Death by Haunting Read Online Free PDF

have known, unlike a Rembrandt or Degas. A regular person would recognize those names even if they had never had an art class in their lives, but only a real art hound would be familiar with a Flinck, but there was also a Manet and a Vermeer stolen as well. Both oils on canvas.”
    “That’s quite a story,” I uttered.
    “Terry wanted it kept quiet, so we never spoke of it. He didn’t want people thinking he had something to do with the robbery, even though he had been cleared. But you know how people talk.”
    “Thank you for telling me. I will be discreet,” I promised.
    “I would appreciate that. I don’t want Terry’s name tarnished. It’s just awful that he had to die without the robbery being solved.”
    “I’ll go through his book and I’ll let you know if I discover anything.”
    “Don’t forget I want that notebook back, Josiah.”
    “I won’t and thank you kindly for the Coke. I best be on my way. Miss Eunice is gonna skin me alive.”
    Mavis gave me a wan smile and muttered while opening the door, “I hope winter breaks soon. I can’t wait to see the redbuds bloom.” She looked wistfully at the cloudy sky, waved and then shut the front door.

9
    W inter had finally broken. It was going to be in the mid-sixties for the next several days. Time to work with my bees.
    I got Tyrone, one of Charles’ grandsons, to help me. We suited up and finally got the smoker to work. Getting that smoker to smoke was the hardest thing about beekeeping for me. The smoke calmed the bees enough to let us work in relative peace.
    I smoked the front entrance to the hive and then Tyrone lifted the outer cover so I could smoke the top of the hive. We gave the bees a minute and then Tyrone lifted the outer cover off the hive, putting it aside.

    I smoked the hole of the inner cover and then Tyrone pried it off with a hive tool and put it on the ground. Again, I smoked down into the frames of the hive so the bees would flee deeper into the hive. Handing Tyrone the smoker, I pried out a frame from the top hive body.
    “The Queen’s already laying,” remarked Tyrone as we studied the capped brood pattern. It was large and oval. Perfect.
    I put it back and pulled out another one. This one had a good brood pattern too, along with pollen in the upper cells. The maple trees must already be blooming. They were among the first trees to come to life in Kentucky.
    “There’s the Queen!” cried Tyrone excitedly, pointing to one of the bees.
    I looked closely at her. It was rare to see a Queen. Usually they hid. She was gliding along looking for an empty cell to lay an egg in, oblivious to the fact that she was out in the open away from the dark safety of her hive. House bees corralled her as if to protect her from the sunlight. She looked healthy. A good Queen could lay 2000 eggs a day during the high season. I put the frame back carefully. The last thing I wanted to do was disturb the Queen.
    “Let’s switch the hive bodies. You pull the top hive body off while I pull off the bottom hive body,” I instructed.
    The bees had glued the two boxes together with propolis, which is glue they make from tree sap and beeswax.
    I worked the boxes free of the propolis with my hive tool. “I think I got them free. On the count of three. One two three.”
    Tyrone pulled the heavy top hive body off and placed it on an outer cover. That way we wouldn’t lose the Queen in the grass.
    I smoked the bottom hive body and pulled out some frames. As expected, the cells were empty of eggs or capped brood. All the bees had moved into the top hive body. I pulled off the empty hive body.
    Tyrone placed the top hive body full of bees on the bottom board.
    I then poured powdered sugar onto the frames and all the bees that came up to investigate. Using powdered sugar was controversial but I had found it effective to use against mites. While combing the powder from their fur, parasitic mites would fall to the bottom and out of the hive through the