven’t had much to do with him since then. A few months ago they sent me here to study the local bees, same as Moose and Benjy, see if we could figure out why they’ve been unaffected by colony collapse disorder. I kind of hoped he’d forgotten about me, but last week he showed up on the island.”
“So, did you ditch work or something?”
She laughed, the warmth seeping back into her face. “No, just … he kind of creeps me out.”
I could understand that. I wondered if he would be worse than Lieutenant Suarez, but decided it was a tie.
My phone buzzed with a text from Moose, asking me where I was. I looked up at Annalisa. “We’re at Mocha Mott’s, right?”
She laughed and nodded.
I texted Moose back.
“How do you know Moose?” she asked.
I didn’t say he was friends with my girlfriend, and I didn’t say we bonded while thwarting a crazy evil plot involving genetically modified crops and a scheme to make billions in pharmaceuticals. “He used to work for my parents. He took care of their garden, before they died last summer.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He seems like a nice young man.”
“He is. He’s a good kid.”
