Death By A HoneyBee (6 page)

    
Ms. Todd threw her legal pad into her briefcase and slapped it shut.
 
“You guys are just on a fishing trip.
 
Either tell us something concrete or we’re walking.”
 
She stared at them.

    
They both returned her scathing look but were mum.

    
“Just as I thought,” she retorted.
 
She abruptly stood, grabbing her briefcase and me, propelling us both towards the door. “Gentlemen, we are done here.”

    
Matt trotted after us along the scuffed yellow floor line pointing the way out of the building.
 
It wasn’t until we were several blocks away from the police station that Ms. Todd turned her fury upon me.
  
“You are not to have any contact with anyone in law enforcement.
 
I mean it.
 
You should have told me that you came to blows with Richard Pidgeon!
 
I went in there blind.
 
Didn’t I tell you not to play me?”

 
    
I wasn’t brought up with such a jaded attitude.
 
Innocent people were . . . well, innocent.
 
I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I did hear Ms. Todd say to Matt, “Take her home and make sure that she doesn’t talk to them again without me.
 
I will make some calls.
 
See what’s going on.”

    
And with that, Shaneika Mary Todd was gone.
 

    
Matt returned me to my booth space only to discover that my van had been towed.
 
I broke into tears.

     
I got a call from my daughter about eleven that night.
 

    
“I hear it has been a hard day for you,” she said.
 
Her smoky voice sounded strained and tired.

    
“Shaneika Mary Todd, I suppose,” I replied.

    
“Yes.”
 
A long pause.
 
“I’ve placed her on retainer.
 
You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

    
“I am sorry about this.
 
It hasn’t been in the papers yet, but . . .”

    
“I know,” she said, cutting me off.
  
“Don’t worry about me.
 
I have had worse press.”

    
“You know, Ms. Todd is too subtle for this case.
 
I think we need to get someone more aggressive.”

     
My daughter laughed.
 
“She’s quite the barracuda.”

     
“Apparently, Ms. Todd thinks the interview was a disaster.
 
She chewed me up pretty good.”

     
“I don’t think it’s as bad as that.
 
Shaneika just wanted to scare you away from cooperating with the police.
 
I think she made it sound worse than it really is.”

     
“I hope you are right.”
 

     
“That’s why she’s the best in town.
 
If we need more fire power, we will branch out nationally, but I doubt we will need it.”

     
“What’s the deal with the British accent?”

     
“She was raised in Bermuda but her family is from Lexington.”

     
Before I could comment, there was a clicking on the line.
 
I knew our time was up.
   

    
“I’ll be keeping an eye on this.
 
Don’t worry,” she said before hanging up the phone.

    
I turned over in the bed, pulling the covers around me.
 
It was quite some time before I fell asleep.

6

 
    
I spent the next few days holed up in my home cleaning and cooking, which is what I do when feeling wounded.
 
I washed the bulletproof windows, cleaned my comfort toilets and steamed the Italian-made tile floors.
 
The house was designed to blend in with the elements of earth, wind, fire and water. Built in the eighties, it had been a state-of-the-art environmental house girdled by solar panels, moats, water collection and cisterns.
 
Intended to act as a living organism within nature, it created a new style of a cradle-to-the-grave house.
 
Even as the inconvenience of aging accumulated, one could live hassle free. Other than having a child, it was my supreme contribution to the world.
 
One that I hoped would live long after me.
 

    
There are four iconic twentieth-century homes in the U.S. that are works of art.
 
There’s the Farnsworth House on Fox River in Illinois, Phillip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House in Bear Run Nature Preserve, Pennsylvania. The other is mine – the Butterfly.

     
I tenderly patted the limestone wall of my home.
 
Its four major building components – local limestone, Kentucky walnut and oak, reinforced concrete, and walls of bulletproof glass – shield me from drunken poachers shooting across the river.
 
The house still has a futuristic look, even by today’s standards.
 

    
The most distinctive feature – a second roof – consists of two distinct etched metal wings that meet at a copper gutter that cascades rainwater. As the second roof is not attached to the house-proper except by pipes, it stands on steel legs, giving it extra height. The purpose of the extra shield is two-fold: to collect rainwater and create a stunning water feature.
 
Every minute of the day, a steady stream of water thunders twenty feet off the roof via the gutter into a rock basin surrounded by ferns.
 
The water is gathered again and pushed upwards by an ancient corroded pump that acts as a heartbeat to the house.
 
Budda-bump.
 
Budda-bump.
 
Budda-bump.

    
The collected water feeds not only the heated pool, but also other water features such as a fish-filled moat surrounding the house.
 
As the pool and moat fill, rainwater spills into three cisterns that are the source of water for the house via an antique chlorine purifying system.
 
During droughts, I simply borrow water from the pool.
 
     
.
 

     
Solar panels, still blanketing the side yard, provide some electricity, but they have become worn with age.
  
As backup, a generator did supplement the house’s electrical needs but only Brannon knew how to maintain it.
 
After he left, I reluctantly connected with the city’s power company.

     
For whimsy, I had a local artist weld two large metal antennae to the top of the roofline.
  
From a distance, the house seems to be taking flight like a giant moth.
 
Brannon thought it made the house look ridiculous.
 
Looking back

now, I wish I hadn’t done it.
 
It caused a breach between Brannon and me.

     
Unfortunately, my dwelling has begun to acquire a run-down appearance.
 
I no longer let people see her in her present condition.
 
Oh yes, it is a she - most definitively.
 

     
While still impressive with her roof waterfall, freestanding swivel closets, and kitchen space with dramatic clean minimal lines, the house looked shabby.
 
I had no idea how I was going to get the lady back on her feet.
 

     
And now people were coming by uninvited.
 
Fired up to get better security, I dipped into my meager retirement fund and installed monitors in my beeyard plus a new security system throughout the house.
 
A new electronic gate guards my property’s entrance.
 
It was something I should have done a long time ago, but I had always felt safe as I was tucked away on the steep palisades of the Kentucky River.
 

     
As an added precaution, I secreted tasers throughout the house.
 
I own a handgun, which my daughter purchased for me, but its cold metal frightens me.
 
The use of a gun is so final, while the taser brings on only a very bad headache and a lawsuit.
 
I’d rather deal with a lawsuit than a dead person, so it is my weapon of choice.

     
 
I was now forty thousand dollars poorer.
 
That amount did not include the purchase of a fawn-colored English mastiff puppy named Baby or the cost of his future guard training . . . or the vast amounts of food he chows down . . . or my fifties era couch I would have to replace after he finished gnawing it to bits.
 
Other than that, things were going just swell.
 

 
    
After pushing all the little buttons I needed to arm the security system, I took my glass filled with bourbon onto the limestone terrace shiny from wear, and fell back into an oversized chair.
 
I sipped the golden liquid while listening to the birds.
 
The view from this spot never failed to grab my heart.
 
This is my house
.
 
My husband built it, but it was designed to my specifications and desires. Everything I knew about art, style and nature was poured into these walls.
 
The Butterfly was his greatest triumph, but Brannon never liked it.
 
He preferred his ante-bellum houses.
 
After a while, he did not live at the Butterfly even though we were never officially separated.
   
           

     
I pushed that thought from my mind, as it was ancient history.
 
I needed to concentrate on the present.
 
The new puppy was asleep at my feet.
 
Some puppy.
 
He was only ten weeks old but already weighed twenty-five pounds, and his paws were the size of my hands.
 
His breathing showed the pattern of deep, contented sleep while his potbelly went up and down like a water-pump handle.
 
I rubbed his soft tan fur with my big toe while reaching for a legal pad and pencil.
 

   
 
My problem was that I agreed with the police.
 
I didn’t think Richard’s death was just an accident.
 
Why was Richard on my property?
 
What was his mode of transportation?
 
Someone had to have been with him to remove the vehicle.
 
Why did the bees sting a bee-charmer?
 
I had seen Richard work with bees.
 
They loved him.
 
He was never stung, even when covered with the critters.
 
Something or someone made those bees sting him.
 
Still – it could have been a case of Richard wanting to vandalize my hives and having a heart attack, then falling into the hive.
 
His accomplice ran off, not wanting to be implicated.
 
If Richard had had a heart attack, wouldn’t the accomplice have helped him to the ground and tried CPR while calling 911?
 
Or did the accomplice leave before Richard had his attack?
 
 
It was the vandalism with which I had the most trouble.
 
It just didn’t seem like Richard’s style.
 
He loved direct confrontation.
 
Sneakiness was not his MO.

     
I jotted down my thoughts.
 
I had three different theories: sex, money, and revenge. They were the cause of most murders.
 
I needed to find out which one had led to his death.