A Deadly Draught (9 page)

“Oh, no,” we said in chorus.

I looked at the hill to the south of us. “Look at that.” The swirling black clouds rolled overhead, but beyond the tree line, I could see sunshine and blue sky.

“I think we’re lucky. This is a short one,” Ned said.

Lucky for our tasting, but not good fortune for the area. We had endured a long, cold winter with little snow. Spring passed with no significant rainfall, and folks were talking drought. I felt blessed because my well was one of the deepest around, over two hundred feet, so the water for my brews was cold, clear, and plentiful. The other breweries’ wells ran only one hundred feet deep. Ramford’s dried up in a drought several years ago, but then, he had the money to buy water from the Indian Springs Company in the next river valley.

Five minutes later, after the storm passed, the three of us were picking up the cloths and containers on the ground, and tucking fragrant basil, tarragon, and cilantro back into their pots as Sally drove up in her beat-up truck.

“I had to pull off the road at the top of the hill and detour over the lumber trail.”

“Can cars get through now, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I know there are limbs down. Listen to those sirens.”

“We were so busy picking up we didn’t notice. I guess you were fortunate to make it here,” I said.

The four of us looked at one another.

“Well, we’re all here. All we can do is wait and see what happens this afternoon. There’s still time. Maybe the roads will be open by then,” said Sally.

So we waited. On five or six separate occasions storm clouds rushed into the valley, dumped five minutes of rain, and dashed out again. Between the passing storms, we moved all the products into the gift shop. In the later afternoon, four German tourists straggled in, took the tour, and bought a liter of Knightsbridge Ginseng Rush and a loaf of Sally’s artisan bread, but they kept their eyes glued to the sky for another storm. The older man in the group confessed he was looking for the Belgian brewery but found the road closed to Rafe’s place because of some downed trees.

“The road crews hit the county roads first for clean-up. Since my place is on one of the main roads, and Rafe’s is not, I get cleaned up early,” I said. “Maybe his road is passable now.”

The German looked at his watch and shook his head. “Too late now. We have to get back to our motel and get ready for this evening. We’re going to have dinner and then drive over to Cooperstown to the opera. But we’ll enjoy your summer lager,” he added. “It’s just not the Belgian ale I set my taste buds on. I prefer ales.”

Indeed. I’d heard the comment before, especially from German and English tourists. The English seemed to favor ales. Since the area was attracting more travelers from other countries, I knew my new ale would be a hit.

After our German visitors left, we decided to call it quits.

“I nearly gave away more brew in the tasting room than the liter I sold,” I said. I knew the day was a bust for the other three also. I promised Marni I would finish the shed for her by next Saturday, but I could tell her spirits were low after today’s poor showing. She and Ned were new to the Saturday tastings and looking for additional funds. If Ramford or one of the others could convince them to leave me, especially if I had no way to bottle more product and therefore little to sell, they had every right to look elsewhere. Sally, on the other hand, would hang stubborn. I knew that.

Once Ned and Marni headed down the road, Sally and I sat on the back steps bemoaning the washout of our day but feeling guilty that we couldn’t be more sympathetic to the area’s need for rain.

“That wasn’t enough today to end a possible drought. Just our luck it rains only on Saturdays, though,” I said. I took a sip of my tea and chewed on some of her bread.

“We might as well eat this. I can’t put it in the day-old bin tomorrow, because I’m not open on Sundays. I guess I could run it over to St. Joseph’s soup kitchen for their Sunday lunch.”

“That’s a long haul. Can your truck make it without its new transmission? Why don’t I drive you there? We could stop at the burger joint, grab a sandwich, and then see what’s on at the movies.”

“Well, it’s not dinner and the opera, but it’ll do.”

As we were gathering up our tea things, I spied Jeremiah on his bicycle pedaling up my lane.

“What’re you doing out here today?” I asked. “It’s your day off.”

“I’ve got news to deliver and work to do,” he said.

“Why didn’t you just call? And what work?” I asked. I was puzzled. We weren’t bottling today, and I had taken care of the other chores including transferring the wort into the fermentation kettles yesterday. He knew that, so what was up?

“Got to see if I can coax another run out of the bottler, ‘cause it looks like we’re not getting another one.”

Eight

Sally and I followed Jeremiah into the barn. “They wouldn’t sell?” I asked.

“Oh, Stanley and Michael sold their old assembly, all right. To Francine.” Jeremiah stood in the doorway to the bottling room and shook his head at the old assembly line, uttering oaths of disgust under his breath. I couldn’t tell whether his words were aimed at the ancient machinery or Michael and Stanley.

“Francine? She has enough money to buy new, and I thought she was planning a brewpub where she would sell only on premises, not bottle at all.” When I took a breath, Jeremiah held up his hand like a school crossing guard, signaling me to stop.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t know about any of this, just what I was told. No bottler for you.”

“What does she need a bottling assembly for? I don’t understand. I’d better go talk to her.”

“I already tried that. You’ll have to give her a call if you want to get to her today. Her road’s blocked with an old oak the road crews are having trouble getting out of the way.”

“No. I want to talk with her in person. I’ll take the path through the woods and down across Teddy’s pasture. He won’t mind my trespassing on his property.” I gave Sally a wave goodbye and told her I’d see her tonight.

*

I was wrong.
Why am I always off base when it concerns Jake?
I wondered.
Just as I was emerging from the trees bordering Teddy’s property, Jake stepped out from behind some bushes and blocked my path. “You? Teddy told me someone was up here, but I never thought you’d be the one.”

I put my hands on my hips and planted my feet. “Teddy doesn’t care if I use his property as a short cut. We all do this, have done for years. What’s the problem now?”

“Teddy claims he’s had visitors snooping around his property for the last several nights. I was taking a look at how a person might manage to get to his brew house without being spotted. Coming through the woods and across this pasture works.”

“Well, it wasn’t me until just now. Has Teddy had some kind of trouble?”

“No, but he’s feeling spooked with everything going on here.”

I nodded and scuffed my foot in the dirt. Jake dropped his eyes and toed the grass also. It appeared we had nothing more to say to each other.

After a few moments, he cleared his throat and said “So where are you going?”

“Francine’s.”

Silence again.

“Uh, found out anything about the yeast yet?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

More toe scuffing. No eye contact.

“Hera?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got to go. Got work to do. You’d better let Teddy know when you use his property for a short cut from now on. You don’t want someone taking a shot at you.”

“Teddy wouldn’t shoot me.”

“No, but if he didn’t know it was you, he might. Like I said, he’s on edge with everything that’s been happening, and now with trespassers.”

I nodded goodbye and walked on. When I looked back, Jake stood in profile to me, staring off across the pasture toward the ridgeline beyond the trees. This couldn’t be easy for him, a murder, theft, attempted murder, questions about my father’s death. A tangled mess of events and clues, and Jake just recently hired into the position. I felt a little bit sorry for him, not that I’d ever let him know that.

I thought about the case as I hurried across the pasture, topped the next hill, and headed down the well-worn trail into Francine’s place. The storms had passed, leaving fallen trees, downed limbs, and debris in their wake, but the air felt fresh as if all the wind, rain, and fury had been a big washing machine cleansing the earth and now hanging it out to dry. I wished the recent events would sort themselves out as cleanly.

I could make no sense out of the yeast theft and Henry’s being locked in the fermentation room. They seemed unrelated to the murder. Perhaps they were, or perhaps the murderer had another motive in mind—keeping us all distracted and on edge so no one could think clearly about the case, not even Jake, who was running his tail off checking on trespassers and yeast thieves. All the brewers were becoming suspicious of one another, perhaps another goal of our murderer.

“Who’s there?” A figure stepped out from behind the barn as I hiked into Francine’s yard, my presence shadowed by the towering oaks surrounding the brewery buildings.

“Marsh? It’s me, Hera Knightsbridge. Is Ms. Ortega around?”

A rifle lay in the crook of Marsh Wilson’s arm.

“Hera. Francine, come on out here. It’s okay.”

The short, auburn-haired woman I’d seen standing beside Marsh at the funeral poked her head around the barn door. I held out my hand. “We’ve never been introduced, but I’m Hera Knightsbridge.”

She took my hand and gave it a firm shake, but her mind appeared to be elsewhere. “Oh, yes. I know the name. Francine Ortega. I wish we could have met another time. Right now, we’ve got a problem here. Our phones are down, and my cell is giving me lousy reception. I tried to call the county sheriff’s department, but the dispatcher said Deputy Jake was tied up at Teddy’s, and the other officers were out in the county because of storm calls.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Come in the barn, and look for yourself.”

As we entered, I could see sacks of grain, many open and strewn about the barn floor. Francine had stockpiled a lot of malt.

“Thank goodness it’s just the storage barn and not the big barn where we’re setting up our brewing equipment. Who knows what damage she could have done there,” said Marsh.

“She?” I heard a low moan from the far side of the room. A black and white Holstein cow poked her head around a pile of grain sacks in the far corner. She looked at the three of us with anxiety in her huge black eyes, but spotting no danger, she returned to munching the grain spilling out of the bags.

“How did she get in here?” I asked.

“We don’t know. She probably ran in when she heard the storm coming. It’s nice and dry, and the grain was just an added bonus, I guess,” Francine said.

“You lost some of your malt, but it’s kind of funny, you know.”

“Oh, the cow’s funny. What’s not is the malt. Take a look at those bags,” Marsh said.

I walked over to one for a closer inspection. Someone had applied a sharp instrument to it, and the sack spilled its contents onto the floor.

“They’ve been cut open.”

“Yep, intentional vandalism,” he said.

“No wonder you’re so upset.” I nodded toward the rifle.

The three of us watched the cow’s full, soft lips snuffle the grain out of an open bag. She must have been in the barn from early morning, given the number of cow pies she had left around the cement floor.

“When was the last time you were in here before you discovered your bovine visitor?”

“I checked it last night around ten. We were getting ready for a wine tour today, so I was busy with the gift shop, tasting room, and the winery. We don’t take the folks through this storage area,” Marsh said.

“Well, she’s somebody’s cow. I’ll call around and see what I can find out. Meantime, let’s get her out of here before she overdoses on that stuff or leaves you some more gifts. It can’t be good for a cow to eat so much grain at one time. If she drank any water, she’d probably sprout it out her mouth and rear end,” I said. Francine let forth a short “Ha,” and Marsh a “humph.” I gave them a half-smile. The thought of who came into the barn and cut open the sacks overwhelmed any mirth associated with Bossy’s meal at Francine’s expense.

It took us the best part of an hour to get her out into the yard, where she began to chew her cud and cast loving glances back at the barn. Several phone calls on my cell to neighboring farmers led to the cow’s owner, who sent his son right over to pick up their prize milk-producing Sarah Jean. It turned out that Sarah Jean was terrified of thunder storms and ran off when she sensed one approaching.

“Keep your barn doors closed, or she’ll be back,” recommended the son after loading her into the cattle trailer.

After Sarah Jean’s departure, Marsh, Francine and I sat at the kitchen table, sipping one of Francine’s fine Rieslings.

“I hope she doesn’t tell the rest of the herd about her find, or they’ll break down the barn doors,” I said.

“You didn’t just wander over here to help us out with the cow,” said Francine. “What’s up?”

“Maybe there’s a better time to do business than while waiting for the authorities to show up and examine those slit-open sacks.”

“No, no. I’m fine. I’m sure it’s just a prank played by some teenagers around here. Maybe they even led the cow into the barn.”

I thought Francine was being naïve, and from the look of doubt on Marsh’s face, I knew he agreed with me.

“Go ahead. Tell me what’s on your mind,” she said.

“That bottling assembly you bought from Stanley and Michael? I sure would like to buy it from you. I don’t have the money for a new one, so I thought maybe, since, uh, you’re in a better cash flow situation, you might sell it to me.”

“Bottling assembly? From Ramford’s? I didn’t buy a bottling assembly from them.”

*

I was hot, so hot … furious with Michael for jerking me around and lying to Jeremiah.
I ran back the way I came, detouring before I entered the woods and almost stumbling down the hill behind Michael’s brewery.