by K. J. Emrick
“I don’t want to think about that.” Except now that he’d said it, that was all she could think about. It was like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant. Gilbert could be dead. This mystery might involve a murder after all.
But if Gilbert was dead, then who was in the garage?
She reached out for the handle of the door, stepping close, putting her ear up against the solid wood, listening for what might be on the other side.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.”
This time she just about jumped out of her skin. The sound of it was horrific. She really, really wanted to run. It would be the safe thing to do. The smart thing to do.
Instead, she turned the handle and eased the door open.
The scream carried in from the garage, impossibly loud, and it kept going, and going…
Overhead lights made the whole place bright. There was a smell in the air, a musty dry smell like old blood. When the screaming stopped, Darcy forced her muscles to relax, and made herself look at the scene in front of her.
They were only a few steps inside the one-stall garage from the house. There was a short set of stairs in front of them that led down to the concrete floor. Shelves were everywhere, holding tools and car parts and other things. There were no vehicles in here. It was more like a space for building things or tinkering around, she supposed, than an actual garage.
There was a workbench at the far side. A man stood there.
A man holding a saw.
When Mark stepped up next to her, the door behind them closed with a slam.
The man with the saw turned toward the sound, and Darcy heard the scream again.
The flashing red and blue lights of a patrol car parked at the curb strobed through the front window of the living room. Darcy and Mark sat on the couch. Jon paced back and forth, his hands folded behind his back. There was a dark glower on his face. He was obviously upset.
Darcy could understand why, considering the man sitting in the chair next to the couch wouldn’t stop glaring at them.
“Once again,” Darcy told Gilbert Fischer, “I am so, so sorry.”
Gilbert sat back in his chair. His frown eased up, if only just a little, as he stroked a full gray beard thoughtfully. He had such gnarled hands. Huge and calloused from a lifetime of creating things in his workshop out in the garage. Things he crafted from the wood Darcy had seen stacked up outside. Things that he sometimes created with the help of an electric circular saw.
A saw that sounded remarkably like someone screaming.
That hadn’t been the only mistake Darcy had made. It turned out that sawdust had a dry, dusty aroma that smelled remarkably like old blood to someone who was scared half out of her wits thinking about things like murder, and torture, and horror movies.
They had trespassed in his home and snuck up on him in his own garage after calling the police on him. Once Gilbert had put the saw away and explained himself it all became so clear that Darcy had wanted to crawl under a rock and pretend she had never been here. Gilbert had been working at his home-based business. He made plaques, and awards, and yes…trophies.
She and Mark had been so sure something was going to be wrong after they found the front door open that they had misinterpreted everything they saw and heard after that. Well, in her defense, this was Misty Hollow.
Gilbert combed his fingers through his beard one last time, and then shrugged. “I accept your apology. Don’t like you walking through my house uninvited, but I guess that’s what I get for leaving my door open. I was sure I closed that this morning. Just an honest mistake and we don’t need to take it any further than that, Chief Tinker. No need. Although, I’m not sure why you’re here. Little fuzzy on those details.”
“We appreciate your understanding,” Jon told Gilbert. The crease lines on his forehead eased out when he heard Gilbert being so reasonable. Darcy had explained the reason for her frantic phone call, and all of her suspicions about the trophy that had brought her here in the first place. He didn’t like it, but he had to admit she might be on to something. “I want to add my apologies to my wife’s. I promise this won’t happen again. As long as we’re here, though, we wanted to ask you some questions.”
“I was working on a trophy for the boy scouts when you found me in my garage.” Gilbert fiddled with the lapel of his flannel shirt. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
“This won’t take long.”
“Well, sure, but I’m not sure what a simple man like me can do for you, Chief Tinker.”
Jon stopped pacing, standing behind Darcy where she sat perched on the edge of the couch. “Just a few questions, Gilbert, just like I said.”
“Go ahead. Shoot.”
“Okay. Well, you may not have heard, but the trophy you made for SpringFest has been stolen. What we’re wondering is if you made the trophy out of anything special? Something that might have made it valuable?”
Gilbert blinked at him. “The trophy? It got stolen?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. Was there any jewels or precious metals used to make it?”
“Uh, no. Of course not. Chief, I make my own trophies. Been doing this for years.” His voice was a deep rumble of protest. “With my retirement from the construction work I used to do, this gives me a comfortable living. But, I’m not rich or anything. I can’t afford to build special trophies. That one I made for the town I did for free. I only used wood and hollow plastic columns. Cut and sanded and stained the wood myself. Had the columns here already. Those parts are pretty much interchangeable.”
Jon put his hands on Darcy’s shoulders. She could almost feel his disappointment. “So that’s all there was to it?”
“Well, I mean…sure, I painted the posts to look like gold but that was just spray paint. Gave it a little ‘winged victory’ topper holding a laurel leaf crown, too, but I had that hanging around the shop. When you’re doing something for free you use what you’ve got on hand.”
Darcy leaned back into Jon’s touch, letting out a slow breath. What was she expecting? Did she think Gilbert would just confess that he’d made the trophy out of stolen Nazi gold or something?
“Have you made trophies for the town before?” Jon asked him.
“Sure. Misty Hollow’s ordered stuff from me before. Made the trophy for last year’s event, and the year before that, too. I’ve got my own website. You three should check it out.”
“Maybe some other time. Gilbert, can you think of any reason why someone would want to steal the trophy?”
“Sure I can.”
Darcy leaned forward again, eager to hear what that meant. “Why? Can you tell us?”
“Easy,” he said. “Somebody who knew they wouldn’t win it this year would steal it to keep anyone else from having it. I’d say your thief is whoever lost the games last year. Sour grapes, that’s what it has to be.”
There was a certain sideways logic to that, Darcy supposed. Someone gets jealous, steals the trophy, and hides it from everyone else. It seemed a little ridiculous, but she supposed sometimes things could be that simple…and that stupid. Not everything needed to be some big, wild conspiracy of the Machiavellian sort. She’d lived with the crazy goings-on in this town for so long that she expected to see crazy around every turn.
Maybe this time there really wasn’t anything else to it. No murder. No craziness. Just a simple theft done for simple reasons.
“All right.” Jon said, squeezing Darcy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry we wasted your time, Gilbert. Thanks for being understanding.”
Gilbert shrugged again and got up from the chair, stretching like none of it was any concern to him. “Anything I can do to help, Chief. Like I said, it was just a cheap trophy that I made as a favor for the town. No reason anyone would want to steal it. No reason at all. You guys want to stay for a beer, or something? I’ve got some Human Blockhead in the fridge.”
Darcy’s head snapped up. The scream from his garage came back to her mind. Human heads in his fridge…?
“I’m on duty,” Jon reminded Gilbert, “but thanks. That’s a German beer, isn’t it? Made in Brooklyn but with German techniques, or something?”
“Yes it is, Chief. I see you know your beers. My family’s from Germany and I developed the taste for real beer when I was a kid. Not the watered-down stuff most companies produce here in the States. Human Blockhead is as close to a real doppelbock beer as I’ve ever tasted. Sure you won’t have one?”
Oh. Darcy realized her mistake now. ‘Human Blockhead’ was the brand name of the beer. She’d never been much of a beer drinker herself although under other circumstances, she might have taken him up on the offer. She felt like an idiot for bringing everyone here for no reason. She’d been spooked, expecting the worst, only to find…nothing.
They all declined Gilbert’s gracious offer and made their way outside. He said it was just as well since he had to get back to work. This time, she noticed he made sure to close the door securely behind them.
Her mood was definitely sour as they left the house and walked back into the cold. This had been a total bust. Except when the sound of Gilbert’s saw ripping through pieces of metal pipe had nearly given her a heart attack—it still sounded like a scream in her memory—they hadn’t gotten anything out of this trip.
“Hey,” Jon said to her, slipping an arm around her to bring her close. “Don’t worry about it. Not every theory is going to lead somewhere.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just really starting to sound like there’s nothing to this mystery at all. Just a wild goose chase.”
“Maybe so. Especially if you see the rest of it.”
“The rest of it?” she asked him.
“Yeah. Down at the station. You should come see. Do you have time? You said the kids are at Audrey’s place, right?”
“Yeah, her parents said they could stay for dinner. What do you have at the station?”
“The surveillance footage from the Town Hall. I’m going back there now. Meet you in a few minutes?”
She kissed his cheek. His skin was warm against her cold lips. “Meet you there.”
The patrol car finally switched its lights off when Jon and his officer drove away. Darcy could only imagine what the neighbors were going to think about all of this. Not that she thought Gilbert was going to mind. After getting over his initial indignation at finding them in his house, he’d been nothing but helpful.
“Did he seem…” Mark hesitated while he searched for the right word to finish his thought. “I don’t know. Really anxious to have us believe there was nothing special about his trophy?”
“A trophy made of sanded block wood and plastic? I don’t think there is anything special about that.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” He huddled into his coat, looking off into the distance as he stood next to her, his eyes thoughtful.
“What are you thinking about, Mark?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way he kept saying it. Nothing special, nothing special. No reason for anyone to steal it. That whole lame excuse he gave about someone taking it just to keep it for themselves. I mean, I’m not from here so maybe I don’t get it, but this is just a trophy for a small-town festival. It’s not all that important in the grand scheme of things. It’s not the FIFA World Cup,” he said, in a broad Manchester accent, then slid smoothly into a Canadian voice, “or even the Stanley Cup, eh?”
“Okay. Well, putting aside your cute use of accents, that doesn’t mean much. He could just be telling the truth as he sees it, in his own way. I don’t know if you noticed, but he’s a bit odd.”
This time, his voice was pure Jack Black. “Come on. Everybody’s odd. Know what I’m saying?”
“Well, that’s the truth,” she had to agree. She found herself grinning in spite of what had just happened, all thanks to his good humor. “All right. Mark, I can’t thank you enough for being here. It was nice to have a friend with me.”
“Aw, shucks. You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to see what Jon found. If it’s anything important I’ll let you know. You want me to drop you off somewhere?”
“Um. Actually, I think I’ll walk. It’s a beautiful day even if it did start snowing again and I want to enjoy it. You know what they say. Every day could be your last.”
He laughed as he said it, and Darcy guessed that was another one of his jokes. Probably a line from a movie or something. He was usually funnier than that, but nobody could be a cutup all the time. Especially after the eerie experience they’d had in Gilbert’s house. Thank God, nobody had died.
There’d been enough of that in Misty Hollow, to be sure.
Chapter 5
She got to the police station right after Jon, pulling in beside him in the small parking lot behind the building. There was a back door that was rarely ever used, but of course Jon had the key since he was in charge of the department. This way led to the hallways in the back, past the holding cells and storage rooms, and let them get to Jon’s personal office without seeing anyone else.
They could hear other officers, though, out in the front room, talking back and forth and answering ringing phones. Even on a slow, peaceful day like this one, there was plenty of work to be done at the Misty Hollow Police Department. They snuck into his office before anyone could see them.
“So what did you want to show me?” Darcy asked Jon. “You said you had something that would show me there was nothing to this case.”
He sat down behind his big wooden desk, and the springs in his old armchair creaked as he did. The town hadn’t budgeted new office furniture for the police department in ten years or more. “Well, not exactly nothing, I’d say.” He rubbed at his jaw for a moment, and then shrugged. “But, yeah. You’ll see what I mean.”
From his top drawer, he took out a thumb drive and inserted it into the USB port on the side of his computer screen. He leaned forward and turned the screen so she could see it, too. When he did, the chair set off another chorus of creaks. Maybe she should get him a new one for Father’s Day, she told herself. A nice one that didn’t make noise every time he moved. And one with a heated back. He wasn’t getting any younger, no matter how hard he tried to ignore that fact.
Then again, neither was she. Maybe she could talk him into getting her a nice chair for the living room, too, with heat and massage and a cupholder.
The computer screen came to life, pulling her thoughts back to the moment and what he wanted her to see. The image was split into four squares, each one marked with a digital number, one through four. Each square had the same date and time at the bottom. It was a security camera image, she realized, showing four different camera feeds.
She recognized the Town Hall right away, of course. The wood-paneled walls and the large town map from the 1800s in its glassed-in frame. The whole place had been rebuilt a number of years ago after a fire but the mayor at the time—her friend Helen—had done her best to put a touch of history back into the new building. Besides that map there were framed pictures of the founding fathers and mothers, and smaller photos of Misty Hollow through the years. Under Helen’s tenure, the Town Hall had been a place for people to gather and feel comfortable.
Now, with Mayor Andy Blanchard in charge, it was just a place of business. He hadn’t even decorated for Valentine’s Day. At her bookstore, Darcy and Izzy had spent a couple of hours stringing paper hearts from the ceiling and taping cutouts of Cupid up on the walls. There were fake roses in vases and pink heart-shaped cookies at the coffee station, too. They’d gone all out to help their customers celebrate the season. They even had a selection of romance novels on sale.
Was it expecting too much for Mayor Andy to at least put up a ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ banner?
Jon pushed play on the recording controls and the images started moving forward. So did the time stamps, from seven-fourteen in the morning. Tapping the fast-forward icon twice Jon sped it up to five times normal speed. Light appeared through the windows. A few people arrived in the hallways
, moving comically fast, arms swinging in an unnatural rhythm.
“Okay,” Darcy said after a moment. “What am I looking at?”
With one finger, Jon tapped the corner of the screen where the time was displayed. “This is yesterday morning, when the trophy was taken.”
“Yesterday? You’re sure that’s when it was stolen?”
“Yup. We’ve worked up a rough timeline. Gilbert finished making the trophy on Friday. He didn’t bring it to the Town Hall until Monday morning, yesterday, because it was closed over the weekend. So, Monday morning it gets put in the storage closet under lock and key. Just before leaving for the day the mayor checks on it again, and it’s gone.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yup. Watch. With the way the video was looping back on itself everything else got recorded over. I already talked to the mayor about updating his cameras, if he expects to have any kind of security for the Town Hall.”
“So they noticed it missing the same day they locked it up?”
“You got it. If nothing else, that at least lets us narrow down when it was stolen to a few hours. Sometime between nine, when the mayor took the trophy from Gilbert and put it in the storage room, and roughly four o’clock, when the mayor finds that it’s gone and calls the station.”
Darcy did a quick calculation in her head. “Wow, is it already Tuesday?”
“I know, the break has my internal clock all screwed up, too. The vacation is really flying by. Valentine’s Day is at the end of the week, you know.”
She smiled at him, glad that she married a man who thought of those things. “Yes, I know. Do we have any plans?”
“I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it,” he said with a sigh. “The kids out of school, and now this…”
That was a little disappointing, but she hid it with a smile. Just because her man remembered that there was a Valentine’s Day didn’t mean that he had anything planned to make it special. Well. Last year had been spent with their kids at home. This year might be the same and she would be fine with that. Love wasn’t something they created with flashy presents and overnight getaways. They loved each other every day of the year. Not just on one day in the middle of February.