Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,33

cold and wind, and finding Faye’s dead body in my kayak.

“It sure wasn’t what I had expected to find,” I said.

“Why would somebody want to kill her?”

“Who knows?” I remembered how Faye had flounced into the courtroom during the divorce hearing and how smug she’d looked later when she lip-locked with Clay for my benefit. “But she definitely wasn’t a woman’s woman.”

“Absolutely, not.” Holly knew exactly what I meant. Some women managed to be popular with both men and women, but Faye was too catty and competitive to fall into that category.

The only piece of information I kept from Holly was the damaging news about the e-mail tip. I wanted to save that until she wasn’t behind the steering wheel. I don’t have a death wish.

Back at The Wild Clover, we headed for my office, which amounted to a desk jammed at the back end of all the storage shelves. We downloaded two copies of the missing beehive pictures onto my work computer and printed them out.

“Stay right here,” I said to Holly. “I have something important to tell you.” I rushed out to tape one set of evidence to the front door. I left the other set with Carrie Ann.

“If anybody asks about the bees,” I said to her, “point them to these photos.”

“You got it.”

Then I hurried back to the storage room and closed the door as quietly as I could. I didn’t want anyone, especially Carrie Ann, to try to listen in. Nobody, but nobody else, could know my secret.

“Promise you won’t scream when I tell you this,” I began.

“OMG,” Holly said. “You’re pregnant.”

“Shush. Keep your voice down.”

How I wished that were the breaking news. How much simpler it would be to bring someone new into the world rather than get involved with one going out.

I shook my head. “You better sit down.” Holly sat down in my office chair. “A tip relating to Faye’s death was sent from a library computer to the police station.”

“Okay.”

“The tip wasn’t true, but Johnny Jay believes it, and he’s looking for the person who made the accusation.” Holly started frowning like she wasn’t following me. “So in my thinking,” I continued, “the person who sent the tip has to be someone with a big grudge against me. Right?”

Holly looked totally confused. “What are you trying to say? What tip? What accusation?”

I crouched down and clutched her hands. “This person says they saw me arguing with Faye by the river the night before Hunter and I found her body in—”

“—your kayak,” Holly finished for me, light bulbs going on inside her head.

I nodded.

“Oh, hell,” Holly said, jumping up from the chair and knocking me over on my butt. “SNAFU! (Situation normal: All F#@&%! Up). What have you gotten yourself into?”

Thirteen

Early Monday morning before work, still stinging from Holly’s barbs and the angry tirade I’d had to endure, I sat down at my patio table with a cup of red clover tea. My sister hadn’t been exactly sympathetic, although eventually she’d settled down. We both were pretty sure the liar who claimed to have seen me would never come forward. But even without eyewitness evidence, Johnny Jay might think I had sufficient motive. Jealousy, he’d tell the jury, Story Fischer couldn’t bear to see Clay Lane with another woman.

I wondered how the authorities knew for sure Faye had been murdered. For that matter, how were they so positive Manny’s death was an accident?

How many death certificates are prepared every year where the cause of death is either accidental or natural? Bunches, I bet. And how many of those innocent-seeming incidents could have been murder? Who knows?

Consider the elderly. When they die alone at home, none of the family members think an autopsy is important. Grandpa died of old age. Right? But what if Cousin Frankie had been adjusting Grandpa’s medication? Or feeding him arsenic? Or helped him along with a pillow to the face? Who would be the wiser?

And those so-called accidental deaths? Say someone’s husband falls off his roof still clutching his beer and lands right on his head? An accident, right? But what if he was pushed? Or what if the missus, sensing her lucky day, finished him off with an additional bang to the head?

I couldn’t stop thinking bad thoughts and concocting gruesome scenarios. I glanced over at Clay’s house, wondering how safe I was.

Last night Holly had demanded that I rearrange my priorities. She wanted to know what I had been doing looking for nests and collecting dead