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Back The Keeper of Bees Save as PDF
Contents ( 49)
  1. CHAPTER ONE
  2. CHAPTER TWO
  3. CHAPTER THREE
  4. CHAPTER FOUR
  5. CHAPTER FIVE
  6. CHAPTER SIX
  7. CHAPTER SEVEN
  8. CHAPTER EIGHT
  9. CHAPTER NINE
  10. CHAPTER TEN
  11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  12. CHAPTER TWELVE
  13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  20. CHAPTER TWENTY
  21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  30. CHAPTER THIRTY
  31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  40. CHAPTER FORTY
  41. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  42. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  43. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  44. THE SAME BREATH
  45. 1
  46. 2
  47. 3
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. About the Author

He still had nothing.

But detective work, whether private or police, often came down to the same basic elements: persistence, hard work, and luck.

Hazard started by calling shipping companies who transported bees. He used the contact information given in the copies of the reports Somers had brought home, when the Wahredua PD had been in hot pursuit of the Keeper, and one of the most promising leads had been the bees. In most cases, Hazard was able to speak to the same person who had responded to police inquiries after the Keeper’s first attack. A few times, he got juggled until he ended up with someone who could help him. As soon as he identified himself—omitting his recent parting of ways with Wahredua’s finest—and mentioned the ongoing investigation, the men and women he spoke to were happy to help. Or as happy as cubicle dwellers ever were.

Happy or not, though, none of them could help Hazard. He asked for any shipments in the last year involving the transport of live bees, and he got a bare handful, all of them delivered to cities in other parts of the state: Kansas City, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau. None of them had been anywhere close to Wahredua.

Next, he tried local apiarists. He hit dead end after dead end. He asked about anyone who had purchased bees. He asked where they had lived and about any contact information they might have shared. He even swallowed the bile at the back of his throat and asked if the beekeepers remembered any unusual feelings. Had the person seemed strange? Had they seemed off somehow? Aggressive? Or unusually charming? The closest he came was the sale and transport of a colony to a woman in Osage Beach, within easy driving distance of Wahredua. Hazard called the woman, only to find out that Alma Zerber was eighty-two and didn’t drive. A quick Facebook search confirmed that Alma really was eighty-two and that she had a dozen grandkids who filled up her Facebook timeline. Hazard had never seen so many overbites at one time.

He was still working his way through local beekeepers, still hitting dead ends, when the alarm on his phone began to buzz. He glanced over and saw that it was three; time to pick up Evie. He dismissed the alarm, left the disarray of papers and notes as they were, and headed to the minivan. He tried to turn off the back burner of his brain, where frustration and resentment were simmering. His attention needed to be on Evie, and it wasn’t fair to make her suffer because he kept slamming into a brick wall on this case. As he backed out of the garage, he made one last effort to box up the Keeper and put him away. For a few hours. For Evie’s sake.

And then he realized he had another option, and he dug out his phone and made a call.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JULY 2

TUESDAY

3:21 PM

THE SEARCH OF WESLEY’S townhouse yielded nothing.