by Flora, Kate;
His only companion was a dog. An obedient, well-trained dog named Fideau. Part Lab, part who knew what? His crime scene dog. That was often how cops got pets. The bad guys got arrested and sent to jail and a sad cat or dog was left behind, destined for the shelter unless it was adopted. Fideau loved kids. Loved swimming in the lake. And for some inexplicable reason, the silly animal loved Joe Burgess. Today, while Burgess napped in the hammock, Fideau was curled up in a patch of sun a few feet away, on guard lest anyone approach his new master. The beast had already protected him from two squirrels and a curious chipmunk.
He was just drifting off to sleep when Fideau started barking and he felt a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. He said, “Fideau, quiet,” and the dog obeyed. He opened his eyes and for a moment he thought he was seeing a ghost. A small apparition stood beside the hammock. A small, skinny apparition with white blonde braids, pale skin, white shirt, white shorts, and clean white sneakers. A small girl, one his mother would have called a “fairy child.” He figured she was eight or nine.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t want to disturb you, but our phone isn’t working and I need to call for help.”
“My phone is inside,” he said, tipping himself out of the hammock and standing. “What is your emergency?”
Damn. He sounded just like one of those operators in dispatch who sat in a darkened room and dealt with emergencies all day long, not like a father talking to a small, frightened child.
He tried again. “What do you need help with?”
“It’s Papa,” she said. “He won’t wake up.”
“What’s your father’s name, and where are you staying?” he asked, adding, “I’m Joe Burgess. I’m a policeman.”
“We’re over there.” She pointed toward the next cottage. “I’m afraid I don’t know our address. Papa’s name is Theodore. Ted. Ted Gabbro.”
“You don’t have a phone?” he asked.
“Papa has a cell phone, but I can’t find it.” She was on the verge of tears.
“Wait here,” he said, “I’ll get my phone, and then I’ll come back to the cottage with you.”
So much for a quiet day. He hurried up the steps and crossed the deck to the cottage. Inside, he quickly put on shoes, grabbed his phone, and rejoined the girl. “Let’s go,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Arielle,” she said. “Ari. I’m nine.”
Accompanied by the ever vigilant Fideau, they covered the distance between the two cottages quickly and he followed her inside. Fideau slipped in before he could shut the door. She led him to a bedroom at the back where a man lay in bed. Probably in his fifties, Burgess thought. Burgess examined him quickly. Established that he was still breathing, though possibly in a coma, and made the call to summon EMTs and an ambulance, giving them the number of the fire road and which to turn to take when they got close to the lake.
He’d walked into too many crime scenes not to take note of the room. Perfectly neat. Nothing but a closed suitcase. Nothing on the nightstand. Not a phone. Pills. No watch or water. He wondered why the man’s window was open, when it didn’t have a screen. They were beside a lake, and Maine mosquitoes were often called the state bird. Then he led the girl back into the main room and settled her in a chair.
It was ten-thirty. Late in the morning for the father of a young child to still be sleeping, even on vacation. “How long did you try to wake him before you came and found me?” he asked.
“Not long. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes,” she said. “But he didn’t look right and I got scared.”
“Does he often sleep so late?”
“Not usually. Just when we’re on vacation,” she said. “He’s tired. He works very hard, so when he didn’t get up this morning, I thought I should let him sleep. But then I remembered that he’s supposed to meet with Mr. Fenton at eleven, so I tried to wake him.” She stared at Burgess with frightened eyes. “And then he wouldn’t wake up. Is he okay? Will he be okay? Will the doctors be able to wake him up?”
“I hope so. You were very smart to come and find me.”
Burgess hated to be asking her questions an adult should be answering. She was only a child. This should not have to be her problem. But he had no one else to ask.
“What about your mother? Is she here with you?” In his brief walk through the cottage, he hadn’t seen any signs of an adult female presence.
The girl shook her head. “They’re separated. Getting a divorce. This was my time to be with my papa.”
“So it’s just the two of you?”
She nodded.
They should call her mother, he thought. Get her here to care for her daughter until her father was better. If he got better. What he’d seen in the bedroom didn’t look good.
“Does your father have any medical conditions that you know about?”
She nodded. “He’s diabetic. He takes shots. But he knows that and he is never careless about his medicine or what he eats.” She shook her head solemnly. “Never. But I thought he might need a shot this morning and I couldn’t find his medicine bag.”
Burgess looked around. The cottage was almost obsessively neat. There were some art materials on the coffee table and two pairs of shoes, one large, one small, by the door. Otherwise, there were no signs of human habitation. He couldn’t remember seeing any medical paraphernalia in the bedroom. Maybe it was in the bathroom? Or still in that suitcase?
The girl looked so small and fragile. Such a pale child shouldn’t be dressed in white, but in bright colors. Or Fourth of July’s red, white, and blue.
“Did you have your breakfast yet?” he asked.
She shook her head. “We don’t have food yet. We only got here last night and we brought a pizza with us. We were going to go shopping this morning, when Papa went to meet Mr. Fenton. But it’s okay. I’m not really hungry.”
Burgess went and checked the refrigerator. The girl was right. Nothing there except a few slices of pizza. Not even milk or juice. So much for her papa being careful about what he ate, never mind taking care of a child. Once the ambulance had come and gotten her father, he would take her back to the cottage and give her breakfast, then drive her to the hospital.
Burgess found it a bit odd that a man with a serious medical condition would isolate himself and a small child in a cottage on a Maine lake, and not even provide food or a way to call for help if there was an emergency. He needed more information, but he didn’t want to frighten the child more than she already was. “You said you couldn’t find your father’s phone. Is that unusual?”
She nodded. “Every night, when he tucks me in—when I’m with him and not my mom, I mean—he reminds me that in case I ever need it, his phone will be right beside his bed.” Tears welled up. “He’s never careless about that. But when I couldn’t wake him, I looked for it, and it wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere in the room. It’s not anywhere in the house.”
Odd, Burgess thought.
Sirens signaled the arrival of the ambulance, and Burgess told Fideau to stay with Ari while he led the EMTs into the bedroom. He waited while they evaluated the man, told them their patient’s name and that he was an insulin-dependent diabetic, and learned where they were taking him. When he followed the stretcher into the other room, Ari was cowering in a corner of the couch, stroking Fideau’s head which was in her lap. The dog looked at him and lifted one ear in an inquisitive gesture Burgess read as, “Am I doing the right thing, Boss?”
Burgess said, “Good dog.” Then, to Ari, he said, “We’ll go over to my cottage, get you breakfast, and then I’ll take you to the hospital to see your father.”
She nodded. She didn’t speak, but she took his hand when he offered it, and he started to lead her out of the cottage. Then he hesitated. Too many things here didn’t seem quite right. “Is there a key to the cottage somewhere? I don’t like to leave it wide open.”
She pointed to a key hanging on a hook just inside the door, then watched him as he
checked the windows, closed and locked the open ones, and locked the doors.
“You are very careful,” she said. “Is that how policemen are?”
“Sometimes.” He held out his hand again. She took it and followed him through the woods to his cottage.
“What does your father do?” he asked.
“He’s a scientist.”
There were many types of scientists, of course. “What kind of a scientist?”
She grinned, like she was very proud of this answer. “He’s a geologist, Mr. Burgess. He’s been up here in Maine looking for gold. That’s why he is supposed to meet Mr. Fenton. Because he’s found something. He says Mr. Fenton will be very excited. Papa says people think there isn’t any gold left in Maine and that boy are they going to be surprised.”
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A WORLD OF DECEIT
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Also by Kate Flora
The Thea Kozak Mystery Series
Chosen for Death
Death in a Funhouse Mirror
Death at the Wheel
An Educated Death
Death in Paradise
Liberty or Death
Stalking Death
Death Warmed Over
Schooled in Death
Death Comes Knocking
The Joe Burgess Mystery Series
Playing God
The Angel of Knowlton Park
Redemption
And Grant You Peace
Led Astray
A Child Shall Lead Them
A World of Deceit
About the Author
Kate Flora’s fascination with people’s criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general’s office. Deadbeat dads, people who hurt their kids, and employers’ discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. That curiosity led her to the world of crime. The author of twenty books and more than twenty short stories, Flora’s been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Death Warmed Over, her 8th Thea Kozak mystery, was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award. Flora’s nonfiction focuses on aspects of the public safety officers’ experience. Her two true crimes, Finding Amy: A true story of murder in Maine and Death Dealer: How cops and cadaver dogs brought a killer to justice, follow homicide investigations as the police conducted them. Her co-written memoir of retired Maine warden Roger Guay, A Good Man with a Dog: A Game Warden’s 25 Years in the Maine Woods, explores policing in a world of guns, dogs, misadventure, and the great outdoors. Her latest nonfiction is Shots Fired: The Misconceptions, Misunderstandings, and Myths about police shootings with retired Portland Assistant Chief Joseph K. Loughlin. Her latest fiction is Schooled in Death, her ninth Thea Kozak mystery. Flora divides her time between Maine and Massachusetts.
www.kateclarkflora.com
www.mainecrimewriters.com