Sweet Revenge (Dewberry Farm Mysteries Book 7) Read online

  Sweet Revenge

  A Dewberry Farm Mystery

  Karen MacInerney

  Copyright © 2020 by Karen MacInerney

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedicated to the memory of Jelly Bean, the tiny abandoned chihuahua who hobbled into my heart and my life just a few short months ago. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way to make you well again, sweetheart, but I gave your fictional counterpart a better ending. (And thanks to you, I now have Iggy!)

  Dedicated also to all the families whose roots lie in Texas, including those whose ancestors came here by force and those whose ancestors were forced to leave. Your stories deserve to be heard.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  A Killer Ending: A Snug Harbor Mystery

  More Books by Karen MacInerney

  Recipes

  Sweet Texas Cornbread

  Hoppin’ John

  Texas Peach Cobbler

  Honey Muffins

  Peach Honey Butter

  Beeswax Foot Balm

  Serafine’s Salve

  About the Author

  1

  I don't know why nobody's done a horror film called "The Beekeeper" yet, but as I looked at myself reflected in the back window of my little yellow farmhouse, swathed in a beekeeper's hazmat-style suit with a smoking metal tin in my right hand, I reflected that I'd be a good candidate for the starring role.

  "Got your gear on?" my friend and mentor Serafine asked. Unlike me, who had prepared for Bee Armageddon, Serafine had retained her flowy black sleeveless dress, only adding a veiled hat (also black) and gloves for protection.

  "I look like I'm ready for a moonwalk," I said, adjusting my hat. "Are you sure you don't want to suit up?"

  "The bees know I'm all right," she said. Since Serafine was not only a veteran beekeeper (she owned the Honeyed Moon Meadery just down the road), but the daughter of a voodoo priestess, I decided she knew what she was doing. She'd made a few concessions to the bees, at least; she'd eschewed the bright colors she favored and her usual floral perfume, lest the bees mistake her for a flower. It wouldn't be a hard thing to do; Serafine was beautiful, her smooth dark skin glowing in the early afternoon light, her high cheekbones lightly dusted with rose-gold blush that iridesced in the sun. "Ready?" she asked again, her almond-shaped eyes glinting with expectation.

  "I guess," I said, not feeling quite as confident as I would have liked. I'd gotten the hang (mostly) of cows and goats, but bees were something else altogether. As much as I enjoyed watching the come and go from the hives I'd placed on the far end of my small peach orchard, opening an active beehive filled me with trepidation--even though we had picked the time of day when most of the worker bees were out foraging. It was June, after all, and wildflowers were still blooming, providing tons of nectar for my five fledgling colonies.

  Serafine had helped me set them up back in early spring, from getting together my bee orders and selecting and locating the frames to putting out a water source for when Dewberry Creek ran dry. I'd noticed a drop in activity in two of the hives the previous week, so it was time to check on them, and Serafine, bless her, had offered to help me out. She'd come with her assistant, Chloe, who looked like her protégé in just about every way. Like Serafine, Chloe was dressed in a flowing dress, only hers was blue with gold stars sprinkled across it, and she wore her hair in small braids that swung around her young face as she moved. She even wore the same shade of rose-gold blush, it seemed... only the color didn't quite work against her milk-colored skin. Chloe hung back, playing with my slightly tubby apricot poodle Chuck, as Serafine and I advanced on the hives. The farm's new kittens, Smoky and Lucky, had adjusted nicely since I found them in the chimney and the old well, and Chuck had taken them on as if they were his own, often herding them when he felt they were straying too far. Now, they were busy stalking each other under my grandmother's pink roses; watching them roll around always brought a smile to my face.

  "I always thought you could just let the bees do their thing," I said.

  "They're livestock of a sort," Serafine said. "And livestock always needs tending."

  "That certainly is true," I said, glancing over at the pasture, where my milch cow Blossom, her daughter, and my burgeoning herd of goats, led by Hot Lips, grazed. I milked them twice a day, kept them fed and watered, monitored their health, and made sure they weren’t conspiring to tunnel through the fence. And then there were the chickens, who were adjusting to the addition of six new chicks. It was a full-time job just managing the animals on Dewberry Farm... never mind the rows of early summer vegetables and the peach trees I was attempting to keep from being plucked clean by birds and squirrels.

  "It's these that are the problem, right?" she asked, casting an expert eye over the hives and immediately identifying the two that had seen a drop in activity.

  "I think so," I said.

  "Let's take a look," she said. I stood, frozen. She gave me a kind smile and deftly took the smoker from me. "Just do what I say," she said, "and stay calm."

  As Serafine directed me (and held the smoker), I opened the first hive and pulled out one of the frames.

  "Hmm," she said, pointing to the gaps in the comb. "See this area here? It's spotty. The flowers have been good, but the bees here aren't thriving."

  "I see what you mean," I told her, looking at the comb.

  "No eggs. Not a lot of brood cells or larvae either." She tilted her head and listened. "The bees' pitch is a little high, too. I think you're missing a queen."

  "That sounds bad."

  "It's fixable," she reassured me. I replaced the frame gently and we moved onto the next hive, which was humming more comfortably. "This one looks just fine," she said. "When you're ready to harvest, you'll want to take from the sections where they're all capped off," she told me.

  Although the smoke-dazed bees collected on the veil of my hat and the arms and legs of my suit, they seemed not to bother Serafine. When one flew onto her nose, she simply sang a little song to it--something with no words, but soothing nonetheless--and it flew off a moment later. Unlike me, who was vibrating with tension like a high-voltage line under the hot beekeeper's suit, she radiated peace and confidence, and the bees seemed to sense it.

  It took a half hour to inspect all of the hives; Serafine diagnosed two of them as being queenless. The spring wildflowers had been lush this year, thanks to generous rains, and I was glad to see that most of the hives were filling with honey; it was amazing what these industrious insects could do. I wouldn't be harvesting honey this year--it was better for the bees to wait until the hives were more established--but I was looking forward to having my own honey and beeswax products to sell at market. Although if I was this stressed ju
st checking the hives, I couldn't imagine how it would feel actually taking honey from them. Or, more to the point, how the bees would feel about my removing swathes of the comb they'd worked so hard to make. It took, after all, an entire lifetime for one bee to make a mere 1/12th of a teaspoon. Remembering how much work it took made the sweet taste all the sweeter.

  "What do I do about the two queenless hives?" I asked once we were far enough from the hives that I dared to take off my suit. Despite her lack of protective gear, Serafine had been stung only once, when she'd accidentally pressed a bee between her arm and her body. "Poor little thing," she'd cooed, removing the stinger from her skin and cupping the dying bee in her hand. I'd somehow gotten stung three times by bees who had snuck under my net hat, leaving me with a constellation of burning stings across my cheek and neck. My words hadn't been quite as generous as hers when it happened.

  "I've got something to help with that," she said, digging in her voluminous purse. She pulled out a small tin, then popped the top off and offered it to me.

  "What is it?"

  "Calendula salve," she said. "It'll help the stings."

  "Thanks," I said, taking a dab on a fingertip and touching it to my neck and cheek. It didn't take long for the sting to abate. "Wow," I said. "Where did you get this?"

  "I made it," she grinned.

  "Can I have the recipe? This stuff is magical!"

  "I'm teaching a class on homemade salves and balms at Heritage Farm tomorrow," she said. "It's full, but since you're a friend, I can squeeze you in."

  "I didn't know you were involved with the museum," I said. Buttercup's Heritage Farm Living History museum had opened a few months ago, with lots of support from Mayor Niederberger and the residents of Buttercup, particularly those who owned shops around the square. Priscilla Jordan-Melville, one of the wealthier residents of Buttercup, had donated a hundred acres of rolling pasture and woodland on Dewberry Creek for the project a few years back, along with a historic farmhouse that had been in her family for several generations; it had only recently opened. The director of the museum, Alicia Fawkes, was a charismatic and driven leader, with a strong push toward authenticity that from what I had heard had occasionally ruffled feathers among the board members, most of whom were from old Buttercup families.

  Several antique farmhouses and barns in varying stages of decay had been moved to the site and restored, and historians from UT and Texas A&M, along with several craftsmen and craftswomen, had consulted on recreating a version of life as it once was in our neck of the woods. My friend Peter Swensen had given advice on their animal husbandry program, and both he and I had helped out in the gardens; just last week, we'd harvested the onion crop and hung the bulbs up to dry in the smokehouse.

  "The seminar starts at six o'clock," Serafine said.

  "I'll be there," I said. "I didn't know you were teaching classes!"

  "Alicia is trying to expand the museum's offerings," she said. "One of the houses came from the Independence Colony."

  "That was a freedmen's community, wasn't it?" I'd read about it in an article in the Buttercup Zephyr a while back.

  "It was,” Serafine said. "She's planning an exhibit on African-American history in the area, but some of the board isn't crazy about it."

  "Why?"

  "A lot of people would like to gloss over some of the more checkered parts of the area's past," she said with a sad smile. "There's been some resistance, but I'm guessing Alicia will manage to get it through. And I'm definitely in favor of it; I just found out I've got kin in the area."

  "I thought you and your sister were from New Orleans!" I said.

  "We are," she confirmed. " But I got curious about where our family might have come from originally, back in Africa—at least those that didn't come from Haiti. When I did the test, I got some info on where in West Africa we might have roots, but I also found out Aimee and I have got cousins just up the road in La Grange." Aimee was Serafine's sister, who lived and worked with her at the meadery.

  "Part of your family was from Texas?"

  "Looks like it," she said. "But nobody ever talked about it. I want to find out what happened."

  "And you've got a lot of interest in the Independence Colony project, I'll bet."

  "I do," she said. "I want to know how some of my folks got here, what life was like for them... and how they wound up coming to Louisiana from Texas. Or if maybe some of our kin moved here later."

  "Have you met any of them yet?"

  "Not yet," she said, "but I sent a few e-mails, and I've got a phone conversation set up for this weekend. I'm kind of nervous, to be honest. I'm kind of an unusual person... not to everyone's taste."

  "Well, being the daughter of a voodoo priestess with a bit of the second sight isn't exactly ordinary," I said. "But I'm sure they'll love you."

  "We'll see," she said.

  "How come you didn't follow in your mother's footsteps, anyway?" I asked. I wasn't sure I was entirely comfortable with the whole voodoo thing, but I was very curious about it. Serafine must have had a very interesting upbringing, to say the least.

  "I didn't feel called to it," she said. "My mother tried to get me to take over for her, but it wasn't for me; she ended up training one of my nieces instead. I still have all that she taught me, though... including some of what I'm going to be teaching tomorrow night."

  "Really?" I asked.

  "My mother knew all about medicinal herbs and treatments... that's what folks used to rely on for medical help... well, that and the lwa."

  "The lwa?"

  "The spirits," she said solemnly. "It's who folk petition for help. You don't mess around with the spirits, though, and you make sure to give them their due. My mother celebrated their birthdays, kept altars to them... they're linked to the saints, so their birthdays are often on saints' days."

  "That sounds like a big commitment," I said.

  "It is," she said. "It disappointed my mother when I didn't take over for her. Maybe my sister will pick it up one day. Who knows?" she shrugged. "I learned a lot from my mother, though, and I still pay my respects."

  As she finished talking, Chloe and Chuck walked over.

  "How did the check-up go?" Chloe asked.

  "Most of the hives are fine, but two are struggling. She needs two new queens," Serafine said. "No mites, though."

  "Thank goodness," Chloe said. "Those things are awful."

  "I've heard," I said. Varroa mites were one of the beekeeping nasties of the world, and could wreak havoc on hives. "How's the internship going?" I asked her.

  "Serafine's teaching me all about running the business," she said brightly.

  "Chloe's taken over some of the social media already," Serafine said. "She's going to be taking pictures at the workshop tomorrow," she added, smiling proudly at the younger woman. "Maybe we can give Dewberry Farm a shout-out!"

  "That would be terrific," I said. I'd started a page for the farm, but hadn't been very good about posting; maybe Chloe's pictures would give me a boost. "The braids are a new look; I like them." Last time I'd seen her, her brown hair had been long and straight. "Where did you get it done?" I asked.

  "Serafine braided it for me." She blushed, her hand darting to her new braids; she was obviously self-conscious about them.

  "She's got lots of hair," Serafine said. "No extensions for this girl!"

  "It suits you," I said.

  "Thanks," Chloe said shyly.

  Serafine's phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it. "I hate to run, but I've got to get back to the meadery," she said. "I promised Aimee I'd take over this afternoon."

  "Thanks for coming out to check on the hives," I said. "And thanks for the invite to the workshop."

  "My pleasure. I'll see you tomorrow!" she said. Chloe gave Chuck a good-bye scratch behind the ears before trailing her mentor back out the gate to the Honeyed Moon truck in my driveway. I waved as they headed down the drive, grateful to have supportive friends.

  As I walked bac
k to the house, a mooing sound came from somewhere off to my right.

  Which was not a good thing, since the pasture was to my left.

  I turned to see the goats trampling my neat rows of cucumbers and squash while Blossom and her daughter were starting to help themselves to my just-ripe peaches, ripping whole limbs off of my young trees in an attempt to get to the upper branches.

  "Hey!" I shouted, running toward the orchard and scattering Hot Lips and Gidget as I passed. Gidget looked up at me, a cucumber vine trailing from her mouth, and did a neat sidestep right into a watermelon, which broke open under her sharp hoof. Blossom saw me coming, and trotted toward the creek. It wasn't back to the pasture, but at least it was out of the orchard. I glanced behind me to where the goats had resumed pillaging my garden.

  There was only one goat left in the pasture; I ran to close the gate, and recoiled when I saw what was hanging about two fenceposts down.

  It was a little doll with brown yarn hair, wrapped up in a scrap of red fabric, hanging upside-down on the fence post.

  And stuck through the middle of it was a big, rusty nail.

  2

  It took an hour before I managed to get the animals all back into the pasture, using a batch of oatmeal cookies I'd made earlier in the week to lure them back in, then closing the gate behind them. They'd destroyed about a third of my cucumber crop, but I'd salvaged most of the peaches and tomatoes. I'd done a quick check of the fence; there were no holes. Either I hadn't latched it properly when I moved them from pasture to pasture earlier in the week, they'd figured out how to get the gate open themselves... or someone had opened it for them.