Bee Conspiracy, page 13
“Sure,” Kelso answered.
Beryl smiled. “Give me a couple minutes to neaten the place up and then come over.” She dashed off up the driveway.
On the way to her house Beryl noticed the fragrance of roses in the air. She glanced at the bushes which were overflowing with fresh buds. They looked much healthier since Kelso had released the aphis lions in the garden. She rushed through the door and made a sweep of the place. She wasn’t looking so much for dirty dishes or glasses as the place was already very neat. Instead, she picked up several ant hotels placed in the corners of the kitchen. There was a can of Raid which adorned her windowsill. She grabbed that too and hid all of them in the closet, then closed the door.
There was a gentle knock at the front door. Beryl quickly primped her hair in the bathroom mirror. On her way to the front, she turned on a couple of dim lamps and put some soft jazz on the stereo. “Hi,” she said as she opened the creaky door for Kelso.
“Long time no see,” he said. He handed her a gift-wrapped box.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a butterfly release box. There’s a swallowtail pupa inside. It’s going to open any day. I thought the kids at your school might enjoy it.”
“Wow, thank you. I am sure they will.” She put the box down on a table by the front door. “Come on in. I was just neatening up.”
Kelso stepped inside. “There’s not a thread out of place,” he offered as he looked around the quaintly decorated room.
She closed the door. “Sit down,” she said as she motioned him towards the couch. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
“White wine is all I have.”
“Perfect.”
She poured two glasses and brought them over to a side table next to the couch. Then she sat down next to him. “How long have you been on the man-cleanse?” he asked.
“Since last summer. I was in a long-term, live-in relationship with my boyfriend. I thought we were going to get married. But I came home for lunch unannounced one day and our bed was littered with rose petals. At first I thought they were for me, but then a young lady emerged from the bathroom in only a silk robe – followed by my supposed fiancé. So I moved out and I’ve been here ever since.”
“It’s a nice place to live,” he said.
“Dad didn’t like the last tenant anyway. How about you?”
“How long have I been on a man-cleanse?”
“No. Are you in a relationship?”
“Not since I moved out to the field station in Arizona. My girlfriend at the time was a botanist and she was accepted into a molecular plant science program in Edinburgh, so we broke it off. That was a couple of years ago.”
“No flings?”
“I’m not really a flingy guy,” he said. He took a sip of the white wine.
She looked at him flirtatiously and sipped her own wine. Then the closet door popped open. “Don’t worry, the place is not haunted. There’s a latch on the door that doesn’t catch.”
“I can fix that for you,” he said as he got up and went to the door.
“No, that’s okay!” she said, getting up to go after him. She didn’t want him to see what was inside. But it was too late.
He stared askance at several cans of Raid and the ant hotels that were piled on the floor. “You were hiding these from me, weren’t you? That’s why you went ahead, because you wanted to pick these up before I got here.”
She blushed as she considered how to answer the question. It was not easy to hide things from him.
Chapter Thirteen
Albert Fossil turned up the television in the motel room to its highest volume. The 24-Hour News Network blared a stream of weather, commercials and bad news for half of the nearby rooms to hear. He did it not because he needed to catch up on current events – he could care less. “Please. Let me go,” Valerie Wilder pleaded.
“No,” Fossil replied. He stepped over to the observation hive where the bees bounced around uneasily.
Valerie stared nervously at the plexiglass preventing the angry swarm from escaping into the room. “I told you what you wanted to know! I cooperated with you!”
“I’m afraid that’s not enough.”
“I won’t tell anyone about this!”
Fossil picked something out of his kit case. It was an empty hive, still dripping with some honey and beeswax. He opened the window at the side of the unit and reached outside. The eaves of the building were directly above the window. Fossil reached out and placed the hive under the eaves, using the beeswax to stick it there. “What are you doing?” Valerie asked.
Fossil closed the window. “You’re going to be fine,” he told her.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m leaving. Just relax. Someone will find you after I’ve gone.”
He placed his beekeeper’s veil back on and went to the closet. He picked up the observation hive. Valerie breathed a sigh of relief. He walked towards the door and then stopped. He opened the escape valve on the hive and the agitated bees began to stream out en masse.
“What are you doing?!” she screamed. But he said nothing. The bees swarmed around her. They seemed particularly attracted to the scent of the substance that he had sprayed on her. “Ow! Ahhh!” She swatted at them with her one free hand but that only made the bees more agitated. More and more escaped from the hive. Then Fossil opened the plexiglass door in the side of the hive and the remaining bees swarmed out. He closed the hive door and placed the cabinet under his arm. Valerie squealed in abject terror but her cries were drowned out by the sound of the 24-Hour News Network. The bees competed for any empty spots on her skin where they could deliver their venom. They were possessed by the instinct to protect their hive at all costs.
Except their hive was on the way out the door. Albert Fossil opened the door and quickly closed it. He approached the limo that had delivered him to this place and stepped inside. The driver pulled away from the motel. Fossil looked at the card that Valerie had given him. It had an embossed logo of a fish and bird on a lake – the branding of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He dialed a number on his phone. Gordon Lund answered.
“I’ve tracked down a lead on the prototype,” Fossil reported.
“Where is it?”
“We’ve got a serious problem.”
“I didn’t ask you that. I asked you where it is.” Lund reiterated.
“It’s in the hands of the Fish and Wildlife service.”
***
Glowing candles cast a soft romantic light across Beryl’s living room. Glasses of wine sat neglected, but half-consumed. Soft jazz emerged from the speakers of the home entertainment center. These would seem to be all of the ingredients needed for an enchanting evening. But the mood was broken by Kelso, who stacked up the ant motels and cans of pesticide that Beryl had hidden in the closet.
He looked into her eyes with an inquisitor’s glare. “You were hiding these from me?”
“I know you don’t like them,” she offered in a guilty voice.
“Wow.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, I’m flattered.”
“Don’t let it go to your head. But I guess maybe I use these things too much.”
“You have a right to protect your home and tell invasive species they are not welcome here.”
“Thanks.”
“You just have to tell them.”
“You want me to talk to ants?”
“No. But if you spray down your countertops with vinegar and water they will get the message. They hate the smell and it removes the scent trails of their scouts.”
“Okay.”
“And if you find any of their entry points to the house, just draw a line of chalk across the entry point. They won’t cross it.”
“Why not?”
“We’re not sure. We think it’s because they don’t like the calcium carbonate in the chalk. It also interrupts their scent trails.”
She got up and went to a drawer in the kitchen. “I have some chalk here. My niece was over and we played hopscotch.” She held up a box of chalk.
Kelso grabbed the box from her. “Where do you think they’re coming in?”
She pointed to a portion of the floor where the baseboard was separated from the floorboards slightly, creating a gap. He got down on his hands and knees and drew a line on the floor. She got down on her knees next to him. “Actually, it’s closer to the corner over there.” She pointed to another gap in the floor. Kelso chalked that gap too. Beryl laughed.
“You’re mocking me,” he noted.
“No. I’m not mocking you. I just didn’t expect to be chalking up my floor when I invited you in for a nightcap.”
“What did you expect to be doing?” he asked.
She kissed him. He dropped the chalk on the floor and it shattered into tiny pieces. They did not notice or care. His hands explored the curves of her waist and she ran hers through his hair. They locked lips again, probing each other’s mouths with their tongues.
The moment was interrupted by the sound of Buddy Holly’s voice:
I’m A Gonna Tell You How It’s Gonna Be
You’re Gonna Give Your Love To Me
It was Kelso’s cell phone ringing. Beryl looked at him. “Is that your ring tone?”
“Yeah.”
“I love Buddy Holly! Don’t answer it.” She kissed him again. “Wait.”
She went to her stereo and plugged in her Spotify feed. She played the same song. He got up and they slow danced. Beryl rested her head on his shoulder.
The phone rang again. It was Buddy Holly on the phone competing with Buddy Holly on the stereo. Kelso led her over to the side table where his phone was. “You’re not going to answer it, are you?” she asked.
“No, of course not,” he said, checking the caller ID on the phone. It was the Torrance field station of the Fish and Wildlife Service. As she held him, she could feel his body tense up.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“No, I don’t want to,” he offered. Ring tone Buddy Holly still beckoned. He was winning the competition for Kelso’s attention.
Beryl picked up the phone and answered it for him. “You cops are all the same,” she said as she placed it to his ear.
“Charlie, I’m kind of in the middle of something. What’s up?” he asked impatiently.
“The bee is definitely not a piece of jewelry.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a highly developed robotic pollinator.”
“You’re saying it’s some kind of artificial bee? A drone device that can be used to pollinate plants and trees?”
“That’s right.”
“But I thought that technology was years away?”
“I did too. The big stumbling block was always powering them. But this appears to have tiny solar panels that will do the trick.”
“How is it controlled?”
“Remotely. It has some kind of hive mind.”
“With a swarm of those, you could pollinate whole orchards in a single day.” Beryl grew impatient. She kissed Kelso’s neck to remind him she was still there.
“I still haven’t gotten it powered up, since the sun’s gone down. Let me run a few more tests and get back to you,” Charlie went on.
“Let’s talk in the morning,” Kelso replied.
“Yeah. Good night.” Kelso hung up the phone and turned to Beryl. “I’m sorry. There’s been a lead...”
“I don’t want to know,” Beryl said as she put her fingers to his lips, tenderly. They kissed again. She led him to the couch and they fell together onto the fluffed pillows, transported to another time and place, dictated only by the touch of their lips and hands as they navigated each others’ bodies.
***
John “Duke” Wayne tossed and turned in his bed. He hopped up and walked to the refrigerator to make a glass of warm milk. The visceral sensation of the warm silky beverage took him back to a simpler time and usually broke his sleepless nights. He poured the last of the contents of the milk carton into a saucepan and noticed they were curdled. He shook his head and walked back to his bedroom where his trousers lay on the bench at the foot of the bed. He placed them on and grabbed a jacket. Then he slipped on his shoes and made his way out of the house.
He walked to the driveway to find Beryl’s car behind his. As he walked back to the kitchen, he noticed the lights in her house were off. Rather than just move her car, he decided to take it to the liquor store. He went back to his kitchen and grabbed her spare car key off the hook.
He walked quietly back to the front and opened the Mustang. There was a box on the front seat. Duke thought he heard something fluttering inside but then the noise stopped. He started the engine and drove down the street.
The local liquor store in Carthay had been there since the 1960s and it had a kitschy sign with a clock and neon letters that said “It’s Time To Buy” at the top. Duke pulled Beryl’s Mustang into the small parking lot and hopped out. Inside there were several college students purchasing tequila and gin and bourbon, obviously for a late-night party. He went straight to the cooler where the milk was stored. Only tonight there was no milk. He looked up to the man at the counter and pointed towards the empty shelf where the milk should have been. “Dairy didn’t deliver yesterday,” he said with a shrug.
Duke walked out into the night. There was an all-night Ralph’s Grocery on Fairfax near Sunset he could try. They were sure to have milk. Should he drive all the way up there or go back home and stare at the ceiling wide awake? He pulled the Mustang out of the parking lot and headed north. I might as well get the milk now that I am out and about, he thought.
As he drove up Fairfax past Sunset, he noticed ten or twelve black and whites and their berries and cherries flashing just outside the El Sol Motel. He could not help but go investigate what the hell was going on. The El Sol was a frequent location for vice squad but this many squad cars indicated something bigger than a solicitation bust. Duke did not have a cherry top in Beryl’s car so he could not place an overhead light on the roof to fit in. But he burst in behind a couple of parked black and whites nonetheless.
A uniform immediately targeted him. “Hey you! This is an off-limits police staging area.”
Duke flashed his badge and the uniform stood down. “Sorry, Detective,” he offered.
“Keep an eye on the car!” Duke warned. “It’s my daughter’s.”
He walked behind the police line towards a motel room at the back of the building that was the center of activity. Detective Peters was there, running the show. He directed a crime photographer to shoot some pictures through the window of the motel room.
“What’s going on, Peters?” Duke asked.
“We got a DOA.”
“OD?”
“No,” Peters replied.
“Assault?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where is SID then?” Duke approached the room.
“They’re on the way.”
“Let’s take a look. Open the door.”
“We can’t until the fire department gets here.”
Duke peered inside the window and noticed the body of Valerie Wilder, lying on the bed with the Africanized honeybees swarming over her. “You sure she’s dead?”
“Couple hours maybe. We confirmed. First officer on the scene got stung eight times.”
“Oh, no.”
“She’s the hooker who slept with Howard Skulberry.”
“I remember. We interviewed her.”
“One of the officers noticed a hive under the eaves.” Peters pointed towards the desiccated hive that Fossil had placed there.
“I don’t believe this,” Duke said.
Across the road, behind police lines, a Channel 12 TV News van pulled up. Hester Lynne popped out and approached one of the uniforms on the perimeter. “Hi officer, what seems to be going on?” she asked in a lilting pillow-talk type of voice.
“Sorry, ma’am. No press allowed.”
“Oh come on, you can give me something.”
“I’ll have to refer you to LAPD media relations.”
Hester walked back to the news vans where Jerry already had his tripod and camera set up along with a key and a fill light to make Hester look her best. He handed her a microphone and counted her down with his fingers. Five, four, three, two...
“This is Hester Lynne of Channel 12 News live from the El Sol Motel in West Hollywood. We are at the scene of what insiders say is another killer bee attack. Sources say a motel employee opened the door of a guest room to find a large swarm of bees hovering over the body of an unidentified young woman. Police so far have the area cordoned off and declined to comment. If this is indeed another bee attack, it raises the question of whether we are witnessing some kind of rampant infestation that stands to affect the life of each and every Angeleno. It also begs the question, what is the mayor going to do it about it? Stay tuned for more details as we get them.”
With that the technical director cut to commercial. Almost immediately the lines began ringing at the LAPD, the mayor’s office and the county mosquito abatement department. Why people were calling a department associated with mosquitoes when bees were the alleged culprits was unclear, but the mosquito abatement department’s phones rang off the hook.
***
A slight twinge of the rising sun bathed Beryl’s bedroom in a lilac hue as she awoke in Kelso’s arms. She stared at him as he slept, not in a creepy way – she just thought he was cute. His facial muscles were completely relaxed and his nostrils flared slightly as he breathed. She slipped out from under his arm and went to the bathroom. When she came back, he smiled at her and sat up. “How is the man-cleanse going?” he asked.
She giggled.
“You like Sedona, Arizona?” Kelso asked.
“Never been.”
“It’s not far from where I’m stationed at the nature refuge. There are some of the most amazing rock formations and sacred sites there. I have a cabin, I mean, it’s more than a cabin. It’s got hot running water and a kitchen with a garbage disposal...maybe you could visit.”
