“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem. We have to stick together.”
I decided this was the best opening I might have to ask Ross about what April had seen. “Since we’re on the subject, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Well, I was there when everything blew up at Der Keller after the community meeting. I know that everyone was pretty heated, but I heard from someone that they saw you and Kristopher arguing again much later, after things had calmed down.”
Ross dropped the stir stick. Green paint splattered on the sidewalk. “Crap.” He reached for a rag and started dabbing the green paint. “Yeah. He and I had a talk. He had some nerve. Did you know he went back over to Der Keller and tried handing out campaign posters? The guy had no shame. Mr. Pious campaigning at the biggest brewery in town while trying to shut us all down. That’s rich.”
Paint smeared on his fingers as he spoke, but Ross took no notice.
“I confronted him about why the hell he felt like he needed to tattle to the state about me. I’ve never served a minor in my life. He claimed that we were the bar that overserved the frat guy who threw up on his shoe. He couldn’t let it go. I told him that my bartender refused to serve the guy the minute he stumbled into the Underground, but Kristopher didn’t believe it. He called the state and said we ‘have a practice of routinely serving minors.’ My ass. We have a policy of upholding the law. That’s what I told Kristopher.”
Ross’s speech sped up as he recalled the exchange.
“I told him if he didn’t call off his dogs, I would throw up on his shoes every time I saw him in the village—while I was stone cold sober.”
“It sounds like you were pretty upset.”
“Pretty upset?” Ross yelled. “I was pissed, Sloan. You should be too. The man was shady. He tried to pretend like he was this wonderful member of the community who had spent his career ‘serving’ Leavenworth. He wasn’t. He was a prick.”
I wondered if April had been on to something. Ross was getting more and more agitated the longer we spoke.
Ross finished dabbing the paint splatters with the rag, then he jabbed the stir stick into the bucket. “Wait a minute—why all the questions? Are you working undercover for Chief Meyers or something? I can tell by the look on your face that you’re not asking out of curiosity. You think I’m a suspect or something?”
“I never said that.” That wasn’t a lie.
“Well, don’t worry, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t need to. I have video footage in the bar to back up my statement. I’ve already turned that over to the liquor board. What would be my motivation to kill him? I was excited to watch him go down in flames on election day next week.”
His response wasn’t what I had expected.
“If you want to know who killed the troll, I would talk to Valerie Hedy. She and Kristopher had a wicked fight. I overheard her. She told him she was going to kill him.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I already told this to Chief Meyers. I don’t know exactly what they were fighting about, but her exact words were ‘I will kill you, Kristopher. You’re not going to get away with this.’”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” Ross dipped a paintbrush in the paint. “I don’t know why the chief is dragging her feet. I’m surprised Valerie isn’t already in jail.”
I left him to his painting project. Ross seemed adamant that he hadn’t killed Kristopher, and his motive was nonexistent if he really had proof that no one had been overserved at the Underground. Valerie had threatened to kill Kristopher. Was there anyone in Leavenworth who didn’t want the man dead?
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
STRIPPING LAYERS OF WALLPAPER DISTRACTED me for the remainder of the morning. The thick, sticky wallpaper remover felt like working with slime. Garrett, Kat, and I were splattered with the milky substance. My arms ached from scraping section by section.
“This is going to take an eternity,” Garrett complained, stepping back from a two-foot square area he had been scraping for at least an hour. “I had no idea there would be three layers of different wallpaper.”
“I think they used to slap another layer over the top of the old paper when they got tired of the design, because it was much easier than doing this.”
Kat massaged her shoulder. “At least I might get some new muscles out of it.”
“Why didn’t we think of that?” Garrett asked.
“Think of what? Muscles?”
He stared at me. “Sloan, you’re not firing on all cylinders, are you? I meant why didn’t we think of putting new wallpaper up instead of endless scraping?”
“Right.” It was true my head felt slightly fuzzy. Some of that could be due to Kristopher’s death and the fumes from the wallpaper remover, but most of it was because I had to meet Mac for lunch soon. “We’re making progress.”
“At a snail’s pace.” Garrett stood back to survey the bedroom. “This is only one room. We might need to rethink our plan if we’re going to try and get everything done and the guest rooms listed before the holiday festivities.”
He was right. This was going to take forever. “You know, let me call Ursula. I remember her renting a steam machine to strip wallpaper years ago when they did the first round of expansions at Der Keller. I’ll ask her whether that was more efficient.”
There had to be a better way. “I have a lunch appointment,” I said, wiping the sticky paste on a towel. “I’ll check in with Ursula and let you know what she has to say.” I didn’t mention that my lunch meeting was at Der Keller. Not that Garrett would mind that I was fraternizing with the enemy. There was no such sentiment in the beer world. Maybe for a rare brewer, but the craft beer community was known for embracing collaborations and promoting one another’s products.
Kat held up her hands that looked as if she’d dipped them in the thick paste. “I’m going to take a shower and get ready to open the bar, as long as that’s cool?”
Garrett nodded. “Yeah. I think we could all use some fresh air. The fumes are starting to make me see stars.” We had cracked the window in the bedroom, but it was true that there was an overwhelming chemical smell. To me he said, “Let’s reconvene after lunch and see if we even want to continue with this slop.”
I didn’t spend an extra second changing or checking my appearance before my meeting with Mac. The worse I looked, the better.
I strolled along Front Street past the huge construction lifts where city workers were concentrating on hanging lights from the highest points of each building’s roof peak. The media circus continued near the gazebo. I spotted Chief Meyers in the center of the action. Was she hosting a press conference because there’d been new developments in the investigation?
Mac was notoriously late for everything. It wouldn’t hurt if I listened in for a few minutes. I stood at the edge of the crowd. A reporter asked the chief about potential suspects.
Chief Meyers took command. “As I’ve repeated, we have a number of persons of interest in this case, and my team is pursuing every lead.” She narrowed her intelligent eyes toward the reporter’s camera. “We are asking the public that if anyone has any information pertinent to the investigation, you come to the station immediately.”
I was impressed by how deftly she ignored the dozens of hands that flew in the air and the following assault of questions:
“Would you call this a crime of passion?”
“Is Beervaria as we know it dead?”
“How safe are the charming streets of Leavenworth?”
“Will you cancel the light festival if the killer isn’t caught?”
For a second I lost track of the chief’s responses, because about twenty feet away I spotted someone crouched behind an oak tree. At first I thought it was one of the workers on a lunch break, but at closer glance, the person appeared to be eavesdropping on the press conference. That didn’t make sense. There was no need to hide. The press conference w
as taking place in the middle of the public park.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted to try and get a better look. Could that be right? It was Valerie Hedy. Why would she be spying on the press conference?
Chief Meyers cleared her throat, turning my attention away from Valerie. “I can assure you that Leavenworth is one of the safest places to live and visit. There is no talk of canceling the festival. As to your other questions, as I have explained, this is an open investigation and I cannot comment at this time. Thank you.” She ambled off the gazebo stage toward me, as a few reporters tried unsuccessfully to get further comment.
I looked back to the oak tree. Valerie had vanished.
“Afternoon, Sloan.” Chief Meyers gave me a curt nod in way of a greeting.
“You handled that well.” I glanced to the throng of reporters summarizing the chief’s statement. “I’ve never seen this many press in town.”
“Slow news cycle.” She adjusted the walkie-talkie that was clipped to her waist. “Which way are you going?”
“To Der Keller.” I motioned across the street.
“I’ll walk with you.”
“April stopped by the pub this morning,” I said as we crossed the street. “She said that you think the murder weapon is her ceremonial ribbon cutting scissors.”
Chief Meyers made sure the press were out of earshot. “That’s right. My guys are trying to track down the murder weapon, but the coroner’s report confirmed my suspicions. Kristopher was killed with a large, sharp object. The stab wounds in his stomach are consistent with something like the scissors.”
I shuddered at the thought. “How gruesome.”
“Murder is always gruesome, Sloan. Doesn’t matter how it’s done.”
She had a point.
“April also mentioned that there might have been a struggle.”
“Did she now? Can’t imagine April sharing sensitive information.”
I had to smile. This was as close as the chief got to joking. “Is it safe to assume that this wasn’t a premeditated murder?”
She stopped and waited for two elderly women carrying stacks of paper lantern supplies to pass. Volunteers were already beginning to stage activities, like lantern making, at the Festhalle. “It’s never safe to assume anything, but my best guess at the moment is that our killer was in a rage and got hold of whatever was convenient.”
“If that’s the case, you might need to arrest everyone in the village.”
“Kristopher didn’t do himself any favors. Which, if you think of it, is a strange campaign strategy.” Her walkie-talkie crackled. We arrived at Der Keller. “This is your stop. Let me know if you hear anything new.”
“Will do.” I was glad that she had confirmed what April had told me. If the killer had acted in a moment of intensity, then that kept Valerie and Ross high on my list.
Der Keller was buzzing with a lunch crowd. The patio doors had been opened, allowing natural light and the crisp fall air in. I thought about how many lunches I had spent here throughout the years, pouring pints, chatting with customers, sitting on the patio nibbling on pretzels dipped in cheesy beer sauce, and laughing with the Krause family. It was a struggle not to feel like an outsider now.
I spotted Mac at the bar. He was chatting with one of the young beertenders behind the bar. Shocker. The young woman wore the traditional Der Keller barmaid’s red-and-white-checkered dress with a short, ruffled skirt and plunging neckline.
Not surprisingly, my husband was flirting as if his life depended on it. It might, I thought as I walked to the bar. I wanted to throttle him, but instead I cleared my throat and waited for him to come out of his barmaid trance.
“Oh, hey, Sloan, you snuck up on me.” He gave the slightest shudder as if trying to force himself to stop staring at the pretty young thing pouring his pint. “What happened to you? You’re a mess.”
“Nice to see you, too.” I pointed to the patio. “Shall we?”
The barmaid handed him two pints. “I ordered for you,” he said, handing me a Der Keller glass stein.
I could tell from the color of the beer that it was a Doppelbock. A strong choice for a lunchtime pint. I wondered if Mac was hoping that the beer’s high ABV content would help ease my response to him putting our son in the middle of our battle.
Little did he know that I was already in the loop. I was sure he had hoped to take me by surprise.
“Seriously, what are you brewing at Nitro?” Mac asked, letting his eyes travel from my head to my waist. “You’re covered in—what is that? Glue?”
“Wallpaper stripper.”
“Wallpaper stripper? What are you guys doing over there?”
I didn’t intend to give Mac any insider information about our plans to open beer-themed guest rooms. “A little sprucing up.”
He narrowed his eyes as he sat at a hand-carved picnic table next to a trellis. In the spring and summer, hop vines snaked up the trellis, but they had been cut back for the winter. “What do you need to spruce up? You just opened.”
“I’m not here to talk about Nitro.” I sat across from him.
“Is this how it’s going to go with us, Sloan? We’re going to snap at each other and be bitter?”
It took every ounce of self-control not to reach across the table and punch him. “I’m not snapping at you. I’m simply telling you that my work life is off-limits. As for being bitter, I think you lost any right to comment on my feelings after I caught you with the beer wench.” I paused and took a long sip of the Doppelbock. “I’m here to talk about our son.”
Mac’s ruddy cheeks lost some of their color. “Listen, Sloan, I don’t want to fight. I’ve told you a thousand times that I made a mistake. A stupid mistake. But you won’t let me make it right.”
“You don’t need to make it right. What’s done is done. It’s time for us to figure out how we move forward from here.”
“You mean apart.” His face reminded me of when Alex was younger and would come inside for a Band-Aid after scraping his knee.
“Yes, I mean apart.” I didn’t try to sugarcoat it for him. There was no chance of our reconciling. As angry as I was at him, there was no point in giving him false hope. It would just make things harder for me in the long run.
“You won’t even consider counseling?”
Was it just the lighting, or had he bleached his hair? It looked blonder.
After I had caught Mac with the beer wench, he had given his full attention to trying to make amends. From overflowing flower arrangements at my doorstep to handwritten notes expressing his love and sincere regret, he had made a concerted effort to apologize. His latest kick was couples’ counseling. Sloan, we’ve hit a rough patch, he had said, offering me a brochure for an intensive couples’ therapy retreat. Lots of people go through what we’re experiencing. We just need to get our groove back.
I had wondered if he was reading Terry McMillan novels. How many couples attending this retreat caught their partner fooling around with a twentysomething? I had retorted at the time. That had shut him up. He had dropped the subject of any potential reconciliation. Until now.
“Mac, we’ve already been through this.”
“But, Sloan, you can’t throw away years of good times—wonderful times—because of one mistake.”
“One pretty huge mistake, Mac.”
He fiddled with a bar napkin. “I know.”
The problem with Mac was that I got very little satisfaction in making him feel bad for cheating on me. He was doing a fine job of self-loathing without any help from me.
“Mac, listen, we’ve talked about this at length. I can’t overlook the fact that you cheated on me, but I also know that wasn’t our only problem. That was one of many.”
“That’s why I don’t understand why you aren’t willing to give counseling a shot. We can work through our problems, Sloan. I know we can. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met in my life. We can get through this.” He reached for my hand. I didn’t pul
l away. Not because I wanted to be comforted by Mac, but because I could see how much pain he was in.
His cheating had been a catalyst of self-reflection for me. I had been unhappy for years, but I had stayed for what I was now coming to understand were all the wrong reasons. I had been convinced that Alex needed a stable nuclear family. But now I realized that my happiness mattered too. I didn’t want to model suffering through an unhappy marriage for Alex. Or send a message that putting my own dreams on hold was the right way to live. Mac was right about one thing. I was strong. I was strong enough to know that our “marriage” had ended many, many years ago, and once I had understood that, there was no going back. There was no getting our groove back or coming through a rocky patch. We were done. The sooner he realized it too, the sooner we could maybe even become friends.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
MAC SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY. “SLOAN, YOU are the most maddening woman I’ve ever known.”
“I can live with that.” I set my beer on the table. “Should we talk about Alex?”
“What about Alex?” He leaned against the hop fence.
“Mac, don’t do this. Let’s try and talk like adults.”
“Do what?’ He yanked a wilted hop from the vine and crushed it in his hand.
“I know you already talked to Alex about moving in with you.”
His fist squeezed the hop tighter. “I don’t know what you mean.”
This was not going to be easy. I had hoped that Mac would be mature for once, but I should have known it would go like this. “Alex told me that you asked him to go look at a couple of places.”
“So?”
“So, what are you planning?”
“I’m planning to get out of that stupid hotel room. Do you know what it’s like being cooped up in a hell hole for weeks on end?”
His spacious hotel suite was hardly a “hell hole.”
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