A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Seven

by K. J. Emrick

  Back at the water’s edge again she crouched on her heels rather than kneel in the muck. She was going to have to send her sneakers through the wash as it was. She didn’t want to end up muddy from one end to the other as well.

  Cha Cha whuffed at her, and at the pine tree branch, his tail giving a few tentative wags.

  “No, boy. This isn’t a throwing stick.” He whined his disappointment and sat down on his haunches. “We’ll play fetch later. Right now… ugh… this is more of a fishing net.”

  Carefully, she swept the branch down into the water, aiming for the silhouette. The bare twig ends of it prodded between two of the fingers and caught there, allowing her to scoop it closer, and then closer still, over toward her edge of the tidepool. The mud tried to hold onto it, tried to suck it in and keep it forever, and she had to change her angle of attack. One foot in the mud, the other braced against the rotting length of the fallen tree, she carefully applied steady pressure with her makeshift net until she felt and heard a little splurg and the thing flopped out of the mud, out of the water, and onto the ground next to her sneaker.

  Ew, was Darcy’s first thought. She cartwheeled her hands as she got her balance and pushed away from the tree. That was worse than fishing. Well, at least now she could get a good look at this hand she’d found.

  The skin of it was dark gray and withered, glossy from the water, curled up on itself like a dead spider. The fingernails were chipped and broken. The cut along the wrist was ragged instead of smooth and bits of white stuck out here and there. Bones, Darcy realized. Wrist bones, sticking out of withered flesh.

  This wasn’t a doll’s hand. It wasn’t some display store mannequin or fake mummy appendage meant to scare kids looking for free candy. This was the real thing. Someone’s right hand, cut off and caught in the current of the river.

  Her mind spun. Darcy had seen dead people before. She’d been able to see ghosts for most of her life. She’d been involved in murder mysteries and seen some of the scariest people the world could produce. There was very little that could surprise her anymore but something about this hand, sitting there without its body, turned her stomach.

  Turning quickly to the side she caught herself on one knee and retched all over the ground.

  Cha Cha pushed his way under her hand, whimpering to ask if she was okay. His ears hung flat against the sides of his head. His eyes searched Darcy’s. He wasn’t used to his people being sick. Except for that nasty illness Colby had endured back in January, this little puppy didn’t have any experience with the family doing nasty things like throwing up.

  Darcy wasn’t all that happy about it, either

  When the nausea had passed, she worked up some saliva in her mouth and swished it back and forth, spitting the nasty taste out. “I’m okay, Cha Cha. Ptuh… ugh. Sorry, boy. That was gross.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looked at her hand, and then at the dead one on the ground, and for a moment felt like throwing up again. “I wasn’t expecting that on my morning walk, that’s for sure!”

  The puppy cocked one ear up as Darcy scratched around his neck to reassure him. He didn’t quite believe that she was okay, but he wasn’t going to argue as long as her fingers kept finding that one spot right under his chin.

  Getting up, she swiped at her dirty knee and scrubbed at the corners of her mouth again, and then stepped away from her gruesome find. It wasn’t like she needed to keep her eyes on it to make sure it didn’t disappear on her. The thing couldn’t just crawl away.

  In her mind’s eye, she imagined a hand creeping along on its fingertips through the mud. Her stomach heaved again, but she swallowed it back this time. She was not going to throw up again. No sir. Especially since she was going to have company very soon.

  “Come on, Cha Cha. Let’s you and me contact Jon.”

  Walking away from the riverbank, she took her cellphone out of her back pocket and swiped into her contacts list to find Jon’s name. Her phone didn’t make or receive calls, because ghosts somehow kept getting her number, but texting was safe. It seemed that was something dead people couldn’t get the hang of. Maybe their little ghostly thumbs couldn’t use the on-screen keyboard.

  Darcy had gotten really good at it.

  Jon, I need you to come down to Applegate Road. I found something you need to see.

  She sent the message and then waited, pacing, for him to answer. She knew he was at the playground having fun with Zane, but he always kept his cellphone on him in case there was trouble at the police station on his day off. He might be her husband first, but he was also the chief of police. He had to make sure he was always available.

  And there he was now.

  Is it a ghost?

  For most people, that would be a ridiculous thing to ask. But when you were Darcy Sweet and Jon Tinker, it was a perfectly fair question.

  No, she typed back, it’s not a ghost.

  Send.

  Before she could get the next line tapped out, he messaged again.

  Did Cha Cha dig up buried treasure?

  Nothing like that, she answered.

  Is it a purple bird with green feathers? Zane wants to know.

  Jon.

  Oh, I know, he said, faster to type than she was, must be a new fishing spot.

  Jon! This is important.

  So not a fishing spot.

  NO.

  Ok, ok. What did you find?

  Blowing out a breath, she finally typed out what she’d been trying to say. A hand. I found someone’s hand.

  That had him silent for several long seconds. His next response was exactly what she’d expected from him.

  I’ll be right there.

  With a little sigh of relief, she tapped out her general location down at the water. He’d find her. Jon always found her. He’d saved her from bad situations more times than she could count, and she’d done the same for him, nearly as often. This time she wasn’t in danger, though. There wasn’t even a dead body. At least, not a whole one. She had a hand. One desiccated, withered hand.

  So where was the rest of the body?

  Darcy crouched down again and put a hand on Cha Cha’s back. “What do you think about all this?”

  “Whuff,” was his comment.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Jon parked at the road. Darcy heard the car’s engine turning off, and then heard a second car stopping behind his. From here it was impossible to see the road through the trees, but she was sure she knew who the other car belonged to.

  Cha Cha barked when he heard people coming. The way his tail was wagging, he must know who it was, too.

  In no time at all the bushes and tree branches parted and Jon stepped out, followed closely by Grace Wentworth. Darcy’s sister didn’t look impressed as she swatted away a passing swarm of tiny flying insects.

  “Geez, Sis. You couldn’t find a mystery in a spa, or something?”

  There was no doubting they were sisters. It was in the shape of their face and the color of their hair, passed down to them from their mother. Grace was older, and Darcy had started teasing her about the gray in her hair. Darcy had a few of her own, but Grace had streaks of gray at her temples, and even a few in the dark brows above her deep hazel eyes. Neither of them had ever given a moment’s thought to hiding their age with a good dye job. They both earned every single one of those gray hairs.

  Grace wasn’t exactly dressed for a trek through the woods, and maybe that was part of her irritation. Dress slacks and a button-up blouse, not to mention those ankle boots with the wedge heel that were getting covered with mud.

  Jon, on the other hand, was in his weekend clothes. Jeans and a plain gray t-shirt. Sneakers. A baseball cap to keep the sun off his face. Monday through Friday he was all business, but the weekends were family time. At least, they were supposed to be. Grace and the other senior detective, Wilson Barton, alternated being in charge on weekends. That left Jon free on Saturdays and Sundays.

  Un
less something happened.

  Cha Cha bounced on his front paws until Grace bent down to give him the attention he was after, roughing up his ears, scratching around his neck, asking him what kind of trouble Darcy had gotten him into this time.

  “He,” Darcy said defensively, “goes on adventures all by himself, thank you very much.”

  “This little angel? Sure, sis. Whatever you say.”

  Darcy shook her head, knowing she wasn’t going to win this argument.

  Jon put his arm around her waist and pulled her close for a hug. “Can’t leave you alone for two hours, can I?” he teased.

  “I don’t try to find trouble,” she murmured against his shoulder. He was so strong, and so handsome. His blue eyes shone in the sun as he gave her one of those smiles he saved just for her.

  “Trouble just finds you,” he told her. “I know.”

  “Exactly. So where’s Zane?”

  “I dropped him off at Grace and Aaron’s apartment. Now he’s having a playdate with her two kids and Uncle Aaron for the rest of the day. You know how their two girls dote on him. He’s like a celebrity whenever he goes over there.” He laughed, but it didn’t last long. “I figured that was a better idea than bringing him down past the cemetery so I could take a look at the severed hand his mother found…”

  His gaze had moved past Darcy to the ground over by the water, where she’d left the severed appendage. Darcy didn’t look back. She’d seen it already. In fact, she might never get that image out of her head. The trees were a lot more fun to look at anyway, in her opinion.

  “Been in the water for a day or two, is my guess,” Grace said. She’d been poking at the hand with a stick for a few moments now. “It’s hard to tell because dead bodies don’t decay the same way in water as they do on dry land, but I would think the tissues would have absorbed more water if it had been under for any longer than that. This is old, though. A year? Maybe more.”

  Jon made a sound in the back of his throat. “Right now your guess is as good as mine.”

  Grace nodded. “I’d say it’s a man’s hand though, based on the size. A man’s right hand.”

  “Yeah, but we’re still just guessing. Got the evidence bag ready? We’re going to need to get that dried out and preserved for the lab. If there hasn’t been too much decay, there’s a chance that we can get the prints off the fingers and maybe match it to a name.”

  Darcy looked over her shoulder just long enough to see Grace pull a folded plastic bag out of her back pocket. She’d come prepared. A pair of latex gloves came out of another pocket and she took the time to put them on before handling the, um, hand.

  Handling the hand, Darcy thought sarcastically. Gee. That’s real funny. Ha, ha.

  “We’ll have to get some more people down here,” Jon was saying. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

  “Why’s that?” Grace asked him as she carefully slid the appendage into the evidence bag.

  “Because somewhere out there is the rest of this guy. Like you said, dead people decay faster on land. If that hand is a year or two old, or more, then we’ve already lost too much time to investigate this as it is. We need to find our victim before the elements destroy everything down to the bones. Then there’s our other little problem.”

  “Problem?” Darcy asked him. “What problem?”

  “Wait for it,” was his enigmatic answer.

  Just as Darcy was about to push him to explain that, she heard another car approaching up on the road. She heard it stop behind Grace and Jon’s cars, and she heard the engine shut off, and then shortly after there was the sound of boots crushing through the undergrowth.

  The three of them, with Cha Cha too, watched expectantly until a man appeared through the trees, pushing aside branches like they were offending him. The sunlight caught the shine on his leather belt and on his boots as soon as he stepped into the clearing. His gray uniform shirt was pressed and tightly creased. A bandolier strap angled up across his chest and over his shoulder. His buttons were shiny brass. His gray hat had a short, flat brim and a dome that was pinched at the four corners. He looked more out of place, here in the outdoors, than Grace had.

  A State Trooper, Darcy realized. Close-set eyes above a sharp nose and a thin mustache peered at Jon with no end of annoyance.

  “All right, Chief,” he said. “Why did you drag me out here to the armpit of civilization?”

  Chapter 2

  “I can’t believe you had to turn the case over to that… that popinjay!”

  Darcy kept her voice down so the kids up in their rooms wouldn’t hear them talking from down here in the kitchen. They had picked up Zane as soon as they could get away from the scene by the Eel Weir River, and Colby had gotten to stay an extra two hours at her friend’s place, not that she’d complained about that at all. This was the first best friend that Colby had had, and the two of them were almost inseparable.

  Now Jon was making a simple, late supper after a day that had included walking up and down both sides of the river and searching through the woods along Applegate Road, along with half the Misty Hollow police force and a dozen State Troopers.

  When they’d finally gotten home Darcy was bone weary, and full of questions.

  Jon stopped stirring the spaghetti. One eyebrow popped up. “Did you just use the word ‘popinjay’?”

  “You know what I mean! I’m not using the word I want to use because I have two sets of little ears upstairs that always seem to pop into the room when I least expect them. So, yes, I’m watching my language but that doesn’t change the fact that Sergeant Dillon cares more about the shine on his boots than he does about helping to solve a murder.”

  With a noncommittal toss of his head, Jon went back to moving the pasta around in the boiling water. “I know Maxwell Dillon is a bit of a… a fashion plate,” he said carefully, with a nod toward the upstairs and the children, “but he’s dedicated to his job. So yes, he’ll look down his nose at you—at everyone, actually—but he gets results.”

  “You’ve worked with him before?”

  “A couple of times. That’s why I called him directly when you told me what was going on.”

  “Oh. I was wondering how he got there so quickly.”

  “Exactly. I had to involve the state police because that whole curve on the far end of Applegate Road is outside of Misty Hollow. That makes it outside my jurisdiction. Now, if you’d picked the hand up and walked three hundred feet with it, dropped it again, and then called to say you found it, I could have claimed the case without any outside assistance.”

  Darcy frowned, and sat down at the little kitchen table. “That would be a lie. You know I would never do that.”

  “Which is just one of the reasons I love you, Darcy Sweet.” Taking the pot off the stove, he brought it over to the sink and got out the plastic colander. “So for now, it’s a state police case. I’ll help Sergeant Dillon any way that I can, and other than that I’ll go back to enjoying life as the chief of police in my sleepy little town. Besides. You’re forgetting something.”

  “Is that right? Okay, smart guy. What exactly am I forgetting?

  Jon shrugged, and drained the spaghetti over the sink. Steam plumed all around. “We,” he explained, “don’t know for sure that this was a murder.”

  “What? Jon…” For a moment, she was at a loss for words. “We just found a severed hand in the water. I don’t think someone cut off their own hand and then tossed it into the river, do you?”

  “Probably not,” he agreed.

  “Then can we agree that there’s probably a dead body somewhere to find?”

  Holding up a finger, he got a jar of spaghetti sauce out of the cabinet. “I can agree that there’s possibly a dead person somewhere missing a hand. Possibly.”

  “Jon, seriously?”

  He popped the lid off the jar. “We went all over that area this afternoon. We even had the state police canine officer in to do a search with his dog. Did we find a dead body
?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  He poured the sauce into a pot and went back to the stove with it, warming it on a low heat. “That hand had been dead for a year, maybe more. Probably longer. The dead man didn’t cut it off himself, right? The dead man didn’t toss it in the river. And, I doubt that hand crawled very far upstream from where it started.”

  Darcy grimaced as the image of a hand actually crawling along the bottom of the river swam through her mind again. Now she was sure to have nightmares.

  “So,” Jon finished as he stirred the sauce to keep it from scalding. “There should have been a body in the water or in those trees somewhere, and there wasn’t. That means there’s possibly a dead body out there, and possibly there isn’t. Someone may have cut that hand off a body that was already dead.”

  “Well, sure, that’s possible, I guess.”

  “Or maybe someone lost their hand in an accident years ago and the hand is only now turning up.”

  “Okay, that one’s a little farfetched.”

  “Think so?”

  “Yes, Jon, I do.”

  “Would it make more sense if the hand got cut off by a mob enforcer teaching someone a lesson? I think I’ve seen that movie. The enforcer dude cuts off the hand of the guy who stole from the gang to send a message. Now the guy is walking around as a living lesson. Don’t mess with the East Side Crypts!”

  She gave him a level look. “Jon. This is Misty Hollow, not South Central LA. Besides… that whole idea of a guy getting his hand cut off and then just losing the hand… that’s the stuff of mystery novels, not real life.”

  “What? People can survive losing their hands, you know. Like… like Morgan Freeman.”

  Jon nodded to himself, as if he’d just conclusively proven his point. If he had, Darcy missed it. All she could do was stare at him.

  “Morgan Freeman?” she asked. “You mean the actor with the really deep voice from The Shawshank Redemption?”