Wined and Died: A Home Crafting Mystery

by Cricket McRae.

  “Thanks for all the advice,” I said, all bright and cheery. “I’m really looking forward to trying out this mead.”

  “When you fall in love with it, you know where to find more.” And there came that high-wattage smile again.

  Hmm. I gave him a quick nod and went out to the sidewalk.

  _____

  “What were you doing in there?” Erin asked as soon as we crossed First Street on our way home. “You said you’d only be a minute.”

  “Bought some honey wine for Barr and me. It’s called mead. Sorry it took so long.”

  “You weren’t just buying wine. I watched through the window. You talked to everyone in there.”

  “They’re all part of the family that owns the Grendel Meadery. Have you heard of it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “So I was asking them questions about how they do it.”

  “Is that your new thing? Making wine?”

  The way she said it gave me pause. Perhaps Erin wasn’t the only one who “developed enthusiasms” around our house.

  “Maybe. Tootie said she’d show me how to make dandelion wine.”

  “Can I be there?”

  “Only if you’ll take notes.”

  She grinned. “Like you can stop me.”

  “Okay, then. We’ll invite her and Felix over for dinner on Friday.”

  “I still think you were up to something in the wine store,” Erin said.

  Sheesh. She was like a dog gnawing on a bone.

  “Does it have anything to do with the tapes?”

  I stopped cold. “Why would you say that?”

  “I heard you and Barr talking about the tapes. I’d really, really like to hear the rest of them.”

  I started walking again. “Too late. He’s already taken them to work.”

  “So you’re not investigating anything.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because if you are, it would be a great subject for my book.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck, then, Bug. Because there isn’t an investigation for you to document. And if there were an investigation, it would be confidential and not your business.”

  “Sure.”

  That one word said it all.

  I put the mead in the refrigerator to chill for dinner and went downstairs to check on my Winding Road workers. What I found was Cyan sitting alone at the work island, packaging bath melts like a mad woman.

  “Where’s Penny?”

  “She had to leave.”

  “Leave? Why?”

  Cyan shrugged. “Something about a family emergency. She said she’d be in tomorrow at the same time, though.”

  Oh, dear. A family emergency didn’t sound good at all. “Well, let’s hope everything is okay,” I said.

  “I’m almost finished here. I can stay another hour before I have to get home. Should I go ahead and start on the lip balm labels?”

  I nodded automatically.

  “I can probably get a lot done in an hour.” She smiled her confidence at me.

  “Thanks, Cyan. I appreciate it.” But I was thinking that she shouldn’t have to stay an hour more, that by now I’d expected the two of them together would be through with the bath melts and lip balm labels and onto putting shrink-wrap bands on the bottles of oatmeal-milk bath salts lined against the counter. If Cyan was just finishing up the bath melts now, Penny had been gone a long time.

  “When did she leave?”

  Cyan looked up. “Penny? About an hour ago.”

  She’d stayed longer than I thought. But then again, she was slow as molasses. I reminded myself she’d speed up as she got used to the work.

  _____

  “There was a break-in at the dead psychotherapist’s office,” I announced when Barr walked in. I was preparing the artichokes to steam. The kitchen smelled of crushed garlic for the aioli. “They filed a police report, so you have it on record. The burglar stole all the ‘S’ files. It had to be a Swenson.”

  “Hello to you, too,” he said, and kissed the back of my neck.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry. Hi.” I dried my hands on a kitchen towel and leaned back against him. “How was your day?”

  He buried his face in my hair, and I heard him breathe in. “Frankly, it was pretty crappy. But now it’s great.”

  I turned in his arms, and we spent a long moment getting reacquainted. After awhile, he began to pull away, but I drew him back. “I’m worried about you,” I murmured in his ear.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re exhausted and more stressed than I’ve ever seen you. You aren’t sleeping, and you’re not eating well. There’s something going on. I hate seeing you like this.”

  He smiled and kissed me again. “Thanks for worrying, but you don’t have to. I’m working on something that will break soon. Very soon. In the meantime, I’ll try not to let my work life spill into ours.”

  “I’m not complaining. And you don’t have to protect me.”

  He opened his mouth to protest. I held up my hand. “I’m not asking for details, if you can’t give them to me. But let me know if there’s anything I can do. Deal?”

  Inclining his head, he said “Deal” against my lips.

  “Where’s Erin?” he finally asked.

  “She went to Zoe’s horseback-riding lesson with her. She’ll be home later.”

  “Is she going to want to take up riding now?”

  “God, I hope not. It’s an expensive sport,” I said.

  “But a lot of fun.” Barr’s family owned a guest ranch in Wyoming, and he’d grown up around horses. He’d even ridden in a few rodeos in his youth.

  Releasing him, I said. “Erin’s decided to write a book. Maybe she’s doing research at the barn.”

  He snorted. “What kind of book?”

  “Hmmm. Well, that’s the thing. See, she’s been snooping. I don’t think she listened to all of Elizabeth’s tapes, but she heard us talking.” I paused. The only time we’d talked about the tapes when she was in the house had been when we were up in our apartment. The bedroom door hadn’t been shut, though. I’d assumed she was asleep in her bedroom.

  Why, that little stinker.

  I continued. “So she thinks I’m investigating something on one of those tapes. Wants to write about it.”

  Silent, he filled the teakettle and fired up the burner under it. Settling himself at the table, he considered me. “Are you?”

  “What? Investigating?”

  “Yes.”

  It gave me pause, Barr asking the question straight out like that. I sank onto the chair across from him. “No one else seems to be.”

  “Sophie Mae, you seem obsessed by this therapist. There was never a report. There’s been no violence, no complaint. Only a recording without enough specifics to do anything about, made by a woman who’s dead. Like I said, it’s hearsay at best.”

  “So someone has to die before you’ll do anything?”

  “My hands are tied. If I had all the time in the world, then maybe I could devote some of it to this. But nothing has happened so far, and it probably won’t.”

  “But what if it does?” I insisted. “Wouldn’t you feel terrible?”

  He looked so tired. There were lines in his face that hadn’t been there on our wedding day. My question seemed to deepen them.

  “Yes. I’d feel terrible.”

  I got up and found the Earl Grey tea in the cupboard. “Well, then it won’t hurt for me to ask around a little. I mean, wouldn’t it be more important to save someone’s life than to find their killer after they’re dead?”

  “You have to stay away from Normal Brown.”

  I put a cup with a teabag in front of him. “Felix said something about him. He used to have a moonshine still or something, back in the woods.”

  “Or something is right. Ol’ Normal has a long history with the department. He hangs with some rough folks. Really rough. I need you to stay away from him.”

  “What’s h
e into?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you or Erin anywhere around the guy. Promise me.”

  I sat for a moment, absorbing that. “Okay. I promise. Do you think this Normal character is the one Elizabeth was talking about?”

  Barr’s lips twisted. “He’s a gnarly old bastard. I’d have a hard time imagining him talking to a psychotherapist. And even if I’m wrong, and he did go against type, he’s far too clever to talk out of school like that about killing someone. Normal’s not your guy.”

  The teakettle began to whistle. I reached for it. “Doesn’t sound like he’s the potential killer. But if he’s that nasty, it sure sounds like he’d be a good victim.”

  “Well then, you don’t have to worry. Normal’s managed to live into his eighties while tempting fate every day.” He grimaced. “He appears to be bulletproof.”

  _____

  The crab was delectable, the artichokes divine, and the mead went over very well indeed. Barr was skeptical at first, but he quickly converted.

  “This is so crisp and dry. I expected something sweet and cloying,” he said.

  “Some are very sweet, like dessert wines. Glenwood Swenson recommended this for seafood.”

  His head jerked up at the name. I ignored him.

  “Besides, the rhubarb tart will be, well, tart.”

  “Can I taste it?” Erin asked, reaching for my glass.

  I moved it out of her reach. “No, you may not.”

  “Hey, I had to stand out on that sidewalk for, like, an hour while you bought it. Brodie even fell asleep. You could at least let me have some.”

  “Drink your root beer.”

  She blew a raspberry at me.

  “Erin!”

  Barr laughed. “You know, we used to make root beer when I was a kid.”

  “Really?” Erin drew the red notebook and pencil out from where it had been laying on her lap.

  Had she been taking notes the whole time we’d been eating?

  I told myself to relax. We needed to watch what we said since the little pitcher had even bigger ears than normal lately, but we shouldn’t interfere with the constant documentation of our lives. It would be over soon enough. Besides, if she was interested in writing down everything, then she wasn’t focused on my inquiries alone.

  “So how did you do it?” she asked, pencil poised.

  “A couple of different ways. My grandma made it from scratch, but my mom used an extract. She only did it once, though. Because of the accident.”

  She scribbled, then paused. “What accident?”

  Barr settled back in his chair and smiled. I felt a story coming on.

  “Grandma used real roots—sarsaparilla, licorice, ginger, and wintergreen. I believe she added some vanilla bean, too. Sometimes she put some sassafras in, but that was harder to come by. She’d boil it all up and then add the ‘tea’ to a bunch of sugar dissolved in hot water. Used her big old canning kettle. Then she added yeast to that mixture. Lord, that stuff would boil and roil and foam for at least half a day, sometimes more. When it had settled down, we’d bottle it up and put caps on. Kept it down in the cellar where it was cool. It was my favorite thing to drink in the summer when I was a boy.

  “When Mom decided to try it using root beer extract, Grandma thought that was cheating. But it came from the Hires company, and the way Mom saw it, they’d already done all the hard work of getting ahold of the roots and getting the flavor out of them. I daresay she was right.”

  Erin looked up from her notes again. “I thought you were going to tell me about an accident.”

  “Patience, Bug,” I said.

  She gave me a look.

  Barr took a sip of mead. “It was the middle of the night—” Another sip. “—and suddenly we heard gunshots.”

  Erin’s eyes grew big. Mine rolled toward the ceiling.

  “Pop! Pop! Pop! It was loud, woke us all up. We ran downstairs and looked outside.”

  I opened my mouth. He shot me a warning glance. I shut my mouth and let him keep going.

  “Pop! Pop! Pop! But it wasn’t outside at all. Someone was shooting inside the house.”

  He sat back and waited.

  “Who?” she breathed.

  “The shots were coming from the cellar. Dad and Randall and I started down the steps, careful and quiet. There was another shot, and we heard the sound of glass. I’ll tell you, my mother grabbed us boys and pulled us back up fast as she could, calling to my dad, ‘Vern, get up here! It’s the root beer exploding.’”

  Erin looked confused.

  “And that is exactly what it was. We stayed out of the way until all the bottles had broken. It took all the next day to clean up the sweet stickiness. And the house smelled like root beer for about a month. Kind of lost my taste for the stuff after that.”

  “The bottles exploded?” Erin asked. “Because your mom cheated?”

  “Nah. Mom used the same method Grandma did, except for one thing.”

  “What was that?” I asked dutifully. My husband could sure draw things out.

  “She didn’t use the same yeast as her mother. And that made all the difference.”

  “Barr, did all that really happen?” I asked.

  He looked offended. “Of course it did.”

  “Well, I’ve heard similar stories from everyone I’ve ever met who made their own root beer once upon a time. It always blows up in the basement, or the attic, or the barn. I sure hope nothing like that happens when we make dandelion wine.”

  “You’re making dandelion wine?”

  “Tootie’s going to show us how. And Erin’s going to help me pick the dandelions.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  My husband leaned back in his chair again, hands laced once more across his abdomen. “Did I ever tell you about when my grandmother decided to make dandelion wine? She—”

  “Erin, come help me with the dishes,” I said.

  Barr laughed.

  The tinkling of chimes announced my arrival as I opened the door to Kringle’s Drugs the next day.

  “Good morning, Sophie Mae.” This from Warren Kringle himself, perched on a tall stool behind the register.

  “How’s it going, Warren? Business good?”

  “Good enough. We had a run on Winding Road bath salts last week, and I could use some more of those lotion bars when you get a chance. Mother’s Day coming up always depletes our reserves on the girly things.”

  Girly things. Right.

  “I’ll drop those items by as soon as I can,” I assured him. “Right now I’m on a mission. Birthday card for Erin.”

  “Already? How old?”

  “She’ll be twelve in a week.”

  “Almost a teenager.”

  “And not about to let us forget it,” I called, walking away.

  I made my way between the displays of gifts and knickknacks, stationery, wrapping paper, greeting cards, photo albums, and picture frames. The air smelled of spiced apple room spray, baby-powder sachets, and Pine-Sol. Near the back of the store a windowed counter accessed the small compounding pharmacy where Quentin Swenson mixed his potions and medications to order. The surrounding shelving units provided the usual over-the-counter drugstore fare.

  A shuffle of papers, then the pingpingping of tablets dropping onto metal alerted me to the presence of someone in the rear of the pharmacy. I hoped it was Quentin, not his assistant, counting out pills.

  Ducking down one short aisle, I perused the shelves for the cure to some innocuous ailment. Hmm. Unguents for athlete’s foot? Naw. My gaze swept over cures for head lice, constipation, psoriasis, flatulence, and PMS. Ick. No way was I asking Quentin’s advice about any of those. And I’d just look stupid if I inquired about something as boring as what brand of floss to use.

  I paused in front of the weight-loss supplements. Not too yucky, and I wouldn’t look too stupid. Only vain, and possibly fat. I could live with that. One bottle swore its contents would burn fat whil
e you slept. Another offering was purportedly concocted of ancient African herbs. A third label boasted testimonials from an actress displaying her cut, tan, and oily abs.

  Grabbing them all, I approached the back counter.

  “Hello, Ms. Reynolds! What can I do for you today?” Quentin’s voice boomed in the small space. His jowls quivered with delight. Even his comb-over looked delighted to see me.

  “It’s Ambrose now,” I said. “Barr and I were married a few months back.”

  He slapped his palm to his forehead. “How could I have forgotten that? Unbelievable!”

  “It’s okay.” His bouncy good humor was so infectious I couldn’t help grinning. “Listen, I was wondering if you could steer me in the right direction.” I spread the supplement packs on the counter. “Which of these is the most effective for quick weight loss?”

  “Bah! What are you talking about?” The palm slap to the forehead again. “You don’t need any of these. You are just perfect the way you are. Marriage obviously agrees with you.”

  I ducked my head, feigning embarrassment. “Thanks, Quentin. Still, bathing suit weather is right around the corner, and I’ve got an itty bitty bikini to fit into.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me. “And will you be wearing that at the public pool? Because if you are, I might have to stop by for a look-see.”

  From most men that would sound smarmy; from Quentin it was just gentle teasing.

  “Why, Mr. Swenson,” I said in my best Southern belle. “You are a married man.”

  He laughed.

  “How is Iris?” I asked. “I haven’t run into her at the artist’s co-op lately. I hope she’s feeling well.”

  “She’s doing great,” he said. “Just been busy with her bookkeeping job.”

  “Out at the meadery?”

  Here came that great big laugh again. “At least one of us is in my family’s business.”

  He glanced down at the array of supplements on the counter, then leaned forward and slipped on the frameless half-glasses that hung on a lanyard around his neck. In a low voice, he said, “Do you really want to know about these products?”

  I nodded.

  “They’re totally useless.”

  I blinked at his candor.