Death By A HoneyBee (8 page)

 
   
“If you know who I am, then you must know that Richard died on my property . . .”

 
    
Agnes gaped at me with genuine shock and her hand faltered.
 
I quickly grabbed her tilting teacup.
 
She sputtered something unintelligible.
 
Seeing a bottle of water on her desk, I fetched it for her.
 
I was about to call her secretary when she regained her composure.
 
Mopping her forehead with a tea towel, she said, “My, my!
 
Aren’t you the jack-in-the-box of bad news.
 
First you lie to get into my office and now you bring death to my door.
 
How else may I be of help to you, Mrs. Reynolds?”

 
    
“Are you telling me that you didn’t know that Richard had died?”

 
    
“Richard and I don’t have mutual friends.
 
I don’t read the paper unless it is the racing news.
 
No, I didn’t know.
 
How did he . . . pass away?”

     
I briefly told her the circumstances of his death.
 

     
“I still don’t see why you are here.”

     
“There are some questions about his death. Since he died on my property, I am seeking information that might answer them.”

 
    
Agnes Bledsoe was a sharp woman.
 
“So there are some questions about his death and now you are here trying to find something that could pin Richard’s death on me.
 
Aren’t you a plum!”

 
   
My face blushed.
 
With my flyaway red hair and freckles, I knew I must have looked most unattractive and guilty.
 

     
“I haven’t been married to Richard for over two decades but I keep …”
  
She stopped talking to wipe her running nose
 
“I kept tabs on him from time to time through a private detective.
 
I couldn’t risk personal contact with him, but I

wanted to know how he was doing.
 
You see, I loved Richard Pidgeon and never stopped.”

 
   
Talk about being hit over the head.
 
I was stunned.
 
How could this beautiful, accomplished woman love a piece of manure like Richard Pidgeon?
 

 
   
“I can see by your face that you didn’t expect this.
 
When I met Richard in college, he was handsome, witty and lots of fun.
 
We fell in love, got married and moved to Lexington.
 
Everything was fine.
 
I even overlooked his little obsessions about routine and cleanliness.”
          

 
    
“What do you mean by ‘his little obsessions’?”
       

     
“At first, I thought it was just his prissy nature. It wasn’t terribly noticeable, just odd things here and there. The yard had to be just right.
 
He wouldn’t wear shirts that weren’t starched . . . things like that. We had a good first five years together.
 
Then the car accident happened.
 
It was on a Saturday night, and we were going to the Holiday Inn to hear

JD Crowe.
 
A drunk hit us, pretty badly. Totaled the car.
 
Richard was in severe pain for a long time.”
     

    
Agnes glanced down at her perfect manicure.
 
“It was then that his compulsiveness began to surface.
 
He was restless, impatient with any imperfection whether it be at work or just having his handkerchiefs not being ironed to his specifications.
 
People began to annoy him more and more.

 
    
“We both thought it was his pain medication, so we had the doctor fiddle with the dosage.
 
That didn’t work.
 
Richard was becoming as concerned as I was, but couldn’t seem to control his moods.
 
He became more and more explosive. Finally, we resorted to seeing a therapist.
 
Richard was diagnosed with OCD.”

 
    
“Obsessive compulsive disorder,” I stated.

 
    
“Yes.” Agnes nodded.
 
“At that time, there were few medications for his problem and what was available made him sick.
 
We tried talk therapy but it did little good.
 
The therapist felt that Richard had a genetic predisposition to OCD, and the car accident had made it worse.
 
It could have been from either a chemical change in his brain or chronic fear the accident had instilled in him.
 
It didn’t matter.
 
For three years we went from one treatment to the next.
 
Nothing worked, and we were running out of options as Richard became more controlling and abusive.”

 
   
“By abusive, do you mean violent?”

 
   
“He slapped me twice.
 
On the third slap, I took a fire poker to his head.”

 
    
I handed Agnes the newspaper article about her arrest from what was then the
Lexington Herald
, which I had copied at the library.
 
She read the copy with detachment.

 
    
Agnes cleared her throat.
 
“This is wrong.
 
I didn’t try to stab him.
 
I hit him with a poker.
 
The charges were dropped. Richard came to jail to collect me, but I wouldn’t go with him.
 
My mind was already made up.
 
I told Richard I was going to divorce him.
 
As much as I loved him, I loved myself more.
 
I told him that we would eventually ruin each other.
 
He would hit me again one day and, on that day, I would kill him.
 
It was best that we part.”
   

     
“How did he take it?”

     
“Hard, very hard.”
 
She glared at me with barely concealed contempt.
 
“I know what Richard had become, but deep down he was a decent man, a good man.
 
He didn’t ask for what happened to him.
 
It was something out of his control.
 
At one time Richard was a young man full of promise.
 
If that drunk hadn’t hit us, maybe Richard would never have become an irritable, selfish man.
 
Who are you to judge him?”

     
I didn’t want to cause Agnes Bledsoe any more pain, so I mumbled a thank you and left with my hat in my hand, so to speak.
 
I sat in my van near Gratz Park scribbling notes about our conversation on my legal pad.
 
I tried to mentally justify the fact that I had lied and caused pain to another person.
 
It was obvious to me that Agnes Bledsoe had once deeply loved Richard and still did.
 
Still, whether from my stubbornness or anger at her thinly veiled insults, I wrote her name down as a possible suspect.
 
Someone drove Richard to my house.
 
Could it have been Agnes?

     
Arriving home before dusk, I checked on my various grazing pets such as rescued racehorses that freely wandered my 139 acres. I tossed apples along the winding gravel road for the goats.
 
Coming to my beeyard, I parked the van.

    
Honeybees flitted through the open windows of the van, some of them lighting on my arms so they could groom or collect pollen from their bodies.
 
It was a shame that the furry insects would not allow themselves to be petted.
 
People would like them better if they could stroke the bees’ downy little heads.
 
Sitting in my rusty van, I watched the bees until twilight passed - thinking, thinking, thinking.

8

     
The following Saturday, I went to work at the Farmers’ Market, putting on a brave front.
 
The morning went by quickly.
 
Before I knew it, I had sold out all of my award-winning Locust Honey.
 
It seemed that people had read the article about the incident and were interested in checking me out.
 
That was fine with me as long as they purchased something.
 
I was handing a customer her order of Wildflower Honey when Detective Goetz materialized at my booth.
 
His sudden appearance startled me.
 
He was decked out in a blue T-shirt that sported “WILDCAT COUNTRY” and a pair of out-of-season, black plaid Bermuda shorts.
 
A small patch of a pale, hairy paunch peeped from beneath his shirt.
 
Thank goodness he knew enough not to wear socks with his sandals.

    
“Detective, I am afraid I am not allowed to talk to you without Ms. Todd,” I said peevishly.
 
I was irritated that he would bother me at work.
 

    
Responding with a sheepish grin, he said, “Thought I’d come down and see what you did.”
 
Goetz whistled appreciatively.
 
“Look at all this honey.
 
I love honey, you know.
 
Big fan.”
 
He tapped his chest. “Good for your heart.”

    
I relaxed somewhat.
 
“I have some Wildflower Honey left, or perhaps you would like a honey with lemon oil added to it.
 
Great for putting in your tea.”

   
Goetz laid his bag of heirloom tomatoes on my table and perused all my different honeys.
 
“How come the honey is different colors?”

   
“Well, the color, texture and taste depend of the plant nectar the bee has harvested.
 
Plant nectar can produce honey that is different in taste and color.
 
For example, the white Dutch clover plant will produce a mild yellow honey we know as clover while the buckwheat plant will produce a honey that is almost black and tastes like molasses.”

    
“I had no idea,” he said, holding up various bottles to the sun.
 

    
“Yes, customers are always surprised to learn that the United States produces over 300 different varieties of honey while Kentucky produces over thirty.”

    
“Which honey is the best?”

    
“There is no best.
 
It’s all personal preference.
 
Some people like mild honeys while others like very strong tasting honeys.”
 

    
“I’m afraid of bees,” he confessed.

    
“Most people are,” I replied.
 
I understand since I am afraid of wasps myself.

    
“So . . . you actually make a living from doing this?”
 
Goetz asked.
 

    
I acted as though I didn’t hear him.
 

    
Goetz finally got the message.
 
“Right,” he said to himself.
 
“Can I ask you something?”

    
“Ask away,” I answered while applying labels to bottles of honey.
 

   
“You get stung much?”