Death at the Wheel

by K. J. Emrick

  “You’re a good husband, Aaron. Just don’t forget to take care of yourself, too. Okay?” When he nodded, she hugged him again. “Call me if you need anything.”

  Out on the street again, she got back on her bicycle and headed to the hardware store. This was going to be a long day.

  ***

  On the way she made another side trip to see Helen Nelson over at the Bean There Bakery and Café. It turned out she wasn’t there, which Darcy should have realized. Helen wasn’t just a business owner here in Misty Hollow. She had taken over as mayor when her husband lost the job for criminal activity. Darcy had tried to put that whole business behind her and rarely thought of it, but the point was that Helen was mayor now. There had just been a major accident on the streets of her town. So of course, she was over in the Town Hall, not her café.

  The Town Hall wasn’t that far, but she really should get to Jon and give him her statement, and then get that plywood for her store and make arrangements to order a new window. This day had gotten complicated in a hurry, she thought again, but thankfully she was around to complain about it. Unlike the dead driver in the accident.

  Her thoughts turned to the missing driver from the other car, wondering where he could have gone. Certainly, if he wasn’t injured badly, he could have slipped away in all the confusion. But why would he? Had he been drunk and trying to avoid facing the penalties for his actions? That made sense, she supposed. Was there some way to prove it?

  Just as she was trying to remember if any of the businesses on Main Street had surveillance cameras that faced outside onto the street, she realized she had biked up to the front steps of the Town Hall already. Her mind must have been going on autopilot because she really had meant to go to the Police Station first. Oh well. She was here now.

  The two story brick building with its ribbed white columns was definitely the most imposing building in town. It was also one of the oldest. It had stood nearly unchanged for over a hundred years while Misty Hollow changed around it. The triangular roof over the heavy wooden entry doors had a round clock face that hadn’t changed in years either. The hands always stood at three minutes before noon. Or midnight, maybe. Darcy had never known which.

  Helen would be in her office down at the end of the dimly lit entrance hall. Dark wood trim around the doors and walls gleamed with cleaning polish. The whole building seemed to be brooding.

  “What a dreary place,” Darcy thought to herself, not for the first time.

  For a while now Darcy had avoided coming to the Town Hall altogether. There was a presence here, a spirit of some departed soul, that she could feel watching her whenever she stepped foot inside. It was there now. She could feel it, even though it was keeping its distance from her. She kept promising herself that she would investigate who the spirit had belonged to, and why it was here in the Town Hall, if only for her own peace of mind. She just never seemed to find the time to do it.

  A few people passed her in the hall, smiling or nodding, but in too much of a hurry to stop. She smiled back and traded a few words of greeting. Then she was at Helen’s office where the word “Mayor” was spelled out in black stick-on letters across the frosted glass of the door’s window.

  From inside, Darcy could hear Helen talking with someone. It sounded important even though Darcy could only catch one or two words. “This town,” Helen said, before her voice would become muffled again. “Next month.” And then, “I don’t understand.”

  Darcy debated with herself whether she should interrupt. She was here, though, and Helen Nelson had always had an open door policy for the entire town. Even more so for friends like Darcy. She would just say a quick hello. Let Helen know she was here if there was anything she could do to help with the accident clean up. She could always come back later or catch Helen at home.

  After knocking on the door, Darcy waited. Helen stopped talking. The entire building was silent around her.

  In that silence, the presence watched her. Darcy felt a pressure along her skin like the air itself was thickening around her. It brushed against her mind, just out of the reach of her senses, and Darcy didn’t dare turn around to look for fear that when she did, there actually would be a tall, dark man there, watching, waiting…

  The door to Helen’s office flew open in front of her and Darcy took an involuntary step back before she collected herself with a strangled yelp. Like a bubble popping, the tension Darcy had felt pressing down on her disappeared and was gone.

  Helen stood there blinking at her, her graying hair falling out of its careful curls, her eyes a little unfocused. The gray pants suit she wore was wrinkled and mussed. In all respects, she looked out of sorts. After a heartbeat, the mayor of Misty Hollow smiled and put her hand out for Darcy to take.

  “Oh, hi, Darcy. I wasn’t expecting a visit from you today. Come in, come in. I’m a little busy right now trying to coordinate with the police and the town road crews. Can you believe that accident? Did you see it? It was right in front of your shop, wasn’t it?”

  Helen stepped back and went around to sit behind her modest desk with its plexiglass top that was all but buried by a computer and files and loose papers and a ceramic mug that said “World’s Greatest Boss” on it. Darcy followed her in, stopping to close the door. Her eyes swept around the room. Book cases. A painting of a beach scene on one wall. Three metal filing cabinets. Helen. Darcy.

  There was no one else in the room.

  “I thought I heard you talking to someone?” Darcy asked.

  “Hm? Oh. Um. I might have been on the phone, I guess. I haven’t had anyone else here all day. Just you. So, what brings you down here? It’s a little early for lunch, and I’m afraid I’m too busy at any rate.”

  “I’m sure you are. I can’t remember the last time we had an accident this bad here.”

  “I think the last time was five years ago or so. Remember? When Christopher Nevell drove his car off the bridge on New Holland Road?”

  “That’s right. Poor kid.” Darcy hadn’t quite forgotten about that accident, but she had been able to put it to rest after a while. Chris had died after his car slid on black ice and crashed through the guardrails to launch over the bridge and fall three hundred feet to the ravine below. His spirit had come to wake Darcy out of a deep sleep and ask her to find his body. Not one of her favorite memories.

  “Anyway,” Darcy said. “I can’t stay long myself. I need to get to the hardware store. Plus, I need to go down to the station and give a statement to Jon. Have you heard anything new about the missing driver?”

  Helen shook her head. “Our officers searched everywhere they could think of. They didn’t find anyone. That’s all I’ve heard. Mysterious, isn’t it?”

  Darcy nodded. She heard that word so much in her life that she was thinking of having t-shirts made up that read, “The Mysterious is all around us.”

  Sitting at her desk, Helen shivered from head to toe. “My goodness,” she said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Is it cold in here? My office always seems so chilly. I’ll have to ask our janitor to look at the heating system. Well, I suppose I should get back to work. There’s a lot more to do today than yesterday. I suppose there will be even more tomorrow.”

  “I understand,” Darcy told her. “If I can help at all just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Darcy. I appreciate that. My best to your sister. Can’t wait to see her baby. When is her due date?”

  “Next week, if you can believe it. I’ll bring pictures of the baby as soon as she’s born. I promise.”

  “She? Oh, Grace knows the sex of the baby already?”

  “No, not yet,” was all she said, leaving her reasons for believing Grace’s baby was a girl unspoken. “I’ll let you get back to work now, Helen. See you later.”

  “Bye, Darcy. Thanks for stopping in.” She shivered again as she said it, and that time Darcy thought she felt a chill in the room too.

  As she was walking down the hallway to the front door Darcy wondered
about the temperature in Helen’s office. Cold spots were a known part of spiritual activity. Darcy had seen spirits appear in a lot of different ways. In a gust of wind, or with a wailing noise that could only be heard in her mind, or silently popping into view. One ghost had even insisted on floating upside down on the ceiling. In many of those sightings the air temperature would drop just before the spirit appeared. She didn’t understand the reason for it.

  It was simply a fact that was part of Darcy’s strange life.

  The Mysterious is all around us, she repeated to herself with a little quirk of a smile. Especially here in Misty Hollow.

  If there were cold spots in Helen’s office, and if there was some sort of presence in the Town Hall that seemed to be angry with Darcy whenever she came into the building, was it possible that the spirit hanging around the place was trying to haunt Helen?

  It seemed more important than ever that she find the time to investigate whatever spirit was inhabiting the old Town Hall.

  Later. Right now she had to take care of her shop and give her statement to Jon. Hopefully the accident would be something he and the police could handle on their own without her help.

  ***

  After paying for sheets of plywood and ordering a new window for her shop from Marion Davis down at the hardware store, Darcy pointed her bicycle back toward the Police Station. It was after the noon hour, now, and she was getting hungry. Maybe she should call Izzy and have her order them some lunch. The day sure had gotten away from her in a hurry.

  In a town the size of Misty Hollow there weren’t that many police officers on the force. Darcy had counted twenty-two of them once, including the chief and a few sergeants and of course the two detectives. Well, three detectives now that Wilson Barton had been promoted. Usually there were only four or five working during the day, two at night. That changed when a major incident like this morning’s accident happened.

  Extra officers had been called in to assist. Sitting at Jon’s desk inside the station where most of the actual work was done, Darcy could hardly believe how packed the place was. Chief Joe Daleson was briefing a group of five officers over on one side of the room in his usual strong, brusque voice. He was a stocky man, and even though he stood half a foot shorter than most of his men he was still a commanding presence. Other officers in their dark blue uniforms answered phones or wrote reports or took statements from people. Just like Jon was doing with Darcy.

  “You’re sure you didn’t see any part of the accident?” he asked her for the fourth time. “Not even before the collision? Maybe the cars out on the street?”

  Darcy gave the same answer she had each time before. “No. I didn’t. Izzy and Lilly and I were at the back of the store when it happened. The first thing I saw was my store window breaking.”

  Jon grimaced. “That must have been scary.”

  “I’m all right. I’m a tough girl.”

  “Yeah. I know. Tougher than most.” He softened his words with a wink, and Darcy couldn’t help but smile at him. He dropped his pen on his desk as he continued. “Nobody saw anything. Sometimes people just aren’t looking where things are happening, I guess. None of the shops have cameras pointed that way either. Guess we’re out of luck. So. I’ve got your official statement on paper. Now tell me the unofficial part. What did you see, with, you know.”

  “Now that I’ve had some time to think about it maybe it wasn’t all that important.” Her vision wasn’t very informative, really. All she had really seen—through the eyes of the accident victim—was the wreck of the blue car and the redheaded Lindsay slumped over in the front passenger seat. Then the man had been reaching for Lindsay’s neck. And that was all she saw.

  She didn’t leave out any details but Jon had her repeat it to him twice anyway. After a moment of thought, he nodded. “Well, I guess that confirms what Alan Harlow told us. That’s his name, by the way. The guy who’s vision you saw. He was in the car with his wife and their friend coming here to Misty Hollow.”

  He stopped, and she could tell by his look that there was more to it.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

  Picking up and dropping his pen repeatedly against the desk, Jon pressed his lips tighter together and sighed through his nose. “I wanted to get your statement first before I said anything, but she’s waiting for you in one of the back interview rooms. Come on. I think she really needs a friend right now.”

  “Who? Who’s waiting for me?”

  Jon reached out to take her hand as they stood up. He didn’t answer her. Instead he led her through the hallways of the police station until they got to one of the interview rooms, where a one-way mirror allowed her to see inside. A middle aged woman with her silver flecked chestnut brown hair done in a perm sat inside, miserably shredding a tissue. The green dress she wore was one of her favorites. Darcy had seen her wearing it more times than she could count.

  “Rosie Weaver,” Darcy said in a whisper. Now she understood. “Oh Jon, no.”

  He squeezed her hand tighter. “Yes. I know. It was her daughter in the car. Lindsay. I spoke with the hospital over in Meadowood just before you got here. Lindsay came out of surgery an hour ago but they’ve got her in the ICU now. No visitors. Rosie here has been a wreck. I asked her to wait here because I knew you’d be coming soon.”

  “Rosie was telling me about her daughter coming to town. They haven’t been getting along and this trip was supposed to be a way for both of them to make up. This is terrible.” Out of habit, Darcy reached over to her right hand, feeling for the antique silver ring there out of habit. She began twisting the heirloom ring around and around.

  “I’ll leave you two here,” Jon said to her. “I can’t give you very long. I took a statement from Rosie and that gave me an excuse to let her stay, but Chief Daleson’s patience is pretty thin these days. Okay?”

  “Where will you be when she’s ready to leave?”

  “Here in the office. I still have work to do on the accident. Both of the cars had out of state registrations. We’re waiting on the motor vehicle computer records before we can start trying to track down the driver of the second car. The one who mysteriously vanished.”

  “Or was never there?”

  He shook his head, his expression grim. “Had to be there. Cars don’t drive themselves. Flesh and blood people don’t just disappear and it’s not like the car was being driven by a ghost. Ghosts can’t drive cars.” He stopped abruptly and lowered his voice. “Can they?”

  “Um, no. No, I don’t think so.” At least, not that she’d ever seen. But in Misty Hollow, that was a perfectly legitimate question. “That reminds me, though. Grace wants you to call her. She wants to hear all about this case.”

  “Oh, no. I’m not going to be responsible for stressing her out while she’s on bed rest. Besides, when she gets on the phone she won’t get off. She really wants to be back here in the worst way.”

  “I know. I just stopped by to see her. I told her all she should be worrying about right now is having her baby. Right now, that’s her job.”

  “Right. Well. My job right now is to get back to finding a real flesh and blood suspect. The driver of the car Rosie’s daughter was in was pronounced dead at the scene. Jarred Perrigon was his name. That makes our missing person a murderer.” He kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry about any of that. Just go help your friend. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Darcy gave him a quick hug as a thank you before slipping into the interview room. Rosie looked up at her with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip. “Oh, Rosie, I’m so sorry.”

  She swept across the tiny room in three steps to bend down and embrace her friend sitting in the chair on one side of the metal interview table. Rosie was more than twice Darcy’s age, but the two of them had been friends for years. There was no embarrassment now as they cried together.

  “They wouldn’t let me go in to see her. At the hospital,” Rosie stumbled her way through an explanation. “I called and
told them I was Lindsay’s mother and they said she was in surgery and I couldn’t even see her until she came out and that was hours ago!” She took a shaky breath. “I had to come here and see what was going on and your Jon took such good care of me, Darcy. I’m so glad he came back to our little town.”

  “So am I,” Darcy admitted, smiling even as she held back tears for Rosie. “I tell you what. I’m done here and Izzy can watch the store for me. Why don’t I drive you over to Meadowood and we’ll find out if you can see Lindsay now, all right?”

  The look of gratitude in Rosie’s eyes was overwhelming. “I’d like that. I haven’t seen my daughter in so long, Darcy. She was my youngest. Just the baby of the family. Just a few years older than you. We had the stupidest fight and we’re both so stubborn about these things. I had almost given up hope of ever seeing her again but now that this man is in her life she wanted to reconnect with me. This was supposed to be such a happy day. Now I might lose her…”

  Darcy hoped that wasn’t true. She didn’t pray very often, but she silently asked God, or the Great Spirit, or whatever name was appropriate for the being that oversaw the Universe and its little problems, to please let Rosie’s daughter be all right.

  Chapter Three

  St. John Camilus Hospital in Meadowood was the closest one to Misty Hollow. It was a half an hour’s drive away and Rosie spent that time telling stories of when Lindsay was a young girl, and then a teenager, before she’d walked out of her mother’s life. There was laughter and sadness in those stories, and all of the things that went into a good life. Darcy listened to every word as she drove Rosie’s car as fast as the speed limit would let her.

  When they got to the hospital and parked in a space close to the building, all of the urgency drained out of Rosie. She sat there, staring at the brown brick of the three story hospital building. Darcy put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”