A Deadly Draught (2 page)

“I can take some over to my house.”

“Never mind. I’ll take care of it. Go see about Michael.”

I knocked at his bedroom door, but he told me to go away. When I tried the knob, I found the door locked.

“It’s Hera. I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Get out of here.” Something hard hit the door.

“You’re being an ass, Michael.”

The door opened. Only his head appeared. He swept his hand through his dark curls and leaned over to pick up a shoe lying in front of the opening.

“I am, aren’t I? But could you let me be an ass for a little while? I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I can’t be around anyone right now.” His anger had turned to pleading, and I didn’t have the heart to deny him his solitude.

“Okay.” He closed the door on me. “Okay, for now,” I said.

Downstairs I heard the clattering of dishes in the kitchen. Through the doorway, I watched Claudia scrape untouched food from the platters and bowls into the disposal and turn it on.
No one in this house was right anymore.

*

We were experiencing unusual May weather this year in upstate New York. Springs here were often rainy and cold, but today the temperature reached the high seventies, and a few wispy clouds blew by on a warm breeze. The grass in the cemetery smelled sweet, and the evergreens above our heads gave off the aroma of needles and pine cones. Only the newly turned dirt from the grave reminded me spring could bring death as well as new life.

It was
déjà vu
for me, standing at the gravesite, waiting for the coffin to take a final journey into the ground. It was a replay from five years prior, except it was Michael’s father this time, not mine, and it was murder, not suicide, leaving Michael without him.

I held his hand as the coffin descended into the earth. Tears stood in my eyes, not for Mr. Ramford, who had met a bloody death at the hands of an unknown killer, but for Michael. His mother was right. He had turned into someone I didn’t know. In the days between my discovering his father’s body and now, he’d been unusually testy with everyone, including me.

But today he seemed happy to see me. I had sat behind him at the church, and at the cemetery he took my hand as we walked up the hill to the mourners gathered at the gravesite. I felt as if he had been angry at me, then forgiven me for something I had done. I was relieved, yet I had to ask the question preying on my mind for days.

“You don’t think I had anything to do with your father’s death, do you?” I guess it was the bluntness of my question that drew forth a dismissive guffaw.

“What? Oh, of course not, although I could understand your wanting to get rid of him.”

I was shocked at his comment. “That’s an awful thing to say. He wasn’t my favorite person, but for someone to murder him … It’s barbaric.”

“Unthinkable, perhaps? Maybe not. He was a horrible man, mean and cold to me and to Mom, who forgave him always. Who liked him? Aside from Mother, I mean.”

“You loved him. You know you did. Why so callous about his death?”

“Hard to handle.” Michael cleared his throat. “I guess I never thought he’d die.”

I drew his arm closer, willing his pain and grief to flow from him to me. I wanted to protect him, to make him whole again. It was the same feeling I had when I was eleven and my mother died. I wanted to put my father back together, to re-form him into the man he used to be when she was alive. As I looked into Michael’s face now, I was reminded of how I failed Dad. I wouldn’t do the same to Michael.

“Who’s that?” I whispered in his ear as the minister intoned the last words over the coffin.

“Where?”

“The scruffy-looking guy by the road.”

“Oh, him. I’ll tell you later at the house. It’s a surprise.” Michael’s mouth broke into a smile. He seemed to catch the inappropriateness of this graveside grin, drew his lips into a scowl, and said, “I see our favorite law enforcement officer is in attendance. Maybe I should invite him back to the house. Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

“Michael.” I clutched his arm closer to my body to prevent him from leaving.

“You like him, don’t you? I heard you had some hot stud when you were in law school. He was the one, right?”

“Why are you being so unkind? It’s not like you. I told you about Jake years ago, and you thought it was fine. You and I never had anything going. Why so nasty now?” As quickly as he took on the look of a gladiator about to do battle with an adversary, his face changed again.

“I’m sorry. I’m out of sorts with Dad’s death and all. The microbrewery is mine to run now, and I feel in over my head. You know Dad never would let me do much while he held the reins, and now I’m supposed to brew beer. I don’t even like beer.” A childish pout replaced the sorrow on his face.

“That’s not true. I’ll help you. We can lean on one another like we did when we were kids.”

“Like I did, you mean. You did all of my homework.”

“Well, since you’re all grown up, I’ll make you do the work, with my support, of course.” I pulled a punch to his arm and smiled up at him, hoping my words might help him look to the future with some enthusiasm. But he turned his attention to a Mercedes convertible pulling up alongside the other cars on the road.

“It’s Cory. I’ll grab a ride with her back to the house. See you there.” He strode off, his black suit coat blowing behind him in the wind. Michael’s abrupt departure made the minister look up from his prayer book and lose his place in the service. Michael was on his way to becoming as rude as his father was. I hoped this new and obnoxious persona wasn’t permanent.

My gaze followed him to the car. His hand reached out to take hers as the woman emerged from the driver’s seat, her long hair the same champagne color as the car’s finish. Then he planted a passionate kiss on her lips, and they both leaned into the embrace as if hungry for more than each other’s mouths. A dull pain worked its way through my heart.

I turned from the grave and followed the mourners toward their cars. Claudia caught up with me as we neared the road.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into Michael.” She wore the requisite black for mourning, but today, unlike the morning after the murder, her hair was smoothed back in a shining, lacquered pageboy, and her nails looked newly polished. The red color on them caught my eye.

“Too much?” she asked. I shook my head no. “Good. I needed a bit of a lift.” She smiled and waggled her fingers, the sunshine catching their cherry glint. “See you at the house.” She got into the limo provided by the funeral service.

As I approached my beat-up truck, Jake stepped in front of me.

“I have some more questions for you.”

“You heard all I had to say about the murder the other night.” I reached out for the door handle. Jake’s hand got there first and prevented me from opening it.

“You told me Ramford asked you to meet him at the barn that night. You didn’t tell me about the fights you’d been having with him.”

“Fights? More like business discussions where we agreed not to do business.”

“I understand it was also personal. He wanted you and Michael to marry, but you couldn’t get Michael interested in the proposition.”

I could feel a flush working its way up my face. “Who told you that?”

“One of the workers at the brewery overheard your conversation when you and Ramford last tried to negotiate a deal.”

“I’d never sell out to Ramford Beer. Never.”

“My snooping tells me you need money to continue your operation, and you need it badly.” His face was too near my own, making it difficult for me to avoid those probing eyes.

“Oh, yes, I do need money. So I would murder the one person who was offering it to me?”

“No, but you might remove the person who could threaten your loan with the local bank. Ramford played golf with the bank’s president, and most of the men sitting on the board were his friends.”

“There are other sources of money, you know,” I said.

“Yes, but now, you can go ahead with your loan application.”

This whole conversation was absurd. There was a hidden agenda at the heart of his interrogation, so I decided to call him on it.

“Look, I know you’re pissed at me for the way I ran off and left you in law school, but you don’t know what was happening then. My father …”

“You’re wrong. I’m not harassing you about any personal issues we may have had in the past. I know about your father. I was real sorry about his death. Let’s stick to the murder, shall we?”

How dare he invoke the past and then dismiss it as irrelevant?
“Sorry, were you? I heard nothing from you. No condolence card, no phone call, nothing. Now we’re years down the road, and here you are investigating the murder of the father of one of my dearest friends. I’m sure you’re good at what you do, but do it to somebody else, will you? I found the body. I didn’t make it dead.”

*

I couldn’t help myself.
I behaved as I often did when I stepped into the log home Mr. Ramford had built for his family. I looked upward at the soaring beamed ceiling running the length of the downstairs. Skylights along the peaked roofline allowed brilliant sunshine to pour down on the heads of the mourners gathered in the great room below.

Claudia greeted me, and her gaze followed mine. “Michael wanted this house to make a powerful statement about the Ramford family, and it does,” she said. “No one enters here without feeling like a tiny ant under these eaves, no one except for Michael Senior.”

“Yes, it was surely his house.”

“Reminds me of a barn, and it’s a bitch to heat.” Her words surprised me. They were the first betrayal of support for her husband I’d ever heard from the woman. She turned her back and waved me into the room, gesturing toward the food and drink. “Have something. It’s on the house.” I thought I caught a titter from her, but she turned away and approached two people entering the room.

It looked as if every important member of the local community and some from farther away were in attendance at the after-service get-together. I strolled the room, nodding to people I knew and stopping to chat with a few others. This felt more like evening cocktails at the manor rather than an ending for a funeral. Perhaps knowing her husband’s taste and character, Claudia intended it as a tribute to him and the way he lived his life.

Sally’s Catering, a service run by my dear friend Sally Granger, provided the food. I caught her eye as she hurried to place another platter of sandwiches on the buffet table. She waved, then ducked her head and ran back into the kitchen.
Oh, Sally, too embarrassed to talk with me?
Or was she still mad at me for giving her unwelcome advice about Michael? I guess it was my move first, so I made a mental note to visit her soon.

A waiter offered me a choice of Ramford beer or champagne. I grabbed a tall flute off his tray. I spotted my brewing colleagues gathered in a corner sipping the champagne. Teddy Buser’s voice carried across the room and drew my attention.

“I’m only saying what everyone is thinking. Good riddance to the man. He had the gall to ask if we could go into business together. I asked him, ‘What business? I’ve got a brewery, and you’ve got shit.’ The swill he’s been making for years is so behind the times. Never was any good.”

I joined the group.

“Swill, Teddy? I heard the recipe for your Twelve Gauge beer is oh-so-close to Ramford’s Shining Moment Lager. You wouldn’t call Twelve Gauge swill, would you?” asked Rafe Oxley.

For some reason, perhaps out of the boredom brought on by life in a small town, Rafe liked to stir the pot among the brewers. His observations about members of this brewing gang were astute, but, offered as they were in an English accent and by such an urbane man with dark good looks, most of us didn’t see him as intentionally rude. We liked his dry wit and teasing humor.

As if to confirm my thought that he was angling for a good-natured rise out of Teddy, Rafe caught my eye and winked. No one else seemed to notice. Before Teddy could answer, Rafe continued, “Wasn’t Ramford Beer giving you a run for your money? He wasn’t introducing as much corn in his product as you do.”

Teddy exploded. “Corn! I don’t use corn.” Everyone laughed, knowing hand-crafted beers such as those we made almost never used corn.

“Commercial brewers might add corn, but not you, huh, Teddy?’ The voice belonged to Marsh Wilson, who had apprenticed under Teddy several years back.

Teddy shot Marsh a look of suspicion. I wondered if he knew more about Teddy’s business than Teddy wanted made public.

“What are you saying, Marsh?” asked Teddy. A flush worked its way up his throat and onto his already ruddy cheeks.

“Now, Teddy, don’t get defensive. You know we like to rib you. It’s our way of handling your success while we flounder around as smaller, second-best brewers,” said Marsh and gave Teddy a good-natured slap on the back.

“First of all, I’d like to be thought of as a small, not a second-best, brewer,” I said. “But, Marsh, I thought you were running the Highland House, not brewing beer.”

“I sold it,” said Marsh. Because I stood to his left and a little behind the group, I could see him place his hand on the back of the woman at his side. He moved his fingers in small circles, a caress signaling possession and intimacy. I was about to introduce myself to her when the sound of cutlery tapping the side of a champagne glass drew our regard.

“If I might have your attention.” Michael strode to the center of the room. At his side stood the stranger from the cemetery, his brown polyester suit and mustard yellow tie shouting foot-long hotdog. “I’d like to introduce you to Stanley Frost. I’ve hired him as the new brew master of Ramford Brewery. I know Father would have wanted us to look to the future as he always did. Ramford will be introducing a number of new brews over the next few months. So let’s welcome Stanley into our family of Butternut Valley brewers.”

I could see shock on many people’s faces. This hardly seemed like the right occasion for such an announcement, especially one promising to alter so dramatically the Ramford business. I looked over at Claudia. For a moment, I thought her face registered the same note of surprise as did others’. If she knew nothing of her son’s plans, she hid her astonishment by coughing quietly and sipping water from the glass she held in her hand. Then she nodded and smiled, set the glass on the buffet table and joined in the applause and the well wishes the room was offering the new brew master.