Odd Partners

by Mystery Writers of America

  “What?” Ashley looked from one to the other.

  Estelle stared Harry straight in the face, simply to prove she still could. “He’s a Peeping Tom.”

  Harry might have blushed—hard to tell through all that stubble. “No peeping involved,” he said. “Staring openly, yeah. Guilty as charged.”

  Estelle didn’t blush; calculations were running through her mind. “What exactly did you see?”

  Harry raised his eyebrows, incredulous.

  Estelle raised hers. Waiting.

  Harry’s gaze drifted over the shotgun—still leveled at his center mass—to Estelle’s wet hair, and then to the power line stretching away from the cabin roofline.

  “You came blasting out your door,” he said. “Buck naked. Dripping wet. You went to the edge of the woods, gun up, and sighted on something. I backed off, went up the hill behind your cabin. Gave you time to get back inside.” His eyes met hers. “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  The apiary fence was 8 feet tall, impenetrable with vines. No one inside could have seen her draw a bead on that squirrel.

  Harry glanced at the apiary gate, swinging gently ajar. “Ashley could have come from there. I didn’t see her until she started up the porch. I was keeping my eyes on the ground, in case you were still out here. To give you a chance to see me first and get inside.”

  “I would never go in that place.” Ashley gave an exaggerated shiver. “She keeps bees in there.” Her profile, washed in the candlelight pouring from the open door, showed flaws that were unnoticeable straight on—a peevish set to her mouth, a few bumps marring her otherwise lovely complexion.

  Estelle took more pleasure in that than she should have; she’d have to work on keeping her cattiness under control. Nobody liked bitter middle-aged women.

  “Bees are dangerous,” Ashley said. “I can’t believe the government lets just anybody keep them any old place.”

  In this case, though, Estelle would give herself a pass. Her finger, curled against the trigger, tightened slightly.

  Harry looked back and forth between the two women. “Honey’s good for you,” he said. “It helps coughs, insomnia, acid reflux, sinus problems, acne, dandruff, eczema, yeast infections, herpes.”

  Ashley grimaced.

  “It boosts energy, memory, and sexual function. It can be used to treat hangovers, gum disease, high cholesterol. It has antioxidants.”

  It was as if he’d become an idiot savant.

  “It’s a good antiseptic and has antibacterial properties. It can be used to build up immunity to local allergens.”

  “Bees are the local allergens,” Ashley said. “My husband’s allergic. One bee sting and he could die.”

  “Did you tell Hector that?” Harry’s voice was deceptively casual.

  “Of course I did.” Ashley looked at Estelle, spoke precisely. Carefully. No more, and no less. “I told him.”

  A lump rose in Estelle’s throat.

  Harry lowered his hands.

  The shotgun, grown heavy and pointless, sagged in Estelle’s arms. Around her the wind gusted, shifting directions, rattling the leaves of the aspens and carrying away the scent of raspberries Hector would never taste. Oh, Hector, she thought. All I wanted was to know who took you away from me. Now I know, but I can’t prove it.

  “Hector used to talk about honey all the time,” Harry said. It was a eulogy, a conclusion. An acknowledgment that he had tried and failed. “He sure loved those bees.”

  The moon had begun its slow rise over the treetops, casting black streaking shadows, its blue-washed glow a cool contrast to the yellow flickering candlelight. A single bee hummed across Estelle’s line of sight, fighting its way out of the apiary, against the wind.

  Ashley eyed it warily. “Well,” she said. “Guess I’ll head on home.”

  “No.” Estelle raised the shotgun to her shoulder.

  “Estelle,” Harry said.

  She ignored him.

  “You got stung,” she said to Ashley. “That’s why you’re zipped up. You’re hiding bee stings, but you can’t hide the ones on your face.”

  The other woman shrugged. “I told you, bees are dangerous.” She smiled. “And there’s no law against zipping. Unzipping, though. Public exposure. There are rules against that.”

  “Not here,” Harry said.

  Two more bees joined the first. They circled around the porch, dancing their wavering airborne dance.

  Estelle sighted down the barrel, drew a bead on Ashley’s forehead. “You ran Hector over, and you tried to electrocute me.”

  Ashley stopped smiling. “She’s threatening me with a firearm, Harry. You’re my witness. As soon as I get home I’m calling the sheriff.”

  Harry said nothing. Pointedly, he turned away.

  Ashley gaped at his retreating back. “You can’t just let her shoot me!” Then, to Estelle, “You can’t shoot me. You’ll get sent to prison. Is that what Hector would want?”

  Three more bees arrived.

  For the first time in six months, Estelle felt a smile on her lips.

  “Don’t say my husband’s name,” she said, imagining the slug’s trajectory, the efficiency with which it would wipe out every thought and memory—the sound of Hector’s body tossed and broken, the sight of his soul leaving his flesh.

  “You should have used the front door,” she said. “Bees don’t like intruders in their home.”

  “Neither do I!” Ashley jerked her head as a bee tried to land on her face. “They’re always over at our place, zooming around, looking for someone to sting.”

  “They pollinate,” Estelle said. “It’s a public service. We’d have precious few crops if they didn’t. And they don’t sting if left alone.”

  Ashley’s hands finally were up, her expression pleading. “They could kill my husband.”

  “So you decided to kill the beekeepers.”

  “I didn’t say that. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

  “Not me,” Estelle said, and her heart was humming and soaring. “The bees.”

  “Bees can’t talk.”

  Harry raised his arm, pointed.

  Over the vine-draped apiary fence a stream of bees rose, forming a black boiling cloud that sparkled silver and gold in the light of the cresting moon. Hundreds of bees. Thousands of bees. A churning, buzzing, vengeful mass.

  Ashley blanched. She lunged for the candlelit doorway, but Estelle slammed the door and blocked it with her body as the cloud began to descend, angry, implacable, buzzing with a thousand tiny wings.

  Moving slowly, carefully, Harry pressed his back against the cabin wall.

  The cloud poured onto the porch, shifting and roiling, and found its target.

  Ashley shrieked. She batted at the bees, slapping them on her arms, her face, dancing and dodging. They landed on her neck, her ears, tangled in her hair.

  “They know,” Estelle said, raising her voice to be heard. “They remember.”

  Bees landed on Ashley’s arms and back, stinging through the fabric of her jacket, crawling under the neckline, testing the density of her boots, climbing up her shoelaces into the legs of her pants. “Help me!” she cried, flailing, frantic. “Make them stop!”

  Briefly, Estelle closed her eyes. She knew what Hector would say.

  “Get to the creek,” she said. “Get under the water.”

  Hector had never been a vengeful man.

  Ashley stumbled down the steps, making—it had to be said—a beeline for the creek. So did the bees.

  Estelle watched her husband’s killer stagger down the slope and plunge into the icy water. Ashley wasn’t broken and bleeding, as Hector had been when Estelle found him in that creek; she wasn’t dead.

  But she probably wished she were.

  Still the bees didn’t disp
erse. They hovered over the water in a shifting, living cloud, their fury audible, electrifying. More bees joined them there, streaming from Estelle’s apiary, from the woods, from wild hives in the pine trees, from the paths Hector had walked and the mountains he had loved.

  “They’re waiting for her to surface,” Harry said. He sounded almost reverent.

  Estelle smiled. Africanized bees would wait for hours, would chase an enemy miles. These were only hybrids, but they’d keep Ashley pinned until the sheriff arrived. Already Estelle could hear the crunch of tires, the squeal of brakes at the hairpin curve that topped Red Flag Hill.

  “What exactly just happened?” Harry asked. “And don’t say the bees remember.”

  “But they do, in a way.” Estelle glanced at the apiary, at the blossoms pale with moonlight. “When bees sting, they release an alarm pheromone from their Koschevnikov glands. It clings to the site of the sting. It’s very persistent.”

  Harry’s gaze was drifting downward.

  “I smelled it on her as soon as I opened the door.” Estelle fastened another button on her hastily donned shirt. “It smells like bananas. I was being dense and didn’t realize what it was, but the bees knew. When the wind shifted, they smelled their call to arms. Harry, stop staring. I’m far too old for you.”

  He grinned. “There’s a word for older women who—”

  “Yeah. Disgusting.”

  He laughed. “You know,” he said, “next summer you could head over to Santa Fe, join the Nearly Nude Bike Ride. Unless that’s too tame for you.”

  Estelle smiled, kept buttoning. In the distance, through the trees, red and blue lights flickered.

  “Estelle,” Harry said softly, and his voice had grown serious. “I’m sorry about Hector. I really am.”

  “I know,” she said. “So am I.”

  And she stood on her porch, a little less alone, and gazed fondly at the teeming cloud clustered over the creek. Her allies. Her detectives. Her agents of judgment and of wrath.

  Hector’s bees.

  Georgia in the Wind

  WILLIAM FRANK

  Tommy McNaul squinted through his grimy office window as the cleanest car in Santa Fe veered toward the curb in front of the McNaul Brothers Detective Agency. The March norther was howling into its third day, and all the other surfaces in The City Different, including Tom’s molars, were coated with fine grit.

  The shiny Toyota Corolla eased to a stop and a slender, twitchy man in veteran jeans and a windbreaker emerged from the driver’s door. He pinched his face against the wind like a preacher staring into a bar and scurried up the sidewalk toward the office.

  Tom lurched to his feet and headed for the front door. He jerked it open as the driver’s fist was descending to knock for the second time. The man winced as his knuckles scraped the rough wood, but he shook it off and looked hopeful.

  “Mr. McNaul?”

  “Tom McNaul. My big brother, Willie, is out hunting rustlers. Will I do?”

  “Yes, you’re the man I’m looking for. May I come in?”

  “Please do.” Tom shook a boney but firm hand and led the caller into the inner room. The fellow didn’t seem to notice the battered furniture as his eyes flitted about. He shuffled to Tom’s desk and settled tentatively into a wooden chair with loose armrests. Tom plopped down opposite and leaned forward on his elbows. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Marty. Marty Corbin.”

  Tom gave a deferential nod. “Nice to meet you, Marty. You an Uber driver?”

  “Uh yes, how did you know?”

  “Clean, older four-door in a dust storm. Never mind that, what can I do for you? I should mention that my brother provides most of the normal detective services. I specialize in art theft.”

  Marty nodded vigorously. “Yes, I know that. That’s why I’m here. I’m hoping you can help me find a stolen painting.”

  Tom tried to hide his surprise. “Okay, that’s my line. Just what sort of painting are we talking about?”

  “A fairly large one.” Marty spread his arms about four feet. “It’s a picture of some flowers with an animal skull next to them. A buffalo, I think.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tom made a point of arching his right eyebrow. “Are we talking an original oil, a print, or maybe a nicely framed poster?”

  “Oh, it’s an original, Mr. McNaul.”

  “Tom. That’s fine, but who’s the artist? Someone here in town?”

  “Well, once, maybe. But not anymore.” Marty’s eyes were beginning to shine, and he leaned forward. “It’s by Georgia O’Keeffe. Maybe you’ve heard about it. It was stolen last summer from the home of an actress who lives up near Taos. I think she was famous once—the actress, I mean.”

  Tom tried not to look as dumb as he felt. “An O’Keeffe, you say. Well, that would certainly be worth a lot of money. I should tell you that I work on commission, twenty-percent finder’s fee plus expenses.”

  “I’m not in this for the money, Mr. McNaul.”

  “A lot of folks say that, but it happens that I am. Suppose you tell me just how you fit into this quest? I know the case. In fact, I read about it in the paper two days ago. ‘Hollyhocks and Buffalo,’ or something like that. The theft occurred nine months ago, but the insurance company just settled the claim. By the way, the actress was Maureen Littleton. She won a couple of Oscars back in the ’60s, or maybe it was earlier, but I digress. If it’s Ms. Littleton’s painting, why are you here? Did she hire you?”

  “No, I’m here on my own. Look, I don’t have any money for your expenses, and I don’t own the painting. But I need to find it. Can you help me? We can work together, and maybe you could make some money if we get it back.”

  “Maybe, but again, just what’s your stake in this painting?”

  Marty’s face began gyrating, but he finally clenched his teeth and sighed. “I’m the guy who stole it.”

  Tom’s lips parted, and he stared at Marty for several seconds before he snapped to. “Well, this should be a quick one.” He leaned back, pulled open the top right desk drawer, and whipped out a pair of handcuffs. “Please extend your arms, hands close together. We’ll get this one wrapped up, and you can be on your way—that would be downtown.”

  Marty frowned. “Don’t make fun of me. This is serious, and there’s more.”

  “Like?”

  “Like my life is in danger.”

  “You sandbagged me. Explain.”

  “That article in the paper, the one about the insurance payment on the painting. I thought that might mean me and my cousin, Alex, were in the clear. So I called Alex. He was scared shitless. Someone broke into his house the same day the story came out. He was away, down in Las Cruces, but he could tell someone had jimmied the door when he got home. So he took off. He told me to lay low for a while. Stay away from home. Said he’d slipped up and let the guy who hired him know there were two of us.”

  Tom realized he was still holding the handcuffs. He dropped them back into the drawer next to his .38 Special and left the drawer open. Just in case. “Any idea where your cousin went?”

  Marty was working his lips at a furious pace. He shook his head. “Not for sure, but he has a place near Los Cerrillos. It’s just an old trailer on a piece of land his dad left him. He goes there sometimes.”

  “You try calling him?”

  “Yeah, but his phone’s been off. He figures someone could track him if he kept it turned on.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tom leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head and stared at the ceiling above Marty’s head. “Probably nothing, but what say you and I run out to this trailer and have a look? In my profession, such as it is, it doesn’t pay to ignore a coincidence.”

  “I don’t like them either, Mr. McNaul. Uh, Tom.”

  “Let’s go. We’ll take my truck.” As Marty turned away,
Tom slipped the .38 into his right jacket pocket.

  * * *

  —

  Fifteen minutes later, Tom steered his Tacoma past the last of the Santa Fe traffic and turned onto the Turquoise Trail, aka NM Highway 14. Marty hadn’t spoken since they left the office. “We’ve got a quiet stretch here. Suppose you fill me in on the story.”

  Marty didn’t look too confident, but he nodded and clasped his hands on his lap. “I lost my job about a year ago, and my cash had run out. I tried to tap Alex for a loan—just for a couple of months—but he said he was short, too. Then, a few days later, he called and said he could use some help on a job. Alex does some pretty shady stuff, and I wasn’t keen, but I told him maybe. He said he could give me two grand if I’d help him pull a snatch up near Taos. No danger—a rich old lady with a painting, just in and out and disappear. I didn’t like it, but two grand would pay the back rent.”

  Tom sighed. “An old story.”

  “Well, I was desperate, so I said yeah. But he called me a couple of days later and said the job had to be postponed for three months. Said the painting was being moved to Denver, to some big art museum there. We had to wait until the lady got it back.” Marty shuffled his feet. “Alex told the guy he could snatch the piece when it was on the road, but he said that wouldn’t do. So we waited. It was an easy job. Turned out the old lady wasn’t home, and we were in and out in ten minutes. The alarm went off, but the house is out in the middle of serious nowhere.”

  Marty paused and looked at Tom as if expecting a question, but Tom just stared down the road. “Well, anyway, Alex took the painting, and we split up. Two days later he dropped by my place with two grand, and then he drove off. I’ve been sweating ever since.”

  “Not surprising. Any more?”

  “Well, nothing happened. I got the job with Uber, and I do some part-time at Walmart. Months passed, and I figured I was in the clear. But on Tuesday I saw that article, and I called Alex.”

  “Did Alex keep the painting at his place?”

  “Nope. He said he handed it over to the boss guy right away. Said I shouldn’t worry, ’cause he didn’t tell him he’d hired me to help with the grab.”