by K. J. Emrick
Just like the scene in front of them had been hidden from view, until they got this close.
Several people stood around a car that had been completely buried under heavy drifts. There weren’t many houses out this way, and without them to block the wind the snow had collected in the middle of the street, seven feet high or more. No wonder the plows had been called off. That two-door hatchback had been completely swallowed up.
Until someone had taken the time to dig it out.
This side of the car had been excavated like an archeology site—except with snow instead of sand—and the snow being dumped from the heavens above was trying its darnedest to fill the space back in again. Darcy moved closer. She could see the side of the car, and the open driver’s side door…
Behind the wheel sat a man in a long brown coat. He was slumped back in the seat, and his arm dangled at his side. His pale face was turned upward. Blood made a dark red stain across his throat.
He was obviously dead.
“Is he…?” Izzy started to ask, echoing Darcy’s thoughts.
“Yes. He is,” she answered. “I think I just figured out why Jon and Grace got called into work today.”
In fact, there he was. Another few feet closer let her make out the faces of the people huddled around the gruesome scene. Kneeling down next to the car’s front wheel, a flashlight in one hand, Jon was scooping snow away with his other to look at something. He’d forgotten his hat again and his dark hair was coated in white. Thankfully, he had on his winter jacket and his boots, and he was even wearing a pair of snow pants that hadn’t seen the light of day in years.
Her sister Grace stood next to him, her arms wrapped around herself in that white coat of hers, the one with faux fur around the collar and cuffs. She stamped her boots into the snow over and over in an unsuccessful attempt to keep warm. She was nodding to whatever Jon had just said, but she didn’t look happy about it. In fact, she looked miserable in the weather.
A car crash, with the driver dead. That certainly explained Jon’s sudden departure this morning. Darcy squinted against the falling snow. With the distance and the poor visibility she couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think she recognized the dead man. A visitor to town, probably. A tourist caught unawares by the unexpected deluge of snow. Had he died in the crash?
No, she decided with a frown. In Misty Hollow it was never that simple.
Now she could see a snowmobile parked on top of the snow not far away. Another officer sat on the sled, in his uniform jacket, blowing hot breaths on his cupped hands. That was Danny Barcum, one of the department’s sergeants.
“Should we…” Izzy swallowed, and looked away from the scene at the intersection. “Should we go over and see what’s going on?”
That actually had been exactly what Darcy was going to do. Another death, and another mystery here in her town. A reporter she knew had written several pieces for publication about Misty Hollow becoming the unofficial murder capital of the United States. She never did like that reporter. Brianna Watson. No, there was no love lost there at all. In fact, she’d punched the woman in the face once. It was one of her fondest memories.
But, as much as she wanted to go see what Jon was doing, she didn’t want to drag Izzy along with her. Seeing dead people was just a part of life when you were Darcy Sweet, but for other people it was still the terrible thing that it should be.
“Let’s just go back,” she said, mostly keeping the disappointment out of her voice. “I’m sure Jon will tell me all about it when he gets home.”
Just then Jon stood up, and looked around, and Darcy watched him do a double-take as he saw her and Izzy standing there, on top of the snow. He stared for a long moment, and then he waved for them to come over.
Izzy slid her skis back and forth nervously. “Um. I’m going to stay back here if that’s okay with you.”
Darcy nodded, and set off on her own. It really wasn’t all that far to the scene. The snow had made it look further than it was. Perspective was all skewed in her snow globe world. He met her part way, stopping where he sunk into the drifts nearly to his knees.
“Hey,” he said with a smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”
She leaned down on her skis and gave him a quick hug. The fact that he could be happy to see her in the middle of… whatever this was, made her feel very special. “Well, I was in the neighborhood.”
“So I see. Pretty ingenious, using our skis to get around. Are you out here looking for me?” A sudden look of concern crossed his face as he asked, “Is something wrong with Colby or Zane? Were you trying to reach me? I didn’t get a text.”
“No, nothing like that. Izzy and I were going around town making sure everyone still had power. It’s out at her house. I told her she could stay over at our place until she gets it back.”
“Smart.” He hugged her again, and she could feel him trembling a little in the cold. “I won’t be much longer out here. I just need to wait for a second snowmobile to get here with a tow-behind sled so we can move the bodies. We’re going to store them in the town hall’s walk-in freezer for now until the roads clear up. Hopefully the mayor won’t mind. I really don’t have any other choice.”
Darcy nodded. The current mayor, Andy Blanchard, was still pretty new, and eager to please everyone. A run-off election after the last mayor was murdered, and her opponent implicated in her death, had put Andy in office. Jon wouldn’t have any trouble getting him to agree to his plan.
She made herself look back to the car. Grace waved, but then quickly went back to rubbing her arms for warmth. “Was this an accident?” she asked Jon. “Did he hit the snowbank too hard, or a tree, or something?”
Jon shrugged. “We’re not sure yet. Nobody lives this far down the street, so we’ve got no witnesses. One of my guys found it this morning when they were out doing patrol on the sleds.”
“Pretty smart idea, by the way.”
“Yeah. Sergeant Barcum brought them in for us to use and he’s definitely getting a letter of commendation for coming up with that idea. Anyway, once they dug down to get at the car this is what they found, and that’s when they called me and Grace in. Best we can figure is they died last night after the storm started. There’s no way they could have gotten this far after the plows were called off.”
“Good point. Nobody was driving after one o’clock or so.”
“Right. I’ve got this to deal with and a few other issues at the office, then I’ll get Barcum to drop me off at home again. Don’t hold dinner. Will you guys be okay until I get back?”
“Oh, sure.” She laughed, although the wind covered the sound of it. “Colby reminded me that she is a young woman now and more than capable of taking care of herself, her brother, and probably me too, if I let her.”
“Yup. That’s our girl.”
“Yeah, well, our girl wants a cellphone. She reminded me again this morning.”
“Good. I think she’s ready for one.”
“Hmm. And I think we should talk about it more tonight before we decide. Oh, speaking of phones. Tell Grace she forgot hers, it’s at home with Aaron. He wanted her to know.”
“I will. You better get back to the kids. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She looked back over at the car. Snow had started falling inside, layering the driver with a pale sheet of white. Jon was right. Poor guy…
Wait.
“Jon, you keep saying ‘bodies.’ Is there more than one person dead in there?”
His expression turned grim. “Yeah, there is.” He brushed snow off his hair and stared at nothing. “I hate cases like this. The father was in the front, driving the car. In the back there was a little boy. Both of them are dead. The father’s injuries might be from the car accident but the boy’s… that was murder. Colby’s age, probably. It’s always worse when the victim is a kid.”
A little boy, Darcy repeated in her mind. A dead little boy.
“I think…” She swallowed, licking h
er chapped lips. “Was the family named Harris?”
He looked at her strangely, and she knew she was right. “Yeah. According to the guy’s driver’s license he’s Brian Harris, from Vermont. How’d you know?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” she said, giving him the look he knew so well by now.
“Ah. Ghosts. Okay, well I guess we both have things to tell each other tonight.” He hugged her again. “See you at home.”
“See you,” she said, although she was still thinking about the ghost boy in her basement, and his little red ball, and how his life had been cut short here on a quiet street, in the snow. His life, and his father’s too.
A tear froze against her cheek as she turned away.
Chapter 4
Usually when a ghost needed her help, Darcy would perform a spirit communication and connect with them in the middle ground between life and death.
In this case, she didn’t know if it would help. Joel Harris had already come to her, bouncing his rubber ball around her basement, and had literally only said two words to her. If she reached out to him with a spirit communication, would he be any more talkative?
Jon was right about it being sad when a child died. It always was, no matter what. Child ghosts were hard for Darcy to relate to. Partly because of her own emotions, partly because of theirs.
At any rate, she wasn’t going to do a communication now. Not when she and Izzy were both curled up on the living room couch, snuggled under blankets, watching Zane and Colby bragging about which one of them had made the biggest snowman today. The two of them had played outside for over an hour before the cold had gotten the better of them. Now they were back in pajamas, ready to stay inside.
That was fine with Darcy. She was just as happy to stay on the couch and talk about the weather and book sales and other things to pass the time. Anything at all, except a car buried in snow with a father and son found dead inside.
A shiver ran up her spine, even though the room was warm enough and the blanket was plenty cozy.
At any rate, she didn’t know much about the circumstances surrounding the death of Joel Harris and his father. Not anything, really. Murder, Jon had said, but he wasn’t sure what happened. There really wasn’t any point in trying to do a communication without knowing a few of the facts first. She wouldn’t know what to ask, and she couldn’t be sure she could reach Joel even if she tried. Besides, Jon and Grace didn’t always need her help to solve their cases. The police in Misty Hollow were very experienced with solving murders.
In the corner, the lights on the Christmas tree winked in haphazard patterns. The Santa doll in front of the fireplace was dancing, shaking his hips and swinging his arms, his hinged mouth opening and closing. Thankfully, Darcy had turned off the audio to silence his voice and his music. The first thing Zane had done after coming back inside was switch him on, and Darcy didn’t have the heart to turn him off. But that didn’t mean she had to listen to him for hours on end. Darcy’s son loved Christmas. All the lights and the decorations, singing carols, the presents under the tree. Even going to church was fun for him.
“What should we do for supper?” she asked the kids when she glanced at the clock and saw what time it was.
“Pizza!” Zane shouted immediately.
Flopped down on his side next to him, Cha Cha whuffed his agreement. His tail thumped against the floor. He liked pizza almost as much as Zane did.
“Ugh,” Colby groaned. She pushed herself up to sit cross-legged and cupped her hands around her mug of cocoa. “We had pizza already this week. And they have pizza in school every Tuesday. I’m all pizza’d out.”
Zane’s eyes were wide. “School has pizza?”
“Sometimes,” Colby told him.
He couldn’t stop staring. “Wo-o-ow.”
“Watch your cup, honey,” Darcy told him. “Don’t spill.”
“I won’t.” To prove it, he took a long drink and then smacked his lips. “Ahh.”
“Good boy. Unfortunately, we can’t have pizza tonight. The snow is going to keep Marios closed and I don’t have any pizza in the freezer. How about macaroni and cheese instead, and maybe some hotdogs?”
“That sounds good to me,” Colby said.
Zane looked disappointed, but another sip of his hot chocolate put the smile back on his face. “Hotdogs is good for me.”
Cha Cha raised his head, cocked to one side, his ear drooping along the floor. His eyes looked dolefully up at Zane.
Zane laughed. “No, not that kind of dogs! The kind you eats. Silly puppy. People don’t eats real dogs.”
Rolling back over, paws up in the air, Cha Cha groaned his relief that he wasn’t going to be on the menu tonight.
“Hey,” Izzy said. “That reminds me… where’s Tiptoe?”
Darcy had no idea. Tiptoe often kept her own hours, and she could be gone for an entire day before she showed back up, looking to be fed. There might be a raging storm outside, but Darcy had no doubt that her cat could find a way out all the same, off on some adventure. Her daddy Smudge had been just the same way. Here one minute, gone the next, showing up again just when he was needed most. Whatever her cat was up to, Darcy hoped she was keeping warm. Of course, she might still be inside somewhere, curled up in a corner of a room, or even downstairs in the basement.
Or maybe, she was stuck outside with no way to get back in…
“No, I’m sure she’s fine,” she started to say.
And then there was a knock on the door.
Everyone turned to look out into the kitchen. The front door was out there, around the corner and hidden from their view, but that had definitely been a knock. Outside, the storm continued without any sign of tapering off. Nobody could get to them through all that snow. Except on skis, Darcy reminded herself. Or with a snowmobile. Or Santa’s sleigh.
“I guess I should go check to see who it is,” Darcy said after another knock.
“Are you sure?” Izzy asked her. She was obviously still unsettled from seeing the dead man today. “I mean, who could it be, anyway?”
“Well, we won’t know until we go see. And remember,” she added, unwrapping herself from her blanket, “the really bad guys don’t usually knock. They just break down the door.”
Izzy laughed, and relaxed back into the couch.
Who could be out there, though? All of her neighbors should be snowbound. Her house wasn’t on a street that went anywhere in particular. Nobody should be down this way. In spite of what she told Izzy there was a little hesitation as she put her hand to the curtain over the window on the door, and then pulled it aside.
She was more than a little surprised to find Pastor Phineas McCord smiling back at her. The snow all around him formed a white halo of swirling flakes.
“Hello, Darcy!” he greeted her through the glass. “Got a cup of coffee for a wandering man of God?”
It dawned on her that she was just standing there, staring at him, warm and dry inside her kitchen while he huddled into his heavy coat and tightened his red scarf against the wind. Snow glistened on his dark skin and in his curly black hair. His breath plumed and frosted the glass on his side. He had to be freezing, but if he was then it wasn’t ruining his good mood.
She threw the door open wide for him and stepped aside while he bustled in, careful not to step in too far with his snow-covered boots. He helped her shoulder the door closed, and she made sure it shut tight.
In his hands, Phin carried a pair of wooden snowshoes, like oversized tennis rackets.
“Ah,” Darcy said with a grin that matched his. “That’s how you managed to get out this way.”
“Sure enough,” he told her. “Jesus may have walked on water through faith alone, but I find I generally need a little help.”
He carefully leaned the snowshoes up against the wall, where they wouldn’t cause too much mess as the snow dripped off. Then he unzipped his jacket and breathed in deeply.
“Is that hot chocolate I smell?”
&nbs
p; “Yes, it is. Would you like a cup?”
“I believe I would. Thank you.” He flexed his fingers, working some warmth back into his hands. “I’ve gone around half of the town so far, knocking on doors, finding a few people home and a few people not.”
Darcy was getting down another cup for Phin from the cupboard. “Hmm. That’s weird. I figured everyone was home. I mean, where could they go?”
“Oh, I suspect lots of people were out of town for the Christmas holiday when Snowstorm Alejandro hit us. Some of them came back just before it started, and others I guess are waiting it out with family in other areas.”
Putting the kettle on the burner to heat up, Darcy gave him an odd look. “Alejandro?”
“Yup. That’s what they’re calling this snowstorm on the news.”
“Well, for Pete’s sake. I mean, seriously. When did they start naming snowstorms?” She couldn’t remember the last time she heard something that ridiculous. “What’s next, Sun Shower Bertha? Hailstorm Fred?”
“Actually, I could use a nice sun shower right now. A nice, blazing heat wave with rain to wash all this snow away.”
“Fat chance of that. I didn’t realize they named anything but hurricanes. Then again, I haven’t listened to the news since last night. What are they saying about the storm?”
“Well, apparently we’re going to get a break in the snow sometime tonight. Kind of like the eye of a hurricane, is what they’re saying. After that, more snow. Lots of snow.”
Darcy scooped cocoa powder into his cup, shaking her head as she did. “Just what we need, more snow. This is going to be real trouble for some of the people in town if it keeps up like this.”
“Mm-hmm, I agree. That’s why I’m out here, actually. We started a shelter at the church. Me and a couple of the deacons are providing cots for people downstairs, and warm meals of soup and grilled cheese. Bottled water, too. That sort of thing. It’s mostly for tourists and wandering souls who got trapped in town when the travel ban went into effect. Some of them are real talkative, and one… not so much. Haven’t got a word out of her, no sir. Must be shell-shocked from the weather, I suppose, but I don’t judge. I’m going around to see if anybody in town needs a place to stay. If they lost power or need a hot meal.”