Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,92

a single soul.”

“If you do, I’ll have to shoot you,” Stanley said straight-faced. Then he laughed. “Just kidding. But you are the snoopiest woman I’ve ever known. You must get that from your mother.”

“Please don’t tell me I’m just like her,” I begged.

“You aren’t. Not a bit. Except for the nosy part.”

“Do you mind answering one more question?”

Stanley sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

“Did you borrow Manny’s bee blower?”

“No, why, is it missing?”

“Not really.”

“Story, you sure are acting strange these days.”

“I know.” I sighed.

With that, Stanley bought a newspaper and a pound of Wisconsin coffee and walked off down Main Street, whistling like he didn’t have a care in the world, which he probably didn’t.

“He’s in a good mood,” Carrie Ann said. “That’s what happens when you’re getting lucky.”

“What makes you think that about Stanley?”

“I can always tell,” Carrie Ann said, proud of her gift.

Ray Goodwin came by without his delivery truck, which was a first. I really hoped he wasn’t about to try another tactic to get me to go out with him.

“My day off,” he said when I asked about the truck. “And not a thing to do tonight.”

Oh, jeez. “I’m sure something will come up. Otherwise, hang at Stu’s like the rest of us.”

One place I was sure to avoid with Hunter tonight was Stu’s. The last thing I wanted was to hurt Ray’s feelings by showing up with another man.

“Did you get the honey from Manny’s honey house?” I asked Ray, changing the subject fast.

“Sure did.”

“Grace didn’t give you any trouble?”

“She wasn’t home when I stopped by and loaded up. I’ll call her today and let her know, so she doesn’t think somebody stole it. Not that she goes out there anyway. She’d never notice.”

Just then I saw DeeDee Becker walk past the market. I came up with an idea right on the spot, ran out, and called her name, waving her back.

“What?” she said, shielding her eyes from the sun, which had finally decided to appear through the clouds.

“I’d like to cut a deal with you.”

She looked exactly like her sister when she gave me her doubtful look. Except Lori didn’t have pierced nostrils and eyebrows. “What for what? Exactly,” she said in a demanding voice. Again, just like her sister.

“I’ll lift your ban on the store,” I offered. “All you have to do is tell me if someone really is interested in the Chapman place and if it’s true, who that person is.”

I noticed Ben, watching me intensely from inside the door, his ears pointed straight at the ceiling.

“Getting to go back into your establishment isn’t such a big deal,” DeeDee said. “I’m shopping at other places now. Cheaper ones.”

Great. Just great. I didn’t have anything else to bargain with. “Could you tell me for free?” It was worth a try. The worst she could say would be no.

“No,” DeeDee said, shaking her head for emphasis. “I’d be taking a chance on getting fired. That’s worth something.”

“Lori isn’t going to fire you.”

My fountain of information turned to walk away, acting like she didn’t care one way or another if I didn’t get what I wanted. Without an offer on the table, I’d lose my chance.

“Wait,” I called, “I’ll throw in a twenty percent discount on everything in the store for one month.”

My offer to allow a known thief entry to my store, and even throwing in a discount on top of it, might seem overly desperate to a casual observer. But knowing DeeDee, she wouldn’t use the discount anyway, since she usually paid zero dollars for what she wanted. Holly would have her in another hold on the floor in less than a week. And this time, I’d let Johnny Jay do it his way and book her.

Ray came out of the store, gave a little wave, and drove off in a black Chevy with a crumpled back bumper and an obvious problem with the car’s muffler.

“So what do you say?” I asked DeeDee.

She thought it over.

“Make it twenty-five percent and two months and we have a deal,” the little shoplifter had the nerve to say.

“Done.”

“You want to know who’s putting in the offer?”

“So it’s true?”

DeeDee nodded. “And you won’t tell anybody who your source is, since it’s what some might say is unprofessional?”

I nodded again.

Then she told me. Part of me almost expected DeeDee to say it was Gerald Smith, the phantom who took Manny’s bees.

She didn’t say Gerald Smith.

But I knew the name that slid off her studded tongue.

“Kenny Langley,” she said.