Murder in Death's Door County (15 page)

“What did you just say?” I put down my
sandwich.

“I said, ‘I’m not who you think I am’,”
he repeated himself.

“Well, really who among us is?” I
laughed, trying to lighten the suddenly oppressive mood. So, what was he
saying? That he had a long-lost insane wife he had committed to living in
his attic? A sister who had eloped with an inappropriate suitor at 16 years
old? An uncle who sent ships to their demise with his band of wreckers? Okay,
okay I shouldn’t let my imagination get the best of me as I went through the
plots of some of my favorite books. Of course, based on the events of the last
few days, I felt that anything was possible.

“I’m serious, I haven’t been completely
frank with you.” He made as if he was going to reach for my hand, but then
seemed to think better of it. I realized he felt the growing attraction between
us too.

“And I don’t know how to tell you
because I find myself very attracted to you.” He looked deeply into my eyes and
said, “I need to tell you th-…”

“Excuse me, sir, are you Donovan Archer?”
the waitress approached the table. “There is an urgent call for you at the
hostess stand.”

He cringed for a split-second. “OK.
Thanks.” As he made his way up, he squeezed my shoulder briefly, “I’ll explain
everything when I come back.”

I was starting to feel a bit nauseous.
The feeling of normalcy was riding off into the sunset and eating my salmon
sandwich. My appetite was quickly leaving me.

I blinked a few times. He was taking
another call now? In the middle of our conversation. How rude! I reasoned with
myself, the hostess did say it was urgent. But why didn’t whoever it was try to
call his cell phone if it was that “urgent.” Out of the corner of my eye, I
spied his cell phone sitting on the table. Would you look at that? He left his
cell phone just sitting there, begging to be picked up. Hmmm… while I was
ordinarily not a nosy person, I was in an extraordinary situation, which called
for extraordinary actions. Right?

So, before I could even control myself,
I eagerly grabbed his phone to see his contact list. Before I even got to his
contact list, I noticed he had missed several calls in the last hour.
Interesting. Three of the calls looked like the same local number and two of
them looked like they came from Washington, D.C. That’s unusual, but not that
uncommon. I mean, telemarketing calls can come from anywhere.

From across the room, I saw Donovan head
back to our table and guiltily put down his phone. A slight flush covered my
face as I shoved it back towards his plate. I drank some of my water to calm
down.

“Sorry about that. I really don’t like
taking calls in restaurants, but I had let my boss know to call me here if
anything urgent came up.”

“I thought you owned your own insurance
agency.” I still wasn’t getting it, “Oh, I see what you mean. You’re referring
to your client as your ‘boss’, right?”

“Not quite right. My boss is back in
Washington, D.C.”

Well, that explained the D.C. phone
number, at least.

“I’m sorry, I’m not following.” I took a
huge drink of my Strongbow cider, I had a feeling I’d need it.

“It’s part of what I wanted to tell you.”

“You know what, I’ve dealt with a lot in
the past few days and this sandwich is really good. Can I finish it and then we’ll
talk?”

Donovan smiled indulgently at me, “Sure,
that’s not a problem.” Again, he made like he wanted to hold my hand across the
table, then stopped himself.

Sighing, I recalled when I used to have
conversations with people, and the conversations made sense. Now, I felt like
Alice down the rabbit hole. Every day. Not a pleasant experience.

When we finished our meal, Donovan
signaled that the waitress bring our bill immediately. “Do you mind if we head
over to the bar to talk?” Donovan asked once he paid the bill.

“Why?”

“I’d like a better view of the whole restaurant.”

“Um, sure, okay,” and so we meandered
over the bar. Donovan sat on the barstool closest to the far wall and kept
looking at the door like he expected someone any minute. What was going on?

He ordered a Strongbow for me and a
Guinness for himself.

“Actually, I could use something
stronger,” I muttered.

He called the bartender back over and
ordered two shots of rye whiskey also. The bartender brought the shots over
first and they were gone by the time he brought the pints.

Donovan must have sensed some of the
tension ebb from me. He asked me if I was ready to talk. I told him I was.

“I’m an undercover FBI agent. I wasn’t
supposed to tell you because I was tailing you. But now I have a different task
and you need to know who I really am.” He took a long drink of his Guinness.

“You’ve been what? You’re a what?” I
looked around to see if I was being pranked by someone. “What do I call you
now?”

This? On top of everything else? Really,
an undercover agent?

“Donovan. Same as before.”

“And what do you do?”

“I work with special forces within the
FBI. We are very interested in Marcos Landrostassis and his family. Last night,
when I wanted to see your manuscript…”

“…and notes,” I added.

“Yes, and notes, my interest in their
ongoing activities was the real reason I wanted to see them, but I couldn’t
tell you.”

“In case you had to kill me?” I joked,
inappropriately trying to make light of the situation because of my
nervousness.

“No, in case you had killed Harry. And
the fact it would have probably blown my cover. Of course, now my cover is
blown anyway, but, as I said, my assignment has changed.”

I gulped. That made sense. “Oh.”

“I’m so sorry. Were you close to Harry?”

“Not really. But he was my editor, so
there was a certain familiarity.” I sipped my drink slowly, taking in this
newest information.

A curious thought struck me. It occurred
to me that it was a pretty big coincidence that I met Donovan while I was
working on Marcos’ book. I couldn’t ignore the wire-tapping implications. I
mean, how else would he have known to tail me, of all people, right?

“No, we weren’t tapping your phone,” he
answered my unspoken question. “We had tapped Marcos’ phone.”

“Is Marcos that big of a deal? I mean I
know he’s been implicated in petty crimes, but that doesn’t seem like enough to
warrant all of this fuss about him.”

“We don’t know yet, but we know that his
family is. Also, we suspect that the petty crimes might be a smokescreen for
some of the bigger stuff he’s involved in. I can’t go into more detail, but we
are trying to catch up with whoever is controlling the whole operation.”

“Okay, that’s all well and good, but why
were you following me? I realize now that you hadn’t just succumbed to my
charms. I realize that I was under surveillance. Why?”

He had the grace to blush at this
statement.

“At first, I was only monitoring you.”
Here, he made a weird, catching noise with his throat.

“Ahem, that is to say, until you went
after me at that store,” he said.

Oh brother, was he about to lay it on
thick with me? “You started liking me because I made a public scene?”

“When our eyes met at the store, I knew
I had to meet you. You might be a bit shy, but you are a firecracker when you
let loose.”

“Seriously? That’s how you’re going to
play this now?”

“Play this? What do you mean? I just
paid you a compliment.”

That I couldn’t deny, but I still didn’t
trust him. “You were tailing me because of your job and you happened to think I
was cute. Big deal.” The whiskey made me a little sassy, but it had to be said.
I could not be sucked into this weird, unknown area. I needed to really stay
focused on keeping this relationship clearly professional now that I knew most
of the story. Er, of course, I was assuming I knew most of the story. That
assumption would almost cost me everything.

“Okay. Okay. So sue me, I thought, and
still do think, that you were cute. You are cute. Hell, your curls are enough
to drive me mad. But I can’t do anything about it,” he said.

I felt a twinge of disappointment. I
sulked a little, “Why not?”

“Because you are now under my
protection, and I need to keep my distance.”

“I’m under your protection? How do you
figure? I mean, I know you helped me out when my brakes failed, but protection?
Isn’t that a bit much?”

“Your brakes didn’t fail. Your brake
line was cut.”

At this, I fell off the barstool and
fainted in a heap on the floor.

“A
NNIE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

“Er, miss?”

“Hey, her eyes are fluttering open.”

I coughed. Someone had put some whiskey
on my upper lip. I had a splitting headache and was looking at the ceiling of
the bar at Dublin’s. I didn’t think I had drunk that much. I looked at the
faces around me. I saw several faces I didn’t recognize—no surprise there. Then
I saw Donovan, and it all came flooding back to me. I held my throbbing head.

“Here, Annie, lemme help you up.”
Donovan gingerly grabbed me under the arms and guided me to one of the regular
chairs in the alcove near the bar area. “There you go, have a seat.”
Fortunately, the pub had cleared out pretty much. The lunch crowd had left and
the bar wouldn’t fill up with the after-work crowd for several hours.

He handed me a glass of water. “Drink it
up. There you go.”

I dribbled some on my chin. Embarrassed,
I wiped it away and wouldn’t look at him. The memory of our conversation came
flooding back to me.

He grabbed my chin and made me look at
him.

“What do you mean, my brake line was
cut?” I asked, much more timidly than I felt. Stupid fainting spell.
Occasionally I fainted at exactly the wrong time. Once, I fainted at the sight
of my own blood, from a very small cut. I was only out for a few seconds, but
when I came to, a fuse in the house had blown, which really confused me for a
minute.

“I can’t divulge that right now. But I
didn’t mean to make you faint in a heap like that.”

I interrupted him, “I didn’t fall in a
heap. I
swooned
with dignity, like a lady.”

“Sure, if that’s how you want it. I’m
sorry, but we had to impound your car until further notice.”

What the what? I groaned. No car. No
job. Involved in a murder, or whatever, investigation. What next? I groaned
again. My head really hurt.

“When do I get my car back? I need to
start looking for work soon.” Very soon. “My latest project seems to have
developed a huge glitch.”

“Well, here’s the thing, you aren’t safe
right now. And you can’t really leave town. Besides, you can’t have your car
back until we figure out who cut the line. I need you to keep a lower profile,
okay?”

I held my head and groaned again,
nodding slightly. I really hoped the one-man band would stop drumming in my
head.

“Did Harry know something?” I asked,
already knowing the answer. He must have known something, or figured out
something. Harry knowing something certainly explained his odd behavior during
our last phone call. I thought about his mad dash up to Door County and taking
me off the project, too. Was it possible he was trying to protect me?

“We think that Harry knew something,
based on the way he was killed. We think they think you know the same thing.”

“I don’t think I know anything. I mean,
Marcos shared a lot of information with me, but all of it was pertaining to his
insistence of innocence, and, as you pointed, more aligned with his petty
crimes. However, I think you’re right about Harry. He seemed to want to tell me
something. He also said something about feeling badly that he had put me in
danger.”

“I think he was right, you really are in
danger. And probably should leave the Lighthouse for a while. You and Lizzy Holloway
have become good friends, right? Would you be able to move in with her and her
family until this whole thing blows over? They don’t live too far from here,
and I’m sure they’d welcome you. If you go stay with them, I could investigate
further and I’d know you were safe.”

My head shot up, “What? Are you kidding
me?”

“Look, you’re being watched by Marcos or
his goons.” At this, I started to laugh hysterically. The shock of the last 24
hours was setting in.

Donovan eyed me warily. “What’s so
funny?” he asked tentatively.

“Nothing, really. None of this is funny,”
I said, gasping to catch my breath. “It’s just that I had gotten upset with
Marcos during one of our interviews and called him a ‘big goon’.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you weren’t too far
off, huh?” He cracked a little smile.

A
PPROXIMATELY THREE DAYS
later, I ate those words as I moved in
with Lizzy and her family.