“Why do I have the feeling you know exactly what’s going on in his head?” A grin was tugging at George’s lips.
“It’s the math I do every day, with every encounter I have. I weigh the cost of engaging against the consequences of not doing it and act accordingly. It’s kind of an automated process at this point.” Andi hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but something in his tone must have been off because George winced. He had his eyes firmly on the road, backing away from the gate and looking for a spot where he could turn the car around.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It started long before I met you, and I don’t think I could stop it now, even if I don’t need it as urgently anymore, thanks to you.”
“I’m glad I can be of some help.” Andi didn’t like the self-deprecation those words showed.
“You’re a great help to me. The meditation yesterday? That was exactly what I needed.”
“Good.”
They were silent until George had managed to turn the car around.
“He keeps bees?”
“Yeah.”
“Could he be our guy?”
Andi looked out the window. “It’s possible. The smoke signature is similar enough. He also lives next to House Cusabo, which means he’s close to a portion of our victims, he is a loner who seems to hate people on principle, tries to stay under the radar, is tall and strong enough to haul a corpse around and bury it, and his father built the bunker.”
“I sense a but coming.”
“I don’t think he lied when he said he hasn’t set foot in the bunker since he was a kid.”
“You don’t think, or you know? No moths in the vicinity? Or silverfish?”
George had learned by now which insects provided the most reliable insights in what regard. Detecting liars was something moths and silverfish were best for. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been any close enough to get a good read on Timothy Cervill. All Andi had had were a centipede and a few pill bugs under a stone nearby, and they had shown him the picture of a man who was telling the truth. No quickening of his pulse, no flare in the electric field indicating stress, no outburst of pheromones, though those could have been masked by the overwhelming scent of smoke from the bee smoker.
“No. He was pretty calm the whole time we spoke. Of course, if he is the killer, he may not feel guilt over what he’s done, and then I wouldn’t be able to detect anything.”
“So he stays on the list of suspects.”
“Definitely. Together with Thomas LeClerk and whoever else we’ll dig up.”
“At least it isn’t as many people as with the triple homicide of Miller, McHill, and Portius.”
Andi groaned. “Don’t remind me. That was a nightmare.” The only positive thing about that case was that the prime suspect—also the person who had planned the murder—had wiggled out of the grasp of the law easily thanks to his excellent planning, which spared them a long trial where they had to come to the witness stand. They avoided talking about this particular case most of the time because their views on it differed quite a bit.
They both stared out the front window onto the road. George was tapping the steering wheel in a rhythm Andi thought he recognized. Probably some song that was popular at the moment. It wasn’t Vivaldi’s classical pieceTheFour Seasons, Spring, so George was still quite relaxed.
“The killer is a beekeeper. We have bees at House Cusabo, bees on Timothy Cervill’s land. And a ghost told us the bees are important.” George changed the rhythm. It sounded like salsa.
“Well, historically speaking, bees have always been important. Since before the first pyramids were built. Apis mellifera and Homo sapiens have coexisted for a long time.”
“Apis mellifera?”
“The Western honeybee. It’s the one best known. The only other domesticated bee is Apis cerana, the Eastern honeybee. They both seem to have originated in Eastern Africa and spread from there to Europe and Asia.”
George stopped his tapping. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to reveal the extent of my ignorance here, but when you say domesticated bee, how many others are there?”
“Uhm, roughly 20,000, many of them endangered. And only honeybees build combs. Most other bees are solitary.”
“No honey from them?”
“Pollen. They store it for their offspring. There’s this one bee in Germany, I forgot the name, it lays an egg in an empty snail shell, fills it with pollen, closes it, and then buries it under little twigs and grass so it won’t get blown away or found by predators. Very impressive.” Andi smiled at the memory of watching that bee in a TV documentary. It had looked like a little helicopter, moving twigs more than ten times its size through the air.
