by K. J. Emrick
Jon flipped one of the posts again and looked through it the way Darcy had. “Now, it’s hollow. Before, it had something stored inside. Something very valuable, as a matter of fact. Your trophy might not have been worth anything, Gilbert, but I’ll bet a year’s salary that someone put something in it that was worth quite a bit. That’s why Mason Barnes stole it.”
“What!” Andy roared. “Mason is the thief? Then why did you arrest Tobias?”
“Because at the time it looked like he was the one who took it. The pieces were in his bag, right above his locker. It was his workout bag. It went to the gym with him on days he went to exercise after work, and otherwise it stayed right here. Only someone who worked here would have keys to both the secure storage room where Andy put the trophy, and the locker room where we found the bag. All of that pointed to Tobias. It also pointed to Mason Barnes, but we didn’t figure that out until after we arrested Tobias. Now we know the real thief was Mason.”
“Unfortunately,” Darcy said, “it wasn’t in time to keep him from getting murdered.”
“Right,” Jon said. “Because by the time we got around to questioning Mason, the killer heard the trophy was stolen. That’s where they’d hidden something pretty valuable. They wanted it back, and they figured out who took it before we did. They went to get it back from Mason and killed him for it.”
Andy sat down again, and his chair rocked under the sudden weight, nearly tossing him to the floor. He grabbed the armrests in a white-knuckled grip to steady himself. “Seems like you two have it all figured out.”
Jon leaned his hands on the back of Gilbert’s chair, fixing Andy with a hard stare. “Just about. There’s still a couple of details we needed cleared up.”
“Just a few,” Darcy repeated.
“See, we know what was in the trophy.” Jon leaned in closer.
“You do?” Andy asked, his voice trembling.
“Yes. We do. Darcy, why don’t we show them?”
She smiled sweetly and reached into the bag again. First, she came out with two ragged strips of tin foil, and she laid them down between the trophy’s pieces. “We found these in Tobias’s bag, too.”
Then she put her hand inside again, and this time took out the small statue of Plato that they’d found in Mason’s house. She put it on Andy’s desk.
His eyes popped nearly as wide as Gilbert’s did upon seeing it.
“Gold,” she explained. “The trophy was filled with it. Probably gold coins, or gold nuggets. Something small enough that they could be wrapped in tinfoil and then tucked into the hollow posts. Put the trophy together with the gold inside, and it’s completely hidden. Nobody would know the difference.”
“Except for one thing,” Jon said.
“Exactly,” Darcy agreed. “The gold makes it really, really heavy.”
“Which is how Mason discovered it was there. He was cleaning the storage room, like he’s supposed to, and he must have moved it, or bumped into it, and noticed how heavy it was. He takes it apart to see why and finds the gold. He takes the gold, but he knows it’s going to come back on him unless he plants the now empty trophy pieces somewhere the police will find them. So, he leaves the pieces in Tobias’s bag to frame him. I’ve seen a lot of crimes committed in my day, but this one was actually quite smart.”
“Mason was pretty broke. Jon and I figured he would do almost anything to pay off his debts. He’d been cheating on his time sheets. This much gold would have been like a dream come true to him.” Darcy picked up the statue. Her hand fit around it easily, but it was very heavy. “Then he took the gold to his house. He has equipment to melt lead into bullets, and he adapted it to melt the gold. He poured the gold into a mold that he had laying around and, here we are. What used to be pieces of gold are now in one lump in the shape of a statue. He could have sold this easily with no one even knowing what he’d done.”
“That much gold,” Jon said, “is worth about half a million dollars. That’s worth killing over, for some people.”
“But how did you know?” Andy asked. “How did you know this was about gold hidden in the trophy?”
“Because we had a visitor in town earlier this week. An investigator from the United States Secret Service.” Jon tipped himself even closer to the desk, and Andy shrank back in response. “Now, the Secret Service only does two things. They provide security for high-profile political figures like the President, but they also investigate threats to the national economy. When a large amount of gold goes missing, they tend to get edgy. The killer needed to hide the gold, or they knew the Secret Service would take it from him.”
Andy looked like he was going to cry.
“So to recap,” Darcy said. “The killer had to hide their gold quickly, and they knew the easiest way to do it would be to hide it where no one would look for it. Like inside the Town Hall. When they heard the trophy was stolen, they figured out who took it, and went looking for Mason Barnes. That’s when the police department got a call of a prowler around Mason’s house. He dodged the first officers we sent to look for him and waited for Mason to show up. When he did, our killer broke in and stabbed him in the back. He looked for his gold, but he couldn’t find it because Mason had already melted it down.”
“So there it is,” Jon said. “The only remaining question was when you put the gold in the trophy…”
Andy’s face went white.
“…isn’t that right…”
Jon turned away from Andy, to look the old trophy maker in his eyes.
“…Gilbert?”
Shock registered on Gilbert Fischer’s face for just a moment. He was the killer. Jon and Darcy had known it all along, but they needed to get him here, and show him he was trapped.
He’d been so sure that Jon and Darcy were accusing Andy of this crime that he hadn’t even stopped to wonder why they wanted him here this morning. It was that overconfidence that had gotten him into this situation in the first place.
The shock slipped away, replaced by a cocky grin. “Well, will you look at that. Guess you got me.”
Chapter 9
“How’d you figure it out?”
The man stood up, his large frame seeming even bigger in the suddenly cramped office. Jon stepped back, keeping room between him and the murderer of Mason Barnes.
“Wait,” they heard Andy say. “You mean…you mean you didn’t actually suspect me? This isn’t an attempt to arrest me and get me out of the way?”
Darcy stood up too, because now she was suddenly too close to Gilbert Fischer for her liking, but she still answered Mayor Andy with a sweet smile. “Now why in the world would we want to arrest you?”
“I don’t know!” The man had gotten some of his bluster back, now that he knew he wasn’t the focus of their suspicion. “I thought maybe you were angry that I took over after your friend Helen was killed. I thought this was some sort of coup to replace my staff and me and get someone else in this office.”
Her smile took on a sour slant as he said that. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t mind seeing you removed from office. You’re standoffish and you haven’t done anything to truly become a part of our community. You’re an outsider who wants to stay an outsider and that’s just not the way we do things here in Misty Hollow. Not to mention you’re rude and self-centered. That aside, you were duly elected and there you sit.” She flashed her teeth. “At least, until the next election.”
Andy’s eyes were cold as ice as they glared back at her.
“So Chief,” Gilbert said, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. He stuffed his oversized hands into the pocket of his coat. “I guess this is the part where you arrest me.”
“That’s usually what comes next,” Jon said, his voice casually guarded. “We’ll match your boots to the footprints we found around Mason’s house. I’m willing to bet you left your fingerprints in there somewhere and the knife you used to kill him is probably back at your house right now. Just our dumb luck that you didn’t realize Mason had turn
ed your gold into a statue. If you’d found it, we never would have connected the dots.”
With a heavy sigh, Gilbert shrugged his big shoulders. “Guess there’s nothing else to do. I really thought I’d been so careful with everything and then that dumb janitor had to go and ruin it for me. Half a million dollars worth of gold…can you imagine? More money than I’ve made in all my years as a craftsman. Thought the Town Hall would be a good hiding place but then you came and told me it got stolen. I knew it had to be someone who worked here.”
“So did we,” Jon said. “Okay, let’s go.”
Gilbert nodded again, but he didn’t move for the door. “I saw Mason acting funny when he left work yesterday. All suspicious like. Looking over his shoulder every few feet. That’s when I knew. I’d already checked out his house once, but he wasn’t there. Came back here to find him and beat some answers out of him, but he was leaving. Going back home. So I went to his house and waited for him. I was real angry at that point. Guess I should’ve asked him where the gold was first before I killed him, but I was real angry. Guess I went too far.”
“Yes, you did. We figured asking you to come here would be an easier way of getting you in custody than fighting with you at your house. You’ve got all those power tools and things and I don’t want to get dissected by a circular saw. You’ll have to forgive our little ruse, but it was better for everyone.”
“Oh sure, sure. No problem, Chief.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“Whatever you say.”
There was just the slightest shift in his weight, the tiniest change in the way he was standing and a tightening around his eyes. That was all the warning Darcy had.
Hands still in his pockets Gilbert lowered his upper body like a linebacker about to break through the defensive line of the opposing team, and rammed into Jon with the force of a ton of bricks.
Darcy watched in horror as Jon was tossed off his feet before he could even reach for his gun. He crashed into a filing cabinet headfirst. He did not get up.
“Now you see here,” Andy started to shout at him, “you better stop that right this instant or I swear to you, I’ll—”
He broke off when Gilbert leaned over the mayor’s desk and scowled at the man. “You’ll do what?”
Andy’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted in his chair.
Then, Gilbert turned his attention on Darcy.
She went to grab the gold statue off the desk, knowing that she had to keep it away from him, and that she had to get help for Jon, and that she had to keep herself safe…
Gilbert was faster than she was. A man his size couldn’t possibly be this fast. He swiped the statue up and slipped it into the duffle bag, zipping it up before Darcy could even react. The next thing she knew, his absurdly large hands were reaching for her. Run! Her mind screamed at her and she flung herself toward the closed door. She fumbled around with the handle for a moment before it began to turn, and she thought she was going to get away. She would call for help. Save herself and Jon. She was Darcy Sweet. She’d lost count of how many tight scrapes she’d been in before. She was no one’s damsel in distress. She could take care of herself.
The door was only halfway open when Gilbert grabbed her by the arms and spun her around and slapped her across the face with the back of one hand.
Her head whipped sideways and the rest of her followed and a darkness was reaching up to consume her. The floor, somehow, was getting closer and closer and she couldn’t think of any way to stop it.
Before she passed out, she heard Gilbert. His voice was a long ways off, sounding like he was at the other end of a tunnel.
“I’m going to need some leverage if I’m going to get out of this town without getting arrested. I’ll need me a hostage.”
She felt his hands on her, rough and unkind.
“You’ll do…”
Darcy woke in darkness.
Her neck hurt like someone had tried to twist it clear off her body. It could’ve been worse, she supposed. She had no idea if Gilbert had hit her as hard as he could or if he’d held back, but she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if she’d woken up to find her head laying in a corner, staring at her body from across the room.
Shoving those ugly thoughts aside, she tried to make sense of why she was on her back. Not to mention why her hands were tied together so tightly. Or why she felt like she was smothering…
Slow down, she told herself. Take a breath. Concentrate. Think your way through this.
When she did, she became aware that she was cold. It was a cold that was seeping up from underneath her, through her jacket, into her back. She was lying on something hard and unyielding. There was a familiar smell as well. Like stone, or dust.
Concrete. She was on a concrete floor.
She found that she could lift her hands, even if they were tied together. The darkness above her was heavy, and rough, and it crinkled when she pressed against it. She was under a tarp or a drop cloth of some kind. Tied up on the floor of a garage, or someplace like that, and hidden from sight.
This was not good.
The gag she suddenly felt in her mouth kept her from screaming. It was choking her. She needed to get it out, out, out!
Calm down…calm down…
She breathed in deeply through her nose and forced her thoughts back to the solution. First things first.
She reached up and tugged the gag out of her mouth. It was just a rag, but it was in so deep that she gagged when she pulled it out and she was sure she was going to start vomiting right here. The temptation to scream was still strong but she restrained herself. She didn’t get here from the Town Hall by herself. She wasn’t alone.
Gilbert must have brought her here…wherever here was. That meant he must be nearby. She didn’t want to let him know what she was doing under here. The tarp might be keeping other people from seeing her, but it would keep her kidnapper from seeing what she was up to as well.
On her next breath she could smell sawdust and machine oil over the damp smell of the concrete. They were the same odors she remembered when she had followed the sound of a scream through Gilbert Fischer’s house to his workshop, in his garage.
Now she knew where she was! Gilbert’s house. He’d brought her here, probably to collect his things and make his getaway. He had the statue, and even though it was enough gold to make him rich, he was still wanted for murder. Running away was his only option. She remembered where the overhead door was that led out to his driveway, out to freedom. All she had to do…
“I can see you moving around under there.” Gilbert’s deep voice startled Darcy. “Don’t worry, Miss Sweet. I’m just getting a few things and then we’re leaving. I know I don’t have much time. Gotta go, Miss Sweet. Gotta go.”
It’s Mrs. Sweet, Darcy thought at him. She kept it to herself, because it wasn’t the time to correct him.
She followed him by his voice. He was down by her feet now. If she scrambled, out the other end of the tarp, she might be able to get to the door to the house or to the door outside before Gilbert could catch her. Or throw some heavy tool at her.
Or hit her with a board.
Or come at her with a power saw.
Maybe running wasn’t such a good idea. Not yet.
Instead, she worked at untying the knots on the rope tied around her wrists with her teeth.
“Got everything I need to go.” Gilbert continued talking to her, as if they were about to take a picnic. “Got my gold. It was Nazi gold, by the way. I found it in someone’s house after I made a trophy for them. Had it out on display but he hardly ever looked at it. Never dreamed he’d miss it. Certainly never dreamed he would have it registered with the U.S. government as a war treasure…well. No need to go into details.”
The rope rasped against her lips. Darcy thought she tasted blood.
“Turns out it’s hard to sell Nazi gold because they marked it all with that infernal symbol of theirs. You know the one I mean? Like two cr
ooked lines making sort of a hooked cross? Yeah. That one. Nobody’ll touch it with that symbol on it, except on the black market. Once that Secret Service man stopped sniffing around, I would’ve come back for the trophy and made some excuse that it needed to be replaced, or something, and gotten the gold back. No muss. No fuss. I already had a buyer lined up.”
Darcy ground her teeth together on the rope and listened. He was still in that same spot, but was he facing her way? The other way? She couldn’t know if it was safe to move yet.
“Then the janitor had to go and steal it. No doubt he melted it down to take the symbol off. Wish I’d thought of that. Without the symbol it’s just plain gold. Easy to move that way. Get a better price. Yup. Wish I’d thought of it.”
Something crashed, and Darcy jumped, but she kept listening, and thinking her way out of the mess she was in. There had to be some way out.
Didn’t there?
It was funny, she realized, that not that long ago she’d made some flippant comment about Nazi gold, not realizing how close she’d been to the truth. Her gift worked that way sometimes. It allowed her to know things she really couldn’t know. She’d known the big secret right along, she just hadn’t realized it.
If only her gift could get her out of this…
“Okay,” Gilbert said happily. “Got my stuff. Let’s get out of here before that brave husband of yours shows up. Gotta tell you, I don’t like that guy.”
Darcy tracked him with her ears. He was moving around the workshop, gathering who knew what. With a final tug of her teeth the knot slipped, and the ropes fell away, and her hands were free. Apparently Gilbert hadn’t had the time to tie her up properly. There were no ropes on her feet, or anywhere else. She was ready to run. At least, as ready as she was going to be.
No time like the present.
“Now, this is going to be a bit of a drive for you,” Gilbert was saying, “especially in my trunk, but I’m sure you understand why I have to…”
Without waiting for the end of that sentence Darcy twisted around until she was on all fours, the tarp crinkling impossibly loud all around her as she crawled out from under it, one hand sliding out, then the other, then her head…
