Murder Brewed At Home (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  I did. I watched the custodian make his way over to the information desk, dragging a large garbage pail behind him. I watched him empty the wastepaper baskets from under the desk into the larger receptacle. Then he chatted with the librarian for a moment. And the two shared a chuckle. And then, while she busied herself with something or other, the custodian went to a computer over on the far side of the desk and typed, alternately shifting his gaze from my slip of paper to the computer screen.

  He lifted his head up, then down. Seemed to mumble something to himself. Then he walked over to a large book on the desk and flipped back a few pages. The librarian didn’t seem to care much about what he was doing, and even peripherally moved her coffee cup out of the way for him. I could see that the pages of the book were transparent with little plastic pockets in which held the library cards of patrons using the computers. He stopped on one page and took a card out of the pocket. He then walked back over to where Mitch and I were standing in Reference.

  "Here you go," he said to Mitch, eyed me without a word, and then turned and retrieved his large pail.

  Mitch handed me the card.

  "What's this?" I said, a bit stupefied by the whole procedure.

  "That's your guy."

  "You mean to tell me—"

  "He knows the place inside out. He's here after hours. He cleans up after everyone who walks in and of those doors. You have to know where to go for information. For me, it’s a guy like old Bill there who keeps his eyes and ears open 24/7."

  "You're amazing, Mitch. I mean it."

  He nodded. "Now can I get back to my research in peace?"

  "Of course," I said. I started to walk out, and then turned. "Wait, why am I holding someone else's library card?"

  He shrugged. "It’s not like Bill to just up and steal it. My guess is that it was left here and they tried contacting the person to no avail."

  It was only now that I looked at the card. That is, I looked at the name on the card.

  Vernon Abel.

  You don't have to have a degree in advanced mathematics to figure out whom I was going to visit next.

  Chapter 7

  I left the library reeling. My head was spinning. I needed a long walk and some fresh air. Little did I know I was only going to be getting one of those things.

  There's a country club across the street from the library. And there's a golf course behind it. I was headed toward the opposite end of town where my wonderful beach was. Nothing like the calming rush of the water to help get the fuzz out of the brain.

  A golf cart came speeding up to the edge of the country club parking lot just as I was passing it.

  "Miss Darby?" said the driver, an older man with thinning salt and pepper hair, tanned, well-built, wearing white pants and a yellow polo shirt.

  "Yes?" I said.

  "Hop in," said the stranger.

  I looked around. "Sorry?"

  "Hop in," he said with a smile. He patted the seat next to him for emphasis.

  "No thanks," I said with a wave. "I'll walk."

  "I insist," he said, still with the smile.

  "Nope. Thanks again."

  I started walking and heard the whirr of the golf cart following.

  I turned around. There he was, that smile still on his face.

  "You know," he said, "this could be difficult, Ms. Darby. I'm making it easy. Kyle Young's death isn’t too hard to understand, you know."

  I stared at him. It was a country club. There were witnesses. And how far could a golf cart go? And how fast? If I saw that I was in danger, I'd hop off. Plain and simple.

  So I hopped in with a total stranger.

  He smiled at me and we took off, heading toward the green.

  "People think that when you're persuasive, you're automatically a bad person with some sort of ulterior motive. Well, they're half right. I tend to have ulterior motives but I like to think that I'm withholding that information until a mutual agreement has been reached."

  "I don’t believe we've been introduced," I said.

  "Ah," he smiled, not taking his eyes off the grounds on which he was driving. "Were I to tell you my name, that would defeat the purpose."

  "Then how about you let me off here?"

  "That would defeat the purpose as well. And I think not in your best interest. If you must call me something, call me Mr. X."

  "Mr. X."

  "Yes," he said jovially. "Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Mr. X. Sounds nice and mysterious. I'll continue calling you Miss Darby, if you don’t mind. That has a nice ring to it. Almost like a Southern belle. Get it? Ring? Belle?"

  "So what is it we're doing here," I said, "if I may ask?"

  We drove along the course, over a hill. There was no one in sight.

  "We're here, Miss Darby, because I know a little about you and what you’re engaged in. I know, for instance, that a certain Ms. Zelda Calverton paid you quite a healthy sum of money once to help sort out her affairs. I know that you kept none of that money. You’re an honest sort. I like honest people. You always know where they stand. A lot easier to manipulate, if you don’t mind my saying. Anyway, I know that you live with your cousin Tanya in a rented house over at the top of Main Street, that you're a Miss Darby and not a Ms., that you have a boyfriend on the force, and that you… would you like me to go on?"

  "I think I've heard enough," I said.

  "Ah, well then. So we know where we both stand now."

  "You mentioned the Young case."

  "Yes, that's correct."

  I don’t think I need to say that I was starting to get a bit creeped out by this point. The appearance of a couple of golfers on the landscape did little to assuage my paranoia. "What do you know about the Young case?"

  He smiled. "What do I know about the Young case? I helped make the Young case."

  I said nothing in response.

  He looked at me with dark, brown eyes. "I'm serious. It's what I do. I help arrange things. Carl's Cove is a nice little base of operations, but my reach is fairly long. There's a lot of money in the Hamptons."

  "I suppose there's a reason you’re telling me this?"

  A smile appeared on his face again. "I knew you were a smart one. Yes. Obviously, I have no fear of you going to the cops. You know why? Because I know that you realize there must be a reason why I feel safe in telling you this. But just so we’re clear, the chief of Police is a friend and a client. Are we understood?"

  "Understood."

  "And I hate telling you this, but things can go very badly for your friend the detective. Internal affairs can come down pretty hard, and they are sticklers for detail. They could find something spotty on his record, something just spotty enough to have him busted down to traffic cop."

  "Understood."

  "Oh good. I hate going into those details."

  "So again," I said, "why are we here?"

  "We're here because I want to buy your brewery."

  Again I found myself looking around for a camera. "Say that again?"

  "I'm looking for more investments to make here in town. Keeps me grounded here. Nothing wrong with a little added capital on the side."

  "And you want to buy my brewery?"

  "Of course. Seems like a nice business. And this thing, this craft beer thing, it is sort of the new thing, isn’t it? I don't care for the taste of it myself. Strictly a Chardonnay man."

  "So," I said, "Zelda Calverton."

  "Yes, yes, an old acquaintance. I was sorry to see her get sent up the river, but it happens in our business."

  "Your business."

  "Yes, Zelda and I were competitors. Now that she's out of the picture I can rest easily. And I can ground myself a little better here. Hence the proposition."

  "So, like Zelda, you have your hands in a lot of..." I struggled for a synonym for "crimes.”

  "Pies," he said. "My hands are in a lot of pies. I arrange things for people. All sorts of people. They pay me money and I arrange things."

&nb
sp; "You kill people."

  His face changed. "Please! How base. No, I don’t kill people. Miss Darby, you don’t understand, I'm merely a facilitator. I clear paths, I provide materials. I arrange."

  "Ok. And you helped with the Young case."

  "Yes."

  There was an awkward silence, which he wound up breaking. "Thank you for not asking me who did it. That would have been inappropriate and annoying."

  "You're welcome."

  "I have an additional proposition for you, Miss Darby, one that may sweeten the deal a bit."

  "The brewery's not for sale."

  "Not yet. Everyone has their price. You don’t get to be as successful as I am without being able to exploit that immutable fact. I did imagine that the brewery was probably worth quite a bit to you. But, I also imagine, and I believe that I'm correct, that there is something else worth quite a bit. And that's information."

  "Such as?"

  "Well," he said, "I know for instance that you have designs on becoming a private eye. Well then, a fellow like me, one who has his finger on the pulse of the criminal underpinnings of Carl's Cove, could be quite useful to you in the future. So, instead of money, how about a trade? Suppose I were to give you the solution to the Kyle Young murder? Yes, it was murder. How would you like that? And suppose you retained me for all your future cases. I can guarantee them for you. There's a lot going on in this nice little slice of the Hamptons."

  "So let me get this straight," I said. "You're offering to give me the solutions to all the crimes I aim to solve, which you yourself create?"

  "Arrange, not create. Yes. That's what I'm offering."

  "No, thank you."

  "Then I'll just buy out your brewery."

  "I told you, it's not for sale."

  He stopped the cart at the edge of the green, next to a pathway through the woods that led back to Main. "There are other forms of currency, Miss Darby. Think on that, will you? Good day, Miss Darby. We'll be in touch. Oh, and in case you're really not convinced of just how much I know, I would, if I were you, try fishing for answers. Good day."

  He pulled away and I watched Mr. X disappear over a hill.

  I walked along the path toward Main Street, unnerved, puzzled, feeling as though I'd gotten myself deeper than I wanted to be.

  And then a text from Detective Lester Moore came through, and I realize just how deep I was in.

  Maggie Childsworth is dead, it said.

  #

  Vernon Abel's address was still valid, according to the White Pages. So I paid him a visit.

  Vernon lived as many folks do in Carl's Cove: in an apartment above a clothing store. When I got there, the door cracked open, held fast by a chain, and an aging face with thin hair and soft, wet eyes peered out at me.

  "Who are you?"

  "Hi, Mr. Abel?"

  "Who's asking?"

  "My name is Madison Darby, sir. I was wondering if I could talk to you about something important."

  "Who sent you?"

  "No one sent me, sir. I just have a couple of questions."

  "Who wrote Lullaby of Birdland?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  Through the crack, I saw one eye roll. "I said, who wrote Lullaby of Birdland."

  "The song?"

  "Yes."

  I shrugged. "I don't know. Rogers and Hammerstein?"

  The door shut and I heard the chain come off. "Come in," he said.

  I entered his apartment. It was a fairly clean place, but dark. It was because the curtains were drawn and there were towels over the lamps. I looked around. All over the walls were the remnants of eggshell cartons, hundreds of them. They'd been cut up into somewhat flat pieces and stapled to the walls to form a kind of textured wallpaper.

  I heard the door slam behind me.

  "That was your first test and you failed. The answer is George Shearing. He wrote Lullaby of Birdland. Not Rogers and Hammerstein, dummy."

  "Is that why you let me in? To ridicule me?"

  "No," he said sharply. "It was a test, but an inconclusive one. The fact that you failed it tells me that you may not know everything you think you know and this is a good thing. But you may only be pretending not to know what you think you know, and that's worrisome, but there are other ways to check you out and that's why I let you in. Can’t do it through a chain."

  I pursed my lips and blew out an unconscious whistle. "Ok then."

  "So," he said, eyeing me closely. "Why are you here?"

  "May I sit down?"

  "If you must."

  I took a seat in an easy chair in the corner of the room. Vernon Abel methodically pulled up a wooden chair directly in front of me and sat down.

  "Now," he said. "State your business."

  "Well sir, I was wondering, sir, if you by any chance visited the Carl's Cove library recently."

  "What is this? An interrogation?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Where are you from? They sent you here, didn’t they?" He squinted at me.

  "I don’t follow," I said.

  "I bet you don’t. You're just like all the rest. You say what they want you to say. Think what they want you to think."

  "Mr. Abel," I said calmly, "if you don’t mind. Who are they?"

  He leaned in. "You really don’t know?"

  "No, I don't."

  "Quick!" he said, his eyes widening. "Let me see your left pinky!"

  "My wha—?"

  Before I could finish, he gently but firmly grabbed my left hand and brought it close to his face. He reached into his breast pocket, mumbling, and pulled out a pair of glasses, which he then put on to examine my hand more closely. I pulled my hand away quickly.

  "Let me see you bend it," he said.

  "What?"

  "Your pinky," he said, pointing to my left. "Let me see you bend it."

  "Like this?" I held my pinky up and wiggled it for him.

  A look of serene satisfaction came over his face. "You're not one of them after all," he said, taking off his glasses and replacing them in his breast pocket.

  I was trying to keep my patience. "Please explain yourself, Mr. Abel."

  He leaned in. "I put that stuff up there on the walls because it absorbs not only sound, but thought frequencies as well. That's how they listen to your mind. Thought frequencies. Those meters out there..."

  "The parking meters?"

  "Robotic thought-readers designed to look and act like parking meters."

  "Ok," I said, getting ready to jump up and head straight out the door.

  "They feed us information through the television. I keep notes. All those reality shows, they’re embedded with subliminal messages to control your mind. The shows are a distraction from reality, that's why they call them reality shows – it's an ironic joke. Commercials, too. They make you crave junk food. You go out and get yourself a Big Double McBadgerburger and next thing you know, you want more. They hook you with it and there's all these chemicals in there designed to keep you apathetic. So the reality shows distract you and tell you not to go out and vote. They're withholding information on aliens, you know."

  "You don’t say."

  "Oh, but I do. The aliens are at the top of it all. They planted the parking meters. They designed the reality shows. Ever wonder why the Kardashians are so popular? Aliens, the lot of them!"

  "Mr. Abel—"

  "Shhhh, keep your voice down."

  "I thought you said the place is sound proof."

  He waved his hand. "It’s only ninety percent sound proof. Remember all that stuff about the aliens coming back in 2012? Well, they did. Secretly. That's the year Kourtney had her alien baby."

  "Ok, then."

  "Yes?"

  "Anything else, Mr. Abel?"

  He bit his lip and thought for a moment. "Nope."

  "Well then, about your library card."

  He turned his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "What about my library card?"

  "That's the reason I came here
in the first place. I wanted to know if you've been to the Carl's Cove library recently."

  He threw his head back and gave a laugh. "Do you honestly think I'm going to step foot into a library?"

  "You have a card, don’t you?"

  "Of course I have a card. I have to have a card. If I didn’t have one, they'd know I was onto them. Libraries are the repository of all the world's greatest knowledge. That's why I don’t go near them. What place on earth would you think might be more heavily guarded than a place like that? Yes, I have a library card, but I'll never use it."

  I sat back in my chair and gave a sigh. "Mr. Abel, thank you for this enlightening interview."

  "Anytime," he said, rising. "Can I get you anything else?"

  "No, I'm fine," I said, rising with him.

  "Say, you're a pretty girl. What say you and I maybe go out for a donut one of these days? You like Boston cream?"

  "I love Boston cream, but I gave up donuts for lent nineteen years ago. Thank you, though. One more thing, Mr. Abel."

  "Call me Vernon, sweetheart."

  "Vernon, sweetheart, how do you suppose your library card wound up at the library?"

  He thought for a moment. "I lost my wallet once. Maybe whoever found it took out the card."

  "That's it?"

  "What do you mean, that's it?"

  "You don’t have some elaborate conspiracy theory about that? I mean, losing your wallet, someone stealing the library card – the library, Mr. Abel. You said it yourself."

  He shook his head in bewilderment. "You are a strange one. Not everything is a conspiracy."

  I just stared at him. It was all I could do.

  "Anyway," he said, "it was nice talking to you. Come back and see me again sometime and I'll tell you all about the hidden clues on the dollar bill. That's a fascinating story."

  "Fascinating, I'm sure. How did you lose your wallet?"

  "I must have dropped it outside the cheese shop. Someone found it and turned it in. The cheese lady called me and gave it back."

  I had to shake my head. "Wait, the cheese shop? Which one?"

  "The only one in town. That place on Main. I forget what it’s called"

  "Whey Cool?"

  He jabbed a finger in the air at me. "That's the one."

  "Thank you, Mr. Abel," I said in a daze.