by K. J. Emrick
She found the house listed in the report easily enough, wheeling her bicycle into the driveway and dismounting to set the kickstand in place. The bike, like her communication kit, had been a gift from Jon.
Finding out what happened to him was what kept her going.
“I’ll find you, Jon,” she said, running her fingers across the handlebars, remembering how happy she’d been to get this simple gift. With a sigh, she turned toward the house, hiking her backpack up on her shoulder.
And stopped.
Find Jon? Why had she said it like that? Wilson and Grace and Sean Fitzwallis thought Jon was missing. They were the ones trying to find him. She knew Jon was dead. She was trying to find the person who killed him. That was who she was trying to find. So what had she meant…
As she was trying to puzzle out her own thoughts, the front door to the Gorsky house opened. Darcy brought her attention back to the present as a man with heavy arms and a short bull neck sitting on top of a barrel chest leaned a shoulder against the wall. He watched her with sharp, squinty eyes. Tattoos crawled up his neck and face, and down his biceps. “You need something?”
The man kind of fit the house, Darcy thought to herself. A squat two story cube of brick and heavy cornerstones. The woodwork around the windows and the door was all in good shape and marked by hand carved designs. For all she knew those might be the original pieces from when the house was built.
“Mister Gorsky?” she asked, putting on a smile as she came closer.
“I’m Ferguson,” he told her, with a curt nod of his bald head. A tattoo of intricate latticework flexed around his left ear as he wrinkled his brow. “Who are you?”
“My name is Darcy Sweet. I’m here about a case my sister Grace Wentworth was investigating for you. You had some money stolen from you by fraud, I believe?”
“Shh,” he hissed at her, quickly looking left and right up the street, and then motioning for her to come inside with a curt wave of his hand. “Keep your voice down.”
It was odd, to see this hulking man acting like he was scared of his own shadow, but Darcy had her way into the house, and that was a good start. She’d been worried about having to bluff her way in with some story about how she was working with the police. That wasn’t even close to true, but she would have sold it if it meant following up on her lead.
In Misty Hollow, most people knew that Darcy spent a lot of her time helping her neighbors, even when she hadn’t been asked to. Even when there was no real way that she could know someone needed help in the first place. It was who she was, and people liked that about her. Even if they did find her a bit odd. She didn’t know Ferguson, and it was evident that he didn’t know her. Hopefully, he was the trusting sort.
The inside of the home was kept just as neat and tidy as the outside. The entrance led right into a spacious living room where a fireplace dominated one wall, swept and scrubbed clean. A leather couch faced two leather armchairs across a low coffee table with two thick yellow candles set on top of it. Mister Gorsky’s home might never grace the cover of Better Homes and Gardens, but it was clear that someone spent a lot of time making it look nice. Darcy sized up Ferguson Gorsky again, in his torn jeans and tight white t-shirt. He just didn’t seem the type to care about cleaning soot off the bricks of a fireplace.
“Listen. Darcy, I know who you are by reputation and I know who you’re married to.” Ferguson said as they sat down, him on the couch and Darcy in one of the chairs. “Right. Look. I don’t know what Grace told you but I only reported about the money getting taken from me because I had to. Insurance wasn’t going to cover it unless I did. Why isn’t your sister here, anyways? Way I hear it she and that husband of yours are the police officers in the family. You a cop, too?”
Darcy set her backpack down on the floor. “My sister is in the hospital,” she told him, leaving any mention of what had happened to Jon out of it.
“Oh. I, uh, didn’t know. That’s rough.”
Ferguson honestly sounded like he meant it, and Darcy immediately liked the man, no matter what he looked like. “Thank you. So, you didn’t want to report the money as stolen?”
He shrugged. “My money. I can report it stolen or not.”
“Forgive me for saying this, Mister Gorsky, but you don’t exactly seem like the kind of man people would steal from.”
That made him smile. Rubbing a finger at the edge of his chin, he settled back into the couch. “I don’t, huh? Well. I guess I should say thank you. Took me a long time to get like this. No steroids, either. Did this all naturally.” He flexed his right arm, appreciating the size of his own bicep. “Lots of guys fake it. Not me. Not good for the body to put that junk into your blood. I was the biggest strongman the circus ever saw. Had me a good run. Then I slipped a disc in my back and, well, can’t really lift a two-ton weight if your back’s not into it. Know what I mean?”
“You were in the circus?” Darcy couldn’t help the surprise in her voice. It wasn’t every day that someone said that to you.
“Sure I was. Made a small fortune at it, too. See, the secret is to live below your means. Put a little bit more away each pay check. Soon enough it all adds up.”
“That’s the money that got taken away from you?”
“You sure are persistent, Darcy Sweet. Tell you what. If you’re going to keep asking me all these questions, how about I make us some tea and we can sit a spell.”
He got up from the couch without waiting for her to say yes or no. Darcy watched him disappear around a doorway, whistling as he went. Tea, from a man who looked like he’d be more comfortable drinking a pitcher of beer in a roadside bar. Well. Just went to show that you couldn’t judge people by the way they looked.
The first time she’d met Jon, she had been convinced that he was an uptight jerk. She sighed as she remembered it. Jon had turned out to be one of the nicest, funniest men she’d ever known. Tender and caring. If she hadn’t given him a chance, she never would have known the real Jon Tinker. Yes. Looks could definitely be deceiving.
When she heard the teakettle whistle she realized how long she’d been lost in her thoughts. How was she ever going to make it through the days to come if she slipped into a memory every time something reminded her of Jon?
In the next moment Ferguson was coming back out with a small pot of hot water and two actual teacups on an actual serving tray. He set it down on the table and Darcy could see that he had laid out an array of teabags, from regular black tea to honey lemon and chamomile.
“I didn’t know what you liked,” he explained as he reclaimed his seat, “so I brought a bit of everything I had. I have sugar too, if you want. And I think there’s a few lemons in the refrigerator.”
She took a bag of peppermint zinger and opened the paper wrapper to add it to her cup of water. “This is fine. Thank you.”
He took a green tea for himself and began dunking the bag in his cup with practiced jerking motions. He smiled when he saw Darcy watching him. “Not what you expected, am I?”
“Not in the least. I suppose you get that a lot?”
“That’s for sure. My circus persona follows me around, I guess. Just moved back here last month after my father passed on. It’s been an adjustment for the people in town, I can tell you that.”
So that was why she didn’t know him, Darcy thought to herself. And, that was why Grace still had his folder on her desk. It was a newer case. “So, if people still look at you and see a circus strongman, I’m surprised they had the nerve to steal from you.”
“Heh. That’s what your sister said. See, the thing is this. The people who stole my life savings didn’t have the guts to do it to my face. They scammed me out of it. All very innocent like. I answered an e-mail. Simple as that. Thought it was from one of my friends in the circus. Said he needed help and asked me to send him money. See, circus folk are tight. We’d do anything for each other. So, when I thought it was my friend I didn’t even hesitate. Sent him a couple thousand dollars. Next day
I went to check my account and the whole thing was empty. Everything I’d earned from the sweat of my brow. All of it. Gone.”
When he sighed it was like a bull snorting out a breath. “I worked hard for that money, Darcy. Not sure what I’m going to do now. Don’t even know if I’ll be able to keep my daddy’s home.”
Her heart went out to him. Maybe a little bit more today than it would have yesterday, because she understood what loss felt like today more keenly than usual. “Um. Grace mentioned in her report that she had traced the e-mail to an unregistered IP address. It could belong to almost anyone. I’m sure your friend didn’t do this to you, right?”
“No,” he said immediately. “He’d never do anything like that. Wasn’t him.”
“All right.” Darcy sipped at her tea. Not a whole lot to go on here, as far as she could see. Just the fact that Ferguson had been the victim of a fraud. Well. That, and the fact that someone knew Ferguson well enough to use his good friend’s name to trick him into giving up his bank information.
Oh, she thought suddenly. There was one other thing. Something that Grace might have overlooked. Especially if Ferguson came down to the police station to file his report, instead of her coming out to see him. Here at Ferguson’s house, Darcy could see how nervous he was. Too nervous to talk about it outside, where people might see him.
“Ferguson,” she said, as carefully as she could, “who were you looking for outside? When I first came here and asked you about the money that was stolen from you, there was this moment when you seemed—”
“Scared?” He nodded, setting his cup down on the tray. “Yeah. Well. See, I think I have an idea who took my money. Sort of. I don’t want the wrong ears hearing.”
“Hearing what?”
He shrugged again, and for a moment Darcy thought that was going to be all he said on the subject but then he pressed his lips together, coming to some sort of decision. “See, Darcy, the world of the circus is lots more cut throat than people realize. It’s hard to make enough money to keep the show going, some years, and so the owner looks for, uh, outside sources.”
Darcy didn’t know that much about the circus, but she knew a few things about life in general. She thought she understood where Ferguson was going with this. “The owner of your circus got a loan. Not from a bank, either.”
His eyes slid to the front window, and he got up to close the curtains. “Yeah. That’s a good way of putting it. He got us the loan, and the circus kept going. All of us told him that we’d chip in what we could to meet his costs, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He knew how hard we worked to save up what little we could. So instead, he went and got himself a loan.”
“From a loan shark?” It wouldn’t be the first time Darcy had seen that happen.
He sat down again with a little grunt, easing his back against the leather. “No. Not a loan shark. I could handle that kind of lowlife even with a slipped disc. Nope. Guy that owned our circus went to some guys who specialize in offering protection.”
“The mob?” Darcy asked. “Your circus owed money to the mob?”
“Close enough,” was Ferguson’s answer. “Not, like, the mafia in New Jersey. I guess you might say these guys were the next best thing. Anyway. A few of their people came wandering through the circus not long after. Like they owned the place. Found out later they were asking after me and a few others who had managed to save up a fair chunk of change. Not sure what they wanted with us. Never did find out, because it was right after that I threw my back out trying to lift an elephant. Now, turns out my money was stolen.”
“By people who knew enough to use your friend’s name to con you,” Darcy added. It made sense. How was she going to prove it, was the question?
And what did it have to do with Jon?
“Do you know anything about this group?” she asked Ferguson. “Did you get the names of anyone involved, anything like that?”
“Nah,” he said, throwing his elbows over the back of the couch. “Never cared to know. Better to stay away from people like that. Obviously. Maybe if I’d been more careful, like if I’d phoned my friend up to make sure it was him sent me that e-mail, maybe I’d still have my money. These guys are nobody to mess with, I can tell you that. Not a lot of things can scare a guy like me. But… well, I saw them rough one of the other guys up. A clown, this guy was. Uh, I mean he was a real clown. Makeup and all that. The things they did to him… guy was a long time getting his funny back, if you know what I mean.”
“I think so.” Darcy got the picture. The circus owner had gotten his loan from bad people. “Okay. So, you didn’t know any of their names, but did they call their group anything? Like, I don’t know… the Northside Protection League or anything like that?”
Ferguson scratched at his jaw again. “They had a name. Funny sort of name. Can’t quite remember it… oh! There was one thing. These people were the ones got that casino built.”
“The casino? You mean the Brick Road Casino?”
He snapped his fingers together. “That’s the one! I heard some of the other performers talking. These guys are partners or something in the casino.”
Darcy knew the place. It wasn’t just Misty Hollow that had been growing in the last five years. This whole area of the state had seen a surge. Not long after she and Jon had come back from their trip to Australia she’d heard talk about a casino being built in Wellingford. It had taken some time, but the Brick Road Casino had opened its doors two years ago.
Wellingford was five hours away by car. She’d never been there herself. It wasn’t the sort of place she had any interest in, but she’d listened to Helen talk about going there. It seemed like she always had a good time even when she lost more than she won. Gambling in general didn’t appeal to Darcy, which was odd considering how many times she’d put her own life at risk to help someone. Even if she had been into that sort of thing, the Brick Road was far enough away that she had never really been tempted to go out that way…
In the direction that Jon would be coming back from his conference, she realized. The direction he would have taken to come home.
For a moment she couldn’t speak. She took another sip of her tea to cover her trembling hands and suddenly dry throat. Could this case be leading her to Jon after all?
Ferguson watched her holding her cup in both hands. “Darcy? You okay?”
“Oh. Uh, sorry, Ferguson. I was thinking. If you saw the guys who were at the circus, the men your boss took money from, would you recognize them?”
He shrugged his shoulder again, like a mountain shifting during an earthquake. “Sure. I don’t know if I want to identify anyone, though. I’m serious Darcy. These people are bad news. I’m just lucky I paid to be a member of this Lifelatch group. Any time I’m the victim of identity fraud they cover my losses. When these guys took the rest of the money out of my account they stole my ID to do it. So. At least I’ll get most of the money back.” He looked around the room, at the house his father had passed down to him. “I just hope I get it back in time to save this place. The mortgage payment is due soon.”
Darcy really did feel bad for Ferguson. He was just trying to make ends meet. One mistake, and he might lose it all. “I’m going to do everything I can to help you, Ferguson. I promise.”
He looked at her, his expression skeptical. “Your sister’s been working on my case for a couple of weeks now. What can you do that she can’t?”
Now that her hands weren’t trembling anymore, Darcy set her cup down. “Did you really lift an elephant?”
His smile was full of pride. “Yes I did.”
“That’s what I’m going to do. Figuratively speaking, of course.”
“Ha! I’d pay to see that, I would.”
She stood up, already thinking ahead to what she was going to have to do next. First and foremost, she was going to have to borrow a car.
At the door, she shook hands with Ferguson, and promised again to do whatever she could to help him. She was on her bike and abo
ut to pedal away when he called her name and came running up beside her.
“I just remembered,” he whispered, eyes scanning the street again. “The name of the group. The guys that the owner took that loan from. Remember I said they had some weird name? I remember now.”
“That’s great, Ferguson. That will really help. What was it?”
“They called themselves The Hand.”
Darcy closed her eyes, but she nodded. Of course it was.
She should have known.
Chapter Six
It didn’t take long for Darcy to bike her way back home. Along the way, as the sun began its downward slide toward the tops of the trees in the distance, the mists began to stir. They coiled out into the street, around the feet of people who were walking up the sidewalk, through the grass of the town square. Everywhere. Beware, they warned anyone who would take notice. Bad things are coming.
For Darcy, the worst thing that could ever happen had already happened. Jon was dead. What more could the mists be warning her about?
At the far end of her street she saw the dark shape of her house. No lights were on inside. It had been daylight still when she and Colby left earlier, just after lunch, and there had been no reason to turn the lights on then. There was now.
Now, it was growing dark.
In contrast, the only other house on her street was lit up cheerfully. Izzy’s house was smaller than Darcy’s. Barely two floors with the attic converted into living space. Izzy had turned it into a real home, though, with some love and attention. Her and Lilly had been through so much. It was nice to know they had found a home here in Misty Hollow.
Now Izzy’s ex-husband was threatening to ruin that peace. Well. Darcy would just have to see what she could do to keep that from happening. The man needed to stay in jail for a very long time. Maybe a petition signed by everyone in the town, including the mayor, would help sway the parole board’s decision. She’d have to talk to her good friend, Mayor Helen Turner, about that.