by K. J. Emrick
When she opened her eyes again, a heavy layer of clouds had settled in and turned the intensity of the sun down from eleven to a comfortable two-point-five. She wouldn’t even need sunglasses. Now, however, it looked like rain.
“Never satisfied,” a friendly voice said from the lawn chair next to her hammock. “That’s my niece, all right. You might have grown up, Darcy Sweet, but you’re still the same girl you were all those years ago.”
Breezing herself with a wicker fan on a long, thin handle, Great Aunt Millie smiled a knowing smile and adjusted the brim of her big, floppy black hat. Her ghost visited in Darcy’s dreams sometimes. She looked just the same as she had in life, just as Darcy remembered her in those very short months before she died. Old and gray, and as energetic as women half her age. In the dreams she was always wearing her long black dress, always so calm and so… at peace.
“Never satisfied?” Darcy said to her aunt. “Well. Some people consider me a busybody, I suppose, but it’s only because I want to find the truth and help people when I can.”
Millie reached over and patted Darcy’s hand. “Of course you do, dear. It’s how I raised you. Seems you’ve got another doozy of a mystery on your hands. That Steve Nelson. What a piece of work that man was.”
“Hmph. You can say that again.”
“I knew his mother, you know. Jozelle. Nice enough woman. A little quiet. I always suspected she was treated like a servant by that father of hers. Men like Merlon Nelson believe women belong in the kitchen, serving men. That would be Steve’s grandfather, of course. I have to wonder if maybe that’s why Steve turned out the way he did. Being raised in that household, by that man? Well. Why is it the mean ones always live the longest, hmm?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Darcy told her. “You had a pretty good run.”
“Heh. Yes, I suppose I did. Anyway. I don’t know how you’re going to solve Steve’s murder and help him cross over. Lots of people hated that man. That means lots of suspects to choose from.”
“I am not helping that man cross over!” Darcy almost shouted. “No way. Nuh-uh. I’ll help bring his killer to justice because murder is always a bad thing, but I am not going to perform a Crossing for his ghost. Nothing can make me do that. Not for him.”
She got up out of the hammock, fighting with the mesh strings to let her go, and then she put her feet on the ground and began pacing. It was unthinkable, that she would be put in a position of helping someone who had brought so much grief into the lives of good people like Helen.
“Now, Darcy,” Millie scolded her gently. “We don’t always get to pick who we help. That, more than anything, is the curse we have to bear. We have this amazing gift, but it’s not something we can just hide away, like a piece of chocolate we don’t want to share. No. Our gift is for us to help people. We don’t get to pick and choose.”
Darcy crossed her arms defiantly and stood staring off at the clouds on the horizon. She knew her aunt was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“That’s better,” Millie said, as if Darcy had agreed with her anyway. “Now. Seems to me you’re in a bit of a pickle. Got Steve’s sister locked up at the jail, but no reason to believe she killed Steve. So. Who else do we have for suspects?”
“Nash Fullerton.” Darcy was glad to change the subject. She very rarely got any sort of direct help from Millie, so she was going to take it while she could. “He’s new to town, and he works as the maintenance man for the Town Hall. We think he broke in there to find Merlon Nelson’s last will and testament. Only, I don’t see how he could have known about it.”
“Oh?”
“Well, sure. Nash didn’t know Gloria, or Steve. He certainly didn’t know Merlon.”
Tiptoe was rolling around on the ground, scratching her back in the dirt, but she stopped now to look at Darcy. “Even if he doesn’t know them he still might want their grandpa’s money. For some humans that money stuff is more important than family. It’s like, you know, catnip or something.”
Millie nodded approvingly. “She got Smudge’s smarts for sure.”
“She’s a good cat,” Darcy agreed. “I guess if she’s going to start showing up in my dreams too, then we’ll get to know each other a lot better.”
The look she got from Tiptoe was hard to read. She couldn’t tell if she liked the idea of them spending more time together, or not.
“Back to your mystery,” Millie advised. “So. We have Gloria locked away, and Nash Fullerton needs to explain why he was in that room in the Town Hall. Who else?”
Darcy shrugged. “There is no one else. I mean, no one we know of.”
“Pish posh,” Millie scoffed. “Nonsense. A man who was just released from prison is bound to have lots of enemies. Not to mention, he came back to a town full of people who hate him. Might not have anything to do with the will at all. Could just be that someone wanted him dead for no reason.”
“Where there’s a will,” Tiptoe repeated, “there’s a way.”
Now that she was hearing that old proverb coming from her cat, she remembered Colby saying the same thing yesterday, right when they found out that Steve had died.
Interesting.
The things she heard in her dreams usually meant something, but they were still filtered through the logic of dreams. She had ranted at her great aunt’s ghost before, asking why she couldn’t just tell Darcy the things she needed to know in a straightforward, not-frustrating way. Millie had just smiled at the question, and in that calm way she had of explaining everything and nothing all at once, she had done exactly that. Explained everything, and nothing, all at once.
“So what are you two saying?” Darcy asked her now. “I need to find more suspects? Other than Nash?”
“Well, I thought that would be obvious,” Millie said, fussing with her dress. “You have to keep finding suspects until you find the person who did the crime. Isn’t that how it works?”
“But I’m kind of out of suspects, aren’t I? Gloria and her husband are marijuana growers and, sure, they violated some Federal crimes, but I don’t think they’re murderers. Nash is probably being questioned by Jon right now, but God alone knows what that will amount to, if anything. I mean, maybe Wilson was right. Maybe Nash was just in the room because he’s the maintenance guy and he was maintaining the building.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Millie said, pursing her lips. “So where does that leave you?”
“Exactly nowhere!” Darcy lifted her hands up helplessly and let them slap back against her thighs. “I am this close to doing a spirit communication and calling up Steve’s ghost, to tell the truth, but I think I may have mentioned that I don’t want to spend any more time with that man than I have to. Let’s call that plan… never.”
“Well, if you don’t want to look at him now,” Millie suggested, “why not look at what was going on in his life when he was alive.”
That was good advice, she had to admit. “Such as what?”
“What did he do for a living before he went off to prison?”
Darcy sighed in frustration. “He was the mayor when he got arrested. Everyone knows that.”
Now a twinkle shone in Millie’s eyes. “Ah, yes, but what do we know about the people who are mayors of small towns like Misty Hollow?”
The clouds thinned, and then cleared out, and the sun shone down on them again. This time it wasn’t a harsh glare. It was a warm, wonderful glow that surrounded them in the dream.
And suddenly, Darcy knew what Millie meant.
“Small town mayors have to get second jobs!” she exclaimed. Of course. Even Helen had kept her bakery business because the salary Misty Hollow could afford to pay its mayors was just a token amount. There had never been much of a tax base here to provide the kind of salaries that big city mayors got. So every mayor of Misty Hollow spent their time doing their best to provide for their town, but they also worked a second job to provide for themselves and their families.
So what about Steve Nelson?
The murders had been so he wouldn’t get caught. In the end, the deaths had been pointless because he’d gotten caught anyway. Him and his accomplice too, the woman he’d been having an affair with, Jess O’Conner…
Jess! Darcy had forgotten all about her. She hadn’t thought about that woman for years. She’d helped Steve try to cover up his crimes, burning financial statements and intentionally hiding what Steve had done. She’d gone to prison for a short time but nowhere near as long as Steve.
Where was she now? She’d been all about the money that Steve could give her, and maybe she still was. If there was money coming to Steve from his grandfather’s will, wouldn’t she want a piece of it, even after all this time? Gloria’s mother might know about that. She might even know where Jess was.
Millie nodded. “There. Now you’ve got another suspect to find.”
With a loud purr, Tiptoe pushed her face right up next to Darcy’s. “Guess it’s time to wake up, then.”
Darcy’s eyes snapped open. She was still on the couch, her plate of half-finished dinner still beside her. Sometime during the night Tiptoe had moved from her spot curled up against Darcy’s hip, up onto her lap. She was awake now too, her eyes wide and unblinking.
“Hey, you.” Darcy’s voice was thick with sleep. “You been here all night?”
She scratched the fur behind Tiptoe’s ears and tried to stretch out a kink in her neck with her other hand. Maybe the couch wasn’t as comfortable as she remembered.
“What time is it, little cat?”
Not really expecting an answer, she checked her My Little Pony watch. It was just after six in the morning. Colby would be up soon, if today was like any other day. Zane had been sleeping through the night for almost a year now, but he was an early riser too. Better get up and get the day going.
“Time to move, Tiptoe. It was nice spending some time with you. Next time want to watch a movie?”
Tiptoe jumped down off her lap, onto the floor, walking away with her tail in the air. Apparently, movies weren’t her style.
“Fine,” Darcy called after her. “We’ll read a book instead.”
As she brought her plate to the kitchen sink Darcy thought about the dream she’d had. Millie hadn’t been a lot of help. Or had she? The conversation had made Darcy think about Jess O’Conner, sure, but she must have more insight into this mystery than that. She’d sat right there in that lawn chair and talked about how she used to know Steve and Gloria’s family. She’d painted a picture of Merlon Nelson as an overbearing patriarch, a chauvinist who treated his daughters like slaves.
That was an interesting tidbit, but it could hardly have anything to do with this mystery. Except, the grandfather was dead now, and there was a will to be read. That might shed some light on the whole thing. After all, where there was a will, there was a way. How much money was there? Was Steve here in town to get his share?
She stopped in the middle of taking down the folding table from last night’s truncated dinner. All those questions about the will brought to mind one more. Why had the family waited so long to have the will read? The grandfather had been dead for two months, according to Gloria. In her experience a family always wanted to get right to the reading of the will as soon as possible.
So why the delay this time?
She needed to talk to Jon about this, and about Jess O’Conner. There was no note from him anywhere, which meant he was still at the police station. If he really did spend the night sleeping in his chair, then he probably felt worse than she did from sleeping on the couch. She wanted to call him, right now, but she hated to wake him up if he was sleeping.
If he ever retired, she was going to miss calling him up at odd hours to discuss whatever mystery came sweeping into Misty Hollow next time.
Then again, if he was retired, he would be right here with her whenever she needed to talk to him.
More time with Jon. When she looked at it that way, retirement almost seemed like a good thing.
Hmm. Suddenly she wasn’t so worried about a future full of changes. After all, life had been nothing but changes for her since she’d met Jon Tinker. She wouldn’t want it any other way.
With the table folded up and set up against a wall Darcy started back for the living room to use the landline and call Jon. She was stopped by the sound of someone knocking on her front door. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the car pulling into her driveway. Looking out now through the kitchen window, she saw the little white Volkswagen Beetle from Jozelle and Althea’s house.
They were standing there and smiling at Darcy when she opened the door, wearing nearly identical yellow dresses. Darcy was beginning to wonder if they didn’t intentionally shop for matching wardrobes.
“Good morning, ladies,” she said to them. “I wasn’t expecting you. Especially not this early. Would you like to come in?”
“Oh, my,” Althea said, looking past Darcy’s shoulder. “Is this a bad time? See, Jozelle, I told you this was a bad time.”
“Nonsense,” Jozelle said, shuffling inside as Darcy stepped back. “Didn’t you just hear Darcy tell us to come in? How can it be a bad time if she’s inviting us in?”
“She has children, you know.”
“I do know that. I also know this is Saturday, and all children sleep in on Saturday mornings.”
“Well,” Darcy tried to explain, “actually Colby’s a pretty early riser…”
“Pish posh,” Althea said to Jozelle, as if she hadn’t heard Darcy at all. “Children get up early on Saturdays. They watch cartoons.”
The two of them were making their way over to the small kitchen table, now free of the attached folding addition. “Nobody watches cartoons anymore,” Jozelle was arguing. “It’s all that worldwide online surfing that the kids do now.”
“Like you know,” Althea scoffed, lowering herself slowly into a chair. “You don’t even know how to turn on a computer. You have to ask me to find anything on the internet. And, it’s called the World Wide Web.”
Jozelle sat down next to her sister. “That’s a dumb name. Who came up with that?”
“Vice President Al Gore, I think.”
“Well, I didn’t vote for him.”
“I didn’t vote for him, either.”
Darcy watched them carrying on with each other, until there was finally a pause big enough for her to break into. “Would the two of you like some tea?"
The sisters turned to look at Darcy, blinking behind their glasses. “Of course we would,” Jozelle said. “It’s breakfast time. You have to have tea.”
“With breakfast,” Althea agreed.
Darcy couldn’t help but like these two. Their father had just died, Jozelle’s son had just been murdered, and still they found comfort in each other’s company.
She put the water on to boil and got out two ceramic cups and the box of tea from the cupboard. Behind her the sisters continued talking to each other, back and forth, sometimes teasing and sometimes sniping at each other like little girls. Darcy remembered what her Aunt Millie had said in the dream about these two, and the way they had been treated by their father. It was a wonder they could find anything to laugh about at all.
This was the perfect opportunity to ask about that, she realized.
“Hey,” she said, “do you guys by chance remember my great aunt? Millie Carlisle?”
They stopped in the middle of a conversation about whether marmalade was a jam or a spread. The look that passed between them was hard to decipher.
“I remember her,” Jozelle said. “Sure I do. She was a bit older than us, of course. More our father’s age than ours.”
“Didn’t she come to the house once?” Al
thea asked.
“I think so…” Jozelle pursed her lips. “It was so long ago.”
“That’s because you’re old,” her sister said with a smile.
“I’m a whole year younger than you, Althea!”
“You sure don’t act it, you old coot!”
Darcy set their cups down in front of them. Steam rose from both as the tea slowly seeped from the bags into the hot water. “My aunt told me once that your father seemed, um, rather strict.”
Which was the polite way of saying chauvinist pig.
Both of the sisters stared up at her for a very long moment. Darcy realized she’d definitely struck a nerve. These two had taken care of their ailing father for God alone knew how long, but was it possible that they hadn’t even liked the man?
“Our father,” Althea said at long last, “was a very hard man. He loved us in his own way. He helped Jozelle raise Steve too, after her divorce, if you can believe that.”
Considering Steve had grown up to be someone who murdered two people to cover up his thieving ways, Darcy wasn’t sure that was such a great endorsement of their father’s parenting skills. Of course, Jozelle and Althea hadn’t turned out to be murderers. Or thieves, either.
Maybe it skipped a generation.
At least she now knew that Millie’s assessment of the grandfather had been correct. He was not a nice man. Okay, fine. How did that tie into the mystery of Steve’s death? Perhaps it would have some bearing on the last will and testament, in terms of who Merlon Nelson had decided to give his wealth to.
If there was any wealth left at all. Darcy remembered the condition of the house. There didn’t seem to be a lot of money left to give to anyone.
Or perhaps he’d been hoarding it all this time. Interesting…
Which reminded her. “Oh, I wanted to ask you two. Why hasn’t anyone read Merlon’s will yet? If your father died two months ago wouldn’t you have opened the will by now?”
That same look passed between them. This time it was Jozelle who answered for them both. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about those things, dear. Our lawyer might, I suppose. He takes care of all that.”
