by Lesley Diehl
~
“Now you’re on my case too?” Megan slapped the lid down on the pot.
“Not at all, but the barrette is yours. Am I right?”
“I lost it. I don’t remember when or where. I wore it the day of Bruce’s death, but then later, when I brushed my hair before I went to bed that night, it was gone. Someone must have taken it.”
She sounded defensive, and a whiney note entered her voice. I couldn’t blame her. It was hard for her to trust anyone. Yet I had a sense she knew more about that barrette than she was letting on. She was hiding behind her anger. I decided to let her vague answer go for now.
“I’ll be back after Jake and I talk with the students who were at the pairing with Bruce. Would you like to come along? You might convince them to talk with us.”
“I don’t care for most of them. They were jealous of Bruce’s success in the program. They didn’t like him.”
“What about Amy Farnell? She was the one who found Bruce, and now she’s part of Father’s group. You know her.”
Megan filled a pot with water and slammed it on the stove.
“Her? She had the biggest crush on Bruce. He told me she followed him around like a puppy dog. He couldn’t stand her.”
“So you and Bruce were in touch then?”
She tucked her head down and stirred her sauce as if she wanted to punish it for some transgression.
“Megan?”
“I’m thinking.”
“What’s to think about? You and Bruce were in touch or not.”
“Okay. We were, off and on. Then the night before his death, he called me and said I should get out of Father’s group. I thought he was pressuring me to leave, as he usually did.”
“This was different?”
“I don’t know, but he insisted we meet that night. He gave me the directions to the barn here.”
“You met him? Why didn’t you tell Deputy Sheriff Ryan?”
“I didn’t get the chance to see Bruce. The cops came charging in. So I ran off.”
She hesitated in her frantic stirring, then faced me. “I did see someone else here when I came up behind the barn.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know who it was. He was in the shadows near the big maple in the yard.”
“You’re sure it was a man?”
“Yeah. He looked right at me, or I thought he did.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. It was dark. He was tall. That’s all I know.”
“He saw you?”
“Maybe. I don’t want to talk about that night anymore. It depresses me.” She returned to her sauce, but this time she gave it one stir with the spoon and put the lid back on. “I’ll turn it down and let it simmer until you get back. I’ve got to help Jeremiah in the barn.”
Our conversation about the night of the murder and the man she saw was over, and I was certain she wouldn’t revisit it willingly.
~
“Who cooked the chicken skewers?” Jake stood at the front of the room.
We were with the students at the college center on campus. They all feigned surprise at the question.
“We’re not stupid enough to believe Bruce and you ate raw chicken. Someone cooked it using Hera’s grill outside the tasting room.”
Jake and I waited for an answer, a great interrogation technique. Somebody would fill the silence. We hoped what was said would be the truth.
There were twelve students who had been at the prep for the pairings that night. One was missing this afternoon, the victim. The others, with the exception of Amy Farnell, who sat alone in the back, were seated in the front two rows of chairs.
No one spoke. Almost a minute passed before a tall, lean young man, Adam Sentry, cleared his throat. Jake moved his hand to his mouth and made as if he were yawning. Instead he covered the tiny smile that formed on his lips, the one signaling me he knew we’d gotten to them by our patience.
“Okay,” said Adam, “I know it was dumb to cover that up, but we all were worried we’d get in trouble with the college because we took the chicken and had ourselves a snack while we were working.”
“Now I know why you left that out, but I still need answer. Who was out there grilling the chicken?” Jake insisted.
The students exchanged worried glances with one another.
Again it was Adam who spoke for the group, and again, he failed to answer Jake’s question. “It was Mr. Risley who said no one would find out if we took some of the chicken. Amy said she hadn’t eaten supper, and she was hungry.”
“I wasn’t the only one who wanted to eat something. Don’t blame me for this,” Amy said.
“I’m not saying it was your fault, Amy, but you did whine so about starving. If you hadn’t been such a pain, this never would have happened. Bruce would still be alive,” said Adam.
“Oh, that would have been so unfortunate for you then. You wouldn’t be the one in line for the culinary student of the year award now, would you? Bruce would.” Tears ran down Amy’s cheeks, and she began to sob.
Leslie Parteger, a too-thin blonde, got out of her seat and went to Amy. “Look, guys, this is crazy. There’s no point in blaming Amy.”
“Yeah, but she can say rotten things about us. Right?” said Adam.
“She’s only telling the truth,” said Larry Boutrie. If Larry continued to eat as well as he cooked, he was on his way to looking like Paul Prudhomme before he reached thirty. He had interned in my barn for several weeks earlier in September. Despite a jolly appearance and a propensity for cracking jokes, I found he was dependable, perhaps not the most talented of the students but eager to learn.
“Amy may have mentioned being hungry first, but we all chimed in. Me, the most.” Larry’s face reddened as he held himself accountable for the rush to food that night. “I’m sorry we didn’t say anything to you, Deputy Sheriff Ryan, but Mr. Risley said we should keep our mouths shut, and we did. We didn’t think it was important.”
“The skewers used for Bruce’s chicken were replaced by ones made from that oleander bush near the grill. We need to talk to the person out there lighting the grill and cooking the meat. That individual might have seen someone tampering with the food,” said Jake.
“Don’t you mean the person might be the one who killed Bruce?” asked Adam.
Wary looks passed over the other students’ faces at his words.
“Maybe,” said Jake.
We tried the silent treatment again, but no one was saying anything. Whoever grilled the food could have been the killer, as Adam suggested. That knowledge might have frightened the others into silence.
I was watching the expressions on their faces. One of the young women looked particularly uncomfortable. She, too, had worked at my barn for several days but grew uninterested in the process of brewing beer and left for an internship at a winery.
“Sheri, didn’t you brag about being better than any guy with a grill? I thought I heard you call yourself the barista of the hot coals once when you were working in my barn.”
She looked up at me with anger in her eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here with him.” She pointed at Jake with a scowl. “Sure I was the one who cooked the chicken, and I did a damn good job of it too, Ms. Brewing Queen.”
“Except it killed Bruce,” said Amy.
“It wasn’t my fault. I put the skewers on the grill, then left to come back in here for a few minutes to help with the table arrangements. Anyone could have switched the skewers.”
“Who served the satay, or did people just grab it off the grill?” I asked.
Feeling off the hook over Bruce’s death, Sheri volunteered that everyone took a portion, then came back into the barn.
“How did Bruce get the doctored ones?” I asked. “And he made such a big deal out of eating them when he was supposed to be allergic to peanuts.”
“He was allergic when he was a kid,” said a voice from the doorway. It was Me
gan.
“What are you doing here?” asked Amy.
“I thought perhaps all of you would be lying about my brother’s death. I just wanted to see how far you’d go to cover up what happened that night.”
“Why should we cover up anything? We didn’t kill him,” said Adam.
Megan shot him a look of dislike. “Didn’t you? One of you did, and some of you know who.”
Before Megan could irritate everyone into absolute silence, Jake stepped in. “You said he was allergic as a kid, Megan. Does that mean he wasn’t any longer?”
She reluctantly shifted her gaze from Adam to Jake. “He told me he was trying a kind of therapy for his allergies. He had others besides peanuts. He said it was a problem to be a chef and not be able to taste everything he prepared, so he went to a doctor in the city, where he began a desensitization procedure. He was ingesting small amounts of the foods to which he had reactions and was slowly finding himself able to tolerate them. He told me he ate a Snickers candy bar several days before the night he died and had no reaction to it.”
“Who else knew about his program?” asked Jake.
“We all thought he still was allergic,” said Larry. “I tried to take the skewers away from him, but he wouldn’t let me.”
Jake looked around the room. The students squirmed in their seats, anxious to be free from Jake’s probing.
“That’s all for now, but I’ll be in touch. I have a lot more questions.”
They fled from the room like chickens whose coup had been invaded by a fox.
“Could it have been suicide?” I asked as Jake, Megan, and I watched the students head down the hall.
“Don’t be silly,” said Megan. “Bruce had everything to live for. He was the top of his class in the culinary program, and he and my parents were beginning to get along again.”
“The deprogramming must have been difficult for him. There had to have been after-effects of being ripped out of Father’s group and going through days of being conditioned away from his former beliefs,” said Jake.
Megan gave a dismissive snort. “Bruce wanted to come home. He was just too scared to go on his own. He was happy to be kidnapped by the men Mom and Dad hired. That had to be the shortest deprogramming in history. He was crying like a baby the last few days with Father.”
I thought Bruce had been taken away from Father against his will. Who had led me to that understanding? Again, as if reading my mind, Megan offered the answer.
“Mother and Father wanted everyone to believe it was their courageous intervention that saved dear Bruce. Now he’s gone, and only my parents and I know the truth.”
The truth about Bruce’s leaving or the truth about other things, I wondered.
Outside the student center, Jake turned on Megan. “You were a great help.” Sarcasm filled his voice. “I was getting them in the mood to talk when you arrived and tried to take charge.”
She ignored Jake as if he hadn’t spoken.
“How did you get here, Megan?” I asked.
She pointed toward my truck. Behind the wheel sat Jeremiah.
“I told him it was important, so don’t blame him for taking your truck.”
Jeremiah’s face looked troubled, but he made no excuse when we approached.
“I gave Megan a ride.”
“She told me. It’s fine, but you’d better get back to milling in for the brew tomorrow for our next batch of ale.”
He nodded and the two of them drove off.
“You just had to tell her where you were going. She interfered with my questioning them. Now I’ll never get to the truth,” Jake said.
“You’re implying that’s my fault.”
Jake made no reply but shifted into drive and laid rubber out of the parking lot.
Finally, as we drove through town, Jake spoke. “So Risley told them it was okay to eat some of the food.”
“I think he did that to cover the guilt he was feeling for leaving them unsupervised for the evening.”
“I’d like to have a word with him. Maybe I should turn around and see if I can find him on campus.” Jake slowed the truck and was about to make a right past Tony’s place to turn back to the college. In front of the restaurant, Tony and Risley stood talking.
“Well, speak of the devil.” Jake pulled into an empty parking space. “Wait here.” He got out and walked across the street. I ignored his orders and followed. When he heard me behind him, he turned and sent me an aggravated look. “Just once it would be nice if you …”
“Minded you, Daddy?”
Tony and Risley must have heard our exchange. Risley stared off into space while Tony coughed and looked at his feet. Jake and the two men shook hands while I smiled a smile as honeyed as my summer ale. Risley looked up at me with a scowl on his face which he twisted into a smile and directed it at Jake.
“You’re the man I wanted to see,” said Jake.
The smile on Risley’s face disappeared.
“Me? What for?”
“You were the one who told those kids to eat what they wanted the night Bruce was killed.”
“So what?”
“You neglected to tell me that when I questioned you.”
“I didn’t think it was important. The kids had worked hard setting up, and most of them hadn’t eaten dinner. We usually sample the food before we serve it.”
“What’s this all about?” asked Tony.
“I’m tying up loose ends in a murder,” Jake said.
“Now look here,” Risley said. “I’m not your man. One of those college kids must have done it, or maybe his crazy sister.”
“You never did tell me where you were that night. You were supposed to be supervising them, but off you went to a meeting at the college, you said. For how long? What meeting?”
As Jake pressed for answers, Risley became more and more uncomfortable. Sweat broke out on his face, and he wiped his palms on his jeans several times. Wet palms. Nervous or guilty?
“Do I need a lawyer?” asked Risley.
“Just tell me where you were that night.”
“As a matter of fact, I can tell you where he was,” said Tony. Jake and I looked at him in surprise. “He was at my house. We were talking about a job.”
“What job?” asked Jake.
“The one I just now accepted as chef here at Tony’s place,” said Risley. He grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the perspiration off his face. He looked pleased with himself, a look not shared by Tony, who now appeared uncomfortable as if he worried he’d chosen the wrong chef.
A few minutes later Jake backed out of the parking space and cleared his throat before he spoke. I expected him to discuss the conversation we’d had with Tony and Risley, but he was back on the meeting with the students.
“It looks like both you and Jeremiah have been so taken in by Megan that you’re oblivious to her lies and deceptions.”
“What lies and deceptions? It seems to me you got more information out of her than any of the others today.”
“From her, yes, but she got the others so upset they wouldn’t talk. Now I’ll have to backtrack and go at them again, and I’m going to do it without either you or your newest project.”
“Project?”
“Your social work project, the girls you rescued from Father’s group. I don’t want Megan around when I do my investigation unless I’m focusing on her.” His words also implied he didn’t want me around while he was doing his cop thing either.
“You don’t believe what she said about Bruce’s allergies and the deprogramming?”
“I’m going to check on it.”
He was silent as he pulled into my drive and stopped. He shut off the engine and turned to look at me.
“Did you know Bruce’s father is a vice president in Atlantic Shale Company?”
“No. What’s that?”
“It’s one of the companies around here signing up people for gas drilling.”
Ten
J
ake turned down my offer for a cup of coffee, saying he was too busy. The message behind his words, unspoken but clear in his tone of voice, implied he was going to be occupied with business for longer than the few minutes it took to gulp down some caffeine, maybe for the rest of the week. Or month? I was hurt by his rejection, but my mind was distracted by what he told me about Mr. Clement. Bruce might have been the target of a fracking opponent. Were feelings around here so volatile that someone would kill an innocent boy because of his father’s position in a gas company? Yes, they were. Was the killer finished with the need for revenge, or could the next victim be Megan? Perhaps.
I didn’t want to frighten her, but I needed to be on high alert. Maybe I’d share my concerns with Jeremiah so that he could keep an eye on her, too. I walked with purpose into the brew barn and almost ran over Megan on her way toward the back of the barn. She was wearing a pair of my jeans, a long-sleeved shirt of Jeremiah’s, I’d bet, and had on her safety goggles. She also had donned a rubber apron.
“Oops. Sorry, Ms. Knightsbridge, I mean, Hera. I’m on my way to make up some solution to clean the brew kettle.”
“You sure you want to do that? Cleaning is a dangerous job involving handling caustic.” I caught myself and laughed. “But you know that, right? Jeremiah seems to be teaching you nearly everything about brewing.”
“Yes. I feel confident about the process. I’m all suited up for handling the caustic.” She swung her arms away from the apron to emphasize she had her body covered as well as her eyes. “See?”
Jeremiah entered the barn. “I ran her through the safety procedures several times. She observed me getting the caustic, and she did it once this morning with my supervision. I think she’s good to go, Hera.”
“If you trained her, I know she’s set.”
Jeremiah was as much a stickler for safety precautions as I was. I put my hand on Megan’s shoulder. I could feel her bony arm. Maybe I should cook some of Mom’s pot roast, stews and apple pies and get some meat on this gal.
I smiled at her with encouragement. “Ask for help from Jeremiah or me anytime you have questions or are unclear about a procedure, and don’t work yourself into exhaustion. You’re part-time, and I can only pay for twenty hours a week.”