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

  "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 mothe
r. 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.

  So there we sat, in Junior's Pizza, and we discussed sensitive topics over a large pie with sausage and peppers. My cousin Tanya, who worked there as a waitress, supplied an unlimited quantity of Diet Coke as we talked.

  She was a quiet woman with dark eyes and straight black hair that was shoulder length, parted in the middle, and neatly styled. Her skin was dappled with freckles, as with someone who had seen a bit too much sun in her teenaged years. She wore not a single hint of a smile on her face, not even when joking, which she did quite a bit. It's very disconcerting to have someone joke so much with such a serious expression.

  "How long were you and Daniel married?"

  "Ten years. Eleven years too long," she said, unsmiling, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger.

  "I never married," I said. It was a stupid thing to say, for it made me sound like a spinster.

  "You never had to get married. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It's a disgraceful situation to be in, especially for a woman."

  I leaned in, although with the din of the restaurant and the music overhead it wasn't easy for anyone to eavesdrop. "I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable."

  "If only my husband had said that when he left me. Don’t worry, you're in the clear. But he didn't say it. He up and left me with Maisie and I got stuck with the bills – the house was paid off, thank God. And I got stuck with a child to raise."

  "She's a remarkable girl," I said. "You did well."

  "Mmm," was all she said to that.

  I looked over at the front counter and saw Tanya eyeing me carefully. It felt good having a guardian angel like that, just in case anything got crazy. Not that I was expecting it to.

  "Sheila, I told you on the phone about why we're here."

  "You're investigating a murder."

  "Yes."

  "Am I a suspect?"

  "No," I said, surprised. "No, not at all."

  "I didn’t think I was." She raised her glass and sipped.

  "No, we're here because I got a tip that your husb—, excuse me, you're ex-husband may have had some important information that could have led to the capture of the killer. I believe that's why he died."

  Her eyes narrowed at me. "Ah, yes. So you're the one who discovered the poison in the mask."

  I looked down. "Yes, that was me. And I think, I'm not sure, but if the two of you shared anything in the aftermath of your divorce, I was hoping, seeing as how you may have been the closest person to him when he died..."

  She leaned in. "Is there something you’re trying to tell me?"

  "I have it on good word that Daniel Ward kept a safe deposit box. At what bank, I don’t know. But I know the number. And I know where he hid the key. He hid it from you and from Maisie."

  She leaned back and smiled. "For a private investigator, you have an awful lot to learn. That's my key. And yes, that was his idea to hide it there. Got the notion to do so from some ridiculous movie."

  I was confused. "So wait, is his name on the account too?"

  "Unfortunately, it is. I don’t keep anything in there, but he does. I doubt it's of any use to me, otherwise he wouldn’t have kept it anyplace where I could get to it."

  "So, Sheila," I said, trying to choose words carefully, "you need to do me a favor and put aside whatever emotions of anger or whatever that you feel toward your ex. I need to find out what's in that box. Daniel came to me and—"

  "He came to you?"

  She was right. I had a lot to learn. A hotness flushed in my face as I tried to recover. "Yes, when he died, the day he died, he came to see me personally. He knew I was looking into the Eli Campbell murder and—"

  "Eli Campbell!" Her eyes were lit with some sinister recognition of the name.

  "Yes, that's what I'm looking into."

  She sat back. Took a sip of her drink. Wiped the corners of her mouth carefully and deliberately, all while staring off into some faraway place.

  "I'll help you," she said. "But after I do, we must never speak again. Understand?"

  I had no choice but to agree to this, although I was more perplexed than ever. She saw it in my face.

  "I have my reasons. And you need to heed to them, ok? Otherwise, no help. Agreed?"

  "Agreed," I said.

  I looked over at Tanya. I don’t know how long she'd been watching uninterrupted, but I could tell that she'd seen all she needed to see in the look on my face. I have a terrible poker face, and must have been telling a very detailed story.

  #

  Trying to get a hold of Zelda Calverton was a nightmare. But I finally did it.

  All you need is a little tenaciousness and you can get through to anyone. Tenaciousness on my part meant cajoling, demanding, asserting, and turning on the sweet talk to about a dozen folks in Ms. Calverton's employ, all of whom were loyal pawns determined to keep me from capturing the Queen. I didn’t mind it so much, sitting in my office, my feet up on the desk. And after a half hour of being bandied about, she finally picked up.

  "Why did you call me here, Madison?"

  "There are some things we need to discuss and I can’t do it through some dude in a bad disguise walking into my brewery and confusing my people."

  "I want you to do one thing right now, Madison."

  "And that is?"

  "I want you to hang up, and then I want you to look outside your window."

  "Pardon me?"

  "Or look outside your window first. Your choice. But I am going to hang up now."

  The call disconnected. I took my feet off the desk and walked over to my window.

  There, down below, was a silver Porsche 911. Leaning up against it was Zelda Calverton.

  #

  "What? They can route your calls to your cell phone?"

  "We are living in modern times, you know," she said.

  "Well, you have a helluva staff. Keeping me occupied on the line while you drive over here to meet me in person."

  "They're good employees. I want you to know that this is a special trip I made, and you'll not see another. Going forward, all communication will be on my terms, in the manner that I decide. I'm paying you here. Not the other way around. Now, what is it you so desperately needed to speak to me about?"

  I don’t think I need to say that I was beginning to dislike this woman. I took a deep breath and began. "There's a problem I discovered."

  "Go on," she said impatiently.

  "I found two wills. The cops have one, and the executor's office has the other."

  "One of them is fake," Zelda said, so matter-of-factly that it implied common knowledge.

  "Ok," I said with hesitation.

  "Surely you must have already concluded that."

  "Well, yes, I have. I just didn’t think you were aware—"

  "Of course I'm aware. I leaked the fake one to the cops."

  Again, I was hesitant. "Ok."

  She looked at me askance. "Please tell me you're not suddenly getting squeamish here."

  "No," I said, "not necessarily so."

  "Oh good. Well just in case you are, maybe you need a little more money? Add ten percent to your fee, how about that? Will that help to ease your queasy little stomach?"

  I stared at her for a moment. A slight smile came across her face.

  "I apologize. I can be a real...well, you know all the ugly words used to describe a person like me. So I apologize. But you must understand that it is imperative that I steer the cops away from me at all costs. They see how much money I received in the real will, and they’ll surely start looking at me. They're already lookin
g at me. It’s costing me a lot of money to keep their eyes off. That's why you need to act quickly, understand? You need to beat them to it. This is what I'm paying you for, dear."

  "Then," I said, regaining a bit of inner strength, "as part of the process here, I'm going to ask you a question: Do you know who killed Eli?"

  "I think I know how it was done."

  "Benzene inhalation."

  "Yes, that was the cause. I said I think I know how it was done. But you have to find that out for yourself. None of the information must come from me. I gave you one clue and that's all I have."

  "Look in the gas tank? What kind of clue is that?"

  "A very good one, and more than I should have given you. Now, if you'll excuse me."

  With that, she got into her car, started it up, and sped off, leaving me in the not-so-proverbial dust.

  Gas tank, I thought. And one name popped into my head. One that had been right under my nose.

  Chapter 10

  It was dark. You need to know this.

  It was night and I was snooping around a dumpster.

  Now, if you know anything about me, you'll know that I have a tiny little problem with germs. I lived with a guy for about a year once who loved to cook. Made some of the best meals I've ever had in my life. One time he got home before I did and was in the middle of whipping up a pork tenderloin. He was going to marinate it in lime and coconut milk with a little curry and paprika. I said it sounded great and suggested we pair it with Darby's Caribbean IPA – light and refreshing with hints of lime and spice. I was about to crack open the first one of the evening when I just happened to catch a glimpse of what he was doing. He was carefully trimming a layer of fat off the bottom of the pork. Ok. He then washed his hands. Perfect.

  Only he'd touched the soap dispenser. Granted, he did it with the flat part of his fist, but politely – mind you, I understand not everyone is as crazy as I am and always adapt the proper tone when dealing with the straights – I told him that he should probably grab one of the antiseptic wipes from under the sink and swab the soap dispenser.

  "Are you serious?" he said, smiling.

  "Absolutely serious," I replied.