Death & the Brewmaster's Widow

by Loretta Ross

  Beyond the rocks, the tunnel extended for another eight feet or so and ended at a wooden door. Death leaned down and put his mouth close to Wren’s ear. “You can sneak now if you want.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered back. “I was trying not to earlier.”

  “I know. I could tell.”

  They snuck up on the door and Death crouched beside it and took a small metal tube from his pocket. It opened out to a miniature telescope. “Woah! Cool,” Wren said softly. “Where did you get that?”

  “On eBay.”

  “Of course.”

  He put it to the keyhole before looking through it.

  “Okay, there’s just a little bit of natural light coming in, probably from a ground-level window somewhere. There’s a short passage on the other side that leads to an elevator. One door on the right side of the passage and a second door just left of the elevator. One of the doors probably leads to a staircase. You’ll have to decide which one is less conspicuous, the elevator or the stairs. You wanna look?”

  “Yeah!”

  He handed over the tiny telescope and she peered through the keyhole and noted the things he’d pointed out. When she was done she tried to hand it back but he closed her hand over it. “Hang on to that. You can use it to make sure the coast is clear before you go in.”

  She nodded and tried the door handle, but it was locked. Death pulled out a set of lock picks and made short work of getting it open. “You’re just prepared for everything, aren’t you?”

  He winked at her. “Boy Scouts ain’t got nothing on the Marines.” He put the lock picks back in his pocket, then took a small can of penetrating oil from his other pocket and oiled the hinges. He looked at his watch and sighed. “I need to leave soon if I’m going to meet Alaina and Gregory at five. His yacht club is up in St. Charles. Walk me back to the entrance?”

  “Only if you hold my hand,” she said.

  Death took her hand obediently, casting a longing look on the wooden door before they turned away. Wren knew, without him having to say it, what was going through his mind. He believed his brother was alive and was just on the other side of that door. After all the long and lonely time he’d spent mourning him, Randy was alive, possibly injured, painfully close. And now Death was supposed to just walk away and leave him in her hands.

  She squeezed his hand. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “I know it’s hard and I know it seems like it’s taking forever. But it won’t be long now. We’re going to bring him home.” The smile he gave her in return was bright and brittle with need and she could only pray that she was telling him the truth.

  _____

  “The diamonds or the pearls with this blouse?”

  James Gregory, lounging in his sister’s bedroom while she finished dressing, sipped his drink and tipped his head. “Which would you least mind losing if it fell in the water?”

  She gave him a brief, irritated glance.

  “I’m not planning on throwing either of them in the water.”

  “No. But we’re going to be on the river. There’s always the chance of something going overboard.”

  Alaina turned back to her dressing table, set the pearls aside, and gazed down at the diamonds cupped in her hand.

  “Andrew gave me these for a wedding present,” she said. Leaning toward the mirror, she fastened them in place. “So what do you know about,” she paused and glanced to the open hall door, lowering her voice, “about this man we’re meeting?”

  “I know he’s smart. Dangerously so. No longer as physically powerful as he once was. Currently fragile, even. His lungs were damaged as the result of an injury during combat and he’s fighting a nasty respiratory infection. He’s suffering from clinical depression as well. Probably a mild case, but still … His doctor gave him a new prescription for antidepressants just a short time ago. It’s always dangerous when someone starts taking those.”

  Alaina frowned and turned to look at him directly. “Dangerous how?”

  “Depression isn’t simply sadness. There’s a plethora of symptoms, and they can include extreme fatigue and apathy. Often those suffering depression have suicidal thoughts, but they’re too hopeless and exhausted to act on them. The danger is that the medication can give them the energy to kill themselves.”

  “You think he might be suicidal?”

  James raised one eyebrow. He drained his drink and hauled himself out of the low recliner. “Please tell me you’re going to put on more sensible shoes.”

  _____

  “It’ll take me about half an hour to get to the yacht club,” Death said, checking his watch. “I’ll call you when I’m sure they’re both there. Don’t try to go in before then. You’re still going to have to get past the gardener and at least the one maid, so promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Wren said. “Are you sure this is such a good idea, though?”

  “Baby, if you don’t want to go—”

  “Not for me,” she said. “For you. Going out on the river in a boat with those people. I don’t trust them. It could be dangerous.”

  “It’s a busy river and we’ll be out in broad daylight.” She frowned at him and he laughed and bopped her nose. “Okay, broad twilight. Still, it’s nowhere near sundown and on a pleasant summer evening there will be other boaters, people fishing off the shore, maybe a riverboat at the landing below the Arch. Alaina and her brother would have to be crazy to try anything drastic.”

  “Or desperate. Desperate people do stupid things. Just promise me you’ll be careful, too.”

  “Careful is my middle name.”

  “No it isn’t. Your middle name starts with a D.”

  “Smartass.”

  She was sitting in the entrance to the Einstadt passage and he was standing on the stone they’d rolled over to climb up on. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her forehead. “Here’s to bringing Randy home. Wait for my call, okay?”

  “I will. Just you see that you take care of my Marine.”

  “And you take care of my auctioneer.”

  _____

  “Mr. Bogart,” Gregory said, “I don’t believe you’ve met my sister, Alaina.”

  “Mrs. Grey. Charmed,” Death said, kissing her fingers. The courtly gesture never failed to impress a woman. It also gave Death a chance to look closely at their fingers and hands. He’d used it more than once, when working divorce cases, to determine if this or that woman had a wedding ring or, maybe, a tan line where a ring had been. In this instance, he wanted a look at Alaina’s rings. A woman could do a lot of damage with a big diamond and if there was a chance she was going to take a swing at him, he wanted to know ahead of time how well she was armed.

  “I call her Lainey,” Gregory said.

  “He’s horrible,” Alaina simpered. “I keep telling him that Lainey’s a name for a six-year-old with braces and pigtails. You’re certainly welcome to call me Alaina, though.”

  They were in the clubhouse at Gregory’s yacht club, sitting around a high table in a corner heavily populated by potted plants. Gregory gestured to the bar. “How about something to drink before we go? They do a Tahitian sunset that’s to die for.”

  “Sounds great.”

  The waiter was already on his way over with three brilliant orange drinks on a tray. Gregory handed Death the first one, picking it up with his hand across the top of the glass. “Now, you’re not taking anything that shouldn’t mix with alcohol, are you? As your doctor, I’ve got to ask.”

  Death gave him a bright smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Not a thing,” he said cheerfully. He picked up the bright, fruity drink, and took a tiny, cautious sip. While far from an alcoholic, as a former Marine he’d had his share of experiences with alcohol. This drink had a bitter undertaste, faint and nearly hidden by the heavy flavors of the tropical fruit and rum, and a gritty texture.

  Whatever Gregory put in it had been in pill form, he decided, and it hadn’t dissolved completely in spite of being crush
ed ahead of time. Letting the little bit that he’d tasted dribble back into the glass, he winced, lowered the drink, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Wow, powerful stuff,” he laughed. While they were looking at him wiping his mouth with his right hand, he used his left to tip a little of the liquid out into the nearest potted plant. It would take subterfuge and sleight of hand, but he could get rid of the whole drink this way and they’d never guess he hadn’t drunk it. With a bright smile, he feigned another swallow of alcohol. If they were trying to drug him, that had to be a good sign. Cheered, he wondered how Wren was doing.

  _____

  Twenty-seven minutes after Death left her sitting alone in the tunnel, Wren’s phone lit up with a text message from him. It was a single word: Go.

  Climbing to her feet, she retraced their earlier steps until she came to a stop outside the wooden door into the Grey mansion. Her hands were sweaty but her mouth was dry. She had been raised to respect other people and their belongings. Never to trespass. Entering someone’s home without their permission went against her every instinct. But she was doing this for Death.

  She would do anything for Death.

  Kneeling before the door, she took out the miniature telescope, put the end to the keyhole, and peered once more through the lens. The passage beyond was as dark and silent as it had been before. She put the scope away, scrubbed her hands against her jeans, and took a deep breath. Easing the door open, she stepped inside.

  The basement was dry and musty. An air conditioning unit was running somewhere, but otherwise, everything was silent. The door to her right was warped and didn’t close completely. A glance inside showed a room full of jumbled junk and broken furniture, with no signs of life. She could look there later, if there seemed a point. Her main goal now was to find a way upstairs. With luck, she could steal a toothbrush and a comb or hairbrush and be gone with none of the occupants the wiser.

  The elevator shaft before her was empty, the cage door closed and the car gone. There was a push button to call it down, but doing so would be a bad idea. Even a quiet motor would be loud in the still house.

  The door next to the elevator led to a steep, narrow staircase. Wren climbed it gingerly, keeping her feet to the outside of the treads and wincing every time one creaked or groaned beneath her. The door at the top had no keyhole for her to peer through. If it was locked, it was latched on the other side. There was no way for her to pick that, even if she’d known how, and no way to tell if it was open except to try to open it.

  She looked for some sign—light around the door, perhaps, where moving shadows could betray the presence of a person on the other side. It was no use, the door sat securely in its frame. She touched the surface tentatively, wondering even as she did what she thought she was doing. In a fire, she remembered, you were supposed to feel a door before opening it to see if it was hot. The door wasn’t hot, so the house wasn’t on fire.

  Okay, that was good to know.

  Wren put her ear close and listened, but she couldn’t hear anything. She was going to have to go through it on blind faith.

  Turning the knob gently, she gave an experimental push. The door yielded easily and she edged it open a crack, peering through at the darkened hallway beyond.

  Wren had a story ready in case she got caught but she wasn’t confident in her ability to sell it. As Death had said, she was a terrible liar. She wondered if she’d be able to convince the maid of her relative innocence, then remembered actually talking to the maid and wondered if she’d be able to convince the police of her relative innocence.

  The door opened to a back hallway. Another, larger hallway met it a few feet to her right. She crept to the corner and, looking around it, found herself staring at the front door. Okay, so she was at the back of the entry hall. In fact, she was standing under the main staircase. The basement stair ran directly beneath it and opened at the back.

  Death said the bedrooms were on the second floor, above the kitchen ell. That’s where the main bathrooms would also be, and the master bathroom was the most likely place she was going to find DNA. If she could get the toothbrush Andrew/Randy was using, she would have both DNA and fingerprints. There was a plastic zipper bag in her pocket and she was wearing gloves—not rubber gloves, but cheap cotton work gloves that would keep her from leaving fingerprints and be easier to explain if she were caught.

  Feeling like a mouse that was tempting the cat, she crept up the staircase. The thick carpet muted her footsteps and she avoided the railings to prevent even the sound of fabric rustling against wood. Halfway up she came to the landing and paused a second to glance again at the enormous portrait of Andrew and Alaina. The resemblance, as always, was startling, but up close she could see the differences between the two men. It was mostly a matter of expression, she realized. Even though she’d never seen Randy except in photographs, she could see that they were nothing alike. Andrew’s jaw was set in a hard line. He looked incapable of breaking into the easy, charming grin that Randy always wore. Although he’d been ten years older than Randy when the picture was painted, he didn’t have the crinkles of laughter around his mouth that the younger man did. His eyes were cold.

  Passing the painting, she continued to the second-floor landing. A hallway ran left and right and she paused a bare second before turning right toward the front of the house. Before she’d taken her third step a mild voice froze her in her tracks. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

  nineteen

  Long, covered docks reached out into the river, surrounded by boats, large and small, that nosed in around them. They reminded Death of swimming in a pond with his brother when they were children, and the little fish that would come up and nibble on their toes.

  The docks were too big to shift under their weight, but they bobbed with the wake of passing boats. The movement didn’t faze Death. He’d spent enough time at sea while in the military to be used to the feel of water beneath him. Gregory also adjusted well, Death noted. Alaina was less at ease. She’d worn canvas sandals with thick, wedge-shaped heels, and she walked in the middle of the path with her arms tucked in tight against her sides. She was carrying a large, flowered tote bag and she clutched the strap in both hands, taking tiny steps while watching her own feet apprehensively.

  The Mississippi at twilight had a smell all its own. It was damp, similar to rain in the air, but with an undertone of the rich, black mud that made up the riverbed, accented with the scent of things that were growing and things that were dead. Dragonflies hovered low over the water, drawing the catfish up to feed. It was quiet at the end of the dock. The soft sound of river water moving relentlessly around and through the man-made obstacles accentuated the silence rather than disturbing it. The bank and the city seemed much farther away than they actually were.

  Gregory stopped at the very last berth, where a long and ostentatious pontoon boat was tied up. “I call her the Zaca, after Errol Flynn’s yacht,” he said.

  Gregory boarded first, without a backward glance. Death offered Alaina a hand, steadying her as she stepped from the dock to the deck, then followed her on. He waited for Gregory to get the engine started, then loosed the mooring line and they moved out into the current.

  The river here ran almost east and west, with a curve to the south three-quarters of a mile downstream. The low sun gilded the tops of the wavelets and cast the river bend in deep shadow. As they left the dock behind, a small aircraft passed low overhead. It startled a murder of crows that had settled in the trees of the west bank and they rose in a raucous cloud and crossed the Zaca’s bow on iridescent wings.

  _____

  The strange girl moved away from the door and the man known as Andrew Grey rose from where he’d been kneeling in the shadows of the basement junk room. Softly he closed the lid of the chest he’d been searching through and silently followed her.

  Hidden in the doorway, he watched as she hesitated between the elevator cage and the basement stairs. She chos
e the stairs and he crept over and peeked around the edge of the opening, watching her until she was more than halfway to the first floor. Satisfied that she didn’t intend to return, he went back to look at the door she had to have come in by. The door with the odd logo was unlocked now and stood very slightly ajar. He hesitated beside it, not wanting it to creak and betray his presence. But he hadn’t heard the woman enter and he could smell WD40, so he surmised that the hinges had been oiled.

  He pulled it toward himself, his touch delicate, and it came open easily. Beyond there was an underground passage, but it was too dark to make out any details.

  Deciding that the intruder was more immediately interesting than the secret passage, he carefully closed it most of the way and tiptoed back to the stairs to see what she was doing.

  She was lurking at the top of the steps. She touched the door hesitantly, then went through. Andrew waited until she had cleared the stairwell, then hurried up after her with a speed and agility that would have surprised his caretakers.

  He peeked out in time to see her disappear around the corner to his right. He waited and after a moment he could hear, only because he was listening for it, the soft sound of her footsteps on the treads of the main stair. He turned left, then right onto the steep, narrow service stair and quickly climbed to the second floor. There was a full-length mirror at the head of the main staircase. Alaina always checked her appearance in it before descending. Andrew used it now to watch the intruder. She had paused on the landing, beneath the wedding portrait. While she studied it, he studied her.

  She was a redhead, with short, wild hair and fine, porcelain skin sprinkled with freckles. Thin, black work gloves covered her hands and there was a smear of dirt down her left cheek. She wore jeans and sneakers and a navy T-shirt that was too big on her. When she turned to continue up the stairs, he could see the Marine Corps logo on the front of the shirt. Emotion rose in the back of his throat and closed like a fist around his heart.