Murder With A Chaser (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 2) Page 5

  However, that changed as soon as I walked outside my building.

  Normally, I would have been pretty tee'd off at my town officials for scheduling emergency roadwork now, just as the place was starting to fill up with potential customers. But this was the answer I needed. Daniel Ward came from the west. And that was the direction in which I now headed, looking around – up, down, and side to side.

  I had no idea what I was looking for.

  But let me tell you, when you live in a place like Carl's Cove, you get to see the town for what it really is. It's hard to describe it. It’s a place that doesn’t really change much, that remains a perfect little slice of heaven wherever you go. Sure, there are deviations from that picture. Here and there a foreign scene or sound. But they usually disappear along with the people that brought them.

  What I noticed now, walking past a boutique that sold designer clothes off the rack that I'd have to commit federal crimes in order to afford, I noticed something that stuck out: It was a mask.

  Not a Halloween mask or anything like that. This was a breathing mask like one you'd wear while painting. My nitrile gloves, despite having drawn an odd look or two from passersby, served me well now as I bent down to pick the thing up. I turned it over in my hand.

  I'm not psychic, but I'd bet anything I had in my pockets then that I was getting some otherworldly signals: Something was telling me not to raise that thing to my nose. So I didn't.

  Instead, I brought it to my friend, Detective Lester Moore, Homicide, on loan from another district.

  This time, I decided to stick around and wait for an answer.

  #

  "These things take time," he said. "You can’t be serious."

  "I'll wait," I said, taking a seat in the office they gave him.

  "Results will come back in a few days. I guess you'll just sleep here in the meantime."

  "A few days?"

  "For a quick answer, yes. For the full report, you’re looking at four weeks."

  A man in a white coat poked his head into the office.

  "Got a minute?" he said to Lester.

  "I'm with Ms. Darby. Can it wait?"

  "This concerns Ms. Darby," he said.

  The detective and I exchanged glances.

  "What is it?"

  "That mask you brought in. There are traces of benzene in it. So thank you for that. And now I'll just leave Detective Moore to thank you."

  The man gave me a wink and then disappeared.

  "That's a fluke," said Lester, rising from his desk.

  He called out to the young lab-coated man.

  "What gives?" I heard him say.

  There was mumbling, followed by mumbling from Lester. I craned my neck to try and make out what they were saying, to no avail.

  He came back in, his face stern. "Lucky break. They were able to match up residue from the mask to residue left over from Campbell's autopsy."

  "Lucky break, you said? You have a funny way of speaking about your work."

  "Lucky for you."

  I was feeling pretty good, in a macabre sort of way.

  "So what now?" I said.

  He looked at me gravely, and then put his head back and ran a hand through his hair. "What now is that we have a possible connection between this murder and the murder of Eli Campbell."

  We were both silent after that. Very silent.

  #

  The key is in the carp.

  This now was what I was saddled with, and it was driving me crazy. I can’t tell you how many Wikipedia entries I pored over on the subject of keys and carp. I now know everything there is to know about both. Did you know a goldfish is a type of carp? I didn’t.

  I even visited the bait and tackle shop that apparently has no specific name other than the words BAIT & TACKLE in big, blue, block letters over the entrance. I spoke to them, hinting around about keys and carps and what could someone mean if they spoke about a key in a carp? Was a key a type of fly for fishing?

  No, they said. No it wasn't.

  So I visited the hardware store, the one that has been in business ever since John Steinbeck himself used to make his summer home here in the early 1940s. Behind the cash register hung a framed picture of the Grapes of Wrath author holding a tack hammer. No, the word carp doesn’t appear anywhere in the entire lock and key lexicon.

  I decided to table this puzzle for now. Perhaps it was a benzene haze of rambling, and incoherent bit of nonsense from a dying man's lips.

  But why me? Why did he come to me when he knew he was dying?

  This much was obvious. Somewhere, either in his home or in Shawn Ward's garage where he worked, he'd donned that poisonous mask. As soon as he realized he was dying, he started on his way to me and got rid of the mask en route.

  So, why me?

  Paperwork was mounting. Gerry was calling me with news of his solution for the ruined batch: He was going to brew up a quick stout. Stouts are dark, roasty beers. Usually, a beer needs to age to achieve its peak flavors, and stouts are no exception. However, you can get away with a relatively unaged stout because of their sharp, roasty, bitter character. The strength of the flavors tends to mask the unaged flavor.

  It was a brilliant idea by my cousin Gerry. It made me feel bad for suspecting him of murder a few months ago.

  Remind me to tell you that one someday, if you haven’t already heard it.

  Anyway, needless to say, there was a lot on my plate. And needless to say, I wasn't in the mood to eat any of it.

  I wanted to keep asking questions. That was the only way I was going to get answers.

  There were other contestants in that homebrew competition. I figured it was about time I paid each of them a visit.

  #

  I pulled up to an ornate Victorian-style cottage, much like the one I shared with my cousin Tanya. Only ours didn’t have a wood-burned sign that read "Brew for Jesus" over the entrance.

  The Reverend Howard Simmons himself answered the door.

  Rev, as he liked to be called, was a very short man with a very large personality. Standing about five-foot-five, he had an expanse of chest ample enough to project his voice throughout an indoor football arena without a mic. His mannerisms were grand. He had a smile that could cure most forms of clinical depression. He called me "child.” And he loved to talk about beer.

  "Child, let me show ya to what my time and devotion have been oh so lovingly dedicated these past five years."

  It was his way of introducing me to his homebrew setup.

  To say I was impressed would be a poor choice of expression. This was a setup that, scale-wise, exceeded the one I now made a living with. For starters, everything was automated. Every square inch of ten-foot by three-foot metal platform – on top of which rested three 15-gallon pots – seemed designed with the express intention of having the brewer do the least amount of work as possible. There were wires leading from the platform to a large contraption that looked like an electronic parking meter off to the side, and this had an array of buttons and flashing lights to keep any tech nerd endlessly happy.

  "I designed it myself, child, based on a holy vision I received one day while taking a bath right here in this very house. I saw an army of angels carrying this platform on their shoulders. They presented it before me and said in voices that resounded through my head like the peal of a thousand trumpets: Thou. Shalt. Build!"

  The first thing I did was to point one toe toward the exit.

  That was a precautionary measure. The Rev's booming voice was enough to straighten your eyelashes. I quickly assessed my ground and got myself on track. I was here for answers.

  But the brewer in me was here for the beer.

  What can I say? I had to ask him for a sample. He received the request as if he'd been waiting for it all his life.

  I recalled his entry to the contest, and I told him so. He seemed genuinely flattered to the point where I thought he might shed a theatrical tear just to drive the point home. Alas, he didn’t, o
pting instead to refill my glass to the top as quickly as I'd relieved it of its uppermost inch.

  "My child," he said, clasping his hands together, "beer is the Lord's answer to a question written on our very souls."

  I wasn't sure what he meant by this, but I agreed with him anyway.

  "At what age did you first start brewing?" I said, raising the glass to my lips for another highly anticipated sip.

  "Hmm," he started to say, then "I would say, yes, three years ago. Yup. That was my first."

  I almost choked. Three years was an awfully short time from novice to homebrew competition finalist. Needless to say, I was duly impressed.

  "Understand, child, I was inspired by the Lord."

  Curiosity finally got the best of me, and I opened my mouth to the question I was dying to ask. "Yes, and by the way, what church is it that you are—"

  He raised his right hand and proclaimed in the voice of a sermon, "The Church of the Holy Yeast!"

  There are times when the human brain needs a moment to prepare before commanding the rest of the body to react appropriately to certain things. So I stared at him blankly for a moment as he stared back, wide-eyed, his hand still raised.

  And I lost it.

  I doubled over laughing.

  I don’t know how long it was – a minute, five minutes – whatever it was, I finally was able to compose myself long enough. "That can’t be a real thing."

  "Oh child, it is! The church is real and I am its Pope."

  "And how big is your congregation," I asked, stifling another fit of hysterics.

  "Twenty-three Followers of the Foam and counting."

  I put my head in my hands. "Reverend, you are a pip. There's no other word for it."

  "Bless you, my child."

  "Now that I have your delicious Holy Brew in my hands, I'd like to turn to more grave matters, if you will."

  "Ah yes, the death of poor Brother Eli."

  "I understand the homebrew competition wasn't your first encounter with him."

  "Hmm," he said, his eyes narrow, "and from what oracle has this revelation come to you, child?"

  "Pamela Tweed. She did a story on the event and its unfortunate climax, and she was able to supply me with a little background information."

  "Ah yes," he said, taking a seat on a silk divan situated next to his homebrew platform. "Well, it's true, child. Brother Eli and I had words before the event even began. He had the nerve to insult my religion. Called it a dog's religion, he did, the scoundrel."

  "Yet you still refer to him as Brother?"

  "We are all Brothers and Sisters of the Foam, child."

  The Rev's made-up religion was starting to give me a headache.

  "So, let me understand," I said, "where did the two of you meet?"

  "The Holy Yeast converged our paths precisely at the location of the Caldwell Yacht Club."

  "The Yacht Club. What were you doing there?"

  "Preaching the Word, of course."

  "You weren't."

  "Oh, I most certainly was. I stood outside the club bidding all who entered to sample a taste of my most Holy Brew."

  "I'm betting that didn’t go so well."

  "It might have gone well had the scoundrel Brother Eli not confronted me and laughed in my face. Deluded, he said. And he used words that the Holy Yeast would spoil to hear. He called my mother horrible things, yes he did. I was livid."

  "What did you do?"

  "I did nothing. I bid him farewell. Said we must agree to disagree, that our religion was one of peace."

  "And?"

  "And he went inside. Apparently he's a member of the Yacht Club. Did you know that?"

  "No."

  "A most influential one at that. Had me forcibly ejected from the premises, yes he did. Chided me before the security guards, and they laughed at the Reverend, and tore his shirt sleeve while they dragged him."

  "Horrible," I said, trying not to picture it. "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "Later that day was the homebrew competition. He trashed my Holy Brew. Said it tasted like bilge water."

  "That I remember. Well, Rev, I think I have enough information. I want to thank you for being so honest."

  "The Holy Yeast would have it no other way. Would you care for a Holy Growler to take with you on the road?"

  I couldn’t resist. "Of course."

  He filled a growler from the tap and presented it to me as if he were presenting the Grail itself.

  Chapter 8

  Nothing could compare to my experience with the Rev. That said, nothing could have prepared me for my encounter with the one and only Joe Badger.

  Joe had thin, black hair that he kept in a loose ponytail. His narrow eyes were hidden behind thick glasses, and he looked as though he was always in the midst of finding something amusing. And not in a good way. For Joe Badger seemed to think the entire world was full of people stupider than he, and therefore, they deserved to be the butt of his amusement.

  He lived alone in a single bedroom apartment above the town's only pharmacy.

  His apartment was clean and neat, and modestly furnished. He prepared us cups of instant coffee, insisting the entire time that it was far superior to freshly-brewed coffee, for, he said, it was all about the quality of the water. I looked at him askance and he paid it no mind.

  "You have to buy the right stuff. People are too stupid to know what the good stuff is. They go for the mass-market crud that the TV tells them to buy. This is the good stuff, trust me.

  It wasn't. But in the interest of a successful interview, I had to choke it down with a smile.

  Joe Badger made his money teaching chemistry at the Southampton campus of Long Island University. The summer found him at leisure here in his hometown of Carl's Cove, and he had something to say about it.

  "The people here are ridiculous most of the time, year-round. It's only when you get past Memorial Day and encounter the influx of summer people that you really see just how ridiculous people can be. Summer people are atrocious, and our horrible residents all bow down to them like gods."

  "Some of us are grateful to them," I said. "Those of us who own small businesses."

  "Please," he said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Show me a summer person with any intelligence, who contributes anything to society, I beg of you."

  "That's not what we were talking about. You started off by calling them ridiculous."

  "Yes, and so they are."

  And so it went with Joe Badger and me. I figured after a few minutes of this I'd probably wind up punching him in the nose, so I figured I'd change topics to a mutual interest.

  "So," I said, looking around the small apartment, particularly toward the kitchen, "the landlord lets you brew here?"

  "Yeah, but frankly I don’t care. He has to let me brew here. It's falls under cooking and under my lease I'm allowed to cook. Nowhere does it say I can’t brew. I've read it through, twice."

  "Ok then, so you don’t get along with your landlord."

  "He's an idiot, like everyone else around here."

  "Um, excuse me," I said, feeling the urge to punch rising once again.

  To his credit, he realized his gaffe.

  "Oh, well, what I meant was the majority of people I come into contact with. You seem like a smart girl yourself. You have to admit, there are quite a lot of dolts around here."

  "Did you think Eli Campbell was a dolt?"

  "Eli Campbell? He was smarter than most, but still a dolt."

  "In what way?"

  He shrugged. "In a general sort of way."

  "You know," I said, smiling, "I've since spoken to a couple of your fellow contestants, and a couple of them had previous run-ins with Campbell. I mean before the competition."

  "Not me," he said plainly.

  I decided to go a different route with my questioning. "What did you see that day?"

  He shrugged again. "Not much. I saw him slump. I ran over to him and gave him CPR. By that point it was t
oo late."

  I couldn’t hold back. "I gave him CPR!"

  "Well, sure, and I didn’t realize it until later. I must have gotten to him before you did."

  He looked up, and must have seen my jaw hanging open onto my chest.

  "Or after," he said, his face not changing one bit.

  There are those who lie with such impunity that those in their audience often feel as though they have no right to contradict them. Here was just such a case. There's no other way to account for the fact that I actually felt bad about telling him he was full of it. So I didn’t.

  "What happened right before that?" I said.

  "Before he collapsed?"

  "Yeah, what did you see?"

  "Not much."

  I nodded at him, and he at me. We sipped our coffee in silence for a moment. It gave me some time to think. Joe Badger is the type who can’t resist putting himself where the action is, inflating his own importance. Say someone – say the owner and proprietor of a well-known microbrewery – were to put Badger into a position where he'd be compelled to put himself in the same room as the murdered man at the time of his murder, would he refuse if he were guilty?

  "You know," I said putting my coffee cup down, "I envy you. Having gone into that trailer with Campbell. I forget who told me. He must have been a pretty interesting person."

  "I never went into that trailer with him."

  "Hmmm, I heard differently."

  "From who?"

  "Whom." That felt good. I threw out a name. "Maisie Ward saw you going in with Campbell."

  "Well, Maisie Ward is a liar. I never had any contact with him during that time."

  "Hmm, I guess she was mistaken."

  "There's no guessing," he said. "She was mistaken."

  #

  "So no word on the key in the carp?"

  "None," said Lester Moore.

  We strolled along the beach just at sunset. Our relationship, if you can call it that, wasn't at the point where we were holding hands. But if there was ever a time to hold hands, this would be it. The sky was splotched with brilliance, and our shoulders bumped as we walked.

  "You know," said the detective, "I was thinking. Are you sure he didn’t say car? The key is in the car?"