Murder With A Chaser (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 2) Page 8

  "No, really."

  "Yes, really."

  He stood there, mouth agape, hands dripping onto my kitchen floor. "You want me to swab the soap dispenser."

  "Yes, would you please?"

  "It's soap."

  "Yes it is."

  "You touch it only when your hands are dirty."

  "This is true."

  "I mean, you clean your hands with it and you don’t touch it again."

  "Yes, but you've just contaminated it."

  "I used the hand I was using to hold the knife," he said, getting a tad belligerent for my taste.

  "Yes, but when you sawed at the meat, I couldn’t help but notice your fingers coming perilously close—"

  "Perilously close?" he said, and he did that thing that I didn’t realize until just that moment that I hated: that thing with one eyebrow cocked above the other, one corner of the mouth turned up, a condescending expression of incredulity that grated on me like sandpaper.

  "Yes," I said, trying to keep my cool. "Now, if you don’t mind, you're dripping, and there are now a host of bacteria replicating on my soap dispenser, if you don’t mind."

  Well, I don’t have to tell you how that escalated into a prelude to certain doom. We broke up a week later.

  So that's how I am. I've tried to be better, I really have. But then my mind zooms in on that microscopic level, and in a random stranger's sneeze I see billions of nasty things scattered to the winds, ready to infect a multitude. So I carry handi-wipes, and I wash with antibacterial soap, and so on. And Tanya, bless her heart, she's patient with me, but she tells me I'm actually breeding supergerms and cites Darwin and all that.

  I don’t buy it. For every germ I kill, that's one less that can hurt me or anyone else. I'm doing my part, I say.

  But I digress.

  The point here was to say that even an OCD freakazoid like me can overcome some of her neuroses by the image of twenty-five grand sitting on her kitchen table. And the promise of more, much more, to come.

  So there I was, outside Shawn Ward's garage at night, standing before a dumpster, armed with a flashlight and a hazmat suit (don’t ask) complete with gas mask. I threw open the swing top of the dumpster. It hit the back with a resounding thud. I poked my head over the top and shined the light inside.

  No rats, thank Heaven.

  And thanks to the stuffy nose I was developing, and the added protection of the gas mask, I was spared any ungodly aromas. But it was still garbage, and if I was going to do my job, and I was going to be paid for it...

  Yes, I did it.

  Inserting one foot onto a protruding ridge on the side of the thing, one of the ones that the garbage trucks place their big metal arms under in order to lift the dumpster up into the air when they empty it, I hoisted myself up...and over.

  Carefully I lowered myself onto a pile of rags, bags, hunks of oily metal, and assorted refuse that I couldn’t identify.

  It wasn't my proudest moment.

  Where to begin, I thought. Oddly enough, aside from the dark and a fear of the grotesque unknowns that could be lurking there, it wasn't as bad as sorting through Eli Campbell's garbage on my back porch. It's hard to explain, but there's something about sorting through someone's personal trash that increases the ick factor by about a thousand percent.

  So I tore open the first black plastic bag I saw, one I'd had my right foot on. Assorted flotsam spilled out like an open piñata – a dirty, disgusting piñata. Shining my flashlight here and there, I couldn’t discern in that mess anything that looked, I don’t know, askew. I guess what I was looking for was the same feeling I got when I saw Daniel Ward's mask lying on the side of the road. I wanted to see something out of place.

  So far, all I saw was trash.

  And then, maybe after about fifteen or twenty minutes – I'm not sure, time flies when you're up to your waist in waste – I saw something.

  I saw a coffee grinder. One of those little tabletop things that is the approximate width of a mug and about twice as tall.

  This was certainly out of place. A coffee grinder in an auto garage dumpster. I picked it up and shook some sort of hideous substance off it, and examined it closely with my flashlight. The plastic top had come off it. It was probably located somewhere else in this bag. I wasn't about to go hunting for it – although I'd come this far, a girl has to have a limit for trash diving. I looked closely and saw a residue inside it. It wasn't coffee grounds, that was for sure. This was a whitish residue of some sort of powder.

  My heart began racing. What if I held a clue to a murder in my hands? What if this was the stuff? They used benzene. What is benzene? Can you grind it?

  All these things raced in my mind. I needed to get home to my computer, and I needed to bring this thing to someone. But whom?

  Then it hit me. I knew just the person to ask.

  #

  "This is terrible," said Mitch.

  I'd allowed him an exclusive preview of our new Summer Stout. It was a bold move of Gerry to brew a stout in summertime. It's a little like wearing white after Labor Day. But I loved the idea, and why not own it with the name? Summer Stout. It was brilliant, if I do say so myself.

  "Terrible," Mitch said again after a second sip. He shook his head. "It's acrid. And what's that...? Green apple?"

  "The beer's still young," I said. "It's not yet done fermenting. That green apple smell is probably acetaldehyde. It’s a natural by-product of early fermentation."

  He looked at me over the rim of his glass. "I know."

  "Of course you do. And that brings me to something. Follow me."

  We ascended the grated metal steps to the second level of the brewery and walked down the short hallway to my office, Mitch's heavy footsteps thudding along behind my dainty girlish ones.

  "This is yours?" he said incredulously.

  "Yeah," I said. "It's good to be the king."

  "Pshh, I'll say."

  "Have a seat," I said, pointing him toward the front of my desk.

  I took a seat behind it and opened my bottom drawer. Here I took out the coffee grinder, which I'd carefully loaded into a plastic zip-lock bag before I even brought it into my house.

  "I have no idea what this stuff was inside it," I said, "but if it's benzene, I can tell you this: two people have died inhaling it and neither I nor anyone else is going to be the third."

  "Why are you showing me this?" he said.

  "Because you know everything, and if you don’t know everything, then you know someone who knows what you don’t know. Am I making sense?"

  "Yes. Did you say two people died?"

  "Yes, of benzene inhalation. And we can't seem to figure out how it was done. We know that in the first case it got into an inhaler, and in the second, a mask."

  "Well," said Mitch, "for starters, benzene is a gas, not a powder. So whoever diagnosed the cause of death is wrong."

  "No," I said, not really in the mood for Mitch's unique ways, "they were pretty sure about that part. They said it was in some rare, powdered form. They’re still working on the particulars."

  He reached over and grabbed the bag with the coffee grinder. He brought it up close to his spectacled face and put a hand on his chin. He pursed his lips in deep thought and rubbed his thick, rather unkempt beard.

  "Maybe they're right."

  "You can help me, then?"

  "No, but you were right when you said I'd know someone who can." He looked at me. "Do you want his name?"

  I leaned back in my seat and smiled. "You'll drink here free for a month if this winds up helping me."

  "Two months," he said, unsmiling. "Write this down..."

  #

  Ford Bannerman. It sounded made up.

  I still couldn’t believe it was a real identity even when I found myself standing outside the lovely, two-story house in which his basement apartment was located.

  Outside, kneeling down in a small patch of garden – meticulously tending a single spot large enough for one
plant – was an old man humming to himself.

  I approached him cautiously. "Hello, are you Ford Bannerman?"

  "That's me," he said, not looking up.

  "Oh, I'm Madison Darby. Mitch the mailman sent me to you."

  He looked up at me and his blue eyes glinted in the sun. He held a hand over his brow to shield them. "Don’t know any Mitch. But I know the name Darby. You're the daughter, aren’t ya? The one who took over the brewery?"

  "That's right, I am," I said, and smiled.

  "Yeah, don’t care much for your beer."

  "I— I'm sorry, I—"

  "Any beer. Not just yours. Didn’t mean to say it like that."

  "That's quite alright. I—"

  "The missus, God rest her soul, could pound down pint after pint of the stuff. Me? Weak tea and crackers. Never knew how she could stand being around me."

  He shook his head and resumed tending the same patch of ground.

  "So," I said, "I guess maybe I have the wrong—"

  "You probably want my boy. Ford Jr. He lives downstairs." He motioned around to the side of the house. "I should've known. No one comes around to see Senior anymore."

  "Thank you," I said hesitantly.

  "No, thank you," he said. I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not, so I let it go and walked around to the side of the house where there was a flight of ten cement steps leading down to an apartment door.

  #

  I couldn’t believe the mess: old radio and typewriter parts lying around on top of newspaper, some looking like they were in the midst of repair or being rebuilt, and stacks of unused newspaper awaiting fresh projects. There were rags scattered around the room and a faint smell of some sort of industrial solvent in the air. A college student's desk, an economy-sized, utilitarian piece, sat in the corner of the room, and on top of it was a microscope, a computer, and an impressive assortment of bottles and droppers, flasks, a Bunsen burner, and a truly imposing piece that I could have sworn was a...

  "It's a centrifuge," Ford Bannerman Jr. said proudly. "My pride and joy. Ain't she a honey?"

  He was an odd character, short and balding on top, with neat wisps of premature gray at his temples. I say premature because he had a childish face. Not childlike. Childish. Like he was constantly in the process of planning a slew of antisocial practical jokes. He seemed to be always smiling, or half-smiling, and had this mischievous twinkle in his eye. I have to say, I kind of liked him from the start.

  "Yeah," he said, "you wouldn’t believe what these things go for, but I know a guy who knows a guy, you know what I mean?"

  "Wow," was all I could say.

  "Wow indeed. So Mitch said you had something for me."

  I took a breath and flooded my lungs with what I suspected were the fumes of typewriter cleaning fluid. "Here," I said, handing him the coffee grinder out of my bag. "Police say this is benzene. Our friend Mitch thinks it's impossible due to the fact that benzene isn’t normally found in powder form. We thought maybe..."

  He looked up at me, that mischievous twinkle in his eye, and stared, waiting for me to finish.

  "I..." I said, "I thought maybe you could..."

  He kept staring. It was starting to creep me out.

  "Can you help me find out for sure? I'll pay you."

  "Sure," he said. "Ninety-three dollars."

  I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. "Ninety-three you said?"

  "Mm hmm," he said, looking at the grinder and turning it over in his hands.

  "That's an odd figure," I said.

  He looked up at me. "Is it?"

  "Well... I... I guess not."

  He shrugged. "Yeah, ninety-three dollars should do it. And I'll need it up front."

  Luckily, I'd taken a handful of my advance from Zelda Calverton with me. And luckily, ninety-three of it was all I'd be giving away to Ford Bannerman. I handed him his money, which he took without counting and placed into his front pocket.

  "Come back tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow? Really?"

  He nodded. "Come back at four."

  "Ok," I said, bewildered and a bit dizzy. The fumes, though faint, were beginning to get to me.

  I left his basement apartment and saw the same little old man tending the same spot of the garden.

  "Thank you," I said. "And farewell."

  "No," he said, without looking up. "Thank you."

  "For what?"

  Here, he looked up. "For giving my son something to do. He's a talented boy. I can’t stand to see him squander it. "The old man nodded with a smile and a mouth full of white teeth.

  "Well," I said, "you're quite welcome."

  If private investigation was going to put me onto characters like this, I'd seriously need to consider my future in brewing.

  Chapter 11

  I was hesitant about pointing the finger at Shawn Ward, only because I didn’t yet have a motive for him to commit murder. I guessed that was the next step, finding a motive. So far, the only person who really benefitted from Eli Campbell's death was Zelda Calverton, who wasn't exactly hard-up for cash. If I could find out some way in which Shawn Ward may have benefitted, I could link him to a motive, and then I had him in close proximity to a weapon – or at least the means to manufacturing a weapon.

  Thing is, I didn’t really know Shawn Ward. There was one person who did, and that was Maisie.

  Then I thought: what if Maisie herself knew? What if Shawn Ward did it and Maisie knew but kept it a secret?

  Shawn Ward's words came back to me at that moment: Family looks out for each other, don’t they, baby?

  This little sudden hunch of mine gave me a chill. Taking one more step away from Shawn Ward brought me to Sheila McCann. I needed to speak with her.

  I called her and set up a meeting in Bay View Park, the same park where Eli Campbell was murdered, along the same body of water where that clod Lester Moore, excuse me, Detective Lester Moore, and I had our fight.

  She met me there an hour later. That gave me a little time to sort out some last minute details on our tasting room opening. Gerry commented on how I was looking a bit ragged lately, and asked if I was getting enough sleep. If he only knew what I'd been tangled up in. Tanya, bless her squishy little heart, had a mouth like a clamshell.

  Sheila McCann was wearing large Greta Garbo shades and a black, floppy-brimmed hat. For a woman ostensibly trying to keep a low profile, she certainly knew how to stick out like a raisin in a marshmallow.

  "I'm glad you called me when you did, because I'm going away for a little while."

  "Where to?"

  "Seattle. I have family there."

  "Is Maisie going with you?"

  She shook her head. "She's ready to be done with me. She'll be leaving for college in the fall."

  "She never mentioned that," I said, genuinely surprised. "What is she going for?"

  "Culinary studies. She'll be attending the Southampton Culinary Institute."

  "Good for her."

  "Well, you're partially to thank for that," she said.

  I was having trouble discerning sarcasm in everyone's voice lately. "Is that so?"

  "Sure. The contest. Your complimenting her as you did. She looks up to you."

  My mind began to race. They say after a murder you should watch out for anyone spending large sums of money.

  If college tuition isn't a large sum, I don’t know what is.

  "So," I said, "must be costing you a fortune. Unless she got a scholarship or something."

  "No, it was too late to apply for scholarships, at least for this semester. No, she borrowed money from Shawn."

  "Is that so?" I said, trying to hide my rising gorge.

  "Yes, but we didn’t come here to discuss college, did we?" she said curtly.

  "Uh, no," I said, "I guess not."

  "You want to know about that damned safe deposit box."

  I'd almost forgotten about that.

  "Well," she said, "I have some free time tomorrow. You and I w
ill go to the bank. We'll take a look at what's inside that box and then I'll step out of this. Ok?"

  "Sounds good to me," I said.

  "Fine then."

  She'd stopped suddenly, and had turned to look at the water.

  "Ever wish you could just go to sea? Sounds so romantic, doesn’t it?"

  "I guess so," I said. I'm not very articulate when I'm baffled, nervous, excited, and queasy all at the same time.

  "Makes you wish you could just dive in and disappear from everything. The water, I mean. It could swallow you up along with all your secrets and no one would ever know. The ocean doesn’t talk."

  "Sheila," I said, "the ocean can't talk. It also doesn’t wish to...consume all that stuff."

  She turned to me, steadying the brim of her hat in the breeze. "You're pretty smart for a beer-guzzling busybody."

  She wasn't smiling, but I'd finally gotten my humor mojo back and chuckled accordingly.

  #

  When I got back to my car, my phone lit up with a text. I'd forgotten that I'd given Mitch my number.

  Ford says thanks. Confirmed benzene. Made into solid by silica and water mixture binding to benzene molecules. Makes for easy transportation. Ground up in grinder.

  Added to my queasy stomach was now a spinning head. I typed as fast as I could.

  THANK YOU!!! How does anyone get a hold of it?

  Waiting for his reply was an eternity of suspense, and when it finally came through, I felt an odd rush of excitement. I had to read it twice. And then a third time. There it was:

  Variety of uses. Industrial. Sometimes additive for automotive fuel. Professional racing.

  #

  Into the belly of the beast.

  AKA Shawn Ward's house.

  Ok, maybe it wasn't exactly the belly of the beast. As luck would have it, there was a TV crew in the driveway, setting up for what looked like a one-on-one interview in a shady spot on the front lawn. Most likely it was due to Ward's participation in this fall's Sprint Cup Series. Anyway I felt pretty good knowing that I'd have Ward's adoring public as witnesses should there be any funny business. But I have to admit that I had more than a bundle of nerves in my belly as I pulled up to his gorgeous mini-mansion in the heart of Southampton.