Buzzkill (Pecan Bayou Series) (13 page)

Lenny Stokes had
to have been pretty bad for Rocky to give up on the chance to deliver a paper.
He kept his subscription count up on the bulletin board and changed it daily.

“Martha, I’m
glad to see you’re doing so well, because I came out to ask a favor of you,” I
said.

Martha motioned
for me to follow her. We passed through the front room, now converted to a
makeshift flower shop, and as we entered the house itself, I noticed some of
the dreariness had faded there as well. The curtains were open to let light in
the room, and there was a bouquet of daisies on the coffee table. I followed
her into the kitchen where she put the casserole in the freezer.

“I know this is
a bad time for you,” I said, “but would you consider doing the flowers for my
wedding?”

“I thought that
wedding planner of yours said you had somebody.”

“It turns out
having a Valentine’s Day wedding and expecting a local florist to be there for
you is quite a fantasy. Prissy Olin is also getting married on the 14th, so
finding people to help me with my wedding is getting pretty difficult,” I told
her. “You’re the only one who can do the job unless we try to ship them in from
Dallas. I think you probably know every inch of the church, but I could get you
a sketch of Chateau Fischer, where we’re having the reception. It would really
help us out if you would consider it. You said work helps.”

Martha looked
out the kitchen window at the greenhouses. “You know, Lenny and I built those
greenhouses together. It was our dream to supply flower shops all over central
Texas and to arrange and sell our flowers from here. Then, when Lenny got to be
a grumpy, cantankerous, miserly old fool, no one would do business with us.
That meant we were down to selling flowers piecemeal. It was no wonder he had
that terrible rash. Some days I thought the badness in his soul was eating him
from the inside out.”

Just what I
didn’t want to talk about – the rash and how I might have made it worse. “Oh,
yes, I’d forgotten about that,” I said. Even though I hadn’t.

“You should
probably know, my church made a batch of your calamine lotion,” Martha said.
“As a matter of fact …” She walked back through the house and hurried to the
old stump near the beehives. “Lenny used a bunch of it. Said it helped the
itching. I even put a little of my rose-scented perfume in it to make it smell
pretty.” She stopped and wrinkled her brow.

I worried she
would blame me for her husband’s death and decided to change the subject. I
glanced over and could see the outline of another house.

“Is that
Lavonne’s house over there? She’s doing the alterations on my dress.”

“Yes,” said
Martha. “I absolutely hate that woman. We’ve been to court with her. She knows
we need water to run our business and has found a way to make a profit off of
it.”

“I thought the
judge ruled in her favor,” I said.

“Who told you
that?”

“Lavonne.”

“Well, she’s
living in a dream world. We paid for the use of that water,” said Martha.

“I’m sorry, I
must have misunderstood what Lavonne told me.”

“Who knows what
that woman told you. We used to be friends before all this happened. Seems like
whenever you get a chance to get ahead, someone just has to try to step in and
spoil it for you.” She handed me the jar. Here, smell this. Nice, huh?”

“I never would
have thought of putting rose perfume into calamine lotion,” I said.

“Lenny told me
he liked the smell. It kind of surprised me, but then he did grow flowers for a
living.”

“Did you ever
stop to think the smell of roses would attract bees?”

Martha’s hand
flew to her mouth. “Oh my. I never thought of that. Do you think that my adding
the rose scent might have killed him?” She sat down on the stump, and as the
horror of what she might have done to Lenny occurred to her, she brought her
hands to her forehead.

I sniffed at the
lotion again. Something was wrong. “This doesn’t smell like roses anymore,” I
said. Something in it must have turned.” I couldn’t smell any roses. The
calamine lotion had an overpowering banana scent to it. I handed the jar back
to Martha.

“What is that?”
she said. “It’s sweet or something. Kind of nasty.”

“Do you remember
the last time you saw him put on the calamine?”

“I left to go to
the church that day.” She bit on her lower lip as she thought. “I can remember doing
the breakfast dishes and him sitting in the kitchen rubbing it into his arms.
That was right before I left.” She slumped as if all the air had gone out of
her good mood.

“Maybe it did
turn,” I said. “I haven’t ever smelled anything like this. I’ll have to check
the bottles I’ve made at home. Do you mind if I take this with me?”

“Please take it
away. I never want to see it again. Oh God. Maybe I killed him.”

“I’m sorry,” I
said. “I’ve upset you. We can talk about flowers for my wedding some other
time.”

She drew in a
breath. “No, I need to do this. Get me a sketch.”

After Martha’s
place, I decided I needed to come clean with my father. I stopped in at the
Pecan Bayou Police Department. Mrs. Thatcher was knitting up what looked like a
red stocking cap for Valentine’s Day.

“That’s pretty.”

“Thank you,” she
said, her needles clicking. “Making it for my granddaughter. They’re up there
in that cold Wisconsin, you know. Not much need for a hat like this down here.
It’s a shame. They’re fun to make.” She peered around the corner. “He’s in
there.” I walked the few feet to my dad’s office.

“Well, hello
there, Betsy. Nice of you to come by,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I just visited
Martha Stokes, and I need to share something that’s been worrying me.

“Okay. Does this
have to do with Lenny Stokes’s death?”

“Maybe. The
ladies at her church made a big batch of homemade calamine lotion from the
recipe I put in the paper. Martha made some for her husband. He had a terrible
rash on his hands and arms, and she thought it might help.”

“And why is that
important to me?” my dad asked.

I continued.
“She also told me she added a rose scent. Could something like that cause the
bees to go into an alarm state?”

“Darlin’, I
don’t think we would even know what to test for.”

“Leo’s friend
Mark seemed to know a lot about bees. I can give them a call, and maybe he can
steer the coroner in the right direction.”

“So let me get
this right. You’re thinking that maybe Martha made the batch wrong? Or maybe
Martha put something into the batch on purpose?”

“I don’t know
what I’m thinking,” I said. “To tell you the truth, the first thing I thought
about was that maybe I was at fault somehow. What if my recipe for calamine
lotion caused a desperate reflex in the bees? So far no one else in town has
been attacked, so maybe I’m wrong. But Rocky has been getting phone calls from
people who knew Lenny was using it on his rash.”

“Well, to go
with your first theory, I just don’t think Martha has it in her to do anything
to Lenny,” he said. “I’ll concede that most of the town was probably scheming
ways to get rid of the guy, but not Martha. She’s a church lady, for heaven’s
sake. Church ladies don’t do those kinds of things.”

“I know, Dad. I
thought the same thing, but don’t forget – Lizzie Borden went to church.”

“I don’t
remember Lenny having any kind of skin problems,” he said, thinking back. “You
really get to know a man when he comes in every week to file a complaint
against somebody else. I think I would have noticed if his skin was bubbling up
with something.”

I reached into
my bag. “She gave me her jar.”

My father sat up
in his chair and took the jar from me. He opened it up and sniffed. “I don’t
know what I’m smellin’ for. What is that? It sure isn’t roses. Are you sure
this is the lotion Lenny put on himself?”

“Only one way to
check. Take it over to Art. He could tell us.”

“You just better
hope you’re wrong about this,” Judd said. “Either Martha’s at fault because she
added in something, or you’re at fault because your recipe’s a killer.”

“And if it’s my
fault?”

“Rocky’s next
obituary just might be for the Happy Hinter.”

******

Later that
evening as Aunt Maggie and I constructed little white net bags of birdseed, I
couldn’t get Lenny out of my head. The more I thought about it, the more I
wondered if someone could create some sort of chemical that would cause bees to
attack. If that could be done, then who would do something like that? Someone
really had to hate Lenny to wish him a death like that. Had Aunt Maggie heard
anything through the grapevine about people’s fears over the calamine lotion
that was sold at the bazaar?

Just as I felt
that my thumbs were in knots, a knock at the door relieved me of my crafty
duties.

“You know, I
usually arrest people for spending the night putting things into little bags to
distribute later,” my father said, taking off his Stetson.

“Very funny,
Judd,” Maggie said.

“Well you’re not
going to believe this, but there does seem to be some sort of strange chemical
in the calamine lotion.”

“The lotion from
Betsy’s recipe?” From Aunt Maggie’s surprise I had to guess the town gossip
line hadn’t included her this time.

“I knew it!” I
said.

“Well, we have a
call out to Austin to the entomologist Mark Garret gave us to confirm what
we’re thinkin’. Art reports that there is definitely something wrong with
Martha’s mixture of calamine lotion.”

“I don’t know
what I’m more relieved about,” I said, “you finding something that might
potentially lead to solving the mystery of Lenny Stokes’s death or you getting
me off the hook for publishing a recipe that might be killing people in Pecan
Bayou.”

“Betsy, I’m
going to need another jar of the stuff so that I can verify that there is an
extra ingredient in Martha’s lotion,” he replied.

“I have one,”
Maggie said, rising from the table. “I’ll go get it for you.”

“It’s all still
pretty preliminary, but if we do find that there is a chemical that caused the
bees to sting Lenny, then we might just have a murder case on our hands.”

“You told me
that Lenny filed complaints against a lot of people in town. Is there a
possibility I could go through that stack of complaints?”

“Betsy, that’s
police business, now, and I can’t let you just go digging through our files. If
Chief Wilson found out I let you investigate anything on your own, it could get
me into a lot of trouble. What if we actually arrested the murderer but it got
thrown out of court because the killer’s lawyer found a right you violated? We
have to keep to procedure and do it right.”

“I don’t have to
read each and every complaint,” I said. “You can just give me a list of the
people who were upset with Lenny.”

“And you have
time for this with planning a wedding? You need to realize that if someone was
angry enough to create a mixture to kill Lenny, then you might be out there
rubbing elbows with a killer.”

“It’s because I
am planning a wedding that this thing is taking center stage – instead of me.”

I could just
hear it now: “Here comes the bride … Y’all better hide!”

“Okay, that
sounded pretty bad,” I admitted. “I just want it resolved, and when I walk down
the aisle, I don’t want the whole town to be thinking I’m the calamine killer.”

“I’ll just bet
Leo’s a little uncomfortable with that thought, too,” said my dad.

“I’ll probably
be working late tonight on my column, so if I should just happen to get an
email from you with the list of Lenny-haters, that would be nice.”

“You don’t need
an email from me. You can figure this out on your own just by opening the phone
book.”

Maggie came back
in the room and handed a small baby food jar to her brother. “Here’s my jar,
Judd. So what’s all this about? You think Lenny Stokes was murdered?”

“We hope so.”

Maggie’s
eyebrows rose in surprise, and I suddenly realized how cold that might sound.
“If he was murdered,” I said, “then someone put something into the calamine
lotion. If he wasn’t, then I can get into a lot of trouble.”

“Well, the first
person I would suspect would be his own sweet Martha,” said Maggie.

“She does seem
to be the person that would benefit the most from his death,” I said. “I
visited her the other day, and her life is so much better with him out of it.
She’s starting to plan for her business and now knows that she won’t have to
work around her curmudgeon of a husband. But for all she’s gained, she just doesn’t
seem like a murderer to me.”

“Some people
never do. Just look at those sweet old ladies who killed their boarders for
their Social Security checks. You can’t always tell by the way someone looks,”
said my aunt.

“But Martha?”
said Judd.

“What does she gain?
A chance to turn around a business that she’s watched her husband run into the
ground. The gift of getting out of bed every day and not having to deal with
Lenny’s latest squabble. His death is a tragedy and a gift for her. She has a
very strong motive,” answered my aunt.

“But to kill a
person with bees? To put someone to death with that much pain requires a
certain degree of hate.”

“You never know
what people have bubblin’ up inside of them,” Maggie said as she went back to
the task of constructing birdseed bags.

“And that,” my
father said, “is why you need to be careful, Betsy.”

As I stepped out
of the car at Chateau Fischer, my foot descended into a patch of mud. I pulled
my foot back and heard a squishing sound as the slime fell off in clumps.

“Oh, Mrs.
Livingston. I’m so sorry,” Morton Fischer said. Where had he been? I didn’t see
him when I pulled up. “I was just clearing some of the fallen limbs from the
storm yesterday. I sure hope this rain lets up soon. I don’t remember it ever
being this wet. Let me just run over to the shed and see if I can find a rag
for you.”

While Morton
walked over to the shed, I decided to use my cell phone and take a few pictures
to add to the sketch I planned to make for Martha. The white tent was flapping
from the wind coming off the bayou. I leaned back and took a picture and then
stretched to the backseat to grab my white notebook. Pulling out a blank sheet
of paper and fishing a pen from my purse, I started drawing squares depicting
each section of the “chateau.” I always thought of a chateau as a castle or
estate in Europe, not a canopy strung up over a cement slab.

“Here you go,
Mrs. Livingston,” Morton said.

“Oh, thank you.”
I put down my sketch and reached for the rag.

“Are you
sketching our alcove?” Morton said, gesturing to the area where the trees
joined. “Make sure you get my roses. Well, they aren’t actually there yet, but
they will be. I have four different types planted, and if there’s one thing I
know, it’s roses.”

“I’m making the
sketch for Martha Stokes, but it sounds like you know as much about flowers as
she does,” I said.

“Oh, Martha is a
special lady, that’s for sure. I’m sure she knows a whole lot more than I do,
but I try to learn in every way that I can.”

There were still
some fresh puddles from the recent rain. As I lifted my arm to steady the cell
phone, I noticed a mosquito balancing on it. Knocking it off, I began to wonder
if an outdoor reception was such a good idea. The wind picked up, and the faint
whiff of cooking drifted my way from the Bayou Restaurant farther up the shore.
My own stomach growled as I stepped back to take a picture of the entire area.
In only a few weeks I would be here, about to marry the man I loved. I felt a
mixture of elation and terror.

******

I ran by The
Pecan Bayou Gazette to turn in my latest article on homemade lotion. Hopefully
this one wouldn’t kill anybody. If my calamine recipe was ever linked to be the
cause of an accidental death, I could kiss my career goodbye. I could see it
now: “Local Man Slathered to Death in Pecan Bayou.”

I transferred
the “chateau” pictures to my computer and pulled them up on the screen. I
figured I could do better than my pencil sketch and decided to use Rocky’s
graphics software.

“Buzz, buzz,
buzz.” I jumped as I realized Rocky had inched up behind me.

“Rocky, you
scared me,” I said, now looking at the screen again. “I’m trying to create a
diagram for my wedding flowers.”

Rocky peered
down at the picture on the computer. “You’re getting married by the bayou?” he
said.

“Well, at least
the reception will be there. We’re going to be the first gathering out at the
newly opened Chateau Fischer. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m borrowing the
computer to work on this.”

Rocky shrugged.
“What choice do I have? If I don’t, you might rescind my invitation to the
biggest shindig of the year.”

“You mean you
weren’t invited to Prissy Olin’s wedding?”

“Hell, yes, I
was,” he said. “I’m quite the prestigious invite around here, but still, you’re
like the daughter I never bothered to have.”

He leaned over
my shoulder, looking at the photo of the seating area by the water.

“Oh, good. We
can all go gator-huntin’ after the wedding. I just love a well-planned event.”

“Rocky, please,”
I said. “I’m trying to make this whole thing work, and you’re not helping.”

“Sorry, Betsy.
But you know you don’t need to worry so much. Pecan Bayou loves you, and we’re
just happy for you.”

“Rocky, there is
something I think I need to share with you. Martha put a rose scent in her
calamine lotion. She gave me the jar because she didn’t want to ever see it
again. I gave it to my dad, and they’ve tested it.”

“Rose scent?
Really? Like a smell bees like?”

“Yes. Now she’s
terrified it might have killed him.”

“That would be
great.”

“Huh?”

“If she killed
him with her rose-scented kindness, the paper can’t be blamed,” Rocky said. “It
was all her doing.”

“Well, there was
something extra in her lotion that the police are comparing with another jar in
the batch. We just have to figure out who put it in there.”

“And why?” Rocky
said.

The police
scanner cackled in the background. “We’re going to need an ambulance to the
Olin residence, right away. We have someone going into shock.”

I shot a glance
at Rocky. “Do you think that’s Prissy Olin?”

Rocky grabbed
his raincoat. “Don’t know, but if it is Pecan Bayou’s other bride-to-be, this
reporter is going to find out. Why don’t you come on along, just in case we
spot another baby food jar full of your goop. You can hide it before anyone
else figures it out.”