HANS DELIVERED URSULA’S STEAM MACHINE as promised. He peered into the front window while Kat and I were taking inventory of our barware over a leisurely cup of coffee. One issue with running a successful pub is keeping pint glasses in stock. Glasses tend to break and have a way of wandering off—either by accident or not. Craft beer fans collect pint glasses, which was one of the reasons we sold our logoed barware and T-shirts, but even so there were a handful of people who snuck out with a free souvenir of their visit to Nitro. It didn’t make Garrett angry. He had said, “Hey, if they loved our beer that much, I’m flattered. Not to mention that it’s ongoing branding to have our pint glasses in circulation, right?”
Kat pointed to the window. “Uh, I think you’re wanted outside.”
Hans tilted his head to the side and stuck out his tongue when I looked up from my inventory sheet.
My heart skipped a beat. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Hans. “That’s our steam cleaner.” I dug my fingernails into my thigh. You can do this, Sloan.
“Morning, sis.” Hans greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. I tried not to stiffen. “I have a special delivery for you.”
I propped open the door for Hans to bring the machine inside. “Thanks. I can’t wait to give it a try.”
He scowled. “Can’t wait, huh?”
I forced myself to chuckle. “You know what I mean. And, trust me, if you had tried scraping layers of old wallpaper all day, you would be excited about steaming, too.” I hoped my voice sounded normal. “Have you talked to your mom?”
Hans wrinkled his brow. “This morning? No, why? Is something wrong?”
“No.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
He stared at me as if he was worried that I was experiencing short-term memory loss. “We just saw her last night, remember?”
“Yeah.” Heat warmed my cheeks. “I had a question about how to use the steamer.”
Hans wasn’t buying it. “You? Sloan, you’re the first person everyone calls when they don’t have the manual or to troubleshoot brewing equipment. I’m pretty confident that you can figure out how to use a wallpaper stripper.” He gave me a strange look but dropped it as we walked to the bar.
Kat clapped. “The stripper. Yay!” She tried to lift her left arm and then let it land on the bar top with a heavy thud. “Honestly, I’m so sore I can’t even lift my arm over my head. That thing is going to be a lifesaver.”
“Too bad I have a client order to finish, otherwise I’d be almost compelled to join you.” Hans’s eyes twinkled.
“I’m done with you.” I tried to banter with Hans like usual, but my heart wasn’t in it.
He stabbed himself in the chest with his index finger. “Some thanks I get for your special delivery.”
Kat reached for a pint glass. “I could pour you a beer.”
“That’s more like it, but no thanks,” he said with a wink. I had a feeling he had picked up on my unease. His tone was almost too jovial. “Good luck wrestling wallpaper. I’ll stop by later to see how it works.”
“Cross your fingers.” Kat crossed several of hers.
Hans left with a wave, but not before giving me one last look of concern. Kat and I finished the inventory sheets before Garrett came downstairs.
“You got the machine?” he asked, pouring himself a cup of lukewarm coffee.
“That’s been sitting in the pot for an hour. You might want to warm it up.”
“Nah. The caffeine is the same cold or hot.” He held up his mug, then pointed to the steam machine. “You guys want to go fire this thing up and see how it does?”
Kat nodded. “Yes, I want to get the wallpaper off, so we can get on to the fun stuff.”
Ursula had not oversold the machine’s capabilities. We were still hot from the steam and damp with sweat by lunchtime, but the wallpaper peeled off in long strips.
“At this rate, we’re going to be done by end of day,” Garrett announced, stepping back to survey our progress. We had removed all the wallpaper from the first two guest rooms and were a quarter of the way through the third room. Our teamwork was paying off. We had a system that appeared to be working. Kat and I would score and spray the walls and then Garrett would run the steamer over them. Next, we would take turns using oversized putty knives to pull back the paper.
“What do you say we break for lunch and see how much we can get done this afternoon?” Garrett asked, wiping his brow with his shirtsleeve.
“You’ll get no argument from me.” Even with my morning latte and apple strudel, I had worked up an appetite. “I can go grab us sausages from the Wursthouse.”
“And I can pour us some pints.” Garrett smiled.
Kat continued to use her putty knife on the wallpaper. “I’ll keep working until you get back. I love the feeling when you can tell that you’re close to pulling off a huge piece.”
“Any sausage requests?” I asked them.
“No, but I’ll take like two of anything you want to bring us.” Garrett rubbed his stomach. “I’m starving.”
“Be back in a flash.” I stopped at the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face and then headed for the Wursthouse. It was a popular spot with locals and a tourist favorite. The outdoor grill had a walk-up counter where you could order sausages to go. Inside there was a dining room and a covered outdoor deck for any customers who wanted to linger over a brat and beer.
The choices and smells at the Wursthouse made my stomach growl so loud I thought it might disturb the customers waiting in line in front of me. I studied the choices, including charbroiled Bavarian-style sausages, bratwurst, chicken and apple sausages, curry wurst, and kelbassi. Since both Garrett and Kat had said that they were famished, I decided to order an assortment of everything along with sauerkraut, cold German potato salad, and kettle chips. It only took a couple of minutes for the Wursthouse staff to box up my order. I was about to return to Nitro, loaded with a huge box of spicy sausages, when April snuck up behind me. She was in the same incognito outfit I’d seen her in yesterday.
“Sloan, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Have you been avoiding me?” She peered at me from beneath her oversized black sunglasses.
“What are you talking about? I’ve been at Nitro all morning. If you were looking everywhere for me, you should have come by.”
“I did. I knocked five times. No one answered. I even went around the back. I swear I heard music and talking. You’re trying to ditch me, aren’t you?” Her eyes bugged out.
“If I was trying to ditch you, April, you wouldn’t be talking to me now, would you?”
She raised her hands in surrender. “Listen, Sloan, we don’t have time to play around with semantics. We have a much more pressing issue that needs our attention immediately.”
I shifted the heavy box. “As you can see, I have my hands full at the moment.”
“Sloan, I learned something monumental this morning. Huge. Massive.”
“Okay, tell me, what is it?”
She glanced around us. “Not here. Come with me.”
I protested. “I just ordered lunch. These sausages are steaming.”
“It will only take a minute for me to fill you in, then you can go drop off lunch at Nitro.” She yanked me across the street. When we were out of earshot of the people congregated at the grill for lunch, she leaned in close and whispered, “I heard a very interesting rumor this morning about Kris, and I desperately need your help to investigate.”
“Go on.” I realized that in every interaction I’d had with April the past few days that she had not once uttered a single German phrase nor made any attempt at a thick, fake accent. It was a refreshing break from her nauseating need to constantly be Leavenworth’s expert on all things Bavarian. It also made me consider that she might be innocent. If April had abandoned her dirndls and braids, and spoke in complete sentences without slipping in a guten Morgen or schӧnen Tag noch (have a nice day), she was in bad shape.
“It turns out that he invested a large chunk of cash in a local business. A business that would be directly impacted if his plan to make Leavenworth dry came to fruition.”
“Okay. Why are you telling me?”
“Because I need your help sleuthing out whether or not it’s true.”
“Why don’t you do that yourself? Or, better idea. Go to Chief Meyers.”
“I already did. The person who I think Kris was involved in a secret deal with isn’t exactly a close friend of mine. Let’s just say that we haven’t been on good terms for a while.”
Not a shocker. April had managed to irritate nearly every business owner in Leavenworth over the years.
“Chief Meyers gave me the usual canned response about ‘looking into it,’ but that’s not enough, Sloan. My reputation is at stake. The village is swarming with press. I can’t risk letting anyone think that I’m a suspect in Kris’s murder a second longer.” She glanced around.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Go talk to this person. See what you can find out. Everyone trusts you, Sloan. Why, I still haven’t a clue, but I know she’ll talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Heidi.”
I almost dropped the box of sausages. “Heidi?”
April nodded frantically. “Yes, yes. I have heard from a very credible source that Kris invested in the Hamburg last year. Do you remember the major remodel the hotel did?”
I nodded.
“Apparently, that was thanks in large part to Kris’s wallet. Heidi went out in search of venture capital to update the hotel, which was a wise move. I had kindly offered her a number of suggestions on how to bring the Hamburg in line with our village aesthetic. I pointed out to her on many occasions that it was turning into an unsightly eyesore.”
I’m sure you did, I thought to myself.
“She didn’t get any bites, probably because it was in such bad shape, but then Kris swept in and offered to be a silent partner.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You told this to Chief Meyers?”
“Yes, we’ve already been over that. The chief is looking into it, but I want intel—now. Heidi and I had a falling-out earlier this year when I simply suggested that she might attract more guests and a husband if she cut down on her apple strudel habit. For some reason, she took that as an insult.” April looked flabbergasted. “I would talk to her myself, but she’s given me the cold—rather icy—shoulder ever since. My advice to lay off the German pastries paid off, because she’s recently dropped quite a bit of her pudge. She should be thrilled with my input, but some people are so sensitive to constructive feedback.”
I didn’t comment on that. “Who did you hear this from?”
April folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not at liberty to say, but as I mentioned, my source is reputable. An upstanding member of the Leavenworth business community with a serious commitment to preserving our German heritage.” She shot me a knowing look.
“Why don’t they tell Chief Meyers this?”
“It’s complicated. Heidi swore this person to secrecy, and they don’t want to break that trust.”
“But this is a murder investigation.”
“I know. Which is exactly why I need your help. Promise me that you’ll talk to Heidi. See what you can get out of her. Maybe there’s evidence. A contract, something.”
“Are you asking me to snoop around her office?”
“I didn’t say that. I simply said maybe there’s evidence lying around, and if there is, what harm would there be in delivering that evidence to the police?”
“April, I am most definitely not going to snoop around Heidi’s office.”
“Fine, but you’ll talk to her, won’t you? Please, Sloan. I can’t stand being treated like a common criminal. You should see the looks that I’m getting when I’m out in the village. Especially from the press. I’m sure they’re working on an exposé about me as we speak.”
I suspected that the reason April was receiving strange looks from the press had to do with her outlandish outfit. If she was trying to look inconspicuous the trench coat and black attire had the opposite effect.
“What exactly are you asking me to do?” I repeated. My arms were beginning to quiver under the weight of the box.
“Just go talk to Heidi. She likes you. See if she’ll confess that Kris was a silent partner. According to my source, they had a huge fight. Heidi was livid that he had taken such a shift in policy. She tried to reason with him about what a ban on alcohol would do to the village and to his investment in the Hamburg, but he didn’t care. He was set on his mission. I know she killed him. She did it, Sloan. Think about it. They say that money is a huge motivator for murder.”
I wasn’t sure what to think. Given my conversation with Heidi earlier this morning, I was leaning toward believing what April was telling me.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. Thank you, Sloan. You are a true friend and a saint. Call me the second you finish your conversation with her. Then we can go to Chief Meyers together. She’ll believe it if it’s coming from you and if you can get Heidi to confess.”
“I’ll call you later.” With that, I turned and made a beeline for Nitro before April could say anything more.
This was really a matter for Chief Meyers. I was sure the chief was likely pulling Heidi’s and the Hamburg’s financial records and looking into April’s theory. However, I hated to admit it, but I was feeling more and more convinced that Heidi might be a killer.