The Bee Balm Murders Read Online Free

hearse, warm and dry, engine running, listening to the generic rock on WMVY radio. The lead cop opened the back doors of the hearse and they slid in the stretcher. Toby, in the driver’s seat, watched them in the rearview mirror. He lifted a hand from the wheel in acknowledgment.
    “Guess that’s supposed to be a thank you,” said the lead cop. The two got back into their cruiser and took off, a rooster tail of muddy water settling in their wake.
    Orion’s back ached. He eased into the driver’s seat of his twenty-year-old Chevy wagon and leaned back. Should have known better than to lift one quarter of Angelo Vulpone one-handed, he told himself. Damned fool. He reached carefully into the glove compartment, found the aspirin bottle, chewed up and swallowed three without water, and leaned back again, eyes closed, waiting for the aspirin to take effect.
    A knock on his window. He opened his eyes. The guy from the Two Braves Construction pickup truck. He rolled down his window.
    “Can I help you?”
    “You the boss?”
    “I’m the fiber-optic boss,” Orion said.
    “The town guy said you’re the one I should talk to.” The man at Orion’s window was wearing the ubiquitous yellow oilskins. Raindrops trickled down his mahogany face.
    “Want to get out of the rain?” Orion indicated the side door, not wanting to bend that far unless he had to.
    “What’dya say we get a cup of coffee at Humphrey’s, and dry out.”
    “Sounds good to me,” said Orion. “I’ll meet you there. What did you say your name was?”
    “I didn’t.” He pointed a wet finger at his wet chest. “You’re looking at Donald Minnowfish, antiquities officer for the tribe.”
    “Nice to meet you.” Orion rolled up the window and started the car. The inside of the windshield had fogged up during his conversation with Minnowfish, so he turned on the heater, the air conditioner, and the fan and waited until he could see out.
    Humphrey’s was less than a mile from the ball field. The Two Braves truck was already there as Orion pulled up.
    Minnowfish was seated at a small table by the window when Orion entered, a fat briefcase next to his chair. “You buying?” he asked.
    “Why not,” said Orion. “How do you take it?”
    “Double cream, double sugar. And, say,” he said as Orion turned to go to the counter, “get me a jelly donut, will you?”
    “Right,” said Orion over his shoulder.
    They went through the ritual of small talk, a necessary prelude to whatever Minnowfish really intended to say. The body at the bottom of the trench, of course. The weather. The mud. They stirred their respective coffees and discussed where Orion was from, what Two Braves Construction did. Minnowfish started in on the Red Sox and how they were going to demolish the Yankees this season. Orion assumed his pleasant look and stirred his coffee some more. Minnowfish took a couple of bites of his donut and then they got down to business.
    Minnowfish wiped powdered sugar from his mouth and reached down for the briefcase. He had intense gray-green eyes and close-cropped, light brown, tightly curled hair. “You know, don’t you, that you need permits from the tribe before excavating?”
    “I’m not excavating,” said Orion. “The town is. I’m simply laying cable in their trench.”
    “Still, you need a permit.” He opened the briefcase and took out a thick sheaf of forms.
    “What for?” said Orion, who’d researched every possible requirement for permits. He’d applied for them all, even ones he didn’t think were needed. He’d done that even though he had no intention of excavating anything.
    “Wampanoag antiquities,” said Minnowfish. “Artifacts. Fire rings. Campsites.”
    “But the ball field is new land,” said Orion. “They filled in a marsh to create it in the 1970s, before the Wetlands Act. There couldn’t have been campsites.”
    Minnowfish shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You need a permit from the land manager, according to the