Beeline to Trouble (12 page)

Eighteen

Bright and early Monday morning I tended to my
bees, greeting them as they came out on their little hive porches and flew off to forage. The summer months are carefree in the apiary, since honeybees are able to find so many flowering plants. Some of my bees landed on me before taking off, up close and personal with all those little eyes. I wasn’t wearing my bee suit but I’d taken the standard precautions, most of which are plain common sense. As I tell visitors in advance:

• Don’t wear perfumes or strongly scented shaving creams. Either the bees will mistake you for a flower, or they will take a strong dislike to your smell and let you know how they feel. Either way, you might get stung.
  
• Wear light colors (whites and beiges). The very worst would be a bright floral pattern. Same reason. Don’t look like a flower.
  
• Since honeybees are naturally curious, they will crawl inside loose-fitting clothing, get trapped, and start stinging. Sweat pants with elastic cuffs and rubber bands to keep them out of tight places are a beekeeper’s best friends.
  
• Don’t go barefoot, especially in a yard like mine where I encourage clover and dandelions to sprout freely. Little critters can’t see giant feet descending until it’s too late for both of you.
  

See? All common sense.

After my bee hello, I had to deal with a canoe on the river. I don’t usually pay any attention to traffic on the river, but these two guys were taking pictures of my backyard from one of Stu’s rental canoes. I threw a stone or two and they took off. The nerve!

Then I tossed a Frisbee for Ben until I was exhausted (he could have played forever), packed my man off with a kiss, and walked down Main Street to open the store. Milly Hopincourt showed up first. Thankfully, everything seemed back to normal, the way it should be, the way I needed it to be.

“I’m handling all the meals for the Paines’ guests,” she informed me.

“You shouldn’t have to do that.”

“Max is paying me very well. The extra cash will come in handy. Besides, I’m enjoying it so much I’m considering opening a catering business.” With that, she headed down the aisles to stock up on supplies for her next round of meals.

Carrie Ann came in next, saying, “Sure has been a lot of action around here.” I noticed how fresh-eyed she was. As her cousin and friend, I pay attention to things like that. We can’t let her dive back into the bottom of a bottle of beer, or vodka, or whatever she used to drink, which was just about anything she could get her hands on.

“The police chief is back in town,” I told her.

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” she said. “That man has one big vendetta against you.”

“Tell me about it.”

My cousin settled in behind the cash register while I straightened my Queen Bee Honey display and considered Johnny Jay’s prejudiced attitude and fat-skulled head. Not listening to the information Hunter and I had was downright unprofessional on his part. By now Sally must have run a background check on Nova, and the chief should already know that Nova and Patti had been married to the same man. Even the most incompetent investigator should’ve been able to track down that info. The part about Patti wading into the river, though, was an important detail only known by Hunter and me.

So, since Johnny had gotten all snarky and cut us off, did we have any further obligation to keep trying? What had he said about me, that he didn’t need my twisted interpretation of the truth? Fine then. Johnny Jay could take a flying leap, that’s what.

I was beginning to understand how Patti could have written that awful article to redirect the investigation away from herself. Because my whole family could profit from a little redirecting right back at her with the news that she had been the last one to see Nova alive. Murder, I’m finding out, brings out the finer pointing in people.

But even Hunter had fallen silent on the subject, at least for now. Knowing him, he would decide he had a professional obligation to report what I’d told him about Patti, but it wouldn’t begin or end with the chief. Hunter would backdoor it through his own department.

Then Johnny Jay would come looking for me. I couldn’t shake that man no matter what.

Right before lunch, my mother showed up, but I’d known she was coming. Without talking to me first, Carrie Ann had put her back on the schedule. Which should’ve made me mad, but it was a good decision on Carrie Ann’s part. Mom and I exchanged pleasantries, making me think she’d decided to give me at least the same courtesy she extended to people she didn’t know. Progress—I think.

Then I took off for Holly’s house.

When I pulled up, Johnny Jay was just leaving.

“The noose is tightening,” he said. “I have an entire jail block in reserve for your family.” He smirked before driving off. Johnny Jay needed serious counseling to get past whatever he had against me. It was clouding his judgment. The guy has always been a bully and a jerk, everybody in town knows that, but the excess attention he spends on trying to bring me down isn’t healthy. For either of us.

Holly, Max, Gil, and Camilla were all congregated around an outside table covered with delectable dishes, thanks to Milly. I saw Effie out in the rose garden, wearing some kind of netting all over her body.

“Chance must not have eliminated the spider threat,” I said to my sister.

“No!” she said. “Effie says they’re still all over the place. Chance doesn’t want to spray chemicals, so they have to handpick the spiders wearing thick gloves or try to squash them underfoot, and now more are hatching.” Holly shivered at the thought of creepy-crawly critters.

“What was the police chief up to?” I asked after pulling her aside. Camilla hadn’t even acknowledged my existence, but Gil gave me a big smile and wave.

“Asking a whole lot of questions, the same ones everybody already answered, but this time around a few more details came out.”

Darn! If only I’d been a little earlier, I might have learned a lot more from Gil and Camilla’s official statements. “Anything revealing?”

“Well, it’s no secret that Gil and Camilla had a hard time putting up with Nova, but that’s sort of beside the point.”

“Why’s that?”

“They both have ironclad alibis for the entire period of time the chief asked about.”

That certainly surprised me.

“Go on,” I said.

Holly leaned in and whispered, “They were together. In Gil’s room. And they weren’t one bit embarrassed about it, blurted it out right in front of Max and me when they could have kept it private between them and the chief.”

Now that she mentioned it, I remembered Gil and Camilla looking a bit cozy together during dinner at Holly’s. Except . . . “Camilla was out on one of your ATVs that morning,” I said. “I saw her myself. Has everybody forgotten that?”

“That was earlier in the morning. The chief only asked about our whereabouts between eleven a.m. and leaving together for your house.”

“And those two were in bed together then?!”

“Actually they have much better alibis than I do,” Holly said grimly. “Nobody can back me up. Or Max. We both were off alone. Max was in his office and I was hiding out in my own room.”

“Somebody’s lying. I think Camilla did it.”

Holly shook her head. “The chief seemed satisfied with their story.”

“So neither of them had an opportunity to add poison to the juice?”

“Apparently.”

Rats! There went my pet theory. I sighed and thought about the new information. And came up with another idea—Camilla and Gil were in on it together! They could’ve been in bed together in more ways than one. Camilla could have been out selecting the perfect poison while Gil arranged their alibis.

All I had to do was prove it. I’d keep it to myself for the time being.

Holly clutched my arm. “Johnny Jay told me his noose is tightening around my neck. I can actually feel it. He wasn’t at all nice to me. What am I going to do?”

“Relax,” I told her. “He threatened me with the same noose. In the end, justice will prevail.” Which I didn’t believe for one second. I’ve been on a jury during a trial and seen firsthand how random “justice” actually works. But I had to say something to reassure her.

My sister forgot all about her own problems when I told her about the Harry Bruno, Nova, and Patti triangle.

“Nova and Patti, married to the same guy? That Patti is such a mystery woman,” Holly said when I finished. “Do you believe her?”

“She said Nova was dead by the time she got to her. If Nova had drowned, Patti would be suspect number one. But poison? That was premeditated, and Patti claims she didn’t identify Nova as Harry’s second wife until she showed up in my yard. Patti didn’t have time to arrange to murder her with poison.”

“Passion is a strong motive.”

“She didn’t do it,” I said, firmly.

I sure hoped I was right.

Nineteen

When we rejoined the others, talk around the lunch
table had to do with the police chief’s visit, their orders not to leave town, and whether Johnny Jay really suspected any of them.

I slid into a chair next to Max and kept quiet as a mouse, but listened like an owl.

This whole thing was starting to remind me of one of my favorite board games, Clue.

Holly and Max’s house is a lot like the layout of the original board. A millionaire’s mansion with a library, billiard room, conservatory, the works. Except we already had a pretty good idea where it happened (or at least began)—in the bedroom, on the nightstand where the juice glass had been found, then on into my backyard. And the murder weapon wasn’t a lead pipe or candlestick. It wasn’t even a revolver. It was poison, which I didn’t remember being an option in the game.

The only question left was who did it? Ms. Scarlett (aka Camilla)? Or Colonel Mustard (Gil)? Or both of them working as a team?

As much as I’d enjoyed the game, though, I really hadn’t been very good at it, always focusing on one suspect from the very beginning instead of spreading out my suspicions. Food for thought, I decided. I didn’t want to fall into the same old losing strategy.

My game-playing fantasy was interrupted by Gil. “This certainly has been awkward.” He glanced at me. “Story might as well know, everybody else does.”

Camilla saw me glance at her and actually had the decency to show some discomfort. I tried not to smirk and thought I did a pretty good job of refraining. I made a mental note to find out if she really did have special permission to pick wildflowers. I doubted it, but wanted to confirm that she’d lied to me.

“I heard about your alibis,” I said to Gil, keeping my voice neutral, thinking these two sure seemed overly blabby about their personal affair.

Gil went on, “Nothing like having your dirty laundry exposed.”

His lady love shot him dagger eyes. He noticed and tried to backpedal. “Not that I’m calling you dirty laundry.”

Camilla got up and left the table.

“You certainly stuck your foot in your mouth this time,” Max said to him, filling a cup with coffee from a carafe and handing it to me. I smiled my thanks. Max was a true gentleman. Holly had chosen well.

Max frowned at Gil. “Both of you know that Savour Foods discourages this kind of involvement between employees.”

“It’s not like one of us is the other’s supervisor,” Gil argued. “Based on how little we liked or respected the woman, it’s lucky we even have alibis, or we’d be the primary suspects. I really wish I hadn’t ever handled that juice jar.”

I came to full attention after that remark. “Your fingerprints were on the jar?”

Max answered, “Gil wrote a note on the jar with magic marker:
Don’t drink. This belongs to Nova
.”

“I was trying to be helpful,” he said to me. “Nova got all possessive and combative over every little thing.”

“That must have looked to Johnny Jay like you were warning away others, so the correct person would be poisoned,” I said, wondering why Gil wasn’t in custody.

“This is ridiculous.”

He got up and went inside.

Max apologized to me for his employees.

“Not necessary,” I said. “You aren’t responsible for their actions.”

“Those three never worked well together. I should have split them up long ago. Although I guess two of them worked together too well!”

“What was the main problem?”

“They were in such competition with each other. A little competitiveness is healthy, but theirs bordered on cutthroat, each of them taking credit for successes they hadn’t earned, backstabbing each other, forgetting what it means to be a working team.”

Holly overheard her husband and joined us. “Poor Max,” she said, standing behind him and rubbing his shoulders and neck. “They fought like children.”

“I could never get through this without your support,” Max said to her, then to me, “It’s not easy being away so much.”

At that I thought more about Max and my sister, how they rarely shared this aspect of their marriage with me, the struggles and their unity. Sure, Holly was the first one to gripe when Max was on the road too long, letting me know she loved and missed him, but this was my first insight into her role as a supportive wife.

And I’d thought she only cared about her looks and avoiding work. My sister actually had more depth than I gave her credit for.

“Was the new discovery contentious?” I asked.

“More so than any other. Each of them wanted to take all the credit.”

Holly kissed the top of Max’s head and sat down.

A few minutes later, Chance drove up and parked near the carriage house. Effie rose from a kneeling position beside a red rosebush, pulled off the netting protecting her from the big bad spiders, and went over to join her husband. From their body language I got the distinct impression they were arguing. Effie had her finger in his face and her posture screamed anger even though she wasn’t raising her voice. I couldn’t hear a word as much as I tried.

Chance folded his arms across his chest in defensive resistance and his feet and body were angled slightly away from his wife.

“Looks like the honeymoon is over for them,” I observed. Even an online matchmaking service couldn’t guarantee a match made in heaven.

“Relationships,” Max observed, “are never easy.”

I certainly had to agree.