Death & the Brewmaster's Widow (8 page)

“Could you do that? We'd appreciate it.”

“Sure. I'd be glad to. Actually, truth be told, I'm awfully curious about the helmet and badge thing myself.”

eight

“Did you know that
I'm psychic?” Wren asked.

“Oh, really?”

They were back at Randy's, sharing a pizza for lunch and passing the time until they could meet Barrows that evening. Wren had set the table with Death's grandmother's best china and tossed a salad in her crystal salad bowl because, as she'd explained, “Things are meant to be used, not hoarded. You save them and save them for a special occasion and in the end they wind up sitting idle in a cabinet forever. Life is a special occasion, sometimes we just need to remember that.”

Death had been brooding since they came back from the attorney's office and she was trying to lighten his mood. “Really. Do you want me to tell you what you're thinking?”

“Try me.”

“You're thinking about the newspaper story. You're annoyed they wrote about Randy, but you're most upset because you think they must have talked to his friends—the guys at the station and maybe Sophie Depardieu. It hurts to think that Randy's friends would gossip about him to a reporter, and you're annoyed that they didn't ask you first or even give you a heads up.”

“Nah.”

“Nah? Really?”

“Okay, so I was at first. But then I reread the article. They actually don't have everything, and they would have if they'd talked to Captain Cairn or any of the guys at 41's. For example, they said Randy was wearing the wrong badge when he came out of the fire, but there's nothing about how he shouldn't have had a badge on at all. They talked to someone at HQ, but there's actually nothing in here they couldn't have gotten from public sources or their own archives. Even the stuff about how we lost Mom and Dad and the fact that Randy was my last remaining relative. There were stories in the paper back at the time of the accident plus, of course, the obituaries. All they had to do was search the name Bogart. It's not like there's gonna be
another
Baranduin Bogart who had a brother named Death.”

“So if it's not the newspaper article, what is it? You've been a grumbly old bear all morning.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize! If you feel like a grumbly bear you're allowed to act like a grumbly bear. I just don't want you to
feel
like that.” That drew a smile from him.

“I suppose it is the article a little,” he admitted. “It's my brother and my mystery and my tragedy. I'm jealous about who I share it with. I'm kicking myself for not being more circumspect when I spoke with Duror. And, of course, I'm also kicking myself for being so caught up in all this that I didn't even notice your necklace before. I wonder if Barrows will ever have any idea how close he came to losing an eye this morning.”

Wren cackled a laugh.

“That depends on if he talks down to me again. Do you like it?”

“Very clever.”

Her necklace was a simple length of black cord strung with polished rocks, with a “Y” of rough wood as the focal point, accentuating the gentle rise of her breasts. The effect was very primitive and artsy and it was only when he really looked at it that Death saw it for what it was. “So I see the handle and the ammo, where's the sling?”

“I've got it hidden in my bra,” she grinned.

“Oh.” He gave her a sideways, speculative look. “Maybe I should strip search you, just to make sure it's hidden well enough.”

“You think that might be a good idea?”

“Well, you said you wanted to improve my mood, didn't you? I think that just might do the trick.”

_____

In Missouri, in the high summer, twilight lasts forever. A low sun shone in from across the river, gilding the western faces of the buildings even as it lengthened their shadows, long fingers of night reaching out to grasp the city. Light and dark stood in stark contrast. The Brewmaster's Widow faced north. Death and Wren were parked near the entrance, caught in the never-never land between sun and shadow, waiting for Barrows to arrive as promised.

“I'd rather we could go in alone and search the place without an audience,” Death said. “But I suppose this is better than nothing.”

He was carrying a flashlight and a measuring tape and Wren had a good camera. Death had considered taking a crowbar in with them, in case the fire crew that overhauled the building had scattered debris in their way. With Barrows along, though, he'd decided against it. If they were blocked, he'd deal with it when it happened.

A busy road circled past to the west, between the brewery and the Mississippi. Shading his eyes with his hand, Death tracked a late-model, expensive sedan as it turned onto the web of smaller roads that lay like a net around the neighborhood. He lost it for a few seconds behind the line of tall, Italianate mansions that included the Grey home, and then it came down the street toward them and turned into the lot to park beside his Jeep.

Barrows had changed into jeans and a polo shirt and he got out of his car with his alarm fob in his right hand and a bulky ring of keys in his left. Death approached him with his hand outstretched and Barrows beeped his car locked and pocketed the key before coming to meet him and shake his hand. “Sir,” Death said. “Thanks for coming. I appreciate this, really.”

“Glad to do anything I can to help. Ms. Morgan,” he acknowledged Wren and nodded toward the building. “Shall we?”

The heavy entry door was made of wood, gray and splintering, with paint that was bubbling and peeling away. The lock and handle were heavily rusted iron. The lock had been broken recently, probably by the fire department the previous summer, and a shiny new hasp and padlock were fitted above the handle. Barrows searched through his keys. He had probably twenty on the ring, each encased in a colored cover and labeled in a neat and impossibly tiny script. A tag on the ring read, “Grey.”

“We have a few clients who have property we're responsible for. We keep each client's keys on a separate ring,” he explained, trying one key after another. “Normally, that's not a problem, but Andrew Grey has vast holdings and right now I'm in charge of them all.”

“You said his wife doesn't even have a say?” Wren asked, curious and dismayed.

“Ah, no.” He found the right key, pulled the padlock off, and pushed the door open. “I can't go into details, naturally. Attorney/client privilege. But it's been in the paper, so it's hardly a secret. The current Mrs. Grey is Andrew's fifth wife. She's considerably younger than he is. He has a living will and according to the terms, as long as he is medically incapacitated, I am responsible for administering his estate.”

The door opened into a cavernous chamber. Skylights pierced a roof that arced twenty feet or more overhead. Tall, narrow derring windows lined the walls on the north and south. The west wall, which separated the malt house from the grain silos, was blank. Shaded from the sunset, the brewery lay in an eerie twilight.

It had been a surprisingly elegant building. The ceiling was pressed tin, with traces of color still clinging to the raised flower and scroll motif. A balcony surrounded by wrought-iron railings ran around the perimeter of the room. The staircase leading up to it rose in a graceful curve. Huge pipes protruded from the floor. A trio of massive vats crouched in one corner like overgrown mushrooms and the room was littered with obscure, fantastic machinery, all wheels and cranks and spigots worked in rusting iron.

The firefighters' presence was still evident in the paths trampled through the heavy grime on the floor. Where the floor had been washed clean by high-pressure fire hoses, blue and white decorative tiles showed. The paths the water had taken stood out like dry river beds, snaking across the filth. Barrows wrinkled his nose.

“I came in here right after the fire,” he said. “I had to see the damage and decide what to do about it. Whether it was worth filing a claim with the insurance company and if it was bad enough to warrant demolishing the building. In the end, I decided not to file. Given the state of the building before the fire, it would be hard to put a monetary value on the amount of damage done. The rates would have gone up because we'd filed. Plus, with the fire being arson, I didn't want the police to think I was trying to burn it down for the money.”

“The fire was arson?” Wren asked, glancing around. She looked at the place, Death knew, with an auctioneer's eye, seeing salvageable antiques among the junk and estimating possible uses for the building.

“Yeah, honey,” Death said. “Didn't you know?”

“I don't remember anyone ever mentioning it. Did they find out who set it?”

“No. They figure it was probably just some kids looking for a thrill. It's still an open investigation.”

“You said you knew where your brother …?” Barrows' voice trailed off; he was unwilling to finish the sentence.

“Back here,” Death said, nodding and gesturing toward the warren of offices and storage rooms at the east end of the building. “Randy and Tanner were searching the building.”

In the center of the east wall a single door, wooden with a frosted-glass window, hung open in a doorway that had once held two. They passed through and the feel of the building changed.

It was darker back here. They were standing in a long hall with only a single small window at the far end. The walls were different—smaller bricks in a more ornate pattern—and the stone and tile floor of the big room gave way to hardwood, dried and cracked and splintering with age. Charred bricks made strange designs on the walls and the ceiling was dark with soot. Even all these months later, the smell of smoke hung heavy in the air.

Death pointed out the burn marks on the walls. “See that? That's arson. Someone sprayed accelerant over the walls. Brick doesn't burn, of course, but the fire from the accelerant burning off darkened it.” Doors opened on either side of the hall, some with windows and some without. It smelled of dust and age and mold and, Death thought, ever so faintly yet of beer.

He led the way past the first three doors and stopped at the second door on the right.

“This is where they split up. They thought they heard a sound but they couldn't decide where it had come from. Rowdy went to the left, into that storage room, and Randy went in here.”

They entered the room and the first thing Death noticed about it was the cold. The rest of the factory was stuffy in the summer evening, but here it was fifteen to twenty degrees cooler than it had been outside. Wren shivered in her light cotton blouse but took out her camera and began snapping pictures. Barrows rubbed his upper arms and retreated to the hall to wait.

This had been an office once. At one time the desk in the middle of the room had probably been expensive and imposing. Now it tottered off-kilter, with one leg broken off shorter than the others. A many-paned window in the wall behind it was intact. Death crossed the room and checked to see if it had been opened recently. An old bird's nest clung to the outside of the sill and the lock was rusted closed.

The floor in the back, right-hand corner had apparently decayed at some point and been replaced with plywood. It had been done long enough ago that the plywood was gray with age and buckled at the edges. Rust-ringed nails held it down, gleaming in the low light.

Death looked around for some mark or track or sign that Randy had been there; that Randy had died there. There was nothing. The floor was swept clean, any tracks had been obliterated and only a light, even coating of dust remained. The bookcase that had fallen on Randy and burned his body so badly was gone. The other firefighters had dragged it away, chopped it up and destroyed it vindictively.

The only thing out of place was the strange, preternatural chill that seared his lungs and settled in his bones.

He returned to the warmth of the hall, Wren tagging along behind him, there if he needed her but letting him take the lead. He dropped one arm around her shoulders for a brief hug. Her skin was smooth and soft and cold under his palm and he thought of death and held her closer and for a few seconds longer than he otherwise might have. Two feet farther down the hall he opened the door to the room Rowdy had searched. It was a store room, darker and dirtier than the office had been. He didn't go in, but shone the light from his flashlight along the floor and around what he could see of the interior.

“Rowdy said the floor isn't safe in here. He could feel it trying to give beneath him when he was searching.” The room was crowded with shelving units, many of them still stacked with crates holding dusty bottles. A few of the bottles had been broken and the beer and mold smells were stronger in here. Dust had begun to fill them in again, but large footprints were still visible in the grime on the floor, full prints going in, but only the front half of the boots visible returning.

Death crouched to study them more closely. “He went in carefully, ran back out when he heard Randy's alarm. That's why only the toes of his boots touched, and his stride was longer coming out than going in. It fits what he told me.” He paced down the hall to the end, trying two more doors as he passed, then came back and looked briefly into the rooms between the office and the factory floor.

“I don't want to rush you,” Barrows said hesitantly, eyeing the doorway to the office. “But—”

“It's okay.” Death clipped the flashlight to his belt and scrubbed his palms against his jeans. “I think we've seen everything there is to see here.”

They returned to the factory floor in silence. Barrows crossed it at such a fast walk that he was almost running. When they were outside again and he turned the key in the lock, he took a deep breath. “So … do you think it's haunted then?”

“Haunted?”

“Yeah, um. I mean, I've never been one to believe in ghosts or anything, but they do say that haunted houses have cold spots. And that cold in there is like nothing I've ever felt before. Walking into that room is like stepping into a refrigerator. I've gotta be honest. I'm just a little bit freaked out here.”