Without a Brew

by Ellie Alexander

  I returned to Nitro and busied myself with restocking snacks, running a load of pint glasses, and prepping for the dinner crowd. We rarely varied our bar menu. It was easier to serve the same five to six items for lunch and dinner service. It kept food costs at a minimum and helped to streamline our workflow. Since there were only three of us to brew the actual beer, serve drinks, and prepare our small selection of bar bites, keeping the menu small ensured we weren’t overloaded.

  At the grocery store I had picked up the ingredients to make a special winter dessert. If we were going to be the site of Chief Meyers’s interviews, I wanted to have a few extra items on hand, including something sweet.

  Kat had the bar running smoothly, and Garrett was checking the kegs to see if it was time to swap them out.

  “I’m going to do dinner prep,” I said to Kat, taking a final load of pint glasses with me to the kitchen. “Yell if it gets busy, and I’ll come help you pour.”

  “Will do.” She gave me thumbs-up.

  In the kitchen I ran the last load of pint glasses in our industrial dishwasher. It cranked out the heat and steam-cleaned the glasses in minutes. Then, I started the soup that we would serve for dinner. Next, I whipped butter, sugar, flour, and a dash of sea salt in the electric mixer. I planned to make a Krause family favorite—Berlin Bars. Ursula had brought the recipe with them when they immigrated to the States. The layered bars started with a shortbread crust, followed by raspberry jam and a fluffy and chewy mixture of egg whites, ground almonds, and melted dark chocolate. They were finished by coating them with more melted dark chocolate and sprinkling toasted almonds on the top.

  I pressed shortbread dough into jellyroll pans and slid them in the oven to bake for fifteen minutes. Then I whipped egg whites until they formed stiff peaks. I gently folded in ground almonds, and shiny melted semisweet chocolate. My thoughts veered from Liv’s murder to Ursula and Otto. The smell of the baking buttery shortbread and the light-as-air egg white mixture brought back memories of hours spent in her warm and welcoming kitchen.

  The Krauses were the people I had cared most for in the world. When Mac and I broke up, I knew that they had genuinely wanted me to have a share of Der Keller. Mac had always been envious of my nose for hops and relationship with his father. Otto had taken me under his wing early on and taught me the art of brewing—how to marry flavors and pull out the subtle nuances in each hop. Mac resented the fact that despite hundreds of dollars in training classes and trips to his motherland of Germany, he’d never been able to discern the difference between Cascade and Centennial hops. As Otto said, some people just had “the nose.”

  The Krauses’ offer of maintaining a share in their brewing empire had felt like an extension of their authentic generosity at the time, but not any longer. The more I ruminated on the situation, the more convinced I was becoming that I needed to turn down my share of Der Keller and walk away. Could they be trusted? Did they have an ulterior motive?

  I had put them on a pedestal for all these years. They had done more for me than anyone I’d ever known, but now that was in doubt. Why? Why had they reached out to me? Why had they made me a part of their family? Was it altruistic or was it because in keeping me close they could keep my birth parents’ secret? I hated not trusting Otto and Ursula. Maybe I was blowing things out of proportion. But then again, why would they have kept something from me that was so important, so valuable to understanding who I am today and where I came from? None of it made sense.

  My timer dinged. I removed the trays of golden crispy shortbread from the oven and immediately slathered them with jars of raspberry jam. Next, I carefully spread the whipped egg whites, chocolate, and ground almonds over the top and returned the trays to the oven to bake for another twenty minutes.

  The thought that Ursula and Otto may have betrayed me was much worse than Mac’s fling with the barmaid. It was impossible to find any reason to justify them withholding knowledge about my past. Their lies also meant that my relationship with Hans was on shaky ground, too. I wanted to believe that he was in the dark, but if he wasn’t, I would be ruined. Hans was more than a brother-in-law to me. He had become a true brother, a trusted friend, and a close confidant. I could tell that he knew something was up.

  He had asked repeatedly if I was upset with him or if he had done something wrong. I blew it off, telling him that I needed some space. That things were awkward with Mac. That I didn’t want to jeopardize his relationship with his brother or put him in the middle. He dropped it, but I knew that it wouldn’t be long until he broached the subject again. Hans was astute. He was one of the only people I’d ever known who could read my emotions. How could I tell him that his parents had been lying to me for decades?

  And what should I do about Sally’s warning? She had begged me not to say a word to anyone until she arrived. What did she know?

  As I waited for the bars to bake, I reviewed the little I knew about my past thus far. My memories of my early childhood were hazy at best. The most solid memories I had were of my years in foster care. Jumping from house to house. Never feeling settled. Learning to rely on myself. Sally was the only constant in my life. My check-ins with her had been the one highlight in an otherwise lonely existence.

  When we reconnected, she had shared that I never fit the stereotype of most children placed in care. She told me that I had been well-cared for, dressed in clean clothes, with braids in my hair, and a bright intelligence in my eyes, despite the fact that I was terrified and alone. Most of the children on her caseload had been severely neglected and had a variety of developmental delays. I used to dream of going into Sally’s office and hearing her say, “Sloan, I want to adopt you.”

  It turned out that my dream wasn’t so far off. Sally had attempted to adopt me, but was told that as a single, older woman she wasn’t equipped to raise a child alone. As if having me bounce between foster homes provided any sense of normalcy or stability.

  Sally and I lost contact after I graduated from high school. I credit her with everything I have today. Her efforts got me a scholarship to community college and grant money to pay for room and board. If it hadn’t been for her, who knows where I would be now.

  As fate would have it, Nitro was what brought us back together. When I was helping Garrett get the pub ready for opening night, I found a stack of old photos that his great-aunt Tess had stashed upstairs. One of the photos made me almost faint. It was of a woman and her young daughter. The woman bore an uncanny resemblance to me. I couldn’t help but suspect that I had stumbled upon the only photo of me as a young girl. After months of prodding, Ursula finally confirmed my suspicions. She confessed that woman, Marianne, and her daughter had come to Leavenworth for a week with a man named Forest, who claimed to be Marianne’s brother. Forest offered Otto and Ursula a generous amount of cash to buy Der Keller, which was in its early days. However, he never intended to actually buy them out. The contract he had drawn up was a fake—he had a habit of taking advantage of immigrants. So much so that the FBI was tracking him. Marianne left, and Ursula never saw her again. That is, until she met me at a farmers’ market.

  I worked at the market booth part time while bartending and going to school. The booth owner allowed me to bake a variety of treats to share with customers. Otto and Ursula quickly became regulars at my booth. I thought that they had taken me under their wing because they’d fallen in love with my German chocolate cupcakes, but her revelation changed everything. For nearly two decades, they had lied to me. They knew that I was Marianne’s daughter and had not once uttered a word about my past. In fact, when I talked about trying to search for my birth parents, Ursula had insisted it was a bad idea. “Sloan, ziz search for your parents, it is not a good idea. Ze past, it should stay in ze past, ja. We are your family. We love you. What more could you need?”

  I hated knowing that Ursula had lied to me. The question was why? What reason could the Krauses have for keeping my past a secret? Was Sally right? Could the sweet couple who had
served as my surrogate parents for all these years have a sinister secret of their own?

  * * *

  The scent of the baking bars pulled me back into reality. I checked them to see if they were ready for the final step. They were, so I removed them from the oven to give them a minute to cool while I melted more semisweet chocolate and poured it over a cup of butter. The act of swirling the chocolate into the butter until it had a luscious sheen made me feel more grounded. I drizzled the liquid chocolate across the bars and used a flat-edge spatula to smooth it out. For an added touch, I sprinkled toasted sliced almonds over the chocolate and set the trays in the refrigerator for the chocolate to set.

  Garrett came into the kitchen to grab a load of clean pint glasses as the first batch of my bars finished cooling. “What smells so good, Sloan? I was making a few notes in the office, and the scent of whatever you’re baking kept wafting in. It’s distracting.”

  “Sorry.” I smiled.

  “Don’t apologize, just give me a taste of your delicious creation.”

  I opened the fridge to reveal the trays of Berlin Bars.

  “What are those?” Garrett stood behind me, ready to swipe a taste.

  “Berlin Bars. They’re Ursula’s special recipe.” I tapped the top of the cooled chocolate. “I think they’re ready to slice.” I removed a tray and proceeded to cut the bars into four-inch square pieces.

  Garrett took the glasses to the bar and returned quickly. “I didn’t want to leave you waiting for someone to sample your dessert creation. It seemed unfair.”

  “Absolutely.” I chuckled and handed him a slice. “What did Chief Meyers say about the paint towels?”

  “She came by while you were at the store and took them. She had her team take pictures of the area and said to keep the door locked. Other than that, she didn’t say much. You know the chief, she’s a woman of few words, but with extraordinary resolve.” He closed his eyes as he bit into the bar. A symphony of sounds originated from his mouth as he savored each bite. “My God, Sloan, these should come with a warning label.”

  “Oh no, you don’t like them?”

  “Like them? I love them. If you don’t hold me back, I might eat that entire platter. I think these might be the most addicting thing I’ve ever tasted. That middle layer, it’s crunchy and light and yet dense with chocolate flavor. Then you get the tang of the raspberry and the buttery crust. These should be illegal.”

  “That might make them hard to sell.”

  “Sell? You can’t sell these. Let me hoard them.” He pretended to gather up the platter that I had arranged the bars on.

  “It’s your bottom line.” I winked.

  “Fine. I guess we can sell a few, but let’s save some for later, deal?”

  “Deal.” I followed him to the front with the platter of Berlin Bars. I placed them in the center of the long bar with a handwritten note that read Dessert special: Berlin Bars. Pair with a pint of chocolate stout.

  We sold five bars with pints of our stout within minutes of putting them on display. I’d found that many of our regulars liked our rotating dessert specials. Often, we’d get groups of doctors and nurses from the hospital or people coming in after work for a pint. They liked to linger with something sweet to share as they used our inviting bar to unwind after a long day.

  “See? It’s a good thing I saved a stash,” Garrett noted, placing ten dollars in the till.

  Chief Meyers and two of her police officers arrived as I delivered a plate of Berlin Bars to a ski crowd who had taken over two tables near the windows. “Sloan, I hope you don’t mind us conducting interviews here. Garrett mentioned that it would be okay.” She used her index finger to press on her Fitbit. “I’m getting my steps in with this investigation. I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot of back and forth.”

  “Of course, anything to help.” I showed them to a round four-person table in the far corner of the bar that we had reserved for them. “Any updates?”

  The chief clicked off her walkie-talkie and placed a stack of papers on the table. “Nothing solid, but we’re confident that we’ll be able to make an arrest.”

  That was good news.

  “I meant to ask earlier, how did Liv die? Did she drown?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “The medical examiner noted trauma to the head. The perp killed her first and then dumped the body in the river.”

  I was sorry I had asked. The image I conjured in my head made me queasy. “That’s terrible.”

  “Yep.” Chief Meyers took a seat. “I’m going to need to keep the victim’s room preserved at least for another day or two. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good.” She laughed. “Even if you’d said yes, I would have told you too bad.”

  Taylor opened the front door, stepped inside, and looked around. His eyes landed on the chief, and he headed in our direction.

  “It looks like your first witness is here. Can I get you anything? I made a batch of Ursula’s famous Berlin Bars.”

  “If I could trouble you for a cup of tea.” Chief Meyers looked to her colleagues. They both nodded. “And I wouldn’t turn down a Berlin Bar.”

  “You got it.” I left to get them tea and dessert while they began interviewing Taylor. I wished I could listen in. I was curious about his responses, especially after our conversation at the grocery store.

  When I brought tea and Berlin Bars to the chief, Taylor was talking animatedly. “I don’t know why you’re asking me the same question over and over. I don’t know if it was Lily I saw down by Blackbird Island. It was a woman, but I don’t know if it was her.”

  The chief made a note. I handed out cups of steaming lemon lavender tea and placed a plate of Berlin Bars in the center of the table. She didn’t appear fazed that I was still nearby as she continued her questioning. “I’m asking you again, because we have another witness who has identified you. They’ve placed you at the scene of the crime, so you might want to take a second and think through your response before you answer.”

  Taylor’s cheeks turned as light as our pale ale. “Who?”

  Chief Meyers reached for a bar. “A credible witness, son. Does that change what you want to tell me?”

  He gulped. “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  I DIDN’T DARE MOVE. I wanted to hear Taylor’s response. I tried to make myself look busy by repositioning coasters at a nearby high-top table.

  He twisted off the cap of his empty growler and spun it between his thumb and finger.

  “So, is there more you want to tell us?” Chief Meyers waited with her pen at the ready.

  “I did see her at Blackbird Island,” Taylor confessed. “I saw her leave the bar, and I felt bad for her. She wasn’t in great shape, and it was cold outside, so I followed after her. I was trying to be a gentleman, like my mother taught me.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.” Meyers waited for him to continue.

  “She was on a mission. I could barely keep up with her. I followed her over the bridge and then I lost sight of her.” He flipped the cap into his other hand. “I gave up. I decided it wasn’t my problem. It’s not like I knew Lily or anything.”

  “Liv,” Chief Meyers corrected him.

  “Yeah, right. Liv. I didn’t know her. I was trying to be a good guy. I didn’t have a plan or anything either. I figured if I caught up to her, I would offer to give her my coat and to walk her back to her hotel.”

  “Then what happened?”

  He tapped the cap on the top of the table. “Nothing. I went home. Like I said, it was late and I was cold.”

  Meyers gave him a hard stare. “Any reason you failed to mention this the first three times I asked?”

  Taylor hung his head. “I felt guilty, I guess. I should have made more of an effort. I could tell she was upset, and I shouldn’t have let her head out into the woods alone at night in the snow. If I had wanted to, I probably could have caught up with her. Or I could have
called you. I mean, not you, but the police.”

  Chief Meyers made a note. I got the sense she was letting the silence linger in hopes that Taylor would say even more. He didn’t.

  “What time did you return to your apartment?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe twelve thirty or one.”

  “Did you see anyone else? Did anyone see you?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  She made another note. “What did you do upon your return?”

  He coughed. “I went to bed. Why?”

  “We need to establish whereabouts for anyone who had contact with the victim last night.”

  “I didn’t have contact, though. I just saw her. I don’t know her.” He pointed to the chief’s notes. “I already told you that.”

  “Yes, and you’ve already admitted to withholding information from me.”

  Taylor twisted the cap onto the growler so tightly I thought the thick glass might shatter. “Am I a suspect or something? I don’t know the woman, why would I kill her?”

  Chief Meyers took a long, slow sip of her tea. Her lack of response said it all.

  Taylor shifted in his seat. “You think I’m a suspect?”

  “I think that anyone in town who came into contact with or witnessed the victim before her death is imperative to this investigation.”

  “Okay, is there anything else?” Taylor sounded annoyed.

  “Not for the moment, but we’ll be in touch if we have further questions.”

  Taylor stood and tucked the growler under his arm. I made myself busy, stepping to a nearby table to clear pint glasses. The chief huddled with her team. I waited until they were done talking and Taylor was out of earshot before venturing over.