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honey farms and dabbled in a sale here and there. Manny had introduced me to Kenny when they first sat down, Kenny more or less ignored me, then before the meeting broke up, Manny asked me to be the official contact person if there were any issues.
    That had been a pleasant surprise, in spite of my not liking Kenny. Anything to be involved. Manny wasn’t interested in the sales and negotiation end of his business, which led me to hope that I would be able to take that burden off his shoulders completely in the future. Marketing was second nature to me after owning a small business like The Wild Clover. In any case, there hadn’t been any problems that caused me and Kenny to meet again, which suited me just fine.
    “What were you doing at Kenny Langley’s?” I asked.
    “Oops.” Ray looked uncomfortable. His eyes flitted away and his coloring deepened like he’d been caught with his hand in the cash register.
    “You’re distributing honey from Kenny’s?” I said with narrowing eyes. Kenny’s Bees should definitely have been off-limits to Ray. Every since he took over deliveries two years ago, Manny and Ray had had an exclusive agreement regarding honey. Ray helped Manny get his honey onto other grocers’ shelves, and Ray received a deeper discount. Since I had a small piece of the action based on my own sales’ efforts, Ray’s actions cut into my profits, too. I shoved the clipboard back at him. “You have an agreement with Queen Bee Honey, and you know it. How long has this been going on with Kenny’s Bees?”
    “Only once,” Ray said, which is exactly what my ex, Clay, had said the first time I caught him . “And I feel real bad about it.”
    “I bet you do, and you’re going to feel worse when I take a percentage off this invoice you just handed me to compensate for you reneging on an agreement, which, by the way, is now null and void.”
    “Come on, Story. It won’t happen again.”
    “Manny’s not even in his grave,” I said, laying on the guilt with a spatula. “Or he’d be turning in it.”
    “I promise. I really do. What if I take a few more cases than usual and find new buyers? My route’s expanding. I can sell more.”
    “We’ll talk about it later.” I gave him a hard look, but my voice changed to small and pained. “Now tell me about finding Manny.”
    “Not much to tell.” Ray tipped his ball cap back and scratched his head. “I was supposed to pick up cases of honey between nine and ten this morning. I got there a little before ten and found him covered in bees. I called nine-one-one.”
    “Was he dead?”
    “I don’t know—he wasn’t moving, and I wasn’t about to check his vital signs with bees flying everywhere.”
    “I didn’t see you there this afternoon.”
    “I freaked out after I called for help. That never happened to me before, a crisis like that with me the only one around. I’ve never been too good in emergencies. I should have stayed, I know. The sheriff let me have it good for leaving.”
    When he drove off, I went inside through the back door thinking about Ray Goodwin. When our long-time deliveryman retired, Ray managed to land the job. But he’d always been a loser with a capital L , moving from one job after another, most of them finishing fast with his termination. I made a mental note to keep a better eye on him in the future.
    The store buzzed with activity, giving me another brief moment of guilty pain; I felt bad that my store was benefiting from Manny’s death, but it clearly was—I had the evidence of that right before my eyes. A line at the register kept Brent busy ringing up orders. I took over behind the counter so he could help his brother unpack cases of fresh produce from Ray’s truck—apples, corn on the cob, cabbage, beets, and a variety of late potatoes, including my favorite, fingerlings. Today’s delivery was only a small sampling of the abundant produce Wisconsin had to offer at this time of year.
    For the rest of the