The Murder of a Queen Bee (9 page)

Abby motioned for Clay to follow her. They left the bee earring box on the counter and quietly walked out of the jewelry shop into the sunlight. From down the street wafted the scent of red beans, rice, roasted jalapeños, and grilled sausages, reminding Abby that she had long ago digested the peanut butter toast she'd had for lunch. She disregarded her hunger and hastened toward the traffic light.

“Abby, hold up. Zazi's is open,” said Clay, his voice tinged with hopefulness. “What say we grab a table and you tell me what's going on?”

“Later, later.” Abby kept up her brisk walking pace. The traffic signal flashed the white pedestrian walk light and sounded the familiar
ding-dong
,
ding-dong
,
ding-dong
. Abby raced across the intersection. She gestured to Clay to catch up. After dashing inside the Dillingham Dairy building, the first floor of which was taken up by police headquarters, she headed straight for the window where a male police officer staffed a desk behind bulletproof glass.

“You might want to let the homicide team know that the husband of Fiona Ryan is pawning her jewelry at Village Rings & Things across the street!” Abby exclaimed, sucking in a deep breath. “It's just a hunch, but he could walk out of there with enough moola for a flight to Timbuktu. Just so you know.”

Chapter 7

Thyme spices up vanilla cake. Lavender glorifies
pudding. Basil intensifies butter, and rosemary
elevates potato. But what herb knits a broken
heart?

 

 

 

W
ith Clay's hand on her elbow, Abby walked out of the Las Flores Police Department and reentered the late afternoon light filtered through the crepe myrtle trees along Main Street. Friday afternoon pedestrian and street traffic had gotten worse now that the days were growing longer and the weather had turned warm. Summer hadn't officially arrived yet and wouldn't for a few weeks, but people in the outlying valley towns had already begun their summer caravans through Las Flores and the mountains to the beach communities. Every weekend, the traffic would back up for miles.

“How do you know the jewelry that guy was pawning belonged to his dead wife? Did he kill her?” Clay asked, releasing Abby's elbow to take her hand. They strolled toward the crosswalk. “What say you bring me up to speed while we eat?” he said. “I'm starving.”

Abby pulled Clay to an abrupt stop. “Could you give me forty-five minutes? I'd like to run home, shower, and change first.” She cocked her head slightly to one side. “It's been one thing after another, and I've been out in the heat all day. I'd like to clean up, slip into something a little more feminine.”

He leaned down and kissed her neck. “Not necessary.” He was smiling, but Abby could tell he didn't want her to go. “You look fine, and we're already here.” He glanced at her sideways and thumped the pedestrian walk button on its metal pole with the side of his hand. “And regardless, Zazi's has a restroom. Can't you freshen up there?”

Abby flinched. He'd missed the point. She wanted to hear their song on the drive home. She wanted to wash and primp and feel pretty again. She wanted a sentimental and sexy reunion. It had been so long.

“Jeez, Clay, we weren't even supposed to meet for another hour.” Abby flashed her sweetest smile. Noticing his jaw tensing, as if he was holding back his growing frustration with her, Abby let her smile fade. She tried another approach. “I have an idea,” she said. “While I pretty myself up, you grab a stool at the bar at the Black Witch and have a glass of that Kentucky bourbon you like so much. I'm sure the boys around the dartboard will want to hear all about your travels.”

“Probably,” Clay said. “But I thought you would.”

Ouch.
His remark stung, but Abby wasn't about to let him see her react.

After a moment of tense silence, he said, “If it's so important to look good while you eat, Abby, then, by all means, go on home. Don't worry about me. I can find some way to cool my heels.” His eyes darkened. Abby recognized his shifting mood.

She stared at the concrete. The pedestrian walk light began flashing, accompanied by the
ding-dong
repeatedly sounding, but neither she nor Clay moved.

He let go a long, audible exhale. He stared at the tall building across the street. His lips tightened into a severe line, and then, after a beat, he said, “Go on home, Abby. I'll see if Zazi's can rustle up something to tide me over until you get back. I'm too eager, I guess. I just want to spend some time with you.”

She knew this maneuver. He would tell her to do whatever she wanted, but if he didn't also want it, he would make her pay for her choice by closing down emotionally. She hated his silent treatment. It was the classic passive-aggressive ploy. Abby shifted her gaze toward the theater marquee. A little foreign film from Hong Kong,
In the Mood for Love
, was playing for another week. Maybe she would see it. Maybe they would see it together. Or not.

A struggle had begun between her heart and her mind. Clay had come back. He'd said he couldn't live without her. Maybe she was creating an unnecessary problem. Surely she could set aside her desire to be romanced and just muster more generosity of spirit. But then again, if she gave in, wouldn't they just revert to their old way of being together? Nothing would change. That wasn't what she wanted for her life. If they were going to have a real chance of starting over and building a relationship that would thrive, this moment might be pivotal. Her thoughts raced as she remembered something Fiona had said about how two people could believe they loved and needed each other, but that didn't necessarily mean that they should be together or that they would even find enduring happiness. Sometimes coming together was just to finish off karma. Fiona had pointed to her own failed relationship with her husband, Tom, as an example. An icy finger of fear suddenly twisted around Abby's heart.

“On second thought,” said Abby, “just forget about me getting all gussied up. We'll just grab a seat at the picture window at Zazi's, have a glass of old-vine zinfandel, dine on the bistro special, and watch the sun set on the mountains. Just like back in the day.” She'd gone an emotional distance with Clay. Her heart was stronger now. She could choose to appease him, but on her terms. She'd let him buy her dinner. But that was all.

Clay locked eyes with her. The tension in his face relaxed as a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “That's my girl. I don't like the idea of a killer on the loose and you out there on the edge of town by yourself. Guess I've come back just in time.”

Oh, really
?
You have no idea how silly that sounds, do you?
“My neighbors are great,” Abby said, thinking of Lucas, who lived up the hill from her farmette. “And I've got Sugar and my gun.”

“So you don't need me?” Clay said, as if she'd just rejected him.

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to.”

Abby released his hand as they stepped into the crosswalk. She pulled the strap of her purse tighter against her shoulder as a sudden hot gust of wind kicked up. The trees planted along the sidewalk bent and swayed, strong yet pliant.
We need to be like those trees, Clay, able to withstand whatever comes at us and still grow. I'll have dinner with you, listen to your stories, and smile at your jokes. But when it's time to go home, I'm going home alone.

* * *

Inside Zazi's, Abby settled into the four-poster chair Clay had pulled out for her. She gazed out the bistro's front window and decided to file their tension-filled exchange under “knee-jerk reactions” and let it go. The window afforded a view of Main Street and beyond to the south, where the blue-green mountains towered behind the red barrel-tiled roof of the centuries-old grain mill. The wealthiest Las Flores families chose the mountains' southern slopes to build their mansions, up high, where the view overlooked the downtown. They hid their estates—some with vineyards—behind tall stone walls with gates. But the downtown merchants had a daily reminder that the mountains hid the nouveau riche. During certain times of the day, the sun would strike the glass windows on those lofty ridges, transforming the mountainsides into a mosaic of shimmering light, just as it did now under Abby's pensive gaze.

Clay ordered a bottle of zinfandel, touted on the wine list as having been produced from locally grown grapes on vines planted around 1910. The dutiful, dark-haired, white-aproned waitress who had encouraged Clay's choice scurried away, then returned a moment later with the bottle and two glasses. She coupled the task of opening the bottle with a soliloquy on the importance of having the correct wineglass, because of how it directed the flow of the liquid so that it hit certain parts of the palate. In different ways, this enhanced an appreciation for the wine's aroma and flavor. But opening the bottle proved impossible when the corkscrew malfunctioned. Clay offered to have a look; it seemed as good a moment as any for Abby to freshen up. She excused herself and left for the powder room.

Abby splashed cool water on her cheeks and washed and dried her hands. After pulling a comb from her purse, she freed her reddish-gold locks from the elastic band and coaxed them into thick waves that graced her bare shoulders. She untied her pale green work shirt from around her waist, slipped her arms back into it, and fastened it, leaving the top button undone, so a sliver of her turquoise tank top peeked out. Clay would like that, although he surely would prefer that she left the shirt off. She tucked her shirt into her jeans; this showed off her figure, kept trim and muscular by all the farmette work. Even if it didn't matter to Clay, it mattered to her that she did not look as though she'd just finished cleaning the chicken house before taking a seat in Main Street's best restaurant. Just as Abby unfastened her belt buckle and unzipped her jeans to tuck in her shirttail, two ladies entered the powder room, in the middle of a conversation.

“Edna Mae should know. She's lived here all her life. If she says that the community up there has become a cult and the town would be better off without them, then there's got to be something dark going on up there. Edna Mae has never known a stranger. And there's not a bigoted bone in her body,” said the woman with hazel eyes and short gray hair. The wrinkled lobes of her pierced ears supported shiny gold hoop earrings. She held open the powder room door for her companion, a tall, freckle-faced woman with glasses and wearing a cream-colored shirt over brown leggings.

“So why is there a commune up there?” the freckle-faced woman asked. She flashed a fleeting smile of acknowledgment at Abby before disappearing behind the toilet door adjacent to her friend's stall. “I thought it used to be a convent.”

Abby had zipped her jeans and buckled her belt and was reaching for her purse to leave when she heard the woman with the hoop earrings, now in the first stall, answer, “The nuns sold it to a builder who defaulted. A real estate developer grabbed it, the one that Zora Richardson married, I think.” The woman lowered her voice. “Rumor has it that he's in cahoots with the commune's new leader. That murdered Ryan woman and her husband, I heard, were mixed up somehow with that commune, too. That new leader has attracted the riffraff that are coming into town. Don't know much else about the dead woman except that she had a husband
and
a boyfriend.”

Abby's antennae went on high alert. While straining to hear the rest of the conversation, she rummaged for makeup in her purse.

“So who killed her?” asked the freckle-faced woman.

“I heard the husband did it.”

Abby stared in the mirror at the reflection of the woman's spiky gray hair as it appeared and disappeared at the door's upper edge, looking like a rat bobbing along the top.

After unlatching the door, the woman stepped out and continued her conversation with her friend. “You and I can fly back to Milwaukee, but Edna Mae will never leave Las Flores.” The woman looked at Abby with a forced smile and proceeded to wash her hands. “I just hope for her sake they make an arrest soon.”

Abby returned the woman's smile. “The murder of Fiona Ryan is just awful, isn't it?” said Abby, jumping into their conversation. “Our police are a good lot, though. They'll find the killer,” she said with confidence. She searched for items in her purse until she located red-tinted lip gloss. Using the lip brush, she swept a wide stroke across her bottom lip. “I couldn't help overhearing you mention Edna Mae, the owner of the antique store. Are you related?”

“I'm her cousin twice removed on her mama's side,” the freckle-faced woman replied.

“Nice lady, that Edna Mae,” Abby replied. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

“Spirit as pure as bleached linen, and she's got the low-down on those commune folks,” Freckle Face said as she exited her stall and waited her turn at the sink. “Dark and unrighteous acts going on up there.”

“That so?” Abby twisted the lid back on the gloss and dropped it into her purse. “Like what?” Abby tried to sound shocked.

Freckle Face heaved a long sigh. “What's that they say about idle hands doing the Devil's work? That dead girl romancing two men? Could be that they're all into polygamy.”

Abby winced. Her friend Fiona had been free as a feather, but polygamy?
No way. Absolutely not.
But before Abby could utter a word in Fiona's defense, the gray-haired woman corrected her friend.

“Polygamists are people with multiple spouses. The dead girl had only one husband . . . and they were separated.” The gray-haired woman stepped to one side and pulled a paper towel from the dispenser. Wiping water from her hands, she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “Is there anyone in town who doesn't believe those people live out on the fringe?”

“What do you mean?” Abby asked.

“A cult of Satan,” the freckle-faced woman stated decidedly. “Arcane arts.”

“Arcane arts?” Abby asked, wondering if the woman was referring to telling fortunes, scrying, or conducting séances. “What exactly do you mean?” Abby hoped to find out what the women thought they knew about the inner workings of the commune.

Freckle Face chimed in. “They do séances to contact dead spirits. I heard that leader up there reads the Good Book differently than other men of the cloth.”

The gray-haired woman pushed her fingers through her locks and said, “You hear talk around town. He's got a thing about the number eight, justifies some of his actions with Old Testament verses about the eight wives of King David. Maybe he thinks he's king, too, and requires eight women to dote on him.”

“Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Abby. “How narcissistic!”

Apparently encouraged by Abby's interest, Freckle Face added in a hushed tone, “Eight women sleep on the floor of his room every night. They call it energy balancing. The chosen ones wear a necklace—a black knotted cord with a figure eight symbol.”