Beeline to Trouble (17 page)

Patti pushed away the paper and pen he’d shoved at her.

Then to him I said, “Instead of trying to arrest the victim, maybe you should go after her ex-husband. Arrest him. And what about a restraining order? Get her one of those, too.”

“You don’t give me orders, Fischer.”

“Isn’t it obvious what he was up to?” I said. “His car was right outside her house. And he wasn’t in the car when it blew. Where do you think he was? Inside her house, that’s where. It’s a no-brainer.”
Even for you
, I could have added.

“Somebody stole the man’s car,” Johnny said. “According to him.”

“Somebody stole his Mercedes and just happened to ditch it outside his ex-wife’s house? If you believe that, I have a piece of swampy river to sell you.”

“That’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Legally my hands are tied.” Johnny swung his legs off the table. I had a momentary and delightful vision of him hogtied to the table, trussed up with an apple in his mouth. Sometimes I disliked the man so much I felt sick. He stared into my eyes and said, “Unless a witness steps forward and identifies him at the scene, there isn’t a thing I can do about it.”

I was pretty sure it was too late to step up even if I wanted to.

As we left, I taped up one of Harry Bruno’s wanted posters on the cop shop door, hoping it wouldn’t come down as soon as Johnny saw it.

Patti really loved the poster.

We came out of the police station into the gathering dusk—cloudy, moonless, humid, the air smelling damp and earthy. At my house, Patti changed clothes, although I wouldn’t have known it if she hadn’t informed me of that fact. She must purchase all her clothing in multiples. Black tees, black cargos, etc.

After that, she left for parts unknown. I spent the evening raiding the refrigerator and sharing my finds with Ben. Hunter came in after I’d gone to bed, gave me a neck nuzzle, and slid in beside me.

I wasn’t sure when Patti got back.

Twenty-eight

I love sunshine. It makes the world seem such a
happy place. My bees love it, too. They were humming and buzzing and landing on me, in a friendly, nonaggressive way. Most people don’t understand that just because a honeybee lands on you doesn’t mean she’s out to get you. My little friends are inquisitive creatures, that’s all.

Besides, my bees are used to me puttering around by their hives. I’m part of their daily routine. They’ve even accepted Ben, and he in turn tolerates them.

I donned the bee suit and accomplished the task of gathering all the wonderful, sweet-smelling honey that my honeybees had been so busy making. This was going to be a bumper crop year for Queen Bee Honey.

Stanley Peck called, wanting to come over and watch how I check my hives to make sure they are free from diseases. There are several kinds of diseases that can really hurt them. A watchful beekeeper is a successful beekeeper, as my own former mentor used to state ad nauseam. So I look for irregularities in a hive’s patterns, and I make sure the larvae and cells appear healthy and odorless. For example, eggs cells should be pearly white, not yellow or brown.

It all comes with experience, which Stanley doesn’t have a whole lot of yet. He’s a newbie. So am I, in the scheme of things, but in Stanley’s eyes I’m the expert.

When Stanley rounded the corner of my house, right away I saw that he was doing a big no-no in the business. Not exactly a warning that pops up in training manuals, but one that some of us have learned the hard way.

Stanley was eating a banana.

Honeybees have a huge social network, ranging far and wide just like humans do on the web. Only they are more advanced, they communicate with each other by releasing chemicals that other bees recognize and act on.

I’ve been in beeyards right after a hive has protected itself from invasion, and guess what the air smells like after they’ve done their chemical thing? Bananas, that’s what.

“Ditch the banana,” I yelled.

“Hunh?” Stanley said, looking major confused.

Stanley’s banana was about to set off a bee alarm.

Oh wait, it already had.

Here they came, all those girl scouts and guards. A whole slew of them. And these girls were out to get my friend. I know I’ve said again and again how gentle they are.
Normally
. Unless they’re provoked. And the smell of banana triggers a hostile response in honeybees. (By the way, coconut hair shampoo and conditioner invokes the same negative reaction. That one I learned the really hard way, too.)

“Throw the banana!” I backed away from him since he was still coming forward, about to unwittingly share his newly found problem with me.

Stanley, not thinking straight, threw the banana
at
me. Ugh!

“Ow,” he said, starting to wave his hands. A dark cloud of ticked off bees had their landing gear out and some of them had found their target.

“Run!” I hollered, taking my own advice.

We made it inside with limited damage, considering the extent of Stanley’s mistake. A few bees followed us but made hasty attempts to withdraw as soon as they realized they were inside enemy territory.

Hunter turned from a window where—judging from the amusement on his face—he’d witnessed the whole thing.

Neither of them could believe it when I explained why my bees had gone on the attack.

“We have to get Lori over here,” Stanley said. “And gift her with a basket of bananas.”

That was one fine idea.

“We’ll have to check the hives for diseases another time,” I said. “They’re too riled at the moment.”

“I’m really sorry,” Stanley said. “I didn’t know.”

“Who eats a banana right out in front of the world, anyway?” my boyfriend asked Stanley. Hunter’s sparkly eyes slid my way.

And that’s how my morning started out.

Not too bad, considering several of the past mornings. A few bee stings and a lesson for my apprentice and one for me—write down every single weird detail regarding bees so I don’t forget to pass them on to beginners.

Hunter and Ben left for work, and right after Stanley took off, Johnny Jay intercepted me on the way over to the store. Luckily Carrie Ann was opening that morning.

“I need a word with you, Fischer.”

“No way, Johnny.”

“It’s Chief Jay to you.”

“And it’s Ms. Fischer to you.”

Johnny looked tired this morning, like he’d had a rough night. Being on call twenty-four/seven was starting to accelerate his aging process. There were other dependable officers who could easily pick up some off hours, but the chief is a control freak and has to be involved in every single incident that occurs. It’s his fault and his problem. The bad thing for me was that lack of sleep made him ornerier than usual.

He dangled his handcuffs, a trick that has gained my cooperation more than once. But not today.

Maybe it was the “lawyer” side of me coming out of the box again, the same one who had appeared briefly during Patti’s interrogation yesterday, surprising the heck out of me. Where did that new me come from? I’d like to invite her over more often.

“You were spying on my house just now,” I said, throwing some accusation into my voice. “Weren’t you? You waited until Hunter left, knowing I’d be passing this way soon. Are you actually stalking me?”

Johnny chortled like my suspicion was ridiculous, but he turned a teensy shade of pink. “I don’t need to stalk you,” he said. “You follow the same pattern, day in, day out. The bees, then the store, sometimes Stu’s, and in between you snoop where you don’t belong.”

Was I that predictable? Apparently, since Johnny had hit it right on the head, except for that snooping part. I think.

“We need to talk right now,” he said.

“Give me one good reason.”

And he did.

His next simple but powerful words were music to my ears considering the source. “I need your help,” he said.

The police chief had never, ever asked for my assistance before. Ever.

This had to be really, really good.

How could I resist? But first, caution. “No handcuffs? No interrogation room?”

“Neither.”

With that, I climbed into his police chief car. And mind you, not in the back where the doors don’t open from the inside and a thick sheet of hard plastic separates the front from the back.

No, this time I sat in the passenger seat. Life was improving.

Twenty-nine

“Where are we going?” I asked, all perky and chipper
on the outside, but on my guard on the inside, considering who I was sitting next to. Johnny turned south. At first I thought we might be heading back to the station, that I’d been tricked into the car by his efforts to appear human, but we drove right past the cop shop.

“We’re taking a little trip to Waukesha,” he informed me. “A nice visit to the morgue.”

Okay, then, that’s one place I’d never been before. “Does Jackson know?”

“He’s waiting for us.”

We rode for a while in silence.

“Why are we going there?” I asked, suspicious about his need for my help.

“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”

I texted Hunter to let him know where I was and with whom, just in case I was never heard from again.

For a law enforcement guy, Johnny sure did drive fast, like he was king of the road, way over the speed limit. Could I make a citizen’s arrest? Somehow, in this case, I doubted it.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled up at the Waukesha Sheriff’s Department, since that’s where Hunter works. Until right this minute, I hadn’t even known where the coroner’s office was located. I mean, really—how often does an average person go to the morgue? It hadn’t been on my radar before now.

We walked in a door marked “8,” took the steps to the second floor, and ended up in a room where the first thing I spotted was a sort of bathtub on wheels and more stainless steel than I’d ever seen in one place. Wheeled dissecting tables, instruments . . . I eyed up a saw and felt a shiver run through my body.

Thank God, not a single sighting of blood or gore, though. The room was spotless. But I had to wonder how many bodies had passed through here, and I hoped I never ended up like a slab of beef on one of these tables—naked and stone-cold dead. Morbid morgue thoughts crowded my brain.

Jackson really was waiting for us just like the chief said. Another huge comfort. It always helps to have a friend around when dealing with Johnny Jay, for witness quality assurance.

“Let’s go show her,” Johnny said, so I braced for the inevitable. I might have slow-dawning issues from time to time, but with the recent murder and all, I put two-and-two together and came up with Nova Campbell.

As we walked down a corridor, I said to the chief, “And you have a point to all this?”

“You aren’t coming clean with me. Once you get a reality check and see the consequences of your actions, or your sister’s, maybe you’ll take this more seriously.”

The three of us continued on to an impressive door (Can we say stainless steel one more time?) and through it into a room that had a horrible lingering odor of decay. Another chill ran through me, this time because it was really cold inside. I knew we must be in the cold storage area where Jackson kept his bodies. For the first time, I wondered how Jackson could do this job, and what kind of personality lurked under his friendly exterior.

I didn’t want to look at the table or the body on it.

“Nova Campbell’s cadaver,” Johnny Jay announced. “Take a good, long look at what’s left of her.”

Jackson and I locked eyes, and I could tell this wasn’t his idea. Johnny Jay had put him up to it. That jerk was
not
getting the satisfaction of seeing me cower, even though I felt a little sick to my stomach.

So I filled my lungs with foul air—through my mouth, I’m not totally dense—and looked over at what was left of Nova.

Part of me wanted to pass right out, but the analytic side discovered, surprisingly, that I could handle this much better than watching Nova go from alive to dead in my backyard. That had been much harder. What I was viewing now was about the same level of difficulty as walking up to an acquaintance’s casket and peering inside. Maybe one notch worse.

“That’s her all right,” I said, as though I was there to identify her, pleased that my voice didn’t crack. It remained strong and steady.

“Okay, Johnny,” Jackson said. “That’s enough. Thanks for coming, Story.” He gave me a shoulder squeeze on the way back into the autopsy room. “Chief, why don’t you hang around for my next autopsy.”

“As appealing as that is, Davis, I’m passing.”

Jackson winked at me to let me know Johnny wasn’t a frequent visitor and that his stomach wasn’t as strong as he made it out to be. “You can take this with you,” he said, handing a sealed plastic bag to the chief. “I’m finished with it.”

“Where’s the report?” Johnny said, studying the item inside—a black water bottle. I took an educated guess that it was the one Nova must’ve drank from on her last day on earth.

“I faxed the report over to your office,” the ME told him. “It should be on your desk.”

After glancing at the water bottle, I did a double-take and suddenly felt light-headed. The room swam before my eyes, all the morgue tables undulated, ribbons of overhead lighting flashed at me, the walls spun out of control.

Jackson must have noticed my distress, because he grabbed my arm to steady me, and ended up walking me out to Johnny’s squad car. How I got there on my rubber legs, I really don’t know.

All the way back to Moraine, Johnny verbally worked me over while I leaned back against the headrest.

“You delivered that carrot juice,” he said accusingly. “Now, I don’t really think you were part of some mastermind plot to kill Campbell, or even that you were a conscious accomplice. Personally, I believe you were just a pawn. Either your sister committed the murder or her husband did, and you didn’t know what you were doing. Why is it that you’re always right in the thick of things?”

I didn’t have any energy to use up on a verbal duke-out with him. He kept going. “As it stands, the out-of-towners have solid alibis. But your sister doesn’t. And she had plenty of reason to want Campbell dead.”

His voice droned on. “You just got a glimpse of the results. What do you think of your sister right now? Still want to protect her and that conniving husband of hers?”

The plastic bag containing the water bottle was on the seat console between us.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? It would be the first time. Guess this trip was too much for you. Good. Now maybe you’ll cooperate and help put a killer behind bars.”

Johnny Jay thought the morgue tour had been too much for me. He couldn’t be more wrong. The water bottle was the big problem.

Because I recognized it.

How could I not? The side facing me read “Stalkers Have Rights, Too.” I didn’t have to see the other side to know it said “I’m Watching You.”

The water bottle belonged to Patti Dwyre.