A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Six

by K. J. Emrick

  Only, it wasn’t any other day. Her good friend was dead, and there was at least one reason to believe that she had not died of natural causes like everyone thought. At least, there was for Darcy.

  Looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she told herself once again to stop getting ahead of herself. If Helen really had been killed there had to be more to prove it than a missing award. There had to be answers to questions like, who in the world would have wanted Helen dead? How was it possible that there wasn’t any sign of forced entry to the house? What would the coroner find when he examined Helen?

  And a new question that had come to her over dinner tonight… where was Helen’s ghost?

  Most of the time when someone died under violent or unsettled circumstances, their ghost would go looking for closure before they crossed over to the other side. They would come to Darcy, asking for her help to set things straight. Especially, it seemed, the ghosts of people who knew her. She had lost track of the number of family and friends whose ghosts had shown up on her doorstep for reasons as serious as vengeance, or as trite as wanting everyone to know the remote control was behind the couch. She had cousin Albert to thank for that one.

  So if Helen had met with foul play, shouldn’t her ghost be beating a path to Darcy’s door?

  She sighed and got out her toothbrush. She didn’t have much more than lots of unanswered questions, but she had already decided to talk to Jon about the whole thing and see what he thought. His opinion mattered to her not only because he had been a police officer for so many years, but because she trusted him. He was very smart—for a man.

  After spitting the last of the toothpaste into the sink and rinsing, she put the brush away and came down the hall to her bedroom. Jon was already in bed, his pillows propped up behind him and a book held loosely in his hand. He’d told Darcy that he was planning on staying up to read tonight, at least to the end of the chapter.

  The best laid plans, as Bobby Burns once said, often got flushed down the toilet when you were both a full-time civil servant and a full-time dad.

  Soft snoring filled the room. The book was lying on his chest, still open to whatever page he’d been on before his head had fallen back against the pillows and his eyes had closed. His bare chest rose and fell with his rhythmic breathing. Tired man.

  Darcy watched him for a moment, memorizing every line of his face, every curve of his body, like she had done on so many nights before. Men had this idea that they couldn’t be beautiful. They felt the male body was only made to be functional. Efficient. Hard and blocky. Women knew a little secret, however. A man, lying in your bed with a peaceful smile on his face, was just about the most beautiful thing in the world.

  Biting her lip, she gave a quick thought to waking him up to talk about Helen and the missing mayor’s award and what it meant, if indeed it meant anything at all.

  Then she yawned and realized that he wasn’t the only one who was tired. Today had been emotionally draining for her. The death of one friend, helping another through his grief, and the start of yet another mystery. It was a lot for one girl to take.

  “Woof,” came a muffled bark from the corner of the room.

  Oh, and let’s not forget the new member of the Tinker-Sweet household, she said to herself. Cha-Cha was curled up in his bed again, ready to sleep for a few hours before getting her and Jon up for a bathroom break. That’s how it had been last night, and neither of them was expecting it to be any different until the pup grew up and got on a regular bladder schedule.

  Sighing, and yawning again, she went over and rubbed around Cha-Cha’s ears. He was just cute enough that she wouldn’t mind having her night interrupted.

  At the same time, since she knew this little guy was going to wake her up in a couple of hours, letting herself fall asleep next to her husband was probably a better plan than waking him up.

  Her head hit the pillow as she curled her back up against Jon’s side. She glanced over at Cha-Cha, who regarded her in turn with one floppy ear cocked up, before her eyes closed. She was almost instantly asleep.

  And just as quickly, she found herself being woken up again.

  “Darcy? I kinda need to go pee.”

  She sat up straight in bed, blinking her eyes into the darkness around her. Hadn’t they left a light on so that Cha-Cha wouldn’t be scared?

  And… did Jon just wake her up to tell her he had to pee?

  “Uh, no. Sorry, that was me.”

  Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Jon wasn’t in the bed with her. She was alone, except for the small bundle of fur demanding her attention with his paws up on the mattress, and his floppy ears framing either side of his doggie face.

  “Hiya, Darcy.”

  She ran a hand through her hair and laughed. So… unless Helen had taught Cha-Cha how to do more than roll over, she was dreaming. “Why on Earth,” she wondered out loud, “can’t I ever dream about travelling to Hawai’i?”

  The dog barked. His head disappeared below the edge of the mattress.

  Then he jumped up on the bed with her, padding around on all fours. “Bam-bow-wow,” he said, his eyes big and bright. “This is a nice bed. Mine’s nice, but it’s small. Of course, I’m small, so I guess that’s why the bed’s small. My ears are big, though. Big, big ears. You think I’ll ever grow into my ears?”

  He shook his head, and his ears flap-flap-flapped against his head and neck. Then he sat himself down, and smiled at Darcy, one eye hidden behind his left ear and his right ear curled around his head.

  Darcy couldn’t help but laugh, delighted by his antics even if this was just a dream. “Do all dogs talk this much?”

  He flipped both ears back behind his shoulders. “Don’t know. Haven’t been around many dogs. I got taken home by that nice Helen woman when I was still young. That was like, a week ago. That’s seven years or something for a dog, you know. When you’re a puppy like me that’s forever!”

  His face turned sad, and he let his head droop down. “Then Helen went away. She got tooken from me. Is tooken the right word? Or is it taken? Taked? No, not taked. That’s just dumb.”

  Darcy reached over and picked the sad pup up into her arms. “You’re going to take some getting used to, I can see that right now. I’m sorry about Helen. I’m going to miss her, too.”

  She gave him a squeeze and he made a little noise like she was hugging the breath out of him. He squirmed and pawed at the air, but his tail was wagging. Darcy could tell he enjoyed it. She just wanted to make him feel better. He’d lost his very first owner, poor thing. She could only imagine how traumatic that must be for a dog. He must have been in the house when it happened, come to think of it. Wasn’t that something? He was the only witness to what really happened to Helen and he could only talk to her in her dreams. If only dogs could talk for real, then Cha-Cha could tell her everything he saw…

  Her eyes went wide, and she turned the puppy around so they were facing each other.

  “What?” he asked her. “No more time for cuddles? Oh, hey. I have to pee. Did I mention I have to pee? I’m pretty sure I mentioned I have to pee.”

  “You were there,” Darcy told him, ignoring the rest of his manic talking. Seriously, is this what dogs were really like? “Cha-Cha, you were there!”

  In her arms, Cha-Cha looked that way and then this way and then that way again. “Where? Where was I? Grrr. I’ll find me. Let me at him… er, me! Let me at me!”

  Darcy reminded herself this was just a dream as she held the wriggly puppy and felt his stubby tail smacking against her knee. This wasn’t really happening. Still, even if this was just her subconscious mind working things through, she might be on to something. No sense giving up just because she was still sound asleep, or because dogs couldn’t really talk…

  “But if you could talk,” Darcy said to him, “you could tell me who was there when Helen died, couldn’t you?”

  The dog stopped moving around, and looked up at her with those big, brown eyes. Her meaning w
as beginning to dawn on her. “Bam-bow-wow,” he said slowly. “I could do that, couldn’t I?”

  Darcy was trying not to be distracted by the way he was acting but she just couldn’t help it. She had to ask. “Is that ‘bambowow’ you keep saying… is that some sort of dog language?”

  He shook his head, his ears flapping. “Nope. That’s just something I say. And it’s pronounced bam-bow-wow.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I don’t exactly speak dog.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Really? I do.”

  Taking a deep breath, Darcy tried to get the conversation back on track. “Okay. Let’s just say that for the sake of argument, in this crazy dream I’m having, that you were actually there when Helen died. Right? You were there?”

  “Yup. I was there. That was a sad day. I don’t like sad days. Sad days are like when you have a bowl, but there’s no food in it. What’s sadder than an empty food bowl?”

  “Focus for me, Cha-Cha. When you were there, was Helen alone?”

  “Yup,” the pup said immediately.

  Darcy slumped back against her pillows, settling Cha-Cha on the blankets beside her. Well. That was that, then. Even her dreams were telling her that Helen’s death wasn’t foul play. It was just an overactive imagination, and her grief over losing such a good friend, that had tried to turn this into a murder mystery.

  “But someone else was with Helen before she died,” Cha-Cha said, still looking at her with those big eyes.

  “Wait, what?” Those words didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean, someone was with her before she died?”

  Cha-Cha walked around in a circle three times, then settled himself down so that he was facing Darcy. “You asked me if anyone was with Helen when I was there. Nope. Nobody. I came back in and she was in her bed, but she was gone. She wasn’t Helen anymore. Dogs can smell when someone dies. Did you know that? Yup. Smells like an old shoe that’s been left out in the rain forever. Bad smell, but kind of a good smell at the same time. Maybe if you were a dog that would make more sense. Can you be a dog?”

  “No, I can’t…” Darcy groaned. This had been so much easier when Smudge was here. Cats were always so straightforward. Oh, they might try to pretend they didn’t want you to scratch their ears when they really did, but when a cat talked, they always got right to the point. “Cha-Cha, I don’t understand. How do you know someone was there, if you weren’t there when Helen died?”

  “I was outside,” he explained. “Yup. Helen always put me outside at the same time every night. Um. When the little hand is on the ten. You know, on a clock? The little hand. When it’s on the ten. I can’t really tell time too well.”

  Darcy stared at him. “You mean… ten o’clock?”

  “Yeah! That’s it. Bam-bow-wow, you’re good at this. So, she puts me out at ten o’clock because I’m a good puppy and I know how to do my business and by the way you guys don’t have to walk me outside if you don’t want to. Just put me out in the yard when I’ve got to go pee. I can just go and come tell you when I’m done. Oh hey, did I tell you I have to pee?”

  Darcy took a deep breath. “So Helen put you out at ten o’clock?”

  “Oh. Uh-huh. She did. Yup. When I was done I came back to the door because I wanted back in, but Helen wouldn’t open it up for me. Then somebody else opened it up for me, and they left, and I came inside and went to look for Helen.” His eyes got real sad, and his head dropped down onto his paws. “She was dead, though. Old shoe smell mixed with the outdoors smell.”

  Someone else had let him in, and then left, and Helen was already dead. Someone was there when Helen died!

  Darcy found herself wondering… could any of this be true? Was any of this real? Was she making it all up in her mind or was this one of those dreams where a little bit of the real world ended up sliding in?

  Ten o’clock. If she could prove someone else was at Helen’s at ten o’clock, then that would mean this wasn’t just death by natural causes. No one else was supposed to be with Helen that night. Bruce hadn’t been home. No one else was supposed to be there.

  Except maybe, someone was.

  “Hey Darcy?” Cha-Cha said to her.

  “Yes?”

  “I really have to pee.”

  Darcy woke up to his nose nuzzling her hand as he stretched up on his hind feet beside the bed. He whined softly, and Darcy knew that sound. He needed to go out.

  Just like in her dream.

  As Darcy got up and untangled herself from Jon’s arms, she knew the dream had overlapped reality. That gave her hope that Cha-Cha had been telling her the truth, and someone had been there at ten o’clock. She needed to find out who… but first she had to bring the puppy outside before his bladder burst.

  Although if her dream was right, she could just let him out and he’d come back to the door when he was done, with no need for her to stand watch over him while he did his business.

  If her dream was right about something else, she might be able to find another clue that proved Helen’s death was suspicious. It gave her mixed emotions hoping to hope for that. She didn’t want to be right about Helen being murdered, but at the same time she wasn’t going to rest until she found out the truth.

  Jon reached for her as she got out of bed, but as soon as his hand dropped he was snoring again. She smiled and decided to let him sleep. She was already awake. Putting her finger up to her lips to tell the puppy to be quiet, she put on her robe and belted it at her waist. Her slippers were under the end of the bed but if she was going outside with a dog then she wanted her sneakers from downstairs. Maybe she would test her theory and let him go out by himself. She could watch him from the window.

  In the hallway she had to stop at the top of the stairs to undo the safety gate. With a child she had to keep from wandering too far at night, and a dog that needed to get downstairs at least once every night, this gate was going to be the bane of her existence for the next few years. Things were so much easier with cats. Tiptoe just jumped this gate at night whenever she needed to leave Colby’s room and go wherever it was she disappeared to every night. Her daddy Smudge used to do the same thing, escaping by way of that secret exit of his in the basement. The one he thought Darcy never knew about.

  “Momma?”

  With the gate finally opened Darcy turned to find Zane standing at the door to his room, in his blue footy pajamas, rubbing at his little eyes.

  “Hey, buddy,” she whispered to him. “It’s okay, I’m just taking Cha-Cha out for a walk so he can go to the bathroom. You can go back to sleep. I’ll come and tuck you in when we get back, okay?”

  He nodded and rubbed his eyes again. “Can you let Cha-Cha sleep with me?”

  Darcy smiled. A boy and his dog, isn’t that what Jon had said? “Sure, buddy. After he goes to the bathroom that sounds like a great idea.”

  “Bam-bow-wow,” Zane said, before shuffling back into his room to climb into bed.

  Darcy stared after him, and then turned her gaze down to Cha-Cha. That crazy dog phrase. The one she’d heard Cha-Cha say in her dream.

  Now, wasn’t that odd?

  The next morning Darcy was up before her alarm. She usually was. Both her and Jon had jobs to get to. Colby had to get ready for school. She had to make sure she had everything she needed to bring Zane with her to the bookstore. Sleeping in really wasn’t an option around here. Not to mention, she was going to have to bring Cha-Cha to the bookstore with her and Zane now. They couldn’t leave the new puppy alone to destroy the house.

  Dog sitter. Add that to the list of things she needed to get for their new pet.

  Darcy had another reason for wanting to be up this early. The dream from last night was still on her mind.

  She sat up right away and switched on the lamp on her bedside table. Jon flinched next to her, and rolled over, mumbling about wanting five more minutes.

  “No, Jon I need to talk to you.” She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him. “Tell me again about what the coroner sa
id.”

  “What corner?” he asked sleepily.

  “Coroner, not corner. Jon, are you listening to me?”

  “Honestly?” Another yawn. “No. I’m sleeping.”

  “You are not.” She kissed his cheek and saw him smile. “Now. Tell me again what the coroner said about Helen.”

  His eyes opened, and he looked at her with gentle concern. “Darcy, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “Do what?”

  “I know this is hard,” he said. “It was Helen. You haven’t lost anyone that close to you in a very long time. There’s a very personal aspect to it for you, and I get that, but don’t turn it into something it’s not.”

  She stroked his face, sensing the love in his words. “Thank you, Jon, but I’m serious. Did the coroner find anything at all odd when he examined Helen?”

  Knowing that she wasn’t going to let him go back to sleep until she had her answer, Jon stretched, and sat up with her. “There wasn’t anything to see. He didn’t do a full examination of her. There wasn’t any reason to.”

  “No, I understand that, but was there anything at all?”

  He shook his head as he pushed himself up out of bed and started getting his clothes out for the day. “I’m telling you, Darcy, it was all on the up and up. Nothing strange, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all…”

  But then he stopped. In his hand was a crisp white button-up shirt. He’d worn it dozens of times, but now he was staring at it like he’d never seen it before.

  “Jon?” she asked him. “What is it?”

  He set the shirt down. “Her clothes.”

  “Helen, you mean? Helen’s clothes?” She swung her legs off her side of the bed and sat close to him. “What about her clothes?”

  He put the shirt aside. “Well it’s just… maybe it’s nothing.”

  “Aha!” Darcy exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew it! I knew there had to be something. Jon, you have to tell me what it is. There are things about this that don’t add up. Things I haven’t told you yet because I wanted to make sure I was right. Now, I know I am. You have to tell me!”