Murder in Maine

by Danielle Collins

  “It was my fresh start. It was…great.” He shook his head and she could see he’d gotten tied up in memories. She would have to agree that he’d been a great employee and a good friend, basically family to her.

  “But then those men showed up.”

  Dexter scrunched up his nose. “Right. They said I was needed. A not-so-coded message that they were calling in favors.”

  “And you’ve been helping them ever since?”

  He frowned, opening his mouth to explain when a phone vibrated next to him. He picked it up, the corded phone looking dated even to her. “Yeah? Oh…shoot. Okay. I’ll be right down.”

  When he hung up, he sent Margot an apologetic glance. “I don't have time to explain the rest, but I’m sure you’re tired and probably hungry. I’ve got to go downstairs and take care of a few things. I’m going to order in something—Chinese food okay with you?”

  She nodded and smiled. “Of course. Do you want me to wait for you?”

  “Nah.” He stood and motioned for her to follow.

  They went across the small landing and he produced the set of keys again. The door opened into a clean, neat space that was a mirror reflection of Dexter’s apartment though instead of the Main Street, the window looked out over a park kitty-corner to the alley they had parked in.

  “Everything’s clean and the bathroom is in the main area. Sorry we have to share,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I’ll order the Chinese and they’ll bring it to this door. Will that work?”

  “I can always go out and get something,” she offered, hoping not to intrude too much.

  “Nah, this’ll be easy. Plus, Jin is a great guy and I give him all the business I can.” He grinned and made to turn around, but she reached out to stop him.

  “Dexter, you do know that I’m here to help you, right?”

  “Of course,” he said, frowning, “I know that.”

  “You’re not exactly being cooperative,” she pointed out.

  “I know.” He let out a deep sigh, his shoulders sagging with the effort. “But I promise to fill you in tomorrow. Don’t wait up for me, okay? I’ve got a few errands to run, but I’ll give you the rest of the story in the morning.”

  She nodded reluctantly and watched him attack the stairs two at a time. She didn’t know what was going on, but she hoped to have answers soon. Especially since she felt as if she had more questions than when she’d first arrived.

  Filled with authentic Chinese food, Margot had climbed into bed shockingly tired after her short trip. There was something about travel that always made a person exhausted. She’d spent a half-hour reading a book she’d brought with her, a crime novel from one of her late husband Julian’s shelves. As she placed the worn paperback on the nightstand next to the bed, she felt a tinge of sadness.

  While Julian had been gone for over five years now, she still sometimes felt the pressure of tears when she thought about her husband. He had loved crime and mystery novels and, being a detective, she understood his fascination with them. Now, she’d found herself drawn to them as never before. Perhaps it was all of the cases she’d somehow found herself involved in or maybe her relationship with Adam, the lead detective in North Bank, but either way, she viewed them differently than she used to.

  She turned off the light and the small apartment was flooded with darkness. She still hadn’t heard Dexter come back from his errands, but she trusted that he would be there in the morning to explain everything.

  Though she still wondered about why she was here. She cared for Dexter like he was a little brother, but had she let that familiar feeling led her into a situation she hadn’t foreseen? Was it possible he was running from the FBI? Was that the reason for all of the secrecy?

  She rolled onto her side and huffed out a breath. She needed her mind to calm down so she could get to sleep and stop worrying about things she couldn’t fix. At least at the moment.

  Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to relax fully. Focusing on her breathing, she drifted off to sleep finally.

  The sound of shattering glass roused Margot from sleep as if she’d been doused by cold water. What was going on?

  Jumping out of bed, she pulled on an old, oversized North Bank Police Department sweatshirt that used to be Julian’s and slipped into her flats by the door. Heart pounding, she pulled her door open and stepped into the landing. Dexter’s door remained closed so she crossed to it and knocked.

  No response.

  “Dexter,” she hissed.

  When he still didn’t respond, she went back to her room and pulled out a can of hairspray from her travel bag. She didn’t have time to look through the kitchen for a frying pan nor did she have access to a bat, but she did have the element of surprise and her knowledge of Krav Maga. In the absence of pepper spray, her hairspray would have to do for the element of surprise.

  Slipping down the stairs as quietly as possible, she made her way through the narrow hallway toward the door that was almost hidden by the stairs to the second floor. It had sounded like the noise had come from in there.

  Her heart was pounding and she desperately wished that Dexter had been there—or Adam with his police-issued sidearm—but she focused and tried to calm her breathing. Her instructor would quote Eleanor Roosevelt and say, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Her instructor had a thing for Mrs. Roosevelt. But, who was Margot to deny the reality that, though this scared her, she needed to do it.

  She reached the door and noticed that it was ajar. Reaching out with her free hand, she pushed the door open further, careful to keep her back to the wall. Nothing happened. She pushed a little harder and it hit against something.

  Kneeling down so as not to peer out at a line of sight, she peeked in. Light from a half moon that had kept her awake longer than she liked now was her savior. She saw a figure lying on the ground, unmoving.

  The rest of the kitchen was still and untouched. With her trained eye, she noted several professional grade appliances—even one that she had in her own kitchen in Virginia—and then the broken glass from the front door.

  Her hand slipped into her pocket where her phone was. Just as she was about to pull it out, a hand gripped her from behind.

  Chapter 3

  “Dexter!” Her loud whisper shattered the night almost as much as the pounding of her heart. Didn’t he know better than to startle someone when there was a dead body in the other room? “What is going on?”

  He shook his head. “I just got home.”

  She hadn’t even heard him come in the door. Then again, she’d been very focused on the dead body. Standing up, she reached for the lights.

  “Wait—” Dexter held out his hand.

  “I’m about to call the police but I need to make sure this man is dead—not just knocked unconscious. He could need medical assistance. But I have to see where I'm going in order to avoid stepping on something that could be evidence.”

  In the dim light, she could see thoughts cycling through Dexter’s mind. Why was he hesitating?

  “Do you know this man?”

  Dexter squinted. “No. But—”

  “But what?” she demanded. “There is a dead body, Dexter! A dead body.”

  “Right. I get that, but…”

  She lifted her phone. “I'm calling.”

  He looked resigned but nodded as she flipped on the light and carefully stepped over the man. He was dressed in ratty jeans, a dirty sweatshirt, and a holey jacket that had seen better days. His hair was ratty as well and it looked like he hadn’t showered in several weeks. Though, as she drew closer, he didn’t smell bad. How was that a possible?

  A stain of red seeped from under his head and she grimaced as she reached out to check his pulse. Nothing.

  “This is nine-one-one, please state your emergency.”

  She filled in the dispatcher who, in a very unprofessional manner, told her how sorry she was for Margot to be witnessing such a tragedy. Then she assured Margot that the police were on t
heir way.

  She relayed the information to Dexter and he shook his head. “Small town.”

  Margot nodded. North Bank was a small community, but perhaps it was the close access to Washington, D. C. that had kept up the level of professionalism. Not that she minded the woman’s concern, but to be called darling several times over the course of one call seemed a bit much.

  Soon, flashing red and blue lights painted the walls and she saw the policemen making their way to the front of the store.

  “Let me get that,” Dexter said, stepping gingerly over the dead man’s feet and unlocking the glass fronted door that was now mostly frame rather than glass. The sound of crunching glass met the entrance of the officers and she looked between them. They looked young, possibly early twenties, and one’s eyes went wide at the sight of the man. The other looked a bit more seasoned, but still looked queasy.

  Then she heard more glass cracking and looked up to meet the gaze of a handsome man with dark brown hair who looked to be in his mid-thirties. He wore a long-sleeved shirt that said something about a half-marathon, running leggings, and shorts.

  “Hello, ma’am. Name’s Detective Peter Graham. Sorry about the outfit—I was out on a run.”

  “Hello,” she said. “Margot Durand. It’s all right.” Who ran at eleven o’clock at night?

  “I hear you’re visiting our lovely town?”

  “She’s my guest,” Dexter said, stepping forward.

  “Ah, Hector, good to see you—though not under these circumstances.”

  Margot blinked as her gaze shot to Dexter’s. Had the detective said Hector?

  “Yeah. What do you think happened?”

  Detective Graham looked at the body and then circled around to the front, kneeling down. His sneakers squeaked on the floor as he did so. “Looks like this guy—homeless by the looks of it—had the misfortune of breaking in here only to fall and hit his head. Possibly some flour or something on the floor? Seems slippery.”

  Margot had noted the same thing, though she wasn’t sure if it would be enough to cause a man to fall. And if he had fallen, why hadn’t he reached out to grab anything? There were metal canisters of spatulas and frosting knives on the table right in the path of where he would have fallen. Anyone would have reached out to grab hold of something—anything—wouldn’t they?

  “I’ll have Officer White take your statement, Miss Durand, and Officer Kay will take yours, Hector.”

  Margot almost corrected him on the suffix of her name, but halted when he called Dexter Hector—again. So she hadn’t misheard it. She tried to meet Dexter’s gaze, but he did a marvelous job of avoiding looking at her.

  Fighting the urge to talk to him that moment, she went with the officer and gave her statement.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, Miss Durand,” Detective Graham said when she was done. The body had been removed and Dexter was on the phone with some type of cleanup crew. “No need to worry.”

  “I'm not worried—” She stared, but noticed his gaze had traveled to her hand. The hairspray! “Oh, this,” she offered a light laugh. “It’s when I thought there was an intruder downstairs.”

  “Brave of you to come down here like that. Though I wouldn’t advise that next time.”

  “I’m trained in Krav Maga, I would have been able to handle myself, though I likely would have called the police first.” She offered a smile she hoped he interpreted as confidence. “Besides, there’d better not be a ‘next time,’ Detective Graham.”

  “True, very true. And please, call me Peter.”

  “Thank you. And you may call me Margot.” She tried to judge the character of the man in front of her. While he was dressed in running gear, he held an air about him that bespoke of the big city, not small town Bath, Maine.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  His eyebrows arched. “How do you figure?”

  “I come from a town near D.C. You’ve got a city vibe about you.”

  He laughed, though she thought she detected a twinge of nervousness. “Don’t tell anyone—I want to blend in, you know?”

  It was an odd thing to say. How could they not know where he’d come from?

  But rather than argue with him, she nodded conspiratorially. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  He offered her an appreciative smile. “We’ll be in touch with any followup questions, but I would say it’s safe to assume this was an accident. Good night, Margot.”

  She watched him go as Dexter taped cardboard in front of the broken door, but something about the detective’s quick dismissal of the accident—if that’s what it really was—bothered her. Could the man really have fallen hard enough to hit his head without showing any signs that he tried to stop himself on the way down?

  And where had the slick residue on the floor come from? Rule number one in the kitchen was to clean everything, including the floor, thoroughly at the end of the day. Margot knew that Dexter knew that and assumed he’d told his workers as much. Dexter was still at the front door so she stepped to the pantry and gaped. A bag of flour was ripped open, the contents spilling over the floor and trailing out the door to where she’d found the man. That wasn’t right. Had the homeless man gone for the flour?

  It seemed that Margot was left with more questions, but her first one was to ask Dexter why everyone insisted on calling him Hector.

  With a steaming cup of peppermint tea and a thick blanket wrapped around her, Margot’s gaze bored into Dexter’s.

  “Okay, okay, I know you have questions. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait until tomorrow morning to ask them?” He gave her a sheepish grin that reminded her of the old Dexter, the one who would rather joke around than answer a question seriously. This new Dexter existed with a weight on his shoulders. One that was dragging him down in a way that broke Margot’s heart.

  “Let’s start with the fact that the detective called you Hector.”

  “So I’ll take that's as a no.” He huffed out a breath, tugging his own blanket higher on his shoulder. “The people here in Bath may know me as Hector VanNess.”

  “And why is that?”

  He looked everywhere but in her direction. “It’s a long story.”

  “Good. Now that I'm fully awake from finding a dead man in what I can only assume is the kitchen of your bakery, I’m all ears.”

  He cringed. “First off, it’s not my bakery. It actually belongs to my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yeah.” Now he met her gaze, a look of vulnerability on his boyish features. “Margot, I have a sister. I have real family.”

  “Why don't you start form the beginning,” she encouraged, her tone softer now.

  “It was during that time that I found out about my parents. It turns out they were some sort of con artists. I don't know it all since, apparently, they were good enough not to get caught. Anyway, it seems as if I was the good seed and my sister took after our parents.”

  “She was in trouble?”

  “Is in trouble. Or, at least I think so, but that’s getting ahead of myself.” He took a sip of his tea. “During the time that the FBI let me “off the chain,” so to speak, I met up with Danielle. At this point, she was still mixed up in some pretty bad stuff. I was able to get through to her and got her out of it. All of it. She even turned against the crew she’d been with and joined the FBI as a type of informant. You’ve got to believe me, Margot.” He leaned forward as if this was the most crucial part of the whole story. “Then she got out.”

  Margot nodded encouragingly. She had questions, but she would wait until he finished explaining.

  “She ended up going to school to learn how to become a baker. She opened a shop in another town and I came to stay with her. It’s where I learned everything I know about baking. For several years, she was doing well—really well. But then the FBI called in another favor. They needed her help again. She went through with it but almost blew her cover—it was messy.”

>   His gaze traveled to the window where night still shadowed the sleepy town. Margot wondered where his sister was at this moment, but she had a feeling he would get to that soon enough.

  “She had to uproot her life and that’s when she moved up here. Had to start all over again as Darcy VanNess.”

  VanNess—now she saw the connection. Even with their fake identities, they remained brother and sister.

  “Again, things went well. She settled in, opened this bakery, and did really well for herself. She’s even got an online portion of her business,” he said, shaking his head. “But that all came to a halt a few weeks ago.”

  “When those men showed up?”

  “Not exactly.” He rubbed a hand over his bearded jaw. “They were looking for information on Danielle. They said they needed her past contacts—again—in order to stop a current crime syndicate. I played them for a time, saying I didn't know where she was but I would find her, that type of thing.” He looked ashamed at the levels he’d stooped to in order to deceive them. “But then I got a call from Danielle and knew I had to come up here. I disappeared.”

  “So no one knows you’re here?”

  Dexter’s eyes narrowed. “You do. And I think Adam has his suspicions since I’d told him where Dannie was before.”

  Adam likely did know, especially now that she’d told him where she was going, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t give away information needlessly.

  “Then why am I here? Why risk exposing yourself by bringing me up here?”

  “Because Danielle is gone. We had a few months together and I was making sure her information remained encrypted, but then she up and disappeared a few weeks ago. I don’t know where she is—for real, this time—and I think you can find her.”

  “Me?” Margot looked back incredulously at the young man.

  “You’re brilliant!” He grinned. “Besides, I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Your track record in solving cases is impressive. I can’t involve the police, surely you can see that.”

  “I’m no private investigator, Dexter. You know that! I'm a baker. Besides, I don’t track down people. I happen to solve crimes that occur around me.”