Beer Money (A Burr Ashland Mystery) (6 page)

Instead of answering, I just held out my empty beer.

When he replaced it wish a fresh one, I drank the whole thing in about the same amount of time it took him to get rid of the empty. He gave me a look of parental disdain, then left to cater to his guests' needs.

I got myself another beer and sat in a big chair with worn fabric that revealed the white padding underneath. As I sat, a faint smell of body odor wafted up. Thoroughly unpleasant.

The house was filling up fast. Most of the partygoers were white, their faces flushed by the idea of partying in a neighborhood they normally would avoid like the plague, drinking champagne while wondering if their cars were being stripped for parts.

Fred's pit bull, Tasha, came up and stood before me. She was a dark brown brindle, with a head and neck that accounted for at least half of her total body weight. I had babysat Tasha before so she recognized me. I scratched her ears, and her throat. Fred had found her one day, adopted her, and now she was his second best friend and protector.

"You're slippin' Burr, if that's the best you can do."

I looked up, and Ordell was standing before me, a glass of champagne in his hand. He had on white high-top basketball shoes, black sweatpants and a black turtleneck. He had a diamond stud earring in his right ear and his eyes were a watery red. Ordell had a high, elegant forehead, sharp nose and chiseled cheekbones.

"Yeah, but I can feel a certain chemistry between us,” I said. I stood and shook hands with him. My hand looked small, thin and pale in his.

"Man," Ordell said. "I was sorry to hear about Tim-he was a good guy."

"Yes he was." The past tense had never pissed me off more.

"Fred says you're lookin' into the...uh...circumstances."

"Couldn't hurt, could it?"

Ordell didn't answer.

"So what's up with you?" I asked.

"Same old, same old." I thought about the trust fund and Ordell's penchant for watching reruns of the television show
That’s So Raven
for hours on end.

"Well," Ordell said, "I better see who's got Fred tied up. That's my job, after all." He shot me what was meant to be a lascivious wink, but came off as more of some kind of drug-induced facial tic.

I polished off my beer, got another one, and started thinking that I was very close to the legal limit should I have to drive home soon. It was cold in Fred’s living room. The door opening and closing had let out a lot of heat. I folded my arms across my chest, felt something in my shirt pocket.

I reached in, pulled out the thumb drive I’d taken from Tim’s office. As good as my computer system was at home, Fred’s was a million times better. He had every software program known to man. So before coming over for the party, I’d slipped the drive into my pocket, hoping I’d get a chance to try to crack it open on Fred’s computer.

Looking around the empty room and the fresh beer in my hand, I figured there was no better time than the present. I picked up the bottle, and went to Fred’s computer room.

Thirteen

Although he knew he would pay more in the long run, Fred leased his computer equipment. His strategy was that he upgraded so often, it was better to be able to trade in his computer every two years than have a basement full of two-year old Macs that woud be worth next to nothing. Plus, Fred was the kind of guy who loved toys, who made a game out of having the latest and greatest computer equipment.

I stepped into his cramped office. It was dominated by a simple desk on which sat a 22-inch monitor. Tower hard drives had been placed beneath the desk. A scanner, printer, and other accessories were stacked around the monitor.

I fired up the hard drives. My beer was empty. I hated that. My head definitely felt lighter than it ought to. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t had dinner.

Finally, the desktop icons appeared one by one. I didn’t know what any of them meant, I didn’t have anything like it on my computer at home. When it appeared to be done, I pushed the drive into the appropriate port.

The hard drive whirred briefly and the drive’s icon appeared on the desktop. I double-clicked on it. A folder opened up.

It was empty.

I sat back in the chair. How could it be empty? Tim had told me he'd been working hard on the documentary, although he wouldn't tell me what it was about. So how could the folder be empty?

I moved the cursor to the top of the screen and changed the status of the folder from icon to name. But it was still empty. There had to be something I was missing. It just didn’t make sense.

My fingers went to the keyboard, found the option key and the Y key. Command Y would eject the drive and put away the icon. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, anyway. A note telling me what was going on? Doubtful. It seemed like Tim had sent Fred the films and hadn’t had time to even include a note explaining it all.

No, there wouldn’t have been anything on the drive anyway. My fingers went to the keys and I was about to eject the drive when I stopped. I remembered something Fred had shown me.

There was an invisibility feature on most computers. You could make a folder or a document invisible, in the sense that it wouldn’t show up on the desktop.

I went to the menu bar and scrolled around the different commands. I couldn’t find anything that could make an invisible folder visible. I saved the folder in several different applications, and tried the same thing. Nothing. Finally, I saved the document as a graphics file.

Suddenly, a file name appeared.

I double-clicked on the file icon. The computer hummed. I took the opportunity to get another beer. By the time I sat back down, a dozen documents had appeared. Research. Initial thoughts. Outlines. Bios. Interviews. Archives. Crime scene notes. Players. First draft. Addresses. Phone numbers. Contacts.

Even with the alcohol deadening my senses, I could feel my heart start to pound. Crime scene notes? What the hell did that mean?

I double-clicked the first document.

A message popped up: ALIAS - ORIGINAL FILE NOT FOUND.

I banged the top of Fred's desk. Goddamnit! Alias documents were essentially shortcuts - icons used to speed up the process of document retrieval. If the original documents were deleted - the aliases were essentially useless. Tim might have made these without ever thinking that the original files were deleted.

I looked back at the list of documents. They were the only clues I had to help me find out what Tim's project was all about. Crime scene notes. I couldn't get past that one.

What crime scene?

A brush of fabric against the door behind me broke me from my reverie. I hit Command W and the file closed.

The door opened.

“Burr,” said Fred. “I’d like you to meet someone.”

Fourteen

Her skin was tanned, her hair dark and short, slightly longer in back, pulled behind her ears. She wore a simple black dress. A small pearl necklace lay against her throat.

“This is Eve Rochelle,” Fred said.

She smiled, showing even white teeth and held out her hand which I took in mine. She had a firm grip, with long slender fingers that wrapped around my hand.

"Are you working?” she asked, and gestured toward the computer.

“No, I…”

“He was probably looking at naughty Web sites,” Fred offered.

She laughed and I said, “Hey, you need a beer.”

I stood, remembered the thumb drive, and slipped it into my pocket.

“Let’s get out of here,” Fred said. “I don’t want my party ending up in the office - how boring.”

I shut off the lights and we went back into the living room.

“Eve owns Lakeside Brewery,” Fred said. He was standing behind Eve, and he raised his eyebrows at me. I was surprised he didn’t wink and give me the okay sign. “And Burr, well, Burr loves beer.”

“Thank you, Fred,” I said.

He backed away from us. “I’ve really got to run,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you two later.”

Eve turned to me. “So I hear you’re a private investigator," she said.

“I am,” I said. I raised my new beer that Fred had given me. Eve clinked her champagne glass again my bottle.

“Are you working on an interesting case now?”

Maybe it was the booze, but I found myself staring at Eve. At her full lips, her smooth skin. Either she was beautiful or I was drunk. Maybe both.

I said, “Not really. I’m more interested in your brewery.” I held up the bottle. “Beer is a passion of mine.”

She laughed. “Mine too.”

“So how did you come to own a brewery?” I said. “And I’d be happy to boost your sales. From consumption, of course.”

Just then, someone called out to her from the other room. “Sorry, I’ve got some girlfriends that are dragging me to another party. Can I take a raincheck on telling you my story?”

She gave me a quick hug and then she disappeared back into the midst of the party. I sat down on the couch, feeling stupid. And more than a little drunk.

Tasha the pit bull came and sniffed around my feet. She looked up at me and wagged her tail.

Fifteen

The doorbell awoke me from a dream in Eve Rochelle kept me pouring me beers. While she was naked.

My eyes snapped open. I hurried to the bathroom where I rinsed my mouth out with Scope, ran my fingers through my hair, then went into the bedroom and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I went to the front door and opened it.

The blonde woman with the green eyes looked back at me.

"Mr. Ashland?" she asked. She looked scared. Tired and scared.

"Hi..."

"I'm-"

"The girl from the funeral..."

"Julie," she said. "Julie Barina."

I swung the door fully open and she stepped inside. She had on black slacks with a baggy white sweater. Her face looked tired and withdrawn.

"You knew my nickname," I said. "At the funeral."

She looked up at me. "I know a lot about you."

I closed the door behind me and dead bolted it. She looked at the lock, then at me.

"I'm head of the neighborhood crime watch."

She looked at me again.

"I have to set a good example, you know."

She nodded, uncertain.

"Do you want something to drink?" I asked. "Coffee? Soda?"

"A soda? Diet?"

I went into the kitchen, found a can of Diet Pepsi in the back of the fridge, behind microwave dishes full of spoiled food. I grabbed a glass, filled it with ice from the ice maker, then poured the soda and watched it fizz.

"Since we haven't been officially introduced, my name's Michael,” I said. “But as you know, my friends call me Burr."

She shook my hand.

"Hello, Burr. It's nice to finally meet you."

She sat in the club chair, I took the end of the couch. “Excuse me if I seem a little groggy,” I said. “But I had a late one last night.”

She sipped from the glass of soda.

"So what brings you to my neck of the woods, Julie?" I asked.

"Well," she said, spreading her hands out on her slacks. Wiping the perspiration from them. "After I saw you at the funeral, I thought it might be a good idea to talk to you. I haven't been able really to talk to anyone about...about Tim."

"Why not?" I asked, although I'd already guessed.

"Well, our relationship sort of...prevented it, I guess."

"You were his student?"

She nodded.

"And his lover?"

She nodded again.

"You were going to be the first person we told,” she said. “Tim talked about you all the time. And how happy he thought you would be for him. But you know, a professor and his student…"

"I understand," I said.

"Plus, it was…I know it sounds like a little girl cliché, but…it was a whirlwind romance. It just happened so fast for both of us. We just…connected."

She hung her head, as if the weight of her loss was going to crush her, drive her right through the floor.

"And when Tim wasn't with me, he was totally absorbed in his project,” she said. “He wouldn't talk about it with me, but I know he was…almost obsessed with it."

I silently cursed Tim's penchant for compartmentalizing everything in his life. Damnit, he should have told me what was going on. All of it. I knew he couldn't, though. It wasn't his nature.

"You were his best friend, right?" she asked me. Tears were forming at the edges of her eyes.

"We'd been friends since third grade."

The thought of Tim being a child made her cringe and I could see that the tears were going to come even faster. I got up and went into the bathroom for a box of Kleenex. I came back and handed the box to her. She took one and pressed it to her small nose, which had started to turn slightly red.