by K. J. Emrick
“That,” he told her, “is where Zane hit me by accident with his plastic train. Remember? Still hurts.”
“I remember you biting your tongue to keep from cursing up a blue streak,” Darcy teased him. “But what’s that got to do with… wait. What are you doing?”
He was unbuttoning his shirt, was what he was doing, and although she certainly didn’t mind seeing him in just that t-shirt that clung to the lines of his chest and his abs, she wasn’t sure where this was heading.
Then he twisted his body and held up his arm to show her a yellowish bruise on the back of his right tricep. “I slammed into the edge of a filing cabinet at the office last Friday. Still kind of hurts.”
“Poor baby,” she said drily. “Jon, seriously, we were talking about Helen.”
“I know,” he told her, as he pulled his t-shirt up and over his head.
Darcy’s eyes roamed her husband’s skin, here in the bedroom, where they were alone. Taking clothes off in here was usually the start of something fun.
But this time, Jon wasn’t trying for foreplay. He wasn’t done showing off his bruises.
He stood up and turned his back to her, feeling behind himself to a red mark down by the top of his pants. “Right there. See it? One of the officers at the station got me with a doorknob today because he was in a hurry to get somewhere.”
“Fine, so you’re a big tough guy who gets bruised a lot.” She leaned against her dresser, wondering where this was going. “What’s your point?”
“That is my point,” he told her. “People get bruises. They bang into things, or get hit with little toy trains, or do a thousand other normal things that leave a mark. The bump on Helen’s head might not have anything to do with her death.”
“Or,” she suggested, “it might have everything to do with it.”
“Right, but it’s impossible to say one way or the other. So, we wait for the coroner to know more.” He took a step closer to her. “I’m not going to let this go. Helen was my friend, too.” Another step. “I’ll turn over every stone I can until we both know what the truth is.” His hands untucked her blouse from her pants. “Okay?”
“Um, Jon?” His fingers felt really nice as they cupped her sides. “What are you doing?”
“Well, I’ve shown you mine,” he said in a low, soft voice. “I think it’s only fair if you show me yours. You can’t be too careful, I say. I might have to strip off every piece of clothing to check for suspicious marks. Just to be sure.”
Oh, she thought with a smile, so that’s what he was up to. When his fingers found the button on her jeans, she gasped, and grabbed his hands. “No, wait. Not that. I mean, yes that, but not yet.” She was tongue tied. He was the only man in the world who had ever been able to do that to her. “Later. I promise. First, I want you to see something.”
He raised a single, dark eyebrow.
“Not that,” she laughed. “Look at this.”
She took the cellphone out of her back pocket where she’d kept it all this time. The photo of the day planner was still there as she swiped the screen to life. She enlarged it over the entry she needed him to see and passed it over to him.
His expression changed as he realized what he was looking at. “Where did you get this?”
“From Carson Everly’s desk. In his office.”
The wheels were turning in his mind. “Carson Everly…”
“Exactly. The same Carson Everly who was running against Helen in this month’s election. The same Carson Everly who was going to lose that election, even after he moved his whole practice here to small town America. He put a lot of money and effort into starting a career in small town politics here. I’m sure he picked Misty Hollow because he thought Helen would be easy to unseat. He probably looked at her as an old woman in a town looking for change.”
“We don’t know that he was going to lose,” he shrugged.
Darcy just looked at him.
“Yeah, okay,” he admitted. “You’re right. Helen was going to mop the floor with him. If he was seeing all of his efforts going to waste, and his only chance of winning was to get Helen out of the way…”
“Motive,” she said, putting it in cop terms for him. He always told her that every murder needed three basic elements. Means, motive, and opportunity. They had a motive. Carson obviously had the means. He outweighed Helen by over a hundred pounds, and he was a good thirty years younger or so than she was. He could have easily overpowered her.
Which left just one element remaining.
Jon tapped the screen of Darcy’s phone, where it showed the nine-thirty appointment between Carson and Helen on the night she died.
“Opportunity,” he said. “Well, well.”
“So now we bring him into the station, right?” Darcy asked excitedly. “We need to interrogate him and ask him what he did to Helen in this meeting of theirs. Can you imagine the audacity of this guy? He actually kept their meeting in his book. Even after she was dead. Do we go and get him tonight?”
“Whoa, slow down. First of all, this isn’t a ‘we’ sort of situation. I’ll have my guys invite him to the police station for a talk tomorrow. If I do it this late, he’ll know it’s more than just a polite conversation about politics.”
“But you will interview him?” Darcy asked.
“Oh, most definitely. I mean, there’s not going to be any way to keep politics out of this, but if I can keep it out of the papers for one more day that might help. Actually, this might be a good one to get your sister involved in. Grace is about the least political person I know. That way, there won’t be any blowback on the police department about who we wanted to win the election.”
Darcy didn’t disagree with him. Her sister Grace was the senior detective at the Misty Hollow Police Department, and she was almost as good at the job as Jon was. There had been some sour grapes when Jon came into town from a big city police agency and then took the chief’s spot even though Grace had been at the department years longer, but that was all in the past. Grace knew that Jon was the better choice for the top spot. She would be a good choice to lead the investigation.
“So why can’t we sick Grace on Carson Everly now?” Darcy wanted to know. “Why wait?”
“Well,” he said, sliding his hands up under her shirt again, “besides the fact that we don’t want to put him on the defensive by calling him down at night, like I already mentioned, there’s the small matter of him knowing you were in his office today taking photos. Let’s wait until tomorrow so he doesn’t immediately catch on that you’re the reason he’s now a suspect, okay?”
She bit down on her lower lip, resting her fingertips against his bare chest. “Um. He’s not going to know it was me.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Well. Um. The only person there was his secretary, and I’ve never met that guy before, and I may possibly have told him my name was Melissa.”
Jon actually laughed. “Melissa? Why Melissa?”
“It was the name of a girl who used to tease me mercilessly in school. You know. Real mean-girl type.” She shrugged. “So, I figured if Carson was going to be mad at anyone, it might as well be Melissa.”
He kissed the slope of her shoulder. “You never struck me as much of a Melissa. Should I start calling you that when our bedroom door is closed and locked, like it is now?”
“Don’t you dare,” she told him sternly. Oh, but his kisses did feel nice. “You are to call me Darcy, and only Darcy. Or Princess,” she amended. “Or Snowflake, but nothing else.”
His hands found that button again. “Well, Princess Snowflake. I promise to have Grace talk to Carson Everly tomorrow. I might even let you be there when it happens, to watch, if you ask me nicely. In the meantime… how does that feel?”
She shivered and wrapped her arms around his neck. “That’s nice… that’s very nice…”
Chapter 7
Darcy woke up early the next morning ready to perform a spirit communication. If everything she
had learned so far wasn’t yet enough for Jon, then she would call on Helen’s ghost and see what she had to say. It was a great idea. She was eager to do it.
But by the time she got Colby off to the bus, and Jon off to work, and Zane fed and dressed, and then moved Cha-Cha’s bowl to the opposite side of the kitchen from Tiptoe’s to prevent an argument between those two… it occurred to her that there was probably something else she should do first.
Bruce Turner deserved to know what she and Jon were doing. If there was a chance that Helen had not passed away peacefully, he deserved to hear it from her. They might not know for sure that Carson Everly was the killer but there was no doubt anymore that it was murder. Not in Darcy’s mind. Not in Jon’s, either, even if he had to play it close to the vest and follow the rules.
She got to make up her own rules. Mostly. Maybe not as much as she used to, especially now that she had children who depended on her.
“Hey, Zane?” From his booster seat at the kitchen table, her son looked up at her over his bowl of cereal. “I have an errand to run this morning. Will you be okay with Izzy at the bookstore for just a little while?”
“Mingolf?” he asked, a loose cheerio sticking to his lip.
“No, we went to mini golf this weekend, remember?” She put her own plate in the sink to wash later. “That might be the last time we get to go this year.”
He looked so disappointed she almost laughed. They would definitely have to find lots of chances to take him to the mini golf course next summer.
“Tell you what,” she offered, “how about later today we play frisbee with Cha-Cha after we get home. How does that sound?”
“Fisbee?” he asked. “What’s fisbee?”
It occurred to Darcy that she never had played frisbee with Zane. Until now he’d been far too young for that sort of thing. Up until now, there also hadn’t been any dogs in the house either, and cats weren’t exactly big fans of frisbees. Well. All of that was going to change, she supposed.
As she left the house to drive into town she made a mental note to actually pick up a frisbee before going home. Was there any place in Misty Hollow that actually sold frisbees? It was a question she’d never asked herself before.
This time when she asked Izzy to mind the store, and Zane, and Cha-Cha for a few hours, her friend and business partner pressed her for more information. It was all well and good that Darcy Sweet was chasing another mystery, but if she was going to help out she wanted to know why. And what. And who.
Darcy knew it was only fair, so she told Izzy everything she could. Helen had been murdered. They had a suspect. Jon and Grace were going to handle that part of it, but she had to talk to Bruce before he heard about it from the rumor mill. No doubt people would start talking soon.
Izzy sucked in a breath, shaking her head sadly. “This town never lets anyone rest in peace, does it?”
Darcy pinched her lips together. She knew the truth of that better than anyone.
She wasn’t worried about Izzy starting rumors with what she’d told her about Helen. She wasn’t one for gossip. At least, not to spread it around willy-nilly. She enjoyed hearing the latest gossip as much as anyone else, but she knew better than to spread rumors. There had been plenty of those running wild about her when she first came to town.
Zane was already distracted by a giant kid’s book. He had it laid out on the floor over in the brightly painted children’s section, pretending to read to Cha-Cha as he flipped each page. He was getting the story from the pictures, but Darcy had to admit he was doing a pretty decent job of it. With a wave of her hand to Izzy, she snuck her way out the front door. Sometimes it was better to sneak off and not let Zane see her leaving. He was fine without her always being around. It was seeing her leave that would upset him. It was the same for most kids that age, Darcy knew, although she wondered who it was harder for, the parents or the kids.
Cha-Cha saw her before she made her exit, and he padded his way over to bark softly at her. She looked down at him, with the distinct impression that somehow he knew she was going back to Helen and Bruce’s house.
“I’m sorry, Cha-Cha, I can’t bring you along this time.” She figured it was going to be hard enough on Bruce when she told him about the murder investigation. She didn’t want to make it harder by showing up with Helen’s dog. “I’ll find some time for you to visit with Bruce, okay? Just not today. Later, when he feels up to it.”
The puppy dog grumbled and lowered his head to the carpet, snuffing at nothing at all before he turned and walked away again. His ears trailed on the floor as he went.
In that moment, he looked less like a puppy somehow. As if he’d grown up some now that he knew Helen was gone. Every kid who lost a parent went through that same thing to some degree or other. It was the same for pets, and their human parents.
It didn’t take any time at all to get to Bruce’s house. She had wanted it to take longer so that she could compose what she was going to say. Compose it again, that is. For like the fourth time. The words rearranged themselves over and over but always ended up meaning the same thing. Your dead wife was murdered, Bruce, so sorry. I’m sure it will all work out.
There was just no way to make it sound anything but terrible. She almost turned back twice, but she’d been right this morning, and she was still right. Bruce deserved to know. So, she kept going right to Bruce’s house.
Her breath hitched in her throat as she realized she’d called it “Bruce’s house.” Not Helen and Bruce, just Bruce. It wasn’t Helen’s anymore.
Pulling down the long driveway she found Bruce’s red convertible parked up near the house. There were no other vehicles. That was good, she thought, because this was definitely not a conversation she wanted to have in front of anyone. Not even Pastor Phin. For just a moment she wondered if she should have told Jon what she was doing, but then she decided that it could wait. He was going to have a full morning as it was, interviewing Carson Everly. Hopefully they would get his confession and wrap the whole matter up by lunchtime. If they did, then she wouldn’t even need to do the spirit communication.
She had mixed feelings about that. She had realized after leaving the bookstore that her excitement over performing the spirit communication to reach Helen wasn’t just because she wanted to find the answers to this mystery. That was part of it, but she mostly wanted to see her friend again. She wanted to tell Helen that they were all so sorry, and that she would be missed.
Not that she needed a communication to do that. People didn’t need special talents like hers to communicate their feelings to the dead. They just needed to talk.
With a deep breath, she told herself to stop stalling, and got out of the car.
It was only a moment after she knocked before the front door opened. Bruce looked honestly happy to see her. Darcy wondered if he was going to feel the same way when she was done.
“Hi, Bruce. Can I come in?”
“Of course, Darcy. You never need to ask. You’re always welcome here.” He stepped back and waved his hand down the hallway. “We might want to sit in the living room. The kitchen is kind of full. People keep sending me food. I think I’ve got three casseroles in the fridge now. I can’t even see my kitchen table for all of the condolence flowers. I think one person sent a cactus, actually, and it might be the only thing out of all of it that I manage to keep alive. It’s really something to see how the community responded to Helen’s passing. Truly.”
Darcy chose to sit on the chair opposite the living room couch, facing Bruce. The silence stretched, and became awkward, until Bruce cleared his throat. “I want to thank you again for helping me box up Helen’s things. It’s funny, you know? Now that we’ve done all that, I haven’t had the heart to get rid of any of it. It’s like keeping all of that is somehow keeping her closer to me. Like she can’t be gone, as long as her things are still here.”
“That’s a good way of thinking of it,” Darcy agreed. “Listen, Bruce, I have to tell you something.”
It took Darcy three tries to get it all out. As it turned out, it was even harder to say than she thought it would be. Bruce listened to everything, his gaze slowly losing its focus until she run out of words and the whole nasty business was out in the open.
“I just wanted you to know,” Darcy finished. “You deserved to know what was going on, and you deserved to hear it from a friend.”
“A friend?” he parroted. “Are you serious? You come into the home I shared with my wife for only a few short years, the place where I found her lying deceased in our bed, and you tell me that someone murdered her.”
His voice broke on that hateful word, and he had to take a moment to compose himself. When he had himself under control again, he lifted his hands helplessly and then let them drop onto his knees. “Does any of that sound like a friend to you? Does it?”
“Bruce, I…”
“Well, it certainly doesn’t to me. Do you know what always bothered me about you, Darcy Sweet? I mean, you’re a wonderful person. You’re a great friend to Helen. You’re always there when people need you, and this town thinks very highly of you but there was always one thing that bothered me about you, and this is it. You’re dangerous.”
Darcy blinked at him, absolutely aghast at what he had just said. “Dangerous? Bruce, I’ve never done anything but help people. I’ve never hurt anyone. Well, I mean, no one who didn’t deserve it. There were a few people who were trying to hurt me and my family and I needed to defend us but I’ve never gone out looking to hurt anyone.”
“Right there, that’s exactly what I mean.” He leaned forward as a shadow fell across his face. “Oh, you’re always there to help, but half the time it seems like you’re the one causing the trouble. Didn’t Helen tell me that you were there when the Town Hall burned down, all those years ago? And how many murders have there been in Misty Hollow since you’ve lived here?”
