Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,83

helped me introduce my bees to the hives.”

“I saw him. That’s all I know.”

“When?”

“About five or six days before those bees stung him to death. I was having my raccoon problem then. I probably told you how they destroyed my house and how much money they cost. I’d just set the trap, and gone back inside.”

“Five or six days before he died,” I repeated. That fit what Stu had said about Manny asking to borrow the canoe. It also gave the false rumor about us plenty of time to have reached Grace before her Thursday visit to Clay. “What exactly did you see? Tell me.”

“It was almost dark. Good thing I was at the window at that same moment or I would have missed it completely. I saw Manny paddle up to your backyard, pull the canoe to shore, and walk toward your house, staying in the shadows. I couldn’t see much after that, but believe you me, I tried.”

“You could be mistaken, if it was that dark.”

“You have that light out by the river. I saw him clear as day until he walked out of its beam of light. It was Manny Chapman and he was definitely sneaking around.”

“Was I home?”

“You sure were and you know it. I saw you through your window, then you moved into a different room where my view was obstructed.”

“You saw him go to my door?”

“I didn’t have to. I’m not dumb, you know. And I don’t lie.”

Now that Patti mentioned the whole lying thing, I realized that I hadn’t really ever caught her in any outright lies. Mostly she just stretched the truth until it transformed into a completely different shape than it’d started out.

“I can’t believe this,” I said.

“I’ve got to go.” With that, she hung up.

Even P. P. Patti didn’t want to be my friend anymore.

But I had bigger problems to solve, because Patti might actually have had some basis for thinking that Manny and I were carrying on behind Grace’s back. Flimsy, though, if what she said was based on real observations versus creative fiction. But Stu had pretty much corroborated it, saying that Manny had taken off in his canoe around the same time, heading downstream. That would have taken him right past my house.

So why didn’t I know anything about it? Why would Manny come over without ever announcing himself?

This was too weird.

“How’s the head?” Holly asked, coming into the back room. She pulled the ice pack away and fingered my head knot.

“Ouch,” I said. “Don’t touch.”

“She really clocked you.”

“You should have restrained Patti, not me. She was the menace.”

“You looked more likely to do major damage. Now tell me the story.”

My younger sister clucked over me like a mother hen while taking in the facts as I laid them out.

When I finished, neither of us had a clue what was going on.

“Anybody minding the store?” Someone called from the front.

Holly said, “BBL (Be Back Later),” and bounced away to take care of customers, leaving me with my dark thoughts.

What a confusing mess! And it all came back to the same small circle—Manny, Grace, Clay, Faye, and me. One of us was in jail and two of us were dead.

And how did Stanley Peck fit in to the equation? An entire apiary was missing, and Stanley was studying up on bees with library books.

Then of course there was big-mouthed Patti and all the trouble she’d caused. Grace would never have thought anything bad about Manny and me if P. P. Patti hadn’t spread it around. Was she up to more than just destroying reputations?

If Grace didn’t kill her husband to be with Clay, might she have killed him because she thought he was having an affair with me?

That had possibilities, but how did that explain Faye’s murder? Nothing was adding up.

Process of elimination. That was the only way. I’d start with Stanley, since he was much more approachable than Grace or Patti were at the moment.

When Stanley came into the market in the early afternoon, I said to him, “I’d like to get started in chickens.” I knew that Stanley raised a few himself.

He looked surprised. “Don’t you have your hands full as it is?”

“I’m busy, but how much work could a few chickens take? I have that little shed out back where we had chickens when I was a kid. They can stay in there at night and scratch around the yard eating bugs and laying eggs for me during the day. Chickens are the latest craze