A Murder of Consequence

by K. J. Emrick

  “Actually I don’t think there’s anything to see here at all. It’s just a photo.”

  Ellen must have heard the disappointment in her voice. “Then why are you staring at it like it holds the mysteries of the universe?”

  “Well, I thought it did. I thought…” She slid the picture across the tablecloth away from her. “Now I just don’t know.”

  Milk dripped from the spoon as Ellen put a bite in her mouth and talked while she chewed. “Is this one of your sixth sense things?”

  “Something like that.” She felt foolish explaining it, but it felt good to have someone to talk to. “I was told to look at what was right in front of me, and when I did, this picture of Sarah was what I saw.”

  “The spirit world told you to do this?”

  There wasn’t any judgment in Ellen’s voice. Darcy knew her friend wasn’t making fun of her. “Yes. My Great Aunt Millie, to be exact.”

  “I don’t think I’ve met her, have I?”

  “Well, she’s dead. So.”

  “Ah. ‘Kay.” Ellen put her bowl aside and crossed one leg over the other. “You sure you got the message right? I mean, there’s a language barrier or something when talking to the dead, isn’t there?”

  “Something like that,” Darcy repeated. “It’s a little more complicated than that but, sure, there’s always the risk that things don’t mean what you think they do when it comes to ghosts and the paranormal.”

  “So, your aunt could have meant something else.”

  “What else could she mean? Open my eyes? Everything I need is right in front of me? Sounds pretty straightforward to me.”

  “Hey, I’m not the expert. That’s all you. Speaking of experts, shouldn’t we maybe call Jon? Mister Police Man might have better luck at finding out what happened here. No offense, but he might have a better chance of getting the police to talk to him.”

  “Better than I’m having, you mean?” Not that she could argue with what Ellen had said. Especially after what had happened this morning. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe Sarah would be more comfortable talking to Jon. Um. Where is Sarah, anyway? Is she still in bed or something?”

  Ellen shook her head. “No. She left a half hour ago.”

  “What? Why?”

  “She has a job, you know. Not one like yours where you can just pick up and leave for a few days, either.”

  “I know that,” Darcy snapped. She sighed, and pushed back strands of her long hair that had fallen loose. “Sorry. I’m just upset. Kind of at the end of my rope here.”

  “You should call Jon,” Ellen pressed. “He’s good at this kind of thing.”

  That was as close to a compliment as Ellen ever gave where Jon was concerned. Those two had buried the hatchet only to dig it back up again so many times that Darcy had lost count. Ellen wasn’t a woman who made friends easily, and Darcy appreciated that she had let Jon into her circle even a little.

  Still, Jon was just starting his new position as chief. He had a lot of things going on that needed his personal attention. She couldn’t drag him away from that every time she needed help. “Not yet. Let me try a few things first.”

  Ellen gave her a look.

  “I’ll call him,” Darcy promised. “Today. Just not right now. I have something to do first.”

  Picking up her cereal bowl, Ellen went to the sink and washed it out before leaving it on the counter. “All right. If that’s what you want. We can’t stay here forever, though. You know that.”

  “I do. I know,” Darcy agreed reluctantly. “I think Shai Larson is getting ready to make an arrest in this case, and that might end everything anyway.”

  “Or not,” Ellen said, “if she arrests the wrong person.”

  “Right. Exactly.” Darcy got up and quickly headed for the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower, I think.”

  “’Kay. I’m going to see if I can get Connor away from the television long enough to eat something. Maybe we can go out for a walk or something today. That river around the town is amazing. Think they have any hiking trails up here?”

  “There were some pamphlets about hiking back at Moonie’s Lunch. We can go there later and check them out. How’s that sound?”

  They agreed it was a plan, and then Darcy slipped away to the bathroom, closing and locking the door. She didn’t need to take a shower. She just needed some privacy.

  “Okay, Felicia,” she whispered to the room, stretching out her senses to feel for the little girl. “You and I need to have a conversation.”

  It was possible to draw out a ghost to talk to you, even when they didn’t want to be found. It was exhausting, and dangerous, but it was possible. Darcy had done it a few times before. Usually, a forced communication like that left her feeling drained, and it took her some time to recover. Ghosts who wanted to talk were easy to communicate with. Like a phonecall with a best friend.

  Darcy had really been hoping that Felicia would be that kind of ghost. Especially since she liked to pop up around the house with a smile and make little hand gestures. Darcy was still puzzling that out, along with everything else.

  She could feel Felicia, right there, somewhere nearby but still unseen, waiting. Somehow she needed to convince the little girl to talk to her. Too bad she hadn’t brought her emergency communication kit with her. The candles and incense and other tools of the trade that she needed to make this easier would all be right there and ready for her if she had.

  Staring at her reflection in the mirror as she leaned against the sink, Darcy pressed her lips together and told herself she would just have to make do. This was going to happen whether Felicia wanted it to or not, because she needed to help Sarah.

  Turning, she saw Felicia laying in the bathtub.

  Well. Maybe the little girl had something to say after all.

  She was fully clothed, her dress soaking wet, water pouring out of her mouth. Her eyes were pale and staring.

  Darcy bit back a scream. No matter how many times she had something like this happen to her, it didn’t get any easier. Ghosts reliving their last moments. Appearing from nowhere to suddenly be right there in the room with her. Calling her anytime during the day or in the deepest hours of the night.

  “This, right here,” she muttered, “is why I can’t own a cell phone anymore.”

  Felicia’s appearance rippled and changed, her little dress appearing dry again, her face turning from the horror of a drowned child to the cute cherub face of a precocious five year old. She rose up to stand in the tub. Then she stared at Darcy, raising a single finger up in front of her lips.

  Shh.

  “Felicia, I need to talk to you. Can you talk with me?”

  The little girl nodded, her face serious, her finger hovering over her lips.

  “Um. Good. I guess that’s a start. You know your father was killed? Here in this house?”

  Felicia shook her head, her unruly hair bobbing back and forth as she did.

  Of course. “I mean Braden. Your father, Braden. Not Terry. You know that Braden is dead, right?”

  Felicia nodded this time, finally taking her hand away from her face. Her finger swung out, and down, pointing at the tub below her.

  Being dead, Felicia would know things that she couldn’t have known while she was alive. The whole mess with Braden not being her real dad wouldn’t be a secret over on the other side of life.

  Secret. That was the symbol she kept making with her finger. The motion to tell people to be quiet, to keep things a secret.

  “What secret, Felicia?” Darcy dared to take a single step closer to the little girl’s ghost. The bathroom wasn’t very big to begin with, and that single step brought her close enough to see the dimples in Felicia’s cheeks. “Can you tell me the secret? Does it have something to do with the tub?”

  Felicia pointed down again, thrusting her finger like an accusation.

  “The tub? Where you drowned, right? What about the tub, Felicia? Can you speak to me? Can you tell
me what you mean?”

  Her face turned sad. Ghosts couldn’t easily speak to the living, not even to someone as gifted as Darcy was. Felicia knew something. Something important that Darcy needed to hear.

  “Felicia?”

  The little girl began shaking. Just a little tremor at first, from head to toe.

  Then it got stronger.

  And stronger.

  “Felicia, what is it?”

  The ghost pointed at the tub, again, and again, her mouth moving as she tried to shout at Darcy, to scream things that would answer all of Darcy’s questions.

  No sound came. It was a silent fury that could find no release.

  “Felicia, I know you drowned here. I’m so, so sorry. I can help you, if you want. I can help you cross over and be at peace. Before I can do that I need your help.”

  The girl’s head rolled back, her mouth open, and she trembled so violently that her pale arms shook.

  Water began bubbling out of her mouth.

  “Felicia, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  From her pale eyes, from her ears, through her little white dress, water seeped. It flowed out from the ghost itself, a spiritual manifestation of her pain and her fear.

  What was she afraid of? Her death? That moment had already happened. It would still be painful for Felicia to remember, but it wouldn’t be something she feared. Not now. Not like this. Not when she was already dead.

  Felicia was afraid.

  Of what?

  Her spirit was shaking so rapidly now in its seizures that she blurred before Darcy’s eyes, an indistinct form of shadow and substance that gushed water everywhere. The locks of her hair were wetly plastered to her face and neck. Her dress hung heavy and soaked. Water, everywhere. It splashed across Darcy and the floor and the walls and the ceiling, and still it came.

  Water.

  Darcy stood up on her tiptoes. Her socks were already soaked through. The bottoms of her pant legs were wet. Water sprayed everywhere. Darcy reached for the little girl…

  With a soundless wave of force water exploded outward from Felicia. Darcy was knocked backward against the sink, the back of her head smacking into the edge of the round wall mirror, her arms rising up defensively in front of her face, keeping the blast of water from drowning her where she stood.

  She screamed, and waited for the deluge to be over.

  In the next second, it was.

  Felicia was gone. Water stood half an inch deep on the linoleum around her feet, rolling out from under the door into the hallway, sliding down the walls in rivulets, dripping from the ceiling.

  The bathtub was full. The water collected in there was brackish. Dirty. Almost black.

  Wet and cold, Darcy pulled in breath after breath, feeling like she couldn’t get enough air. It was like she was drowning.

  Drowning. Like Felicia.

  What had the girl been trying to tell her by showing her the violence of that storm?

  “Darcy!”

  The banging on the door and her name being called made her jump, and she lost her footing on the slippery wet floor. She slipped and slid and landed awkwardly on her side. Her hip and knee flared immediately with pain and she swore at herself under her breath. It was Ellen at the door, trying to find out what was wrong. Of course she’d heard the scream. Probably saw the water rolling out to ruin Sarah’s rug in the hallway, too.

  “For Pete’s sake, Darcy,” she scolded herself. “How can you be around ghosts all your life and still be scared by someone knocking on a door?”

  “Darcy!” Ellen again. “Darcy the door is locked. What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she called out, even though the correct answer was something else. She was the opposite of all right. She was in pain, and she was wet, and she was more confused now than she had been before. There was something more going on here. Something she couldn’t see.

  Open your eyes, Millie had said to her in the dream. Smudge too, for that matter, but she was never sure if Smudge was really in her dreams or if it was just her mind calling up her familiar, lovable tomcat to help her understand the obvious.

  Darcy had thought the message from Millie meant that she was supposed to literally open her eyes. To see whatever object might be right in front of her. Like the photograph of Sarah and Shai Larson.

  Messages from the spirit realm were never that easy to understand. She should have remembered that. The photo hadn’t gotten her anywhere, because Millie wasn’t telling her to look for the answer in front of her nose.

  She was telling Darcy to open her eyes.

  There was something here that Darcy was missing, and Millie wanted her to see it. In fact, Millie thought she should already be able to see it. Felicia thought so, too, but the little girl’s imitation of a waterfall hadn’t done anything for Darcy except get her wet. How was that supposed to help?

  “Darcy!” More knocking. “So help me God, if you don’t open this door right now I’m going to break it down and I don’t think your friend is going to appreciate me busting up her house!”

  “Hold on, I’m coming.” Darcy limped to her feet and then over to the door. She was going to have to explain the water damage as it was. Might as well let Ellen see what had happened. “Hang on.”

  When she opened the door, more water drained from the room into the hall. “Fantastic,” Darcy muttered. “Maybe Sarah has some space heaters we can use to dry things out?”

  Ellen stared around the room, at the water everywhere, and at Darcy standing there soaking wet, her sweater hanging heavily off her shoulders. Connor clung tight to his mother’s side with wide eyes.

  “Wow,” he said slowly. “That’s a lot of water.”

  “Darcy what happened?” Ellen finally asked.

  “I had a conversation with a ghost.”

  “A ghost?”

  “Yes, a ghost,” Darcy sighed. “What else? Can you get me a towel?”

  Ellen opened the hallway linen closet and pulled out a fluffy green towel to hand to Darcy. “Was the ghost taking a shower? Like, in Niagara Falls?”

  “Something like that.”

  As Darcy toweled off she watched Connor’s expression. She could tell he didn’t know whether to take the two of them seriously, or laugh at the joke.

  Getting more towels to spread around the floor of the bathroom, Ellen took her socks off and tossed them aside to keep them dry. “Connor, help me in here, okay? So, Darcy, did this ghost have anything to do with Sarah’s husband dying?”

  “Yes,” Darcy answered out loud, then mouthed the word daughter to Ellen, so Connor wouldn’t hear. “She was trying to tell me something.”

  “Oh yeah? What?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Darcy swiped off as much water from her clothes as she could, realizing she was going to have to change and throw these ones in the dryer. Maybe the washer first, she thought, wrinkling her nose. There was a mild odor to the water that wasn’t very pleasant.

  “That looks like river water,” she heard Ellen say.

  “Hm?”

  Ellen and Connor had been mopping up the water from the floor and walls and everywhere else, and now Ellen was kneeling over the tub, looking at the dirty water left over from Felicia’s ghostly tantrum.

  “I said, this water looks like river water. It’s not clean.”

  Darcy hadn’t paid attention before, but Ellen was right. The water wasn’t just dark, it was dirty. There was bits of mud at the bottom of the tub, and what looked like pieces of leaves swirling around. And were those pebbles?

  “How’s that possible?” Darcy said. She felt foolish as soon as she asked it. How was it possible that a ghost had poured forth all of this water in the first place, whether it was clean water or not?

  Felicia had drowned in a bathtub, though. That was what Shai Larson had told her. Why would the little girl leave behind a room full of river water if she’d drowned here, in this tub?

  Swirling her hand through the lukewarm wa
ter, Darcy had to wonder. River water.

  Why?

  “Know what, Ellen? Maybe we should both go find those walking trails. I’d like to see the river.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ellen drove them again, after Darcy had changed and they had cleaned up as much of the water as they could. They’d decided to actually grab the pamphlet Darcy had seen in Moonie’s Lunch rather than drive around blind trying to find access down to the river. Darcy didn’t know what she would find down there, but she didn’t want to waste all day looking for it either.

  “So,” Ellen said. “Hampton or Terry. Which one do you think did it?”

  “My money’s on Terry,” Darcy said. She’d told Ellen everything that she’d found out from Shai Larson and from Terry Taft himself. It helped organize her thoughts to talk about it this way. Ellen’s unique perspective, coming from experiences gained in her former life as a hired killer, gave Darcy more to think about.

  Just still no answers.

  “Mom says you shouldn’t gamble,” Connor offered, putting his opinion into the conversation.

  His head was leaning against the back seat and his eyes were closed and Darcy really thought that he’d fallen asleep. She had wanted to leave him behind at Sarah’s, but Ellen wouldn’t hear of it. Plus, there was the not-so-small issue of leaving him in the house with a little girl’s ghost that had a habit of filling rooms with brackish river water. So he was here with them again.

  Darcy felt bad about dragging both Connor and Ellen through this. No matter what Ellen said, Darcy knew they had been through enough already. They didn’t need to get tangled up in other people’s troubles because of her.

  Maybe so, but she was sure glad Ellen was here.

  When they pulled up to the curb outside of the restaurant, they saw a familiar dark blue car with a license plate that Darcy recognized right away.

  “Jon’s here?” she asked. “How?”

  “Um, well,” Ellen shrugged. “I may have called him already.”