Hornets and Others

an...^' he consulted his notes ^'...uncle in Chicago, her best friend from college, and even your own mother.' He glanced sideways from his notebook at Kerlan. 'Your mother?'

'My mother and Ginny are very close. I could see her going there, yes. Ginny's own parents are dead.'

Grant nodded briefly, went back to his notes. 'You called all the local motels and hotels. . . that about the whole story?'

'Yes.'

Grant straightened his heavy frame, turning his notebook to a new page. 'Well, maybe not exactly, Mr. Kerlan. I'd like to fill in a few blanks, if you don't mind.'

'Anything you want.'

'All right, then. Let's see...^' Grant was running his eyes down a notebook page, flipped back to the previous page and did the same. His eyes, which were bright blue in a rough, stubbled face, making them startling, pinned Peter suddenly.

'Let's start with you being asleep on the couch on Sunday. You were taking a nap?' Again the emphasis on a word, this time 'nap,' which made Grant sound incredulous.

'I'd had a few drinks, and was sleeping that off.'

'Ah.' This seemed to satisfy Grant and he went on searching his notes. Kerlan had the feeling that the detective already had laser sharp questions in a neat list in his head, and was only scanning the notebook for effect.

'You had two fights with your wife that day?'

'One at breakfast time and then another that night.'

'You fought a lot?'

'Recently, yes.'

'Marital. . . trouble?' Grant let this hang in the air, waving his pencil in a little circle to make the question more than it was.

'I've been having trouble with my work. It carried over.'

'Any other obvious difficulties? Money? Sex life? You having an affair, maybe?'

Kerlan blinked, surprised at the question. 'No. Nothing like that.'

'Nothing like that.' Grant nodded to himself, making a note on his current page. 'You drink a lot, Mr. Kerlan?'

Again, he was taken aback. 'No. Occasionally I have a few.'

'Have a few. . . You ever hit your wife? Slap her around?'

Now Peter became angry. 'No.'

Grand nodded, made a note.

'You can't think of anywhere else she might have gone, anyone else she might have gone to see?'

The detective eyed the pile of goods stacked in the hallway for perhaps the twentieth time. 'Any idea why she left her stuff behind, Mr. Kerlan?'

'That's the part I don't get.'

'Me too. If you were running away, would you leave all your things behind after spending the time and trouble to stack it all up in the hallway by the front door?'

'No, I wouldn't.'

Suddenly the detective straightened again, turning it into a stretch. He flipped the notebook closed and pocketed his pen in the side pocket of his jacket. His tie was loosened, Peter noticed.

Without warning, Grant smiled, making Peter blink.

'Thanks, Mr. Kerlan. I've got everything I need for now. We'll check over everything you did, and widen the motel and hotel search a little into the next county. It's kind of early yet to be too worried. I'll be in touch.' He suddenly winked, and held out his hand. 'If she shows up give me a call, will you?'

Peter went to shake the hand but then saw that there was a business card in it, which he took automatically.

'I will, detective.'

'Do that.' Grant turned on his heels and was out the front door and into his sedan almost before Peter could answer. Peter saw him light a cigarette as he climbed into the car.

He watched the detective pull out of the driveway over a mat of yet-raked leaves. In the last two days the trees had denuded themselves completely, leaving a riot of reds and yellows on his lawn. Peter idly noticed that the Meyers' had cleared and bagged their own front yard, the neatly clipped grass of which showed yellow green. Their three pumpkins had settled into a neat row—smallest at the top, fattest of the three at the bottom. In their picture window were Halloween cut-outs: a jointed white skeleton with a toothy grin, a black-clad witch riding a broomstick angled up toward a sickle reddish moon.

Halloween was only five days away.

And it was still too damned hot.

He turned away from the front door, confronted by the mute pile of Ginny's belongings.

For a moment, tears welled up in his eyes.

Ginny, where are you?

I thought we had fixed it? I thought we were okay?

The boxes, the suitcases, the bags of clothing, remained mute.

He first felt not a sting, but the vague, insistent, faint, tiny itch of an insect on his leg.

He swiveled in his armchair, bending his left leg and at the same time brushing at the itch; something small, dark and solid dropped from his leg and melded with the carpet beside his desk. It wriggled there for a moment, righting itself in a tiny lifting of small wings, and he bent to examine it, suppressing a sudden shudder.

It was a hornet, not much past pupae stage, its tiger stripes muted into almost orange and black.

He remembered the story in the newspaper; the children stung by a legion of hornets from a nest they had disturbed—

'How in hell—' he said, lifting his carpeted slipper almost without thinking to grind the insect into the carpet before it could advance or, possibly, take flight.

Supressing another shudder, he drew his foot away, dragging it across the carpet to rid the slipper's bottom of the creature's remains. A diminishing line of bug guts, looking dry and powdery and papery, trailed the low cut gray rug till they came to a point and disappeared.

Have to clean that later, he thought, turning back to his work.

The basement office's single screened window was open above his desk, and for a moment he idly heard a buzz and looked up.

There, outside, was a fat bumblebee, just bumping the screen before lumbering airily off.

Before turning back to his work he let his eyes roam over the screen, looking for torn corners or holes; there were none.

Didn't get in that way.

He turned back to his work, which was still going well; after sending the Halloween story to Parade magazine on Monday he'd discovered he had more to say on the subject of Samhain—or, as he called his own cute little version, Sam.

Almost immediately the phone rang, and he clutched his pencil, almost throwing it down angrily, before dropping it on the desk and, with a sigh, picking up the receiver.

'Yes?'

It was Revell on the other end of the line, asking after him.

'I'd be doing a lot better,' Peter said, trying to keep the testiness out of his voice, 'if I didn't have people like you bothering me.'

Revell said with false concern, 'I'm just worried about you, Pete.'

Are you?

'Thanks for the concern.'

'You heard anything more from the police?'

'No. They don't have anything new.'