1 Death Comes to Town

by K. J. Emrick

  For just a moment Darcy let herself enjoy the comfort of her sister’s embrace. Then she stepped back from Grace, careful to keep her smile in place. It just didn’t feel right, lying to her sister this way. “I’m glad you understand. I’m alright, really. I want you to know that. I, um, I have to run now. I can see myself out.”

  She began to walk out of the dining room and then stopped. She turned back to Grace. This was the part of her plan that would be tricky. “Um… I haven’t eaten dinner yet. Could you maybe spare me some leftovers before I go?”

  Grace rolled her eyes at her. When Grace walked into the kitchen Darcy bolted for the front hall in search of the police department keys. A small row of key hooks was attached to the wall just inside the door, with car keys and house keys and there next to them, the keys she needed. Quietly, she grasped them and slid them off the hook and into her pocket. Her throat was dry and her pulse pounded in her ears. She’d done it, though. No turning back

  She waited in the living room until Grace came out from the dining room, a plastic container of something in one hand. She shook her head as she handed the food to Darcy. “Come earlier next time. We’ll set a place for you. You know I love you, right Sis?”

  Darcy could only nod as tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She gave Grace a one armed hug and quickly left. She knew Grace would be furious if she ever found out what Darcy had just done. It was the only way, though. She had to know what had happened to Anna.

  ***

  Darcy went straight to the police department. The place certainly looked deserted. Misty Hollow was a small town, and the police department building was only staffed by two officers from seven at night until eleven, when the midnight patrols came on duty. During those hours the place was locked up and anyone needing assistance had to either call the emergency cell phone that one of the officer’s carried, or push a big yellow call button at the front of the building. It was the only window of opportunity she was going to have.

  She couldn’t see any lights on. At the back she tried one key after another in the lock. The third one worked, and checking left and right just to make sure no one had seen her, she slowly opened the door and quickly stepped inside. She pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and switched it on.

  Something jumped at her from the shadows. Hand over her mouth she only just managed to stifle a scream. She followed the darting shape with the beam of her light until it came to rest on the impassive black and white face she knew so well.

  “Smudge!” she gasped at him and then laughed silently at herself. It was just her cat. How on earth had he managed to get here?

  She calmed her racing heart and went over to the row of filing cabinets. Using the smaller key on Grace’s key chain she undid the lock at the top of the set marked “Current Investigations” and opened it up. At the front of the drawer was a brown accordion folder marked with Anna’s name.

  The file contained a brief report on the fog, which had been so bad that night that the main roads going in and out of the town had been closed. Interesting. A few pages back she located the coroner’s report which said that Anna’s time of death was nine o’clock. That would have been right when the fireworks were going off. The report also said that she had died of two gunshot wounds to the chest. Small caliber. Almost no blood.

  Oh, poor Anna.

  Darcy wiped a few tears away from her eyes. She then set the file down on a nearby table and read the report on Anna’s house. There had been no sign of a struggle, which indicated that Anna probably knew her attacker well. There were also two cups of tea on the table, which would indicate that she had been with someone she knew when she died. Darcy shuddered at the thought that someone she probably saw every day right here in town had killed Anna.

  There was also the envelope of money on the table, which hadn’t been taken out of Anna’s bank account. There was also a list of people’s names in the report, all of Anna’s friends in the town. Darcy’s name was on the list as well. The list had handwritten notations after each name. A list of alibis, she realized. It seemed that practically everyone was at the ceremony at the time of Anna’s murder.

  Darcy ran a hand through her dark hair. She’d been sure that this report would tell her something important. Something she needed to know to solve this mystery. This was all just confusing facts and notes. Angrily she slapped the report closed. Who had done this to Anna?

  The sound of keys rattling in the front door startled her.

  She quickly shoved the file back into the cabinet and pushed it closed as she shut off her flashlight. There was no time to get to the back door again. Racing across the room she slid under Grace’s desk, hoping that she would be able to hide there without being seen. For one panicked moment she thought maybe it was Grace coming to find her but then she remembered she had Grace’s keys. Whoever this was had used a key to open the door.

  And then Smudge rubbed up against her. She nearly jumped out of her skin as he silently curled into her body, hiding just like she was.

  The lights flickered on and she saw a pair of men’s feet and legs walk past her hiding place. Blue slacks, shiny shoes.

  She heard the man walk over to the filing cabinets and she poked her head out just enough to see who it was. Jon. It was Jon. He was taking out the file on Anna. Then she pulled back quickly when he turned around. She held her breath and listened to him walk over to his desk.

  She relaxed when she heard him turning the pages of the report. She really hoped he wasn’t going to be long, she didn’t want be stuck under the desk all night.

  He began humming to himself. It was some tune she could almost identify but not quite. A little while later she heard him finally stand up and put the file away again. He crossed the room, passing her hiding spot, and flipped the lights off. She heard the door close and lock again. He was gone.

  Darcy sighed with relief. Now she just had to get out of there.

  She threw the keys she had stolen onto Grace’s desk hoping that Grace would assume that she just left her keys at work the day before. She went out the back door the same way she had come in. She didn’t feel like she’d accomplished a thing.

  Smudge followed her, rubbing at her legs like he was trying to encourage her. “Easy for you to say,” she told him.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning on her way to the book store Darcy saw the mayor, Steve Nelson, talking to Pete Underwood. Pete and Anna had dated a long while ago, and had broken it off at least a year ago. She wondered what the two men had to talk about.

  Darcy tried to make out what they were saying but they were too far away for her to hear them. She saw Pete shake the Mayor’s hand and then Steve walked briskly away towards town ahead of her. Darcy quickened her pace trying to catch up to him.

  “Steve!” she called out to him. He stopped and waited for her to reach him. “Uh. How are you doing today?”

  “Hi Darcy. I‘m okay. Thanks.” Steve ran a hand through his short dark hair as his eyes darted about looking anywhere but at Darcy. She used to think that he was up to something, whenever she saw him do that, but it was just a nervous tic he had. “I’m so very sorry for your loss. I know that you and Anna were very good friends. So many people have told me how sad they are that she’s gone.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.” Darcy studied the mayor for a few moments. Steve was such a quiet man. In fact it seemed like an odd sort of profession for him to choose, what with the speeches and personal interactions he had to do. He was so different from his wife. Helen was such an outgoing person.

  He looked down at his watch and Darcy realized she’d better find out what he was up to quick before he made some excuse to walk away. “How is Pete doing?”

  “Pete? Oh. Right. Saw us talking, did you?”

  He smiled and nodded and didn’t offer anything else. Darcy found that strange. Before she could figure out a way to ask him more without being obvious, he said goodbye to her and hurried off.

  There w
ere all these little things happening around town that she probably wouldn’t have paid any mind to before Anna’s death. Now, they all seemed to be pieces of the same puzzle, scattered across a table and ready to be put together if only she knew what the picture was supposed to look like.

  As she was busy working around the store later her sixth sense began to percolate. Her skin tingled and her vision sharpened as a blurred, barely there figure appeared in front of her. It was Millie. Her great-aunt floated over to the book shelf and knocked a book off onto the floor, just like the other day. She quickly disappeared.

  More confused than she was annoyed, Darcy walked over to where the book lay on the floor. The cover showed a picture of an island with a castle shrouded in mists. “And Then There Were None,” by Agatha Christie. The same book that Millie had knocked down before. How strange.

  Darcy bent down and picked the book up. She was immediately catapulted into a vision.

  She found herself suddenly in Anna’s house. Everything was blurred and moving way too fast, a whirlwind of colors. She couldn’t tell what was happening but she heard a scream and saw a shifting image of Anna falling to the floor.

  Darcy opened her eyes to find herself sprawled on the floor of the book store, panting. She looked up to find Smudge watching her. “Well. That was strange.”

  Smudge meowed in agreement.

  “Like you would know,” she muttered as she got up to her knees. She tentatively touched the book again and when nothing happened she picked it up and shelved it. She thought about it for a moment, then took it down again to bring home with her. If Millie thought this book was important enough to drop not once but twice, maybe there were even more clues within its pages.

  She knew this was only the beginning. There would be more visions. In a way she almost welcomed them. Maybe they could give her the missing pieces to this puzzle.

  Chapter Ten

  That night Darcy sat on her couch, her feet curled up under her, a cup of cocoa steaming hot on the coffee table. She was no closer to finding out who killed Anna. She had written everything down that she found out in the police department file and anything else she found relevant and now she studied it all as she cozied into her thick cotton pajamas.

  It didn’t make any sense to her. Every person in town that she tried to consider as a suspect was someone she at least knew of, even if she didn’t know them well. Maybe she could make her ex-husband the prime suspect. Even if it weren’t true, it would at least make her feel good.

  She smiled at that thought. If this was all the police had come up with, though, then it was obvious that she would have to do some investigating on her own. The little scene she had witnessed with the Mayor and Pete came to mind. Maybe that was a place to start.

  The Agatha Christie book sat upside down and open on the couch next to her. She had finished the first four chapters again, not seeing any relevance to Anna’s death. She’d read the book three times before. She knew the plot, knew who the killer was. She wished she could say the same thing here. Maybe Millie hadn’t dropped the book for any particular reason after all. She’d just bring it back to the bookstore and put it back in its place. Millie could drop it all she wanted to after that.

  She decided that she would go and question Pete tomorrow. Yawning widely, she stretched her arms up above her head to try and get the kinks out of her aching back and shoulders. She was terribly stiff from bending over the papers in front of her for hours.

  She looked at the square clock up on her wall and was surprised to see how late it was. She packed up the papers and put them away in the drawer before going up to bed.

  ***

  Darcy decided to take the next day off work. She could hear the surprise in Sue’s voice over the phone when she was told she’d be left in charge. “Are you sure everything is okay? You never take time off from work.”

  Darcy smiled. She knew that Sue could be a bit of an airhead sometimes but her heart was in the right place. “Sure, Sue, everything is fine. I just need to take care of a few things and I won’t have time to come into work today.”

  “All right. You can count on me.” Darcy was sure she could.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie that she had some things to take care. She just didn’t think Sue would understand if she told her exactly what.

  Darcy planned to spend the day following Pete around to see what he got up to. She needed to know whether he was a viable suspect or not. She wanted to think not, but at this point she felt like anything was possible. Pete was an author and worked from home so that was where she headed first thing. He lived with his brother, Blake, who worked at the post office. Darcy figured she would wait until Blake had left for work before starting her stakeout.

  Not to say Blake couldn’t be a suspect too, she supposed. But Blake hadn’t been the one to date Anna. Pete had.

  Darcy and Smudge headed for Pete’s house just before eight o’clock giving them plenty of time to walk into town and get to the other side where Pete’s house was located. Darcy was able to sneak up behind his house and peer through his windows without being seen by anybody. She saw him working in the living room tapping away on his computer. It looked like he was on a bit of a roll. He had one break where he made a couple of phone calls. Darcy wasn’t able to hear what he said as the window was inconveniently closed. When he hung up he went back to work.

  He typed for what seemed like forever and Darcy was getting a bit bored when nothing happened. Then around eleven o’clock he stopped typing. He got up and grabbed his coat before leaving the house. She snuck up the side of the house and peered around the corner to watch him walk down the street.

  Darcy followed Pete through the town. He never looked back once and she stayed well back so that he wouldn’t see her. When he went into the Bean There Bakery and Café Darcy decided to follow him. She sat down at a table in the corner and opened up one of the complementary newspapers to keep herself out of Pete’s eye range. She was glad that Helen was busy in the back and hadn’t seen her sitting there yet. The lunch crowd was starting to come in. There was so much going on that no one noticed her.

  She watched surreptitiously like a detective in one of those old movies as Doctor Sandal, Misty Hollow’s local doctor, came into the bakery and nervously looked all around. When he saw Pete he went and sat down next to him. Doctor Sandal leaned in close to Pete and started talking to him. Darcy couldn’t hear what they were saying but after a few minutes she saw the doctor hand Pete a plain, brown package. Pete then shook the doctor’s hand and left the bakery.

  Darcy thought that this behavior definitely counted as suspicious. Was Pete taking drugs? Was he not in his right mind? Did that lead him to hurt Anna? Her mind raced with all of the possibilities. Each one sounded more outlandish than the last.

  After counting to thirty Darcy left the bakery and followed Pete again. He went right back to his house. She took up her post outside the window to watch him. She was disappointed to see that he just went back to writing on his computer.

  Frustrated, feeling stupid for having wasted her whole day standing outside this man’s house, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Taking a deep breath she went up and knocked on the door.

  Darcy was surprised when Blake opened the door. She hadn’t seen him all morning and had just assumed he’d gone to work. Now she had to think fast. She needed a reason for being here. “Uh, hi Blake. I was just passing by and…”

  She trailed off, the half-formed excuse dying on her tongue. She took a better look at Blake. His face was terribly flushed and he looked feverish. He tried to speak but went into a bad coughing fit. She took a step back on the porch, realizing how sick he was. He looked awful.

  “Oh, Darcy. What are you…are you…” he had to stop as another coughing fit racked him. Darcy hoped that she wouldn’t get infected with whatever it was that he had. “Sorry, Darcy. Can’t stay and talk.” Cough, cough. “Listen, as long as you’re here, Pete is in the other room. Maybe you can
cheer him up a bit? He is having a hard time over Anna’s death.” Cough, hack, cough.

  Pete came into the entryway at that moment. “Blake, get back into bed. I can take care of Darcy.”

  They watched as Blake shuffled away towards his bedroom. Pete closed the door behind her and Darcy followed him into the living room. “Would you like some tea?” he offered.

  “Oh yes please, that would be lovely.” She was relieved not to have to explain herself now. She was here to check on Pete. It was the neighborly thing to do. That was all.

  It didn’t take any time at all for Pete to start talking about Anna and how close they once were. “You know I never stopped loving her. She always laughed and shrugged me off when I tried to tell her, but that didn’t change my feelings for her.”

  He looked so sad that Darcy just couldn’t see him as Anna’s killer. “It’s a terrible thing, Pete. I miss her too.”

  “I know. It was worse for you, Darcy. You had to find her. I can’t…I can’t imagine.”

  “Yes, that was hard. I didn’t see you at the festival that night, Pete. Where were you?” There. That was subtle, wasn’t it?

  She hadn’t been prepared for him to start crying. “I was here, taking care of Blake. He’s had this flu for weeks now. I must look like a wreck. I’m so sorry for crying Darcy. I’ve been so depressed since hearing the news about Anna that I haven’t been able to sleep. I can’t eat. I cry at every little thing. I even had my doctor write me an emergency prescription for a sleep aid.” He held up the package that she had seen Doctor Sandal give him. “I really need to get some sleep.”

  Darcy felt horrible that she had ever suspected Pete. He wasn’t the one to do this horrible thing. Now that she’d talked to him face to face, she was sure of it. She stayed with him for a while, comforting him as best she could, and then left him alone. She was frustrated that she was back to square one.

  Chapter Eleven