21 Death Takes a Letter

by K. J. Emrick

  Beside her, Linda gasped, and blinked back tears of her own. “My mom loved him, too,” she whispered.

  In the interview room, Leighton stared hard at Jon and sat up straighter. “Wait a minute. Just, wait now. You said… you want to know if I left this message for Erika or for someone else? Of course it was for Erika. Who else would it be for?”

  Jon took his phone back and slipped it into his pocket. The show and tell part of his interview was over. “According to our sources, you were quite the lady’s man when you were younger. In fact, we believe the argument you mention in your letter happened because Erika found out you were dating other women.”

  “That’s a lie!” Leighton insisted, slapping his palm down on the table for emphasis. “That is a bald-faced and baseless lie!”

  Jon simply waited for him to be done. Then he spread his hands and went on like nothing had even happened. “Even the secret message you left in the letter points to there being other women. ‘Don’t believe her,’ is what you said. You already admitted it was you that wrote that. So who were you talking about? Which one of your lovers did you and Erika argue over?”

  “That doesn’t… you can’t—” He stuttered, and then swallowed and started over. “Listen to me, Chief. Yes, Erika and I had an argument. I admitted that in my letter. I was going to Arizona. I had to set up our life before I could bring her out with me. She didn’t want me to go, certainly, but we had that all worked out. As soon as I had secured a job and bought a house, we would have been together. But then…”

  Seconds ticked by.

  “Then, what?” Jon asked.

  Leighton slumped in his chair. It was like he was being crushed under the weight of years. “Then someone began spreading rumors about me. That’s what happened. Saying I was with other women. One, in particular, I mean. So yes Chief, we argued. We had the worst argument we’d ever had, and she cried, and I’ll be honest with you I cried a little too, and then we both went our separate ways. I went off to Arizona. Erika…” He had to clear his throat before he could say the words. “Erika died.”

  Linda slapped the edge of the window again. Leighton jumped in his seat.

  Jon gave the one-way mirror a sharp glance as if to tell Linda to stop it. “Well,” he said to Leighton, “that’s the story up to a point, isn’t it? The problem we have, Leighton, is that there’s a question about when Erika died. A question about how she died. Your letter says you were with Erika for lunch.”

  “I was,” Leighton insisted. “I’d planned out an entire picnic for us. Something private so we could talk.”

  “Okay. Here’s where the problem comes in. Erika was found dead in her house. The same day you left town.”

  Leighton looked down at the tabletop. “I know.”

  “In her nightgown.”

  Darcy watched as Leighton slowly lifted his head again, his eyes wide. “Hold on, now. You think… you think someone killed her.”

  “That wasn’t obvious? Yes. We’re confident that Erika was murdered. You have to admit, it’s odd that she had an argument with you, then went home and changed into her pajamas to crawl into bed. Don’t you think that’s odd, Leighton?”

  But Leighton was still two steps back in the conversation. “You think I killed her!”

  With his hands resting sideways on the desk in front of him, Jon steepled his fingers. “I think you had an argument with her over how you were dating other girls. I think that after that argument, Erika died. I think after she died, someone changed her clothes and put her in pajamas and then left her in bed for someone to find. I think that same day, you skipped town to another state. I think you then wrote a letter to Erika Becht, which you say proves you didn’t know she was dead, but which I think looks an awful lot like someone setting up a false alibi.”

  Then he curled all of his fingers into a doubled fist, except his index fingers. They were pointing right at Leighton. “I think everything points straight to you. That’s what I think.”

  Leighton pushed himself out of his chair, standing up slowly, and it was only in that moment that Darcy saw how age had caught up with this man. He stood there weakly bracing himself against the edge of the table for a long moment, breathing heavily, until his shaky legs gave out on him and he had to sit down again.

  “I did not kill her,” he said, his voice no longer strong and confident. “I just assumed that when she didn’t write back she was still mad at me. It wasn’t until days later that I learned she was dead. On that day, Chief Tinker, my heart broke. It was years putting those pieces back together. Years.”

  His voice became a whisper as his eyes lost their focus, looking back through the length of his life, laid out behind him in memory.

  Jon looked over at the window. Darcy saw his eyes searching for her. His questions were the same ones that she had. They were both suspecting the same thing. She could read it in his expression.

  When he turned back to Leighton, Jon changed the tone of his questions. “Tell me who the other woman was, Leighton. The one you and Erika argued about. Your other girlfriend. Maybe she can back up your story. Any part of your story. For that matter, why don’t you tell me all of the names of the girls you were dating.” He slid a pad of paper across the table to Leighton, placing a pen down on top of it. “While you’re at it, why don’t you make a second column at the bottom of the page, and write down everyone who knew you and Erika were engaged.”

  Leighton nearly pushed himself out of his seat again, falling back on his rear with a loud whoomph of expelled air. He stared down at the pad of paper like it was going to bite him. “Who told you that? About us being engaged… who told you that?”

  “Why?” Jon asked. “Was it supposed to be a secret?”

  “That’s not it at all…”

  “Here’s the pen,” Jon prompted him. “This could very well clear your name. Tell us who you were dating, and tell us who knew about the engagement. If you and Erika were actually engaged it will go a very long way to convincing me that you had no reason to kill her, argument or not. Here’s the pen. Write the names.”

  “I can’t do it,” Leighton said, his voice turning feeble. “I can’t give you what you want.”

  “Sure you can. Take the pen, and write out the names. Tell you what. Let’s start simple. Who did you and Erika argue over? Write that name down.”

  Shaking his head, over and over, Leighton nevertheless picked up the pen and scratched out a single name.

  Darcy couldn’t see it from where she was. She really wanted to see it. Linda and Izzy were craning their necks, too, but it just wasn’t visible from where they were.

  Jon spun the notebook around and looked at it himself. His eyebrows went up. “Seriously? This is who—”

  “This is who Erika and I argued about.” Leighton thumped the notepad with a finger. “That’s what this name is. I can’t… I can’t give you the rest of what you want.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, Chief.” Leighton paused to take a deep breath. “There weren’t any other women. And I was never engaged to Erika Becht.”

  8

  Linda was about to beat her way through the glass of the one-way mirror to get at Leighton. Izzy and Darcy both had to hold her back.

  “That liar!” she almost shouted. “I’m going to make him eat those words. I’ll make him confess. Just let me at him!”

  Part of Darcy was sorely tempted to do exactly that.

  Thankfully at that point, Grace came rushing through the office. She came down the hall to the door of the interview room and her hand was turning the knob before she noticed Darcy and Izzy and Linda. Her gaze took in Linda’s murderous expression and how she was being physically restrained by the other two.

  “Darcy,” she said to her sister. “What are you guys doing?”

  “Watching the interview of Leighton Reeves,” Darcy said innocently. “Why?”

  Grace peeked in through the glass, her hand still poised to open the door. “So you guys
finally got him to come to Misty Hollow, huh? Good job.”

  “He’ll be lucky,” Linda said sharply, “if he leaves here again on his own two feet.”

  “What?” Grace asked. Then she immediately waved a hand in the air like none of that mattered. “I don’t have time for this. Go wait in the lobby. I need Jon’s attention on another case.”

  “His missing niece?” Darcy asked.

  Grace couldn’t deny it. “I should have known that you would convince him to tell you about that, Darcy.”

  “Hey. Official police consultant here, remember?”

  “Sure, sure, whatever. Right now, go wait out front in the lobby. I’ll let Jon know he can find you out there. All right? Go on.”

  She didn’t wait to see if they followed her instructions before she threw open the door and walked in on Jon and Leighton.

  “Sorry, boss,” Darcy heard her say. “We’ve got a problem with the… other case. You’re going to want to hear this.”

  Darcy knew she shouldn’t do it, but she did it anyway. Motioning for Izzy and Linda to stay there in the hall, she wandered into the interview room behind her sister while Grace was busy explaining things to Jon. She looked over Leighton’s shoulder to the name he’d written on the pad of paper. She read it to herself, upside down.

  Rosie Weaver.

  Leighton said he would write down the name of the woman he’d been arguing about with Erika the day she died. This was that name. Just like Damita had told them. Rosie, from the book club. Rosie with her hair dyed brown in a vain attempt to recapture her youth.

  Until that moment she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Here was the proof, though, from Leighton’s own hand. She thought back to the book club meeting she’d organized. What was it Rosie had said about Leighton? She had wanted to be with him. More than her own husband.

  “Darcy,” Jon said when he noticed her there, “you can’t be in here. Not now.”

  Well, she was here now, Darcy realized. It wasn’t like she could get into more trouble if she opened her mouth. “Jon, that’s Rosie. We know her. And, yes, she said that she did want to date Leighton here, but—”

  The old man laughed, but there were tears in it. “All of the women wanted to date me back then. All of them. I could have had my pick of women. But none of that mattered. I didn’t want anyone else. I chose Erika. It was only ever Erika.”

  Darcy could hear the truth in those words. She remembered something else Rosie had said, and not just Rosie either. Evelyn and Cora, and even Tommie Sullivan. Something they had said about Erika and Leighton being engaged even though Leighton was dating other women.

  In fact, now that Darcy thought about it, all of the book club members had been at the cemetery for Roland Baskin’s funeral. None of them acted like they were seeing a long lost lover when they say Leighton. If he was dating so many women, then—

  No. Wait. Not all of the book club had been at the graveyard. Darcy remembered now. There was one person from the book club who wasn’t there.

  “Jon,” she said to him. “I think I know who killed Erika.”

  He looked at her, and then at Leighton. “Not him.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. He’d come to the same conclusion she had, that this man here wasn’t the killer. And now, thanks to this interrogation, they knew who the real killer was.

  Darcy looked down at the name on the notepad again. That was the final proof she needed.

  “You have a plan,” Jon said to her. “I know that look.”

  “Yes,” she told him. “I think I do.”

  “You two are just so gosh darn cute together,” Grace said, her words dripping with sweet sarcasm. “Any other time I’d love to stand here and watch the Jon and Darcy show but if we’re going to find our missing girl then we need to move right now.”

  “All right.” Jon nodded, and stood up, and then looked down at Leighton again. “Grace, put Mister Reeves in the holding cell for now.” Leighton jumped out of his seat.

  “Jon…” Darcy started to object before Leighton could say anything.

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean I can let him fly back to Arizona.” Jon flicked his head towards Leighton before looking back at Darcy. “We need him here for now. He’s a material witness in a murder investigation. He’s going to be our guest for a little bit.”

  Darcy knew he was right. The best thing she could do for Leighton was prove that he wasn’t a killer. There was no doubt now that Erika Becht had been murdered. In Darcy’s mind there was no doubt who did it, either.

  “I need to have a meeting,” she told Jon. “A book club meeting.”

  Jon smiled at her, and a world of conversation passed between them.

  “So cute,” Grace grumped at them again.

  “Careful, Detective,” Jon told her. “I’m still your boss.”

  “Yes, sir, Chief. Now, can we please get moving. Wilson and Kara are already on their way. They’re going to wait for us.”

  “Should I come with you?” Darcy asked.

  “Sis, this is…” Grace threw her hands up. “This is kind of a delicate situation and you are sort of… in a delicate situation.”

  Darcy glared at her, and held her hands protectively over her belly. Pregnant, she meant. Darcy was pregnant. Well, her sister was not going to tell her what to do, just like Jon was not going to tell her, just because she was in a ‘delicate’ situation. She wasn’t an invalid!

  Grace gave her one of those looks that her sister could do so well, and she realized that she was being a little ridiculous. There were situations that Jon had never let her walk into. That wasn’t going to change now that she was pregnant and, if she was being honest with herself, she did have a life other than her own to watch out for.

  “All right Jon,” she said with a deep breath. “You win. I’ll sit this one out.”

  He came over to her and kissed her cheek. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. Set up your meeting with the book club, and let me know how it turns out, okay? You started that mystery. You should finish it.”

  She hugged him quickly, still feeling a little left out. “You wouldn’t be doing this if I was wearing lavender lipstick.”

  “Yes,” he promised her, “I would. I love you, and I always want you to be Darcy Sweet. For right now, for just this moment, let me be a police officer.”

  The way he said that made her feel very loved. It was okay for them to be exactly who they were, but it went both ways. Fine. He and Grace could go and solve their mystery. She would wrap up this one on her own. Starting with a phone call to every single one of the book club members.

  Including Rosie Weaver.

  * * *

  The bookstore had been closed for the day out of respect for Roland’s funeral service. A sign that Darcy had taped in the window of the door told customers to please come again tomorrow. In the meantime her sign still read “CLOSED, the end.”

  Darcy and Izzy opened the store after making phone calls to every member of the book club. They all said they would come so it was just a matter of waiting. It didn’t take long. They showed up one and two at a time, holding their copies of The Clown Cried at Midnight. Darcy hadn’t really expected them to bring the books with them. Not that she wasn’t interested in their opinions but they weren’t exactly going to have time to discuss things like plot and character development.

  There were too many other things to talk about.

  “Well, here we are,” Darcy said cheerfully after everyone had arrived and been seated. She and Izzy passed out cups of coffee and tea as she talked. “I’m glad everyone could come in today, so soon after Roland Baskin’s funeral.”

  Evelyn lifted her cup in a fake toast. “I doubt any of us were too broke up about that crotchety old man’s passing.”

  “True enough,” Cora agreed. “It sure was nice to see Leighton Reeves again, though.”

  “Oh, you girls,” Tommie Sullivan chuckled. He was still in the same blue knitted sweater he’d been wea
ring at the graveyard. “Always going on about Leighton. He’s not so handsome anymore.”

  “Quite,” Preston Morgan agreed. “Time has changed him, as it’s changed us all.”

  Izzy sat down in the chair next to Darcy’s. “It was nice to see everyone come to the graveside service. Well, almost everyone.”

  The book club members all looked at each other. Cora. Evelyn. Tommie. Preston. Damita. Carson.

  And Rosie Weaver.

  They knew one of them hadn’t been there, the same as Darcy had remembered.

  “Funny you should mention seeing Leighton again,” Darcy said to them. “He’s in jail right now.”

  “What!” That came from nearly all of them at once. Darcy smiled and let the suspense build while the group chattered out questions.

  Preston Morgan was the one who cut through it all. “Has to do with Erika Becht’s death, doesn’t it?”

  Darcy tilted her head to one side. “Now what makes you say that, Preston?”

  “Oh, come now Darcy,” he said in that very precise way of his. “You told us Linda had asked you to look into her mother’s death. Poor Erika. I took a stop by her grave when I was in the cemetery as well. Besides. Exactly how many mystery books have you had us read here? We know how to spot a plot twist.”

  “You’re right about that,” Darcy said with a little laugh. “I do love a good mystery. So, let’s take a look at this. Oh, let’s call it… Death Takes a Letter, the mystery of Erika Becht. Found dead in her bed, in her pajamas, as if she’d never woken up that day. Everyone assumed that she had died peacefully all those years ago. Only now, thanks to a letter sent by Leighton Reeves and only just found by her daughter Linda, we know that she was at a picnic lunch with her boyfriend that day. We know they argued during lunch. And then we know that her boyfriend Leighton Reeves left town.”

  There were excited murmurs around the table. They were all hanging off her every word, remembering a time in their youth when something terrible happened and excited to be part of the mystery. One of them had been more involved than the others. Darcy was going to expose them.