Death & the Brewmaster's Widow

by Loretta Ross

  “It is. I actually found it first on Look at the Starz. I came here to double check. It’s all hearsay and anonymous sources, but the story is pretty much identical. Andrew already had a reputation as a playboy. His first wife was a socialite, like him. They got married in their early twenties, all satin and lace and respectability. A couple of years later she filed for divorce on the grounds of infidelity. As soon as the divorce was finalized, he married his mistress, but that one only lasted three years. Then he married wife number three. She was a model like numbers two and five. Four was an actress.”

  “So what was the scandal? Just that he got caught having an orgy?”

  “It was a kinky, S and M fetish party, and the hosts called the police on him after he refused to honor one of his partners’ safe word. When they investigated, it turned out that the girl he’d brought to the party with him had a fake ID. She was a minor. He claimed he didn’t know how old she really was, but no one believed him. I think that’s what lost him custody of his kids.”

  “He sounds like a charming fellow.”

  Wren went back to her laptop, adjusted her search terms, and tried again. “The third wife was Leilani Moran, right? She’s the one who sued for access to him after he had a stroke.” She clicked the link. “This is confusing. I’m getting the news stories all out of order.”

  “Yeah, same here. Only with me, I’m getting the wives all out of order.”

  “Apparently, the Grey family is worth a fortune. Cam’s right, they’re not only into pharmaceuticals, but they have a lot of connections with advanced medical research.”

  “Yeah, and they’re very careful to guard that fortune. I remember an article from back when Andrew and Alaina first got married. Let me see if I can find it.”

  “You remember a ten-year-old gossip article about a couple that isn’t even really famous?”

  “I only remember it because it struck me as so weird at the time. And it was about their wedding and I was planning my wedding to Rowdy at the same time.”

  They read, each pursuing their own line of inquiry, in silence for several minutes.

  “Here it is,” Annie said. “They had a pre-nup.”

  “A lot of couples get pre-nups,” Wren pointed out. “Even Death and Madeline had a pre-nup, fortunately.”

  “Yeah, Bogie mentioned that. Their grandmother was a lawyer. But this was a really weird pre-nup. For one thing, it pretty much assumed that the marriage was going to end in divorce.”

  “Pessimism or realism?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. Anyway, according to the terms of their pre-nup, if this article is right, if he filed for divorce, he would have to pay her alimony until and unless she re-married, unless he could prove infidelity, in which case she wouldn’t get anything. If she filed for divorce, she wouldn’t get anything unless she could prove infidelity or cruelty, in which case she’d get either a lump sum or monthly alimony, depending on the circumstances and how long they’d been married. And it also said that, if the marriage ended for any reason, she had to return all gifts he’d given her and repay any moneys that she’d been advanced as his wife.”

  “That’s mercenary.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I was marrying my high school sweetheart at the time, for love and for forever, and the contrast stuck with me, though I hadn’t thought of it in ages.”

  Wren’s phone rang and she answered to find Death on the line. She talked for a couple of minutes and then hung up.

  “He’s back at Randy’s,” she said. “The doctor gave him a prescription for antibiotics and he’s going to take it easy for the rest of the day. I need to get back there and keep an eye on him. I don’t like leaving him alone when he’s sick, even if it’s not supposed to be serious. Madeline did that. I’m not Madeline.”

  “I can understand that,” Annie said, still reading. “Oh, wow!”

  “Oh, wow?”

  “Wife number four tried to kill him. With a stiletto heel. Prada.” Annie sniffed. “That’s such a cliche.”

  “A cliche?” Wren asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Well, as much as killing someone with a shoe can ever be a cliche, yeah, I’d say so.”

  “So you’d use, what? A Reebok?”

  “Ha ha. Very funny. Obviously I’d use a pair of Mary Janes. Give it that certain, extra-creepy, kinky overtone.”

  “Why’d she try to kill him, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know. They were only married two months. She was the actress, so maybe she had a more violent temperament than the models did.”

  “Maybe,” Wren conceded. “I know, I was in the drama club in high school and let me tell you. The drama taking place on the stage was the least of it!”

  “She pled innocent by reason of insanity,” Annie said, still reading. “Spent a few years in a rehab facility and now she works as an instructor at an acting school in,” she snickered suddenly, “the San Fernando Valley.”

  “Why is that funny?”

  “Well, you know what the San Fernando Valley is known for?” Wren just shook her head, bewildered.

  “The San Pornando Valley.”

  “Good heavens! Really? How do you even know all this stuff ?”

  “I read, like, fifteen of these magazines a week.”

  “So it’s possibly not a, shall we say, prestigious acting academy?” Wren asked.

  “Well, it might be. But it also might not. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought she might be someone we could talk to who actually knows Andrew Grey. Though I’d really like to talk to Leilani and find out why she was so determined to get in and see him. Apparently, she tried to get in to see him in the hospital right after he had his stroke, but Alaina wouldn’t allow it. She filed the suit on the grounds that she was concerned about his welfare and that, as the mother of his children, she had a right to know how he was doing. She also claimed it was unethical for his brother-in-law to be his physician and tried to get the court to appoint another doctor to care for him.”

  “What happened?”

  “It dragged through the courts for just over four months. She finally dropped it when Alaina let her in to see him.”

  “So it didn’t amount to anything after all?”

  “Probably not,” Wren agreed.

  “You sound like you’re not too sure of that.”

  “It’s just that the timing is funny.”

  “How?”

  “Alaina let Leilani in to see Andrew in the hospital three days after Randy died.”

  fifteen

  When Madeline showed up again—alone this time—Wren answered the door with a finger to her lips.

  “Death’s not feeling well. The doctor gave him some antibiotics and he’s sleeping right now. I don’t want him to wake up. What do you need?”

  “What do you mean he’s not feeling well? He looked fine the other day.”

  “You couldn’t hear him coughing and sounding all congested?”

  “Well … I guess. So he’s got a cold. So what?”

  Wren sighed, impatient. “His lungs are damaged. A chest cold is a lot worse for him than it is for other people.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “I never thought of that.”

  “What did you want?” Wren asked again.

  Madeline shrugged, seeming at a loss. “I was just bored. My mom’s got the baby. Eric’s at his seminar and I have his car. I thought I’d see if Death’d like to look up some of our old friends from high school or visit some of our old haunts.”

  “I see.” Wren felt her hackles rise. Madeline was trying to reconnect with Death. Apparently she thought she still had a shot at getting him back.

  Over her dead body, Wren thought. Still …

  “You grew up in St. Louis, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, we both did. One of the many things we have in common.”

  Choosing to ignore that, Wren opened the door wider. “Why don’t you come in? Have a cup of coffee and tell me about it.” Madeline follo
wed her into the kitchen, looking around curiously.

  “What’s Death going to do with the house?”

  “Sell it probably.”

  “That’s good. I never did like this place. I never felt welcome here. I never got along with Death’s family, you know. I don’t know why. I really felt we were perfect for one another, but they kept trying to pull us apart.”

  “Is that how you remember it?”

  “That’s how it was. I mean, we were the most popular couple in school. I was head cheerleader. Death was captain of the baseball team. We were homecoming king and queen our senior year. Obviously we belonged together.”

  Wren smiled a fake little smile and wondered where Randy had kept his firecrackers. “So, I was wondering,” she said. “You’re from St. Louis. Do you know anything about the Einstadt family?”

  Madeline shot her a shrewd, calculating look.

  “Oh, so that’s your angle. Well, I can tell you right now, you’re wasting your time.”

  Wren blinked, nonplussed. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Einstadts. Or, rather, the Greys now. That relationship is far too distant. There’s no way Death’s ever going to see any of that money.”

  “Any of that …? Madeline, are you saying Death is related to the Einstadts?”

  “Sure. Isn’t that why you were asking?”

  “No. I didn’t know they were. Does Death know?”

  “He should know. I told him. I suppose he might not have been paying attention to me. I always hated the way he’d just tune me out sometimes.”

  Wren thought about it. “Okay, I’m not following you. How would you know they were related if Death didn’t know they were related?”

  Madeline sighed. “Like I said, it’s a really distant relationship. My mom found it because she’s into genealogy. Do you know who Nonna Rogers was?”

  “Yeah, Death’s mother’s grandmother. She passed away shortly before his parents were killed.”

  “Right. Well, her maiden name was Terhaar. Her great-aunt was Sarah Terhaar who married Aram Einstadt, so Andrew Grey’s three or four times great-grandmother.”

  “And that would explain the resemblance between Randy and Andrew.”

  “What resemblance?”

  Wren showed Madeline the pictures of the two men and Madeline studied them, pulling at her lower lip. “Yeah, they do look a lot alike. Too bad Randy didn’t get Andrew’s charm.”

  “From what I’ve heard, Randy was the one with charm. You only think otherwise because you equate charm with capital.”

  “It’s as good a measure as any.”

  “No. No, it’s really not.”

  “Anyway, it isn’t like it matters now. You know, I’ve always figured it was some kind of karma, Randy dying the way he did.”

  Wren gave Madeline a dubious glare. “What do you mean?”

  “You know that he and I never got along, right? Well, he’s dead and I’m not. I call that divine justice right there.”

  Wren scowled at her. “I wouldn’t be so quick to cite karma if I were you,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m having dinner with Death tonight and you have a hot date with Eric Farrington.”

  _____

  “Look what I found!”

  Death scrubbed a hand over his face and struggled to drag himself upright in bed. His cheeks were flushed with sleep and a low fever and he had an impressive case of bedhead. “Waffles?” he asked, bewildered.

  “I made the waffles,” Wren said, “I found the tray to bring them to you in bed.” It was a pretty metal tray with legs, designed for just this purpose. She set it aside on the bedside table and helped him sit up, fluffing his pillows and piling them in behind him for support. “How do you feel this morning?”

  “I’m fine,” he said automatically and she clicked her tongue in disapproval.

  “Yeah, you look fine. Here, I brought you your meds. Have a few bites of waffle first, so they’re not hitting your stomach while it’s empty.”

  She put the tray in his lap and he did as she asked, obedient and still not entirely awake. When he’d eaten a little of the waffles, she put four pills, two antibiotics, and two pain pills in his hand and held out the glass of orange juice.

  “No coffee?”

  “Coffee would wake you up. I don’t think that’s what you need this morning.”

  “I gotta get up,” he said. “I gotta get up and … do … something.”

  “No, you’ve gotta rest and get better so you’ll be up to doing something.”

  “You didn’t have to bring me breakfast in bed,” he said, sleepy and bashful.

  “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to. I like this bed tray. Was it your grandma’s?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know where she got it. She had it for years.”

  By the time he finished the waffles and orange juice he was listing to the side and almost asleep again. He yawned and blinked furiously, trying to wake up. “I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

  “You’re worn out. You’ve been fighting this chest infection and it’s exhausted you. Now that you have medicine to fight it for you, your body’s trying to crash. It’s okay. There’s nowhere you have to be today and nothing you have to do. Just take it easy and give yourself a chance to get better.” She set the tray back on the bedside table and helped him slide back down in the bed, fluffing his pillows and pulling the light blanket up around his shoulders.

  “What are you going to do?” he fretted.

  “I’ll be right here in the next room if you need anything.”

  “But you’ll get bored.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can entertain myself. I’m just going to go online and chat with Annie.”

  _____

  Annie was waiting when Wren got online.

  “I found a copy of that wedding portrait on the Internet. Not the painting, but the photo it was painted from.” She sent a link and Wren clicked on it. “How did you find that?”

  “The almighty Google.”

  “Of course. Silly I asked.” She studied the picture. “That beard he was wearing really did look pretty ridiculous.”

  “Yeah,” Annie typed. “What is that? Is it a goatee?”

  “A Van Dyke, I think.”

  “Like Dick Van Dyke?”

  “Or the painter, maybe?”

  “Oh. Yeah, I suppose. One of my gossip magazines did a story on the wedding. They said the beard was to hide stitches and bruises from when the wife before went after him with the shoe. I don’t know if that’s true or not.”

  “How soon after the divorce did he and Alaina get married, do you know?”

  “Not very long. A couple of weeks or so. He must have been having an affair with Alaina the whole time he was married to Prada-girl.”

  Wren’s phone rang and she answered it.

  “Typing is tedious,” Annie said. “Why don’t we just talk?”

  Wren glanced over her shoulder. Death was curled under the covers and she could hear him snoring. She kept her voice low. “Yeah, okay. That works for me. Hey! I know why there was a resemblance between them. I got it from Death’s ex-wife, of all people. It seems Andrew Grey and the Bogarts were shirttail relatives.”

  “So you’re thinking Andrew and Bogie were both some kind of throwback to a common ancestor?”

  “Maybe? Yeah?”

  “They sure did look a lot alike,” Annie said. “One of my magazines has this program online to let you see what you’d look like with your hair and whatnot different. I ran Andrew’s picture through it, changed his hair color, and got rid of the beard. You want to see?”

  “Sure.”

  Wren opened the email Annie sent her and found two pictures, side by side.

  “My God! If Randy wasn’t wearing his uniform, you wouldn’t be able to tell which was which.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Wren, I Photoshopped their clothes. T
he one in the uniform is Andrew. The other one is Bogie.”

  There was a long silent stretch while the two women studied the pictures. It was Annie who finally broke it to voice what they were both thinking but what each was afraid to put into words.

  “If that man was shaved and his hair dyed, no one could tell him from Bogie. Not you or me. Not Cap or Rowdy or the other guys. Not Sophie at the coroner’s office. Nobody. Is it possible? Is it even remotely possible?”

  Wren was slow to answer. She felt she was in dangerous waters and wanted to tread carefully.

  “This is an old picture. Andrew didn’t look like that anymore,” she said. “He had plastic surgery, remember? It distorted his features.”

  “His face was crushed and burned in the fire. That could have been on purpose.”

  “So what we’re thinking here is that it was actually Andrew who died. Alaina, for some reason, didn’t want anyone to know he died.”

  “Leilani.” Annie said. “She was the one with the lawsuit. Alaina didn’t want Leilani to know he died.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, put that aside for now. Andrew died. It would have to have been right before the fire, don’t you think? They did an autopsy. They’d have noticed if the body was dead more than a short time.”

  “I can’t explain that either.”

  “Right, so we’ll come back to that too. Andrew died and Alaina needed him alive. She knew that Randy looked like him.”

  “How?” Now it was Annie asking.

  “Easy. She saw his picture on the front page of the paper when the station visited the school for fire safety day.”

  “Yes! And that’s where she got the number for his badge and why it was wrong.”

  “Right. So she got a set of turnouts … somewhere … and a uniform, and had a set of fake badges made. I don’t know how she’d have managed that, but she’s filthy rich, so that probably helps.”

  “You can order uniforms and turnouts off the Internet. With expedited shipping, she could have them in a day or two. Hey! Maybe she knew he was dying, so she got all the stuff ready. Then, when he did die, she set the fire in the brewery, lured Bogie into the room with the tunnel entrance, kidnapped him, and left Andrew’s body in his place.”

  “By herself ?” Wren was skeptical.