A Deadly Draught

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “You wanted to say something?”

  “Yep. Nice hardwood floors, and …”

  “And?”

  “And the window was closed when I left. Take a close look at those papers. Anything missing?”

  “How would I know? I haven’t had a chance to read through them yet. First, the problem at Rafe’s and now the lack of privacy. You had more opportunity to give them a glance than I did.”

  “I didn’t see much when I did. You ran me off, remember? Accused me of snooping. I was…“

  “Being damned aggravating, a habit you had in law school, and I see you haven’t changed much.”

  “Someone probably lifted the key from the barn, used it to get in here, then climbed back out by opening the window. Whoever it was wanted to shove the trespass in your face by making it obvious.”

  He turned and walked out the door. I could see his head through the open window.

  “Some broken limbs on this bush,” he said. “Ground’s too hard for any footprints. We could probably get some fingerprints off the sill.”

  “Great,” I said when he re-entered the room. “Someone broke in here using my key, or someone else stole my key. Regardless, it’s gone, and whoever came in had sufficient time to go through my letters and take any that were interesting. What’s going on here?”

  Jake removed his hat and swept it against his thigh in a gesture of frustration. “I don’t understand you. You almost finished your law degree. You were going to sit for the bar in six months. Why come back here and settle for operating this rundown brewery? Why the booze business at all?”

  “That’s not what I asked.” I tossed the letters on the table and sat. Maybe it was time for a showdown between the two of us. “I guess you never knew me very well, or you wouldn’t ask why I’m in the beer business.”

  “Guilt? Was it guilt making you take over after your father’s death?” He was getting too close to what I had struggled with all these years. He sat down at the table, reached across it and enclosed my hands in his. “I need to know. We once loved each other. At least, I loved you. I still care for you.”

  I pulled my hands out of his grasp and placed them under the table. His physical touch still sent a shot of desire through me, even after all these years.

  “The problem is, we’re failures in each other’s eyes. You can’t imagine why I’m into making brewskis, and I can’t see you as a cop. We were both on the fast track at one time. Didn’t you tell me you wanted to do patent law? And here you are, handcuffs hanging off your belt, one hand on your gun, the other reaching out to grab me and arrest me just for being part of the brewing world. What have you got against beer?”

  “Okay, okay. Here goes. I guess you deserve an explanation, but then it’s your turn.” He folded his hands on the table and focused on them.

  “My family had a problem with booze. Both my parents drank a lot. I was always able to control my drinking until you left me in law school. Then I really hit the bottle. I let my grades go to hell, and I dropped out. I took some jobs working in the lumber industry up north for a while, then drifted back down this way and started working with juvenile offenders. Went back to school for the criminal justice program. And here I am.”

  I didn’t say anything for a while. Jake kept his eyes on the table top, then raised them to mine. “So what do you think?”

  I let out a long sigh. “I think you’re a big baby. It sounds like you are blaming me for your problems. You could do with some AA meetings to get your head on straight. As for your hatred of my career as a brewer, you’re off on that one, too. I make the beers. I don’t make people drink them.”

  I held out my hand. “Keys, please.”

  I watched something happen to his eyes, something I knew I was responsible for. First, they took on a look of astonishment, then hurt, and finally, a wall came up, one I knew only I could tear down. I intended to leave that wall in place. It protected me as well as him. I took my keys, turned on my heel, and left the kitchen. I heard the door close and his car start up. Whatever we had in the past was a memory. Now we were just cop and suspect.

  *

  I watched the sun settle on the valley meadow signaling late afternoon. I’d been pacing the kitchen floor since Jake left and thinking too much, reliving my stern speech to him earlier and knowing what I said was true but also cruel.

  I thought of reading Dad’s letters but vetoed that in favor of going to the hospital to see how Henry was doing. I called first and got one of my friends, Tom Cavanaugh, the head nurse on the floor to which Henry was assigned. Tom assured me there were no police around.

  Rafe was in the room when I arrived.

  Henry looked pale, and his breathing sounded thin, although tubes to his nose delivered oxygen. He wasn’t up to answering questions, and I wasn’t there to make him feel any worse than he already did. I expect he had had enough of interrogation earlier by the police.

  “Rafe will tell you whole story,” Henry managed to whisper.

  “Do you know who locked you in and how long you were there?” I turned to Rafe for an answer.

  “I found him around eleven, the time I usually make the rounds of the operations. He told me he heard something or someone in the fermentation room, and when he checked, he was pushed from behind. He struggled to his feet, saw the door close, and heard someone wedge something under the outside handle. As near as we can figure, that had to be around ten or so, right?” Henry nodded in agreement.

  “If it was someone who knew your schedule, then the person was trying to get away, not kill anyone,” I said.

  Henry and Rafe nodded in agreement.

  “That’s what Jake figured, but it’s little comfort to poor Henry here. He thought he was going to die from carbon dioxide before anyone got him out of there. I think Jake’s right on the money. Someone from among us is trying to make trouble, but I can’t figure out why.”

  “Someone broke into my house while I was at your place this morning,” I said.

  “Did they get anything?”

  I thought about the letters. “No, not that I can see. It just unnerves me, and the duplicate key to my house is missing.”

  “The yeast,” Henry croaked.

  “Don’t worry about it, old man,” Rafe said. “I just ordered more before I came here. It should arrive tomorrow, and we’ll be back in business.”

  “Does someone intend to use the stolen yeast?” Henry asked. He coughed and sat further up in bed. “Who? The other brewers have their own yeast for ale, unless Hera here is making a new ale by moonlight.”

  It was a joke, and we all knew it. Rafe and I laughed, and Henry gave forth a kind of snort, dislodged his tubes, and had to replace them. Still, I worried about the remark. With the break-in and my key gone, I wondered what other trouble was afoot. Jake’s words returned to me. I was certain he would find the yeast. I just wasn’t certain where, and I hoped it wouldn’t be in my brew barn, planted there to make me look guilty.

  Tom stuck his head into the room and said, “Visiting time’s over, folks. This man needs his rest.” I patted Henry’s hand and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Rafe and I left.

  On the way down in the elevator, Rafe turned to me and asked, “What’s worrying you?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I just think I should change the locks on my house and my barn.”

  “Good idea. Got someone to do it for you? I could send over one of my men.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll have Jeremiah do it tomorrow.”

  “We’re all getting edgy with the murder and now this. Who’s behind this. Any ideas?”

  “Why ask me?” I heard the tone in my voice. It was sharp. “Sorry. I am on edge.” I touched Rafe’s arm and gave him an apologetic smile.

  “The reason I asked is you’ve been here for years, and you know all the people in this valley. They were your friends and acquaintances even before your dad went into the business.”

  True. Everyone was familiar to me with the exc
eption of Francine, whom none of us knew well. “I can’t think who would do all this,” I said.

  “Come by for a drink?” Rafe asked.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to run. I need to catch up on some reading.” Past and present had to be linked in some way. Perhaps I might find the connection in my father’s letters. They might help me understand my father better, perhaps lead me to someone who hated him enough to want him dead.

  *

  After I turned out the light, my mind wouldn’t let go. I’d spent several hours going through all of the letters, most from Dad’s pals. Cheerful notes about the good old days in college sent to the man in Korea. A few were letters from girlfriends. I noted the signatures but wanted to avoid reading missives from his love life, no matter how ancient and removed from me it was. There couldn’t be anything of importance there anyway. I’d burn those tomorrow. They were yellowed and falling to pieces.

  Then I ran across a small packet held together with a rubber band. It looked much newer than the rest. The paper was whiter, not as discolored with age, and the postmarks on these envelopes were newer, some during the seventies. The handwriting was too flamboyant to be anything but a woman’s. It reminded me of Mom’s. Dad and Mom were married during those years. Why would Mom write to Dad, when they were living together in this house? Some romantic game the two of them played? I didn’t want to know about it. I had set the idea and the letters aside, but now they were keeping me awake.

  I tossed back my covers and went downstairs to the kitchen. The letters lay on the table waiting for me to discover their contents. Oh, what the hell. Dad is gone now, so what can it matter about his love life with Mom?

  I plunged in. After an hour of reading, I knew tonight was a night I wouldn’t sleep. I blushed as I read the scorching passion coming through the words in the letters. Did my father return this woman’s lust for him? As I read on through them, it appeared the two of them met often. So I had my answer. My father had had an affair.

  What were you thinking, Dad? Did Mom know? Who knew? Did he? Did Mr. Ramford know? If he did, he was a man who would kill you for messing around with his wife.

  Seven

  I should just go over there right now. So what if it’s three in the morning. I’d tell her a thing or two, let Claudia know she ruined my life, that she was a slut. Or maybe I should demand she tell me there was no truth in those letters, that they were the product of a delusional mind, hers.

  The sad truth was, it wasn’t Claudia Ramford I had a need to confront. I wanted to yell at my father. Anger roared through my head like a summer tornado. My father, my own father. How could you do this to me, to Mom? I pounded my pillow and shrieked out my bedroom window into the darkness.

  By the time the sun came up, emotional and physical exhaustion overwhelmed me. Anger, grief, blame, and disbelief had fled, leaving behind them the smallest grain of rational thought, but enough to take me down another road, one more reasonable. I would talk to Claudia. Yes, I would, but not until I knew exactly what I wanted from her.

  I suspected the affair between my father and Claudia Ramford somehow figured into recent events, but I wasn’t certain how. Until I knew more I had to be careful. Whoever the brewer was concocting this murderous recipe, he or she was deft at stirring in a deadly product at just the right moment. So for once in my life, I decided to rein in my impulsive nature and hold my stubbornness in check.

  I grabbed cleaning supplies and headed for the small shed standing near the brew barn. Good, old-fashioned heavy labor might free up my overloaded brain and allow me to think my way through to some sensible action. If not, it would exhaust me enough that I could nap in the afternoon and count on a clear mind later.

  Dad had used the shed to store supplies, but since his death, I’d been throwing anything I couldn’t decide what to do with into it. There were old hoses, parts from brew kettles, gardening tools, buckets, and who knew what else. It had been years since I’d taken inventory of its contents. Now I needed the space to rent to Marni Henley, who was joining our Saturday tasting sessions with her herbs and flowers. The shed would be the perfect place for her to sell, display, and store her merchandise. She wouldn’t have to load everything in her van each Saturday and cart it to and from my place, and the area to the side and back of it would afford her room to grow some of her herbs. It would look pretty, too, I thought. She and I could share the responsibility for taking care of the small garden during the week. In fact, I said to myself, as I threw another rusty bucket out of the shed into the dump pile, maybe Marni would like to use a half-day on Wednesday to open the shed for business also.

  Ned Potter’s homemade sausages, which he was going to sell out of the back of his truck, Sally’s breads, Marni’s herbs and flowers, and my brews would provide summer tourists with a fun Saturday afternoon adventure. The other breweries—Rafe’s, Teddy’s and the Ramford facility—scheduled brewery tours every day between the months of May and October. If anyone wandered into my place on a weekday, I was happy to give them a walk through my small facility.

  What the Ramford brewery might do for tours under the new brew master’s and Michael’s direction remained a mystery. Francine was too new to the business to decide yet how she would manage her own marketing and publicity, but she’d better get something together, or she’d lose the summer tourist season. I should help her, I thought first, but then reminded myself, I should mind my own business and help myself by pushing for another meeting with the bank president.

  Money, money, money was the refrain foremost in my mind as I worked. In the background, my father’s relationship with Claudia Ramford provided dark undertones to a chorus of concerns about the financing with the bank. I closed out the noise by digging more deeply into the junk in the shed and pulled out a spade shoved into the pile of items at the back. It looked new, but I didn’t remember buying it or putting it in here. Could Jeremiah have gotten it? He usually told me if he needed new equipment. I’d have to ask him. It was too good to thrown in the discard pile, so I carried it outside and leaned it against the building. The spade would come in handy digging Marni a small herb bed.

  In the bright sunlight, I noticed something on its blade. Oh, damn. It wasn’t as good as I thought. It was covered with rust … or was it blood? I threw it on the ground and backed away as if it were a rabid animal about to attack me.

  *

  “You just found it in the shed? No idea who put it there? Do you keep the shed door locked?” asked Jake. I had dialed him as soon as I suspected the shovel could be the missing murder weapon, not that I wanted to call him, especially after our unpleasant parting. I preferred not seeing him ever again, and from the awkwardness he evidenced when he arrived, he felt the same way about me.

  “Could you not keep pacing around and around with your back turned while you fire questions at me?” We were standing at a distance from the shovel, which still lay on the ground near the shed.

  “I’ll check it for prints, of course,” he said.

  “You’ll find my prints on it. And that’s blood, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. Your prints. Could be blood. Probably is.” He walked away from me and back to look at the shovel. He was doing his best to treat me civilly, like a witness. So I settled on returning the favor. I would behave like one and handle him like a cop. He is a cop, I reminded myself, even if he is one who looks damned good in the uniform. The short sleeves showed off the muscles in his forearms, and the scattering of hairs there glistened in the sunshine. Oh, man. Would my hormones ever learn to behave?

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Like I said, I’ll check this for prints, take it to the lab. I’ll have my men go over this area and see what else they uncover.”

  “I need the shed back by this Saturday, actually before. I’m going to use it.”

  “I don’t know if you can have it by then. Make other plans.”

  “Fine. Anything else?” Should I ask him?

  “How long since
you went into the shed?”

  “Years?”

  “How’d all this stuff get in here then?”

  “Jeremiah and I just tossed things in from time to time. It’s like a storage area for stuff we had no use for but couldn’t throw away. It’s never locked. What for? It’s filled with useless junk. Is that a problem?”

  “I wouldn’t call a possible murder weapon useless junk. Where can I find Jeremiah? Is he working today?”

  “Jeremiah is off today. He’s a part-time student at the college. He should be in classes this afternoon. You can’t think he could be involved.”

  “Everyone in this brewing community is involved one way or the other. A murderer, a thief, and those who would cover up for these acts.” He turned and met my eyes for the first time today. “What’re you hiding, Hera?”

  I thought of the letters. “Nothing. Nothing.” Now was the time to ask him, to change the subject. “Uh, what about the yeast? Anything?”

  “I’ve been doing some reading, very interesting stuff on brewing. Now I know bottom-feeding yeast produce lagers and top-fermenting yeast create ales. Oh, yeah, the bottom fermenters work at a lower temperature than the ale yeasts.”

  “Oh, good for you. I hope you didn’t think learning this was beneath your finely honed cop mind.”

  “I also found out there’s a way to determine the owner of a particular yeast.”

  “How would that be?” I knew the answer, but I was testing him.

  “A DNA analysis of the yeast. Fortunate you called me today. I’m visiting all the brewers, asking for a sample of each of the yeasts they use. I’ll need some from you. The stolen product possessed a specific profile, which Rafe gave me. Now we’ll see if any of the yeasts in the brew barns have the same make-up.”