"There she is," he said. "Time to get out the Have A Heart trap again, my dear. We need to get that girl spayed."
"You're right," I said. "I wish we could find the other kittens."
"I think ours may be the only one. Maybe she managed to escape when the raccoon got in."
"How did she get all the way up that tree?"
"Maybe her mom carried her?" Tobias suggested. "She might have put her in the chimney to keep her safe? We'll probably never know."
"Let's do one more sweep, just in case."
We walked around the house one more time, but found nothing, and Chuck didn't show any signs of scenting anything interesting. We headed back inside. As Tobias snuggled Chuck on the couch, I checked on the kitten in the bedroom. She had curled up into a little gray and white ball and was fast asleep. My eyes drifted to the dark window; her mom was out there somewhere, maybe looking for her lost kittens.
I wished I could find some way to let her know we were taking care of her little girl.
9
I got to the Blue Onion just before three the next day; I spent the morning milking, clearing out more dead plants, taking care of the kitten, and making mozzarella cheese. I'd gotten the hang of making mozzarella over the summer—it was fairly easy, involving fresh milk, rennet, citric acid, and a little salt. It was a bit of a process, as the milk had to be heated to precise temperatures twice, but it was fun squeezing the whey out of the curds (which always made me think of Miss Muffett), and even more fun stretching the cheese at the end, as if it were a giant wad of taffy.
Not as fun as eating it though; as usual, I treated myself to a mozzarella, basil, tomato and olive oil lunch, only sharing a little bit with Chuck, before tackling a less-pleasant task that generally involved airing out the kitchen for an hour or two: soap.
It was two before I left the kitchen with a new batch of soap (thankfully the cure time wasn't too long for the recipe I was using) and headed outside gathered more bouquets for Oktoberfest, almost picking my cutting garden clean. I surveyed my offerings before heading to the Blue Onion; I still had a few flans to sell, and plenty of beeswax candles, but I wished I had something else to fill out my stall.
Now, as I unloaded the cooler onto one of the butcher block counters of the Blue Onion, Quinn eyed the fresh cheese hungrily. The lunch hour was over, and Quinn had turned to baking for the Oktoberfest market. The cheerful kitchen was redolent with ginger and spices; my mouth watered at the scent of the gingerbread hearts she had just pulled out of the oven.
Quinn, evidently, was peckish as well. "Did you just make that this morning?" she asked.
"I did," I said.
"Can I try some?"
"Only if I can have some lebkuchen," I said, unwrapping one of the logs and slicing off the creamy end.
"It's a deal," she said, and popped the white disk into her mouth. "This is divine," she groaned. "Wow. Are you sure you didn't go to some special cheese-making school without telling me?"
I laughed. "It's really not that hard."
She grabbed the knife and cut herself another slice. "I may have to make mozzarella a regular feature. And those tomatoes look so good... and the basil." She groaned. "I'd better watch out or I'm not going to be able to tie my karate belt."
"How's that going, anyway?"
"I'm up for my black belt test in December," she said. I eyed my red-haired friend proudly; with her strong arms, straight back, and sunny smile, you'd never guess at her past, but Quinn's ex, Jed Stadtler, had abused her for years.
When she was finally able to extricate herself from the relationship, Quinn had taken up karate in case he came around again. Unfortunately, her knowledge had come in handy a time or two. Even though Jed was currently behind bars, my friend still had a tendency to be jumpy, and I knew the scars he'd left weren't only physical.
"How's training going?" I asked.
"Not well," she said with a grimace. "The holidays are coming, which is the busy time of year, and I've spent so much time baking I haven't made it to the dojo as often as I'd like."
"I'm sure you'll be fine," I said. "If I can help you out by picking up extra hours, I'm happy to... things slow down a little in late fall and winter, since I don't milk as often."
"That would be great," she said, looking up at me. A few ringlets had escaped the bandana she usually wore to keep her hair out of her eyes, and despite her smile, she looked tired. "I'm having a hard time keeping up with the training, and I'm worried I'm not going to pass."
"You'll pass with flying colors," I said with confidence. "And like I said, any help I can offer is yours."
"Thanks," she said, her smile growing bigger. "How are you with piping icing?"
"Umm..."
She laughed. "How about you mix up another batch of filling for the Bienenstich, then, and I'll take care of decorating?"
"That sounds like a better division of labor," I said, eyeing the beautifully decorated cookies she'd already finished making. "What goes into Bee… Beena… whatever you call that cake, anyway?"
"Bienenstich; Bee-nen-stitch, or bee sting cake in English. Honey, of course—hence the name. I'm using honey from Serafine's hives. Honeyed Moon started selling some honey in addition to the mead."
"I can supply you honey next year," I said. "If all goes well, my hives should be producing well."
"Here's hoping." She walked over to a golden sheet of pastry studded with glistening almonds; it looked delicious.
"So what's in it other than honey?" I asked.
"It's a yeast-based cake," she told me. "You let it rise, cover it with the honey-almond mixture, and bake it. Then you cut it in half to make two layers and fill it with a vanilla custard cream."
"Oh, wow," I said. "That explains why it smells so good in here."
"If you think that's good, wait until we do the lebkuchen and dip it in chocolate," she said.
"Chocolate dipping I'm good at," I said.
"If you'll whip up the custard cream, I'll take care of the gingerbread hearts and filling the Bienenstich and let you get started on the lebkuchen."
"Sounds like a plan," I said.
We spent the next two hours working companionably in the Blue Onion's delicious-smelling kitchen. I made a new batch of lebkuchen dough, first beating together sugar, honey, butter and orange zest and then combining the dry ingredients, including cocoa, flour, almond meal and spices, in second bowl. As I added eggs to the wet ingredients, I told Quinn about our adventures with the kitten.
"Are you going to keep her?" she asked.
"We'll see," I said. "I just hope we can figure out how to catch the mother and get her spayed."
"I hope you can too," she said as she put the finishing touches on another cookie. "How's it going over there?"
"I'm just about to put the dough in the fridge. Is there some from earlier I can use while this chills?"
"It's on the top shelf, labeled," she told me. "The scoop for measuring batter is over there." She pointed to what looked like a small ice cream scoop hanging from a peg board over the counter.
"Got it," I said.
"You just wet your hands a little, roll the dough into a ball, and then press it down a little onto the parchment," she advised me. "Cookie sheets are on that rack over there, and there's a big roll of parchment paper in the pantry."
"Thanks," I said as she put down her white icing piper and retrieved a blue one. I put parchment on three baking sheets and began scooping out dough and rolling it between my hands, thankful I had this job. Quinn's gingerbread hearts were works of art, with lace-like piping and perfectly formed Edelweiss flowers and blue frosting ribbons. Mine, I knew, would have looked like something off of "Nailed It."
"So, are you keeping the kitten?"
"I don't know," I said, and she gave me a look. "All right. I'm 90 percent sure I am."
"Only 90? You've been saying you want a cat, and if Chuck is getting along with her..."
"I know," I said. "I've just got s
o much already, with the goats and the cows and Chuck and all the vegetables and the little orchard..."
"Speaking of vegetables, have you managed to get all those pumpkins cleared out yet?"
"No," I confessed as I rolled another ball of dough and pressed it onto the parchment, resisting the temptation to pop it into my mouth instead. "It's on the list. Maybe after Oktoberfest is over."
"That sounds like a plan," she said, then shot me a sidelong glance. "Plus, with all the hours you're spending investigating what happened to Felix Gustafson, I don't imagine you have a lot of spare time."
"Who told you that?"
"I heard you were asking about Adriana and the barley crop," she said, finishing another cookie with a flourish, "and I saw Mandy from the Buttercup Zephyr talking with you at the market last night. Find out anything good?"
"Maybe." I scooped up another ball of dough and rolled it between my palms. "I'm hearing rumors that Felix had some shady things in his past, and that part of the reason Simon started the brewery was to help him out."
"Shady things like what?" she asked.
"He was accused of embezzling at a brewery he worked at, apparently. It's not clear if he was really responsible or not, but it would be hard to get a job if that was the word on the street."
"Have you googled him?" Quinn asked as I pressed another ball onto the parchment-covered baking pan.
"Let me get these in the oven and I will," I told her. I hurried through the rest of the dough, popped the pans into the oven and then sat down at the laptop Quinn kept at the end of the counter. "Mind if I use this?"
"Go ahead," she said.
As she started icing another cookie, I brought up Google and typed in Felix Gustafson. An article came up immediately, about a brewery in Houston, called Swamp Thang Brewery, going under. The owner was listed as Bethany Jackson, and Felix was the head brewer, but there was nothing about embezzlement or any financial irregularities.
"There's an article about the brewery," I told Quinn, "which said nothing about embezzlement.." I googled Swamp Thang Brewery next. A slick profile from the Houston Chronicle came up, by a reporter whose name I recognized: it was one of my old friends from my time at the paper. The profile, which was dated five years earlier, featured a picture of Felix, his beard as thick and tangled as I remembered, sitting on a beer barrel next to a red-haired woman in a pair of faded jeans and a loose white blouse whose open neck highlighted a cluster of beer-related necklaces; I couldn't make out all of them, but I easily identified a barrel, a small bottle opener, and a beautiful, iridescent green bottle. The two faces were glowing with excitement and hope.
"Here's a profile on their new business," I said, and began reading the article. "Apparently they met when they were both working at the Golden Oaks Brewery in Houston," I reported to Quinn as I read. "They didn't like the way the place was run, so they found an investor and decided to strike out on their own."
"Who was the investor?" Quinn asked.
I scanned the article. "A venture capital firm called Liquid Assets, according to this."
"Clever name," she said. "Doesn't sound like it worked out."
"I guess you win some, you lose some." I switched over to Facebook and typed in Felix's name. "He wasn't super active on social media, it looks like."
"I'm surprised he was on at all," she said. "What are you looking for, anyway?"
"Connections," I said. "I don't know." He had a whopping six friends, one of whom was his brother. I clicked on Simon's name, and wasn't surprised to be directed to a page with a picture of Simon, beer in hand, smiling broadly in front of the Sweetwater Brewery sign. He had over a thousand friends. I scanned them, looking for anything that stuck out at me.
"I wish I knew the name of that woman he was talking to at the Oktoberfest event," I said.
"I do," Quinn said. "She got lunch in here that day; I took her credit card. It was Beth something. Kind of an ordinary name."
I typed BETH in the friends list. Two "Beths" popped up: one was Bethany Jackson, whose name I recognized from the article with Felix. The other was Beth Collins. I clicked on her profile.
"That’s the one," I said when her profile picture came up.
Quinn abandoned her cookie decorating to come and peer over my shoulder. "Who is she?"
"She's friends with Simon, but not Felix."
"Who does she work for?"
"A company called Brewlific," I said. "She's a sales manager for the southwest region, apparently; she was at Sweetwater talking to Simon the day of the festival."
"What does Brewlific do?"
"It's some kind of consortium of craft brewers, it looks like." I opened a new window and googled "Beth Collins Brewlific." Her name came up, along with the same photo that was on her Facebook page.
"She looks a little like a 1980s corporate movie woman," Quinn said. "Not exactly the brewery image."
I stared at the image; she was a 30-something woman with dark brown hair cut in a sleep bob, a conservative black jacket, and a white silk shell; the only nod to the brewing industry was a gold necklace with an iridescent green bottle on it.
"That looks familiar," I said. I clicked back to the article spotlighting Swamp Thang brewery, and put the two side by side.
"They're wearing the same necklace," Quinn remarked as I magnified the picture.
"Look at the eyes," I said.
Quinn blinked. "Holy smokes. Is that the same person?"
"I think so," I said.
"Why did she change her name?"
I flipped back to Beth Collins's Facebook profile. Her relationship status was married. "I'm guessing Jackson was her maiden name," I said. "Maybe she shortened the Bethany to Beth when she reinvented herself as a corporate type."
"And that's how she knew about Sweetwater Brewery," Quinn said. "She and Felix ran Swamp Thang back in Houston."
"If they ended on bad terms, I can see why Felix wasn't a fan of joining forces with them."
"But if money was tight and the opportunity came up, it would be hard to turn down, I imagine." She shook her head. "No wonder they say not to mix business and family."
"Particularly when exes are involved," I said. I looked up the Bethany Jackson profile; no one had posted a new picture on it in four years, and everything else must have been set to private, as the only thing visible was her profile image. "I guess she just started a new profile and never got around to taking the old one down," I theorized.
"I wish I knew what happened between the two of them," Quinn said.
I glanced at her. "Are you thinking maybe it was a crime of passion?"
Quinn shrugged. "I don't know."
"It's worth considering," I said. "If he was part of the reason Swamp Thang didn't make it, I'd be pretty angry about it."
"And then he's trying to scuttle a new deal for her by refusing to let Sweetwater Brewery sign on..."
"I wish I could talk to her and find out what happened with the brewery in Houston."
"I think she's still in town," Quinn said. "She's staying at the hotel on the square; I overheard Simon talking about it to someone the other day."
"Are you suggesting I go and talk to her? On what pretext?"
"You could just tell her you're wondering if she can help you figure out what's going on?" she suggested.
"I don't know," I said. "I'll think about it." I closed up the computer. "But in the meantime, I'm going to finish up these cookies; I've got to get home and get ready for the market."
"I had one of your flans," she said. "It was delicious. Oh—and don't let me forget to pay you for the cheese and the veggies. And the time."
"We'll figure it out later," I told her. "I've got to run home and take care of the kitten; do you have the rest of this?"
"I'll glaze them drop a few off for you to sell at your booth," she said. "And once this is all over, if you still need help with those plants, let me know."
"I will," I said. "See you in a bit?"
"I c
an taste the bratwurst already," she said with a smile.
10
When I woke up the next morning to the sound of Russell's attempts at crowing, Chuck wasn't in his favorite spot, with his back to my shoulder and his head on the pillow next to mine. I sat up with a jolt; where was Chuck?
And where was the kitten?
The two had coexisted relatively peacefully that night; I had checked on the kitten frequently to feed her, per Tobias's instructions, and although Chuck sniffed at the box every time I got up, he always retreated to the bed with me.
I jumped out of bed and ran over to the box. It was empty.
My stomach dropped. Where was the kitten? And had Chuck done something to her while I'd slept?
"Chuck! Chuck!" I called as I sprinted down the hall, praying that nothing horrible had happened. I checked the kitchen, first... no sign of the poodle lying in his traditional spot near the oven, or nosing around the fridge. I ran into the living room next. The slipcovered couches were cat- and dog-free, as was the rocking chair I kept in the corner by the window for reading. As I was about to head outside and check the yard, I heard a tiny rumbling sound from near the fireplace.
I hurried toward the hearth. There, curled up on the edge of the rug, hidden by the end of the couch, was Chuck, looking up at me with his big brown eyes. Tucked up against his belly was the gray-and-white kitten, who now stretched out her little paws and yawned so big I could see her tonsils. As I watched, she began kneading Chuck's side with her tiny paws; although her tiny claws must have hurt, Chuck just turned and gave the kitten's head a rough lick, then put his head back down on the floor and waited patiently for her to finish.
"Wow," I said in a gentle voice. "You two are fast friends now." I bent down and stroked Chuck's head. "Did you keep her from going back up the chimney? If you did, you're a very good dog. In fact, you're a very good dog all the time." As the kitten settled back in, I made my way to the kitchen to make coffee... and get a little treat for Chuck.
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