On the Doorstep

by Dana Corbit

  Immigration attorneys and law enforcement officers didn’t tend to mix well, so he never took Ramon’s standoffishness personally. Zach figured that was what it had to be since he’d never intentionally done anything to offend Ramon. Except being more preoccupied with the man’s sister than was necessary for a witness in a case, his subconscious added without permission. He shook away the thought as unreasonable, both in its premise and in its implication.

  But that dangerous part of him he’d never fully been able to control couldn’t resist testing his theory concerning Ramon. “Have any of you seen Pilar? I need to ask her some more questions.”

  “So this is a working visit?” Ramon asked, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Can’t the Chestnut Grove PD afford holiday pay for its detectives this year?”

  Zach studied Ramon for a few seconds. With his dark good looks, he was a male version of his sister, but without her delicate cheekbones and dramatic eyes. Ramon resented him, all right, maybe just for the things he’d mentioned and possibly something more.

  “Ramon!” Rita’s tone was sharp, probably the same one she’d used to stop her children from squabbling.

  “Detective Fletcher, please, you must forgive my son. He is rude.” But then she glanced over her son’s shoulder, her agitation growing more pronounced. “Our daughter, she has not yet joined us.”

  “She’ll be along anytime, Margarita.” Salt-and-pepper-haired Salvador used the mediator’s tone that must have worked well for him in the twenty-some years he’d owned Main Street Hardware.

  “That child is always making her mother wait.” Rita spoke of Pilar’s mother as if she and that other woman weren’t one and the same.

  “But she is a good daughter.”

  Rita turned to her husband, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Sí, she is.”

  Ramon cleared his throat loudly. “Is this a love fest for my sister or a picnic? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starved.”

  Rita opened her mouth to apologize for her son a second time, but Zach waved off her comment.

  “I have a few others I need to talk to. This is my day off, but it’s also one of the best opportunities to question several community members at the same time.”

  He adjusted his grip on Rudy’s leash and smiled at Ramon. “I’ll check back with you later.”

  Disappointment trailed after him as he walked away from the Estes family, whether because Pilar hadn’t been with them or because he hadn’t been immune to Ramon’s baiting, he wasn’t sure. He’d never gotten used to people who saw police as a threat rather than as support. When their resentment no longer bugged him, it would be time to turn in his badge.

  As Zach continued across the park, he gave up trying to convince himself he was still looking for clues. He knew exactly who he was looking for. That he’d been unable to take his eyes off her at church on Sunday should have offered him a billboard-size clue.

  What he would ask her when he found her, he had no idea. He was running out of questions on the case, especially since she continually dodged them. He had a fleeting thought that he should ask a different sort of question—such as, for example, if she was available for dinner—but he banished the idea. When was he going to get his mind off his nonexistent social life and focus on the case?

  Instead of wondering about any breaks in her social calendar, he should have been wondering if her not being at the event was a clue about what she was hiding. More than that, he should have been seeing if there was anything he could learn from others absent from this not-to-be-missed social event.

  Mayor Gerald Morrow and his wife, Lindsay, were the most notable absentees, but they might have just been away making a goodwill appearance. He made a mental note to check back issues of the local newspaper to see if Morrow had announced plans to attend any events this week or if he’d scheduled vacation.

  Zach was concentrating so hard that he didn’t realize anyone was following him until he felt a tug on his jacket sleeve. Ruth Fraser grinned up at him when he turned back to her.

  “How’s it going, Ruthie?”

  “Better now that you’re here.”

  Her hopeful expression pulled at his heartstrings. Crushes were serious business for a sixteen-year-old. Even someone as war-roughened as he was could remember softer times when tender feelings were involved. He certainly didn’t want to hurt hers if he could help it.

  He chuckled to lighten the conversation. “If I’ve improved it, this picnic must have been a nightmare before I got here. A real dud, eh?”

  She rolled her eyes but smiled.

  Just beyond her, he saw Meg Kierney, Rachel Noble and Anne Smith spreading a long checkered tablecloth across a picnic table. Chestnut Grove was too small a town for him not to know these were Pilar’s closest friends. If she wasn’t with her family and wasn’t with her friends, where was she?

  “Mom would complain about my manners again if I didn’t ask,” Ruth was saying when he tuned back into what she was saying.

  “I’m sorry. Ask what?”

  “Taking a mental siesta, Zach?” But her words came with a forgiving smile. “I asked if you wanted to share our picnic lunch. And I said Mom would complain about my manners again if I didn’t invite you.”

  “You’re right about that, but—”

  “You know Mom makes enough for an army. She doesn’t want anyone to go hungry.”

  “Right again, but I’ve already got more than enough for me. My cooler’s in the car.” He patted her shoulder, careful not to offer a personal touch that she or anyone else might mistake as flirtatious, and stepped back.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I know she’ll hate to see good food going to waste.” At least Ruth had the decency to tilt her head down and look sheepishly out from behind her copper bangs. The word “good” and her mother’s cooking wouldn’t often be included in the same sentence.

  “Thanks for the offer, anyway.” With a wave, he turned and took two steps away from her.

  His thoughts were already miles ahead of him. People didn’t just miss the community’s Labor Day celebration without an explanation, and he had an idea that he might need to hear Pilar’s.

  “I guess Pilar will just have to eat more then.”

  If he’d been turned into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife in the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, he wouldn’t have stopped in his tracks faster. His pulse stuttered, and his mouth went dry. Slowly, he turned back to the teenager, hoping it would look like an afterthought.

  But Ruth’s raised eyebrow and her tilted head said she wasn’t buying it. He couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all himself, that his interest in Pilar Estes was merely professional.

  “Hey, everybody, look what the cat dragged in,” Ruth called out as she pulled Zach by the arm into the circle of lawn chairs where the Fraser family had made camp.

  At least the teen, who was too smart for her own good, hadn’t called him on his sudden decision to join the Fraser family after all. She’d even waited patiently while he’d stopped to get his own food.

  Reverend Fraser set his plate aside and stood to greet Zach with a firm handshake. “Well, hello there. How’s life at the police department?”

  “Always busy.”

  “Same in my business. Somebody’s always coming and going.” The minister’s hearty laughter filled the air, and soon several of those around him were joining in.

  Zach wanted to say that his job involved more of life’s often-violent departures than any arrivals, but he doubted anyone would laugh at that.

  Over by the table, Naomi turned from a crockery pot of what had to be overcooked potato casserole and hurried over to hug him.

  “So glad you could join us, Zach. We’ve got plenty to eat.” With her hand, she gestured toward a picnic table full of food containers.

  “Thanks. Ruth passed along the invitation. Sorry, I won’t be more help with eating everything. I brought my own food.” He lamely held up his small cooler. />
  “Eat with us anyway. We’ll make sure that dog of yours has plenty of scraps. And maybe you’ll be able to pry Gabriel from Pilar’s hands for a few minutes.” She indicated with her hand just past the circle of chairs where Pilar sat cross-legged on a blanket and was feeding the baby a bottle.

  Her head popped up at the sound of her name, and she startled when she noticed Zach. Until that moment, she probably hadn’t noticed anyone around her except for the child in her arms. Again he wondered why. Again he didn’t figure she would tell him.

  “Oh, hi, Zach,” she said as she stood up and let Naomi take Gabriel from her.

  He’d never seen her dressed so casually before, in jeans, a summer sweater and sandals. She’d even worn her hair long about her shoulders. When he started to wonder what it would feel like to touch the long strands, he banished the thought from his mind.

  “Hi.”

  “Who do you have there with you?”

  He patted the German shepherd on the side. “This is Rudy.”

  Pilar let him sniff her hand first and then scratched his ears. Rudy started licking her hand and strained against his leash when Zach pulled him back.

  “I saw your family.”

  She jerked her head to look around. “Where were Mami and Papi?”

  “Near the lake. Sounds as if your mother was expecting you.”

  She grinned. “That bad, huh?”

  “Let’s just say she’s mildly annoyed.”

  “I’d better get over there then. Mami does like her schedule.” With that, she turned and hurried across the grounds.

  Zach couldn’t help watching her as she went. Her answers still hadn’t told him much, but what she had said had only created more questions in his mind. What was it about her that left him wanting to know more? Though she’d been aware her mother wouldn’t appreciate her tardiness, she’d still been unable to resist the chance to spend time with the baby.

  Naomi laid the sleeping infant in a portable crib next to the picnic table and came to stand next to him. “Too bad Pilar couldn’t eat lunch with us. But then Salvador and Rita probably miss her.”

  With effort, he pulled his gaze back from Pilar’s retreating form. “Why’s that? They live nearby.”

  “Sweet Pilar has come visiting at our house every day since Gabriel arrived. Her lunch hours, after work. I’m getting used to having her around.”

  Naomi smiled at her revelation, but it only ate at Zach’s consciousness. Gabriel. With Pilar, everything went back to Gabriel. What the connection was he hadn’t figured out yet, but he sensed it to his bones.

  From behind them, Reverend Fraser cleared his throat, causing both to turn back to him.

  “Zach, I’d like to introduce you to one of our new friends.” He gestured toward a man sitting in one of the chairs and balancing a plate of food on his knee. “This is Ross Van Zandt.”

  The man set his plate aside and stood to shake Zach’s hand. Ross had dark hair and intense dark eyes, and, from the look of the stubble on his chin and upper lip, had misplaced his razor about three days before.

  “Ross, this is Zach Fletcher, detective for the Chestnut Grove Police Department.” The reverend glanced back to Zach. “Ross has only been in town a few days.”

  Zach’s gut clenched. He’d just spent the last twenty minutes observing everyone he knew, looking for leads, and he’d overlooked a newcomer with an arrival date that nearly coincided with his investigation. Or at least the case he should have been working on if his investigative skills hadn’t suddenly taken a Puerto Rican holiday. Did he need any bigger sign that he needed to march into the chief’s office and hand over this case?

  “Nice little town you’ve got here,” the newcomer said as he gripped Zach’s hand.

  “We like it.” Zach tied Rudy behind his seat and gave the dog his own plate. When he was satisfied that the dog didn’t mind the food, he lowered into one of the chairs and opened his cooler.

  “You’ve got a beautiful dog.”

  Zach glanced over at Rudy with affection. “He’s my pal. Always happy to see me and never asks where I’ve been.”

  Instead of continuing to make small talk, Ross returned to his seat and picked up his plate. He took bites of some probably less-than-tasty baked beans, but his gaze flitted from one side of the park to the other.

  Occasionally, he even tilted his head almost inconspicuously to the side to see what was going on behind him. Studying the perimeter. Knowing where the exits were and who was going through them. A cop? His firm-looking build made it a good guess, and his expression that gave nothing away made it a better one. All of these were things Zach should have noticed earlier, if he were only looking.

  Naomi stepped over to hand the newcomer a cup of lemonade. “You never told us what brings you to town.”

  “Work,” he responded noncommittally. “I’m here working on a case.”

  Until that moment the Frasers’ foster daughter, Tori St. Claire, had been sitting next to Ross with her blond head resting in the cup of her palm, the epitome of teenage boredom, but now she came to life. “Really? Are you a lawyer? Or an FBI agent? Or somebody with the KGB?” Her voice shot up an octave with each question.

  Zach stilled his facial muscles to keep from smiling. He had some questions himself, but he doubted he’d ask them with Tori’s enthusiasm.

  Ross appeared to be trying not to smile himself. “No, nothing like that. I’m a private investigator.”

  “Oooh, a private eye. A gumshoe. Just like Columbo.”

  He did chuckle at that. “I’m afraid it’s not much like the TV shows. Mostly it’s a lot of boring research and pulling needles out of haystacks.”

  Somehow Zach guessed whatever Ross was looking for in Chestnut Grove was far more interesting than sewing implements and piles of dried hay. Otherwise, why was he being so purposely vague?

  Reverend Fraser glanced between the two men over the tops of his spectacles. “Well, looks like you’ve come to the right place. Zach, why don’t you sit by Ross and answer some questions for him. If there’s anything you can’t answer, then Naomi and I have been around here a year or two—or thirty-five, so we’ll give it a shot.”

  If ever Zach had questioned the insight of his mild-mannered minister, he would have to remind himself never to do it again. The man might have had the tendency to believe the best in people when they’d deserved nothing but the worst, but boy, could he read people.

  He picked up his plate and cooler and stepped over to the other side of the circle. “I can do that—that is, if Tori doesn’t mind trading seats.”

  The teen who’d gone from bored to starry-eyed in the last ten minutes over the man next to her, shrugged and gave up her seat. Ross glanced up at him with a guarded expression Zach would have recognized from the mirror.

  He sat down and took a bite of his chicken before setting it aside. Reverend Fraser had one thing right: Some questions were about to be asked in the next few minutes. He’d just wrongly predicted who would be asking them.

  Chapter Six

  “What can you tell me about a baby left on the doorstep of Tiny Blessings Adoption Agency last Wednesday?”

  Ross jerked his attention up from his plate to the detective who’d just spoken in a hushed tone. “Excuse me?”

  He studied the detective for a few seconds, waiting for him to explain the ridiculous question. Zach’s face still held a mild expression, but his gaze was intense.

  What a day Ross was having. First, he’d figured he’d really messed up when he’d accepted the Frasers’ invitation to join them for lunch. Him with a minister’s family—that was one for the record books. Now, when he finally figured he would make some headway by quizzing the very detective mentioned in the newspaper articles about the forged records, the cop was questioning him about another crime.

  “I asked what you can tell me—”

  He shook his head to stop him. “I heard what you asked, but why are you asking me? Do you think I’m t
he mother?”

  Zach didn’t even smile at the joke. Instead, he shrugged. “Was worth a shot.”

  From his experience as a New York City cop, Ross gathered that the detective had asked him point-blank to study his reaction, his body language.

  “Sounds like a tough case.”

  “Getting tougher by the minute.” Zach stared off into the distance for several seconds before whipping his head back to him. “How many years were you on the force?”

  Ross noted with a grin that he hadn’t asked if he’d been a cop, only when. “About eight years—until two years ago.”

  He braced himself for a question about why he’d left. How would he sidestep it this time? But Zach only picked up his plate and took a bite of that chicken that smelled far better than anything on his own plate. It shouldn’t have surprised him that the detective hadn’t delved into his personal life. The man was a cop himself. He had to know there were as many reasons to leave the force as there were reasons to stay.

  But before Zach changed his mind and decided to ask, Ross jumped in. “Hey, I thought I was supposed to be the one asking questions.”

  A dimple appeared in Zach’s cheek as the side of his mouth pulled up. “Ask away.”

  “Got any more of that chicken?”

  Zach shot a glance at Naomi, who was busy talking to an attractive young woman with striped blond hair, and slipped him a crispy-looking chicken leg. He took a big bite and paused to appreciate it. “Where’d you get this stuff?”

  “The Starlight Diner. Sandra Lange’s place has the best chicken in town.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Sandra was also his whole reason for being in town, but he didn’t mention that.

  “This looks like a big event. Do all of the community officials make appearances here? Town council members? Police chief? Mayor?”

  “Usually they do. I haven’t seen Mayor Morrow around today, but he might have been away on business.”

  “That’s probably it.” Probably laying low like the snake he was, Ross figured, since the news of the forged birth records had come to light.