Buzzkill (Pecan Bayou Series) (11 page)

“It was pretty
gruesome.” I agreed. “I wonder how Martha Stokes is doing. Maybe I should try
to pay her a visit.”

“Yes, and if you
get a chance, just slyly slip in that we need our deposit back.”

“Leo! That’s
awful. The woman is in mourning.”

“Sorry, but
that’s the way we’re going to be once we get Mr. Andre’s final set of bills,”
he replied.

“You know, when
Elena was taking all those pictures, I noticed Lenny using a jar of that calamine
lotion that was a part of the church batch when we were out there.”

“And why would
that matter?” Leo asked.

“This is crazy,
but could something draw those bees to Lenny?”

“You’ve lost
me.”

“It’s nothing,”
I said.

“And you’re
thinking …”

“It’s silly. I’ve
used that stuff on Zach and never had a problem.”

“No.” Leo pulled
back. “You think your homemade anti-bug soup did the old guy in?”

“Maybe,” I said.
“No. Definitely not. I think.”

“What’s in it?”

“Baking soda,
kaolin clay, uh … zinc oxide. What could be in that?”

“Well some
people do have an allergic reaction to kaolin,” he said. “I had a cousin once
who swelled up from the stuff, but I’ve never heard of a bee problem. I don’t
know, but maybe it’s not a good idea to share your theory with anyone else. You
know, I’ve probably been to thirty weddings and thought it all looked pretty
straightforward and simple. You get the church, you get a pastor, a nice white
dress and you say ‘I do.’ I no longer have such an innocent view of the world.
Now that it’s our turn to plan, we start out the day with a dead florist. What
else could possibly happen?”

“Famous last
words of Leo Fitzpatrick.” I hiccupped and giggled at my own joke as he lowered
his lips to mine. My worries from earlier were fading further and further away.
How could I not marry this man?

******

The next
morning, after a leisurely breakfast of blueberry pancakes and syrup, we
promised the boys we would take them to the batting cages at the ballpark.
Amazingly it wasn’t raining, so we decided to try it. The bayou road ran along
the back of the fields with the bayou glittering on the other side. I had spent
several springs drifting into warm early summers watching Zach play ball at
this place. Where would he play baseball if we moved to Dallas?

I loved our old
ballpark with its two fields and dark green snack bar in the middle. Families
met there every spring and cheered on their kids who seemed to jump up a couple
of inches in height each year. Dad, Aunt Maggie and Danny had always been there
for Zach and would do the same for Tyler. Nothing like hitting a grounder and
having four people in the stands cheer you as if it were a home run. That’s
what family is all about. Now that my family was growing, I knew change was
inevitable.

We brought along
Butch, our Weimaraner, and let him run the expanse of the park. I threw out a
tennis ball for him, and he ran across the ball fields, tail wagging. The boys
each grabbed a batting cage and started pounding balls into the mat. It had
warmed up a little with the promise of spring whispering around us. Spring in
this part of Texas usually started mid-February with tiny buds forming on the
tree branches. Today, though, it was still a little dreary, with different
shades of gray outlining the clouds.

“Choke up on the
bat, Tyler,” Leo yelled across to the cages. I opened my notebook for the
millionth time since we started planning this circus called a wedding. As I
went through the lists Mr. Andre and I made, my head began to spin. What color
are the groomsmen’s ties? What are the colors you want in the flowers? Do they
connect with the total design aesthetic of the overall look of the blah, blah,
blah?

I shut the book
and put my chin in my hands. This wasn’t my first wedding, and then again it
was. When I married Barry, he insisted that we have a “living room” wedding
with just my family. He told me he wanted an intimate occasion. What I didn’t
know was that he was ashamed my dad couldn’t pay for a big multi-thousand
dollar, jaw-dropping affair. What did that man ever see in me, I wondered. So
in a way this was my first wedding, and sometimes when I thought about Barry
and all that went wrong, I became apprehensive at the thought of marrying
again. Did Leo get the same feelings? Since he’d known me, I had been a suspect
in a murder case, had to be rescued from a fire, been shot at by a crazed
cowboy, and my favorite, had been followed around by a ghost with a head cold.

“Zach, keep your
eye on the ball,” Leo coached. Zach threw the ball up and blindly swung at it
again. How could I say it? Zach was “baseball challenged.” He loved playing the
game but found it hard to hit the ball. Last year he struck out almost every
time except for a couple of grounders. The boys on the team called him the
king, and I thought it was a compliment. What I didn’t know was that it stood
for “strikeout king.”

I glanced back
over the water and watched the wind pick up, causing small ripples on the
surface. It was so peaceful, except for an alligator here and there. I could
see the outline of the wedding tent the Fischers had put up. Being this close
to the ballpark, I was suddenly glad we weren’t getting married during baseball
season.

I could hear it
now: “Do you, John, take Marsha – He’s out!” Hopefully the sound system
wouldn’t carry too far.

Zach came
running back up to us in the stands. I quickly pulled a juice box out of my
bag, took the cellophane off the straw, stuck it in the hole and handed it to
him.

“Wow, did you
even look at the juice box?” Leo said. “You’re a robot.”

“You get to be
that way after the first thousand or so.”

“Something I
missed out on with Tyler. When we found out about my sister and I decided I
wanted to take care of him, I never knew what a job it would be. It was pretty
rough at first, but I think we’re doing okay now.”

“I think you’re
doing great,” I told him.

“Well, you
aren’t with us all the time. At first, Tyler would cry for his mom. Especially
at night. I tried to help him through it, but I would never be his mother.”

I ran my fingers
through Leo’s hair. “You did fine. You did what all parents do. Maybe you
weren’t perfect, but you were there and you were trying. That’s all you can
do.” He reached up and captured my hand and held it as he watched the boys.

Both our boys
were poised on the edge of all things puberty, and sometimes the thought
terrified me. What day would the monster hormones hit and turn our little ball
players into grumpy, unresponsive teenagers? It couldn’t be all that bad.
Teenagers drove, and that would take some time pressures off. Of course, Leo
and I would have to risk our necks teaching them, and then there’s the question
of buying cars and paying for insurance.

Sometimes it’s
best to stay in the present, I thought, as I looked back out on the water.
Butch came back up with his ball, and this time I threw it toward the trees
where it bounced near the bayou. Butch went running into the trees to retrieve
it. Hopefully I wouldn’t be picking things out of his fur later. The wind was
picking up some, and I felt it creeping into my ears. The water was starting to
ripple up into small whitecaps as it rhythmically lapped at the muddy shore. I
followed the wave, and then what looked like the head of an animal popped up
through the moving water. Was Butch in the water out there? I grabbed Leo’s arm
and pulled his focus from the boys.

“I think Butch
went into the water,” I said. “I don’t know how well he can swim out there.”

Both Leo and I
jumped up from the bleachers and ran down by the shore. “Butch!” I called out.
I tried whistling to him, hoping he could hear that better from a distance.
“Here, boy!” The boys both stopped pounding balls against the chain link
enclosures. I heard a rustling in the woods next to us, and Butch came bouncing
out, ball in his teeth.

“He’s looks fine
to me,” Leo said. “Betsy, sometimes you worry too much. I just hope we can find
a nice dog park for him to run in up in Dallas.”

He would have to
bring up yet another family member who would be affected by the move.

“I thought I saw
him out in the water,” I admitted, reaching down to pat him on the head. A
small sting hit my arm. A mosquito was now lining up to take a second bite of
my arm. I knocked it off.

“Ouch,” Tyler
said, now holding his arm. “Mosquitoes are bad today.”

“Not for me,”
Zach said. “I put on some of my mom’s homemade calamine lotion. Watch this.” He
lifted his arms in the air as if offering a blood smorgasbord to the mercenary
bugs. “See? I’m protected. It’s like a shield over my arms.” As he spoke, I
noticed a mosquito lighting on his arm.

“Right, dude,”
Tyler said, knocking it off.

Another bug
lighted on Zach’s arm and then another.

“I think it’s
attracting them. Let’s get back to the car,” Leo said, gathering up our trash
while the boys got the balls and bats. So much for entomological protection.

We met at the
Pecan Bayou Diner for lunch with Mark Garret, a friend of Leo’s from Dallas who
would be our best man, and Elena, our maid of honor. Elena apologized as she
came into the diner wearing her police uniform.

“Sorry, guys.
You only have me for an hour,” she said. “George went home with a cold, and I’m
working his shift.”

Birdie came up
with four menus and glanced at the squad car parked in front of the restaurant.
“Hope that doesn’t discourage the regulars,” she said.

“I’m doing you a
favor, Birdie. I’ve seen some of your regulars,” replied Elena.

Birdie looked
over at Mark and gasped, “You’re Mark Garret from Dallas Eyewitness News! I
watch your weather report every morning.” Birdie leaned on the table to prevent
an impending swoon. She quickly straightened her apron and ran her fingers
through her freshly frosted hair.

“Uh, yes. Thank
you for watching,” he said. An awkward silence passed between all of us.

“Birdie,” I
whispered. “Can we look at the menus you’re holding?”

Birdie jumped. “Oh!
I’m sorry.” She slapped them down on the table. “If you need anything,” her
voice lowered significantly as her gaze zeroed in on Mark, “I mean anything,
just let me know.”

“Thanks,” Mark
said.

“Any time.”
Birdie ran her finger along the edge of the table and turned on one foot. She
glanced over her shoulder at Mark as she walked back to the kitchen. Once she
got to the Formica counter on the other side of the diner, she grabbed another
waitress and started whispering while looking back. The other waitress screamed
and they both jumped up and down holding each other by the elbows.

“You seem to be
quite the celebrity,” I said.

“I guess so,”
said Mark. “I didn’t even know you could get our feed out here.”

“We do have some
of the modern conveniences.”

“Don’t let it go
to your head, Garret. Just remember who the groom is in this shindig,” Leo
said, tapping Mark with his laminated menu.

“I can always
count on Leo here to keep me humble. You know, you wouldn’t be so bad on my
side of the camera.”

“Been there, done
that,” Leo said. “I’m pretty happy researching storms, not acting them out.”

I hadn’t thought
about the impact having a television weatherman in the group would have on our
wedding. Surely the rest of the town wouldn’t be as silly as Birdie. She was between
husbands, and to her he looked like one fine blue plate special.

“Do you get that
a lot?” I asked.

“Not quite like
that, but here and there people recognize me,” he said. “Mostly they blame me
for the rain.”

“Well,” said
Elena. “Now that you brought it up …” She was referring to the endless days of
rain we had been having.

We had allowed
the boys to sit at their own booth, the restaurant version of the kids’ table.
They were doing their best to ignore us. They were two young men on the town
taking time out of their busy schedules to get a bite to eat.  They seemed to
be behaving so I decided to let them be for now.

I took out my
white notebook. “So, Mark, you’ve been measured for your tux up in Dallas?”

He saluted,
feigning allegiance. “Yes ma’am.”

“And Elena,
you’re getting to the last fitting of your dress next week?”

“Yes,” she said.
“It will be hard to get to with all of the details after the accident with Mr.
Stokes.”

“Accident?” Mark
asked, closing his menu.

“Our florist was
stung to death by bees,” Leo said.

“Really? That
seems pretty strange for this time of year. Did he uncover a nest?”

“No, he had
beehives,” I said, “although it amazed me he had on very little protective
covering. He used them for his flowers. His wife said he had just brought in
some new bees because the old ones had died off.”

“But it seems so
strange that if he had done this procedure many times before, why they would
suddenly be alarmed enough to attack this time?” Leo said. “It couldn’t be any
of those Africanized killer bees, could it?”

“Bees only
attack if their alarm pheromone has been triggered,” said Mark. “That’s why
most beekeepers use smoke to stunt that pheromone. Was he using a smoking can?”

“There was a
little metal can on the ground near him,” I said.

“Then that should
have kept the bees at bay.”

“It wasn’t
smoking when we found him,” I said.

“Yes, but I
smelled smoke in the air,” said Leo. “It made the back of my throat start to
tickle.”

“So he was
probably using smoke,” I said.

“And,” said
Mark, “the bees shouldn’t have been alarmed.”