Buzz Off

by Hannah Reed

  Besides, my sister needed something to keep her busy enough that she would stop with the text-speak.

  “You two girls are so cute,” Grams said. “Let’s get Carrie Ann to take a family picture.” She hauled out a small digital camera and away we went.

  After that, we worked up a plan I could live with. I hated to admit defeat, but Mom was right. The business was growing and I needed at least two people at the market most of the time. We nailed down a weekday schedule. Carrie Ann and I would work mornings until eleven, since Holly hadn’t seen the sunrise since she married Max. My sister and I would work until three, and the twins would take over from there. The weekend schedule was up in the air, but we’d polish it off in the next day or two.

  Holly cheerfully followed along with Carrie Ann, learning how to use the register. As usual, Mom and Grams argued about who was going to drive home. Grams, emerging as the victor again and proving she’s the only family member who can win a confrontation with Mom, pulled out into the street at her normal crawl. I heard someone honk at her, then an angry male voice call out something unprintable.

  Holly came over to watch. “Grams is going to get killed one of these days,” she said.

  “But she’ll go out happy.”

  “IK (I know). BTW (by the way), I didn’t get any sleep last night worrying about you and that tip. I’m almost relieved they arrested Clay. But I’m not sure you are out of the proverbial woods yet. What about that e-mail? Do you think Clay did it? If he did, he better admit it.”

  “Holly, do you think Grace Chapman is capable of murder?”

  “What are you thinking? That she killed Faye?”

  I hadn’t really thought about that. “I was thinking more along the lines of Manny.”

  “That’s crazy talk. Why would Grace murder her husband?” Holly asked, looking surprised that I’d even suggest that. “And how?”

  “What if she managed to catch a nest of yellow jackets and used the blower to direct them at Manny?” Okay, that was a stretch, even to my ears, but it was a new angle and had possibilities. “She could have locked him out of the house and out of his car, so he didn’t have any place to hide. Yellow jackets don’t give up until they chase you down.”

  “What about Grace during all this? Why didn’t she get stung?”

  A flash of insight. “She wore the bee suit.”

  “Is Grace still plain and mousy and righteous?”

  “Yup. That’s her.”

  “Well, when you work out her motive, please share it with me.”

  “Holly, I heard that Clay and Grace were having an affair.”

  “Noooo!”

  I told Holly what I knew, which was totally unsubstantiated gossip.

  “You can’t believe everything you hear,” Holly said, which was exactly what I had thought at first.

  “You’re right. I can’t see Grace with Clay.”

  “Not in a million years. It’s just nasty talk. And you’re above that stuff.”

  “Right.”

  “Besides, you’re supposed to be concentrating on staying out of trouble with the law.”

  “Right.”

  I drove my truck toward Holy Hill, searching for Hunter’s place, hoping he was home. I passed the Holy Hill National Shrine of Mary, which was run by the Carmelites, towering above the countryside at the highest point in southeastern Wisconsin. Devout worshippers made pilgrimages to the sacred chapel, and on weekends hundreds of visitors picnicked on the grounds.

  I passed the Shrine’s entrance and turned onto Friess Lake Road, checking mailboxes on the side of the road as I drove, looking for the address Carrie Ann had scrawled for me on the back of a napkin. Most of the homes were hidden at the end of long, curving driveways, tucked back behind pines and native shrubs. I turned in when I found numbers that matched Carrie Ann’s.

  Hunter’s truck and his Harley were parked next to a small, log-hewed house, surrounded by woods.

  Wisconsin is Harley country, since the motorcycles are made here and they are such fine machines.

  About Harleys:

  • Hog fever affects people from all walks of life—professionals, skilled workers, white collar, blue collar, retirees, the unemployed, you name it.

  • Some famous riders are Malcolm Forbes, Jay Leno, Elvis, and the duo Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in Easy Rider.

  • Harley bikers have their own dating website.

  • More and more women are riding their own bikes.

  • The black leather outfits rock—jackets, boots, all the accessories.

  The September afternoon sun ribboned through the tree canopy as I walked up to the house, the smell of burning firewood drifting on the air. Gleaming canine eyes watched me from inside a screened door. Alert and ready.

  “Hey, Ben,” I said, thinking he’d relax if I said his name. A tail wag would be nice. Maybe even a bark or two. Instead, Ben watched me in silent anticipation.

  “Hey, Story.” Hunter came out of the house wearing jeans, slung low on his hips, and pulling a shirt over his head, giving me a glimpse of hard muscle and lean torso. “What’s up?”

  “I’m glad I caught you home.”

  “I just now stopped home for a late lunch.” Hunter placed a hand on my shoulder. “Come on in and join me?

  “Sounds great,” I said, realizing how hungry I was. “But why don’t you come out here instead?”

  “Come in. He won’t hurt you.” Hunter opened the screen door and waited for me to enter. Ben was right there, standing guard at the door, but he let me pass without licking his chops.

  “I heard you went over to the county K-9 unit.”

  “Yep, it was the right move for me. Ben is my permanent canine partner, and we work as a team to train other dogs. I love it.” Hunter led me to the kitchen. The inside of the house was all warm wood, soft leather, and outdoorsy male.

  “Sit down.” Hunter held up a deli package. “Is smoked turkey okay?”

  I nodded and sat down while he built me a fabulous sandwich.

  “There must have been a lot of evidence against Clay if Johnny Jay arrested him,” I said, taking a bite of the sandwich.

  Hunter nodded. “Enough. No alibi, and his fingerprints all over your kayak.”

  Because they had sex in my kayak, I wanted to say, but for all I knew that was a lie Clay had concocted to explain why his fingerprints would be found there. “Has he confessed?” I asked, taking another bite.

  Hunter put away the sandwich makings and joined me at the table. “He isn’t talking at all, other than to demand an attorney.”

  “Smart. That’s what I’d do.” Which was true, but that meant he hadn’t admitted that he’d tried to frame me by lying.

  Hunter grinned. “The only difference is, I’d get a confession out of you. All I’d have to do is tickle your feet.”

  “You remember.” I had always been extremely sensitive when it came to my feet. Hunter had made me wet my pants more than once during a teenage tickling fight.

  “I remember more than that,” he reminded me. I tried not to blush and I think I pulled it off, even with him watching my reaction with a steady gaze.

  “Did they find Faye’s other earring?” I asked.

  Hunter shook his head. “It wasn’t in the brush along the shoreline, and the divers didn’t have any luck.”

  “It wasn’t in Clay’s house?”

  “No.”

  “Where are they holding Clay?”

  “Waukesha jail.” Hunter smiled. “You come out to pump me for information?”

  “I came to ask for advice.”

  Since I didn’t know where or how to begin, I just let the words fly without preamble. “Someone told Johnny Jay that I had a disagreement with Faye behind my house the night before we found her dead,” I said. “Which was a lie. I didn’t see her at all that night. But I did hear raised voices outside after dark. I didn’t tell Johnny Jay what I heard when I had the chance, and if I tell him now, he’ll think I’m maki
ng up a story to save myself. To make things worse, before Clay was arrested he told me the police chief thought my ex and I plotted to kill Faye Tilley together.”

  “Tell me everything, starting at the beginning.”

  So I did. At least everything I knew about Faye and Clay.

  When I was through, Hunter stared into my eyes for the longest time. Then he looked down at his hands, which were folded on the table. He wasn’t a happy camper. I chewed my lower lip until it almost bled. When he finally responded, he said, “You should have told me about the scream when we found her.”

  “I didn’t even remember it until Johnny Jay told me about the tip, and then it was too late to tell the truth.”

  “She was killed late Friday night or early Saturday morning. The scream you heard helps establish the time that she was assaulted. That’s important.”

  “I thought I was dreaming,” I said lamely.

  Another long silence. I used to like that about Hunter, those times when we could just be together without filling up all the space. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  “It’s never too late to tell the truth,” he finally said.

  I wasn’t sure I agreed, at least in certain cases.

  “Do you think Clay tried to frame me?”

  “I don’t know what to think at this point,” Hunter said.

  “How did Faye die?” I asked. “I didn’t see stab wounds or anything obvious.”

  “She was held under the water until she drowned. That’s strictly confidential at this point.”

  How awful for Faye. I almost couldn’t breathe, thinking about her struggling for air underneath all that river water.

  “Wouldn’t it have taken a strong man to hold her under?” I pointed out. “Clay isn’t exactly a heavyweight.”

  “A head injury indicated she was struck with a flat object, possibly the kayak paddle. Then held under.”

  “Oh.”

  “Johnny Jay is going to be pissed when he finds out you withheld information,” Hunter said.

  “That’s why I came to you. Can you help me?”

  “I’m not a miracle worker, but I’ll see what I can do. It would be best if you went to him voluntarily.”

  “I will, but at least soften him up a little?”

  Hunter’s eyes went smoky. “Let’s get you out of the middle of this mess as soon as we can.” He reached across the table and took my hand in his. I could definitely feel a connection through our fingers.

  Then he touched my face, gently and caressing, and I knew exactly where this was heading. And at the last second, to my dismay, I remembered Carrie Ann.

  I jumped up from the table. Part of me, the immature me, thought Hunter was a cute flirt. The other part thought he wasn’t behaving much better than Clay had. He didn’t have any excuse for coming on to me when he was involved with my cousin, in case he’d forgotten.

  “Jerk,” I said, spitting a little of my own kind of venom, just enough to sting.

  The look on Hunter’s face was one of stunned disbelief, but I didn’t hang around to talk it out. Men! So dense! Were there any good ones left in this world?

  I stormed out and almost hit his truck when I swung my car around. Not that that would have made a difference to my rusty truck, but it would have served Hunter right.

  The Wild Clover came into sight before I calmed down enough to realize I had handled the situation badly. Apparently, my scars from Clay’s infidelity were deeper than I thought.

  Sixteen

  Carrie Ann was sitting on a bench outside The Wild Clover with an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips. She quickly removed it and tried to hide it in her palm when she saw me coming.

  “I wasn’t going to light up,” she said when she saw my eyes following her hand. “Honest. Search me if you want. I don’t even have a lighter with me.” She stood up in case I wanted to frisk her, but I had other things on my mind.

  There were enough cars on the street to indicate that business was booming inside the market. “Did you leave Holly inside alone?”

  Carrie Ann must have figured that I wasn’t going to scold her for the cigarette because she stuck it back in the side of her mouth, unlit, and talked around it. “She’s a whiz at the register. And I needed a break. I’m not used to working straight through without stopping for a few smokes.”

  “Looks like we’re really busy,” I said, looking at all the cars and spotting my grandmother’s car parked close by. Then I remembered.

  Every Monday afternoon a group of seniors played cards in the old choir loft. My original vision of the market had included community events like this one. It made me feel good to know the store was like a second home to them.

  “What’s today’s game?” I asked.

  “Sheepshead,” Carrie Ann said. “As usual, all the old fogies drove themselves here, whether they lived two miles away or two doors down. Business has been steady, but not too much to handle.”

  Sheepshead is Wisconsin’s state card game, brought over by all the Germans who settled here. If you live in Wisconsin, you know how to play sheepshead. That’s the Monday group’s favorite card game, with rummy coming in a close second.

  Carrie Ann took the cigarette out of her mouth, looked at it longingly, and rearranged it in her mouth. “Are you ready for the showdown at the Town Council meeting tonight?” she asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be. Will you come for support? I need your vote.”

  “I’m really sorry, but I can’t.”

  “You could bring Hunter along.”

  Carrie Ann’s mouth dropped open and the cigarette hung on the edge of her lower lip for a moment before she tucked it back in with her tongue. If nothing else, my cousin was a professional cigarette juggler. “How did you know about that?”

  “It’s obvious,” I said.

  “It is?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t tell anybody, okay.”

  “’K,” I said, sounding like my sister. “It’s our secret. So are you coming tonight or not?”

  “Not,” Carrie Ann said.

  I don’t know what possessed me, it must have been all those emotions bouncing around inside my body, the anger and frustration, because I reached out and grabbed that stupid dangling cigarette from her mouth and broke it in two. Then I took her hand and jammed the pieces into it. “Suit yourself,” I said before stomping inside.

  I didn’t look back but I could hear Carrie Ann sputtering behind me.

  “Hey, sis,” Holly said, grinning like she was very pleased with herself. “I’m getting the hang of the register. I’m a natural!”

  I forced a smile in spite of the extremely bad day I was still trying to get through and greeted the customers in line, determined to rearrange my attitude as we exchanged pleasantries.

  Laughter floated down from above. The sheepshead games were in full swing. The market was filled with beautiful light from all the stained glass. Milly’s bouquets of flowers were right next to the checkout, where their fragrances wafted in the air and customers picked them up on impulse. Bins brimmed with corn, raspberries, and multicolored squashes, completing the picture of bliss and bountifulness.

  “Story needs a waggle dance,” Carrie Ann said, coming over to the register.

  “Huh?” Holly said, waving good-bye to her last customer in line.

  “That’s what Story’s bees do when they find a new pollen patch,” Carrie Ann said. “Tell her, Story.”

  “Once a field bee discovers a new source of pollen,” I explained, “she will fly home, crawl into the hive with the news, and do a dance in certain patterns, like a figure eight. That tells the other bees the exact location of the newly discovered flower field.”

  “It’s kind of done like this,” Carrie Ann demonstrated to Holly by thrusting out her back end and shaking it. At first I was surprised that she knew about the waggle dance, then I remembered that she had been working the day I burst in with the exciting news that I’d actually seen a honeybee wa
ggle dance and had gone on to demonstrate it. Carrie Ann remembered! How cool was that?

  Holly mimicked Carrie Ann, shaking right along. The three of us must have looked ridiculous to anyone peering through the window and to the customers in the store, but we didn’t care as we wiggled and waggled down the aisles until we were laughing and the world wasn’t tilting quite so far into the shadows.

  A few minutes later, I settled at my tiny desk in the storage room and prioritized. I was surprised when the very first item on my list turned out to be the very subject I didn’t want to pursue. I guess my subconscious took over. My to-do list went like this:

  • The current rumor about Grace and Clay was substantial. Had she really cheated on Manny? And if so, when and where?

  • Prove that Manny was killed by yellow jackets, although that would be difficult without an official autopsy by the medical examiner.

  • Find Gerald Smith, the bee association member who took Manny’s beehives, and convince him to return the honeybee hives to me.

  • Once that was accomplished, figure out how to transport eighty-one hives and where to stash them if everybody in town remained hostile toward honeybees.

  • Convince Grace to sell Manny’s equipment to me, all of it, including the honey house, now that Holly would loan me the funds.

  • Calculate how long it would take to pay my sister back, so I could get out from under my family’s thumb.

  • Respect Grace by waiting until after tomorrow’s funeral to begin negotiations for the equipment.

  I started with bullet point number three, since that seemed easier than one and two—find the beekeeper who had made off with Manny’s honeybees. I picked up the phone and called Eric Hanson, the president of the county bee association.