Poisoned Pairings

by Lesley Diehl

  Jake let out a laugh.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” Megan said. Neither did I.

  “Now that you’re being held responsible for the conditions leading to Bruce’s death, you’ll be more interested in helping me out with this investigation. I guess I’ve got myself an amateur deputy. Should I swear you in, Hera?”

  I thought his comments were rude and out of place. A civil suit was nothing to sneeze at, especially since it would require my finding legal representation and mounting a case to defend myself.

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist. I know how you are. Conflict brings out the bulldog in you, or should I say the bloodhound? And this suit makes me damn mad. They’re acting as if I’m not making progress on the case, as if I’m sitting on my duff. I know, I know. The two situations aren’t related in a legal sense, but still, it’s an insult.”

  “I’ll talk to them. Maybe my parents will listen to me. I’ll tell them about seeing that Marshall guy.”

  “No.” Jake spit out the word. “You’ll tell them nothing about your being there or about the person you think you saw until I follow up on this.”

  Megan looked hurt.

  “I think it’s for your safety.” I put my arm around her shoulder.

  “Would he come after me?” Her voice shook, and her face drained of all color.

  “Let’s not take a chance. Do you think he knows you saw him?” asked Jake.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  ~

  By Friday, I had arranged for a lawyer to represent me. On a lark I called the dean’s office and asked if the college would like to share legal representation. I was surprised the dean took my call, but when he heard what I had in mind, he began sputtering half sentences over the phone.

  “Okay, okay. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.” I couldn’t catch a break with this guy.

  “The college would prefer not to be considered in the same category of responsibility for Bruce’s death as you, Ms. Knightsbridge.”

  “Well, that may be, but Bruce’s parents feel differently.”

  Then he let the legal cat out of the bag.

  “You and Professor Risley were equally derelict in your duty to the students and to poor Bruce.”

  Aha! Now I saw the strategy of the college. The responsibility would be shunted off to their professor, whom they already had removed as head of the culinary program. In turn, I was certain his lawyer would shift the blame to me.

  After I got off the phone, I rechecked the papers. Wrongful death in the amount of five million dollars. My entire operation wasn’t worth that much. The amount sought in such civil matters was rarely what was awarded, but the system might claim my brewery as compensation. Would I have to sell it to get the money to pay them? The chances this case would work out in their favor were minimal, but high enough to make my nights sleepless for the near future.

  I couldn’t dwell on this now. I had a meeting for dinner with Marshall, a business get-together I chose not to tell Jake about. Tony would see us at the restaurant, but I knew, if I talked with him, he’d keep my confidence.

  Marshall was on time, perhaps even early. I couldn’t tell because I was late. Trying to decide what to wear had become a dilemma for me. Jeans to look casual, or a skirt to look more professional and businesslike? Absolutely not a dress. That smacked of date, and this was no date. I chose my best pair of jeans and paired them with a grey silk blouse and tossed a cardigan sweater in a darker grey over the blouse. Too grim, I wondered, as I considered my image in the mirror? I lightened the ensemble up with a pair of my mother’s drop onyx earrings. Too flirty? Oh, the hell with it. I slammed out the door and jumped in my truck.

  I decided to park in back of Tony’s. Jake was on duty tonight, and I didn’t want him to cruise by and see my vehicle out front. That would provoke questions. Even though I had the privileged position of being unofficially his deputy on this case, that didn’t mean he trusted me. Jake had never trusted me, and he had a right to have his doubts. Looking back on our relationship, I realized I’d withheld important information from him that might have made his job easier.

  Tony greeted me and showed me to Marshall’s table, the one in the back, the corner table with only one candle. That was fine with me. I had no wish to publicize my meeting with him.

  On the way to the table, we passed the bar area. Several people I knew sat there enjoying the evening. They called out greetings. A chubby man drinking one of those drinks with a tiny umbrella in it turned as I walked by—Martin Davis, the new head of the culinary program. I smiled and waved. He waved back.

  “Stepping out tonight?” Tony arched one eyebrow.

  I shot him a look I hoped would freeze the words on his lips.

  “Oh, me and my big mouth. I didn’t mean stepping out on Jake, I meant, oh, never mind. I’ll just shut up. But it does kind of look like something other than friends. He asked for the most romantic table in the house.”

  I groaned. I thought the out-of-the-way seating meant others couldn’t see me. Marshall meant it to be something else. He’d said business, but the champagne bottle on the table didn’t look like business. Maybe the guy was Ramford Senior’s son. He certainly had inherited Ramford’s sleaze.

  I dropped into the chair Tony held for me. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time tonight. I’ve got work at the brewery.”

  Marshall smiled, his teeth taking on the yellow glow of the flickering candle on the table. Very feral, I thought.

  “Have some bubbly.” He prepared to pour the effervescent fluid into my glass.

  I placed my hand over the flute’s rim, and he stopped his movement mid-pour.

  “You said business, so let’s get to it. What kind of business?”

  “I’d like to buy your brewery.”

  “I’d like not to sell.”

  “From what I hear around town, you might be forced to let it go to pay your legal bills.”

  I grabbed my glass of water and tossed half of it down to cover my shock, but the water caught in my throat and I gasped and coughed. Marshall rushed around the table and pounded on my back.

  “If you want to keep our meeting quiet, Hera, you’ll have to sip a little less loudly.” He leaned in close, so close I could smell his designer aftershave.

  “I may have to sell, but not to you.” Tears ran down my cheeks, and I wiped them away with my napkin.

  “I’m prepared to offer you a very satisfying price. You know you’re tired of this business, and you need a break.”

  “I think I’m not interested in having dinner with you after all.” I arose and walked toward the door. I heard Marshall chuckle behind me.

  “You know where to find me. If you don’t, just ask Sally.”

  “Hera,” called a voice from across the room. I tried to ignore it, but the person called again, this time louder. “Join us for a drink.” It was my brewer friend, Teddy Buser, with a group of men, one of whom was Mr. Clement.

  I detoured from my path toward the door and walked toward the table.

  “Don’t bother to leave, Mr. Clement,” I said as he got to his feet. “I won’t embarrass you or anger myself further by joining your group.” Then I turned to Teddy. “Call me. I’ve got a proposition for you, probably a better one than these gentlemen can offer.”

  Typical Teddy, I thought as I shoved open the door. He knew nothing about the Clement lawsuit, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t care. Business for Teddy was separate from other issues like murder.

  Cold, wet rain hit me in the face. I ran down the alleyway to the shelter of my truck. As I passed by the rear entrance to Tony’s, I caught the flare of a match out of the corner of my eye. Someone was taking a cigarette break under the overhang.

  I drove out of town, pounding on my steering wheel in frustration. Did I want to sell the business? Maybe. Perhaps this lawsuit was the opening I needed to explore other options in my life. I certainly had no intention of selling to Marshall. Any inter
est I might have had in him had been erased by his appearance in Sally’s hospital room and his comment about her tonight. What was the man trying to pull? I had to find a way to protect Sally without appearing to be jealous of his interest in her. Instead of turning off into my drive, I continued on and took the road leading up to Rafe’s brewery.

  The rain turned to sleet and built up on my windshield. My old wipers struggled to clear off the gathering slush. A piece of the rubber from the driver’s side blade peeled off, and the wiper left wet streaks, making it impossible for me to see. I let off the accelerator and slowed. The road felt greasy beneath my wheels. Too late I saw something in the middle of the road. A deer! I slammed on my brakes. The tires grabbed for a moment, then slid on the slippery pavement. The truck careened into the ditch on the other side of the road, and rolled down the embankment. My headlights caught a bend in the river ahead. I rolled toward it, stamping down again and again on the brakes, but the truck continued to race toward the water, looming dark and cold before me. I jerked the wheel left, turning the truck toward a downed willow tree at the bank’s edge. I crashed into it, stopping with a shudder. My head flew forward, missing the windshield by a millimeter. The bumper rested on the tree, perched mere feet from the drop-off into the water.

  I dropped my head back onto the headrest. My hands were shaky on the wheel, but I was lucky. I could have rolled into that pool I knew so well from when I was a kid and we all swam and dived into the deep water.

  Aside from soreness from the bruises which would show up in the morning, I was alive, although isolated on a road that no one travelled this time of night. I pulled my sweater up over the back of my neck and opened the truck door. This just had to be the night I chose that damn sweater as a wrap rather than my coat and gave into my vanity by wearing my dress boots, the ones only for show, not for trekking through wet snow. I was at least a half mile from Rafe’s. It would be an unpleasant hike, but it was closer than trying to go back to the main road. I stepped out of the truck on legs that threatened to collapse.

  When I finally made it to Rafe’s, he opened the door to my knock. “You look like you walked here.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “I did. You wouldn’t have any of that wonderful brandy of yours, would you?”

  The smile on his face disappeared, replaced by a look of concern.

  “Of course. Come in, come in. I’ve got a fire going in the fireplace. Take off your boots and wrap. I’ll get you a dry pair of wool socks and a lap robe.” He steered me into his study, where I felt like diving into the fireplace. My teeth began to chatter and stopped only when I took a gulp of the brandy he’d poured for me.

  “What in the world happened to you?” He gestured to a chair in front of the fire, but I shook my head and continued to stand close to the flames.

  The brandy stilled my shaking, and the trembling of my mouth quieted so that I could speak. I explained to him about the law suit, my meeting with Marshall, and my decision to seek out his counsel.

  “I think something went wrong with my brakes.” I told him about my sliding off the road.

  That was only the beginning of our conversation together. I don’t know if it was the brandy, my nearly plunging into the river, or the never-ending tension between Jake and me that encouraged my words, but I poured out my reservations about my relationship with Jake and my worry about Marshall’s interest in Sally and Sally’s developing affection for him. I let my guard down with a man I respected but did not know all that well except as someone who shared my passion for brewing beer.

  Rafe said little, simply listened, his eyes never leaving me. When I paused, he finally got up to stir the ashes in the fire.

  “Jake was here earlier. He’d gone to the brewery and not found you home. I guess Jeremiah and Megan were there, but they indicated they didn’t know where you were except to say you’d gone out to dinner.” He turned from his ministrations to the fire and looked at me with those intelligent eyes of his.

  “Jake is a smart man. He knows you’re still haunted by Michael. He’s patient, but he won’t wait forever. You abandoned him once. I think he feels as if you’re on the verge of doing it again.”

  Morning light began to creep into the room, and nothing Rafe could do with the cold ashes in the fireplace would bring back the warmth of the night. The too many snifters of brandy began to work their way back up my throat, making it difficult to talk now.

  “I think I want to get out of the beer business.” I thought I was eager to hear his opinion on this, but the next I knew, I lay on the couch with the lap robe over me and the smell of brewing coffee drifting in from the kitchen.

  “Oh, my God. What time is it?” I threw the robe off me and tried to stand, but my body felt stiff and achy. Then I remembered the accident the night before.

  Rafe walked into the study with a tray of coffee and croissants. “It’s after nine, my dear. I called the garage in town to come out here this morning to haul your truck from the creek bank. They took it into the shop.”

  “Oh, man, I feel about a hundred years old with an extreme case of arthritis. That’s nice of you, Rafe, but you could have had them simply pull the truck out and bring it here. I could drive it back home.”

  “I thought it should have a good going over first in case there was damage.”

  “It’s an old truck. It already has damage to it.” I laughed and took a sip of coffee. “New dents, old dents. How will they tell the difference?”

  The phone rang, and Rafe lifted a finger to signal me he’d be right back. I ate one of the croissants and remembered I hadn’t had dinner last night. I grabbed another one off the tray.

  Rafe entered the room, pausing in the doorway. “I called Jake.”

  “Was that really necessary? I’m in no condition to talk with him this morning, not until I think through all of this.”

  “You’ll have to talk with him.”

  “Sometime, but don’t push me. My head and body are aching. I need to go home and take a hot shower.”

  “I told him you might want to do that, so he’s going to meet us at your place. I’ll drive you there.”

  There was something Rafe wasn’t telling me. His voice was concerned, distant, yet all too matter-of-fact. Whatever he had on his mind had nothing to do with Jake’s and my relationship. I put down the croissant I was eating.

  “What’s wrong? Is it my brewery? Something’s happened there, right?”

  Rafe laughed. “And you think you want to leave the beer business. It’s the first thing you worry about when you should be concerned about yourself. No. It’s not your brewery. It’s your truck. That call was from the garage. You couldn’t stop last night not because of the roads, although they added to your difficulties, but because someone tampered with your brakes. You have enemies, Hera. They’re either trying to scare you, hurt you or kill you.”

  Thirteen

  The hot water from the shower felt like pebbles were being thrown at my bruised body, but the warmth was comforting. I sucked in the steam to clear my head. Downstairs Jake and Rafe waited with Megan and Jeremiah. I knew they were concerned about me. I didn’t want to show the fear that threatened to choke me, so I pushed it back down my throat and buried it under a squeak of panic no one would hear. I had to get control of myself. Someone wanted to harm me or kill me, but why?

  I stepped out of the shower and dried off. By the time I appeared clad in a robe with a towel wrapped around my head, I presented a put-together front. I hoped.

  “God, you all look as if you’re attending a wake here. I’m alive, you know.” I grabbed a cup out of the cupboard and poured coffee into it. My hand shook only a bit. I glanced around the table, hoping no one noticed the tremor.

  “Sit down.” Rafe pulled out a chair, and I dropped into it, relieved I no longer had to stand on legs that felt too wobbly to support my weight.

  “Tell me about last night,” said Jake. “I guess Rafe told you I was looking for you.”

&nbs
p; I hesitated.

  “I’m asking you as a cop, nothing else.”

  I told him everything about the evening, including my meeting with Marshall, parking my truck behind the restaurant and the drive to Rafe’s.

  “Who knew about the meeting?” he asked.

  “Marshall, of course, and Tony. Some people I knew were drinking at the bar. We said hello. Teddy, Mr. Clement and some other men I assumed were associated with gas drilling were at the restaurant also. Teddy called to me as I was leaving.”

  “He must have seen you when you came in,” Jake said.

  “Teddy would never do anything to me. How can you even think such a thing?”

  “Maybe not Teddy, but how about Clement or the other men?”

  I laughed. “Can you imagine any of them rushing out into the cold, searching for my truck, and then tampering with it? They’d be filthy.”

  “Those men, including Clement, have people who work for them, you know,” said Rafe.

  “Why would they do that? I’ve been pretty quiet about my stance on gas drilling.”

  “Marshall,” said Jake.

  “He has no reason to want to harm me. I don’t think running out on our meeting is motive for attempted murder, and he didn’t have the time to do it.”

  The thought of his slimy lawyer crawling under my truck in the rain brought another laugh to my lips.

  “What?’ asked Jake. “It might be important.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not, believe me.”

  Megan interrupted our conversation. “All of you are looking in the wrong places. You’ve made a vengeful enemy in Father.”

  “An enemy, yes,” said Jake, “but what does he have to gain by hurting Hera other than simple revenge?”

  “The court hearing for Sara is coming up soon. If Hera is, uh, gone, Sara might be too scared to testify about what Father did to her,” said Megan.