Deadly Dram

by Melinda Mullet

  Grant had said it before, but I didn’t believe it: When I was ready he might not still be waiting. Once again we seemed to be out of sync with one another. I placed the flowers I was carrying on the table and started to back out of the room, unable to take my eyes off the scene in front of me, as painful as it was.

  The door behind me opened and a nurse entered with a clipboard. She smiled when she saw the two figures in the bed. “He’s on the mend now,” she said softly. “Poor wee lass is exhausted. She’s hardly slept since he arrived. But at least she was the first face he saw when he woke.” I felt sick to my stomach.

  The nurse draped a blanket over Brenna’s legs and then shooed me out the room in front of her. “Let’s give them time to get a bit of rest. I’m sure they’ll be up to visitors tomorrow,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll be happy to let them know you came by.”

  “No, that’s okay,” I stammered. “No need. I’ll just stop by again.” I could feel my face burning red. “Later—sometime.”

  I tucked the Golden Quaich medal back in the pocket of my coat. It could wait. For now Grant seemed to have everything he needed.

  I turned to flee and ran headlong into Louisa coming down the hall. One look at my face and she saw that I knew.

  “Come on, luv,” she said softly, putting an arm around my shoulder and leading me away. Once we were out of earshot she turned and faced me. “You mustn’t go givin’ up,” she insisted. “Brenna’s old news. Sure she swept in when Grant was vulnerable, but it’s you he wants, I know it.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe before, but not now. I missed my chance.” I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity, blotting angrily at the tears that welled up in my eyes. “I was angry at Brenna for walking away and then thinking she could just show up and pick up where she left off. I was so angry I couldn’t even see that that’s exactly what I’d done. I pushed Grant away at every opportunity and then expected him to be there when I changed my mind.”

  “You and Brenna havenae cornered the market on that maneuver,” Louisa said. “Cannae count how many times I’ve seen that mistake made.”

  “Grant made it clear he might not be there when I was ready,” I said firmly. “It’s my fault. I waited too long.”

  Louisa shook her head. “That’s as may be. But since when do you give up just because things aren’t exactly going your way? Ben used to brag about your spirit and your determination. He told me you’d never backed down from a fight in your life. He was so proud of you for that. Why would you start now?”

  “I’m tired of fighting,” I said wearily. “And I have no desire to push myself on someone who doesn’t want me.”

  “Doesn’t want you, ha. You should have seen him mopin’ around over Christmas. It’s you he really wants. He may not know it yet, but Ben did. Ben knew you two were perfect for each other. Why do you think he insisted that you come up here in person to settle your inheritance?”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “Not at all. You forget I spent a lot of time with Ben in the last year of his life. We were friends, and he was a wise man.”

  “Ben really thought Grant and I could work as a couple?”

  “He was sure of it. You just need to believe.”

  I wanted to believe. I would try to believe, but not today.

  Today I would cry.

  Tomorrow I would fight.

  Author’s Note

  Liam is a charming fictional character who enjoys his Islay malts, but he is fictional. Dogs should never be given alcohol, even small amounts. Alcohol is toxic to animals of all kinds. Please be respectful of our fur children.

  To KRM and AMM, my fierce, brave, beautiful girls.

  Acknowledgments

  To my friends and family, who support me in all my wild endeavors. Writing is a lonely occupation, and I give thanks every day that when I emerge from my solitary den, you are all there offering patience, love, encouragement, wine, and whisky.

  To Lucy Zahray, affectionately known in mystery writers’ circles as the Poison Lady, a special thanks for helping me to understand the ins and outs of death by poison.

  To Abby Saul and the Lark Group. Abby, you are a superlative agent, an endlessly patient, talented, and gracious editor, and a dear friend.

  To Junessa, Madeleine, and all of the good folks at Alibi for the advertising, editing, and graphics support. The copy editors, cover artists, and promotional staff who helped to launch Deadly Dram have been wonderful.

  And most especially to my readers for your support, your encouragement, your perennially entertaining whisky adventures. Please stay in touch: Melinda@melindamullet.com and on Twitter @mulletmysteries.

  Slàinte mhath!

  BY MELINDA MULLET

  Whisky Business

  Single Malt Murder

  Death Distilled

  Deadly Dram

  PHOTO: MARION MEAKEM PHOTOGRAPHY

  MELINDA MULLET was born in Dallas and attended school in Texas; Washington, D.C.; England; and Austria. She spent many years as a practicing attorney before pursuing a career as a writer. Author of the Whisky Business Mystery series, Mullet is a passionate supporter of childhood literacy. She works with numerous domestic and international charities striving to promote functional literacy for all children. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her family.

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  If you enjoyed Deadly Dram

  by Melinda Mullet,

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  Died in the Wool

  Chapter 1

  It was a picture-perfect day for walking, and Liam trotted along happily at my heels as we headed up the long drive toward the Larches, the MacEwen family estate and home to my business partner, Grant MacEwen. The sun was shining brightly, a rare and welcome sight for the end of May in Scotland, and the shaggy conifers that gave the house its name were casting sharp shadows along the path in front of us. Once used to make the barrels that aged the family’s whisky, the trees now simply provided a verdant gateway to the aging baronial house.

  As we drew nearer, Liam put on a burst of speed and ran ahead to greet our friend Louisa, the Larches’ doyen of domestic management. The old food hound had a very clear idea of where his next meal was coming from and he knew it was well worth running for. Louisa stood on the porch, her long wavy brown hair tied up in a loose bun on the top of her head, an apron tied over her jeans and t-shirt. She was talking to a tall, thin Indian gentleman who stood on the steps with a large leather bag slung over his shoulders.

  As I approached, Louisa smiled and gestured to her companion.

  “Abi, I don’t think you’ve met our new doc yet. He’s been here only a week, poor soul, and already we’ve got him runnin’. Doctor Arya, this is Abi Logan, our local celebrity journalist.”

  Doctor Arya turned and greeted me. His handshake was firm, and he regarded me with a frank, penetrating gaze. “It’s a pleasure,” I said. We’d been without a full-time doctor since our last one went to jail nearly a year ago, and the village was thrilled to finally have a permanent replacement.

  “How’s the patient?” I asked, nodding toward the house. Through the entryway the sound of raised voices drifted down from the upper floor, punctuated by the slamming of a heavy door.

  “Healing is a process,” Dr. Arya said charitably. “Mr. MacEwen is still journeying along the path.”

  “You mean he’s being a right bugger,” Louisa translated.

  Dr. Arya smiled softly. “Feel free to text me if you have any concerns,” he said as he turned to leave. “Otherwise, I will check back in another day or two.”

  We watched as he climbed into his car and headed off down the drive, leaving a small cloud of dust in his wake.

 
“Haste ye inside,” Louisa said firmly. “I’m way past due for elevenses.”

  As a photojournalist generally shipped off to remote corners of the globe on assignment, I’d learned to live with the fact that regular meals were a luxury. For the most part I was fine with that, but I did miss the peculiarly British ritual of elevenses. In the same way that the cup of afternoon tea helps to keep body and soul together in the long space between lunch and dinner, elevenses enlivens the flagging spirits with coffee and biscuits in the dismal stretch between breakfast and lunch.

  I eagerly followed Louisa downstairs into the massive stone-floored kitchen and settled myself at the scrubbed and polished oak table. Louisa flipped the switch on the coffee machine and came to join me with a plate of shortbread rounds topped with raspberry jelly and a large rawhide chew. Liam sat expectantly at attention until he was rewarded, then retired to the hearth rug to gnaw away at his prize.

  “So what’s going on with the lord and master?” I asked as soon as we were all settled.

  Louisa extended the plate of cookies, sighing deeply before answering. “It’s not good, actually. I’m worried. More complications from the concussion. I knew somethin’ was wrong, but you know himself. He keeps it all inside. Anyroad, he finally told Dr. Arya that he hasn’t been able to smell anything, or really taste anything, since the accident.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “He told us that it wasn’t unheard of for this to be a side effect of the concussion and he said it should go away over time, but he wasn’t able to say when and he wasn’t able to say for sure that it would fix itself.”

  Louisa rose to pour the coffee and I sat transfixed. Losing one’s sense of smell and taste were bad enough for a normal person, but Grant was what was known in the business as a “nose.” At Abbey Glen, the distillery we owned and operated as a team, he was the master blender. The man whose delicate senses crafted and perfected the infinitely nuanced flavor profile that made our craft whisky one of the most sought after in the industry. Losing or even slightly impeding those senses would be professionally devastating. A career-ending disaster.

  “How soon before they can tell?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around the news.

  “Doc said he’d have to be patient.”

  Louisa and I rolled our eyes in unison. “Hence the door slamming,” I said. “Is Brenna with him?”

  “Aye, the big B’s taking the brunt of it at the moment. And she’s welcome to it.”

  I hastily took a sip of coffee, burning the tip of my tongue as I did. My relationship with Grant had been a complex one from the start. Thrust together by the untimely death of my uncle and my subsequent inheritance of the eponymous single malt whisky distillery known locally as the Glen, I’d fought against a fierce visceral attraction to the sandy-haired Scot with his lethal green eyes. Getting involved with my business partner would be a serious mistake. Not only would it threaten my newly found peace and security in this idyllic corner of the world, it would also undermine my credibility in an already misogynistic and unwelcoming industry.

  Keeping my distance was the logical answer, and I was sure I had this nailed, especially when Grant’s old flame Brenna Quinn showed up at the international whisky awards four weeks ago, intent on rekindling their former relationship. With Brenna around, Grant would be off the market and I’d no longer be tempted. Problem solved, or at least so I thought, until Grant was attacked, receiving a severe head injury that landed him in the hospital in critical condition.

  Faced with the prospect of losing him, I came to the abrupt realization that simply being friends would never be enough. Pity I hadn’t managed to figure that out before Brenna came along and staked her claim.

  When Grant was allowed to come home, we were all under the impression that his recovery from the concussion would be gradual but complete. The doctors recommended eight weeks of total rest and, much to my annoyance, Brenna insisted on taking time off from her own family distillery in Wales to see that Grant did as he was told. Four weeks on, here we were, one surly patient, one hovering girlfriend, and me doing my best to rebalance my life on the sidelines.

  I realized that Louisa was watching me closely. “You going up to see him?” she asked.

  “Not just yet,” I said. “He’ll need a bit of time alone to process all this before he’s ready to talk.”

  Louisa leaned across the table. “When the Brenna finagled her way back into Grant’s life, you told me you intended to fight for him,” Louisa said, tilting her chin toward the floors above, “and yet you’ve been scarce on the ground these past few weeks. What gives?”

  “First of all, you know I care a great deal for Grant. So much so that if he’s really in love with Brenna, I won’t come between them.”

  Louisa made a sound of infinite disgust. “No way he’s in love. She’s not right for him at all. Fusses ’round all the time. Tries to do everything for him, I can just see his blood pressure risin’ when she’s in full motherin’ mode. He’s suffocatin’.”

  I did my best to suppress the smile that crept across my lips. “I’m counting on her smothering him,” I confessed. “She’s the kind of woman that needs to be needed. Needs to be in charge. With any luck, she’s already driving him crazy and this relationship will implode without me having to get my hands dirty. Grant’s not stupid enough to accept a permanent relationship with someone that drives him mad based on some misplaced feelings of gratitude or guilt.”

  “Men have done stupider things,” Louisa noted grimly.

  I conceded the point with a nod of my head. “Fair enough, but don’t worry. I’ve only just started to fight. But I have embraced the fact that the enemy is a lot to compete with. Brenna’s beautiful and smart. Not only that, she knows volumes more about the whisky business than I do and has already earned the grudging respect of the Barley Boys.”

  “You’re beautiful and smart,” Louisa insisted, “and you’ll catch up with the business stuff soon enough. You’ve only just been thrown in the deep end at the Glen, and you’re doin’ better than most.”

  “I’m doing my level best, but sometimes that isn’t enough,” I admitted. I’d never been afraid of working hard, but it hadn’t taken me long to figure out that being successful in the whisky business took more than hard work. You needed an intimate understanding of the science of the distilling process and an appreciation for the complex art of blending. A little business and marketing savvy didn’t hurt either. Most of my new peers grew up in and around the business. Their understanding was instinctive, and from the moment I arrived, I was stuck playing catch-up. “I haven’t told anyone else,” I confessed, “but I’m taking a course at Edinburgh University on the science and chemistry of whisky making.”

  Louisa reached for another piece of shortbread. “That’s why you’ve been runnin’ down to town so often. I know it’s less than an hour’s drive, but every day seems a bit much. I was startin’ to think you had some bloke down there you were meetin’ up with.”

  “I do,” I said, smiling. “He’s my seventy-four-year-old professor, and he’s been in the whisky business for nearly sixty years. A lovely old gent who’s taught me so much. I’ve been much more comfortable asking him questions than asking Grant, and now I feel better equipped to keep up with the lads.” And better able to compete with Brenna.

  “Well, I’m relieved to know you have a plan for dealing with the B as well as the boys.”

  I finished the rest of my coffee. “Brenna we can handle, but this new development is worrisome. If Grant doesn’t regain full use of his senses, he’ll be devastated.”

  “And frettin’ about it won’t help him get better any quicker,” Louisa observed.

  “Agreed. He needs to be kept busy.”

  “But not so busy he makes things worse,” Louisa added.

  “Right. It’s a delicate balance. He n
eeds to get back to the Glen, but not in his usual capacity.” I thought for a moment. “I have a couple of ideas, but I’ll need to talk to Cam and Patrick first.”

  * * *

  —

  Liam and I pulled into the stone courtyard of the Glen with the top down on the convertible. I could still count on one hand the number of days the top had been off my mini Cooper since I’d purchased it nine months ago. I’d dubbed her Hope when she arrived with the unrequested open-top feature, knowing we hardly had a hope of being able to use it in this part of the world. Liam, as usual, was in the front seat, ears whipping back in the wind, tongue lolling out in canine ecstasy.

  The whitewashed stone buildings clustered around the old farmyard were comforting and familiar to me now, and with the aid of my whisky guru at the university, the painstaking process we went through to produce our whisky was making sense to me in a way it never had before. I was finally feeling like an integral part of the grain, the water, the copper, and the wood that comprised the heart of my namesake.

  I wandered into the office and found our distillery manager, Cam Lewis, and my old friend Patrick Cooke conferring over a schedule of events. The two were an unlikely duo—Patrick young, sophisticated, and urbane; Cam on the downhill side of middle age, rugged, and earthy—and yet they were kindred spirits when it came to the whisky they both loved.

  Cam was a second-generation still man, a trustworthy manager and a godsend to me in Grant’s absence. What he didn’t know about whisky wasn’t worth knowing, and I suspected if he were cut he would bleed a rich-hued single malt.