A Beeline to Murder (7 page)

Sugar began to bark, seemingly as loudly as Abby had shouted.

“Okay, okay. I get it that you’re upset. Let’s just let this go for now.”

If Sugar seemed unmanageable, Abby could understand why: she wasn’t the best choice for a dog foster parent. And this dog had been through a lot of changes lately. Sugar’s owner had died, and the neighbor had tried to do a good deed, until his job had required him to leave. Now the poor animal was stuck with someone who had never been a dog owner. They hadn’t had time to bond, and Abby didn’t know if they ever would. In her heart, Abby knew she wasn’t doing a very good job of reassuring the dog and making the fosterling feel secure.

After standing and inspecting the chest for scratches, Abby looked down at the dog. “I’m not mad at you, Sugar. You just need to learn the boundaries.”

Sugar stopped barking and lay on her tummy, waiting, apparently, for Abby to make the next move.

Abby reached for the bottle of cabernet. She had intended to open the wine after she sold her first case of homemade jam, but that wouldn’t happen until stone fruit season next month. The bottle stood next to Clay’s picture in its silver frame. She swallowed hard against the lump that always formed in her throat whenever she gazed at his image. She’d stuck the picture there months ago so she wouldn’t have to see it as often. And today, after grueling hours in the garden, dealing with the necessary chores, and amassing a growing list of challenges she’d have to address—including caring for a dog now—Abby reached for the picture and turned it facedown. Her muscles hurt. Even her eyelids felt tired. No point in being reminded of shattered dreams that would make her heart ache, as well.

Although she hated the old shower and tub combo, with its chipped porcelain and leaky faucet, Abby felt her body relaxing once she had eased into the hot, soapy water. After the restorative bath, she dried off, slipped into her big girl panties and a T-shirt, and opened the bottle of wine. Sugar had fallen asleep on the bed while watching Abby bathe, since there was no door hanging and not even a frame between the master bedroom and the master bathroom yet. Soon the dog was snoring, and her lean legs moved restlessly, as if she was dreaming of chasing a rabbit.

After splashing a bit of the red liquid into a crystal wineglass that had survived the move, Abby traipsed out to the patio and dropped onto the seat of her grandmother’s cane rocker. The rocking motion soothed her spirit as she sipped the wine in the gathering violet dusk. Crickets and bullfrogs serenaded her in a throaty chorus. Abby welcomed their unseen company. Her thoughts drifted to Clay. Getting used to the solitude hadn’t been difficult, but she sorely missed his physical presence, his boyish laughter, and his sweet kisses. Why had he told her he loved her if he knew deep down that someday, when the timing was right and a new challenge beckoned, he would walk out of her life the same way he’d walked in?

Abby forgave him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t told her about his past. Clay built tunnels under freeways and airports and even through mountains. He moved around a lot, probably had a girl in every town he’d worked in, and there’d been many towns. She had pressured him to stay on in California—half believing he would—when he had finished working on the new bore through the mountain that linked the eastern inland valley towns to the Northern California beach towns. When the job offer came through to oversee the construction of a tunnel beneath a major airport in the Southeast, he hadn’t even tried to hide his excitement from her. He had loaded up his sticker-covered hard hat, secured his pickax, thrown his suitcase in the cab of his truck, and left . . . on Valentine’s Day!

Abby flinched as she recalled how she had driven around aimlessly the morning Clay had left, not wanting to be in the house, where she’d hidden a bottle of champagne and a heart-shaped cake. Half blinded by tears, Abby had finally wheeled into the lot of Crawford’s feed store, parked her Jeep in front of a hay bale, and sobbed uncontrollably. And later, back at home, she’d tossed the cake into the garbage can.

Clay had loved sitting in the dark with her, spinning dreams. He had often asked her to imagine the kind of farm they would build together. Olive trees would line the driveway. He would tunnel into the earth to create a wine cave, would plant a vineyard, and would build her a home with a thousand windows so she could see the heaven on earth they would create together. Now, as Abby rocked in the darkness, with her bare toes touching the cold patio tiles, she pushed her fingers against the corners of her eyes to hold back the new threat of tears. Finally, gazing up at the star-splashed sky, she lifted her glass
. To you, Clay, wherever you are . . . You once said, if ever there was no me . . . or no you, then there would be no us. . . . You might have led me on with lies of omission, but you didn’t lie about that.

A loud crash—like shattered glass—cut through the silence. Abby shot out of the chair.
What the hey?
She froze. Heart racing, adrenaline pumping, she dropped to a squat, taking cover.

There, behind the portable barbecue, she cocked an ear in the direction the sound had come from. A barn owl screeched a raspy scream for about two seconds as it batted its wings in flight to the tallest eucalyptus tree on the property behind hers. Abby peered into the darkness. She could faintly make out the black silhouette of the cinder-block house that had been the sanctuary of its owner until his death, a year before Abby had moved to the farmette. Now, although she didn’t see them, Abby believed snakes, rats, skunks, and raccoons crawled through the empty rooms and climbed the gnarly dead limbs of the ancient oak that towered over the old house. Yet, despite the haven the old house afforded wildlife, some local teens had only the month before broken into it to drink beer and do drugs. Abby had called county dispatch, and the responding officers had broken up the party. The property owner’s daughter and her husband had returned and padlocked the iron entrance gates but had left any type of cleanup or maintenance for another day.

Okay. Overreacting
.
Calm down.
Abby inhaled a long, slow breath. Slowing her breath would slow her heart rate, and her heart was racing faster than the lead car in a drag race. She might be overreacting, but the chef’s sudden death had everyone on edge. And that vacant house, hidden by weeds and trees, was a recipe for trouble.

Abby crept into the dark kitchen of her house. She heard Sugar spring off the bed and pad down the hallway to her side. Rested, the dog apparently sensed excitement and jumped up on Abby.

“Some watchdog you are, snoozing away while there’s a murderer on the loose. No jumping. Get down.” Sugar wasn’t taking no for an answer and covered Abby’s face in wet licks. “No means no!” Abby reiterated. She felt for the tea towel she kept draped over the oven door handle. Tying it in a knot and pitching it away from the kitchen, Abby prayed that Sugar would run after it.

With the dog bounding to the living room in search of the knotted towel, Abby took the opportunity to close, lock, and shutter the patio door before groping her way to the bedroom. There, she stealthily opened the drawer to the bedside table and pulled out her Ruger LCP 380 semiautomatic pistol and its magazine. Though it was lighter than her service revolver, the weight of the small gun in her hand had a calming effect. She might have a gimpy thumb, but her two-handed aim was still good. She slipped the magazine into the gun and inhaled deeply, then slowly let go of the breath. Crouched on high alert in the darkness, stroking Sugar’s neck to keep her silent, Abby remembered the crates of jars and wine bottles awaiting removal by the property’s heirs and considered the possibility that a roaming wild animal had knocked them over. As the clock on the wall ticked away minutes and Abby heard no other racket, she concluded that maybe she’d been spooked by something wild, and not necessarily the two-legged kind. All the same, she decided to sleep with her gun within arm’s reach. The dog didn’t seem particularly interested in the doggy toys or her own bed, a folded blanket. Nor had Sugar yet learned that Abby’s bed was off-limits.

 

 

Tip for Using Honey for Optimum Health

Chapter 5

Sow plants that produce aboveground crops during a waxing moon and plants that produce belowground crops during a waning moon.

 

 

A
t a quarter to six, Abby awoke to the
kuk-kuk-kuk
chatter of a squirrel in the Black Mission fig tree that towered over the north side of her house. Houdini was already engaged in a crow-off with a neighborhood rooster. Somewhere down Farm Hill Road, a dog barked nonstop at what sounded like a garbage truck, its engine revving for starts and its brakes squeaking for stops as it lumbered along its route. Sugar leaped from the foot of Abby’s bed to engage fully in her role as watchdog. The pooch stood on point beneath the window and barked without letup.

Abby rubbed her eyes, yawned, and stretched, taking notice of how energetic she felt.
Hormones.
There were times of the month when she hated her hormones, but then there were other times, like today, when she felt like a world-class gymnast in a thirty-seven-year-old goddess body.
Feel like jogging up the mountain. Ten miles over, dip in the Pacific, ten back. Could be fun . . . but then again, those heirloom beans aren’t going to plant themselves.

“All right. Stop with the barking, already. You’ve made your point, big girl.” After throwing back the covers, springing from the bed, thrusting feet to the floor, Abby bounded to the dresser and rummaged through the drawers, searching for something to wear. She pulled out a pair of denim jeans, a white camisole to wear under her work shirt, and a pair of ankle socks. They were her last clean pair and not the best, because of the lace edging, but serviceable nevertheless. She hated hair hanging in her face and decided that the green bandanna in the top drawer was a practical solution to controlling her curly mass.

Sugar busied herself with the pile of unwashed laundry. She especially liked Abby’s underwear and used towels. Abby groaned with the realization that with Sugar around, she would no longer be able to leave clothing on the floor, the gate open, or a half-eaten sandwich on a chair while she watered her plants. After putting away the laundry basket, Abby sprinted to the kitchen to swallow a few swigs of hot coffee, even though she didn’t need help waking up this morning. Abby reached for her cell phone, which was lying next to her pocketknife on the kitchen counter. She disconnected the phone from the charger and slipped it and the knife into her back pocket. She hated the interruptions cell phones always brought.
But then again, maybe I don’t want any calls to interrupt me today.

Abby wiggled the phone back out of her hip pocket and laid it back down on the plywood that served as the countertop until she could get the real thing. Surely she could be unavailable by phone for a few hours. Kat and the other officers eventually would get to the bottom of what had happened to Jean-Louis. They knew how to do their jobs. If anything really important turned up and the cops needed her insight, Abby knew Kat would call and leave a message. Feeling justified at disconnecting the phone, literally, from her hip, Abby marched outside with Sugar on the leash. Nothing was going to stop her from getting those beans in the ground today!

Abby closed the fence gate dividing the front of her property from the back yard before letting Sugar off the leash, then shook the pebbles from her ladybug-patterned gardening shoes and set off for the drying shed. Sugar headed straight for the wild birds balancing on the cosmos blooms, flitting among the sunflowers, and perching in the apple tree. The dog showed a special interest in the yellow finches pecking at the Nyjer seed in one of the feeders that Abby had suspended by a rope from the pole braced between the peppertree and olive tree.

“Point and bark all you want, but no hurting those birds,” Abby admonished before returning to her beans.

In the drying shed, Abby seized upon a spool of orange string, a hammer, and a five-gallon bucket of stakes. Next, she gathered packages of beans with exotic names like Turkey Craw, an heirloom from Tennessee, and Hutterite Soup, an heirloom bean grown by a Hutterite communal sect of Anabaptists in North Dakota. If the latter bean lived up to its reputation of making a magnificent white soup, she might be able to convince Zazi’s to buy some of her crop.

After hammering the first stake into the earth and tying the loose end of the string around it, Abby paced off twenty-five steps to the other side of the garden and repeated the hammering process. She wound the spool of string around the stake, pulled out her pocketknife, cut the string, and tied the loose end. When she had completed ten straight rows, she sank to her knees in the dirt and began to plant the beans in one-inch-deep holes two inches apart. She speared the empty packages onto stakes and stuck them at the end of each row to identify the bean type.
I know you babies are going to grow and produce. With the money I’ll make selling you, the honey, and my jams, maybe . . . just maybe I’ll be able to fix up this old place. A granite countertop in the kitchen would be nice, for starters.

Abby hummed while she worked, and the work went swiftly. With the beans finished, she retrieved the flats of herbs she’d been growing on the patio and began planting them. She lost track of time, but her skin felt prickly from the sun beating down on her. When she stopped to dab perspiration from her forehead using the tails of her faded work shirt, she heard a voice call out from the front of her property.

“Abby? Hey, girlfriend, you here?”

Abby groaned.
Wouldn’t you know? And I’m just beginning to make headway.
Tree canopies blocked the view to the gravel driveway at the front of the property, but she recognized Kat’s voice.

“Back here,” Abby called out.

Kat’s willowy body in her uniform emerged from the other side of the gate. “Brought someone to see you.”

“Yeah? Hope he’s good-looking.”

“Oh, he is,” Kat replied.

“I
wasn’t
being serious,” Abby told her.

“I
was.
” Kat shot her a chimpanzee grin and took several steps toward the newly planted area before Abby asked her to stay where she was.

“Can’t have you trouncing on the rows I’ve just planted. I’ll come to you.”

“Oh, gotcha,” Kat said, backing up.

Abby hoisted a flat of herbs in cell packs onto one arm and slid her hand under a second flat. Balancing the two flats, she gingerly walked toward the patio. Sugar, eager to meet the new visitor, bounded between Abby’s legs.

“Watch out!” Kat shrieked a millisecond too late.

Abby hit the ground, landing on the side of her face and sending cell packs of oregano, thyme, and tarragon seedlings flying in every direction.

“OMG! You all right?” Kat called out.

“Been better,” Abby drawled, pushing up into a sitting position. “That dog is going to be the death of me . . . the dog and those darn twine lines.”

“Why are they even there?”

“They’re marking the gravel paths, which will prevent this sort of stumbling and bumbling through the garden.”

“Well, girlfriend, they do make
marking paint
in spray cans now.”

Abby grimaced. “Yeah, but a hand guided by the eye will never make a line as straight as a piece of string tightly strung between two stakes.” Abby dabbed at the blood oozing from her left nostril.

“Can I get you some ice?” Kat offered, softening her tone.

“Forget it. This isn’t serious. It’s just—” Abby sucked in a breath before spitting out the word. “Stupid.” She pushed herself to an upright position and dusted dirt from her clothes. Then, she began picking up the cell packs of broken seedlings, only to toss them aside. She looked at Kat, not even trying to hide the gloom she knew her face showed.

Kat shook her head. “You are going to break your neck one of these days.”

“Well, if I do, just put me out of my misery, because with my gimpy thumb and a broken neck, I wouldn’t make much of a farmer, would I?” Abby said and dusted dirt from her clothes.

From beyond the gate, a male voice called out, “Hello? Are you ladies back there?”

Sugar ran to the gate, which Kat had closed, pawed the boards, and barked incessantly.

“No,” Abby commanded in her most authoritative voice. To her utter surprise, Sugar dropped down and trotted over to her.

“Looks like she recognizes you as the top dog,” Kat said.

But the moment of pleasure Abby felt was short lived, as she watched Sugar spring to life upon spotting finches foraging in the giant sunflower near the gate. The dog sprang into the air in a flying leap. She thrust her weight against the stalk, taking down Abby’s prized sunflower. From the head of this one flower, Abby had hoped to harvest seeds enough to sell alongside her honey at the farmers’ market. Abby shot a grimacing look at Kat.

“I’m so over that animal,” Abby lamented. “Why couldn’t the chef have been a cat lover instead?”

“She just needs training, and you need time to bond with her,” said Kat. Then, turning her attention to the voice calling to them, she replied, “Be right there, Mr. Bonheur.”

“Bonheur?” Abby arched her brow questioningly. “A relative of the pastry chef?”

Kat nodded, grinned. “Brother.”

“Is he here to take the dog? Oh, thank goodness!”

“No. He’s here to see you.”

“Why me?”

“Well, if you’d answered your darn phone, I could have told you that Chief Bob Allen shared the findings of the coroner’s office with Jean-Louis’s brother. The death was the result of asphyxia by hanging. Then our visit to Dora under the bridge, in the homeless encampment, confirmed it for us.”

“Really? How?”

“In her shopping cart, we found a bucket that matches the others in the pastry shop.”

“How about the twine from around his neck?” Abby asked.

“No twine, no apron. She says she can’t remember those. And, believe me, we pressed her.”

“Slips in and out of lucidity, I suppose,” Abby said.

“But she admitted to cutting him down. Thought if she straightened him out on the floor, he’d get up and get her coffee.”

“No kidding? And when he didn’t?”

“She helped herself to his heavy-duty utility bucket—the one he must have stood on, until . . . he wasn’t standing anymore.”

“Ladies . . . hello,” the man called out again, sounding slightly impatient.

“We gotta go, but one more thing,” Kat said softly as she made a sweeping gesture to invite Abby to start walking to the gate. “Two friends who knew Jean-Louis well said he struggled with professional and personal difficulties. Defaulting on loans, losing his lease, and having to fire his protégé had to be extremely stressful. Chief Bob Allen says we can’t spare anyone to conduct what would amount to an unnecessary investigation, when it seems clear it was suicide, so case closed.”

Abby wondered if Chief Bob Allen wasn’t being premature in his decision, but she said nothing.

Kat called out, “We’re coming, Mr. Bonheur.”

Chief Bob Allen would want the whole ugly mess to go away, of that Abby was certain. The negative publicity would stop. Many of the shops in Las Flores depended on summer tourist dollars, and those dollars also boosted the town’s economy. People on their way over the mountain to the seaside villages and beach towns often stopped in Las Flores for lunch and a bit of antiquing, but they wouldn’t if a murderer was on the loose. With suicide, things could return to normal.

“So how’s the brother taking the news?” Abby asked.

“Not well. He argued with Chief Bob Allen, who listened like he was the man’s best friend and then told Philippe Bonheur that he’d seen plenty of cases where the family couldn’t accept suicide as the finding, but that is what happened. End of discussion.”

“So, how is it that my name came up?”

“That was later, when I was driving Mr. Bonheur back to his hotel. I might have mentioned your name.”

“Oh, yeah? What else did you tell him?” Abby slipped her fingers under the bandanna, inched it off her head, and pushed her fingers through her hair to comb it. She must look a mess, particularly after she literally rubbed her face—and hair—in the dirt.

“Not much. Well, your track record, of course—your strength at crime solving. Oh, and I also mentioned your love of rhubarb and honey. I’m sure I told him about your luscious honey.”

“Of course you did.” Abby smiled and shook her head. She reached down and scratched Sugar between the ears.

Kat flashed a wide grin. “Look, Abby, you know when the chief says to back off, we can’t touch it. But you could. You’ve solved more cases than anyone else on our force.”

“But I’m not on the force, am I? I’m a farmer now. And honestly, Kat, I don’t think you know how much I’m trying to do here. Don’t you think I would bring in day laborers to help me if I could afford it?”

Kat’s tone shifted to a tease. “You’ll thank me when you find out how much money he wants to give you.”

Abby arched her eyebrows. “Okay, so tell me.”

Kat smiled. “And steal his thunder? Uh,
no.
I’ll let him tell you.” She turned and quickly marched back to the front of the house, where her cruiser was parked. Kat called out over her shoulder, “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

Following Kat through the heavy wooden gate and then latching it to keep Sugar from taking off, Abby noticed a lot of bee activity on the gate’s driveway side, where she had planted a circular-shaped wildflower garden. The honeybees loved the pollen in the flowers of the giant pink, red, and white cosmos. No matter what time of the day Abby went to water them, she would see the bees foraging.

Abby looked past the cosmos to the forty-something, tall, dark-haired man with silvery threads of gray at his temples. Casually dressed in jeans and penny loafers without socks, he held his sport coat in the crook of an arm while his other hand squeezed a tiny ball of fruit hanging on the two-year-old blood orange tree. The sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled up, exposing lithe forearms.