A Murder of Consequence (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 15) Read online

  “Yes, I did.” No sense in denying it.

  “Darcy, why? You shouldn’t have done that!”

  “Why not? Are you worried about what he told me?”

  Curling her feet up under her, folding her arms over themselves, Sarah made herself into a tight little ball. “I know what he told you. That was private, Darcy. You should have left it alone. Haven’t I been through enough today?”

  “More than anyone ever should have to endure. I’m so sorry, Sarah. I truly, truly am. I came here to help you and that’s what I’m going to do. If you let me.”

  “Darcy…”

  “No, hear me out. I need you to trust me.”

  “I do trust you. I do.”

  “Then why did you lie to me?”

  “Because I was embarrassed, okay!” Sarah quickly lowered her voice, gritting her teeth, leaning in closer to Darcy. “I was embarrassed and scared to tell even one of my closest friends that I messed around with another man and got pregnant because of it and nearly screwed up my marriage for good. Okay? Can you understand that?”

  Darcy could. She couldn’t hold it against her friend that she didn’t want to talk about cheating on the man she loved, especially when that man had just been murdered. In Sarah’s shoes, she might have done the same thing.

  Over Sarah’s shoulder, a pale little face appeared behind the arm of the couch. Felicia smiled as she waved at Darcy with her fingers. Then she put her hand up over her eyes. It was an odd gesture, an eerie thing to see a little girl’s ghost do.

  What did it mean?

  “I’m going to help you, Sarah,” she said, one eye on Felicia. “Just, no more lies. There can’t be any more lying.”

  Felicia put a finger up against her lips, telling Darcy to be quiet. Or, saying someone was being quiet about something? Her mom? Was Sarah holding something back that Felicia knew about?

  Darcy frowned. Ghosts very rarely gave straight answers to anything. They spoke from an urgent need to give a message. That message was their answer. Over and over, whether it answered your question or not. Even to people who could hear and see them like Darcy.

  The question was, what message was Felicia trying to give her?

  “It’s been so hard, Darcy. I kept so much locked away inside for so long.”

  Darcy took her attention away from Felicia for just an instant. When she looked back, the little girl ghost was gone.

  “Sarah,” she said, “I know you’re scared, embarrassed, whatever. I understand. But you can’t keep lying to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” Darcy told her, “I think I might know who killed your husband.”

  ***

  It was too late tonight to do anything about it. Hampton McGillis had been a soldier. He had Braden’s wallet on him when the police had arrested him. He was mentally unstable, and he had a severe fixation on Sarah.

  He made an excellent suspect in Darcy’s mind.

  Then again, Terry Taft wasn’t out of the running.

  When she told Sarah that she might know who the killer was, she had been leaning toward Hampton because of the information that he’d been in the military. That could have given him the skills he needed to kill with poisons.

  That was last night.

  Now that she was lying on a blowup mattress in the cluttered room Sarah used for storage, staring at the ceiling in the dark, she was having second thoughts. She had made lists for both men, and made them again, and sometimes it came down for Hampton and sometimes it came down for Terry and sometimes it was a tossup.

  Deep in the night, she finally closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep.

  “Don’t you have work to do?”

  She sat up, suddenly very awake, recognizing that voice right away. A light turned on, and there she was, sitting on a stack of cardboard boxes. Great Aunt Millie wore the same dark dress that she always wore in Darcy’s dreams, along with that floppy sun hat that she’d taken such a liking to. She smiled, and it lifted Darcy’s heart to see it.

  “I was just resting my eyes for a little while,” Darcy told her. “It was a very long day.”

  “Oh, I know dear. Your friend’s husband is dead. Let’s see, what else? Ah, yes. Too many suspects, not enough information. Got another good friend with you, too. Good woman. Nice boy of hers, that Connor. They need your help, too.”

  Seemed like everyone needed her help.

  “I wish you were here,” Darcy said impulsively. It was impossible, and she knew it, but that didn’t stop her from wishing for it.

  “Oh, but I am here. I’m right here.” Millie reached out and stroked Darcy’s cheek. The sensation of it was so real. It wasn’t fair, how real it felt.

  “I’m sorry, Darcy. I left you much too soon.”

  “You taught me everything you could before you had to go,” Darcy said, wishing she could go back to the days when Millie and her would have long conversations about everything from shoes to cabbages to ghosts, and everything in between. “And like you said, you’re here now.”

  “Perhaps not for much longer,” the cat said.

  Stretching languidly on Millie’s lap, Smudge smiled up at Darcy. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself,” she answered him. Darcy and Smudge had always been able to understand each other, more or less, but only in her dreams could he actually talk. He sounded just like she imagined he would. “What do you mean, Millie might not be here long?”

  “That’s enough of that,” Millie said, gently swatting Smudge’s belly. “You don’t worry Darcy about things like that. She’s got plenty enough to worry about now.”

  “That’s true, Smudge.” Darcy’s mind spun with everything she was thinking about, all at the same time. “Be a good cat.”

  “Hmph,” Smudge snorted.

  Millie scratched him under the chin, and winked at Darcy.

  “So, Millie,” she said after a long moment. “What can you tell me?”

  “Why, whatever do you mean, dear?”

  “What do I…? Millie, you never show up in my dreams unless you have something to tell me.”

  “There’s nothing I can tell you. Not this time.”

  “What? Millie! I need your help.”

  The old woman shook her head, her kindly and wrinkled face fading into shadows. “You don’t need my help. Not this time. Everything you need to know is right in front of you. You just have to open your eyes.”

  Darcy reached out for Millie, hoping to catch hold of her and make her change her mind somehow. She needed help. Everything was not right there in front of her, no matter what Millie said. She needed help.

  Smudge smiled at her. “Just open your eyes, Darcy.”

  Her hand melted through both of them, and they dissolved into smoke. Millie’s voice floated through the empty air. “Open your eyes, dear.”

  Darcy woke from the dream with a start, her eyes popping open, staring around her at the cramped room. The light was on, just like it had been in the dream. She could see everything around her.

  Right in front of her, she saw it.

  “Millie,” Darcy breathed. “What does it mean?”

  There was no answer to her question. She didn’t expect there would be.

  It just would have been nice.

  ***

  The next morning Darcy slipped out early before even Connor got out of the bed he was sharing with his mom in the spare bedroom. She had somewhere to go.

  The police station was a twenty minute walk from Sarah’s house. She regretted leaving the car behind. Just one more reason that the station was becoming her least favorite location in Birkenfalls. Which was saying a lot, considering what had happened here. Still, she had to be here. The framed photograph she had snuck out with her this morning was leading her here.

  Millie had said that what she needed was already right in front of her. Just open your eyes, Millie had said. When she’d woken up from the dream and opened her eyes this was what she had seen.

  This photograp
h.

  Darcy didn’t know what it meant, but she was going to find out.

  The officer at the window was very curt with her. Cold, even. Apparently, she was quickly wearing out her welcome. Too bad. She was here for her friend.

  When the officer came back with Sergeant Shai Larson, she was a little more polite. But it was a near thing.

  “The chief still isn’t back in town,” Shai said before Darcy had even said her first word.

  “That’s okay. I’m not here to see the chief. I wanted to see you.”

  “Miss Sweet, I’m in the middle of a murder investigation. An investigation, by the way, that your friend happens to be a person of interest in. I don’t think we should be having a private chat right now. Do you?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Shai measured Darcy with a long glance. After a moment, she adjusted the duty belt around her waist, and shrugged. “Sure, why not. Maybe you’ve got something more to add to your statement.”

  Darcy waited by the security door. It buzzed, and Shai held it open for her.

  “Are you like this all the time?” she asked Darcy.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, some folks might call it tenacious.”

  Darcy had to smile. “My fiancé thinks so.”

  “Your fiancé the chief?”

  “That’s him. Jon. So when is your chief coming back?”

  “To tell you the truth,” Shai said with a long sigh, “I think he’s planning on staying out of town altogether until this murder investigation wraps up. Gives him some distance from it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good way to run a department.”

  “Well, local politics is a funny thing. Being a black police sergeant here is a real trip, too.” She led them down to the sergeant’s office again, making sure to close the door before they sat down. “Now, what did you want to talk about?”

  Darcy took out the photograph in its frame and laid it on the desk between them, on top of a short pile of case files. “This. I wanted to ask you about this.”

  Shai blinked down at the picture. Picking it up, she held it out in front of her in both hands. “Wow. I haven’t seen this in a long time.”

  Darcy figured as much. The two women in the photo were young, in high school probably, but there was no mistaking them for who they were. Sarah, and Shai Larson.

  “I’m guessing,” Darcy said, “that this is at the high school that Sarah went to after she left Misty Hollow. You two went to school there together?”

  “Sure. It’s a small area up here. Most everybody goes to the same school. So what?”

  That was the question right there. “You two were in track together.”

  The picture of them was a posed shot together on a red clay track, bleachers in the background, and a bunch of those hurdles people jump over while running around in circles. Both girls were young and athletic. Sarah’s hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. In matching shorts and jerseys with numbers on them, the two girls were smiling with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

  They had been friends. Very close friends. It wasn’t a hard conclusion for Darcy to come to. She was sure it meant something. Millie wouldn’t have told her to look at what was in front of her if it wasn’t important.

  “Sure. We ran track. Had chemistry and American literature together too. Even fought over the same boy once.” She put the picture down, and stared at Darcy, waiting. “So?”

  What had Darcy been expecting? Was Shai really going to break down and make some sort of confession based on an old photo of her and Sarah at track practice? She had been so sure that Shai was somehow involved in Braden’s murder. The dream had pointed her right here.

  Why?

  Shai leaned her elbows on the desk, irritation in her voice. “Are you trying to say I’m biased in this investigation because I went to the same high school as Sarah?”

  “No, I—”

  “I have to tell you, Miss Sweet, I don’t know how they do things back in that rinky dink little town of yours, but in this town we are professionals. No matter who is involved.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all.” Darcy didn’t know how to explain this. She couldn’t tell Shai that her dead aunt had told her to open her eyes and that was how she found this very important piece of evidence. Even if she did say that, even if she could make Shai believe in her paranormal abilities, what then? Shai wasn’t giving anything up.

  And how dare she call Misty Hollow rinky dink?

  The photo wasn’t getting her anywhere. Maybe she’d been wrong. The thought had crossed her mind that, somehow, maybe Shai was the killer. Or involved in some other way. That idea was quickly evaporating away. Along with her reason for being here. She was back to Hampton—and Terry—as suspects.

  As she was trying to find a way to bring up either one of those men, Shai did it for her.

  “Terry told me you were here yesterday. I don’t appreciate you coming in here to yell at my people.”

  “Then tell your people to act professionally. Isn’t that how you said you do it here?”

  “Terry is one of our best officers,” Shai argued. “You don’t get to come in here and tell him how to do his job.”

  “I didn’t. I told him to stay away from Sarah. There was, um, a good reason for it, too.”

  Shai nodded. “I know. He told me all about it.”

  Darcy wasn’t sure she’d heard that right. “All about it? He told you…all about it?”

  “Yes. He told me he used to date Sarah. Seven years ago. While she and Braden were married. Not smart. In fact, it was stupid. I told him so. That’s ancient history. None of my concern, and certainly none of yours.”

  Well. It looked like Terry hadn’t told Shai everything after all. “Tell me something, Shai. Did you know Sarah and Braden’s little girl?”

  A puzzled look settled over Shai’s face. “Sure. Well, I knew of her. Everyone did. That was a real heartbreaker when she died. Just five years old and…and…oh.”

  Women had an intuition about such things. Darcy could attest to that herself. It had taken Shai only a few seconds and the right question to figure out that Sarah’s child had been Terry’s, not Braden’s.

  A number of things sprang to Darcy’s mind that she hadn’t felt right asking Sarah. “How did their daughter die? Can you tell me that?”

  “No harm in that, I guess. It’s not like it’s a secret. The little girl drowned. In the bathtub of their home. It was a private tragedy for them. No wake. They buried her the day after the death certificate was signed.”

  “That’s terrible.” Darcy had seen Felicia’s spirit a couple of times now. She tried hard not to picture that pretty face lying dead underwater. “I don’t even know what to say about that.”

  “Yeah.” Shai busied herself by arranging things on her desk as the seconds ticked past. “Look, Darcy. I know you mean well. I know you and Sarah are friends. She and I used to be…well, not friends exactly, but close. She needs her real friends right now. I get that. But you aren’t doing anything here. You’re looking for killers where they don’t exist. Terry, for instance. Me, I think, based on how you came in here today.”

  Darcy couldn’t deny it, but she did not like the tone of Shai’s accusation either.

  “Here’s the thing, Darcy.” She got up and came around to Darcy’s side of the desk, standing there, hands on her duty belt, her eyes hard. “You’re too close to this. Sarah is still on my suspect list. Hampton too, to be sure. Terry is not. That being said, you need to accept the fact that Sarah might be more involved than you might like.”

  “Sarah did not do this!” Darcy shouted, standing up to Shai, not caring if the Birkenfalls police sergeant liked it or not. “I won’t give up on her just because you think I should.”

  Shai held her hands up. “I’m not saying that. Darcy, I’m not saying you should give up on Sarah at all. You’re convinced that she’s innocent? Fine. Bring me the proof that Hampton or anyone els
e poisoned Sarah’s husband and I’ll make that arrest in a heartbeat.”

  There wasn’t any proof to give Shai. At least not yet. Darcy wouldn’t stop until she found it, no matter what. For now, all she could do was leave gracefully. Putting the photo of Shai and Sarah under her arm, she opened the door to leave.

  “Wait.” She almost didn’t ask this last question, but it seemed important. “Who investigated Felicia’s drowning?”

  “Not exactly giving up,” Shai said. “Are you?”

  “It’s not what I do.”

  “Fine, if you must know, Terry did that investigation. Oh,” she said, as she made the same connection at the same time that Darcy did. “He investigated his own daughter’s death. Do you think he knew? When he did the investigation, do you think he knew?”

  “Yes. I think he knew.”

  “I need to have a talk with Terry, looks like.” Shai rolled her dark brown eyes, shaking her head. “You bring trouble like this wherever you go?”

  “My fiancé thinks so.”

  They shared a quick smile, and then Darcy left the building. Shai was going to interview Terry. Darcy wanted to interview someone else who was there when Felicia died.

  Felicia herself.

  Chapter Eight

  She had been so sure.

  Darcy stared at the photograph where she had laid it on the kitchen table. After the police station she came straight back to Sarah’s house, sneaking in only to find Connor on the living room couch watching cartoons. The house was awake with the sound of goofy animal voices and Ellen’s gentle teasing about a ten year old watching a rabbit outwit a man with a long red mustache.

  Changing into an oversized comfy sweater with sleeves she could pull down over her hands hadn’t made her feel any better, so she had put the photograph down on the little kitchen table and moped over it. Why was it so important? Why had Millie pointed her toward it?

  No matter how long she stared at it, the answers she needed didn’t come.

  Worse, Felicia’s ghost was being annoyingly elusive. She was here. Darcy could feel her presence. She’d called to her, quietly in her mind, and then in whispers from the silence of the room she was staying in. There wasn’t an answer there, either.