Death & the Brewmaster's Widow (7 page)

The trash bag made it out to the curb just ahead of a lumbering garbage truck. She taped the cartons closed, marked “Salvation Army” on them in black marker, and stacked them in a corner. She thought about going ahead and taking them so they'd be gone when Death returned, but she didn't know where the nearest Salvation Army store was and she wasn't confident enough with city driving to go look for one.

The drawer in the nightstand yielded a package of cold medicine, a box of condoms, a couple of girlie magazines, and a well-read copy of Terry Pratchett's
Night Watch
. There was a small box on top of the nightstand with the flaps folded closed. Wren opened it and found what must have been the smaller contents of Randy's locker at the fire station. It contained a wallet, a set of keys, a tin of shoe polish, a small sewing kit, and a cell phone with the charger wrapped around it. She glanced through the wallet and smiled at Randy's spectacularly bad driver's license photo. The license also showed his full real name, Baranduin Phileas Bogart, and she'd bet he'd hated having to show it. Whatever tactic Death had used to have only his middle initial on his license, he hadn't shared it with his little brother.

The cell was dead, but it occurred to Wren that it could easily contain pictures or information that should be saved. She plugged it in, sat down on the edge of the bed, and powered it up.

It was a smartphone, but the model was one she was unfamiliar with and she had to fiddle with it for several minutes just to get the screen unlocked. When she did, icons came up for new email and text messages and missed phone calls. Most of the calls and texts were from shortly after Randy's death and were from the same people. Wren scanned through them and was glad that she'd found them instead of Death, because they were heartbreaking.

“Dude! Heard someone from 41 was down. What happened?”

“tv sed fyrfytr dyd! ru ok?”

“Bogie ru there?”

“tell me its not true”

With tears in her eyes, she deleted them until she was left with a string of automated text messages reminding Randy that he was overdue to have his teeth cleaned. She copied the number to her own phone and called it.

“Dr. Weableau's office.”

“Hi, I'm calling about one of your patients, Baranduin Bogart? You might have him in your files as ‘Randy'.”

“Of course.” The receptionist was an older woman with a soft, Southern accent. “I knew Randy well. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, um, I was just calling to let you know that he's deceased. Your office has been sending reminders to his cell phone about having his teeth cleaned.”

“I am so sorry! Those things are programmed in and I just never thought to go in and cancel it. I'll take care of that right now.”

“Thank you. It's not a problem. I just don't want his brother to see it.”

“Of course not. Poor, dear, Death! We thought we'd lost him, too, didn't we? I'm so glad that wasn't the case.”

“Me too. So how long have you known the boys?”

“Oh, ever since they were bitty things. Heavens! We worked on their momma's teeth when she was just carrying Death. Couldn't believe it when she told me what she was gonna name that poor baby, though knowing her it wasn't really a surprise.”

“What was she like?”

“You didn't know her?” The woman's voice took on a slightly suspicious tone. “Who am I speaking to? I thought you must be Death's wife … Madeline?”

“Death and Madeline are divorced. My name is Wren Morgan. Death's mine now.”

The receptionist laughed suddenly. “You say that fierce.”

“I mean it that way,” Wren acknowledged, smiling at the phone.

“Good girl. Well, to answer your question, Adele Bogart was a free spirit and a bit of an eccentric. If she'd been born twenty years earlier, she'd have been running around barefoot at Woodstock with flowers in her hair. And Liam Bogart was very staid and respectable—a rookie cop and the son of a fire captain and one of the city's first lady DA's. But they were so in love. They were just goofy with it. He never could refuse that woman anything.”

“I'd guessed that by the fact that their sons were named Death and Baranduin,” Wren said. “I wish I could have met them.”

“Oh, sweetie. So do I. It killed me, hearing that little Randy was gone.”

seven

The broad expanse of
asphalt, baking under the hot sun, sent
heat shimmers radiating back toward the pale blue, cloudless sky. The smell of tar in the air reminded Death of other summer days on other tarmacs—the airfield at Langley Air Force Base, the pathways at Six Flags over St. Louis, running laps on the high school track.

Any of them would have been preferable to this place. He leaned against his Jeep, the metal hot through his T-shirt, and tried breathing exercises to drive the spots from before his eyes. The sensation of being short of breath was a familiar one now, but he didn't know this time if it was caused by the hot, humid summer air in his damaged lungs or by the band that seemed to be constricting his heart.

Before him stood the old Brewmaster's Widow. He was standing in the parking lot where the paramedics had tried to save his brother. He held up the pictures that Duror had printed out for him, mentally placing the firefighters and their rigs in the spaces they had occupied.

Here was the door where the firefighters had entered. The same door from which Rowdy Tanner had emerged with Randy's body across his shoulders. The paramedics had taken his burden and laid Randy down
here
. Forty-one's engine and squad were there, 27's farther down. The ALS backed in here to load Randy for his last ride to the ER, leaving behind a helmet that was not his.

Death didn't know what he'd expected to accomplish by coming here. There was nothing left now. It was just an expanse of broken asphalt, a few sad tufts of scraggly weeds poking through here and there. He crouched down on the spot where Randy's body had laid, bowed his head and closed his eyes, as if somehow that would help him feel close to his brother again. When his grandparents died and his parents were killed, he had felt as if they were walking around beside him, especially during the time leading up to the funerals, but also for months afterward. Even now, sometimes, often when he was at his lowest points, he would get a sense of presence, as if one or another of them had entered the room. He'd think he heard the echo of his father's laughter, or catch a faint scent like the ghost of his mother's perfume.

With Randy, that had never happened. Not once.

So caught up was Death in his thoughts that he didn't hear the quiet motor pulling up beside him. A slamming car door pulled him from his reverie just before a strange man spoke.

“Sir? Are you all right?”

He looked up to find himself the focus of a concerned City of St. Louis police officer.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” How to explain himself ? It was his grandmother's voice that spoke in his head, dry and wry, repeating a phrase he'd heard from her a thousand times.
Best go with the truth, dear. It's the easiest story to keep straight
.

“My brother was a firefighter. He died in a fire here last summer. I just wanted to see where it happened.”

“You mean Bogie?” And, of course, the cop knew him. Cops and firefighters worked together and often hung out together. “You must be Death.”

“Yeah, that's me.” He climbed to his feet with some difficulty and offered the other man his hand. “Pleased to meet you. Were you a friend of Randy's?”

“Everybody was a friend of Bogie's. And boy, have we ever heard stories about you.”

“Oh, I wouldn't believe half of them,” Death laughed ruefully. “Especially the ones that make me look bad.”

The cop snorted derisively. “According to your brother, you walk on water.”

“Now that I really wouldn't believe! So, uh, listen, were you here the day it happened?”

“No, I was off that day. Out on the river with my family. I heard about it on the radio, before they released his name, and then I heard through the grapevine that it was heart failure. I figured it was probably Lakeland at 18's. Good old guy, but he does love his barbecue. Never in a million years would I have pegged it as your brother. I had no clue the kid had heart problems.”

“Yeah, neither did we.” Death sighed and glanced around at the brick and concrete landscape, unforgiving in the summer's heat. “See, the thing is, there's something weird going on.”

“Oh?”

“Randy's captain drew it to my attention. He was wearing a badge with another firefighter's number on it when he shouldn't have had any badge at all. He'd broken the back on his own that morning. Also, the helmet that got left behind where they were working on him wasn't his. It matches the wrong badge.” He took out the close-up Duror had given him and showed it to the officer.

“Okay, that's—seriously weird. What do you think happened?”

“I don't know. That's what I'm doing here, looking for anything that might give me some clue as to what really went down. I was wondering—is there any way I could get inside? I'd like to see the spot where he collapsed.”

“That's not something I could help you with. It's private property and locked up tight to try to keep kids and vagrants out. There are windows broken out and obviously you could climb through one, but I'd have to arrest you for trespassing if you did.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that. Do you happen to know who owns the building?”

“No, but I could maybe find out for you.”

The cop went back to his car and Death waited impatiently. It was only a few minutes before he returned, but it felt like hours.

“We have contact information on file, in case something happens and we need to get a hold of the owners. The contact listed is for an attorney.” He gave Death a blank ticket with a name and phone number on the back. “The actual owner is a descendant of the Einstadt family, through a granddaughter. He and his wife live in one of those big, old houses across the road. His name's Grey. Andrew Grey.”

_____

The television was on, but Andrew wasn't paying any attention to it. The noise was a constant in the background, but, if asked, he couldn't have said if it was a game show or a soap opera or a sporting event. The room he was in was beautiful, but it felt like a prison. His breath hitched in his throat and he hauled himself up, leaning heavily on his cane, and stumbled awkwardly to the window.

His fingers felt thick and uncooperative and he had to struggle with the latch for several seconds before he was able to loosen it and open the sash. The air that came in was hot and moist and carried with it the scents of a city in the summertime: dust and hot asphalt and car exhaust. But they were familiar smells and he settled into a nearby chair and breathed them in. He couldn't even remember the name of the maid who made his bed and brought his meals and his medicine. It seemed to surprise her that he even tried, and that just felt wrong.

He was married—had been more than once, apparently, and his wife was a tiny beauty named Alaina. He'd written it down on a napkin and kept it in his pocket for when he forgot. She was kind and gentle, solicitous of his every need and her presence filled him with a rage that frightened him even more because he could not justify it. He
knew
she'd done something reprehensible. He just couldn't remember what.

There was a memory there, hovering just at the edge of his subconscious, dark and tantalizing and constantly out of reach.

His doctor—another name he couldn't remember—was leaving the house through the front door. He locked it behind him and started down the brick path, but stopped when a gray vehicle drew up on the street and parked beside the lilac bushes, just out of Andrew's line of sight. Andrew heard a car door slam, and then a conversation drifted up to him where he listened, unseen behind the curtains of his second-floor bedroom.

“Excuse me, but are you Andrew Grey?”

“Gregory. Dr. James Gregory. I'm Mr. Grey's physician. Mr. Grey is indisposed, I'm afraid.”

“I see,” there was disappointment in the tone.

“May I ask what business you have with Mr. Grey?” There was a pause and then the doctor continued. “In addition to being his physician, I'm Andrew's brother-in-law.”

“Oh, right. Well, I was hoping to ask him for permission to go through the old brewery building. I called the attorney's office that the police have for a contact, but his secretary said he's in court today and won't be available until at least Friday. I've made an appointment to see him, but I knew the Greys lived right over here, so—”

“Well, Mr. Grey won't be able to help you. He had a stroke a little more than a year ago now and is still completely incapacitated.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“You know, there's nothing in that old building worth seeing anyway. I've been inside myself a time or two. Just a lot of dirt and rubbish.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. But I'd like to see it just the same.”

“For heaven's sake, why?”

“Because it's where my brother died.”

_____

“You know, most people, and I think, especially most attorneys, would be really alarmed to learn their secretary had made them an appointment with Death.” The attorney who acted as contact for the Grey family was a charismatic man in his mid-fifties, with white hair and a light scruff of beard. The grin he gave them seemed genuine and Death wondered if it was or if he was simply a skilled actor.

Death offered a polite if insincere smile for the inevitable joke about his name. “Most people, but not you?”

“Actually, I've been expecting to hear from you. This thing with the helmet and the badges is just bizarre. Do you have any ideas about what might have happened?”

“No, at this point I just, um, I'm sorry but—you know about the confusion with the badges and Randy's helmet?”

“Oh, sure. I read it in the paper.”

Death and Wren exchanged a glance. “In the paper?” Wren asked.

“Yeah. This morning. Didn't you know?” The attorney took a folded newspaper from one of the drawers in his desk and offered it to Death across the expanse of polished wood that made up the surface.

Franklin Barrows of Barrows, Fine, and Innsbruck, had the corner office on the thirty-first floor of an upscale office building less than three blocks from the Gateway Arch. The walls were a light shade of sage green, the floor was marble or a close approximation, and heavy, cream-colored drapes in an expensive weave let sunlight in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up an entire wall.

Death took the paper, noted that it was opened to the fourth page of the metro section, and read the headline.

“MYSTERY SURROUNDS FIREFIGHTER'S UNTIMELY DEATH”

“What the hell?”

Wren leaned in to read it with him, her cheek pressed against his upper arm.

“They've got everything,” Death said. “The whole story. Even things I only just figured out, like the fire safety day picture and the helmet badge left at the scene.”

“It must have been the photographer you talked to yesterday, don't you think?” Wren asked.

“I didn't tell him all of this. I just asked him—”

“You asked him about the fire safety day picture and then you asked for a copy of the picture with the helmet. All he had to do was look at those two pictures and he'd have gotten an idea what was going on. Newspaper people are good at that sort of thing. They're kind of like detectives too.” She rubbed her small hand across his taut shoulder muscles. “Is this a bad thing?”

Death thought about it, sighed. “No, I guess not. There's really no reason for people not to know. It just seems, I dunno, like an invasion of privacy. He was my brother. It's my business. It isn't a curiosity for the world to goggle at.”

“Nothing that can be done about it, I'm afraid,” Barrows offered. “It's a legitimate news story. Freedom of the press and all that, you know?”

Death set the paper on the desk, careful to put it down gently because he felt like slamming it down. “I know.”

“I think, though, that maybe there is something I can help you with?”

“Yeah, right. I'm sorry. We're taking up your valuable time.”

“I'm not worried about that. I have more than an hour until my next appointment. But I do know what you came here to ask me.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. James Gregory called me. He tells me you'd like a chance to look through the Einstadt Brewery building.”

“Yes, if it would be at all possible. I'd like to see where my brother died.”

“It's a big old monstrosity of a building. Do you think you'd be able to find the right place?”

“Yes, sir,” Death said with certainty. “The fire department has floor plans for all the major structures in the city, and the firefighter who was working with Randy when he collapsed went over the brewery plans with me. He was able to show me exactly where it happened.”

“I see. Well, Dr. Gregory encouraged me to tell you no. He's concerned that you could get injured in there and sue Mr. Grey. Now, he has no actual say in the matter, nor, indeed, does his sister, Mrs. Grey, but I have to admit that his objection has merit.”

“I promise you, that isn't going to happen. And I'd be happy to sign a waiver, absolving the Grey family of any responsibility in the event that I were to be injured.”

“So would I,” Wren added.

Barrows gave her a slightly patronizing smile. “Oh, my dear! That dirty old building really is no place for a young lady such as yourself.”

Wren smiled a brittle little smile and fingered her necklace and Death hastened to intervene.

“Wren is as tough, as capable, and as intelligent as anyone I've ever known. Her participation, in any endeavor, is invaluable.”

“Huh.” Barrows shrugged. “Very well. Suit yourselves.”

“So you'll give us permission to go in?”

“Well, I can't very well justify just handing over the keys to you,” the attorney said. “But, if you'll both sign waivers as you've offered, I'd be willing to take you in myself after I finish at the office today.”