Laid to Rest (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 18) (9 page)

“What else did Millie tell you?” Jon asked Sean Fitzwallis.  “The journal’s important, it has clues and it has hints, and because Darcy has it she’s in danger.  We got that much.  What else?”

“That’s all I know, Chief.  Honest.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to be honest?”  Darcy knew that tone, and she was surprised that Fitzwallis didn’t take a few steps back from the heat of Jon’s temper.  “Let me tell you what I got from all this.  You covered up a murder to help a friend.  You’ve kept Darcy—and me—in the dark about all of this for years, when you could have just came to us at any point and let us know there’s a murderer out there coming after Darcy.”

A murderer.  Darcy’s blood turned cold, leeching out the heat from her anger.  Millie had been murdered.  Sean had just confirmed it.

Sean didn’t deny any of it.  He just nodded to each point, his face settling into a frown.

“Nothing to say?  Really?” Jon asked him.  “Well, Sergeant, you and me are going to have a long talk about this, I can promise you that.  For right now I want you out of my police station.  Go home.  Take a day off.  No, make it two.  Don’t come back until your head’s on straight.  Oh, and if you happen to think of any other secrets we need to know, be sure to tell us before things get worse!”

Sean bobbed his head, looking older than Darcy had ever remembered seeing him.  With a sigh, he turned to go, pausing after just two steps.  “She loved you, Darcy.  She loved you like you were her own daughter.  She just wanted you safe.”

There was nothing Darcy could say to that, so she didn’t try.  Sean walked out, and that was that.

After a moment, Jon slammed a fist against the Plexiglas service window.  “I cannot believe this!  One of my own people covering up a murder?  Especially Sean?”

“He thought he was helping me.”  Darcy hugged her arms around herself.  “I need a few less people trying to protect me and a few more people letting me protect myself.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve proven how well you and I can handle ourselves.  Let’s put that aside.  For now.  This leaves us with a question.  Is Sean a suspect?”

“He was there when Millie died,” Darcy reasoned.  “He knew about the journal.”

“But he didn’t know you had it.  He faked the police report on Millie’s death, and so help me I’m going to make sure he answers for that, but I can’t see him actually killing her.  I heard him when he said he loved your aunt.  I believe him.  Plus, he’s just not the type.  Not him.”

Darcy agreed with him.  Millie had mentioned Sean because he was a friend she could trust.  Plus he had some of the answers they needed, just not all of them.  They were doing a great job of eliminating suspects.  It wasn’t Roland Baskin.  It wasn’t Helen.  It wasn’t Sean Fitzwallis.

So who was it?

“Can he see ghosts?”

Jon’s question broke into her thoughts.  Could Sean see ghosts?  Could he see Millie’s spirit?  The things he knew, the things that he said Millie told him were things that Millie couldn’t possibly have said.  Not before she died.  Her aunt had hidden the beehive journal just before she died.  That’s what she told Darcy during the dream.  So when could she possibly have told Sean about that?

Unless it had been after she died.

“I don’t know,” she finally said.  She stalked over to the corner and grabbed the journal up off the floor, smoothing the pages out as she did.  “I’ve always just associated these abilities I have with the women in my family.  Like it was a female thing.  I guess it’s possible that guys can have it too.  I don’t know.  Millie never said anything about Sean being able to see ghosts and it’s pretty obvious how close those two were.  Good friends.” 

She scoffed and threw her hands in the air.  “Whatever.  Maybe he did talk to Millie’s ghost.  It wouldn’t be the first big secret she kept from me.”

“Or that Sean had kept from me,” Jon reflected.

A tap on the other side of the closed service window drew their attention.  One of the other officers, Dan Minkel, waved to them and raised his voice to be heard from inside.

“Everything okay, Chief?”

“Yes,” Jon told him.  “Sergeant Fitzwallis had to go home.  Take the desk for him.”

They didn’t say anything else until they were back outside, standing next to Jon’s car.  “Well,” he said.  “At least we know why the journal is so important.  Millie was killed.  The guy who did it doesn’t want us to find out who he is.”

“Yeah.  That’s great except the journal doesn’t tell me anything about the guy and…and…”

She fell against Jon’s side, letting him hold her.  “And my aunt was murdered.”

Up the street, she saw the lights coming on inside the library.

Midnight was fast approaching.  The deadline was nearly upon them.

***

They spent the next hour back at the bookstore, reading through the beehive journal again.  And again.

And again.

“Jon, there’s nothing here!”  Darcy got up from the table in the reading area and stretched the kinks out of her back.  She rubbed at her tired eyes.  The night had slipped away from them.  Eleven-thirty, according to her My Little Pony watch.  Almost time.  “If Aunt Millie told us anything about who killed her in that journal, well, I can’t figure it out.”

“Maybe it’s in one of the ruined parts,” Jon suggested.

“Well, then that’s just perfect.  I guess that’s what happens when you leave a book in a damp, dirty basement for ten years!”

He closed the journal, and got up from the table to come over to where she was.  “Darcy…”

“Don’t touch me,” she told him, turning her back on him.

“Uh, okay.”  She could hear the confusion in his voice.  “Why not?”

“Because I want to punch something and if you’re the closest thing then I might just punch you!”

He cleared his throat, then she felt him move away from her.  Picking up the journal from the table he grabbed up his coat.  “Come on.  Let’s get over to the library.  It’s our only chance of catching this guy now.”

She didn’t let him take a step.  She was right there, grabbing hold of him, latching onto him for dear life, burying her face in his chest.  “I’m sorry.  Oh, Jon, I’m sorry.  I’m just all turned around right now, with Smudge taken right out of our house and all of this stuff I’m learning about Millie, and no time at all to process it before the midnight deadline this guy gave us…I just can’t think straight.  I’m sorry, Jon.  I’m sorry…”

He didn’t say anything.  He just held her.  Even though they were running up against the clock, he held her tightly, and let her collect the pieces of herself that had threatened to fall apart.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.  “We need to go.”

“We have time.”

“No, we don’t.  The deadline…”

“We have a few minutes.”

He gave her that little bit more time and there in his arms she was able to take her first deep breath in hours.  She was ready to do this.  It had to work. 

It just had to. 

Together, journal in hand, they left the bookstore and went up the sidewalk to the library.  There were no patrol cars in sight but Darcy recognized a few plain sedans parked along the curb as undercover units.

“We’re watching all sides of the building,” Jon whispered to her.  “As far as anyone else is concerned this is just you and me walking up the street, all alone.  If our guy is here, then my officers will see him.”

He patted the portable radio he had taken from the glove box of his car, now clipped to his belt at his left side.  His handcuffs were in their case next to it.  His chief’s special .38 was in its holster on his right side.  He was a man prepared for anything.

Darcy had no doubt that Jon had all the angles covered.  The trees that grew all around the town would give his officers good cover to watch from.  Not to mention the shadows of the night.  You could lose someone out here and never find them again.

Which meant whoever was doing this to her could be hiding out here, too.

“You think he’s watching right now?” Darcy asked, trying to look everywhere around her at once without being too obvious about it.

“Yes,” was his straightforward answer.  “Which is exactly how we’ll catch him.”

“Then we get to string him up by his toes, right?”

“Can’t do that.  It’s illegal.  I’m just going to let you punch him until you feel better.”

“That may take a while,” Darcy said drily.

Jon shrugged.  “I’ve got nothing else planned for the next few days.”

Oh, how she loved this man.

The wide steps of the library led up to the glass doors in front of the red brick building.  It had always reminded Darcy of a school, with its flat roof and rectangle shape.  She had spent untold hours here, lost in the books that she couldn’t find at her own store, or attending lectures and social hours.  She had always liked coming here.

Tonight it felt like she was walking to an execution.

The front doors opened onto the landing of a staircase that split in two directions, the right side going down to the children’s section and the left side leading up to the main floor.  A sturdy wooden railing followed both.  Linda was waiting for them at the top.

“Oh, Darcy.  I don’t know what to say.”

Linda Becht was a tall, graceful woman, a true redhead except that she didn’t possess the cliché temper.  She was usually quick to smile.  She wasn’t smiling now.  Darcy and Linda had been friends for a very long time.  They’d bonded over a love of books, which was easy to do since Darcy owned a bookstore and Linda was the senior librarian in town.  She’d risen to the job after the lying, cheating woman who had been her boss got herself murdered in another state.

Surprising, really, how many lives in town had been touched by the mysteries of Misty Hollow.

“Thank you for helping us,” Darcy told her, accepting a quick hug before Linda led them into the upper floor of the library. 

Floor to ceiling stacks of books marched off into the long room.  Mysteries.  Young adult novels.  Fantasy.  Religion. 

History. 

Behind the service desk was an area set up with half a dozen computers for public use.  Off to the right side was a big meeting room behind a wall of windows and a closed door.  Darcy wasn’t interested in any of those.

The history section was where the book on Deseret would be.  That was the only part of the library she cared about right now.

Jon checked his watch.  “It’s five minutes ‘til midnight.  Linda, you’re sure there’s no one else in the building?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”  Linda spread a hand around her in a wide circle.  “Your sister went through the whole place with me, Darcy.  I looked into every cubbyhole, every locker, under every table.  All of it.  There’s no one here but us three.”

“Then how does he plan on getting this journal?” Jon wondered out loud.

Darcy held the book up to look at it.  She could barely make out the beehive design on the front.  Something about the design snagged a memory.  A beehive.  Now where had she seen that before?  Millie didn’t keep bees.  She’d never had a particular love of honey.  It had to be something else.

What was it?

“Darcy,” Jon said, reminding her of the time.

Right.  She didn’t have time for any more mysteries.  She had to save Smudge.  Giving up this journal, this last thing her aunt ever wrote, was her only hope of making that happen.

“You know where the book is?” she asked Linda.

They went over to the history section, a small part of the last row, closest to the back wall, where the books were kept that very few people ever used.  Every library needed a reference section.  Even if they hardly ever left the shelf.

Linda pointed to a book four rows up.  It was squat and gray, with a white tab taped to the bottom of the spine printed with its reference number. 
The Forgotten Land of Deseret
was written in scripted gold letters on the spine.

Clutching the journal to her chest one last time, Darcy slid her aunt’s thin little book into place next to the book on Deseret.  They’d followed the directions on the ransom note.

What was supposed to happen now?

“We should go outside,” Jon said from where he stood.  “He won’t show if we’re standing here staring at the book.”

Darcy had to agree, but still… “Did you set up a surveillance camera or something?”

“We didn’t have time to put one in.  Not one that our guy wouldn’t immediately spot, anyway.  We’re stretching things as it is with the people I have outside.”

“Right.  Well.”  Darcy took a deep breath, giving the bookshelf one last look.  “Then let’s go.”

Linda followed, locking the doors behind them.  “I already have the back door locked.  I know you can’t tell me everything, Jon, but I really don’t see how anyone can expect to get in here to get a book.”

“We don’t know, Linda.”  Jon stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked around the dark town.  “We were told to leave the book here.  It’s here.  We don’t know how he plans on getting in but when he does, we’ll catch him.”

They walked down the steps to the sidewalk, and then started in the direction of the bookstore.  Darcy looked over her shoulder once at the library.  The plan, if they could call it that, was for them to wait in her shop until the officers keeping watch at the library found the bad guy.