Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) (19 page)

“But… but why?”

Warren was someone who believed deeply in the good of others, even if he got irritated with them sometimes. I knew that he liked Ian and felt that he was a good kid. To hear that he’d done something like this must have caused the old man pain.

Ian brushed away something from his cheeks.

“Why do you think I did it?” he said. “For money.”

He sheepishly lifted his eyes, seeing that we were all waiting for an explanation.

His large Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard several times.

“Rip came around the brewery once when you two were out making a supply run,” Ian said. “He came with a proposition. He wanted me to write those notes to scare you off. He said you were stepping on his territory, and that you should have known better. He didn’t want to start an all-out war with you, though. That’s why he needed somebody else to get the message across. He didn’t want it to be traced back to him.”

He took in a hard-fought, deep breath.  

“He thought you were weak-willed, meddling old fools. And he thought notes like the ones I wrote might get you thinking about retiring for good and doing the things old people should be doing. That’s what he said.”

Warren clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“I knew it,” he said, shaking his head. “I just knew it.”

“They were just supposed to be notes,” Ian continued. “Nothing more than that. Just harmless bits of paper. But then…”

He squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“He wanted me to do more. The night of the Independence? He wanted me to set the sprinklers off in the pub. He wanted to ruin the grand opening. He was going to pay me a lot for it, too.”

“But you told him no, didn’t you?” I interjected. “That’s what you were arguing about in the woods that day.”

He looked over at me.

His eyes were red and had that same guilty look to them as they’d had earlier at the pie shop. Like a puppy who’d gotten into the pantry.

“Sabotaging the pub on opening night wasn’t something I was going to do,” he said. “Not for
any
price. I know how much the brewery means to you both…”

He trailed off, then cleared his throat.

“I know how hard you both have worked for this place. And I thought it was going to be harmless, what I was doing, but it wasn’t. I just felt worse and worse about it. So the day of the Fourth, I told him that I wasn’t going to do it. I gave him all his money back. He was angry. He said he was going to tell the two of you that I was responsible for the notes. And I told him I didn’t care if he did. I wasn’t going to hurt my family anymore for some… for some
meaningless
green paper.”

He wiped his face with the back of his shirt sleeve and sniveled.

“The last time I saw Rip, he was sitting downstairs at the pub before the fireworks display. And he was alive. I don’t know who killed him. And don’t know why he ended up dead that night. But it had nothing to do with
me
.”

Every one of his pained words rang true.

With a struggle, he finally forced his head up, meeting his grandmother’s disappointed eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Nana,” he said.

He turned to Warren.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I never meant… I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

He hung his head in abject shame.

“If you needed the money, why not just ask me?” Aileen said, her voice trembling with emotion. “Why did you have to get yourself tangled up with a snake?”

He shrugged his large shoulders.

“I didn’t need the money. She did. It was for…”

He trailed off, unable to finish.

But he didn’t really need to.

We could all guess easy enough at who the money was for.

The girl.Back in Scotland.

“I talked to Alice on the phone just after I got here,” he said. “She’s trying to get away from Glasgow, away from her fath…”

He trailed off again, anger rising in his voice.

“I wanted to bring her out here. That’s what I needed the money for. I thought if she could just get away, then it would be okay. Everything I did would be somehow justified.”

Aileen came around the counter. She placed a hand up to her grandson’s face.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” she said. “You could have just asked your Nana for the money. You could have just asked Warren here, too. We love you, don’t you understand?”

At that, Ian’s entire face just cracked.

A moment later, he was crying. Big, fat, unabashed tears that streamed down his cheeks in small rivers.

“There wasn’t any need to get tangled up with a snake,” Aileen repeated.

“I’m so sorry, Nana.”

She embraced him in one of her warm, grandmotherly hugs. Ian’s shoulders convulsed as he cried with relief.

The kind of relief that only comes after getting a big secret off your chest.

He wasn’t the only one in the room who felt that way, either.

Chapter 44

I beat the sugar, eggs, buttermilk and cream to a bubbly froth before adding a bounteous amount of bourbon to the mixture.

I dipped a finger into the bowl and tasted the uncooked concoction, allowing my taste buds to savor the full experience. It was sweet, creamy, and, of course, boozy:  an all-around seductive flavor, I decided. Though I half-wondered if I hadn’t put
too
much bourbon in. Much of the alcohol would burn off in the baking, but still, I was known to be a little heavy handed when it came to such things.

But then again, the working title of this new pie creation was called
Moonshine Whiskey Pie
. The pastry, which I was naming after the Van Morrison song,
had the base of a typically southern Chess Pie with a kick of Kentucky thunder thrown in for good measure. Customers would be expecting the boozy flavor to be upfront and aggressive if I put “whiskey” in the title.

I started pouring the filling into prebaked pie crusts, but soon realized that I was being watched.

Two pairs of expectant eyes were gazing at me.

A moment later, Chadwick started wagging his fluffy tail. Inspired by his buddy’s action, Huckleberry decided to follow suit with his little nub.

“Sorry, pooches,” I said. “I’m afraid this pie’s only for grown-ups.”

The tails continued to wag. A spittle of drool dropped from Huckleberry’s mouth. Chadwick licked his dog lips with anticipation.

I always did have trouble saying no when they ganged up on me like that.

“
Fine
.”

I grabbed a half-full tin of cherry pie leftover from earlier that afternoon– something of a rarity lately considering the brisk business we’d been doing – and placed it on the floor for the two of them to share.

Huckleberry got the draw, being the bigger dog. But Chadwick wasn’t any pushover. He nudged his way in there, getting his fair share of the pastry. It wasn’t but a few seconds before the whole pie was gone.

I shook my head silently at the two of them. They were nearly as bad as Warren.  

I had decided to spend the evening in the pie shop. Daniel was working late, trying to catch up on what he’d missed during the time we’d been waiting for Ian at the police station. Meanwhile, Warren, Aileen, and Ian had found themselves exhausted after the events of the day, and had all turned in.

While I was tired myself, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to call it a night just yet.

The day had left me feeling like I’d had one pot of coffee too many. And while it might have sounded strange to some, working in the pie shop kitchen was the only thing I could think of that would relax me and take my mind off the events of the past 72 hours.

I loaded a pan with my latest pie experiment and placed it in the oven. I set the timer, and started wiping down the flour-caked countertops before pulling out ingredients to make a batch of Blueberry Cinnamon pies for the following day.

It wasn’t but a few moments before I heard a whimpering at the door.

I glanced over, seeing Chadwick looking back at me with his large, hollow, lonesome eyes.

I looked at the oven clock.

Chadwick had a point.

In everything that had been going on since Rip was murdered, I’d been neglecting the pooches. Usually, they got at least two leisurely walks a day. But these past few days, I hadn’t once taken them for a stroll, opting instead to just let them out in our backyard.

“When you’re right, you’re right,” I said to Chadwick, taking my apron off. “But we only have time for a short jaunt around the block. I’ve got to be back here to check on the pies, so don’t either one of you get any squirrel chasing ideas in your head.”

Huckleberry’s ears pricked up at the mention of the tree rodents.

I dusted off my hands, grabbed the two leashes from off the coat rack, and attached them to the dogs’ collars.

Their tails wagged even more than when I had given them the leftover pie.

Chapter 45

For all the crowds that had filled downtown Christmas River just a few days earlier, the place was now a virtual ghost town.

The only thing left to betray any notion of a huge celebration was the occasional bits of confetti that blew down the sidewalks in the evening wind. Other than that, the streets of downtown were practically deserted.

I zipped up my fleece jacket, and let Huckleberry and Chadwick lead the way. A summer moon shone brightly over the empty streets, but down on the ground, it didn’t feel quite so summery. It was never all that warm at night here in the Central Oregon Cascades, even in the middle of a heatwave. But somehow, it felt even chillier than normal tonight. The heatwave must have broken, and I half wondered if I shouldn’t cover the tomato plants in the backyard later in case the temperature dipped down to freezing.

Chadwick stopped and sniffed around a bush. Huckleberry followed to see what it was all about, bringing me to a halt.

I stopped, taking in a deep breath, savoring the freshness of air that didn’t smell of butter and flour and sugar.

Tired of whatever they were sniffing, Huckleberry and Chadwick started trotting on the sidewalk again. I followed behind as they led me down Main Street. Past Piper’s Pastries and Valley’s Floral Shop and the Christmas River Art Gallery, past Meadow Plaza, to an area of downtown where I didn’t often go.

It wasn’t long before I realized what was around the corner.

I thought for a moment about turning the dogs around. About cutting the walk short and not going any farther. But something in me, perhaps a morbid fascination of some sort, kept me from doing it.

Instead, I kept walking.

A few seconds later, I was standing outside the small pub front, looking at its dark façade.

Back Alley Brewing.

I grasped the leashes tightly in my hands and stared at the dark brewery.

The place looked exactly the same as it always had. The large, swinging sign out front. The imposing iron door. The smell of ferment – beer, and other things – that seemed to permeate even the sidewalk outside the place… All of it was the way it had always been when Rip was alive. As if he hadn’t been killed just a few short days ago. The only thing different now was the “closed” sign up in the window. A sign that might not ever come down.

It still haunted me a little bit, not knowing what it was Rip wanted to talk to me about the day he was killed.

I hadn’t known Rip well, and the little I had known, I hadn’t liked. Aileen was right: he wasn’t much better than a snake. But regardless of how I’d felt about him, Rip was now dead. Never to utter another slimy word, or give another shifty look, or bribe anybody ever again.

And something about that, the finality of it, just put a chill right through my heart as I looked up at the pub the man had built.

It was so easy to get hypnotized by the rhythms of life. So easy to think that what you had now would be what you would have forever. That things would always be just so.

I thought about my own life. The illusions I’d built for myself. That I would always have my pie shop, and that Tobias and Tiana would always be there to depend on. That I could always count on Kara for a Peppermint Mocha and some chit-chat. That I could always depend on Warren for a mischievous wink. That I could always depend on Daniel to love me and lift my spirits.

That all the important people and places in my life would always be there, as they were now.

That it couldn’t all end in a single flash.

I wondered what Rip depended on in his life. What he had taken for granted. The things that he still wanted to do. If he was happy with what he’d accomplished when that bullet ripped through him. Or if his last few moments looking up into the ceiling of Geronimo’s brew house weren’t full of regret. Regret for all the things he hadn’t—

A faint light suddenly danced around the windows of the pub, causing me to lose my train of thought.

The light only lasted for a split second, and then it faded back to darkness.

Huckleberry’s ear’s perked up, and he leaned forward, at attention.

Somebody was in the shuttered-up building.

Somebody who hadn’t bothered with flipping on the light switch.

Somebody, who instead it seemed, had brought along a flashlight.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

It could have easily been Rip’s business partner in there. Or maybe an employee, or someone else who had every right to be in the pub.

But something, a gut feeling, told me that whoever was in there right now
wasn’t
supposed to be.

Huckleberry let out a quiet growl, as if someone might come through the pub’s front door at any moment.

I swallowed hard, suddenly feeling no more agile than a bronze sculpture.

The most logical thing to do would be to turn around. Run back to the pie shop, lock up the door tight, and call Daniel.

But by then, whoever was inside
Back Alley Brewing
right now could be gone. They could just vanish into the night, and whatever they knew might just vanish right along with them.