Brewed Awakening

by Cleo Coyle

  “Oh, yes. Come in, come in,” Owen said eagerly. “I’d like to speak with you as well, Detective.”

  The lock clicked, and the iron doors opened automatically.

  I didn’t utter a sound until we were on the long driveway leading up to the sprawling house. Then, in a whisper, I explained how I’d encountered the young lawyer before, at the Parkview Palace, and that he was sure to recognize me. I was even wearing the same blond wig and big glasses, minus the Poetry in Motion jacket.

  Wily Quinn then appeared to channel Odysseus and come up with a solution as sneaky as the Trojan horse.

  “When I get out of the car, you do the same, but crouch low and stay hidden until I get inside the house. I’ll distract the lawyer while you have a look around the place.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Signs that anyone else is present in the house: a domestic, a cook, a guest. We can try to interview them separately later, see if they can offer any information. Wimmer will likely disarm the security system to let me in, but I wouldn’t touch the windows or doors anyway. Just peek through them.”

  I was nervous but tried not to show it. “Will do, partner.”

  As we drove closer, I couldn’t help admiring the mansion, which had great, old character. It was built in the same Italianate architectural style as the Parkview Palace, minus the gargoyles and about fifteen stories. The exterior was lit by spotlights that sprang to life as we moved along the drive.

  Quinn parked with the passenger side facing away from the house. When he opened his door, I popped mine, and we closed them together. Then he sauntered to the brilliantly lit front entrance, and I ducked into shadows behind the Toyota, and waited.

  The night was a lot cooler than the afternoon, and my sweater was now woefully inadequate. I longed for that cozy Poetry in Motion jacket to ward off the chill.

  Quinn hadn’t even reached the top of the steps before the ornate front door quickly opened. No domestic staff here. The diminutive lawyer—dressed in the same casual style as Quinn (in Matt’s clothes)—greeted the detective personally. The two shook hands, spoke briefly, and then Owen Wimmer invited Quinn inside.

  The moment the front door closed, all the exterior lighting went out, plunging me into near-total darkness.

  SEVENTY

  MIKE

  MIKE Quinn thought the interior of Sandcastle was grand enough, but cold and impersonal. There was no warmth in Owen Wimmer’s handshake, either, which Mike conceded was typically lawyerlike—cautious and noncommittal.

  Despite his casual Hamptons attire, Wimmer came off as intense rather than relaxed. In Mike’s experience, that was lawyerlike, too. He wore his horn-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose, making him appear as if he’d just finished perusing texts on jurisprudence; and his thin, reedy voice struck Mike as perfectly capable of delivering legal threats in a nonthreatening tone.

  Unlike most lawyers Mike knew, however, Owen Wimmer was full of surprises.

  “You’re here about Mrs. Brewster, I assume?” Wimmer said. “Are there any new developments?”

  “That depends,” Mike replied carefully. “What are you doing at Sandcastle, Mr. Wimmer? With the owner of the hotel and your client missing, shouldn’t you be in Manhattan?”

  “I’m doing the same thing you are, Detective. I’m looking for leads and evidence.”

  “Leads concerning Annette Brewster’s abduction?”

  “Of course!” Wimmer said. “As I recently told your colleagues in Manhattan, I believe Harlan Brewster was murdered, and it’s likely the same party took Annette. Now that I’m finishing up my digging out here, I believe I can point to several more suspects, as well.”

  “That would be very helpful, Mr. Wimmer.”

  With a self-satisfied smile, the diminutive lawyer turned on his heels. “Please follow me, Detective Quinn, and I’ll show you what I’ve discovered.”

  * * *

  • • •

  OWEN Wimmer led Mike to a study that might have been orderly once, but now looked as though it had been ransacked.

  Drawers were pulled out of desks and credenzas, their contents dumped into separate piles on the hardwood floor. Stacks of papers covered the surface of an antique table, with many ending up on the floor around it.

  Mike noticed a pair of white cotton gloves—the kind Crime Scene Unit techs used to gather evidence without smearing fingerprints. Beside them was a thin stack of clear Mylar bags, each containing a sheet of paper and an envelope.

  “Harlan was obsessive about keeping correspondence, but not so conscientious about filing it,” Owen complained. “I found locked drawers stuffed with mail going back a decade. But it’s the letters Harlan received in the months before his death that most concern me.”

  Owen reached for that stack of Mylar-sheathed correspondence.

  “Like this one,” he said, passing it to Mike.

  The envelope was postmarked three months before Harlan’s demise, and was mailed at the Old Chelsea Station on West 18th Street. There was no return address.

  The single-page missive appeared to be produced by a standard computer printer, and the message was simple:

  What you stole from me I can never get back.

  But I will kill you before you do it to another woman.

  Owen took back the letter and handed Mike a handwritten message this time. The writing was frantically scrawled on yellow notebook paper in bright red ink. The author was so full of rage, pen holes were torn in the cheap stock.

  The threats included “hope you die in a car crash” along with a string of free-associated obscenities that even caused the hardened cop to wince.

  “That one is especially ugly and perhaps prophetic,” Wimmer said. “And the threats didn’t all come from the United States. The next one arrived from overseas.”

  Sent airmail from Rouen, France, the note was printed on thin white stationery. Its message was short and as menacing as the others:

  I paid you the money. Where is the evidence?

  Send it immediately or harm will come to you.

  “It’s not signed, of course. None of them are.”

  “There are more like these?”

  “At Victoria Holbrook’s request, I’ve been searching everywhere I can think of, including this property. I’m almost finished. I’ll bag up everything I find here and turn it over to the NYPD on Monday for forensic analysis.”

  “That’s good, Mr. Wimmer. Good work.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mike’s sharp eyes noticed a second pile—not swathed in Mylar, but neatly stacked, unlike the messiness surrounding them. The top correspondence bore a law firm’s letterhead.

  “What are these?”

  “Legal matters, which I believe are also pertinent to the case.”

  The first was a cease-and-desist letter ordering Harlan Brewster to stop “demanding additional recompense” from their client “beyond what has already been paid.” The client, Mike noted, was a first-string tackle on an NFL team.

  The second letter, from a Beverly Hills, California, law firm, made a similar demand. There was also a demand “for any and all copies of the recording (or) recordings.” Mike recognized the client’s name, too. He’d seen her many times on the big screen.

  The third was also a cease-and-desist order, and the client represented was a well-known politician, a name Quinn could have sold to the tabloids for a tidy sum.

  “I’ve already given the NYPD a few similar threatening letters to follow up on—the ones I found among Harlan’s papers in Manhattan. I hate doing this, Detective. The Brewsters deserve their privacy. But in the cause of full disclosure, I’m turning over whatever I discover.”

  “These communications appear to implicate Harlan Brewster’s involvement in criminal activity.”

  Owen Wimmer nodded
grimly. “We’re past worrying about Harlan’s reputation now. Annette is missing, her life may be in danger, and we’ve got to find out what happened to her, no matter where that investigation might lead.”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  CLARE

  WHEN the exterior lights went out, I should have waited until my eyes adjusted to the dark. But I didn’t know how long Detective Quinn was going to be inside that big house, so I moved immediately.

  I didn’t get far.

  On the walking path that circled the expansive house, my low-heeled boot caught on a loose paving stone. I sprawled face-first into a mass of decorative shrubbery.

  “Son of a bunny!” I hissed (not too loudly).

  I sat up spitting mulch—but again, I didn’t get far. My blond wig was tangled with a small metal sign on a three-foot post. I had to do all sorts of contortions to free it. Even in the darkness, the glow-in-the-dark letters on that sign were easy to read:

  ERNEST LANDSCAPING

  Now isn’t that interesting. Making a mental note of my discovery, I was on my feet again, this time proceeding with a little more caution.

  Though most of the ground-floor windows were curtained or shuttered, I did find one that was partially open. This window looked into a vast stainless steel catering-type kitchen. The area was bathed in subdued lighting, with no signs of activity, and I could have easily climbed through the window, but Quinn had warned me not to mess with the windows or doors, so I moved on.

  Circling a hot tub large enough for eight, I negotiated a gauntlet of lawn furniture and passed a massive stone barbecue on the vast patio.

  In the back of the house, the woods that surrounded Sandcastle ran nearly up to the walls. The stone path ended, and I probably would have turned back, but I noticed a lot of light reflecting off the trees. Steeling myself, I pushed through the branches and stepped between bushes until I discovered a wall of windows.

  On the other side of the glass, I spied a large virgin white living room with a fireplace and wet bar. The room seemed showy and sterile. With no art on the walls or sculptures dotting the room, there was almost nothing to give the space personality.

  The only adornment in that bleached wasteland was a line of five decorative panels along one wall, each featuring the likenesses of the five Parkview Palace gargoyles.

  I was about to turn back when I heard a branch snap behind me. Alarmed, I whirled to find two eyes staring at me through an ebony mask!

  SEVENTY-TWO

  THE pair of eyes staring at me became four, then six, and finally eight. I was surrounded!

  Luckily, the raccoon family I’d stumbled upon was as spooked as I was and quickly moved on. Heart pounding, I stayed frozen like a female mannequin, until the sound of the animals crashing through the woods faded into the night.

  I’d had enough of stumbling around in the dark, freezing and being threatened by local wildlife. It was time to return to the car. But on my way, I spotted a second stone path, illuminated by a pool of light from a window.

  You’re in for the penny, Clare. Might as well go for the big bucks.

  Unfortunately, the window’s glow emanated from an empty hallway. Nothing to see there. But I noticed another lighted window along the path and moved toward it. When I peeked inside, I saw an absolute wreck of a room. It reminded me of the ransacked office in the Gotham Suite. Inside, Detective Quinn and Owen Wimmer stood beside a crowded desk, poring over documents encased in clear plastic.

  The window was sealed tightly, so I couldn’t hear a word being said. But within a minute of my arrival, the men were shaking hands again, and I realized the lawyer was about to escort Quinn to the front door, which meant I had to get back to the Toyota as quickly as possible.

  I took the rest of the stone path at top speed, and a seemingly endless trip it was. I ran past a sunroom attached to the main house, a small but vibrant greenhouse, and the dark waters of a reflecting pool.

  Not another soul was in sight. No staff. No visitors.

  Finally, I raced across the driveway to the detective’s rental car. I’d just dived behind the Toyota when the exterior lights sprang on and Quinn exited the house.

  Inside the car, he made sure I was aboard before he started the engine. It wasn’t until we drove through the gate that I crawled out from under the dash, shivering.

  “I roamed around in the dark and found nothing,” I told him, hugging myself in the cold car. “Other than a curious sign.”

  “What sign?”

  “Our friend Ernest, the friendly landscaper’s sign.”

  “Ernest Belling does the landscaping for the Brewsters? That is curious.”

  “It could be an old sign,” I conceded. “Still, it’s a connection worth pursuing, don’t you think?”

  “I agree,” Quinn said, turning the heat on full blast. “You look like you’re freezing. Do you want me to grab a windbreaker from the trunk?”

  “Don’t bother. The car’s already warming up.”

  “Let’s get you back to the house.”

  “Fine, but tell me what you discovered. What did the lawyer say?”

  “Plenty. For starters, Wimmer thinks Harlan was murdered, too. He doesn’t know much about Harlan’s Hamptons life—apart from being invited to the house as a guest for a party or two. He says there’s a fixer out here, an attorney, who Harlan consulted, but Wimmer doesn’t know who.”

  “Is that why Wimmer came out here? To track down the fixer?”

  “No. As the Parkview’s attorney, he says his primary concern is finding Annette. That’s why he came out, looking for any evidence of a vendetta against the Brewsters.”

  “Did he find anything?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s a cast of thousands. Harlan had enemies way beyond that little Hatfield and McCoy feud. And I was right about extortion. From the cease-and-desist letters I read, Harlan was heavily involved in using the hotel’s surveillance cameras to record embarrassing or possibly criminal behavior by his wealthy and famous guests for purposes of blackmail. Until his death, Harlan hid the activity from Annette and Wimmer, who looks a bit frantic now that he’s uncovering it.”

  “How could Harlan get away with it?”

  “He didn’t, did he? From the dates on the letters, it appears this was a fairly recent endeavor. He must have been desperate financially. And you heard the sum of his character—he was a reckless, selfish, egocentric man.”

  “A cruel one, too, if he really did abuse that young woman. He probably got off on it.” I shuddered and shook my head, wishing any of this would shake some awareness loose of what had happened to me—and Annette.

  “So what now?”

  In the dim dashboard lights, I saw Detective Quinn’s blue eyes brighten. “There is one more line of investigation worth pursuing, and that mystery directly involves you.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  BY the time we got back to the house, a storm was brewing outside and in. We found Matt at the kitchen stove, making stew—and stewing. Before we could say a word, he announced (somewhat sarcastically) that absolutely nothing had happened while we were gone.

  “No Stevens. And no NYPD SWAT team, though I’m still expecting them, thanks to the flatfoot here.”

  The detective and I exchanged glances. It was obvious we were in for a tense dinner.

  “Food’s ready,” Matt declared. “Are you two hungry?”

  “Starving,” Quinn and I said together.

  “What are you? A duet now? Set the table in the corner nook. You know where everything is.”

  A few minutes later, Quinn and I slid onto the cushioned bench in the kitchen. Rain began to streak the dark glass behind us as Matt ladled stew into our bowls. Then he plopped down a basket of warm rolls and tortillas and dropped into a chair across from us.

  I dug in and swooned a little with memory. “This tastes
like your famous Coffee Beef Stew. You used to make it for me and Joy when we were married, right?”

  “That’s right,” Matt said a little shortly.

  “It’s not exactly the same, though, is it?” I already knew it wasn’t, but I thought the question might draw him out and warm him up—or at least take the edge off his bad mood.

  “What you’re eating is my stripped-down version of the Carne con Café,” Matt informed me, voice still tight.

  “That’s the recipe you brought back from El Salvador. The one with Mayan roots. What’s in this version?”

  “Chunks of beef, veg, stock, coffee. I prefer this version when I’m in a hurry. What do you think, Quinn?”

  “There’s coffee in this?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Damn right. I use the coffee to tenderize the beef cubes before browning. Whatever the meat doesn’t soak up, I pour into the pot.”

  “Gives the stew a rich, earthy flavor, don’t you think?” I gushed.

  “Works for me,” Quinn said when he came up for air again. “It’s pretty amazing, Allegro. Thanks.”

  “I’ll tell you how you can thank me—both of you. Give up this sleuthing nonsense.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, dipping a torn tortilla into the beautiful beef broth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means Harlan Brewster was a bastard, and I’m glad he’s dead. Whether he died accidentally or someone whacked him, I don’t care. I care about you, Clare. You’re the mother of my daughter and a partner in our business. One I count on. I brought you out here to protect you and help restore your memory. I don’t see how uncovering a dead man’s ugly scandals will help.”

  “That’s because you haven’t heard what we discovered after we left you,” I calmly informed him.

  Matt set down his spoon and leaned toward Quinn. “Are you happy now? Thanks to you, she’s got blocked memories and impaired priorities.”