Death Comes Home

by K. J. Emrick

  She needed to talk to Jon. And Wilson. And Grace too, for that matter. But here she sat in her own kitchen because there was still at least one man running loose who had tried to hurt Izzy, and might even have instructions to come after Darcy. Or any of their kids.

  Colby put the salt and pepper shakers back into their usual spots on the table. “It’s over,” she declared.

  “Oh, yeah?” Darcy said, still chewing over her own thoughts. “The dance is over, is it?”

  “No, not the dance.” Colby looked up at door, where the officer still stood his silent guard. Darcy looked up, too, just in time to see Sergeant Fitzwallis come inside. He stood there, rolling the brim of his police hat in his hands, and smiled.

  “It’s over,” he said, echoing Colby’s words. “We caught the other man downtown trying to hotwire his own car. Guess the guy who fell down your stairs had their keys, Izzy. Just goes to show that anybody can be a criminal. No intelligence exam required.”

  Lilly was the first to snort a laugh at the joke. Izzy joined her with a chuckle, and then Darcy, and Colby, and soon they were all laughing hysterically because it was over.

  Over, Darcy thought, but not done.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jon winced as he sat up a little higher against the pillows piled behind him on the hospital bed. “Wow. Sounds like I’m missing all the fun.”

  Darcy gave him a pointed look. “Not sure I’d call it fun, Jon.”

  He winked at her, and even that brought a twinge of pain from where his skin tugged against the stitches over his eye. “Ow. You know what I mean. It was always fun when we investigated stuff together.”

  If anything, his bruises looked worse tonight than they had this morning. His broken foot in its cast was suspended in a sling hanging from a hook in the ceiling. She wanted to say he was looking better, but between the stitches and the livid bruises around his eyes and on his bare chest above where his ribs were taped, saying he looked better would be a lie.

  He was right, though. They always did have fun, whenever they were working cases of mystery and deception together. Even when they were risking their lives. She leaned over the bed railing and gently kissed the top of his head, which was about the only place he didn’t hurt. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Dragging over the padded chair from the opposite wall she sat down with him and took a deep breath. Thankfully, he was still in a private room, with an officer from the local police department stationed outside, just in case. They were by themselves, and Darcy felt better for it, because what she wanted to say still sounded a little crazy to her own mind.

  “Don’t tell me there’s more,” Jon said, rolling his head her way rather than trying to turn onto his side. He’d done that once already, and the pain it had caused made Darcy decide it would be easier for her to position herself where he could see her without having to move.

  “Wilson is putting together the charges on Adolphos,” Darcy said, ticking off the points she wanted to make on her fingers. “The State Police are raiding the casino for evidence of involvement with The Hand. The people who were going to hurt Izzy have already admitted that Adolphos sent them.”

  Jon followed along with her as the monitoring equipment around his bed beeped out a slow rhythm. “Wilson filled me in on what’s been going on. He really stepped up to the plate while me and Grace were out of it. Reminds me. How is Grace?”

  “She’s doing better, just like you. She’s still going to be laid up for a few weeks.”

  “Just like me,” he said bitterly. “I swear it’s like Adolphos wanted us both out of the way.”

  “Okay, that’s where I was going with all of this. I got to thinking about it and I think we’re missing something. Doesn’t it feel like Adolphos wanted something other than just revenge?”

  Jon turned his gaze up to the ceiling, deep in thought. “When we arrested him in Misty Hollow he didn’t seem upset about it. Certainly not enough to hold a grudge for more than five years. All right. So he had to have a motive. If not revenge, then what?”

  “Well. I have an idea,” she told him, still thinking it through. “First I need to know. Have you remembered anything else? Anything that might help me know if I’m right?”

  “I’ve been pushing myself all day, Darcy.” He very carefully wiped his hand across his face and then let it fall away helplessly. “There’s still these huge gaps in my memory. The car accident… I can’t remember anything about that. I remember trying to get back home. I was in a hurry, too.”

  “Miss me that much?” Darcy teased him.

  “Uh, yes I did, but this was something else. It’s not much, but maybe my memory is coming back after all.”

  Darcy’s fingers touched his where they lay on the stiff sheets of the bed. “Jon. When I thought you were, um…” She swallowed, pushing back the rising lump in her throat. It hurt to remember what had almost happened to her family. To her beautiful husband. “I nearly died myself, when I thought you were dead.”

  “I came back,” he said, as if that fixed it all.

  In a way, it did.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she told him. “Hear me?”

  “I always hear you. Even two steps from death’s door, I could hear you.”

  “Good.” She took another shaky breath, and then told him to go on. “What did you remember?”

  “Well, I was coming home because there had been this speaker at the conference. He was talking about forensic accounting and it got me thinking about the case that Grace was working on. Ferguson Gorsky’s case.”

  “The one that sent me to you in the first place,” Darcy said.

  “Right. All that money stolen from him with no way to trace it. But a forensic accountant has ways of dissecting money transactions so they can be found no matter where they go. The bigger departments use them on certain cases. It’s nothing Misty Hollow will ever have but the State Police do have that kind of resource.”

  “So that’s what brought you to the casino.”

  He smiled at her. “Just like it brought you, just for different reasons. It’s still a little fuzzy, but I remembered… I remembered that Ferguson had suspected The Hand of stealing from him, and I knew they had a connection to the Brick Road casino… and… yes, I remember now! I was there, and I saw Adolphos. Hard to forget a guy like that.”

  “Did you know he was out of jail?”

  “I’d heard rumors,” Jon admitted. “That was two years ago. So when I saw him now I figured I was in way over my head. I was way outside my jurisdiction, and if The Hand really was working out of the casino then it wouldn’t be just Adolphos I’d have to deal with.”

  Darcy felt her eyes go wide. She hadn’t thought about that when she went to confront Adolphos Carino. Good thing she asked Wilson to join her and Ellen. Jon did the right thing in playing it safe. Adolphos must have seen him leave, though. Since Jon was on the list of targets anyway, he figured that was his chance. He must have followed Jon, and ran him off the road, then left him for dead.

  He’d failed, but he’d come close. Darcy would be the only one to ever know exactly how close.

  Although if Darcy was right, Adolphos didn’t need Jon dead. Or Grace, either. Or Izzy. He just needed them laid up in a hospital and out of the way for a while. Like say, a few weeks…

  “So,” Jon said, after taking time to just watch Darcy sitting there, thinking the mystery through. “What’s the motive? Why did Adolphos do this, if it wasn’t revenge against me and Grace and Izzy? And you, by the way, don’t forget that. You would have been on his list, too, sooner or later.”

  “The thought may have crossed my mind.” That might have been the end of it, but… Darcy knew Adolphos was exactly the kind of man who would go after Colby if he didn’t get what he wanted from Darcy. “So. This is what I think…”

  A few minutes later, after listening to Darcy’s theory, Jon’s eyes grew wider behind his bruises.

  “That co
uld fit,” he said slowly. His eyelids were fluttering again, and Darcy knew between his body still trying to recover and the pain medication the hospital had put him on, it wouldn’t be much longer before he was asleep again.

  “It might fit.” Darcy was glad he agreed with her. “I’m just not sure how to prove it.”

  “By beating him at his own game. That’s how.”

  She held his hand, and stroked his fingers, helping him slip off to sleep. “Adolphos is no match for you and me.”

  “Heh,” he laughed softly. “Never go up against Darcy Sweet.”

  “Or Jon Tinker.”

  “Both of us.” His eyelids drooped. “But… what’s that got to do with Ferguson Gorsky’s case? Is it connected… somehow…”

  Darcy thought about it. That fraud case was what had started all of this, in a way. Jon had left the conference and come to the Brick Road Casino because he’d learned something that might help find who had stolen Ferguson’s money. Ferguson had pointed his suspicions at The Hand when Darcy had talked to him, and that had led her to the Brick Road, too. Everything had pointed them right to Adolphos…

  Oh.

  For Pete’s sake, Darcy thought to herself. Was it that easy?

  When she looked over to ask Jon what he thought, he was already asleep. She didn’t want to disturb him. She knew he needed his rest. The doctors had said they could transfer him to the hospital in Meadowood soon, so he could be closer to home, but he still had a long road to recovery. Darcy was going to wait to bring Colby to see her daddy until he was feeling better. At least until the bruises had faded from his face. She wanted him back as quickly as humanly possible. So she slipped her hand gently out of his, and wrote out a quick message for him on the notepad sitting on the table next to his bed.

  I love you. Going to see Ferguson Gorsky. I think you were right.

  Together, she and Jon had figured out why Adolphos Carino had hurt Grace, and Jon, and then tried to hurt Izzy. They’d have to prove it, but that could wait. Adolphos wasn’t going anywhere for a few days. It would take that long for all of the charges against him to be filed and a bail hearing to take place. There was time for that.

  That gave Darcy time to solve Ferguson Gorsky’s case.

  ***

  The last time Darcy had come to Ferguson’s house she’d been on her bicycle. This time, Ellen drove them over.

  The squat brick home sat patiently waiting for them as Ellen parked the Fiero in the driveway. She revved the engine a couple of times before turning off the ignition. Darcy gave her a questioning look.

  “What?” Ellen asked innocently. “I want him to know we’re here.”

  Darcy wanted to say something to that, but a yawn came out instead. She stifled it behind her hand.

  “You need sleep,” Ellen said, unnecessarily.

  “Sure,” Darcy agreed. “How much sleep have you gotten in the last two days?”

  It was getting late. It was after nine o’clock, and considering the morning had started with them chasing Adolphos Carino into a stairwell, it felt to Darcy like they’d lived an entire week in this one day. She’d taken the time to change into some clean jeans and the first thing she’d found in her drawers, a purple tank top.

  Ellen shrugged off her question. “I can sleep later. This shouldn’t take very long, right?”

  Darcy lifted the case folder with Ferguson Gorsky’s information in it. “All we need him to do is look at the photo line-up we made for him. If he picks someone out, then we’ll know who stole his money.”

  As they got out of the car, they found Ferguson waiting for them at the front porch, an uncertain look on his face. “Well, hi Darcy. Did you find anything out? Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Ellen Gless. She helped me put together a photo line-up for you.” Darcy held the case file up again. “Do you have time to look at it now?”

  His eyes followed the folder in her hands. “You found them? You found the guys I saw at the circus? You think they took my money?”

  “So many questions,” Ellen said. When he just stared at her, she shrugged. “We think we found the person who stole your money. Let’s start with that.”

  “Well, in that case, come on in.”

  Ferguson wasted no time showing them into the living room with its leather furniture and the cold fireplace. He sat with them, on the edge of the one couch, his hands clasped eagerly together. “Can I get either of you some tea?”

  Ellen eyed the bulging muscles in Ferguson’s chest and biceps, at the tattoos across his neck and arms. “You don’t strike me as a tea drinker,” she told him.

  He smiled at her. “See, looks can be deceiving, just like I told Darcy. I have beer, if you want?”

  Darcy saw Ellen about to accept the offer of a beer. “This really won’t take that long,” she said, more to her than to Ferguson.

  “There’s always time for beer,” Ellen said.

  Darcy gave her a look.

  “’Kay,” Ellen agreed without much enthusiasm. “But you owe me a beer later.”

  “I’ll buy you a six pack,” Darcy promised her. “Just let Ferguson look at this for now.”

  From the folder, she took out a piece of stiff cardstock paper that had six rectangular windows cut out from it. In the windows, Darcy had taped pictures of six different men. She and Ellen had printed them off at home and put this together themselves. The quality wasn’t the best, but you could clearly see each man’s face. Now it was up to Ferguson.

  He took the photo sheet eagerly from Darcy and then took his time looking at each face. After a moment one hand rubbed at his chin. The third time he looked at each face, Darcy began to worry that he wouldn’t pick anyone out.

  Then he turned the sheet around to show her.

  “These two,” he said. “I’m sure of it. This one, and this one too. These are the two men I saw at the circus that day. These guys are definitely members of The Hand.”

  Darcy took the sheet back and looked at the two pictures Ferguson had pointed to. Number two, and number five. The two men looked nothing like each other. Then again, none of the people in the photo line-up looked the same. Darcy had done that on purpose. She wanted to make sure that Ferguson had a wide selection of body type, hair color, and facial expressions to choose from.

  She set the photo array down on the coffee table between them and Ferguson. He’d done exactly what she’d expected him to do.

  “What is it?” Ferguson asked, looking from Darcy to Ellen and back again. “Isn’t this what you need to keep looking into who stole my money?”

  “Actually,” Darcy told him, “this tells us exactly who stole your money.”

  “It does?” He scrunched down his eyebrows, making the tattoos across his bald scalp dance. “You think these two…?”

  “No, Ferguson.” Darcy sat back on the couch, leaving the photos where they were. “These guys didn’t steal your money. You did.”

  “What?” The roar of Ferguson’s voice echoed from the ceiling. Darcy thought she might have flinched, and she wouldn’t have blamed herself if she did. Ellen sat just as calm as could be, her hands hooked around one knee.

  This was where the things Jon had learned at his conference would come into play. “Ferguson,” she said, doing her best to ignore the way he was glaring at her. “Have you ever heard of a forensic accountant?”

  “No, and I don’t care what it is.” He stood up, hooking a thumb behind him toward the front door. “I think it’s time the two of you leave.”

  Ellen settled back further on the couch, and even threw an arm around the back. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. “A forensic accountant, Ferguson, is a police officer who is very good at numbers, and bank accounts, and things like that. They can follow a money trail like a bloodhound tracking a fox.”

  Ferguson’s chest deflated a little. “So? What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Why Ferguson,” Ellen scolded. “I’m surprised at you. You’re the one who told Darcy th
e transaction that took all your money was untraceable.”

  Opening Ferguson’s case folder again, Darcy picked out a piece of paper. It was a computer printout with numbers down both sides in nice, neat columns. She scanned it, but didn’t offer it to Ferguson. “My husband is the police chief, as you know. He got the idea to have your accounts checked by a forensic accountant. Turns out that the untraceable money transfers weren’t so untraceable after all.”

  “Say that five times fast,” Ellen said.

  “Say it once,” Darcy countered. “I had to practice it in my head on the way over.”

  Ferguson slowly sat back down on his couch, his face still defiant even as the wind was knocked out of his bluster. “But… but I just picked the two men out of your line up! Those two guys right there. I’m telling you, those were the ones from the circus that day. What about that? Why don’t you go and question those guys?”

  “Because those guys,” Ellen told him, “are cops.”

  Whatever he’d been about to say next, Ferguson choked on it. He sputtered, moving his hands like he might grab an excuse out of the air, before he finally clamped his mouth shut and slumped over his knees. “Guess you got me. Those guys are really cops?”

  Darcy put the report back in the folder, along with the photo array, and then closed it up. “Yes. They’re actually members of the State Police. They were nice enough to help me out when I told them what I needed. They changed into plain clothes and then posed for us to take some pictures. You did the rest for me. I’m pretty sure you picked out a sergeant and a lieutenant.”

  Ferguson managed a weak laugh. “Bravo, Darcy Sweet. Just… bravo. This is the part where I break down and tell you why I did such an underhanded thing, is that what this is?”

  “Let me save you the time,” Darcy told him. “Usually I’d love to hear a good monologue but I’ve got too many other things to take care of and my husband is still in the hospital. So here’s what I think. I think you needed money. I think you were running low after you left the circus, or you didn’t have enough to keep your dad’s old place here, or you’re just plain greedy. So, you arranged to transfer the money in your bank account to a dummy account. Only, you weren’t worried because you belong to that… what was the name of the organization? Life something?”