Murder Brewed At Home (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 3) by Belle Knudson Page A

got a butter pecan sundae. We sat in the afternoon sun. It was gorgeous with a perfect, warm breeze blowing. Clear blue skies. And yet here I was looking and feeling as if someone had just flushed my winning lottery ticket down the loo.
                  "Want to talk now?" said Lester.
                  "No, but I guess I have to."
                  "Ok," he said.
                  I was hesitant at first, but then the words just started coming, bit-by-bit, and soon I found myself unable to stop, with a melting sundae before me.
                  I told him everything I’d learned about cerbera poisoning. I told him about Madagascar, about the email from "MC,” and how Cultured_Club was probably Owen and Owen was selling an expensive book that had been previously owned by Maggie Childsworth. I told him everything.
                  Everything except the part about Mr. X.
                  Why, I can’t say. There was this blockage where that story was in my head. There was something I couldn’t bring myself to say about it. And even though I felt like a million bucks after getting things off my chest, I still felt weighed down by the possibility that I was some sort of target by this unstable organized crime guy who seemed to control the Carl's Cove criminal scene like a puppeteer. Or so I thought. I had no proof of this, really.
                  "So, to rehash," I said, "Daisy knows something. I'm going to try and talk to her but I have a feeling she's not talking. I think Owen Schiff is up to no good. I think Daisy knows he's up to no good and also knows I've been snooping around into Kyle Young's death. I think Restocruz is tied up in it somehow. I think Owen and Restocruz conspired to poison Kyle Young, and that they succeeded. I just need to find out how."
                  "So," said Lester, "and you'll have to forgive me for being a detective here, all this sounds plausible. The only thing I have a problem here is with the toxicity of the plant you’re talking about. It kills quickly. If Kyle Young was murdered outside the home, how did he die in the house?"
                  "He didn't."
                  "You all heard a thump."
                  " Now you believe me about that."
                  "I have no choice. I'm still a little skeptical about it, but if the four of you heard it then the four of you heard it. I've been thinking about it. The office was right above where you were sitting. It would be pretty hard to mistake the sound of a falling body for anything else. So, how did it happen? We found no syringe on the scene. He didn't kill himself. If he was poisoned, injected in the back of the head, it sure seems like he was at home when it happened. He let his killer in, got poisoned, then his killer left without a trace and without any of you women noticing. So we're back to where we started. How did it happen?"
                  I stared at my bowl of butter pecan soup on the table. "I don’t know, Lester. I'm trying."
                  I was silent for a long time. I felt Lester's eyes on me. I didn’t care.
                  Then something happened.
                  I think a melted bowl of butter pecan ice cream should be tested for its miraculous ability to help a mind sort out problems.
                  I suddenly got the urge to go back to the brewery.
                  Here's how it happened. Staring at that bowl, I was thinking about the part I didn’t tell Lester. I was thinking about Mr. X. I was thinking about his offer to buy the brewery. And suddenly I felt like I was afraid I was going to lose it. And that's when I realized that I had indeed been afraid to lose it. All this talk about what I really wanted in life. All this stuff about being a private eye. It was just a diversion. I liked solving