In the Drink (20 page)

“Whatever you feel the most comfortable with,” Duncan said.

Mal said, “I'm not comfortable with her taking some form of public transit alone. She's exposed enough already.”

“She'll be perfectly safe because no one will know it's her,” Duncan said. “Trust me on this. I've seen what Isabel can do. She's very good.”

“Is she someone we can trust?” Mal asked.

“Absolutely,” Duncan said. “My mother has been involved with theater groups both here and in Chicago most of her life. That's how I met Isabel. She's a longtime family friend.”

“Okay, then,” I said, smiling at Mal with more reassurance than I felt. “Our plans are set. And if we're going to make that eleven o'clock tour, I best get dressed.”

“If it's any consolation,” Duncan said, “after you get here and listen in on our talk with Apostle Mike, I'll be free to take you anywhere you want. And tonight I'll be able to stay at your place. Mal, that means you're off the hook.”

Mal frowned, but said, “Great,” and sounded as if he meant it.

I disconnected the call feeling quite chipper after Duncan said, “See you soon, Sunshine. Can't wait.”

I dashed off to dress, leaving Mal to his own devices. My spirits were definitely buoyed by the prospect of finally getting some time alone with Duncan, but I was also a little skeptical. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that something would happen to once again quash our plans.

Fifteen minutes later I was ready to go and Mal and I headed downstairs, where my day staff was already on duty, busy prepping for our eleven o'clock opening.

After making sure everything and everyone was on track, Mal and I headed out for the Miller plant, once again taking his car. It was a quiet drive and I felt an odd level of tension in the air, but said nothing. The drive took a little over twenty minutes thanks to the snowy streets and the morning traffic, and when we pulled into the lot of the Miller plant, it was after eleven. We walked inside the tourist area and gift shop, and headed for the podium to register for the next tour. There was a signup sheet, and after a moment's hesitation, I went ahead and put down my real name. I had no way of knowing if a picture had been provided for this latest rendezvous. If someone here was going to find me, having my name on the list would help.

Once we were signed up, we wandered around the gift shop waiting for the tour to start. Mal was quiet and seemed a little sullen, and I wondered why. But I didn't want to be distracted from our goal, so I said nothing. Finally, a young fellow with an acne-stricken face announced to all that the next tour was about to start. We lined up with about fifteen other people—it takes more than a major snowstorm to shut down anything in Milwaukee—and after a brief introduction, we were all ushered into a theater.

For the next twenty minutes we watched a film about Frederick Miller, the story of the girl in the moon, and the history of the Miller Company. When it was done, we were directed to head out a door on the opposite side of the theater. Our guide led us out of the building we were in and into another—the packaging plant. There we were treated to a mesmerizing display of high-speed, modern mechanization. As our guide explained the process and boggled our minds with numbers, we watched from a glassed-in catwalk above the huge warehouse floor as thousands of bottles of beer a minute were labeled and packaged for shipping.

Our next stop was several levels up, where the giant tuns used for fermenting are kept. We learned about malting and mashing, the difference between ales and lagers, variations in the fermenting process, and more. Next we headed out to the street, where the guide gave us a brief history lesson on the architecture of some of the buildings that make up the brewery. From there we entered the underground caves that Frederick Miller used decades ago to store the beer. The last stop on the tour was a Bavarian-style inn where we were seated and given samples of three different beers to taste.

Mal was fascinated by the tour, and his mood had improved remarkably by the time we reached the inn. Because I'd done the tour before, I'd spent most of my time studying the people around us—the others in our group, the guides, the employees, people on the street—wondering if we were being watched, or if we'd be approached. As we sat sipping our beers, Mal was chatting away about what we'd just seen, happy and excited. I, on the other hand, sat disappointed, wondering if we'd made a mistake in our interpretation of the last letter.

As I brooded and Mal chatted on, our acne-scarred tour guide approached the table. “Miss Dalton?”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly breathless with anticipation.

“I have something I'm supposed to give you.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded, plain white envelope, and handed it to me.

I saw Mal wince and shake his head, no doubt because any evidence that might have been on that envelope—though if history was any indication there wasn't any—was now thoroughly contaminated.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the envelope.

He turned to leave, but I called him back. “Wait, I have some questions for you.”

He turned back and stood there, shifting nervously from one foot to another.

“How did you get this?”

“It was in a big envelope that was left here at the desk with my name on it.”

Clever,
I thought. The mode of delivery changed each time. “Was there money in the envelope?”

He nodded, looking about nervously.

“Mind if I ask how much?”

“That's kind of personal,” he said in a low voice.

“I know, and I'm sorry to ask. It's just that I'm new to this scavenger hunt game and I'm worried that I'm not paying enough to the people I use to deliver clues. I don't want to look cheap.”

He blinked rapidly several times, staring at me with a confused expression. “Scavenger hunt?” he said.

I explained further, using the same story I'd used on the others. When I was done, his confused expression had been replaced by one of dawning understanding.

“It's a game,” he said, looking relieved. I wondered what he thought he was getting into. Did he think it was something illegal, like money for a drug trade or something? “That's totally ridic. How did you get into it?”

“It's something my friends and I do for entertainment. So can you tell me how much you were paid?”

“I guess,” he said with another lopsided shrug. “There was a hundred bucks in the envelope. But please don't tell anyone, okay? I need this job and I'm not sure they'd like me doing this.”

“I won't tell a soul,” I promised, thinking,
a hundred dollars for each delivery. Whoever was sending the letters definitely wasn't hurting financially. Someone like Apostle Mike fits that bill.
“And were you instructed to do something to communicate that this delivery was successful?” I asked the guide.

He nodded and flashed a crooked smile. “I'm supposed to post an ad on Craigslist in the lost and found section that says I lost a cell phone with a zebra striped case at the zoo.”

“What number are you supposed to list with the ad?” Mal asked.

“Mine.” He shrugged again and smiled. “I don't imagine I'll get any calls.”

“And what if I hadn't shown up?” I asked.

“If you didn't come in by five o'clock on Tuesday, I was supposed to rip the smaller envelope into pieces and flush it down a toilet along with its contents. Then I was supposed to post the ad on Craigslist but list the phone with a leopard patterned case.”

“Do you still have the envelope this one came in?”

He shook his head. “I tossed it in the gift shop trash and the cleaning people came through a little later.”

He was starting to look spooked, so I put on my best friendly smile and said, “You did great, uh . . . what's your name?”

“Brad.”

“Well, thanks for all your help, Brad. I appreciate it.”

He accepted my gratitude with a spastic nod and then hurried off.

I glanced at my watch and then looked over at Mal. “It's almost twelve-thirty, so I suppose we should head back so I can meet with Isabel. Do you think I'd look better as a blonde or a brunette?”

“I think you'd look great as either,” Mal said with a warm smile.

And with that, the awkwardness returned.

The bar wasn't very busy when we got back, typical for a Monday afternoon, not to mention a post-blizzard Monday. I led the way up to my apartment, where Mal and I donned gloves and then carefully opened the envelope the guide had given me, using the same technique as before. There was the usual piece of plain printer type paper, folded into thirds. But there were several other items inside the paper. I unfolded it and let the items drop onto the paper we had on the table: a small piece of green terry cloth, a scrap of some sort of filter paper, a flower petal, three small squares of folded paper, and three tiny pictures that looked as if they had been cut from magazine pages. On the inside of the folded piece of paper, written in the same calligraphic style, was one line:

“What the . . . ?” Mal said.

His words echoed my thoughts. I carefully arranged all the items on the table, grabbed my cell phone, and took several pictures. Then I sent the pictures to Duncan with a message to call me when he could. I hoped whoever this was couldn't track my calls and texts.

With that done, I focused in on the tiny pictures that had been inside the envelope. The first one I looked at was small, only one inch by two inches, and it showed a faucet with water running from it. The other side of the paper had words on it, some small segment from an article. The second picture showed a marquee advertising the show
Cats,
but unlike the first picture, the back side of it showed no print. Instead it was a plain white expanse. There wasn't a complete sentence to be had in the printed portion of the first picture and the words that were there weren't particularly telling:
next he went to the last
, and
they didn't find anyone who
, and
said he thought it might be
. . . that sort of stuff. I didn't think the words themselves were significant; I felt strongly that the picture was the key. But perhaps there would be a way to trace the words to a specific article and magazine that might provide a lead of some sort.

When I focused on the third picture, which was only one inch square, I realized it wasn't from a magazine after all. It was part of a map. It showed Interstates 94 and 35 meeting at an intersection, and there were other street names visible: Wabasha, St. Peter, and Rice.

I moved from the pictures to the small folded pieces of paper. Carefully, I unfolded one of them and inside I found a tiny piece of plastic wrap that contained a brown, grainy substance. As I looked at it, turning it first one way, then another, a tiny amount of the substance trickled out. I caught a whiff of something and started to tell Mal about it, but before I could he said in a sharp, terse tone, “Put it down now! Very slowly.”

He looked panicked and I did as he said, staring at his face. “What?” I said, frightened.

“It might be a poison of some sort.”

“It's not. It's cinnamon.”

He looked at me with skepticism. “You can't know that.”

“Yes, I can. I can smell it, and along with the smell I hear a hollow banging sound, like shells being knocked together. I know what that is. Believe me, it's just cinnamon.”

“You're positive.”

I nodded, licked a finger, stuck it in some of the grains that had fallen out, and then put my finger in my mouth. I thought Mal was going to faint. “It's cinnamon,” I said. “Relax.”

I grabbed another of the folded papers and opened it. Inside was more plastic wrap, and inside that was a tiny brown piece of something. I carefully opened the plastic and took a whiff, wrinkling my nose. “This is bread, rye bread.”

I set the plastic wrap down with the crumb still on it and went for the third piece of folded paper. A distinctive odor emanated from it even before I had it fully opened. As with the other two, this one contained a small piece of plastic wrap, and inside that were several tiny iridescent, fan-shaped objects.

“Fish scales,” I said.

I put the fish scales down and picked up the small piece of filter paper, running it under my nose. “This is from a coffee filter,” I told him. “And there was coffee in it at one time.”

Mal sucked in a deep breath and said, “This is crazy. What the hell is all this stuff supposed to mean?”

I picked up the tiny square of green terry cloth and sniffed it. “This has been soaked in wine at some point. It's dry now, but at one time it had chardonnay on it.”

“What about the petal?” Mal asked. “Anything weird with it?”

I gently picked it up and smelled it. “It's a basic rose petal,” I announced, setting it back down.

We stood there for a minute or so, eyeing the items and thinking.

“Any ideas?” Mal said finally.

“Not a clue,” I said, feeling my frustration grow.

“Well, at least we have a couple of days to figure it out.”

“I'm not sure it will be enough,” I said worriedly. “This little game is starting to wear on my nerves, Mal.”

“We'll get to the bottom of it,” he assured me, though I thought I detected a hint of hesitancy in his voice. He reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Maybe it's this Apostle Mike guy Duncan is focused on. If it is, we might put an end to this today.”

“And if it's not?”

He didn't answer right away. Instead he kept staring at the items on the table. Finally, he said, “There's a lot of stuff here that might produce trace evidence of some sort, that plastic wrap, the pictures, the papers. Maybe the guy behind this slipped up and left something for us this time. We need to get Duncan to have it analyzed.”

I realized he was right. This thing was too big for me to handle alone without the resources Duncan could bring to the table. I grabbed my phone again and snapped some more pictures of the items now that we had opened them, zooming in on all of the pictures and the text on the backside of the faucet one. I took a few minutes to send these to Duncan along with a description of the items.

When I was done, Mal said, “Give it time. We'll figure something out.”

“I guess I don't have any choice.” I thought about my afternoon appointment with Isabel the makeup artist and said, “We need to put this stuff somewhere.”

Mal nodded. “Let's bag it all.”

I grabbed a box of baggies and we carefully placed each item in its own bag. When we were done, we put them all in a paper bag and I carried them into my father's old office.

When I came out, Mal said, “I'm hungry and that BLT you make is fantastic. Any chance I can talk you into buying me lunch?”

“Sure,” I said with a wan smile. “I'm hungry, too.”

We headed downstairs into the bar kitchen, where I fixed us both a BLT and some fries. We carried these upstairs to the Capone Club room to check in on the crew. Because of the day, the time, and the weather, there was only a handful of people there: Cora, the Signoriello brothers, Carter, and Tiny. I knew that Alicia and Holly might stop in for lunch since the bank they worked at was walking distance away, and Tad and Kevin might come by after they finished their work days. Dr. T, on the other hand, had told the group last night that she had a couple of twelve-hour shifts coming up, so she might not be back in for a day or so.

Cora eyed our sandwiches with envy. “Those BLTs are making my stomach growl. Is anyone else hungry?” Everyone nodded. Cora nudged Tiny with her elbow and said, “Then I'll tell you what. If you and Carter will run downstairs and order sandwiches for all of us, I'll pay. Just tell Pete to put it on my tab.”

Tiny and Carter were more than happy to oblige. I realized as soon as they were gone that the motive behind Cora's generosity was more than simple hunger.

“So how did it go at the brewery?” she asked.

The brothers both sat forward in their chairs, eager to hear the news. I updated them on how our tour had gone and then told them about the items in the letter we received.

“Wow,” Joe said. “Whoever is sending these letters is ratcheting things up. That's a lot of clues for one letter. Any idea what they mean?”

I shook my head, as did Mal.

Cora said, “The group is talking about looking into Lewis's case despite Tyrese's instructions not to. His death has hit them hard.”

“You guys need to do what you can to keep them focused on something else,” I said. “If any of them start poking around they could really stir up a hornet's nest of trouble.”

“We can try,” Cora said, and the brothers both nodded their agreement. “But a few of them seem rather determined.”

We heard Tiny and Carter returning so in a hushed voice I said, “We can talk some more later. In the meantime, do what you can to rein in the group and let me know if you come up with any ideas on the latest letter.”

The threesome nodded their understanding and then switched their attention to our returning duo.

“Any news on the book front, Carter?” I asked as he and Tiny settled back in their seats.

“Not really,” Carter said. “But Sam wanted me to tell you that he'd be happy to go and see this Schneider guy either this evening or anytime tomorrow since he's off.”

“I think tomorrow would work best for me,” I said.

“You should take Tyrese or Nick along,” Mal said. “If this guy goes off the deep end I want to make sure you're safe.”

“Tyrese said he's on his long stretch off,” Cora said. “I'll give him a call and let him know what your plans are.”

“Thanks,” I said, nodding my agreement. “I have some business stuff to take care of this afternoon, but I'll check in with you guys later this evening.”

As I thought, Holly and Alicia popped in for lunch and we all talked about our list of suspects some more. Mal and I finished our sandwiches and just before two, we headed back down to the main area of the bar and settled in on the bar stools. While Mal and my daytime bartender, Pete, started talking football stats, I kept my eye on the door. A short time later, a woman with shoulder-length curly brown hair came up to the bar wheeling a small suitcase behind her.

“I'm looking for Mack Dalton,” she said.

“I'm Mack.” I hopped off my stool and walked over to shake her hand. “Are you Isabel?”

“I am,” she said with a big smile and a firm handshake.

“Let me take you upstairs so we can discuss the plan.” I was eager to get her away from prying eyes and ears since I wasn't sure if Duncan had told her that what we were doing needed to be secret.

“The plan?” Pete said, curious, dashing any hope I had for a clean getaway.

“Um, I'm thinking about doing some redecorating in the apartment and Isabel is an interior designer who was recommended to me.” I turned to Isabel and gave her a wink that no one else could see. “Would you like a drink before we head upstairs?”

She shook her head. “No, thanks. I just had lunch.”

I turned to Mal and said, “Want to come along?”

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “You probably need a man's opinion to keep things from getting too frilly.”

I led the three of us upstairs to my apartment and as soon as we were behind closed doors, I turned to Isabel. “Sorry about that, but what we're doing here has to remain a secret from everyone except us three and Duncan. I didn't know if Duncan had relayed that to you.”

“He did say that he needed me for a top secret project,” she said. “I'm fine with the interior designer story. In fact, I do a little interior design on the side along with some set design.”

“Well, feel free to make suggestions,” I told her. “I haven't done much with the place. I meant to after my father died, but I've just never gotten around to it.” I directed her to the dining room table. “Will this suffice as a work area?”

“It will,” she said, laying her suitcase down on the floor and opening it. “Have a seat. This will take a little time because per Duncan's instructions, I'm going to make you unrecognizable.”