A Deadly Draught (13 page)

“But I’ve borrowed money here before. My record is spotless. I make my payments and on time.”

“Who knows how long this case may drag on with no resolution? Someone in the brewing community is responsible for the death, er murder, and, although we don’t suspect you, we can’t take the risk given the, uh, situation.”

He started to rise from his chair, but I reached out my hand to him.

“I can assure you this will be wrapped up in no time. I know the officer in charge and he’s …” Words failed me. All I could see was Jake’s scowl every time he approached me about the case. “The officer is very dedicated and serious about making headway, and he’s relentless in his pursuit of the truth. We were in law school together.”

I knew I had said the wrong thing by the look of skepticism that crossed Mr. Culler’s face.

“In law school together. You’re friends?”

“Uh, we were friends. Kind of lost touch since then. I just know the caliber of man he is, that’s all. He’s not the type to let friendship get in the way of examining evidence in a case.” Well, that was all too true. If Jake could figure out a way to do it, he’d love to slap me in jail for any number of legal and personal infractions—dumping him in law school, my acerbic personality, suspicious connections to the deceased’s family, and the yeast theft at Rafe’s. So perhaps he wasn’t entirely free from prejudice in his dealings with me. I decided to change the direction the conversation was going.

“If you’re concerned about the future of my business, let’s go over my business plan together. I expect to add to my offerings. Why, right now, as we speak, I’m brewing up what I hope to be a truly outstanding …”
Oh, oh, better not mention the ale in my fermentation vat, the product of stolen yeast, even if I didn’t steal it.
“…brew,” I finished vaguely, “a great new brew.”

“I’m sorry, but we cannot take a chance with our money where there is criminal activity involved. Once this murder and theft thing is cleared up by your outstanding friend, Officer Jake or whatever his name is, then come on back here and have a talk with me.”

Now I was getting mad. How dare this little, rinky-dink bank with its balding, cowardly president deny me a loan.

“I can go elsewhere, you know, and I will,” I said and arose from my chair.

“Please do, but I think you’ll find all banks around here to be skittish when it comes to the brewing businesses in this valley. The story of the murder made local and state headlines. The banking industry knows about it. I doubt you’ll find a bank will take you on, but give it a try.” He seemed to look smug at the certainty I would be denied funds.

“I suppose that applies to all the brewers around here?” I asked before I turned toward the door.

“You’re the only one who’s applying for a loan that I know of,” he said. “Good day, Miss Knightsbridge.”

*

A rap on my truck window alerted me to the presence of Officer Williams, the most junior of the police on our local force. I lifted my head from my arms, which were draped across the steering wheel, and rolled down the window.

“I’m gonna have to give you a ticket, if you don’t either move your truck or feed the meter,” he said. His tone was friendly, but firm. Just doing his job, I knew.

I heard the knob on the meter twist with the insertion of a coin and raised my eyes to see Jake at the curb.

“Thanks, sir,” said Officer Williams. He continued up the block, stopped at the next expired meter and looked back at us, a puzzled expression on his face.

Jake stepped up to the driver’s side window.

“They said no, right?” he asked.

“I am so screwed,” I said.

“How about a drink?” he asked.

“Booze?”

“I do drink from time to time. In moderation. I’m off duty. Come on. Follow me in your truck, and we’ll go to my place.”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“No. This is not the time I want to drink in moderation. I want to get ugly drunk, just for a while, and I want to be home to do it. And I’d like to be alone. No, I take that back. It’s not good to drink alone. I’d like to get stinking drunk with a friend.”

“I’ll be a friend tonight. We’ll go to your place, and if I get too drunk to drive, I’ll just sleep in your barn or something.”

I looked at him carefully. He wasn’t kidding. No lopsided grin on his face, no sarcasm in his voice. Why the hell not? I didn’t feel like inflicting my poor old self on any of my friends. Jake would do.

I started up my truck, backed up, and floored it. In my rearview mirror I watched Jake run for his car.

No money, no money, no money.
The reality of my financial jeopardy ran through my head as I drove.
Oh, damn.
I missed my turn. I looked in the rearview mirror to see Jake’s car pull into my drive and then stop. It crossed my mind to just keep driving, but I braked at the next lane and made a U-turn.

What the hell. I might as well get drunk with an old lover and … and what? What difference did it make? My life is a shambles anyway.

“So, are you ready for a little Rush?” I asked. I jumped from my truck and approached Jake. His face registered something like shock, and then he grinned his lopsided smile.

“It’s the name of a lager, Dummy. This might be the last chance you get. I don’t have much stock left.” I grabbed his arm, and we headed for my fridge.

Twelve

“Hoppy, but not too hoppy.” Jake sipped the golden lager with a look of pleasure on his face. He sat in Dad’s old easy chair with his feet propped up on the ottoman.

“Oooh, I’m impressed. Where did you learn the lingo?”

“I’ve been reading a little about the beer business. It’s pretty complicated, but interesting. Now I know there are several kinds of malt.”

“More than several,” I said, then shut up and let him go on.

“And hops give the brew bitterness, right?” His tone of voice reflected satisfaction at having mastered his homework. “Your hops come from the Pacific Northwest.”

“You didn’t get that from a book. You’ve been snooping around in my barn.” There was no suspicion in my voice. I was feeling too mellow to be accusatory. I sat on the couch, feet up, slurping my second scotch. I could feel the liquor make its way into my stomach and produce a warm, curling glow there. Jake was on his first bottle of Ginseng Rush. If the small moans of delight emanating from his throat were any indication, he was enjoying it. I’d told him about my conversation with Mr. Culler.

“You can wipe that look of phony concern and sympathy off your face. Be honest. You could care less about my business. If it goes down the tubes, so be it. In fact, you think I should find a more legitimate way to earn a living. Right?”

With a slow, precise motion, he set his beer glass on the side table and leaned forward.

“I was wrong to go off on your craft the way I did the other day. You were right. You’re a businesswoman, not the devil. My drinking, my problem. I’m sorry.”

Jake offering an apology? This was a side of him I’d never seen before. Maybe I should re-evaluate my assessment of this man. I squinted at my drink. Or was that just the scotch muddling my judgment?

Thunder sounded in the distance. I turned to look out the window. Clouds were gathering over the ridge, and lightening split the sky. The rumble that followed sounded closer.

“Maybe we’ll get that much-needed rain.” He took up his glass again and sipped, turning it so the liquid caught the dim light through the window.

I settled back into the couch with my scotch.
I should go slow here,
I thought.
No sense in abusing good scotch or taking for granted the apology of a proud man. There’s been a bell weather change in our relationship in the past few days. Are we both mellowing, getting used to one another’s presence, leaving the past behind, what? Or does he want something from me?
I waited.

“So what are you going to do now? About the business, I mean?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve got enough product to last the early part of the summer. The ale I’m working on now will help my sales, but once the season is over, I think I’m done. I can’t make enough money in the next few months to get through until the new year. I’m out of the brewing business unless I take up Michael and Stanley on their offer to go halfsies with me.”

“Halfsies?”

“I’m the brewer. I brew here, but they own half this operation. I don’t trust Stanley. I need that bank loan, no strings attached, and I’m my own boss. But the only way I’ll get it is if Ramford’s murderer is found.” I took another small sip of my scotch, my courage for what I was about to say.

“Jake.” I shifted my butt around on the couch in discomfort. Jake’s face had the alert look of a feral cat being stalked by a coyote, convinced it could use its wits to outsmart its predator. “You know what I’m about to ask, I guess.”

He leaned forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees, and studied me.

“It’s fine with me. I wouldn’t mind some inside scoop on this community of brewers. Your take on what’s going on could only help, unless you decide to snoop on your own,” Jake said.

“I’d never do that. I promise you. I need to find out who killed Ramford, especially since you think his murder is tied up in my father’s death. It’s not just a matter of financial survival for me. I can’t carry around this load of guilt about Dad’s death forever.”
Whoa here. The scotch must be loosening my tongue.

“What guilt?”

“I thought at first Dad killed himself because I didn’t do enough to help him get through Mom’s death, but now I know I was being selfish, focusing on my own feelings of inadequacy and not seeing the situation for what it was. You said it yourself. I knew my father didn’t own a gun, and I knew he wasn’t the kind of man who would take his own life. I was playing pitiful Hera and have been for these past five years. I need to pull myself together.”

“You think scotch will help?” He accompanied his comment with a small smile, an obvious attempt to break through the tension of my confession.

“Oh, crap, no.” I banged the glass down on the coffee table with a thunk.

“Okay, deal. You’re my silent partner, but no attempts to go off like the Lone Ranger on me.”

We both stood and solemnly shook hands. Lightning and the rattling of the windows from a thunderclap sealed our new partnership. We dropped our hands and laughed. The tension in the air wasn’t just ozone.

“How about some cheese sticks?” I headed for the kitchen. As much as I wanted to get sloppy drunk, I didn’t need to be sick drunk, not in front of an old lover, a man who was evidencing sensibilities I admired and my new partner. I pulled out some crackers, salami, and cheese sticks from my newly replenished larder and put them on a plate. As I turned, Jake walked up behind me.

“Let me help with that.” I turned to hand the tray to Jake just as a crack of lightning hit in the yard, and the thunder shook the foundation a nanosecond behind. I jumped and dropped the tray before Jake could catch it.

“Clumsy,” he said.

“I am not.”

“I meant I’m clumsy, not you.”

We both bent to pick up the scattered remains of our snack.

“There goes our snack. I’ll make more.”

“Never mind. Let’s wait out this storm and drive into town for a real meal, my treat.”

“I’m not so poor I can’t pay my own way.”
Bite my tongue.
I was back to surly while he remained nice.

“Fine. Pay your own way, but we need to get some food into you. Those two scotches can’t be sitting well on your stomach.”

“Then I’d better take a look at my ale before we leave.” I left the remainder of my scotch in the bottom of the glass. “Want to come?”

The wind kicked up and hurled leaves and other small debris at us as we headed across the yard to the brew barn. The sky was turning dark. I flipped on the lights as we entered the barn, mounted the platform, and opened the hatch on the fermentation vessel. Yeasty. If I could define heaven in terms of smells, that was it. Then I held my breath, crossed my fingers for luck, and peered in. Everything looked great. I extracted some of the liquid and poured it across the refractometer to read the specific gravity of the brew. That would tell me the alcohol content, but before I could get a reading, the lights went out.

“You okay up there?”

“Yeah, I’m coming down.”

As I was about to put my foot onto the first step, a crack of lightning startled me again. I grabbed for the railing but missed and fell down the steps and into Jake’s arms.
Hmmmm. This feels pretty good.

He held me close to him. I could make out the flecks of gold in his green eyes, and I remembered how they seemed to catch fire when we made love.

“You’re not going to take advantage of a drunk, financially insolvent, clumsy old friend, are you?’

“Only if she wants me to.”
Oh, my.
His lips touched mine lightly, then began a firmer exploration of my mouth.

Someone cleared his throat behind us. We froze for a moment, then Jake set me back on my feet.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Rafe Oxley stood in the door of the fermentation area, his expression lost behind the fingers playing with his mustache.

“Not at all.” My face felt hot. “I was just showing Jake my operation, er, I was showing him how the refractometer works.”

“There doesn’t seem to be enough light in here to get a good reading.” This time I could see a smile working at the corners of his mouth. “I’m glad to find both of you here. I need to talk to you, and I’m sure the deputy would like to ask me some questions, too.”

“We were just about to go out and grab dinner someplace,” said Jake. “Why don’t you join us?”

As we prepared to leave the brew barn, the rain hit, a torrential downpour that got my hopes up. I could tell Rafe was silently cheering on the rain, too.

“I’d give my Mercedes if this rain would keep up the entire evening and the rest of the night.”

Another heavy gust of wind, the dying sound of thunder, and the storm rushed over the far ridge, barely leaving the ground wet.

“The county board meets tomorrow night and will be presenting a plan for dealing with this drought. The word is, if we don’t get rain soon, there’ll have to be restrictions imposed on all water use, and it will extend to private wells. The brewers could be hit hard if that happens,” Rafe said. His next words revealed his concern over our situation. “Then there’s the danger that our wells will go dry. You’ve got the only deep well in this valley, Hera.”