Stolen Honey (28 page)

When she heard the dogs barking, she thought it was wolves, and she hitched up onto the lower branch of a white pine and crouched there. But the barking was followed by voices, the high-pitched babble of children. The blood leaped in her veins. She jumped to the ground again and hollered, “Halloo, halloo, there! Here, I’m over here!”

And then she was surrounded by a dozen Girl Scouts in green uniforms, their sneakers caked with mud and mottled with grass stains. “Donna?” one of the girls said, and when she nodded, unable to speak, the girl burst into tears, and Donna with her. Now everyone was hugging everyone else. A stout woman panted up behind, grinning broadly. She blew a whistle that split Donna’s ears and shouted directions into a walkie-talkie. Then Emily Willmarth raced up to fling herself into Donna’s arms.

“You’re cold,” Emily cried, and yanked off her jacket. It turned upside down in the melee and the contents tumbled out: pens, paper clips, shredded Kleenex, earrings, sticks of gum, and something that seemed to surprise her—Emily dug down deep into the hemline, below where the pocket had ripped, and held up a disk. “Oh!”

She jammed everything back in the unripped pocket and wrapped Donna in the jacket, which was too big for the girl and smelled of barn. But it was all right, all right. A group of men and boys ran up, breaking a path with their boots and machetes, and suddenly Donna was in her father’s arms—the two of them laughing and crying all at once.

* * * *

Gwen was having coffee with Olen Ashley; he was explaining that it was a felony under state law to knowingly disinter human remains. He was determined to “nail the bastard. I mean, look what he did to Donna! Thank God she’s all right, Gwen,” and Gwen added a silent amen. It had been a poignant homecoming. She’d hurried Donna into a hot bath and afterward followed her around the house, unable to let the girl out of her sight until Donna cried, “Enough, Mom. At least let me pee in peace.”

Olen leaned closer, planting his elbows on the kitchen table. “It could be more than a felony, Gwen, it could be murder. You heard about those fingerprints we found.”

“But why would he do that?” she asked, thinking of Camille Wimmet, and maybe Shep Noble, too, although she’d no idea what connection Tilden Ball would have with that fraternity boy. Tilden had tried to get into a frat, been blackballed. After that he’d loudly proclaimed his disgust for fraternities.

She didn’t get her answer because just then the telephone rang. It was Ruth Willmarth, on her barn phone, she’d been shoveling manure. “I’m glad you can’t smell me. Robbie let in Vic’s chickens by mistake, and Sharon didn’t have time to clean up ’cause the baby needed her. So now there’s cow
and
chicken shit on the floor.”

Ruth was calling about Donna: “We’re all so thankful she’s safe.” She told Gwen about her visit to Annette Godineaux. “But I didn’t learn much beyond what we already knew—about the sterilization, I mean.”

“The stolen honey,” said Gwen, thinking of the sterilized women, and then the robber bees she’d found recently on the Earthrowl orchard. “Or maybe I should say, bitter honey.”

“That’s an oxymoron.”

“Isn’t everything these days? Love and war? Lies and truth? That’s the reality of our lives. We’re made of opposites.”

“But I still don’t know the male lines,” said Ruth, going on with her train of thought, “although they might be on the disk Emily found. Imagine, the idiot. Camille’s disk in her pocket the whole time. And Colm and I went on this wild goose chase.”

“At least you had an outing together.”

There was a pause. “Yes, yes, we did.”

Gwen smiled to herself. They’d been there overnight. Well, good for Ruth, she thought, and changed the subject. “That Pauline sounds like a sly one. And I’d like to have met old Annette. Over a hundred years old! A real matriarch. A poet, you say?”

Now Ruth was making a loud noise with mop and bucket. There was a small crash, like she’d dropped the phone, and then silence. Gwen glanced over at Olen, who was looking at her, questioning. “Ruth Willmarth,” she mouthed.

“What’s this,” he asked, “about a hundred-year-old Annette?”

“Oh, some woman from New Hampshire—Andover, I believe.” She didn’t want to have to explain. Camille Wimmet’s death was a case for the police, Olen would insist, not for a civilian like Ruth Willmarth. “Ruth was just visiting,” Gwen fibbed, and Olen nodded and swallowed his coffee.

Ruth’s voice came back on the line. “Sorry. Zelda sabotaged me with her tail. Now there’s a heck of a mess. And I spilled my coffee into the other stuff.”

Gwen smiled. “You’d better go back to work. By the way, has Emily told you about Tilden Ball?”

“Yes, yes! She gave me the news. That’s another reason I called. To tell you how glad I am you’ve resolved all that malice—the fire, the hate notes. What a relief it must be for you! And what a miserable character that boy is. I hope he’s in custody.”

“Oh, yes. Olen took him in. He’s trying to hold him on a charge of felony. And, worse, they found his fingerprints in Camille’s apartment.”

“How does he explain that?”

“I don’t know. Olen hasn’t said.” She glanced at Olen, but he was getting up from his chair, going over to look at the wall calendar. “I should be sorry for Tilden, he’s a mixed-up kid, really, sick. But my God, he kidnapped Donna! She could have died in that forest.”

“It must have been terrifying for her, Gwen—and for you.”

“Olen’s getting us through this, thank heavens. He’s a brick. He’s here.” Gwen smiled at Olen, where he was pouring a second cup of coffee now, looking abstracted. “He’s been a madman as usual, taking Tilden in, then coming back to help us bury the bones. We had a ceremony an hour ago, just before Russell left. I’ve rewarded Olen with coffee cake.”

“Lucky man. Oh, and Gwen, you have the disk? Emily said it was still in the coat she’d made Donna wear.”

“Donna has the disk, yes. I can run it over later this afternoon. I’m going in the opposite direction this morning. I told a farmer in Cabot I’d come—he has a swarm inside the walls of his house. I don’t know if I can help with that, but I’m going. Oh, the man told me something interesting. Did you know that Alexander the Great was carried to his burial place in Egypt in a casket filled with honey? It preserved him, too.”

“No kidding? Well, you’d better go. Anyway, I don’t have a computer here to download—is that the word? But Emily can bring me a printout from her computer. I want to see if those male names are on it. I mean, I know it sounds like Tilden’s our man, but until we know, I’ll keep looking.”

“Good. A week ago I wouldn’t have believed that Tilden could kill. But now ... I don’t know.” She glanced at Olen, who was staring into his coffee, looking cross. “Oh, and Ruth? You can always come over and use our computer.”

There was another crash, and Ruth was laughing again. “It’s Dolly, she just kicked the bucket.”

“Literally, I hope. A tin bucket?”

“Oh, yes, you can hear her complaining. Listen.” Gwen could hear the bellowing. It sounded like a mournful foghorn.

“What’s this about a disk?” Olen asked when Gwen hung up, laughing.

“Oh, dear, I should have told you.” She’d put her foot in it now. Of course the police should have the disk. But Ruth wanted it, too; she’d done just as much as the police had, hadn’t she, trying to find the killer? The police, according to Olen, were still cross-examining college people, electricians, other workmen who’d gone into Camille’s office or apartment for one reason or another. And they were building a case against Tilden Ball.

Olen was waiting for an explanation. He slapped down his coffee cup. He seemed upset with her—for holding back information, she supposed.

She explained about the disk, what it probably contained. Olen stood, arms akimbo, looked down at her sternly. “We’ll have to have it, Gwen. I’ll have to take it to the station. It’s evidence. You can’t give it to whatsername—Willmarth. I mean, she’s just a civilian.” The red was slowly creeping up his neck, coloring his ears.

“But I told Ruth. She’s been working on this, too, helping Colm Hanna—he’s one of your men.”

“But
she’s
not, I said. It’s not her business. Now let me have that disk, Gwen. I promise I’ll make a copy. I’ll give it to Hanna, if that’ll make you feel better.”

Donna had put the disk into a box with her school files. Gwen had hardly thought about it after that, with all the confusion of the burial celebration, Russell’s departure, Olen’s visit. Olen had been so jovial then, was even cordial to Russell afterward. And Russell had removed his
ABENAKI  NATION
license plate—his way of saying thank you to Olen for helping to locate Donna.

Now Olen had returned to his gruff cop’s persona. The law was the law.

Reluctantly she handed it over, and Olen seemed suddenly jubilant, clapped it to his chest. He laughed aloud. “Good girl,” he said. “You’re a good girl, Gwen. This could make all the difference.”

To find the killer, he meant, of course. She’d have to explain to Ruth. It was an error of circumstance. “But you will give Colm Hanna a copy?”

“Did I say I would, Gwen?”

“You did.”

“And I will.” Impulsively, he embraced her. His unshaven whiskers—unusual for him—grated her cheek. “All the difference,” he said again, and plunged out the door.

Gwen returned the file box to the computer table, idly looked through. These were mostly Donna’s files, along with a few of her own for her beekeeping books. The disk for Donna’s paper was in here, filled with quotes from Elizabeth’s journal. “The Captive Who Wouldn’t Come Home,” she’d entitled the paper; the disk simply read,
CAPTIVE.
Another professor was reading it now, Donna had said. Though it wouldn’t be the same, the girl felt. It was Camille who’d helped her with it; encouraged. Gwen felt all over again the poignancy, the horror of the killing. Someone taking the life of a bright young woman with a whole career in front of her. “Bastard!” she cried aloud. “Animal!”

When she replaced the disk, she saw that behind the
CAPTIVE
disk was another labeled
ANNETTE—COPY.
The title was stuck on with a yellow Post-It. For a moment she wondered if she’d given Olen the right one. He’d be furious with her if she hadn’t. But no, this was Donna’s handwriting, not Camille’s. Donna had had the disk copied.

“Oh, Donna!” she cried aloud, grateful to her daughter for her foresight. Though she should have realized: Donna was always reminding her mother to copy her documents twice; Donna kept a second
CAPTIVE
copy in her room.

“Donna home?” It was Mert, emerging from the basket room. He was wearing an orange
DAIVNLAND
T-shirt that Russell had given him. The name Abenaki meant “People of the Dawn-land” or, simply, “Easterners,” referring to their proximity to the rising sun. Each new day, Mert would say, the sun cast its first rays on the land of the Abenaki before continuing its journey west. It was Alert’s habit to take a dawn walk just to see the sun rise.

“I got some nice new sweetgrass. Found it down the mountain a ways when I was walking this morning. I thought I’d show Donna. She might try a basket now, you see. Since she found them copper beads. Wrote that paper.”

“She might,” Gwen agreed, smiling at Mert’s old theme song. “But no, that was just me saying her name aloud. It was something Donna did that was helpful. But you can ask her when she gets home.”

“I’ll get it started, then. That’s the hard part, getting started. Then she can take over. Sweetgrass is nice for a young woman.” Mert shakingly poured himself a glass of grape juice, nodded at Gwen, and padded back into his room.

Now it was Leroy at the door, ready to go to Cabot. He was wearing a new blue shirt and boots—Camille’s “estate” wasn’t settled yet, but he was borrowing against it on his charge card. He wanted to stop by at a friend’s house in Cabot. But first she wanted to get the disk copy to Ruth. She wanted it out of the house.

“We’ll check the Laframboise hives first, then stop at the Willmarths’,” she told Leroy.

“Out of the way, i’n’ it?” said Leroy, slouching in the doorway, hands on his lean hips. He wore his jeans low: A north wind could blow them down. The thought amused her.
“If
you’re going to Cabot?” he added. Leroy had been haunting the kitchen since Donna’s return. And still the girl wouldn’t glance in his direction.

“A little. But there’s a shortcut to 116 from the Willmarths’. I’ve something I have to leave there. Anyway, it won’t hurt to take another look at those hives, see how the new queens are doing.”

Leroy looked nettled; he pursed his lips. “Can we get going, then?”

She didn’t care for the cross way he’d spoken. “We can,” she told him, “when I’m good and ready.”

Chapter Eighteen

Ruth had read halfway through the file Emily had printed out for her and still hadn’t found any real clues to a killer. She wanted to finish reading the printout before milking. There was some vague sense of time being important, as though something might explode if she didn’t get those names, and soon. “Superstitious ass,” she chided herself, and reached for a doughnut.

It was a fascinating paper, really, a significant one—such a tragedy that Camille hadn’t lived to complete it. Those poems of Annette’s! Camille had only printed four as far as she’d read, but they were powerful, passionate.

“There are bars everywhere

on windows walls doors

they hold in my bones

they crush my heart.”

The lines made her feel as though someone had punched her in the stomach. She wished now she’d begged a copy of Annette’s poems from Pauline. If she had to go back there, she’d do just that—despite Pauline’s warning that the poems were not for strangers’ eyes.

The phone rang in the middle of her reading about Annette’s bartering her reproductive eggs for freedom. She reached for the receiver, still reading. “What did I have to lose,” Annette had written at the age of, what—forty-three? “I’d had enough of men and their hungry penises. But I didn’t like what they did to Nicole. That wasn’t right. She was a good girl. She was 26, that bastard husband hardly there but she had the boy. And they did it to him. A four year old kid. A smart kid—beat me at dominoes when he was 3. How’d they justify that?”