by K. J. Emrick
The door opened, and from outside came the patriotic thumping beat of You’re a Grand Old Flag. Darcy gritted her teeth and tried not to match her steps to the beat.
When she was standing over the dazed Nash Fullerton, she saw him roll to one side and reach behind himself, under the jacket, grabbing for something.
She didn’t wait to see what it was.
Lifting the book up high, she threw it down on his head. His whole body convulsed, and then he went still, and for just a moment Darcy worried that she’d maybe gone a little too far.
Then she saw his chest rising and falling. He was alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
“That’s why we still need books,” she muttered to herself. “You sure can’t do that with a cellphone!”
“I let you go off by yourself for an hour,” Jon said to her as they sat in his office at the police station. He was on his side of the desk in his big leather chair, and she was on the other. “One hour. I can’t believe you got into trouble in that little bit of time.”
“Trouble?” Darcy asked, all sweet and innocent like. “I don’t remember getting myself into trouble.”
“You can’t just go around throwing books at people,” he pointed out. “Even if they are suspects in a murder case.”
“Well, technically that was Aunt Millie who threw the book.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. The whole thing about Aunt Millie being there and still watching them weirded him out a little. “Okay… even if she threw the first one, from what I’m told you actually dropped an atlas on Nash’s head.”
“I had to put it away, Jon. I can’t just leave a book out on the counter. My shop would look sloppy.”
“So you put it away on his head?”
“I slipped?”
“Darcy…”
She shrugged and tried to suppress a smile. “It seemed like the place for it. Colby was right, though. Those atlases are heavy.”
He chuckled, and let it go. He knew when he wasn’t going to win a fight. “Well, I’m sure by now the news of what happened at your store has circulated all around town. You’ll have twice as many customers in there tomorrow, all of them looking for a show. Oh, and I understand Brianna Watson was down there doing an on-site broadcast just twenty minutes ago. Congratulations, you’re famous again.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Well, truthfully, she was a little worried about it, but still. “It won’t be the first time my shop was the center of gossip. I just want to find out who killed Steve.”
Now those were words she never thought she’d ever hear herself say. She was up to her eyeballs in the middle of a mystery to find out who had killed the man who killed her ex-husband and one of her best friends. She should be happy Steve Nelson was dead. Maybe she was, on some level, but she wasn’t going to let a murderer run free just because his victim was another murderer. Two wrongs really didn’t make a right. Not in the world of Darcy Sweet.
“Well,” Jon said to her now, “it’s just as well that you clubbed him in the head with your book because what he was reaching for behind his jacket was a gun. My guys secured it after they put him in handcuffs. It was unregistered, of course, but I have a feeling that’s the least of dear old Nash’s worries.”
“I knew it!” Darcy exclaimed, slapping her palm down against the desk. “I knew it was too warm to be wearing a hoodie like that.”
“Yes, you’re just as good a detective as your sister. In your own way.”
“Heh. I wouldn’t go that far. Grace is amazing at what she does.” She hesitated, and then added, “She might be a good replacement for you when you retire.”
“We haven’t had that conversation yet, remember?” He tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Let’s not start making plans until we both know how we feel. Maybe we can talk about it tonight? Over dinner?”
“Hmm. I’d like that. After the kids go to sleep, maybe? You and me and a bottle of wine. I’ll pick up some pasta and chicken.”
“Good. I really want to know your thoughts about me… you know, not being chief anymore.”
“But you’re really thinking about doing it, right? Retiring?”
He nodded, slowly but firmly. “I really am. I want to spend more time with my family, and I think maybe I’ve given just about everything I can to this job. Every police officer comes to that point, sooner or later. It just took me a little longer than most.”
She smiled at him, loving him in ways she could never explain. “That’s because you’re good at your job. People in town look up to you. They depend on you.”
“Well,” he said with a smile. “It looks like we have a lot to talk about. Good. I like it when my wife helps me see things clearly. For now, there’s another conversation we need to have first. With your friend Nash, in our interview room.”
“You want me to come in there with you?” she asked, a little surprised. She had done that before, but only with good reason.
“Uh, in this case, no. I really don’t think Nash will want to open up to the woman who dropped the entire world down on his head. Both figuratively, and literally. I would like you to watch, though. From outside in the hallway. Through the mirror.”
Darcy stood up. “Sounds good. Should we check on the kids first?”
Jon held up his cellphone to show her the screen. “Sean just sent me a text from the front room. He’s still watching them out there, and everything’s fine.”
“Good.” Darcy took a breath in, and then out again. It took a village to raise a child, someone had once said, but she really hoped this mystery wrapped up soon so there could be less village and more mother for Colby and Zane. “All right. Let’s go.”
Jon stood up with her, picking up a manila folder marked with Nash Fullerton’s name from his desk.
Down the hallway from his office was the single interview room in the Misty Hollow Police Department. Darcy knew the layout of the whole single-story building by heart from all the times Jon had brought her here. Or the times she’d snuck in, for that matter. Lots of memories in this place. Maybe more so here, than in any other single spot in all of Misty Hollow. Good memories, and bad ones too, but they were all part of her and Jon’s story. A part that might be ending, if he actually went through with retirement. She wondered if he was thinking about it the same way that she was.
About halfway down from Jon’s office was the big rectangular window that was actually a piece of one-way glass. On the other side was a mirror. The people inside couldn’t see out, but from out here in the hallway they could see the bare room with its single metal table, and a chair on each side, and the person sitting on the one side. Nash Fullerton was handcuffed to the security ring on the top of the table, looking smug and annoyed.
Darcy folded her arms and glared at the man through the glass. “He does understand that he’s under arrest in a police station, right? That he’s facing charges of breaking and entering and maybe murder?”
“I don’t think he cares,” Jon said. “I think that he believes he’s untouchable.”
“I touched him earlier,” Darcy said. “Well. My book touched him. In the head.”
Jon gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Yeah, it sure did. That’s why you’re staying out here.”
“What about his friend?” Darcy asked. “Where’s she?”
They both knew which ‘she’ Darcy was talking about. The woman who had been with Nash at the bookstore. She was a key piece to the whole puzzle.
“She’s our guest,” Jon said, waving in the vague direction of the back of the building, where the holding cells were. “The Federal authorities came and picked up Gloria and Cameron overnight, so there was plenty of space for her back there. She’s pacing up a storm, from what I’m told. She’ll have her chance to answer my questions later. Nash comes first.”
“She’s nervous, is she?” Darcy asked.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Jon nodded to the officer standing guard over the interview room door. He nodded back and walked away, lea
ving them with Nash. “All right. You’re just here to listen, okay? Watch what happens, and then tell me afterward if you saw something I missed. Okay?”
She gave him a playful salute. “You got it, boss.”
He gave her a wink and went inside.
Next to the window, out in the hall, was a speaker box that could be turned on with a flick of a switch. Darcy settled in for a long conversation between her amazing husband, and that man handcuffed to the desk.
“Hello, Nash,” she heard Jon say over the speaker. He settled himself into the other chair and dropped the folder on the desk. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“Well, now you found me. So, give me my appearance ticket for carrying a gun without a permit and let me get outta here, will you?”
Darcy saw the way his hands twitched. Nash was trying to act all tough, but he knew he’d been caught. He was nervous. She made a bet with herself that Jon would have everything out of him in two minutes tops.
“This is about more than that gun of yours,” he told Nash. “We’ll get to that, trust me. Especially since that bookstore you brought it to belongs to my wife.”
“Oh yeah? She the one who dropped the book on my head? That standard police procedure, is it?”
Jon spread his hands wide. “Sometimes those bookshelves aren’t so steady. Things just fall right off if you aren’t careful. Maybe you should watch your step, Nash.”
“Oh? That so?”
“Yeah. For instance,” and here Jon paused just long enough to take out a plastic envelope from the folder. “You never know when you’re going to drop something.”
He slid the sealed evidence bag across the table. Inside was the receipt from Alex’s Shop and Go that they had found in the public records room. It had been smoothed out and flattened, and now it stared Nash in the face. He stared down at it and swallowed.
Jon left the receipt there for a moment, and then put it back in the folder. “That was in the public records room. You remember that, don’t you? Of course you do. Now, I know how these things happen. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reached into my pocket for something—say, a flashlight—and had all sorts of odds and ends come falling out. It can be a little embarrassing. Especially when it puts you at the scene of a break in.”
“I didn’t…” Nash started to argue, but then gave it up.
“Sure you did,” Jon told him. “We’ve already matched the tread of the boot print on the door to your boots. You were one of the few people who had the access needed to disable the security cameras. You left the receipt behind. We know you got into the public records room, and then the mayor’s office. We even know what you were looking for… a copy of Merlon Nelson’s last will and testament. You wanted that list of safety deposit boxes in the will.”
Nash slumped back in his chair. Darcy checked her watch. She’d been right. Less than two minutes had gone by and already Nash had broken. This interview was far from over though. She knew there was still one big revelation that Jon had waiting up his sleeve.
Here it comes, Darcy thought as she watched Jon work his magic.
“There’s one other thing that we know. We know how you found out about the will.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nash said. “Well, I tell you what, cop. You tell me how I did it, and maybe I’ll give you a full confession with whipped cream and a cherry on top.”
Jon smiled wider. He’d take that deal in a heartbeat, considering he was holding all the cards. “The woman you were with at the bookstore, Nash. That’s Julie, the mayor’s secretary. The only person Helen told about Steve coming to town, and about what was in his grandfather’s will, was her secretary Julie. Now that we’ve seen you two together, and we know you were dating, the rest of it’s pretty easy to guess. Helen told Julie, and Julie told you.”
Nash lowered his head down to his chest and nodded. “Fine. Yes, me and Julie have been seeing each other. Yes, she was talking about that guy, Steve Nelson, coming back to town. Said he’d killed some people or whatever. Way before my time here. Anyway, she said there was a bunch of money in some safety deposit boxes, said they were all listed in this will, and then I put the rest of it together myself. All I needed was to get the bank information before anyone realized what I was doing. If I got there first, even the bank wouldn’t know I wasn’t supposed to have the stuff. Thing of it is, the public records room is locked after hours with a key they don’t give the maintenance man. Had to break in. The mayor’s office I could unlock, sure, but not that other room. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?”
Darcy checked that question off her list. The reason the door of one room had been broken into, and not the other, was because the maintenance man didn’t have the right key. Makes sense.
She crossed her fingers. They had him cornered. Nash had already admitted he knew Steve was coming here, thanks to the idle chit chat of his lover, Julie. All Jon had to do now was push just a little bit more and get him to admit that he killed Steve.
This should be good.
Nash’s head came back up at last. “So tell me, how’d you find out about me and Julie? You can’t tell me you knew for sure just because we were in the bookstore together.”
“I wasn’t,” Jon admitted, “but you just confirmed it for me, so there’s no doubt about it now.”
Nash’s face turned red. He knew he’d screwed up. “Well. Ain’t that a thing?”
“Yeah,” Jon said, “I suppose it is. Now, I haven’t asked you a single question yet, and you were more than agreeable to talk to me, so I didn’t bother reading your Miranda Rights to you. Now I’ve got a question to ask, so I’m going to tell you that you’ve got the right to remain silent, and the right to an attorney to be here at any time you ask. You don’t have to talk to me, but if you want to, you can. Got all that?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Good. So. Now that we’re good friends you and me, do you want to tell me why you and Julie were hanging out in the bookstore like that?”
Nash’s eyes narrowed. Obviously, that wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. “I needed to wait somewhere,” he told Jon. “I needed to get back into the Town Hall. I didn’t find that stupid will in the records room, and it wasn’t in the mayor’s office either. I was going to go back and look again.”
Jon leaned his elbows on the edge of the desk. “It’s not there because Helen sent it back to the lawyer’s office already. I’m guessing Julie didn’t know that part.”
“No,” Nash sighed. “No, she didn’t. Anyway, I was going to go back into the Town Hall and look around some more, but your cops were everywhere. I was waiting for them to go on a call, or rescue some cat from a tree, or go get donuts or something so I could get back in.”
“Ah yes, the donut joke.” Jon rolled his hand in the air. “Always good to hear that one. I’m surprised it took you this long.”
“You chose your job. Not me.”
“Maybe,” Jon said. “And maybe it chose me. But, we were discussing you. Just how far were you and Julie willing to go to get that will, Nash?”
Darcy wasn’t expecting what happened next. Tugging against his restraints, Nash put his hands out as far as they would go in his handcuffs and put a note of pleading into his voice. “Look. Julie had nothing to do with this. Nothing. She didn’t know what I was going to do. She wasn’t there with me when I broke into the Town Hall. The only reason she was with me today was because I promised to hang out with her and I didn’t want her to cut me off before I found that will. That’s all. This is all on me. Okay? I’ll give you a full confession, whatever you want, just leave her out of it.”
Huh, Darcy thought to herself. A crook with a conscience. Who would have guessed?
Jon seemed to consider that request, but Darcy knew it was exactly what he’d been waiting for. One way or another, he would have gotten Nash to this point, where he was ready to spill everything. He was really good at his job. She loved him for that as much as she loved him for anything else. The i
dea of him retiring had taken her by surprise because she knew how much he loved his job, and this part in particular.
Now that he had Nash right where he wanted him, Jon took out several sheets of loose paper from his folder. “All right, Nash. You talk, I’ll write. I can promise you that I’ll listen, and if what you say is the truth, Julie won’t suffer for anything you did.”
Nash’s lips actually started to tremble. “Thanks, Chief. I ain’t been in this town for long but… but I know you’re a man of honor. Everybody says so. Yeah. All right. You ask me what you want to know, Chief. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Good,” Jon said, spearing Nash with the intensity of his gaze. “Then let’s start with this. Why did you kill Steve Nelson?”
Nash’s eyes got very, very wide, and for a long moment his mouth worked without saying anything at all. Darcy watched him, and she knew. There was no way to fake a reaction like that.
“I didn’t kill him,” Nash said, just as Darcy had expected. “Honest, Chief. I broke into the Town Hall. Sure. I wanted to find that document and get the safety deposit boxes for myself. Then I was going to split town. Whoosh. Gone. That was the plan. Murder? No way. Not me. I’m not that kind of guy.”
“You’re just the kind who commits robbery,” Jon clarified, “and then moves on to another town?”
“That’s right. That’s me. Here, and then gone, and nobody gets hurt.”
“Except Julie,” Darcy whispered on her side of the glass.
“Except Julie,” Jon said at almost the same time. “Did you tell her about your plan to leave or were you just going to let her wake up and find you gone?”
His shoulders slumped again. “I’m not proud of who I am, Chief, but it’s how I’ve survived this long.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a life,” Darcy heard Jon say.
“Maybe not,” Nash said, a bit of the heat returning to his voice. “But either way, this is my life. Let’s get on with it. I’ll confess to everything I did, if it keeps Julie out of jail, but I won’t confess to murder. I didn’t kill Steve Nelson.”
