Death & the Brewmaster's Widow (9 page)

Death looked around, at the darkening sky and the abandoned buildings that made up the rest of the brewery complex and the white, Italianate mansion across the road where the Einstadt heir lived. He slipped his hand into Wren's.

“You and me both, pal. You and me both.”

_____

Wren waited until they were in Death's Jeep and well away from the brewery to speak. The vehicle was hot, the leather seats almost to the point where they would burn bare skin, but, for once, she welcomed the warmth, soaked it in. The cold in the room where Randy died was uncomfortable and creepy. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked Death finally.

He glanced toward her, one eyebrow raised. “You think I was looking for something?”

“I know you were. I just don't know what.”

He smiled slightly and, without looking, reached across the vehicle to brush a wild lock of red hair from her cheek to tuck it behind her ear.

“You know my mom was an English literature professor. Dad was a cop and Grandma was a district attorney, but Mom was the detective in the family. She taught me everything I know. Have you ever heard of the Kipling Method?”

Wren wrinkled her nose in thought. “Well, I know who Kipling
was
…”

“It's a method for gathering facts, called that because of one of his poems. It's also known as ‘five W's and an H'.”

“Oh! You mean ‘who, what, when, where, why, and how'? Cameron calls it the ‘journalistic approach'.”

“Bingo! Well, I've been applying that to the problem of Randy's badge and helmet. The ‘what' is switching Randy's helmet for another and pinning a counterfeit badge on him. The main questions I want answers to are ‘who' and ‘why,' but I can't see any easy way of finding them. So instead I tackle the other questions—‘when,' ‘where,' and ‘how.' Now, according to Captain Cairn and the guys at 41's, Randy left the station without a badge. I presume he was also wearing his own helmet, though I can't actually verify that at this point. None of the guys were looking at his helmet. He was in the truck with Rowdy until they arrived at the fire and they went in the building together. The only time he was alone and the only place he was alone was for three minutes in that room where he died.”

“Have you considered that,” Wren hesitated, treading lightly. “Have you considered that maybe Rowdy was, I don't know, mistaken somehow or
…
?

“Or involved?” Death asked, glancing her way. “Yeah, of course I've considered it. I just can't see it though. Rowdy and Randy had been friends for years. Randy was Rowdy's best man at his wedding and his kids' godfather, even though we were never very religious. And I can't think of any motive, nothing. No reason for him to have done it. But, yeah, it has occurred to me. That's why I looked at the room he was searching, checked his footprints. It checked out. So, for now anyway, I'm going to rule him out.”

“Okay, but if he didn't do it, then that means someone else had to have. That's what you were looking for, isn't it? Some sign that someone besides Randy and Rowdy was in that building.”

“Yup.”

“And did you find it?”

“Maybe.” They came to a stop sign. Death was taking a leisurely route back to Randy's house, avoiding the city's main arteries in favor of small side streets that traversed residential neighborhoods. “What do you think of Barrows' theory? Is my little brother haunting the room where he died?”

“The brewery isn't haunted,” Wren said certainly without even stopping to think about it.

Death gave her a sideways, speculative glance, returned his eyes forward, and paused before speaking again. “So you don't believe in ghosts?”

“You know I do.” She rubbed her arms, remembering the cold in the room and other rooms, some cold and some not, that had made her shiver. “I've seen too many things, and heard things and
felt
things. People who think they're smarter than I am or more sophisticated than I am can laugh at me all they want to. Yes, I do believe in ghosts.”

“But?”

“
But
that room wasn't haunted.” Death just nodded encouragingly and waited for her to continue. “Most of the auctions we do are estate auctions. You're going into houses where dead people lived, sometimes for years, sometimes for their whole lives. And sometimes they're the houses where they died. You go into their houses and you go through their stuff, you drag it out into the yard and you sell it off to strangers. And it doesn't happen very often, but sometimes—they just don't like it very much.”

She looked over to see if he was laughing at her. He wasn't so, emboldened, she continued. “Sometimes it's things moving by themselves, or disappearing just to show up again somewhere you've searched a thousand times. Sometimes it's noises, footsteps where no one's walking, or indistinct voices in the next room when you know you're alone. It's rare to actually see anything, but the one thing that you almost always notice is a feeling. A presence, like someone walked into the room with you. There was this one house once, nothing fancy, just a little, run-down, two-bedroom bungalow with a fenced yard and an old utility shed. Sam and Roy forbade anyone from going in alone. Not that anyone wanted to.”

“Mmhm.” He turned down a narrow alley. They had come up the street behind Randy's without her realizing it and now he pulled up and parked behind the garage. He turned the key off and opened his door, but paused before getting out. “And in the brewery? In the room where Randy died? Did you feel a presence there?”

“All I felt was cold,” she said. She got out of the Jeep and circled to meet him at the front of the vehicle.

“What about here?” he persisted. “Do you feel anything here?”

She hesitated. “Not in the house,” she said. “Or, at least, not all the time. And nothing bad. I got out your grandmother's good dishes today because I felt like she wanted me to. I could have been imagining it, of course.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. So, if not in the house, then where?”

Wren shrugged, sheepish. “I probably sound like some kind of loon.”

Death grinned. “That's never turned me off before,” he said, and ducked away from her playful punch. “No, but seriously. If not in the house, then where?”

She walked over and stood beside the garage. “I feel like there's a dog in the yard. A female. She's about yay high,” she held her hand out, palm down, about two feet off the ground. “And she wants me to pet her.”

Death went over and put his arm around her shoulders. “Her name was Lady. She was my grandpa's Dalmatian. She lived to be almost twenty and she's buried right next to where you're standing. Come on in the house. I know a nice little Italian place that delivers. We can order dinner and I'll tell you what I saw in the Einstadt Brewery.”

nine

Wren downloaded the pictures
from her camera to her laptop while Death called the restaurant and ordered their dinner. She let him order for her—he knew the establishment and he knew what she liked. That secretly delighted her—that he paid close enough attention to know what she liked. When he came back, she was studying the photos again. “What do you see?” he asked.

She shrugged. “You're looking for a way someone could have gotten into and out of the room quickly without being seen by Rowdy or the guys from the other station.”

“Yeah. I'd thought maybe someone could have hidden in the room itself, then waited until Rowdy took Randy out to leave. They'd have had all the time in the world, then. But there's nowhere in the room to hide.”

“Could they have simply used the door and hidden in one of the other rooms?”

“Possible but unlikely. The doors were all pretty stiff when I tried them. The hinges rusted and grime built up on the floor behind them. You didn't go all the way down the hall, but there's a cubby at the end with a stairway to the second floor. It's blocked with junk that, judging by the dirt, has been there for decades.”

“Right. Okay, so …” Wren looked back at the pictures she'd taken. “The window's out.”

“Rusted closed. And that bird's nest looks like it's been there for years.”

“I did notice that the floor was too clean. I don't know if that's significant, though. Could the fire department have done that? If there was an investigation into Randy's death, maybe?”

“I doubt it, but we'll ask Captain Cairn. Notice anything else about the floor?” he hinted.

Wren frowned. “Do you mean the plywood?”

Death reached over her shoulder, found a picture that showed the square of plywood in the corner, and brought it up. “Why is there a piece of plywood in the corner?”

“I figured the floor got damaged at some point and they pulled up the broken boards and stuck a piece of plywood over the hole.”

“Sounds reasonable. But, tell me, what do you think this room was used for?”

“It was an office. There was a desk.”

“Whose office?”

“Somebody important. That desk is beyond salvage, unfortunately, but it was a really nice piece of furniture at one time. It was solid oak, did you see? And those scraps on the floor? That was a leather inlay. I'd say it was the office of the head of the company, or at least a vice president.”

“Right. So you've got this successful brewery. Do you let the big shot's office floor deteriorate to the point where it caves in and then patch it with cheap plywood?”

“No, of course not. It must have been done after the brewery closed.”

“When?”

Wren turned to blink at Death in bemusement. “You say that like you think I should know.”

“Think about it. You've read the same articles about the history of the brewery that I have.”

She went over it in her mind. The factory was built in 1873 to replace a smaller building a few blocks away. Business was booming, and they built the main malt house and the family mansion at the same time. They expanded it in 1897 and again in 1908. It operated until Prohibition passed in 1919, then Aram Einstadt locked the doors and walked away. He died three years later and, by the time Prohibition was repealed, there was no one in the family interested in re-opening the business. That's why people started calling it the Brewmaster's Widow. They said he'd been married more to the brewery than he had to his wife. Some of the other buildings were sold off or rented out for other purposes, but the malt house has been sitting idle ever since.

“So when did someone slap a piece of plywood over a hole in the president's office floor?”

“You think it was done recently? They just used an old piece of plywood so no one would notice?”

“No, it was done several decades ago at least. There's dirt built up in the cracks between it and the normal floorboards. Someone put it there for a specific reason.”

“So what do you think the plywood is covering? Is there something in the hole in the floor?”

“You could say that. I think it all ties together, the company president's office, the plywood, and the fact that the room feels like a refrigerator.”

“Aaaannndd … you're going to tell me some day?”

He grinned. “I think there's an opening to the Cherokee Caves. It's the cold air coming up from the caverns that chills the room. They were used to keep beer cold, remember? I've heard of other brewing families having private tunnels from their houses to their breweries. It let them go to and from work in bad weather without going outside. There's probably a stairway with a door into the caves at the bottom. When they abandoned the brewery, they decided for some reason to cover the stairwell. Maybe they were afraid vagrants would get into the building through the tunnels and they wanted an extra layer of protection beyond just the door. And someone else disturbed it in the last year or so.” He pulled up another picture and zoomed in close. “Look at the nails.”

“They're new!” Wren realized.

“They're new and they're driven into existing nail holes left by rusty nails with larger heads. See the rings of rust around each one?”

Wren sat back and thought about it. “Okay, so there's a way that someone could have come into the room and switched Randy's helmet. But I still can't think of any reason for it.
Why
?”

“Yeah, that's where I keep getting hung up, too. The only thing I can think to do is find the person responsible and ask them, as forcefully as necessary.”

“So what's our next move?”

“Well,” he shifted, put his feet up on the coffee table, and shrugged. “It's not exactly legal and it's not exactly safe, but I know a way to get into the caves. Randy and I went in once when we were teenagers.” He huffed a laugh, remembering. “If Dad had caught us, he'd have skinned us alive. Anyway, I think that's the next thing. I want to see if I can find that tunnel. I want to know exactly where it leads.”

_____

“It's time for your medicine, Mr. Grey.”

Andrew Grey was sitting in the luxurious bedroom, next to the open window, breathing in the scents of hot asphalt and car exhaust that came in between the burglar bars. He had an open book on his lap, but he was staring at it more than he was reading it. He tried in vain to recall the maid's name. He knew he asked her every day and every day she gave him his pills and he swallowed them and slept. When he woke up, he'd forgotten again.

“I've never read this book,” he said, bemused.

She took it from his hands, closed it, and set it aside. “You can read it in the morning.”

She handed him a glass of water and he swallowed several mouthfuls. He handed the glass back and she set it on the tray she'd brought and reached past him to close the window. “Do you need me to help you to the bed to lie down?”

“I need to visit the restroom. Where's my cane?”

She gave him his cane and helped him rise. Slowly and awkwardly he made his way across the room and into the bathroom. When the door was closed behind him, he put his hand to his mouth and spit out the pills he'd tucked under his tongue.

_____

When he'd been in the Corps, Death had run every morning, at least a mile. Before active duty, he'd run his way through basic training and before that he'd put in miles and miles on the high school track and baseball diamond. He'd never particularly enjoyed running, but it was a basic part of his fitness regimen so he did it. It was familiar—working the night's kinks out of his muscles with the early sun on his shoulders and the new day fresh in his lungs.

He stopped at the corner and leaned against a street sign, pretending to check his phone and trying to look casual.

The first six weeks after he was released from the VA hospital, he'd had to carry an oxygen tank with him wherever he went and he'd needed to use the electric shopping carts to make it through one of the big retail stores. It had been one of the most humiliating experiences of his life. The breathing exercises he did faithfully had helped a great deal, but his doctors had warned him that he would never get back to full lung capacity, or even get close.

It had probably been a mistake to walk to the convenience store for coffee and donuts, but it was only three blocks. Mule-headed pride prevented him from driving that distance.

He pushed off the sign and crossed the street. As he did, an older-model, light-brown sedan cruised slowly past him, then sped up when he glanced in its direction. His gut tingled with unease, and he told himself not to be melodramatic. Sometimes Afghanistan, with its ever-present dangers, intruded on Missouri. He had a tendency to be hyper-alert and constantly schooled himself not to jump at shadows.

GasMart was on the corner. The light-brown car pulled into the lot and parked next to the building. As Death passed the gas pumps, the driver got out and they approached the glass door at the same time from opposite directions. The soldier in Death went on alert.

The figure coming toward him was short and slight, with a deep tan and dark eyes, a pencil-thin black mustache, and a baseball cap pulled low. In the warm, humid morning he was wearing a sweatshirt jacket that hung open over a heavy sweatshirt and a pair of leather gloves. The right pocket of his jacket hung lower than the left and swung like a pendulum. He'd left his car running.

Death instinctively tapped at his own hip, but of course he wasn't carrying. He'd left his gun back in East Bledsoe Ferry with Chief Reynolds. He was unarmed and winded and he was about to get caught in a convenience store robbery.

The best course of action would be to stay outside and call 911, but one glance at the robber and he knew that was out of the question. The man was watching him, his hand in his pocket. If he suspected Death was onto him, all he had to do was point and pull the trigger. A smart shooter wouldn't even take the gun out of his pocket first. If Death had had the option of running away, he'd have taken it. Shooting didn't necessarily mean killing, or even hitting. Most people weren't nearly as good a shot as they thought they were. But running was out of the question and, as close as they were, even a lousy shot was apt to be deadly.

He reached the door first and went inside, feigning unconcern and watching the gunman in the reflection on the door. In his mind's eye, he reviewed what he could expect to find in a convenience store that could be used for self-defense.

The counter was to the right. On his left were rows of shelves full of snack food and the odd assortment of groceries and sundries stocked by such establishments. The front wall was entirely windows with low shelves underneath displaying motor oil and engine additives. The back wall was taken up by a row of refrigerated display cases—soda pop and beer and sandwiches behind glass doors that served as poor mirrors.

At the end of the counter was a glass-sided grill full of breakfast sausages and hot dogs roasting on metal rollers. Beside the grill stood a condiment bar with salt and pepper, individual packets of relish and onions, and squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard. Death crossed to it eagerly, grabbing the bottle of mustard, and turning to trade the faint reflection in the cooler doors for a direct view of the robber. As he did, the man pulled a .38 from his pocket and the teenage boy behind the counter screamed.

The gunman ignored the teenager and spun immediately toward Death, raising his gun as he turned. He held it in both hands, the butt of the gun cupped in his left hand and his right index finger tightening on the trigger. Death read his intention to fire in his body language and dropped, falling to his left as the shot rang out. The bullet passed over his right shoulder and shattered a cooler full of bottled beer.

He'd popped the top off the bottle as he fell and he came up
spraying mustard at the gunman's eyes. The gunman ducked away reflexively, still firing, and bullets shattered random targets and took chunks out of the wall behind Death. Leading with the squirting mustard, Death aimed for his assailant's nose and mouth. The thick, yellow paste covered the man's airways and he clawed at his face in a blind panic, dropping his gun in the process.

“Stop or I'll shoot!”

Startled, Death and the gunman turned to the teenager behind the counter. In the heat of their fight they'd both forgotten him. He had a gun of his own, an ancient revolver he held in both hands. He was trembling so badly that the barrel danced like water drops on a hot skillet. The gunman gave up and ran for his car.

Death dropped the mustard bottle and leaned against the counter, trying to drag in enough air to calm his heartbeat. “Kid,” he said, “just don't, okay?”

_____

Wren came out of the bathroom toweling her hair dry. Randy's home had a central air conditioner that was ancient but well-maintained and efficient, causing her to shiver in the chilly room. She'd been thinking about Death and his theory about the caves.

If he was right about the Einstadt family having a private entrance to the brewery through the caves, it made sense that the passage would lead to the Einstadt mansion. It had been built at the same time as the brewery. It could have been situated over a natural entrance to the caves, or an artificial entrance could have been dug.

That didn't mean the current occupants were involved, or even that they knew the passage existed. Their end of the passage could exit in a remote location, such as a garden shed, and there could very well be some way to get from the passage to the main network of caves. In fact, there'd better be, or she and Death would find nothing on the clandestine caving expedition he was planning for later that day. If that happened, she had a strong suspicion they'd end up trespassing and making an unlawful entry into the brewery before the night was over.