by K. J. Emrick
As she pulled up to the front of the house she could feel her cheeks and hands stinging from the cold. She chastised herself for not wearing gloves so her hands were at least protected. She imagined that her face must be glowing red by now from the brisk cold air. She hopped off her bike and wheeled it up to the porch steps. It occurred to Darcy then that perhaps she should have let Jon come with her after all. She had no idea what Katrina would be like or what the whole story was.
Then her mind took a horrifying twist. What if Katrina had killed her father? Darcy was halfway up the steps and almost onto the porch when she thought of that scary notion. She had faced a few murderers thanks to her special gifts, and she wasn’t looking forward to meeting another. Especially in an out of the way and secluded place like this. She decided that she was going to leave and come back later with Jon. Yes. That sounded right.
She turned around to go back down the steps when she heard someone open the front door. She froze in place.
“Who’s there?” The woman’s voice sounded quiet and sweet. Not able to hide, Darcy turned back to the middle aged woman peering through the screen door at her. The woman’s blonde hair was done up in a bun and she was wiping her hands on an apron worn over a simple flower-print dress. She certainly didn’t look very dangerous. Darcy climbed back up the steps and gathered her courage.
“Hello, Mrs. Samson. My name is Darcy Sweet. I own the Sweet Read bookstore in town.” The woman nodded, her face curious, so Darcy continued. “I know this will sound strange, and I know we’ve never met, but I was hoping that I could speak to you about your father.”
The woman’s face puckered into a frown. “My father? Goodness, why on Earth would you want to talk to me about my father?”
Darcy smiled, thinking reassuring thoughts, hoping to persuade Katrina that she wasn’t some crazy person come knocking on the door. “I’ve heard about your father’s murder. I was hoping that maybe you could answer some questions for me.”
Katrina’s expression never relaxed, but she did nod and open the door for Darcy. “I don’t mind, I suppose. Please come in.”
She held the door open for Darcy. It was dark inside the house with very few lights on. Katrina shut the door behind them and shuffled ahead of Darcy into the kitchen. “I was just finishing up some baking before I tried to take a nap. My husband is away this week and I’ve been sleeping none too well without him.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t keep you long, I promise.” Darcy took a seat at the little kitchen table when Katrina waved a hand at one of the chairs for her.
“It’s no bother, Darcy. I will say this is odd, though. No one has asked about dad’s death for years. Can I get you something to drink to warm you up? You must be frozen coming all the way out here on a bicycle. I have coffee or tea, or I could maybe rustle up some cocoa, if I’ve got any.”
“Some tea would be great, thank you.” Darcy rubbed her hands together, just getting the circulation back in them now.
Katrina shuffled around the kitchen in worn slippers that looked too big for her feet, grabbing cups from a cupboard over the sink and taking tea bags out of a metal canister. Putting the kettle on the stove to boil, she sat down with Darcy and folded her hands on the table. Frowning she said, “Now why did you come out here and bring all this ancient history up?”
Darcy felt sorry for the woman. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your grief.”
To Darcy’s surprise, Katrina waved her hand as if she were swatting away the thought. “Don’t worry over that. I came to terms with dad’s death a long time ago. No suspects, no arrests.”
“But your father’s case is still open, isn’t it?”
Katrina smiled sadly. “For the police, maybe. Not for me. I know exactly what killed my father,” she said, pausing for that to sink in for Darcy. “Everyone thinks that it was a gunshot, but the real culprit is the Santa suit.”
Darcy thought that she must have misheard. “I’m sorry. What?”
“My father played Santa in the Christmas pageant and that’s the reason he died. The suit is haunted.”
Chapter 6
Darcy was sure she looked as shocked as she felt. Katrina thought that the Santa suit was haunted. Darcy’s first reaction was to say that wasn’t possible. But she lived in a world where specters showed up on her doorstep and children in graveyards followed her every step.
Haunted clothing? It wasn’t the strangest thing she’d ever heard of or seen.
The kettle whistled and Katrina got up to pour water over the bags. “Can you explain that to me?” Darcy asked her.
“I can, but you wouldn’t be the first one to just write me off as insane.” She said it with a smile, but Darcy could hear the hurt behind those words. She herself knew what it was like to have to keep secrets from people because no one would ever believe you, and to be ridiculed even when you knew you were right.
Maybe she and Katrina had more in common than she realized.
Putting the cups of tea down on the table, Katrina looked thoughtfully into the distance. “My dad was very involved with the town. He always helped out with the festivals and pageants. Everyone in town liked him. So you see, no one had a reason to kill him. The night he died was the night after the Christmas pageant. It was the first year that he’d played Santa.” Katrina paused to take a breath. “When I saw him that night in the suit he looked really nervous, almost sick. I had never seen him look that way before. The very next day he was killed.”
Katrina focused back on Darcy and took a sip of her tea. “So you see, I know what killed my dad. That suit is haunted. By what, I don’t know. But whatever it is killed my dad. As sure as you and I are sitting here, that’s what got him killed.”
That night Darcy lay awake in bed once again. Her visit with Katrina was running through her mind on a continuous loop. Could the suit be haunted? Could a ghost be responsible for Roger’s death? Why? Why would a spirit do something so drastic? There were documented cases of poltergeists destroying property, even hurting people. As far as she knew, however, there had never been a ghost that actually killed someone.
That didn’t put it beyond the realm of possibility. Especially if the ghost haunting the Santa suit—if there was one—had a grudge against Roger August. There were too many questions and absolutely no answers. She needed to speak to Roger once again.
Communicating with the other side was meant to be done in specific steps. She didn’t like to use them because of the drain on her physical and mental energy, but in situations where she had no other choice, they were her measure of last resort.
Smudge followed her around the house as she got together the thick white candles, sticks of incense in a ceramic holder and the old bed sheet that she used when she performed the ritual here in the house. Setting the sheet out in the living room, she put the candles around the edges in an exact pattern and lit each one in order. After lighting the incense sticks she sat in the middle of the circle of candles, cross-legged, and cleared her mind.
Nearby her, within the circle of candles, mist formed in slithering tendrils. She let it happen, let the bridge between this world and the next solidify as she poured her own self into that connection, reaching out for Roger August.
She waited. Nothing happened.
“Roger?” she asked. “Are you there?” No one answered her. She couldn’t get any feel for him at all, which was very unusual. The last time that had happened, it had meant the supposedly dead person she was trying to contact was still alive. She didn’t get the feeling that was the case here, though. There was something else going on. It was like something was blocking her. Keeping her from communicating with Roger’s spirit.
Standing up, stretching, she checked the clock and only then realized that three hours had passed. When she put herself into that state time had no meaning. She could have sat there for a day or more without realizing it, and in truth she had done that once. It was dangerous, to sit there for that long. There was a real risk that her body c
ould die from inattention even as her spirit continued to search for a connection.
A wave of dizziness swept over her and she caught herself against a nearby wall. Smudge looked up at her, his head cocked. “I’m all right, boy. Just need some water.” She collected the candles, snuffing them out in proper order, and then put them away again for next time.
It was when she was heading to the sink for a glass of water that the thought hit her. What if the Santa suit that Katrina had told her about was the same one she had now, the same one that the pageant had used for years now?
She raced back into the living room and picked up the suit. Tentatively she held it out at arm’s length and inspected it closely. It looked old, but there was really no way of knowing for sure if it was the same suit or not.
She closed her eyes and tried to feel for any strange, haunted powers that the suit might be holding. A snap against her fingers startled her into dropping it to the floor. She flexed her hand, feeling foolish. Just a static electric shock. That’s all.
Still, she went and got the candles back out, and formed the circle around the suit with the candles lit. Lighting the candles wasn’t really the smartest thing to do but she didn’t feel like she had any other choice right now. The circle would contain any spirit for the night. Smudge looked up at her and blinked.
“I know,” she said. “It’s foolish and dangerous. But I’m not sleeping in the same house with a possessed Santa suit without some precautions.”
Darcy and her cat stared at each other and then she laughed out loud. This was ridiculous. Feeling silly, she took herself back up to bed.
But, even though it was dangerous, she didn’t blow out the candles. Just in case.
The next morning Darcy was at work when Jon stopped by. Nothing had happened overnight, and the suit was right where she had left it when she woke up. She’d stuffed it back into the pack with her Mrs. Claus suit, and tried to put her energy into thinking up a good way to solve this mystery. A way that didn’t involve theories about possessed clothing.
Jon smiled at her. He looked excited. In his hands he was carrying a large, thin book.
“What’s that?” Darcy asked.
“Well,” he said, obviously proud of himself. “Your boyfriend has been combing through boxes of old files and photos in the basement of the police station. Now, he did this because he loves you, and because he’s sorry he ever made you doubt that. Now. Guess what I found?”
He was so excited he was about to burst and Darcy found herself excited too without even knowing what he was talking about. “So tell me already,” she laughed.
“Your loving boyfriend, who expects to be rewarded for staying up most of the night going through album after album, found, among hundreds of photographs, a single photograph of your dead man.” Jon dropped the book down onto the counter with a flourish and opened it up to a page marked with a scrap of paper. “In this photo album there were pictures for the old Chief’s retirement party years ago. And here,” he pointed to one of the pictures, “is a picture of Roger.”
Darcy looked at it, understanding Jon’s excitement now. “You really are the best boyfriend in the world.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am.”
Darcy kissed him on his cheek, but whispered a promise to thank him more later. In the photo stood a very stern looking Roger, and next to him was a female police officer. The photo was labelled, Roger’s name, and then Rose Abbington. Darcy pointed to the woman. “Who is this?”
“I don’t know. A friend of Roger’s, maybe. I’ll ask around when I get to the station today. Somebody may remember.”
“That would be great, Jon. This is one more step closer to finding out who Roger was. If we could find this Rose, and talk to her, she might be able to help.”
Not to mention that Darcy would be able to stop putting protective circles around costumes.
Darcy flipped the store’s sign to ‘CLOSED, THE END’ and pulled the front door of the bookstore shut behind her as she left. She hopped on her bike just as Helen began calling for her from the town square. Darcy headed over to her with a smile.
Helen smiled back at her and said, “I just wanted to thank you again for taking over for Santa and Mrs. Claus this year. We need a hundred more volunteers like you and Jon.”
“You’re too kind, Helen.” Darcy debated with herself, but then asked the question anyway. “Say, that suit for Santa looks very old. Do you know how long it’s been used in the pageant?”
“Well I’m not really sure,” Helen said, thoughtfully pursing her lips. “I know it’s been used for years. Might even be the original suit the town used back when the pageant first began thirty five years ago.”
A chill ran down Darcy’s spine that had nothing to do with the weather. If the suit had been around that long, then it was the exact same one that Roger had used the day before he was killed. She realized Helen was looking at her oddly as she stood there silent, so she started up a conversation about something else entirely, and then a few minutes later said her goodbyes and headed for home.
As she rode her bike out of town, she couldn’t help but notice the way the mists were rising in the shadows. It was an eerie thing to see in the cold. Sunlight sparkled on the coalescing vapors as they hung low to the ground. The town had been named after this very phenomenon, this mist that was always present here no matter the time of year. Of course, Darcy knew that they came out strongest when something bad was going to happen. Or when danger was coming.
When she made it home, brooding about Santa suits and dead men and how she always managed to get herself caught in the middle of these mysteries, she was a little alarmed to find the door unlocked.
Carefully she let herself in, the smell of cinnamon and apples filling her nose. Jon’s humming reached her from the kitchen. She relaxed. What a wonderful surprise. He must have used the spare key that she kept in the pot plant on the porch to let himself in. She fully expected to get another lecture from Jon some time about it. She had kind of promised him not to keep it in the pot any more. Oh well, couldn’t be helped now.
“Wow. What is that wonderful smell,” she said as she took her coat and hat off.
She stopped to admire Jon’s jeans straining tightly over his perfect butt as he was bending over at the oven, looking at whatever was cooking. He stood up with a smile and moved over to pull her into his arms for a kiss. “I’m cooking an apple pie. It’s something my grandmother always did around the holidays and it helps me feel closer to her.” He hugged Darcy to his body tightly. “I’ve missed you these last few days. Let’s not fight anymore.”
Darcy tensed and he felt it. Pulling back he gave her an intense look. “What’s wrong?” She could feel him tensing up also. Was it always going to be like this between them?
“I have something to share with you, but you’re probably not going to like it. Again.”
He dropped his arms away from her and her heart stopped beating for just a moment, until she realized he wasn’t walking away from her. Instead, he took her hand and led her to the couch in the living room. “Tell me what it is,” he said to her.
She took a deep breath and explained about what happened with Katrina and what she said about the Santa suit. She had expected Jon to play it off with a joke. Or, maybe she had been hoping he would.
“Do you think it’s haunted?” he asked instead.
“No, I don’t think it’s haunted,” she said, a little exasperated. “I’m not even sure that’s possible.”
“But you said you put one of those candle rings around it.”
She knew her cheeks reddened. “Yes. I did. It was silly.”
“All right. Then I’m sure it’s fine,” Jon said. “Besides, who’s ever heard of a haunted Santa suit?”
Chapter 7
Darcy knew it was very early before she even opened her eyes. The sun wasn’t even up yet. It was the weekend again and she should be sleeping in. She sighed as she thought about all of the work she need
ed to get done today in time for the pageant that night.
She lay there for a while listening to Jon’s rhythmic breathing. After several minutes she knew that she was too wide awake to try and go back to sleep so she slipped quietly out of bed, dressed and headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. Soon, she had eggs scrambling and bacon frying.
Looking still half asleep Jon shuffled into the kitchen in time for her to scoop eggs onto a plate. “Good morning,” she said to him. He yawned in return, smiling like a little boy.
As they sat down to eat breakfast Darcy reminded him about the pageant that night.
“I’m ready,” he assured her. “Although I will have to check and make sure there aren’t any ghosts inside the Santa suit before I put it on.”
Darcy laughed. She felt relaxed that Jon could joke around about it.
They finished up breakfast and Darcy packed the dishes into the sink while Jon got showered and dressed. He came back out clean and looking good enough that she couldn’t take her eyes off him for a long moment.
When he winked at her she cleared her throat and then said, “You need to meet me in the town square around six o’clock this evening to get into costume.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said cheekily with that grin still firmly planted on his face.
Jon drove them into town. She didn’t even bother bringing her bicycle this time because she and Jon were meeting up again for the pageant that evening. In the town square, everyone was hustling about doing last minute preparations. After kissing Jon goodbye so he could stop into the station and ask around about Rose Abbington, Darcy went to the bookstore so she could put the box of costumes somewhere safe. Then she went over to the Bean There Bakery and Café to get a large coffee. She’d need it to get through the day.
