by K. J. Emrick
“What? When?”
“Last night. Before I went to bed I called him and told him to meet us here today. I knew you wouldn’t do it no matter how many times I asked, so… Look, it’s not like I missed Mister Police Man or anything. I just thought you could use the help.”
Boy, could she. “Thanks, Ellen.”
“No biggie. Want to get some breakfast while we’re here? It’s already after ten but if you’re hungry?”
Darcy had skipped breakfast while going on her fool’s errand to see Shai Larson. Still, she wasn’t all that hungry. Now that she knew Jon was here, she just wanted to see him.
Leaning across the front seat, she gave Ellen a quick hug.
“Yeah, that’s enough of that,” Ellen told her. “Come on, Connor. Let’s go.”
“Aw, mom. Can’t I just stay in the car?”
“No. Come on, now.”
Ellen’s answer was quick, giving Connor no chance to argue as his mom got out of the car. Darcy hoped the two of them would move past the lingering fear of what had happened to them in Bear Ridge, and that Ellen might one day be able to live without having to look over her shoulder to see if her past was catching up with her. They both deserved a better life than they’d been dealt.
Connor rolled his eyes, in an almost dead-on imitation of an expression his mother used often. “Mothers. What can you do?”
Then he climbed out of the car, and Darcy followed him up to the front door of Moonie’s Lunch.
The inside of the place smelled differently at breakfast time. Eggs and sausage, ketchup and maple syrup. It still looked the same, and the waitress who had served them yesterday when Hampton McGillis had made his scene was working again. She remembered them and waved.
And, at a table near the back drinking a cup of coffee, sat Jon Tinker.
Darcy made a straight line right to him, and he stood up to meet her as they wrapped their arms around each other and held on as tightly as they could. He was dressed in jeans and a sweater under his heavy winter coat. Casual clothes for days he wasn’t working.
“Trouble finds you everywhere,” he said to her, “doesn’t it?”
“Well. You know how it is. The mysterious is all around us.”
“Maybe so, but it seems to have a roadmap to wherever you’re standing.”
“Shouldn’t you be in Misty Hollow?” she asked him, breathing in his cologne and holding onto him still. “You know, running a police department or something?”
His hand held her gently at the back of her neck, a comfortable and familiar pressure. “I am supposed to be running my department. Thing is, I got this phone call saying I was needed here.”
“I know. Ellen told me she called you.”
“You should’ve been the one to call me, Sweet Baby.”
Her whispered nickname warmed her heart. “I didn’t think you could get away.”
“I’ll always be here for you. No matter what else is going on.”
She wasn’t even sure how long they stayed there standing like that, and she didn’t care. When Ellen cleared her throat—very loudly—Darcy knew their moment was over. Back to the mystery at hand.
Stepping back from Jon, she pushed back a strand of her hair with one hand, keeping her other hand held tightly around his. “Um. Right. Ellen and Connor and I were just about to go check out the hiking trails down by the river.”
Ellen held up the pamphlet about local hiking. The folded brochure had a picture of a smiling hiker on the front, holding a long walking stick and carrying a fully loaded backpack up whatever gentle, forested hill he was trekking on. Jon frowned at it.
“Uh. Why are you checking out hiking trails?”
“It’s not the trails,” Darcy explained. “It’s the river.”
“Uh. Why are you checking out the river?”
Darcy gave him a look that told him it had something to do with the murder of Sarah’s husband and if he wanted to know more he should ask her later. He nodded, and let it go at that.
“Actually,” he said, “we need to go down to the police station.”
“I was just there,” Darcy told him. “I was there this morning.”
“I know. I missed you by only a few minutes when I came in. I wanted to start there so I could introduce myself and find out what they knew. They’re a little more willing to talk to another police officer than they are a civilian like you. No offense,” he added.
“None taken.”
Ellen couldn’t keep from gloating. “Told you.”
“Anyway,” Darcy said. “I was just down at the police station. Why are we going back there now?”
“Because Shai Larson asked me to bring you. She wants to talk to you.”
***
The police department. Again.
It was funny how Darcy didn’t mind spending time at the police station in Misty Hollow, but when it came time to go back into the building here in Birkenfalls she hesitated. It wasn’t anything to do with the place itself. It was pretty to look at. A real tourist attraction. There was something about the place that bothered her. Like something buzzing in her ear, or goosebumps crawling over her skin.
Maybe it was the secrets that Terry Taft had carried with him for so long. Maybe her sixth sense was picking up on the mental anguish of a man living with too many lies.
Jon had driven them here. Ellen had agreed to go back to Sarah’s for now with Connor. There was nothing she could do at the police station anyway, and there was still the matter of drying out the rug, and Connor was already bored.
Shai Larson met Jon and Darcy in the front lobby. She said a quick hello to Jon, addressing him as Chief Tinker, before rushing them inside. Darcy noticed the difference in her attitude toward her from this morning. Was it because Jon was here, or was there some other reason?
“Thanks for coming back,” Shai said to Darcy. “Thank you, too, Chief. I figured you would want to be here for this. I had Terry come in from home so I could talk to him, like I told you I was going to. Thing is, with you pointing out how he investigated his own daughter’s drowning death without telling anyone, I figured I should ask him about that.”
They got to the part of the hallway outside the interview room. Darcy could see Terry Taft, sitting at the metal table, his shaved head held in his hands. “He looks upset,” she observed.
“He should be.” Shai leaned against the wall, looking in on her fellow officer. “After what he told me, he definitely should be. Why don’t you two come in with me and he can tell it to you himself.”
“I’d like that,” Jon said. “Are you sure it’s all right?”
“Well, ordinarily I’d have to ask my chief for permission. Seeing that he isn’t here, I’m making the decision myself. Both of you should hear this.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
He sounded so much like a chief of police now, Darcy thought to herself. Like a leader. Like he was the one in control here and not just a guest.
Darcy liked it.
The room was a little crowded, with Taft sitting on one side of the interview table and Larson on the other, and with Jon and Darcy standing to the side. Terry wouldn’t even look up at Darcy once he realized who Shai was bringing in with her.
The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away loudly while they waited for Shai to begin.
“Terry.” There was no response from the unhappy man. “Terry,” she repeated, a little louder, before he looked up at her. “I want you to tell them what you told me earlier.”
“No.”
“Terry, I’m not really asking you. I’m giving you a direct order as your sergeant.”
A short, barking laugh burst out from him. “My sergeant? You’re not my sergeant anymore. Not if I’m going to get fired.”
“I don’t know that you’ll be fired—”
“Oh, come off it, Shai. You heard everything I said. You know how this ends for me. I’ve never been the chief’s favorite to begin with and now with this…”
&
nbsp; His eyes found Darcy’s, and she flinched at what she saw in them. “Thanks to you,” he growled.
Jon took a protective step forward in front of Darcy before Shai held up a hand. “You did this to yourself,” she told Terry. “First, by having an affair with a married woman, and then by lying about the little girl.”
“That was my secret to have. Sarah asked me to keep that private. I did what she asked. No one needed to know the difference.”
Shai waited for him to be done. “Whether I believe that or not, it still doesn’t excuse what you did next. When Felicia died, you should never have gone to do the investigation of her death. You could have stepped aside without anyone knowing the difference.”
He managed to look uncomfortable, his hands constantly folding and unfolding. “I…had to know. I had to see what had happened to my little girl.”
“She wasn’t your little girl at that point. She was Sarah’s and Braden’s.”
Terry sneered. “She was always mine.”
Darcy heard echoes of Hampton in those words, when he claimed Sarah was his and no one else’s.
“You helped create her, Terry,” Shai pointed out. “That didn’t make you her parent, or make her your daughter.”
His face twitched like he wanted to argue more, but instead he just repeated, “I had to know what happened.”
“Fine,” Shai said. “That’s something for you and the chief to talk about. Right now, I’m concerned with the other part. Tell me the rest of it again so Chief Tinker and Darcy can hear it.”
Stubbornly, he kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused on his hands.
“Terry, tell me the rest of it. Again.”
He sighed, and it was like watching a balloon deflating. “She didn’t die there.”
Darcy felt her mouth fall open. Jon shifted next to her. That had caught his attention, too.
“Who, Terry?” Shai asked, gently. “Who didn’t die there?”
He sat back, throwing his hands in the air and then letting them fall back into his lap. “Felicia! She didn’t drown in the bathtub. That was just what I wrote on the report. That was the lie Braden was trying to sell, and I went along with it because…because I didn’t want to see Sarah get hurt.”
Darcy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Felicia hadn’t drowned in the bathtub. She’d drowned…
Somewhere else!
“The river,” she said, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “She drowned in the river, didn’t she?”
Terry’s eyes lost their hatred. There was only resignation in them now. “How did you know? How do you know all these things? You shouldn’t even be here. This is not your town.”
Jon took her hand. “She has a habit of showing up where she’s needed.”
Shai snapped her fingers to get Terry’s attention back on her. “Okay, Felicia died in the river, and you helped cover it up. Now tell us the rest of it. How did she die?”
“I don’t know.”
“Terry, I don’t need to remind you how much trouble you’re in here. Don’t start holding out on me now. What did Braden tell you about how Felicia died?”
“Does this matter? You know I screwed up. I was trying to be a good father and a good friend, and I screwed up. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
“No.” It was Jon who spoke this time. “Like you said, this isn’t our town. I don’t care about you, or what happens to you after this. What I care about is knowing who killed Braden Wessel. See, he was married to a friend of my fiancé’s. That gives me a reason to care about that. You? I don’t care about you at all, Terry. So if I have to use all of my influence as a police chief to make sure you get buried under the judicial system for years, then I will. Or, you can answer these questions without stonewalling us anymore. You pick. Either way, I’ve got time.”
Darcy stood up straighter next to Jon. She really loved this man.
Terry visibly swallowed, and then nodded his head. “Okay. All right. Look, I was trying to be—”
“A good father,” Jon said. “I know. We heard that part.”
“Right. Well. Don’t forget it. That’s all I’m saying. Braden called the office and when I heard the call, I made it there as fast as I could. She was already lying dead on the bathroom floor. She was soaking wet, but not from tap water. Her skin was blue and she was…gone. Braden said that he found Felicia down by the river. He said she knew she wasn’t supposed to play down there, but she did it anyway. When he couldn’t find her that day he went looking for her down on the river where the kids swim. You know where I mean, Shai. Hawkins Point. He said he found her there, face down in the water, dead. My little girl…”
No one contradicted him this time. He was on the verge of tears. All these secrets, Darcy was reminded. All these secrets that had built up inside of Terry for years, finally coming out now. It was a sad thing.
“Is that why you killed him?” Shai asked.
Darcy hadn’t expected that. Terry definitely made the strongest suspect for the killing now, but she had figured Shai would wait until they left the room to question Terry about it.
His reaction was slow in coming. “Kill him? Braden? No, that’s not why…I mean, no I didn’t kill him.” He looked from one face to another. “I didn’t kill him! Was I mad at him? Sure. Did I resent the man for the way he treated Sarah? Yeah, sure I did. He was living my life and I hated him, all right? I hated him. But I did not kill him!”
Darcy wasn’t sure she believed him. The thought crossed her mind to check his hands for blood, if Shai would be willing to let her try that technique, but she decided against it. There would be a lot of blood on Terry’s hands. He would feel guilty about covering up his daughter’s death, if nothing else. The technique worked just fine, except it couldn’t tell her how old the blood was, or what it was connected to.
Shai had a few other questions to ask, and when she was done she handcuffed Terry to the floor chain and left him there to walk Jon and Darcy out to the entrance of the building.
“I wanted you guys to hear that first hand,” she said to them, staring off down Main Street at the sparkling snow that made a thin layer over the lawns and sidewalks. “I wouldn’t have even known about any of it if not for you, Darcy.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Darcy had to admit. “What’s going to happen now?”
Shivering in the cold, Shai shifted from one foot to the other. “Should’ve put my jacket on. Going to be a cold one. Anyway. Now, Terry is going to be arrested for the murder of Braden Wessel. Between what he’s told us and what we know about his relationship with Sarah, it’s not hard to connect the dots. We don’t have the physical proof we need yet but I’m pretty confident that will turn up when we search his place.”
“You’ll be looking for poison?” Jon guessed.
“That, and whatever else we might turn up. He can deny it all he wants, but Terry had as good a motive to murder Braden Wessel as I’ve ever seen. He had the means, and he had the opportunity, too. Everyone knew Sarah went for those early morning runs. Plenty of time to slip into the Wessel home and put the poison into something Braden would eat or drink. Like that special coffee he always ordered through the mail.”
“You’ll want to do a search of the Wessel house, too,” Jon suggested. “For any residue the poison might have left, and for Terry’s fingerprints. He was probably too careful to leave any behind but you might get lucky.”
Shai’s smile was polite. “Thank you, Chief. I’ve done things like this before. We might not get the exciting cases like you folks do in your little town of Misty Hollow but we do know what we’re doing. I’ll be calling Sarah soon to let her know what’s happened and ask her permission to do exactly what you just told me to do. Like I was going to anyway.”
Jon offered her his hand to shake, and she took it. “I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes,” he said. “I’m just here to help. We’ll stay out of your way now.”
“I’m just glad that Sarah i
s in the clear.” Darcy stuffed her hands into the pockets of her winter coat. Shai was right. It was going to be cold today. “What about Hampton?”
“He’s going to get an appearance ticket for possessing Braden’s wallet. Even if Braden’s dead, I can’t let Hampton take whatever he wants. He’ll see the judge next week. Hopefully the court can order him to get some services that will help him.”
“If he’s a veteran, isn’t there a government agency that could help him? The Veteran’s Administration or something?” Darcy wasn’t sure how those things worked but she hated to think that Hampton McGillis was just going to be thrown back on the street again with nothing.
“I don’t know if he’ll accept anyone’s help,” Shai said, in a way that made Darcy think that this same question had been asked and answered several times before. “I can make some phonecalls for him. I can’t force the man to get help, though. That’s the court’s job.”
“There must be something we can do for him.”
With the same polite smile, Shai shook Darcy’s hand. “It’s been nice meeting you, Darcy Sweet. I wish you the best.”
Turning around, she went back into the police department. The door closed slowly behind her on its pneumatic slide.
“I think we were just dismissed,” Jon said.
“Can’t you pull rank on her or something?” Darcy stepped closer and leaned into him to soak in some of his body’s warmth. “You are a police chief, after all.”
“Wrong town. Come on. Why don’t we pick up lunch for Connor and Jo…I mean, Ellen. I’m still getting used to the name change there.”
“Her name isn’t the only thing that’s changed. She’s a completely different person, Jon. She’s a good friend, a great mother to Connor, and I’ve only heard about her wanting to kill someone once in the last two days…what’s so funny?”
Darcy had caught the amusement in his eyes. “You,” he said.
“What about me?”
“You’re amazing.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Jon. I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” he told her, wrapping his arm around her waist and twirling her right there on the sidewalk. “I love you, Darcy Sweet.”