Stolen Honey by Nancy Means Wright Page B

love-hate kind of thing. And I know what you’re thinking. He was there that night, like I told you. Olen’s planning to question Leroy about it. I’ll back up anything Leroy says, I will! He’s been a good worker; my father hired him—I guess I’m sentimental about that.”
    At least there had been no more talk lately about finding another job. Leroy had been quiet, maybe too quiet. “Brooding” was the word that came to mind.
    “An obsessive love can take over the brain,” Ruth said. “I’ve seen it happen. Not long ago Emily had an emotional affair. It turned out badly.”
    Gwen nodded her sympathy—that boy’s death had been in the papers. “Well, we’re off to Glenna Flint’s,” she said, motioning Donna into the pickup. The girl sat in the passenger seat, leaving the back for Leroy, who glared at her, and climbed in beside the smoker. “Glenna called to complain about a swarm in her mailbox. She says they won’t let her get at her Social Security check.”
    “I should be so lucky,” said Ruth, waving them off, “to have a check in my box.”
    * * * *
    Ruth looked after the departing pickup and felt uneasy. She didn’t like the way Leroy had looked at Donna. She knew what an obsessive love like his could do. It could warp one’s sense of right and wrong, it could blind. Until nothing mattered beyond the desired object, and then anyone who came between it and self had to be eliminated.
    She would ask Colm to check on Leroy, to see if he had a police record. It was just a hunch. But one couldn’t rule him out as the Noble boy’s killer. Personally, Ruth couldn’t accept the accident theory. Someone had moved that motorcycle. Someone had dragged the boy into the nightshade. The boy wasn’t stupid—after all, according to Donna, he knew he was asthmatic. But no asthmatic would lie face down in any unknown plant, would he? And Donna had warned him.
    No, someone had killed the boy. If not Leroy, then who? They had asked for her help. She had to try and do something. But what?
    * * * *
    Gwen was humming as she drove into the beeyard. She’d dealt with Glenna’s swarm, then dropped Donna at the library, Leroy in town—he’d hitch a ride back, he said. It had been a pleasant visit at Ruth’s, in spite of the damage to the hives. An animal was the culprit, she really thought so. Things would get better. She had to keep her optimism.
    For one thing, she was sick of this yellow crime scene tape, she wanted it down. Taking a scissors out of her bee kit, she stepped resolutely to the edge of the woods and cut. Snap! and the woods opened up, like a door to a magic kingdom. Her kingdom.
    She hadn’t been in here for days. It smelled of spruce and moss and fresh leaves. She threw back her head and breathed in the fragrance. Something caught her eye then—something hanging in an oak tree. At first she thought the police had hung it there. But as she drew closer, she saw that—oh!—it was a dummy, a dummy of a woman in a bee veil, crudely drawn. On the dummy’s belly, in red paint, were the words HANG THE WITCH.
    She quickly cut the obscene thing down and stumbled through the underbrush to the trash barrel. She threw it in and lit a match. Breathless, she watched it burn. Was it her imagination, or did it have a sickly odor, like old blood?
    She sank to the ground and sobbed into her smoky hands.
    * * * *
    When Camille arrived at the Woodleaf Apiaries, she was surprised to see a souped-up sports car pull in behind her. It was her student Tilden Ball; she saw the narrow face behind the wheel. The car made a terrible racket; it reminded her a little of Tilden, to tell the truth, full of excuses for late work, full of bullshit in a paper on which he was an “authority” but which never came up to standard.
    “I saw your car,” he said, unfolding his tall, gangly body from behind the wheel. (How, she wondered, did he know her car?) “I followed you up the mountain. I went to your office to see you