Mind Your Own Beeswax (17 page)

“She
is
stubborn.”

“Not like us at all. LOL (
Laugh Out Loud
).”

And there was some truth to my sister’s tongue-in-cheek remark. She and I came from a long line of Amazonlike matriarchs. Even sweet Grams had a strong-as-a-tornado side, revealed on very rare occasions and only when it came to defending her family.

“I can manage here,” I said. “If you help Carrie Ann.”

The toilet paper was the first to go to the back of the store with the rest of life’s necessities. Out came my containers brimming with wildflower honey sticks, jars of Queen Bee Honey, honeycomb, and honey candy with those marvelous soft centers. I stopped long enough to unwrap one and pop it in my mouth.

While I worked on restoring order, customers came and went, the card-playing seniors grew louder, and the shocking murders of Hetty Cross and Lauren Kerrigan remained everyone’s main topic of conversation.

I stayed in the background, doing a lot more listening than commenting. As a local business owner, I learned a long time ago to keep my opinions to myself, especially when it came to sensitive topics. No sense jeopardizing business by coming on strong and opinionated. We had enough loud know-it-alls around to pick up my slack. In public, I tried not to talk religion, politics, sex, or now, murder suspects.

The big question was: Which woman had been the original target?

If it was Hetty, then Norm had most of the town’s guilty votes, simply by association. If Lauren was the one who the killer had sighted in on, then Johnny Jay had the most motive and all the opportunity. In both of those cases, people figured that the other woman had been an accidental bystander.

But if
both
women were intended victims—a stretch for all of us—nobody had a clue. As far as anyone knew, the two women barely knew each other, if at all. Hetty kept to herself. As her closest neighbor,
I
didn’t even know her well. Hetty didn’t have children, hadn’t belonged to any church groups, and didn’t make appearances in town unless she absolutely had to.

And Lauren had been gone for a long time. When she did reappear, she hadn’t contacted any of her old friends, so why would she have hooked up with Hetty Cross?

So first we had to sort out that dilemma.

Lauren Kerrigan’s brother, Terry, came into the store and gave us some useful insight, facts we hadn’t had before. Which was amazing considering how close-knit and closed-mouthed that family usually was.

“Lauren was scared,” he said. “Terrified of what would happen at the end. I don’t care what my mother thought, Lauren was too afraid of dying to even consider taking her own life. I kept saying that over and over, but Mom wouldn’t listen. She’s having an awful time accepting that Lauren was murdered.”

“Why do you think Lauren went to The Lost Mile? To meet Hetty?” I asked, since Terry seemed like he wanted to get his thoughts off his chest.

A crowd was forming around us, although none of the customers wanted to be caught red-handed (or rather redeared) listening in on our conversation, so they pretended like they were shopping. Suddenly, everybody in the store wanted some of my honey products.

Terry shrugged. “No idea. She didn’t know Hetty.”

“And why did she think she needed a weapon?”

Terry’s eyes scanned the store. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this. It’s personal family stuff.”

“Maybe if we all put our heads together,” I reasoned. “We’ll think of something important that might help figure out what happened and catch her killer.”

I heard murmurs of agreement. P. P. Patti slipped into the store, wearing a black fanny pack, a matching visor on her head, and something hanging from a lanyard around her neck.

Terry still had the floor. “I already told everything I know to the . . .” He stopped there and we all could guess what he was about to say. He’d given his statement to Johnny Jay, probably under duress considering how well they got along. Johnny had to be a prime suspect in his eyes just like in mine.

“Okay,” Terry said, deciding to tell us for his own reasons. “Lauren came home to die. She wouldn’t have even known about Rita’s gun. I bought it after Lauren went away. She would have had to search the house to find it. Why would she even do that? And if anybody knows the reason why she took it and went into the woods, you better speak up now.”

The room went so quiet I could hear somebody in the loft slap down a card. Even the gamers hushed after that. Nobody around Terry had anything helpful to say. The silence stretched and became uncomfortable.

“When’s the funeral?” Patti piped up and asked.

“It’s going to be private,” Terry said. “Just family.” And with that, he walked out without buying whatever he’d come in for.

 

Pretty soon Stu showed up to remind us about Chopper Murphy’s Irish wake tomorrow night. Chopper had been a regular at Stu’s, bellying up to the bar until one day his lights went out exactly where he would have wanted them to. After a few shots of whiskey, his heart stopped beating. He pitched off his bar stool and that was the last of him.

His wife, Fiona, buried him two weeks ago and the whole town turned out.

But she didn’t give him an Irish wake. Chopper started haunting her, according to Fiona, and he couldn’t rest until she did it up properly.

So Stu was helping her take care of details.

Patti came close enough that I could read the words on the card dangling from her lanyard.

“Press pass?” I asked.

Patti beamed. “Isn’t it cool? I made it on my computer.”

“So, you aren’t actually a member of the press and you don’t really have special rights?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

Okay then.

After the twins came in to help out, I closed myself into the back room and sat at my desk with Dinky on my lap. Once she stopped trying to crawl up and lick my lips, she settled down and I had time to think.

It didn’t seem fair that one night of bad judgment had changed Lauren Kerrigan’s life forever. Then to have terminal cancer and end up dead on the ground, murdered. But life wasn’t fair, a fact that announced itself over and over even if I didn’t want to face the truth of it. Some people just never caught any slack in life. They started out with more than their share of bad luck, and they ended the same way.

There was a light tap on the door, and Holly slipped in.

“She wasn’t suicidal,” I said to my sister. “Terry said she was afraid of dying.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“So she took the gun for protection against somebody.”

“She must have been really scared.”

“Maybe.”

I told Holly about Norm, about the Lantern Man articles on his wall and about the lantern collection. I’d promised Hunter I’d keep that a secret, but like all secrets, they instantly go to work on a person and don’t let up until they’ve been shared with at least one other person. If I had to spill my guts to someone I trusted, Holly was the one.

“Patti’s out in the aisles,” my sister said, “interviewing customers about Lantern Man. She’s convinced that Lantern Man came across Lauren and Hetty in The Lost Mile and killed them. Did you know she has a mini-video camera in her fanny pack? And she’s been going through old newspapers to get up to speed on his appearances.”

“Wow! I’m impressed. Four whole sentences and you didn’t revert to text-speech even once. I’m proud of you.”

“WE (
Whatever
),” Holly said.

Tuesday morning arrived before I was ready for it. A violent spring storm moved in during the night, zinging spears of lightning at the ground right outside my bedroom window, keeping me awake with crashes of thunder. Rain beat steadily on the roof, then banged louder as drops of rain turned to balls of hail. Looking out the window, I finally saw gray wisps of light announcing an overcast morning. White balls of ice covered the grass.

The Oconomowoc River, swollen and flowing rapidly, rose to the top of its banks. My backyard hadn’t flooded for a long time, but this rainstorm would take it to the brink or beyond. My honeybees would spend the morning safely inside their well-constructed hives. Good thing the beehives stood on cement blocks elevated well above the ground or I’d be out there frantically moving them to higher ground. At least I got some things right.

Dinky, I found out right away, was terrified of storms and thought this one was strictly for her benefit. She burrowed down under the bedcovers, trembled all night, and didn’t peer out until the thunder subsided. She also apparently hated rain and refused to go outside, giving me the task of cleaning up after her again. Her only redeeming quality at this point was that her very tiny bladder couldn’t produce enormous quantities of fluid for me to mop up. I really appreciated my wood floors.

Norm Cross didn’t answer his phone when I called to demand that he take her back. Just as well he didn’t have an answering machine either, since my mood wasn’t up to its usual tolerance level and I might’ve verbalized some of my dark thoughts about his mangy mutt.

After feeding Dinky, I ate a honey bun, drank multiple cups of coffee, watched the rain, and pondered rogue cops and whether Johnny Jay might have murdered Lauren Kerrigan and Hetty Cross:

End of story.

Now to prove it.

I’d seen enough cop shows on television to understand exactly how hard that was going to be, mostly because Johnny Jay held all the power cards. My word wouldn’t count for squat against a law-enforcement official’s.

So I had to prove his guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

With a new mission in mind, to bring down a longtime nemesis, I showered and dressed for the day in jeans and a warm yellow hoodie, opened my sister’s bedroom door, deposited Dinky in her bed without waking her, grabbed an umbrella, and made my way to the store.

By the time I’d walked those two blocks, unlocked the store door, and slipped in, I was drenched in spite of the umbrella, which turned out to be useless in the gusting wind and sheets of sleet.

While I tried to dry my hair with paper towels, Carrie Ann called to say she’d be late, which wasn’t a big deal since the storm had all my regular customers hunkered down, waiting it out. The tourist business would be nonexistent today, too.

Stu Trembly stopped by for his morning newspaper and confirmed that local gossip at his bar supported the Johnny Jay killer theory over Norm Cross, but no one had any concrete evidence to nail our police chief. Also Stu was busy getting ready for Chopper Murphy’s wake tonight.

Milly Hopticourt came in with a rhubarb meringue torte she’d whipped up in preparation for the next newsletter, and we declared it a winning recipe.

“I need some morel mushrooms,” Milly said, wiping meringue from her lips. “I have an idea for a recipe. Somebody spotted them a few days ago and with this rain they ought to be growing big and plump.”

“I’ll hunt some down,” I said, thinking of my favorite secret spot for harvesting morels.

A while later, the rain still hadn’t subsided. Puddles grew in the street outside while my store’s awning sagged and overflowed.

I tried calling Norm again. No luck.

Lori Spandle showed up with a warning. “I have a potential buyer looking at the house today,” she said. “Try to stay out of the way and don’t blow it.”

“What time are you showing the house?”

“Noon.”

“Good luck.” Which I meant from the bottom of my heart. If my ex-husband’s house finally sold, I’d have that nasty woman off my back. Although it had been quiet and peaceful at home without a neighbor on that side. I wondered what kind of person would live there next. Anyone was better than my ex-husband.

T. J. Schmidt came in, shaking an umbrella and showing his perfect teeth. “You haven’t returned Ali’s call to reschedule,” he said.

When pigs fly, I thought. “Been busy at the store,” I said out loud. “I’ll take care of it soon. Any new ideas coming from your patients?” I asked, remembering the last conversation I’d had with T. J. while I sat in his dental chair under extreme duress. He’d said patients really like to talk in his chair.

T. J. grinned, flashing his great teeth. “Nothing new.” Then he went down aisle two with a shopping basket over his arm.

By the time Carrie Ann arrived at the store, with Holly and Dinky right behind her, the storm had moved off to the east, leaving the soft patter of light rain behind.