Have Yourself a Merry Little Murder

by K. J. Emrick

  Harris. Just like the name of the father and son, dead in that car on the far end of Main Street. Just like the name of the young ghost boy who came looking for her help. There were a few Harris’s in town but no Lana. No Joel. Darcy didn’t recognize the woman in the license, either.

  On the opposite side of the wallet fold, behind another plastic window, there was a photograph of a woman kneeling on a summertime lawn, hugging a laughing child in her arms. A boy, holding onto a red rubber ball.

  The same one that Darcy held in her other hand.

  “Darcy! I’m home!”

  That was Jon this time. His voice carried through the house, down to her, and he sounded excited. Whatever he’d found out about the latest mystery in Misty Hollow, it must be really interesting. That was his I’ve-got-something-to-tell-you voice.

  Darcy looked at the wallet in her one hand, and the ball in the other. Well, she had a lot to talk to him about, too.

  Tiptoe blinked at her, and then began to purr. She knew she did good.

  Chapter 5

  They waited for dinner to get into specifics. Jon was very interested in the wallet Tiptoe had found. Darcy was very interested to hear about the car and its deceased passengers. They both wanted to know how the woman in the wallet tied into everything else.

  But when Jon waved a finger, and held it up to his lips, she understood that he wanted her to wait to ask him anything until the kids were out of earshot. And that could only mean bad things.

  They didn’t have any hotdog buns so Darcy fried them up and cut a couple into pieces instead, mixing them into bowls of mac and cheese for Colby and Zane. She and Izzy and Jon ate theirs like adults, wrapped in slices of white bread. While they sat out at the kitchen table, Colby and Zane were allowed to eat in the living room with some more television. The old Christmas cartoon about the mouse who fixes the town clock to chime for Santa was on. It was one of Darcy’s all-time favorites, and now the kids loved it, too.

  They usually weren’t allowed to watch this much TV in one day. This snowstorm was turning into a real treat for them.

  Jon took a drink from his milk before leaning over to make sure the kids were occupied. It had taken him half an hour to warm up from being outside when he got home. His cheeks were still a little rosy, and he snuffled like he might be catching cold.

  “So Tiptoe just dropped this at your feet?” he asked Darcy, picking up the wallet from the middle of the table. “Any idea where she got it from?”

  “Outside, is my guess.” Darcy remembered how both the cat and the wallet had been wet. “Most likely it was in the snow somewhere and she brought it back to us.”

  “Why? I mean, pets will sometimes bring dead animals to their owners, but wallets?”

  “Tiptoe’s a very smart cat, just like Smudge was smart. You know that. Remember all the help Smudge used to find for us?”

  “Yeah, actually I do. I kind of miss that guy.”

  Darcy smiled fondly at him. His relationship with Smudge had always been a little stressed, a little standoffish maybe, but she knew they secretly liked each other. It made her feel good to hear him say he missed Smudge.

  “But why,” Jon asked, ‘did Tiptoe bring the wallet here? How could she know…? You know what? Never mind. I’ll never understand cats. Especially ours.”

  “I’ll second that,” Izzy said around a mouthful of her dinner.

  Darcy exchanged a look with Izzy. She shrugged, but added a grin.

  Jon winked at Izzy to say he understood right where she was coming from. “Anyway, I’ll just say I was the one who found this out in the snow. That will look a lot better on my reports than saying the cat dragged it in.”

  “I don’t think Tiptoe will mind,” Darcy said. “So, this Lana Harris is related to the two people who died in the car?”

  “Yeah. Her name is on some of the paperwork in the glovebox. The address on her driver’s license matches the registration address for the car.” He took a bite of his hotdog and wiped away mustard from the corner of his mouth while he chewed. “I figure she’s the mother of the little boy. I don’t know for sure but that would fit. A family taking a trip for Christmas. They come to town, and… something happens. My department is still trying to contact the authorities in Vermont where they lived. I was hoping we’d find the mother back there, safe and sound, but now that we have this,” he pointed to the wallet, “I might have a missing person on my hands, too.”

  Darcy followed his line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. “And considering what happened to her husband, and her son…”

  “Right. I can’t hold out a lot of hope for Lana Harris to still be alive.”

  He shook his head sadly. That meant another victim for him to worry about. For all they knew she might have dropped into the snow somewhere, buried under endless sheets of white, lost until the weather warmed up and things started to melt. If that was the case, then she could have been just a few feet away from the car and they wouldn’t have even known it.

  The thought of it terrified Darcy. When her time finally came, she was hoping to die peacefully in her bed, surrounded by the warmth and comfort of her friends and family, not alone and cold where no one could find her.

  If only Tiptoe could bring them to where she found that wallet. Then they might know more, like where Lana Harris might be, if she was even still alive, or…

  Oh!

  “Hey, Jon,” she said to him, “we forgot to tell you that Pastor Phin stopped by earlier.”

  He looked at her for a long time, and then swallowed the food in his mouth. “Um. Okay. I’m not sure what that has to do with the rest of this…?”

  Izzy leaned forward, realizing where Darcy was going with this. “Well, it turns out that Pastor Phin has started a shelter at the church. He says there’s some people there from out of town. Tourists, he said.”

  Jon’s eyes got a little wider as he caught on. “I see. So, it’s possible that if a woman was in town, stranded, and say her family had just been murdered and she had nowhere to go because of Snowmageddon, then she might go to the church where there was a shelter. If she’s still alive. Nice. I can get someone down there to check. Nice.”

  Darcy put her fork aside, stuck now on one single word in what Jon had just said. “Murdered? You mean both of them? So now you know that Joel and his father were murdered? It definitely wasn’t an accident?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. No flat tire, no engine trouble, there was still a half a tank of gas, no damage anywhere on the car in fact. That’s what I was doing when you saw me out there. I was looking for any signs that the car might have been stopped by mechanical failure, or by hitting something. It wasn’t. It was just stopped there in the middle of the street.”

  “What about the injuries we saw on the father? There was blood.”

  Izzy had been about to take a bite out of her hotdog when Darcy said that. Instead, she stopped and put it back on her plate, looking a little pale.

  “The dad’s neck was crushed,” Jon told them. “The blood actually came out of his mouth from internal injuries. His son… well, frankly I’d rather not talk about what happened to the son.”

  The television was loud in the living room. There was no way that Colby and Zane could hear them talking. That wasn’t why Jon was reluctant to explain how Joel Harris had died. It was because even a seasoned police officer like him got squeamish when it came to children dying. He was a good man, and his heart was full of concern for innocent victims of horrible crimes. She wouldn’t want her husband to be any other way.

  Darcy remembered Joel Harris’s ghost in the basement. So timid, so scared, and her heart went out to him, too. His rubber ball was back up on the shelf above the refrigerator. That’s where it was going to stay. At least, until he bounced it her way again.

  The food on her plate had grown cold, but she didn’t mind. Just like Izzy, she suddenly didn’t have much of an appetite. “So now we just have to ask ourselves why the Harris’s were here in
town, right?”

  “That would be another good place to start,” Jon agreed. “If we can find Lana Harris, maybe she can answer that for us, along with how the rest of her family died.”

  “She’s a suspect?” Izzy asked. “Couldn’t she be another victim?”

  Jon nodded, pushing his own half-eaten dinner aside. “If she’s dead, she’s a victim. If she’s sitting nice and warm at the church waiting to leave town once the weather clears, then she’s a suspect.”

  Izzy grimaced. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

  “Unfortunately, yes it does. That’s the nature of my business.”

  She managed a weak laugh. “Heh. In my business I just worry about keeping the shelves stocked with books people want to read.”

  “Trade you,” Jon joked.

  “Not on your life, mister!”

  Darcy knew Jon would never really trade his job to anyone else, for any reason. He loved what he did too much. Even on days like these. “So when do you think you can get someone over to the church? They’ll have to use the snowmobile to get there.”

  He shrugged. “Or, we could just go right now.”

  Darcy realized that he meant the two of them, her and him. She loved helping him out on his cases, and she dearly loved a good mystery. No way she could say no to this. She tried to contain her excitement as she said, “You want me to come with you?”

  “Sure. After all, you are an official consultant for the Misty Hollow police department. You’ve helped us out on countless cases before. I always appreciate your help.” He motioned down to the plates on the table and the food still on each of them. “Besides, I don’t think any of us is hungry anymore. Might as well get to this case while it’s still warm.”

  “Warm?” Izzy joked. “Obviously you haven’t looked outside.”

  “Touché. So. What do you say, Darcy?”

  Yes, was going to be her automatic answer. “But how are we going to get over there?”

  “Simple. Same way you and Izzy got there. We’ll use the skis.”

  “In the dark?”

  “The streetlights are still on, and we’ll bring flashlights. It’ll be like an adventure. That is, if Izzy doesn’t mind staying here and watching the kids?”

  “Not at all,” Izzy said without hesitation. “I’d rather be here with your two angels than out there looking for a murderer. Besides, Darcy, we did promise Pastor Phin we’d come help out at the shelter. This is the perfect excuse to go over there, right?”

  “Then it’s settled,” Jon said, getting up from the table and collecting the dishes to bring them over to the sink. When he did, he stopped, and looked out through the windows into the gloom of early evening. “Hey, look. It stopped snowing.”

  Darcy turned to look outside and found that Jon was right. The snow had finally stopped. The eye of the storm was here, giving them a little relief from all the snow.

  She had to wonder how long it would last.

  “So, I need to tell you something,” Darcy said as they were pushing themselves along with their ski poles. It was too dark to see her breath frost up on the cold night air, but she could feel the bite in the wind. Somehow, without the snow falling, it actually felt colder.

  Next to her, Jon slowed his pace to look her way. He’d found a fur-lined aviator’s cap somewhere, and a multicolored scarf that Darcy distinctly remembered tossing out years ago. He looked absolutely ridiculous, but he was nice and warm.

  “What’s up?” he asked her. “Something you didn’t want to talk about in front of Izzy?”

  “Well, yeah, kind of. The ghost of the boy in that car came to see me last night. Remember when I saw you by the car earlier and I told you that I knew the victims’ last name was Harris? Well, that’s how I knew. The boy’s ghost told me. The noise we heard last night was his ghost looking to talk to someone.”

  “Wow. You talked to the ghost of the kid? Oh, Darcy that’s… I can’t even imagine what that’s like. Are you okay?’

  She let their skis go swish-swish-swish across the snow for a few heartbeats, just smiling to herself in the dim glow of the streetlights. She really loved this man. Here they were in the middle of another murder mystery and his main concern was still her, and her feelings.

  “I’m all right,” she promised him. “It’s never easy to see a dead child, but it’s the same for you.”

  “Sure, but I see them on this side of the world. Just their bodies. I don’t have to see them as spirits, wandering and confused.”

  “Yeah, well. In a lot of ways that’s easier.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” After a long moment, he shrugged. “Did the ghost say anything to you?”

  “Not much. He was scared. I’m not sure he even understands what’s happened to him.”

  The church was just up ahead. There were lights on in all the windows. Someone had been busy shoveling off the front steps, too. That had probably taken all of Pastor Phin’s volunteers working together just to do that much. Darcy was actually kind of impressed.

  The Misty Hollow Community Church wasn’t a big building. Just one single level with a finished basement underneath. The upper floor was for church services, and Sunday school classes, and support groups for different gatherings that the church hosted. The lower section, in the basement, was one large meeting room sectioned off with a sliding accordion door that went from one wall to the other. Darcy was sure Pastor Phin had opened the downstairs up for his shelter, down where the furnace room was, which was the warmest place in the church.

  They didn’t bother knocking. They carried their skis and poles inside and set them standing up in a corner of the entryway, where they could dry off without dripping water on anything. The sound of voices filtered up from downstairs. Laughter. Talk. Darcy thought she might have even heard someone singing.

  “It sounds like Phin’s shelter is a success,” Jon commented. “I hope he gets a four-star rating on Yelp.”

  She nudged her shoulder into his. “Very funny. At least we know where everyone is.”

  Not everyone, she corrected herself, as a man came out from a side room. There was a stack of folded linen in his arms, taller than him, and three boxes of Ritz crackers leaning haphazardly on top. He peeked around the side of it all to see his way down the hall and when he did, he found Darcy and Jon standing there.

  “Hey guys,” Akers Pennington greeted them. His puffy cheeks broke into a smile. The boxes wobbled to one side, and he had to turn the other way to see around them again. “You come to join the party?”

  Akers was a heavyset man who worked as a self-employed plumber. His large hands were a testament to the way he made his living through hard work, the palms worn to a lighter color than his otherwise dark skin tone. He liked to refer to himself as proudly Black, with a lineage that stretched back to Booker T. Washington, the author of Up From Slavery.

  Darcy had recently had the chance to learn a little bit more about her own family history, and she was far less proud of her lineage than Akers was. Her first ancestor to come to the Americas was… well, less than nice. In fact, the woman was a literal witch.

  “What can I do for you?” Akers was asking them.

  “We came to see Pastor Phin,” Jon told him. “It’s sort of police business.”

  “At this hour? You guys know it’s late, right?”

  “The police department’s always open. We’re like a 24/7 convenience store.”

  Akers frowned at that. “Except you don’t have slushie machines.”

  “Nope. All we serve is justice.”

  “Ha! Oh, that’s funny. That sure is… um.” Laughing, he shifted the bundle in his arms and tried to point toward the stairs, but the boxes of crackers leaned the other way, and threatened to spill off the top of the linen, and then he had to grab everything again. He swung his hips and shifted his feet until he looked like he was doing a little dance, but he managed to keep from dropping anything.

  “Whew,” he said. “Can’t drop those crackers. They go
all crumbly in the box and then nobody wants them and that’s just a waste. Pastor Phin sent me up ‘cause we got a lot of hungry people down there. Tired, too. That’s why we’re bringing down the altar linens. The Pastor figures they’ll make passable bedsheets. Uh. Yeah. Anyway, he’s downstairs with everyone. Want me to—” The stack of linen and crackers wobbled again, until he steadied it. “Want me to show you the way?”

  “We know where the stairs are,” Jon assured him. “You want us to help you carry those?”

  “That would probably be a good idea, thanks. Guess I should have taken two trips.”

  Darcy took the three boxes of crackers, and Jon took two of the folded linens from the stack. Akers nodded gratefully. He looked like he’d been running ragged for the last few hours. He could probably use a break. The storm was taking its toll on all of them.

  The stairs leading down were thickly carpeted, not that they would have been able to hear their footsteps if they were wearing clogs and performing River Dance. The sound of people talking became much louder as they descended. There was music playing from a radio on a table in the corner. Cots were lined up against the far wall, although Darcy had to wonder where Pastor Phin had gotten his hands on those. The accordion divider was wide open to maximize the space, just like she’d expected, and even so it was cramped.

  Folding tables were set up in the center of the large space. People sat in chairs around them, eating meals on paper plates, or playing cards, or just talking. There were five tables, and Darcy did a quick head count, coming up with sixteen people, a fairly equal mix of men and women, sitting around them. Lana Harris wasn't among them.

  There were four others, all men, standing off to the side and talking with cups of coffee in their hands. Two of the men were dressed in suits, another man in jeans and a sweater, and the last man in what looked like workman's pants and a jacket. None of them were Lana Harris either, obviously.

  Darcy didn't recognize any of these people so they must all be from out of town. One of the cots had someone curled up on it, under a blanket. That made twenty-one people in Pastor Phin’s shelter. Not including him, or the volunteers like Akers. Phin was there as soon as they got off the stairs. “Hey, Darcy. Thanks for stopping by.”