Chapter 21. Barrel of Fun

WHITNEY

I spent Thursday evening in my garage at home. Thanks to the barrel I'd picked up at the Jack Daniel's distillery, my entire garage smelled like it had been soaked in liquor. Sawdust had followed me from the house into the garage. The whiskey barrel was something new he hadn't seen before. As curious cats are wont to do, he'd sauntered over to check it out. He stopped a few feet back, blinking his eyes against the alcohol fumes emanating from the wood. He gingerly stretched his nose forward, his whiskers twitching as he sniffed. He jerked his head back in what could best be described as a kitty cringe, turned, and skittered off, trying to put as much distance between himself and the stinky barrel as possible in the confined space.

While Sawdust perched atop a lawn chair in the corner to watch me, I sawed the whiskey barrel in half lengthwise. I set one half aside and moved the other from the sawhorses to the workbench, where I proceeded to sand the edges and interior by hand.

Tiny wood particles flew, but my eyes were protected by plastic goggles and my lungs by a mask. It was a thin paper dust mask variety rather than the heavy-duty vapor-proof one I'd worn earlier at the fire station, but the simple accessory did its job of keeping the wood dust out of my nose and mouth. As I moved my hand back and forth over the whiskey-soaked wood, sanding the rough surface down to a smooth finish, I contemplated the list of Joanna's possible killers.

I'd feel terrible if the Bottiglieris had brought about her death, because it would mean that her murder had been instigated by me and Buck buying the townhouse. After all, the Bottiglieris had ignored Joanna for years. Or had they? I didn't recall the exact words we'd exchanged with each of the seven siblings when Buck, Presley, and I had gone to their homes to offer them money in exchange for the quitclaim deeds, but I was nearly certain I'd mentioned to one or two of them that it was Joanna who'd initially brought the townhouse to our attention. Peter had been angry enough to paint the word theives on the walls and cabinets, and someone else, presumably Judith, had been behind the fire at the fire station. These were not normal, reasonable people. They might blame Joanna for what transpired, felt that they'd lost the house because of her actions. Maybe they'd wanted vengeance. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that a Bottiglieri was to blame, and that the Bottiglieri was probably Peter. After all, he'd been in the building when he'd vandalized our townhouse. It wasn't a stretch to think he might have somehow been able to get a tainted pack of cigarettes into Joanna's hands.

Still, when I mentally backed off and thought of the situation in more general terms, another potential suspect came to mind. Mothers-in-law were known to be overbearing, and Joanna had clearly been no exception. If she was willing to chastise her daughter and son-in-law right in front of us, calling Holden stupid right to his face, what other derogatory things had she said to him over the years? Besides, the Griffins' unit in Gideon's building had been quite small and cramped compared to Joanna's four-bedroom townhouse, and would have been more crowded once the baby arrived. Maybe Holden realized that, if he got rid of Joanna, his wife would inherit her unit and they could move in and live much more comfortably in the larger space.

Something came back to me then, something I'd heard Joanna say but to which I had given little thought at the time. When Joanna had expressed concern about the family's financial stability now that Macy would have to take time off from her work as a hairdresser, Macy had assured her mother that they were fine. Joanna had replied with a suspicious phrase—that's what you think. She hadn't elaborated, and the conversation moved on without a clarification. What had she meant when she'd said that to Macy?

A realization struck me. My hand froze mid-swipe inside the barrel, the coarse-grade sandpaper clutched in my fingers. I'd all but forgotten in the hubbub that followed, but when Joanna had collapsed at the fire station and I'd gone to Gideon's for help in reaching Holden, Gideon had first tried Holden's cell phone. When he'd been unable to reach Holden on his mobile device, Gideon had placed a call to the cold storage facility where Holden worked, only to be told that Holden wasn't there. It had been nearly two o'clock, too late in the day for a typical lunch break. Gideon had let them know the situation was dire, an emergency. If Holden had been somewhere on the premises taking a coffee break or a bathroom break, surely they could have located him and gotten him on the phone. Holden hadn't been there, had he? But why not? And where had he been instead? He'd been wearing a uniform for Frozen Freight Carriers when he and Macy had come to Joanna's to inform her that Macy was expecting. Had he later left his job for one reason or another? Had he quit? Been fired? Had the job given him access to mercury?

Leaving the barrel behind, I went back into the house, my sweet kitty padding along behind me. I ran a quick search on the internet and learned that commercial freezers often contained mercury. In fact, the light switches had to be removed as potential sources of toxic chemicals before any remaining metal could be recycled. The article also mentioned the chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons that had been traditionally used in refrigerants until it was discovered that the chemicals depleted Earth's ozone layer. While certainly worrisome, I was trying to solve a woman's murder here, not the world's climate crisis, so I focused on the parts of the post that dealt with mercury. It seemed clear that Holden had access to mercury on his job. But had he obtained mercury there? If he had, did it have something to do with why he hadn't been on site the day Joanna had collapsed and Gideon had tried to call him at work?

It was after regular business hours now, but I knew what I'd be doing the instant the clock struck eight the following morning. I'd be making a phone call to Frozen Freight Carriers.

I had a hard time sleeping Thursday night, worrying and wondering whether Holden might have murdered his mother-in-law so that he could move his family into her house. My mind was also active trying to come up with a ruse for calling the company. Fortunately, by Friday morning, I'd come up with one I figured might work.

I didn't want to catch management right when they arrived at work and would be harried, trying to catch up on late-arriving emails from the day before and getting things going for the day. Thus, I began work at the firehouse and waited until half past nine to call Frozen Freight, shushing Buck before placing the call. Unlike Gideon, who'd asked to be transferred to the warehouse, I asked to speak with human resources.

"Good morning," I said. "I'm Amana DeWalt." I'd come up with the name during the wee hours of the night. It was a combination of two major tool brands. It sounded so much more convincing at three o'clock in the morning. "I've got a job applicant who works for your company and I need to verify employment dates." If I was off base here and Holden was still employed by Frozen Freight, I certainly hoped my call wouldn't jeopardize his job. With Macy pregnant and Alyssa poised to head off for college in a year, they'd need the income.

The woman on the phone asked, "What's the name of the employee?"

"Holden Griffin." For good measure, I spelled it as well. "G-R-I-F-F-I-N." I put the phone on speaker, and Buck and I stared each other down as we waited for a response.

"Got it." She paused for a second or two. "A long-term employee, I see."

Did that mean he was still employed at the cold storage company? Her phrasing wasn't clear.

She gave us his beginning date, which was years before. But then she dropped a bombshell. "His employment ended on July second."

The day that Macy and Holden had come to Joanna's place, when Buck and I had first seen them, had been August tenth, more than a month after his employment terminated, yet he'd still been wearing his Frozen Freight Carriers uniform. I suppose at that point it qualified as a costume rather than a uniform given that he was only pretending to still be employed by the company.

It took everything in me not to shout "Aha!" Instead, I threw a silent finger in the air in an aha motion. "Thank you," I said. "That's all I need."

Once the call had disconnected, I said, "Holden's been lying. To his wife. To Gideon."

"But he didn't lie to Joanna," Buck said.

"Maybe he tried, but she somehow figured it out." He must not have a new job, or there'd have been no reason for her to say that's what you think in response to Macy assuring her they were doing fine, monetarily speaking. I wondered if his termination could have anything to do with Joanna's death. Could he have been caught tampering with the machinery, trying to extract mercury?

I walked to a window, but a tree blocked my view of the Griffins' unit. I rushed downstairs and outside, circling the corner. Sure enough, Holden's pickup was nowhere to be seen. But where he'd gone each day while pretending to be at work was a mystery. What's more, with today being a Friday, the mystery couldn't be solved until Monday. Argh!

Collin came by the fire station later that morning, between handling paperwork at the police station and a visit to the county jail to interrogate a suspect they'd arrested in the double homicide. I was wearing my vapor-proof mask when I opened the door to let him in.

Collin took one look at me and laughed. "You look like a bug."

I frowned inside the device. "Thanks a lot."

"A cute bug," he clarified.

Buck was working upstairs and didn't need his vapor-proof mask at the moment, so I handed his to Collin as he walked into the bay.

Once he'd slid it on and strapped it firmly in place, I led him over and bent down next to the hex nut.

I donned a pair of disposable gloves and lifted it. "See?"

Collin leaned in so far he nearly face-planted on the cement. The mask muffled his voice when he spoke. "That tiny thing is mercury?"

"Yep." I touched the silver ball with the tip of my gloved finger to show him that it was malleable.

"And you think it fell out of Joanna's cigarette?"

"Yep," I repeated, pointing at the cigarette and loose tobacco a couple of feet away.

Crouching, he took a closer look, his gaze shifting between the bead of quicksilver, the cigarette, and the butt. "It's an intriguing theory, one definitely worth pursuing." He looked up at me. "I'm very impressed, Whitney. Not many people would have even noticed the bead of mercury, let alone put it together that it might have fallen out of the cigarette."

"Sawdust found the bead," I said, giving credit where credit was due. "I never would have noticed it myself." My kitty was quite the crime solver. "But I will take credit for putting the cigarette theory together." I beamed with pride. I'd come up with what could be a critical clue. Woo-hoo!

Collin stood. "Don't mention this to anyone outside of your inner circle, okay? We don't want this getting out before I have a chance to interview everyone."

"Understood." I waved my finger around, pointing at the pieces of evidence on the floor. "This isn't all, though. There's been another development." I told him about my call to Frozen Freight Carriers earlier that morning.

His brows arched ever so slightly behind the clear plastic shield. "That could mean something, maybe." He backed toward the bay door, where he removed the mask. "The double homicide is going to keep me tied up for the next few days, unfortunately. In fact, I'm going to have to cancel our date tonight. Sorry about that. There's a witness who's finally agreed to talk to us, but we have to wait until after his work hours. It's likely to be a long interrogation."

I sighed. I was disappointed, but I knew his work was important and had to come first. "We're still on for dinner at the Collection Plate tomorrow night, though, right?"

"For sure." His lips curved in a grin. "Can't let you make such a big decision without me."

Colette had asked Collin and me to dinner at her café with her and Buck. She planned to have cake samples for us to taste so that we could choose a flavor for our wedding cake. I could hardly wait to savor the various options she and Emmalee had come up with.

Collin placed the mask atop the steps that led to the upper floor. "As soon I get the double homicide wrapped up, I'll talk to Holden."

"Okay," I agreed, knowing all the while that I would never be able to wait a few days to get more information. I simply couldn't. I was like a cat, and my curiosity must be satisfied. I walked over to join him near the door. "You'll want to talk to Gideon, and Samira and D-Jay, too. Also Lane." I told him how I'd seen Gideon carry the pack of Newports over to Joanna's porch and leave them, how Samira and D-Jay had thrown out cartons of cigarettes from Joanna's pantry, and how Lane smoked the same brand and could presumably sneak an adulterated pack into Joanna's supply, perhaps by leaving a contaminated pack on Macy's porch.

His brows lifted. "Five suspects? I'll have my work cut out for me."

"That's not even including the Bottiglieris. They could've seen Joanna smoking her Newports and slipped her a tainted pack, as well."

Collin gave me a pointed look. "Be careful, Whitney. If someone murdered Joanna, they might be willing to kill again to cover it up."

"Don't worry. I'll be extra vigilant." I took his hands in mine, giving them a squeeze. "After all," I teased, "I've got those cake samples to live for."

He snorted a soft laugh, reached out, and lifted my mask, giving me a warm kiss before heading out the door.

I worked late at the fire station Friday evening, alone. Buck had gone home to be with Colette, but with Collin having to cancel our date, I had nothing better to do.

It was nearly ten o'clock and fully dark outside when I exited the building. Few cars were on the street as I made my way west toward Interstate 65. As I sat at a red light, a vehicle pulled up behind me. I hadn't paid it much mind until the driver turned on the high-beam headlights. They lit up my car, and the reflection in my rearview mirror was nearly blinding. Had they activated the high beams by accident and not been aware of it?

As soon as the light turned green, I started out, put on my left-turn signal, and changed lanes so that the high beams wouldn't be directly behind me. I drove slow so that the car could go past. Except it didn't. After I changed lanes, it changed lanes, too, still directly behind me and much too close for comfort. Ugh. I wasn't sure whether the driver might be impaired, or whether they were intentionally harassing me. One way to find out.

Without signaling this time, I made another quick lane change. Momentum carried the car up next to my back left fender before the driver braked and moved over behind me again. The bright beams made it impossible for me to see what type of car it was, though the fact that the headlights sat low told me it wasn't a truck or SUV.

A frisson of fear moved up my spine. Whoever was behind me now must have been casing the fire station, waiting for me to leave. Could it be Judith in her Saturn? Maybe her grandson? One of the other Bottiglieris? Somebody else entirely?

Not knowing their intentions, I wasn't sure what to do. If I slowed to a near crawl, would it make it easier for them to launch a personal attack or damage my car, if that was their plan? If I sped away and they pursued me at high speed, would I put innocent people—including myself—in danger?

Over the time we'd dated, Collin had shared personal safety tips with me. He'd told me that if a person suspected they were being followed, the best thing they could do was to drive to a police station if there was one around, or to a busy, well-lit area. The pursuer would be less likely to commit a criminal act where there would be witnesses. He said it was also a good idea to draw attention to your vehicle. If there was anything criminals didn't like, it was attention.

Maintaining a safe speed, I activated my warning flashers and laid on my horn. Unfortunately, there were few people around to see the lights or hear the honking. Rather than heading on to I-65 as I'd originally intended, I made a turn to the south, aiming for the bustling South Broadway area. As yet undeterred, the vehicle continued to trail me with its high beams on, though it had backed off a few feet.

Luckily, I caught most traffic lights on my way south, and in just two minutes arrived in SoBro. The flash of my warning lights was lost among the neon lights of the honky-tonks. As I sat at a red light, the high beams still on behind me, a bicycle bar passed by on the cross street in front of my SUV. The seats were filled with tourists in various stages of sobriety, all of them hooting and hollering and having a good old time. Lest one of them turn and fall off their seat, I refrained from honking my horn again.

When the light turned green, the driver of the pickup next to me hesitated as a couple of stragglers finished crossing the street. I whipped over into the adjacent lane, cutting the truck off before it could get moving, and hooked a quick turn. The truck rolled forward, preventing the car in pursuit from changing lanes and coming after me. It also prevented me from getting a look at the vehicle, blocking the image in my rearview mirror. But I'd gotten away—for now, at least.

As I drove home, I debated whether to call the police to report the incident. With the car no longer behind me, and having no description of the vehicle, I decided it was a moot point. I had to wonder, though, what the driver's intentions had been. Had they only been trying to unnerve me? Or had they hoped to hurt me—or worse? And who had been behind the wheel?

While construction work was hardly a nine-to-five job and Buck and I often worked weekends, we'd decided to take the day off from remodeling the fire station on Saturday. Both of us had personal chores we needed to catch up on and, of course, I had my top-secret whiskey-barrel project to finish.

Sawdust prowled around the garage as I finished sanding the inside of the barrel and applied a clear sealant. Thank goodness the whiskey smell was gone now. It had been enough to make your eyes water.

The whiskey barrel contained what was known as a bunghole, a hole drilled into the side of the barrel and through which the barrel was filled with the whiskey. Once the barrel had been filled, a bung, or stopper, was inserted into the hole to hold the whiskey inside. I'd acquired four bungs when I'd bought the barrel. Each had an inscription on the outer end that read Old No. 7, one of the varieties offered by the distillery. I attached the four bungs to the lower sides of the barrel to act as feet of sorts, giving the barrel a little play to rock side to side, but not so much that it could tip over. The final step was to line the inside of the barrel with thick foam padding, and cover the pad with waterproof fabric.

Sawdust came over to investigate. He cautiously sniffed at the barrel, evidently remembering how strongly it had smelled before I'd sanded it. His whiskers twitched, but he didn't run away this time. In fact, he stretched up on his hind legs so he could see inside the barrel. Noting that it was hollow, he brought his front paws back down to the ground, then proceeded to leap into the soft, padded space. He settled in to take a nap.

The project complete, I attached an enormous yellow bow to the top of the barrel. I'd planned on putting it in my car as soon as it was finished, but Sawdust looked absolutely adorable sleeping inside it. I snapped a pic with my phone and let him be. Collin could help me load it into my SUV later.

On the drive to the Collection Plate Café that evening, I told Collin about the car that had followed me the night before.

He frowned. "We'd need definitive proof of who was driving the car to get a restraining order against them. A security camera's not likely to pick up that level of detail at night. We'd be lucky to even narrow down a make and model."

We'd gotten lucky earlier identifying Lane Hartzell's tow truck on the security camera footage recorded the night the fire was set at the station. It had been relatively easy to identify the unusual shape of the large vehicle.

Collin said, "I'll send one of the uniformed officers by to speak to each of the Bottiglieris. I don't expect any of them will admit to it but, if one of them was the person who tailed you last night, a visit from law enforcement could deter them from pulling another stunt like that. I'm going to order a dashboard camera for your car. A rear cam, too. They don't always record a clear image when there's light interference, but it can't hurt."

Buck's van was already in the parking lot when Collin and I arrived at the Collection Plate Café. With all the bad stuff that had been happening lately, I was glad to have something happy to distract us for the next couple of hours.

Collin carried the half barrel inside. The hostess knew us both and greeted us warmly, directing us to a private dining room at the back of the place. "Colette and Emmalee have your cakes ready for sampling. We've been smelling them all day. Colette said the staff can eat the leftovers."

Free food was a nice fringe benefit of working in a restaurant. Colette used to bring leftovers home when we lived together before she and Buck married, and Emmalee occasionally brought some home now. When Emmalee moved out, Collin and I would have to fend for ourselves. Neither of us were into cooking. No doubt the quality of our meals would suffer.

We maneuvered our way through the tables, careful not to bang the barrel against the chairs. When we reached the doorway of the private room, Emmalee, Buck, and Colette looked up from the table, where five plates had been prepared with a dozen cake samples, each only slightly bigger than dice. The samples were big enough that we'd be able to taste the flavors, yet small enough that we wouldn't be so full by the last sample or two that it would affect our evaluation.

Colette stood, her baby bump noticeably bigger under her chef's uniform than the last time we'd seen her, though it had only been a matter of days. She pointed at the barrel, which Collin was holding upright. From Colette's perspective it would look like a complete whiskey barrel. "What's that?"

I grinned. "An early baby gift."

She exchanged a confused look with Buck. "You brought a barrel of whiskey for our baby?"

Collin placed the barrel on the floor, and lowered it onto its side. With the padded hollow part now showing, its purpose became immediately apparent.

Colette squealed in glee. "It's a cradle!"

My chest swelled with pride as she rocked it back and forth, the bungs preventing the barrel from rolling too far to the side where it might dump the baby out.

Emmalee looked it over, too. "This explains why I smelled whiskey at the house."

Colette grabbed me in a hug, having to lean forward over her baby bump to embrace me. "I love it, Whitney. You're the best!" She pulled back and swiped away a happy tear.

Buck bent down and examined my handiwork. "This is one cool cradle." He, too, tested it out, rocking it back and forth. "I can rock the baby in here while I sing her to sleep."

"Her?" I repeated.

Colette smiled. "The sonogram says it'll be a girl."

Having raised two boys, my aunt Nancy and uncle Roger would be glad to welcome a granddaughter. I cut Buck a glance. "Do you even know any lullabies?"

Buck looked up in thought for a moment. "Does ‘Way Too Pretty for Prison' count?"

"No!" Colette, Emmalee, and I cried in unison. I mean, we were fans of Miranda Lambert, too, but the song was all about what prison might be like if a woman killed her lover for cheating. Not exactly nursery fare.

Buck stopped rocking the cradle, bent closer, and peered inside. "Did Sawdust sleep in here?"

No sense denying it. He'd obviously shed some fur, leaving clear and convincing evidence behind.

"Someone had to try it out." I mentally chastised myself for not remembering to vacuum out the cat hair. But it would have likely been a moot point. Sawdust had been the runt of a litter of three, and one of the other two cats lived with Buck and Colette. No doubt their cat would take naps in the cradle now and then, too.

Collin and I took our seats at the table, and proceeded to taste and judge the samples. Each one was more delicious than the last, and none were typical. There was a dark chocolate almond cake. A strawberry-lemon cake. Butter pecan. My favorite, though, was the pumpkin spice, which seemed particularly fitting for a fall wedding.

I looked from Emmalee to Colette. "You two have really outdone yourselves."

Colette smiled. "It was fun developing the new recipes."

Emmalee put a hand on her belly. "I gained five pounds working on them. We're thinking of serving them at a weekly high tea."

No doubt a high tea would be very popular, and the charming café, with its adorably mismatched plates and teacups, was the perfect place for it. "That's a wonderful idea."

When we'd sampled our last bite, I turned to Collin, the taste of the soft sponge still lingering in my mouth. "My vote is the pumpkin spice."

"Mine too," he said, wiping the frosting from the corner of his mouth.

"You two made it easy," Colette said. "Some of the weddings I've catered here, the bride and groom can't agree on which one to get. It's a battle of wills. If that's how the marriage starts out, I can only imagine how quickly it's going to end."

Fortunately, Collin and I were good at compromising. I felt a tug in my gut, though, when I thought about how I hadn't told him I planned to follow Holden Griffin when he supposedly left for work Monday morning.

Emmalee drew my attention back to the business at hand. "What's your second favorite? We could use that flavor for the groom's cake."

Again, Collin and I agreed. The dark chocolate almond was our second favorite, although the strawberry-lemon was a close third.

Having essentially eaten our dessert first, we proceeded to enjoy a delicious Mediterranean pasta and salad for dinner. When we finished, Emmalee returned to her work in the kitchen, while Buck and Collin carried the cradle out to place it in Buck's van. Colette and I walked behind them.

She nudged me gently in the ribs and leaned over to whisper, "What are you going to do with the other half of the barrel?"

I shrugged. "I haven't really thought about it. Maybe I'll turn it into a bookshelf, or an end table."

"You know what you should do?" She shot me a wink. "Make yourself a cradle, too."

It was much too soon for Collin and me to be thinking about children. We hadn't even walked down the aisle yet. But there was a certain little creature who deserved a reward for bringing a critical clue to our attention, and he'd love to have a comfy new bed to sleep in.