Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,34

yellow jackets in plastic bags when I was close to becoming the most wanted woman in Moraine. Being wanted was not a good thing under these circumstances, but I didn’t plan on letting it get that far. If only I could think of something to make this all go away.

I could go on forever with what-ifs and if-onlys. Life and death were filled with hard questions and elusive answers. I could have explained to Holly that since I couldn’t bring back Manny or Faye, rescuing hundreds of live honeybees was the only way I could feel useful. But she would have poked holes in my dream.

To cheer myself, I walked through my garden, picking ripe vegetables. I’d planted the garden for my own use, not for the produce aisle at The Wild Clover. Every year I experimented with different plants. The early crops like lettuce, peas, arugula, and radishes were done for this year. My fall crop consisted of: • Tomatoes—heritage pineapple tomatoes grown from saved seeds and Romas because I can throw them in the freezer right from the garden.

• Ground cherries—they form inside a husk and taste like a cross between a tomato, a cherry, and a pineapple. And they make an awesome pie.

• All my favorite things for making salsas—sweet green peppers, Anaheim and poblano peppers, onions, and tomatillos.

• Beets—both red and golden. I make the best beet soup in the Midwest.

• Squash—both summer and winter.

• Potatoes—fingerlings and red golds.

I set an armful of ripe garden veggies on the patio table, then drizzled some honey into a five-gallon bucket and set it out for my bees, the same way Manny had given his honeybees a treat, right before his death. I stared longingly at the spot where I’d kept my kayak, wondering when I’d get it back and if so, if I’d ever take it out again without seeing the image of Faye’s lifeless body inside, not to mention Clay and Faye doing you-know-what in my kayak.

I was listening to the music of the bees buzzing when I heard human voices rising above the familiar hum. Lori Spandle’s shrewish voice stood out above the din. She rounded my house wearing her bee veil, and she had a gang right behind her.

I had a feeling I was going to lose a few store customers this morning.

Clay came out of his house and watched from his porch. P. P. Patti Dwyre slipped through the cedars separating her house from mine. But to give her a teensy amount of credit for a change, she didn’t join Lori’s group. Instead she lingered near the shrubs within hearing range.

“What are you doing with her?” I said to Stanley Peck, using my head to indicate Lori. Stanley towered over the rest of Lori’s bunch, making it hard for him to conceal himself. He looked embarrassed, as well he should be. I peered to the back, counting heads. Seven in all. The group seemed so much larger.

“I’m making sure things don’t get out of hand,” he said.

Lori turned to him. “Who went and made you sheriff?”

Stanley squirmed under her glare but didn’t say anything more.

“You’re either with us or against us,” she added to her mob, mostly for Stanley’s benefit, before turning her attention back to me. “Ray Goodwin was stung yesterday while he was making a delivery run.”

“Since when does Ray work on Sundays?” I asked. Ray averaged two deliveries each week, sometimes more, showing up whenever it suited him. But he’d never come around on a Sunday.

“The economy is tough,” someone said. “We all do what we have to.”

“What’s his route schedule got to do with anything?” Lori said impatiently. “The important thing is he was stung. Twice.”

“Yellow jackets,” I announced.

“Tell her, Stanley,” Lori said, hands on her hips.

“He came to me afterward,” Stanley said, unable to meet my eyes. “I know a little something about barbed stingers. I took the stingers out for him.”

Jeez. I couldn’t blame this one on yellow jackets if the stingers were left behind.

“Where did this happen?” I wanted to know.

“At Country Delight Farm,” Lori said. “He was picking up apples for today’s deliveries.”

Country Delight Farm was less than two miles out of town and specialized in fall produce—apples, pumpkins, cider—along with autumn activities like corn mazes and hayrides. “I don’t see Ray here with you.” It figures that busybody Lori would interfere in Ray’s business instead of worrying about her own! “If he had a problem, he should come to me,” I said.

“We’re representing him,” she