I said, “I’m wondering if that person in Laura’s house the day I set off the alarm…” I was thinking. “Was, maybe, looking for that evidence?” I stopped. “In the living room—” I began, remembering something. “Vonette —”
“She was in there?”
“No. She had a flask. At the reception. She added something to her drink.”
“You’re thinking she may have fixed Fritz’s drink, too? Remember any pellets, Goldy, or just a flask?”
I said, “Pomeroy Locraft says Fritz was cheating on Vonette. If she knew he was up to his old tricks, maybe she’d take some kind of corrective steps.”
“Hmm.”
“Pomeroy saw the flask, too. Maybe she spilled her guts to him the way she did with us.” I chewed my nails for a second. “I’m going out there tomorrow—I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“I wish you’d quit saying dig up to a homicide investigator,” said Schulz. Then, “You still going out with me on Halloween?”
“Saturday night? Oh yes.” How was I going to hide the food for the athletic club party from him? I didn’t want to have to explain illegal catering. “I was wondering if you could pick Arch up and I’ll meet you there. I have a late cleaning job,” I fibbed. “But what made you think of Halloween?”
“I’ve seen the way you go goo-goo eyed over this Pomeroy fella. I want you to remember our date. Just in case he flirts with you when you go out there investigating.”
“Aha,” I said, pleased. “The jealous sort.”
“Maybe so,” he replied evenly. “But look at it this way. It’s better to be with a great investigator than an incompetent driving instructor.”
The road to the Wildlife Preserve was actually a wide, bumpy, mud-and-rock affair that was not officially open to the public between mid-September and the beginning of June. The altitude was about a thousand feet above town, and it snowed in greater abundance there, both early and late. I already knew how to lift and pull the swing gate to enter in the off season, since it had only been last April that Arch had done his beekeeping project with Pomeroy.
Before leaving I had written a note for Patty Sue:
Gone to see Driver Educator. Back late. Please give Arch nonchocolate supper.
And one for Arch:
Am out at Pom’s getting honey. If P.S. not back by supper, have tuna casserole in refrig. Lich costume needs cotton batting. Please ride bike to Aspen Meadow Drug and charge some. I need to make costume tonight because tomorrow I have to cook for party.
Love, Mom
Arch, Arch. I swerved to avoid a pothole full of snow melt and remembered how it had been even muddier in April when he had jumped up and down in enthusiasm each time I’d picked him up after working with Pom. That effervescence, that love for his teachers and for learning, was all gone now.
“The bees are so neat, Mom,” he had said. “They swarm once a year, and they usually come back to the same place. They come back to Pom’s because of all the great wildflowers out in the Preserve. And they know where all the flowers are! You see there’s this, like, navigator bee who goes out and finds bushes and stuff and comes back and tells the other bees how to get there. It’s very complicated. Bees are smart.”
“Bees? Smart?”
“Oh yes,” he said enthusiastically, “they are very intelligent. Pom and I wear white because the bees like it. They’re afraid of black because that reminds them of bears. It’s way back in their memory. Sort of like how you hate snakes, and in the Bible somebody says women don’t like snakes? Bees know that bears steal their honey so they all learned to hate the color black and to attack big black animals on two feet. So we have to wear white.”
“I thought honeybees didn’t sting.”
“Of course they sting,” he protested. “Why do you think we have to wear those nets over our faces? Actually, what makes them sting is if they get scared. You know, somebody invades the hive or something. That’s why you’ve got to smoke them out before you go in for the honey. You see,” he concluded in his patronizing tone, “there’s really a lot to learn if you want to become a bee-keeper. You’d better not try it, Mom.”
I rolled down the window to look for elk or deer trying to get into the Preserve before hunting season began. The day was warm, but a cool breeze buffeted the stands of pine that bordered the road. From a distance I could see the stone chimney of Pom’s cabin. Although I knew his honey shed was large enough to also serve as a garage, he had left six vehicles in varying states of abandonment parked every which way on the surrounding property. Growing up in New Jersey, I had noticed that the natives accumulated hydrangeas. Coloradans, on the other hand, collected cars. And parked them in their garages and yards so they could use the nearly new four-wheel drive to get out in the snow, the old pickup to haul stuff, the old Scout with the plow to do the driveway, the station wagon to take everybody skiing, and the gutted VW and Chevy because they had such great parts.
“Glad you could make it,” Pomeroy said and gave that heart-melting half smile before stepping aside for me to enter.
I said, “I kind of miss coming out here. Arch loved doing work with you.”
“And I liked working with him. He’s a great kid. You’re lucky.”
I sighed in spite of myself. “Being a parent is not all roses, Pom. It’s almost as hard as being married.”
He blushed an absolutely purple hue. Then I thought again of what Marla had said. Was he that hung up on his ex? Even Marla and I weren’t that bad about John Richard. Whatever the reason, I already felt I’d blown it.
He said, “Why don’t you sit down and have some herb tea? Got some great honey for it.”
I looked around the one-room house. It had probably been a hunter’s cabin before the area was declared a preserve. In front of the picture window were two telescopes. These I assumed could be trained on the beehives, which I knew to be upwind of the cabin, at a small distance in the meadow.
“Watching the birds and the bees?” I said while he was filling the teapot. I peered into one of the scopes.
“No.”
“Watching wildlife?”
He didn’t say anything. Maybe he still felt guilty about the driving lesson. In any event, his mind was elsewhere.
“I got a car,” I said. “Vonette’s loaning me one.”
“Great.”
More silence.
I said, “Are you coming to the club’s Halloween party?”
A nod.
I said, “Don’t tell anybody, I’m making the food.” He snorted. “Cleaning the place, too. Hey!” I had moved the scope to focus on the area just below the hives. “You have a garden.”
“Yeah,” he said, “in springtime. Want your honey now?”
I took three large jars from him and gave him a check. Then I looked around the room for something else to talk about.
“Has it snowed up here yet?” I said brightly. “Do you see more or less wildlife when there’s snow on the ground?”
Pomeroy reached for two mugs, placed a teabag in the pot, and cocked his head at me.
“You want to see wildlife, Goldy? Look through the other telescope. This is Wednesday, lunchtime, warm weather. Should be right on schedule. This is what I wanted you to see.”
I gave him a sideways glance and stepped over to the other scope. Without moving it I looked in. Far out in the meadow there was movement. My skin went cold.
It was people. One on top of the other. One was Patty Sue. With Fritz Korman.
Nobody had to tell them about the birds and the bees.
CHAPTER 21
I don’t believe this.”
No response from Pomeroy.
