The Bee Keeper

by Vincent, Tracy D

  The rest of the ride is rather uneventful. Deputy Dylan doesn’t talk much to me or to Mitchell. Mitchell tells me stories of his grandkids and their crazy antics. I’m guessing we are in the car around an hour before we come to this sterile looking building.

  The Department of Science and Technology reminds me of those movies where the science building is concrete, steel, and glass; really brightly lit and airy, nothing sinister about this place. There are even flower beds in the front. It’s pretty cliché, really, when I think about it.

  We don’t stop at the front of the building, though. We drive around the block to the side. Still shiny and not even remotely like those movies, where the side alley is always dark and evil. Deputy Suarez stops the car and Deputy Dylan gets out and helps me since I’m still all handcuffed together. The others, Dipshit included, come around and they all flank me as we make our way into this edifice of science.

  They don’t give me a chance to really look around. The room beyond the door is large and empty, except for us. We’re also not sticking around, so this must not be the stopping point.

  We make our way down the only corridor; so far, this is the first place that we have lights over our heads instead of those huge ass windows. There are three doors in this hallway. Two are obviously doors to elevators on either side of the hall and the third is marked by the sign that says “stairs” with a keypad under it.

  Now, how strange is it to need a special badge/key/fingerprint/whatever in order to get into the stairwell? What will happen if there is an emergency? People get mighty stupid when there’s an emergency. It would really suck for them to get stuck all because some doofus can’t figure out the keypad to the stairwell.

  But we aren’t going into the stairwell. We are going to the elevator on the left side of the hall. There isn’t one of those arrows pointing up or down, indicating the direction you’re wishing to go. Deputy Suarez takes out a key and puts it into the keyslot in the wall next to the elevator and turns it. The door immediately slides open, as if it were waiting on us. I can’t decide if I need to piss my pants or be impressed.

  Deputy Suarez and Mitchell move to the back of the elevator and turn to face me. Deputy Dylan guides me in front of him with Dipshit following behind. Once inside, Dylan turns me around to face the door and stands diagonally to my right with Dipshit diagonally to my left. Both of them also face the doors.

  I look up at the ceiling. It’s a mirror. Why do elevators have mirrored ceilings? Is it so that people can see down women’s shirts or see the person behind them covertly picking their nose?

  The door opens and Deputy Dylan tugs on my arm, pulling me forward and out of my thoughts. The hall we enter is white—so white it hurts the eyes, white. It reminds me of those fake smiles on those fake-ass people you see on TV, blindingly white.

  This hall is short compared to the one prior and there are six doorways, three to each side. The only color breaking the walls up are the nickel-finished door handles. These are not the typical knobs that I’m familiar with, but actual lever-like handles.

  We walk to the second door on the right and Mitchell knocks. It swings inward and we start filing in, with me playing monkey in the middle.

  The room is in stark contrast to the rest of the building. There are no windows on the walls, there is no steel or glass or concrete. The lighting is soft and the walls are a warm tone and generic paintings hang on the them, like the kind you see in fancy hotels. This makes me think of a really well-to-do hospital room.

  There’s a couch and chair with a coffee table in one corner. A little kitchenette table and chairs set in another. And then a hospital bed along the back wall with another door.

  This doesn’t look sinister at all. But it does look like I’ll be here for a while.

  Deputy Suarez is talking to the woman who let us in. I didn’t notice her until now. She’s really tall and blonde. Her hair is pulled back in a bun and she’s wearing glasses. This is so stereotypical that it almost makes me laugh.

  Almost.

  I would, but honestly, I’m getting quite scared. I wish I knew what they’re talking about. Instead Deputy Dylan is grabbing my arm and diverting my attention. He takes me to the table in the corner and cuffs me down to the chair.

  “Listen, sorry about my partner. He really doesn’t know when to quit sometimes. I wish I could tell you that everything will be okay because you don’t seem to be the type of person to deserve all this. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard enough stories. Just be honest, be good, and hopefully he’ll go easy on you.” Deputy Dylan turns and leaves after that; actually, he’s the last one out of the room.

  Ms. Science Woman shuts the door behind them and turns her attention to me for the first time. “Hello, Angela. My name is Meghan. Let’s get you uncuffed and more comfortable, shall we?” She comes over and undoes the handcuffs on my ankles first, then the ones connecting my hands. Instinctively, I start rubbing my wrists.

  “Aren’t you afraid of me? They required four armed men to escort me here while I was cuffed feet and hands.”

  “Should I be afraid of you, Ms. Fawkes?”

  “No. You don’t have anything for me to steal, do you?”

  “Would you like anything to drink while you wait?”

  “Water would be awesome, thank you.” I remain seated in the chair at the table because I’m not sure if I am allowed to move or not. I don’t want to get stunned or whatever else they could do to me in here.

  She leaves me and instead of heading through the door I came into, she heads through the one next to the hospital bed. I just put my head down on the table and try to slow my heart rate. So far, the science lady is nice. Much nicer than the deputies, especially that douche canoe, Deputy Dipshit. I hope he gets his hands cut off in some freak accident.

  I look up and try to pay closer attention to this room. Even though it isn’t the bright white, glass, and steel finish of the rest of the building, this room is still quite sterile. There’s nothing that makes this room look homey, so this is either a place that I’m passing through, or they’re going to expect me to make it home.

  Ms. Science Woman—Meghan—interrupts my thoughts as she re-enters the room. She’s carrying two bottles of water, a laptop case, and a plastic bag. I’m already not liking this. The bag and the laptop case she lays on the table in front of the other seat, one of the bottles she hands to me, the other she opens and sips from. She takes the seat and as she pulls it closer to the table, the chair feet scratching on the floor breaks the silence that has enveloped us.

  As she pulls out the laptop, I study her. She’s very beautiful. Not exactly what you’d imagine a science lady looking like. She looks like something from a magazine. Not that pretty women can’t be smart and into the geeky stuff, but it’s not common, even in our modern hear-me-roar time.

  After she’s all set up and has taken another sip of water, she finally turns her attention to me and smiles. She has dimples. It’s nice to know that they’ve perfected genetics because it’s sitting in front of me.

  “So, Angela, I’m going to be taking down some basic information. Most of this can be found in your file, but we want it straight from you. I will tell you that you’re being monitored by both camera and microphone, and I will be drawing blood samples from you in a little bit. Don’t be nervous, this is quite painless.” She flashes me her smile again, and it really feels genuine. She’s someone I could see myself being friends with if I grew up on the right side of town.

  “Yeah, s’no problem. It isn’t like I have an appointment anywhere else right now.”

  “Your name is Angela Michelle Fawkes and you were born on April 12, 1998. Is that correct?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you give me your mother’s full name, both maiden and all her married names, as well as your father’s?”

  “My mother’s name is Mary Elizabeth Fawkes, married Jeremy Wilson Dukes and married Phillip Allen James. I don’t know my father.”

&n
bsp; Her fingers clack on the keys as I talk, her focus on the screen in front of her. “Did your mother ever mention who your father could be?” At my negative headshake, she asked, “Since we’ll be doing a blood draw, do you want to know who he is if he’s in the system?”

  “Sure, why not.” I shrug noncommittally, taking a drink of my water. I’m not sure how I feel about this line of questioning. My mom never said anything about who my biological father was, she just said I was better off never knowing him. I decided some years ago that he must have been some druggie or criminal. A lot of good not knowing him has done me.

  “Well, then, what’s her birthdate and occupation?”

  “March 12, 1983. Casket.”

  Her eyes jump to mine, remorse marring their bright blue depths. “I’m sorry. Date of death?”

  “June 24, 2011, age twenty-eight. Can I ask why you’re asking me these questions? I know I’m here to see the Bee Keeper and from all the bullshit people have been giving me, it’s a situation I’m not going to walk away from. So, why all this?” I ask her with a motion of my hands. I hate this waiting, and this is even more nerve-wracking than being in jail.

  “We’re getting baseline data on you. Also, he keeps a portfolio on each person that comes here. It’s a means of making sure that all this information is accurate and 100% reliable. If there is anything that he hates, it is a lie. And for him, an inaccuracy is just another form of lie. So, we get your answers, compare them to what we have and if there are any discrepancies, we find out the true answer. Always.”

  “Ah, okay…then fire away.”

  “Based on your age and the date of your mother’s death, you were thirteen when she died, true? Who did you live with after that?”

  “Yep, I was thirteen, and I didn’t live with anyone. They said that Child Services would come and pick me up. No one came.”

  “What about your stepfather, Phillip Allen James?” Meghan’s face, which hasn’t shown much emotion, seems pretty disturbed about a thirteen-year-old girl left fending for herself. Strangely, it’s kind of reassuring that there are people who still instinctively care about such things anymore.

  “Well, I lived with him for about two months after my mom died, but when he came to my room and…” I see her shifting in her seat and clenching her jaw, so I pause, trying to make it easier on her. “He told me that since I was the woman of the house, it was time I acted like it.” I don’t tell her that he didn’t exactly tell me, but his actions were real clear.

  “Thank you, Angela. And for what it is worth, I’m so very sorry that Child Services never took care of you. I can assure you, this will be looked into. I’ll see to the matter personally.”

  She stands and closes her laptop and starts putting it back in the case. She rifles through the bag and pulls out a rubber tourniquet and some rubber gloves, as well as a blood draw kit with six vials with varying color caps.

  She comes around to my side of the table, lifts my arms and starts poking and prodding me with her finger. I know enough junkies to know she’s looking for a good vein. She must have found her sweet spot because she applies the rubber strap to my left arm and starts doing it all over again. When she finds it, she rubs the spot down with the alcohol pad and inserts the needle and fills the vials. One after another after another. It’s over with fairly quickly, and surprisingly painless like she promised.

  “Thank you, Angela, for talking with me. I know you’re nervous. Probably even scared. I really wish I could alleviate your concerns, but I don’t know exactly what will be happening. I do know that so long as you’re honest with him and answer him with 100% transparency, he’ll show you leniency. Just keep that in mind.” She finishes gathering all her stuff and walks back through the door by the bed.

  The room is oddly empty now that she’s gone. I continue to sit on that chair as though my butt is glued to it. I’m half afraid that if I get up, I’ll lose the tenuous grasp I have on my composure. I’m not sure how long I sit, but I try my best to not think about what’s coming. Maybe he’ll just ask me questions and let me go. Maybe he’ll give me a sentence for the car theft, but nothing too bad when he realizes that I really don’t know anything about any dead person or briefcase.

  The door that Meghan walked out of opens again. Instantly, my heart leaps into my throat and starts to beat a million miles a minute and my palms start sweating profusely. This is the moment. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know Meghan says that I’m going to be asked more questions, but it’s the after that part that has me feeling the urge to piss myself.

  The man entering is carrying a tray of sorts. It looks like the kind that housekeepers carry sometimes in hotels. It holds all the smaller tools and gadgets that they need to clean a particular room. This one is filled with tubes and gauze and other medical supplies. He must have been sent to finish getting blood or something else Meghan forgot to mention. He sets his tray on the table next to the hospital bed and comes toward me.

  The man is short, possibly my height. His hair is short and is a non-descript brown. He’s wearing an open white labcoat like Meghan, but instead of being smartly dressed like she was, he’s wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He pulls up the chair that Meghan was sitting in, sits down. and just watches me for a moment.

  I can’t talk past the lump in my throat, though my heartbeat is slowing down. There’s something unnerving about him, and I look down at my hands, which are clasped in front of me on the table.

  “Hello, Angela. My name’s Jack and I’ll be asking you some questions. Some will be easy to answer, other’s not so much. I just need you to be as honest as possible.”

  His voice is quiet. his words deliberate. I look up at him and notice that he’s younger than I thought he would be. He might be in his mid-thirties. His close-cropped hair is slightly thinning and his beard is short and crisply lined. His hazel eyes are kind but sharply assessing everything. Honestly, I’m not sure I could pull one over on him. Maybe it’s my fear, or maybe because I believe he’s a human lie detector, I don’t know which.

  I nod, my throat still too constricted.

  “Angela, would you like something else to drink? It doesn’t have to be water; we have all the usual fanfare in the back.”

  I look down at the bottle in my hand and realize it’s empty. I don’t remember drinking it all. “Water’s fine, thank you.”

  He pulls a little bottle from his lab coat pocket and offers it to me with a wink. “I thought you might get thirsty in here, so I brought one just in case.” His face crinkles up in a smile. His presence is calm and it helps soothe my frazzled nerves. He’s friendlier than Meghan and though his stillness makes me nervous, it instills a peacefulness about the room.

  “Angela, do you mind if I ask you some questions regarding what you told to Ms. Staples? She says that your mother was fifteen when you were born and that you don’t know your father. She was also twenty-eight when she died. How did she die?”

  “Officially? They said it was a stroke that killed her. Her blood pressure was high, top that with dehydration from chronic diarrhea and lack of appetite. They said that it caused her to have a stroke and it killed her almost instantly. I think there was something else going on, because who keeps having chronic diarrhea, unless there’s something wrong. But she was a cocktail waitress in a strip club, there was no way she could afford health insurance. And it wasn’t like Phillip was worth a damn. The only thing he did was cook. He made sure we had plenty to eat. Any money he made was his and his alone. So, she dealt with it until she couldn’t anymore.” I cringe at my own verbal diarrhea.

  “The autopsy shows that she was suffering from chronic acute lead poisoning, that’s why she had those symptoms that eventually led to her stroke and subsequent death. We tested your blood and looked at your latest X-rays provided by the jail, and you show no signs of lead poisoning. This would indicate that it wasn’t environmental since you lived together unless it came from the bar she worked in. Did she take
most of her meals there? Did she drink there often?”

  “Lead poisoning? Don’t you have to eat paint chips for that?” I take a long pull off my bottle of water. “No, she didn’t get anything there, her boss was such an asshat that he charged her for drinking water. So, she ate and drank everything from the house.”

  “Your stepfather, Mr. James, do you know where he worked?” I look at him and his arms are on the table, relaxed, and he’s looking at me intently. I am half expecting him to write this stuff down like Meghan did.

  “You going to keep notes?”

  He grins widely and gestures around the room. “Remember, you’re being recorded, by both audio and video feeds right now. So, it’ll be transcribed later.”

  “Ah, gotcha. Anyway, to answer your question, Philip worked at La Reina on Cromwell Drive.”

  “What did he do at La Reina?”

  “He said he was a line cook, but he kept some really strange hours. I didn’t know high-end joints like that stayed open at all times.”

  “So, you think he was lying about his job?” Jack tilts his head slightly to the left as if my answer were somehow important.

  “I don’t know. I was thirteen when we parted ways.” I drain the rest of my water, feeling a lot more relaxed with Jack. He seems like such a nice man.

  “Do you have any children, Jack?”

  “I have two,” he says, his lips curling up slightly.

  “I bet you’re a good dad.” I say this sincerely because I really do think he would be a good dad. Lord only knows, they wouldn’t be able to get one over on him. I think he notices everything.

  “I try my best, Angela. Do you mind if we move this conversation to the hospital bed? I need to get you strapped in and hooked up.” Strangely enough, this doesn’t cause me to panic.