Bitter Brew

by G. A. McKevett

  Again, his emotions overtook him, and he couldn’t speak.

  Savannah filled the awkward silence. “She must’ve been very special for you to take that chance.”

  He shrugged and choked back the tears. “I was in love. I fell for her the minute I met her. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Savannah studied him, trying to be her usual detective self—cynical, unemotional, appraising, and most of all, suspicious.

  But this man certainly didn’t appear to be the sort who could commit cold-blooded murder, someone who could kill the woman he had just asked to be his wife.

  Savannah would admit that she had not always been a perfect judge of character, that she had been fooled more times than she could count. Bad guys, and gals for that matter, were frighteningly good at deceiving those around them. They lived for it and had highly-sharpened skills. Even the most seasoned professional could be fooled.

  But if, indeed, Brianne Marston had died at the hands of another, Savannah couldn’t believe it was the man sitting in front of her, tears running down his face as he spoke of the woman he loved.

  “I would’ve married her anyway, even knowing she had it,” he said. “I was totally prepared to stand up in front of God and everyone who was important to me and swear to love her in sickness and in health. I was looking forward to it. But I didn’t get the chance. I didn’t have time.”

  Savannah looked deeply into his eyes and tried to offer as much consolation as she could when she said, “But, whether you had the wedding or not, even if you never got a chance to speak those vows, that’s what you did. You loved her, in sickness and in health. You supported her and nursed her and eased her from this life into the next. No husband could have done better than that.”

  He studied her face and seemed to drink in the compassion he found there. Then he gave her a weak smile and nodded. At least for a moment, he seemed a bit comforted.

  Knowing that, Savannah was glad that she was there, that she had paid this visit to the mansion shaped like a barn on the hill.

  Chapter 11

  Before Savannah left the Marston property, she wanted to see the miniature goats a bit closer and talk to Dee, their keeper.

  Experience had taught her that, whether it was a maid, gardener, personal secretary, or in this case a groom, service providers tended to know what was going on in the home where they worked. Sometimes more than the people living there who employed them.

  It didn’t take her long to find Dee, who was in the goat pen, bent over a wee black goat with long, floppy ears. She was performing some sort of task on one of its dainty hooves.

  Savannah lifted the sturdy latch on the pen’s gate and walked in, making sure to fasten it securely behind her.

  A few people in her hometown of McGill, Georgia, had raised goats back when she was a child, living there. After seeing those people running down the streets in their pajamas, occasionally even their underdrawers, trying in vain to recapture their escaped nannies, billies, and kids, she knew what little Houdinis goats could be.

  Dee looked up from her work and appeared puzzled and not particularly pleased to see Savannah.

  The young woman was a natural beauty with large, intelligent eyes, wearing no makeup or jewelry. Her long, auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail and held with a tortoiseshell clip. She was dressed in well-loved jeans, well-worn cowboy boots that were caked with mud and other organic material that Savannah didn’t want to think too much about.

  Dee’s faded, blue T-shirt had a silhouette of a horse and the words, “My horse is smarter than most people I know.”

  As Savannah walked across the pen, several of the tiny goats ran to her, their tails wagging happily, like a pack of puppies. They bleated a greeting to her as they surrounded her and began to nudge her with their heads.

  Enjoying the experience enormously, Savannah decided, then and there, that when she died she wanted her manner of death to be ruled as “Playfully Butted by a Hundred Overly-Affectionate, Well-Meaning Pygmy Goats.”

  But then, one of the diminutive rascals grabbed her shirt cuff in its mouth and began to chew on it with surprising determination and vigor.

  “Hey!” she said, pushing the offending kid away. “Knock that off! Do I look like a tasty clump of alfalfa to you?”

  “They aren’t that picky,” Dee called out to her. “You don’t have to be tasty, just edible, and you’d be surprised what a goat considers edible.”

  She seemed a bit friendlier now. Savannah surmised it was because the groom had seen her “bond” with the animals she cared for.

  It was hard for one animal lover not to like another one.

  Savannah looked down at her now-sodden cuff and saw he had left a substantial amount of green saliva behind as a calling card and her cuff button was missing.

  Oh, well, she thought. A story to tell Dr. Jen.

  Followed by a herd of new friends, she walked over to the woman. “You’re Dee, right?” Savannah asked when she reached her.

  “I am.” Dee continued her work on the hoof.

  Since the groom obviously had her hands full, Savannah didn’t offer hers to shake. “My name is Savannah Reid,” she said. “I was just talking to your boss, Paul, down at the main house.”

  In an instant, the groom’s face went from partly sunny to cloudy.

  “Paul isn’t my boss and never has been,” she said, as she clipped at the little black goat’s hoof with a pair of sharp cutters that reminded Savannah of Granny’s heavy-duty rose pruning shears.

  Savannah didn’t have to see the glint of anger in Dee’s eyes to know she heartily disliked Paul Oxley. Her abrupt tone had said it all.

  Maybe this little journey up the hill to look at goats will prove more productive than just seeing some cute critters, she thought.

  To hide her keen interest, Savannah bent down and stroked the soft, pink nose of one of the white ones with pale blue eyes. She was surprised to see that its reaction was similar to that of Granny’s bloodhound, Colonel Beauregard, and her own cats. She could almost swear she could hear it purring.

  “Then I suppose your employer was Ms. Marston,” Savannah said. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dee gave the little hoof a final clip, and she must have done something wrong because the animal bleated plaintively and gave her a swift kick in the shin.

  Bending down, she rubbed its neck and said in a soft, soothing voice, “I’m sorry, little one. You don’t like me raising your leg so high, do you? I won’t do it again.”

  She reached for a bucket of feed and held it under the kid’s nose. Instantly, the animal buried its face in the grain.

  “There you go, some of the good stuff,” Dee told it, scratching its back. “You get a little treat for being so patient.”

  She let the goat have a few more bites, then she held the bucket up out of its reach. In an instant, she was surrounded by the herd, rearing up on her and scraping her thighs with their front feet as they tried to get to the bucket.

  She gave Savannah an eye roll and said, “Goat pedicures . . . not the easiest and most glamorous of my many chores.”

  “What is the most glamorous?” Savannah asked.

  “Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing elegant or flashy about my job,” Dee admitted. “But I wouldn’t want to do anything else in the world.”

  “Then you’re a fortunate woman. I don’t think most people would say that about the work they do.”

  Dee gave her a long, appraising look. “Something tells me you do. I’d even bet that you love your job.”

  Taken aback, Savannah said, “But you don’t even know what I do for a living.”

  “I don’t have to. I can just tell by looking at you that you’re a strong-minded woman who wouldn’t do anything she didn’t find fulfilling. At least, not for very long.”

  Savannah chuckled. “You’re right. I love what I do,” she said. “Well . . . on the days that I don’t hate it.” />
  “Are you a cop? An investigator?”

  Again, Savannah was surprised. “Kinda.”

  “Nobody is ‘kinda’ a cop. Either they are or they aren’t. You must be some sort of investigator. I was wondering when someone like you was going to show up.”

  Savannah fought to keep her poker face in place and sound casual when she said, “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Because there’s something about the way that Brianne died that’s just . . . wrong.”

  “What do you mean? ‘Wrong’ how?”

  Dee shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just have a feeling.”

  Savannah glanced around and realized they were in full view of the house and anyone driving up the road to the estate. Not to mention Paul Oxley, whom Dee apparently didn’t like for some reason.

  Savannah very much wanted to know that reason.

  “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” she asked.

  “Sure. My place. Let’s go.”

  Savannah followed her eagerly out of the goat pen, past the barn, and up the hill.

  Any woman whose instincts told her that a person she had just met was either a cop or ‘some sort of investigator’ . . . that was a gal Savannah couldn’t wait to interview.

  * * *

  “We call this the ‘bunkhouse,’ ” Dee told Savannah as she led her into a small, but charming, cottage a bit farther up the hill from the barn. Closing the door behind them, Dee looked quite sad and added, “I guess I mean, ‘I’ call it that. ‘We’ used to mean Brianne and me. Now it’s just me.”

  “You two were friends,” Savannah observed. “Not just employer and employee.”

  “We were all of the above. When your boss is as kind and easygoing as she was, it’s easy to be both servant and friend.”

  Savannah thought of Tammy and hoped her young friend and now sister-in-law felt the same way about working for her.

  “You two were close then?”

  “We were. I can’t tell you how much I miss her. Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Dee waved a hand toward the futon, which was made up with a bunch of assorted pillows and a green and blue, batik bedspread with the signs of the zodiac on its borders and an astrological chart in the center.

  “You believe in astrology?” Savannah asked as she sat down and studied the pattern on the spread.

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  Savannah grinned. “I’ve been known to read my daily horoscope in the newspaper every once in a while. I wouldn’t say I consult it to see if it’s a good day to go grocery shopping or whatever.”

  “What sign are you?”

  “You’re good at guessing. What would you say?”

  “A fire sign, definitely. I’d say Aries or maybe a Leo.”

  Savannah was beginning to feel like the tables were turned, and she was the one on the hot seat. This gal was far too good at interrogation.

  “I’m an Aries,” Savannah admitted. “What are you?”

  “A Scorpio. We’re very intuitive, and we love a mystery.”

  “And you sense some sort of mystery having to do with Brianne’s passing?” Savannah asked, eager to shift the conversation back to the business at hand and something less personal.

  “I do.” Dee sank onto a large, beanbag chair nearby. Once seated, she stretched out, her arms hanging at her sides, her booted ankles crossed. She looked tired, as though the rest was overdue and welcome.

  “Would you care to elaborate?” Savannah asked.

  “First tell me who you are.”

  Okay, here we go again, Savannah thought. She’d managed to tell Paul Oxley mostly truths, but something told her that Dee was far more astute and less likely to accept the pat answers she’d given him.

  “Like you surmised, I’m an investigator and—”

  “A private investigator?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm, I don’t think I’ve ever met one of you before.”

  “We aren’t as common as butchers, bakers, or even candlestick makers.”

  “True.”

  “But then . . . you’re my first lady groom.”

  “I’ll tell you what it’s like to muck out a barn if you’ll tell me what it’s like to locate a missing person or solve a crime,” Dee said teasingly.

  “It’s probably more fun than shoveling horse poo, but we don’t find a missing person every day or solve a crime, for that matter. It’s not a common occurrence.”

  “I wish the same could be said of mucking.”

  They shared a companionable laugh, then Dee suddenly became quite serious and said, “I think Brianne was murdered, and I think you do, too. I have a feeling you’re here to investigate that possibility, whatever you might have told Paul.”

  Savannah felt her pulse quicken. This could be good news as far as finding justice for Brianne and Nels—if justice needed to be found—but possibly bad for Dr. Liu.

  Savannah couldn’t remember a time when she had experienced more mixed emotions about a case.

  “I told Paul that I’m doing research,” she said.

  “O-kay. If that’s what you want to call it. What exactly are you, um, researching?”

  “The final days of people who suffer from Halstead’s and other illnesses like it.”

  “He bought that?”

  “He seemed to believe me.”

  “Paul’s always been a bit thick. For the life of me, I don’t know what Brianne saw in that guy.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “What’s to like? He’s boring, a nerd. He lived off her and her money from the moment he met her. She thought that by supporting him she was somehow this great benefactor of the arts. He’s a third-class painter, at best, with no ambition or talent, who took advantage of her.”

  Savannah grinned. “Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “He’s a waste of space.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I think that no-account bum might have hurt Brianne. Or worse.”

  Every cell in Savannah’s brain snapped to attention. “Really? He and I talked for quite a while. He seemed to love her and be heartbroken that she’s gone.”

  “I think those strong emotions that you picked up off him may have been guilt and remorse. He treated her very badly the last few months of her life.”

  Savannah thought of the man who had sat in the mansion’s living room fifteen minutes ago, cried, and professed his undying love for his now-deceased soul mate. As interesting as this conversation was and as astute as the groom might appear, Savannah found her opinions hard to accept.

  “I thought he was her primary caretaker,” she said.

  “He was . . . for the last couple of weeks. Once she was bedridden, he insisted on being the one to tend her. Made a huge show of it. Wouldn’t accept help from a professional hospice team, although, heaven knows, he could have used it. He wouldn’t let anyone but her brother and sister-in-law come near her. Not even me. But before that . . .”

  “Before that . . . ?”

  “I could hear him screaming at her there in the house, all the way up to the paddock. I don’t mean your usual, run-of-the-mill arguing either. He was, like, out-of-control nuts. I considered calling the cops on him a few times.”

  “Could you understand what he was saying?”

  “I’m sure the horses and goats could understand him. He was accusing her of being unfaithful to him. He was trying to make her tell him who the guy was that she was seeing. He was threatening to break the engagement and cancel the wedding if she didn’t. Although at that point, I don’t think it was much of a threat. She seemed pretty tired of him, too.”

  “Was she? Being unfaithful to him, that is.”

  She shrugged and glanced away. “Well, I can’t really say for sure, but . . .”

  “Come on, Dee. On an estate like this, the employees—especially those who live on the property—know pretty much everything.”

  Dee gave Savannah a small, enig
matic smile, but she didn’t reply.

  “Come on,” Savannah coaxed her. “You want to tell me, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”

  Laughing, Dee said, “I guess that’s true. I see I’m not the only clever detective in the room.”

  She reached back and pulled the tortoiseshell ponytail holder from her hair. She shook her hair loose and combed her fingers through it, then massaged her scalp with her fingertips for a moment.

  Savannah chalked it up to “self-soothing.” She had seen many people do such things when they felt stressed.

  For all of her self-confidence and bravado, Savannah sensed that Dee was having a difficult time with this part of the conversation.

  All the more reason to press her about it, Savannah reminded herself.

  “Was Brianne seeing someone besides Paul?” she asked.

  “She was seeing someone. A man. I’m sure of that much. She was sneaking out to meet him at various times and places, then lying to all of us about where she’d been.”

  “Do you know who he was?”

  “No. I have no idea. Brianne had always been a one-man-at-a-time kinda gal.”

  “If you had to take a guess . . . ?”

  “Believe me. I’m as inquisitive as you are. I even asked her about it. Several times. She wouldn’t tell me, and I don’t know. Can’t even hazard a guess.”

  Savannah thought it over for a moment, then said, “So, Brianne was engaged to Paul, about to be married, in fact. But she was having an affair with another man. That could certainly cause a few problems between an engaged couple.”

  “Yes. Even a namby-pamby like Paul wouldn’t want his fiancée meeting another guy and hiding it from him.”

  She sighed wearily and rubbed her fingers against her temples. Again, it occurred to Savannah that she looked very tired.

  “Brianne would sneak out at all hours of the day and night, lying about where she was going,” Dee continued. “I heard enough of Paul’s screaming and yelling to know that he’d put some sort of tracer on her phone and knew for sure that she’d gone to some bars that are known as pick-up joints.”

  “Did you hear the names of any of these places?”