Til Death Do Us Part (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 16)

by K. J. Emrick

  “There’s only the bones.”

  “There’s only the bones,” she finished with him. “So where is everything else?”

  Jon hugged her. “That’s why I made you a consultant for the department.”

  “Oh, really? I thought it was because of how cute I am.”

  His hand stroked her back in a very familiar way. “That too. So now we know to look for whatever the victims were buried with. For now, I don’t see anything here at the Salvatore’s graves that looks out of place. Do you…feel anything?”

  Ghosts. He meant did she sense any ghosts around the graves. “There’s plenty of ghosts here in the cemetery. They’re always here. But these two graves here feel, I don’t know. Empty, I guess.”

  “Like the bodies that are supposed to be down there are lying in a State Police crime lab instead?”

  “Yeah. Like that.”

  “Well that stands to reason. I guess the skeletons in the box really were the Salvatore’s. I’ll have the graves opened up anyway. Just to be sure.”

  “What about the others? The names on the other boxes?”

  Jon looked out over the rows of other stones. “It would take us the rest of the afternoon to find all of the other gravesites. And that’s assuming all of those victims came from our cemetery here.”

  “Victims? That’s what we’re calling them?”

  “Isn’t that what they are?” He wiped the dirt off his knees from where he was kneeling. “I don’t know if they were all murdered, or if any of them were for that matter, but they were all taken from their graves and stuffed into cardboard boxes to be forgotten in the garage of a woman who collects her own toenails. I think it makes sense to call them victims.”

  A chill ran up Darcy’s spine. It wasn’t cold. No cloud had crossed the sun. This was something else.

  “Let’s go home, okay?” she said to Jon, rubbing her hands on her arms.

  Jon steered them back toward the car without a word. The shadows around her were growing, lengthening, becoming shapes with faces and eyes that watched her leaving. Darcy kept her eyes down. If she didn’t look at them, they would probably just hover, and watch.

  No such luck.

  One of the shadows rose up in front of their path. A ghost. A young woman’s spirit, trapped here in the cemetery. Darcy knew Jon couldn’t see it. He had no earthly reason to wait there with her, without complaint, as her footsteps slowed and then stopped. He held her close, and he didn’t ask questions, and that was enough.

  The girl looked to be maybe fifteen or sixteen. A pretty young woman in a stunning dress with a rip in the left sleeve. One foot was in a black high heeled shoe. The other wasn’t. It made her stand off balance even in death, one hip thrust out, her bare foot held forward. With her chin up and her hair thrown back, it made her look like she was ready for a fight. Or, like she’d already been in one.

  There was no avoiding the teenager’s ghost. Darcy waited for the spirit to move on, but it stayed right there in front of them.

  Looking at her.

  The same chill from before ran up her spine. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the ghost, like whispering would make a difference. “I don’t have time for you right now. I promise I’ll come back and we can talk then, okay?”

  The ghost shook her head, her hair bouncing with the gesture.

  She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to talk right now.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Darcy muttered.

  “What is it?” Jon asked her.

  “There’s a ghost here who won’t take no for an answer.”

  Jon squinted around them, like that would bring the ghost into focus. “Can’t we just, you know, keep going? It’s not like he can body check us or anything.”

  “She,” Darcy corrected, “and I’d rather not make a cemetery full of ghosts mad at me. I seem to end up coming back here quite a bit. You wouldn’t leave the people at the Willow Rest Home angry at you if you could help it, right? You like to keep things friendly for the next time you go there?”

  “I guess I see your point.”

  The Willow Rest Home was the retirement apartment complex back in Misty Hollow. There were twelve or so elderly residents there, each with their own set of problems and issues that they called the police for on a regular basis. Jon had told Darcy several times about how hard it was to make some of them happy with anything he did for them, but he kept trying, because he knew he’d be going back there again.

  It was the same here with the residents of the cemetery. Only, ghosts could get a lot meaner than people when they were upset.

  So Darcy tried again, speaking gently to the girl’s spirit. “I’m sure you have a problem I can help you with. If you let me come back later, I promise I’ll be able to sit and listen to you for as long as you need. I can try to help you, just not now. We have something we need to—”

  The ghost was in front of her, right in her face, bursting forward, shouting in muted and blurry tones as she pointed off into the graveyard.

  Darcy stumbled backward, taking Jon with her, nearly sending them both to the ground. When they had their balance again, Jon let out the breath he’d been holding. “I’m guessing she didn’t take that very well?”

  “She doesn’t want to wait. She, uh, really wants me to see something. Over there.”

  The ghost flicked back to where it had been. It stood there, silently pointing.

  “What’s over there?” Jon asked.

  There was only one way to find out. Darcy took Jon’s hand, leading him, and together they started moving deeper into the sea of gravestones. “Let’s go have a look.”

  The ghost was in front of them when Darcy blinked. Just there. She led them, walking a sure path through the stones that brought them past older and older dates of birth and death. 1934. 1927. 1886.

  1842.

  That was the year on the stone the girl stopped them in front of. Coriander Hays was the single name on the granite marker. The shade, a scowl on her face that was both dark and brooding, pointed down at the ground.

  The earth there had been recently dug up and replaced. Shreds of brown and bits of green were mixed in with the dirt lumps. Grass, Darcy realized. The grass that had been undisturbed over this site for more than a century.

  Until now.

  Darcy looked up at the spirit, standing there so still, just pointing and waiting for them to do something. Could this be her grave? No. Her dress was too modern. It was hard to see colors in the murky blur of the shade’s features, but she was definitely wearing makeup, and it was definitely not in a style from the 1800s. Whoever this girl was, she was not Coriander Hays.

  “I’ve got that name in my notebook,” Jon said. “From one of the boxes at Maven Sirles’ house. This is where one of those skeletons came from.”

  “Recently, too,” Darcy added. “Like, since the snows melted.”

  “Right. Maybe all of them are from that recently. Dug up this year.”

  This time, the chill going up Darcy’s spine made her shiver. Seven graves disturbed, their bodies removed and shoved into cardboard boxes. No. Eight graves. The Salvatore’s had been in one box together.

  What was going on?

  The spirit of the teenage girl smiled sadly and began to fade away.

  “Thank you,” Darcy whispered to her. Now, whispering seemed the right thing to do. “I’ll come back to help you. I promise.”

  But the girl was already gone.

  Chapter Five

  “How long does it take for a body to turn to bones anyway?”

  “Not as long as people think,” Jon explained to her. “It’s longer for bodies in a casket, but a good average is twenty or thirty years.”

  “What about embalming? I thought that kept the body looking normal for, like, ever?”

  He shook his head. “Embalming is a means of temporary preservation. For the funeral, mostly.”

  “So when you and I die…”

  “We’ll be bones in about thi
rty years. But that will never happen. You and I will live forever.”

  “Oh, really?”

  They were sitting on the couch together at home, alone at last after Ellen had tucked Connor in and gone to bed herself. Darcy had changed into her fleecy pink pajamas and Jon was in his jogging pants and a t-shirt. They were exhausted after the day they’d had, mentally as well as physically, and Jon was letting her pillow her head on his shoulder. Untouched cups of tea sat on the table in front of them. Her eyes were already starting to droop.

  “Well. We at least have to live until March twentieth, right? I don’t think it would be right to die before your own wedding.”

  “Hmm. You have a point there. Okay. We can live forever. I still like red velvet cake better. With the whipped frosting.”

  She could hear her voice getting heavier, and knew sleep was creeping up. After the graveyard they had come back to town and Jon had arranged for the Salvatore’s graves to be dug up. They were empty. The wooden boxes that used to be their coffins were so many broken sticks. Dirt and worms and little pebbles were the only other things they found.

  Their next stop had been Grace Community Church. A brief conversation with Pastor Hillier had convinced him to give permission for the other gravesites to be dug up. All of them, including Coriander Hays. They were all in the Misty Hollow cemetery, according to the sitemap the church maintained. After a few hours of digging carefully with shovels and sifting the piles of dirt for any small bits of evidence, they were done with their search.

  Nothing.

  Each of the coffins had been broken open, the bodies removed, and the dirt piled back in again. It was a silent group of men and women that looked at the torn up ground of the cemetery around them.

  In her ripped dress, the ghost of the young girl stood nearby, sadly watching.

  “That State Police sergeant is going to be mad at you,” Darcy mumbled, comfortable in his arms. “For digging up the graves without him.”

  “Sergeant Vic Dunson can kiss me where the sun don’t shine.”

  Darcy giggled to hear him say that, her eyes sliding completely shut. “Uh-uh. No one kisses you there but me.”

  “Later,” he promised. “Go to sleep.”

  “But I’m not tired,” she protested half-heartedly. She really was.

  “You’re crashing from all the sugar we ate at Helen’s. I never knew picking out wedding cakes could be so much fun. And I liked the orange crème.”

  “Yuck. No or’nge. Red velvet.”

  Darcy felt herself letting go. There with Jon, there was nothing weighing her down. Sleep was waiting.

  She let herself fall into its comforting embrace.

  ***

  When she opened her eyes again Jon was gone. The couch was warm where he’d been sitting. She snuggled into it for a moment before remembering she had someplace to be. It was time to go.

  Standing up, she smoothed down the skirt of her long white dress, and straightened out the sash at her waist. It was beautiful dress. An old fashioned dress. Perfect for her wedding.

  From the living room Darcy stepped straight into the flowing music of the ballroom. Everyone smiled and clapped as she entered. The bride, making her formal entrance. The band, with its brass instruments and its violins and its amazing drummer, changed the music on the upswing. Then he was there, standing in the middle of the floor, holding his arms out to her, strong and handsome and amazing in his gray tux with its matching bowtie.

  Darcy tried to focus on his face, on the line of his jaw or the color of his eyes. For some reason, it was all a blur.

  “Maybe you should look closer,” Smudge said to her.

  Her black and white tomcat was dancing a slow waltz with another cat, a pretty gray cat with white tipped ears and eyes the color of blue water. He was an amazing dancer. Especially considering how both of them were standing up on their back legs and had to keep their curling tails out of the way.

  “Smudge, what are you doing here?” Darcy asked him. Her voice sounded odd to her ears. Higher in pitch. More elegant. “This is a dance.”

  He twirled his partner, catching her again at the end of the spin. “So if this is a dance,” he said to Darcy, “why aren’t you dancing?”

  A dance. That sounded nice. A dance with her new husband.

  Darcy left Smudge to his fun and stepped out onto the dance floor. Jon. She was going to dance with Jon. Her first dance with him as husband and wife. Around them were their friends and family. She couldn’t focus on any of them. Her eyes were only for Jon. Only for this amazing, wonderful man who had agreed to be her husband, who had agreed to love her and cherish her and be there for her as long as they lived.

  He put his arms around her. One hand behind her waist. One hand on her shoulder. It felt right. It was so perfect. Her, and Jon.

  She looked up into his eyes. Light brown in color, they shimmered gold in the low lights of the banquet hall. His blonde hair was slicked back from a high forehead. It was a strong face. A face that had seen hardship and the death of two brothers and the success of a cobbler’s shop where he worked with those amazing hands of his.

  Not Jon, Darcy realized in the midst of her dream. This wasn’t Jon.

  It was Oscar Salvatore.

  “Dance with me, Florence,” Oscar said to her in that deep voice with its German accent. “Be my wife. For always.”

  Darcy placed her hand on his shoulder. Her wedding ring caught the same light that shone in his eyes, the three diamonds set into the gold band sparking like fire. It was an heirloom ring, from Oscar’s mother’s side of the family, worth a small fortune but worth so much more to her than that. It meant she was Oscar’s, and he was hers, for now and forever.

  She would always wear this ring. Even to her grave.

  ***

  Gasping, flailing her arms, Darcy tried to figure out where she was. Not the banquet hall. The couch? Wait, what banquet hall? In her panic her foot hit the coffee table with a thwack, and at the same time she heard a loud grunt and felt the lumpy cushions move under her.

  “Darcy? Wha—?” Jon. It was Jon that she’d been asleep on, not the cushions, and she’d apparently hit him in the eye somehow as she’d bounced awake from the dream because he was holding the heel of his hand up to his face and trying to untangle himself from her.

  Dream. That’s where she had just been. In a dream. It was the same dream she’d had a few days ago, about dancing at her wedding, only this time it had been clearer. It had been detailed enough for her to see it wasn’t her wedding at all. It had been the Salvatore’s wedding. Oscar and Florence, their happy memory of their wedding reception.

  “Sorry,” she told him. “Sorry. I just, I mean, I was dreaming.”

  “I get that.” He smiled at her, then settled her back down against his chest. “What time is it?”

  There was a clock on the wall but it was dark in the room now. Darcy couldn’t see where the hands were pointing. Someone, probably Ellen, had turned the light off for them during the night. Or maybe Smudge had done it. If Smudge could dance a waltz, why couldn’t he turn off the light?

  She yawned and stretched against him and felt the way he reacted to her. Good. She wanted to hear him catch his breath like that every time she touched him. Forever. That was a sure sign that he loved her. It was better than flowers, better than candy or jewelry or…

  She scrunched her face up. She was tired, and maybe she wasn’t remembering things clearly, but there was a detail from the dream that snagged at her. Something. What was it?

  Jewelry.

  The ring. Yes. In her dream, she’d been wearing an incredible engagement ring. If the man she was dancing with in the dream had been Oscar Salvatore, that meant she had been looking out through the eyes of his wife. Florence Salvatore. This happened in her dreams sometimes. She saw memories from other times and other people’s lives. She learned things from her dreams.

  This time her dream had shown her a piece of jewelry.

 
“A ring,” she said, sitting up, turning so she was facing Jon in the dark. “Jon, I was right.”

  “Hm? Right about what?”

  “The victims. The dead victims. They had things with them when they were buried.”

  “Darcy, what are you talking about?”

  She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the confusion in his voice. She slowed herself down and tried to explain it better. “Why would someone go through all of the trouble to dig up people’s graves, then just leave the bones to be found?”

  “They didn’t leave them just lying around,” he pointed out. “Whoever did this left the bones in boxes.”

  “No, Maven did that. I think she found the bones wherever they had been left, organized them, and then she put them in the boxes. Maybe she used dental records or whatever to figure out who the victims were, but she wasn’t the one who dug the bones up.”

  He took her hands and held them lightly on his knees. “You’re jumping around a lot. I’m not sure I’m following. We were thinking that Maven dug those bones up, weren’t we?”

  “She didn’t do it, Jon. She didn’t have a motive. Someone else dug them up, and she found them. Maybe she was going to do something about it but she died first. Then the new coroner comes in and finds her work, finds the Salvatore’s bones in their boxes, and here we are with this mystery. I think that fits. But Maven Sirles didn’t dig up those bodies. She didn’t have the motive.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s assume someone else dug the bones up. Someone with a motive. But what exactly is the motive here?”

  She smiled, putting his hand up to her face for him to feel it. “The oldest motive in the books. Plain, simple theft. The victims all had valuables buried with them. I’d bet on it.”

  He stroked her cheek while he processed that. “It’s a good theory, Darcy, but how are we going to prove it?”

  “The church records we saw today, remember? They don’t just show where each person was buried. They give details of the burial. Who carried the casket, where the person was embalmed, and what they were buried with. For instance, Florence Salvatore was buried with her engagement ring. It was gold with three diamonds in it. That must be worth quite a bit of money.”