Murder in Death's Door County (24 page)

Donovan’s eyebrows shot up to his
hairline. He moaned a little. “Please don’t do that. This is serious business.”

“Don’t do what?” I asked, innocently. I
had no idea what he meant. I bit my bottom lip in consternation.

“Or that! Oh my gosh, you have no idea
what you’re doing to me, do you?”

“Frankly, Donovan, I’d appreciate it if
you’d stop talking in riddles and helped me find Lizzy and the rest of the
tour.”

“Yeah, that’s a good plan. How’d you get
separated from the group anyway?”

Suddenly, my mouth dropped open and all
I could do was point towards the second floor of the caretaker’s shack. I felt
my eyes become as wide as saucers. I gripped Donovan’s arm with my other hand.

“Annie, what is it?”

“I-I-I,” All I could do was point.

Donovan followed my gaze.

“Oh wow! Did you see that? Is there
supposed to be anyone up there?”

I gulped and shook my head. “Th-the
t-t-tour guide,” I paused to gather my thoughts and stop shaking. “Okay, the
tour guide said that shack hadn’t been lived in for more than 20 years!”

“So, no blondes in gauzy white dresses
currently reside there?” Donovan asked. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or
not.

“I don’t think so. But look!” I started
shaking again.

“Well, I have the badge. Let’s go check it
out.”

At that moment, Lizzy came racing back. “Annie,
where were you? I thought you were behind me. Oh, Donovan, hi. How did you find
us?”

“You left a trail of breadcrumbs,” he
said wryly, lifting an eyebrow.

“We left a tra-… Oh, good one!”

“Lizzy, we can’t talk! We have to go to
that shack ahead. Look at the window!”

“What window?”

I pointed to the second story window, “Now
she’s gone! You know, I know this is kind of far-fetched, but she matched
Marcos’ description of his wife.”

“Wife? Whose wife? What are you guys
talking about?” Lizzy looked from me to Donovan, and back again. “What did I
miss? Crap! I miss all the fun stuff!” She stomped her foot in protest.

“Actually, you’re just in time to see
some ‘fun stuff,’ as you put it,” Donovan said. “We’re going ghost hunting.”

“We are! Goody!”

“Oh no.”

Lizzy and I said that simultaneously. I
will leave it to my dear reader to determine who said what.

“That thing,” I said, pointing the
dilapidated shack. “That building—it doesn’t look like it could support three
people going in,” I said, trying to get out of our ghost hunting expedition.
The problem wasn’t that I didn’t believe in ghosts; the problem was that I did.
And as proven by our adventure at Joyce’s, I think I’ve shown ghosts freak me
out a little bit.

“Good point, Annie. You and I can go in.
Lizzy, can you guard the door?”

Apparently, Donovan didn’t read into
subtext.

“To make sure the apparition doesn’t
leave?”

“Do you really think it was a ghost,
Lizzy?”

“Hunh? Then what was it?”

Donovan seemed to like answering
questions with questions, “How did you get these tour tickets again? Never
mind, don’t answer that right now.”

Grabbing my hand (oh okay, now I could
see the worth in this adventure), he dragged me across a few cemetery plots to
the ramshackle building. His warm hand felt good holding mine, helping me feel
more calm. I no longer felt that scared going into the building.

Until I saw a bat fly out of the front
door. “Was that a b-b-bat?” Oh my gosh, why did it always have to be bats?

“Yeah, are you gonna let a little bat
scare you?” I saw the glistening white of Donovan’s teeth as he smiled.
Suddenly, I felt silly. After all, the bat was probably more afraid of me.

I shook my head as we entered the
building. Donovan clicked on his flashlight.

“You’ve had a flashlight this whole
time? Why didn’t you use it?” I let go of his hand and held onto the stair rail
as we headed upstairs. It seemed like each step creaked.

Ignoring my questioning, we continued
upward. He shined the flashlight on the window we had seen from the outside. We
saw an old table in front of the window. A broken antique lamp stood on an old
yellowed doily on the table. Donovan quickly shined the light on it. As he
moved the light, I thought I saw something that looked out of place on the
table. Donovan had already moved down the hallway and was trying doors. There
was no sign of the woman—it was as though she had disappeared into thin air.

“Wait! Donovan! Bring that light back
here.”

“I’m on my way.” I heard his footsteps
get louder again. I ran my fingers along the table very gingerly. Some
moonlight shined through the window. Just before he returned with the
flashlight, my fingers found a thick piece of paper. The paper felt like good
stationery paper and smelled like… what did it smell like? I had the smell
before. But I couldn’t place where. Donovan broke into my thoughts.

“Annie, what are you holding?”

“Oh, right,” Donovan’s voice brought me
back to the present. I wish I could place that smell. “This piece of paper was
on the table. Read it with me.”

And so I read it, with
Donovan peering over my shoulder. The note said:

Find
Marcos. Find the murderer.

“Oh wow, Donovan! A real clue!”

“Hold on, hold on, Annie. Let’s step
back from this for a minute.”

“But that must mean that woman we saw
definitely was not a ghost. She must have written this note!”

“Perhaps, but-”

My thoughts were coming pretty fast now
and I cut him off, “do you think it could’ve been Tina Delvecchio?”

“We have to get out of here. Now! I need
to get you and Lizzy back to her sister’s place. For the next several days, can
you promise me to not leave her sister’s place?” We walked downstairs as we
spoke. “Did you ever replace that phone that blew up?”

“I did,” and to demonstrate, I pulled it
out of my pocket.

“Nice phone. Mind if I look at it for a
minute?”

“Um, sure, okay,” I hesitated slightly.
Why did he want to see my phone? “Sure, feel free to browse it.”

“Did you, uh, get any apps or internet
or anything with it?”

“I think so. I haven’t really had a
chance to play with it.”

Donovan fiddled with some of the keys
while I waited, not so patiently. When I started to fidget, Donovan gave my
phone back to me.

“Is Lizzy under house arrest too?” I
asked, accepting the phone. Okay, I’ll admit I was being a bit snotty, but I was
getting tired of being treated like we did something wrong. Seriously.

Donovan sighed, “Annie, you know it isn’t
like that, right? I mean, this is just for your safety. It’s because I care.”

Our eyes made contact as he spoke. I
licked my lips again. I felt his arm circle my waist and pull me closer. I
closed my eyes in expectation, then,

“So, did you find anything?” Lizzy
asked, bounding up to us. “Oops, sorry. Wow, would you look at the time? I
think I’ll go for a little walk.”

I put my hand on Lizzy’s sleeve, “It’s
okay.” The mood was broken anyhow. Donovan and I shared a regretful look over the
interruption, but at least his level of interest was coming into focus.

Donovan filled Lizzy on the note, and
made her promise to stick close to her sister’s place. He said she could go to
work, but the guard had to stay with us. Therefore, I had to continue to go to
work with her.

Donovan thought I’d be safe. Little did
he know.

S
O, THE NEXT DAY FOUND
ME AT
work with Lizzy and
our guard. Since there had been a changing of the guard, as it were, this new
guy stood post by the front door. He told Lizzy and I that he need to watch all
comings and goings, and make sure we weren’t gone from the bar and restaurant
areas for too long. Amazingly enough, Kitty agreed with this. I say it was
amazing because the guy looked pretty intimidating. Even with the colder
weather outside, he wore short sleeves as he stood by the door. His arms looked
like trees, and I’m not sure he had a neck. But I felt a little safer; I think
Lizzy did too.

Since Lizzy worked the lunch and dinner
shifts, I made myself comfortable at the bar with a book. Lizzy and I chatted
when we could (in other words, when there were no other bar patrons) and she
kept me full of diet soda. In return, I helped Lizzy replace a keg of beer,
since George had the day off. The day went by pretty quickly, and the evening
promised to go by just as fast. Since it was a weeknight, the bar wouldn’t be
too busy, and Kitty had promised that we’d probably get to go home a nine o’clock.

And so it was, at eight o’clock, I was
in the stockroom, gathering up bottles of beer for Lizzy to restock the bar. I
figured if I could help her with her closing duties ahead of time, we’d be able
to leave that much faster.

Imagine my surprise when Cindy Devlin
approached me in the stockroom. We had barely spoken after she freaked out a
few days ago. Her face looked weird and, initially, I couldn’t figure out why.
Suddenly, I realized that she was smiling and I had never seen her smile
before. Interesting. She was one of the few people I’d ever seen who did not
look better smiling. Usually a smile made someone more attractive. A smile on
her looked uncomfortable and almost grotesque.

But she was smiling. I’d take that over
a scowl any day.

“Hello, Annie!” she exclaimed as she
came up to me.

I smiled back, and said, “Hi Cindy. How
are you?”

“I’m good. Look, I just wanted to talk
to you for a minute. You know how I’ve been not-so-nice to you and Lizzy?”

Wanting to be polite, I downplayed it, “Oh
no, no. You’ve been fine. Really.”

“You and I both know I haven’t been
fine. I’ve been horrid to you.” I was so shocked, I almost dropped the bottle
of beer in my hand. Gingerly, I put the beer down in the bus tub I was using.
My surprise didn’t end there. Cindy held out her hand for me to shake, “Do you
forgive me? Shall we let bygones be bygones?”

“Of course! I would like it if we could
be friends.” I shook hands with her and felt a slight prick of pain on the side
of my pinky. Too late, I pulled back my hand, and cried, “Ouch!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, it must be this needle I
just pricked you with,” Cindy said, still with that crazy smile. Except now
there were two of her smiling at me. I stumbled a bit on my feet. “Come on,
Annie, let’s get you out of here. I think you could use some fresh air.” Cindy
put her arm around me like we were old pals. She bundled me out the back door
to a waiting black sedan. In my foggy state, I thought two things: nothing good
ever happens in black sedans and was it my imagination, or did Cindy have an
accent all of a sudden? Then everything went dark.

—
–

When I awoke, I discovered my hands and
feet were bound. They had covered my mouth, too. I could taste the duct tape.
Gross. I could tell we were moving, but it was totally dark and I could only
hear muffled voices. It felt like we were moving on the water. I could smell
water and stale cigars. Besides being distracted by the nasty duct tape taste
(seriously, it was bad), I thought, “Oh my gosh, where are they taking me? And,
why oh why didn’t I listen to Donovan?” before I lost consciousness again.

I woke up again to the sound of gently
lapping waves. So, I was definitely on water; hearing seagulls squawking
overhead clinched it. Some sunlight snuck through broken Venetian blinds,
depending on which way the room faced, I figured it must be morning. I took an
assessment of the room. The ugliest moss green couch sat under a velvet
painting of cats playing poker. Hmmm, an interesting take on “tacky chic,” I
thought. My ears perked up.

“…and then I want you to find out
whatever she knows and if she won’t talk, then I want you to…”

I strained to hear the rest of it, but
only heard their footsteps going away from the door. That voice, though. Two
things surprised me: it was definitely a woman’s voice and I vaguely recognized
it. Suddenly one set of footsteps got louder again. At the sound of the door
opening, I closed my eyes to feign sleep.

“Hey, hey you, wake up,” a man said in a
thick Eastern European accent, poking her on the shoulder. “We didn’t give you
that much sedative.”

I did my best to appear groggy, which
actually wasn’t that hard. My head felt like someone had smacked it with a
baseball bat. Wow, maybe it was a metal bat, the way my head hurt.

“Annie Malone, why have you been poking
your cute little nose where it doesn’t belong, eh? We warned you plenty of
times.”

Even though my head must have weighed a
million pounds and my bindings held me tight, I tried to sit up, but failed. I
decided to moan instead, I had earned it. After I had moaned for a minute or
so, my genius captor realized I couldn’t talk while the duct tape was still
over my mouth.