A Deadly Draught (25 page)

The fire engines rumbled up the drive. The men on them jumped off and began their dangerous work. By the time I ran down the hill and arrived at the scene, the heat from the burning buildings was so intense, I couldn’t approach the area but could only watch flames consume the place while firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.

A car pulled into the drive, but the crew kept the person from getting too close. I avoided the heat by running to the road and approaching the car from behind. Thank God. It was Michael, but where was everybody else? I touched his arm, and he turned to look at me.

“I spent the night out and was just coming home when I heard the sirens.”

“It’s all gone,” I said. I searched the inferno, trying to make out the shape of the barns. Michael’s eyes registered only anguish.

“No, no. It’s more than gone. My mother brought Ronald home from the hospital yesterday. Both of them were in that house. You don’t think Ronald could have set this fire, do you? He wouldn’t return to his old ways, would he?”

His words jarred a memory. He said the same thing to me when the hop house burned. I remembered the day well. Michael and I had met on the hill above the place and were making ourselves comfortable on an old log when we saw Ronald run from the broken-down shack. A few minutes later, we spotted flames jumping out of the windows. In little more than a half an hour, the only things left at the site were blackened timbers.

Michael turned to me that day and said what I was thinking also, that Ronald must have set that fire. Soon after, Ronald, accused by his father and with the threat of arrest for arson in his future, left his home as a teen and returned less than a week ago.

“What did you say?”

“I said Mother and Ronald were in there.”

“No, the other.” He turned his face toward me.

“What? Oh, that Ronald must have set the fire. You know, like that hop house fire.” He looked back at the flames, and I saw something on his face I remembered from that other day, as well. It was a look of ecstasy.

That look pierced my being, and everything I had felt about Michael fell like burning embers, dying black in the dust at our feet. Without thinking, the words tumbled from my mouth.

“Ronald never burned down that hop house. It was you, Michael. Somehow you set that fire, and Ronald saw you. He went in there to try to put out the fire. I was your witness, wasn’t I? We both framed poor Ronald, but this is different. This fire took two lives. You’re a monster. Those two lives mean you are sole proprietor of Ramford Brewery.”

He grabbed my arm. “Don’t be stupid. This fire makes me sole proprietor of nothing. There’s nothing left. You said it yourself.” He said these words like a man overburdened by his life, but I couldn’t tell if the expression on his face was anguish or anger.

I turned my attention back to the buildings in front of me. Little remained to remind me this once was one of the most successful small breweries in the Northeast. Now it was charcoal, burned timbers, and twisted steel with the smell of burned malt in the air.

He was right. There remained nothing of his father’s work, not the barns or the house.

“You’ll have to rebuild.” Once the words slipped out of my mouth, I realized that was just what Michael wanted. Not a brewery, but something else. He could now do whatever he desired and not have to run his decisions by anyone.

I wanted to scream at him, but I held my tongue when I heard a car approaching from the road. A county sheriff’s vehicle slid to a stop behind us. I saw Jake’s face through the windshield.

“Where have you been, Ramford?”

“If you must know, I was at Francine’s again.”

The back doors of Jake’s cruiser opened. Claudia and Ronald got out. I thought Michael paused just a second too long before he said, “Thank God,” and ran to embrace his mother. I wasn’t being fair. His nanosecond of silence could just as well have been relief at finding his family safe.

Twenty-Four

My phone rang several hours later, and Michael was on the line. I expected to hear from him, and I wasn’t surprised he wanted to talk to me.

“Let’s make a picnic of it. We’ll meet by the old burned hop house and talk.”

“I don’t think a picnic is really appropriate, do you? Your family lost everything in that fire, and the arson investigation team’s initial analysis is that it was set. Doesn’t that worry you any? All of you could have been killed.”

“Well, we weren’t. We’re just fine. Besides, we were heavily insured.” His voice took on a note of impatience. “Look, I don’t want to talk over the phone. Meet me around six. Guess you’ll have to bring both the beer and the sandwiches, since I don’t have either.” He rang off with a chuckle.

I knew Jake still held me in contempt for the lies I told him, but I also knew better than to leave him out of this meeting. Once I called and told him what I was thinking, he seemed to let go of his mad at me.

“I’ll be right over.”

“Meet me in the barn.”

I was opening the fifty-five pound sacks of barley and pouring the grain into the hopper that fed the mash lauder tun. Tomorrow I would add the hot water and begin making my last batch of beer until I got the money to buy more barley.

“Need any help with that?” Jake entered the brew barn just as I was jockeying the last sack of grain across the haymow floor to dump into the hopper.

“Nope. I’m almost finished.”

He looked around the barn and seemed to catch the implications of my statement.

“Sorry about that. How long can you hang on?”

“Maybe another month.” I slit open the sack and wrestled it into position. “I don’t want to talk about that now.” I finished the job, threw the sack on the floor, and descended to the metal platform.

Jake joined me there and took a look down into the kettle.

“Hard work.”

“Yes, it is, and maybe that’s why Michael has no more stomach for the brewing business. Even with all the bells and whistles you can buy, it’s still difficult work. Challenging, a science that can go wrong if you’re not vigilant.” I hesitated. What I wanted to say next wasn’t easy, and Jake’s nearness made it more difficult.

“I think Michael killed his father.” He didn’t look shocked. The only reaction he gave was a slight dilation of his pupils.

“I think so, too, but I can’t prove it. He’s got an ironclad alibi, the most respectable woman in the area, Francine.”

I moved away from him on the tiny platform and leaned against the railing. “Oh, she didn’t lie about Michael being with her. She just didn’t know how easy it was for him to sneak away that night. He drugged her wine or something like that, I suspect. Then he walked from her place over the hills to his own, met his father at the barn, and hit him with the shovel.”

“You seem pretty sure of this.”

“When I was walking back from the fire this morning, I was thinking how closely knit a group of brewers we were, yet how there were so many secrets among us. We’ve shared good and bad times, like now with the water shortage. And we are close, geographically close, near enough to make it a short hike from one of our places to another. That’s what Michael did. I think he also did that other thing this morning. I think he set the fire.” I told Jake about watching Michael the night of the old hop house fire and how his face this morning held that same expression.

“I can’t arrest a man on the basis of how his eyes look.”

“I know, but Michael is worried. He thinks I know something, and he wants us to meet.”

Jake moved forward and grabbed my arms, pulling me toward him. “God, you’re a pain, Hera. You’re not going to meet him. If what you believe is true, you’re a danger to him. I can’t let you do this.”

I pushed him away from me. “I’ve let my feelings for Michael get in the way of reason for too long. I don’t want that to happen with another man. Let’s leave aside the you and me thing until we sort out tonight.”

We sorted it out. I would take the direct route to the hop house, arriving there around six, while Jake would take the path that led through the woods, wound around the old mill pond, and came up behind the burned ruins of the barn. He’d be in place, waiting for Michael to arrive, then listen in on our conversation. He asked me to wear a voice-activated recorder, and I agreed.

At five thirty, the recorder was taped to my waist, and I carried a picnic basket with sandwiches and four bottles of my lager in it. It seemed macabre, but fitting, to use picnic items and my brews to entrap a murderer.

I looked at the sky when I left my house. Another ersatz storm was rolling in. I knew not to get my hopes up. Mother Nature was playing one of her tricks, getting us to anticipate rain when all she intended to produce was wind, thunder, and some lightning.

Jake and I walked together for several yards, then he cut off for the pond, while I headed over the ridge toward the hop house. The tape holding the wire in place itched, and I scratched at my waist, then reminded myself I should quit it, or Michael might get suspicious.

I put the picnic basket on the ground and sat on the hill overlooking the charred timbers of the small barn. I recalled the days when Ronald, Michael and I played in the old place. We pretended we were storing and drying hops, all of us determined to become the best beer brewers when we grew up. That didn’t happen as we planned, and now I wondered if any of the three of us would be brewing beer this time next year.

The sun worked its way down the sky and hovered near the ridgeline to the west. I checked my watch. Michael was a half-hour late. I inserted my finger into my waistband and tried to move the tape a bit. A hand touched my shoulder.

“Poison oak, poison ivy? Might want to try calamine lotion for that.” Michael looked as if he’d run all the way from his place. His face was dripping sweat, and his shirt was soaked under the arms. “Sorry I’m late. Something came up.”

I said nothing. My mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. When I glanced up into his face, his eyes appeared black, not their usual twilight blue color, and his words came from lips narrowed in a grimace.

“You have something to tell me, Hera? Is there something you know that you shouldn’t?” I screwed up my courage. I had to tell him what I suspected in order to get him to talk.

“You set that fire today, just like you burned that old hop house down years ago. Then you used me to help you frame Ronald for setting the fire. And you killed your father. I don’t know why you did, but you killed him, planned it out and drugged Francine so she would sleep through the night. You took the shovel and bashed in your own father’s head.”

His hand on my shoulder tightened, sending a shot of pain down my arm.

“He wasn’t my father.”

His words didn’t surprise me. He spoke out loud what I had feared since I read Claudia’s letters to my father.

“You don’t really think I’m a murderer, do you, Hera?” His grip on my shoulder lessened. I turned to look him in the face. Perhaps the light show presented by the storm deceived me, but his face had the gentle look of an innocent man on it.

“I wanted to kill him when he told me I was your half-brother, but when I got to the brew barn, someone had already done the job for me.”

“Who, then?” Lightning flashed around us, and raindrops began to fall.

“Any number of people who hated him. Who cares? He got what he deserved. Mother wouldn’t have sought comfort elsewhere if he had been a better husband, and Ronald, well, Ronald had his own demons when he was younger.” The raindrops came down with greater ferocity, driven now by gusts of wind.

My head buzzed in confusion. None of this made sense. Mr. Ramford told Ronald that he wasn’t his son just days before the murder. Or had Ronald lied to me?

“We need to get inside.” Michael pulled me toward the broken-down hop house. I didn’t want to go with him, but the raindrops hit with such force that they raised welts on my face and arms. He shoved me under a fallen beam and led me to the part of the roof that remained over a corner of the building.

A rustling noise came from behind one of the broken timbers.

I figured Jake’s cover was blown so I yelled, “Come on out, Jake.” But Jake did not appear. I tried again, “Jake.” Michael let out a laugh.

“Just some woodland creature seeking shelter from the storm like we are. I don’t think you can expect Jake to arrive here tonight. He had an unfortunate fall, and I think he’s lying at the edge of the mill pond as we speak. Did you think after the things you said to me this morning I wouldn’t keep an eye on you? I saw the two of you heading out together, and I figured you would set some kind of a trap for me.” He twisted my arm, and I cried out in agony.

“Michael, you’re hurting me.”

As quickly as his voice had protested his innocence just a moment ago, it now turned ugly. He pulled me close to him. “It’s a pity, but I think I’m going to have to do more than hurt you. What you suspect about the murder and the fire could get me in a lot of trouble. Better to just remove you from the picture and eliminate a messy investigation of the family.”

“Not yet, Dear.” The voice was not that of a woodland creature, but rather that of Claudia, who emerged from a darkened corner of the dilapidated structure. The storm made the light dim enough to obscure the expression on her face, but her tone of voice carried authority. Tonight she appeared to be sober, functioning without the crutch of alcohol but with another kind of back-up, a pistol, which she pointed at us. The coolness of her tone frightened me more than Michael’s grip on my arm or his threats.

“Don’t think I can’t use this. Years ago, when I bought that pistol for protection, Michael Senior insisted upon my going to the firing range in town. I’m a pretty good shot yet today.”

“Mother, what are you doing here? I told you I’d take care of Hera.” Michael pulled me in front of him so that I stood between him and the pistol.

“Can I trust you, Dear? Just like your father, you sometimes lie to me and don’t follow through when I tell you to do something. I told you to get rid of that shovel, didn’t I? What did you do? You put it in Hera’s shed, and it was traced back to Ronald. That got your brother in a lot of trouble.”