by K. J. Emrick
“I don’t know, Jon. I still think he’s dragging his heels on this. It’s almost like he doesn’t want to find Samuel Huntsman’s body. Are you sure he isn’t the slack jawed moron he appears to be? Sometimes people are exactly skin deep, you know.”
He tapped his crust against his plate. “There’s nothing slack about that man’s jaw. You could cut paper with that jaw.”
Darcy laughed in spite of herself. Jon’s description was all too accurate. Just as she composed herself to argue her point again, Zane called in from the living room.
“Mom, is there d’ssert?”
Jon gave her a wink. “I think there’s still some Neapolitan in the freezer. I’ll get the bowls.”
Darcy gave up. Partly, because she knew Jon was right. There was a mystery here and she was always ready to plunge headfirst into any mystery that came her way but maybe, just for tonight, she could enjoy ice cream with her kids instead.
After all, the world wasn’t going to end if someone else solved a mystery for a change.
Getting up, she leaned over and kissed Jon on the forehead. “You finish your pizza, sweetheart. I’ll get the ice cream.”
Chapter 6
“I think we should do a back to school sale,” Izzy suggested. “Maybe get a list from the local colleges and the high school for what books the students will need to buy and offer them at a discount.”
“Hmm,” was Darcy’s distracted reply.
Frowning at the lack of enthusiasm, Izzy leaned a hip against the sales counter and crossed her arms. It was the morning after the pizza delivery man had turned out to be the victim’s brother, and Darcy and Izzy were back at work at the bookstore. There weren’t usually many customers on Tuesday mornings, which meant plenty of time for thinking. Except for Zane and them, the book club members were the only other people in the store, sitting over at the reading tables sipping coffee and talking about the weather and politics and things like that.
Izzy was thinking about their next month’s sales, like she should be. Darcy… well, she might have promised to let the mystery of the severed hand go, but she was finding it hard to keep that promise.
“Are you listening to me at all?” Izzy asked her, tossing her blonde curls with a shake of her head.
“Hmm?” Darcy repeated, as a question this time. She blinked at her friend and then laughed at herself. “Yes, I am. Sort of. I’m sorry, my mind’s on other things. You were saying we should have a sale… on school supplies? We don’t really stock school supplies, but I suppose we could try it.”
Izzy sighed. “I should have said my shoes are on fire and I’m going to dance the Macarena until they stop burning. Maybe you would have listened then. I said, we should get a list of books the schools are going to require the kids to buy and offer them at a discount.”
Now Darcy got it. “Oh. That’s actually a good idea, Izzy.”
“Sure. Like, Wuthering Heights, or whatever they teach in English classes these days.”
“Right.”
“Although,” Izzy added thoughtfully, “maybe we could do school supplies too, now that you say that. There are enough kids in town now, with parents who have to travel to Oakwood or further out to do any real shopping for their kids. If they could get, like, pencils and pens and notebooks here along with books… maybe backpacks too?”
And this was why she and Izzy made such a great team. “Now that is a fantastic idea. I’ll put together a letter to send out to the schools tonight. Maybe one for the parents in town, too, to let them know we plan to offer these things?”
“Uh, maybe you should let me handle that. I’m guessing you’re still thinking about giving the state police a hand in this investigation. Huh? Huh? See what I did there? With the ‘hand’ thing?”
Darcy couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “That was a horrible joke.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It might come in ‘handy’ later.”
She was grinning like a fool, and Darcy kind of hoped that was it for the puns but she had a feeling there were more to come.
“It’s just so confusing,” Darcy told her. “Why isn’t Charlie more upset that his brother has been missing all this time? Why didn’t he ask Jon more questions about why the police went to his house? And now no one’s seen his girlfriend for a week… what’s that all about?”
“It might not mean anything.” Izzy leaned in closer so her voice wouldn’t carry. It wasn’t just the book club members in the store. Zane was here again, too, and little ears heard everything. “Just because Jon couldn’t find her doesn’t mean she’s dead, or that Charlie killed her. She could be visiting her mother or just sick in bed with the flu.”
“So if it’s something that simple, why didn’t Charlie just say so?”
Izzy shrugged. “Sometimes men like their privacy.”
“I know,” Darcy agreed, but then added, “but it sure looks suspicious.”
“This is Misty Hollow. Everything looks suspicious here.”
Darcy couldn’t argue that.
“So, um,” Izzy said, changing the topic. “Are you still all right for me to leave early today or are you too caught up in this mystery of yours for me to leave you alone?”
“It’s not my mystery,” Darcy pointed out. “Jon has made that very clear last night so, yes. My afternoon is perfectly free. Colby’s hanging out with Audrey again today, so I don’t even have to worry about picking her up. Besides, Izzy, you deserve a personal day. God knows I’ve taken more than my fair share. It’s fine. Go and spend some time with that boyfriend of yours.”
“Glad to hear it, because I was probably going to take the time off either way.” Izzy’s gaze focused on something she was picturing in her mind’s eye. “Kyle’s back in town after two weeks, and that job of his is murdering our love life. That’s a mystery I plan on solving tonight, I can promise you that.”
Darcy knew exactly what she meant without her explaining the finer details. She supposed she’d feel the same way if it was her and Jon going that long without seeing each other.
Izzy and Kyle were good for each other. Darcy just wished that they would get around to making their relationship more permanent. Misty Hollow hadn’t had a good wedding in a long time, and as far as she was concerned, they were overdue. And Kyle got along great with Izzy’s daughter Lilly, which was a definite must in Izzy’s mind. Lilly didn’t make it back to Misty Hollow half as much as she wanted to now that her career was taking off, but the last time she was here she’d given her mother her official blessing to continue dating Kyle.
After checking a few more details of the store operations together, Darcy left Izzy texting on her cellphone to Kyle, and wandered over to the reading tables. There were four chairs around each, and the three people at the closest table were involved in a heated discussion with the two people at the next one over. Hands were being gestured to emphasize several points and voices rose and fell with the tide of the conversation.
The subject of their heated debate kind of surprised Darcy at first, but then she decided it was kind of appropriate for a bookstore. The disappearing role of printed newspapers. Actually, there used to be a newspaper rack right at the front of the store, just inside the door, but Darcy had finally removed it when the local paper stopped printing anything but a Sunday edition. Half the time the Sweet Read Bookstore was closed on Sundays anyway, so at best people were getting their news a day late, when all it was good for was the funny pages.
Using his seat as a pulpit, Jackson Little was trying to convince everyone that there was nothing like reading through a paper newspaper at your own leisurely pace, consuming the news as God had always intended it to be enjoyed. Not thirty second soundbites. Not witty memes on the internet. No. Slow digestion, he argued, to get every morsel of truth.
Jackson was an old man with a stooped back who didn’t do much of anything unless it was done at a snail’s pace. Eleanor Daby, on the other hand, told him all that paper was just killing the forests and there were always
newspapers left over that no one bought and what good was that? No good, she insisted. “Besides, you old fuddy-duddy, it’s the age of instant information. We’ve got it all at our fingertips, twenty-four hours a day. Did I show you the new phone my daughter bought for me?”
“Yes, you forgetful old magpie,” he teased back. “You showed us twenty times already!”
Darcy didn’t interrupt them. She had her own opinion about a world where the news was only available in quick electronic soundbites. Where the information was secondary to the flash of a pop-up ad. It was the way of the world, and maybe they had to accept it, but what did it say about human beings as a whole when paying a dollar seventy-five a day to get your news—and your comics, too—was considered too much to fork over?
She really loved the members of her book club. Each one of them held a special place in her heart. She’d started the club soon after taking over the store from her Great Aunt Millie and even though there had been times when she was busy and wanted to cancel, they always had their weekly meetings.
The third person sitting at this table actually wasn’t a member of the book club. He didn’t have much to say about newspapers, either. Zane was going to grow up in a world where newspapers were an archaic part of the past. Like cars without seatbelts. Or vinyl records. Or the TV Guide.
He was sitting there listening in on the conversation just the same, his feet swinging where they dangled over the edge of the chair, and his eyes showing that he was taking everything to heart whether he understood it or not. He might not have a firm grasp on what a newspaper was but by the end of all this he was going to know why they were important. The members of the book club all loved him, and they always involved him in their talks with a look or a nod or a question they knew he could answer even at his age. They’d done the same thing with Colby, and Darcy was always grateful to them for keeping her children included.
“Hey, buddy,” she said to him as she knelt down beside his chair. “We need to decide what to have for lunch soon.”
He thought about that very seriously and then clapped his hands together like he’d just had the most wonderful idea ever. “Pizza,” he declared. “With fish heads!”
She laughed to hear her joke from yesterday repeated back at her. “Hmm. Well, I was thinking of something a little healthier today. How about a nice turkey and cheese sandwich and an apple from the La Di Da Deli? You like the way Clara makes her sandwiches, right?”
Zane stuck out his lower lip, disappointed that there wouldn’t be pizza for him two days in a row. “Don’t like apples.” Then he brightened up again. “I like bananers. Can I have a bananer?”
Darcy picked up his hands and bounced them with hers on his knees. “It’s ‘banana.’ There’s no ‘er’ on the end of banana.”
Jackson Little leaned over and loudly whispered to Zane out of the side of his mouth. “I think it sounds better the way you say it.”
He gave Darcy a wink, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening with mischief. Darcy gave him a level look in return. “We talked about this, remember Jackson? No matter how funny a word sounds, we want Zane to learn the right way to speak.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Jackson agreed with a stern nod. “That’s just good mananers.”
Darcy scowled at him, but she knew he didn’t mean any harm. He was just fooling around. The frequency of Zane’s verbal slip-ups was really starting to worry her, though. At first it was cute. Now, he’d be starting school before too much longer and the thought of him being so far behind all of the other students really worried Darcy. She hoped it would just be a phase and he would work his way out of it. If not, they might need to get him a speech therapist. Before they went to that step, she was going to keep correcting him gently and reading with him at night to build up his vocabulary.
From beside Zane’s chair where he had been lying quietly this whole time, Cha Cha picked up his head and shook himself until his ears went flapping back and forth. When they settled back in place he looked up at Zane and sniffed.
“Cha Cha’s hungry too,” Zane said. “But he doesn’t want a apple.”
Case in point, Darcy thought to herself. Zane could talk to animals, but he couldn’t remember when it was “a” or when it was “an.”
“We’ve got dog food in the back for Cha Cha. We don’t feed fruit to the puppy, right?”
“Nope. Fruit’s for peoples.”
“All right, then. I think Izzy’s got time to run out to get us lunch before she leaves.”
“Oh,” Eleanor Daby offered, “I can do that for you, dearie. Jackson here has bored me to death already with his old fuddy-duddy opinions. I could use some fresh air.”
“You old coot,” Jackson teased her. “That brown hair dye of yours has soaked into your brain. Why don’t you just let yourself go gray like the rest of us?”
“Because I’m still young at heart, that’s why. You grow old. I intend to stay young!”
“Stay young!” Zane agreed, clapping his hands together. “Like me!”
The book club all laughed, and Zane clapped his hands again, delighting in the attention he was getting for being so funny. She and Jon had made sure that their children knew what love was, and what it meant to laugh. If nothing else, Darcy’s son was going to grow up with a great sense of humor.
Thanking Eleanor for offering to make the run to Clara Barstow’s deli for them, Darcy wrote down what she wanted for herself and Zane, and then handed the paper and pen around for the book club to write their own orders down if they wanted. Clara would definitely appreciate the extra business. Darcy was going to appreciate her chicken avocado pita. Clara had hired a new girl to help her out, since she was getting on in years and slowing down a bit, and the menu had been expanded nicely. Good food for the soul.
Darcy saw Cha Cha sit up. His left ear quirked up. His nose pointed toward the front door.
When Darcy turned to see what had caught his attention, the door opened, and the shopkeeper’s bell rang.
Mark Franks came walking inside the bookstore, smiling that same smile from yesterday. He was wearing the same college hoodie from the Ricker Classical Institute with his hands in the pockets. When he saw Darcy, he took out his left hand, and waved.
Then he took out his right hand as well. The bandages were gone. His hand was definitely there.
She felt stupid for ever thinking he might be hiding a missing appendage behind those cloth wrappings. Who would do something like that? Cut off their own hand and then hide it… why would anyone do that to themselves? That would be insane.
Still, she felt a definite sense of relief to know he had both hands. Maybe the sense of unease that she’d felt around him had been completely unfounded. Maybe he really was just a nice guy looking to move into Misty Hollow.
“Stay here with Cha Cha,” Darcy told Zane. “I’m going to go talk to that man for a minute.”
Zane was already listening to Jackson talk about the demise of plastic straws, but he gave his mother a nod that may or may not mean that he’d heard what she said. She patted Cha Cha’s head as she stood up. He was still staring at Mark. Animals had a sixth sense about people, she reminded herself. He wasn’t barking. He wasn’t trying to run away. He was just… staring.
So what did that mean?
Really, there was nothing scary about the man. He had a nice smile. He had a polite way of speaking and nothing that should have been sending off alarm bells. She’d been wrong about him right from the start, with the thing about his hand. Life was never that cut and dry. People you thought were friends became enemies, and people you thought were scary and suspicious turned out to only be interested in the books that your great aunt had written…
Oh, for Pete’s sake!
With everything that had been going on she’d completely forgotten her promise to have her Great Aunt Millie’s books out and ready for him to look at. She still wasn’t sure why a man who was into reading science fiction would want to look at books about practicing
séances or using healing crystals or sensing when a ghost was near. But she was always happy to show Millie’s thoughts and gentle humor—and intelligence—to new people.
She frowned apologetically as she met him just inside the front door. “I’m so sorry, Mark. You’re here for the books I promised to show you and I completely forgot. Do you have just a moment? I can get them together for you. It won’t take long.”
“No problem at all, Darcy. Hey, look,” he said to her, wiggling the fingers of his right hand. The skin along all four fingers was red and raw, on the thumb too, but it was definitely a hand, definitely attached to his body. “The doctor said the cast could come off. I still can’t type—doctor’s orders—but I’m using this voice to text program that’s really handy. Except when it keeps typing ‘fun’ when I’m really saying ‘phone.’ Or ‘Edition’ when I’m saying ‘Addition.’ Things like that.”
She knew exactly what he meant. The talk-to-text feature on her cellphone was incredibly convenient, until she tried to tell Jon there was a beehive in the window only to find out she had sent ‘There’s a bed give in the window,’ leaving him all sorts of confused.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she told him. “I was kind of worried with all the hand-related things going on all over town.”
“Oh, you mean that hand they found in the river outside of town? Yeah, how weird is that? Maybe Misty Hollow isn’t the quiet little place that I thought it was.”
He had no idea how right he was. “You should look us up on the internet. You’ll find lots of archived news stories about our little town done by a reporter named Brianna Watson. She made her career off Misty Hollow.”
“Watson? Hmm. I just might do that. If I’m going to move here and all, I really should learn all I can about the town, right?”