Murder By The Pint (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 1)

by Belle Knudson

  He bent down to help me with my blanket, which I held tightly and turned so that it blew straight away from me, flapping like Superman's cape.

  "It's okay, I got it," I said. "And no more Maddies, Lester. I mean it."

  "Alright, I'm sorry. So how bout a tunafish sandwich? And by the way, who the hell brings tuna to the beach?"

  "Tell you what," I said, "should we meet again..."

  Chapter 5

  Here's what happened when I returned to work the next day.

  We had this guy, Fred, a kid right out of high school, possessing that special sort of arrogant ignorance that kids of that age possess. On top of it, Fred was lazy. Actually, in retrospect, it seems like he wasn't so much lazy as unobservant. Let me explain. The place is supposed to be spotless before we leave. And I mean spotless – by Madison Darby standards. White gloves, if you know what I mean. From day one I vowed we'd have the cleanest brewery in the country and I meant it. Now Fred, who by his own account had a hot date that night, wanted to get out spot on time. Listen, I have no problem with that. The day's done when the day's done. But the day ain't done when there's a bag of garbage sitting by the door waiting to be taken out to the dumpster out back.

  I had a vision of a colony of germs gathering together and moving out onto the floor, a kind of germ Woodstock – peace, love, and infection. They had all night to party and now here was their abandoned bag sitting there by the door.

  I arrived early – the first one there.

  When I saw that bag of garbage, I cursed Fred. I hoped he sneezed on his date. I hoped she ditched him at the movie theater for the guy behind the popcorn counter.

  Now the place would have to be mopped and disinfected. I cursed Fred again and figured when I saw him again that I'd pull his baseball cap down around his ears and hit him with a spatula.

  So I picked up the bag and headed on out to the dumpster.

  It was still early, and the sun had not yet risen, so at first I thought someone had dropped a bag of leaves behind the dumpster. You find that sometimes. Landscapers need places to drop their trash, and they love an unattended dumpster. It's their favorite thing on the planet. I've never met a landscaper who didn’t salivate at the sight of an unattended dumpster. I thought maybe one of the leaf bags had missed its mark.

  No. This wasn't left by a landscaper. This wasn't a bag of leaves.

  This was a body.

  Crumpled up as if someone had just dropped it there. And it was lying in a pool of blood.

  #

  The police were swarming the place, questioning everyone and looking at everything.

  It must have been exciting for them. I know for a fact that the worst thing the Carl's Cove Police ever have to deal with is when two fishing lines get tangled. There had never been a murder in Carl's Cove. Ever. To see these men at work doing things they were not trained for and doing them well gave me a little pride in my new hometown, I have to say.

  I kept hearing the name "Moore."

  "Ask Detective Moore."

  "Get Detective Moore over here."

  Detective Moore was highly sought after here, and I could understand why. From what I was able to gather, he was a specialist called in from another department. Carl's Cove didn’t have a homicide detective.

  Then I heard Detective Moore's voice. And I started at the sound of it.

  Then the figure of Detective Moore was suddenly before me.

  Detective Lester Moore.

  "You!" he said, a great smile beaming on his face. "Maddie!"

  "Madison," I corrected, hiding my irritation.

  "Right. Wait... Madison Darby? Of the Darby Darbys? This is your place?"

  "Yup," I said faux sheepishly.

  He ran a hand through his wavy hair. "Well... so how's the tuna salad these days?"

  "It's fine," I said. Good Lord, this was awkward.

  He uttered a cute little chuckle and turned around, and then he swiveled around again and said, "Listen, hang around, ok? I want to talk to you."

  Something about that gave me a hot collarbone.

  In a good way.

  Who knew murder could have a bright side?

  #

  "So," said Detective Moore, as the men wrapped up their work behind him, "this place is all yours?"

  "All mine," I said.

  He looked around at the fermenters and the mash tuns and laughed. "Wow," he said, unwrapping a piece of spearmint gum. "I mean, this is impressive."

  "Impressive?"

  He turned to me. "Yeah, you know, for... someone so young."

  I laughed. "Good save, Detective."

  He smiled, realizing he'd just dodged a bullet, otherwise known as a Madison Darby lecture in gender politics.

  "You know," he said, gesturing with the stick of gum still in his hand, "you did say if we ever met again, you know...you did say it."

  I rolled my eyes and gave a sigh. "I did say that, yes."

  "Anywhere around here where a fella can get a decent sandwich?"

  I thought for a moment. "As a matter of fact, there is." And for a moment we stared at each other, smiling.

  As he stared and smiled, he put the gum to his lips, but something happened. Perhaps it was in his suddenly turning toward a sound someone made in the background, but Detective Lester Moore fumbled a bit and dropped the gum onto the floor.

  But that wasn't the bad part. The bad part came next.

  Detective Lester Moore, he of the cute chuckle, the beautiful baby blues, and the perfect wavy hair, this Lester Moore bent down and picked up that gum...

  ...and put it in his mouth.

  "Five second rule," he said.

  Chapter 6

  So I called the town's waste disposal department and learned a few interesting things. Number one, the sweepers are on a fairly loose schedule, but it's monitored closely. For instance, the sweeper has to log his route, the time at the start of his route, and his starting and ending mileages. He also submits a GPS report of his route that looks a lot like the report generated at the end of your standard walking/running apps.

  Did you know that all you have to do to get a copy of that report is promise a six-pack of oatmeal stout to the guy on the other end of the line?

  The fax came through just as I was getting ready to leave for lunch. Everything checked out. All I needed to do was to corroborate the data on the printout with the times reported and the starting and ending mileages, which, when all was said and done, blew my sweeper-as-murderer theory out of the water.

  So how did that body get there? He didn’t walk. He wasn't driven in.

  I looked at my watch. I was late for my lunch date with the cop.

  #

  Carl's Cove is home to a number of fine eateries. I realize that sounds like someone paid me to say it. But it's true. The trouble is you really have to search for one that won’t cost you a second mortgage when you add an appetizer. Word spread quickly in recent years that one could make a killing in Carl's Cove just by charging insanely bloated prices for both standard pub grub and foodie fare. All you needed was a write-up in Dan's Papers – the free publication of the who's who and what's what in the Hamptons – and you were guaranteed a one-hour wait per table no matter what kind of garbage you were offering on your plates. The truth of the matter is, in the Hamptons, no one cares. They think they do, hence the importance of a write-up. If someone tells them it's good, then it is good.

  But, if you want really good food, you have to search, ask around, or try everything and make your own judgement. Each of these three ways will cost you time, money, or both.

  However, there is a fourth way: Get in good with your fellow vendors and trade free samples. Within a week you'll know who's giving up the good eats.

  For me, that's Ernie's Natural Foods and Café. Now I don’t go for the whole natural foods thing. If I'm hungry and it's edible, that's natural enough for me. As long as the thing doesn't shoot sparks or metal spikes when you bite into it I'm fine. I have two requ
irements: The place has to be clean, and you have to care. Ernie is clean, and Ernie cares.

  Let me amend that. If they ever legalize marriage of humans to food, Ernie Segusta of Carl's Cove will be the first in line for a license, holding loving hands with his grilled bison quesadilla. Oh, by the way, if you pair the latter with a Darby's Bourbon Maple Porter, you have something magical, my friend. The thing about Ernie's is that the establishment tends to attract the great unwashed, neo-hippy hemp jockeys of the area, so the Hamptons elite tend to avoid it. That means that Dan's Papers overlooks it. And that means more of Ernie's treasured culinary masterpieces for those of us In The Know.

  My date was not one of those, and so I was elated to see the look of unbridled ecstasy on his face as he bit into a grilled bison quesadilla. I felt like I, myself, was biting into it for the first time. True love is like that.

  It was only a bite. I wanted a tuna sandwich. I needed that tuna sandwich. And so Ernie's Ventresca Tuna with Capers and Shallots and Grilled Meyer Lemon Mayonaisse on a freshly made spinach wrap with micro greens was the way to go. Paired with a Darby's Honey Wheat, of course. I was in heaven in more ways than one. Detective Lester Moore's sparkling blues provided another gateway to that ethereal plane.

  "You're awfully young for a detective," I said. Ok, I'm not the best flirt in the world. I figured I’d had him with the quesadilla, so anything I said from there on in would be judged with a bias in my favor.

  "I'm older than you think. Thirty-nine in December."

  Score! I turned thirty-eight two months ago. I didn’t tell him that.

  "Happy birthday in December."

  He smiled around his quesadilla and then did the unthinkable. A piece of grilled bison had fallen out onto our table, and Detective Lester Moore picked it up and popped it into his gorgeous mouth.

  I couldn’t help myself this time. "Why'd you do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "How do you know this table's clean?"

  He shrugged. "Five second rule."

  "Yeah, you said that back in my brewery when you ate gum off the floor."

  "So? This place is clean enough."

  "Trust me, I wouldn’t eat here if I didn’t think it was the cleanest place in all of Carl's Cove, but that doesn’t mean you can eat directly off the tables."

  "What are you, a germophobe?"

  "No, I just think it's sometimes necessary not to comport oneself like a savage."

  "I'm a savage because I obey the five second rule?"

  "There's no such thing!"

  "Look it up," he said. "It's scientifically valid."

  "So is syphilis."

  "You're kidding, right?"

  "There are germs on this table. You do believe in germs, don’t you?"

  "Of course, I just don’t think there's a likelihood of their infecting something I just dropped."

  "That's insane. Do you know what kind of bacteria are lurking just under your nose?"

  "Literally?"

  "Yeah, now that you mention it. And figuratively."

  "You're a fun date," he said. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

  I felt it was a good time to back off. "I'm sorry. It's a thing with me."

  "I'm not going to lie, man. That's weird."

  "Yeah, and that's another thing. What's with 'man'?"

  "What?"

  "You have a habit of using 'man' even when you're talking to a woman, do you know that?"

  "It's a habit. I don’t realize it. And by the way, have you realized that we're here about fifteen minutes and already you've criticized me for two habits? Anything else? Wanna try for a hat trick?"

  "I just want to have lunch with someone who understands the basic rules of hygiene."

  "I'm the cleanest guy you ever met."

  I shook my head. "Whatever."

  There was an awkward silence now. It was my fault, I admit. I really couldn’t help myself. We both ate in silence and refused to look at one another.

  Then he did it. He picked up his napkin, dabbed the corners of his mouth, and said, in a faux-British accent, "Pardon me, do you happen to have an antiseptic wipe for my molars?"

  I rolled my eyes at him. He smiled beautifully at me and I had trouble feeling the feelings I'd just been harboring for this animal.

  "So," I said, "let's talk about murder."

  "My favorite subject," he said.

  "Is it really?"

  "Sort of. I'm not a psychopath or anything. I hate the idea that people murder each other. But I like detective work. I like catching criminals."

  "Fair enough," I said. "So, I've been thinking about this body we found in my alley."

  "Jack Daltry."

  "Hm?"

  "Jack Daltry. Always remember a name. This is a human being we're talking about."

  "Jack Daltry. He was a, what did you call it? A fence?"

  "Correct."

  "What is that?"

  "A guy who acts as a go-between for thieves. The fence finds a market for the stolen goods and takes a cut for himself."

  "Do you have a motive for the murder?"

  "Well, the fence isn’t the only guy who wants to get his hands on the stolen merchandise. Could be another fence – Jack Daltry's competition. Could be a rival gang. We don’t know. We're searching for leads."

  "Interesting," I said, trying to sound intellectual. "I've been thinking about this case myself."

  "Have you now?"

  "Indeed. And I've come to the conclusion that there was no way for Jack Daltry to arrive in my alleyway without an escort."

  He stopped eating, and a look of intense scrutiny came over his face. "Explain."

  "I mean his shoes should have been wetter, and by wetter, I mean soaked through. You said it yourself that a street sweeper came through that morning. Well, the sweeper left an ankle-deep puddle at the entrance to the alley. If Jack Daltry had walked into that alley at the time you say he did, he would’ve had to have walked through the puddle. This means that either the body was already there when the sweeper came through and the sweeper didn’t see him – which is impossible seeing as how the sweeper made his round through the entire alleyway, like you said he did – or the sweeper dropped him off. And you said it yourself that the only tracks left there were the ones left by the sweeper—"

  I stopped here because I had one of those brain-freezing moments where sudden insight makes you temporarily forget how to function as an intellectual being. I think my jaw was hanging open. And I think I was giving a full view of partially-chewed tuna to the cop.

  "What is it?" he said, possibly contemplating the use of a taser to snap me out of it.

  "He was driven in."

  "How do you figure?"

  "The sweeper was on schedule with his route."

  "Okay."

  "And any tire tracks left by the previous guy were eradicated by the sweeper."

  "Okay."

  I was disbelieving. "You're not seeing it?"

  "Seeing what?"

  I almost threw the remainder of my wrap at him. "The sweeper didn’t murder anyone, but he was in on it! He was supposed to be Jack's ride out of there. He arrived, saw the body, dragged it behind the dumpster, finished sweeping the area clean, and left beating a hasty retreat. It's obvious he got out of there in a hurry because he left a trail of debris from a full trash container."

  "We talked to him though."

  "Talked to whom?"

  "The sweeper."

  "Ah huh."

  "You don’t believe me?"

  "I believe you."

  "Okay," he said.

  I shook my head at him. "So what does that prove?"

  "I'm saying we talked to him. His story checks out."

  "Of course it does. On paper, via GPS and timesheets, of course it all checks out. I could've told you that."

  "How could you have told me that?"

  I waved a hand at him. "Don’t worry about that for now. All I'm saying is that the sweeper says one thing and his route
report corroborates it. All he has to do is stick to that story. He says he didn’t see a body. I say he did. He's the only one that could have seen him."

  He gave me a look that said I was full of more than just tuna.

  "Listen," I said, "either Jack Daltry was dropped off beforehand or the sweeper dropped him off. Either he was killed in a car and dumped there, or the sweeper killed and dumped him there. Whichever is true, you have access to one of the variables to this equation. Talk to the sweeper again. Structure your line of questioning around this angle. I guarantee you'll get an answer."

  A slight smile began on his face. It started as a twinkle in his eye and spread quickly.

  "I'm onto something," I said.

  He nodded. "How did you know about the route report?"

  I took a breath, contemplating whether or not I should divulge my extracurricular activity. "I called the department of sanitation. They faxed it over."

  "Just like that?"

  I shrugged without a verbal answer.

  His smile lessened. "Do me a favor and try not to interfere. I'm not playing around here. This is important stuff and a man got killed. Don’t mess around with it. As soon as you know something, you become dangerous to certain people intent on keeping that knowledge hidden. You understand?"

  "I understand," I said, not entirely appreciating the lecture.

  We finished the meal in the wake of a new awkward silence. And we parted ways, each of us fairly sure we wouldn’t see each other again.

  As Shakespeare said, "What fools these mortals be."

  Smart guy, Shakespeare.

  Chapter 7

  When I got back from my lunch with the detective, Hildy was waiting to see me. She'd pretty much accosted me at the door, rambling on and on about peak season and schedules and putting on the right company face. And she followed me all the way up to my office.

  In the middle of her rant, I held up my hand. "Relax, have a brew."

  She looked as though I’d just told her I was Jeffrey Dahmer's love child. "Excuse me?"

  It was my father's policy to give away the first bunch of bottles off the line of a new batch to each of the employees. I saw no reason to discontinue that practice. Nothing does more to foster employee loyalty like free beer. I really think more companies should try it.