Til Death Do Us Part (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 16) Read online

  “That was a horrible accent. You know that, right?”

  Grace stuck her tongue out at Darcy. “Don’t they have some kind of giant killer snake there?”

  “That’s Florida. I think. I mean, they have snakes—”

  “Giant firebreathing lizard?”

  “You mean Godzilla?”

  “I just don’t want you getting killed by some weird animal, sis. Like the platypus.”

  “I’m pretty sure the platypus is a vegetarian,” Darcy said, unable to keep herself from laughing. Her sister acted serious all the time, but then suddenly she would slip and remember she actually had a sense of humor. “I have to go see Jon. Don’t worry. I promise not to be eaten by any wild animals when we go to Australia.”

  “I mean, seriously.” Grace opened a file and took out a pen to make some notes. “Why does anyone go to Australia?”

  “Oh, the Sydney opera house, the Great Barrier Reef, the Blue Mountains, driving along the Great Ocean Road…”

  “Okay, okay, I get the point. You two are going to see a lot of things and have a lot of fun and be all lovey-dovey. Got it.” She waved with the pen. “Go talk to your man. He was looking for you earlier anyway.”

  On the way to Jon’s office, Darcy noticed how there weren’t many officers in the building. Not even Wilson Barton, junior detective of the Misty Hollow police force. Darcy figured he’d be stuck with most of the grunt work on this case, like collecting statements or talking to the victims’ next of kin.

  Jon’s door was open, and he was sitting behind his desk, staring at his computer screen, scrolling through an e-mail or a report of some kind. She stood in the doorway for a moment, just watching him work. She loved to watch him.

  When she cleared her throat he looked up. Blinking in surprise, he stood and came around the desk to wrap his arms around her and draw her inside the room. “Hey. I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t figure I’d see you until lunchtime.”

  “I needed to get away from the store for a bit. I have something I think you should check on. Plus, there’s way too much excitement in this town right now over people being dead.”

  “Well,” he said, “to be fair, the people were already dead. Somebody just dug them up out of the ground. With a crowbar or something to pry the caskets open.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “State Police just sent their report over. After a lot of arm twisting. Seems they don’t like to share with us local hicks.”

  They sat down. Jon had two chairs set up for visitors on one side of his desk, and he sat there with her, holding her hand the whole time. She could see how this case was weighing on him. His first big investigation since becoming chief of police was going to be a real test for him. She squeezed his hands and smiled at him, letting him see how much confidence she had in him.

  “I love you too, Sweet Baby,” Jon told her, hearing everything she hadn’t said. “It’s just that this one is really bizarre. And, the State Police still think this is their case even though all of the bodies were stolen from our town cemetery, and they were people who grew up in our town to begin with. Helen was here to see me this morning, in her capacity as mayor, asking me what I was going to do about all of this. How am I supposed to answer that?”

  “Do you have any suspects yet?” Darcy asked him, wanting to be helpful even though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

  “Nope. There’s no security cameras out at the cemetery or anywhere nearby and even if there was, all of the victims were people who had been buried for years. There’s really no way to know when they were dug up. I’m assuming it was last summer only because I’d like to believe that wherever the bodies were dumped, somebody would have found them before now if they had been out of the graves for any longer than that.”

  That made sense. Hard to miss a pile of bones. “How did Maven find them, do you think?”

  “I think she stumbled on them and took it on herself to sort them out. She was the county coroner, after all. She had that kind of obsessive-compulsive nature, if her home was any indication. So, she sorts them, one bone at a time, puts them into boxes, identifies each body through dental records or DNA sampling or maybe just sheer luck, and puts the names of each victim on the boxes. Then she dies before she can do anything with them. After she dies Baxter Sams finds the first box, we find the others, and here we are.”

  It made sense. Maven must have been getting ready to do something with the boxes of bones, but like Jon said no one had expected her to die. Probably not even Maven.

  “But if that’s true,” she said, “doesn’t that mean the bones were all dug up at once? Or close to all at once? If Maven had been finding these bones for years wouldn’t she have said something? Done something?”

  Jon nodded. “I thought of that. I mean, obviously Maven had some serious mental problems, what with saving all of her toenail clippings and used toothbrushes, but she wouldn’t keep dead bodies a secret forever. She had the names of the victims. She could have taken the next step and found out where they came from just like we did.”

  “Unless she died first.”

  “Right. So, most likely the bodies were dug up last summer.”

  “I agree. Learn anything else from all that paperwork on your desk there, Chief?”

  He smiled at her little tease, and dragged another folder closer. “I’ve learned lots of stuff, actually. Not all of it relates to the case. Look here.”

  He pointed to a very short paragraph in the middle of a page. Darcy leaned over the desk to read it with him. “Our first two victims,” he said. “Oscar and Florence Salvatore. This is what I learned about them. They got married young, and stayed married for fifty-three years.”

  Darcy’s eyes got a little bit wider. To be married for that long, to the same person, must be some kind of minor miracle. Sharing your life with the same person for decades. Knowing that every day you woke up, the same person was going to be there with you.

  Now that was love.

  Jon wasn’t finished. “Then, the report skips forward to their death. Nothing suspicious. Both of them died of natural causes at a very advanced age. On the same day.”

  “We saw that on their gravestones at the cemetery.” Darcy was picturing it in her mind. The Salvatore’s had literally shared their whole life together.

  “Yes. He died early that day. Florence held on a few more hours, then she passed away, too.”

  Darcy felt herself choking up. They had been together forever, and then Florence couldn’t go on without her other half. That was so beautiful. It was the love that every woman dreamed of.

  It was exactly what she wanted for her and Jon. To be together forever, to live their lives until there was no more life to live, and exit the stage side by side.

  “Are you okay?” Jon asked her, reaching up to brush a tear away from her cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. I thought…”

  “No,” she interrupted him. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  With a simple look, she told him everything she was feeling.

  “Ah,” he said. “I see. Yeah, I felt the same way when I read it. And yes, you and I will be together at least that long.”

  “And die the same day?”

  His smile touched his eyes in just the right way. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Her heart was about to burst. She had to change the subject before she teared up again. “Um, where are all of your officers?” she asked him. “I figured you’d have every one of them in here working on this.”

  Jon nodded with his head back toward the squad room. “I called in three extra guys, actually. They’re all out tracking down the families of the deceased. Taking statements, letting them know the basic information of what’s going on with their dead relatives. Wilson Barton went over to the cemetery to see if he could find any trace evidence the State Police boys didn’t find.”

  “You think their CSU guys missed something?”
r />   He shrugged. “I won’t know until Will comes back. Not that I don’t think the State Police know what they’re doing. They do. But they don’t know this town like we do. If there’s something out of place, he’ll find it.”

  She still had to ask about Phoebe Stewart, but she wanted to hear everything Jon had found out first. “Did you learn anything new at all? About the case, I mean?”

  He clapped his hands together. “Yes. Well, sort of. It turns out your hunch about the victims being buried with valuables was dead on. Forgive the pun.”

  He went back around to the other side of the desk, settling into his chair and turning the computer screen so she could see it. “These are scanned copies of the records from Grace Community Church. They’re pretty thorough, and they go back to the early 1800s, before the town was even incorporated.”

  He scrolled up a number of pages, then pointed out a few lines. “When someone is buried, the church has always made a note of who they were. When they were born. When they died. That sort of thing. What they did for a living. Who their surviving family members are. And, what they were buried with.”

  “Watches, rings, necklaces,” she read. “Wow. This guy was even buried with five hundred dollars in gold.”

  “That would be Cadman DeBoers. He’s one of the bodies that was dug up. Guess what isn’t in the grave anymore?”

  “A whole bunch of gold coins,” Darcy muttered absently as she looked through the list for… “Florence Salvatore. Died, July nineteenth, 1947. Buried three days later in a white dress with her glasses and engagement ring!”

  Darcy knew the dream had been more than just a creation of her tired mind. It had been a glimpse at the real event, when Florence had been married to Oscar, and they had danced and been in love. When Florence had admired her engagement ring and promised herself she would take it to her grave.

  Which was exactly what she had done.

  Only now, the ring wasn’t with her remains. Someone had dug her up to steal it.

  “Jon, this is incredible. Who would do something like this?”

  “Someone who thought they could make a quick buck off stealing from people who couldn’t make a complaint. It makes sense, in a disgusting kind of way. Every one of these victims had something valuable buried with them. Florence’s ring. Cadman’s five hundred dollars in gold, which is probably worth a lot more than face value now. A man’s gold necklace with a ruby chip in the setting. A gold watch. Every one of them had something, except for one.”

  Darcy felt her excitement deflate. “What do you mean?”

  He scrolled down to the right record. “Emile Miller. Died in 1963. See what he’s buried with?”

  The entry was a short one. “New suit, donated by the church. That’s it?”

  Jon nodded. “I don’t see why anyone would take the trouble to dig up someone for a suit. Do you?”

  “No,” Darcy had to admit. “It would have been nothing but rags when they got to it anyway. Well, this one exception doesn’t mean the rest weren’t dug up for what they had, right?”

  “That’s right. I’ve already had Wilson and Grace call around to the pawn shops and gold brokers around the area to see if anyone had items come through that match our list. It’s a good start, but it leaves a pretty big question unanswered. You know that, right?”

  Darcy scrunched her eyebrows, trying to think. What had she missed? There was a lot left unanswered, but she was sure that they’d asked all the right questions already. “I don’t understand. What question?”

  “If the bodies were dug up to get at their valuables, how did anyone know which ones to dig up?”

  Of course. “Well, one of them didn’t have anything, right? Could they be picking graves at random?”

  Jon rolled his head side to side. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think you were right, and I think our grave robber is targeting specific graves for high value items. Emile’s grave is a question mark, but let’s set that aside for a minute. Whoever our guy is, he knew to hit these specific graves. How?”

  Darcy’s mind mulled that over, and over again, not really coming up with anything useful. “Well, they had to be someone familiar with the cemetery.”

  “Okay,” Jon said, nodding his approval. “That’s what I figure to. So who does that lead us to?”

  “Pastor Hillier,” Darcy said right away, “but somehow I doubt he’s digging people up to steal their watches.”

  “Right. If he was going to steal from corpses like that, he could just take the items off the bodies before they got sent to the cemetery, before they were bones to be dumped somewhere.”

  “So, who else knew what was in the graves? People from the historical society?”

  “I’m not sure, but that’s the question of the day.”

  “Really? I thought the question of the day was whether or not you had your vows written.”

  Darcy smiled at the look that came over Jon’s face. She’d had enough talk about dead and dry bones for now. She wanted to talk about something happy. Like their wedding.

  “Darcy, I have an important investigation going on.”

  “I know, but let’s talk about us for a little bit.”

  “Well, I do enjoy talking about us.” He closed the file out on the computer screen. Then he opened the center drawer on his desk and took out a little spiral bound notebook. “Of course I’ve been working on my vows. Do you want to see them?”

  She almost bounced in her chair. She wanted to see what he’d written that badly. He teased her with it, too, holding it closer and then taking it away, starting to open the cover and then closing it again. Finally she shot him a glare. “Fine,” she said. “I guess it would be bad luck if I saw them now.”

  “I thought that was only true about me seeing the wedding dress?”

  “Let’s not push it,” Darcy reminded him. “The only kind of luck we usually have is the bad kind. I’d rather not invite trouble.”

  “Too bad. I’ve written something really good. There might even be tears when I read it.” He winked at her. “You have yours written?”

  She nodded, biting down on her lower lip. It had taken her two nights to finish her vows. She’d gone through four drafts, crumpling up each one in turn to throw in the trash, before she was finally happy with them. She’d read it at least ten times more. Those words were beautiful. She couldn’t wait to share them with Jon.

  “So we’ve got almost everything set.” Jon reached across the desk and took her hand again. “Are you ready to get married?”

  “More than ever. You need to get your tuxedo. So does Aaron. And Connor, too. You didn’t forget, did you?”

  “Of course not. Aaron and I have an appointment next week. We’ll bring Connor along, depending on what his mom says. Oh. I wanted to tell you about my mom, too.”

  “Your…mom?”

  “Sure,” he said. “She responded to the RSVP.”

  This was the first Darcy had heard of it. “Well, what did she say?”

  “She said—”

  “Chief?” Darcy recognized Wilson Barton’s voice calling down the hallway. “I’m back. I’ve got news. Oh, hey Darcy.”

  He came around the door at full speed but then stopped when he saw that Jon wasn’t alone. His normally serious eyes were wide and excited. The brown suit he usually wore had dirt stains on the knees and elbows. Darcy waved with her fingers, knowing she would have to put talk of her wedding on hold for now.

  Wilson had been out at the cemetery looking for anything that might help the investigation. It looked to Darcy like he might have found it.

  “What’s up, Will?” Jon asked him.

  “I found it,” he answered.

  “Found it? Found what?”

  Wilson held up a plastic evidence bag for them to see. Inside was a small brown piece of something the size of a finger.

  Darcy held Jon’s hand tighter when she realized it didn’t just look like a finger. It was a finger.

  Chapter Seven


  Jon had been right. The State Police didn’t like sharing this case.

  Sergeant Vic Dunson wiped at his brow with that same folded white handkerchief. “I’m blaming you for this, Chief Tinker.”

  “Blame me all you want,” Jon told him. “I’ve got big shoulders. All I want is for this to get solved.”

  They were standing in the woods behind the cemetery off Applegate Road, way back into the woods, almost to the river. The water was a gentle babbling off into the trees still, almost masked by the sound of men searching step by step through the grass and leftover leaf fall from the winter. CSU officers with gloves and pointy poles were looking for more bones in the same spot that Wilson had found that finger.

  “So this is where Maven found all of the bones.” Vic shoved his handkerchief back into the shirt pocket of his uniform even though Darcy still saw the sheen of sweat on his face and cheeks.

  It wasn’t even that warm. Well, it was warm for the time of year, but not enough that Vic should be sweating like this. The man was nervous. It was obvious he was in over his head. He might be a sergeant in the State Police, but Darcy knew Jon had seen and done more in their little town than Vic probably ever would in his whole career.

  Now that Darcy was standing in this spot, she understood how someone could dump the bones from the graves here without anyone finding them. It was secluded and a good distance away from any of the established trails through the woods. It was hard to say if the bones might have been buried under the cover of the leaf debris and loose soil before Maven found them. It wasn’t like they had to be hidden. Not out here. No one would ever come this way in a million years.

  So why was Maven out here?

  “You sure Maven Sirles didn’t dig the bones up herself?” Vic asked. “She had the bones in her garage. My Lieutenant and my Captain are both looking into her financials. I have to agree with them. I don’t see any better explanation.”

  Jon exchanged a look with Darcy, then cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “You’re forgetting a few very important facts, Sergeant.”

  “Oh really, Chief? Like what?”