A Deadly Draught Read online

  “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.

  Michael wandered over to my side.

  “I told you I had a little surprise.”

  “I thought you told your father this spring you had some new ideas for brews, and he rejected them. I don’t understand why you need Stanley now when you have the freedom to put your ideas into operation.”

  “I have plenty of ideas, but when I thought about it, the ones I liked the most had nothing to do with brewing beer. Don’t look so upset. Because you do it and do it well, doesn’t mean I want to spend my days and nights smelling yeast and malt.”

  “Okay, so Stanley designs the brews. Then what do you do?”

  “I provide the cash and the equipment. Oh, right. Then I collect the money.”

  Three

  I pulled my truck into a parking space in front of the store, hoping it was just early enough in the morning for Sally to be at work, but before any customers came into her shop. She stood at the door and watched me slip a coin into the parking meter. I worried she’d reach for the “closed” sign and turn her back on me, but she waved me in. No hello, no smile. I followed her into the back room and watched as she extracted the last loaves of her bread from the oven. She gave them a quick tap and nodded. The aroma of hot bread filled my nose, and a sudden flood of saliva washed over my tongue.

  “Coffee?” she asked. Without waiting for my reply, she picked up the pot, walked back out into the front of her shop, and poured me a cup. “Sit down. I’ll get preserves and fresh bread.”

  “Yum,” I said. She placed the bread and jam on the table, and I reached for them with both hands. She slapped my fingers.

  “The bread needs to cool. You know that.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “No reason to be,” she replied. We both knew neither of us was talking about bread and jam.

  I nodded, drummed my nails on the table for several minutes, and inched my hand toward the loaf.

  She gave in with a shake of her bright red curls and sliced the bread, releasing more of that I-can’t-wait-to-bite-into-it aroma as the knife cut through the crust and into the soft center. The two of us took one of the tables in the front of the bakery.

  “How’s business?” I gestured with my head at the four small tables positioned around the tiny room. Sunlight shone through the storefront windows. Along with the smells of ginger, cinnamon, and yeast bread and rolls from the ovens, the place was like being in grandma’s kitchen, warm, welcoming, and certain to put five pounds on you if you didn’t restrain yourself. This morning, I was the only patron.

  Sally ran floury fingers through her curls. Her gaze swept the empty room. “It’ll pick up soon.”

  “Bad, huh?”

  “You warned me. Told me not to set up the tea room in the winter months. You were right. Happy?” Her tone sounded more depressed than snappish.

  “No, of course not, but come June, your business will get a shot in the arm when we begin the tastings on Saturdays.”

  “You still want me at your Saturday festivals?”

  “Don’t be a ninny. Of course. I can’t have people on the brewery tour swilling beer without the proper accompaniments. Because you had the bad taste to arrive at my Christmas Eve supper alone and leave drunk with Michael in tow doesn’t mean I don’t want you there to provide bread and rolls. Once they get a taste of your baking, you’ll sell out every Saturday.”

  Her face turned red. “I have lousy taste in men, you know.”

  “Yeah, well then, so do I. How long have I had a thing for Michael, and we’re still nothing but friends?”

  Sally grabbed my hand across the table with one of hers. I looked down at her chubby, freckled arms and hands. They were so tiny and fragile looking.

  “Ouch.”

  “What?”

  “For such small hands, you sure have a strong grip.”

  “It’s all the kneading of bread I do. I still do it by hand. More authentic, you know.”

  I stuffed another piece of jam-covered bread into my mouth with my free hand. Neither of us spoke. A tear fell onto the table between us. Then another. Both of us were crying.

  “I thought you were jealous when you told me to be careful of Michael. Now I know you were right.” She picked up her apron and swiped at her face.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry he hurt you. And I’m sorry I tried to interfere,” I said.

  We hugged across the small table and then wiped away the wetness on our cheeks and gulped our coffee.

  “Did you get a chance to talk with Michael at the funeral?” I asked. I uttered my words through a full mouth. Sally laughed at me.

  “If I heard you right, no, I didn’t talk to him, but I heard his announcement. Maybe what he’s doing is a good idea. I mean, he’ll be gone a lot promoting the business and stuff, and you won’t have to deal with him at all. Neither will I. It could help both of us.”

  “I doubt it. You know what they say about absence and the heart, but I have to face the fact Michael and I are friends, only friends, and maybe not even that now. We used to talk a lot about business. That’s changed since his father’s death. We hardly talk at all.” I blew my nose on a napkin. “No. That’s not right. Michael started avoiding me before his father’s murder. I thought he was uncomfortable about the two of you, but I guess he thought I might have a few words to say about his dumping you and taking up with Cory. I did, but I never got to confront him.”

  The taste of preserves on my tongue turned sour when I thought of Michael’s recent behavior. “Since the announcement at the funeral, I don’t know him anymore. Once, I might have solicited his opinion on what I was attempting in the way of new brews, but now, well, I don’t know.”

  Sally opened the sugar bowl and began stirring the granules around with a spoon, patiently waiting for me to get to the point. She knew it was hard for me to ask her for anything. I was always the strong one from the time we first met in grade school, and I chased away all the bigger kids who taunted her with the name “midget.”

  “So you see, I didn’t come here only to eat your bread and break down the wall we built between us. I need your help. I think there’s something terribly wrong with Michael. His mother noticed the change in him, too.”

  Sally gave me a wry smile. “I think Michael would disagree with you. He thinks he’s doing fine. Apparently, so does everyone else. His mother appears to be going along with his plans, and the rest of the community is applauding him for his business acumen. Oh, I’m not saying I agree with them. I find his behavior strange, too, but then, maybe it’s merely jealously on my part. Of Cory, I mean.” Her blue eyes again filled with tears.

  “Jealous of her? What does she have that you don’t? A Mercedes, you say? She has car payments. You don’t.”

  “Right. My Ford pick-up is pa
id for except for the new transmission I need.”

  “Oh, forget Cory. No more boo-hooing,” I said. “Despite the fact Michael hurt us, we both still care for him. The three of us grew up together, and we know him better than anyone. It must be grief. He told me he hated the brewery, and I know it’s not true. Now he’s turning the whole thing over to some stranger. I think he needs to get back to hand-crafting beer.”

  Sally laughed. “You always think the solution to any problem is hard work, especially if it entails brewing beer. Maybe his father’s murder was an eye opener for him, and without his father hanging over him, he’s found out he doesn’t like beer making.”

  I thought about what she said. There was truth in her words.

  “I guess I’m being insensitive. When Dad died, I converted my grief into taking over the brewery. I know he didn’t want me to run it. He willed it to me, assuming I would find my calling in law school and, when he died, I would sell it to someone else, maybe Michael.” I heard a noise at the door and jerked my head around to see who was there. My nemesis.

  “Oh, oh. Here comes trouble,” Sally said, looking through the bakery window. Assistant Deputy Sheriff Jake Ryan stood there with his hands cupped around his eyes, trying to peer in.

  “The bakery’s not open yet,” I yelled through the door, then got up, flipped the Open sign to Closed, and shot the deadbolt.

  “What is it with you two? Rumor in the village has it you circle each other like boxers in the ring,” said Sally.

  “Oh? What else does rumor say?”

  Sally’s eyes danced, and she clasped her tiny hands together like a child eager to open a birthday present. “He’s the one, isn’t he? He’s the guy you told me about when you were in law school, the hunk.”

  “He’s an insensitive jerk.”

  “Well, if you don’t want him anymore, I kind of like his looks.” Sally clapped her hand across her mouth. “Oh, God, here I go once more, trying to take your guy.”