A Murder of Consequence (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 15)

by K. J. Emrick

  Her friend nodded, wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh, Darcy. I wish to God I had just stayed in Misty Hollow.”

  “Things happen the way they happen. Sometimes you can’t change that.”

  “No matter how bad they are?”

  The question hung in the air. Sarah meant her husband. His death. No matter how she might want it to change, that was a fact of her life now.

  When the teakettle whistled they both jumped.

  Sarah took out two ceramic mugs from a cupboard and put steaming water into both. “Darcy I know I called you here to help, but it seems pretty pointless now. I feel so stupid. I mean, seriously. Ghosts? I thought ghosts were haunting us? I was worried about something that silly when I should have been worrying about who was coming to kill my husband!”

  Sarah slammed the cups down on the table, boiling water splashing onto the table narrowly missing her hands, and then stood there, trembling.

  Darcy closed the tin of tea. They could worry about Orange Peking or Earl Gray later. It took a little urging to get Sarah to sit down in one of the wooden chairs. When she finally did she sat very stiffly, her eyes unfocused, and Darcy’s heart went out to her.

  “They think I did this,” Sarah muttered, bitterness and despair and defeat in her voice. “I’m going to be arrested for my own husband’s murder. How? How did this happen?”

  “You won’t be arrested for this. I promise you.” Darcy knew she would do everything she could to keep that promise. Everything. Including using her special gifts. The ones her Aunt Millie had taught her to use.

  Thank you, Aunt Millie.

  “I came here to help you,” she said to Sarah, putting as much confidence in her voice as she could. “That’s what I’m going to do. Just sit there and, um, trust me.”

  Sarah didn’t move. She didn’t give any indication at all that she’d even heard. Not waiting for an answer, Darcy breathed in, then out, then in again.

  This time she held that breath and took Sarah’s hands into her own.

  With an effort of her own life force channeled through her soul—more or less—she reached out to Sarah with her gift.

  Looking for guilt in a person’s heart wasn’t as easy as it sounded, even now that Darcy had done this close to a dozen times. This technique would allow her to see the figurative blood on someone’s hands. The psychic equivalent of shame and regret that could be made manifest to someone with paranormal vision.

  Like Darcy.

  A tingling sensation started to crawl up Darcy’s arms, along her skin, up her hands and across her fingers. She felt it when Sarah reacted, a little flinch, as that electric tingle spread up her hands, too. It was working.

  Then, releasing the breath, Darcy looked down.

  Sarah’s hands were clean. No trace of blood. Her friend wasn’t carrying any guilt on her soul.

  Darcy took another deep breath as she let Sarah’s fingers slip away. Leaning back, she concentrated on just breathing for a moment. There was a tight sensation across her forehead, and with a little sigh she rubbed it away. A piece of her went into everything she did like this. Communications were worse, but she really hoped she wouldn’t have to do one of those here. The thought of talking to Sarah’s just now dead husband wasn’t something she was looking forward to doing.

  “What was that?” Sarah asked in a little whisper.

  “That was me proving you didn’t kill Braden.”

  “What? How?”

  Darcy explained about being able to see blood on people’s hands, and about seeing visions sometimes when she touched people. “That’s what happened to me earlier. I touched you, and then I saw Braden. He was dead. You were checking for a pulse.”

  Sarah choked on a sob. “Yes, I was. I can’t believe you…you saw that. I wanted to know if I could save him. I couldn’t. He was…um. He was dead. Darcy, I knew you could, like, talk to ghosts and whatever. But this? Those newspaper articles made you sound like a psychic detective.”

  Great, Darcy thought. She would have to thank Brianna Watson for being such a thorough news reporter. “There’s a lot more to it than just talking to ghosts. It’s not exactly something I can bring into a court of law but it’s good enough for me. Now we can start looking into what really happened.”

  “But…you saw what happened. Didn’t you? You just said you had a vision of Braden’s death when you first got here.”

  “Yes, and no,” Darcy tried to explain, wishing her gifts were a lot more specific than they were. “I saw what you saw. I saw Braden, um, on the bathroom floor. Why don’t you tell me what happened before that?”

  Sarah took a deep, long breath. “Well. I woke up this morning, and Braden was still in bed. I always get up before him. He leaves for work around seven every morning, and I go for my run at six. It gives me time to get back and spend a few minutes with him before he leaves. This morning, I did the same thing. I got up, got dressed in my sweats, and went for my run. When I got back, I called his name. Over, and over. He didn’t answer. I didn’t do anything else. I just ran through the house and that’s when I went into the bathroom, and…I…found…”

  Darcy knew what Sarah had found. She’d seen it in the vision. There wasn’t any reason to go into details with that.

  “Okay.” What now? Darcy wished Jon had come with her. She was trying to think what to ask next and she just knew that he would already have the next question ready. And the next one after that. She wasn’t a private detective, no matter what Brianna Watson might have written in her articles. She was just a girl with a gift and a good head on her shoulders. At least, that’s what Jon had told her. “Okay. Let’s go back. Let’s try that. Did anything happen on your run? Anything strange or suspicious?”

  Sarah started to shake her head but then stopped. “Sort of? I don’t know if this is what you mean, but Terry Taft stopped me over on Exeter Street.”

  “Terry? You mean police officer Terry?”

  “Sure. He was working, and he pulled up next to me in his patrol car and started talking to me. I told him I was running and didn’t want my heartrate to slow down too much, so I left.”

  Terry Taft. The same guy who was obviously crushing on Sarah. Darcy put that in its proper column in her mental lists. Things were starting to add up.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Sarah asked. “I mean, if he saw me while I was running, he can be my alibi. I can show where I was this morning when Braden died!”

  “Not if Braden was killed with a poison like Shai Larson said.” Darcy hated being negative, but they had to be honest with each other if Darcy was going to be able to help. “Sorry, Sarah, but someone can be poisoned at one point in time and then die a long time after that. It depends on the poison.”

  Sarah’s face fell. “So we’re back to where we started again.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Talk to me about Hampton McGillis.”

  “Not much to say. He’s a local coot. No one pays him any attention. I try to be nice to him, when I can, because I feel sorry for the man. Now it looks like he might have…might have…”

  She still couldn’t bring herself to say it. Darcy didn’t press her. “Did you ever give Hampton any reason to think you were leading him on?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I have to tell you, this morning in that little restaurant he was acting like you belonged to him. Like you and he were already together.”

  “Darcy! I would never. Hampton is…yuck. Besides, I’m a married woman. I mean, I was a married woman. Past tense. Right.”

  Tears fell down Sarah’s cheeks and Darcy considered putting away all of the other questions that had popped up in her mind. Her friend waved a hand in front of her, though, and set her jaw. “No, don’t stop. I need your help, Darcy. You may be the only one who actually believes I’m innocent.”

  “Besides Terry Taft,” Darcy pointed out. “Did you and he used to date or something?”

  “I told you it was just a crush.”

  The answer was quick,
and maybe a little rehearsed. “Sarah, I need to know. Did you and Terry used to date?”

  Rolling her eyes, Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Fine. A few years back, me and Braden hit kind of a rough patch. Seven years ago, to be exact. We weren’t working anymore. We got past it, just remember that, but in the meantime Terry found out about it and tried to use that as an excuse to…you know.”

  Darcy didn’t try to elaborate for her. She wanted Sarah to tell the story herself, and finally she looked down at her folded hands and sighed. “He tried to kiss me. More than kiss me, actually. I shut him down right away, and nothing happened, but he won’t take the hint. I told him I never wanted to discuss it again, but he just won’t leave it alone.”

  Nodding, Darcy understood what she was saying.

  Sarah sighed a little and continued, “Some men can be like that sometimes. If you give them a reason to think you have feelings for them, they won’t stop.”

  So, this morning…?”

  Sarah gave a reluctant nod. “Yes. He stopped me and tried to flirt with me and hinted that I looked oh so very cute in my sweaty purple sweats and that I should come over to his house to shower.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I feel dirty just talking about it.”

  More information for her mental lists. Darcy wasn’t finished yet, though. “I don’t want to ask this but I feel like I have to. What was the reason for the trouble in your marriage? What caused the rough patch for you two?”

  Sarah glared at her, and Darcy figured she might have gone too far. That was way personal, and Sarah had said it happened a few years ago, before they had reconnected. Ancient history. Still, anything like that might have a direct bearing on why Braden was suddenly dead.

  Finally, Sarah got up from her seat and went over to the shelf above the kitchen sink, where three small photographs stood in their frames. She picked up one, stared at it for a long moment, and then brought it back over to Darcy.

  It was a picture of a little girl, maybe four or five years old. She was smiling for the camera, and Darcy couldn’t help noticing just how much she looked like Sarah.

  “We had a daughter,” Sarah said, curling her knees up to her chest as she sat down again. “Felicia. She died. It was very sudden, and very hard on both of us. I got past the pain of it. Eventually. Braden never did. For a time it looked like that was the end of our marriage.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Darcy said, just to clarify.

  “No, it wasn’t. We came back from it. Stronger than ever.”

  So maybe there wasn’t anything to that, at least as far as Braden being killed. Poor kid, Darcy thought to herself, putting the photo upright against its little kickstand on the kitchen table.

  As she did, she saw the little pale face from the picture staring at her over the table’s edge from the other side. A little girl stood there. One who looked startlingly like Sarah, even in her current incorporeal state.

  Felicia. Gone, but not moved on.

  Chapter Six

  Letting Sarah know that she could read a person’s aura and talk to ghosts was one thing. Telling her that her dead daughter had joined them at the kitchen table was another discussion entirely.

  One Darcy was not ready to get into.

  The little girl smiled at Darcy with big bright eyes, and then sank down, down, down, until she was out of sight.

  Darcy looked under the table, but Felicia was gone.

  “What are you looking for?” Sarah asked.

  “Uh, nothing.” She sat up quickly.

  Sarah’s dead daughter showing up now had to have some significance. Ghosts did not hang around the mortal coil, as the poets called real life, without a good reason. Unfinished business. Scary trauma surrounding their deaths. Especially when the spirit was that of a child. Children almost always slipped into the hereafter easily, with eager anticipation. Most children had lived good lives in their few short years, and they went into their deaths knowing they were loved. Knowing they had nothing to fear.

  Apparently that wasn’t the case with Felicia. She was still here. Was it a separate mystery, or part of the same events that had taken the life of her father?

  Those were questions to add to the list. In the meantime, Darcy had living suspects to worry about.

  “Sarah, I think I need to talk to the people down at Moonie’s Lunch and see if they can tell me anything about Hampton’s comings and goings over the last few days. I still think he’s our strongest suspect. Shai might be right about him not being very smart, but then again she might be wrong.”

  “Okay.” Sarah nodded and sniffed, and tried to find something to do with her hands. “I guess I’ll just wait here.”

  “Here” was a word that carried a lot of empty meaning in it. Sarah didn’t want to be alone, and Darcy didn’t want to just abandon her, either.

  “Uh, Sarah,” she said. An idea had come to her. “Do you maybe know a good place for us to spend the night? Me and Ellen and her son, I mean. Any hotels or anything?”

  “What? No, I can’t let you do that. You came all this way for me.” She bit at the inside of her lip, then nodded like she’d made her mind up. “You’ll stay here. We have a spare bedroom and I know there’s an air mattress in the closet somewhere. It might be a little cramped but there’s no reason to pay for a hotel.”

  Darcy smiled and thanked Sarah. There. Now she could be close to the scene of the crime and Sarah would have a friend to keep her company until this whole thing could be sorted out.

  “It’s settled then,” Sarah said, a smile returning to her face. “We’ll get supper, and maybe watch movies or something. Anything to take my mind off everything I have to do tomorrow. I still haven’t called Braden’s family, and I need to find our will, and then there’s the funeral arrangements…”

  She swallowed, and the smile fell away again. “Thank you, Darcy. I don’t know how I’d get through this without you here.”

  They stood up at the same time, hugging each other tightly. Darcy wished she could make everything better with a wave of her hand. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how things worked. “I’ll go tell Ellen and Connor we’re staying. Should we pick something up to have for dinner?”

  “That’s probably for the best. I don’t think I’m in any mood to cook. I tell you what. I’ll call in an order to Moonie’s Lunch. They don’t close for another two hours. You said you wanted to talk to them anyway, right? That whole detective thing you do?”

  That’s not the way Darcy would have put it, but if it made Sarah feel better to think of her that way, then fine. “Something like that. So you order, and I’ll pick up dinner, ask some questions, and come right back. Don’t worry, Sarah. I’ll help you figure this out.”

  Sarah nodded absently. “I know, Darcy. I trust you. Is pizza all right? To order, I mean.”

  “Actually, you’d make Connor’s night if you did that. Pepperoni and mushrooms on half of one for him, okay?”

  ***

  “Pizza, pizza, pizza! Gonna eat some pizza!”

  Connor sang his little made up song over and over on their drive back to Main Street and the restaurant where dinner was being made for them. Ellen wore a little smile on her face, watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “He’s a great kid,” Darcy said, low enough that Connor wouldn’t know they were talking about him.

  “Yeah, he is,” Ellen agreed. “I lucked out. For a kid who’s been through…all that he’s been through, he can still get excited over something simple like going to get pizza.”

  Darcy thought of Sarah’s little girl, dead and haunting her house. Sarah didn’t even know. How much pain she must be in to have lost Felicia at such a young age. Ellen really was a lucky woman to be able to enjoy seeing her son grow up like this.

  “I’ll bet you’re sorry you came with me now,” she said.

  Ellen rolled her eyes over to look at Darcy. “Are you serious? I’m not sorry at all. This is just what I needed. I’m hiding from a past that migh
t destroy my life, and Connor’s too. I get that. But staying inside your house all day and running little errands around Misty Hollow is really starting to chafe. That’s not me. I needed this. I needed some kind of excitement.” After a moment, she added, “I’m just sorry your friend’s husband had to die.”

  “I know.” Darcy understood what Ellen meant. The whole situation was messed up all the way around. She felt guilty for not being here sooner, even though there was no way she could have been. All she could do now was what she had promised Sarah to do.

  Help find Braden’s killer.

  Moonie’s Lunch still seemed like a strange name for a restaurant to Darcy. She had the strongest desire to walk up to the front counter and ask where Moonie was. Maybe Moonie had been enjoying his/her lunch so much one day that they felt the need to share it with everyone else.

  This time most of the tables were occupied. Apparently it was the place to go in town when you didn’t want to make supper yourself. Darcy angled between tables and past people talking animatedly while they ate. She caught several snatches of conversation about Braden’s murder, and even a few whispered words about how his wife Sarah might be to blame.

  She pressed her lips firmly shut and ignored everyone around. They didn’t know anything but gossip and she was not going to justify any of it by arguing. She waited at the counter at the back of the restaurant, near the kitchen doors, until one of the waitresses noticed her. “Be right with you, honey.”

  Darcy stood there, sure every eye in the place was on her and trying not to care. She took in little details around her that she had missed before, like the automatic toothpick dispenser on the counter, and the stand of tourist brochures right next to the cash register that promised the best fishing in the state and miles of hiking trails down by the Oragatchie River.

  Her eyes fell on the table Hampton McGillis had sat at this morning. It was empty, even for all the people in the place. Seemed no one wanted to sit there.

  “What can I do for you, hon?” the waitress asked as she stepped around to the other side of the counter with a warm smile and tired eyes.