Death Comes Knocking (The Thea Kozak Mystery Series, Book 10)

by Kate Flora

  I was not eager to make his acquaintance.

  Rosie and I went downstairs, and before whoever he was could get out of the car and bang on our door—I was sure he was a banger—we went through the kitchen and out the side door closest to the barn. We found Andre and Dom still immersed in inspecting the workshop, Andre describing how it would look when finished, and Dom nodding.

  They fell silent as we entered, two long-time cops immediately aware that something was up. I gave a quick explanation of what we’d seen and my two meetings with Jessica. “And now the lead guy is parked in our driveway and you two can deal with him. I have endured a lifetime of angry, self-important men.”

  “And we haven’t?” Dom asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “It’s what you get paid for.”

  “So do you,” said my loving husband. “Self-important men and women. Let’s go see what they want.”

  He’s ever so much nicer than I am under these circumstances. All that cool, cop-like self-control. I tend to get what the Brits might call “shirty.”

  So out we went, Andre and Dom in the lead, two big, no-nonsense men, followed by their timid little women. Ha. People tend to underestimate me, and when she was stuck in her wheelchair, labeled an invalid for life, Rosie got more than her share of condescension. People are making a mistake if they underestimate her. She’s a gorgeous, gracious, quiet powerhouse.

  The two men were standing on the porch that faced the street where the official doorway was. This being the country, we used the side door that opened into the kitchen. Obviously, these fellows didn’t know that. The one I’d dubbed “Angry Man” was banging our lobster knocker much too roughly on our newly painted front door. I’d half-expected to see “FBI” on the backs of their navy windbreakers, but there was no identifying information. But still, they wore navy windbreakers on a warm summer afternoon. Silly fellows.

  They were surprised when we appeared behind them, turning rapidly. The second man, tall and rangy and wearing a ridiculously fancy pair of cowboy boots, actually slipped a hand inside his coat, where I assume he kept a gun.

  “Can I help you?” Andre asked.

  Mildly. Calmly. Like any puzzled homeowner finding two men who clearly didn’t belong in this nice Maine town on their doorstep. While Andre dealt with them, I turned and looked at the license plate on the SUV. Massachusetts. From the way they acted, I’d expected a government plate. Who the heck were they, and why did they act like they had rights here?

  Without introducing himself, the man said, “We’d like to ask you some questions about your neighbor, Jessica Whitlow.” He sure acted like some kind of government agent. TV might not be wrong in often depicting them as having no manners.

  “We don’t know Jessica Whitlow,” Andre said. And that was all he said.

  “Lives over there,” the unnamed man said, pointing toward the cottage.

  Andre said, “Oh?” so calmly.

  The unnamed man clenched his fists. “Come on, you must have seen her. This is a small town. Blonde. About five-seven. Very athletic. She’s a runner.”

  The woman I’d met, who introduced herself as Jesssica, was maybe five three, and as far from blonde as hair can get. What the heck was going on?

  “Nope. Sorry. Can’t help you,” Andre said. “That cottage is pretty well screened from the road, and in the summer, we do most of our living out back. I thought that place was empty. Why are you looking for her?”

  He knew the guy wasn’t going to answer, but he waited, all innocent and curious.

  “Government business,” the guy said, though he still hadn’t produced a government ID.

  “Has she committed a crime?” Me this time, the timid little woman. “Do you mean we may have a criminal living right across the street?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m not at liberty—”

  I turned away to hide my eye roll. Of course, he was at liberty. He was free to drive about and stand on other people’s porches and bang on their doors. Free to try to use his cold-eyed stare to intimidate ordinary citizens. Except, of course, that Andre and Dom were hardly ordinary. For that matter, neither was I. Nor Rosie.

  “Well, that’s it then,” Andre said. “Sorry we can’t help you.”

  “How long have you lived here?” the man asked.

  No one answered.

  Like someone slowly getting a message written in capital letters on a blackboard, the man nodded, then searched in his bullying vocabulary for some gentler words. “It’s important that we find her,” he said. “She’s a critical witness in a—” Oops. Now he’d told us something he hadn’t meant to.

  Quickly, he changed back to bullying, focusing on me. He said, “Are you sure you haven’t seen her?” like I was a liar. Did I really look like the weakest member of this team?

  I donned my sweetest avatar and said, all cheerful and chipper, “Well, you see, I’ve been so busy getting the house ready for the baby.” Patting the basketball. “I’m not sure I’d notice if Godzilla lumbered down the street.” Pause. “Except to be concerned about MOC’s safety.”

  Andre gave me his “put a sock in it, Thea,” look. He didn’t want me to provoke the guy, so I switched gears. “I’ve got dinner in the oven and I don’t want it to burn,” I said. “Sorry we can’t help you. Good luck finding your witness.”

  I tried to step around them to go inside, but they weren’t moving. Jerks. Stay calm and stress-free, I reminded myself. What mommy feels, baby feels. I shrugged, went down the steps, and headed for the side door. The rest of my team came with me. I wondered if they would follow, if we’d have to go through this dance again. But after consulting like their team was deciding on the next play, they walked briskly to the SUV and drove away. Probably to harass another innocent citizen. I knew why Andre and Dom hadn’t asked for ID. They wanted to keep this low key. Just let the men leave.

  “Charming fellow,” Rosie said. “Dom, who do you think they are? And why would they behave like that, when it is so unlikely to produce any kind of cooperation?”

  Dom gave her his warm smile. “Your government at work,” he said. “Or so they’d like us to think.”

  “They didn’t have government plates,” I said.

  Dom gave me an avuncular smile. He liked that I was smart and observant.

  I wasn’t comforted, though. I headed into the house feeling far too shaken for such a brief encounter. Being pregnant can be a hormonal nightmare. I simultaneously wanted to gulp a large glass of wine and curl up in a ball and weep. My emotional volatility didn’t bode well for managing my client school’s current emergency, but I couldn’t not work just because I was pregnant. I took a deep breath and joined Rosie in the kitchen, where she was putting our dinner in the oven—lasagna and a foil-wrapped loaf of garlic bread. I was so grateful I almost cried. It can be so nice to be fed by someone you love.

  “Wine and cheese outside?” I said, waving toward the sliders that led out to our big back deck.

  “Wonderful,” Dom said, scooping up the platter from the kitchen island. He hesitated. “Are you okay?”

  Dom has asked me that dozens of times, often when I am very much not okay. It’s his way of saying, “It’s okay to have your feelings,” and “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I’m pregnant,” I said, which lately was my answer to everything. Not one I liked very much. I prefer being fierce and terrible.

  Andre, who was behind me, wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him and spread his hand protectively over MOC. “Who knew how complicated this would be?”

  I leaned against him and inhaled his special scent. His chest felt like a warm wall. “I guess I’m not very good at this,” I said. “All my moods feel exaggerated.”

  “Something they don’t warn us about,” Rosie agreed. “Hard when you’re used to being in control and in charge. But the end result is a good one.”

  “It’s just so darned public. Perfect strangers feel free to pat the basketball.”

&nbs
p; “Basketball?” Dom burst out laughing, and Andre led me out to the deck.

  When we were all settled in our chairs, gazing out over the backyard and listening to the night sounds, Andre said, “Tell me about Jessica.”

  “Here’s the little I know. She rang the doorbell when I was getting ready to finish painting MOC’s room. She introduced herself as Jessica, no last name, and said she was my new neighbor across the street and that Jeannine down at the library told her we should meet. Maybe because we’re both pregnant. I don’t know.” I shrugged. There was so little to our meeting beyond a sense that she wasn’t being forthcoming.

  “Is she medium tall and blonde and looks like a runner?”

  “No. She’s short, maybe 5’ 3”, and she’s gorgeous. She has raven black hair and startling blue eyes and dresses in wild hippie colors. She’s got secrets, for sure. I think she’s hiding from something. Not from anything she’s said, but from what she isn’t saying. But yesterday I invited her to go shopping today for baby things, and while she didn’t reveal much about herself, we had a really good time.”

  I considered what else I knew. “When we got back, the woman she describes as helping her get settled helped us unload the crib from the car. Jessica didn’t introduce her, and she didn’t share her name when I shared mine. I don’t think Jessica likes her much.”

  Dom and Andre exchanged looks, while Rosie said, “This is very strange.”

  I thought so, too.

  “I saw Jessica there later, in her driveway, arguing with the same woman. A woman fitting the description of the one those men were looking for—she was tallish, blonde, and thin. Then I saw her, my dark-haired, pregnant neighbor, again, when I stopped to drop off some flowers. She was wearing black jeans and a black tee-shirt and putting a big plastic trash bag into a Volvo with Virginia plates.”

  “That’s all?” Andre and Dom said it together, and we all laughed.

  “Well, mostly we talked about our babies. Like pregnant women do. She said she was having a girl and that the baby’s father wanted her named Amaryllis. Amy for short.”

  “What else did she say about the baby’s father?” Andre asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Princess,” Dom said, “You’re a good reader of people. What else did you notice?”

  “This is unfair, you know. You guys ganging up on me. I am not a witness in a criminal case. I am a poor whale of a woman who was just being kind to a pregnant stranger.”

  “And?” Dom said.

  There’s no ducking things when your husband and one of your dearest friends are both detectives. Both men have laser focus and are used to not letting people off the hook. “And I think you guys are mean. I don’t know anything else.”

  “Right,” Andre said. “Because you’re so unobservant.”

  “It’s a gorgeous summer night. Can’t we just sit out here and enjoy it?”

  “Soon,” Andre said.

  “When the interrogation is over,” Dom said.

  “Interview,” I corrected.

  Rosie sighed. “Give them what they want, Thea, or we’ll never have any peace.”

  Sadly, that was true. Half the time, they don’t even know they’re doing it, it’s so ingrained. Poor MOC is going to have a miserable time being a teenager.

  “She said that the baby’s father was no longer in the picture. I got the sense that there was a story there. That he was dead, or somehow unavailable. Overall, my sense was that she was being very cautious about revealing anything about herself. That she even wondered if her comment about the baby’s name was a mistake. And she was jumpy. She was anxious when Andre’s dad drove up the driveway, and again when a tool that Ronnie was using made a big clang. She did say she worked for a government agency, she planned to work remotely, and was frustrated by how long it was taking to get cable installed. Then she appeared to be sorry she’d revealed so much, and rushed away. When I watched her walk home, she kept looking around, like she was afraid of something. Or someone.”

  I shrugged. “It looked to me like she’s hiding out here from someone who is looking for her. And that maybe it involves her husband. But a lot of that is conjecture.”

  “But unless that guy was lying, or saying it to test us and see if we’d correct him, the person they’re looking for isn’t the woman you met,” Andre said.

  I shrugged. “Just so long as he doesn’t come back.”

  “We hope,” Andre said.

  “Oh, and when I saw her in the yard when I was coming back from Agway, when I stopped and gave her a pot of calendulas to brighten things up, she was trying to be optimistic, but it looks like that place is a dump. I think that’s what she and the other woman were arguing about.”

  Rosie smiled. “That was nice. The flowers, I mean.”

  Dom picked up the cheese plate and passed it to me. “Have some yummy cheese,” he said.

  And the subject of the mysterious Jessica, or two mysterious Jessicas, or two women, one of whom was named Jessica and might be a witness of some sort, was abandoned in favor of good company and good food. I was a little anxious that our unwanted visitors would return, but they didn’t, and we had a lovely evening.

  It was an added pleasure that I got to have two such good friends to inaugurate our guestroom, and Rosie found it charming. This house was bringing out a domestic side I hadn’t known I possessed. I liked finding nice things that fit its country charm. When I had time, which was rarely. Good thing there wasn’t an antique store next to Agway.

  As Andre and I were settling into bed—a task that took some doing, since it was hard to find a position that MOC liked—I said, “What do I do if those men come back?”

  He curled around me, making us spoons, patted MOC lightly, and said, “Smile and act utterly bewildered. And don’t let him in the house, no matter how pushy he gets. If he…or they don’t leave, call us.”

  “That’s your best advice?” I really was anxious about them returning.

  All I got in return was the quiet sound of his breathing. Andre was asleep.

  Five

  We had a peaceful and lovely breakfast out on the deck the next morning, a soft, warm, and sunny morning with chirping birds and the sweet smell of flowers and grass. From her Adirondack chair, Rosie took it all in with a smile. “Dom, I think I’m going to stay right here and not go back to Belmont with you. It gets so hot and sticky in the summers now.”

  Not likely, given how devoted to each other they were, but I would have been very happy to have Rosie here for as long as she wanted. I enjoy having a substitute mom who doesn’t judge me.

  “It’s nice here,” Dom agreed. “You can stay if you want. I can pick you up next week. But bear in mind that Thea isn’t going to be here for you to mother. You know how she is. She’ll be heading off to shoot troubles at some school somewhere, and you’ll be stuck here without a car in the middle of nowhere, with mysterious strangers who might be government agents at the door and deer in the vegetables.”

  Like he’d summoned them from the forest, my rapacious doe and her fawn were even now trotting across the lawn toward the garden. Oblivious to our presence or to anything that might come between them and tender lettuce.

  “No!” I yelled, charging down off the deck and across the lawn. “Absolutely not! I did not grow these for you.” I thought wild animals were supposed to be deterred by human presence, but this deer just paused and tipped her head, as though she was saying, “Hey, lady. You know we mamas have to feed our babies. What’s your problem?” Then, having done her best to make me feel guilty, she turned and trotted gracefully away.

  “You sure told her,” Andre said, when I climbed back to the deck.

  “Thea the great and terrible doesn’t seem to be working today,” I said.

  My beloved husband just grinned and said, “Nope.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Dad’s going to get some fencing, and he and Ronnie will put it up today.”

  Andre. My
hero. The man who brings me chocolate cake and shares my bed picnics. Now he was rescuing me from rapacious wildlife. I leaned back in my chair, resting my coffee cup on the basketball, and looked up at the summer sky. Deep blue with small, puffy clouds. MOC kicked the cup and my coffee spilled.

  “Was that?” Andre asked.

  “The acrobat,” I said. “And this is supposed to be the quiet time.”

  “Do you want me to come when the baby is born?” Rosie asked.

  “Both of us,” Dom added. “I don’t want to be left out.”

  Would my mother’s nose be out of joint? My father’s? I really didn’t know. Mom was very caught up with Michael and Sonia’s baby. She’d expressed an interest in mine, but she regards Maine as the Northwest Territory. She thinks we live in a log cabin surrounded by bears.

  “Sounds lovely,” I said. “Can we play it by ear for now?”

  “Of course.”

  Andre was looking at his watch. So far today, no homicides or violent sexual assaults had called him away, but he was a slave of the phone. We both were. And of our jobs. There was always something that needed his or my attention. He was only quelling his impatience to get back to this week’s crimes because we had company.

  Dom, a professional reader of people, stood, stretched, and said, “We’ll be off soon. I’m taking Rosie to that botanical garden near Boothbay and then for lobster rolls and onion rings. But you two better stay in touch. No having babies without us.”

  “Besides,” Rosie said, “we want to know if there are further developments in the mystery of the two Jessicas.”

  It sounded like the title of a book. “We will,” I said. “Though I hope the mystery doesn’t involve any further visits from those rude men. Even though she radiates independence, I worry about Jessica.”

  “If I had lovely men like those looking for me, I think I’d find a way to disappear,” Rosie said.