A Deadly Draught by Lesley A. Diehl Page A

have now?
    I knew something he didn’t about Dad’s death, information he ought to have, information I could use to find my father’s killer. That would take the arrogant smile off his face. But there was more than defeating Jake at his own game. I fancied seeing him knocked down a peg for abandoning me when I needed him most after my father died.
    As much as these meanderings gave me pleasure, there was something much more important at stake here. I wanted to find the truth about Dad’s death, to be released from the load of guilt I continued to carry. I owed it to his memory to remove the stain suicide left on his reputation in this community. How could I not take action? I had been so remiss about the gun.
    I threw the cell phone on the kitchen counter and headed for the brew barn to see how Jeremiah and my new hire were making out with Hera’s Honey.
    *
    In the late afternoon, I fed the wort liquid from the heated malted barley put into the brew kettle. Sometime during the week, one of my neighbors who still had a milking herd would come to pick up the grain left in the bottom of the mash lauter tun. Cows loved the mash, and it was good for them. It would be my new hire Brian’s job to remove it from the vessel and pile it behind the brew barn.
    Jeremiah and I boiled the wort for ninety minutes, adding the hops necessary for bitterness at the beginning of the boil. At the end, we would determine the amount of hops to add for aroma and flavor.
    He and I drew the clear wort through the heat exchanger to reduce the temperature of the liquid. Now came the moment of truth when I added my new yeast, not repitched yeast used in my Ginseng Rush, but yeast I had sacrificed my last pennies to buy in order to produce Hera’s Honey.
    An hour later, nothing was happening. Damn. What did I get for my money, a lousy batch of yeast? I grabbed the liquid yeast bottle and examined the label. Yep. It was the yeast I ordered. I shook the bottle, then yelled at it.
    “Why don’t you run your errands in town,” said Jeremiah. “I can look after things here.” I hesitated. “I’ll call you on your cell if I need you.” He shoved me toward the barn door.
    As I drove into town, I told myself I should feel on the top of the world. I had a bottler that worked, well, for now, at least, plus the addition of a new lager and a feeling I could get to the bottom of my father’s death.
    I had to talk with Claudia at some point, I knew, and when I considered that, my mood dropped into the cellar. Those damn letters. If the authority working this case was anyone other than Jake, I would turn them over to him and tell him what I knew about Ronald.
    I swung down the street where Sally’s shop was located. I could use a sounding board. I passed the bank on the corner and wondered if it had gotten around to considering my loan application yet. I’d drop by after I talked with Sally.
    *
    “You know where Ronald is?” asked Sally, her blue eyes wide with surprise. She plunked two mugs of tea on the table and sat down across from me. The bakery was empty. I had told Sally everything I knew.
    “I don’t know where he is, as in an address, but I can get in touch with him if I need to.”
    “As in, his father is dead, murdered, need to,” Sally said.
    “I know. I already took care of that. I put the message in the want ads of the Albany paper as he arranged for me to do if something important concerning him happened. If he wants to, he’ll reply. I don’t know how, but he’ll get in touch. So far, nothing. It’s been all over the papers around here, and if he’s reading the want ads for any message, he’ll know. I figure he couldn’t care less about the death, murder or not. Ronald hated the man.”
    “Maybe hated him enough to come back here and kill him?” Sally asked.
    That very question had been running through my mind along with a sense that Ronald didn’t need a message from me to tell him of his father’s death.
    “Yeah,