Murder With A Chaser (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 2) (7 page)

              "Mmm," she said, pulling a Virginia Slims cigarette out of a gold case. "Do you mind?"

              "As a matter of fact, I do," I said.

              "Pity," she said, replacing the cigarette. "Anyway, I'm here on behalf of my husband. My late husband."

              "Ok," I said, not making the connection.

              "I heard you were looking into his murder."

              Now it dawned on me. I was speaking with Ms. Eli Campbell herself. He was married, I knew that. But no one seemed to know much about the woman to whom he was married. The couple had done a spectacular job of shielding her from media attention. Even in the wake – no pun intended – of her husband's death, this woman sitting here before me had managed to evade even the most prying eyes.

              "Forgive me," I said, rising from my desk and moving closer to the couch. "I didn't realize you were, that is, I didn't—"

              She held up her hand as if to hear no more. "It's fine. I keep a low profile."

              "Well, allow me at least to offer my sincere condolences. I'm sorry for your loss. From what I knew of Eli Campbell, he seemed to be—"

              Again she held up her hand. "My dear, you're going to hurt yourself. Don’t bother. I above all people realize what kind of man Eli Campbell was. Believe me, what you knew of him was only the tip of the iceberg, to use that disgusting cliché. But, I loved him. To the point where we could no longer be together in the same room. It happens like that sometimes, you know. Sometimes two people are just too similar to live with each other. Such was the case of Eli and me. Still, I'd like to find out who killed him. And I'd like to make you an offer should you decide to help me."

              "Help you?"

              "Yes," she said. "I am looking for someone other than the police to help me find Eli's killer. You see, Eli had some...shall we say...
indiscretions
in the past. He was quite the naughty boy, if you will."

              "I suppose I've heard some stories."

              "Oh, gossip tabloid tripe. I'm not talking about that. No, my Eli was involved in things of which the tabloids never even got a whiff with their little piggy snouts. And before you ask the necessary if obnoxiously simple question of why I'm not going to the police, let me just say that I have good reason to keep Eli's indiscretions a secret. You see, should the police dig in far enough to find out who killed my husband, they'll uncover things."

              "And those things could lead to you."

              Her eyes widened even more. "Clever little thing, aren’t you? Yes, indeed. We were partners in crime, if I may."

              "So, let me ask—"

              "Why am I telling you this when your boyfriend is a cop?"

              "That was going to be my question, yes. What's to stop me from going there right now?"

              "Two reasons. First, I am going to pay you enough money so that you can buy that fancy shmancy little cottage that you and your cousin are renting. Second, I happen to know you and that boyfriend cop have had a bit of a tiff."

              "You've been following me," I said, not uneasily. I had a queasy feeling in my gut that was getting hotter, and twisting my innards like pipe cleaners.

              "Following? No. Investigating? Maybe. I vetted you. Understand, dear, I never invest without first doing a bit of research into what I am investing in."

              "What if I said I have to think about it?"

              "Think about it, then. But if you're anything like me, you may prefer a constant reminder of what it is that is at stake. So here."

              At this, she rose and walked past me, over to my desk, all while digging into her bag. When she reached my desk, she placed a wad of bills on the desktop. From where I stood, I could see the stack was about an inch tall, and that the top bill was a hundred.

              "Help me find the killer and there will be another payment just like this. I trust your ties to the police force through your, ahem,
ex
-boyfriend will be sufficient to run this case through and see it to its preferred end?"

              And with that, Zelda Calverton closed her bag and left my office without saying anything else.

              And I stared at the wad on my desk, unable to move for quite some time.

#

              "What are you going to do?" said Tanya.

              The stack of cash lay between us on our kitchen table.

              I'd counted it. We'd both counted it.

              There was twenty-five grand of tax-free cash in my house.

              "What can I do?"

              "The way I see it, you're now in business as a private investigator, and she's a paying client. You can declare yourself as such, pay taxes on this, and that's that. Welcome to your new practice. Goodbye, beer. Hello, private dick. Or is it private jane?"

              "I don’t know."

              "Well, the other thing to do is to keep it a secret. Make this a one-time thing, and let's buy this house. Then of course we run the risk of getting caught."

              "You're acting as if I hadn’t thought of that."

              Tanya ignored me. "And of course, there's a third option."

              I looked up at her. It was the first time I'd taken my eyes off the money.

              "Turn it in to the cops," she said. "This sounds like some pretty shady stuff."

              Tanya always had the ability to echo my thoughts. It was shady stuff. But there was one part of that thought she had not picked up on: Yes, it was shady, but I liked it.

              I wanted the money, yes. But there was something about this case that dragged me in and kept me there. I wanted resolution. And then there was the plain fact that something about all this mystery and intrigue ignited a fire in me.

              "I guess," I said, rising from the table, "that from now on, I'm a private eye. I'm basically doing what I've been doing all this time. Only now," I picked up a handful of cash and let the bills flurry from my hands back onto the table, "I'm getting paid for it."

              Tanya smiled at me. That was the answer she was hoping for.

#

              The first thought that occurred to me the next morning was that this was the strangest freelancer-client relationship in history. I was going to be doing work for a person with whom I had no means of making contact. I didn’t even know what kind of "indiscretions," to use her word, she and her late husband had been up to. My only guess as to what I should do next was to start somewhere on the outside and work my way inward.

              I'd already had a few interviews under my belt. So it was now time to start collating.

              The Rev was just too weird. But that alone made him a suspect.

              Then there was Pamela Tweed. Insult has a history of motivating folks to act harshly. Pamela Tweed would be no different.

              Then there was Maisie Ward. Too quiet. Too placid. Then again, there wasn't much there anyway, save for a messed up family situation and a dead father.

              Then we had Shawn Ward, speaking enigmatically of family and looking out for one another. And with a dead brother to boot.

              Then we had Joe Badger and his avoidance of the spotlight when it came to Eli Campbell's actual murder scene.

              I tried to think if I was missing anyone. And it was right around this time that my phone rang. It was Gerry.

              "You coming in any time today?"

              "Yeah," I said, "I have to make an appearance."

              "Well, just so you know, the ship is running smoothly. The new batches are underway. Should be ready in a couple of weeks."

              "That's good to know," I said. "Anything else?"

              "Yeah," he said with a chuckle. "The strangest thing, actually. The reason I'm calling you in the first place was because a guy just came in and gave me fifty bucks to call you and tell you something."

              "What?"

              "Yeah, this guy comes in and asks for me personally. So they get me and I'm all smelling of spent grains and yeast. And there's this dude dressed in a three-piece suit, and he's wearing aviator sunglasses. He looks like he's dressed for a part in a political thriller. He says, 'are you Gerry Darby?' I say, 'Yes.' He says, 'Here,' and he hands me a fifty. At first I don’t take it. Then he says, 'Go ahead, take it.' I take it, thinking there's some sort of trick, or maybe I'm being punk’d. Then he says, 'That's payment for a task you're going to perform. You're going to call your cousin Madison right now and tell her the following message.' So, are you ready? Here it is:
Zelda says, 'look at the gas tank'
."

              I was dumbfounded to say the least.

              "Hello?" he said. "You still there?"             

              "So," I started to say, "yeah. So, ok. Thanks, Gerry."

              "You know what that means?"

              "Um, not sure. Maybe."

              "So you know this guy or what?"

              "Not really, no."

              "Ok," he said skeptically.

              "Listen, Gerry, you didn’t happen to get the guy's name, by any chance?"

              "Nah, I was too busy trying to figure out whether or not he was on the level, and then trying to remember that message."

              "And that was the only message?"

              "Yep."

              "And that was word for word?"

              "Vibrato."

              "The word is
verbatim
."

              "Yeah, well, whatever. I have to get back to the batch. I'll see you around."

              "Yeah, ok. Bye, Gerry."

              He'd already hung up by the time I said bye to him.

             
Look in the gas tank
,

              So I guess this was going to be the way my client communicated with me? Through suited goons with their pockets full of fifties?

              I couldn’t believe it as I sat there in my living room with a yellow legal pad and the names of my suspects written down on it, and the puzzling phrase written in the upper right hand corner, and
key in the carp
written in the upper left.

              I circled this new phrase. Gas tank? Maybe Lester Moore was right. Maybe there was something about a key in the car. Key – car – gas tank. It fit thematically.

              I looked down my list. There were two names here related to cars. One directly, one indirectly.

              Shawn and Maisie Ward.

              I needed to revisit one or both of these people. Judging on my previous visit to their household, I wasn't too keen on going back. It struck me then that I never even checked up on Maisie Ward after the death of her father. I felt awful. Perhaps a one on one visit with her was first on the agenda.

#

              She baked us cookies from the frozen log. They were as good as I remembered them being from when I was a kid. We drank coffee with them. Good coffee, freshly ground, freshly brewed.

              "I don’t really bake, as you can see," said Maisie. "But I do love my coffee."

              "I'm glad to hear that," I said, making a mental note to throw a cup into Joe Badger's face next time I saw him.

              The most interesting thing about this visit, however, was that here before me was a different Maisie than the shy, squirmy, embarrassed girl I'd seen on my previous visit. Without her overbearing uncle nearby, she was effervescent and talkative. And she moved quickly and spoke just as fast.

              The first thing out of my mouth when I saw her was an apology. I told her I was immensely sorry for her loss. That I too had lost my father recently and I felt like a lizard for not expressing my condolences sooner.

              And how did she respond to this?

              "Good riddance," she said. "The world's a better place without him."

              I have to say I was taken aback quite a bit by this. How does one respond to such a thing?

              I responded not how Madison Darby, CEO, would respond. Rather, I responded the way Madison Darby, Private Eye, would respond.

              "Now why would you say something like that?"

              "Let's have some cookies and coffee and I'll tell you."

              So there we sat with cookies and coffee, making small talk before she would reveal the dynamic of her and her father's relationship.

              "Madison," she said, "you're a lucky girl. You had a father that you could mourn when he died. Me? I never really had a father to begin with. I didn’t know him. He was a scoundrel and cheated on my mother. He was always on the road and had to be cajoled into seeing me whenever he came home, if he came home. So again, I say good riddance. Who needs him?"

              There was quite a bit of awkward silence after that. We munched our cookies for a moment or two.

              "Where's your mom?"

              "Working. She'll be home in a little while. You'll meet her."

              "And how does
she
feel about your father passing away?"

              "First of all, he's not passed away. He's dead. You can say dead. I won't be angry. Second of all, she feels pretty much the same way I do. The only things she'll miss are the alimony checks. But even
that
situation is improved as she'll be getting regular payments plus arrears from his estate."

              "You're a coffee fan," I said, changing tactics. "You're also a beer fan. You find they're similar in one's appreciation of them?"

              "Oh, absolutely. I find you do similar things to brew both. Both begin with the right ingredients, using the right ratios, using good water, and care."

              "Care is important."

              "Absolutely."

              "You are a fantastic brewer. Your beer was amazing."

              "Coming from you, that is a compliment," she said with a huge smile.

              "You obviously have channeled a great deal of your emotion and passion into the craft."

              "Yeah, I feel like it."

              "You know, my whole family was in on the brewing thing. Consequently, I never felt a need to engage in it whole heartedly."

              "You don’t say," she said, reaching for another chocolate chip cookie.

              "Yeah, I felt like there were enough people putting the proper amount of care into the product, and into their homebrews, that they didn’t need me. I came from a loving family. They were all crazy, but they were loving. Well, I don’t know why I'm telling you this."

              "Because you want to," she said around a mouthful of cookie.

              "I guess so," I said. "I think of you, homebrewing by yourself. I can’t imagine. I don’t know what that's like. Just like people with siblings don’t know what it's like to be an only child."

              "I'm an only child," she said, "and I have no idea what it must be like to have siblings."

              "That's what I mean. You did it all by yourself. The homebrewing, I mean. It takes years to perfect the craft. You no doubt worked at it."

              "I had no help," she said, looking at the plate, unsmiling.

              "Right, you had no help whatsoever."

              She stared for a while at the plate of cookies, doing nothing. The steam from her coffee cup had long since died away completely before she spoke again.

              "You know," she said softly, "one time, my father came home, and it was obviously after he'd done something terrible enough for my mom to kick him out. I don’t know what. But I can tell you that she'd put him out on several occasions. He'd come home after long stretches and she'd grill him on where he'd been and who he'd been with. And he'd ye'll about how she didn’t trust him and so forth. And invariably she'd wind up kicking him out because it would be revealed at some point that he was drunk and maybe there was a smell of perfume on him. Whatever, I don’t really remember too much. But I do remember the time she put him out for good, when she just couldn’t take it anymore. He came back. I was really little. And he came into my room, he was so quiet, and he woke me up. I was so happy to see him. He hugged me and said he was back. And then my mother came in. He'd snuck in, you see. Boy was she mad at him. She threw him out. I was so angry at her for doing that."

              Her face had changed to a mask of sadness and memory. The whole time she spoke, I hadn’t touched my coffee or the half-eaten cookie I held between my fingers. She was awfully sullen now, and stared at the plate, re-rolling the film of her past.

              "You grow up that way, all alone. And pretty soon you learn you don’t need anyone. And pretty soon you realize how much better off you are without certain peopl—"

              She looked up at me, suddenly aware of her surroundings.

              "I'm sorry," she said. And she took another cookie off the plate and ate it without any further words.

              "Maisie," I started to say.

              "Forget it," she said, her mouth full, her voice returning to its original strength. "We have better things to talk about."

              I looked around the room, trying to find some inspiration for conversation after that bit of awkwardness. I got up and went over to the entertainment center. The bottom cabinet had glass doors and held a fairly impressive collection of classic movies on DVD.

              "You don’t see much of these anymore," I said, bending down slightly to view them at eye level. "DVDs, I mean. What with all the streaming services."

              "You need something for when the Wi-Fi goes down."

              "You're a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock I see," I said, and looked back at her.

              She smiled. "Yeah, that's one thing I got from my father that I can’t seem to get rid of. I love all those old movies, but Hitchcock's are my favorite. Dad and I used to watch them together when I was a kid. Those are his movies, actually. He collected them and when he started touring with the pit crew he gave them to me. Call it an indefinite loan."

              I nodded. "Very nice. I'm a fan myself," I said. I wasn't lying. "I would love to re-watch some of th—"

              I stopped, because as my eyes panned across the titles, something clicked in my head.

              Have you ever been taken with a peculiar bit of insight? Then you know the look I had on my face: A cross between wide-eyed inventor and drooling idiot.

             
Dial M for Murder
.

              A film I hadn’t seen in a while, but remembered keenly. One plot point in particular.

              My head began to scramble data, and for a moment everything was blank.

              "Are you ok?" Maisie said, rising from the couch.

              I looked around and saw what it was that I wanted to see: a staircase leading up, each step covered by a neat swatch of carpet, the edge of which could be seen from the side.

              "I'm...a little dizzy," I said. "Probably too much coffee. Would you mind getting me a glass of water?"

              "Sure," she said, and left the room, going past the stairs and through a hallway that led to the kitchen.

              I padded over to the stairs.

              Perhaps I should explain for those of you who aren’t movie buffs. There's a point in Dial M For Murder, a plot point – and I won’t give anything away because I really think you ought to see it, it's a wonderful movie – but see the original with Ray Milland and Grace Kelly, and trust no others.

              Where was I?

              Ah yes, there's a plot point in the film that revolves around the placement of a house key underneath the carpet on the stairs.

              Daniel Ward never finished his sentence. The key is in the carpet. Not carp.

              Ignorant, fish-centric fool I was!

              Facing the stairs, I closed my eyes and pictured the scene in the film. If I wasn't mistaken, the key in question would be hidden underneath the fifth step. A Hitchcock fan like Daniel Ward would do nothing else.

              My fingers jittering like crazy, I lifted the edge of the carpet. A silver key caught the light and gleamed.

              I pulled it out carefully. It had a number engraved on the head: 568.

              I knew exactly what it was. A safe deposit box.

              I slipped the key back underneath the carpet and padded back toward the DVDs. I'm making this sound like it took forever, but in actuality, it took no less time than it would take to fetch a glass of water from two rooms away.

              My head spinning, I sipped.

              Maisie Ward looked at me with what I thought was a suspicious eye. Sudden secret knowledge tends to give the holder of such knowledge a guilty conscience. I had no choice but to excuse myself then. I needed some fresh air, I said. I think she bought it.

#

             
Ok
, I thought in the comfort of my own little house with a little cup of tea on the little comfy chair that was all mine and no one else's. I had one little mystery solved. A clue. But to what? Why would Daniel Ward want me to know about a safe deposit box?

              There was only one way to find out, and it wasn't going to be easy.

              Safe deposit boxes are some of the most secure devices around for storing valuable items. Banks require a signature, and that signature better belong to the one whose name is on the account. If not, that signature better belong to a signatory designated by the account holder. And that signatory would have to have shown up in person to put her name on the account.

              In other words, I didn’t look like Daniel Ward and couldn’t forge his signature, so I was up the old creek, as they say. You know which one I'm talking about.

              My only hope was the possibility that there was another signatory on the account who could open that box in the event of Daniel Ward's death, which, unfortunately, was precisely the circumstance we found ourselves in at this very moment.

              Typically, it's the spouse. I'd not met Maisie Ward's mother. This was going to get a whole lot more awkward for everyone.

              Now or never, I thought, and I reached for my cell phone.

#

              I made every excuse in the book not to have Sheila McMann, the ex-Mrs. Daniel Ward, come to my office for our little chat. The thought of this woman sitting a few feet away from where her ex-husband had died gave me a cold feeling. An ex is an ex, it's true, but something in me said no to this.