Death on Tap Read online

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I FELT A STRANGE SENSE of déjà vu when I arrived at Nitro and unlocked the brewery doors. The space was quiet and still, with no signs of a break-in or a dead body, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Before I got to work, I checked behind the shiny tanks, in the kitchen pantry, and in the office closet. Not sure that Mac would actually follow through, I left Chief Meyers a message asking about the hotel video footage and mentioning the motorcycle last night.

  For my first batch of beer, I started boiling water in the small tanks that Garrett had brought with him from Seattle. Most home brewers had pieced-together systems made from recycled kegs or large stainless steel pots. Garrett’s home brew system was top of the line. I’d seen a prototype of the self-contained system at a craft beer convention, but I’d never used something so small. I could do five-gallon batches, which was great for experimentation, because no one wanted to dump gallons and gallons of beer if they ended up with a bad batch.

  After the water had reached the right temperature, I added twelve pounds of a grain mixture that I had selected. Soon the kitchen was filled with steam and smelled like a real brewery. Mashing (or steeping) the grains would take about an hour. So while I waited for the first step, I began slicing white peaches. In order to pull out the flavor of the Cascade hops I planned to add, I wanted to use a sweet yet delicate fruit, like the peaches. I drizzled them with some honey; sprinkled them with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of cloves; and slid them into the oven. I would broil them to enhance the candy flavor and add them to the boil later. The fall-inspired scent made my stomach rumble, despite the fact that I had devoured Alex’s eggs.

  While the grains were steeping, I took stock of the inventory in the kitchen. I wondered if Garrett had thought about a food budget long term. That would have to be one of our discussion points later today. I was happy to take charge of food for the front, but I needed some direction and a plan. We couldn’t keep running to the store or my home kitchen every day, and having a small menu would be essential in building a loyal customer base.

  Garrett wandered into the kitchen wearing jeans and a Seattle Sounders T-shirt as I started the final step in the brewing process. “I thought I smelled grains.” His hair stuck out in every direction, and his T-shirt was wrinkled from sleep.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No. I should have been up a while ago. That was brutal last night. I guess it caught up with me.” He walked to the far counter and carefully measured level tablespoons of coffee into the pot. “What are you brewing?”

  “I’m doing my first taster batch. I’m almost done if you want in on this.” I pointed to the stove.

  “That’s okay.” The way he poured water into the coffee carafe reminded me of my high school chemistry teacher when he demonstrated a chemical reaction in test tubes and beakers. Garrett carefully poured the liquid from a height of nearly a half foot above the carafe and watched it swirl in the bottom. “I want to start on the main fermenter.”

  “Have you given any thought to a food budget?”

  He squinted and rubbed his temples. “Food budget?”

  “For the front. I don’t think it will be very cost-effective to be running back and forth to the grocery store every day. Plus, if we have a standard menu, then customers will come knowing they can get small bites with their pints.”

  “Man, no one told me how expensive running a brewery was going to be.” He reached for a coffee cup. “That makes sense, though. How much do you think it’s going to cost?”

  I could tell he was stressed about cash. “I don’t think you need to worry about cost in that the goal will be not only to cover our food cost, but give you another revenue stream. We should be able to set up terms with some local vendors so your upfront costs aren’t too high.”

  He stared at the coffeepot as if willing it to brew faster. “That would be great.”

  “Do you want me to sketch out a menu and make a few calls?” I turned the heat to low and checked the temperature to make sure that the beer was cooling properly. “I guess the only question is whether you’re thinking of hiring a chef. Right now it’s just me and you, right?”

  “Hiring a chef would be awesome in the future, but I don’t have that kind of cash now.”

  The more Garrett spoke of his financial situation, the more worried I became. How strapped was he? What if he didn’t have enough to pay me? I would do whatever it took not to have to rely on Mac for a single cent, even if that meant going back to bartending or working another job.

  “We’ll keep it simple. I can do a daily rotating soup. That’s easy. All we have to do is ladle it up when customers order. We can do meat, cheese, and veggie trays. I can make them in the morning and wrap them in plastic so they stay fresh in the fridge.”

  He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Do you want some?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “What are the other pubs in town doing?”

  “It depends on who you’re talking about. We can’t compete with Der Keller when it comes to food. They have an entire kitchen staff, head chef, line cooks, and waitstaff. They run a full restaurant with lunch, dinner, and a Sunday German brunch.”

  Garrett frowned as he opened the fridge and poured three separate spoonfuls of cream into his coffee.

  “If you want, I’m sure Bruin would let us look over his menu. I can head over that way and grab one of his menus for you. They serve simple pub fare, which is much more in line with what I think we can accomplish here. I’m thinking simple and easy pub snacks. At least until we build our customer base.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Garrett stirred his coffee and stared at a spot on the counter. “Have I mentioned how much I appreciate you?”

  “Nope.” I grinned. “That’s why you’re paying me the big bucks, right?”

  He nearly spit his coffee on the counter. “Ha! Big bucks. Don’t I wish.”

  I turned off the brewing machine and turned to him. “This has to cool. Let me run over and chat with Bruin. Then we can take a look at his menu and I’ll sketch out some options for you. We can print them up here. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. In fact, I think it would be great if we continue your science and chemistry theme in the front. I can have Alex design a menu to look like a chart of the elements or something.”

  Garrett took a drink from his mug. “I wanted to have shirts made with beer as an element.”

  “I can look into that, too. Selling growlers, hats, and T-shirts is another excellent way to bring in some extra cash.”

  “Add it to the list.” Garrett attempted a smile.

  “Drink your coffee. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” With that, I grabbed my purse and headed for the front. Garrett definitely needed nudging and coaching on running a small brewpub. As intelligent as he was, I was surprised that he knew so little about managing a business. How could he have not thought about things like food and swag? Hans had warned me that Garrett was in his head, but I hadn’t expected him to be quite this clueless. Maybe that was the thing about people who were really smart. I remembered one of my professors in community college who said he could complete any math problem in ten minutes or less, but could never find his keys and got lost going to the grocery store. Maybe that was Garrett’s problem—he was book smart but not street smart, or beer smart.

  My motivation for stopping by Bruin’s Brewing was twofold. I did think it would help Garrett to see Bruin’s menu, but I also wanted to follow up with Bruin about last night. He had mentioned wanting to talk to me about something, and I wondered if it was connected to Eddie’s murder.

  Bruin’s Brewing was located on the east side of town, about a ten-minute drive from the village square. The brewery was half the size of Der Keller, but had gained a loyal following since it opened ten years ago. Since it wasn’t in the heart of Beervaria, it didn’t have to adhere to the same design aesthetic. Instead it was built to resemble a mountain cabin. The
A-frame exterior was built from old-growth logs. Massive ten- to fifteen-foot wood-carved animal sculptures lined the front walk and wraparound porch. There was a grizzly bear, moose, bobcat, and Sasquatch. On the porch, pine Adirondack chairs were gathered in small groups so people could have a pint while they waited for a table inside.

  The brewery didn’t open for another hour, but I figured Bruin and some of his staff would be in the back. I walked past the sculptures to the employee entrance and knocked on the door. Bruin answered it almost immediately.

  “Sloan, to what do I owe this pleasure?” He wrapped me in a hearty hug and squeezed my shoulder so tight I thought it might pop out of its socket. I could smell stale booze on his breath and, like Garrett, he had slept in his clothes. The felt hat was gone, but his TASTES LIKE MORE index card was still pinned to his chest.

  “I was hoping to steal one of your menus for Garrett.”

  He released me from his grasp. “Stealing from the enemy. I didn’t know you had it in you. Those big brown eyes look innocent, but apparently you have a dark side.”

  “Don’t we all?” I joked, but Bruin scowled and muttered something that sounded like “Yes, we do” under his breath.

  “Come on in, I’ll get you a menu,” he said, trying to recover his jovial tone. “How did the rest of the night go?”

  “Not bad.” I followed him through the kitchen and to the knotty pine dining room. Deer antlers and antique hunting rifles were hung on the walls. Each table was carved from wood, and an oversized chandelier in the middle of the room had been made from elk antlers. Bruin’s Brewing felt more like a hunting lodge than a pub.

  He walked behind the bar, poured two pints of stout, and slid one my way. “Oh, no, thanks—it’s too early for me.” I waved off his offer of the pint. The thick chocolate-colored beer looked like molasses.

  “Sloan, if you want to consider yourself a brewer, you’re going to have to learn how to drink in the morning.” He gulped down the pint he’d poured for himself and then reached for mine and chugged it, too.

  The guy had a problem. I wondered if anyone had confronted him about it. Most brewers were connoisseurs of craft beer, but very rarely did that translate into a drinking problem. Brewers were known to imbibe slowly, in small quantities, to taste their creations throughout the day. Chugging two pints before noon was a different story. As much as I didn’t want to, I would have to talk to Mac about Bruin. They had been friends and friendly rivals for years, and if anyone could get through to Bruin, it was Mac.

  He poured himself another pint, reached under the counter, and handed me a menu. The menus were printed on plain paper and laminated. This one had seen plenty of use, as it stuck to my hands when I picked it up.

  “What’s Garrett thinking of serving?” he said as he gulped half of the pint in two large swigs.

  “That’s what I’m trying to help him with. We’re pretty bare-bones at this point, so I want to keep it simple. I think he’s worried about competing with Der Keller, since we’re right around the corner.”

  “Nah!” Bruin nearly fell over as he swiped the air with one hand. “You’ll be fine. If you listened to what Eddie had to say, he thought there was enough room in this town for more breweries. I agree, but I told him he was stuck with me and not to get any ideas.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Huh?” He swayed slightly and caught himself on the counter.

  “Was Eddie thinking of starting up a new brewery?”

  “Huh? Nah, he’d never do that to me. I gave him his start. We had a good thing going here, and he wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  Or would he? I wondered.

  “What do you think?” Bruin waved a fat finger at the beer-splattered menu.

  I glanced over it. They featured four kinds of burgers—beef, elk, buffalo, and a mixture of all three—along with an elk stew, a steak and baked potato plate, and a daily chili. It was a meat-lover’s dream and required much more prep and grilling time than we had at Nitro. Since we didn’t have a cook, anything we served would need to be prepared in advance and ready to grab and go.

  “It definitely matches the vibe in here,” I said, pointing to the antlers mounted above the bar.

  “That’s what I told April. She can take her German village and shove it where the sun don’t shine, if you get my drift.”

  I understood his sentiment and had to agree with him. April wasn’t high on my list of favorite people, but I wondered what she had to do with his hunting theme. “I take it April is still after you to turn this place into Beervaria, too?”

  Bruin’s meaty cheeks bulked out as he replied. “She can shove it. I’ve told her a hundred times she’s not in charge and I’m not in the village. I don’t have to put up with any cuckoo clock or nutcracker crap. This is a man’s bar. No offense or anything—women can come in and drink my beer, too—but I’m not putting up tourist crap for April.”

  “April wants you to change the look?”

  He scowled. “She can try, but she’s not going to make me change a thing. She can come around here with her petitions and try to tell me that Eddie was a thug who ought to cover up his tattoos to protect the town’s reputation, but she’s nothing more than talk.”

  “She wanted Eddie to cover up his tattoos?”

  “That nosy woman wants to control everyone in town. If she had it her way, we’d all be wearing lederhosen and prancing around, but I bought this building so I didn’t have to do any of that crap, and I like your guy Garrett. I can tell he thinks like me.”

  I couldn’t believe that April had asked Eddie to cover his tattoos or pressured Bruin to change the look of his manly pub, and yet at the same time, it made perfect sense. That sounded like April.

  “I should get back. Do you care if I take this? I’ll be sure to return it later this afternoon,” I said to Bruin.

  “Keep it. It’s yours.” He turned to the taps. “You sure you don’t want a pint?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got a new batch brewing back at Nitro that I need to go check on. I’ll bring this over later.” I left before he could try to pressure me into having a breakfast beer with him. In the short time we’d been talking, he had consumed three pints. I wondered how many he’d had before I arrived, and how many he could finish before noon. I also stewed on what Bruin had said about April. She was annoying and a gossip, but could she have harmed Eddie because he threatened to taint her perfect image of Leavenworth? That seemed like something out of a movie, but then again, I wouldn’t have put it past her.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, I thought as I pulled into a parking space across the street from Waterfront Park and watched April Ablin curtsey out Nitro’s front door. She must have spent thousands of dollars on her German-inspired wardrobe. Today she was dressed in yet another ruffled plaid costume and knee-high tights. Even during the height of tourist season, I refused to dress like April. Not that I didn’t appreciate the fact that people from all around the world flocked to our small town to celebrate Oktoberfest, but there were plenty of other ways to celebrate our German heritage and plenty of other people in town who enjoyed dressing up for the monthlong party.

  “Sloan!” April called in her fake singsong voice. “Over here.”

  Just my luck. I considered pretending not to hear her and sneaking around the block, but she targeted her eyes on me and waved with both hands.

  “What’s up, April?” I asked, crossing the street.

  “I was checking in on that handsome hunk of a brewer you’re working for. I’m sure that with everything that’s happened over the last few days, things must be terribly dramatic for you, Sloan.” She fanned her face. “Speaking of Garrett, do you know if he’s given any thought to my suggestions to make Nitro more in line with the aesthetic we all strive to maintain in Leavenworth?”

  “I’m fine, and you’ll have to talk to Garrett yourself.”

  She reached for my arm with her fake nails an
d feigned concern. “Everyone is so worried about you. I had to check in and see how you’re holding up.” She took a quick breath and continued. “Mac arrested? I absolutely couldn’t believe it when I heard the news. Although given his recent indiscretions, perhaps he’s been hiding a side that none of us knew about.”

  “Mac’s fine.”

  “Sloan, you don’t have to put on a brave face for me.” She tapped her nail on my forearm. Her index fingers were painted with the German flag and then each nail alternated red, yellow, and black. I had to give her credit for being fully committed to her self-prescribed role as Leavenworth’s German ambassador. “I can only imagine what you must be going through. First learning that your husband has been cheating, then a murder, and now his arrest.” Her breathless tone made it clear that her words were nothing more than lip service. She was loving this.

  “Really, April, I’m fine.” I tried to move closer to the door, but she stopped me.

  “What about Garrett? Such a terrible first impression for him to have of our town. Have you assured him that this is completely unprecedented? He isn’t thinking of letting you go, is he? I mean, you know, having so much drama surrounding his only staff member is a bit of scandal for a new business.” She gave me a sugary smile that made me want to punch her in the face.

  “He seems to be holding up just fine.” I spotted Van unloading his rusty pickup across the street and waved in hopes that he would come over and rescue me from April’s clutches. Instead, he shot me a quick nod of acknowledgment and booked it in the opposite direction. Apparently, he’d already had the pleasure of meeting April.

  “Who’s that?” April snapped.

  “Van?” I asked, pointing my thumb in his direction. “You haven’t met Van?” I couldn’t believe there was a single person in the greater Leavenworth area that April hadn’t forced herself upon.

  “No. Who is he?” She drummed her fingers together.

  “He’s a hop farmer.”