Murder Simply Brewed

by Vannetta Chapman

  Twenty-Eight

  Amber was sure she was having a panic attack.

  How had she managed to put them in this situation?

  How had she managed to put them in danger?

  She was a manager of an Amish facility—a place that represented peace and quiet and the simple life. She should not be running from a murderer.

  And she was convinced now that Patricia had killed Ethan. How, she wasn’t quite sure, but the woman had done it. There was no doubt in her mind.

  Maybe a jury would rule reasonable doubt, based on what they’d found so far, but Avery’s team could come in and collect all the evidence they needed for a solid case. All she wanted now was to be home, dry and safe and falling in love with Tate Bowman.

  Was she falling in love with Tate?

  She peeked up at him as they crouched under the roof overhang at the corner of the house.

  He held the index finger of his right hand against his lips, banging his shoes against his chest in the process. His left hand firmly grasped hers.

  They’d grabbed their shoes as they ran from the house, Tate pulling the back door shut as they heard Patricia’s key open the front door. There had only been time to snatch up their shoes and run, so now they stood in their socks with the rain drenching their clothes.

  What were they waiting for?

  Then she heard it, Patricia stomping through the house, toward the back door. Tate held up three fingers, then two, and finally one. As Patricia stepped out on the back porch, they sprinted around the corner of the house, past Ethan’s truck, and to Amber’s little red car.

  She started the car with one hand and slipped her seat belt on with the other.

  “Go, go, go, go. I think I see her coming.”

  Amber didn’t have to be told twice. She sped away from the curb as if their lives depended on it.

  The rain was now a wall of water. She could barely make out the road. She slowed as she approached the stop sign, carefully looking left, right, and then left again. The last thing she needed at this point was a fender bender half a block from Patricia’s house.

  As she turned left toward the main road, toward home and safety, the beam of her headlights swept in an arc. When she saw Patricia standing on the side of the road, standing and staring at them, she almost stopped.

  “No, no, no. Keep going!”

  So instead of the brake, she hit the gas, spraying the puddles of rain and obscuring their view, hiding them in a veil of water from Patricia’s gaze.

  “How did she catch up with us?”

  “She must have run to the intersection while we were getting in the car. A bigger question is how did she know which direction we were headed?”

  Amber made it to the main road, turned right, and drove another half mile before pulling over into the fluorescent glare of a gas station’s lights.

  Tate had been talking her through the escape, watching left, right, and behind them while she focused on the road. Now they sat in the little car, the windshield wipers still thump, thump, thumping as silence enveloped them.

  “Pull up to a gas pump.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “The middle one. It will keep us dry.”

  So she did, and she’d no sooner killed the engine than Tate was out of the car, around the front, opening her door, and pulling her into his arms.

  That was when she began shaking.

  He rubbed her back, wrapped his arms around her, and pressed his lips to her hair. She was drenched! Her clothes stuck to her skin like an old Band-Aid. Her hair dripped rivulets of water onto her shoulders, and her stocking feet were cold and wet.

  “It’s okay. We’re safe.”

  “She—”

  “She didn’t follow. We’re fine.”

  “Do you think she saw us?” Amber raised her eyes to his, knowing he would tell her the truth.

  “I’m not sure. Probably not. Unless she knows what kind of car you drive, and there are plenty of small red cars, I don’t think she’d know it was us.”

  “Okay. You’re right.” Amber believed him. Patricia hadn’t seen them. She’d seen someone fleeing her house and she’d followed on foot. But she couldn’t have seen them in the rain.

  “Let’s walk inside and get you a cup of coffee.”

  “We should go.”

  “You’re shaking, and she’s not following us. She couldn’t have known which way we went or where we’d stop. Let’s get the coffee.”

  They put on their shoes, but still she felt ridiculous walking into the small store, dripping a trail of water. The coffee tasted terrible, nowhere near as good as what Hannah brewed, but a few swallows and the chill coursing through her veins fled. Tate had purchased coffee for himself as well as a package of small chocolate donuts. She ate two, figuring the fear had used up all of her calories.

  They sat in the car, the heater turned to high, and watched the storm subside. For a few moments neither spoke.

  Finally she set her coffee in the cup holder and started the engine.

  “Want me to drive?”

  “No. I’m good now. Lost a year of my life when I saw her on the side of the road, but I’m good now.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Home! Don’t you think? We can look at the pictures we took, call Avery, and figure out our next step.”

  Tate reached across, ran his hand up and under her hair, massaged the muscles in her neck that had cramped into a solid fist. How did he know?

  “Sounds good, but let’s go to my house.”

  “Yours?” She felt like a cat that was being stroked in the one unreachable spot. She probably would have driven to Chicago so long as he kept massaging.

  “Mine.”

  “Okay.” They were driving into Middlebury proper now. The rain had nearly stopped, and Saturday night traffic was picking up. “Why yours?”

  “Because the temperature has dropped.” He leaned forward and studied her dash display. “According to that it’s forty-one outside. Cool enough for a blaze in the fireplace.”

  “Do you have coffee?”

  “I can rustle some up, though some hot decaffeinated tea might be a better choice. I feel keyed up enough without trumping it with more coffee.”

  She turned onto their road, passed her house, and pulled into his driveway. How was it that they had been neighbors for so many years? Been neighbors and hadn’t even known each other?

  Tate again caught her hand as they walked toward his front door.

  “I should have stopped at my place, at least long enough to find some dry clothes.”

  “You can wear something of mine.”

  “The last time I was here I was soaking wet. This is getting to be a habit, and now you want me to wear your clothes?”

  “Sure. What are you saying? That I’m too big?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I didn’t say that . . .”

  “You wait and see. I’ll find something warm and dry, and while you change I’ll start that fire.”

  It didn’t take long to change into a pair of his gray sweats, cinched tight at the waist and rolled up at the ankles. He’d also handed her an old Northridge Raider sweatshirt that nearly reached her knees.

  “This is yours?” The arms extended a good two inches past her hands.

  “It is. Bought plenty of athletic shirts while the boys were in school.” He handed her a mug of hot tea. He had changed, too, and was wearing an outfit similar to hers, except his Northridge shirt was black while hers was green.

  “Chamomile?” She brought the tea to her lips and inhaled deeply.

  “Lipton.”

  Amber tried not to laugh as she sat on the couch. Why would a single man have chamomile tea? She was lucky he hadn’t given her cowboy coffee.

  “If you’d rather, I can make some hot chocolate.” He took a sip and waited. There wasn’t a trace of worry on his face. In fact, he looked almost content.

  Was he that easily satisfied? H
ot chocolate and a roaring fire. Two things she could grow used to—three if you included the man waiting on her answer.

  “I don’t need any more sugar, thank you.”

  “We both need food. I ordered pizza while you were changing. Should be here in another fifteen minutes.”

  “Let’s look at the pictures, before the food gets here.”

  She sat close to him on the couch, suddenly self-conscious. Her hair was beginning to dry into a curled mess, and her feet were bare though he’d offered her socks. She propped her feet beside his, on the coffee table, and pretended to be offended when he laughed at her toenails that were painted a warm pink.

  He opened his phone and began thumbing through the pictures. When he reached the photos of the garden, he slowed down as they both bent closer to the small screen. “See anything you recognize?”

  “No. Then again I wouldn’t know hemlock if it was growing outside my kitchen window.”

  “What made you think of hemlock?”

  “Read it in an Agatha Christie novel.”

  Tate seemed unsure how to answer that and opted instead to thumb through the rest of his pictures.

  When he was finished, Amber stared into what remained of her tea.

  “Finding any answers in that mug?”

  “None.”

  Though what they were contemplating was serious, Amber was learning that Tate’s perspective helped her to push away the emotions and think about things objectively. “We’ll need to hear from Hannah before we know any more. If she can give me a few leads, some potentially poisonous plants that are commonly grown around here—or that she knows can be grown in greenhouses even if they aren’t—I can look them up on the Internet and try to match them to your pictures. Hannah said her friend is a local expert.”

  “Why not go straight to an Internet search?”

  “I could, but the list of toxic plants is rather large, I suspect.”

  Tate stood, moved to the fire, and added another log.

  “I wish we could have seen the inside of her greenhouse. There might be more answers there.”

  “Possibly.”

  She was surprised at how comfortable she felt in his living room, how comfortable she felt in his life. Could a relationship between two people change so quickly? But then, the last few days hadn’t exactly been normal.

  “So what did you find in ‘the lab’?” He sat down, even closer than before so that their shoulders were actually touching. His proximity helped the nausea that was tumbling through her stomach. Looking at the first picture was enough to make her wish she hadn’t drunk the tea.

  “I can’t quite read what the label says.”

  Using two fingers, she expanded the picture of some jars on her phone.

  The image adjusted, and the words were crystal clear—“Ethan’s sugar sub.” Next to that was a jar that said “Ethan’s salt.”

  Tate ran his hand up and over the top of his head. Finally he moved so that he was sitting sideways on the couch and looking directly into her eyes.

  “So you think this is proof enough? Those two bottles?”

  “It makes sense. Doesn’t it? She was putting something poisonous in his food or his drinks and passing it off as sugar and salt.”

  To give him credit, he didn’t laugh at her, and he didn’t argue with her. Instead he said, “Perhaps it’s time we handed this back to Avery.”

  “So you’re convinced?”

  “I didn’t say that. Ethan didn’t die at Patricia’s. He died at the Village. If it was a fast poison, he would have died at her place. If it was a slow-acting poison . . . I don’t see how he would have eaten enough meals with her for this to work. After all, he had a job and a wife. How many times a week did he go out there? How are you envisioning this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It could be that we’re at the end of what we can do, of what we should do. We’re not professional investigators, and if she is guilty, this could become dangerous.”

  Amber crossed then uncrossed her legs. One part of her was relieved. Seeing Patricia standing in the rain had scared the curiosity out of her. She was ready to put the entire case back in the Middlebury PD’s court. But another part of her, the stubborn part, still wanted answers.

  She pulled up Avery’s number and punched Talk.

  No answer. It went straight over to messages.

  “That’s not like him.”

  “What?” Tate had answered the door, paid the pizza delivery guy, and returned to the living room with a large box.

  Amber’s stomach grumbled at the smell of warm yeasty crust and pepperoni.

  She stared down at her phone and dialed 9-1-1 for the Middlebury PD.

  “Please state your emergency.”

  “It’s not an—”

  “If this is not an emergency, please call the following number.”

  She grabbed a pen from the coffee table and wrote the number on the outside of the pizza box.

  “Problem?” Tate walked back into the room with two plates, two bottles of water, and a roll of paper towels.

  Amber held up her hand in a “just a minute” gesture.

  “Middlebury PD, this is Officer Brookstone.”

  Cherry Brookstone! The young officer with green eyes and red hair that probably didn’t frizz into a halo. The woman rubbed her the wrong way. It was all Amber could do not to disconnect.

  “I was looking for Gordon.”

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “Amber Wright.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Sergeant Avery isn’t available at this time. Can I help you?”

  “I’d rather speak with Gordon.”

  “Again, ma’am, he’s not available, but I’m sure I can address any—”

  “Where is he, Cherry?” She pictured the officer—young, fit, and arrogant. Even beautiful. She didn’t mind admitting it, but she was not going to let a twenty-five-year-old rookie stand in her way now.

  “I can’t—”

  “Where is he?”

  There was a sigh on the other end of the line, very unprofessional phone etiquette in Amber’s opinion. “He’s on a fishing trip. No cell service before Monday. Said he’d check in if he could.”

  “I am going to call back and leave a message on his cell. If you talk to him, you tell him to call me.”

  “I’m sure I can help you.”

  “I’m sure you can’t.”

  “How about you give me a try?”

  Tate watched her, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other. The pizza was still calling her name. She’d rather be burrowed into Tate’s couch, eating pizza, than dealing with this woman.

  “We found Ethan’s murderer.”

  “Not that again.”

  “Listen to me, Cherry. We have letters that Ethan wrote, and we have some photos that you should see.”

  “Do the letters explicitly state that someone had threatened him?”

  “No, they—”

  “And the photos, were they obtained legally?”

  “Well, that depends—”

  “You need to let this go.”

  “I’ll do no such thing.” Amber’s temper rose to the top and bubbled over. “How can you refuse to even look at what we’ve found?”

  “Because you’re not a police officer. You’re not even a licensed investigator. You’re an employer who feels guilty because an employee died on your property. If there was any substance to your allegations, which according to Sergeant Avery there is not, we would be happy to pursue any leads you could provide. Now if that’s all, I need to get back to real police work.”

  She didn’t hang up on Amber immediately. Perhaps she was waiting for a retort. Perhaps she had misgivings, in spite of her adamant response. Amber might never know. By the time she finished counting to five, the phone was emitting a dial tone.

  “Did she hang up on you?”

  “Not exactly, but close enough.” She plopped onto the couch and ac
cepted the piece of pizza Tate offered. “Why would Gordon leave in the middle of our investigation? Leave and not even tell me?”

  They chewed in silence, some of the tension melting away as the fire crackled and her stomach filled with more than worry. By the time she was halfway through her second slice, she’d decided what she needed to do.

  She picked up her phone and dialed Gordon’s personal number. It occurred to her that perhaps she should walk into the other room, considering what she needed to say, but Tate was a big part of her life at the moment. He’d been willing to risk going up against Patricia. He’d taken care of her, though she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  He cared.

  Gordon’s phone rang once and then shot over to his message box.

  “Gordon, this is Amber. Tate and I have been digging some more, and we have a few additional leads we want to share with you. Please call me. And, Gordon, I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us—not like you wanted. But I know you’re a good friend, and I believe you’re a good cop. Please, when you have cell service, call me so we can talk about Ethan’s murder.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Hannah sat on the hard wooden bench and attempted to focus on what their minister was saying. Something about the peace of Christ.

  She stared down at her Bible.

  It was opened to Colossians, another letter from Paul.

  She ran her finger down the page, first on the German side, then on the Englisch side. Some days she read the old German text quite well, but today she was off her mark. She’d wakened during the middle of the night, worried about Amber and poisons and her job. She’d wakened and been unable to go back to sleep.

  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts . . .

  That was it! That’s what Amon Birkey had referenced before he began his sermon. It was the second sermon of the morning. Hannah honestly couldn’t remember a thing about the first, though she did recall singing the Loblied when they had begun the service. She also remembered kneeling and praying.

  But the sermons? Nothing. Her mind was a blank slate.

  What was wrong with her?

  Why was she so distracted?