Murder Brewed At Home (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 3) (9 page)

              Like PVA, for example. Polyvinyl alcohol. I did an article for a company that sold fishing equipment and they wanted a few paragraphs on angling with PVA. PVA is a high tensile polymer that can be used to make a variety of things. Bags, for instance. You can fill a PVA bag with free-floating bait, with just one of those pieces of bait on a hook. You string the bag onto a line and throw the sucker in. The bag dissolves in the water. Just like that. Completely dissolves leaving no trace. The bait spills out. The fish take the free bait, thinking all is well and good because, you know, they're fish and they’re not the brightest bulbs, until a fish chomps down on the hooked bait and bingo. Fish and chips anyone?

              As Gerry told me about how he tried stringing up the bag with fishing wire, and how the steam from the tank was rising blah blah blah, I remembered this article I wrote some fifteen years ago. And I wasn't listening. And somewhere in there I heard him calling my name.

              "Huh?" I said, probably looking like the queen of all airheads.

              "You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?"

              "Yeah, fishing wire."

              "Uh huh. And what about the fishing wire?"

              "Listen, Gerry," I said, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say except, "I have to leave."

              "Of course you do."

              I felt bad, but I left him there. I had some preparations to make before once again breaking into Maggie Childsworth's house.

              I hated doing it. What's worse was that I felt like an expert now. There was police tape around the place now that its resident was a murder victim. I had a slight comfort knowing that Lester could probably help bail me out if I was caught. He'd probably never speak to me again, but I know he'd help bail me out.

              I picked the lock as if I were born to do it. I went into the house and made my way around in the dark. I tripped over a couple of things that the cops had left displaced.

              Upstairs, the closet door was open and stuff was pulled out and opened and sorted through. So it wasn't too much trouble to find the box of fishing stuff. I found what I was looking for almost immediately. It was then that I kicked myself for not realizing something very obvious: that for a box containing a bunch of stuff belonging to this woman's ex-husband, it was incredibly easy to access – right up front, and unsealed.

              I left the house, once again making sure everything was as it had been.

              "Interesting hobby," said Mr. X.

              I turned around with a stifled shriek. There he stood, smiling.

              "Breaking and entering, eh? Interesting. Not what I figured you for. No, Miss Darby, you strike me more as the collecting-vintage-teddy-bears type. And what’s that you have there? Hmm? A little cat-burglar souvenir?"

              I was at a complete loss. Plus, I was shaking so bad I think I loosened a few bones in my legs.

              Mr. X chuckled in the most jovial way. "Oh, don’t worry, Miss Darby, I won’t tell if you won’t. But now I see that we're sort of cut from the same cloth, aren’t we? Hmm?"

              He walked toward me and stopped just as I was preparing to throw a right cross at him.

              "Except..." he paused, and his face twisted as if he was considering a puzzle, "you're no longer the honest person I thought you were. This changes the game slightly. I'm now going to have to remain on my toes." He nodded. "Yes, honest people are so much easier. You'll be a bit of a challenge. That's ok, I like a challenge."

              "What are you going to do?"

              "Me? Nothing. The ball, as they say, is no longer in my court. I made my offer already. We'll see each other again, don’t worry."

              "I'm not worried," I said.

              "The tremble in your voice tells a different story. But no worries, Miss Darby, no worries at all." He smiled at me, a mouthful of perfectly straight, white teeth. And he turned and walked down Maggie Childsworth's driveway and down the block, his hands in his pockets, and whistling.

              Yes, whistling. For some reason, that part creeped me out.

              However, as I watched him, something occurred to me. Why was he here? Was he really following my every move? As far as he was concerned, I was a side project. He had other things to do besides watch me 24/7. So, what was he doing here? 

              Could he, in fact, merely be keeping an eye on his latest "arrangement"?

              That's what he called them. Arrangements. Maybe they really were. After all, a guy committing murder is one thing, but a guy who arranges – rather like a wedding planner who isn’t actually getting married but makes sure it all goes smoothly from behind the scenes – is nothing more than just that, a director.

              It was then that I formed a simple, elegant solution to Maggie Childsworth's murder.

              I took out my phone and sent her a text. It read, simply:

             
Candace Young is out of her coma, memory restored, and is recovering at home. Thank you for all your help and support!

              I didn’t get a response, of course. It would have been silly to expect one from a dead woman.

              So I texted my friend Detective Lester Moore of the Carl's Cove homicide division. I needed a few things. And I needed him to deliver them to me.

#

              Everything was all set and ready to go. I paced back and forth in Candace Young's kitchen, where this whole thing had begun. My guests pretty much arrived in the order I expected them to: Amanda first, followed shortly by Bernadette. Then Daisy Schiff arrived. I was happy to have such punctual acquaintances.

              "Is she upstairs?" said Daisy.

              "No," I said, "she's still in the hospital."

              "I don’t understand," said Amanda. "Is she coming home?"

              "No, they want to keep her for a little more observation. Her memory still hasn’t returned fully. They're still performing tests."

              The three woman exchanged glances.

              "What's going on here?" said Bernadette.

              "Exactly," I said. "What's going on, indeed!"

              There was a commotion from outside.

              "Ah," I said, "that will be our final guest."

              One of Lester's guys was staked out in the bushes, watching intently for the person described to him.

              I have to admit, it was a little tough to convince Lester that I was right. All the evidence converged neatly.

              And so, Lester's guy escorted Maggie Childsworth into the house.

              "Found her snooping around outside," he said.

              Maggie Childsworth looked like a very shrewd deer caught in a very dim headlight.

              "Larry," I said to the cop, "I owe you a six-pack."

              "I accept, but I'm just doing my job."

              "So," I said to Maggie, "I had a feeling you'd come here once you got my text."

              "She was packing," said Larry the cop, holding up a nine millimeter automatic.

              "I see. Come here to finish the job, Maggie?"

              "It's not what you think," Maggie said frantically. "I kept it for protection!"

              "What's going on here?" said Amanda.

              "Ladies," I said, "Say hello to Maggie Childsworth, recently deceased."

              "You're not explaining any of this," said Bernadette.

              "Don’t listen to her," yelled Maggie. "She doesn’t understand. I had to go into hiding."

              "That's an ok story for in case you got caught."

              I took out my phone and shot Lester a text.
Ok,
it said.

              And we heard a loud thud come from directly above us.

              "Right on cue," I said. "Ladies, would you follow me upstairs? Larry, bring Ms. Childsworth up front here. I want to make sure she's got the best seat in the house."

              We went upstairs to Kyle Young's office. I knocked once on the door, and Lester Moore opened it.

              "Thank you, Detective," I said. "Ladies step right on in."

              Seeing the contraption for the first time in this manner filled me with pride. It was quite ingenious.

              Suspended from the rafter was a short cord, and tied tightly to the end of it was a very old book. The book was suspended over a large cooler filled with water.

              "This very old book here suspended from the ceiling is a copy of
The House on Pooh Corner
by A.A. Milne. It is a true collector's copy. Mint condition. The person who owned it kept it very well. That's how you treat valuable heirlooms. Anyway, you're probably wondering why that book is suspended in that way. Well, I won’t tell you why just yet. Instead, I'm going to hand this problem over to Maggie. But first, I want you all to look up at the rafter where the other end of this cord is tied."

              They all looked up and I pointed out what Lester had placed there according to my strict instructions.

              "It's a small block of ice. It fits on that rafter so neatly. Whoever put it there would have to have known that it would fit. They would have to have been here to this very room on at least one occasion. And, um, not for nothing, but there's one vantage point in this room where one could have gotten a very good look at that rafter. It's over there on that couch. If one were, say, lying down on that couch, looking up. I'll say no more."

              "What's going on?" said Amanda.

              I looked over at Maggie, who had her hand over her mouth in apparent shock.

              "Well, Amanda my darling, I'll tell you exactly what's going on. That cord is made from PVA – polyvinyl alcohol. PVA has a lot of applications and is known for a very unusual quality. I think Maggie here knows that quality."

              I watched Maggie, who had not moved from her position of staring at that quickly-melting block of ice.

              "Are you worried for some reason right now, Maggie?"

              She shook her head.

              "Are you sure? Because you look awfully worried."

              "What is this supposed to mean?" she said.

              "What do you think it means? Why are you so worried about the fate of that book? Would it be because you know exactly what's about to happen?"

              "Stop this," the woman said, her voice wracked with panic. "I don’t know what you're talking about."

              "Then why are you worried?"

              "I'm not worried!"

              "Then why should I stop this?"

              "Because!" she screamed.

              And that's when the cord gave out, dissolved as it was from the melting ice. And the book splashed down into the cooler of water.

              "
No!
" Maggie screamed, and rushed toward the cooler.

              Larry and Lester restrained her. I went over and fished the book out.

              "It's an old college text book," I said. "I left it in the trunk of my car for about ten years."

              Maggie stared at the book, wide-eyed.

              "Ok," said Bernadette, "I think we've all had enough."

              "Yes," I said, "and you all witnessed it. Just as you all can attest to the sound of a thud coming from above, which we all heard downstairs, and which our friend Larry heard too. It was pretty much the same sound we all heard that night. This time it was Lester jumping off the couch and landing flat-footed on the floor. Sorry, Lester. Didn't mean to call you a flat foot."

              "No offense taken," said Lester.

              "Oh my God," said Daisy, her head in her hands.

              I went over to her. "I'm sorry you were a part of this."

              "A part of what?" said Amanda.

              I took a deep breath. "On the night Kyle Young died, he'd gone out for a run in the rain. He did everything a guy running in the rain would do. He set his running app to track his time and mileage. He took his usual route around the block. What he didn’t expect was that he'd meet Maggie Childsworth along the way. Maggie and Kyle were having an affair. It shouldn't be news to anyone who knew Kyle Young. He’d had quite a few affairs. The thing is, Maggie was somewhat new to the game. She didn’t realize that she wasn't the only one. But she found out soon enough. Like I said, Kyle's antics were well known and it was only a matter of time before Maggie found out. Maggie had help in
arranging
a plan for revenge. Through her help, she secured the services of William Restocruz, a body-builder in need of some cash. Maggie accosted Kyle Young in the rain, right around, hmmm, thirty yards from the large tree on the corner of Chester Street and Biggs Avenue. Perhaps
accosted
isn’t the right word. She approached him with a lovey-dovey, 'fancy meeting you here' tone of voice, most likely. And she hugged him and told him to maybe come to her place. And that's when Restocruz snuck up behind Kyle and jabbed him in the back of the neck with a syringe full of a tincture made from the seeds of the cerbera odallam plant. More on this horrid little piece of botany in a minute. Kyle Young was dead in a matter of two minutes flat. They loaded him into a car and drove him here to his home.

              "Now, how to make it look like death from natural causes? Well, easy in the case of cerbera odallam. Cerbera poison has the uncanny ability to mimic the effect of death by heart attack. So that part was already taken care of. Next, they had to have the house empty. No problem. Thanks to Candace Young's suggestion, a rainy night was the perfect opportunity to get out of the house and go to a movie. You see, Candace had been keeping an eye on the weather for quite some time. That nasty little storm we had was perfect. They'd been predicting it all week. What a great opportunity. You see, Candace knew it all. Knew about Kyle's philandering. Knew about Maggie. Maggie approached Candace one day with the intention of socking it to Kyle by confessing the affair to Kyle's wife. The two wound up seeing eye-to-eye. All Maggie needed was an opportunity, she said. She had everything all arranged. They dragged Kyle's body up here to this room, easy for a bodybuilder like Restocruz. They strung him up here very much like the way I did with this book. And the ice was put into place. The thing about PVA is that the colder the water, the longer it takes to dissolve. Yes, they took their chances with the plan, but it worked. It worked very well. Kyle's rain-soaked clothing dissolved the rest of the cord that was tied around him and under his armpits. The ice took care of the rest. The body landed with a thump on the floor. We all heard it. After they strung up his body they closed that door. It has a mechanism that snap-locks automatically, giving the impression that someone locked it from the inside. They left a typewritten note, typical of someone as methodical and officious as Kyle Young. Only they neglected to consider that there might be another grammar snob in the house, namely yours truly. At any rate, that concluded the first part of the problem of killing Kyle Young."