Murder With A Chaser (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 2) (6 page)

              "I'm betting that didn’t go so well."

              "It might have gone well had the scoundrel Brother Eli not confronted me and laughed in my face. Deluded, he said. And he used words that the Holy Yeast would spoil to hear. He called my mother horrible things, yes he did. I was livid."

              "What did you do?"

              "I did nothing. I bid him farewell. Said we must agree to disagree, that our religion was one of peace."

              "And?"

              "And he went inside. Apparently he's a member of the Yacht Club. Did you know that?"

              "No."

              "A most influential one at that. Had me forcibly ejected from the premises, yes he did. Chided me before the security guards, and they laughed at the Reverend, and tore his shirt sleeve while they dragged him."

              "Horrible," I said, trying not to picture it. "I'm sorry to hear that."

              "Later that day was the homebrew competition. He trashed my Holy Brew. Said it tasted like bilge water."

              "That I remember. Well, Rev, I think I have enough information. I want to thank you for being so honest."

              "The Holy Yeast would have it no other way. Would you care for a Holy Growler to take with you on the road?"

              I couldn’t resist. "Of course."

              He filled a growler from the tap and presented it to me as if he were presenting the Grail itself.

              Nothing could compare to my experience with the Rev. That said, nothing could have prepared me for my encounter with the one and only Joe Badger.

              Joe had thin, black hair that he kept in a loose ponytail. His narrow eyes were hidden behind thick glasses, and he looked as though he was always in the midst of finding something amusing. And not in a good way. For Joe Badger seemed to think the entire world was full of people stupider than he, and therefore, they deserved to be the butt of his amusement.

              He lived alone in a single bedroom apartment above the town's only pharmacy.

              His apartment was clean and neat, and modestly furnished. He prepared us cups of instant coffee, insisting the entire time that it was far superior to freshly-brewed coffee, for, he said, it was all about the quality of the water. I looked at him askance and he paid it no mind.

              "You have to buy the right stuff. People are too stupid to know what the good stuff is. They go for the mass-market crud that the TV tells them to buy. This is the good stuff, trust me.

              It wasn't. But in the interest of a successful interview, I had to choke it down with a smile.

              Joe Badger made his money teaching chemistry at the Southampton campus of Long Island University. The summer found him at leisure here in his hometown of Carl's Cove, and he had something to say about it.

              "The people here are ridiculous most of the time, year-round. It's only when you get past Memorial Day and encounter the influx of summer people that you really see just how ridiculous people can be. Summer people are atrocious, and our horrible residents all bow down to them like gods."

              "Some of us are grateful to them," I said. "Those of us who own small businesses."

              "Please," he said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Show me a summer person with any intelligence, who contributes anything to society, I beg of you."

              "That's not what we were talking about. You started off by calling them ridiculous."

              "Yes, and so they are."

              And so it went with Joe Badger and me. I figured after a few minutes of this I'd probably wind up punching him in the nose, so I figured I'd change topics to a mutual interest.

              "So," I said, looking around the small apartment, particularly toward the kitchen, "the landlord lets you brew here?"

              "Yeah, but frankly I don’t care. He has to let me brew here. It's falls under cooking and under my lease I'm allowed to cook. Nowhere does it say I can’t brew. I've read it through, twice."

              "Ok then, so you don’t get along with your landlord."

              "He's an idiot, like everyone else around here."

              "Um, excuse me," I said, feeling the urge to punch rising once again.

              To his credit, he realized his gaffe.

              "Oh, well, what I meant was the
majority
of people I come into contact with. You seem like a smart girl yourself. You have to admit, there are quite a lot of dolts around here."

              "Did you think Eli Campbell was a dolt?"

              "Eli Campbell? He was smarter than most, but still a dolt."

              "In what way?"

              He shrugged. "In a general sort of way."

              "You know," I said, smiling, "I've since spoken to a couple of your fellow contestants, and a couple of them had previous run-ins with Campbell. I mean before the competition."

              "Not me," he said plainly.

              I decided to go a different route with my questioning. "What did you see that day?"

              He shrugged again. "Not much. I saw him slump. I ran over to him and gave him CPR. By that point it was too late."

              I couldn’t hold back. "
I
gave him CPR!"

              "Well, sure, and I didn’t realize it until later. I must have gotten to him before you did."

              He looked up, and must have seen my jaw hanging open onto my chest.

              "Or after," he said, his face not changing one bit.

              There are those who lie with such impunity that those in their audience often feel as though they have no right to contradict them. Here was just such a case. There's no other way to account for the fact that I actually felt bad about telling him he was full of it. So I didn’t.

              "What happened right before that?" I said.

              "Before he collapsed?"

              "Yeah, what did you see?"

              "Not much."

              I nodded at him, and he at me. We sipped our coffee in silence for a moment. It gave me some time to think. Joe Badger is the type who can’t resist putting himself where the action is, inflating his own importance. Say someone – say the owner and proprietor of a well-known microbrewery – were to put Badger into a position where he'd be compelled to put himself in the same room as the murdered man at the time of his murder, would he refuse if he were guilty?

              "You know," I said putting my coffee cup down, "I envy you. Having gone into that trailer with Campbell. I forget who told me. He must have been a pretty interesting person."

              "I never went into that trailer with him."

              "Hmmm, I heard differently."

              "From who?"

              "Whom." That felt good. I threw out a name. "Maisie Ward saw you going in with Campbell."

              "Well, Maisie Ward is a liar. I never had any contact with him during that time."

              "Hmm, I guess she was mistaken."

              "There's no guessing," he said. "She
was
mistaken."

#

              "So no word on the key in the carp?"

              "None," said Lester Moore.

              We strolled along the beach just at sunset. Our relationship, if you can call it that, wasn't at the point where we were holding hands. But if there was ever a time to hold hands, this would be it. The sky was splotched with brilliance, and our shoulders bumped as we walked.

              "You know," said the detective, "I was thinking. Are you sure he didn’t say
car
? The key is in the car?"

              "I hadn’t even thought of that," I said.

              "It makes more sense."

              "It does. But I could swear I saw his lips come together to form the
p
. That's what made me think he said carp. Car would have been an obvious choice, and if he said it, I would have immediately heard it like that."

              "You do have a strange logic."

              "Thank you," I said, taking it as the compliment I knew it was intended to be.

              "But I think I'm right here. We're going to have a look at the guy's car tomorrow. And we're following that lead."

              I shrugged. "Suit yourself, but I think it’s a mistake."

              He chuckled. "You're trying to show up my team?"

              I returned the chuckle. "Just trying to make them work a little harder, that's all."

              "Huh," he said. "So you think they don’t work hard enough."

              "I didn’t say that."

              "Well, you said you're trying to make them work a little harder. What else is that supposed to mean?"

              I looked at him. He wasn't kidding anymore. "No offense intended, Lester, but isn’t it obvious? Look at the last homicide case you had. Who was it again that did the majority of the work needed to solve that one again? I forgot. Who was it?"

              "Alright," he said curtly, "that's enough."

              "No, I'm serious. Who was it? I can see her now in my head."

              "Madison, you’re not funny."

              "Oh, I'm not trying to be. Nor was I trying to be when I was sitting in my office, tied up by the killer's hired goon."

              "We found out a lot in that case."

              "Yeah, but I busted the guy. All I lacked was a badge, and from the looks of things, the only thing one needs to get a badge in the Carl's Cove Police Department is two legs and a heartbeat."

              His gait quickened. "You're unbelievable."

              "Am I right? You're offended?"

              "You bet I'm offended."

              "Oh, please. It's not even your department. They had to call you in."

              "They're my team, and they do a damn fine job."

              "I never said they didn’t. I just said that they need to work a little harder."

              "And we're back to that again."

              "I guess we are. Funny how that happened."

              "You know what? If you think you can do a better job, try out for the force. In the meantime, I'm warning you: Stay out of official police business."

              "Sure, I wouldn’t want to mess up your guys' stellar investigative work."

              "I'm serious, Madison. You want to be brought up on charges of interference?"

              I made a noise to this. It was the kind of noise you make with your lips that's a cross between a raspberry and a whistle. It probably wasn't the right thing to do, and in retrospect, I probably would've been better off not saying or doing anything. Anyway, I think it was the dismissive quality of it that annoyed him most.

              "Alright," he said, "We're done here."

              With this, he turned to walk back to the car. "Are you coming?" he called without looking back.

              "I'm walking," I said. It wasn't that far a walk back to my house. And besides, I had little use for drama.

              I guess this is where the official break between the police and me began. Little did I know how much trouble it would cause.

#

              What happened next was typical to this case. That is, someone with information came to my office directly.

              I was just starting to get stuff sorted out. Gerry and I had decided to offer a perry – pear cider – as well as a stout. The acidic fruitiness would be a nice counterbalance to the stout and the other offerings on our list.

              Also, our bar was just about finished and ready for customers. In other words, I was happy to give murder a break and get back to the brew biz.

              Until
she
came in.

              I guess that sounds a little like a Raymond Chandler novel. Why is it that so many pulp stories begin with the arrival of a mysterious woman?

              Well, mysterious she was.

              My girl up front said, "I have a Ms. Zelda Calverton."

              The name didn’t ring a bell. I looked through Dad's ancient rolodex that I still kept on my desk – a lot of valuable contacts in there – and found no matches.

              Send her up, I said.

              By way of introduction came a slight waft of Chanel. Then a black Vera Wang dress was the first thing I saw. And then the rest of her.

              She was a tall, statuesque blonde. Her lips were cherry red, her eyes wide and dark blue. She carried a very serious expression that looked like she'd had it on her face at all times. All in all, she was stunning – the type of woman that makes a girl like me afraid to look in the mirror.

              "Ms. Darby," she said in long, languid tones, "I'm Zelda Calverton. You don’t know me."

              "I gotta say I don’t, Ms. Calverton. Please have a seat."

              Instead of taking the chair in front of my desk, she opted instead for the couch on the side, the very couch Daniel Ward had fallen onto when he died. She crossed her legs elegantly and stared at me.

              "So," I said uncomfortably, "what brings you here?" I was trying to be official.

              "As I said, you don’t know me. But you probably know my products. I'm the CEO of Juice First, Inc."

              "The organic health food line. Of course I know those products."

              "Yes, you do, but you probably don’t know a few of our subsidiaries. For instance, do you also happen to know that I own Gnome Brewing, Inc?"

              I'd heard that Gnome had sold out to a giant macro-corporation. I had no idea it was this one. I told her as much, leaving out the phrase "sold out,” of course.