The Language of Death (A Darcy Sweet Coy Mystery) (9 page)

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing, Sami has a crush on you."

His lips pulled into a frown, as his body shifted uncomfortably.  "I know."

Now Darcy was surprised.  "You know?"

"Yes.  I've known for a while.  I kept it from Chloe, though.  I didn't want to put any kind of rift into our relationship.  Sami kept her feelings to herself, mostly, unless we were alone and then she dropped
all these hints about how much better she could be as a girlfriend than anyone else, including Chloe.  She was wrong, of course, but I never got into an argument about it with her."

"Did she know you and Chloe were going to be married?"

"Nope.  We kept that to ourselves.  We were going to tell her parents first."  He sighed.  "Now they had to find out this way.  That's old news, though.  At least for me.  What other big secrets do you think we're hiding?"

"
Did you know that your brother has bipolar disorder?"

Lorne rolled his eyes.  "Yeah, well, that's a matter of debate.  I never believed it.  I think it started as him faking to get attention when he was a kid, but he got prescribed that medication and after that there was no going back.  You know, he keeps a bottle of that stuff on him all the time
, plus a spare bottle in his car's glove compartment.  He's fanatical about it."

Darcy still couldn't believe how different the two brothers were. 
Lorne, open and caring and easy to talk to.  Danson, uptight and about as approachable as a glacier.  She'd never met Danson before but it was a safe bet that Chloe had.  Of the two brothers it was easy to see why she would have fallen for Lorne, and not Danson.  They were polar opposites, these two.  Yin and Yang.  Hot and cold.  Up and down.

She gasped.  The world around her froze.  Everything stopped as bits and pieces clicked into place.  Chloe had given her the answer,
then told her she was smart enough to figure it out.

Smarter than a teddy bear.

On her next heartbeat the world started up again.  She looked up to find Lorne staring.  "Are you all right?" he asked her.

"No," she said, actually feeling like she'd been punched in the gut.  "I'm not.  Um, Lorne, can I ask you to go inside for a while?  If anyone starts to leave, maybe you could come out and give me a signal?"

"A signal?  What do you want me to do, make bird calls?"

"Whatever.  I'm sure you can figure out a way to be more subtle.  Please?  It would really be a help."

She hoped he wouldn't ask any questions and to her relief, he didn't.  He thought she was asking him to help her find a clue to who had killed Chloe, and for that he probably would have done anything she asked.  She couldn't tell him that the real reason she wanted him to go back inside was because she couldn't trust him.  Not with what she was about to do.  Not after what she had just figured out.

After she saw the door to the house close behind Lorne she checked to make sure the two
people having their cigarettes over at the other edge of the lawn weren't paying any attention to her.  Then she went down to the row of cars parked in front of the Marrin home.

She knew which car was
Danson's from seeing him drive the red two-door coupe to and from the cemetery today.  The polish on the automobile was glaring under the mid-afternoon sun.  Even the chrome wheels had been buffed to a shine.  Pursing her lips at how silly men could be with their toys, Darcy checked over her shoulder one last time then reached for the passenger door handle.

Locked.

She cursed silently.  So close.  All she had to do was get inside this car and she'd know if she was right or not.  She could break the window with a rock, maybe, but that would draw too much attention.  Not to mention get her arrested.  Maybe there was a metal coat hanger in Betsy's house that she could…

Chloe's ghost popped into existence at Darcy's side, so suddenly that Darcy jumped and squeaked.  "Chloe!" she said in a loud whisper.  "Don't do that!  You'll give me a heart attack and then I'll be standing there with you on the other side.  How could I help you then, huh?"

Chloe stuck out her tongue at Darcy, then knelt down beside the back tire.  Her hand and arm disappeared through the frame as she reached for something she would never be able to touch.

What
could she be after, Darcy wondered.  Then it hit her.  Of course.

Kneeling down in almost the exact spot where Chloe had been, she reached up under the frame around the
back bumper.  She had to reach way up, and over, and with a little fumbling she came out with a little metal box hidden so well she doubted even Danson's mechanic knew it was there.  It was a hide-a-key box, used by people who didn't want to risk getting locked out of their cars.  Sliding the top open she took out the spare key.

"Thanks," she told Chloe.  "Wish your other answers had been that direct."

Chloe stood by and watched her as she opened Danson's car, then quickly got inside and shut the door behind her.  It was less likely that anyone would notice her this way.  Then, in relative privacy, she opened the small glove compartment.

She knew the moment Chloe settled into the backseat by the chill that ran up her spine.  "It's not here, is it?" Darcy asked.

The glove compartment was as immaculate as the rest of the car.  There was the owner's manual, and a flashlight, and a pack of sugar free chewing gum.  Nothing else.

There was no extra bottle
of bipolar medication like Lorne had told her there should be.  Those pills were gone.

And Darcy knew what had been done with them.

She closed the car door behind her again, but kept the hide-a-key.  She wanted proof later on that she'd been in there.

The pills that Chloe had taken, the ones that got her killed, were
Danson's.  He'd been able to flash them out in the open like Darcy had seen him do because the coroner's examination had labeled the killer substance in Chloe's body as epilepsy medication, not bipolar medicine.  However, there were a lot of medications that had dual purposes nowadays.  She'd have to do some research, but she was willing to bet that some bipolar medication was also used to treat epilepsy.  Or vice versa.

Either way, Darcy had found the murder weapon.

Even though it hadn't looked like it, Chloe actually had answered her questions during the communication.  When Darcy had asked who killed her she'd told Darcy to follow the line of north and south.  Then Chloe had even mentioned how Lorne and her had magnetism.  Her exact word.

The ends of a magnet were labelled as north and south
ends.  Two poles.

Bi
polar.

Danson
.  He'd used his own medication, ground up in a glass of beer, to make Chloe die of an overdose.  Then he'd arranged her body on the bed, knowing that Veronica would come looking for Chloe when she didn't show up for ladies night out.  It all fit.

Except for one thing.
  Why?  Why would he do it?

This was
the reason she hadn't been able to trust Lorne to come with her just now.  It had nothing to do with him.  She had written him off as a possible suspect almost immediately.  Certainly after they'd had dinner together.  She wasn't worried about that.  She was worried about what he might do if he found out his brother was the one who killed Chloe. 

Darcy supposed that the best thing to do at this point was to go to the police with what she knew
, or as much of it as she could tell them without sounding like a psychic fraud looking to make a name for herself.  Which she definitely wasn't.  She could tell the police that Danson had a whole bottle of bipolar medication missing and that if they checked his prescription against what the coroner had found in Chloe's system and on her nightstand that it would be a match.

Then that idiot coroner could get fired for not looking at the obvious and finding out which of Chloe's friends and families might have been using the same kind of medication, even if it was
prescribed for something else.

She wished, not for the first time, that Jon were here.  This was where she had always n
eeded his help.  They had made a good team.  When her brother-in-law Aaron had been kidnapped, it had been Jon who had worked with the police to make things happen that Darcy never could have.  Whenever a suspect needed to be arrested to make sure they didn't run away—or worse, hurt Darcy or someone else—it was Jon who she relied on.  Whenever she needed someone to hold her and tell her it would be all right…

It was Jon who held her.  Just not right now.

Maybe not ever again.

That thought spiked through her mind before she could control it.  Even after she had stomped on it a few times and squashed it down to dust, she still felt an overwhelming sadness.  Here she stood at her best friend's memorial service,
needing the comfort and support that Jon had always given her, and he had up and run away.  Not one of her better days all around.

She had definitely decided to go to the police by the time she went back inside.  It was the best
choice she could make.  She'd decided something else, too.  She hadn't wanted to tell Lorne about his brother.  Now, she'd changed her mind.  She owed him, because of their friendship, and because she hadn't been here when Chloe needed her.

She didn't have all of the pieces yet. 
There was still the question of why Danson would want Chloe dead, but Darcy had seen too many bizarre and senseless reasons for murder to worry too much about that part.  Let the police find out Danson's reasons.  She had her murderer.

Lorne spotted her almost as soon as she stepped foot back in the house.  He excused himself from a conversation in which Sami was practically hanging off his arm, and rushed over to Darcy.  The look on Sami's face was a mix of hurt and jealous
resentment.  Lorne didn't notice.

He took her casually by her elbow and steered her upstairs to the quiet of the empty second floor hallway.  "What did you find out?" he asked.

"Lorne, maybe we should do this somewhere else."  Somewhere away from people he might want to beat into a pulp, she meant.

"Come on, Darcy.  Just tell me.  If you've found out anything, I need to know.  Please."

She couldn't say no to him.  He was so desperate to know the truth, and she knew that no matter how much it hurt him, or her, she had to let him know.

So she
laid out everything she had found out, how 'north and south' referred to Danson's bipolar disorder, and that the bottle of pills that should have been in Danson's glove compartment were missing.  As she went on to explain how some medication treated more than one disease or disorder, Lorne's face grew darker and darker.

That was when she
realized she'd made a mistake by telling Lorne before going to the police.  His hands were trembling as he fisted them tightly.  His nostrils flared and a vein at his temple throbbed.

"I'll kill him," he growled.

As he said it, Chloe's spirit appeared in the hallway.  She stood in front of Lorne, hands raised, her expression alarmed, as if she knew exactly what he was about to do.  She tried to stop him.  She tried to stand in his way and keep him from rushing down the stairs like a man with murder on his mind.

He passed right through her, and her
image slid apart and disappeared.

"Lorne!"
Darcy called after him.  He didn't stop.  She raced down after him and got into the living room just in time to see him lunge on top of Danson, his fists flying, landing blow after blow.

It was a terrible sight, but worse yet was when
Danson swung back, landing a solid right cross into Lorne's jaw, snapping his brother's head backward with a sickening, squishing sound.

People cleared out of the way, hugging the walls, or heading for the door. 
The brothers rolled around on the floor, throwing punches and blocking punches and alternately climbing on top of the other.  Darcy got close enough to grab hold of Lorne's arm and haul him back for two steps.  Then he pulled away from her, nearly sending her sprawling, and gut punched Danson.

Betsy and Kevin pulled her back from the
fight.  "Stop it!" Betsy kept hollering.  "Stop it!"  Neither of them paid her any attention.  They went at each other in the middle of the living room floor with fists and harsh words that made Darcy's ears burn.  "Someone stop them!" Betsy pleaded.

It seemed like forever before other people got hold of the two of them and forcibly drew them apart
, panting and shaking.

"Wha
t is the meaning of this?" Kevin shouted, holding Betsy to him.  "This is my daughter's memorial service!"

"She's dead because of him!" Lorne shouted, thrusting a finger at
Danson.

"Oh, no…" Darcy moaned.

The people who had been holding the brothers now let go of them, stunned by what had just been said.  Veronica gasped, standing just behind Danson, who gaped at Lorne with his mouth hanging open.  Lorne seemed to just realize that he'd spoken out loud, too, because now he tilted his head up to the ceiling with a helpless expression.