14 Christmas Spirit (8 page)

Darcy just stared.  She could not imagine living day after day being afraid of everyone she met.  Not knowing if the next smiling face would put a bullet between her eyes.

Slowly, JoEllen nodded.  "That's the life I live.  Or, used to live anyway.  I don't want that for my son.  I want Connor to grow up with as normal a life as possible, not looking over his shoulder every time he hears a footstep, or his phone ringing.  Having a normal life means having friends.  I meant what I said.  I think he and Lilly will like each other."

From inside the house, as if on cue, came the sound of two kids laughing loudly.  Darcy had to admit it was a nice sound.  She understood why JoEllen would work so hard to give that to her son.

"All right," she said, relenting.  "I do like pizza.  No mushrooms on mine, okay?"

"Deal."

Darcy was halfway through the door when something occurred to her.  "So, wait," she asked JoEllen in a whisper.  "You have a gun on you?"

"Yup.  A little snubnosed thirty-eight.  I never leave home without it."

Of course, Darcy thought to herself.  So now, not only did her neighbor and good friend Izzy know that JoEllen was here, but the fugitive they were hiding had a gun.

How could anything possibly go wrong?

The only place in town that delivered pizza was a small business that had opened just last month.  Waldo's Pizza and Wings was making a good effort so far, but Darcy had to figure they wouldn't last long.  People in Misty Hollow preferred to eat at Helen's café, or to make the drive over to places like Meadowood or Oak Hollow where there were lots of restaurants to choose from.

For now, they had a quick place to get their dinner for tonight.

Waldo's closed at six so they just made it with their order.  While they waited for their food to be delivered the adults sat around the kitchen table talking.  Lilly and Connor went upstairs to play.  Darcy heard them running back and forth, yelling "tag" at each other between peals of laughter.

"I remember the Bortchowskis," Izzy was saying.  "Braun and Evita.  I didn't know them very well, you understand.  They kept mostly to themselves.  I sort of remember Megan.  She was a few years behind me in high school, but to tell you the truth I'm not sure if I'd recognize her if I tripped over her in the street.  We ran in different crowds."

"Do you think she might have recognized you?" Darcy suggested.  "Maybe she saw you here in town?"

Izzy thought about it, then shook her head.  "I mean, I knew her name from the gossip but it was a pretty big high school.  There's no reason she'd even know who I was."

"Did she have a girlfriend back then?" Jon asked her.

She sipped at the tea in her oversized green mug, shaking her head.  "No.  She had a steady boyfriend in high school, but we all knew it was just a matter of time.  Talk around the school indicated that she was always more attracted to women than men, but her parents were putting a lot of pressure on her to be what they wanted her to be.  The boyfriend was pretty rough on her, too, from what I heard.  Bruises.  That sort of thing.  It was big gossip in the girls' locker room my senior year.  But," she added with a sigh, "that was years ago."

Darcy turned her coffee mug around in circles on the table.  Everything seemed to come back to Megan's parents and what they didn't like about Megan's life.  She had plenty of experience with her own mother not accepting her for who she was.  It just wasn't anything she would ever be able to understand.  A parent's love should be unconditional.

Next to her, Jon put his hand over hers, his thumb stroking little circles around her knuckles.  "Sounds like talking to Megan's parents is going to be our priority tomorrow."

"I could come with you," Izzy offered.  "The people there might be more willing to talk to me, since I'm from that town.  Oh, wait.  That wouldn't leave anyone to watch the store."

"I don't want to leave the bookstore closed if I can help it," Darcy said quickly.  "If we come up with someone for you to talk to we'll call you, okay?"

It was as good an excuse as any.  Darcy didn't have the heart to mention that the people in Cider Hill might actually be less willing to talk to Izzy since she had been under suspicion for murder there, once upon a time.  She'd been cleared, of course, and the real killer put in jail, but Darcy knew from experience that people didn't ever forgive that easily.

When the pizzas came, they ate together in the kitchen while Connor and Lilly ate in the living room, laughing at some show Darcy had found for them on the television.  She listened to them, and thought how good it sounded to have children in her house.

Jon caught the look on her face and smiled at her.  Children were a topic they had discussed only in passing.  They both felt they wanted kids of their own, but like everything else it was a discussion for another time.

Right now, there was another mystery to solve, a wanted fugitive to help, and Christmas to plan.

Life was definitely full.

Cider Hill was another of the small towns in the area around Misty Hollow.  Darcy had always liked being in a rural area where people could live and work among the beauty of divine creation.  The dense growths of trees along the roadsides were buried in snow, patches of it caught in their branches and piled around their trunks.  As Jon drove them she caught glimpses of trails in the deeper drifts where deer and other animals had scurried away for shelter.

"I wish we hadn't had to leave so early," She complained with a yawn.  They had watched the sun come up on the drive over, stopping at a convenience store on the way for gas and coffee.  Big cups of coffee.

She had left a note for JoEllen before they left, careful to write her name as "Ellen," after peeking in on her and Connor in the spare bedroom.  Both of them were asleep.  After staying up until almost eleven o'clock playing with Lilly, Darcy wasn't surprised that Connor was sleeping so soundly.  The note reminded JoEllen, without coming right out and saying so, that she needed to stay inside.  There was food in the fridge and books to read and TV to watch.  The wanted contract killer would just have to deal with being a homebody.  For now.

"Five hour trips are better started at five in the morning," Jon said.  "I was hoping we could make up some time but the roads are still too slick.  Maybe if it hadn't snowed last night.  I want to catch Megan's parents early in the day in case they give us something useful."

"Or if they turn out to be suspects?"

"To tell you the truth, they're already suspects."  He covered a yawn with the back of his hand.  "At least in my books.  Everything points to them.  Plus, we've pretty much eliminated Nielson and Blair.  Doesn't leave us too many options."

Darcy muttered something that wasn't quite agreement.  He was right, of course.  Someone from outside of Misty Hollow, someone who Megan knew, had spooked her in the park.  Scared her enough that she went to Nielson for a gun.  Add in what Blair had to say about how Megan's parents didn't like them being together, and that could easily mean that one or both of Megan's parents were to blame for her death.

They listened to the radio the rest of the way.  The traffic was light for a Monday morning, or maybe there just wasn't that much reason to come to Cider Hill.  It was a close-packed town with a smaller population than Misty Hollow, even, with its short Main Street packed with shops that had simple names like Bill's Hardware or Sunday Flowers.  Darcy had never been here before in person, but she'd seen it in a vision.  It looked exactly like she remembered it.

"There's not much here," Jon remarked as he checked streetsigns, finally turning onto Pumpkin Lane next to the barbershop.  "Just one more small town waiting to disappear off the face of the map."

"That's kind of cynical, isn't it?" Darcy asked him.  "Sometimes these towns come back to life.  Look at Misty Hollow."

"There's a difference between this place and Misty Hollow," he said.

"Oh?  Tell me, Mister Detective, what's the difference?"

"Misty Hollow has Darcy Sweet."

Sometimes, he knew exactly what she needed to hear even when she didn't know she needed to hear it.  She rewarded him with a kiss on his temple.

"Love you, too," he said.  "We're here.  This is the place."

The house was a little white rectangle with an addition built onto the back.  Brown trim bordered the windows and doors.  Shrubs lined the front, trimmed to a flat top that held uneven piles of snow.  A line of Christmas lights hung from the edge of the roof, dark and unlit, lending a little bit of cheer to the exterior.  Jon pulled into the driveway behind a beat up old pickup truck and a small blue car that had seen better days.  It was a simple home, kept in neat order but without a lot of flair.

"Did you call ahead?" Darcy asked.  "Are they expecting us?"

"No.  I want to catch them off guard.  If they aren't expecting me then their answers should be more honest."

They started for the front door along a short walkway that had been shoveled clear of last night's snowfall.  Before they got to the steps, the door opened.

A man stepped out, crossing his arms across a barrel chest and leaning against the doorframe.  His face was wary and stern, the top of his head starting to show through thinning gray hair swept over to the right.  Despite the cold, he was in jeans and a white t-shirt with rips at the neck.

"What do you two want?" he asked in a gruff voice.

This was Megan's father, Darcy realized.  And none too happy to see, well, anyone.

"Mister Bortchowski?" Jon greeted him.  "My name is Jon Tinker.  I'm a detective with the Misty Hollow police force.  I'd like to talk to you about your daughter."

"My daughter's dead.  What's to talk about?"

The reply was so gruff it stopped Darcy in her tracks.  The temperature dropped around her and she found herself shivering inside her winter coat.  They were looking for someone who already knew Megan was dead.  How did…?

"How do you know she's dead, sir?" Jon asked the same question out loud.  "We have a report of a missing person.  My department is officially looking for Megan."

"I don't care."

Braun Bortchowski stayed where he was, his expression unchanging, blocking them from his house.

"Sir," Jon tried again.  "If you have information that could help us find your daughter, please tell me.  Let me help Megan."

"My daughter is dead," Braun repeated.  "To me, she's dead.  If she ain't dead now, she'll be dead someday soon.  She's living a bad life.  You can't help her no more."

Darcy looked at Jon.  Could this be their killer?

"Braun?" a woman's voice called from inside the house.  "Who is it?"

"No one," he snapped.  "Stay inside."

"I just asked—"

"I said stay inside!"

Darcy knew the woman must be Braun's wife, Megan's mother.  She sounded scared.

"Now, you two," Braun turned back to them with a pointed finger, "get off my property.  I got nothing to say to you."

"Mister Bortchowski," Jon said, trying one last time, "do you know anyone who might want to hurt your daughter?"

That made Braun snort.  "The way she lived her life?  Who knows.  Maybe that girl she took up with.  You talk to her, did you?"

"Yes, sir.  We spoke with Blair.  She mentioned that you didn't quite approve of their relationship."

"You listen to me."  There was enough heat in Braun's voice that Darcy stepped closer to Jon, to stand behind him.  "When my daughter left town she was as normal as you or me.  She had boyfriends, had herself a job working at a hotel over in Oak Hollow, she had herself a life!  Sure, she never went to college but neither did I.  She had a future.  That's what she had.  Then she leaves here and takes up with some loser over in Misty Hollow.  That was bad enough.  But when she met this Blair girl she quit everything and refused to talk to us and that's when we lost our daughter.  Lost her completely."

There was just the briefest pause then, a delay in Braun's tirade where his lip quivered, and Darcy could see pain and loss in his eyes.

Now what did that mean, she wondered. 

"She's missing, is that it?" Braun said, picking up his pace after a deep breath.  "I know what that means.  She fell too far away from the right path.  If she's missing, it means she's dead."

He stared hard at them, then his eyes looked away, into the house, and he said in a lower voice, "If you do find her, tell her to call home, will you?  Her, uh, her mother misses her."

His wife came out to the porch at that point, a frail looking woman wrapped in a pink robe.  She put her hand on her husband's arm and watched everything with distant eyes.

"I don't know where Megan is," Braun repeated, pushing his wife's hands away.  "You want to go look for her, knock yourselves out.  We lost our daughter a long time ago.  I can't make it any righter than it already is."

Jon's expression tightened, taking stock of what Braun had just said.  "Can I just ask you—"

"No."

Braun pushed his wife inside, closing the door with a slam.  Darcy heard the lock clicking into place.

"Well," Jon said after a moment.  "I guess that's that."

***

"What now?" Darcy asked. 

They were already an hour out of Cider Hill, headed back home.  The sun had come out, but rather than make driving easier it turned the leftover snow on the road into a sloppy mess, forcing them to go slow or risk ending up in a ditch.

"Now, we look into the Bortchowskis.  Financials, known associates, that sort of thing.  Who knows.  Maybe we'll get lucky and Braun has a criminal record.  He strikes me as the type to have spent some time in prison.  He definitely made it to the top of my suspect list."

"Yeah, me too," Darcy agreed, sinking down lower and putting one foot up against the dash.  "For being a creep in the first degree."

"He has no respect for women, that's for sure."

"Oh, you think?  You saw the way he treated his wife, right?"

"So let's dig into his life and see where that takes us.  Do you think maybe you could do another communication with Megan and get some more information?"

A car that had been following close behind them pulled out now on a straightaway, passing on the left.  It fishtailed before the driver regained control and pulled back into the right lane.

"Keep going, genius," Jon spoke to the car as it pulled away.  "I'll be investigating your accident before the day's out."

Darcy snickered.  "Let's keep from having any accidents of our own, Mister Tinker.  Do you want me to call JoEllen and let her know we'll be back soon?"

"We probably should.  I don't know what I'm going to do about her.  It's nice that she has such great trust in me and my abilities as a police officer, but there's only so much I can do about those outstanding warrants for JoEllen Meyers."

"Could you maybe contact the agencies with the warrants and clear them up?" she asked him.  "There's only two actual warrants, right?"

"Yes, just two.  Isn't that enough?"

Darcy supposed so.  "She changed her name, right?  Ellen Gless.  Could she hide under that name?  She's done it before."

Jon thought about that.  "I don't like that idea.  From a cop's standpoint, I mean.  It would only last for so long, anyway, without real documents to back the name up.  She would need a birth certificate.  Driver's license.  That sort of thing."

Another car came up quick behind them.  Darcy looked back and rolled her eyes.  "Is everyone stupid?"

"Yes, everyone is stupid.  Including us for trying to help a killer."

"That's not really fair," Darcy said, although she thought maybe it was more fair than she wanted to admit.

The car, a black SUV, came up around them to pass and Jon slowed to let them go.

Which was when the SUV swerved close enough to clip their front end.

Beneath them, Darcy felt their car sliding out of control, going into a slide that threatened to become a full out spin.  Jon's hands spun the steering wheel wildly left and then right and then left again.  Darcy sat up and gripped the door handle and her seat as her breath caught deep in her throat.

"Hold on!" Jon cried out, his voice strained.

Darcy looked up, saw the world turning sideways around them.  And something else as well.

"Jon!"

The SUV had pulled to a stop ahead of them, across the road.

The driver was rolling down the window.

"I see it!" Jon told her, his expression becoming panicked.  There was nowhere for them to go.  He couldn't get the car to stop and they were running out of room before they would strike the SUV broadside.  The trees on either side looked too close to give them any breathing room.  They were boxed in.

The driver of the SUV leaned out.  Darcy could see very little of his face under a black beanie cap and sunglasses.  There was just the hint of a strong chin and then something else drew her attention.

"Jon?"

The handgun he was pointing at them.

"Jon!"

"I see it!"

Giving in to the momentum of the vehicle Jon turned the wheel to the right and went with the spin instead of fighting it.  Their car roared off the road with a muffled protest of the tires and the brakes and then they were bouncing over the ditch and flying sideways between trees that Darcy was sure were too close together for them to fit through.

She wasn’t sure when she hit the dash with her forehead, or how the back end of their car had become wedged up off the ground like it was, or if the smoke rising from the engine meant the car was dead, but she knew Jon was tugging her out from the car on her side and if she wanted to live, following him was probably the right thing to do.

"Jon," she heard herself say, "what's going on?"

"Shh.  He's coming."

They crunched through snow in silence, quickly, rushing further back into the woods.  Jon had his gun out in his hand.  He was watching all around them at once, expecting an attack to come through the trees.