Death Comes to Town (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery)

by K. J. Emrick

  At Grace’s prompting, Darcy explained to her what they had found out about Jon. About the time of death, about what Jeff had heard Anna saying, about the whole voicemail thing and how Jon had cut it off so that Darcy would get the wrong idea. How they thought he might be Anna’s killer.

  Grace shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. Darcy, the coroner is sure about the time of death. Nine o’clock.”

  “The time of death is off by an hour. It was ten P.M., Grace.”

  “And you know this because…” Grace’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course. Look, I can’t just arrest Jon. We don’t have any proof.” She held a hand up as Jeff started to argue. “We have what you two know, or think you know, but that is not proof. I can keep a close eye on him but I’m going to tell you, I don’t think it’s in his personality to do something like this.”

  Grace’s cell phone rang. She took it off her belt and looked at the display, running a hand through her dark hair she grimaced. “Sorry but I need to take this call.”

  When she walked out of the room to take the call, Jeff grabbed Darcy’s arm. “We should leave.”

  “What?” Darcy asked him. “Why?”

  “Because your sister isn’t going to do anything about this. And she was our best hope. I don’t want to give up on this just because Grace is going to ‘keep an eye’ on her new partner. We should do some research into Jon’s past. That’s something we can do now. Come on.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darcy and Jeff had gone back to her house where they were using her laptop to search the internet for information on Jon. They had decided to look into anything they could find out about him but there was nothing to find. All of his past jobs, records, his schools, everything was normal. There was nothing that pointed to anything dark in his past.

  “Take your feet off the coffee table,” she snapped at Jeff. “You know that it leaves marks on the woodwork.”

  Jeff sneered at her. “Stop acting like my mother. I already have one of those.”

  “You had a wife at one point, too. This is why you don’t have one anymore.” Darcy sent him a scathing look and he rolled his eyes, but he took his feet off her table. She got up and put one hand to her temple while the other fisted into her hip. “I need a break. Do you want a coffee?” She didn’t wait for Jeff to answer before she left the room.

  She was having trouble not letting all of her old attitudes toward him come out again. He always got under her skin, even though she knew most of the trouble was her, not him. The menial task of making coffee might help her calm down. She grabbed the container with the coffee beans down from the cupboard and pulled the lid off. She growled at herself. The container was empty. This was why she’d been buying her coffee at the bakery. She’d forgotten.

  She had to make a choice. Go without coffee, or risk leaving Jeff alone in her house and having him tear it apart looking for the imaginary photographs that he thought she was keeping from him. Coffee won out. “Jeff, I’m just going to get some coffee from the bakery. Stay out of my things!”

  Once again she didn’t wait for his response. She just shut the door solidly behind her as she left. She stomped just about all the way into town. The fresh air and the sunshine and the way she was trying to drive her foot through the ground with each step finally did the trick. By the time she reached the bakery she was feeling much better.

  The bakery was empty of customers when Darcy stepped inside. She could see Helen sitting behind the counter reading a book. She must have been totally engrossed in it because she didn’t notice Darcy at the counter.

  Darcy was surprised to see that Helen was reading “And Then There Were None.” She was very engrossed in it and kept fiddling with the front cover of the book, folding a deep crease into it. Darcy smiled and cleared her throat to let Helen know she was there. Helen jumped as she looked up. Seeing it was Darcy she smiled back at her and put the book down.

  “Oh. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Darcy. What can I get for you today?”

  “That’s fine Helen, Just two coffees please. I saw the book you’re reading. That’s the one we’ve been reading in the book club.”

  “Oh? Really?” Helen quickly got the coffees ready for her. “I want to join. I really love this book.”

  The door to the bakery opened and Linda walked inside. She smiled at Helen and Darcy as she came up to the counter.

  “Do I have a juicy piece of gossip to share with the two of you!” Linda was practically buzzing with the need to tell them. “My neighbor told me that she overheard Jess O’Connor talking on the phone over in the grocery store.”

  Darcy and Helen exchanged a meaningful look. Linda was well known for retelling questionable stories, and adding her own flair to them on top of that.

  “Anyway,” she continued when they didn’t say anything, “apparently Jess is dating somebody new and wants to keep it a secret. She was telling her friend that she really likes this new guy and loves that he buys her all these nice new things. But she told her friend that she hates having to keep it a secret.” Linda looked from Darcy to Helen and then back to Darcy again with an eager look on her face. “Can you believe it?”

  Darcy just smiled at her while Helen said, “Linda you shouldn’t spread gossip.”

  “Oh, come on now. If my life can’t be exciting I might as well be happy for someone else, right?”

  Darcy laughed and thanked Helen for the coffees. She said goodbye to the two women before heading back to her house. The interlude at the bakery had made her feel better. She was even able to look forward to working with Jeff when she got back.

  ***

  As soon as Darcy entered her house through the front door Jeff started yelling excitedly. “Get in here quick.”

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked. She could see the serious look on Jeff’s face.

  “Look at what I found. Here’s a newspaper article about Jon and the police department he used to work at before.” Darcy set down the coffee cups on the table and sat down next to Jeff to look at the laptop screen.

  The article was brief but she could see why Jeff was excited about it. Apparently, Jon had been investigated for a murder at his last agency. Darcy’s heart stuttered when she read that. So much for Grace saying Jon wasn’t the killer type. She continued reading, and the wind went out of her sails. Jon had been accused of the murder, but then he’d solved the crime himself. In the end the murder hadn’t actually been a murder but a suicide. Jon had been cleared of all wrongdoing.

  “You read this last part, right?” she asked him. “Where it says he didn’t do it?”

  “Yeah, I read it. But I wonder if that’s the real story,” Jeff said.

  Darcy handed the laptop back to him and grabbed one of the coffee cups off the table in disgust. She took a sip of the rapidly cooling liquid while she contemplated what Jeff had said. It had seemed stupid, at first, but the more she thought about it the more she had to wonder, too. She pictured Jon on her front porch the other night, his face a mix of moonlight and shadows, and couldn’t help the smile on her face.

  There was no way to make the pieces fit. No matter how she tried, they always refused to make a complete picture.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darcy could see the dark figure walking through the streets of Misty Hollow again. She was dreaming. The same dream. Only with more clarity. She was there as it happened. It was happening to her.

  The figure was surrounded by the fog. His wide brimmed hat and the shadows hid his face and rendered him unrecognizable. She knew him, though. In the dream she couldn’t say his name. But she knew him.

  He was walking closer and closer to her. He reached into his coat with his right hand. He pulled out a gun and he fired it.

  She felt the bullet hit her chest.

  Darcy sat bolt upright in bed, panting. Smudge was suddenly there purring against her chest, trying to calm her. She patted the cat absentmindedly while she wiped perspiration from her forehead and tried
to remember every detail of the dream. Darcy knew that the figure from her dream must have been the murderer. But Anna had been killed in her house, not on a street. Why was the dream set in the street?

  And was it her dream self who knew this man, or was he someone that she, Darcy Sweet, knew from her own life?

  ***

  Jeff had wanted her to do more digging with him the next day, but she’d already been away from the shop too much. She’d apologized and promised to catch up with him later today. He’d grumbled something and hung up on her. And the funny thing was, she found she didn’t hate him so much anymore.

  She spent the whole day doing menial tasks and turning over the bits and pieces of what she knew in her mind. It was almost closing time when Darcy found herself standing in the middle of the store, staring out the window. She was watching the small town wind down for the day and watching the fog roll in. Darcy really disliked the fog. It only seemed to be around when everything in her life was troubled. There was a lot of fog in Misty Hollow.

  Reminding herself that life had to go on even for her, Darcy turned away from the window and began to clean the counter just as the bell over the door dinged. She looked up and was startled to see Jon coming into the store. Without saying a word he walked right up to Darcy, getting in very close to her, holding her gaze with his own. Her heart started pounding. Why was he here? What did he want?

  He whispered, his lips barely moving. “Grace told me what you and Jeff found out. You think I’m capable of murder? Do you?” They were standing close enough for her to smell his cologne, earthy and dark, and she knew the heat that rose in her had nothing to do with whether this man was a murderer.

  No one should be this gorgeous.

  She shook herself and looked around for Sue. She really needed someone else here right now. “I don’t know, Jon. A lot of things are, um, confusing right now.” Really? She could have kicked herself. That was the best she could come up with?

  Darcy shook herself and pulled herself away from his vivid blue eyes. “But you aren’t guiltless. I know that much. Why did you stop the recording of that voicemail before it was over? Huh? Why try to get me to turn on Jeff?”

  “I wasn’t aware I had to do anything for you to turn on him,” he said. Then he took a step back from her, and actually looked abashed as he said, “I wanted to fish for information. It’s a standard police tactic. I can tell you what, though, your sister was none too happy with me when she found out what I’d done. I didn’t think that you were involved in the murder but I know you’re keeping something from me. I wanted to make you think that I had evidence against Jeff so that you would tell me the truth to save him.”

  Darcy couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her. “Well, that was stupid, wasn’t it? Me, save Jeff. There was a few moments when I actually believed that it was him that murdered Anna. I’m just… I’m so confused. I just don’t know who to trust.”

  Jon returned his intense gaze on her. “You can trust me.”

  “Can I?” She tried to pull up the anger she had felt at him before. It evaporated in those eyes.

  He stepped into her again, and she was frozen in place looking up at him as his breath played over her cheeks. There was electricity between them and her sixth sense was squirming in the pit of her belly...or maybe those were butterflies. She wondered, no she knew, that he was going to kiss her. He leaned forward, a barely noticeable movement that increased the heat between them and she found herself doing the same…

  The bell over the door dinged impatiently as someone rushed through it.

  Darcy jumped backward from Jon and then grimaced and tried to act naturally which made it worse. It was Grace who rushed in, looking at the two of them oddly as she stood there panting, out of breath.

  “What’s happened?” Jon asked in a calm voice. Darcy noticed that he didn’t have any problem pretending nothing had happened between them.

  “There’s been another murder.” Grace ran a hand through her hair and pursed her lips tightly. Darcy wondered why she was telling Jon this in front of her. Then her heart sank. There could only be one reason.

  Grace turned to her with sad eyes. “I’m so, so sorry Darcy but Jeff is dead.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Here we are again, Darcy thought to herself.

  She sat on the same hard chair inside the police station. She was holding a cup of coffee to warm her hands. She felt cold down to her core. She couldn’t believe she was here again, just like before, except this time it was Jeff that was gone. As much as she had really hated Jeff, most of the time anyway, there had been a time in their past when she had loved him.

  She really thought there would be tears. There weren’t, though. There was only an anger directed at a shadowy figure in her dreams that was killing the people she knew.

  Jon came over and sat beside her in the next chair, just like last time. She turned her cup in her hands as a way to keep her fingers off her ring. “I have to find the killer, Jon. You have the time of death wrong on Anna’s murder. All of your suspect’s alibies are incorrect. You need to redo the investigation.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked, his eyebrows scrunching up.

  “I can’t answer that. You’re just going to have to trust me. You said I could trust you. Now I need you to trust me.” Sighing, she set the coffee cup down on the empty seat on the other side of her and held out her hands to Jon. “Let me do this.”

  She could tell he was confused, but he gave her his hands, and she took them as she closed her eyes. He started to say something that she didn’t hear. She was hoping that she could channel her sixth sense to read him, to learn something about this man and about this murder. She concentrated on that gray mist in her mental image and was able to call it forth easily this time in her mind. From it a figure emerged. It was an older woman that had some of Jon’s facial features, his striking blue eyes. It looked like she was holding a small baby.

  Darcy opened her eyes and said to him, “You lost your mother when you were young.”

  Jon’s eyes widened with shock and then narrowed. “You could have heard that anywhere,” he said. “I don’t really go in for this Ouija board stuff, Darcy. Let it go.”

  Darcy closed her eyes again and concentrated on the connection she had forged between her and Jon. Something else came through. This one she knew Jon had never shared with anyone.

  She opened her eyes just as Jon pulled his hands away. “You and your dad used to collect frogs. Every summer. You’d make little terrariums for them and then you would let them go in the Fall. Your dad said it was so they wouldn’t die. He was the one who taught you that life is precious. That it needed to be protected.”

  She felt exhausted. Feeling someone’s memories like that always took something out of her. She was gratified though when she saw how wide his eyes got. “How did you know that?”

  Darcy shrugged. “I just know some things. It’s something I’ve always been able to do. So, please, when I tell you that I know the time of death is off, believe me.”

  It didn’t happen all at once, but Darcy saw the moment when Jon decided to accept her for real. “Okay, I’ll trust you.”

  When Jon stood up, Darcy did as well. The feel of his hands in hers was still tingling against her skin.

  ***

  Jon took Darcy to his place from the police station. It was a simple apartment, clean and spartan, with a couch and a chair in the living room arranged around a low coffee table. They stayed up late that night working on the case together. He muttered to himself over and over about how he shouldn’t be sharing this stuff with her, but then he would do it anyway. Jeff was killed at home, just like Anna, with a gun, just like Anna. There was no sign of a struggle. Going on the theory that both Anna and Jeff knew their killer, Darcy and Jon created a list of everyone that the victims were close to or friendly with.

  There were a number of options for Anna. Less so for Jeff. He really had burned most of his bridges here in town.
Mixing those names in with people whose alibis might not check out now with the correct time for Anna’s death, they could come up with a list of solid suspects. Pete, Blake, Sue, Aaron, Doctor Sandal, Jess, Mark, Linda, Steve and Helen.

  She didn’t like seeing so many of her friends on the list, but she knew they had to suspect everyone. There were a few they could eliminate, though. “We can take out the women. I’m sure that the killer is a man.”

  Jon looked at her funny, but did like she asked. Her demonstration earlier had obviously convinced him.

  “Blake was sick,” Darcy went on, leaning closer to Jon to look at the list, “and Pete said he was home taking care of him. They alibi each other out. Plus, Pete was way too shaken up. I’m sure it wasn’t him. I don’t know Mark very well, but he did seem upset by Anna’s murder when I saw him the day after at the bookstore. He has a pronounced stutter that gets worse when he’s upset.”

  “So he could have been upset that he’d just killed someone,” Jon offered. “I don’t know these people very well either. Not yet. But we can’t eliminate someone just because they’re upset.”

  Darcy had to agree. She sat in silence for a moment thinking. “Fine. But Aaron had no reason to harm Anna. And he’s too kind.”

  “We can’t go by emotions we have to go by the facts,” Jon said to her. “But, saying he has no reason to kill her is something I can understand. No motive. Fine. I’ll put him in the ‘maybe’ pile.”

  “We have a maybe pile?”

  He smiled at her. “We do now.”

  She couldn’t help but stare at that smile. He had such perfect lips.

  He tapped his pen against their written notes a few times. They really hadn’t narrowed it down all that much. “All right. That’s what we have. Now tomorrow I can get new alibies from everyone. You should go around and talk to more of Anna’s friends.” He sighed. “It’s getting late.”