Death & the Brewmaster's Widow

by Loretta Ross

  “Still, it is pretty coincidental. The story about you investigating Bogie’s death runs in the paper one day, you nearly get killed the next. It doesn’t cost anything to be careful, son. At least, don’t give them an excuse to get rid of you.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Death ran a hand over his face, tired and frustrated. “I just want to see him. I want to see him so bad.”

  _____

  “That is the wildest idea anyone has ever brought me. And I did the interviews in the ‘aliens stole my pencil’ case.”

  “Aliens stole my pencil?” Wren asked.

  St. Louis police detective Ray Starbourne leaned back in his chair and laced his hands together behind his head. “Nerd burglary. One nerd stole another nerd’s Battle Beyond the Stars memorabilia. Lost his custom-made, engraved mechanical pencil at the crime scene. I asked him to explain how it got there.”

  “Ah. Aliens stole my pencil.”

  “Exactly.”

  “This is not an ‘aliens stole my pencil’ idea,” she said. “I know it sounds farfetched, but it also holds together, and it explains a lot.” She had spent the morning tracking down Detective Starbourne. He was in charge of investigating a string of breakins at area dental offices and clinics. Thieves were stealing X-ray machines. It was part of a larger wave of similar crimes that had hit the Midwest during the summer. The police, and the FBI, which was coordinating the investigations, suspected terrorists, gathering material for dirty bombs.

  Randy’s dentist was one that had been hit, though in that case the burglars had left without the machine after getting it stuck in the lab door.

  “Well, you’re right about the breakin at Weableau’s office. That was definitely a copycat by amateurs. The MO wasn’t the same at all. I figured someone saw the news reports about the other burglaries and figured it’d be an easy way to pick up some extra money.”

  “Look at this,” Wren passed across the copy of the fake dental records Sophie had made her. “This is the dental record sent from Dr. Weableau’s office to the coroner’s office. I took it back and showed it to Marlene. She’s Dr. Weableau’s office manager. It was sent because it’s the most recently dated of the X-rays in the file, but when she cross-checked it against billing records, Randy wasn’t there on the date it was supposedly taken. Then we went through the other records in his file. They’re all on this same type of form. But their office changed paper goods suppliers about six years ago. The older records should be on one of the older forms, with different spacing and a different font.”

  “You make a compelling case,” he admitted. “I just don’t know that it would be enough to convince a judge to let us intervene. If you could bring me fingerprints or something with DNA on it maybe. A toothbrush, some strands of hair—”

  Wren tipped her head to the side speculatively.

  “Would you need to know how I got them?”

  Starbourne tipped his own head, an unconscious mirror of her actions. “That would depend entirely on whether or not you got caught.”

  _____

  Death was waiting in his Jeep when Wren got back to Randy’s house. He leaned across the seat and opened the door for her.

  “Hop in. I want to show you something.”

  “Okay. What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Wren shrugged to herself and got in. Death was practically thrumming with tension, the air in the Jeep charged with it.

  “So,” she said, a bit hesitantly, “I called Captain Cairn and told him what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, I know. He came and found me and made me climb down from my light pole.”

  “You climbed a light pole?” She turned in her seat to glare at him more directly.

  He blushed and cringed defensively. “I didn’t get electrocuted.” He waited, but she just continued to glare, so he went on. “I was trying to get a better look at the Grey house. The bedrooms are on the second floor. There was a man in one of them reading a book, but I couldn’t see enough to identify him. The house is four stories. They have at least one maid and a gardener built like Mount Rushmore.”

  “You’re thinking of breaking in?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I talked to the detective who’s investigating the dental office burglaries,” she told him. “He suggested that we try to get fingerprints or DNA. He’s interested, but he doesn’t think we have enough grounds for a judge to allow the police to intervene yet.”

  “Cap said the same thing.”

  Death pulled into a small lot and stopped. “Do you recognize where we are?”

  Wren looked around. There was a playground off to her right and a scattering of picnic shelters. “Yeah, this is the park with the entrance to the underground caves.”

  “Right, now look at the building on the other side of the ravine. What would you say that is?”

  “I dunno. A factory of some kind?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. But then I started digging into what I could learn of the Grey family holdings. Hold on.”

  He pulled back into the street, drove down to the corner, and turned. They came up beside the building and he turned again, driving past the front facade. A small, discrete sign beside the entrance read, “Lloyd Parkour Research Facility.”

  “A research facility?”

  Death glanced over, eyebrows raised, and gave her a meaningful look. “Medical research. Specifically, they specialize in cryobiology.”

  “Cryobiology, that’s like cryogenically freezing people?”

  “Well, they don’t do it with the aim of reviving them in a couple of hundred years, like what you’re thinking. Mostly it’s freezing blood and tissue samples, eggs and sperm, organs. There are a lot of current medical and scientific applications. But they do have facilities for whole-body cryonics. And you know who the president of the board of directors is?” She shook her head.

  “Dr. James Gregory—Alaina Grey’s brother.”

  They drove back to Randy’s house in silence. Wren waited until they were seated at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee brewing before she spoke.

  “You think they froze Andrew when he died and then warmed him back up in time to switch him for Randy, right? Honey, I don’t want to throw cold water on your idea, but I don’t think it’s possible. The freezing would have caused his cells to rupture, wouldn’t it? And something like that would show up in an autopsy.”

  “But they freeze tissue to transplant back to living people, so there must be something they can do do keep it viable.”

  “Something that wouldn’t be obvious?”

  Instead of answering, Death took out his phone and dialed. He waited a minute before he spoke. “Sophie? It’s Death. Sorry to bother you. Do you have a minute? Wren and I have a question. We’ve discovered that Alaina and her brother have access to a crionics facility …” He outlined his theory and Wren’s objections and listened for a minute. “Yeah, we’re staying at Randy’s … sure, that’d be great. Okay, thanks. See you then.” He hung up. “She wants to think about it a little. She’s going to come over and talk to us on her lunch break.”

  _____

  By the time Sophie arrived, Wren had put together a simple meal of homemade potato soup and sandwiches. Death thanked Sophie for driving over and invited her to come in and have something to eat while they talked. Sophie took her place at the table, unfolded her napkin in her lap, and sat fiddling with it nervously.

  “It’s okay,” Death told her gently. “Whatever you have to say, it’s okay. I promise I’m not going to get mad at you if you’re here to shoot down my idea.”

  She sighed and put the napkin back on the table.

  “I’d actually meant to come shoot down your idea,” she admitted. “That’s why I wanted to come over here. To let you down gently. But I thought about it, did some research, and talked to some of my colleagues. The thing is, yeah, I think it is possible.”

  He brightened. “Really?”

  “Really. Whole-body cryogeni
cs is done with the intention of eventually reviving the person being frozen. To keep the body viable, they drain the blood and replace it with a solution that acts as antifreeze. That would keep the cells from rupturing during the freezing process. Then they’d have to warm the corpse back up to 98.6 and replace the antifreeze with blood. The subject’s own blood could have been preserved for that by freezing it separately. Again, there are substances added to the blood to protect it during freezing, but they wouldn’t show up in an autopsy unless we had some reason to look for them.”

  “So that works,” Wren breathed. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Sophie objected. “If Andrew died when he first collapsed, as he would have had to have, then you’re suggesting that Alaina had his body frozen and kept it around for four months in the bizarre hope that she could find a lookalike to kidnap under circumstances that would allow her to leave Andrew’s dead body in his place. It’s absurd.”

  “I don’t think they kept Andrew’s body around because they were planning to kidnap someone,” Death said. “They were just trying to hide the fact that he’d died until after the point when Alaina would inherit. It’s impossible to get an accurate estimation on time of death, or even date of death, when a body is immediately frozen, right?”

  Sophie nodded reluctantly.

  “They were planning to make it look like he died after Alaina became his heir, but Leilani was suspicious and pressing them in court. If they were ordered to produce him, they were screwed. Not only would she not inherit anything, but at that point it would become obvious that they were both guilty of fraud. Seeing Randy’s picture in the paper must have seemed like divine intervention.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked,” Sophie said slowly. “Their original plan, if you’re right, it wouldn’t have worked. With that much money at stake, the heir’s brother as the physician of record and Leilani contesting the will, any judge in the country would have ordered an autopsy. They’d have been presenting a body that had undergone a massive aortic aneurysm and had no signs of major medical intervention and claiming that the aneurysm happened months earlier and the subject had been on life support since. The contradictions would have been glaringly obvious.”

  “They probably came up with it in a hurry, when Andrew suddenly died on them, and didn’t stop to think it through until they were already in it up to their necks. Gregory’s a doctor—he must have realized by now that it was a bad plan.”

  “So,” Wren said, “even with all the complications involved in kidnapping Randy and switching bodies, it was still safer than any other option they had available. And there’s nothing about freezing the body that would come up in a standard autopsy?”

  “There would probably have been trace amounts of antifreeze solution in his veins,” Sophie said, “but the most common solution used for that is based on glucosine. I’d imagine it would come back as high blood sugar.”

  “And that could be covered up by filling his stomach with a large quantity of sweet tea,” Death said, satisfied.

  _____

  “What do we do now?” Wren asked, when Sophie had returned to work.

  “We’ve gotta figure out a way to get Alaina and her brother out of the house so I can get in to see my brother.”

  “And get DNA or fingerprints?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely.”

  Wren sighed. “I know that tone of voice,” she said. “If you’re planning on throwing him over your shoulder and absconding with him, I’d like to remind you that you’d pass out from lack of oxygen before you made it down the stairs.”

  “I’ve been doing much better with stairs,” he objected. “And down is easier than up, anyway.”

  “Not carrying giant young firefighters, it’s not.”

  Death tipped his head in a reluctant concession to reason. “You said the mail carrier has seen him walking in the garden recently though, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, maybe he’s mobile. If so, maybe I can convince him to leave with me.”

  “Yeah, maybe. And then we could get his fingerprints checked and that would prove if he’s Randy. And if he is—”

  “He is!”

  She rubbed along his upper arm. “If he is, we can go to the police and have Alaina and her brother arrested for kidnapping. How do we get them out of the house, though?”

  Death’s phone rang. He glanced at the number, gave Wren a slight shrug, and answered it in his professional voice. “Bogart Investigations.”

  His eyebrows rose and he glanced at her meaningfully.

  “Yes, Doctor, I’m feeling much better, thanks.” He put it on speaker and held it out where they could both hear.

  “I hope you don’t think it too forward of me to call you,” Gregory said, “but I realized after your visit the other day that I’d had a celebrity in my office.”

  “Me?” Death snorted. “I’m hardly a celebrity.”

  “A minor one, at least. Your name was quite prominent in the news a couple of months ago. Something to do with missing jewels? Some of them dating back to the Civil War?”

  “Uh, yeah. That was a case I was working on.”

  “It sounds fascinating. Listen, my sister and I are planning to go out on the river tomorrow, if the weather holds. I have a neat little 27-foot pontoon boat that we like to tootle around in.”

  Wren’s eyes danced and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Death gave her a stern look.

  “I thought maybe you’d like to come along. We’d be absolutely delighted to hear about your adventures.” The doctor sighed, maybe just a bit too dramatically. “I’m hoping to cheer Alaina up, frankly. Her anniversary was a couple of days ago but, sadly, her husband is in no condition to celebrate with her. I know that she’d be charmed to meet you. Plus, of course, she’s a woman. Jewels are one of her favorite subjects.”

  “Gee, I don’t know what to say,” Death shot Wren a questioning glance and she tipped her head and shrugged. “Yeah, sure, that’d be great, I guess. Thanks for asking.”

  “Wonderful! And thank you in advance for joining us. Why don’t we meet at my yacht club at, say, five p.m.?”

  Death agreed and after Gregory had given him the address of the club they said goodbye. He hung up and Wren let out the laugh she was suppressing. “He said tootle!”

  “Yeah, I noticed. What the hell was that?”

  “They know you’re investigating Randy’s ‘death’. Do you think they want a chance to see how much you’ve figured out?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “Possible, I guess.”

  “And convenient!”

  Death frowned. “Convenient how?”

  “You wanted them out of the house. Now you’re getting them out of the house. And you’ll be able to keep an eye on them and know exactly when they’re heading back.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a hole in that plan. I’ll be with them. I can’t very well go boating with them and sneak into their house at the same time.”

  “You can’t maybe,” Wren said, “but as far as I could tell, that invitation didn’t include me.”

  eighteen

  The crowbar clanked against the floor of the raised Einstadt passage as Death tossed it in, the echoes sending chills down Wren’s spine. She climbed up through the entrance on her hands and knees and pushed herself to her feet, turning back to help him follow. “Jeez, make some noise why don’t you?” she teased to cover her own nervousness. Her palms were sweaty and she felt her heart thump against her rib cage. The light from Death’s flashlight danced ahead of them down the tunnel.

  Death was quiet and intense. “I really hate this plan,” he muttered. “I still think you should just try to talk your way in with the maid.”

  “You haven’t met the maid,” Wren replied, letting him lead the way. Their passage stirred up dust and their voices echoed. She resisted the urge to whisper and tiptoe, the nature of their mission making her want to sneak. Down here in the silent dark it would not only b
e pointless, it would sap her energy and feed her nerves.

  She looked forward to this experience with a mixture of anticipation and dread, and the passageway seemed both much longer and much shorter than she remembered. She paced along in Death’s footsteps, her brain supplying her with unwanted scenarios of all the things that could go wrong. Before she knew it, they had reached the T in the path and the rusted-out door and pile of rubble separating them from the Grey house was just ten feet away.

  “This may not even be possible,” Death said, approaching the barrier with a slow, catlike stride, examining it analytically. “If we can’t make a path through here, we’ll have to scrap this plan and think of something else. I could do a little second-story work tonight after everyone’s asleep.”

  “Don’t give up too quickly,” Wren scolded. “Have a little faith.”

  He shot her a quick smile, his teeth white in the dark. “In you? Always.”

  He studied the rockfall, then carefully inserted the tip of the crowbar under the largest boulder.

  “You need my muscle?”

  “Maybe. Hang on a second and let me see what happens.” He pushed down experimentally, testing the stone’s balance. There was a brittle pop and the rock shifted. Death frowned, set the length of iron aside, and moved in to study the rubble pile more carefully. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What is it?”

  By way of answering, he picked up the enormous stone and turned around, staggering a little. “Here,” he said, “catch!”

  He tossed it at her and Wren shrieked and ducked. The rock hit her lightly and bounced away and Death laughed. She stared at him and the stone, completely nonplussed. “What the …?”

  “Styrofoam.”

  “The tunnel’s made out of Styrofoam?”

  “Not the whole tunnel.” He turned back and studied the barrier again. “Not even the whole rock pile. This is really ingenious.” Wren moved up to stand next to him where she could see too.

  “See?” he said. “The ceiling collapse is real, but someone has cleared a doorway in it. Then they made false stones out of Styrofoam and painted them to look like the rocks and bricks. The fake rocks are glued to a screen door.” He found a handle in among the rubble and pulled and the wall of fallen stones opened outward. Moving more quietly now that they were so close to their destination, they passed through.