Murder With A Chaser (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 2) by Belle Knudson

forever, but in actuality, it took no less time than it would take to fetch a glass of water from two rooms away.
                  My head spinning, I sipped.
                  Maisie Ward looked at me with what I thought was a suspicious eye. Sudden secret knowledge tends to give the holder of such knowledge a guilty conscience. I had no choice but to excuse myself then. I needed some fresh air, I said. I think she bought it.
    #
                  Ok , I thought in the comfort of my own little house with a little cup of tea on the little comfy chair that was all mine and no one else's. I had one little mystery solved. A clue. But to what? Why would Daniel Ward want me to know about a safe deposit box?
                  There was only one way to find out, and it wasn't going to be easy.
                  Safe deposit boxes are some of the most secure devices around for storing valuable items. Banks require a signature, and that signature better belong to the one whose name is on the account. If not, that signature better belong to a signatory designated by the account holder. And that signatory would have to have shown up in person to put her name on the account.
                  In other words, I didn’t look like Daniel Ward and couldn’t forge his signature, so I was up the old creek, as they say. You know which one I'm talking about.
                  My only hope was the possibility that there was another signatory on the account who could open that box in the event of Daniel Ward's death, which, unfortunately, was precisely the circumstance we found ourselves in at this very moment.
                  Typically, it's the spouse. I'd not met Maisie Ward's mother. This was going to get a whole lot more awkward for everyone.
                  Now or never, I thought, and I reached for my cell phone.
                 
    #
     
                  I made every excuse in the book not to have Sheila McMann, the ex-Mrs. Daniel Ward, come to my office for our little chat. The thought of this woman sitting a few feet away from where her ex-husband had died gave me a cold feeling. An ex is an ex, it's true, but something in me said no to this.
                  So there we sat, in Junior's Pizza, and we discussed sensitive topics over a large pie with sausage and peppers. My cousin Tanya, who worked there as a waitress, supplied an unlimited quantity of Diet Coke as we talked.
                  She was a quiet woman with dark eyes and straight black hair that was shoulder length, parted in the middle, and neatly styled. Her skin was dappled with freckles, as with someone who had seen a bit too much sun in her teenaged years. She wore not a single hint of a smile on her face, not even when joking, which she did quite a bit. It's very disconcerting to have someone joke so much with such a serious expression.
                  "How long were you and Daniel married?"
                  "Ten years. Eleven years too long," she said, unsmiling, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger.
                  "I never married," I said. It was a stupid thing to say, for it made me sound like a spinster.
                  "You never had to get married. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It's a disgraceful situation to be in, especially for a woman."
                  I leaned in, although with the din of the restaurant and the music overhead it wasn't easy for anyone to eavesdrop. "I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable."
                  "If only my husband had said that when he left me. Don’t worry, you're in the clear. But he didn't say it. He up and left me with Maisie and I got stuck with the bills – the house was paid off, thank God. And I got stuck with a child to raise."
                  "She's a remarkable girl," I said. "You