A Room with a Brew

by Joyce Tremel

  Candy picked up the teapot and refreshed our tea. I reached for another cookie to go with it. I could see why these were Tommy’s favorites.

  She looked at me and Jake. “You’re too young to remember this, but ’66 was the year after U.S. troops were deployed in Vietnam. Protests were minimal at this point, but a lot of my classmates didn’t want to have anything to do with the government. I was arguing with myself whether or not I should talk to any of the government recruiters when one of them got up and came over to me. He asked me if I wanted to make a difference in the world. I said I did, and as soon as I graduated, I had a job with the CIA.”

  Candy was silent so I figured it was safe to talk now. Except I didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Jake did.

  “Just like that they hired you?” he asked.

  She was more patient with Jake than she was with me. She even smiled at him. “Not exactly. I lost count of how many interviews and tests I took. The training was intense. Even with my degree, I didn’t know as much about Europe and the Soviet Union as I thought I did. Over a year’s time, I had to learn the ins and outs of the politics of the area, including learning several languages.”

  “What about the rest, like all the spy stuff?” I imagined a young Candy running around like a female James Bond.

  “The spy stuff, as you call it, was part of that training.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’ve kept this all to yourself over the years,” I said. “It’s not like you would have revealed anything top secret. And what does any of this have to do with Felix Holt or Doodle Dowdy?”

  “We’re getting to that.” Candy rested a hand on her ex-husband’s arm. “Maybe you should tell this next part, Tommy.”

  “Certainly.” He drained his cup and pushed it aside. “When Candace finished her training, she was sent across the pond to the U.K. I was with British Intelligence and we routinely worked with the Americans. I was assigned to be her mentor. I was not in the least bit thrilled with the idea of babysitting a fledgling recruit, especially some flighty female. We hadn’t yet been introduced, so I decided to play a little prank on her. I picked the lock on her hotel room door while she was out. When she returned and entered the room, I grabbed her from behind. Within seconds, I was flat on my back with her foot on my throat.” He smiled and his eyes twinkled. “That was the last time I thought of Candace as a flighty female. I’m fortunate she didn’t hurt me too badly.”

  I laughed, picturing the whole scene. It was such an incredible story. I couldn’t believe Candy had kept it to herself for so long. “What happened next?”

  “We became good friends and eventually fell in love,” he said. “When Candace was sent to Czechoslovakia—”

  “Czechoslovakia?” I said.

  Candy gave me the look again.

  Tommy continued. “I was already in the country when Candace was sent to join me in 1968.” He picked up another cookie and took a bite. “What do you know about what is called ‘Prague Spring’?”

  I wished I had paid more attention in my history classes. I tried to remember anything I’d learned about that era. The only thing I could recall was that the Vietnam War had been going on during those years. I couldn’t remember anything else. “Absolutely nothing,” I said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “I’m not familiar with it, either,” Jake said.

  “Consider this your history lesson then,” Tommy said. “In 1968, the Cold War was still in full force. The leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia at the time was a man named Novotny. In the spring of that year, he was replaced by Alexander Dubcˇek. Dubcˇek instituted quite a few reforms in the country—almost a democratization of sorts. This didn’t sit well with those in power in the Soviet Union. In August, the Soviets and the other Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia. Dubcˇek was removed from power and taken to Moscow. All of his reforms were invalidated.”

  “How were you and Candy involved in all this?” I asked.

  Candy picked up the story. “Tommy had been working with an underground organization and helping to facilitate some of the changes that Dubcˇek was implementing. Although there was wide support from the general public, there were also a lot of hard-core Communists attempting to sabotage any efforts to bring about a democracy. I arrived in Prague in June.”

  She got a faraway look in her eyes. “It was the most beautiful city I’d ever seen. The places in Europe I’d visited up till then had lost many of their historic buildings during World War Two. Prague had escaped much of the destruction. Centuries-old buildings stood like they’d be there forever.”

  “It sounds romantic,” I said.

  Candy took Tommy’s hand and squeezed it. “It was.”

  Tommy said, “It was also a dangerous place. It wasn’t always apparent who your friends were.”

  “Is this where Felix Holt comes in?” Jake asked.

  “Yes,” Tommy replied.

  Candy picked up the narrative again. “Just like I had used an alias back then, so did Felix Holt. His name was Josef Bartek and he worked in Dubcˇek’s cabinet. What we didn’t know was that the KGB had placed him there to keep an eye on Dubcˇek and report anything that was contrary to the Communist way of thinking. He was very good at his job, and we had no idea he wasn’t on our side. Maybe we should have suspected he wasn’t when he was kept in place after Dubcˇek was removed from office. Josef told us that he had convinced them that he’d been working against Dubcˇek all along. And he continued to feed us little bits of information. It was a long time before we figured out he only gave us what they wanted us to know.”

  “In other words,” Tommy said, “he knew all about our underground efforts while we knew nothing about him. By the time we noticed the bug he’d planted in our flat when we’d had him over for dinner, it was too late. Many members of the group we’d been working with suddenly disappeared. We began to hear about raids and mass arrests. We finally came to the conclusion that our good friend Josef was behind it all.”

  Candy stood. “I’m going to put some more water on for tea.”

  “Thank you, love,” Tommy said. He smiled at me. “I know this is quite a bit to take in.”

  He wasn’t kidding. It was like hearing a movie plot. “You two have led such exciting lives.”

  Candy sat back down. “It was our job. We were only doing what we’d been hired to do.”

  Jake said, “Yeah, but most people aren’t hired to be spies.”

  I was anxious to get back to their tale. “What happened next?”

  “We didn’t want to believe that someone we thought was our friend had betrayed us,” Tommy said. “We set a trap of sorts to see if we were correct that Josef had been working against us.”

  “We fed Josef some false information,” Candy said. “We took advantage of the bug in our flat. We invented a new leader of the democracy underground and even invented a plot to overthrow the current government. We made sure to mention that there would be a meeting at a certain place at a certain time.” The kettle whistled and she got up again.

  While Candy fixed the tea, Tommy continued the tale. “KGB agents ended up raiding the empty building where the supposed meeting was to take place. After that, Josef had to have known we were on to him, so we planned on leaving Prague.”

  “Why didn’t you just capture Josef?” I asked.

  “Because we still needed information from him,” he said. “Other agents were to take our place and try to build a relationship with him.”

  Candy returned with the teapot and filled our cups. “Unfortunately, that never happened.”

  “Why not?” Jake asked.

  Tommy sipped his tea before answering. “We’d already vacated our flat and had been moved to a house on the outskirts of the city. We were to catch a flight back to London that night, but somehow Josef found us as we were about to leave the house.”


  This was definitely sounding like a movie plot.

  “When we opened the door,” Tommy said, “Josef stood there holding a gun.”

  “Oh, no.” My heart beat faster, picturing this in my head.

  Tommy went on. “I was unarmed and he forced us back inside. He ranted like a madman about how we had betrayed him. I looked for a way to make a move and try to disarm him. At one point during his rant he raised the gun to the ceiling and I began to move toward him. He saw me and lowered his weapon. I thought it was the end for me.” He took Candy’s hand in his.

  “Don’t stop there,” Jake said. “What happened?”

  Candy’s face was pale when she answered. “I shot him. I shot Josef Bartek.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just heard. Silence hung in the air for what seemed like a full minute although I’m sure it wasn’t that long. “I thought you were unarmed,” I said when I found my voice.

  “Tommy was,” Candy said. “My purse was hanging on my shoulder and my gun was in it. Tommy was in front of me blocking Josef’s view, so I was able to slip it out unnoticed.”

  “We heard sirens then,” Tommy said. “We had to leave immediately. I had to pull Candace from the house. We didn’t know whether Josef was dead or alive, but it was too dangerous to stay. If we had been arrested for shooting a government official . . .”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence to spell out what would have happened.

  Candy’s hand shook as she lifted the teapot. She noticed that our cups were still full and set the pot down again. “It’s something that’s haunted me all these years—thinking that maybe I had killed someone.”

  Tommy put his arm around Candy’s shoulders. “You had no choice, my dear.”

  “I know that. It didn’t make it any easier.” She looked across the table at Jake and me. “It was the one and only time I had to fire my weapon. I’m sorry you had to hear all this. Now you see why I didn’t want to talk about any of it, or what I used to do. It’s better left in the past.”

  I reached across the table and took Candy’s hand. “I’m glad you told us.”

  “I am, too,” Jake said. “Especially now that Josef or Felix or whatever his real name is, has turned up here.”

  “Why do you think he’s in Pittsburgh?” I asked.

  “That is what we need to discover,” Tommy said. “Until we know, Candace is in grave danger.”

  • • •

  The four of us had talked until almost midnight. When I asked Candy and Tommy to join us at Jump, Jive & Java for the meeting of Max’s Marauders, she was thrilled that I’d decided to use the name that she had come up with. She said they’d try to make it, depending on how her meeting with Mitch Raines went. Although Mitch would probably reprimand her for rummaging through Doodle’s house, he had no reason to hold her for anything—especially once she told him what she’d told us last night.

  Despite the late night, I was up and at the brewery at my usual time. After I checked the tanks, I crossed the street to the coffee shop to see Kristie. The shop wasn’t too busy, and when it was my turn, I ordered a caramel macchiato for a change and asked Kristie if she had a minute.

  “Sure.” She fixed my macchiato, poured herself a plain coffee, and told her assistant she was taking a break.

  We sat at our usual table under Bogart and Bergman and I couldn’t help but think of Candy and Tommy. A different era of course, but still. “Jake and I talked to Candy last night,” I began, then told her the whole story.

  “Wow,” Kristie said when I’d finished. “I never imagined anything like that. I figured maybe she’d been with the FBI or something, but never thought she was a real, honest-to-goodness spy. And she was married! She never even said a word about that. Did she tell you why they broke up?”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t a good time to ask. I think they still really care for each other. You should have seen the way they looked at each other, and Tommy kept calling her ‘love.’ It was very sweet.”

  Kristie leaned back in her seat and sipped her java. “Have you told Daisy or Elmer yet?”

  “Not yet. I’ll give Daisy a call after she opens up. If Elmer comes in this morning, maybe you could fill him in.”

  Kristie made a face. “He’s not going to like being the last to know.”

  “He’ll just have to get over it.” I finished my drink and stood. “We need to come up with a plan. Is it okay if we all meet here tonight? There’s more privacy here than in the pub.”

  “You don’t even have to ask. How does eight o’clock sound?”

  “Perfect.”

  Jake wasn’t in yet when I got back to the pub, so I went back to my office to do my daily paperwork. I updated the accounts receivable and payroll, all the while thinking about the strange events of the last few days. I still couldn’t quite get over Candy’s revelation. And the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that Doodle’s murder was somehow connected to Felix. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Somehow he had to have discovered the connection between Felix and Candy, and that’s what he’d wanted to tell me. The big question was how—and from whom. Had Felix found out Doodle knew his secret? And if he had, that made Felix the prime suspect in Doodle’s murder.

  • • •

  When I came out of my office at ten, I almost bumped into Fran Donovan, who had just opened the door to go down to the cellar. Fran was a local historian who was working on adding a brewing museum downstairs. Her father had been employed by the Steel City Brewing Company from before Prohibition to sometime in the seventies. She had been instrumental in discovering the tunnels that ran under several businesses in the area, including the brew house. When we first met, we’d been at odds. She hadn’t wanted my business here, but when she realized I wasn’t trying to destroy her brewing heritage, she came around. When I suggested she add her museum downstairs, we even became friends.

  Fran jumped about a mile when I opened my door, which was saying something because she was shorter than I was. She reminded me of a tiny mouse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Fran put her hand to her heart. “That’s quite all right. I should have realized you’d be in your office.” She reached up and pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her nose. “I hope you don’t mind. I carried some boxes down earlier and I thought I’d get a few more things in order—especially if we plan to open the museum in time for Oktoberfest.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I said. “Do you need any help?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t, but I’d love to show you a few things if you have time.”

  I said I did and followed her down the steep stairs to the basement. My pulse still quickened when I thought about the killer who had cornered me down there several months ago. The person who had killed my friend and assistant, Kurt, had known how some of the businesses were connected underground. He’d wanted my building for himself and was willing to commit murder to get it. When he trapped me in the cellar, he had marched me to the river, where he’d planned to get rid of me. Permanently. Since then I’d added more lighting than was probably necessary and had the concrete block walls painted a nice calm cream color. Its current appearance was nothing like before. It still looked like a cellar, but at least it was a nice bright one. Eventually I’d have the space redone and finished, and use the room as a rathskeller, which is the German word for a beer hall in a cellar. It would be great for special events and for the overflow from the pub that I hoped to have. In the meantime, Jake and Mike had made some rustic benches, which we’d put around the perimeter. They’d come in handy for seating for when Fran’s brewing museum opened.

  Fran led me through the door to the cavernous area where she was setting up her museum. Out of habit, I glanced toward the passageways that had been open a mere four months
ago. Another change I’d made was to have doors installed with double deadbolts. I wouldn’t be opening them again anytime soon. Maybe never.

  Fortunately, Fran had done wonders with this space. What had been a dark and dank brick-walled cavern had been transformed into a light and bright space worthy to house the brewing history of Pittsburgh. The redbrick walls and domed ceiling had been thoroughly cleaned. She had contractors come in and tile the cracked cement floor, install LED spotlights, and hang strings of globe lights from the ceiling—all on her own dime. I had offered, but she refused to take any money from me. She said it was her way to honor her father’s legacy.

  “Here’s what I wanted to show you.” She opened a display case that held about a dozen or so photographs and lifted one out. “I just found this one last week.”

  I took the photo from her. She had captioned it The Blessing of the Barrels. In the photo, a priest in long black garb held an aspergillum, which was a perforated metal ball on the end of a stick used to sprinkle holy water. His arm was raised over a half-dozen wooden beer barrels. But that wasn’t the best part. The priest and the barrels were on the sidewalk in front of Most Holy Name—the very church where Sean was pastor. I smiled at Fran. “Where in the world did you find this?”

  Fran’s eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “I knew you’d get a kick out of that one. I found it in an antique store. There was a bin of old photos. I like to go through those bins whenever I see them even though I don’t usually find anything. But I did this time. Isn’t it great?”

  “I love it,” I said. “Can I get a copy to show Sean?”

  “I have something even better.” She reached into one of the cardboard boxes on the floor and pulled out a wrapped package. “This is a little gift for you.”

  I tore open the brown paper. Inside was a framed eight by ten enlargement of the photo. I started to tear up. “You didn’t have to do this.”