Beer Money (A Burr Ashland Mystery)

by Dani Amore

  Eve stood behind me, pointing the gun directly at my chest.

  "Give me the film, Michael."

  I pulled the old film canister from my pocket. "You know, all along I thought it was Ordell. Even with the wrong timeline, I thought it was him. But I was fooling myself. I think deep down I knew there was someone else and even wondered about you, but I wouldn't admit it."

  Eve tightened her finger on the trigger. "The film," she said. "Give me the film, Michael."

  "But when I saw the film, I knew it was you,” I said. “You look just like her. But even then I didn't want to believe it. Until I saw the necklace. She's wearing the same ruby necklace you've got draped on that vase in your house."

  Eve's grim expression faltered for just a second.

  "She's wearing it in the film?" Her hand unconsciously went to her chest where she felt the necklace through the fabric of her shirt.

  "The very same one."

  "It's the only thing I have of hers. I wore it tonight in honor of her."

  I let that one go. "So Tim tracked you down first, told you that you had a brother," I said. "Only you beat him to Ordell. And hatched the whole blackmail plan. You had to find that film and being the methodical person you are - you knew there were only two people who Tim might trust it with. So you sent Ordell to seduce Fred. And you took care of me."

  Her eyes showed the slightest glint. A momentary flash of surprise, followed by a cold film of hatred. The gun in her hand was rock steady, but her voice trembled just a bit.

  "He wanted to interview me before the story broke," she said. "It was obviously a bad move. Now give me the film or you’re dead. Do you understand?"

  "No, I don't," I said. "Eve, this is crazy. I called a detective I know on my way here. The cops are probably outside waiting for you. You don't have a chance. You don't need the money. Blame it all on Ordell. Say that he found out about Otto's murder, that the Krahn family had kept quiet about it all these years and that he tried to blackmail Philip. He killed Tim. Put the gun down, get yourself a good lawyer and you've got a chance. Do you understand?"

  I held the film out. She snatched it from my hand.

  A look of triumph crossed her face.

  "I understand that for the year when I was seeing that bastard," she gestured at Krahn behind me. "I might as well have been my grandmother, getting fucked by the white master, you know what I mean? I didn't even know I was doing the same thing they'd done so many years ago. But history repeats itself. Just another white man having his way with a poor black girl, right? Well, I understand now that a few hours ago ten million dollars were transferred into a numbered account in Vienna. I'll be drinking champagne and eating lobster in about nine hours. And I'll be the rich black girl having as many men as I want to. Kicking them out of bed if they don't please me. Now do you understand?"

  "So the love of brewing beer, as you put it. Your dream come true. I believe you even said you wouldn't change a thing in your life. That was all bullshit?"

  "100%," she said.

  "The big house. The nice things. You weren't hurting for money. Just downright greed, huh?"

  "Have you ever smelled a brewery in the morning, Michael? Come home every night smelling like a tavern? I dreamed of the day I could leave it all behind me. Your friend Tim showed me the way."

  I didn't know what to say.

  As it turned out, I didn't have to say anything.

  Because that's when the first siren sounded.

  Forty-Three

  “Don’t follow me,” Eve said. She turned and ran from the office.

  I raced to Ordell and snatched the gun from his waistband, then ducked into the hallway. Saw Eve at the opposite end.

  There were more sirens now. Eve would begin to panic. There was no way she could get out.

  Down the hallway, Eve turned right.

  I checked the safety on the gun. Clicked it off.

  Around the corner, Eve was silhouetted briefly in the middle of the lobby. Outside the main doors I saw two squad cars, their cherries going full force.

  Eve raced down another hallway.

  I followed.

  Ahead, her footfalls echoed in a long hallway. I saw a sign. Eve was going toward the plant.

  "Eve!" I shouted. "No!"

  Eve crashed through double doors and I raced ahead, banged through the doors. Ahead, another long hallway. Another set of double doors and I was in the plant.

  Giant vats took up almost every inch of floor space. It reeked of beer. The floor was concrete, a series of catwalks spanned the entire space. Designed to let workers access the vats' controls high above the floor.

  Eve reached a ladder and began to climb the ladder.

  Behind me, I heard the doors bang open.

  I raced ahead.

  Eve had reached the catwalk and ran forward to another door. It was locked. She pulled on the handle. It didn't budge.

  "Throw the gun in one of the vats, Eve,” I called to her. “It was Ordell. Pin it all on Ordell. Do it now. The cops..."

  She looked down at me, then across to another catwalk. It ended at another door. That door was ajar.

  "No!" I yelled at her.

  She looked behind me as the fist cop burst through the doors.

  Eve backed up, got a running start and jumped. She soared through the air, and I thought for a moment that she was going to make it. But she fell short.

  Her fingers caught the catwalk. Her legs swung back and forth, but still she clung to the metal bar. She hung there. Fifty feet over head. Her feet kicked. Fingers slipped.

  I ran toward her, beneath her.

  "Police!" a voice boomed out. Gabby's voice.

  I ran toward Eve.

  "Hold on!" I yelled to her.

  A ladder led to the catwalk. I began to climb. The metal felt cold. Hard. My feet slipped. I got to the top and began to run.

  "Ashland!" Gabby again.

  I ignored her.

  My feet clanged with each step.

  Ahead, I saw Eve's right hand slip free. She dangled from one arm.

  I saw her body slump.

  She stopped kicking. Looked at me. Tears were in her eyes. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

  I was three feet from her when she fell.

  She seemed to hang, suspended, for a moment. And then she dropped. The film canister appeared in her hand. She reached out toward me. Her body laid out horizontally.

  And then she hit the edge of a vat. I heard her spine snap like a twig. The film canister flew from her hand, clattered on the concrete floor. Her broken body balanced briefly, rippled with the shock of the landing, then she slid inward, toward the vat.

  There was no splash when she sank into the vat. Just a brief ripple. And then she floated. Her arms out at her sides. Blood seeped from her mouth, pooled around her head. The dead man's float.

  I sat down on the catwalk.

  Gabby walked to the vat, bent down and scooped up the film canister. Then she walked to the ladder. Looked up at me.

  "Get down here, Ashland,” she said. “Happy hour’s over. “

  Forty-Four

  I went past the nurse's station. Walked into the room.

  "Eight pounds, two ounces," I said.

  Fred looked at me, his eyes blank.

  "Tim's son," I said.

  Fred blinked. Then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were brimming with tears.

  "Easy boy," I said, and checked over my shoulder. Fred's nurse was a beast of a woman. I didn't want to be the one upsetting her patient. She'd kick my ass into Sunday. I'd heard that the cops had come to ask Fred questions about Ordell and she'd put the fear of God into them.

  I pulled a six-pack out of a grocery bag and twisted one off.

  "That's great," Fred whispered.

  I offered him a beer but he shook his head. I drank deeply and looked at the bulletin board which was shellacked with get-well cards. They'd started arriving by the truck full when Fred came o
ut of his coma three days ago. He'd been given the very basic details of what had happened, and had learned about Ordell's role in the whole ugly mess. It was going to be a long recovery for him, both physically and emotionally.

  I looked him over. He'd lost a lot of weight. His thin hair was almost transparent. I could see the ridges in his skull. The bandage from where he'd been shot.

  "Thank God you have such a Cro-Magnon skull," I said to him. His mouth parted and I heard a soft rasping sound that I guessed was a laugh. It was hard to tell.

  Forty-Five

  It was a false spring, the kind of day that lures you into believing that spring may actually be around the corner, setting you up, only to have a wicked cold front roar in.

  I went around the house and opened the windows, cracked the front and back door until I could feel a strong breeze moving through the house. The barren branches of the Dutch Elm out front swayed in the breeze.

  It had been two and a half weeks since the shooting. Philip Krahn was recovering and blaming the whole mess on McDonough. Krahn claimed that everything McDonough had done, including torturing me, he’d done on his own, without Krahn’s knowledge. With the incredible amount of money he was paying his attorneys, he could possibly get off with little more than a slap on the wrists.

  Mary Schletterhorn had passed away, leaving the bulk of her estate to the city of Milwaukee. Per the instructions in her will, she’d been cremated, with her ashes scattered in Pewaukee Lake.

  The media had gone crazy. Newspapers. Long exposés in Milwaukee magazine. It had been the lead story on most television stations the following day, even the national stations reported on it briefly. Locally, it took only a few days for the television stations to begin to relegate the rest of the story later in the broadcasts as secondary details surfaced.

  A week later, it was mostly forgotten.

  I had one job left to do. There was a twelve-pack of Lakeside Beer, the pilsner, in my fridge.

  In order to forget Eve once and for all, I had to get rid of it.

  I popped the cap off the first one and filled my mug.

  Hey, I’m a stickler for tying up loose ends.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Dani Amore is a novelist living in Los Angeles, California.

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  Also by Dani Amore

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  The Killing League

  Death by Sarcasm

  Dead Wood

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  Bullet River

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