A Deadly Draught (7 page)

Six

Damn!
I had so smugly asked Jake to lock up when we both took off for Rafe’s place. Now I’d have to pay for that moment of arrogance. I forgot my house keys. No matter. I hid another key in the brew barn on the door sill leading into the bottling and storage area.

As I entered the barn, I heard the conveyer line start up, the bottles clacking against the metal sides guiding them down the belt and toward the hopper dispensing the brew. My employee, Jeremiah Standish, stuck his head out of the bottling area as I approached. When we were in grade school, the other kids gave him a hard time about his looks, calling him lab rat and giving him the nickname of “Whitey.” Jeremiah accepted all of this with his usual calm, even embracing the nickname and often introducing himself by using it.

“Might as well,” he once said to me. “It ain’t gonna go away.” I thought him very clever to confiscate the ammunition others would use and turn it to his advantage, and it worked. There was almost no one who didn’t like Jeremiah with his easy-going nature.

What a worker he was. In the five years he had been with me, he never was late one minute, never took sick leave, and had some kind of mystical relationship with my aging machinery. Whatever demands I put on the kettles and hoses, burners and bottler, Jeremiah could meet them. Where someone else would have turned his back on the ancient equipment, Jeremiah made it perform to perfection. But there was a limit, he reminded me, and I knew the old bottling line, purchased second-hand from the Ramford Brewery, would deliver a last gasp soon. I had Jeremiah’s word on that.

“Didn’t expect to see you here today. I thought you were going into town to meet with the bankers. Sure would be nice to get some new bottling equipment in here. This line is slow today, and it’s under-filling bottles.”

“Soon, soon,” I said. I reached above my head, my hand searching for the spare key I placed on the door sill.

“Here. Let me get that for you,” Jeremiah said. “Hey, it’s gone.”

“Looking for something?” I hadn’t heard Jake’s approach because of the noise. How many times had this guy sneaked up on me and heard something I preferred he not? Jeremiah seemed as surprised by his presence as I. The two men nodded hello to one another. Before I could say anything to Jake, the racket from the machine stopped.

“Line’s jammed,” said Jeremiah. He ran into the bottling room, leaving Jake and me to confront each other.

“You have a nasty habit of sneaking up on people, you know. That’s very unpleasant, especially on private property and during personal conversations.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been working on that. You hear interesting things when no one knows you’re around. By the way, that’s a dumb place to keep a key. How many people know it’s there?”

“No one, just me,” I said, but that wasn’t true, and Jake had just seen why not. “Okay. So Jeremiah knows.” There were others. Michael, Sally, others. “Nice of you to lock up as I asked you to, but I left my house key on the kitchen table.”

“I know,” he said. He was dangling the key by its chain between his fingers. “I picked this up on my way out of the house and thought you might need it.”

“Anything else?” I heard the line start up again, then as quickly shudder to a stop.

Jeremiah called through the door, “Well, she’s done for. I hope you were successful talking the bank into giving you a loan.”

“Can’t you persuade it to finish this batch?” I asked. Jake and I stepped through the door and surveyed the now silent machinery.

Jeremiah shook his head. “Maybe. This equipment was trash when Ramford palmed it off on you. The old man never kept his machinery in good repair. Lucky he found a customer in you and you found me.” Odd. There was a note of bitterness in his voice, something I’d never heard from Jeremiah before. Jake was quick to pick up on his tone.

“Sounds like you didn’t much like Ramford Senior,” said Jake.

“Wasn’t I didn’t like him. Wasn’t much to like. I just didn’t respect the man. Didn’t treat his family any better than he treated his machinery. Probably less well.”

“Jake,” I said, “just back off a little.”

“Never mind. I know what he’s doing. He’s sniffing around, trying to find out who might have had a reason to do in the old man. You might as well count me in as a suspect. I went to him for a job before Ms. Knightsbridge hired me. Ramford said no way was he going to hire a freak.”

“So you didn’t like him,” Jake said.

“He lied to me. It wasn’t because I was a freak he wouldn’t hire me. It was because of my sister. I knew about the two of them, and he didn’t want me around, afraid I’d open my mouth to the wrong people.”

“I didn’t know Mr. Ramford and your sister were, uh, seeing one another,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a look on Jake’s face saying he already knew the story Jeremiah was telling.
Returning my keys. Ha! Just more interrogation.

“They weren’t. She was sixteen at the time. She thought he was going to get a divorce and marry her. I took her into the clinic when she got the abortion. He was nowhere around. Sent her some money.” Jeremiah paused and looked Jake in the eye with a gaze daring him to comment. “I gotta get back to this machinery.” He approached the line and resumed his work.

Jake used my key to let me into the house.

“You locked up, but you didn’t close the window. Now look at the mess,” I said. The letters and other papers which had been on the table were blown around the room. We gathered them up, bumping heads once in the process and colliding with one another several other times. Each time we touched, the physical contact sent tingly waves through my chest, and I found it difficult to catch my breath. I was crawling under the table to retrieve the final envelope and happened to look around and up. Jake was standing behind me with his hands on his hips, staring at my rear.

“You wanted to say something?”

“Yep. Nice hardwood floors, and …”

“And?”

“And the window was closed when I left. Take a close look at those papers. Anything missing?”

“How would I know? I haven’t had a chance to read through them yet. First, the problem at Rafe’s and now the lack of privacy. You had more opportunity to give them a glance than I did.”

“I didn’t see much when I did. You ran me off, remember? Accused me of snooping. I was…“

“Being damned aggravating, a habit you had in law school, and I see you haven’t changed much.”

“Someone probably lifted the key from the barn, used it to get in here, then climbed back out by opening the window. Whoever it was wanted to shove the trespass in your face by making it obvious.”

He turned and walked out the door. I could see his head through the open window.

“Some broken limbs on this bush,” he said. “Ground’s too hard for any footprints. We could probably get some fingerprints off the sill.”

“Great,” I said when he re-entered the room. “Someone broke in here using my key, or someone else stole my key. Regardless, it’s gone, and whoever came in had sufficient time to go through my letters and take any that were interesting. What’s going on here?”

Jake removed his hat and swept it against his thigh in a gesture of frustration. “I don’t understand you. You almost finished your law degree. You were going to sit for the bar in six months. Why come back here and settle for operating this rundown brewery? Why the booze business at all?”

“That’s not what I asked.” I tossed the letters on the table and sat. Maybe it was time for a showdown between the two of us. “I guess you never knew me very well, or you wouldn’t ask why I’m in the beer business.”

“Guilt? Was it guilt making you take over after your father’s death?” He was getting too close to what I had struggled with all these years. He sat down at the table, reached across it and enclosed my hands in his. “I need to know. We once loved each other. At least, I loved you. I still care for you.”

I pulled my hands out of his grasp and placed them under the table. His physical touch still sent a shot of desire through me, even after all these years.

“The problem is, we’re failures in each other’s eyes. You can’t imagine why I’m into making brewskis, and I can’t see you as a cop. We were both on the fast track at one time. Didn’t you tell me you wanted to do patent law? And here you are, handcuffs hanging off your belt, one hand on your gun, the other reaching out to grab me and arrest me just for being part of the brewing world. What have you got against beer?”

“Okay, okay. Here goes. I guess you deserve an explanation, but then it’s your turn.” He folded his hands on the table and focused on them.

“My family had a problem with booze. Both my parents drank a lot. I was always able to control my drinking until you left me in law school. Then I really hit the bottle. I let my grades go to hell, and I dropped out. I took some jobs working in the lumber industry up north for a while, then drifted back down this way and started working with juvenile offenders. Went back to school for the criminal justice program. And here I am.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. Jake kept his eyes on the table top, then raised them to mine. “So what do you think?”

I let out a long sigh. “I think you’re a big baby. It sounds like you are blaming me for your problems. You could do with some AA meetings to get your head on straight. As for your hatred of my career as a brewer, you’re off on that one, too. I make the beers. I don’t make people drink them.”

I held out my hand. “Keys, please.”

I watched something happen to his eyes, something I knew I was responsible for. First, they took on a look of astonishment, then hurt, and finally, a wall came up, one I knew only I could tear down. I intended to leave that wall in place. It protected me as well as him. I took my keys, turned on my heel, and left the kitchen. I heard the door close and his car start up. Whatever we had in the past was a memory. Now we were just cop and suspect.

*

I watched the sun settle on the valley meadow signaling late afternoon. I’d been pacing the kitchen floor since Jake left and thinking too much, reliving my stern speech to him earlier and knowing what I said was true but also cruel.

I thought of reading Dad’s letters but vetoed that in favor of going to the hospital to see how Henry was doing. I called first and got one of my friends, Tom Cavanaugh, the head nurse on the floor to which Henry was assigned. Tom assured me there were no police around.

Rafe was in the room when I arrived.

Henry looked pale, and his breathing sounded thin, although tubes to his nose delivered oxygen. He wasn’t up to answering questions, and I wasn’t there to make him feel any worse than he already did. I expect he had had enough of interrogation earlier by the police.

“Rafe will tell you whole story,” Henry managed to whisper.

“Do you know who locked you in and how long you were there?” I turned to Rafe for an answer.

“I found him around eleven, the time I usually make the rounds of the operations. He told me he heard something or someone in the fermentation room, and when he checked, he was pushed from behind. He struggled to his feet, saw the door close, and heard someone wedge something under the outside handle. As near as we can figure, that had to be around ten or so, right?” Henry nodded in agreement.

“If it was someone who knew your schedule, then the person was trying to get away, not kill anyone,” I said.

Henry and Rafe nodded in agreement.

“That’s what Jake figured, but it’s little comfort to poor Henry here. He thought he was going to die from carbon dioxide before anyone got him out of there. I think Jake’s right on the money. Someone from among us is trying to make trouble, but I can’t figure out why.”

“Someone broke into my house while I was at your place this morning,” I said.

“Did they get anything?”

I thought about the letters. “No, not that I can see. It just unnerves me, and the duplicate key to my house is missing.”

“The yeast,” Henry croaked.

“Don’t worry about it, old man,” Rafe said. “I just ordered more before I came here. It should arrive tomorrow, and we’ll be back in business.”

“Does someone intend to use the stolen yeast?” Henry asked. He coughed and sat further up in bed. “Who? The other brewers have their own yeast for ale, unless Hera here is making a new ale by moonlight.”

It was a joke, and we all knew it. Rafe and I laughed, and Henry gave forth a kind of snort, dislodged his tubes, and had to replace them. Still, I worried about the remark. With the break-in and my key gone, I wondered what other trouble was afoot. Jake’s words returned to me. I was certain he would find the yeast. I just wasn’t certain where, and I hoped it wouldn’t be in my brew barn, planted there to make me look guilty.

Tom stuck his head into the room and said, “Visiting time’s over, folks. This man needs his rest.” I patted Henry’s hand and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Rafe and I left.

On the way down in the elevator, Rafe turned to me and asked, “What’s worrying you?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I just think I should change the locks on my house and my barn.”

“Good idea. Got someone to do it for you? I could send over one of my men.”

“Thanks, but I’ll have Jeremiah do it tomorrow.”

“We’re all getting edgy with the murder and now this. Who’s behind this. Any ideas?”

“Why ask me?” I heard the tone in my voice. It was sharp. “Sorry. I am on edge.” I touched Rafe’s arm and gave him an apologetic smile.

“The reason I asked is you’ve been here for years, and you know all the people in this valley. They were your friends and acquaintances even before your dad went into the business.”

True. Everyone was familiar to me with the exception of Francine, whom none of us knew well. “I can’t think who would do all this,” I said.

“Come by for a drink?” Rafe asked.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to run. I need to catch up on some reading.” Past and present had to be linked in some way. Perhaps I might find the connection in my father’s letters. They might help me understand my father better, perhaps lead me to someone who hated him enough to want him dead.