Murder in Death's Door County (14 page)

I tried my emergency brake, which slowed
me down a little. When I got down to 15 miles per hour and the road started to
slope uphill, I decided to turn into something soft to stop moving. Just ahead,
I saw my mark. I prayed that this maneuver would work. I veered to the right
and created a huge splash of twigs and crisp leaves as I crashed into a thick
hedge. My car skidded a little bit more and came to a stop. I caught my breath.

I heard knocking on my window. Dazed, I
looked up. I felt really fuzzy. The knocking continued. Someone called my name.

“Annie? Annie, open up!”

Confused, I squinted out the window through
the rain. I saw a vaguely familiar face looking at me. The face looked
concerned, but I couldn’t quite place it. Oh, of course, now I remembered that
face!

Donovan? What was he doing here?

I opened my door.

“Are you okay? Do you need help?”

“I think my brakes went out,” I said. I
had known I needed new brakes. I guess the problem was worse than I thought. I
sat there for a minute, trying to register what had happened. “But with the
rain and everything, I’m not really sure.”

“But you’re okay, right? No broken
bones?” I nodded that I was fine. He got out his phone and made a phone call.

He snapped his phone shut. “I just
called a tow truck for you. They’ll be here in about 20 minutes.”

“Thanks a bunch. But why are you here?
What are you doing here anyway?”

“I had just turned onto the highway and
saw you lose control of your car. I thought I should probably help whoever was
in the car.”

“I really appreciate your help. It’s
kind of funny, I keep bumping into you in odd ways.”

He smiled down at me. “Lucky for me. I
never did get your number. You practically flew out of my car at the police
station.”

“Oh, you wanted my number?” I looked
down to hide my blushing. I couldn’t seem to do anything but blush around this
guy.

“I was hoping for it. But I understand
if you don’t want to give it to a strange guy whose nose you broke.”

“I didn’t break your nose,” I began
indignantly. When I saw his smile, I gave a little laugh, “you got me again. I
think we can work something out.” I smiled and looked up at him. “In the meantime,
do you think we need to call the cops about my car?”

“I don’t think so. You hit the hedge,
but it looks improved by the impact. Nope, I think the tow truck will be
enough.”

I pulled out my cell phone to see the
time. My grandfather had called a few times. Darn it! I kept missing his calls
because of the spotty coverage up here. My phone started roaming again. Gosh, I
really needed to change my cell phone carrier. There was nothing I could do
about it at that moment, so we waited for the tow truck. With the storm raging
over us, Donovan invited me to sit in his car while we waited. Whenever Donovan
would look at me, he would smile. I started to feel self-conscious and
grew bright red. I felt my ears get warm, which made me feel even more shy.

“Seriously, how is it that I keep
bumping into you?”

“Door County isn’t that big. I’m sure
you’ve seen the same people a few times a day up here. I’ve even heard theories
on a similar phenomenon before. It goes something like this. Before you meet
someone, you probably have seen them before, up to two or three times.”

“What do you mean? Like a face in the
crowd?” I scrunched up my nose.

“Exactly like that. Only we (you and I)
have become conscious of our ‘face in the crowd’ moments, which makes it feel
like I’m stalking you.” At this comment, we both laughed. Despite my weird and
difficult day, I felt myself relaxing.

“Annie, do you need a ride home? I am at
your service.”

“Well, um… yeah, I think I’ll need to
take you up on that offer. I hope it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Nope, none at all.”

“I really appreciate this. I could’ve
waited for a cab, but I’m not even sure that’s possible up here, is it?”

“Yeah, no, not so much. Hey, how did
your interrogation go the other day?”

“Other than being told I couldn’t leave
town, it went okay.” I hesitated telling Donovan more. On one hand, I felt
comfortable with him; on the other hand, I really didn’t know him very well.

“Don’t worry about that. That’s standard
operating procedure. Did the detective treat you all right?”

“For the most he did. He was kind of a
hard nose, but I guess he has a reputation of being very ‘by the book’. He
asked me how I knew Marcos Landrostassis, which I thought was kind of odd at
the time. But now I can’t get in touch with Marcos, so I’m really confused
about it all.”

“Considering that your project was about
Marcos, that doesn’t seem that odd that he asked you that. Really. I wouldn’t
worry if I were you. Just remember, Chad Dupah tends to be really thorough.” Donovan
kept his eyes on the road as we spoke and didn’t notice my sharp glance at him.
How on earth did he know that Chad had interviewed me? Sigh. Yet one more
mystery.

Shrugging off my concerns, I tried to
change the subject, “You haven’t told me what you do?”

“Me? Why, I’m a superhero who rescues
beautiful women who drive into hedges.” He made a flourishing bow, and I
laughed. Well, whoever he was, he was certainly charming.

The tow truck came and took care of my
little car. I had already gotten my purse out of the car. I gave the tow truck
guy my information, and he let me know where he was taking my car. I thanked
him, and he drove off. Donovan and I got into his blue Jeep, and made our way
down Highway 42.

We sat outside the inn for a minute. “After
coming to my rescue and everything, why don’t you come in for a drink? My treat.”

“I’d love to.” We got out of his car and
made our way into the Lighthouse. Kitty had a couple of bartenders at the
Lighthouse, Lizzy and a guy named George. Since Lizzy had the night off, George
had the bar all to himself. Although I didn’t know George well, he always
seemed affable and not-easily-flustered, which are great qualities for a
bartender.

“What’ll you have?” George asked, almost
the minute we sat. I gave him my order of a glass of red wine, and looked at
Donovan for his order. Donovan decided on their Oktoberfest selection from the
microbrewery. I put a ten out on the bar for George to collect.

“So, tell me more about this book?”
Donovan asked.

“I don’t really what more there is to
tell, really. I think I covered most of it already. Harry’s company… well
really, Harry… contacted me to ghostwrite a book about Marcos Landrostassis.
Only now Harry’s dead and I’m a possible suspect. And, I can’t seem to find
Marcos.” At that moment, George brought our drinks.

I shrugged, “I mean, most of it is in
the notes I made. The kind of notes that most writers make when working on a
book. I took down Marcos’ story while he gave a running narrative.”

“Is there anything in particular that
stood out in his story? Any odd behavior?”

“Other than the niggling feeling I had
that he might be insane? No, nothing I can think of.”

Donovan lifted his glass and gestured
for me to do the same, “Well, then I propose a toast to the resolution of this
matter.”

“I can drink to that!” I said heartily
as we clinked glasses. “You know, I feel uncommonly comfortable with you. I don’t
know why.”

“Yeah, ditto with you. It should be
noted, too, that I don’t normally help damsels in distress.” He took a long
drink of his beer.

I blushed. Again. Grr… when would I get
out of middle school for goodness’ sake?

“So, um, any chance for me to come up
and see your manuscript?”

If possible, I turned more red. What do
I do in this situation? I hadn’t dated that much. And, I definitely wasn’t the
type to have a one-night stand.

The panic must have reflected in my eyes
because Donovan grabbed my hand and said, “Whoa, whoa, we don’t have to do
anything you are uncomfortable with. I like you, Annie. And I really would like
to see your manuscript. I’d like to learn more about you.”

I gave him a tremulous smile and nodded.
As I was about to give him the green light to see my manuscript, his phone
rang.

Donovan looked at his display briefly, “Darn
it, I do have to take this. Please excuse me.” He quickly walked towards the
hallway.

I barely had time to take another sip of
wine before Donovan rushed back to the bar. He grabbed his jacket and said
hurriedly, “I’m so sorry, I’ll have to take a rain check on seeing your
manuscript. Something urgent just came up. I’ll talk to you soon, though.” And
with that, he left the room.

Philosophically, I shrugged. I had no
idea what his emergency was. I certainly hoped it wasn’t another woman, but I
didn’t know him well. It very could be. I mean, I know insurance agents have to
deal with emergencies to some degree, but he left very hurriedly. After
pondering it for a few more minutes, I opted to take my wine up to my room,
order room service for dinner, and read a bit before bed.

—
–

The next morning, I opted to call
Grandpa first. Since our last call had ended a bit abruptly, I wanted to find
out how Aunt Helen was doing. Despite what they thought, it wasn’t my goal to
worry him and Aunt Helen.

I punched in Grandpa’s number and
waited. Both he and Aunt Helen were hard of hearing, and they didn’t always
hear the phone. In the past, I had already counted up to 10 rings waiting for
them to answer.

“Hello, Bill here,” said Grandpa.

“Hiya Papa,” I tried to inject a light
tone in my voice.

“Don’t you ‘hiya’ me, Annie Malone. We
have been worried sick over you.”

“Worried, why?” I mean, if they knew
about the last 24 hours, I knew they’d be worried, but they didn’t. So, I didn’t
understand why they were “worried sick.”

“So, did you really find a dead body the
other day?”

“I did. Has it made the news down there?”

“Bits and pieces, but we haven’t seen
your name on the news yet. Have you been interviewed at all?”

“No, the press hasn’t gotten ahold of me
yet.”

Grandpa groaned. “I’m not talking about
the press. I’m talking about the cops.” He could always tell when I was trying
to hide something. Of course, with my transparent face and his time as a
detective, I shouldn’t be shocked that he found me out.

“I may have had to give a statement. But
that’s pretty standard, right?”

“For the most part, yes.”

“All right, Annie, what the hell is
going on?”

“Grandpa, seriously, I don’t know. I
took this writing job and I found a dead guy. You know as much as I do.”

“I have a half a mind to make you move
back home. You know, you aren’t too old for me to take you over my knee.”
Grandpa pulled out the old standards whenever he was scared for me.
Fortunately, he couldn’t see my epic eye roll over the phone. I think, at
thirty years old, I probably was too old to be pulled over his knee. However,
respect for his age and position prevented me for saying it.

“I’m okay, Grandpa. I’ll be fine. I’ll
call you once I know more.”

“You’d better. Stay safe, Anna Banana.”

We hung up.

Before I even put down the phone, Donovan
called me.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi! How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thanks. Thanks again for
slaying my dragons yesterday.”

“Yeah, we need to talk about that.” Uh,
okay, so that’s how it’s going to be. I guess he was expecting the pay back
now. I should have known he was too good to be true. I knew something had
seemed off-kilter with him.

“Oh?”

“Can you meet me downstairs at noon?
Lunch is on me.”

“Now you sound mysterious.”

“I don’t mean to. Just trust me on this.”

“Oh great. Whenever a guy says ‘trust me’,
it means the exact opposite.”

I heard his smile over the phone. “All
right, ya got me. I’m going to kidnap you in the middle of the lunch crowd and
take you to my secret lair in the Peninsula State park.”

“You have a secret lair? I’m impressed.
Okay, sorry for the paranoia. I’ll be there.”

I flipped my phone shut. Despite losing
my job, finding a dead body, and having my brakes fail on me, I felt pretty
good.

T
OO BAD THAT GOOD
FEELING DIDN’T
last. I
stared at Donovan open-mouthed.

We were sitting in Dublin’s pub, which really
did have the best salmon sandwiches in the world (Janie might have even
undersold them). I had ordered one of these yummy sandwiches and a lovely pint
of Strongbow cider. Donovan had a Guinness and a Shepherd’s Pie in front of
him. Sitting there, having lunch with Donovan felt like most normal thing in
the world, and I hadn’t had normal in a few days. When Donovan had asked me to
meet him downstairs, I had assumed he’d meant that we’d eat at the Lighthouse.
Turns out he meant that he’d pick me up downstairs and whisk me away to Fish
Creek.