Mind Your Own Beeswax (31 page)

I started putting everything back in the box, deciding to throw it away. The booze bottle was empty, the paper products were yellowed and brittle, and mice had gotten into the clothing, making a nasty mess on the bottom layer of the box—droppings and chewed up material. Yuk.

Just then something caught my eye through the disgusting mouse stuff. Trying to avoid the droppings, which proved impossible, I pulled out a chain with a small, delicate locket—gold-plated, heart-shaped, and engraved with roses. Inside the locket was a tiny picture of a much younger T. J. Schmidt.

Lauren’s locket. A souvenir of the brief period of time she’d managed to snag T. J., before all the bad stuff happened to her.

Holding that tiny lovers’ locket in my hand brought back memories of my own, of Hunter Wallace and me, how excited I’d been that the sexiest guy in high school was attracted to me, how just holding his hand sent electric shocks through my body. Still did, in fact.

I ran my fingers over the locket and remembered my own box of high school treasures. I should pull them out someday soon, go back in time, down memory lane. Didn’t I have a locket something like this one? Didn’t we all?

Before heading home, I took care of two tasks.

First, I stopped at a large Dumpster near the apple orchard and tossed in the box and its contents, tucking the locket in my pocket. I wasn’t sure why. T. J. certainly wouldn’t want a keepsake from a brief encounter that had ended in murder. But maybe Lauren’s mom might appreciate it. For all I knew, the locket could be a family heirloom. It looked older than just sixteen years. Although years inside the box had probably aged it. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

The second thing I did was pull into a hardware store where I found a restroom and washed the mouse gunk off my hands. Then I took a lesson from Lauren’s glove compartment stash and bought a pocket-sized canister of pepper spray. Except this one worked. I made sure of that in the store’s parking lot, sending a narrow spray into the air. Testing, testing.

Armed with attack-ready Ben and my pocket-sized version of tear gas, I was ready for anything.

“Where have you been?” P. P. Patti wanted to know, calling out from her backyard the minute I hopped out of my truck. Like she’d been trying to track me and had failed even with all her electronic devices. At least she hadn’t tinkered with my truck and installed some kind of locator.

“Checking bees,” I said. “And buying protection.” When Patti popped through the cedar hedge, I held up my new pepper spray.

“That isn’t going to even slow down an attacker,” Patti said.

“Are you and Joel really going to print all that stuff he told me about?”

“Of course. This could be my big break.”

“Aren’t you worried about Johnny Jay’s reaction?”

“We’re saying we got the information from an anonymous source.”

I sighed in frustration. “Won’t he figure that source is me?”

“Probably. Here, you need this.” Patti handed me a large spray can.

“Wasp spray?” I read from the label on the can. “For what?”

Honeybees are constantly blamed for the actions of wasps, which are a far more aggressive insect, but it isn’t in my nature to spray them dead.

“Spray that at Johnny Jay,” Patti said. “And he’ll stop dead in his tracks. And it’s good for twenty feet so get him early before he has a chance to get too near. If you aren’t on the ball, if you freeze up and don’t get him right away and he
does
close in, you’ll have to use the knee-to-groin tactic and you better hope you connect.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” I asked, giving the air a small spray from the can to make sure it worked. Patti would make a great self-defense instructor, if she could be pried away from her snooping habits. She had unique techniques.

“I’ve been in some tight spots and always feel safest with my trusty can of wasp spray.”

“It doesn’t exactly fit in my back pocket.”

“I don’t care how you carry it, just do.”

“All right.”

“Where are you going?” Patti asked when she saw me putting a leash on Ben.

“To check on things at the store.”

“I’ll come along. Give me that wasp spray. I’ll protect you.”

“I have Ben.”

“You need all the help you can get.”

We had barely made it past Patti’s house when a car pulled up and Johnny Jay came charging out of the driver’s seat like an angry bull.

I didn’t even have time to turn and run.

Johnny Jay was in my face before either Patti or I had a chance to raise our weapons and aim at him. My mouth didn’t even have time to open, so Ben didn’t get the attack command from me, not that I would have remembered that special, powerful word under the circumstances anyway.

There Johnny Jay was. All that bullying, bulky brawn way too close for comfort.

And to say he was P.O.’d wouldn’t even come close to describing his current emotional state.

“Haven’t you done enough damage?” he had time to yell, so close to my face I could count his gold fillings. Instead of counting, I came to my senses and blasted him with the pepper spray. Only I didn’t get it in his eyes, because his arm came up and blocked my trigger finger. But he sure backed up fast. That move left him open to a flank attack from Patti, who fired a round of wasp spray at the back of his head. Some of it settled on me.

Ben, sensing he should run interference, growled. That scared all of us.

“Stop!” Johnny shouted, and for some strange reason we did. “That’s enough. Don’t move. I’ll charge you both with assault. And call off your dog.”

“You can’t charge us with anything, Johnny Jay,” I shouted back, since he was shouting. “You aren’t in charge anymore! No charging. No arresting. How does it feel to be common?”

“I’ll file a complaint.”

“You’re the one after me! I’ll get you for stalking.”

“I have a pocket video camera,” Patti lied. I knew it was a lie because she didn’t have any pockets in the capris she wore. But Johnny didn’t notice. “Touch a hair on her head,” my neighbor warned him, “and you’ll make the front page one last time.”

Johnny’s mouth opened, closed, opened again, but nothing came out until his eyes shifted to me. Then he said, “Fischer, you’ve completely ruined me.”

I used to be Missy to Johnny Jay until the big public apology; then I became “Story.” Now I was just Fischer? Well, he’d always be Johnny Jay to me whether he wore a uniform or not.

And the nerve of the man, blaming me for his own actions, not taking responsibility. I hated when people didn’t take responsibility. Grams called it a pervasive social problem and she was right. “You ruined yourself, Johnny,” I said. “I didn’t make you use unnecessary force on me. If you’re stupid enough to beat up on a woman, and in front of witnesses with electronics, then you deserve what you get.”

“Should I nail him again?” Patti yelled, spray can at the ready.

“No, wait,” Johnny said, still loud, and I could tell his eyes were at least irritated, because they were red as if he’d been crying and he couldn’t keep them open without a lot of blinking. I felt a little eye irritation myself from Patti’s overspray. “What the hell did you spray me with?” he asked Patti.

“Wasp spray. And there’s more where that came from, so back off, buddy.”

Another big surprise, Johnny backed off. “Damn,” he said.

Ben growled again, watching me for guidance. “Sit, Ben,” I said, now that there was space between the bad guy and the rest of us. Ben sat and turned his head to stare at Johnny.

“We need to talk,” Johnny said to me.

I saw Carrie Ann and Ali Schmidt round the corner at a dead run. Carrie Ann was in the lead; she overshot and ran right into me, which I saw coming only at the last second, not nearly enough time to dodge her. She knocked me backward into Patti’s bushes.

After almost taking a direct hit of wasp spray from Patti, and Carrie Ann’s overeager rescue, I wasn’t sure I needed any more help from my friends.

“One of the customers said you were in trouble,” Ali said, panting.

“And I forgot my cell phone at the store and just happened to be inside picking it up,” Carrie Ann said, pulling me upright. “So we came to help.”

“What is this?” Johnny Jay said. “Some kind of vigilante block watch group?” He glared at me, then shook his head. “This has gone too far.”

“You got that right, bud,” Patti said, still talking tough.

“What are you doing harassing Story again?” Carrie Ann asked him. “Don’t you know enough to keep your distance?”

“Did you hear about the article about to run in
The Reporter
?” he said. “Did you hear what she said about me?”

“Nothing that wasn’t true,” I said, wondering when Patti was going to step in and admit her big role in that article. I glanced at her. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “My car was stolen,” Johnny said.

“Convenient,” Carrie Ann said.

There we all stood in a big circle, four determined women and one pathetic bully. How does it feel? I wanted to ask him, but Johnny wouldn’t have understood. He didn’t have the capacity to feel anything other than frustration and rage.

“Get back in your car and take off,” Patti said to him. “And don’t come near her again.” She held up the wasp spray, her fingers on the trigger. “Or next time, I won’t miss.”

“Wasp spray?” Carrie Ann said, with an incredulous expression on her face. “You’re using it for self-protection?”

Johnny glanced at me, and for a brief second I thought I saw pleading in his eyes, but then they turned back to their standard mean glare.

“Don’t think this is over,” he said to me.

“Did you hear that?” Carrie Ann said. “He threatened her right in front of us.”

My friends edged toward Johnny. He didn’t seem so confident without his badge and gun and with four of us and a canine attack dog staring him down.

In next to no time, he was peeling away and we were watching him go.

After a round of high-fives, my knees got weak and I had to sit down on the curb. “What if I’d been alone?” I asked. “What would he have done?”

“You don’t have to even think about that,” Ali said, sitting down next to me. “Because you weren’t by yourself. Good going, Patti.”

Patti beamed. “Having you and Carrie Ann show up didn’t hurt, either.”

“Next time,” I advised her, “spray an attacker from the front. Blasting him in the back of the head didn’t accomplish anything.”

“I was unnerved,” Patti said.

“Who’s watching the store?” I asked Ali.

“Brent and Trent,” she said. “Business is winding down. They told me they would close up. So I’m off now.”

“I want a drink,” I said, standing up and wondering if Mom was right about me having a problem.

“Let’s go to Stu’s,” said Carrie Ann.

“Not a good idea,” I said.

“Trust me,” Carrie Ann said. “I can handle going there. Do you really think it’s possible for me to stay away from drinkers forever? Look around you. Everybody and his uncle drinks alcohol.”

“Not
everybody
,” I said. “Hunter doesn’t.”

“So there are two of us out of zillions. Besides, Hunter goes to bars. He just drinks soda. I can do that.”

What could we say? At least there’d be plenty of us to watch over Carrie Ann. We headed down the street. Ben trotted along next to me.

Carrie Ann had one last comment before we swung through the door into the bar. “I’d be perfectly content to inhale second-hand smoke. Too bad nobody can smoke inside anymore. Trust me, though. I won’t drink a drop.”

My cousin was using
trust me
way too much. I had my guard up.

Inside, a bunch of Kerrigans sat at a table—Terry, Robert, Rita, Gus, and several more.

“I’ll catch up to you,” I said to my group. “I want to talk to Gus for a minute.”

My cohorts found a booth next to a window facing the street, while I joined the Kerrigans.

Out of respect for Carrie Ann, and partly to prove to myself I didn’t have any kind of problem other than Johnny Jay, I ordered seltzer water with a twist when Stu asked me what I wanted.

Mom should see me now. Why did she always arrive at inconvenient times when I seemed to be at my very worst?

“Johnny Jay tried to ambush me a few minutes ago,” I told everybody at the table. “Lucky for me I was with my friends and Ben. Or who knows what he might have done.”

Murmurs rose around me, expressions of outrage, several head pats for Ben. I’d found my fan base. Why hadn’t I thought to appeal to Lauren’s extended family earlier?

“We want him behind bars,” Gus said, rubbing day-old growth. “It’s not enough that he’s stepped down.”

“He hasn’t stepped down,” Terry corrected Gus. “He’s on leave, like a vacation. But if we have our way he won’t be back.”

“He killed Lauren,” Rita added, her voice thick with conviction.