Death Drinks Darjeeling (A Helen and Martha Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Sigrid Vansandt

  Perigrine weighed the losses of letting Johns too close. Life was risky, but sometimes you had to take a chance. He made up his mind.

  “Actually,” he replied, “I’ve fancied myself numerous times as having a nose for sussing out the truth. I’ll be glad to look into our little problem because that’s what it is, Merriam, our problem. No one wants to see our constabulary downsized and I personally would hate to see what we did as a community become the trophy for interlopers.”

  Johns smiled from ear to ear.

  “You need anything, anything at all, Clark, come to me. This is between us only.”

  Johns added, “It’ll be undercover work and some of the higher ranking police personnel will be tough customers to get information from, especially if you take a direct approach.”

  Perigrine’s smile was almost feline as he formed his answer to this well meant warning. He knew Johns was hoping that a retired spy’s connections might be more conducive to acquiring difficult information. That’s why he’d come to him.

  “Oh, I’ll be the picture of discretion, chief. It’ll be like living another life, won’t it? Like being a spy or even a secret agent. Something tells me I’m a natural at this kind of work…” He drank down the last remaining contents of his glass. “Second nature, if you know what I mean.”

  Johns chuckled and gave the man an almost fatherly smile and then changed the subject to something less ticklish.

  “Saw you’ve been working on Mrs. Robb’s front garden…”

  Chapter 15

  Flower Pot Cottage

  Marsden-Lacey

  With her hair tied up in a multi-colored scarf, Martha grimaced at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. Her mood was decidedly low. She ignored the frantic scratching and shrill barking coming from her cottage’s front door.

  “You’re fine!” she called down the hall, hoping her voice could be heard by the dust mop of a dog wanting out again for the fourth time that morning. “Go sit in a sun spot in the living room, Amos! I’m going to take a shower.” Then more sarcastically to herself, “So I can smell good while I pick up garbage tossed out by low-lives.”

  She knew it was ridiculous to be explaining to a five-pound canine what she was doing, but the morning was not going as it should. Her three furry-family members, Amos, Gus and Vera, were each experiencing their own form of spring fever. Every fifteen minutes, Gus, the oldest and grumpiest of her menagerie, wanted to be let either in or out of the cottage’s front door.

  The birds and the busy animal life within the hedgerows were making the orange chunk-of-love want to be outside where he dreamed of snagging one of Flower Pot’s garden denizens. But due to his prodigious girth, the robins, hedgehogs and chipmunks were generally safe. However, once Gus was in the open, chilly air, his rheumatism kicked in and he wanted back inside to sit by the warm Aga cooker.

  His meowing sent Amos into a barking tizzy in an effort to tell Martha that Gus wanted back inside. Vera, her Maine Coon cat, was the easiest this morning. He laid crashed across the bed, exhausted from a night on the town looking for love in all the wrong places. Martha had named him before she’d learned later he was more of a Casanova than a Mae West. The name stuck.

  “Don’t you want Gus inside?” Helen asked sweetly while peeking her head in the bathroom door. She was wearing her lavender colored terrycloth robe with matching purple socks. Helen, as always, was even able to dress herself for sleeping with panache.

  “I guess,” Martha groaned and sat down on the edge of the tub.

  “I let him in. He’s acting very grumpy,” Helen said, coming in and making herself comfortable on the laundry hamper. “You look grumpy, too. Is it the classes?”

  “I hate going to these stupid anger management classes, Helen. We have to go pick up trash along the side of the road today.”

  Martha rolled her eyes and continued. “I got a text from Sarah Carmichael, who could use you for a weight-lifting barbell, that we’re to assemble at the over-pass where the A56 runs south of Marsden-Lacey at three o’clock today. Helen, I’m still kinda upset with Merriam.”

  Martha’s head drooped a bit and, with one pink-painted toe, she dug at the fluffy, white bathroom rug under her feet. It wasn’t like the redhead to let things get to her, but for the last week Martha hadn’t been herself.

  “It’s only six meetings, Martha,” Helen said soothingly. “If it hadn’t been for Merriam, it might have been a huge fine for using a gun that wasn’t legally yours. He’s told you that he had to call in a few favors to get you such a sweet deal.”

  A heart-wrenching sigh came from the perched Martha. “I know, I know, but it doesn’t make standing along the A56 any easier. Picking up trash doesn’t bother me. We do it every spring with the community auxiliary committee. What is uncomfortable, is being treated like a criminal. Besides, the woman who is my instructor, is sort of smug, pushy and hateful. I have to do a lot of deep breathing exercises to not say what I’m thinking every time she forces me to do some kind of discipline push-up or down-dog or whatever they’re calling police brutality these days.”

  Helen swallowed hard, seemingly to suppress a laugh. She offered another approach to cheering up her friend.

  “Just remember our trip tomorrow and that we’re staying at The Harrington in London in Knightsbridge. We might see someone famous. That’ll perk you up. Besides, Kirsten, the wedding planner is having the dress sent over to the hotel. So much easier, and afterwards we can do some real shopping.”

  Martha took herself in hand. She wasn’t going to be the moody maid of honor. They had enough on their plates with George sniffing around. Helen’s joyful day and all the exciting events leading up to it were the most important thing at the moment. She lifted her chin and gave her friend a bright, loving smile. Taking a deep breath, she reached over and gave Helen a pat on the shoulder.

  “I’m so looking forward to our trip, Helen. Seeing your dress is going to be such a treat. I didn’t have a sister to enjoy a wedding with and the thought of seeing you walking down the aisle with the man of your dreams makes me want to cry.”

  Martha’s eyes teared-up. “You deserve a wonderful, blessed wedding day. When we get back, I want you to get ready for the best hen party in Yorkshire history.”

  Helen smiled and stood up, pulling Martha to her feet and giving her a tight hug.

  “Come on. We’ve got to get you fed. Gus probably wants back outside by now and I want to look at a hotel near Stuttgart. You know the kind of place. Old castle from the middle ages, but now a hotel. It may have a ghost to rattle its chains at night to scare us. That’s right up your alley,” Helen said as she left the bathroom.

  This was a real perk for Martha and when her phone rang, she didn’t decline it once she saw it was Merriam.

  “You haven’t been answering my calls,” he said.

  “I’m still mad about the trumped-up charges and today I get to collect trash along the highway for four hours,” she said.

  “Can I make it up to you?” he asked sweetly. “How about we go out tonight before you leave tomorrow? I’m going to miss you, Martha.”

  The toe dug deeper into the bathroom rug as she fought with her indecision. He was trying, she thought to herself, but she’d make sure of his true affections.

  “I’m probably going to be pretty hungry, Merriam, after trudging through muck and filth all day. Could get expensive and I might have a hard time removing the stench of garbage from my person, so you’d have to maybe deal with that.”

  “Absolutely! Not a problem,” he replied quickly, “I’d love nothing better than to wine and dine you, stink and all. In fact I’ve got a huge surprise,” Johns said teasingly on the other end of the line.

  Martha nodded. She liked his attitude and then like a fish considering well-placed bait, she gave the hook a nibble to see if it was worth the up-sell she was getting.

  “A surprise, for me?” she asked.

  “I can’t wait to show you, honey. I’ll b
e by at six to pick you up.” Johns’ voice hesitated on the other end and came back with a hint of tease in it. “Oh and one more thing, sweetheart…”

  “Yeah?” Martha replied.

  “Be careful out there today. They like to use litter collectors for target practice. Watch your bum!”

  “Merriam!” she yelled into the phone, her sense of humor and her outrage both vying for preeminence in her brain, but the line was already dead. Martha hated that he’d gotten the last word, but she couldn’t help smiling to herself. After all, she’d taken the bait and dang it, the hook was in.

  Chapter 16

  Tübingen, Germany

  Present Day

  Germany can have nights in the spring that make the lonely S-Bahn train travelers hunch their shoulders against the cold wind as they exit onto the empty platforms. They quickly tug and secure long, woolly scarves around their necks trying to stop the bitter wind from whipping down between clothing and flesh. Despairing of getting home in time for Abendbrot, or evening meal, they hurriedly walk in the direction of warmth and family ignoring even those fellow commuters beside them.

  Haimon and Max sat with the Mercedes’ engine running next to the train station, watching each person come off the S-Bahn. It hadn’t taken a great deal of effort to find Jorge Kirchner’s mother. The Internet was a wonderful tool, especially in the hands of those without the tiniest sliver of conscience.

  Tübingen, where she lived, wasn’t even a three-hour drive away from Constance. In fact, one could stay on Autobahn 81 the entire way north. With the Swabian Alps to your right and the Black Forest to your left, one could enjoy an extremely scenic landscape, but Haimon and Max weren’t interested. They had a plan and it didn’t involve photos of their trip plastered on some social media site.

  Normally, Haimon and Max liked it when people posted their travels online because it was like receiving a miss-mailed invitation. They would send in a few of their associates to glean what the Internet socialites had left unattended or poorly unprotected. It was like taking candy from not-so-bright babies.

  But in a situation like this, total anonymity was tantamount to the success of Max and Haimon’s next hit. They wanted the old woman to tell them where she thought the valuable manuscript was and Haimon explained, more than once along 81, that Max was not to hurt the woman while she was giving them the information. Then he could kill her.

  “Here comes the girl,” Haimon said. He pointed to a slim, young auburn-haired woman wearing a long rust colored jacket. She slung her knapsack over her shoulder and walked briskly along the platform towards the exit gate. The two men watched the other people to see if she would separate out from the crowd and continue along the pedestrian path alone.

  “Give it a minute,” Haimon instructed his brother. “Let her get down to where the willow tree hangs low and grab her. She’s our ticket to getting the old lady to talk. Don’t hurt her. Got it?”

  Max nodded and opened the car door. The heat inside the car’s cabin quickly escaped. He shut the door hurriedly, because he knew Haimon hated the cold. Max, though, liked the crispness of the night air. It intensified the pleasure of the job ahead. He was good at stalking people.

  It was like hunting for big game, but he wasn’t in it for a mere animal. He was after a human. Men were more fun than women because they had the potential to give a good chase and sometimes proved to be worthy opponents. Women, on the other hand, were like shooting wingless ducks in a pond. Max knew taking the girl would be easy.

  He stayed in the shadows of the trees and hedges. Luckily, the Germans liked to be frugal even when it came to streetlights. There were only two lights along the girl’s path that he’d counted earlier that day. Her long and wavy hair rustled in the wind and she turned to see if anyone was behind her. Max hung back and melted into the darkness. Like any weaker creature, he thought, her instincts must have told her danger was near. This made him smile. He loved the hunt.

  His talent was knowing when to move and when to wait. Every nerve in his body was poised to start. Max left the overhanging shadows and honed in on his target. He never felt excited or even the rush of adrenaline in these moments, only a laser-like focus.

  The girl turned like a rabbit to see what was closing in on her. Max hoped she’d run. He almost willed her to, but she was one of those who froze. And that’s when he saw the two men with another woman coming along a crossing path. The girl stood stone-still with round, empty eyes, almost swaying with fear. Max came to a dead stop in the path. He checked that he still had his hoodie over his head, making his face completely invisible to her.

  “I tell you,” one of the men was saying, “we can beat Leonberg. They’ve got a wonderful team but we’ve been practicing for two months and Owen is one of the best forwards in Baden-Württemberg.”

  “Uwe,” the female said dryly, “why do you have to play rugby? It’s so brutal.”

  Max saw how the three closed in to where the girl could probably hear their voices. “Why do you have to play the hooker position? It’s the most dangerous, I think.”

  The auburn haired girl’s eyes cleared from that empty quality of the already lost and locked onto the dark void were Max’s face ought to be. He didn’t move. Rugby hookers, for even Max, weren’t worth the risk.

  The little, brown rabbit turned and fled towards the voices. He waited to see if she would address them. Knowing enough German, Max understood that the men were asking her what had happened. Without hesitation, he quickly retraced his steps back to the car and managed to shut the door as the two rugby players emerged from the pathway, puffed up and ready to do battle.

  “Who are they?” Haimon asked indifferently.

  “Leonberg’s best hooker and quickest forward,” Max grumbled as he punched the gas pedal, causing the sedan’s tires to screech and grab the pavement. The car jerked into a forward motion leaving the two rugby players in a cloud of dust.

  “Drive by the house,” Haimon directed. “I want to see if she comes home alone. We need her.”

  Their black Mercedes pulled up into Allmand Weg, a cobblestone street tucked into the village’s old medieval section. Max parked the car in a spot where no one would pay it any attention next to a construction waste bin. Soon a green police vehicle came down the street and stopped in front of the house they’d been watching for the last couple of days. The brown haired girl stepped out of the car and with an officer walked up to the front door. Both went inside.

  Haimon sighed. “Night’s over, Max. Bad luck those rugby players showing up when they did. Not your fault. It was worth a try. She’ll be too cautious now and that means we’ll have to take a different, more direct approach. Our little lady friend said the girl would be easy to catch at night. She was wrong. Time to send in our request.”

  Max didn’t say anything. He got out of the car and put an envelope in the house’s mailbox. Back in the car again, he turned the key in the ignition and pulled the car out of its hidden spot. They drove slowly past the green and white police vehicle, making sure not to draw any unnecessary attention to them. In the rearview mirror, he looked at the structure that was Jorge Kirchner’s mother’s house.

  Lights were on inside and for a long moment another part of him, the crippled part, tried to imagine the furnishings, the smells and what the women’s lives were like who called the house their home. Max shook his head to quell the other voice. He didn’t want to feel what others did. Only rage and fear were ever truly satisfying to him.

  “You’ve got to let it go, brother,” Haimon said softly without any emotion. “Let it go. Besides, there’s always tomorrow. We’re the lucky ones because we have time on our side.”

  Chapter 17

  The Traveller’s Inn

  Marsden-Lacey

  The village of Marsden-Lacey had four pubs of varying sizes, characteristics and types of patrons. Every year, one of those pubs, The Iron Maiden, shut its doors for a week so Mr. and Mrs. Penny, the publicans, could take their holid
ay in Portugal. This caused a good deal of difficulty regarding the normal ebb and flow of pub patronage in the village and many people had complained to the Pennys about the inconvenience their vacation imposed upon them.

  Susie Penny, when she was treated to someone’s pitiful plea for The Iron Maiden to be kept open during her absence, would put one hand on her hip, cock her head saucily to one side and thrust out her other hand as if she expected some form of payment from the fussbudget. Generally, the man would hang his head ruefully because he knew what she knew: the reason for the outthrust hand.

  It all started when the Pennys had left their son, Raymond, in charge of The Iron Maiden while they were gone. That week went down in Marsden-Lacey history as “The Great Pub Crawl of 07”, mainly because the town got so drunk on the free beers Raymond was handing out, that a substantial number of the locals had to practically crawl home every night from reveling in Raymond’s hospitality.

  Raymond was about twenty-eight at the time and a bit of a ne'er do well. As soon as Susie and Kermit, his father, had pulled out of the driveway, Ray had smiled brightly, waved good-bye and promptly offered free drinks all around to everyone in the pub as a gesture of his beneficence and camaraderie to all those currently in attendance.

  He had kept the free spirits flowing for the entirety of his parents’ holiday and, as can be imagined, there were many freeloaders who drank more than one pint to Raymond and his dear parents’ health that week.

  Needless to say, when Mr. and Mrs. Penny put their suitcases down once again upon the threshold of their pub, they were greeted with at least a half a dozen good-time merrymakers still trying to squeeze the last dram of firewater from the despoiled and nearly depleted bar. Raymond was found upstairs sleeping off his riotous week looking every ounce the blissful, unrepentant mischief-maker.