Buzz Off (11 page)

His eyes came back down. “I’m not talking about it.”

“Okay, fine, you argued with her. Then what?”

“She stomped out. At first, I thought she was outside cooling off. When she didn’t come back, I figured she’d walked down to Stu’s and called for a ride home.”

That seemed reasonable. I assumed she’d had friends who would have picked her up.

Clay tucked his feet in and rolled up in a ball.

“Clay, look at me,” I said.

Clay glanced up.

“Meet my eyes.” Toward the end of our rocky marriage, I’d perfected the ability to sense when he lied to me. His mouth told all sorts of stories, but his eyes didn’t know how to play along. “Did you or did you not murder your girlfriend?”

His eyes never left mine. “I did
not
kill Faye. There, are you happy? Besides, I wouldn’t have made love to her in your kayak if I planned to kill her in it. That would take a crazy man!”

“What? You had sex in
my
kayak?”

“In the afternoon. While you were having your divorce party at the store.”

“You are so gross!”

I slammed out of his house, disgusted and thinking of a zillion names to call Clay. But I was 99 percent certain
killer
wasn’t one of them, which meant I’d wasted a whole night’s sleep for nothing. It also left the field wide open, if I was right. Did Faye have any enemies who hated her enough to kill her? Did I have any who hated me enough to frame me for it? I tended to blurt out things without thinking them through sometimes, but I’d never intentionally hurt anybody. Well, nobody other than Johnny Jay, but that was mutual.

I showered, made a pot of strong coffee, poured it into a carafe, and carried it down the street to open up The Wild Clover.

Milly Hopticourt, my recipe tester, arrived at the store at the same time I did, carrying a cardboard box filled with bouquets of flowers from her garden—cosmos, sunflowers, Russian sage, borage, Shasta daisies, globe thistles, baby’s breath.

“Every last bunch I brought in yesterday sold,” Milly said proudly.

“They are
so
beautiful. Come on in.” I held the door open for her then set the carafe on a counter.

After turning on lights and flipping the open sign around, I helped Milly arrange the bouquets in a big bin. I added a few inches of water to them, wiped my wet hands on my jeans, and surveyed my dream come true.

Everything was bright and shiny and inviting. Buying the church and opening the store had been the right decision.

“What recipes should we put in the next newsletter?” Milly asked. “I should start testing soon.”

“I found some wild grape vines next to the river bank, in my secret place. How about whipping up something with ripe grapes as the main ingredient? I’ll pick them for you tomorrow.”

“Perfect. I’ll start with that.”

“Tell me, Milly, were you at the library yesterday afternoon?” I poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her.

“Me and the rest of the town,” she said, taking the cup.

“That many people came?”

Milly nodded. “Tons. It was so much fun even with the rain, because we were all dry there under the tent. But when the news came about Faye, the place cleared out like there’d been a bomb threat, with everybody running to the river by Stu’s for news. You can imagine what we all thought when we heard you were out on the river with your ex-husband’s dead girlfriend’s body.”

“Yes, well, that must have kept everybody busy.” I’d gotten out of there just in time, thanks to Grams.

“You bet. And now we hear that she really was murdered.”

“We did?”

“It’s all over town that she drowned, and it wasn’t an accident, either.”

Secrets don’t last long in a town this size. If Johnny Jay wanted to hold back information, he’d have his hands full. And I had to hope our conversation at the police station didn’t leak out. That’s all people needed to hear, rumors that I’d been overheard fighting with Faye before her death.

“Was Clay at the library, too, when you found out about Faye?” I reached for another cup to pour coffee for myself, waiting for her answer. The false tip had to have been made sometime on Saturday, after Faye was found but before the library closed for the day. If Clay hadn’t been there, he couldn’t have used the computer to send the e-mail and he was totally clear in my book.

Milly scrunched her forehead. “Um, I don’t think so. But there were so many people in and out.” She paused. “No, he definitely wasn’t outside when Larry Koon came rushing over to tell us the awful news. Wouldn’t that have been a terrible shock for him? Not that it wasn’t bad enough for him later, I’m sure.”

“I’m relieved I wasn’t the one to have to tell him,” I said.

“Now I remember,” Milly said. “Emily told me later about how pleased she had been to see Clay because he’d never set foot in the library before. And I said to her, maybe he was turning over a new leaf, a book leaf, and how he would need some distractions to help him get over this and reading might help.” She took a sip of coffee. “Emily said she went inside after the news came, but he was gone by then. What’s wrong with you?”

The coffee I was pouring missed the cup and splattered across the top of the counter.

I tried to stay calm after learning that my ex-husband had been at the library that afternoon and could have sent the incriminating e-mail. I reminded myself that almost the entire community had been there as well. Anybody could have done it. Anybody.

Thankfully, to keep my mind out of dark corners, Sundays are always busy days at the store. My honey sticks were the most popular item with the kids. That and all the penny candy in bins, though it cost a lot more than a penny these days. Locals came in to gossip and buy ingredients for Sunday family dinners. P. P. Patti bought a half dozen ears of corn and tried to twist as much information about Faye’s death from my lips as possible.

“I can’t talk about it,” I improvised, refusing to add
gossiper
to my list of personal faults. “The police chief is investigating and he asked me to keep everything I know confidential for now.”

“That means you know something important to the case,” Patti pointed out. “I heard you were taken in for questioning.”

“
Consulting
,” I corrected her. My mother must be having a
bird
—her word for a fit—over what was going around.

Stanley Peck had his own angle. “Maybe something illegal was going on somewhere up the river,” he said, filling his shopping basket with beer and pretzels. “Thieves with their loot or something worse. And Faye happened right into the middle of it. They couldn’t let her go because she could identify them.”

“You should tell the police chief about your theory,” Patti said.

Stanley was on a roll. “I just might do that. You be careful down by that river, you hear? You, too, Story. At least until the police solve the case. We haven’t had this much action since I shot my foot. I mean, since I got shot in the foot.” He had the decency to blush at his slip of tongue. So the rumor was true. Stanley had shot his own foot.

Lori Spandle came in to remind me that I still had to prove the bees were gone to pacify the masses and time was running out, she said, as though I didn’t know that. Lori still had on her bee veil. “You should be in marketing,” I said just to bug her. “You really know how to brand your product.”

“I
am
in marketing, in case you’ve forgotten,” the real estate agent said. “As soon as Manny’s funeral is over, I have to talk to Grace about selling out.”

The woman was like a barracuda. And her husband, the land developer, wasn’t any better. The Spandles made quite a team. She squeezed the landowner, so her husband could sweep in to develop the land.

“Manny would never approve of selling,” I said.

“Manny’s gone,” Lori said. “It’s Grace’s decision now. Don’t forget,” she added again, “you have to prove that those bees are out of attack range.”

“The ones at Manny’s, yes,” I said. “I’ll go out and take pictures of the empty beeyard after I close at five. They’re really gone. Grace told me.” Thanks to the police chief and his interrogation drama last night that prevented me from saving some of the hives, they
were
all gone. My heart ached at the thought.

“Your bees, too,” she said next. “They have to go.”

I shook my head. “You stay away from my bees. They haven’t done anything to anybody and I still will prove that honeybees didn’t kill Manny Chapman.”

“We’ll see about that at the meeting tomorrow night.” Lori wore prebattle triumph on her face.

“What meeting?”

“The regular monthly town meeting, except this time we have extremely pressing business to discuss and we’re taking a vote. Your bees are going.”

I groaned. Usually the monthly town meetings were b.o.r.i.n.g. But, by the gleam in Lori’s eyes, I suspected major trouble at this one. Lori was obsessed with shutting down my bee operation by extending killer-bee fear to all corners of the county and she wasn’t above using her husband’s position as town chair to further her cause.

“I’m looking forward to it,” I lied. “But doesn’t the board have to give me some kind of notice?”

“Not if it’s a threat to the community. Your say doesn’t count.”

“It sure does. I’ll be there and my vote will count just as much as yours.” Another thing about small community boards—they bend the rules to suit themselves.

Pity-Party Patti ate up our exchange like it was chocolate mousse at an all-you-can-eat dessert table. “I have to see a doctor,” she said, launching into her current problem after Lori flounced out the door. “Look at my hand shaking.” Her hand quivered in my face.

“Too much coffee?” I guessed.

“I gave up all caffeinated beverages. It might be Parkinson’s,” she said. “Then what would I do? I have nobody to take care of me or that big house and yard or all those raccoon attacks.”

“You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

“Being a single woman is hard in this world. That’s why I’m glad at least one of us has found a man.”

I looked at Patti. “You’re in a relationship?” As long as I’d known Patti, I’d never heard of her even going out once with a man.

“Not me, Carrie Ann. I saw her making out with Hunter Wallace. Talk about hot!”

Gawd, I didn’t want to hear what Patti just told me. So that was pretty much it. I had barely felt the rustling of interest in Hunter before it was snatched away. I might be a lot of things, but I’m no relationship buster. I’d been on the receiving end of that with Clay, and it wasn’t a good place to be.

Thankfully, business picked up right then and I was able to make my escape from Patti.

Stu came in for a Sunday paper and confirmed that Carrie Ann hadn’t been in the bar since I’d seen her there for lunch yesterday. Unless she was slinking into taverns outside of town or drinking at home, she had made it twenty-four hours.

Good for her. And good for Hunter for supporting her efforts, and whatever else he was supporting.

Every time business tapered off, I tried to imagine what had happened to Manny and what a person without bee experience might do if a swarm of stinging insects attacked him. He’d instinctively run, but an experienced beekeeper like Manny would also know to pull his shirt up to protect his head and eyes. That could explain why his stomach had been exposed. But here was the clincher: Why wouldn’t he have kept running? He wasn’t that far from his house. Even his car was within reachable distance. He could have saved himself by getting into his car. All he had to do was keep moving toward safety.

I supposed that most accidental deaths carry this kind of after-the-fact analysis and helpless sense of regret for those who feel they could have changed the outcome. If only things had been different. If only I’d been there when it happened. If only Grace had been home when the attack occurred.
If only.

Although it would take only one sting in the wrong place (like inside his mouth as the medical examiner had told Johnny Jay) to finish him off. I wondered whether or not he’d realized he was going to die. How long had he suffered? Please, let it have been easier and faster for him than I imagined.

At two o’clock Carrie Ann came by the store. She didn’t look good.

“I’m having a hell of a time,” she said, gnawing on her fingernails. “But I haven’t smoked, not a single drag.” She still hadn’t mentioned the whole not-drinking thing to me.

“Just keep busy and try to think of other things,” I said, knowing how hard that was.

“Do I have some hours at the market?”

“Let’s see,” I said, studying the schedule, not at all positive Carrie Ann could make it without falling off the wagon. I’d promised Hunter, and I really could use the help.

Before we could get down to the details, I spotted my sister Holly’s red Jaguar convertible through the front window, its glossy finish gleaming in the warm September sunlight. My blue truck looked like a bucket of rusty bolts next to it.