by K. J. Emrick
“Yup.” He took three more steps before adding, “But he misses Miss Helen. He asked if she was gonna come back. I said no. He was sad. Dogs don’t unstand dead. Isn’t that funny? Dogs are so funny.”
Unstand, he said, meaning Understand.
”Yes, dogs are silly,” Darcy agreed, although probably for different reasons than her son was thinking. She still wasn’t too sure how she felt about having a dog in the house. Cha-Cha was a loveable scamp, and Zane had certainly taken to him, but she was still a cat person at heart.
The dream she’d had, the one with Cha-Cha in it, came back to her. Without realizing it, he might have given her the clue to solving the mystery of Helen’s death. That’s what had led her to Carson’s office, and the photos she took.
She needed proof. That’s what had been missing. Well, she had proof now.
Darcy patted her back pocket where her cellphone sat tight against the curve of her jeans. While she’d been taking the pictures of the day planner, she’d read what Carson Everly had penciled in for Saturday night at nine-thirty PM, the night Helen died. The penmanship was blocky and bold and easy to read.
Meet with Helen Turner.
Now she could prove to Jon that she wasn’t imagining things. Someone had been at Helen’s house when she died. She had the proof he needed. After he saw the page in Carson’s planner he’d start investigating. He wouldn’t let her down.
Carson Everly was going to pay for what he’d done.
Chapter 6
After spending a few more hours at the bookstore Darcy packed up Zane and Cha-Cha in the car and drove home. She didn’t live too far from the bookstore, so it only took a few minutes in the car. In her younger days she used to walk back and forth, or ride her bicycle, but now she was a mother. That job came with a lot of responsibilities, and often it meant packing those responsibilities up in a car to get from point A to point B.
Plus, she was anxious to get home. She couldn’t run down to the police station and show her photos to Jon because Colby would be getting off the bus at the house soon, and Zane needed her attention, and so did Cha-Cha. It was frustrating, even if she wouldn’t trade being a mother for all the time in the world. She could feel her heart rate rising in worry that she may not get it all done on time. Deep breaths, she told herself. When Jon came home she could show him then.
She might be able to attach the photos to a text message and send them to Jon, but she wasn’t confident that she knew how to do that. By the time she figured it out, Jon would be home already.
So, it could wait. It would have to. Everything in good time. She was doing this for Helen, she reminded herself. Helen needed justice. She needed people to know what had been done to her and to have the guilty person pay the price.
Darcy frowned at herself in the rearview mirror as she pulled into her driveway. She was angry, she realized. She had been angry all day but she had hidden it from Izzy and from her children and even from Jon. She’d snapped at Carson Everly, but then the man deserved it.
Especially since he was the one who… the one who had…
Funny. Now, as she sat there hoping to tell Jon exactly what she had found out, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Not even in her own mind.
Carson Everly had killed Helen. Those two words seemed so simple, and yet there was just so many emotions tangled up in them.
Anger was the second stage of grief. Right after denial. She’d gone through that one quickly because as hard as it was to imagine that Helen was gone, she had known right away that Jon was telling her the truth. He wouldn’t make something like that up. So denial had come and gone and since then, a spark of anger had grown into crackling flames in the pit of her stomach.
It was all so wrong. Helen dying of natural causes had been unfair to begin with. Now that she knew Helen had been murdered, it was that much worse. She couldn’t sit back and let that go unpunished.
Why should she? How many people had she helped by investigating murder mysteries? Friends, and family, and people she didn’t even know, too. Didn’t Helen deserve the same? Didn’t she deserve better, after everything she had done in her life for Darcy and for the whole town?
Wasn’t her good friend deserving of a little anger?
“Momma?” Zane said from his safety seat behind her. “Cha-Cha hasta pee.”
Those simple, almost laughable words broke into Darcy’s darkening thoughts. She blinked her way back to the present, wondering how long she’d been sitting there in the car with Zane in the backseat and a panting dog standing with his paws up on the door to see out the passenger side window. Minutes, perhaps. She had to instruct her fingers to relax from where they curled white-knuckled around the steering wheel.
Cha-Cha had to pee. No matter what else was going on in the world, a puppy dog’s bladder could not be denied.
Letting go of her anger, or at least putting it back deep inside for the moment, she made sure to put a smile on her face before turning to her son. “So Cha-Cha has to pee, does he?”
“Uh-huh. He told me so.”
Cha-Cha looked over his shoulder at Darcy, one ear dangling down low as he did. Then he whuffed as if he was repeating what Zane had said. His eyes pleaded with Darcy to be let out.
“All right you two,” Darcy said brightly. “Let’s spend some time in the front yard. We’ll have to clean up after Cha-Cha does his business, won’t we Zane? Then maybe we can play some games before Colby gets home from school. How does that sound?”
“Yay!” Zane cheered with a fist in the air. “But not for picking up poop. Picking up poop’s no fun. How come Cha-Cha won’t use a letter box?”
“It’s a litter box,” Darcy corrected him. “Cats like Tiptoe use litter boxes. Dogs prefer to do their business in the outdoors. They’re just free spirits like that, I guess.”
Zane scrunched his face up. It was obvious that he had no idea what she meant, but he nodded anyway. “Free spirits. Doggies are free spirits. Like ghosts?”
“Uh, no. Not like ghosts.” He’d heard his mother talking about ghosts plenty of times, and he at least knew a little bit about what they were. She undid his five-point buckle harness to let him out of his seat and playfully ruffled his hair. “This is a different kind of spirit I’m talking about. So, let’s give our puppy some free spirit time in the front yard before he frees his spirit all over my car.”
Zane laughed, and then abruptly stopped. “I don’t get it.”
Darcy added that to the list of things she would explain to him when he got a little older.
After Cha-Cha had done his thing—and after Darcy had cleaned up his thing—she let the boy and his dog run around and chase each other. Both of them were able to run at just about the same speed, Zane with his toddler muscles and Cha-Cha with his ears constantly getting in the way. She dearly wished that Helen had been here to see this. Actually, she just wished that her friend was here. Still alive. Still living her life.
One day, Death—with a capital D—would come knocking on Darcy’s door, just like it would for everyone someday. All she asked was that God grant her the time to see Colby and Zane grow up. Maybe even start families of their own. She’d love to be able to see what kind of father Zane grew up to be. And, what Colby’s children would look like. That was a large part of why Great Aunt Millie’s ghost was still here. She’d wanted to make sure Darcy was all right, but then she’d wanted to see Colby and Zane growing up.
Darcy wanted to be here for them both, in the flesh, just as long as she could. She didn’t want to wait to be a ghost to see what became of her children.
Which reminded her. Where in the world was Helen’s ghost?
Cha-Cha barked with excitement as Zane threw him a stick and the puppy chased after it. The throw was barely three feet long, but neither of them cared. It was a game, and they were both ready to play it forever. Or at least until dinnertime.
Darcy gave them half of her attention. Just enough to make sure Zane didn’t run out in
to the road or that Cha-Cha wasn’t going to get too excited and accidentally bite Zane. Not that it seemed like she had to worry about that, but Cha-Cha was a dog, and dogs… well, they weren’t cats.
The rest of her thoughts were still focused on that one question. Where was Helen’s ghost? Usually Darcy couldn’t keep the ghosts in Misty Hollow away from her, short of laying down lines of salt along the windows and burning tallow root candles. Both of those things worked remarkably well at keeping away both ghosts, and bugs. The point was, she should have run into Helen’s ghost somewhere by now. At her and Bruce’s house. At the Town Hall, where she spent a large part of her time. Or here, even, asking for Darcy’s help in her front yard.
But… nothing.
Darcy sighed to herself, because she knew what that was going to mean. She had ways of forcing contact with spirits. They weren’t always fun, and they were physically draining, but for someone with her talents they were a way of getting information from the dearly departed.
She could do a spirit communication. In fact, she could do one tonight.
If anyone was going to know who killed Helen, it would be Helen herself. The communication could give her exactly the answers she’d been running around town all day looking for. Darcy laughed at herself. If only talking to ghosts were that simple.
While she was debating the idea, the big yellow school bus rolled up to the end of the driveway and let Colby out. She dropped her bookbag immediately and went to join Cha-Cha and Zane playing under the big tree in front of the house. The puppy was beside himself now that he had two kids to play with. He was wagging his tail so hard that he was practically knocking himself over.
Jon would be home soon, so long as nothing major had happened at work today. She’d better get supper started. She wanted to eat quickly, and then get Colby’s homework out of the way, and maybe set the kids down in front of a show so she and Jon could talk about Helen.
Lots to do, and it wasn’t going to take care of itself. Best to start now.
“Colby?” she called over. Her daughter stopped teasing a stick away from the puppy and came skipping closer. The sunlight caught at the auburn in her hair just so. Darcy knelt, and let her daughter run into her arms, hugging her tight. “Can you be a big girl for me and watch your brother and Cha-Cha for maybe five minutes? I want to get a few things out for supper.”
Colby’s shoulders slumped. “Aw, Mom. Do we have to come inside now?”
“No, I mean watch them out here. Just for a few minutes and then I’ll be back. You guys can stay out until your father comes home.”
“Oh, awesome! Thanks Mom.” She squinted. “I might come inside soon anyway. My head still kind of hurts.”
Darcy put a hand over her forehead. “I hope you aren’t coming down with something. Stay out for a bit, but come in if you start to get a scratchy throat, okay?”
“I will. I promise. Oh. When you see Tiptoe, tell her to come out and play. She was real mopey this morning. You’ll need to remind her to stay off the counters again, too.”
Then she turned and raced back to her brother. There was no way that Colby could have seen inside the kitchen window from here to spot Tiptoe up on the counters, but Darcy didn’t doubt that what she said would turn out to be the truth. Colby’s gift was just that strong.
Sure enough, as soon as Darcy was through the front door and inside the kitchen, there was Tiptoe sitting up on the counter next to the sink.
“Hey, get down,” Darcy told her. The sleek gray cat stared back with obvious disinterest in the rules of the house. With a heavy sigh, she uncurled her tail from around her feet and dropped herself to the floor. “That’s better. Listen, I know things are crazy around here right now, but you have to give me a break, okay? One of my best friends just died and we’re doing a favor by taking the dog in.”
Tiptoe stopped where she was in the middle of the kitchen and swished her tail. She kept her eyes on the floor, but Darcy could tell she was listening.
Dropping herself into one of the kitchen chairs, Darcy patted her lap, asking for the young cat to join her. Tiptoe declined with a flick of that one black-tipped ear. Sometimes she was so much like her father had been that it made Darcy’s heart ache.
“You know we didn’t bring Cha-Cha here to upset you,” Darcy tried explaining. “It wasn’t my idea. You know I’m not a dog person. I prefer cats. I always have.”
That got a quick whisker twitch in response. It was the cat equivalent of a smirk. Tiptoe agreed with her that cats made better houseguests. She was just too aloof to say so.
“Tiptoe…”
Darcy searched for the right words. Talking with Smudge had been so much easier. They had been friends for decades. They understood each other in the way that best friends did. Smudge’s daughter was sitting right here in front of her, and she still couldn’t seem to find a way to bridge the communication gap between them. All she could do was tell the truth, and hope that Tiptoe would eventually open up to her.
“This is how it is. This house belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me. I don’t want you to feel like we’re squeezing you out of your own home. Jon and I have already discussed it and if you’re uncomfortable with Cha-Cha being here, we’ll find someplace else for him to live.”
She meant every word. It was only fair to Tiptoe, who had been here first. She hadn’t asked for a dog to become part of the family. Darcy just hoped that the cat was mature enough now to understand why it had happened, and how important it was to help out a friend.
Tiptoe finally looked up at her, and their eyes met, and Darcy was relieved at the expression she written there. The dog can stay, she was saying, but keep the mangy mutt out of my way.
Then she got up on all fours and started off into the living room.
“Hey,” Darcy called to her. “Colby’s outside. She’s there with Zane and Cha-Cha. She said you should go out and play with her.”
The cat’s tail flicked from side to side.
Don’t push your luck.
“Fine, but you’re going to stay off the counters now, right? Tiptoe?”
From the other room came a reluctant mreow. Darcy had no idea what she meant by that, but it was likely the only answer she was going to get.
All during dinner, it was obvious that Jon had wanted to talk to her just as much as she wanted to talk to him. They’d listened as the kids told them about their day, and chatted about the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner, and about this and that without ever once getting around to the topic that was on both of their minds. It wasn’t something they wanted to talk about in front of the kids. As mature as Colby tried to be, some things were still too PG for their eleven-year-old girl.
Darcy hoped it stayed that way for a long time. Colby had huffed about how the Disney cartoon Darcy had put on for her and Zane was childish, but that hadn’t kept her from glancing up at it from time to time while she did her homework. She might want to be all grown up, but at heart she was still a child.
“All right,” Jon said as he took a seat on the edge of the mattress in their bedroom. He was still in the gray suit and white button-up that he’d worn to work this morning, minus the tie that he had stripped off as soon as he got home. “You’ve obviously been dying to tell me something all night long. What is it?”
He was tired. She could see it in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to stretch out on their bed and not wake up until his alarm went off tomorrow morning, but she wasn’t going to let him go to sleep before he admitted she was right. “Oh, no,” she told him, standing in the doorway and crossing her arms over her chest. “You’ve been waiting to talk to me all night, too. I know you, Jon Tinker, and I know when something’s pressing on your mind. So. You first.”
“Okay.” He settled himself back on his elbows. “I asked the coroner to do a further exam on Helen before sending her body to the funeral home.”
Darcy was surprised. “But you said there was no reason for it. You said, and I’m quoting here, ‘the
re’s just not enough reason to start an investigation.’ You do remember saying that, right?”
“Sure I do. But then I realized how certain you were about it, and sometimes the only reason I need to do anything, is because I believe in you. So, I asked for a further examination to be done.”
His words made her melt. Sometimes she hated how easy it was for him to make her feel all squiggly with love. She was standing here, wanting to be mad at him for not believing her, and then he goes and says something like that?
Actually, a lot of the anger she had felt before at the loss of her good friend slipped away from the tight knot in her belly where she’d been holding onto it. All because of a few words from her husband. Jon’s love for her was an amazing thing.
She relaxed her folded arms and slid herself down next to him on the bed, letting him fold his strong arms around her while she laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. Now. Want to hear what the coroner told me in an unofficial phone call this afternoon?”
“You know I do.”
“Good. Because frankly, now I’m worried that we all might have jumped the gun on classifying this as natural causes.” He paused, and then she heard him sigh from deep in his chest. “According to the coroner, there’s a lump on the back of Helen’s head. It might be consistent with being hit by a heavy object.”
Darcy shot up to her feet again, raising a hand in vindication. “Aha! I knew it! Now you’ve got to start an investigation, right?”
He held up a hand for her to wait. “Slow down, Nancy Drew. It’s something, sure, but the coroner said it wasn’t conclusive. He’s still looking, and he’ll know more tomorrow. It’s one piece of a larger puzzle, maybe, but not enough to call this a murder.”
“For Pete’s sake, Jon!” she exclaimed in disbelief. “Come on!”
Sitting up, reaching over to take her hand, he pulled her closer. She thought maybe he was going to pull her down with him again but instead, he pulled her hand around to the back of his head and pressed her fingers to a spot on his scalp where she could feel a slightly raised bump.