by K. J. Emrick
Like she’d been waiting.
When a ghost did that, it usually meant it had something important to tell.
On quiet cat feet, Smudge came walking in slowly from the living room. He flicked one black and white ear up at Darcy, and blinked his eyes, and then walked over to his food dish to have his own supper. There was a lot more gray in that hair of his than there used to be. He was old, but he wanted Darcy to know he was still around when she needed him.
A moment later Tiptoe came bounding in with the same energy that her father used to have. She was always imitating Smudge, doing the things he did, trying to be grown up like her dad. This time, instead of going over to the food like Smudge had, she bounced onto Colby’s lap and curled herself up with a stretch and a yawn.
Darcy was glad Tiptoe was always there for her daughter. Especially if she was going to be this strong in her powers. “Colby, this is important. Tell me what the ghost said.”
Her daughter had been licking the chocolate off the side of her mouth and now the tip of her tongue stuck out of her lips as she scrunched up her eyes in thought. “Well, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I could hear her fine and everything. It was just a little hard to understand her because she has those burns and they make her mouth go funny when she talks, but I heard all the words.”
“It’s okay, Colby.” Time for a teachable moment she supposed, Darcy Sweet style. “Ghosts don’t always talk in ways that make sense. They talk in circles, sometimes, or else they tell you things they think you need to know even if it doesn’t really answer your question. Can you tell me what this ghost said?”
“Uh-huh. Yes I can. She said that her brother killed her with fire. That’s what she said.”
Colby said it so matter-of-factly. Like it wasn’t anything as terrible as it sounded. Hearing those words spoken so coldly by her daughter had her stomach in knots. Maybe it was a good thing, she thought to herself. If Colby was going to be exposed to the same things that Darcy had been exposed to in her life it might just be easier if she could be this detached from the bad things that happen to people. Or more to the point, the bad things that people did to each other.
Her brother killed her. In a fire.
The fire she had seen when she touched Pastor Phin’s hand. She remembered the sight of it so vividly. This girl had died in that fire. Killed by her brother.
So… who was her brother?
“Mom?” Colby said. Darcy had the impression it wasn’t the first time, either. “Are you okay?”
Smudge meowed to get her attention. Blinking, she realized that her daughter had finished her bowl of ice cream while hers was still untouched. “Oh, sorry honey. I was thinking. Um. Did the ghost say anything else?”
“Nope. That’s when you pulled me out of the trance. You’re going to show me how to do that too, right?”
“Yes, I will. Just not right now. Um. How about you head on up to your room for now. You still have homework to finish, right?”
“Aw, do I have to? I was going to watch some TV.”
Darcy smiled, although her thoughts were still on what Colby had said about the ghost. “Yes, you have to go do your homework. We can watch some television after you’re done. How about some My Little Pony tonight?”
“Okay. Two episodes?”
“Three, if you get your work done quick. Okay?”
“No problem. It’s just writing in the names of the states and their capitals. I’m half done already.”
“Really?” Darcy asked her, not exactly convinced.
“Uh, well… I have it started.” She swung her feet over and slipped down off the chair. “I’ll go do the rest of it right now. Come on, Tiptoe!”
Two cats followed Colby out of the room. Tiptoe raced along at her feet. Smudge took his time, waiting at the doorway to look back at Darcy. His eyes told her he was okay with watching over Colby for now, but there was going to need to be a lot more naps in his future. A flick of his tail, and he was gone.
Darcy cleared the rest of the dishes off the table and put them in the sink with the others. She’d have to wash them later but right now her mind was working overtime. Maybe… just maybe…
Could it be that Jon had been right to put Pastor Phin’s name on the suspect list after all?
“I just got word,” Jon told her from the doorway between the living room and kitchen. “Wilson Barton arrested Bobbi Jo Cameron on drug possession charges. We’ve got the name of her dealer but that’s going to be a problem for tomorrow. So how’d it go with Colby?”
“Hmm?” Darcy stopped fiddling with her aunt’s ring on her finger and started pacing instead. “With Colby? Fine. She won’t do anything like that again. Not until I’ve told her she’s ready. I’m not worried about that.”
“Really? Because I sort of am,” he admitted. “I guess it’s the same as when we worry about her being away at school all day and what’s happening to her while we’re not around.”
“Right. Just like… wait.” She blinked up at him. “You worry about that too?”
“Of course I do, Darcy. I’m a guy, but I’m still a father.” He came closer, putting his arms around her waist. “Good parents always worry. I’ve just got a few more things to worry about with our daughter than most fathers. I mean, what’s her first date going to be like? Is she going to graduate college, get a good job, move away or stay here in town? There’s all that normal stuff, and then with Colby we also have to worry if she’ll plunge herself into a spirit communication and never come out of it. Or if she’ll have her very own avenging spirit that wants to kill her by burning a building down around her ears.”
Darcy shivered, just a little, to remember those events on that Halloween night in the Town Hall all those years ago. “I know. We’ll get through it all together, right? Now, speaking of buildings burning down. Jon, the ghost from Pastor Phin’s church said that her brother killed her.”
“Her brother?”
Darcy nodded. “Her brother. He killed her in a fire.”
“I see.” Gears were turning behind Jon’s eyes. “And do we know who her brother is?”
“I can make a really good guess.” She hated what she was thinking, but so far today she’d found out that someone she called a friend was in debt to an illegal bookie, and that a trusted businesswoman in town was selling marijuana and God alone knew what else from her shop.
So really, how hard should it be to believe the pastor in town had killed his sister?
“Well.” Jon took in a deep breath. “I guess I better get that background investigation done on Phineas McCord sooner than I thought.”
“You didn’t get to talk to Helen?” Darcy asked. “When you dropped me off here earlier you said you were heading right over to the Town Hall.”
“I did, but Helen wasn’t there.” Kissing her forehead, he went and sat down at the kitchen table. “She left early. I think if I understood her clerk right she went somewhere with her husband. No idea when she’ll be back so I had to leave her a message. You know I didn’t get any ice cream.”
“Jon, this is serious.” Darcy crossed her arms. “What if Phin is, you know, some sort of serial arsonist?”
“Then he doesn’t get any ice cream, either.”
“Jon.”
“Okay, okay. I know it’s serious. Look, we’ve got three other names on our suspect list. I had my people check all of the video surveillance for Sunday from every store along Main Street that has a camera either outside, or pointed with a view of outside. Yours included. We saw the Iroc driving down the street but we can’t see the driver’s face. We saw our friendly Hand-man Edmund Beres walking up and down the sidewalk at different times of the day. Now that we know he’s wearing that cap he’s a lot easier to spot. No telling what he was up to. We saw Tobias Ford, too, but that’s not unusual because that’s where the bakery is—was—and from what I understand he was very hands-on when it came to running the place. He was there a lot. Now. Guess who else we saw?”
“Yes, we did. We saw the Pastor before the fire started, down by the children’s clothing store. We saw him again after the fire started. So, that confirms what Elizabeth told us. Phin was there on both ends of the timeframe when the fire started.”
She sat down with him. “I don’t suppose there’s a security camera anywhere that shows the bakery being set on fire?”
“No, of course not. That would make it too easy.” He rolled his shoulders. It had been a long couple of days for him. “And of course the fire took out the video recordings made by the bakery’s cameras, so that’s a bust.”
“Then how are you going to solve this?”
“Well, I could always depend on old-fashioned police work.” He drummed his fingers against the table. “Or…”
“Or what?” she asked, although she knew where this was going.
“See, I was hoping that maybe my extremely talented and gifted wife who is able to see things that us old-fashioned police officers can’t, would find it in her heart to go talk to Pastor Phin and maybe, uh, shake his hand again or something.”
“So let me get this straight.” She leaned forward on one elbow. “You want me to go to a church pastor and use my paranormal gifts to find out what he’s hiding from his past?”
“Well, when you put it that way… yes. What do you think?”
What did she think? Seriously? “I think I’m going to need another bowl of ice cream.”
“Ooh, get one for me too, please.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, but truth be told she was glad that he’d asked her to do this. Not that she was looking forward to seeing into the past of a man who might have killed his sister and burned their house down. She wasn’t. But knowing that Jon trusted her enough to ask her to use her abilities to solve a mystery, to help catch the bad guy… that warmed her up inside.
She got a fresh bowl of ice cream for him, and finished off her melty bowl before dishing out more for herself. When Colby came in and saw them having ice cream without her, she got another small bowl, too.
Ice cream made everything better, but it didn’t solve mysteries.
Darcy knew they would have to wait until tomorrow morning to talk to Pastor Phin. She could have left Jon and Colby alone at the house and gone over to the church after their ice cream bowls were stacked, but she had promised their daughter a night watching television together and she wasn’t going to go back on that. Before the third episode of My Little Pony all three of them, Jon included, were asleep on the couch.
In the morning, she walked Colby out to wait for the bus. Little bits of snow filled the air like glitter, highlighted by sunlight that broke through big gaps in the clouds above. It made the world look magical, and Colby raced back and forth collecting snow on her face, laughing the whole time. “Look, Mom!” she said. “I’m all sparkly!”
She and Jon had made plans to meet Pastor Phin at the bookstore around mid-morning. Jon was going to set it up. That was fine with Darcy, because she’d been neglecting her shop as it was recently and she needed to put in some hours with Izzy before she quit. Not that she’d expect Izzy to quit, she thought with a smile. The woman was a saint.
Now, in the bookstore, the two of them finished the decorations. With one last piece of tape to hold up a cardboard snowman’s arm as he skated along an imaginary pond on the wall, everything was finally in place. Oh, but they should have a tree! Maybe even a real one. The scent of pine needles in the bookstore would be amazing. A few weeks until Christmas and the customers would love to see a real tree.
“What are you thinking about over there?” Izzy asked her, kneeling down to put the tape and the unused bits of ribbon back in the empty decoration box. “That snowman isn’t going to come to life and start running around the town square or anything, you know. What’s up?”
“I was just thinking… what if we brought in a real tree, and decorated it all up, and then hung a sign asking people to bring in a wrapped present to distribute to families in the community who don’t have much this year?”
Now Izzy looked over at the same corner that Darcy was staring at, picturing the tree there as well. She got up off her feet and brushed dust from her hands onto her jeans. “I think that’s a really good idea, Darcy. Tom down at the hardware store is still selling trees. I can go down there and pick us out a good one, if you like.”
“That would be great, Izzy, thank you. I’m expecting Jon anytime now.”
She didn’t bother mentioning that she was expecting Pastor Phin to be with him. The rumors in this town didn’t need any help.
“It’s settled then.” She went to the office and got her coat and took her keys from her pocket. “I don’t know if I can fit a tree in that car of mine, but maybe Tom or one of the guys will have a truck. Or I could walk it back, I suppose.”
“That might make for a long walk. I’d stick with having someone deliver it.”
“It’s not that cold out,” Izzy said.
Darcy laughed. “Says you. Have you ever considered moving to the arctic circle? Or Canada?”
Izzy snapped her keys around. “I like it cold. What can I say?”
Holding her coat rather than wearing it, off she went.
There weren’t any customers in the store right now, and she really wasn’t expecting any on a Tuesday until closer to noon. Sometimes tourists walking through the town would wander in to browse and occasionally buy, but the real crowds didn’t normally come in until after noon on a weekday.
When the shopkeeper’s bell rang at the front Darcy looked over to see Jon and Pastor Phin coming in. Jon was laughing at something Phin had said, slapping him on the back like they were just two guys on an outing about town. Jon had decided a little white lie would get Phin off his guard and get him here without too many questions. Bringing him down to the police station might put him on the defensive which could cause him to clam up and ask for a lawyer. If they went to his church and asked him a question he didn’t like, he could order them off the property and they would miss their opportunity. Neutral ground was their best bet in this case.
“Hello Pastor,” Darcy said with her best smile. “Thanks for coming. I have some coffee and hot apple cider in the dispensers over there. Something new I’m starting for my customers in the winter months. Would you like some?”
She pointed out the little wooden table over in the reading area and the two stainless steel beverage dispensers with their black tops and plastic spouts. Styrofoam cups sat in an upside down stack between them, along with glass bowls of creamers and sugar packets.
“Er, no, thank you Darcy.” Now that he was out of the snow he slipped out of his jacket. It had started to come down harder in the last hour and the snowplows had already been through town once. “I’m a little confused why you guys wanted to see me? Jon wasn’t exactly forthcoming about it.”
He was dressed under the coat in a very simple gray sweater and khaki pants. Darcy had never known him to wear anything bright and flashy. Nothing that would draw attention to him. He was always there, always available for people, but he was obviously a man who didn’t like to stand out.
Darcy sat down at the closest of the reading tables. Jon sat with her. A moment later, Phin sat down as well with an uncertain smile. “What’s going on?”
“We wanted to talk to you,” Jon said, “about the fire at the bakery.”
Phin blinked. He looked from Jon to Darcy, and back again. “It’s a terrible thing. For the owner and the rest of the town, too. Are there any plans to rebuild?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.” From the inside pocket of his jacket Jon took a bundle of folded papers. “What I was curious about, actually, was if the fire seemed familiar to you.”
The color drained from Phin’s face. “I… I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh?” Jon put the papers down on the table and spread them out flat. “You
used to live in Everton, right? Little town with, let me see here… three thousand people? Wow. Small place. We have twice that number in Misty Hollow. Why’d you leave?”
“Our house… our house burned down.” Phin took a deep breath, steadying his palms against the table. “I don’t like to talk about it. Everyone has something in their past that is better left in a little black box at the back of their mind. God wants us to be happy, after all. Not mired in our past.”
“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Jon said. “Forgetting all about your past, and such. According to public records, your house burned down.”
It was a long moment of silence before Phin gave a simple answer. “Yes.”
“Well. Let’s leave that alone for now.” Jon turned over the top page on the table, and then the one under it. “You saw the fire at the bakery on Sunday, right? You were there?”
“Yes, I was there. Half the town was there.” Craning his neck sideways Phin scanned the papers Jon was reading. “What do you have there?”
“This, is a copy of a police report. I’ll get to this in a minute.” Jon crossed his arms to lean his elbows on the table. “Can you tell me when you got to Main Street on Sunday? We’re trying to work up the timeline.”
Darcy could see how suspicious Phin was of the question. She waited. An honest man would have nothing to hide. They’d already discovered the deep, dark secrets of two of their neighbors. Would Pastor Phin turn out to be another friend with those sorts of secrets, or would he turn out to be a good man?
What was in that black box at the back of his thoughts?
“You want to know when I got to Main Street?” Phin asked, repeating the question rather than answering it.
Jon kept his gaze levelled at him. “Yes. I need to know when you got to Main Street on Sunday. Before the fire, or after the fire?”
Phin swallowed noisily. “It was before the fire happened.”
“I see. What time was that?”
“Jon, I’m beginning to feel like I’m on trial.”
