Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh

inconclusive note, and so for the next several weeks I arose each morning, hoping against hope that I would hear from the good detective again and that he would somehow help me make sense of this senseless tragedy. But no word came. From time to time I pulled from my billfold the identification card Detective Grayson had given me on the day we met and I thought about calling him. Once I went so far as to dial his office telephone number, but I’m afraid I hung up when a switchboard operator answered and asked me to hold.
    “Hold what?” I remember thinking as I stared at the receiver in my hand.
    Meanwhile the initial flurry of police activity soon dwindled down to nothing until the only visible reminder that something terrible had taken place next door were the strips of yellow police tape wrapped around the Straussmans’ once tidy clapboard house, making it look from the outside like a forlorn birthday gift I had neither the heart to open nor the will to ignore. And all the while, the days grew longer and grayer, and I was left feeling as forgotten as the tattered police tape that finally came unstuck and blew away during an unseasonable rainstorm in early June, nearly a month after the Straussman sisters’ murders.
    The ground was still wet from the storm the following evening, and I was out of doors, tending to my number one hive, when I heard my name whispered softly above the subtle din of the hive.
    “Albert?”
    I turned my head toward the direction of the sound. It seemed to come from the shadows beneath the dripping bowers of the orange trees at the edge of my yard. I slipped my glasses off to wipe the mist from the lenses so that I might better peer into the darkness, when I heard my name called out again, only this time from behind me.
    “Mr. Honig?”
    I spun back around to see Detective Grayson standing at the foot of my back porch. Even without my glasses I could see that in his right hand he carried a large manila envelope. His left hand gripped the damp stair rail that I knew without seeing was sorely in need of a new coat of paint. I motioned for the detective to come join me at the hive. His reluctance resonated in the gathering dusk.
    “I only need to talk to you a minute,” he said.
    “That’s quite all right. We can talk out here,” I said, raising my voice only slightly so that I wouldn’t startle the bees, but that Detective Grayson might yet hear me more clearly from across the short expanse of my backyard. “I assure you, Detective Grayson, there’s no need to worry. The field bees have all returned to their hives for the night.”
    Still, he appeared reluctant to venture any nearer.
    “Are you wearing wool?” I inquired.
    “How should I know?” he replied, clinging stubbornly to the back stair rail.
    “You could check the label on your jacket,” I suggested, making no move to return to the house. “It wouldn’t be prudent to approach me now if you are wearing wool. Bees don’t like wool.”
    Detective Grayson started to say something, then appeared to think better of it. He opened the front flap of the brown suit jacket, the same one he was wearing when I first met him, and he held it out so that he might read the label sewed into the lining. He shook his head slowly, and once again, by his slow deliberate gestures and carriage, I was taken by how much he resembled a grizzled old bear.
    “Polyester blend,” he said, bringing his jacket flap back around and buttoning it shut. “Pretty sure the shirt’s cotton.”
    “That’s good,” I said. “And your tie?”
    The detective flattened his lips and drew them back from his teeth, which were surprisingly small and evenly spaced.
    “You’d have to ask my wife,” he said, confirming my earlier suspicion about his ties. “Probably silk, knowing her.”
    “Excellent,” I said. “What about your socks?”
    “Mr. Honig!” he fairly growled at me.
    “Never mind,” I said, hoping that by this time I’d distracted him