Death By A HoneyBee (12 page)

  
I finally released Baby from the shed.
 
Angered by his confinement, he would not look at me when I commanded him to follow, but sat in a stubborn hunch.
 
“Baby, we both stink.
 
Let’s go for a swim!”
 
Betting on his fear of abandonment, I kept walking up the gravel road.
 
When I looked back, Baby was reluctantly following me, sniffing the ground.
     

  
Once back at the house, I pulled off my pj’s and jumped in the pool.
 
Baby excitedly barked and growled at the edge, but wouldn’t come in.
 
Finally, he lay down, resting his dark muzzle on his paws, expressive brown eyes following me.
 
I floated on my back staring at the trees and cloudy sky.
 
But even someone as self-centered as I am eventually gets tired of dwelling on one’s problems.
 
I climbed out of the pool, washed in the outdoor shower, ate breakfast, and cleaned the kitchen and great room.
 
I finally got around to putting on some clothes, combed my hair, and brushed my teeth.

   
I can’t deny that I loved the freedom of my life, but I didn’t feel safe anymore.
 
I was constantly checking the security monitors.
 
I worried about O’nan.
 
I worried about his unchecked anger.
 
And I worried about being the target of that anger.
 

   
The next few days went by quickly.
 
Still, I went to collect the Pidgeons’ garbage, switching it with some non-descript garbage of mine in the same type of garbage bag.
 
It seemed like Tellie was cleaning house too, ridding herself of computer magazines, yellowing newspapers carefully folded in half, old recipes, and receipts going back to 1999. I learned that Tellie liked Lean Cuisine and Cadbury bars. Her electric bill for the past two years was always thirty-two dollars and twenty-four cents.
 
Talk about obsessive.
 
Didn’t she and Richard ever turn the lights on?
  
I also found Tellie’s pay stubs from one of the LETC Clinics in town that stayed open twenty-four/seven.
 
Tellie had once told me that she wanted to be a pediatrician. I wondered what caused Tellie to abandon her dream of becoming a doctor and settle for being a part-time nurse at an emergency treatment center.
 
I knew she had the brains to become a doctor.
 
Did Richard make her quit?
 
Maybe he wouldn’t pony up the money for school.
 
Or just maybe after she had Taffy, she wanted to stay home.
   

 
 
Money.
 
That was a big issue with Richard.
 
He was always complaining about money.
 
It appeared that he really was having financial trouble. I found several crumpled notices from collection agencies.
 
I also recovered a letter from the bank about the mortgage.
 
Seems as though they had missed a few payments.
 
A fat life insurance policy loomed larger and larger.
 
I circled money as a motive on my legal pad.

  
On the eleventh day after I had started my garbage diving, I looked up from my Market booth to find Detective Goetz gazing intently at me.
 

  
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.
 
He was wearing what appeared to be a new sports jacket and was freshly shaved.
 
His craggy face almost looked handsome.
 
There was a hint of cologne drifting from him.

   
I was not happy to see him.
 
I must have made a face as he tugged at his clothes saying,
  
“Nothing up my sleeves this time.”

   
“No invoking of the Patriot Act?” I asked.

   
He grinned.
 
He had nice teeth.
 
“I felt like a fool putting that bug on you but I was ordered to.
 
I am only two years away from my pension, you see.”
 

    
I nodded.
 
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

    
“Thought you might like to know that the medical examiner has finally ruled Pidgeon’s death as accidental.”

    
I was cautious.
 
“And that means?”

    
“You are off the hook.”

    
“Did you really think Pidgeon was murdered?”

    
“I thought it looked damned odd, to tell you the truth.
 
We were given time to check out all possibilities, but none panned out.
 
I’ve seen more suspicious cases turn out to be a big fat nothing.
 
Just the wrong place at the right time.”
                                                                                                                                       

    
“You didn’t answer the question.”

    
“I think what really happened is that he had his wife drive him out there to create some mischief with your hives, and he had a heart attack and tumbled into the hive. Tellie lied because she didn’t want to implicate herself in any trouble.
 
Try as I could, I wasn’t able to break her alibi.”

    
“You tried to break her alibi?
 
I bet that caused problems with O’nan.”
 

    
“I never considered you seriously as a suspect.
 
I didn’t ever think you lured Pidgeon to your hives with the intention of harming him.”

    
“But O’nan pushed it.”

    
Goetz pursed his lips.
 
“Detective O’nan has been placed on leave with pay for awhile. His performance on this case is being reviewed.”

    
I pulled off my straw hat.
 
“Detective Goetz, that is the best news I have had for weeks.
 
Can I buy you a drink?”

    
“Like right now?”

    
“Yes, I feel like celebrating.
 
I feel like my life has been given back to me.”

    
“Like to, but I’m on duty.
 
How about a rain check?”

    
“Okay,” I said, giving him my best smile.
 

    
Goetz started to walk away but then turned.
 
“By the way, why did you call him?”

 
    
“Who?”

 
    
“Your cell phone.
 
Pidgeon’s number really was on your cell phone log.”

     
“I thought you and O’nan made that up.
 
I never called him.”

     
“Check your bill.
 
You will find his number on it.”
 
He waved goodbye.

     
I now knew why Goetz came.
 
He was making a last ditch effort to pin something on me before his buddy got the boot.
 
That son of a bitch!
   

     
I closed up my booth early.
 
On the way home, I called Shaneika on my cell, leaving a message.
 
When I got home, I heard the phone ringing.
 
I hurriedly unlocked the door and reached for the phone, “Hello?”
 
It is a ridiculous fact of my life that my cell phone stops working in the house, causing the expense of a traditional phone.

     
“You sound out of breath.”

     
“Just a minute.
 
I gotta turn off the security system.”
 
Finishing the sequence of numbers, I plopped down.
 
“Goetz paid me a call today.
 
He said the case was closed.”

     
“That’s why I am calling.
 
It was officially ruled as a heart attack, but they can still open the case again with cause,” said Shaneika.

     
“So this is a temporary reprieve.”

     
“Unless something pops up that makes the police want to look at the case again, I would say it is over.”

     
“You don’t sound certain.”

     
“Nothing is certain in this world.”

 
    
I frowned.
 
“And O’nan?”

     
“I filed a formal complaint.
 
I couldn’t find a college picture to ID him but the socials were the same.
 
He has been pulled off the case and is now up for a review.”

     
“Did he lose his baseball scholarship?”

     
“Yes, he did.
 
If I were you, I would cross the street if you two are ever on the same sidewalk.”

     
“Hates me that much, huh?”

     
“Like a firebrand.”
 
Shaneika muffled the phone to talk with her secretary.
 
“Back.
 
Look, it is over.
 
You don’t owe me a thing.
 
Like I said, I owed your daughter a favor, so you don’t have to worry about that.
 
Get on with your life.
 
I really do think it is over for good.”
                                                                              

    
“Thanks for all you did.
 
I appreciate it,” I said.

    
“Just make sure your daughter knows what I did for you,” Shaneika replied coldly before hanging up.

11

     
It was one of those crisp mornings when fall was broadcasting its arrival.
 
As usual on a Saturday, I was at the Farmers’ Market peddling my honey.
 
Every weekend the vendors supplied local meat, homegrown produce, eggs, fruit, baked goods, fish, and cheese to over five thousand customers who enjoyed purchasing their food outdoors to the sounds of live music and yarns of their favorite farmer.
 
The atmosphere was always festive.
  

     
I was placing glass honey jars in a basket when Officer Kelly rolled up on his Segway.
 
I never failed to think of Kelly as a cliché that walked and talked.
 
His wicked grin, his thick red hair falling over his freckled forehead causing his green eyes to peek out, and then a cop on top of that.
 
And, of course, Irish, a descendant of immigrants who built the nineteenth-century stone fences that the tourists refer to as “slave walls.”
  

    
I tried to be angry but couldn’t.
 
Officer Kelly was one of my dearest friends.
 
He was a man who had never said an unkind word to me, who was always gallant, and who brought me food on every occasion that we saw each other.
 
We had many things in common such as the belief that the Templar Knights still existed and the grassy knoll was overlooked in the Warren Report.
 
Kelly introduced me to absinthe and some other bad habits about which I will never utter a word.
 
He was a good cop, but a decadent man.

    
He was really my daughter’s friend whom I had adopted when she moved away.
 
Kelly was so affable, I couldn’t stand to lose him so I collected him, I guess, as I did my paintings.
 
I was there for his wedding and his children’s christenings.
 
His family and I usually had dinner once a month, but since the “incident,” things had been put on hold.
 
I hadn’t seen him since this mess started with Pidgeon’s death, although his wife had called several times to offer her support.