Resorting to Murder (A Darcy Sweet Mystery Book 11) (12 page)

"Why?" she asked, knowing that stalling was their only chance.  "Why would you do this?"

"It's a might too complicated for you to understand," was his answer.  Scratching at his temple, he pursed his lips.  "Not to mention I don’t really want to explain all of it to you.  Suffice to say Carson wasn't the only one who stood to lose if an arena broke ground over by the ski resort.  What I need to know from you two pretty ladies, is how did you find out it was me?  There any other folks out there I'm going to have to silence?"

From her vantage point, Darcy could see some of the interior monitors still.  Just enough of them to see Jon come sneaking around a corner, his own gun drawn and held in a double fisted grip.

She had to stall.

"Come on now," the Sheriff urged, "tell me how you found out."

"Yeah,"
JoEllen whispered to Darcy.  "I'd like to know that myself."

Knowing that she couldn't very well tell them her human-sized tomcat had given her the clue she needed at a teaparty in a dream, Darcy slowly reached into her pocket and took out the Sheriff's note instead.  She uncrumpled it,
then held it out for him to see.

"You misspelled the word 'you're' on this note," she told him.  "The same way the blackmailer misspelled it on his note to the mayor."

YOUR DEAD
, the mayor's note had said.  Your, instead of you're.

"Really?
  That was it?  Really?"  The sheriff grumbled to himself and shook his head.  "Never was much of a speller.  That's what kept me from getting this job in the first place."

"But you have the job," Darcy pointed out, her eyes flicking
to the screens and back.  "You're the Sheriff."

That brought his cold smile back. 
"Am now.  Old Sheriff Allen was one of the first people I killed.  Had to get where I am somehow."

The cold feeling that had been twisting in Darcy's stomach knotted tighter.  One of the first people he'd killed. 
All those missing people here on Mount Borealis.  Did Rockwood kill all of them?  Just to get to where he was now?

Worse still, were she and JoEllen going to be his next victims?

On the one screen, she saw Jon peek his head around the corner at the other end of the corridor that led to the door where Rockwood was standing.  Her heart leapt into her throat.  If the Sheriff saw him…

In a chilling sing-song voice, he put words to her fears.

"I see yo-o-o-ou."

In that split second the world became a blur of motion.  Rockwood swung his gun away from Darcy and down the hallway,
the muscles of his forearm tensing as he put pressure on the trigger.  An explosion of sound hammered at her ears.  Even as the gun went off, Jon was moving on the monitor.

And then from behind her, JoEllen pushed her aside, drew her own gun, and shot so many bullets into Sheriff Ben Rockwood that Darcy lost count
.

Blood smeared the wall as Rockwood slid down to the floor, his boot heels shuffling comically on the linoleum.  He was already dead.

When Jon raced out of the doorway that Rockwood's lifeless body kept propped open, Darcy heard herself sob in relief.  She raced into his arms, and he held her close, his body warm and strong against hers.

"So," he said after a long moment.  "Sheriff Rockwood?"

She nodded into his chest.  Not Carson.  It had never been Carson.  He'd died because he had wanted to keep the town from building an arena on his property, and stumbled across Audie Berkstone's grave in the process.  He probably would have died anyway even if Darcy and Jon hadn't come to town, but she couldn't help feeling a little responsible.  That must be why he had that folder out in his bookstore that Darcy had seen.  He'd been preparing to go out there last night, and what he had found had gotten him killed.  At least she and Jon—and JoEllen, too—had been able to bring his killer to justice.

A thought occurred to Darcy.  She turned to JoEllen, making sure to stay within the safety of Jon's arms.  "I thought we had your gun in Jon's car?"

"Yes," Jon added, gently stroking Darcy's hair.  "Didn't we agree it made us all feel more comfortable having it there?"

"It made you more comfortable.  It made me feel
very uncomfortable not to have it, so I took it back."  For a woman who had just shot a man to death, JoEllen's voice was very calm.  Her eyes, however, sparked with a fury that boiled just below the surface.  "Now where is my son?"

Jon used the dispatch
radio to call the cars back to the station.  Three Deputies, all of them standing with wide eyes at their dead Sheriff, made for a very uncomfortable scene.  Two of them settled their hands on their weapons as Jon explained the situation.  Darcy could tell they weren't buying it.  It was only after Deputy Travis reviewed the security recordings on the monitors that the Bear Ridge officers believed their story.  Only then did Darcy dare to breathe deeply again.

There were still a lot of questions to be answered, but there was something more important to do first.

The first place they searched for Connor was the Sheriff's Office itself.  The building wasn't big, Travis explained as they went room to room, but it had a basement that was hardly ever used and a crawlspace over the roof tiles.  One of the other Deputies did a search of the crawlspace and came up empty.

A search of the basement turned up the same.  Connor wasn't here.

Next, Travis brought Jon and Darcy and JoEllen to the Sheriff's house.  The other two deputies were left behind to start processing the crime scene.  One of them, a portly guy with freckles and red hair, looked down at the blood pooling around the man who had been his boss only an hour earlier, and promptly threw up into a waste basket.  He came up for air muttering that he was okay, and then promptly threw up some more.

Ben Rockwood's home turned out to be a small doublewide on the outskirts of the town.  It sat on the very end of a dead end street, away from all the other houses, huddled low to the ground.  In the wash of the patrol car's headlights it looked to Darcy like a dog huddled over a bone it didn't want to give up.

There were no lights on.  Curtains were drawn over all of the windows.  Travis told them that Rockwood lived alone.  No pets, no family, just him.  The Sheriff had brought him out here once to pick up a packet to deliver to the court but hadn't let him step inside.  Sheepishly, he admitted how suspicious that looked in hindsight.

"He was my boss," Travis told them, almost defensively.  "How was I supposed to know?"

Jon put a hand on JoEllen's arm, holding her back from whatever she had been about to do to the young deputy.  Travis turned pale and looked away.

Up on the front patio, the four of them made a quick search of the bushes and any loose stones looking for a hide-a-key.  JoEllen lost her patience quickly.  With two quick steps she brought her foot up and slammed it down on the door right next to the knob.  Wood splintered with a sound like thunder, and they were in.

Travis clicked on his duty flashlight.  Jon found the lightswitch.  Each room they went to was more austere than the last, with minimal furniture and walls painted a stark white with bare floors under their feet.  Rockwood lived a very simple lifestyle.

In one closet sized room they found articles from the local newspaper spread out
across a worktable.  Several of them were about missing person cases here in Bear Ridge, each with a picture of someone circled in red.  Darcy picked one up and scanned it, then set it back down with the others.  Five people, all declared missing, all dead at Rockwood's hands.  Including the former Sheriff.  That was a lot of blood just for one man to get to the top.

Other articles were on the proposed arena, with parts of sentences underlined or circled and little notes made in the margins.  Rockwood had kept a close eye on the land use debate here in town.  Reading
over a few of the clippings quickly Darcy saw that Mayor Wasson had been right.  Without his influence the arena never would have been approved.  No wonder Rockwood needed him gone.

JoEllen
slammed her fist into a wall.  "Connor!" she called out, very loudly.  "Connor!"

No answer.

The last room at the end of the home was a bedroom.  They hadn't found any stairs leading down to a basement, no ceiling panels leading up to a crawlspace here either.

And there didn't look like there was anything to find in the bedroom, either.

A single bed with a white sheet and a single pillow stood up against the far wall.  A dresser stood at the foot of the bed with an old bulky television set perched on top of it.  A heavy braided rug the color of mud and spoiled cream spread over most of the floor.  The closet had no doors.  It was full of clothes neatly folded and hung.  There was nothing else.

"You've got to be kidding me," Jon muttered.  JoEllen glared at him sharply.  "I know, I know.  We'll find Connor.  We won't give up until we do."

"I killed that man to save you," she growled at him.  "Don't make me regret it."

"Hey, wait," Darcy said
, stepping in between the two of them before their argument got out of hand.  She'd clued in on the one thing that didn't belong in the room.  Everything about the rest of the house was completely Spartan.

So why the throw rug?

Kicking the edge over with her feet she saw the black line of a seam that had been cut into the floorboards.  The rug had been hiding it.

JoEllen
was on her hands and knees in the space of a breath, throwing the rug aside and feeling across the revealed hinged panel until she found the rope handle and hauled the square door back.  Underneath was a deep hole with hard packed black earth for sides.  The bottom was too dark to see into.

Until Deputy Travis aimed his flashlight beam down into it.

"Mom?" a weak voice called up.  There, huddled with his knees up to his chest, was a dirty towheaded boy with dried tears on his cheeks.  There was no mistaking whose son he was.

Jon took the flashlight from Travis and told him to go outside and radio for help.  A
ladder, and the rescue squad.  The boy was obviously dehydrated and possibly in shock.  So much for Sheriff Rockwood's promises that Connor was all right.

"I'm here,"
JoEllen said to him, leaning over to reach in. She was too far up to reach her son, but it didn't keep her from trying.  "I'm here, Connor.  Everything will be all right now.  Everything will be all right."

***

Like Darcy had figured, most of Sunday was taken up by making sure Connor was all right, by endless paperwork from both the Bear Ridge Sheriff's Office and the State Police, and by endless waiting in
between.  At one point, sitting in an uncomfortable orange plastic chair inside the Sheriff's Office, she checked her watch to find it was just after two in the afternoon.

She looked at Jon sitting in an identical chair next to her.  He looked like she felt.  "Is it bad that I just want to go to bed and sleep for the rest of the day?" he asked.

"No," Darcy said with a chuckle.  "Because I want to do the same.  I guess almost being shot and then helping to save a boy's life will do that to you."

"We would know," he joked.

Darcy took his hand in hers and rested her head on his shoulder.  "I love you, Jon Tinker."

"I love you, Darcy Sweet," he said back to her.

It might not have happened the way they had planned, but the weekend had definitely brought them closer together.  She let the emotions she was feeling wash over and through her.  Her eyes closed, and she knew in another minute she could fall asleep on him.

"So, I have a question to ask you," he said.

"Hmm?" she asked him sleepily.

"It's about us."

Instantly she was awake again, her eyes snapping open, her mind alert again.  "Oh.  Really?"

He studied her hand in his.  "Yes. 
See, I had a lot of time to think when I was, you know… staying away from you."

"When you were being stupid and moved out of Misty Hollow, you mean."  She couldn't help getting in one last dig about that.  Maybe s
he had forgiven him for doing what he did.  That didn't mean he was off the hook completely.  She expected to get at least a few hour long back massages out of this.

Rolling his eyes and smiling at her, he kissed her knuckles.  "Yes.  That.  Well, this weekend has really shown me that I need to be with you.  I mean, I knew that before, but I really know it now.  And what with your mother getting married and your sister having a
baby, and everything else…"

Darcy found herself on the edge of the seat, waiting for what came next. 

She'd have to wait a while longer.

"
There's my two most favorite people in the world," said a familiar, smooth voice.  Mayor Donnie Wasson walked up to them, rubbing his hands and smiling broadly.  "Darcy.  Jon.  We sure are lucky you came to town."

Jon raised an eyebrow at him. 
"Three men have died since we've been here, Mister Mayor.  One of them was your own Sheriff.  You have a different idea of what lucky means than I do, I think."