A Deadly Draught (5 page)

“No interest. You would sign over fifty percent of the business to Ramford Brewery. You and Michael would finally be partners. Of course, you would retain creative management. We’d brew the beers you wanted.” Both of them smiled in encouragement.

“I see, and if I wanted a brew you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to find the money to back it. Right?”

Stanley didn’t reply. He tilted his chair back on its legs and continued to look at me with interest.
Like a puddy tat after a mouse,
I thought. Michael shifted around in his chair. He avoided my gaze.

“I’ll give it some thought.” I jumped from my chair and rushed out of the room. I was steaming as I headed down the hallway. Michael caught up with me at the door.

“You’re not going for it, are you?”

I whirled around to face him. “Of course not. Do you think I’d allow anyone to take this brewery away from me after all I’ve done to put her back on her feet after Dad’s death? I thought you hired Stanley as the brew master. You’re letting him ride roughshod over you the same way your father did. C’mon. You’re better than that.”

Michael put his arms around me.

“You’re my friend. I only want what’s best for you.”

This was more like it.
My old friend, my best buddy, my sweet childhood crush.

“Tell me you don’t want anything to do with this business. You can’t mean it. Remember a few years ago when you and I were sitting on the hill above the old hop house, and we planned out the microbrews we would make if we had the money. Remember?”

“I do remember.”

“If we can find who killed your father, you’ll be your old self, the sweet and creative Michael I know. The beer king. I used to call you that, and you loved it.”

Michael tugged my earlobe, as he did when we were kids, and he was trying to pull me out of a funk.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“I know I am.” I hesitated, anger at Stanley loosening my tongue and robbing me of caution. “This will be hard for you to take, but Jake, uh, Deputy Sheriff Ryan thinks someone in your family, probably your father or maybe …” I couldn’t tell Michael he was a suspect, too. “Uh, probably your father may have been involved in my dad’s death.” The minute the words left my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them.

Michael stepped back and looked down into my eyes.

“What do you mean?” A hard edge of disbelief and caution replaced the softness on his face.

At that moment, we heard a rap on the outside door, and Jake walked in. “Well, well, if it isn’t the love birds.”

Michael dropped his hands from my waist.

“I think you’d better come into my office where we can talk, Deputy.”

“I’d like that.”

When we entered the office, Stanley was seated behind the desk in Michael’s chair.

“Beat it, Stanley. Go do your job. Create a lager for me or an ale. Create several. I’m paying you enough money for a whole line of beers.”

Stanley’s head came up with a jerk, and he sprang out of the chair. I suspected Michael had never addressed him this way before. I was a little surprised at Michael’s tone of voice.

“I think you should leave, too, Hera. This is between the deputy and me.”

Stanley and I stood outside the office together. I’d held my dislike of this man in check long enough. Michael’s implied reprimand of him gave me the license I needed to speak out. I smiled at him and chuckled.

“I guess you were the boss only briefly. Better savor the moment. I don’t think it’s coming around again.”

“Neither is yours,” he said and walked out the door.

Five

I peeked through the window of Rafe’s fermentation room to view the large vat of wort—a filtered blend of water, malted barley, and hops—being worked on by the yeast. His operation was as large as Teddy’s, but Rafe brewed only Belgian-style ales.

“You can almost see the yeast gobbling away at the barley, eating up oxygen in the process. The room must be filled to the ceiling with carbon dioxide by now.”

Rafe nodded. “Not someplace you want to visit for long, but you wouldn’t need a fermentation chamber like this one. You can brew in your own vats.” He stood beside me, proudly gesturing toward the carbon dioxide-filled room. “You do need better equipment than those old kettles you’re using now.”

I was right about Rafe. He expressed enthusiastic support for my ideas, and he offered me the names of others in the ale business who might also be of help.

“Just don’t horn in on my cave-aged ales.” He said this in a good-natured manner.

“As if I could afford to pay any of the caverns operating a tourist business around here the prices they ask you for storage.” Rafe partnered with the cavern facility nearby to rent space from them in which to age his ales. The publicity was good for them and Rafe. “Cave-aged ales,” and “Visit the aging grotto,” read the ads.

“Someday you may. You’re the best brewer around here. You read, you ask intelligent questions, you love the business, you just plain have a knack for beer. And you’re damn pretty.”

“If pretty were a prerequisite for brewing good beer, then most breweries would be run by women, and that’s not the case.”

Rafe hesitated a moment, then leaned back onto the fermenting room wall. “We may have more than one woman brewer around here, if what I hear is true.”

“Really.” I tried to hide my concern. I didn’t think we needed another brewery in this valley, whether it was run by a man or a woman.

“Francine Ortega, the woman with Marsh Wilson at Ramford’s funeral, hired him to brew for her.”

“So that’s why he sold his restaurant.” I remembered the possessive way Marsh caressed her back at the funeral. “I thought she was planning to continue making wine at her winery on Kendall Lake.”

“Wine, and she’s going to try a brewpub at the same location.” Rafe led me out of the barn toward the beer garden he’d created for his tastings. We strolled past the cedar trees and the grape arbor and into an area shaded by colorful umbrellas positioned in the center of round, wooden tables. He beckoned me over to one, and we sat.

“So Francine will only sell on premises.” I wondered if Rafe heard the relief in my voice.
None of her beers sitting next to mine on grocer’ shelves, thank goodness.

“For now, at least.”

“Didn’t Marsh work for you as well as Teddy several years ago?” I asked.

Rafe chuckled and nodded. “Don’t worry, Hera. There’s room enough for all of the breweries in this valley. Competition makes us brew well, better than if we were a monopoly,” Rafe said, but then, he could be benevolent about competition. He had none in the area. His closest competitor for Belgian ales was in the Susquehanna River Valley near Cooperstown, at least thirty miles from here.

“Not all of us think as you do. Teddy hates competition. He’d like to be the single brewer in this valley, and I’m hanging on by my nails. Michael and Stanley would love to see me disappear, but maybe Michael will come to his senses.”

Rafe reached across the table and took my hand. “I know you came to me for business advice, but let me give you a little personal advice too.”

I screwed up my face at his words.

“Now don’t run away, my dear. It’s free, and personal issues aren’t unrelated to your business. You’re only as creative a brewer as your psyche allows you to be, and if all your psychic energy is tied up in knots over Michael Ramford, you’re going nowhere.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Get yourself some man who won’t get in the way of what you want, someone who knows his own mind. Someone like the new deputy sheriff. He agrees with me.”

“How so?”

“He thinks you’re damn pretty too.”

“You know it takes more than looks. He finds me a real pain in the patootie.”

“Yes, he does and he’s right. You are. That’s why I like you.”

*

As I signed for a shipment of malt and hops the next morning, Rafe’s words came back to me. He was right. I could brew great ale. There was something else Rafe was right about. I had to get Michael off my mind. I rejected Rafe’s suggestion that Jake was a better choice for me, but I couldn’t seem to put Jake’s lopsided smile and intense eyes out of my mind.

“This is the last load of product I can deliver and let your account ride,” said the driver. “My boss says you’re too far behind in your bill as it is.” My head began to hurt when I saw the total on the receipt.

I needed a lot more malt and hops than I now had on hand to continue with my new brew. Business issues should be drawing my attention, but instead I was reviewing smiles on the face of a deputy sheriff who considered me past history. God, I hated his smugness. If I could find a way to wipe it off his handsome face, I’d …

I did know how. Who was better acquainted with the brewers than I? Finding Mr. Ramford’s killer and determining how Dad died would free all of us in this valley—free Michael to get on with his brewery work and release me from the years of guilt I carried not being able to help my father through my mother’s death. Perhaps I could stop blaming myself for playing some unwitting part in his death, whether it was suicide or murder. Jake could have been right about one thing. Dad might have died at someone else’s hands, maybe Ramford’s.

How sweet it would be to defeat Jake at his own game. Whether he knew it or not, the old competition we embraced so warmly in law school was on again.

Oh, sure, Hera, take a few moments and solve the crime. You can wedge sleuthing in between brewing beers and finding a source of income for your business.
I looked at my watch. Well, I did have a few hours before I was to meet with the bank president. Perhaps …

*

I positioned the step ladder under the attic hatch and crawled up the rungs until I could shove the cover to one side. It was heavier than I remembered. I pushed at it with my right hand while I held the top of the ladder with the other. The doorbell chimed.

Shit.
Who could that be?
I heard the door open.

“Hey, where are you? It’s Sally.”

“Come on upstairs. I could use a hand or two.”

She peered up at me from the bottom of the ladder. “What are you doing? Trying out for the circus?”

“Funny. Could you hold the ladder steady? I’ve almost got this.” Assured it couldn’t slip, I used both hands and moved the trapdoor to one side, stepped up a rung, and poked my head into the attic.

When was the last time I was up here?
I pulled my torso through the opening and entered a world of … cobwebs.
Uck.

“Hey! Come back here. We’ve got a meeting, or did you forget?” Sally asked.

Oh, damn. I did forget.
I’d cancelled a dinner with Sally last night so that I could organize the paperwork needed for my loan application. I assured Sally we could find time today before my meeting to talk about our business. The weight of worrying about the bank loan along with the issue of Dad’s death made me forget Sally was dropping by.
Oh, be honest, Hera,
I said to myself. Most of your morning has been taken up with thoughts of men—Dad, Michael, Jake—and the satisfaction of getting the better of Jake on this case.

Sally’s head appeared over the edge of the trap door. “I left Homer in charge at the bakery, but you know how he is.” I did know. Homer was Sally’s five-by-five, part-time assistant, not a bad baker in his own right, but more likely to taste the product than to sell it.

“C’mon up.” I reached back and helped pull her into the attic.

“Look at all this stuff. You haven’t been up here since …”

“Since Dad’s funeral. I never could face clearing this out.”

“So you choose today for your cleaning spree?”

“I’m looking for something,” I said. “We can talk and go through this stuff at the same time. Give me a hand.” We moved some old cane-backed chairs and a small bureau out of the way to clear a path to the back of the attic.

“Looking for what?”

“A murderer,” I replied.

Sally’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Ramford’s?”

“Jake thinks there may be some connection between Dad’s death and Ramford’s.” I told her about the gun sale.

“I can’t see Claudia as a pistol-packin’ mama, can you?” she asked.

“Not likely. Let’s take on this filing cabinet first.” We left unspoken the names of the Ramford brothers, boys who, like all boys in the valley, had grown up with guns.

“What am I searching for?” asked Sally. She had extracted papers from the overstuffed cabinet, piled them on a broken rocker, and was sorting through them as she sat on the attic floor.

“I don’t know, Anything that looks suspicious. Maybe a letter threatening to close an account for nonpayment or any kind of a personal threat. I don’t know!”

“You don’t have to yell. I’m just trying to help here. Hey, look at this bunch of personal letters to your dad. Looks like they’re from old college buddies. ‘Dear Stanton,’ this one begins, ‘Guess you won’t make this year’s reunion. We all heard you got shipped off to Korea.’ I shouldn’t be reading these.”

“Go ahead. You have my blessing. That was a long time ago, and with Dad gone, I hardly think there are any dark secrets from his college mates. Here are some more letters.” I handed them over to her. “You skim these while I examine his business correspondence.”

“Didn’t you look at any of this stuff when he died?”

“No, I did not. I shoved everything up here, figuring anything important in the way of business would come to my attention through his lawyer.” I kicked a corner of the bottom drawer to align it so I could pull it out. “Now, about the tastings. I think we’d do well to include someone selling food other than your breads.” I tugged more papers out of the filing cabinet. “I don’t mean anything that would cut into your baked goods, but something like sausages, cheeses, savory items that might go well with my brews. What do you think?”

“How about some herbs, too?”

“Great idea.” I stood up and stretched. “The only thing left to look through is the steamer trunk.” I pointed to the trunk, then remembered.

“Damn, I’ve got to run. I almost forgot my appointment with the bank president about my loan.”