Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,6

for the winter. Contrary to what some people believe, bees don’t hibernate. They tough it out the best they can by huddling together inside their dark homes, protecting their queen from the cold while surviving on honey reserves.

“I’ve always hated those bees,” Grace sobbed, from a distance. She had a knot on her forehead that had swelled like a bag of Jiffy Pop popcorn. When we’d arrived, she’d climbed out of the SUV and had taken one look at her husband’s body lying in the beeyard, then pitched forward in a faint. I’d tried to catch her, but she had forty pounds on me, and we’d both gone down. I’d been lucky, I’d only scraped my right elbow and banged my knee. Even though I’d cushioned her fall, Grace had bounced backward and clunked her head on the side of the SUV.

Grace had never liked Manny’s bees, but whether it was the bees themselves or her husband’s obsession with them, I wasn’t sure. Either way, she refused to have anything to do with them.

“He’s dead,” she said. “I can tell. And the damn bees did it.”

“You’re not really blaming his bees?” I said, astonished that anyone—least of all Grace, who lived among them—would think that honeybees were dangerous, let alone deadly.

“Well, it sure looks like they killed him,” one of the officers said from behind me. “Was he allergic?”

“No,” Grace said.

“Absolutely not,” I agreed. Some beekeepers would start out without problems, but then developed allergic reactions to stings over time. Manny wasn’t one of them.

Police Chief Johnny Jay stood by himself, still talking on his cell phone, but he had one eye on me and it was clear he didn’t like what he saw.

Johnny Jay didn’t fit any of the physical or mental stereotypes associated with small-town cops. He wasn’t overweight and didn’t eat donuts. He didn’t wear mirrored sunglasses or talk around a toothpick. Johnny looked like a choirboy or a boy scout—clean-cut, good teeth, and even though he was approaching thirty-four, he looked much younger. He was smart, calculating, and serious about his position. This wasn’t your typical Mayberry cop.

But Johnny had enough buffed-up muscle to let you know that he had a major vain streak, and when he opened his mouth and you heard the garbage come out, you knew something was seriously wrong with the boy. That is, if you were listening hard.

Way back when, if I had known that the biggest bully in school would grow up to be the chief lawman in the same town I lived in, I wouldn’t have gone up against him so many times. Okay, maybe that’s not true. I would have anyway. Johnny Jay didn’t fool me then, and he didn’t fool me now. He was still a bully, but he’d become sneakier at it.

“A man can only stand so many stings before the venom will poison him to death,” one of the uniformed county sheriff deputies said.

Which was true. Even someone like Manny, who wasn’t allergic, would die from too much toxin.

Hunter put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a nod of encouragement.

I felt isolated from my own species as I forced myself closer to Manny’s body, ending with my feet grounded not a foot away from him. I’m not afraid of honeybees, having spent all of this year and last discovering how gentle and industrious they are. Everyone else was a good distance behind me, ready to turn and run at the slightest sign of trouble from the bees.

“Let’s go put some ice on that bump, Mrs. Chapman,” a paramedic said to Grace, leading her toward the house. “You don’t need to watch this.”

I’d been trying to avoid looking at Manny’s exposed head and stomach, concentrating instead on the bees by the bucket. Now I forced a peek. His face was red and his lips were swollen. So was the lower, bare area around his stomach. That was almost more than I could stand. Nightmares were sure to haunt me that night and for a lot of nights afterward. I stayed focused on his chest area and the immediate problem of removing the bees.

A few yellow jackets had joined the foray, which was common. None of them attacked Manny or me. They just wanted the honey, like the others did.

“Are they eating him?” another of our fine law enforcement officials asked.

“Honey bees are herbivores,” I said. “They only eat plant products.”

I didn’t think it was necessary to inform them that yellow jackets were the ones