by K. J. Emrick
“Thanks, Aunt Millie,” Darcy whispered. Apparently her great aunt knew more about where things were in the store than she did.
She didn’t see Millie much anymore. Her spirit had found peace, even if she hadn’t moved on completely to the other side. Now she was here, watching and observing, and only sometimes making herself known. Darcy was kind of glad for those times. Maybe it was selfish of her, but she liked knowing that she would still have Millie’s wisdom and humor to call on in times of need.
“Got any thoughts for me this time, Millie?”
Darcy waited for an answer, but nothing came. Of course, she hadn’t really filled her great aunt in on the most recent mystery. Maybe she would take some time later and explain it all. Or maybe she’d just let Millie tag along over her shoulder like usual.
A business card on the desk flipped end over end, landing and spinning around in a circle on top of the phonebook. It was Anthony Faber’s card, complete with the name of his insurance company and his contact information. Well. Obviously Millie knew more about the situation than Darcy had realized.
She slid the card aside again and opened the phonebook. Matthew Courson was the name of Marcia’s boyfriend. The man she’d been seeing when she went missing. He was definitely a man they needed to talk to. There were several universal motives for murder. Money was one of them, and that was what made suspects of the people at the Lockbox Firm. Another recurring motive for murder, as contradictory as it seemed, was love. When someone’s love became all twisted up they could do crazy things. Like kill the object of their love.
Darcy shivered, because she’d seen that happen before, to one of her very best friends.
Running through the list of C names with her finger she found Matthew Courson’s number in short order. Not everyone in the world had gone to cellphones yet. Of course it might have changed since this phonebook had been printed last year, but that was okay. He was a sometimes customer of the bookstore, and they probably had his number on file if this didn’t work.
Dialing the number, she waited for the phone to ring on the other end, and then waited for someone to pick up…
“Hello, this is Matt.”
Just after seven o’clock, and he hadn’t left for work yet. Darcy let go of the breath she’d been holding. It had been smart to call this early. “Hi. Good morning.” She’d prepared everything she was going to say, running it through her head over and over on the way here. “This is Darcy Sweet down at the Sweet Read bookstore. I’m calling to say you won our recent contest and a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate is yours. All you have to do is come down and claim it for your own. It’s our little way of thanking you for being a past and current customer of our shop.”
“Uh, the bookstore?” He sounded confused. “Darcy, I haven’t been in the bookstore in months. How could I possibly win a contest?”
She was ready for that question, too. “Well, we put the name of everyone in our files into a random drawing. We’ve had a few winners, actually.” She winced, and hoped that Matt wasn’t listening closely enough to hear the lie in her voice. She was going to have to print out an official-looking gift certificate for him as it was so he wouldn’t get suspicious of her motives. Making up details on the spot was going to make the whole plan fall apart. “The gift certificate is only good for four weeks so we’d need you to pick it up today. Can you come down on your way to work, maybe?”
He hummed about that for a moment, but Darcy could tell he was interested. “Uh, yeah, I can do that. I’ll be down in half an hour. Will you guys be open?”
“Absolutely. We opened early today just for this reason. Great, Matt. We’ll see you then.”
They hung up, and Darcy took the laptop out from its nylon case next to the desk and quickly downloaded a PDF of a gift certificate. With a little creative editing she had a certificate to send to the wireless printer at the front desk. Perfect.
Eat your heart out, digital age. She could work photoshop with the best of them.
“Hey, Darcy?” she heard Izzy calling to her. “Is this thing printing out here something you did?”
She got up from the desk with her crutch under her arm and went back out to the main part of the shop. The brewing coffee smelled wonderful. It affected her mood in positive ways. Things were looking up today. “Yes. That’s Matt Courson’s winning gift certificate. He’ll be down for it in a half an hour or so.”
Izzy folded her arms onto the sales counter and looked directly into Darcy’s eyes. “You’ve got another mystery to work on, don’t you?”
“Oh, you know me.” Darcy took the certificate off the printer and checked it over. “Things have a way of happening in Misty Hollow.”
“And they always find you,” Izzy said lightheartedly. “I know. Being your friend is like being in the eye of a hurricane sometimes. So, what is it this time?”
They went over to the tables in the reading area, next to the coffee maker, and sat down. Over cups of coffee Darcy described Anthony coming to her house yesterday and talking about his missing sister, and then about seeing Marcia’s ghost. It felt good to have a few people, like Izzy, who knew some of the things she could do. It was nice to have a friend to talk to. “She’s dead, and Anthony doesn’t even know it.”
“Wow.” Izzy sat back in her chair. “And there’s not even a body? How in the world are you going to solve a murder when you can’t even prove that she’s dead?”
“That’s a good question.” It was exactly what Darcy had been wondering about. If only Marcia’s ghost had been able to say more. That image of the trees and the water really hadn’t been helpful at all. “Talking to Matthew should be a good first step. He was Marcia’s boyfriend when she disappeared.”
“Really? So he’s a suspect?”
“I’m not sure, but maybe.”
“Wait, doesn’t that mean that you might have just invited a murderer…?”
She trailed off when the shopkeeper’s bell over the front door rang, and there was Matthew Courson standing in the shop with a big smile, waiting to claim his winning certificate.
Izzy cleared her throat and got up from the table with her coffee cup in hand. “I’m going to be in the back, if you need me. With the phone,” she added meaningfully.
Darcy waved Matt over. “Hey, glad you could make it.”
“Yeah, this worked out perfectly. Just on my way to work.” He was dressed for work in a hardware store, too, with worn blue jeans and a red flannel shirt. He was a wiry man a few years younger than Darcy even though his skin was weathered from hard physical work and exposure to the sun. The hardware store in Misty Hollow offered help to local residents on their construction projects. Matt had helped repair the window here when it was smashed by the car accident out on the street. Now he chuckled in an embarrassed way. “You know, I’m not much of a reader, but I gotta tell you how great it is just to win something.”
“Well, I’ve got the certificate right here. It’s perfect for buying a gift for your friends and family. Or a girlfriend, maybe?”
She said it in a cheery voice, with a big smile, and she was hoping this would be the way she got Matt to start talking about Marcia without being completely obvious about it.
His smile slipped away, and his steps slowed as he got closer. She’d struck the right chord, now if he would just open up for her.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said. “I used to, but she left unexpectedly and… yeah. It’s kind of hard to talk about. Three years now, and I still miss her.”
“Oh?” Wow, Darcy thought to herself. That was easy. “I’m sorry to hear that, Matt. Was it someone local? I could always put in a good word for you.”
He sat down with her, folding his hands together on the table, looking at the certificate but not picking it up. “She was from Rose Lake, actually, and as for putting in a word for me… that might be hard. When I say she left unexpectedly I mean she just plain disappeared.”
Darcy had to play this like she had no
idea what he was talking about, but it was really hard to keep from asking him straight out if he knew Marcia was dead. “That’s terrible. Where do you think she went?”
He shrugged. After a moment he sat up straighter and began playing with the front of his shirt in a distracted sort of way. “I have no idea. I wish I did. I mean, we used to spend all of our free time together. Then she started working late at that accounting firm of hers and then there just didn’t seem to be any time at all for anything. I mean, she was just the secretary there. Why should she have to work all those late hours?”
The Lockbox Firm, he meant, and now Darcy really wondered about that place. Why would they have a secretary work long hours? How did they get the big clients Jon had mentioned, and what ties did they have to criminal activity?
Matt sighed. Apparently Anthony wasn’t the only one who had been deeply affected by his sister’s disappearance. Matt Courson needed to get his bottled-up feelings out as well. “I mean, we had this special place in the woods around Rose Lake that we used to go to, just me and her. All the time. I asked her to marry me there, actually. We were so happy. I just don’t understand why she would leave like that.”
Darcy’s brain kicked into overdrive. A place on Rose Lake, in the woods… their special place… and the image that Marcia had shown her where the ground had been dug up and replaced…
And nothing would grow.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Why hadn’t she seen it before?
Thinking quickly she came up with a way to get at what she needed to know, coming at it sideways. “I’ve been to Rose Lake lots of times.” Well just a few times, really, but still. “It’s very pretty there. Where was the spot you liked to go to? Maybe I know it.”
He looked at Darcy for a moment, before staring off into nothingness with a reminiscent glint in his eyes. “It was just a few hundred feet from the north shore marking pylon. We could always hear boats out on the water but with the trees as thick as they are up in those woods we were completely hidden. You know what I mean? There was a clearing there and everything. I’ve been back there lots of times. It’s like whenever I’m there I’m closer to her, you know?”
Darcy blinked at him. Did he just… if Marcia was buried there, in that spot that her ghost had shown Darcy, then did Matt just admit to burying her there?
It’s like whenever I’m there I’m closer to her.
Suddenly, having Matt come and meet her here was beginning to feel like a bad idea.
Then he reached under his flannel shirt, where he’d been fiddling with it, and pulled out a necklace with a charm on the end. A blue, triangular charm.
“This is all I have to remember her by.”
It was Marcia’s necklace. The one her ghost had been wearing.
She needed him to leave. Right now. “Well, here you go,” she said, pushing the certificate over to him. “Remember, it’s good for four weeks so you can come in anytime and use it. I know you’re on your way to work. I won’t hold you up.”
“Oh. Uh, right.” He picked up the printout of the certificate, acting like he wanted to stay longer and talk more.
Darcy felt trapped with him sitting there. What was she going to do, in her cast, if he tried something? Crawl to safety? Hit him with her crutch?
From the backside of the store, over behind the freestanding shelving units, a series of books fell to the floor with loud thumps.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
THUMP.
Matt turned in his chair. “What was that?”
Darcy reached down, and took a firm hold on her crutch. Just in case.
“Probably one of our other customers making a mess,” she said, although she knew full well what it really was. There were no other customers in the store. That had been Great Aunt Millie watching out for her again. “I should really go see what that’s all about.”
Izzy poked her head out of the office too when she heard the noises, although her attention went to Darcy and Matt at the table rather than where the books had fallen. Darcy gave her a little nod. With both Aunt Millie and Izzy here she felt safe again.
Not that she was absolutely certain Matt was the killer. The people at the Lockbox Firm were surely involved somehow. She would need Jon to help her figure this out. Someone would have to go to that spot in Rose Lake, on the water, and see if her guess was right.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going, then,” Matt said, putting his smile back in place. “Thanks for this, Darcy, and… thanks for listening to me.”
“Bye, Matt. See you soon.”
Izzy stayed right where she was until he had left the store. It was only then that Darcy realized she’d had the wireless handset for the office phone in her hand the whole time. “I had the police station ready on speed dial,” she said, coming over to sit with Darcy again. “What did you find out?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.”
Izzy seemed unconvinced. “Maybe nothing, but maybe…?”
“But Maybe,” Darcy said, “we just watched Marcia’s killer walk out of our store.”
Chapter 5
It wasn’t a long walk from the bookstore to Darcy’s house. She’d done it hundreds of times before. That had been when she had two working legs, of course. Now the walk that usually took her half an hour at most, when she was taking her time about it, would have taken a couple of hours.
Izzy had offered to take her home but the bookstore had been doing good business today and Darcy didn’t want to mess up that rhythm by closing early. Instead, she called for Misty Hollow’s one and only taxi service.
Donnie Akers had graduated from high school last year, a couple of years behind Izzy’s daughter Lilly, but where Lilly and her boyfriend Connor had gone off to college, that idea hadn’t appealed to Donnie. Instead, he’d stayed right here in Misty Hollow and come up with a business idea that could let him earn a living. Taxi driving.
His green Chevy HHR was hard to miss as it double-parked in front of the bookstore. Stick-on letters spelled out TAXI on the trunk. The tinny horn beeped to get her attention. Darcy rolled her eyes in Izzy’s direction and waved goodbye to her business partner as she stepped outside. Izzy was helping a nice older couple from out of state find a few books about the local area to take home as gifts for their children. Darcy left her to it. She’d already promised to call as soon as she knew more on the mystery.
Izzy had promised to call the police immediately if Matt Courson came back. At least until they knew more.
“Hey, Mrs. S!” Donnie greeted her warmly as he stepped out to meet her. The four-way flashers were on and blinking, and traffic on Main Street was having to make its way around his car.
Next time, she’d have to tell him to pull into the parking area around the back to pick her up.
“Whoa,” he said, noticing her leg cast, “what happened to you?”
“I had a fall, Donnie.”
“Ouch.” He drew in a sharp breath, rubbing at the fuzzy scruff he called a beard. He was a baby-faced twenty-year-old who had never quite been able to lose the chubby cheeks or his pudgy midsection even though he’d been one of the star football players at the Meadowood High School. He at least tried to look grown up, with a white dress shirt that was too tight and a black tie that was too long and flapped in the breeze as he held the door open for her.
“Yes,” she agreed drily. “Ouch. That pretty much sums it up. Thanks for picking me up. It’s not going to be much of a fare for you this time, I’m afraid. Just going home.”
Shrugging, he held her crutch so she could get in. “Every little bit helps, Mrs. S. The old girl needs some repairs.” He patted the roof of the HHR so she would know which ‘old girl’ he was referring to. “Uh, not that you need to worry. She still runs just fine. It’s only when we get up over fifty miles an hour. Just a slight timing belt problem. It backfires a little. Well, okay, a lot. Won’t be a problem from here to your house, though. Scout’s honor.”
“Donnie,” she said, a little impa
tiently. “We’re kind of blocking traffic here.”
“Oh, right. Right.” He shut her door and then waved to a car behind them that had started laying on its horn for him to move. Once he was behind the wheel he belted up and adjusted his mirrors and switched off his hazard lights as he finally eased himself slowly back into traffic.
If nothing else, Darcy had to admit that he followed the rules of the road.
“Would you like some music, Mrs. S?”
“No thank you, Donnie.”
“Cool, cool.” He was quiet for a moment as they turned off Main Street and onto her road. It didn’t last long, though. Donnie was one of those kids who hated silence. “So, ready for Thanksgiving?”
Darcy felt the sour expression that crossed her face. “You, too? Seems like everyone is asking me about Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, it’s like my favorite time of year. My mom and dad are divorced but they agree to sit down and have one civil dinner together every November and Mom cooks this great meal with homemade stuffing, and then me and Dad always find a football game or a movie to watch after, and my brother comes home from California and it’s just all of us together again. Kind of nice.”
Darcy regarded Donnie in the rearview mirror. She could see how happy he was just to think about it. She felt like kind of a jerk now, being upset that she would have to spend a dinner with her mother and sister and the rest of the family. Her family was always there for her. Donnie had to wait for one special day each year to have what she had. For him, Thanksgiving was the only chance he had to have his family all together again.
She imagined it was that way for lots of people, with their families scattered by choice or circumstance. Everybody coming together, back to where they belonged, to give thanks for all of their blessings.
When she looked at it that way, the idea of having Thanksgiving at her house this year didn’t seem all that bad after all.