The Honey Trap (A Honeybee Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Katherine Hayton

  “I’m Sally,” the strangely cheerful woman said. “And I don’t know why the minister insisted I come along to this shindig. He said it’d be a party, but this looks nothing like the parties where I come from!”

  “If he’d told me it was a party, I would’ve run a mile.”

  Instead of giving her a strained look, as people usually did when Alice ventured into mixed company, the woman just gave a small snort of agreement. “I get that. There’s nothing worse than crowds of people when you just want to be left alone.”

  They’d talked for a while, expressing their shared indignation at being asked to attend, and to Alice’s surprise, Sally seemed genuinely interested in her conversation. She stayed so much longer than initially planned that Minister Snell had time to serve up dessert, including the honey and cider cake Alice had contributed.

  Her mother had always insisted that she never turn up empty handed to a social gathering, and the command had stuck.

  “This is delicious,” Sally commented with her mouth half full.

  Alice had given her a sidelong glance before deciding that the woman didn’t know she’d baked it. “I can give you the recipe if you like.”

  “You made this?” Sally’s eyes opened wide as Alice nodded. “It’s wonderful, and I’d love that recipe. I quite enjoy baking myself, but I’ve created nothing quite so delicious.”

  “It’s the honey,” Alice explained, her eyes lighting up as she moved onto her favorite subject. “I caretake the bees who produce it, and they’re the hardest working little creatures in the entire world. We have a range of different plants to affect the taste so I can produce honey to suit any occasion. My dad was going to help me plant out a manuka paddock next, to see if we could get the medicinal benefits as well.”

  At the thought of her father, Alice’s throat closed up, and her eyes and nose watered. Sally handed her a small pocket pack of tissues, and she fumbled one out just in time.

  “Is your dad dead?”

  The blunt question was a relief to Alice, who sometimes didn’t understand the questions people asked when they skirted around topics with too much delicacy. She nodded and ventured, “My mom is too. They both died within the past month.”

  “Ouch,” Sally said, wincing. “That’s rough. So, does that mean you no longer have the bees?”

  Alice felt a stabbing sensation in her chest. Although the property had passed to her, if she couldn’t find a way to make money soon, the bank would be on hand to reclaim it.

  “For the moment, it’s still mine.”

  “Well, then.” Sally licked the tip of her finger and pressed it against the errant crumbs of cake still littering her plate. Once it was clean, she stood up and waved for Alice to walk ahead of her. “Come on, let’s go and visit this magical land of bees.”

  Although Alice would never in a million years have shown a total stranger her home and hives, Sally already felt closer to her than any other person she knew. Once her family had been deducted, it left her with only the occasional trades person or shop assistant in her circle of acquaintances.

  “They’re magnificent,” Sally stated emphatically when she saw the hives with the worker bees just returning at the end of a long day. One bee alighted on her arm, and she carefully returned it to a daisy head bobbing in the grass at her feet.

  That one gesture alone made her a hero in Alice’s eyes.

  After an hour spent wandering the land, Sally took a teaspoon of Alice’s freshly prepared honey and offered a smile of heart-breaking enjoyment. “I can’t believe you keep this to yourself,” she muttered. “Don’t you have bees enough to produce this in bulk?”

  At that, Alice showed Sally the storage room, packed full of rows of honey, all carefully bottled and packed away each year. “I just never worked out how to market it or who to sell it too,” Alice said with a trace of sadness. “I tried to sell it online, but it’s harder than you’d think.”

  “But you could just sell this from a roadside stall, and you’d have customers flocking from all around.”

  Alice shuddered at the thought of people cramming close to her, expecting to hand her money, perhaps even touching her as they did so.

  “What we need to do is set up a cafe,” Sally announced in a firm voice, her eyes glowing with the possibilities. “We could sell your honey to the customers while they’re eating one of your delicious cakes.”

  The idea appalled Alice until Sally volunteered to be the front of house and to keep her away from any potential human interaction. “We share the proceeds fifty-fifty,” she declared. “I handle all the people, and you handle the bees.”

  So the business had grown at the same rate as their friendship, all brought about by the forced interaction with Minister Snell. In that time, it had never occurred to Alice to ask Sally about her past—only knowing what she volunteered. But if anyone were to know something different, then surely it would be the man who brought the two of them together.

  “I want to ask you about Sally Philton,” Alice said now. “She’s under arrest for murder, and the police seem to have evidence on her from other incidents.”

  Alice leaned forward in her seat and tried to force herself to meet the minister’s gaze. Her actual focus point slid away from that, resting somewhere just below his eyes. Close enough. “I want to know how you knew her, and why she was at the community barbecue that day.”

  No matter how much Alice pressed him, Minister Snell wasn’t forthcoming with his knowledge. Nevertheless, she could tell from the tightness of his face, that the news about Sally’s arrest didn’t come as a complete surprise. His expression was more one of disappointment than astonishment, as though he’d known all along that something similar might happen.

  “I can’t reveal anything about one of my parishioners,” the minister insisted as Alice queried him again. “You know that. I wouldn’t share your secrets with anybody, and Sally deserves the same respect.”

  “But she’s in trouble,” Alice insisted, slapping her hand down on the oak desk. “If I don’t know what her past is, then I can’t help her now.”

  “If Sally wanted you to know her past, then she would have told you. You’ve known and worked with each other for years now, haven’t you?” When Sally nodded, he continued, “There you have it, then. If her past was information she wanted to share, there was every opportunity to do it.”

  Alice felt the tears building up behind her eyes and fought them back. She didn’t want to become overwhelmed again. Not being able to function appropriately would take away the only chance to help her friend. Instead, she sniffed and tipped her head back, letting gravity help put the tears away.

  “How about you?” the minister asked. “How are you doing with this news? If you want to come along to a service, then there’s one tonight in about an hour.”

  Alice jumped to her feet at the news, shaking her head. “No, and I don’t want to hold you up if you need to prepare.”

  At that, Minister Snell laughed. “I’ve been doing God’s work for a lifetime. If I needed to learn to set aside time to deal with emergencies, then I wouldn’t be very good at my job.”

  “I need to go,” Alice insisted. “My dog’s at the vet’s office and I need to see how he’s doing.”

  The minister reluctantly escorted her out, on a wave of hollow promises to call in and revisit him sometime. Back in her car, Alice sat with her hands on the wheel for a minute, trying to work out what to do now.

  Her phone beeped with a message from the vet. “Chester is still unwell. The room is set up if you want to stay with him overnight.”

  Well, that sorted out her priorities. With another long sniff, Alice drove off to spend the night visiting with her dog.

  Chapter Ten

  The cot Josh had set up for Alice was narrow, and she felt trapped in one position through fear of falling. In other circumstances, she would have preferred to just head back home and escape to the comfort of her familiar bed.

  The only
attraction the cot had going for it was its proximity to Chester. It was less than a foot from the table he still lay upon, and on the same level so she could reach across and lie with one arm resting on her dog’s side.

  Chester’s breathing was regular, but that wasn’t down to him. A ventilator puffed each lungful into his mouth with clockwork precision, letting him exhale on his own before pumping another swallow of oxygen into his mouth.

  Although the rhythmic sound should have soothed Alice, she soon grew to hate the noise. If Chester roused from his overlong sleep, he would begin to fight the machines. That was the sound her ears were listening for.

  The surgery had an overnight vet on hand for their patients and any new emergency arrivals. Josh had introduced them, but the name had floated in and out of Alice’s head within the same second, and she just nodded blankly at the man.

  He was also sleeping on a cot but in a different room. One not populated with a dog. A monitor affixed to each overnighting animal would alert him if something went wrong.

  For the first few minutes after arriving, Alice hoped that Chester would respond to her voice or her touch. She’d peered intently into his velvety face, scanning for the slightest sign that the unconscious dog knew she was there. Her hope had slipped away with each puff of the ventilator, with each beep of the heart monitor strapped around his chest.

  Now, too wound up to sleep and desperate for a distraction from her maudlin thoughts, Alice pulled out her phone and clicked onto the internet. If Sally had done something wrong enough to be convicted in a court of law, there was a chance that someone online would have a record.

  After searching for a good twenty minutes, following links that led her down rabbit holes and back up again, Alice found a website that monitored all the open courtroom cases held at the Christchurch District Court. She searched through them for Sally’s name, but that produced no results.

  Confident that if it were anywhere, it would be in there, Alice then started the long process of searching through one article at a time. At least she didn’t need to worry about sorting through the plethora of reports from after her friendship with Sally had begun, but that was the only saving grace.

  After an hour, Alice found mention of a Sally, but it was for Raleigh rather than Philton. She performed another general search on the internet, which produced a low-quality photograph that might be Sally, or it might be any other blonde.

  Four years for grievous bodily harm. The sentence seemed high for a first-time conviction, even though physical assault was a terrible crime. After searching back through the records even further, Alice happened upon another reference to the woman.

  If it was the same Sally, then this was the third conviction for assault. The first two had resulted in lighter sentences, community service, and house arrest. The third tipped off the judge she wasn’t changing her ways, and incarceration followed.

  Not only did Alice find those records but also a mention of a protective order. This time, Sally wasn’t the assailant in the case, but the plaintiff. The court had granted the request for an order of protection and, since the defendant held the same last name of Raleigh, Alice presumed it must be her husband.

  She replaced the phone in her pocket with mixed feelings. Although pleased to find what she’d been looking for, Alice was disturbed by the charges as well. She couldn’t imagine her cheerful friend Sally changing into someone who could mercilessly beat another person. To have repeated the same offense on multiple occasions made her feel sick to her stomach. The hand resting on Chester’s side dug deeper into his short fur.

  What kind of life had Sally led prior to Alice meeting her that she thought her behavior was acceptable? If it hadn’t been for the prison sentence imposed, would Sally have continued on her spiral of assaults?

  The other case, Alice could understand. Domestic violence was an open secret in society. Anyone hitching themselves to a partner could be at risk of the same. If that had been everything, Alice would have thought, good on her friend for getting out of the situation and turning her life around. Instead, it seemed Sally had been part of the same culture of violence as her partner.

  The gulf between what she thought she knew of Sally and what there was to know stretched out wide in front of Alice. If she searched again, would she turn up even worse things about her friend? Would she lose touch with everything that Sally had represented to her?

  The scent of alcohol on Sally’s breath now presented an even deeper problem. If that had been part of the cause—and to Alice, it seemed more likely than not—then to resume drinking might well have led her friend into a downward spiral, discovering her old habits lying in wait at the bottom.

  Grievous bodily harm could easily encompass something like slamming someone in the head with a jar in a burst of anger. Had Sally taken it one step too far, hitting poor Alex Dunbar in the head at the wrong angle, and resulting in his death rather than a painful wound?

  “Who on earth did I go into business with?” Alice whispered, directing the question to Chester but in reality, answering it herself. The truth was, she didn’t know, hadn’t done the legwork she should have. The Bumbling Bumblebee Cafe was co-partnered with a stranger.

  Alice’s fingers dug even deeper into Chester’s fur, looking for comfort. The dog whined and shifted away, her touch edging too far toward painful for his liking. She pulled her hand away, a rush of heat flushing into her cheeks as shame took hold.

  Chester whined again.

  In a second, Alice was on her feet, turning on the overhead lights and ignoring the glare. “Chester? Are you back with me, boy?”

  She bent over her dog, seeing his closed eyes and feeling the rush of hope be sucked away back into the oblivion of loss. Then his eyelids flickered, and his shoulders shifted on the table.

  “Doctor! I need help!”

  The cry split apart the silence of the sleeping unit, and Chester opened his eyes wide, shifting his head and growling low in his throat. Alice put her fingertips on the tape holding the ventilator in place, then pulled them away, helpless. Should she do that? Should she wait?

  “Doctor!”

  Was that even what they called the vet? Had she called out the wrong title and was that why no one was responding? Why hadn’t she paid attention when Josh introduced the man? Why hadn’t she learned his name?

  Then the soft pad of footsteps came up to the door, and the sleepy-headed vet poked his head inside the room. “What’s happening in here, then?”

  “I think Chester’s waking up.” Alice turned back to her dog and saw his eyelids closed again. With another string of panic plucking at her heart, she laid a hand on his shoulders and gave him a gentle shake.

  Chester opened his eyes again and struggled, fighting against the machine pushing air down his throat. The vet hurried over to the dog’s side, quickly pulling away the tape and drawing the tube out in one smooth motion.

  “Thank goodness,” Alice said, pressing her hand to her chest as she stood back to let the vet examine him. “Chester, you’re such a good dog. I hope you know that. You’re the best dog in the world.”

  “Careful,” the vet said with a grin. “You’ll make every other dog in this place jealous.” He quickly finished up his examination, checking the machines hooked up, then turned back to Alice with a nod. “He looks fine. Your dog’s a lot stronger than we thought.”

  “Of course, he is,” Alice said, stepping forward to give Chester a hug. “He’s the strongest and best dog ever.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After another half hour of observation, Chester was cleared to return home with Alice for the night. It was only as she opened the door out of the surgery she realized Josh had never told her what the results of the operation were.

  Alice turned back to the vet whose name she couldn’t remember but then decided that could wait until morning. For the moment, she just wanted to get her dog home and spoil him until he couldn’t take it any longer.

  With Chester inst
alled on a comfy dog bed right inside her bedroom—an impossible treat she rarely allowed, even on special occasions—Alice listened to the sound of his snuffly breathing and let gratitude flow through her body.

  Until now, she’d pushed aside all thoughts of what would happen if her dog didn’t make it through the operation. With that dread dispatched for the moment, she felt free to ponder how devastating that would have been.

  As she became more confident that Chester would make it safely through the night, Alice’s thoughts turned once again to Sally’s arrest for murder. With the shock discoveries of the day, she’d found it easy to paint her friend in a new light, that of a killer, but in the darkness, the thoughts seemed ludicrous.

  Sally might be many things—so many that Alice hadn’t even known the half of them—but she couldn’t picture her raising a honey jar and smashing it down into the principal’s head. The petty disagreement over a raffle could never escalate to such a situation. Alice felt sure. Even if Sally was drinking again when she shouldn’t, the action was too many steps removed from what she knew of her friend.

  So, who did that leave in the killer’s seat? Somebody ruthless enough to let Sally rot in jail for a crime she didn’t commit, while they wandered around Scott-free.

  Somebody from the school seemed most likely. The contempt born of familiarity seemed a far more likely cause of the burst of anger required to do the deed.

  Alice gave up on sleep and linked her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling while she played out the day’s events in her mind.

  The first suspect she’d add to the list was Donnie. Not because he appeared to be a killer, but just because he’d been such a jerk. Imagine teasing someone you hardly knew about pupils ditching school! Not only that, he’d somehow coerced the surrounding group to join in with the ruse.

  Although Alice hadn’t shown it at the time, teasing like that was one of the things she hated most about other people. It had happened throughout her entire life, and although that meant she could now put a brave face on it, the action still cut her up inside.