Nine
Not only are bullet points important in life, so are priority lists. My heart was heavy from the loss of Manny and the discovery of Faye’s body. All I wanted to do was stuff myself in my bedroom closet for the rest of eternity. But I still had a bee mission to complete. I didn’t want to lose them, too. Time was running out. Before long, someone was going to show up at Grace Chapman’s and take the beehives.
So when the sun began its descent over the horizon and the cops had finished in my backyard, and when the squad cars disappeared from my street, I cleared my mind of all whiny, self-pitying thoughts and called Grace.
“Grace, it’s Story Fischer.”
“My sister-in-law had a few rather unpleasant things to say about you,” she said, making this one of the poorest beginnings to a conversation in my history.
“I was upset,” I said. “And rightly so, I might add. She was rather unpleasant herself. But please, tell me about the bees. Where are they going?”
“Someone called and offered to take them off my hands. What else was I going to do with them?”
“What about giving them to me?” Was Grace really this dense?
“I never thought you’d be interested.”
Yeah, right!
“I love those bees. So did Manny. You can’t give them to just anybody. I’ll buy them from you.”
“Story, they killed Manny. How could you get up every morning and look out on a bunch of killer bees after what they did? Besides, I’m already getting paid for them. I tried to explain the risk, but this beekeeper didn’t seem worried.”
“I know they didn’t do anything to Manny. It had to have been—”
But Grace wasn’t going to listen. “I won’t discuss it with you anymore. I’ve made my decision and I’m sticking to it.”
“What about the equipment and some of the other things? Can you give me first dibs on the honey extractor and Manny’s journal?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. And, trust me, I’m not doing an inventory any time soon. I never set foot in the honey house when Manny was alive and I’m not changing that now. I’ll allow you to come out and get honey, though. To sell, I mean, and I’m counting on you to be honest with the proceeds.”
“Of course.” I was so relieved that I let the honesty shot fly by without comment. At least she would be open to working with me in some capacity. But she was one unbending woman.
“What’s the name of the bee association member who’s taking the bees?” I wanted to know.
“Gerald Smith,” she said. “He’s coming in an hour or so.”
“I’m so sorry about Manny,” I said, but Grace had already hung up.
I knew now what I had to do. My motive was crystal clear and there would be no turning back.
I was going to steal as many of Manny’s beehives as I could.
Black is a cool color. For starters, it’s slimming. You can wear it for any occasion—working out, sleeping, dressing up, and for blending in to the dark of night.
I pulled on black sweats and a black tee. Then added a black fleece after I opened the door and realized that the night air was a bit brisk. I had a black ball cap on my head with my hair tucked up inside.
I’d left my truck at The Wild Clover, which was standard operating procedure for me. Living two blocks away, I didn’t see the need to drive it back and forth constantly, and I used it more for work than for personal errands anyway. Once I was sure that there were no more cops on the street, I headed out, careful to stay in the shadows.
I worked on a plan as I snuck over. Beehives aren’t the lightest things to move, so I’d be physically handicapped working alone. And I couldn’t transport all of them in the short time I had. But I could take a few, disappear into the night, then work later on getting the rest of them in a less-covert manner.
My brilliant plan blew apart when the police chief honed in on me the second I tried to pull my truck out from its parking space at The Wild Clover. Johnny Jay blocked me in, got out of his vehicle, hitched his pants, and approached my truck. I refused to roll down the windows or step out of the truck until he threatened to smash my windshield with the butt of his gun. Then I rolled down the window on the passenger’s side, but only partway. He was standing on the driver’s side, so he had to walk around to the other side.
“What?” I said, glaring over and acting annoyed, an offensive response I learned from the master of emotional manipulation—my mother.
“We need to talk,” Johnny Jay said. “Right now.”
“I’m a little busy.” I glanced at my watch. If I didn’t get moving, Gerald Smith would beat me to Manny’s place and I’d lose my window of opportunity. “Move your SUV.”
“This isn’t an optional request. We can do it nice and easy or we can do it my favorite way.” He dangled a pair of handcuffs.
“Where’s Hunter?” I wanted to know. Johnny had local jurisdiction, but Hunter’s Waukesha County credentials might trump Johnny Jay’s. Or so I hoped.
“Hunter Wallace doesn’t have anything to do with official business in this town,” the police chief said, dashing my hopes. “Other than responding with C.I.T. when we have a situation.”
He played with the cuffs.
“This might be one of those situations,” I suggested.
“Besides, how do you think a dog trainer can help you? Don’t you know he transferred from being a real cop to the K-9 unit to train mutts?” Johnny snickered, like the K-9 unit and dog training were the lowest of the low.
When Hunter had shown up with a dog in the back of his SUV, I never imagined police dogs were his full-time job. Since he and I usually stuck to flirting, and more recently to finding dead bodies, that wasn’t a subject we’d covered yet.
Johnny Jay tried to open the truck door, but I’d locked it. He reached in the window, unlocked the door, opened it, and said, “Get out. Now!”
After that, I ended up “downtown” just like in the movies. Only the station wasn’t downtown because the new building was way too enormous to fit inside the business section of town. Why is it that every small town thinks it needs its very own, state-of-the-art, big-tax-drain fire station? In Moraine’s case, at least they combined fire with police in the multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded monument. After 9/11, fire and police were high on everyone’s referendum agenda, and that’s how Johnny Jay got his special facility.
My interrogation was conducted in a sterile conference room that contained nothing more than an empty table, six chairs, and a picture of an eagle hanging on the wall. The police chief grilled me back and forth and sideways about Hunter and the kayak and the ill-fated canoe trip. My story stayed straight and simple, focusing mostly on Hunter as guide and decision maker. I already knew that Johnny Jay was not my friend.
And based on the intensity of his questioning, chances were good that Faye Tilley had been murdered. I’d been worried about that even though I hadn’t spotted any blood in the kayak or any other signs of an attack. My first thought was, if she had to get herself killed, why did she have to do it in my kayak? Then I felt bad for having the thought.
But steel bars did not go with any of my outfits, including the black one I was wearing at the moment.
“I’ve told you what happened at least sixteen times,” I said, exaggerating. “And Hunter told you, too. How much more information do you think you can squeeze out of me? That’s it. The whole deal.”
“You still haven’t explained why the deceased was in your kayak.”
Johnny Jay was flopped back in a swivel chair with his feet plopped up on the table, crossed at the ankles.
“How should I know why she was in my kayak? It was missing. I thought kids took it for a joy ride again. Hunter helped me look for it, we found it, she was in it.”
“You have to do better than that.”
I sighed as heavy and disgusted as possible.
Suddenly Johnny Jay’s feet came up off the table so he could lean into my face. I wanted to smirk and tell him where he could go, but it might not be in my best interest to go with my first impulse. What he said next scared me almost to death. “Let’s talk about the night before,” he said. “And you can tell me what you were doing out on the bank of the river behind your house with Faye Tilley?”
I felt a chill. That question had come out of nowhere. “What?” I managed to croak out.
“Someone saw you two, said it sounded like you were arguing.”
My gasp of shocked indignation sounded good even to my terrified ears. “Who would say such a horrible thing?” Well, who would? This was crazy.
I saw it in his eyes. Johnny Jay thought I had killed her.
“Are you trying to tell me it isn’t true?” he demanded.
“Absolutely not. I mean, er, yes!”
“Which is it, yes or no?”
“I wasn’t arguing with Faye. I didn’t even see her. Someone’s lying big-time.”
“So is the answer yes or no?”
That’s one of Johnny Jay’s tricks to trip people up. He asks questions that will sink you no matter which response you give. Whether you say yes or no, he comes at you.
I went on. “Where did that lie come from?”
Johnny Jay had his head tilted back and he was watching me down his nose. “A tip.”
“Well, I demand to know who this ridiculous tip came from.”
“You don’t get to make demands, not even for a lawyer. Unless I decide to arrest you.”
“And are you arresting me?” I really expected him to say yes once I thought about it—a body in my kayak and not just any body, my ex-husband’s girlfriend’s body. And a tip. Big-time incrimination evidence. So I was surprised when he said, “Not yet. Too bad the tip was anonymous. Once we find the witness, I’ll be paying you another visit.”
“Then I’m out of here.” I jumped up.
“Missy Fischer,” he said, getting in the last word. “I’ll be watching you. Closely. We aren’t finished with this.”
On the way out I stopped in dispatch. Sally Maylor, one of my steady customers and a good person, was working the airwaves.
“Hey, Sally,” I said.
“He let you go,” she said, smiling. “Good for you. I was worried.”
“So was I. So Faye Tilley was murdered?”
“I can’t say until the chief makes a public statement,” Sally nodded, giving me the answer anyway.
“Why is he after me?” I asked. “Sure, it was my kayak, but that can’t be enough.”
“He sure doesn’t cut you any slack, that’s for sure. Maybe the police chief knows how to hold a grudge.”
“About what?”
“Now, do you regret turning him down for prom?”
“That was more than fifteen years ago! You’re kidding, right? Is that really why he gives me such a hard time?”
“That’s the talk.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Somebody called in a tip,” I said. “Saying they saw me with Faye.”
“I heard about that.”
“Who called?”
“We don’t know.”
“With all the technology around here”—I gestured at all the gadgets and blinking lights—“surely you can trace a phone call.”
“It came from a computer—e-mail.”
“Well, trace it!”
“We did. It came from one of the library’s public computers, we know that, but the account used to send the e-mail was untraceable.”
Damn. That meant it could be anyone.