Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh Read Free Book Online Page B

deeply before speaking again. “I appreciate your hospitality, Mr. Honig, I really do. It’s just that I like to keep all my work relationships professional. I’m kind of old school that way.”
    “I understand, Detective Grayson,” I said, though I wondered why such a fine line needed to be drawn between first and last names.
    “Just so we’re clear on that,” the detective said, keeping his eyes to his notebook.
    “Of course,” I said.
    “So let’s get back to last Friday,” he said, clearing his throat brusquely. “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t see anybody hanging round next door while you were eating breakfast?”
    “I normally take my breakfast in the kitchen, so I would not have seen anything next door as my kitchen window faces to the rear of my property,” I said. I explained once again that I had rushed off directly after breakfast, hoping to observe the birth of my queen and how my hopes had been rewarded when she emerged from the hive with her full retinue of suitors at a little past ten, just as the sun began to take the chill off the morning air. I believe I may have mentioned how sorry I was that Claire had not been there to see the birth of my new queen.
    “You know, she was quite a beauty,” I said. Detective Grayson, who was scribbling furiously in his notebook, jerked his head up.
    “Who? Miss Straussman?”
    “What? Oh, goodness no,” I replied, equally disconcerted by the detective’s interpretive leap, but I smiled in spite of myself. “Of course there was a time when Claire attracted a full complement of eager young beaus.”
    “I see,” he said. His tone remained even, but he shifted slightly forward in his seat. “So how is it she never married?”
    “How is it that anyone makes the choices they do?” I replied. Certainly there are those who would say that my life has been diminished by the dearth of human company I have cultivated over my lifetime. I believe that solitude is not the same as loneliness. I recall that I told Detective Grayson something to the effect that I was happily bound to this world by my place in it for good reason. I know I quoted one of my mother’s favorite poets who wrote:
    “Happy the man, whose wish and care / A few paternal acres bound, / Content to breathe his native air, / In his own ground.”
    “That’s nice,” Detective Grayson said. I noticed that the cartoon bees in his notebook had been joined by the phrases
early risers
and
any gentlemen callers???
He had underlined the last phrase twice. As I watched him scribble on the page, my eyes fell upon the simple gold band on the detective’s left hand.
    “What made you decide to marry?”
    Detective Grayson shrugged with much the same motion a bear uses to twitch a gnat off his massive shoulders.
    “Seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” he said.
    “Was it?”
    “Was what?”
    “Marrying. You seem to question Claire’s choice to remain unmarried, and perhaps my own by implication. What makes you so sure your decision was the right one?”
    His shoulders twitched again. “We’re talking about Miss Straussman, not me,” he said, twisting his wedding band around his thick-knuckled finger as he spoke. It was not hard to imagine that the detective had done some boxing in his youth. As quickly as he let his guard down, he brought it right back up again.
    “So, how about her sister? Hilda, wasn’t it? Did she have a lot of . . . um . . . gentlemen friends, too?”
    “No,” I said. I would no sooner defame poor Hilda’s memory than I would knowingly disparage her to her face.
    “No, Hilda wasn’t like Claire,” I said, choosing my words delicately. “She was big-boned and not much color to her.”

Seven
    A PITHERAPY: The traditional practice of using bee venom and other products from the honeybee, including honey, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis, to treat illnesses and maintain health.
    M y conversation with Detective Grayson concluded on that most