New Brew

by Mark Lashway

  “I’m all ears,” Cam told him, now intrigued.

  “Beer.”

  “Beer. What about beer?”

  “Here’s the thing, Witter. The Lutherans, unlike some other Protestant denominations such as Baptists, had nothing against beer in moderation. Through my research and contact with Abbot John I became aware of Lutheran activities in brewing. Now, I’m thinking that word of the abbey’s heavenly beers got out to the Lutherans….”

  “Ned, have you lost your fuckin’ mind?” Cam erupted. “A turf war….between Catholics and Lutherans….over beer territory?”

  “It’s perfectly logical if you consider it in a cool, deliberate manner,” Inkwell informed him. “If you paint the picture in your mind….”

  “Yeah, a picture of a secret squad of Lutheran gunmen trackin’ and killin’ Catholic monks in a bid to destroy a brewin’ operation. I’m havin’ a hard time paintin’ it, Ned!”

  “You’ve disappointed me again, Witter,” Inkwell continued, nonplussed. “Did I say anything about Lutheran hit squads? Hmm?”

  “Then what were you talkin’ about?” Cam snapped, exasperated now.

  “Think inside job, Witter, inside job.”

  “So….now you’re sayin’ that the Lutherans planted a deep-cover operative inside the abbey?” Cam laughed incredulously.

  “Maybe more than one, and over the course of a few years. After all, didn’t you tell me, Abbot John, that your monks have come to you piecemeal, maybe one or so a year?” The abbot merely nodded at Inkwell and remained silent.

  “Wow, Ned, that’s ingenious,” Cam chuckled. “Yeah, Lutheran hitmen was so farfetched, but Lutheran moles inside a Catholic abbey is so much more believable! There’s one major problem with this theory: It’s at odds with your earlier belief that somehow these killin’s are connected to GWIBE. How about that?”

  “I’ve got that resolved now,” Inkwell informed him. “GWIBE is a cover, you see. The mole, or moles, knew about GWIBE setting up very close by and decided to use the turbulence from there to take any suspicion away from inside the abbey. Tex Cutter, that poor guy, might have just been killed simply to establish a trail to GWIBE. It all fits, Witter.”

  “I guess it’s possible,” Cam sighed, seemingly conceding the point. Bullshit! Inkwell’s gone bonkers, yet another victim of GWIBE. I’ve got to play along with him for now, though. I’ve got to make the abbot think I’m going along with this. Holy man, don’t fucking think I didn’t notice how you just stayed silent on the sidelines and watched. You know this theory is ridiculous and you’re playing him by letting him go off on a goose chase. Play your game….

  “Anyway, Witter, I’m going to need you to stay here with me. Come daylight, we’ll follow the spoor back to the abbey. It’ll be some long hours, but I figure that you’d rather do that than hunt down a cot somewhere….”

  “How did you know about that?” Cam muttered with a nasty expression.

  “It’s amazing what a grapevine that GWIBE has,” Inkwell joyfully replied. “All I had to do was plug into it, you know? I’m trusted and actually popular in some quarters now, and I have you to thank for it. By the way, the odds on your marriage now are now 10-1 against you.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Cam told him sarcastically.

  “Abbot John, I don’t want to hold you up any longer,” Inkwell told him. “When I can cut one of my people loose I’ll have them drive you back to the abbey.”

  “Thank you,” the abbot replied.

  “Let’s head back over and rejoin the others,” Inkwell said. It was only about 80 yards away. They could see another vehicle’s headlights slowly approaching the scene. “Ah, I’ll bet that’s our forensics people. You’ll be leaving soon, Abbot John.”

  When they arrived back at the body, the two uniformed officers were already chatting with the forensics people, with Max pointing to a small area off the opposite side of the road.

  “What is it?” Inkwell asked.

  “You took off before I had a chance to tell you,” Max said. “Over there are tire tracks.”

  “Yeah? They’d probably be from those kids coming through here.”

  “Yeah, but there are two different types of tracks, both equally fresh from what I see.”

  “Good eyes, Max,” Inkwell complimented him. “I wouldn’t have noticed that until daylight. We’ll record both tread patterns.”

  “I’d guess that one of those sets belongs to someone comin’ to pick up this guy,” Cam said, pointing to the corpse.

  “Yep,” Max replied, “but his ride got here too late.”

  Inkwell shined his flashlight over the body. Joey Creed’s eyes were open. “Look at his eyes, people. There’s no surprise in his look, so I’ll say that he was face-to-face with the killer. I can see some resignation, which would be typical of someone as they realize they’re dying. And what does all of that mean? Jackshit.”

  Cam was on the other side of the road, shining his flashlight over the various tire tracks, although staying far enough back not to disturb the scene. “I’m no great expert on tire marks, Ned, but I’d be willin’ to bet that both sets belong to pickups.”

  “And I’ll bet you’re right,” Max told him. “Virtually nobody in these parts would drive in terrain like this with a regular car. The road is so uneven that the low hang of a typical car would scrape the ground in places. Besides, you’d want four-wheel drive anyway.” Cam just stared at him for a minute, wondering how this guy could know that much.

  “Max worked part-time in a garage in high school,” Jeanne Lamp explained. “He’s our resident vehicle expert.”

  “Well, if Sam and Harvey are ready to start, we might as well get down to it,” Inkwell decided, nodding to the forensics people. “Jeanne, can you give the abbot a ride back to the abbey? Oh, leave us a case of that bottled water you carry in the trunk, OK? It’s going to be a long night, Witter. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah. It’s either this or sleepin’ in a strange tent,” Cam sighed, very unenthusiastic about his choices.

  “That’s the spirit, Witter. You really are a good egg, even if you are a bit cracked. Ha!”

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Duke Lando lay in a semi-fetal position on his cot in the darkness of his tent, weeping. He hoped that by keeping the lights out that nobody would stop here, whether it was minions like Deville, Sharper and Sanchez, or the mysterious killer who had to be on to him now. He had tried to call Frank and Lyle, but it always went to voice mail. Having them here with him would add greatly to his security and diminish his fear. Their lack of contact was inexplicable.

  This is unbelievable, he told himself bitterly, then realized that it wasn’t. Somebody out there was staying one step ahead of him, and that was only possible if they had complete knowledge of his plans. How else to explain Manuel and Joey? The most logical explanation is that there’s a rat in my operation, but who? Or could it have been one of my idiots letting something slip along the way? After all, loose lips sink ships, right? Shit! Why didn’t I take more care screening them all before? Why did I go for an elaborate plan? Hey, wait….

  The germ of yet another scheme had entered his mind and his conspiratorial brain quickly sketched out another plan. It would be the simplest, the crudest plan yet, but possibly also the most effective. Those idiots I have working for me can serve some purpose yet. It’ll give them a little bit more lease on life. They’ll still be disposed of later, but now I need them. I can make this work after all. I’ll get those items the old-fashioned way.

  A sudden ding on his cellphone interrupted his thoughts. Reaching into his pants pocket, he fished the device out and read the screen. He had a text message waiting, and it had been sent from Joey’s cellphone. Clicking on it, he read: SORRY I MISSED U. TOO BAD ABOUT JOEY. LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING U SOON. ☺

  Duke flung his cellphone across the tent and began weeping again.

  -21-

  It was another sunny day, and it became clear soon after s
unrise that it would be another hot one. Cam and Ned Inkwell sweated heavily as they slowly made their way through the fields in which last night’s hunt had taken place, carefully inspecting the signs. Damnit, I wish the sky would cloud over, Cam thought. The temperature alone is enough, but I really hate having to do anything under a blazing sun.

  Both men still wore yesterday’s clothes, and Cam was thankful that he had blue jeans on. Shorts wouldn’t have cut it for walking through scrub brush, but would certainly have felt cooler. He felt like he would melt before they made it to the abbey.

  “Well, you were right, just as I suspected,” Inkwell muttered from several yards away.

  “Oh, what’s that?” Cam asked.

  “About the killer not leaving a return trail to the abbey.”

  “Although I don’t buy the Lutheran theory, you might have been right thinkin’ that someone followed him from the abbey, maybe an outsider who took off afterward.”

  “Do you think that one of those sets of tire tracks was to a truck that came to pick up the killer and not this Joey Harper?”

  “It’s a 50-50 shot, Ned,” Cam sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

  A loud ring suddenly came from somewhere in Inkwell’s pants. The investigator reached into a pocket and retrieved his cellphone, briefly gazing at the screen to see who was calling before answering it. “Hello?”

  The two men came to a halt as Inkwell listened intently. All Cam heard was “yeah”, “hmmm”, “really?” and a “that’s interesting”. After what Cam guessed to be about three minutes, the call concluded. Inkwell shoved the cellphone back into his pocket and stared at Cam with an empty look, his mind clearly elsewhere.

  “Problems, Ned?”

  “Actually, I would call it a complication at this point,” Inkwell said. “That was one of my people back at HQ. Do you remember how I thought that Maria Sanchez was lying to me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It got me suspicious, so I had one of my colleagues check into one Maria Sanchez of Wassacor. That was him on the phone.”

  “Let me guess: There’s no Maria Sanchez who works for Wassacor.”

  “Oh, actually there is,” Inkwell explained. “However, she has been AWOL from her job for the past seven days. Even more interesting is that the picture of the woman that Wassacor sent to my colleague looks nothing like the Maria Sanchez I spoke to.”

  “And now you’re really suspectin’ her of the Tex Cutter murder.”

  “Yep! We need to finish this up quickly, Witter. What the hell, I don’t see this panning out anyway.”

  “The remainin’ question with her is what she’s doin’ at GWIBE.”

  “I’ll find a way to get something that has her prints on it,” Inkwell told him, “and I’ll bet she comes back with a record, of course under another name. Wanna bet 50 bucks on it?”

  “No thanks. That’s a sucker’s bet, Ned. Let’s get to the abbey as quickly as we can without missin’ anythin’. Then I want to get back to GWIBE, pronto.”

  Without another word the two men covered the remaining ground in about 10 minutes. As they’d expected, they found nothing except for signs of human travel. However, a question suddenly popped into Cam’s mind.

  “Ned, refresh my memory. Joey Harper didn’t have a flashlight on him, did he?”

  “No, and he was smart not to. Being chased, how well could he run holding onto….”

  “Exactly! So there’s no way the killer would have done that, either.”

  “Probably not. And?”

  “So how did the killer know where to find Joey? Two separate paths to the kill site. Joey was wearin’ dark clothes….at night. How was he tracked down?”

  “Maybe the killer heard him swishing through the grass?”

  “Nope! In a chase you’re suckin’ air, gaspin’ as you try to keep within a reasonable distance. Your heart is poundin’ and you hear only that and your deep breaths, not the other guy’s strides. We saw where the two trails really diverged. Only a few degrees of angle over a short distance can create quite a chunk of territory for the killer to look in, yet he found him. Why do you think that was, Ned?”

  “You’re saying that the killer knew specifically the place where Joey Harper was to be picked up? Christ, the fact that he even knew that Joey was to be picked up period,” Inkwell muttered, quickly grasping Cam’s logic.

  “That kid was as good as dead the second he left the abbey,” Cam declared.

  “Goddamnit, Witter, you’re right! We have to get hold of any belongings that he had in the abbey. As I said before, a killer lurking in the abbey! It’s breathtaking.”

  “So I assume that it changes your theory on the killin’s.”

  “Just a few of the circumstances,” Inkwell confidently stated. “I want to thank you, Witter, for helping confirm my hunch that there’s a Lutheran mole inside the abbey. Phew! You had me doubting myself there last night.”

  Cam wanted to cry.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Duke Lando paced around his tent, very agitated as he desperately tried to figure out a new plan. He was racing the clock now, and from his calculations he was a few solid strides behind. He was familiar with the feeling, as he’d experienced it before in some of his business dealings, but he had always managed to catch up and win. However, in those cases he’d been working alone, depending upon nobody but himself. He didn’t have that luxury this time. Success now required a team of helpers.

  Deville and Sharper are with Utah right now as Phil has cooked up more regulatory shit for GWIBE. Those two idiots don’t know that that part of the original plan is out the window, but it’ll keep them out of my hair until I need them again, he told himself. Maria is still in touch, awaiting instructions. Good. She doesn’t need to know that the law might look at her and come see her again. I just need her to last through tonight in case they do. Now the only missing pieces are Frank and Lyle. Where the fuck are they?! I call and call and every time it goes to voice mail. And I can’t go out looking for them, either, can’t afford to have people see that they know me. But I still have all day. They’ll reach me sometime before tonight.

  Even as he tried to console himself with the thought that everything would be alright in the end, Lando was still deeply bothered by the disappearance of his two troubleshooters. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The two men from St. Louis had always been attentive, punctual to a fault, and extremely professional.

  “They wouldn’t have left the site without an all-clear from me,” Lando muttered. “So they are somewhere here at GWIBE. They know I need them, so they will come see me sometime today. Then tonight we do our thing.”

  The bug hidden on the inside of one leg of his cot had caught all of his brief statement, but it didn’t matter since the person on the other end wasn’t listening this time. They didn’t need to at this point.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  “Wunnnngh,” Lyle groaned as he and Frank staggered up to the breakfast guy’s little stand. Dale Sassie stood immediately behind them with ready hands, in case either of them began to fall over. Jack, the breakfast guy, grinned and shook his head, his griddle ready.

  “Need some chow to restore yourselves from last night, eh?” Jack chuckled.

  “You’ve got that right,” Frank mumbled, swaying unsteadily. “I guess it’s a good sign that I’m actually feeling hungry now.”

  “Remember, after a hard night you always need to put some solid food in your stomachs for the day ahead,” Sassie told them. “Go ahead, Jack, get them the full spread, and I’m paying for my two buddies here.”

  “Christ, thanks Dale!” Lyle exclaimed, clearly grateful. “You’ve been damned good to us and we really do appreciate all you’ve done for us.”

  “Yeah,” Frank added. “You introduced us to so many different beer styles yesterday that we had no idea existed, then put us up for the night….”

  “It’s nothing,” Sassie replied, waving one hand. “It’s always a go
od thing to make sure that someone new to the life has a really good initiation, you know? Besides, I can tell from looking at you two that you’re average Joes having to hustle a living, just like me, right? And guys like us need stuff like this to get away to every once in a while to take the edge off from the daily rat race, right?”

  “That’s what I like about you, Dale,” Lyle said. “You get it, you know?”

  By this time Jack had gone to work on his griddle and within just a few minutes presented all three of them with plates heaped with eggs, pancakes, home fries, sausage and a few strips of bacon. The three customers, not having had a thing to eat since the two hitmen had walked into Dale’s camp yesterday, eagerly went at their food.

  When they had finished and all were groaning from the load of heavy, greasy food being suddenly dumped into their stomachs, Frank asked, “Well, what do we do now?”

  “I think we’ll all hit the latrines,” Sassie told them. “Then after that, I’ll show you to the way to the showers. I’m sure that you guys want to clean up, right? Uh, you do have a spare set of clean clothes with you, don’t you?”

  “Sure!” Lyle replied. “We always go with a few sets. By the way, if we’re here any length of time, is there any way to get clothes cleaned here?”

  “Yeah, although it’s crude,” Sassie admitted. “It’s pretty much washing them out in barrels of soap and water, then hanging them to dry.”

  “Good enough,” Lyle declared, “as long as we can be clean. Frank, let’s go to my truck and get our clothes. Dale, you wanna come along?”

  “Sure, why not? I could use a good walk,” Sassie replied. He noticed a hesitant look on Frank’s face. “What’s wrong? I can leave you guys alone, if you want.”

  “Uh, no, no!” Frank sputtered. “It’s just that….well, we were expecting a call from someone who’s supposed to look us up, and it’s kinda personal.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Frank,” his partner said. “He hasn’t made any contact, and if he really wanted to see us he could’ve hunted us down by now.”