Death & the Brewmaster's Widow (4 page)

_____

“Bogart,” he said. “D. D. Bogart.” The St. Louis County Medical Examiner's office was in a big, brick block of a building. Given the nature of the place, he couldn't bring himself to present himself as Death, even with the different pronunciation.

“And who was it you wanted to see again?”

“Ms. Depardieu. We spoke on the phone. She should be expecting me.”

The young man at the reception desk checked his computer and leaned back, looking perplexed and horrified. “It says, um, it says she has an appointment this afternoon.”

Death sighed. “With death?”

“Yeah.”

He fished out his driver's license. “That would be me. It's the first D.”

“Your parents named you Death?”

“It's pronounced Deeth. I was named after a fictional detective. Lord Peter Wimsey, maybe you've heard of him. Some of the books have been done on Mystery on PBS.” He read a lack of comprehension in the other man's face. “Nevermind.”

“But …” the guy frowned. “But, if you were named after a Lord Peter, shouldn't your name be Peter?”

“It was his second name. He had four. He pronounced it to rhyme with breath, but my kindergarten teacher hyperventilated so my mother said we could pronounce mine, as Lord Peter said most who have the name do, to rhyme with teeth.”

“So when you were a toddler your name was Death? As in death Death?”

“What can I say? I was a badass toddler.”

The heavy metal door that closed off the entryway from the rest of the building opened and a young woman in a lab coat stuck her head through. “George, has anyone—” she broke off and caught Death with a piercing look. “You have got to be Sergeant Bogart. You look just like your brother.”

“I always told him I was the handsome one. You must be Ms. Depardieu.”

“Please, call me Sophie.”

“Only if you'll call me Death.”

She held the door open and motioned him through. “If you'd like to come through here, my office is this way.”

Her office was not small, but it felt crowded with a large, cluttered desk and overflowing book shelves. Death took the seat she offered him and accepted a cup of coffee. She filled his cup from a coffee maker that sat next to a sink at the side of the room, then topped off her own cup. “Sometimes I swear I live on this stuff,” she said, pausing to take a long drink.

A picture of Randy, a framed snapshot on the wall behind her desk, had caught Death's eye the moment he walked in. He motioned to it now. “You didn't take that at a fatality accident,” he observed.

Randy, in uniform, was leaning against the door of his brush truck, his body hiding part of the station logo. He was just a shade shorter than Death, his hair was darker, and he didn't have the bulky Marine Corps muscles that Death had, but the resemblance was striking. He was grinning at the camera with an easy charm that lit his whole face. It was the smile he saved for pretty girls and Death reflected that Captain Cairn had been right. If Sophie was the one who'd taken this picture, then Randy had been sweet on her.

“I took that one day when I had a flat tire on my way to work. Randy and Rowdy passed me, going on a grocery run, and stopped and changed it for me. He was always kind that way. Never too busy to lend someone a hand.” She stopped speaking and held up one hand, asking for a moment. Overcome with emotion.

Wren and Madeline were right
, Death thought. She had been attracted to Randy too. He took the opportunity to study her. Under other circumstances, she might have been potential sister-in-law material. She was taller than average, big-boned and slightly heavyset. Her face was more interesting than traditionally pretty, but it showed character. Randy would have been attracted to that.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You didn't come all the way out here to watch me cry. You said on the phone you had some questions. I've got a copy of Randy's death certificate and, if you think you want it, I can get you a copy of the autopsy report. I know this must have been a shock to you. I talked to his doctor during the course of the investigation and he had no idea that Randy had had heart problems.”

“It's not so much Randy's death that I need to ask about,” Death said. He took the jewelry box and the hat badge from his pocket and laid them on the desk. “I need to know about these badges. I need to know where they came from.”

four

Sophie Depardieu frowned, puzzled.
“They came off your brother's uniform,” she said. She indicated the larger, metal shield. “This was his main badge and this,” pointing to the leather emblem, “was his hat badge. It was fixed to his helmet.”

“Yes, but they're not Randy's.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand.”

“The morning he died, Randy snapped the back off his badge. When he went into that fire his badge was on his captain's desk waiting to be repaired. We discovered that I'd gotten the wrong badge when Captain Cairn brought me the right one.” He reached into his shirt pocket and came up, this time, with Randy's real badge in its silver frame.

“The number on the badge your office sent is wrong. Randy's badge number was 4103. You probably have that on your paperwork somewhere. The badge I got from you is number 4183. It's a counterfeit. The real badge 4183 is accounted for. I'd thought that maybe someone thought his badge was lost and took it upon themselves to replace it, but then I looked through the carton you sent and found his hat badge. It also has the wrong number on it.

“I'm not out to get anyone in trouble,” he said. “I just need to know what happened.”

Sophie looked completely bewildered. Death was a good judge of people—in combat situations you had to be—and in his own mind he was certain that she was not just pretending.

“That badge,” she said, “was on Randy's shirt. I helped get his body out of the turnout gear. I opened his bunker coat and took the badge off his chest myself. There wasn't any funny business. I swear to you.”

Death tapped the edge of her desk, thinking hard. “You undressed his body?” He couldn't say why exactly, but he was a little weirded out by the concept.

“I only helped with the bunker gear.” She looked down at her lap, gathering her thoughts before speaking. “I'm a medical examiner. We see pain and grief and sorrow every day. Sometimes that pain and grief and sorrow is our own. And that sucks. But what we do is important, to the living and the dead, and if I had been assigned to Randy's autopsy, I would have performed it because I am a professional.”

“I'm not doubting you,” Death said. “I'm just trying to figure out how this happened.”

Sophie sighed and sat back. “His helmet didn't come in with him.”

“What?”

“No. It would have been left behind at the scene. The paramedics pulled it off when they tried to revive him. They also opened his turnout coat and slit his shirt up the front so they could put EKG leads on his chest. You probably saw that his shirt was cut.”

“Yeah, I saw that. I was surprised my mother-in-law didn't throw it out. His T-shirt's gone. I'm really hoping she didn't turn it into a dust cloth.”

Sophie frowned. “He wasn't wearing a T-shirt.”

“What? That's nuts. Randy always wore a T-shirt.”

“Well, he wasn't that day. Unless the paramedics stripped him in the field and then re-dressed him without it. I can't see any reason for that, though.”

“You said you opened his turnout coat?”

“Someone had closed it up again, just a few of the clasps.”

“But why would he not be wearing a T-shirt?”

She leaned forward. “Death,” she said gently, “your brother had just been told that you were dead. When he got dressed, he probably wasn't thinking too clearly.”

“Yeah, okay, I can see that. But that doesn't explain where the other badge came from.”

“No. And there,” she sighed, “I don't know what to tell you.”

_____

Nathan Broome was a coin collector, but not in the traditional sense. At some point he had decided to collect his life in coins. His collection included a penny minted in every year from the time he was born until the day he died. At five-year intervals he added a nickel to the collection, a dime every ten years, a quarter every twenty-five, and a half-dollar at the fifty-year mark. The most valuable pieces in his collection were eighteen wheat pennies valued at a whopping six cents each. The entire collection, in its oversized, custom-built frame, was shiny and impressive and worth $3.97.

And nobody wanted it.

The sun beat down on Wren's bare head, making her scalp itch and sending trickles of sweat down her back. Not a breeze stirred, bees droned in the clover along the edge of the yard, and the nails in the wooden stepladder she was sitting on were hot enough to burn bare skin if it accidentally came in contact with them. She was hot, tired, cranky, her phone was buzzing against her hip, and her throat was dry and scratchy. She swallowed hard and made one last, valiant attempt to persuade the crowd that this was a Neat Thing and something they absolutely Had To Have.

“Okay, let me ask you something. How many people here are carrying plastic? Hmm? Just about everyone, I'm gonna bet. And you know why? Because hard, cold cash is becoming obsolete. Someday there won't be any coins anymore, and when that happens, this collection is going to wind up being a heck of a great investment for whoever's smart enough to snatch it up. Why, if these were ancient Roman coins—”

“We'd be bidding on them,” someone in the crowd heckled.

Wren growled under her breath and resisted the urge to start pulling pennies out of the frame and throwing them at people.

Off to her right Sam Keystone nudged Felix Knotty, the irascible Vietnam vet who did odd jobs for the business. Oh, thank God! They were going to take pity on her. Felix raised one hand languidly. “One dolla!”

Wren pounced on him. “One dollar! I have one dollar! Anybody else? No? Good! Going once! Going twice! And SOLD to the gentleman in the snazzy ball cap!” Felix doffed his battered ball cap to her and she set the coin collection aside. Sam had come up beside her now and motioned her off the ladder.

“My turn.”

She handed over the microphone, limp with relief, and went to the cash tent for a soda and some shade.

As she cleared the edges of the crowd, she pulled out her phone. There was a text message from Death:
Call me when you get a chance
.

Leona and Doris were busy cashing people out so Wren helped herself to a soda and stepped back outside to make her call in the shade of a majestic weeping willow. Death answered on the first ring. “Hey. How's the auction going?”

“Well, I haven't strangled anyone yet.”

“That good, huh?”

“I've seen better. How are you doing? Where are you?”

“Burger joint. Stopped for a late lunch. I went by 41's but they were out on a call.”

“Have you been to Randy's yet? Is everything turned on?” Death was planning on staying at his brother's house and he'd called to arrange to have the utilities turned on again.

“Ah, no. I haven't been there yet. I should probably do that next.”

Wren could hear the reluctance in his voice.
Maybe you should just get a hotel room
, she wanted to say.
Maybe you could wait and deal with this later
. She wanted to say, but did not. He was going to have to face all of this someday. It wouldn't help anything to put it off.

“I talked to Sophie at the coroner's office today.”

“Oh?”

“I think you were right. She had a thing for Randy. She didn't have a clue about where those badges came from, though. And she made a good point. Randy's helmet never passed through their office. The badges had to have been switched at the scene.”

“But it was in the carton …?”

“Because Evelyn put it there. You know? My mother-in-law? I called her just now. She took Randy's turnouts to HQ and turned them in. The battalion chief came out and talked to her. They had Randy's helmet there and he gave it to her then.” He sounded discouraged. “None of this is making a damn bit of sense.”

They talked for several more minutes before saying goodbye. Wren touched the end call button and stood, pensive, staring down at her phone. She heard the sound of someone clearing their throat and looked up to find Roy Keystone standing a few feet away watching her.

“Wren Morgan,” he said. He gestured toward the auction going on beyond the thin, green curtain of willow fronds. “Is this
really
where you need to be right now?”

_____

The neighborhood had declined since Death's grandparents bought their retirement cottage a few blocks north of Forest Park. Driving there, he passed countless “for sale” signs. Many of the houses—single family dwellings from the early twentieth century—showed signs of neglect. Here and there a derelict property had been boarded up and vandalized and a few of the homes sported burglar bars on the windows.

On Randy's block, things were a little better. The old building just to the south of his house was crumbling into ruin, but that was nothing new. In their childhood, that had been high on the list of Places You Better Not Let Grandma Catch You. The other houses were bright and well-maintained, and it did not escape Death's notice that Randy's porch was swept and his lawn as neatly mowed as the others.

Randy's house sat back from the street with a slanted and uneven concrete walk leading up to the door. It was built of red brick, small and quaint, with a single dormer window. The full front porch featured filigreed iron railings and posts to hold the roof up. During his grandparents' day the front and side yards had been a riot of color, but Death's grandmother's roses had proven no match for Randy's brown thumb.

Death went around the block and drove down the alley to reach the backyard and the detached garage. It wasn't equipped with a garage door opener, so he had to get out, unlock it with the spare key Randy had given him, and raise it manually. Here, too, there were signs that someone had been by to tidy up. Randy had never in his life left a room this neat. All the tools were put away above the workbench and there was room for Death's Jeep beside Randy's classic Mustang.

You should get a Mustang. A gray Mustang
.

So help me, God, Randy, if you make that lame joke again …

You'll what? Say “Bite me”? Again?

You do and I'll knock another tooth out.

Yeah, yeah. I'm quaking in my boots. Anyway, you're not cool enough for a Mustang. You should get a Pinto. A gray Pinto.

Well, then, you should get a white one.

A white one? Why a white one?

Because Pestilence rides a white horse.

In the end, Randy was the one who had gotten the Mustang. He was the one who wanted one all along. He'd gone with a classy, non-symbolic dark blue. In other circumstances he might have chosen red, like a fire engine, but War rode a red horse and war wasn't something to joke about when your only living relative was getting shot at in Afghanistan.

Death pulled his Jeep next to the Mustang, relocked the garage, and entered the house through the back door. The kitchen was spotless, counters bare and cupboards closed. The refrigerator was unplugged and the door propped open with a chair. The shelves were empty and clean. Death plugged it in. The light came on and it started humming so he knew the electricity was on. He closed the door so it could get cold, wandered into the living room, and dropped onto the sofa.

The weight of his memories was overwhelming. The sight and the scent and the
feel
of the place conjured the dead.

Randy had the walls covered with pictures, some hung properly in frames and some tucked into the corners of other pictures or stuck up with tape. Death studied them from the sofa for a few seconds, then dragged himself up to get a closer look. There was no order to them. Family pictures mingled with pictures of his friends on the fire department and on the softball team he played for. There were comics cut or torn from the newspaper, things printed off the Internet, and pictures of women. Some of the women Death recognized and some he didn't.

There were no pictures of Death.

He frowned, puzzled and hurt and unsure what to make of it.

There were blank spots—lots of them—where his picture might have been. But the pictures themselves were gone.

“He took them down. He couldn't bear to look at them.”

Death spun so quickly he made himself dizzy.

A short, chubby brunette stood in the kitchen door. She saw the effect she'd had on Death and held out a hand as if to steady him, instantly contrite. “I'm sorry. So sorry! You left the back door open and I'm afraid I've gotten used to coming in.”

“And you are …?”

“Annie. Sorry! Annie Tanner.” She waited a few seconds for recognition. “Rowdy's wife?”

“Annie? Yes! Annie, of course. Randy spoke of you.” He glanced around, adding things in his head. “You're the one who …” he waved one hand in the air, indicating the house in general.

“Rowdy and I. And the other guys too, sometimes. We've just been keeping an eye on the place. I hope you don't mind?”

“Mind? No. No, of course not. I appreciate it.”

“We came over that day, after,” she shrugged and looked away, not wanting to say it. Death nodded that he understood. “We came over, cleaned out the refrigerator, tidied up the place.”

“I could sure tell somebody had. Randy was a lot of things, but neat was never one of them.”

“No,” she smiled, warm and sad. “No, neat he was not. You know, we thought the world of your brother, Death.”

“I know.” He looked around. “He pulled down my pictures, huh?”

“Took them all down. Destroyed a few of them, I'm afraid. Ones of you in uniform, mostly. And then he felt bad about it. He was so
mad
at you. He said you knew better than to get killed. He told you. It wasn't rational, but—”

“I understand.”

“He spent the night before he died at our house. I didn't see anything—
anything
—to suggest that he was sick! I mean, he was upset, yes. Terribly upset. But—”