“Yeah, right,” Ali huffed. “I’m so tired of your lies. To think I was going to have a baby with you and now we’re right back where we started. You can’t be trusted, Brad. Every time, I think, This is it—you’re really going to change. But you never do. You never do.”
Brad tried to touch her.
She recoiled, almost knocking over a bucket of hoses soaking in sanitizing solution. “Don’t. I’m done. I can’t live like this.”
“What are you saying?”
I couldn’t see Brad’s face but was all too familiar with his desperate tone.
“You know exactly what I’m saying, Brad. We’re done. This time it’s for good. I’m not going to take any more of your lies. Look at me. I’m a wreck. I’ve lost fifteen pounds that I didn’t have to lose this year.”
“Ali, I know. I know I screwed up in the past, but you have to trust me. I didn’t know she was going to be here.”
“So you’re telling me that we just happened to bump into her in Leavenworth, Washington? Come on!” Ali’s high-pitched screams reverberated throughout the converted warehouse. “This is hardly LA or New York. We’re in the middle of the mountains. I’m not an idiot, Brad. That’s the worst part. You’re staring at me with those ridiculous puppy eyes like I’m going to believe that. No one would believe that.”
Ali ducked under the NO ENTRANCE sign and started toward the stairs.
“Where are you going? You can’t leave like this. Let’s talk. Let’s work this out.”
She shot him a look of utter disgust. “There’s nothing to work out. I’m done. Do what you want, but I’m done.”
Brad buried his face in his hands as she stomped away.
I gave him a minute and then came up to him. “Is everything okay?”
He startled. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
I pointed behind us. “I was working in the back. I wasn’t trying to listen in to your conversation, but it was kind of hard not to.”
“We probably shouldn’t be in here, should we?” He glanced at the rope that partitioned the brewery. “Sorry.”
“No problem. It sounded like you and Ali were upset.”
He stared after Ali, who was long gone. “Yeah. That’s an understatement.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear some of your argument. Is there anything I can do? Bartenders are known for our listening ears.”
He faked a smile. “I could actually use a listening ear. Yeah.”
“Why don’t you come into the brewery with me? I have to test a few things. We’ll have more privacy back here.”
“Okay.”
One trick that I had learned to get Alex talking was distraction. Our deepest conversations occurred when we were both busy making pancakes in the kitchen or driving through the winding countryside. Hopefully the same would be true for Brad.
“Can you hand me that tester?” I asked, nodding to the beer thief. I explained the process of checking the beer’s gravity and why it mattered.
“I had no idea that so much work went into brewing.” Brad ran his fingers along the cold surface of the tank.
“Do you want to taste it? The beer at this stage is young, but you should be able to pull out the nuance of flavors that are going to continue to develop as it ferments. This is a pale with notes of pineapple and bananas. You might even get a touch of citrus from the subtle hops. We’re hoping this beer will finish at about forty-five IBUs. Enough of a hop profile to please Pacific Northwesterners, but not in-your-face hops like some of the IPAs we brew.”
Brad tasted the beer. “It’s nice. I don’t know if I’m tasting pineapple and bananas because you told me to or if they’re there, but I like it.”
“That’s half the battle when it comes to tasting. One of the things I always encourage people to do when I’m giving brewery tours is talk with their friends during a beer tasting. Often if you pull out a specific flavor, like pineapple, for example, your friend will be able to pick that note out as well.”
“The problem is I don’t have any friends at the moment.” Brad stared at the epoxy floor.
I couldn’t have asked for a better segue. Getting Brad to focus on beer had had the effect I was hoping for.
“What’s going on with you and Ali? You seem like such a solid couple.”
Brad drummed his fingers on the stainless steel tank. “We were. Well, I thought we were. We’ve had some problems, but we’ve been working through them, and last night we came downstairs, and I spotted Liv at the bar, it was like I was living a waking nightmare.”
“You know her?” I didn’t let on that I already suspected as much.
“Yeah. We both know her.” He kept his gaze focused on the tank and didn’t elaborate.
Maybe getting information from him was going to be more challenging than I had counted on. I walked to the next tank. “Do you want to try this? It’s another batch of winter ale. This beer is almost ready to tap. As soon as the kegs run out up front, we’ll be kegging this, and then we’ll move on to brewing more of our spring line.”
Brad nodded. “Sure.”
“Ali knew Liv too?” I asked, siphoning a sample of the pine-infused winter ale.
“Yeah.” He looked around the deserted brewery. “This is between us, right?”
“Of course.” However, if he told me anything related to Liv’s murder, I wouldn’t hesitate to break his trust and tell Chief Meyers.
“Ali’s been through a lot. She’s seen way too much loss for someone our age, and to compound that, she learned that she couldn’t have kids a few years ago. It’s been rough on us. More so on her, but it put a strain on our marriage.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied with genuine empathy, but I was also surprised, since Ali had mentioned she wanted to have a baby with him. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to go into detail about their personal life.
“It’s okay. We got through it. The infertility was only part of the issue … I cheated on her. I’m not proud of my choices, and I’ve worked hard to try and restore Ali’s trust in me. I love her. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
Brad sounded remarkably like Mac.
“I’m not condoning my mistakes. But Ali was obsessed. She went to dozens of fertility specialists. She dragged me along, too. It was so emasculating. I told her I didn’t care, and I didn’t. I would have been fine if it was just the two of us, or I told her we could adopt, but she had tunnel vision. She was so depressed, too. I think it brought up old grief. She lost her sister young. She would cry all day. Hallmark commercials, shopping at IKEA, everything we did, there were babies around us. Then our friends started getting pregnant. It was torture on her.”
I felt terrible for Ali. A few of my friends had struggled with fertility, and I knew what a painful experience it had been for them.
Brad stared at one of Garrett’s chemistry charts as he continued. “I didn’t set out to cheat on Ali. It happened unexpectedly. I was traveling for work, and I guess I was just looking for comfort and connection. I met a woman at the hotel bar, and one thing led to another. I felt so terrible the next morning, I came home and confessed everything to Ali.”
“Let me guess—the woman was Liv?”
Brad scowled. “No. I don’t even know the woman’s name. It was a one-night stand, which I’ve been trying to prove to Ali ever since.”
“Recovering from that kind of mistrust is hard on any marriage.”
“I know, but Ali and I have been working on it. We’ve been in counseling together and separately. It’s made a huge difference. We’ve both learned a lot about each other, and up until last night, I thought we were closer than ever. That’s what this trip was for, a romantic weekend to reconfirm our commitment.”
If Brad hadn’t cheated with Liv, why the strange reaction?
“We decided we were ready to have a baby. This time going into it, we knew it wouldn’t be the traditional route, so we’ve been exploring adoption and surrogacy. We thought we had found the pe
rfect surrogate, but it didn’t work out, which was another setback. It feels like we can’t catch a break.”
“Why didn’t it work?” I plunged the taster into a bucket of cleaning solution—a staple in the brewery.
“The surrogate backed out at the last minute. We were both upset. I hated seeing Ali’s hopes soar only to have them smashed again. We were so close. The paperwork had been signed. The T’s crossed, the I’s dotted. Our lawyer had reviewed everything. We were due to have our final appointment with the OB-GYN to set a date for insemination, and then our surrogate bailed. Took the nonrefundable deposit we had given her. Weeks and months of appointments, vitamin supplements, coffee dates, were gone. Just like that—poof. It was a huge blow to Ali. She had been buying baby furniture and making plans to transform our guest room into a nursery. She sunk back into a dark depression. I wasn’t sure she was going to find her way to the surface this time.”
Brad’s voice was heavy as he spoke. I didn’t like the fact that he had cheated on his wife, but it was clear that he cared for her deeply. It wasn’t my responsibility to judge his choices.
“I took matters into my own hands. I told Ali I would do whatever it took to find a replacement. I didn’t want her to worry or to have to be involved in the process. That’s when I found Liv.”
“Liv was going to be your surrogate?” I could feel my eyes widen.
“That was the plan, but I swear the universe is conspiring against us. I met with Liv a few times without Ali. I wanted to be sure it was going to work. I couldn’t stand the thought of her getting her dreams of having a baby crushed again. Liv wasn’t with an agency. I found her on a posting online. Ali spotted us having coffee one afternoon and flipped out. I tried to explain that the only reason I was meeting Liv was for her, but she was sure it was another affair.”
“Was it?” I interjected.
Brad shook his head. “No. It was strictly business. I showed Ali the paperwork I’d had our lawyer write up. That made her feel better. We arranged a meeting with Liv. Everything was legit, but the paperwork must have spooked Liv. She said she was trying to run away from drama, not run into it, so she bailed. It was bizarre. Liv seemed solid. I thought she was going to be the perfect fit, but the minute she saw Ali, she freaked out and bolted. I didn’t hear a word from her after that. She totally ghosted me. It sent Ali into a tailspin. Things have been rocky between us ever since. Seeing Liv here feels like a cruel joke. I mean, Ali’s not wrong. I think it’s a very strange coincidence too, but how am I going to prove that to her?”
CHAPTER
NINE
I WAS QUIET FOR A moment, processing what Brad had said. He had tried to hire Liv to be a surrogate, but Ali assumed that they were having an affair. Could one of them have killed her? Brad’s motive seemed less concrete, unless he was so desperate to save his marriage that the mere sight of Liv in Leavenworth made him panic. Could he have followed her to the river last night to ask her to leave town? What if she refused? Maybe he begged her to give him and Ali some privacy. If she said no, would that have been cause for him to kill her? Unlikely.
But what about Ali? I knew the desperation that came with feeling betrayed. Did seeing Liv trigger memories of Brad’s indiscretion? If this weekend had really been about reconnecting and rebuilding their marriage, I could imagine that Ali might have done something drastic. What if she had left the bar last night to confront Liv?
Brad’s voice interrupted my thought process. “I should go check on Ali. I feel terrible. I have to find a way to convince her that I’m telling the truth. I had no idea that Liv would be here, and I had no interest in Liv.”
“Sure.” I nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Know of any good marriage counselors around? I might need an emergency appointment.” Brad sounded like he was only half kidding.
I cleaned my testing equipment and returned to the pub. Snow had picked up outside. It drifted down in fat, wet flakes outside Nitro’s steamy front windows. Hopefully Alex and his friends were staying warm up on the slopes.
Kat was refilling bowls of Doritos. “We’re going through snacks like crazy today. It must be the snow. People are sticking around for longer. Maybe they’re hoping it will let up.”
Or maybe they’re hoping to catch the gossip on Liv’s murder.
“The good news is that our food and beer orders are both up.” Kat ripped open a second bag of chips. “We might have to go on a Doritos run, though. This is the last bag.”
She wasn’t kidding about people devouring our bar snacks. “I’ll go. I could use some fresh air anyway.”
Kat stared at the window. “I don’t know about fresh air. It looks more like a blizzard out there.”
“I’m used to it.” I went to get my parka, scarf, hat, and gloves. Winters in Leavenworth mean perfecting the art of layering. I swapped my tennis shoes for my fur-lined boots and trekked outside. A new storm had brought in gusty winds and flakes the size of small snowballs. They splattered at my feet, exploding on the sidewalk in a burst of white. Given our elevation and location in the Northern Cascades, the village typically received close to one hundred inches of snow every winter. Those of us who had been here for years were used to the snowfall, which usually started not long after Halloween and lasted until spring. I was often taken aback when customers would ask if the snow bothered me. Why would I live in the mountains if it bothered me?
Snow never got old. I welcomed the calm of a thick blanket of white powder on the cobblestone streets and the way the streetlamps and lights on the trees dotted the fresh snow with sparkly color.
I tightened the hood of my parka and took a sharp left turn on Front Street. The grocery store sat at the opposite end of the village. It too was designed to resemble a Bavarian cottage with a brocade façade, white stucco walls, and dark wood shutters. In addition to traditional staples, it stocked a variety of German imports—chocolates, pickles, spicy mustards, and sweet cakes. I loved lingering in the imported section and discovering new treasures.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to wander, so I headed straight for the chip section and piled my basket with three kinds of Doritos and a few bags of pretzels. I took my place at the end of one of the checkout lines and felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned to see Taylor standing behind me. “Long time no see.”
He held out his basket, which was filled with microwave dinners. “Decided to stock up in case the storm gets worse.”
“Is it supposed to?” I hadn’t heard that we were due for anything major.
“No. But you know how it goes around here. They say we’ll get two or three inches, and we end up with another foot.”
I hoped not. I didn’t want to get snowed in at Nitro.
“Are the police still hanging around the brewery?” Taylor asked as we stepped forward in the line. He dug a crumpled twenty-dollar bill from the pocket of his coveralls.
“No, although they are going to be conducting interviews at some point.” I was surprised he didn’t know that, since he’d seen Liv last night.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to be back by five for Chief Meyers to interview me. Figured I’d grab some groceries. When I unload them at my place, I’ll get a growler to bring with me. If I have to spend the evening at the bar, I might as well get a growler filled while I’m there, right?”
“We are always happy to fill growlers.” Apparently, Chief Meyers had decided to conduct interviews at Nitro after all. That was probably good. If my meeting with Mac and Hans got heated, I would be less likely to want to punch Mac in front of the chief.
“So what’s the deal? Have you heard anything?”
“About growlers?” I joked.
“About the murder. Do they have any leads yet?”
I didn’t remember mentioning anything about murder when Taylor and I spoke earlier. “They aren’t saying much, but I’m sure that Chief Meyers is going to be very interested in what you have to offer. You might have been the las
t person to see her alive.”
Taylor adjusted his coveralls. “What? I don’t think so.”
We moved forward in the line. “According to what you told me earlier, I think you might be. You said you saw her down by Blackbird Island, right?”
“No, no. I don’t know if that was her. I said I saw someone running down that way. It could have been her, but it could have been anyone. It was dark, and I’d had a few. I’m not really sure what I saw.”
That didn’t exactly match what he’d said to me earlier at Nitro. What did he mean by “had a few”? Could one pint too many have blurred his vision?
“Lily, if it was her, was too far away to see.” He shifted his shopping basket into his other hand.
“Lily? Do you mean Liv?”
He scrunched his brow. “Huh?”
“The guest who was killed, her name was Liv.”
“Oh, yeah, okay. I don’t know. I only know what I’ve heard with rumors around. Liv, Lily, whatever.”
It was my turn to check out. I said good-bye to Taylor and said I’d see him at Nitro later. His attitude about Liv had shifted since I had seen him right after her body was found. It wasn’t fair to jump to conclusions, but why had he pushed back on the idea of being the last person to see her alive? I had only mentioned it because I thought he would be a help to the police.
You have to stop, Sloan. I ventured back outside to the snowy skies. Smoke spiraled from chimney tops. The IceFest banners hanging from a row of antique streetlamps along Front Street were fittingly dusted with fresh white powder. Icicles clung to sloping rooflines, threatening to release their grip and cascade down upon an unsuspecting passerby’s head.
It’s not your investigation to solve, Sloan, I told myself as I ducked to avoid a precarious icy dagger dangling from a hand-carved window box.
The problem was that I felt the burden of Liv’s death weighing heavy on me. She had been one of our first guests, and I had taken an instant liking to her, with the way she stood her ground in the face of Kevin’s obnoxious attempt to flirt. I wished I had had more time with her. What had she wanted to tell me? Could whatever she had wanted to get off her chest have gotten her killed? She didn’t deserve to die. No one did, and especially not in our sleepy winter village.
Without a Brew Page 8
