Death & the Brewmaster's Widow Read online

  Wren took a deep breath. I will not kill the ex-wife, she told herself. I will not kill the ex-wife. Unless she’s thinking she’s going to get him back, in which case I might very well kill the ex-wife.

  She went to the top of the steep, narrow staircase that led from the sidewalk up to the office. “He’s not here, Madeline.”

  Madeline was waiting at the foot of the steps. She wore a light summer frock and sandals, her hair was perfectly styled and her makeup flawless. She was a tiny, elegant, exquisitely beautiful woman and Wren never failed to feel like an ox next to her. She carried her infant son in his carrier, her pose such that the first thing a person’s eyes were drawn to, if they were standing at the top of the steps, was the baby’s innocent face.

  Benji had been conceived while Death was fighting overseas. Death adored him, even though he was not his, and Madeline was not above wielding him as a weapon. Madeline’s pretty face puckered into a bitter grimace. “Where is he?”

  “He had some errands to run. Is there something I can help you with?”

  Madeline huffed an impatient little sigh. “I brought over the carton with his brother’s things. It’s in the back of my car, but I can’t lift it. Do you know when he’s coming back?”

  “No, I don’t. Let me see if I can get it.” Wren clattered down the stairs, ignoring the sour look Madeline was giving her.

  Madeline raked her stare up and down Wren’s body, face a picture of disapproval, and Wren involuntarily glanced down at herself. She was wearing sneakers, ragged blue jean cut-offs and—oh, yeah!—one of Death’s old USMC Tshirts.

  Ha! she thought. Suck on that, Hooker Barbie!

  A large, white shipping carton sat on the back seat of Madeline’s car. Madeline opened the door and Wren pulled it out carefully. It weighed no more than five or ten pounds and she canted an eyebrow at Madeline.

  “It must be nice to be so strong and manly,” Madeline said snidely.

  “Strength is not gender-specific,” she replied pointedly and led the way upstairs. Madeline followed, lugging Benjamin. Wren thought it ironic that the baby in his carrier surely weighed more than the carton she was carrying.

  Death’s desk was a sturdy old wooden affair that had probably come out of a classroom. Every time Wren looked at it, she expected to see a chalkboard on the wall behind it. She set the carton on it now and hopped up to sit beside it. Madeline dropped into one of the two visitor’s chairs and looked around with interest. The connecting door to Death’s apartment stood open, the clothes Wren had been sorting for him spread across the bed. A pair of Wren’s own underwear was mixed in with them. It was only there because it had been static-electricitied to one of his shirts in the dryer, but Madeline didn’t need to know that.

  She drummed her fingers on the top of the carton. “What’s in here, do you know?”

  “Just Randy’s uniform and his helmet. All that heavy outer stuff—”

  “His turnout gear?”

  “I guess. All that was issued by the department. My mother sorted through it and sent it back to them. She also washed his uniform before we packed it up and put it away. Mother adores Death, you know.”

  “Well, Death’s an adorable guy.”

  Madeline fidgeted. “Where does he think the extra badge came from?”

  “Best guess is that someone at the coroner’s office realized it was missing and thought they’d lost it. Rather than admit to misplacing it, they somehow got another one to replace it with.”

  “Cover your ass,” Madeline observed.

  The bell rang again and Wren heard the distinctive sound of Death’s heavy breathing as he struggled his way up the stairs. Madeline made as if to jump up and go help him, but Wren stayed her with a fierce look. “Don’t!”

  “But …”

  “No. Don’t.”

  He reached the top and stood for a moment braced against the doorframe, catching his breath. Wren beamed at him. “You only had to stop twice! You’re getting better!”

  He shrugged and came over to lean against the desk beside her. “Well, I saw both your cars out front. I thought there might be a girl fight going on.”

  “And you didn’t bring popcorn?” she asked tartly.

  “I’ve got cheese curls in the cupboard.” He made faces at the baby, then glanced at the white carton and his face sobered. “Randy’s things?”

  Wren rubbed his upper arm. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  Instead of answering, he took out his pocket knife and slit the tape holding the carton closed. He opened the flaps and the air that rose out carried the scents of dust and fabric softener and the ghost of burning things.

  “I can still smell a hint of smoke. Am I just imagining it?”

  “No.” Death shook his head. “Gramp’s things were the same way, years after he retired.”

  “But Mom washed his uniform,” Madeline objected.

  “It’d be in his helmet lining.” Death lifted a typewritten letter from the box and glanced over it before passing it along to Wren. It was an official letter from the coroner’s office, expressing condolences and listing the original contents of the carton. The letter noted that Randy’s turnouts were the property of the St. Louis Fire Department and that Death would need to contact them about their disposition. In the contents list someone had placed a neat check mark in blue ink next to each item of turnout gear.

  Randy’s badge was on the list, between his station pants and a flashlight. Death had taken a second letter from the box, this one handwritten.

  Dear Sergeant Bogart, We’ve never met, but I’ve heard so many stories about you that I feel as if I know you well. My job includes responding to fatality incidents such as fires and traffic accidents. It was in this capacity that I met your brother. Though I never told him so, and I’m sorry now that I did not, I was always impressed with Randy, with his charm and his sense of humor and with his integrity. Though I saw him at the worst of times and under the most difficult circumstances, I never knew him to act without courage and compassion. I know I don’t need to tell you that he was a credit to his department and to this city. To me, he was a dear friend and I shall miss him greatly. Please accept my deepest condolences and, if ever there is anything I can do for you, do not hesitate to contact me.

  Sincerely, Sophie Depardieu

  Assistant Medical Examiner, City of St. Louis

  “She was sweet on him,” Wren said.

  “Do you think so?”

  Madeline nodded; for once the two women were in agreement.

  “She’d be the one who polished the badge and put it in the jewelry box,” Wren added. “She probably thought his original badge was lost in the fire and she wanted you to have one.”

  “She’s put her phone number on the letter. I’ll call her when I get there tomorrow. I expect you’re probably right.”

  Randy’s helmet lay on top of the items still in the carton. Death lifted it out reverently and set it aside. Beneath it was a uniform, a dark blue-gray polo shirt and matching cargo pants. A heavy metal flashlight lay across the neatly folded shirt. Wren leaned over and frowned into the box. “What’s the matter?”

  “Shouldn’t there be boots in there?”

  “Boots are part of turnout gear. They’d have gone back to the department. Somebody else is wearing them now. His helmet’s theirs, too. I probably need to return it as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, no,” Madeline said. “The helmet’s yours. The department told Mom that you could have it. They said they’d normally present it to you at the funeral, but—” she broke off and looked away. Death was focused on a point on the opposite wall and Wren, sitting next to him and between the two, felt but did not understand the sudden tension between them.

  “Okay, look,” Madeline clicked perfect nails against the chair arm. “I handled everything really crappy. I know that. And I’m sorry, Death. I am so sorry. But you have to understand that none of it meant that I didn’t love you.”

  “I k
now,” he said softly, and Wren felt suddenly as if she had been set adrift. Death put his hand over hers on the desk, anchoring them together, and continued. “But everything that happened … happened. There’s no point now in regrets or recriminations.” He turned his attention to Wren. “Madeline claimed Randy’s body. She had him cremated and asked the fire department to do something with his ashes.”

  “But surely they would have waited for you.”

  “I asked them not to,” Madeline said. “I thought he was going to have enough to deal with when he woke up. If he woke up. Some of the doctors didn’t think he would, you know.”

  “His station had a nice ceremony,” Death said. “There were pictures in with the papers Captain Cairn brought me. They took him out on a fire boat and sprinkled his ashes on the Mississippi, just below the confluence where the Missouri comes in.” With her free hand, Wren picked up the helmet, cradled it in her lap, and looked down at it, wondering about this man who had meant so much to the man she loved. As she focused on what she was seeing, she frowned.

  “Death? Honey?”

  “Mmm?”

  “There’s a sort of a little badge-thingie on here, made out of leather, with a number on it.”

  He laughed a little. “The badge-thingie on his hat would be his hat badge. It’s a matched set with his regular badge.”

  “And the numbers on them, they would match too, right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  She turned the helmet so he could see the front. The number on it was 4183. “It matches the wrong badge.”

  _____

  Belle Fontaine Cemetery, under a cloudless summer sky, looked more like a painting than like something that should really exist. Death guided his Jeep through the main entrance and followed well-known lanes that led to the Bogart family plot.

  It had been raining the last time he was here, he remembered. He and Randy, riding in the back of a funeral home limousine, followed the hearse that carried their parents’ coffins. It had been a closed casket funeral—the car accident that killed them quick and brutal. Madeline had ridden with her mother, several cars back. He’d come home on bereavement leave and she’d stayed apart from him almost the entire time. Even then she’d been distancing herself, though he didn’t realize it at the time.

  At the time, he’d been too caught up in his grief and in taking care of his brother. Randy’s experience with car accidents had served him poorly. He was too able to imagine the crash and its after effects and he’d had nightmares nearly every night. They’d also had their parents’ estate to deal with. Only in their late forties, the elder Bogarts hadn’t been prepared for sudden death. In the end it was necessary to sell their house to settle their debts.

  Randy had felt particularly bad about that. He’d inherited their grandparents’ place and their parents’ house was supposed to eventually go to Death. He’d offered to sell his house and split the profit with Death, but Death had declined. The Corps had promised him a permanent assignment at Whiteman after his tour was over and he and Madeline were buying a house just off base.

  That was Madeline’s house now. Death had let her keep it on the understanding that she would be responsible for the payments. They’d had a pre-nup—his grandmother had convinced them to do that—and he hadn’t been required to give her anything. He had done it, though, even though it left him homeless, so that Benjamin would have a safe place to grow up.

  Death pulled over when he was as close to the plot as the road would take him. Wishing he’d thought to pick up some flowers, he jumped down and paced across the green grass, skirted a larger monument, and stopped beside a stone that read BOGART. His grandparents were buried to the left, his parents to the right, each couple sharing a stone. Nonna (Terhaar) Rogers, his maternal great-grandmother, was buried next to her husband down in Ste. Genevieve. All five of them had died within the last three years.

  There was no stone for Randy, of course, and it occurred to Death that he should set one. His brother deserved a memorial, even if there was no body to go under it.

  Death didn’t know why he had come here. A sense of responsibility, maybe? The idea that it was his filial duty, and a duty that he left too long undone? He opened his mouth to apologize, for not coming for so long, for not bringing flowers, for not taking good enough care of Randy or, at the very least, seeing that he was properly laid to rest.

  The words wouldn’t come. He didn’t feel his family’s presence here. There was nothing in this tranquil green and growing place but sorrow and loss. In the not quite two years since their funeral, the soil of his parents’ grave had subsided. The outline of the grave was sunken, with a deep crack running around one corner. He thought, with a frisson of horror, that if he stepped closer he would be able to look down into the earth and see the concrete vault in which their broken bodies were interred.

  The cemetery darkened as a cloud drifted across the sun. A chill breeze sent a shiver through him. He sighed and closed his eyes. Bowed his head. Then he returned to his Jeep and drove away.

  _____

  “Bogart,” he said. “D. D. Bogart.” The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s office was in a big, brick block of a building. Given the nature of the place, he couldn’t bring himself to present himself as Death, even with the different pronunciation.

  “And who was it you wanted to see again?”

  “Ms. Depardieu. We spoke on the phone. She should be expecting me.”

  The young man at the reception desk checked his computer and leaned back, looking perplexed and horrified. “It says, um, it says she has an appointment this afternoon.”

  Death sighed. “With death?”

  “Yeah.”

  He fished out his driver’s license. “That would be me. It’s the first D.”

  “Your parents named you Death?”

  “It’s pronounced Deeth. I was named after a fictional detective. Lord Peter Wimsey, maybe you’ve heard of him. Some of the books have been done on Mystery on PBS.” He read a lack of comprehension in the other man’s face. “Nevermind.”

  “But …” the guy frowned. “But, if you were named after a Lord Peter, shouldn’t your name be Peter?”

  “It was his second name. He had four. He pronounced it to rhyme with breath, but my kindergarten teacher hyperventilated so my mother said we could pronounce mine, as Lord Peter said most who have the name do, to rhyme with teeth.”

  “So when you were a toddler your name was Death? As in death Death?”

  “What can I say? I was a badass toddler.”

  The heavy metal door that closed off the entryway from the rest of the building opened and a young woman in a lab coat stuck her head through. “George, has anyone—” she broke off and caught Death with a piercing look. “You have got to be Sergeant Bogart. You look just like your brother.”

  “I always told him I was the handsome one. You must be Ms. Depardieu.”

  “Please, call me Sophie.”

  “Only if you’ll call me Death.”

  She held the door open and motioned him through. “If you’d like to come through here, my office is this way.”

  Her office was not small, but it felt crowded with a large, cluttered desk and overflowing book shelves. Death took the seat she offered him and accepted a cup of coffee. She filled his cup from a coffee maker that sat next to a sink at the side of the room, then topped off her own cup. “Sometimes I swear I live on this stuff,” she said, pausing to take a long drink.

  A picture of Randy, a framed snapshot on the wall behind her desk, had caught Death’s eye the moment he walked in. He motioned to it now. “You didn’t take that at a fatality accident,” he observed.

  Randy, in uniform, was leaning against the door of his brush truck, his body hiding part of the station logo. He was just a shade shorter than Death, his hair was darker, and he didn’t have the bulky Marine Corps muscles that Death had, but the resemblance was striking. He was grinning at the camera with an easy charm that lit his whole
face. It was the smile he saved for pretty girls and Death reflected that Captain Cairn had been right. If Sophie was the one who’d taken this picture, then Randy had been sweet on her.

  “I took that one day when I had a flat tire on my way to work. Randy and Rowdy passed me, going on a grocery run, and stopped and changed it for me. He was always kind that way. Never too busy to lend someone a hand.” She stopped speaking and held up one hand, asking for a moment. Overcome with emotion.

  Wren and Madeline were right, Death thought. She had been attracted to Randy too. He took the opportunity to study her. Under other circumstances, she might have been potential sister-in-law material. She was taller than average, big-boned and slightly heavyset. Her face was more interesting than traditionally pretty, but it showed character. Randy would have been attracted to that.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You didn’t come all the way out here to watch me cry. You said on the phone you had some questions. I’ve got a copy of Randy’s death certificate and, if you think you want it, I can get you a copy of the autopsy report. I know this must have been a shock to you. I talked to his doctor during the course of the investigation and he had no idea that Randy had had heart problems.”

  “It’s not so much Randy’s death that I need to ask about,” Death said. He took the jewelry box and the hat badge from his pocket and laid them on the desk. “I need to know about these badges. I need to know where they came from.”

  four

  Sophie Depardieu frowned, puzzled. “They came off your brother’s uniform,” she said. She indicated the larger, metal shield. “This was his main badge and this,” pointing to the leather emblem, “was his hat badge. It was fixed to his helmet.”

  “Yes, but they’re not Randy’s.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understand.”

  “The morning he died, Randy snapped the back off his badge. When he went into that fire his badge was on his captain’s desk waiting to be repaired. We discovered that I’d gotten the wrong badge when Captain Cairn brought me the right one.” He reached into his shirt pocket and came up, this time, with Randy’s real badge in its silver frame.