BUZZ KILL

BUZZ KILL

By

KATE THORNTON

Cover art by https://selfpubbookcovers.com/nicolebcreative

To

Inna Jane Ray

my sister-in-life and inspiration

and

Maggie-beth Rees,

Editor Extraordinaire and Defender of the Oxford Comma

And to the real Peter Martin

CHAPTER 1

The next time the flowers nod in the summer breezes and I see honeybees busily going about their business, I'll try not to think of corpses, betrayals, bludgeoning, and death.

I haven't always been obsessed with bees and death. Up until the previous spring, I had hardly given the subject any thought at all, busy as I was with my latest project. I had helped develop a software product for industrial use that sold to a major software producer, and now spent my time at home writing trade magazine articles. I discovered that I could eke out a small but comfortable existence as a writer with the software checks supplementing my sporadic writing income.

I was writing an article on shovels for Farm Implement Monthly when I received a note from my Uncle Horace in Loma Vista. My Uncle Horace used to be something of a bug expert, but was now retired from the university. He lived in an old grove house out on the edge of a housing tract development, and spent his time reading and keeping bees. He was sweet, sixtyish, and probably the last person on earth I expected to hear from. I hadn't kept in touch much after my divorce.

Dear Cookie, the note began, and I knew who it was from. No one called me Cookie except Uncle Horace. My real name is Antonia Jane Carey, and most people call me Toni, which is what I prefer. I don't remember how Uncle Horace turned it into Cookie. I would be pleased if you could come out to visit me on a matter of Great Importance. I have made a Discovery and need your advice. P.S. Don't tell your mother or your sisters. You know how they are. Love, Uncle Horace.

I liked the way Uncle Horace capitalized the important parts of his note. He talked the same way, too, with great emphasis on the really significant stuff. And as for telling my mother, well Uncle Horace need have no fear of that. Really, the last thing I needed in my almost-happy life was Mother's awful advice and noisy complaining. And as for my sisters, you can pick a Kentucky Derby winner or a 1957 Fender Stratocaster guitar, but you can't pick your relatives. Either gambling or guitar picking would be much more attractive than either of my sisters. The older one, Melodye, embodies an interesting combination of opinionated ignorance and simple greed. My other sister, Priscilla, is a ditsy housewife.

Uncle Horace needn't have been concerned that I would include that bunch in anything. He didn't have a telephone, so I wrote back to him and told him that I would be out in two weeks to visit. I wanted to give the postal service time enough to deliver the letter before I arrived on the doorstep, and I figured two weeks for forty-five miles was just about right.

When that Saturday rolled around, I dressed up in a clean pair of jeans and a real shirt instead of my habitual tee-shirt and picked up a box of Godivas. I knew Uncle Horace's fondness for sweets, but I couldn't remember if he had any teeth left, so I chose soft crèmes.

Uncle Horace's house sat on several acres of overgrown weeds in the northeast corner of Loma Vista, out between Ontario and San Bernardino. His drive was a dirt path that wound through a dozen or so ancient palm trees up to the front steps of a mansion. At least, it had always seemed like a mansion to me. It was really just an old single-story house with a wrap-around veranda and a couple of spooky gabled windows near the roofline. It looked run down that day, slightly dilapidated and very dusty, the windows opaque with dirt.

I parked my ratty old pick-up in front and called out. Hey, Uncle Horace! It's me, Cookie! I'm here! I grabbed the chocolates and braved the underbrush to get to the porch. The boards creaked and groaned as I walked up to the big door, and I noticed that the old wooden floor hadn't been swept for some time. Little piles of dead leaves had collected in the corners, and a small animal had made a nest under the decrepit wicker rocker.

I called out again, but I didn't get an answer. I wasn't worried, though, because Uncle Horace was a little hard of hearing, and could be anywhere in the house, or even outside at the beehives. I used my key and the door opened easily on well-oiled hinges. I stepped into the cool, dark air that smelled of dust, furniture polish, and WD40. There was another smell, too, one that I couldn't immediately place. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I walked over to the big windows and opened the heavy draperies to let in some light. It was unlike Uncle Horace to keep the place so dark.

The sun filtered in dimly. The windows were pretty dirty, and I wondered if Uncle Horace's cleaning service had quit on him.

When I turned around to look at the large sitting room in the light, I was startled by the disarray. Uncle Horace was a neat and methodical man, with a passion for cataloging and classifying left over from his entomology days. The room, however, looked as though it had been ransacked, and there was a large dark stain on the old Persian carpet. I felt the back of my neck prickle with dread.

Stop right there!

I didn't see the man with the gun until I whirled at the sound of his voice. I screamed and dropped the Godivas, watching the expensive chocolates roll to a halt at his feet. I put my hands up.

Okay, who are you? He was tall, close to six feet, with very black hair. His eyes were blue, not that watered-down blue, but a bright cornflower. He looked anywhere from thirty to forty-five, and the pistol aimed at me was a nine-millimeter Beretta. I knew this bit of information from an article I had written for Gun Quarterly. Also, since I lived in Los Angeles, I owned one myself.

Who are you? And where's Uncle Horace? I didn't care if he had a gun, even a fancy one. I glanced at the chocolates on the floor. Dammit! Those cost a fortune!

Oh, uh, sorry, he looked a little sheepish. So Horace Carey's your uncle? He put the gun away into a shoulder holster. Why don't you sit down here and tell me who you are. He gestured to the old red velvet sofa.

I stubbornly remained standing. Why don't you tell me who the hell you are? I didn't like the sound of his voice or the look of that gun.

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a little wallet. He flipped it open and I realized that I was looking at the badge of Peter Martin, detective with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

I sat, dreading the bad news. It had to be bad news. When's the last time a sheriff's detective gave you good news?

Detective Peter Martin sat down beside me and told me, as gently as he could, that Uncle Horace had been found by his cleaning service two days ago. He was in pretty bad shape and still in a coma at St. Luke's. It looked like a robbery.

Now, tell me, exactly who you are? He took out a little notebook and a stubby pencil.

I told him who I was, how Uncle Horace had sent me a note and how I had let him know when I'd be coming over. I pulled Uncle Horace's note out of my purse and showed it to him.

Why is it addressed to Cookie? he asked.

I sighed. That is Uncle Horace's pet name for me, I explained. Look, do you have any idea what happened here? And has the rest of the family been notified? Mother was probably at Uncle Horace's bedside, badgering and annoying him. Maybe a coma isn't such a bad idea where Mother is concerned.

Detective Martin shook his head. No, not a clue. Looks like someone got in and ransacked the place. Your Uncle Horace may have surprised some burglars, and they took it out on him pretty savagely. Maybe you can tell me if there's anything missing. As for the rest of the family, I don't think anyone's been notified yet. I came out here today to try to find an address book or something, see if we could locate some relatives. He smiled a friendly smile. Looks like I came back at just the right time.

He paused while I fumbled in my purse for a Kleenex. I felt like crying, suddenly and hard, for the dear old man. The detective let me sob for a moment, then put his hand over mine. It was a non-threatening thing to do, but it sent an electric current through me and I jumped.

He pulled his hand back quickly. Sorry, he muttered.

I snapped out of my tears and blew my nose, embarrassed and confused. Well, there's nothing I can do for Uncle Horace now, I guess. I've got all the family addresses, so you needn't worry about that... I let the sentence die on my lips.

Maybe you can tell me if something's missing or doesn't look right. He stood up and paced the floor, avoiding the stain on the carpet. Look, this could just be a simple burglary gone bad, but there's something about it I don't like.

There was everything about it that I didn't like, starting with the thought of my mother and sisters making life miserable for a dear old man in a coma. How bad is he? I asked.

He's stable, but he took a pretty brutal beating, and he's not exactly a kid. I just phoned the charge nurse. She said there was no change. I'd sure like to talk to him myself when he comes out of it. The look on his face said that might never happen.

How did you find him? I asked, wondering if the thugs who beat him senseless had then just left him to die.

The cleaning service found him and called an ambulance. Then the paramedics called us. The mobile lab was in the area, and the labs guys took care of their stuff right away. The cleaning service people didn't know who to call, and I couldn't find an address book or anything. This is the first chance I’ve had to come back. The boss wants to close this one as a burglary and assault, but I don't know... He rubbed the back of his neck. He really did look tired, the lines under his eyes making him look older than my first guess. Then he caught my look and smiled again. So, Cookie, you want to help?

It felt strange to have someone who wasn't Uncle Horace call me Cookie, but then Uncle Horace wasn't going to be using that name again soon, so I figured someone else might as well take it over. Okay, I agreed, thinking that an offer from a handsome cop to help on an investigation must come along at least once every fifty years or so. Uncle Horace had a wonderful old book with not just the names and addresses of practically everyone he had ever met, but also all kinds of interesting stuff about them. I've seen it a few times, but he was careful with it, I think because he wrote some very frank things about us in it. And he was almost pathologically neat. This place has been turned upside down by someone. I hoped it hadn't been just a couple of stupid, drug crazed kids looking for something to steal.

Where should we start? His smile could light up the dingiest room, which Uncle Horace's living room certainly was at that moment.

What about the cleaning service? I asked. Did they just leave afterwards?

Yeah, we interviewed them and let 'em go. I didn't want anything in here touched for a bit, though, so they didn't stick around to do any cleaning. Place could sure use it, huh?

I nodded. The place looked grimier than it ought to. It should have still been reasonably clean from the previous week's going over. I looked at the windows again. These windows are just too dirty for that service to have missed only one call here. You might want to ask when they last cleaned them. And we should check around in his office. He used to keep his correspondence files in a big filing cabinet. Oh, and we better look in on the bees. He kept bees, and there are hives and a honey-extracting set-up out in the back.

Detective Martin wrote all of my suggestions down in his notebook. Why don't we start in here? We could tidy up a bit and you could tell me about your uncle while we work. How does that sound?

Okay, I said. We put the books back on the shelves and picked up the overturned furniture. I talked as we worked, filling Detective Martin in on Uncle Horace's life and my own. Uncle Horace was my father's older brother. He had been a respected member of academia most of his life, unlike my father, who for most of his life never held the same job for longer than two weeks, and then up and died when I was in high school. I finished high school and married young, anything to escape Mother's suffocating clutches. It didn't work out.

I paused in my narrative to sneak a look at Detective Martin. I liked the way his hands seemed a little too big for him, and his hair kept falling across his face. I realized that I had been talking more about myself than Uncle Horace.

So, how did Horace Carey end up here? he asked, righting the lamp table and smoothing out a doily.

I picked up the scattered chocolates and looked for place to throw them away. They weren't going in my mouth after having been on the same floor that now held some rather ugly bloodstains.

Well, after Uncle Horace retired from the university, he stayed on to do some consulting for the state, and this property was one of the state-owned research places. He rented it for years, and when they put it up for sale in the early 'eighties, Uncle Horace bought it for a song. I used to love coming here to get away from everything. I came out here at least once a month to help with the bees and just talk to Uncle Horace. We were pretty close until a couple of years ago when I got divorced. Then Uncle Horace encouraged me to do all the things I really wanted to do with my life, and I got so busy doing them that I just sort of lost track of him. I mean, I always knew where to find him, so I never worried about it. I just knew he'd always be here. I stopped abruptly and bit my lip to keep the tears from coming, but they came anyway, spilling out over my cheeks.

This time Detective Martin made no comforting move. I had probably scared him off by jumping the last time.

I wiped my face on the crumpled Kleenex and resumed shelving books. I tried not to look at the detective, but it was a difficult assignment and I finally gave in, sneaking a peek at his hands as they picked up books from the floor. They were beautiful, strong and well-shaped. His hands, not the books.

So, is all this stuff we're putting away the stuff you remember?

I looked around. It was all pretty familiar, except the books. I noticed when we were re-shelving the books that many of them seemed unfamiliar.

Um, the books. There's something wrong about the books. They're not the sort of stuff Uncle Horace ever read. I wandered over to one of the shelves and examined the titles. See, he liked a lot of different things, you know, scientific things and books about the world and the ocean and nature and engineering. Facts, he liked facts. But he was never a fiction or fantasy reader, and a lot of this stuff looks like fantasy of some kind, doesn't it?

I picked a book out of the shelf. It was Magic, Inc. by Robert Heinlein. I pulled out another title and it was Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers, another work of fiction. The third book I pulled out, completely at random, was a beautiful edition of Le Morte d'Artur. All of the books looked as if they had been used, though many were in excellent condition. Some had finely tooled leather bindings while others were clearly book club editions and second-hand at that.

I don't understand. I don't think Uncle Horace read this kind stuff. I didn't add that it was what I loved to read myself.

Peter Martin shrugged his shoulders. People change their taste sometimes. What else?

I looked around, frowning. Well, I guess I'd have to look at the other rooms to see if anything else looks out of the ordinary.

We made a pretty thorough inspection of the other rooms in the house, and I was delighted when we opened the door to the museum, which was also Uncle Horace's office. He had one room, an old bedroom that ran nearly the length of whole house, turned into a display for thousands of mounted insects. In the middle of the room, large oak chests that looked like map cabinets held thousands more in their flat, wide shelves. Uncle Horace's old desk was in there, too, and a couple of battered filing cabinets. I showed Detective Martin how to operate the secret drawer that had delighted me as a child, and he gently removed Uncle Horace's address book from it and into a large plastic bag.

Uncle Horace's bedroom was pretty ordinary, with neat piles of old boxes and junk. I didn't notice anything unusual, though, until I looked in the closet. I nearly choked on the stink of smoke and ashes.

Uh, sorry, Detective Martin said. I meant to tell you not to open the closet. There was some kind of fire in there. I held my breath and looked again. The closet was neat except for the smoke and a few dead bees on the floor. What are the bees doing in here? I asked. It looks like Uncle Horace was smoking bees in his closet. That doesn't make any sense.

Sure doesn't, Detective Martin agreed. I've heard of people smoking a lot of weird stuff, but bees are a new one.

I laughed at the thought of anyone, especially Uncle Horace, going into a closet for a smoke, live bees rolled up in a couple of Zig Zags. No, Uncle Horace didn't smoke like that. But in order to get the bees to calm down, you use smoke. If you want to handle angry or upset bees, you burn some cotton lint, and it has a somnolizing effect on them. They get all groggy, and then you can work around them. Sometimes just some smoke flavoring, like you might use on steaks or something, will work, too. I can't imagine him doing anything like that indoors, though, much less in a closet.

There. Detective Peter Martin wanted something out of place - that was most definitely out of place.

Okay, I'll see if I can get the lab guys back in here to take a look at that closet.

We went through the rest of the house, but except for the living room and the bedroom closet, the rooms that Uncle Horace used habitually were very neat, everything in its place. Whatever they had been after, maybe they found it in the living room. Or maybe Uncle Horace had found them before they got too far.

We saved the kitchen for last. It was cozy, with worn linoleum that still had a shine, and an old O'Keefe and Merritt stove from the 'forties. The refrigerator contained some milk and butter and a couple of sodas, and the cupboards were stocked with canned goods. Everything looked just as it had the last time I had been there, sipping tea from the old china mugs at the big oilcloth-covered table in the middle of the room.

I'm sorry, I said to Detective Martin. Everything looks normal here. I tried not to think of the countless good times I had enjoyed at that table.

He steered me back out to the living room and we sat down. I opened the box of chocolates and counted them. There had been at least a dozen, now there were only six that hadn't made the trip to the floor. I ate a raspberry crème. Peter Martin reached over and took one too, a dark one with what looked like crossed tennis racquets on it. So tell me everything, I said to him.

The call came in at two-twenty in the afternoon, a standard call from the paramedics who had been first on the scene. The victim was unconscious, and the scene looked suspicious. The paramedics hadn't touched much, and the cleaning service said they hadn't touched anything, either. The place looked pretty much as you see it. Peter Martin gestured toward the dark stain on the carpet, then paused. Tell me if this is too hard on you, he said softly.

I shook my head. No. I want to know everything.

Okay. He lost a lot of blood, but until we get the report back, I don't know for sure what happened here. Listen, I'm going to have to take a formal statement from you. You don't mind coming back to the office with me when we finish here, do you?

I shook my head again. No, I don't mind. I can account for myself for the last couple of days anyway. I smiled thinly. I hadn't thought about an alibi before. I mean, besides loving the old guy, braining him into a coma would have probably been out of my reach. He was a good six inches taller than me.

Let's check around outside then, Detective Martin suggested, and I took him out back where the beehives and the extractor shed stood.

The beehives were in a clearing about two hundred feet from the house. There were six of them, lined up in two neat rows. The extractor was housed in a shed, and the doors were open. Uncle Horace's beekeeper's outfit was hung on a hook, and his smoke cans were sitting on the floor. It was clearly a hobbyist's apiary, not a profit-making honey or pollination concern. Nothing looked disturbed except Peter Martin. Scared of the bees? I asked with a grin.

Yeah, he replied. I'm allergic.

My grin vanished. Bee sting allergy was nothing to joke about as a single sting could trigger anaphylactic shock and death.

Let's get away from here then, I said, taking his arm and leading him away from the hives. The bees won't bother you if you don't bother them, but let's not take any chances, okay?

I liked the feel of his arm. His suit was a good quality gabardine, and he smelled faintly of soap. I tightened my grip a little bit. What I said to reassure him about the bees was really true. Bees won't bother you if you don't bother them. You can put your hands in the hive, and if you do things gently the girls will treat you nicely. Worker bees are all girls, the only males in the hive being the drones whose single job it is to fertilize the queen. In my days of circumstantial celibacy, even the bees could make me think of sex. I shot a sideways glance at the detective.

So what do you think happened here? I asked after we had returned to the house. I guess your boss's assessment is right, although I can't tell if anything was stolen. Uncle Horace didn't have a lot of money, or anything valuable to a thief, I said, but he was probably a sitting duck out here all by himself.

He had an old television set, but he didn't have a computer or a stereo or anything. He listened to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast every week on a radio older than I am. Uncle Horace's ideas of luxury centered more on time and interest, not material goods.

I don't know exactly what happened, and I think I want to talk to Horace Carey before I jump to any conclusions. Let's lock up and go back to my office.

CHAPTER 2

My statement was typed up before I knew it. There wasn't much to it, really, just