Risky Whiskey

by Lucy Lakestone

  “How’d they get the Bohemia Distillery check?” I asked.

  Bennett swallowed a bite of cooked oyster while he waited for his raw ones. “They’re looking into it, but it was probably forged, like Travis said. You can go into an office supply store and buy supplies to make checks. All you need is the account number, which you can get from a stolen check or a little social engineering.”

  “Well,” Neil said, “it just seems peculiar that this is all happening at the same time. It’s like someone wants Dash to fail.”

  “Big-time,” I said. “And I forgot to mention, Dash said there’s someone at home bugging him to turn his building into condos. A developer in Bohemia. They want him to move out, if not fail altogether. And Dash said another distiller was interested in buying into the company.”

  “Interesting.” Neil stared into his drink as we all watched him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Something Travis said about how stressed Dash has been. You don’t think it’s possible that he—?”

  “Is sabotaging himself?” Millie asked. “Good lord.”

  “I’m sorry, but that makes zero sense,” I said. “I mean, he did mention feeling overwhelmed this morning, but I think he loves what he does. Plus he could just walk away, sell out. He also doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would poison a whole convention.”

  “He could’ve stopped us at any time that night if we didn’t do it for him,” Neil said. “Maybe he doesn’t want to admit to failure. Would rather blame it on external forces.”

  I shook my head. “No way. I’ve got to go with my gut here. Plus he’d have to hire someone to shoot an arrow at us. And send the boomerangs.”

  “He could’ve arranged that before he left La Bonne Vie. Him arranging the arrows, well …” Neil smiled, and I saw a hint of mischief there. “It’s absurd. But then again, so are the arrows. Just playing devil’s advocate. I wanted to see what you thought, since you’ve spent more time with him.”

  “What about Travis?” Bennett asked as our dishes arrived. “He could have done any of those things, too.”

  We pondered that thought for a moment as we enjoyed the array of appetizers, which, like the drinks, were definitely several notches above the decor.

  “What I got from Dash is that Travis might be hard up without the job at the distillery,” I said.

  “Doesn’t he own part of it?” Neil asked.

  “Apparently not. Travis’s father and Dash’s father owned the building when it was a paint company. Dash’s father inherited it and passed it down to Dash, though Dash mentioned that family was really important to his dad. I think Dash wanted to help out his cousin, who didn’t have much of a career going. But Dash is making him a full partner, so that should make Travis happy.”

  “Maybe we need to talk to the woman he was going to meet up with the night of the cemetery attack,” Neil said, “just to be sure.”

  I laughed. “Good luck getting that information.”

  Bennett grinned. “Let me try guy talk. See if I can find out who it is.”

  “So are there any rivals that might be out to get Dash or Travis?” Millie asked.

  “There are so many new distilleries,” Neil said. “It’s not like anyone’s out to get anyone else. It’s friendly rivalries, or behind-the-scenes bitchiness, but nothing that warrants attempted murder.”

  “Poor Barnie,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Neil said. “Want to check on him after this? Maybe he can tell us who was in the suite with him and all of that bad whiskey.”

  While Millie and Bennett went off to conspire, Neil and I headed back to the hospital to see Barnie. He was curled up on his side, asleep, when we entered the half-lit room. Machines beeped, and bags delivered fluids into his body. This time, there were no other visitors.

  “Kind of a crappy way to end your big trip to Cocktailia, alone in a hospital,” I whispered to Neil.

  “It could be—well, I’m just glad he looks better.” It could be worse was what he was going to say.

  “Should we stay for a minute?”

  Neil nodded. I sat in the chair next to Barnie, between the bed and the window, where the afternoon light was turning gold. Neil hovered beside me, and we waited.

  “And how are we this afternoon?” came a voice from the corridor, preceding the appearance of an attendant with a tray. The young woman, wearing scrubs with little cats all over them, did a double-take when she saw us. “Oh, he’s sleeping again?” she asked in a lower voice.

  “Not now I’m not,” came a croak from the bed.

  I turned back to Barnie, who’d rolled onto his back and was looking up at the ceiling.

  “Then let’s get you sitting up. You need to eat something,” the attendant said, pressing a button that pushed Barnie up to a sitting position. She adjusted his pillows and rolled the tray closer. “Maybe your visitors can help you? I’ll be back in a few minutes after I deliver the other dinners.”

  “What is it?” Barnie asked.

  “Hmm?” I replied, not knowing what he meant. He hadn’t even looked at the tray.

  Neil moved around the bed and lifted the cover off the plate. “Hot turkey sandwich. Open-faced with lots of gravy. Mashed potatoes. Jell-O.”

  “At least there’s gravy,” Barnie said. “Is there a roll?”

  “Yes. Want it?”

  “With butter.”

  Neil looked amused but patiently buttered the roll and held it out to Barnie. Barnie turned his head slightly and reached out his hand but didn’t connect.

  Neil’s eyebrows lowered, and I sucked in a breath.

  “Here.” Neil placed the roll in Barnie’s hand and watched as the patient took a big bite, chewed and swallowed. Then Neil asked softly: “How bad is it?”

  Barnie looked toward Neil’s voice. “Severe ocular damage is what they told me,” he rasped. “Mostly blurry. I can see movement. Every once in a while, there’s this little patch of clarity, like at the center of a tunnel.”

  “Oh no. Barnie, I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “Pepper?” Barnie turned his head toward me. “I really wanted to go to the showcase, you know? It was so boring in the suite. I didn’t think a little drink or two would hurt.” He took another bite of roll. “Is there ginger ale? I asked them for ginger ale.”

  Neil handed the cup to Barnie and resumed his position next to me as the patient slurped his straw.

  Neil’s expression was dark and inscrutable. “Was anybody drinking with you?”

  “Naw, no. It was my job to get the stock and get it ready to go for the event. And there wasn’t much to do, so I just hung out and watched TV in the suite. Travis and Dash checked on me once, late morning.”

  “Was anybody in there after we moved in the liquor the night before?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t see why anybody would’ve been.” Barnie still didn’t get it. Still didn’t understand he’d drunk tainted whiskey. “I mean, that Brit fop was hanging out around the suite when I showed up in the morning, but—”

  “Who?” Neil asked sharply.

  “What’s his name … Markham. Alastair Markham. Said he was curious about the Bohemia whiskey and wanted to try it.”

  “And did he?” Neil asked.

  “Am I in trouble?” Barnie asked. “I mean besides the fact that I’m fucking blind.”

  “No, Barnie,” I said, resting my hand on his arm. A small smile crossed his lips. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened that day before we found you.”

  Barnie slurped to the dregs of his cup, and I took it from him. “He brought a bottle of the Frilly Fairy. I like gin. I wanted to try it. He said he’d give it to me if he could have a taste of the bourbon. It didn’t seem like it would do any harm. We’d brought a lot of extra so Dash and Travis could give it away or whatever, so we wouldn’t run out. So I invited him in and opened a bottle.”

  “Alastair drank the bourbon?” Neil asked, surprise in his tone.

>   “Hardly,” Barnie said. “Kind of a snob, that one. Took a sip and said, ‘Well, that’s nothing to worry about,’ and then he left.”

  “Scouting out the competition?” I asked Neil.

  “Maybe.” It was what he wasn’t saying that had me curious.

  “I didn’t even get to try the gin,” Barnie said. “I’ll probably drink gin from here on out. Not sure I’ll touch bourbon again. Uh, you don’t, you know, have anything with you, do you?”

  I stared at him in shock while Neil uttered a firm, “No.”

  “I thought you might,” Barnie said sadly. “You know, since you’re a bartender. That’s OK. Shit. Talk about a fucking hangover.”

  Neil shook his head. Barnie really didn’t get it. He’d almost died, and he still wanted a drink?

  “Did you leave the suite at all after we loaded in the whiskey?” I asked.

  “No, not at all,” Barnie said, perhaps too emphatically. “I love room service, you know? And they have HBO at the hotel.”

  I got up and brushed past Neil so I could return Barnie’s cup to the tray. At that moment, the attendant came back in, precluding further questions.

  “You’ve got to have some of this gravy!” she said gaily. She either deserved an Oscar or a humanitarian award for one-tenth of the cheer she was showing. “Better let him eat,” she said to us, and we nodded, said our goodbyes and left the room.

  My guess is we were both thinking the same thing: Alastair Markham had just stepped to the front of the list of suspects.

  17

  “Poor bastard,” I said once we escaped the hushed misery of the hospital, reached the street and started walking. “Blind. Actually drank himself blind.”

  “With methanol, yeah,” Neil said.

  “What the hell was Alastair doing in the suite?”

  “Maybe he was just checking us out. The tasting was that night, plus the cocktail competition is coming up.”

  “You don’t think—”

  “That he was checking to see if the batch was tainted? That maybe he’d engineered the tainted batch and was just making sure?” Neil shook his head. “Why? It’s all so far-fetched.”

  “This whole thing is far-fetched,” I said as we turned toward Canal Street. There weren’t many tourists around, just a few businesspeople wrapping up their work week. “Say Alastair, maybe with help, replaced the good whiskey with the bad stuff. When?”

  “It would’ve had to be overnight, right?”

  “But Barnie slept there and never left the suite.”

  “That’s what he says. But could a serious drinker like him really resist sampling one of the greatest drinking cities in the world?” Neil’s cynicism had a ring of truth to it.

  “You have a point.”

  “You said you helped them move everything into the suite the night before the event—that would be Tuesday,” he continued. “How was it shipped from Bohemia?”

  “Dash paid a transportation company to take a van-load of the stuff from home to here. Dash actually complained because it arrived late afternoon the day before the event, several hours after their plane landed in the morning. It was supposed to be there the night before, or at least in town, so it was ready for them when they arrived. He was tired and wanted to get it loaded into the suite so they could relax.”

  “So he was stressed even then.”

  “Yeah, I guess he was,” I said.

  “Why was it late?”

  “Travis called the company, and they told him they’d had car trouble. He tried to cheer Dash up, talked about how this was the event they’d waited for. That seemed to help. When we met downstairs again at six, the bellboy said a bunch of cases had arrived and were waiting for us in a storage room.”

  “Holy hell,” Neil said. “So the stuff was just unguarded there in the storage room?”

  “Not for long. They said it had arrived within the hour. There’s no way somebody could have gone in there, uncrated the bourbon, opened the bottles, put in the bad stuff, and closed and resealed everything.”

  “And the cork stoppers have plastic tops under the wax,” Neil mused, “so no one could have easily injected the methanol. Plus there was enough poison in the bad bottles that I’m guessing whoever did it had to take some whiskey out of the bottle to get the methanol in.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And if you think about it, we still don’t know if every bottle was tainted or not.”

  “If they weren’t, then Barnie was especially unlucky. The irony is, if he hadn’t been a drunk, we might not have found out.”

  A drunk. It wasn’t the first time Neil had said something like that. It made me wonder where that fleeting bitterness came from.

  “Maybe we need to find out more about the delivery company.” He took out his phone and started tapping. “I’ll ask Millie to look into it.”

  We turned up wide, busy Canal Street. Here the huge stores, restaurants and streetcars competed for eyeballs and tourist dollars, reminding us that a big city surrounded the quaintness of the Quarter. We walked for a few minutes in silence, taking in the rainbow of tourists in their crazy clothes, the business types, the cabs, the buskers. One human statue—his suit and his face tinted in shades of shiny bronze—attracted a lot of attention as he stood on a box holding out a crystal ball. Every sixty seconds he performed improbable maneuvers with it and shifted position, then stood eerily still. I swear his dark eyes followed me as people moved around him, posing and chattering. Creepy. At least he didn’t have a bow and arrow.

  “Watch your wallet,” I said under my breath.

  Phone already stowed, Neil laughed as we turned again toward the heart of the Quarter and the hotel. “Front pocket, close to the family jewels.”

  I guffawed. “Not a phrase I expected from you.”

  Neil grinned. “We really do have family jewels, or at least I think we do, thanks to my treasure-hunting grandpa. Not that anyone knows where they are.”

  “Ha! One assumes you know where yours are.”

  “I’m all too aware of mine at the moment,” he joked, but the joke had an edge, and it was all I could do not to glance at his treasure chest. “So do you think they’ve dumped the rest of the bad booze?” he asked.

  Oh, good. Change of subject. “Dash mentioned that this morning. It’s gone. The good with the bad,” I said, remembering that the rye was untainted, at least the rye that Cray tested.

  “I hope Dash has recovered enough to attend the awards ceremony. He might get some good news there, and he needs some good news.”

  “And Alastair will be there too, right? His bar in London is up for an award.”

  “Probably. Let’s keep an eye on him. As long as you’re careful.”

  I glanced over to see Neil eyeing me with concern, and I got a little chill. Attraction? Fear? Maybe both.

  People dressed up for the Cocktailia Awards, but it wasn’t like the Oscars. The looks tended to be vintage. Women who showed skin also showed a lot of tattoos. Men were split between bow ties and skinny ties, and at least half wore hats, but few wore jackets. A few bar teams who were up for awards dressed alike. We weren’t up for an award, except for Neil and his book, but the Bohemia Bartenders had agreed to acknowledge our Florida roots. Hence the guys sported tasteful aloha shirts, with only Barclay in a straw hat, and Melody and I wore tropical dresses. Printed with deep red hibiscus and green leaves, hers was two pieces and showed a few inches of annoyingly flat belly; a slit in the long skirt went high enough to reveal most of one thigh.

  Mine was more suited to my shorter stature, sleeveless with a knee-length skirt that I puffed out with a pink crinoline. It was printed with palm fronds that matched my eyes, and its low-cut front was drawing a lot more looks than my eyes were. I hadn’t remembered it being that revealing in the thrift store, but then again, I might’ve tried it on over a T-shirt. I forwent my big bag in favor of an adorable, sparkly bowling-bag purse.

  We four were chatting amid an ebullient crowd, waiting for
Neil. A film crew, interviewing people for a documentary about the cocktail world, or so they told us, asked if they could chat with us on camera. I motioned for the others to grab their moment in the spotlight. I was too new to the group to speak for the Bohemia Bartenders. Besides, I was still looking for Neil.

  Finally, I spotted him across the second-floor lobby. I wandered in his direction and became even more convinced of the power of my dress when his eyes widened and he glided toward me as if pulled by a magnet, his mouth open. He held out a hand, palm forward, but didn’t touch me, as if an electric field was keeping him back. He pulled it away as if realizing he was about to commit a faux pas.

  I frowned. “You’re horrified.” Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but admire his lush hair, bow tie and natty, nerdy plaid vest and pants. Especially the pants.

  He shook his head. “Not horrified. Just stunned.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “In a good way. My God, Pepper.” He scanned me one more time. “Do you want me to be able to breathe tonight or what? I’d rather not pass out before they announce the awards.”

  I laughed, more secure in my boobaliciousness. “I’ll hold you up. You ready?”

  He nodded. “Have you seen Dash and Travis?”

  “Here we are,” came Dash’s voice, and I turned to take them in. Dash was in a creamy white suit; Travis wore a sleek black one.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Dash.

  “Embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve let a few stupid things happen,” he said. “I’m not sure I even deserve to be running this distillery.”

  “Well, you’re wrong,” I said, and Dash looked just a bit stunned. “What I mean is, you absolutely deserve your business, and you deserve the best. You’ve built a wonderful distillery, and you’re making delicious whiskeys. You’re having problems because of something that’s really outside your control. Are you going to let the bastards get you down?”