Laid to Rest (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 18)

by K. J. Emrick

  No way were they moving. Not over a little spilled blood.

  “Okay,” she said, reaching across the small table and taking his hand. “Here’s the Reader’s Digest version. Bradley Scarston was using the alias Alan Lansky. He was hiding in plain sight here in Misty Hollow. You know about Bradley Scarston from the information the State Police sent us. He’s a thief and an all-around bad man. Eleven or twelve years ago he stole a pouch of black diamonds. When he showed them to my aunt, she took them and hid them, and was probably giving Scarston the chance to turn himself in, only he killed her first.”

  “And before she died she wrote down everything about him in the beehive journal,” Jon said, adding in the parts he already knew. “There’s probably something very specific written in there about him on the pages that are too ruined for us to read. Also, Millie was smart and left us a riddle that told us where the diamonds were.”

  “Right. Thanks to that, I know exactly where they are.”

  “And he didn’t have an accomplice.”

  “Nope,” she confirmed. “He did it all himself. Kidnapped Smudge. Left the note. Broke into the library and waited for us after Smudge got away from him. Stole the books. Threw something out the window to distract Grace, then knocked her out and escaped.”

  That was part of the story she was truly ashamed about. She’d been all ready to accuse Elizabeth Archer of being an accomplice to the bad guy. It had all seemed to fit, except for the fact that she’d forgotten all about Alan Lansky. Or rather, Bradley Scarston. Just like with Helen, Darcy had immediately dismissed Alan as a suspect because they knew him so well and counted him as a close friend.

  Here in Misty Hollow, sometimes your best friends made the best suspects.

  “Okay,” Jon said, nodding along with each point, “leaving that aside for a moment, there’s something I don’t get.”

  “Only one thing?” she teased.

  “A dozen, really, but let’s start with this. Why would Scarston show these diamonds to Millie in the first place?”

  Darcy shifted in her seat. “He was in love with her.”

  His little smirk said everything she’d been thinking to herself. “Your aunt inspired a lot of men, didn’t she? Old Roland Baskin. This Scarston or whatever his real name was. Even Sean Fitzwallis.”

  “Jon!”

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? I wish I could have known her. She must have been quite the woman.”

  Darcy smiled at that. “Yes. She was. So what about Fitzwallis? What are you going to do about him?”

  “He’ll be suspended for a week,” was Jon’s answer. “I think it’s less than he deserves but like you said, he was doing it as a favor to Millie, and he thought he was keeping you safe.”

  “He was, in a strange way.” Darcy looked down at the blanket on the floor. “So was Millie. Scarston didn’t come after me until he knew I’d found the journal.”

  “What about the town census?” he asked. “The list of names we looked at. Scarston wasn’t on there. Neither was Lansky, for that matter.”

  “I think that was the point.” She’d reasoned this out after the fact. “Millie was showing us who we could trust, not who to suspect. She told me I had a lot of friends. Turns out it was a longer list than we realized.”

  “True enough. So what was Scarston’s plan, just to stay in town until someone started running through the streets shouting ‘Eureka, I’ve found black diamonds?’ Sounds like he could’ve been here forever.”

  “He was in it for the long term. He even got Helen to fall in love with him. I imagine eventually he would have tried something else but too many deaths or accidents in this house would have raised a lot of flags. He knew my reputation. I guess he thought I’d figure it out sooner or later. He said as much, standing right here in this kitchen.”

  Jon’s hand tightened around hers. “Darcy, I am so sorry for leaving you alone here. I should never have done that.”

  “Ellen told me the same thing. You know, you two are a lot more alike than either of you care to admit.”

  “Bite your tongue,” he said, but she could tell that idea didn’t bother him as much as he tried to act like it did. “How is Helen?”

  “Devastated.” Darcy had held her friend and let her cry for a long, long time while the police took photos of the house and did up their reports. She was home now, but Darcy had to imagine she wouldn’t be herself for quite a while. Maybe weeks. Maybe longer than that, even. What Scarston did to her…that should be a crime in itself.

  “We should go see her tomorrow,” Jon offered. “She’ll need all the real friends she can get.”

  “Yes, she will. And we’ll be there for her.” She leaned back in her chair and smacked her forehead with her palm. “I just realized I still haven’t called mom about all this.”

  “Well, maybe it’s better this way. Now you can tell her there’s some closure in all this. We got the man who killed your aunt.”

  “Actually Helen got him. With a frying pan. And some help from our resident wonder cat.”

  As if he’d heard them talking about him, Smudge came trotting into the kitchen, sniffing at his food dish. “I think,” Darcy said, “that he deserves some kind of treat. Maybe some milk, and a piece of the pizza Ellen brought home.”

  Smudge meowed in agreement, rubbing his head against Darcy’s foot. She reached down and stroked his back. “You did good, Smudge. I’m proud of you.”

  Jon got up from his side of the table and came around, lifting her up to her feet. His arms folded around her back and she leaned into his solid warmth. “You’re who I’m proud of,” he told her. “I’m proud of everything you’ve done for this town. For me. I can’t think of a better place to be than right here.”

  “Well,” she suggested in a whisper, “maybe upstairs would be better. In our room. With the door locked.”

  “You read my mind, Sweet Baby.”

  Smudge scooted his bowl a few inches across the floor with his nose. Darcy laughed at him. “I haven’t forgotten, you big baby. Jon, go upstairs and wait for me? I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  He kissed the tip of her ear. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  She got out the carton of milk from the refrigerator, along with the pizza box. The rest of it could come upstairs for her and Jon. Neither of them had eaten supper yet and by this point she was just plain starving—

  When she turned around, balancing pizza box and milk jug, she saw her aunt sitting at the kitchen table.

  It was a shadowy image of Millie, dressed in her favorite black dress and wearing that floppy-brimmed hat of hers. She smiled up at Darcy, her features shifting and fading, then waved with her fingers.

  Darcy was afraid to move, in case the image would disappear as soon as she took a step or said a word or breathed too deeply. Setting the pizza and milk down on the counter, slowly, she leaned back against the refrigerator and took the chance. “Hi, Millie.”

  Smudge came over and sat at Darcy’s feet, purring, looking up at Millie sitting there. Cats could always sense ghosts, sure, but this was more than that. These two shared a special bond that would never be broken.

  “I was very mad at you before,” Darcy told her aunt. “Furious is a better word, I guess. You should have told me everything. We’re family. There can’t be secrets like that in a family.”

  Millie’s ghost shimmered and blurred, but stayed where she was.

  “You were only doing what you thought was best,” Darcy continued. “I know that now. And…I’m sorry I was angry. I said some things I maybe shouldn’t have. I was scared, I guess, and upset. I love you, Millie. I always will.”

  The old woman’s hands went up to cover her heart. No words, just an expression of love across the barrier of life and death.

  This next part would be the hardest.

  “Millie…your murderer is in custody. We caught him. We know where the diamonds are and Jon and I are going to get them and give them back to whoever they belong to. It’
s over, Millie. It’s all done.”

  Her next breath caught in her throat. The words were too big to get out. “You can move on now. The things that were keeping you tied here are gone. You can leave and be at peace. You’ve earned your rest.”

  When she bowed her head it almost looked like Millie was crying. Then the ghost of her, the spirit of her great aunt, nodded and looked up again directly into Darcy’s eyes. When she did her face was sharply defined by lines of pure light. Radiance spread outward from her, beams of spectral essence that filled the space where she was sitting, filled the air around them, filled the whole room.

  It was too bright to look at. Darcy had to avert her eyes.

  When she looked again, Millie was gone.

  Smudge mewled at the emptiness, and went over to paw at the chair. There was an almost human expression of loss on his feline face.

  Instead of feeling sad, instead of grieving, Darcy felt relieved. Her aunt’s life was over, but they had been able to share time together that most people never got. Millie had been her best friend, her conscience, and her guide, for the last ten years. Darcy was lucky to have had that.

  And when it came time to say goodbye, she’d been able to say what was in her heart, and see her aunt go to the next place.

  She wasn’t sad. She was happy.

  After breaking off a few pieces of the pizza for Smudge and putting a little saucer of milk next to his bowl, Darcy went up to find Jon. Life, for the living, went on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Life in Misty Hollow had changed so much. In fact, it would never be the same.

  That was what Darcy was thinking as she and Grace and Jon drove up into the graveyard on Applegate Road. The wrought iron fence that bordered the whole cemetery had a gate opening for cars to drive in, and a dirt path to follow around the orderly rows of graves. Newer headstones, angular and shiny, were set in place towards the back. Up here near the front and over to the side the stones were older slabs of limestone. Most of the markers in these older sections were simple rectangles, with a few crosses, and a marble angel or two. In a lot of ways, it was beautiful here.

  A quiet mood hovered over the place today, like the graveyard was waiting just for them.

  The feeling was less poetic license than it was a reality for Darcy. The cemetery always had a few lost souls wandering around. Ghosts of the dearly departed who had nowhere to go, or who didn’t know how to move on, or who were trapped here for different reasons. Darcy usually stayed away from here for that exact reason. The ghosts gravitated to her, seeking her help, screaming and crying and whispering all at once.

  Not today.

  “Does it seem…quieter to you?” Jon asked.

  “No one’s here,” Darcy said, her voice hushed.

  From the back seat of Jon’s car, Grace rolled her eyes. “Of course no one’s here, Darcy. This is a graveyard. Come on, let’s find out if Millie was really leaving us a message or if she was just fond of writing poems in obscure dialects.”

  Darcy had forgiven her aunt for keeping her secrets. Grace was still working on it.

  They parked the car near the middle of the drive, where it came around to turn back out again, and stepped out onto the neatly trimmed grass. Shovels in hand, the three of them looked around for the right spot.

  “You sure you know where you’re going?” Grace asked Darcy.

  “Millie was very specific. It was a little girl’s grave, fourth row over, on the end furthest away from…there it is.”

  Jon had secured a warrant to exhume the grave. The judge who issued the order had scratched his head over the whole thing and asked a lot of tricky questions before handing the official document over. Darcy was sure they wouldn’t have to go that far down, though. Millie buried it with the sleeping child, which meant she buried it after the grave was in place.

  At least, that was what Darcy was hoping. If the diamonds were in the girl’s casket then they had a lot of digging ahead of them.

  The stone wasn’t that old, but it certainly wasn’t new. It gave the girl’s name, and her dates of birth and then death.

  She was only eight years old.

  They made short work of the soft earth, and Darcy soon found that she was right. About three feet down Jon’s shovel uncovered a plastic jar with a screw top lid. Inside the jar was a black felt pouch.

  “Glad Millie took better care with this than she did with her journal,” Jon commented, opening the container with his gloved hands. There was a faintly stale smell that wafted out, for just a moment, and then it was gone.

  Darcy held out her hands and Jon carefully shook out some of the contents from the bag. Several small, black stones fell out. Cut, polished, shiny black diamonds.

  Grace whistled. “That’s a small fortune. I wonder where they came from?”

  Carefully collecting the stones back up and putting the bag back into the container, Jon shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ll have to look into some cold cases from, what? Ten years ago?”

  “Eleven at least,” Darcy reminded him. “Maybe twelve to be safe. Maybe if Bradley Scarston ever wakes up from his coma he can tell us.”

  “Or maybe,” Grace suggested, “he should just rot in whatever personal Hell he’s trapped in.”

  Darcy didn’t argue. This one had certainly been personal. She turned to look out over the graveyard, at all the different stones, looking for one in particular.

  “Going to see Aunt Millie?” Grace asked her.

  “I was thinking about it, yes. I miss her. A lot.” Even more so now, Darcy added to herself, since she was really and truly gone now.

  Grace handed her shovel to Jon. “Mind if I tag along with you?” she asked Darcy. “I have a lot to say to her myself. A lot to thank her for.”

  “Sure thing, sis. I’d like that.”

  ***

  Several days later, after a weekend of resting at home with Jon and her cat and absolutely no interruptions, Darcy was back at the Sweet Read Bookstore, helping Izzy go through last week’s sales.

  “You know,” Izzy suggested, “I hear the Toronto Library is experimenting with vending machines in train stations for their books.”

  “Really?” Darcy would have to look that one up. The idea sounded crazy but, hey. Maybe they knew something she didn’t. After all, a business had to change in order to survive.

  Lilly had stayed home from school because of a staff development day. The little girl had laughed about it, singing a little song this morning about how her teachers had to go to school today but she didn’t. Now she was skipping through the stacks of books in a yellow dress and pigtails. She’d changed her look once again, wearing dresses instead of jeans all the time, much to Izzy’s delight. “Careful, honey,” she called out to her daughter.

  “Okay, Mom!”

  And right after those words, two very heavy thuds echoed through the store.

  “Lilly?” Izzy called out. “What happened?”

  “Um, a book fell.”

  Darcy went to see what Lilly meant, and found her staring down at the floor where two books had fallen from a high shelf, impossibly landing side by side, their front covers facing up.

  When You Need Me, by Duane Eide.

  I’ll be here, by Autumn Doughton.

  Darcy caught her breath. It was a message. From Millie.

  Her aunt had moved on. Darcy had seen her do it. Moved on to her final rest. The problems, the mystery, the evil things that had been done to her were all solved now. Done. Finished. Everything tying her to this Earth had been resolved.

  But it looked like Millie would still be checking in on her niece. At least, from time to time.

  Lilly looked up at Darcy, and winked. Her ghostly friend was still around, apparently. With a twirl that flared out her pretty dress, Lilly skipped off into the stacks of books again, playing hide-and-seek with Millie.

  Darcy picked the two books up, staring at their titles again. When you need me, I’ll be here. She hugged them to her chest and t
ook a long, deep breath. “Thank you, Millie.”

  “Everything all right?” Izzy called over to her.

  “Yes,” Darcy answered, sliding the books back into their places on two separate shelves. “Everything is wonderful.”

  ***

  It was several months later when Darcy and Jon went to Addison’s second birthday party. Aaron and Grace had decorated their apartment with pink streamers and pony cutouts and posters of fairy princesses. Addison rushed back and forth from one pretty thing to the next, squealing in delight the whole time.

  Over cake and ice cream, Darcy watched her niece. Addison was developing much faster than other kids her age. At two years old she was already using simple sentences, putting on her own shoes, and naming everything around her. Couch. Chair. Lamp. Mommy and Daddy.

  And Aunt Dar-Dar.

  At the same time, Darcy could see a different kind of maturity in Addison. She could feel it inside any time the little girl looked up at her. Like a wind brushing across her soul. It was a tug against her sixth sense. She was feeling the family ability developing in Addison. Millie’s legacy would live on, even after Darcy Sweet was gone.

  Grace’s daughter would need the same kind of guidance and encouragement that Darcy had gotten from Great Aunt Millie, and Darcy would be there for the little girl. When the time was right.

  When the party wound down it was late, and the grownups stayed up talking about all the things going on in their lives. It didn’t take long. The last several month had been completely boring. The police had issued fewer parking citations, and that was the high point of the police blotter. Television reporter Brianna Watson had stopped coming around altogether. She’d left a message for Darcy telling her to call whenever Misty Hollow became exciting again.

  At one point Jon and Aaron went into the kitchen to find some beers and talk about sports, and Grace went to check on Addison in her room. Darcy was left alone on the couch.

  A faint sound caught her attention. A distant, hollow thud. From deep inside of her.

  Thud-thud.

  At first she couldn’t figure out what it was. She had no idea what it could be, even after it repeated.