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  It only took one excited town gossip named P. P. Patti Dwyre to put what I feared the most into words. P. P. Patti, short for Pity-Party Patti, lived next door to me (on the opposite side of Clay) and spent most of her time trying to convince people to feel sorry for her, making sure everyone knew just how crappy her life was. Her life wasn’t one bit worse than anyone else’s. She just complained more.

  “Raccoons got into my attic,” P. P. Patti whined to me, handing over a cloth grocery bag. I rang up her items and began placing them in the bag. “It’s probably going to cost a gazillion dollars to repair the damage, and I just don’t know where the money will come from or where to find anyone to help with the handy work.”

  “Put a notice on the board.” I waved to the bulletin board next to the entryway where customers sold their litters of puppies and kittens, or looked for work, or offered to deliver topsoil and mulch in the summer months or plow snow in the winter.

  Patti’s head swung in the general direction, but I could tell she had other things on her mind.

  “I heard,” she said in front of everyone inside the store, “that Manny was murdered by killer bees.”

  That’s all it took.

  “Was Manny really stung to death by bees?” Stanley asked the group in general.

  “We won’t know anything for sure until the medical examiner finishes up,” I said.

  I counted on a favorable verdict, so I kept quiet, mainly because it was easiest. But looking back, I should have made it clear that there was no way honeybees could’ve been involved in Manny’s death. Yellow jackets were the most likely culprits, having the ability to sting multiple times. Yellow jackets were loners, not traveling as a group, but if one got angry and stung, it released a chemical that alerted other yellow jackets. Then they would arrive on the scene and join in the attack.

  Whether venom killed Manny or something else caused his death, only Jackson would be able to say conclusively after performing his medical examiner’s miracles.

  I felt so bad for Grace that my heart ached.

  I heard a truck’s backup alarm and spotted Ray Goodwin’s delivery truck sliding in to park in the back of the store. Trent came out to unload produce. He carried in boxes filled with vegetables while Ray ticked things off on a supply sheet. I joined him.

  “I need a signature,” Ray said, handing me the clipboard. “Awful about Manny and those bees.”

  “His bees didn’t kill him.” I signed off on the order, thinking I’d be saying that a lot in the upcoming days.

  “Sure looked like they did,” he said. “I’m the one who found him right after I stopped at Kenny’s Bees.”

  I glanced up from the clipboard. Hunter had already told me that Ray found Manny, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. “Kenny Langley’s?”

  Although I knew of the Langley family through my grandmother, I’d officially met Kenny just once, in the spring, when he and Manny sat down to negotiate sales territories. I didn’t like him from the start, because he’d treated me with an exaggerated indifference. Plus, he’d called me “the girl.”

  I’d been working in the honey house right next to where he and Manny had had their little chat. So I knew what the old-fashioned handshake entailed. Manny would take Waukesha County, Kenny would stay in Washington County—a logical solution, since they each lived and worked in his own territory. It was a truce that seemed to satisfy both of them. As the two fastest-growing producers in both counties, they didn’t seem at all concerned about the little guys who operated hobby honey farms and dabbled in a sale here and there. Manny had introduced me to Kenny when they first sat down, Kenny more or less ignored me, then before the meeting broke up, Manny asked me to be the official contact person if there were any issues.

  That had been a pleasant surprise, in spite of my not liking Kenny. Anything to be involved. Manny wasn’t interested in the sales and negotiation end of his business, which led me to hope that I would be able to take that burden off his shoulders completely in the future. Marketing was second nature to me after owning a small business like The Wild Clover. In any case, there hadn’t been any problems that caused me and Kenny to meet again, which suited me just fine.

  “What were you doing at Kenny Langley’s?” I asked.

  “Oops.” Ray looked uncomfortable. His eyes flitted away and his coloring deepened like he’d been caught with his hand in the cash register.

  “You’re distributing honey from Kenny’s?” I said with narrowing eyes. Kenny’s Bees should definitely have been off-limits to Ray. Every since he took over deliveries two years ago, Manny and Ray had had an exclusive agreement regarding honey. Ray helped Manny get his honey onto other grocers’ shelves, and Ray received a deeper discount. Since I had a small piece of the action based on my own sales’ efforts, Ray’s actions cut into my profits, too. I shoved the clipboard back at him. “You have an agreement with Queen Bee Honey, and you know it. How long has this been going on with Kenny’s Bees?”

  “Only once,” Ray said, which is exactly what my ex, Clay, had said the first time I caught him. “And I feel real bad about it.”

  “I bet you do, and you’re going to feel worse when I take a percentage off this invoice you just handed me to compensate for you reneging on an agreement, which, by the way, is now null and void.”

  “Come on, Story. It won’t happen again.”

  “Manny’s not even in his grave,” I said, laying on the guilt with a spatula. “Or he’d be turning in it.”

  “I promise. I really do. What if I take a few more cases than usual and find new buyers? My route’s expanding. I can sell more.”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” I gave him a hard look, but my voice changed to small and pained. “Now tell me about finding Manny.”

  “Not much to tell.” Ray tipped his ball cap back and scratched his head. “I was supposed to pick up cases of honey between nine and ten this morning. I got there a little before ten and found him covered in bees. I called nine-one-one.”

  “Was he dead?”

  “I don’t know—he wasn’t moving, and I wasn’t about to check his vital signs with bees flying everywhere.”

  “I didn’t see you there this afternoon.”

  “I freaked out after I called for help. That never happened to me before, a crisis like that with me the only one around. I’ve never been too good in emergencies. I should have stayed, I know. The sheriff let me have it good for leaving.”

  When he drove off, I went inside through the back door thinking about Ray Goodwin. When our long-time deliveryman retired, Ray managed to land the job. But he’d always been a loser with a capital L, moving from one job after another, most of them finishing fast with his termination. I made a mental note to keep a better eye on him in the future.

  The store buzzed with activity, giving me another brief moment of guilty pain; I felt bad that my store was benefiting from Manny’s death, but it clearly was—I had the evidence of that right before my eyes. A line at the register kept Brent busy ringing up orders. I took over behind the counter so he could help his brother unpack cases of fresh produce from Ray’s truck—apples, corn on the cob, cabbage, beets, and a variety of late potatoes, including my favorite, fingerlings. Today’s delivery was only a small sampling of the abundant produce Wisconsin had to offer at this time of year.

  For the rest of the evening, while the twins and I worked, through the pizza we shared from Stu’s Bar and Grill, until eight o’clock when we closed up, I could hear the growing concern in customers’ voices.

  I walked the two short blocks home, knowing it was only a matter of time before the residents of the town would come hunting for killers in my own backyard. I had to think of something to prove that Manny’s bees were innocent.

  Lights were off in my ex-husband’s jewelry shop next door, but they were on in Clay’s small living area behind the shop, meaning he was entertaining. Why else would he be home on a Friday night? I wondered if he was still with Faye, o
r if he’d already moved on to someone new.

  Faye Tilley, as the entire town knew thanks to their performance outside my store, was only Clay’s latest in a long line of females extending way back into our history as a couple. While I expected my ex to have the unmitigated gall and extreme bad taste to bring her to the divorce proceeding, I blamed Faye just as much for going along with something like that. To top it off, she’d come wearing dragonfly earrings and a wire butterfly barrette in her hair, original pieces I recognized as Clay’s handmade jewelry.

  For some twisted reason, it was comforting to know there were other women in the world with judgment as awful as mine. I felt slightly guilty for being happy that it wasn’t me lying in his bed, but it didn’t last more than a second or two. Let someone else think they could change him. The man was like a shell—beautiful on the outside, hollow on the inside.

  I turned away from Clay’s house and considered taking my kayak out. It was a routine of mine almost every night. Late in the evening, right before bed, was the best time to be on the Oconomowoc River. I’d added reflective tape to the sides of my kayak and a few strips of it on my life jacket and, on nights when the moon wasn’t shining to light my way, I wore a waterproof headlamp.

  But tonight the river didn’t beckon me. I would probably see death in every shadow. Besides, I was drop-dead tired from the day’s stress.

  Those nightmares I’d been worrying about after seeing Manny’s dead body caught up with me. I woke up in the middle of the night, startled, thinking I had heard loud voices followed by a scream. I flipped on the outside lights, but didn’t see anything unusual in the backyard. My bees had bunked down at the first fading light. Nothing moved.

  I went back to bed and waited for morning, convinced that the scream had come out of my own unconscious mind.

  Five

  Clouds rolled in overnight. The early-morning air smelled of gathering rain when I sat down at my backyard patio table with a hot cup of coffee—and fresh pain over Manny.

  I’d been too tired and distraught last night to gloat over how the old family house was finally totally mine. Of course, I’d lived in it most of my life, first as a child, then with Clay, but the deed had never been in only my name.

  Now it was mine.

  My house.

  It belonged to me. I loved the sound of that.

  The lot was narrow, but what it didn’t have in width, it made up for in depth, going all the way back to the Oconomowoc River. I’d repainted the house from faded gray to sunshine yellow, given the wraparound front porch a splash of the same color, and added bright white trim. I added three colorful Adirondacks to the porch, the same kind as at the store. The beehives were in the backyard, closer to the river than to the house, placed strategically in a protected spot near my vegetable garden.

  On the other side of my garden, an old coop still stood where we had raised chickens when I was growing up. I’d been seriously considering getting back into raising a few chickens of my own for the benefit of fresh, organic eggs.

  The weeping willows, which hung over the riverbed, had inspired the town founders to name the short street in front of my home Willow Street. Nature enthusiasts could turn off Main Street, drive past my house and Clay’s, and launch their canoes and kayaks from the end of the street.

  Besides my ex to the west, cedars flanked the east side of my property, giving me some relief from Pity-Party Patti’s gossip antennas, although her two-story home rose above my privacy hedge, and if she really wanted to spy, she could. Not that there was anything worth watching at my house.

  Being sandwiched between my ex-husband and the town gossip wasn’t the best of situations, but I wouldn’t give up my place for anything in the world because in spite of my undesirable neighbors, I owned a tiny slice of paradise.

  The river formed the northern boundary, and a hedge of vibernum along the front walkway gave the front porch a little privacy. I’d planted flowers and herbs everywhere. All the bee’s favorites, especially:

  • Purple coneflowers—these lavender beauties are a member of the sunflower family, which bees love

  • Phlox—the tall garden variety, mine are white and pink

  • Yarrow—its leaves can be eaten like spinach, although I haven’t tried it

  • Butterfly weed—an orange species of milkweed, which all nectar-loving creatures are attracted to

  • Lavender—for potpourris and dried bouquets

  • Coreopsis—a cheerful yellow flower that blooms all summer, which is what I like about it

  When my busy worker bees weren’t helping themselves to my varieties, they were across the street, gathering pollen to mix with mine from Moraine Gardens, a perennial nursery that specialized in native Wisconsin plants.

  I decided to take my kayak out on the river, since it was Saturday and the twins didn’t expect me in at the store until sometime in the afternoon. Kayaking was like meditation to me. The river and nature, the sounds and smells, calmed me like nothing else could. And after what had happened to Manny, I needed peace and quiet.

  Except my kayak wasn’t on the grassy spot beside the river where I always kept it. This wasn’t the first time someone had “borrowed” it.

  Clay answered his door after I banged on it several times. His physical presence in the doorway provided his alibi, proving him innocent of this particular watercraft theft. Damn. I’d really hoped the thieves weren’t those kids again.

  Clay wore silk pajamas and had bed creases in his face. A diamond stud glistened from his left ear, something new since the divorce hearing two days ago. His dishwater blond hair had sleep spikes in it.

  “Have you seen my kayak?” I said, refusing to lower my gaze to his bare feet, which beckoned from my peripheral view. His gorgeous feet had caused me to overlook his fatal flaws in the past. “It’s missing again.”

  “Too bad, but I haven’t seen it. You can search my body if you want, honey.” He opened the door wider, spread his arms, and grinned wolfishly.

  “Don’t call me honey,” I said. “And where’s Faye? Did she take it?” I didn’t bother masking the disgust in my voice.

  “She isn’t . . . uh . . . available,” Clay said. “And she didn’t take your kayak. Faye, uh . . . is . . .” His eyes shifted toward the bedroom. “Uh . . . indisposed.”

  “Never mind,” I said, turning and stalking away back toward my house.

  I showered, dressed in shorts and a halter top, slipped on purple flip-flops from my vast flip-flop collection, breakfasted on toast spread with peanut butter and honey, and drove out to Grace’s in my pickup truck. I had purchased the used truck right after Clay and I moved into town. It was over a decade old, a rusty blue with a few dings and more than one hundred thousand miles. But she never let me down.

  Grace’s sister-in-law, Betty, answered the door, talking to me through the screen. I noticed again how enormous she looked and wondered if she was having twins.

  “Grace is at the funeral home with her brother,” she said, without a trace of friendliness. “Making arrangements. She won’t be back until later.”

  “When’s the funeral?” I asked, unintentionally matching her tone.

  “Tuesday,” Betty said.

  “What about the autopsy?”

  “There isn’t going to be one.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. I was counting on an autopsy to clear the bees’ good name. “How is that possible? Doesn’t Grace want to know why Manny died?”

  “She already knows. The bees killed him. Cut and dry.” Over her enormous stomach, Betty chopped one hand into the other for effect. “Besides, the medical examiner didn’t order one, and Grace didn’t want it. She just wants a traditional burial without a lot of fuss. The M.E. said it wasn’t a suspicious death, so he approved her request.”

  “I think it’s pretty suspicious.” That comment came right out of my big mouth without any thought at all. What I meant to say was that I thought yellow jackets were the bad gu
ys, but apparently Betty took my comment the wrong way.

  “Don’t go stirring up things,” she said. “This family doesn’t need any more trouble from the likes of you.”

  “There’s no need to get nasty.” Jeez, Betty was a mean mom-to-be!

  Betty clamped her lips into a thin line. We glared at each other through the screen door.

  I gave in first, since I was dealing with a grieving family member. “I guess it’s Grace’s call. If you don’t mind, I’ll check on the bees and get a few cases of honey from the honey house.”

  Betty didn’t look pleased. She sighed a big sigh, whether from frustration or her enormous pregnant body, I wasn’t sure. “Help yourself to the honey, but say good-bye to the bees. Somebody from the bee association is coming tonight to get them.”

  “What?” I said, stunned by this news. “Why wouldn’t Grace have talked to me first? Who’s taking them?”

  Betty shrugged. “Darn if I know. But good riddance.”

  “Listen, when is Grace coming back? Precisely.” I tried to hide my outrage, but it was dripping from my mouth like rabies foam. First, no autopsy; now the bees were being taken away? This was too much to bear. It would mean the end of Queen Bee Honey.

  “I said she will be back later. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.” Betty’s eyes narrowed. If I was getting mad, so was she.

  I faked a smile. “Sorry, everybody’s on edge after what happened.”

  “Not me,” Betty said.

  She watched from the doorway while I went into the beeyard. Honeybees flew in and out of the hive openings like aircrafts arriving and departing from a finely tuned airport. Guard bees made sure the incoming flights belonged there, ready to turn away any intruders if they smelled different from the hive’s members. Beehives might all look the same to us, but the bees knew the difference.