A Deadly Draught

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too. Then again, I think it’s understandable Ronald is laying low. As a preteen, he got blamed for almost everything bad happening around here, whether he was involved in it or not. What a mess. I have so many pieces of this puzzle, but none of them fit together to make sense.”

  “Isn’t that what Jake is supposed to do, make sense out of this stuff?”

  “That’s not what I want to hear right now.”

  “You know I’m right about this. However much animosity you have for him, this is a police matter. You’ve got to tell him everything. Besides, from your odd behavior, I’m beginning to think you have some kind of a thing for him.”

  “I do not have a thing for him,” I yelled. “Okay,” I said, calming down, “maybe you’re right. I’d better stop by the department and talk to him.”

  My cell phone rang. When I answered it, Jeremiah was on the line. Although his voice was calm, I could tell from the slow and determined way he strung together his words that he was worried, terribly worried about the fermentation.

  “The yeast doesn’t want to work. I thought maybe our thermostat was giving us trouble again, so I bumped up the temperature to the top of the fermentation range, around fifty degrees to see if the mercury moved. Nothing. She’s not fermenting. It’s like the yeast is dead,” Jeremiah said.

  Ten

  That’s all I needed, a bad batch of yeast. Was it incorrect storage on my part, or did the manufacturer send me a degraded product? Damn, damn. I pounded on the steering wheel as I raced home. I should slow down. These country roads were tricky. A patch of gravel, and my truck could fly off the road, and it wouldn’t make any difference whether my yeast was dead or not. I would be.

  I careened into my drive, floored it up the hill, and brought the truck to an abrupt halt in front of the barn. I jumped out, leaving the door open, and bolted into the brew house. The new man Brian, a slight, fair-haired college student, paused in his shoveling of the grain from the mash lauter and nodded to me as I entered.

  “I told Brian this wasn’t the way things usually went,” said Jeremiah.

  “No, it isn’t.” I climbed the metal steps to the top of the fermentation vessel, opened the hatch, and looked in. Nothing. The brew sat there still, not a bubble on the surface and no yeasty fermentation smell.

  I checked the outlet valve and the temperature of the mash. “We’re not pulling carbon dioxide from the outlet valve. Hand me the yeast bottle again,” I said, holding out my hand. The bottle looked like our usual bottles. I smelled the residue left in the bottom and looked at the sludge still clinging to the inside. “It looks different somehow. Something’s not right with this yeast.” A growing suspicion began to work its way through my mind. I extracted my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Rafe’s number.

  “I’d be glad to drop by and see if I can help,” Rafe said. “Be there in five.”

  When Rafe’s tall frame entered my barn, I wasn’t sure I was happy to see him. When he confirmed my hunch about the yeast, I was horrified.

  We cranked up the temperature of the liquid as he suggested and waited. At around seventy degrees, we began to see bubbles, and I could bleed off carbon dioxide, one of the by-products of fermentation—alcohol being the other—from the chamber.

  “You’re making an ale,” Rafe announced. He sounded proud of me.

  “I didn’t intend to make an ale and certainly not using your stolen yeast.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said.

  “Don’t be silly. You know it’s true also. Now what?”

  “Your call,” he said, guessing what I would do.

  I dialed the one number I’d been avoiding all day.

  “Jake. You’d better get over here. I think I have the stolen yeast.”

  *

  “I suppose you intend to arrest me now,” I said. Rafe and I had explained about the yeast. “You could use that fancy DNA profiling to be sure, but I’ll bet that yeast is Rafe’s, and he thinks it is, too. A quick look at it under a microscope would confirm I have yeast made for ales.”

  “Don’t be a boob, Hera. I know you didn’t steal the yeast, but someone wanted to point a finger by planting it on you. They took a bit of trouble, too, dumping it into your yeast bottles. So who wants to get at you?” Jake asked.

  I thought about the question and could come up with only one person, Michael’s brew master, Stanley. I didn’t mind mentioning the name to Jake.

  “I’ll take a run over there and see what both of them have to say about this. Meantime, let me urge you once again,” he scowled at me, “to get those locks changed on both your house and your barn.”

  “More pranks, do you think?” asked Rafe.

  “In the last few weeks, we’ve had one murder around here, an attempted murder, and a theft. These are more than pranks.”

  “Don’t forget the cow,” I said.

  “The cow?” asked Jake.

  “You know. The slit-open malt bags and the cow.”

  “I know about the bags, but what cow?” It appeared Francine had contacted Jake about the malt but hadn’t let him in on the cow eating it. So I told them about Bossy. Brian, Jeremiah, and Rafe laughed, and I had a bit of a chuckle retelling the story. Jake continued to scowl.

  “I didn’t want to alarm Francine, but Marsh and I agreed. It looked like more than simple vandalism, especially when put together with the rest of these crimes. So you may not be safe, Hera. I hate to repeat myself, but get those locks changed. Today.”

  “I’m not a child, you know, so don’t talk down to me.”

  Before Jake could reply, Rafe cut in.

  “He’s not treating you like a child. He’s worried about your safety. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

  “I’m concerned for all the brewers around here. Some person or persons has stirred things up. Everyone is getting paranoid. I had to remind Marsh a rifle wasn’t a good thing to be carrying around. I just hope you two,” he gestured at Rafe and me, “don’t have some weapons you’re wanting to reach for.”

  Rafe and I both shook our heads.

  “As for those locks,” I said, “you must think I’m rich or something. If I’m going to change those locks, then I’m going to change those locks, me, not some locksmith who’s asking sixty or more dollars per lock labor plus the cost of the mechanism. In case you haven’t heard, I’m strapped for cash.” I didn’t mean to be so testy with Jake, but I had more than locks on my mind. I should terminate the brew in my kettle, dump the mess, clean the tun, and pay Rafe for the expended yeast.

  “I could help you with the locks,” Rafe offered.

  Jake looked Rafe up and down and seemed to come to some decision.

  “Tell you what, Mr. Oxley, I’ll give you a hand. I’ve got the afternoon off, so I can run into town and grab the locks. I’ll meet you back here around three,” Jake said.

  My mouth fell open. “You’re going to do what? Not on my building, you’re not.”

  “It’s all settled, my dear. Consider it a business comp from one brewer to the other. See you back here, then,” he said to Jake. Rafe turned and left the barn.

  “So what do you want to call this gesture? A comp from your friendly local cop?” I asked.

  “How about an old friend comp?” Jake said. Before I could reply, he turned and left also.

  Old friend. Ha! Up until now, he hadn’t acted like an old friend. He was just all cop. I stood in the middle of my brew barn, clenching and unclenching my fists, my mouth opening and closing around cuss words like a big-mouthed bass on a worm. He stuck his head back into the barn.

  “I’ll bring you the receipts from the locks I buy. I’m not that good a friend. See you later.”

  Jeremiah cleared his throat, and Brian busied himself around the other side of the kettle, sweeping up nonexistent dirt from the floor.

  “So what do you want to do about this brew here?” asked Jeremiah. He slapped his palm on the side of the kettle. “Toss it?”


  I was about to answer yes, but my penurious nature got the better of me.

  “Just one minute.” I dialed Rafe’s cell, swallowed with difficulty at the thought of what I was about to do, and asked Rafe my question.

  “What do I care? The yeast is gone, and I’m covered by insurance. Why not put it to good use? Sure. Go ahead.”

  And so, my summer ale was born. I christened it Knightsbridge Summer Serendipity. Like any proud parent, I was curious to see how my offspring would develop and if others would find it as exciting as I did.

  *

  The locksmiths returned at three. I had my head beneath the bottler while Jeremiah turned the line on and off, and I fussed with the labeler. I didn’t hear Rafe and Jake until they entered the bottling room to install a new lock on the door leading from there to the outside of the building.

  In the short time they shared the labor of changing my locks, they seemed to be developing a friendship, a phenomenon I noted with much grinding of teeth. I liked Rafe. He was my kind of person—charming, intelligent, complex. Now Jake, on the other hand, was charming, intelligent, complex, a pain in the butt, sexy, and a danger to my sense of sensual independence, clearly not a person with whom I should complicate my life. Well, maybe I could risk a quick look at his derriere, which appeared not to have changed much, unless it was more muscular, after five years. Hmmmm.

  “All finished, except for the house,” Jake said. I signaled Jeremiah to turn the bottler back on.

  “I said …”

  “I heard you.”

  “We need to attend to the house now,” said Rafe.

  “Fine, fine. This way. I’ll make some coffee.” I shimmied out from underneath the line and led the two of them toward my back door.

  “Don’t bother about the coffee,” said Jake.

  At the same moment, Rafe said, “Great. We could use a cup.”

  I smiled at Rafe and glared at Jake. “Coffee. Right.” Jake appeared less than enthusiastic at spending any time in my house.

  “Hera can fill us in on her plans for her new ale,” said Rafe.

  “I can’t say I’m really interested in the brewing business,” said Jake.

  “Nonsense. Everyone who has a sense of history wants to hear about how beer is made, and you look like a man who respects the past.”

  Rafe and Jake worked on the locks on both the front and back doors while I brewed up a pot of coffee. Coffee alone seemed less than gracious, so I scrounged around in my cupboards and found a package of store-bought cookies, probably stale by now, and placed them on a plate. The three of us sat down at the table and sipped our coffees and munched on the cookies, for which I apologized.

  “I’ve been too busy to do much cooking or anything.”

  “So I guess you and Jake knew each other in law school?” Rafe asked. “Where was that?”

  Both of us began explaining at once, laughed at ourselves, and then shared the floor talking about our days in Albany. The more Jake and I talked, the more the old patterns of camaraderie and friendly academic competition took over. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Rafe’s lips curve in a smile as if he had somehow planned for Jake and me to recapture the fun and excitement that defined those years together. You old dog, I thought to myself. You’re trying to play cupid. I rose from the table, thinking I should put an end to all of this. I had no intention of getting entangled in Jake’s life, and I was certain he would abhor the thought of recapturing romance with me.

  “Never mind, my dear. I’ll get it,” Rafe said. He beat me to the counter and grabbed the coffee pot. Without asking, he refilled our cups and said, “And now you’re making another ale, all of your own designing. Probably not the way you intended to begin, but nevertheless an ale. So where do you plan to go from here?”

  “Well, as Jake said before, he’s not interested in lager or ale,” I said.

  “I’ll bet he’s willing to get interested, especially if he’s going to be living and working in this area. Right?” Rafe looked at Jake for confirmation and then continued, “Brewing is a way of life here now.” Rafe Oxley, you’re something, I thought.

  As I laid out my plans for the summer and the fall, I got more and more excited about the tastings and the new brews I might be creating. Soon, my ideas carried me away, and I was unaware of my audience, just of the images of golden lagers and brown, foamy ales filling my brain. When I paused for a breath, Jake’s face drew my attention. There was an odd expression on it, something close to respect for what I was saying. Maybe I was wrong. He dropped the look when he shoved his chair back and got up.

  “I’ve got to be getting back. Thanks for the coffee and the, uh, stories.”

  I approached him with my hand out. “No, no, thank you for doing those locks. Wait just a minute, and I’ll write you out a check for the cost of the equipment.”

  He took my hand and shook it, then held on for just a moment too long for it to be a gentleman’s handshake. I pretended not to notice, but I bet Rafe did.

  “I’ll get the check some other time,” Jake said.

  “It won’t bounce.” I snatched my hand out of his and put both hands behind my back where I curled them into fists. It was stupid, but I seemed to react to his approaches with pugnaciousness.

  “If it did, I’d know where to find you. Good evening, Mr. Oxley. Nice talking to you.” He closed the door behind him and left Rafe and me in the kitchen.

  “I thought that went well, didn’t you?” Rafe asked.

  “Soooo, no problems installing those new locks, I gather.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. That’s one smart man. Good looking too.”

  “Oh, leave it alone. It’s water under the bridge. In fact, the stream is dry now,” I insisted.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. The two of you had quite a thing going back then. Who’s to say it can’t start again?”

  “Me, that’s who. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve got a lot on my mind. Money mostly. I mean to pay you for that yeast, you know.”

  Rafe flapped his hand at me in dismissal.

  “He told me he’d checked out all of us,” Rafe said.

  “So he knows …”

  “Pretty much everything. Not his fault. He’s just doing his job.” Rafe sighed. “I knew someday my past would catch up with me. It always does, you know.”

  I let him out the back door and watched as he walked toward his car, his shoulders slumped forward in an attitude of dejection. This case seemed to be exposing more of the past than many of us wanted revealed.

  Back in the house, I flopped down in a kitchen chair and realized the cookies I’d had with coffee were the only food I’d eaten all day. There was nothing in the fridge. I was tired out from the adrenalin rush I’d had with the yeast issue and physically exhausted from the wrestling match the bottler had given me. Too weary to go into town and shop, I ate the remainder of the box of cookies. Filled with sugar and chocolate, I thought they were certain to keep me up well into the night.

  But I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of bubbles as they rose in a pilsner glass of amber colored lager. No, no, that’s not right. It’s not a lager, it’s an ale, I was shouting to someone. It’s poisoned, the voice replied. I woke up with a start, sweat covering my body. The clock blinked three in the morning. It was too early to get up, but I knew I’d never get back to sleep. I’ll check the ale, I thought.

  I grabbed the new keys off the hook in the kitchen and stepped out into the still night. Not quite still. I could hear frogs croaking from the pond on my property, and a night hawk flew across the fields on silent wings and into the woods beyond, offering his lonely cry. I turned my gaze skyward, looking for my favorite constellation, Orion, but clouds obscured most of the stars, forecasting a rainy day tomorrow. We needed rain, but I said a silent prayer to the thunder and lightning gods to put it off until Sunday.

  The key slid into the new locks with hardly a catch or a sound. I turned on the lights
and headed toward the fermentation kettle, but I never got there. A hand covered my mouth while another grabbed my arms. Garlic-infused breath whistled out of a mouth close to my ear, and I felt the scratch of an unshaven face on my cheek.

  “Not a word, dearie. Not a word. It’s time you and me had a little talk.”

  Eleven

  My hand shook as I placed the teacup on the table in front of my unwelcome guest. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I was entertaining in my kitchen. This time tea, rather than coffee, was on the menu. A look of anger crossed his unshaven face when I said I had nothing to offer him with his drink.

  “Not much for hospitality, are ya,” he asked, “or are ya just stingy?” He looked in the fridge for himself and shook his head at my lack of supplies there and in the cupboards, which he also examined.

  I was beginning to calm down after my initial shock that someone had broken into my newly secured barn. If he noticed my jitters, he didn’t mention it, probably too intent upon guzzling his drink.

  While he slurped his tea, spilling as much down his chin as he managed to swallow, I took in his appearance. A black, long-sleeved sweater and black pants clothed a stocky body. He wasn’t much taller than I, but the sweater revealed the muscles of a weight lifter or fighter.

  “Oh, sorry about that,” he said as he pulled a black knit watch cap off his head. His scalp showed pink in patches, either the results of a bad haircut, baldness, or some skin disorder.

  His accent was English, but working class, not the polished speech used by Rafe.

  “What do you want?” I asked. I’d said little from the time he grabbed me in the barn until now.

  “Oh, I see. You’ve got a tongue, have you? Good. Now use it. Tell me about this Rafe Oxley.”

  “Whatever you want to know about Rafe, you’ll have to ask him.”

  His small, piggish eyes snapped in anger. He arose from the table, reached out, and grabbed me again. We headed out the door to the brew barn.