Buzz Off Read online

  Honeybees circled my head, curious and harmless.

  I closed my eyes and pretended that everything was as it had been before Manny died. I listened to the buzzing, smelling the freshness of the day and its accompanying promise of rain. When I opened my eyes, my loss felt even more pronounced.

  Knowing this could be my last time ever in Manny’s beeyard hit me like a ton of bricks. After dark, when the bees were all inside their hives for the night, someone was going to take them away. Manny wouldn’t have wanted just anybody to take the bees. He would have wanted me to have them.

  He’d rarely attended bee association meetings because the meetings were mostly social gatherings, beekeepers talking shop, and that wasn’t Manny’s way. Although he knew most of the members, he wasn’t overly friendly with any of them, though if they needed advice, he was right there for them.

  I had to talk to Grace before it was too late. What was she thinking to let an outsider have Manny’s bees? Would she even give me a chance to buy some of the equipment, or was that going, too? I felt so helpless.

  I approached the honey house. The weathered, graying wood gave it a rustic look, but if it had been mine, I’d have painted it bright yellow with white trim. Yellow was absolutely my favorite color. I slipped a key into the padlock, letting myself in. The smell of honey was strong. I looked around the room at the extracting equipment, then at a stack of frames in the corner. I saw familiar rows of empty honey jars and lids on a tabletop and cases of filled jars everywhere.

  Manny and I had packaged some of the honey right from the hives to sell as comb honey, delicious when spread on bread. The rest went into a special machine that spun around and extracted the honey from the combs for bottling. In bee lingo the process is called spinning honey.

  After loading two cases of bottled honey into my truck, I selected several honeybee reference books to take with me, ones that I’d purchased myself. Then I decided at the last minute to also take our bee journal.

  Well, okay, it wasn’t exactly “our” journal. It had really belonged to Manny, but some of the entries were mine, so I felt a certain ownership. Manny had kept detailed information on his progress against mites and diseases that might come in handy with my two remaining hives. He had also been a great experimenter, testing ways to increase production of different components like royal jelly and propolis.

  Honey production wasn’t the only source of income for a beekeeper. Royal jelly was the stuff nurse bees fed to larvae to produce queens. Besides its anti-aging benefits, which made it a favorite ingredient in skin creams, royal jelly had anti-cancer properties, a hot commodity, health-wise. Then there was the propolis, a special glue bees made from trees to seal their homes from extreme temperatures. Scientists, including backyard scientists like Manny, were finding out that it had powerful antibiotic components, and serious beekeepers were keeping track of their results, studying the market.

  And he was scientific about his research into colony collapse disorder, something that was threatening honeybees all across the country. Whatever he had been doing seemed to be working, because he had strong hives. Some beekeepers were reporting unexplained hive losses, entire hives dying at the same time. Not Manny.

  I planned to read through the journal, make copies of some of the pages, then return it to Grace, if she cared enough to want it back.

  Except the journal wasn’t on the table or in the drawer where Manny usually kept it. And it didn’t show up in my search.

  Giving up, I locked the honey house, took one last long look at it and at the activity in the beeyard, and drove away. As I left, my thoughts turned criminal. What if I came back after dark but before the association folks came, and loaded as many hives into my truck as possible? Then Grace would think the association had taken them, right? By the time she found out, I’d have them safely hidden away. Besides, what would she care? They would be gone and, as Betty said, good riddance. Right? After that, I’d buy the entire honey house from her, equipment and all, and have the house moved as one big piece on a gigantic truck, the kind you see with the “Wide Load” flags on the side.

  There was room for a honey house in my large backyard, I thought. I’d just have to do some measuring.

  Me and my pipe dreams.

  But it’s all about having a positive attitude.

  Six

  Clouds overhead were darkening, but still no rain. Since I couldn’t paddle down the river because my kayak was missing and my effort to see Grace had been a complete bust, I decided that healthy physical labor might improve my day. The Wild Clover was next on my to-do list.

  “Business has been steady all morning,” Brent said, nodding his carrot head. The twins both had red hair and a healthy dose of freckles, but telling them apart wasn’t hard, because they weren’t identical. Trent’s hair was browner, and he wore it longer. Plus I’ve known them their entire lives. “This is the first slow-down,” he added.

  Trent appeared from aisle four. “You’re early.”

  “My morning isn’t going so well. I thought I’d improve it by coming here.”

  “I hope you aren’t sending us home yet,” Brent said. “We need the money for all those expensive textbooks we have to buy.”

  “You can stay all day,” I promised. I could use the time to find my kayak and track down Grace. “Think you could bring in two cases of honey from the back of my truck?” Trent promptly took on the task.

  Third-grade teacher Bruce Cook came in, greeted us, and wandered away with a shopping list in his hand. Then Police Chief Johnny Jay showed up.

  “Well, if it isn’t Missy Fischer,” he said, still refusing to call me Story after all these years. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Don’t act so surprised to find me,” I said. “After all, this is my store. It shouldn’t have been too hard, Johnny.”

  “It’s Police Chief Jay to you.”

  “Whatever.” I bent over to add more honey sticks to the almost-empty containers, careful not to mix the orange ones with the clover ones, trying to ignore him. Maybe he’d go away.

  “Heard you were serving alcohol inside this establishment yesterday.”

  I glanced up and grinned. “Did I forget to invite you to the party? Shucks. Don’t know how that slipped my mind.”

  “I’d like to see your permit.”

  “Brent,” I said with a cattish grin, “show Johnny the temporary permit. It’s under the five-dollar bills in the register.”

  Brent pulled the piece of paper out of the drawer with a sigh of relief that said he sure was glad I’d managed to stay ahead of Johnny one more time. Even Johnny looked surprised. It pays to be a smart business owner, especially when dealing with authority figures who don’t like you.

  Our police chief scanned the permit. I could sense the wheels turning in his overblown brain while he looked for a loophole to nail me. He practically threw the permit back at Brent.

  More customers arrived, signaling the end of the lull. Either they had been on their way to the store anyway and it was pure chance that the police chief was inside, or they’d seen his SUV and didn’t want to miss any late-breaking news. Glancing through the window, I noticed that none of my customers had parked near him, though. Johnny Jay had been known to deflate tires if a driver parked too close to his vehicle. And Johnny Jay made up his own rules about what was or wasn’t too close.

  He’s a mean one. Yes, he is.

  I straightened from my task. “I heard there isn’t going to be an autopsy,” I said. “Why not?”

  Customers craned to hear. Johnny noticed and frowned.

  “Normally I wouldn’t dignify that kind of question with an answer but I want you to get the facts right—something you don’t always do—so witnesses to my reply are more than welcome.”

  Well, that was nasty and totally uncalled for. When had I ever gotten facts wrong?

  Customers edged closer, pretending to study the shelves, their ears practically quivering.

  “
Manny Chapman’s death was not suspicious in any way,” Johnny said. “His body isn’t going to the crematory, which could have changed things. He’s having a normal burial, and his death wasn’t an accident involving other people. According to the medical examiner, Chapman died from toxic stings, in particular stings in his mouth, which caused his throat to swell and obstruct his airway. And that’s that. Why on earth would you suggest an autopsy?”

  “Honeybees didn’t kill him,” I said, remembering Manny’s swollen lips. How awful! “Some kind of wasps killed him, and since we have tons of yellow jackets at this time of year, it’s perfectly obvious they did it. I sort of hoped to have that reinforced, so the entire community wouldn’t go into some kind of panic over my honeybees.”

  “You want us to prove exactly what kind of bee was responsible by slicing up the poor man? By sawing off his brain and making a mess of his innards? Grace didn’t want an autopsy. Do you want to upset the poor woman more than she already is?”

  I felt all eyes burning into me, waiting for my reply. The cash register was completely silent. “Of course not,” I said, conceding a small win to Johnny Jay, who made disgustingly smug noises with his lips. “But why is everybody having such a hard time distinguishing between bees and wasps?”

  No one replied, mainly because they couldn’t tell the difference and they didn’t care.

  Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, Lori Spandle, our resident real estate agent, came in wearing a bee veil.

  “Oh come on, Lori,” I said. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Protecting myself while I organize a spray committee,” she said. “We’re going to eliminate this immediate threat to our lives before it’s too late. This is a preemptive strike. Anybody here want to help save the town?”

  I can read body language pretty well. My customers leaned toward Lori, giving me looks that said I would lose them to the other side if I didn’t think of something quick.

  “Bullet point number one, you’d be killing innocent bees,” I told them, in case Lori was thinking of including my bees in her mad attack, which I was certain she was. “Think about what you’re considering. Bullet point number two, some of you could lose your livelihoods with that kind of talk. We count on those bees to pollinate our crops. We’d be stabbing ourselves in the back. Bullet point number three, we now know for sure that Manny died from stings, thanks to the chief, but they could only have come from wasps, not bees.”

  “But one of us could be next,” Lori said, ignoring all my bullet points.

  The only bees Lori had ever had to worry about were the ones she’d disturbed when she snuck over to visit Clay while he was still my husband. She’d knocked around in the bees’ territory and riled a few attentive scouts into giving her warning stings. I had watched from the window, knowing what she was up to. By then it was common knowledge that I’d filed for divorce, but Lori was married to Grant Spandle, our town chairman and local land developer, and he wouldn’t have been too happy with his wife if he’d found out.

  “We have to take action,” Lori said, intent on rallying the masses.

  “What you aren’t going to do is recruit in my store.” I glared at her round, cunning face camouflaged behind the netting.

  Johnny Jay butted in. “Maybe you should stock some of those veils,” he said during the pregnant pause while Lori and I squared off. “They’d go like hotcakes.”

  “Besides,” I said, ignoring that last remark from the police chief, “I have news to share with you that’ll end this foolishness right now. Grace’s sister-in-law told me the beehives are being picked up tonight by someone from the bee association. They’ll be gone. You won’t have to worry anymore.”

  “What about your bees?” Lori said, confirming my suspicion that she was after me more than anything. “They might be killer bees, too.”

  “My bees? Killer bees?” I snorted in disgust. “Yeah, right.” Then I addressed the others, “Any of you are welcome to come over and check out my hives.”

  Bruce Cook was hanging at the edge of the group, listening in. His third-grade class had toured my backyard beehives. “Bruce,” I said. “Did any of your kids get stung?”

  “You know they didn’t,” Bruce said. “It was a fun day.”

  “See,” I pointed to Lori. “Come on over and see for yourself if you don’t believe Bruce.”

  “No, thanks,” Lori said. “I’ve already had first-hand experience with your aggressive bees.”

  “Should I explain to everyone why my bees went after you? And what you were doing at the time?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Lori said, taking a step back like I’d slapped her. I noticed her tone evened out instantly as she rethought her strategy. I’d never threatened to expose her before, but my back was up against the wall. I’d thrown away the rule book, especially the chapter on fair play. It had been surprisingly easy to stoop to her level.

  No one else took me up on the offer to visit, either, but they did agree to rein in the mob for one more day when I promised to deliver positive proof that the bees were gone from Manny’s.

  “That won’t help protect my residents from your bees,” Johnny Jay said. “They should be destroyed, too, just to make absolutely certain no one gets hurt.”

  Murmurs of agreement.

  Personally, I thought destroying the police chief would go furthest in protecting all of us. “I’m also going to prove that honeybees didn’t kill Manny,” I said, instead of voicing my murderous thoughts regarding Johnny Jay. I had no idea how to prove my claim, though. “But one thing at a time. Give me a chance.”

  The fight had temporarily gone out of Lori, and once the police chief got a call from dispatch, sending him on his way, the rest of the group disbanded.

  Things settled down after that because of the event at the library. There had been talk of canceling the bluegrass band jam because of Manny’s death, but everybody agreed that we needed each other at a time like this, so the jam was on. Free lemonade and the chance to listen to music were big bonuses on a cloudy Saturday afternoon. Emily had planned smart with a giant tent, just in case, so the event was on rain or shine.

  I walked over to Stu’s Bar and Grill, planning to borrow Stu’s canoe to scout for my kayak, hoping to find it and get back and over to the library as soon as possible.

  “Hey, Story,” Stu called out from behind the bar. I waved. Stu Trembly had bedroom eyes, those smoldering kind that show a little white just under the irises. He was also engaged to Becky Hellman and had been for years. Most of the local women had given up on him long ago and moved on to more available men.

  As unlikely as it was, I saw that my cousin Carrie Ann Retzlaff and Hunter Wallace were having lunch together. I sat down with them and swiped a French fry from what was left of Hunter’s hamburger platter before calling out to Stu, “Do you still keep your canoe down by the river?”

  “It’s there. Why? Want to use it?”

  “My kayak is missing again.”

  “Kids messing around like last time?” Carrie Ann suggested.

  “Probably.” Two weeks ago I’d discovered my kayak ditched about half a mile from my house after kids had filled it with water and sunk it. “I’ll need a piece of rope to tie it to the canoe. That is, if I get lucky and find it.”

  “We’re done with lunch. I’ll help you look,” Hunter offered. He reached in his back pocket, removed a wallet, and placed a few bills on the table. He wasn’t working, judging by his attire. That meant well-worn jeans, a white T-shirt that set off his tan, and . . . were his bare toes exposed? I suppressed an urge to look down.

  “You better get going before it starts raining,” Stu said, coming around the bar with a piece of rope. “A storm is moving in.”

  “Want to come along, Carrie Ann?” I asked as we stood up. Hunter’s feet were definitely bare except for a pair of sandals.

  “No thanks,” Carrie Ann said, running both hands through her short head of hair to re
fresh the spiky look she liked so much. “I have errands. I’ll see you later, Hunter.”

  “I’ll pick you up,” he said to her.

  “When will you need me again at The Wild Clover?” Carrie Ann asked me.

  “I’ll call you after I look at the twins’ schedules.” Never again, was my best guess, and I planned to deliver that exact message to her in private. Carrie Ann wasn’t a stable employee—she’s been late or even a no-show to work several times, took cigarette breaks every ten minutes, and had a perpetual hangover written across her face. It was too bad. She and I had been friends growing up and had shared a lot of good times together before she’d spiraled into a bottle of beer. The family had all been trying to tell her she had a drinking problem for years. Even after her husband left her five years ago and got custody of their two kids, she still hadn’t been ready to face the truth.

  Stu’s piece of property ran along the Oconomowoc River just like mine did. The Winnebago Indians named the water-way, which is quite a mouthful for outsiders. Oconomowoc means “River of Lakes,” which sounds confusing unless you know that this area is lake country and the Oconomowoc River intersects with many of our other lakes.

  “Where’s Ben?” I hadn’t seen Hunter’s dog.

  “In my truck. He can wait there as long as we aren’t gone too long.”

  “We’ll do this quickly.”

  Hunter wrapped a windbreaker around his waist, and we dragged Stu’s canoe into the water, threw our shoes and the rope into the bottom of it, waded in a few feet, and hopped in at the same time, one of us on each side. Smooth as silk, right as rain.

  The air smelled sweet and warm, but cloud formations swirled above us.

  The wind began to blow as soon as we set off.

  Seven

  We headed upstream, Hunter in the stern for muscle power and steering, me up front in the bow, paddling and scouting for rocks and shallow spots. Once we left Moraine behind us, hardwoods flanked ridges following the banks of the river. Then the trees on the east side opened up and the slope tapered off into cattail marshes. Red-winged blackbirds perched on top of cattails and wetland grasses, calling to each other. When they flew off almost simultaneously, it should have been an indication of things to come. But we missed the warning.