Chapter 8
If you enjoy listening to songbirds, it might interest you to know that the male is generally the singer, since he uses song to attract a mate and defend his territory.
—Henny Penny Farmette Almanac
Abby steered her Jeep away from the lodge toward Main Street. She had left Philippe a note telling him they would meet at noon. She couldn’t remember when she had felt so exhausted, and only hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel while driving back to the farmette. Even her eyeballs hurt. According to her watch, it was 4:45 a.m., nearly the hour of early morning when Jean-Louis died. Although she was tired, Abby’s instincts told her to drive by the back of the pastry shop, see what it looked like at this early hour, determine how well it could be seen in the glow of streetlamps and neighborhood porch lights, and see who might be roaming about.
Pulling the Jeep into a parking space under a dense magnolia tree shading the back side of Lemon Lane, Abby parked, flipped off the headlights, and fought the urge to nod off. She stared at the pastry shop. Nothing obstructed her view of its back door, the theater exit, the Black Witch Bar’s rear entry, and the Dumpster. Since she’d parked in the shadow of the tree, the pale predawn light made it possible for her to see without being seen. The starlight was growing fainter, and only a sliver of moon hung in the sky. The streetlight behind the pastry shop had burned out. The lane was quiet except for crickets chirping and frogs croaking along the creek that ran through the town a few streets away. Overhead, the mockingbirds had awakened and intermittently warbled off a medley of songs: the tweets, trills, dzeets, cheeps, and peet-a-weets of other birds and their own familiar worky-worky-worky.
Suddenly, a car approached. Abby’s senses went on high alert as the small four-door sedan drove past. The car slowed. Stopped. A man wearing a dark knit cap climbed out. When Abby saw he wore a work apron for collecting coins and carried a bundle, she relaxed. Newspaper carrier. Delivering newspapers. What time is it? Almost five o’clock.
Abby watched him drop the bundle and hustle back to his car. Disregarding the marked lanes, the man drove right down the middle of Lemon Lane, tossing papers to the left and the right, over the top of his car when necessary, onto porches and sidewalks. At the end of the lane he didn’t even stop at the stop sign, but turned the corner and disappeared.
So, no one has canceled the pastry shop’s newspaper subscription. Suppose Philippe will have to do it. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, Abby rested her head against the seat and closed her eyes while her thoughts rambled on. Had a newspaper bundle been delivered on the day Jean-Louis died? Where was that bundle now? Had a newspaper hitting the sidewalk made the scudding sound a neighbor claimed to have heard the morning Jean-Louis died?
With monumental effort, Abby forced her eyes open. She yawned, straightened her posture, and scanned the lane for other signs of life. After a few minutes, a porch light went on. An elderly, balding man in a bathrobe moseyed out with his cat to retrieve his morning paper. After removing the rubber bands and slipping them into his bathrobe pocket, the man shuffled back to the door, then stopped momentarily to look for the cat, which had disappeared. The lane became quiet. Even the cat was gone. So the newspaper bundles are tied with twine, but the subscribers’ papers are banded.
Her watch ticked away another few minutes. Listening to the mockingbirds, she fought against the urge to sleep. Then something at the end of the lane moved. Abby peered toward the darkness at the end of Lemon Lane. A figure emerged, pushing a shopping cart bulging with bags, and trudged toward the Dumpster. Dora. No mistaking you, even in the dark. But this is your routine, isn’t it? Waking up and coming to the pastry shop for coffee? What did you see when you came around that morning? What did you do? What did you take?
Dora shuffled right on down toward the Jeep, then finally stopped at the Dumpster. She hesitated, looked at the back door of the pastry shop, up and down the lane, and then at the Dumpster. She leaned over it, reached in as far as her arm would go. For the next few minutes, Dora riffled through the contents. Abruptly, she stopped, stone still. She peered into the dark shadows, looking straight toward the tree under which Abby was parked. Abby froze.
After a beat, Dora shuffled away from the Dumpster and approached the back door of the pastry shop. She picked up the newspaper bundle, dropped it onto her bags, and left the way she had come. Now, why would you want a whole bundle of papers? Are you sharing them? Sleeping on them? Using them for blankets?
I am so going to find out. Abby pulled latex gloves from the box in her glove compartment and put them on. She also grabbed a flashlight. She slid out of the Jeep and walked over to check out the blue Dumpster. Abby used one hand to push aside bags of plastic. Deeper down, she dug through loose flyers, mailers, torn theater tickets, real estate circulars, used drink cups, plastic bottles, and soda cans, and at the bottom, she found newspapers. Plucking them out, she counted fifteen.
With her flashlight, she was able to check the dates and was not surprised when she discovered they all carried the date on which the chef died. So Dora had not taken the papers that day. Why? Newspaper bundles are always cross-tied and knotted with twine. Where’s the twine? That question stuck with Abby as she drove home with the car windows down to help her stay awake. The acrid scent of smoke drifting south on the wind from three wildfires burning in the wine country made falling asleep at the wheel unlikely. Good for her, bad for the guys working the fire line. Once back at the farmette, however, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
It might have been the restorative sleep, the long shower, or the raspberry tea sweetened with honey that filled her with energy. Or maybe it was just the challenge of a new case, but whatever it was, Abby felt energetic and eager to begin working on the investigation again. It was a good thing, too, because it was nearly time to meet Philippe. While making her tea, she’d caught the weather report—hot and expected to get hotter. The rains were over. Watering by hand was a drag, but it was a necessary task to keep the gardens going during the hot Las Flores summers.
A fierce onshore wind blowing from the northeast had gusted for hours, ripping off all but the most tenacious blossoms from the elm tree that stood at the back side of Abby’s beehives. The sun had not yet reached its zenith, and already the thermometer on the chicken house wall registered eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. High winds, high temps, and dry conditions would increase the demand for firefighters from outside the region because of recent cutbacks in funding for emergency police and fire services at the local level.
With Sugar inside the cool farmhouse, Abby sat down in the rocking chair on her patio. With one jeans-clad leg sprawled over a chair arm, Abby sipped her tea, thinking about the afternoon agenda with Philippe. Normally, she wouldn’t allow a client to tag along, but he had been so insistent and had promised he would not interfere with her questioning. So, she’d relented.
As she rocked and sipped her tea, she heard an unmistakable high-pitched whine. Bees! The rallying call of takeoff. Another swarm! Abby stood and looked high up over the chicken house. A cloud of circling bees ascended into the elm tree, while a few zipped about in ever-widening circles, as if waiting for the scouts to give them the landing location. You never choose a convenient time for me, do you? She put down her teacup, dashed into the kitchen, grabbed a stainless-steel pan and a wooden spoon, and laid them on the plywood counter. After taking her cell phone from her jeans’ hip pocket, she tapped in Philippe’s number.
“It’s Abby,” she said breathlessly.
“Abby. Are you in the parking lot? I am ready.”
“Sorry, Philippe, but my bees are about to take off. I’ve got to stay here until they land.”
“It is all right. Shall I drive to your place? Farm Hill Road, n’est-ce pas?”
“If you are sure you don’t mind.” Abby grabbed the pan and spoon and dashed outside, closing the slider behind her. The last thing she needed was to have that dog, as curious as she was, underfoot and getting stung. With a little luck and a lot of noise, the bees might become disoriented and take refuge nearby.
Balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder as she made her way to the elm tree, Abby said, “Philippe, you were only here once. Do you remember where I live?”
“Oui, but not exactly.”
“Last house, Farm Hill Road. Right side. If you hit the T, you’ve gone too far. Just look for the chicken on the mailbox.”
“Oh, mon Dieu. What if it flies off before I arrive?”
“It’s not a real chicken, Philippe.”
He laughed. “Très bon. Nevertheless, for me . . . the chicken . . . it belongs on a plate, not on the box.”
Amused, Abby replied, “Now you’re teasing me. Seriously, do you think you can find your way here?”
“Do not worry, Abby. My phone, it has the navigation.”
Abby watched the bees begin to drift from the tree. She clanged the spoon against the pan bottom. “Great. I won’t worry, then.” The bees lifted higher, as though suddenly caught in a whirlwind. Abby pounded the pan with such vigor, her arm ached.
“What is that racket, Abby?”
“I’m trying to disorient my bees so they won’t take off.”
“Is it working?”
“I can’t tell yet. Might take a while.”
“In that case, Abby, I will find you. I will look for the chicken and listen for the banging. A bientôt.”
Abby clicked off the call, dropped her phone into her shirt pocket, and banged the spoon slowly against the pan until the bees coalesced, wrapping themselves in a writhing mass around a limb. Please, just stay put.
After racing back to the kitchen, Abby dropped the pan and spoon on the counter. She checked on Sugar, who was chewing on a rawhide bone that, apparently, she had just rediscovered in a hiding place behind the couch. Just as well you stay put inside, where it’s cool. We’ll go for a walk later. Abby darted back to the patio. From an oversize basket, she snatched her elbow-length kidskin leather gloves and her white beekeeper suit. Searching the backyard, she spotted the ladder lying on its side near the apricot tree from which she’d rescued the last swarm.
With the ladder in hand and her suit and gloves under an arm, Abby lumbered toward the elm. She positioned the ladder as close as possible to the bees’ branch. Then she darted into the hive area, where she located the bee box that she’d prepared for the swarming season. In it, she’d placed one frame with a little honey and nine others without. Once the bees were inside that hive, they would have plenty of work to keep them busy, as they would build comb onto those empty frames. She wouldn’t have to worry about them taking off again.
Abby suited up, then picked up the bee box, walked back to the elm, and mounted the ladder. Stopping short of the top three rungs, she aligned the bee box directly under the swarm, wedging it between the ladder and her body.
You guys ready? Count of three. One . . . two . . . three. Abby gave the limb a muscular jerk. Thousands of dislodged bees vibrating en masse tumbled onto her and into the open box. What a rush! Their collective piping sound seemed to Abby like a wild cry of disorientation, but she was confident it soon would return to the happy buzzing of worker bees building a wax honeycomb onto the frames. The honeycomb would hold the colony inside, while sealing out intruders.
Carefully, Abby descended the ladder with the bee box, then positioned it on the ground so that its front opening faced the limb. That way, the bees still flying around the limb, where they apparently still detected the queen bee’s pheromones that had communicated the order to swarm, could find their way into their new home.
When, by her estimate, twenty minutes had passed, Abby approached the bee-filled hive and knelt to inspect it. Scout bees were doing the waggle dance around the edges, as if to say, “Calling all bees in our swarm. This is our new home.” Abby picked up the hive lid and, after tilting it against the side of the box, painstakingly slid it across the top to avoid crushing any insects. She would leave the hive until after dark before moving it into the bee apiary.
There was no mistaking the sound of a vehicle crunching over the driveway gravel. A horn sounded. Philippe. Abby hiked the trouser legs of her beekeeper suit to her ankles to avoid stumbling and dashed to open the gate. She stared in astonishment.
Lucas Crawford eased out of the cab of his old red pickup and strolled toward Abby. He wore a blue- and white-striped cotton shirt, straight-leg denim jeans, and scuffed leather boots.
“Afternoon, Abby.”
“Lucas.”
“Am I interrupting your work?” He pushed the stained palm-leaf straw cowboy hat back a thumb’s length.
“Not at all.” Abby tried to sound cool, in spite of the fact that she felt like she was going to have sunstroke inside the beekeeper’s suit, and the fact that the butterflies in her stomach were making her feel even more uncomfortable at his unexpected visit. “I was just about to peel off this suit. It’s an oven in here.”
Lucas looked at everything but her.
Abby pinched the fingers of her kidskin gloves and pulled off one and then the other as she waited for him to say something. Reaching behind her neck, she felt for the zipper that secured the net-covered topee. With a tug, the zipper advanced and then stopped, meeting resistance.
“Well, this is embarrassing.” Abby struggled to move the zipper. “I think it’s caught. Oh, dang. I’m trapped in here. Lucas, could you . . . ?”
“Sure,” he drawled.
She turned her back and used her finger to point to the problem. Lucas put his hands against her neck. She felt him tugging, pulling on the net, causing her topee to shift sideways on her head.
“If I pull too hard, it might make a hole a bee could get through, but if I don’t, I might not be able to free this net from the zipper track.”
“That’s okay, Lucas. I can fix the hole.”
As his fingers patiently worked the zipper, Abby thought about how any other man might have just yanked the zipper, using brute force in a knee-jerk reaction to her being trapped. She liked the way Lucas weighed the outcome and took his time. Slow hand, gentle touch. Patience. Such lovely qualities in a man.
Lucas finally slid the zipper around past her chin and guided her back around to face him before lifting the hat off her head. “Fixed. No damage.”
“And I can breathe again.” Abby shook loose her hair and ran her fingers through the reddish-gold mass to smooth it. “Much better.” Heaving a sigh of relief, she looked up. Her eyes met his gaze. “Thank you, Lucas.” She unzipped the suit, let it fall to the ground, and stepped out of it.
He nodded.
“What brings you here?” Abby asked, pulling the hem of her blouse outward from her damp skin, to which it was stuck, and flapping it a bit to circulate some air.
Lucas stood tall and unassuming. His wide shoulders, long legs, and calloused hands gave him the appearance of being all rancher, but his eyes—light brown, the color of sunlit creek water—were the eyes of a poet. He now gazed at her. Abby hoped her own eyes weren’t revealing the intense feelings that his presence called forth in her . . . feelings Abby couldn’t understand. It was as if she and Lucas shared some ancient connection that defied any kind of logical explanation.
“Passing by. Thought I’d stop.”
“Oh?” Abby liked his voice—deep, resonant, and gentle, like a country singer’s.
“You got chickens.” His tone was matter of fact.
Abby arched a brow. “Yeah . . . and?”
“I know that from how much feed and corncob bedding you buy for them.”
Cocking her head askance and giving him a “So what’s up with that?” look, she asked, “Really?”
“Well, not that I . . . Well . . . I checked to see if you might need me to deliver. . . .” He cleared his throat. “I just thought you might . . .”
Abby smiled sweetly, hoping it would ease his awkwardness.
Lucas changed the subject. “I brought you egg cartons and jars for your honey.” He jerked a thumb toward his truck. “I’ll get them.”
Abby folded her bee suit and waited. Lucas Crawford dropping by, bearing gifts . . . and driving his little ole red pickup again . . . Now, what’s that all about?
Lucas strolled back and set a cardboard box on the ground at her feet. Abby counted six egg cartons and three jars with metal lids.
“Nice. I’ll put them to good use.”
“You need anything from my store? I’m headed that way. I could drop it on my way home tonight.”
“Can’t think of a thing, Lucas.” She grinned. “And you already know I’ve got plenty of chicken feed.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged and flashed a quick, disarming smile. An awkward moment passed. A sudden seriousness dampened his expression.
“Is there something else, Lucas?”
He lifted his hat and brushed back a shock of curly brown hair before pulling the hat forward again in a single smooth sweep. His jaw tensed. “Heard you’re looking into the death of the pastry shop baker.”
“Uh-huh.” Abby wondered why it mattered. “Who told you?”
“Dispatcher. I called the cops this morning, after I rode the ridge, checking on the fencing in the woods up there. Stumbled upon a marijuana grow plot.”
“On your land?”
“Yep. Dialed the cops. Took a while, but we took down the field.”
“Any idea who owned the plants?”
“Not a clue. Wondering if maybe you heard something, you being an investigator and all.”
“I’m only doing investigation part-time. My work here on the farmette keeps me pretty busy and to myself.”
“Those grass growers are not going to be happy when they find out their plants are gone.” His brow furrowed. “People like that don’t take kindly to losing their cash crop.”
Abby couldn’t suppress another question. “Who owns the property adjacent to that fence line of yours?”
“Businessman named Dobbs . . . Willie Dobbs.”
“Have you called Dobbs to tell him what you found?”
“No.” Lucas’s angular jaw tensed. “Not too fond of that guy. I’ve been fighting him over a housing development he wants to build next to my ranch—luxury homes. If he prevails, I won’t have a moment of peace, and neither will my cows. Might have to sell, and I don’t want to do that.”
Abby nodded her head in understanding.
His eyes narrowed. “I like it the way it is. Quiet. Smells like wild thyme and chaparral thickets. Stands of old oaks and buckeye trees. Plenty of pastureland for cattle grazing. Nothing bothers, except for coyotes occasionally making a ruckus. It’s pretty peaceful. Know what I mean?”
She smiled.
Letting go a heavy sigh, Lucas said, “Dobbs doesn’t care about our farms and ranches. I’ve heard he’s trying to buy the votes of council members to win against me. I wouldn’t put it past him getting an ex-con or somebody to plant that grass on my property. Cops haul me to jail . . . well, then, I’m out of the way for a while.”
Abby sighed. “Hard to believe. It used to be idyllic here. No crime to speak of in Las Flores, and now a murder and someone starting a marijuana operation on your property . . . like I said, hard to believe.”
Lucas looked straight at her, his light eyes softening, almost conveying tenderness. “It got me thinking . . . you living alone and all.” He thrust his hands into his pockets and studied his boots, as if he felt vulnerable about sharing his thoughts. An awkward beat passed. “Just do me a favor, Abby. Lock your doors.”
“Sure thing, Lucas. And I know you’re just on the other side of that there hill.” She pointed east.
The corners of his mouth crinkled in amusement.
Abby sensed a longing in Lucas. Like a thistle floating in the air, it was almost imperceptible, but she could see—for a moment, anyway—a tender vulnerability in his eyes.
“Thank you for your concern, Lucas. Means a lot.”
He nodded, touched the brim of his hat, and strolled back to his pickup. After sliding onto the seat and slamming the door shut, he leaned an elbow over the window and called out, “Stay alert, Abby. You know as well as I do that bad people can hide in plain sight, and you don’t need a reason to call me.”
Nodding, Abby waved as Lucas drove off down her driveway. Lucas did not wave back, but his words “You don’t need a reason to call me” vibrated through her being. Quiet, serious Lucas, with that deep, resonant voice and unassuming manner, had suddenly and unexpectedly set her heart aflutter.
She stood there, her mind on the man in the truck. Suddenly, Lucas pulled back into view, giving Abby a start. He was backing up his truck to accommodate a car barreling down the drive. It was Philippe, who’d steered his rental car off the blacktop road and onto Abby’s driveway, right in Lucas’s path. It was either the pickup or the mailbox—unless Philippe yielded the right of way. Which he didn’t. So Lucas had to back up.
Abby watched as the Frenchman and the cowboy faced off, and smiled as the two men inched their vehicles past each other in an automotive stare down. Her mailbox was safe—at least for now.
Honey Body Wash
Ingredients:
1 cup oil (sweet almond, sesame, grapeseed, or light olive oil)
½ cup honey
½ cup liquid castile soap
10 to 20 drops scented essential oil (lavender, rose-geranium, sandalwood, ylang-ylang, or your favorite oil)
Directions:
Pour the oil in a medium-size mixing bowl. Add the honey, soap, and scented oil and gently mix with a spoon to blend.
Pour the body wash into a clean jar with a lid or a pretty bottle with a stopper.
Makes enough luxurious scented body wash for four to five baths