Phobia KDP

by Shives, C. A.

  He had great sympathy for his patients. He didn’t want them to suffer the way he had suffered as a child. The way he still suffered today. He wanted to free them from their fear. He wanted to help them in a way that he had never been helped.

  It’s my calling, he thought. My destiny.

  He had eventually destroyed the monster of his past. And ever since that day, he knew he was destined to help others destroy their own demons.

  The demons that fed their fears.

  Perhaps he’d have more time with his next patient. Perhaps he’d be able to more thoroughly explain the genius of his methods.

  He smiled at the thought of a long, slow therapy. He was starting to really enjoy his work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  There was no waiting this time. No wondering. Shortly after noon on Saturday, the call came in.

  A teenage girl, May Jackson, had found her father’s swollen body gagged and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey in his Hurricane home. He’d been locked in his bedroom closet with honey bees.

  Herne wanted to see the body—wanted to feel the crime scene—but he allowed the state investigators to collect evidence without interruption. Instead, he and Tucker walked into the kitchen. The acerbic odor of dirty cat litter mixed with the musky scent of incense that pervaded the whole house.

  “Christ, it smells like a fucking litter box in here. A hippie litter box,” Tucker said.

  “My father had six cats,” May Jackson said as she walked into the room. “He loved animals.”

  Tucker nodded. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll try to answer them,” she said. Although her green eyes were red-rimmed from her sobs, Herne was impressed with her calm demeanor. In his experience, teenage girls bordered on hysteria in even the best of situations.

  “Did you always visit your father on Saturday afternoon?” Herne asked.

  May shook her head, wisps of dark hair escaping the short ponytail that whipped across her round face. “No. I live with my mom in Carlisle. Usually I saw Dad one or two nights during the week. Sometimes Friday night.”

  “You didn’t have a set custody schedule?”

  “Mom and Dad got along real good,” she said. “So they just kind of winged it. They were both totally hippies anyway. All about doing whatever makes me feel good and whatever made their auras positive.”

  Herne grimaced before asking, “So was this visit planned?”

  “Actually, no. I had a fight with Mom this morning, so I thought I’d come over and spend the weekend with Dad. He totally didn’t care if I dropped by unannounced. He didn’t have a girlfriend. No real hobbies. He just spent a lot of time reading books and watching movies, smoking his pipe.”

  “What time did you get here?” Tucker asked, brushing off a cat that attempted to rub against his leg.

  “About eleven,” she said. “As soon as I walked in, I knew something was wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “There were bees flying around the house. A lot of them. Well, not as many as were in the closet, I guess.” She gulped. “But I saw them as soon as I walked in the door. Dad is—was—very allergic to bees. And he was scared of them, too. He kept a big can of insect killer in the house, even though he hated using chemicals. If he ever saw a wasp or bee, he’d stand as far away as possible and then totally spray the crap out of it, no matter what. Even if it meant getting bug spray all over his lunch or whatever. He totally hated bees.”

  “So what happened after you walked in the house and saw the bees?”

  “I started calling his name,” she said. “When he didn’t answer, I started to get worried. I mean, there were all these bees in the house. I thought maybe he had been stung and needed help. So I ran around the house looking for him and calling his name. I was pretty freaked out.”

  “And you found him?”

  “Yes, in the closet,” she gulped. “I wouldn’t have even bothered to look in there at all, except the light was on. My dad was totally a stickler about turning off lights. He was always talking about the energy crisis thing and telling me to save the environment. Anyway, I guess he raised me to always turn off a light if it wasn’t in use. It was an automatic reaction. I opened the closet door and there he was.” She pressed her face into her hands and soft sobs came from her body. Tucker and Herne glanced at one another. At that moment, Saxon walked into the room. She glared at both of them before reaching out to pat May’s back.

  “We don’t have any more questions,” Herne said.

  May glanced at them, her soft face stricken with grief, as she left the kitchen.

  “Jesus. You men are jerks sometimes,” Saxon said. “She’s just a kid.”

  Tucker hung his head, the picture of a remorseful boy. Herne almost expected him to scuff his toe across the floor. “Sorry,” Tucker said.

  “Want to hear the news? I caught bits and pieces of the chatter upstairs,” she said.

  “Give it to us.”

  “Hank Jackson was a retired engineer, age fifty-one.”

  “A little early for retirement, wasn’t it?”

  “Rumor has it he made a killing in the stock market as one of the first investors of AOL. Anyway, it must have been quite the internal conflict when his hippie values had to compete with his newfound wealth. As a result, his wife divorced him. He retired early, moved to Hurricane, and spent his days puttering around the house and volunteering with a few charitable organizations, including Habitat for Humanity and the local animal shelter. He smoked a little weed. We found a baggie of the stuff in the bedroom along with a water bong. It looks like he was just a recreational user.”

  “Seems like it would take a lot of fucking bee stings to kill someone,” Tucker said. “Doesn’t seem like a reliable method of murder.”

  “It’s reliable if the victim is extremely allergic to bee stings,” said Paul Lee as he entered the kitchen. “After a little prodding, the state ME allowed me to examine the body as a professional courtesy. These cops certainly are territorial.”

  “We know,” Tucker said. “Did you notice anything unusual about the body?”

  “You mean aside from the fact that it looked as if someone had inserted a bicycle tire pump into his mouth and pumped until he resembled a beach ball?”

  “He was swollen,” Herne said.

  “Not just swollen. He was ready to explode like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python.”

  “So the bees killed him?”

  “Without a doubt, I’d say. All the Benadryl in the world wouldn’t have helped this guy. He got stung at least fifty or sixty times.”

  “Jackson’s daughter already mentioned that he was allergic to bees.” Herne glanced at Saxon. “Double check with his medical records and his wife, Lieutenant.”

  Saxon looked at Tucker. He nodded and she nodded in return.

  “We know Jackson wasn’t just allergic to bees. He was also scared of them. But did he have a real phobia? And was he being treated for it? Was he being treated by Peter Lochhead?”

  Herne already knew the answer to his own questions. Knew the truth. The Healer wasn’t going to change his modus operandi at this stage in the game. But Herne wanted to be certain. He needed his theory confirmed.

  “I got a chance to flip through his appointment book before the state cops found it,” Saxon said.

  “And?” Herne asked.

  “For the past three months, Jackson has had an appointment with Peter Lochhead on the first Monday of the month.”

  “That fucking clinches it,” Tucker said. “If Lochhead doesn’t turn over his patient files to us, I’m going to shove them up his ass.”

  “I’d be happy to join in that party,” Herne said.

  “So how many bees were in Jackson’s closet?” Tucker asked.

  “It looked like hundreds,” Saxon said. “Someone was in there trying to catch them, but a lot were just flying out the window. I don’t think the state boys were too interested in them.”r />
  “Seems like The Healer wouldn’t have been able to walk away from something like that unscathed,” Tucker said. “Maybe we should be looking for someone who’s got a few bee stings.”

  “Or someone who was recently spotted in a beekeeper’s suit,” Herne said.

  “And where did he get these fucking bees anyway?” Tucker asked. “It’s not like you can just go to the store and ask for a hundred bees.”

  “Maybe he found them in the woods,” Saxon suggested. “A nest outside somewhere.”

  “If you don’t mind me interrupting,” Lee said, “I’m a bit of an amateur entomologist. For the record, it’s extremely unlikely that our killer found these bees in the wild. Wild honey bees have basically been wiped out because of two mites—the tracheal and varroa mites—that were introduced into the U.S. in the early to mid-1980s. Coupled with the loss of habitats because humans keep building shopping centers and parking lots, the wild honey bee was almost extinct by 1995, and we haven’t been able to do much to boost the population except nurture domesticated bees.”

  “So you’re saying there’s no way he found these bees in the wild?”

  Lee shrugged. “It’s possible. Just barely. But my best guess is that he stole a hive from a honey farm.”

  “Which one is next on the list?” Herne asked. He drove his black Ford pickup carefully. The roads were narrow and sometimes unpaved, and they curved unexpectedly as they wound through the countryside. Barns and silos dotted the scenery. The mountains in the distance were lush with trees, their leaves burnt brown from the summer sun’s rays that beat relentlessly during the day. They passed wide fields of corn and wheat, the grains wilting in the heat. In some ways it felt so rural—so quaint—that Herne half expected to see Burma Shave signs along the road. Every once in a while a homemade wooden sign, featuring a Bible verse and the name of a church, appeared like a country billboard on the roadside. In small towns like Hurricane, Fundamentalist Christians still tried to save the souls of Jews, Catholics, Mormans, and atheists.

  Tucker, in the passenger seat, occasionally glanced up at the road. But mostly he looked at the book on his lap. Herne had given him the psychology textbook he’d purchased at Pages of Print.

  “Honey Do Bee Farm is our next stop,” Tucker answered. “Just a few miles south of here.”

  “Clever name,” Herne said.

  Tucker shrugged. “I guess.” He flipped a page in the book. “Here it is. Apiphobia. Fear of bees.”

  “And Jackson was seeing Lochhead for this phobia?”

  Tucker shook his head. “Saxon spoke to Jackson’s ex-wife. Apparently, he suffered from other psychological problems. Depression. Anxiety.”

  “So the phobia was not Jackson’s primary reason for visiting Lochhead,” Herne said.

  “Right.”

  “It wasn’t Amanda Todd’s reason for seeing Lochhead, either. I guess that bastard has a way of getting his patients to reveal their fears.”

  “It’s probably a standard psychiatric mumbo-jumbo question,” Tucker said.

  “Does Elizabeth know you have such disdain for psychology?” Herne asked.

  “She’s always known my opinion of shrinks,” Tucker answered.

  “And how does she feel about that?”

  “Jesus. Are you playing therapist now? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Is something bothering you?” Herne asked.

  “You mean besides the threatening calls from Mayor Harvey, the invasion of state cops in my office, and the fucking bastard who’s killing the people in my town?”

  “Yes,” Herne said. “I mean something besides that.”

  Tucker’s shoulders dropped. “Nothing I want to talk about right now.”

  They continued their trip in silence. It was the fourth honey bee farm on their list. They had a total of five within a forty mile radius, and they’d already visited three. None were missing any bees or any hives.

  Tucker’s cell phone rang a quick, short buzz. He murmured into the receiver, speaking in short grunts and half phrases, as if the person on the other end of the line were already intimate with his thoughts.

  A few moments later Tucker pushed a button on his phone and placed it back in his pocket. “That was Saxon,” he said. “They found a beekeeper’s suit in a dumpster behind the Windy Grove Grocery.”

  “That’s about three miles from Jackson’s house,” Herne said.

  “Right.”

  “Well, I think we can safely assume that the killer wasn’t wearing the suit when he exited Jackson’s house and drove to the store.”

  “If he had, he would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. And Saxon says no one saw anyone suspicious or unusual.”

  “He’s slick,” Herne said.

  “How does he manage to slip in and out of people’s homes undetected?” Tucker asked.

  “He learns their schedule and he spends a lot of time planning each event. Maybe he blends into the scenery because he looks normal.”

  “They all fucking look normal,” Tucker said. “Every fucking psycho always seems normal. After we find this guy, all his friends and neighbors will tell the newscasters how normal the guy was. He was nice. He was safe. He kept to himself, but he was friendly, too. Jesus Christ. No one’s really normal anymore. There’s just varying degrees of crazy.”

  “Even you? Are you crazy?” Herne asked.

  Tucker cast him a sideways glance. “Yeah, but not as fucking crazy as you.”

  Herne decided to let the comment pass. “Is Saxon checking the bee suit?” he asked.

  “The state boys grabbed it before she could look for any type of evidence.”

  Herne sighed. “Well, they do have access to the best labs.”

  Tucker nodded. “But Frey’s a fucker. He won’t throw me a single crumb of information.”

  Herne thought about the scene he’d witnessed between Frey and Sarah Coyle. Frey is, indeed, a fucker, Herne thought.

  The lane to Honey Do Bee Farm was long and unpaved. Herne’s truck jostled on its uneven surface as they drove past a field of yellow flowers. Bee food, he thought. They pulled up to a small tin barn and a slight man in his sixties walked out to greet them.

  He wore blue jeans and a thin blue tee-shirt, and the corners of his eyes were creased with wrinkles. His tan was deep and his skin was almost as leathery as the rawhide glove he slipped off his right hand. His handshake was firm and strong. “Ronald J. Pastor,” he said. “But you can call me Ron.”

  They introduced themselves. The sweet scent of pollen and flowers hung in the thick air, the heat making it almost cloying. “I thought you guys wore big white suits with big white hats and netting around your face,” Herne said.

  Ron chuckled. “My pappy was the first in my family to begin bee farming. I’ve been working with bees since I was a babe. In fact, if I had just a nickel for every time I’ve been stung, I could’ve done retired to Mexico by now. I don’t need one of those fancy bee suits. Hell, a bee sting ain’t no worse than a chigger bite.”

  Herne waved a hand across his face, shooing away a lone bee that buzzed by his ear.

  “Neither of you fellows is allergic, are you?” Ron asked.

  Tucker shook his head. “Nope. But a man who was severely allergic died from bee stings today.”

  Ron nodded. “My first wife was allergic to bees. She didn’t know it at first. She went her whole life without getting stung, if you can imagine that. Then one day she was outside gardening and I guess she did something to piss off the hive. She was stung three times and her throat closed up instantly.”

  “Is she… what happened to her?” Tucker asked.

  “I gave her a shot with an Epi-pen. You know, one of those syringes with medication in it for allergies. I’m a beekeeper. I always keep one around. You never know when a guest might have an allergic reaction. She was fine after that, but pretty shaken up. She couldn’t tolerate being married to a bee farmer and I wasn’t about to sell the family business. Told her
there was no reason for her to be scared, since she was fine and dandy as long as we had medicine handy. But she didn’t like it none, so she ran off with another man. An ostrich farmer, if you can believe that. Who the hell farms ostriches?” Ron spat on the ground. “Anyway, I’m talking your ear off, when I imagine you boys have a reason for your visit.”

  “How many bee hives do you have?” Herne asked.

  “About ninety.”

  “How close of a count do you keep on your hives?” Herne asked.

  “Pretty darn close,” Ron said. “I like to think I know where each and every one is at any given moment.”

  “Any of them gone missing lately?” Herne asked.

  Ron spat again before answering. “Funny you ask,” he said in a slow drawl. “I am missing two hives. I thought maybe I miscounted, which would be unusual but not completely impossible. I lost a couple of hives recently to a parasite problem. And my son’s been helping me a bit and he ain’t too good with numbers, which is the reason he got fired from his last job. Ronnie can charm the pants off the ladies, but he’s a little slow when it comes to counting. Lucky for him he’s got good looks.”

  “Two hives,” Herne mused. “About how many bees would that be?”

  Ron shrugged. “It depends. But for a rough estimate, I’d say about fifty thousand.”

  Fifty thousand. Suddenly, the sweat that soaked Herne’s shirt felt cold as he imagined Hank Jackson’s terror in the small closet, the feel of thousands of pricking barbs as they stung his flesh.

  “When did you first notice them missing?” Tucker asked.

  “This morning,” Ron said. “I take a count every Saturday, just for my records. My total today is different from last Saturday’s total. Two hives missing, like I said. And I can’t come up with any good reason for it.”

  “What kind of security do you have around here?” Herne asked.

  Ron stared at Herne for a moment, as if assessing the question, and then chuckled. “Wasn’t sure if you was pullin’ my leg or not,” he said, “but it looks like you’re serious. The only security I got around here is my old hound Rosie, and she’s about as deaf as a stone.”