Stolen Honey (31 page)

“Did Olen say anything about his mother? Who she was? Where she came from?”

“He never mentioned her to me. I don’t suppose he knew. He has only what his adoptive mother told him to go on.”

“He was adopted? Was Ashley her name?”

“It was his, I understand. I only know that he was adopted as a child by a couple who’d known the parents.”

“Are the adoptive parents still alive? Would they have told him the truth about that revolutionary ancestor?”

“They died years ago. I never met them. But I don’t know why they’d lie about that ancestor. Unless to make him feel good about himself. There was always this need to be
somebody.
That’s why he latched on to the Freemasons, I suppose; it gave him self-esteem. Pride. I never cared for that quality in him. That terrible pride.”

She sipped her coffee; it was getting tepid. “Olen was good to my father—he saved his life once, did I tell you that? Dad was chopping down an old oak; it toppled toward him, took him by surprise. He gave the sign—the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress, I think they call it. Olen grabbed him in time—he risked his own life! I’ll always be grateful to Olen for that. I think he’d give his life for Donna and Brownie, too, I really do.”

“And for you?”

Gwen gave a soft laugh. “Possibly. Yes. He’s stubborn that way. Loyal, you know.”

“Is it possible that Ashley’s not his real name?” Ruth persisted. “That his father could have been French-Canadian? Lafreniere? That’s the name on the disk, Gwen. Not on the disk Olen copied for Colm—a page was deleted on that one. It was on the copy you gave me, the copy Donna made from the original.”

Gwen was quiet a moment. She dropped into a chair as if someone had suddenly pushed her. She held the receiver close to her ear, in two hands. She felt she was betraying Olen, talking about him like this. But then, she rationalized, Olen himself would put justice over loyalty, wouldn’t he?

She took a deep breath, told Ruth about Olen’s frenetic visit, how upset he was at not finding the copy. How he’d rushed out, as though obsessed. “He didn’t take the earring.” She cleared her throat, coughed up phlegm.

“Earring?”

“Oh, a tarnished one Donna or Leroy found in the grass somewhere. I’m sure it has nothing to do with either death.” Her throat felt like gravel now. The grounds had seeped into her coffee.

“Do you know where Olen was going?” Ruth asked. “When he raced out like that?”

“I’ve no idea where he’s gone. Maybe to England. After that famous ancestor.” She tried to laugh, but it came out a gravelly cough.

After she’d hung up, Gwen downed a full glass of water, then slumped back in a chair, feeling exhausted. Yet it hadn’t been a hard day at all. She’d visited four farms and every hive had been intact. There’d been no more damage—beyond the usual swarmings, trachial mites, robber bees—not since Tilden had confessed to the malice. Yet no one in her household had died because of it. There had been cruelties, yes, to the bees and her family, but they’d all survived. She’d destroyed the package of killer bees Tilden had left in the Balls’ hunting cabin.

Tilden could have killed Camille Wimmet, yes, she felt that now. After all, he’d been failing Camille’s class. And he did drugs, Donna had told her that. The drugs, whatever they were, could change a Dr. Jekyll into a Mr. Hyde.

She was glad when Russell called—briefly, because he was having dinner with two Mohawk men he’d met during the latest reenactment and was already late to meet them. She asked him about the name Lafreniere and he, said he knew a fellow of that name up in Quebec. “A mellow guy—eighty-four years old. Wanna drive up some weekend and meet him?”

She didn’t, but she’d tell Ruth about the man. She didn’t tell Russell about a possible link with the name Ashley, though. The less Russell heard Olen’s name, the better—although he’d approved of the way Olen “took care” of Tilden Ball. The two men seemed to have arrived at a kind of truce.

Finally, “Love ya!” Russell bellowed, and the phone went dead.

Next Donna arrived, and there were questions and explanations all over again about the extra copy. “I didn’t know you’d taken it to the Willmarths’,” the girl said. “Not till after I hung up and found it was gone. You should have told me.” Donna was “done in”; she flung her jacket and book bag down on a chair. She had a “mountain” of work to do. “I’ll need the computer. You’re not planning on using it?”

“Not tonight.” Gwen held up the earring. “This was in the file box. What was it doing in there anyway? Where’d it come from?”

Donna laughed, tossed back her hair. It was looking especially lustrous; she’d just washed it in lemon and beer, she said. “Ral-phie gave it to me. It was part of his shiny collection. I don’t know where he found it. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, just curious, that’s all.” Gwen dropped the earring into a pocket. The nightshade death had been called an accident. She didn’t want to pursue it. She didn’t like Ralphie’s talk about shiny men.

Donna shrugged and adjusted a gold bead earring where it had gotten twisted on its stem. She was at the refrigerator now. “I didn’t have any supper. I was in the library. Exams are coming up and I still have two more papers. Well, short ones, but even so . ..”

“Can you give me a half hour in the barn? The place is a mess, and Leroy’s got a cold again. I swear he’s become more and more of a hypochondriac.”

“Oh, Mother. Can’t you? I’m starving. I’ve got this Frost paper due tomorrow. We have to analyze ‘The Death of the Hired Man.’ I haven’t even read it yet.”

Gwen gave up. If things were to be done around here, she’d have to do them. What was the point of having children anyway? Brownie was no better. He’d gobbled down his dinner and then she’d had to drive him to a friend’s birthday party. In a couple of hours she’d have to go pick him up again. She supposed she should talk to Ralphie Ball, find out where he’d found the earring. After all, it could be evidence of some kind. But then she might run into old Harvey, and she didn’t want to face that. Though he’d been lying low lately; there’d been no more calls about her selling land—not with Tilden a murder suspect. Did she hope they’d find the boy guilty? Or did she just want to keep Olen’s name untarnished? In a way, she loved him, didn’t she? Olen was family.

Gwen stopped by her hives on the way to the barn. All was contentment here, the bees busy at their tasks of gathering early nectar. By June the clover would be in full bloom, and the alfalfa; the bees would be working like madwomen, they would keep the coffers full.

“Good work,” she told a pair of honeybees murmuring in her newly opened tulips. She felt they could hear her, that they liked her approval. Bees were like people in so many ways: their complex social structure, their language. Through their special sense of smell they could recognize each other and their queen, tell one another where the food was, alert one another to danger. If they left a stinger in a person, Gwen felt, it was to mark the enemy, because the alarm odor would continue to be released, no matter where the enemy fled.

“Help us to find the truth,” she pleaded, “whether we like the answers or not. Shep Noble’s enemy, and Camille’s.”

The bees went humming along at their task.

* * * *

When Ruth called the police department, a woman’s voice informed her that Olen Ashley was off duty—she might try his apartment on Cross Street. But Ruth was not about to go there alone. “I don’t know the man,” she told Colm, who was sitting in her kitchen devouring her doughnuts. “You know him, you can tell him we just want to ask questions about a Lafreniere?”

“Uh-huh,” said Colm, “I’m your fall guy. Look, Ruthie, I don’t want to go to Olen Ashley’s apartment. I don’t want to ask questions about a Lafreniere. He’s my colleague, for Pete’s sake.”

Now Colm’s arms were folded, he was staring at the floor— it was a crunch of crumbs from Vic’s evening snack. The boy ate like the birds at her feeder, kernels dropping as they swallowed the sunflower seeds.

“I called Emily to babysit,” she told him, ignoring his attitude. Colm would come around, just so he didn’t lose face. It was a game; she’d have to butter him up, offer a prize.

“Just this once, Colm, I can’t do it without you. If nothing pans out, I’ll give up on the Lafreniere quest, help you with Tilden Ball. Maybe there’s French blood there, too. Maybe there’s a Lafreniere in their past.”

“Now you’re talking sense,” he said, unfolding his arms, sighing, then going to the phone. “Dad?” he said to his father. “I can’t come home now. I’ll help with that cremation later tonight. . . . Look, Dad, the guy’s dead, he’s in no hurry. I’ve got something else to do—it’s for Ruth... . No, Dad, I’m not making love to her—not at the moment. . . . Why not? Well, I don’t know why not. Ask her. I’ll call when I can, Dad.” He hung up, grimaced at Ruth.

“He didn’t really ask you that. If you were making love.”

“He did. It’s his dearest wish, I’ve told you. He says Mother wanted me married. So
he
wants me married. In his lifetime, he says. I’ve got a responsibility to him, Ruthie.”

“Let’s go,” she said, ignoring the responsibility part. “We’ll take my truck. Your car sounded like a freight car when you pulled in. If Olen’s guilty of anything, he’d be out the back door in seconds.”

“Sure, Ruthie,” he said, placating her. “Why not? I’m practically out of gas anyway.”

* * * *

Vic was surprised to see a policeman when he opened the door. “Uh-oh,” he said, thinking of his mother’s hemp and the trash barrel down back—Vic didn’t like her burning trash, it wasn’t good for the environment. They’d been talking a lot about the environment lately in school. It would serve his mother right if she got caught.

The man was smiling, a nervous kind of smile; he kept shifting his weight. “It’s all right, son,” he said. “I just dropped in to see your mother. Nothing to worry about.” Vic saw him glancing about the kitchen, his eyes coming to rest on Emily’s PC. “She home, son?”

“Gone off,” Vic told him. “With Colm Hanna. You know him? He’s a cop, too.”

“Yes, yes, I do. I was looking for him as well. Do you know where they went?”

Vic shrugged. He wanted to get back to his program. He was watching
Jeopardy.
A man with a bronze-colored mustache was really raking in the money. Vic would like to go on
Jeopardy
himself one day. He could buy a humongous telescope with the money he’d make just answering questions. He’d help his mother pay off what she owed the bank. All you had to do was answer the questions right. Sometimes Vic knew the answers when the contestants didn’t—like, ‘What novel did the character Eustacia Vye appear in?’ Heck, Eustacia was one of his mother’s cows. She came right out of Thomas Hardy’s
Return of the Native.
Vic hadn’t read it, but he knew the title.

The man repeated his question, and Vic said, “Looking for something, I don’t know. Police business, I guess.”

A vein bulged in the man’s neck, his cheeks pinkened, and Vic wondered if he should offer a glass of water. Back in the living room he heard the audience cheer and he decided not to offer the water after all; he wanted to get back to the program. “I’ll tell Mom you were looking for her. Unless you want to wait here?”

“Oh, no,” the man said, gripping his hands together. “I’ll get ahold of her later. I’m on my way out of state.”

He was turning to go when the door opened; Vic saw him jump. Jeezum. It was Joey, thumping noisily in, staring openly at the cop. He would have seen the police car outside. He probably came in for a close look at the uniform. Joey was crazy about uniforms. Colm Hanna never wore one, but he’d look better if he did—this was Vic’s personal opinion.

“I never rode in a police car,” Joey said, fingering the man’s buttons, gazing up into his face.

The man started to pull away, then took a breath and smiled. “Maybe one day,” he said. “But I have to go now, on business.”

“Out of state,” Vic informed Joey, who looked disappointed.

The door opened again and it was Tim. Vic would never get back to his program now. He could hear the audience yelling and he’d bet the guy won a million dollars. Lucky guy. He was a minister, too, he’d said. What did a minister need a million dollars for?

The policeman stepped back. With Tim, it was like a whole barnful of cows just walked in. That was one way to get the man out of here. You could see from the way his nose twitched that he was smelling it, too.

“I can’t leave yet, we got a sick calf,” Tim told Joey.

“But Tim, I got my job,” Joey whined, sticking his hands on his hips. “I gotta get there,
Tim.
Maybe he could take me?” He pointed at the cop.

The man was halfway out the kitchen door when Tim asked, “Officer? You heading downtown? Joey here needs a ride, it’s his night at Greg’s Market. I can’t take him, I got a sick calf.”

Vic saw the policeman put a hand to his nose, like the smell was too much for him. Or maybe it was Tim’s question. Himself, Vic wouldn’t have asked. Cops were busy. They had speeders to chase, con men to capture—that killer that was on the loose around here. That worried Vic, too. The kids in his class talked about it all the time. Yes, it might be interesting to be a cop; Vic would think about that. Would he turn his own mother in? Well, probably not. But he’d give her a good talking to about that hemp.

“Greg’s Market,” Joey was saying, “I gotta go there. I pick up carts and stuff. I missed last time. They say,
‘Joey,
you get here on time or you lose the job.’ ”

Joey squeezed out the door ahead of the man. Vic knew he’d jump right into the police car, that was Joey. Joey was missing something upstairs, he didn’t read all the signals people gave out. Vic liked him, though, the guy helped around the place.

“Well, just to Greg’s Market,” the policeman said to Tim. “It’s out of the way; I’m on my way east of here. But okay.”

“He’ll be thrilled,” Tim said, following the others out. “Thrilled to ride in a police car. Just drop him at the main entrance, Officer. He won’t give you any trouble.”

The door shut behind Tim, and a moment later Vic heard the police car peel off. He went back to his program. But when he plopped back down on the couch, the commercial came on. Loud. The program was over. “Jeezum,” he said, disgusted, and headed back into the kitchen to make himself a sundae: vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and a maraschino cherry on top. His mouth watered.