Family Secrets (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #8) (8 page)

"I thought of that, but look at this," Darcy said to him.  She showed him the single sheet of Aimee's bank statement, with her name
and social security number on it.  "See?  Your sister didn't need money.  Her account shows withdrawals, and no deposits.  Plus she had thousands of dollars.  She didn't need Vivica's money."

"Well look at you, little sister," Grace said to her with a proud smile.  "We'll make a police officer out of you yet."

Darcy shook her head.  "You guys can have it."  Lowering her voice, she added, "I see enough dead people as it is, thanks."

"And how does that add up to Richard being the killer
?" Jon asked, a little annoyed.  He tossed the papers down on his desk and then waved the scrap of fabric Darcy had brought him.  "And what is this?"

"That," Darcy answered, "is a tie. 
Richard's tie.  I'm certain of it.  I'm guessing those are Vivica Chartrand's bloodstains.  Which means he was wearing it when he killed Vivica."

Jon sighed heavily and dropped the tie on his desk.  He kept hold of the papers in one hand and took Darcy by the other.  "Come with me," he said.  He led them down to the interview rooms.  He didn't seem happy with what she had brought him.

When he closed the door to the interview room behind them, he immediately turned on Darcy.  "What do you think you're doing?"

She
didn't have to guess what he was talking about.  "I went there on a hunch.  I know I probably shouldn't have been in the house but Vivica didn't object to me being there so it's not like I was trespassing."

"
Vivica didn't object…?"  Understanding dawned in his eyes.  "You're saying you saw her ghost there.  What, did she tell you Richard killed her?"

"No, not exactly," Darcy had to admit.  "She just got really mad any time I mentioned Richard's name, and she showed me these pages, and led me out back to where I found the tie.  It all adds up."

"Well, that's great," he told her sarcastically, "except for one thing.  When Vivica died, the house got left to Richard.  I think he might object a little bit to your being there, no matter what his mom says, seeing that you want to accuse him of murder."

"I'm not accusing anyone.  He did it!  Wait a minute.  How do you know the house went to Richard?"

He sat down in one of the chairs at the interview table.  "Because I can do police work without talking to ghosts.  I looked into Vivica's will this morning, along with her bank statements, while you were off breaking and entering people's homes."

"I didn't have to break in," she said defensively, crossing her arms over her belly.  His words had stung her more than he probably realized.  He could do real police work without having to talk to ghosts.  Whether the insult had been intended or not, she had felt it.

"Darcy, I let you help me interview Aimee because I know what you can do.  Not just with your abilities.  You know how to read people, too.  I needed that right then.  And, truth be told, I wanted you with me because it was hard on me to see my sister like that.  That doesn't mean you're a police office or that you get to contaminate crime scenes on a hunch!"

She gasped, her stomach turning sour.  "It wasn't a hunch, and I didn't contaminate anything, and I found out who your killer is!"

"So did I," he said back to her, his voice raised above hers.  "That's why we're going to bring Richard in for questioning!"

The sour feeling in her stomach turned to cold lead.  "Oh.  I didn't know that."

"Of course not.  You were off playing Nancy Drew.  You should have at least told me what you were planning on doing.  I could have been there with you to make it official or told you what a bad idea it was."

"What?  Since when do I need you to babysit me, Jon?"  Darcy realized how quickly this conversation was going from bad to worse, but she couldn't stop herself.  All of her frustration and hurt feelings
that had been building up started pouring out of her, and she couldn't stop.  "Maybe I would be better off without you!"

Those words rang in the interview room and Darcy wished so very badly that she could call them back.  They were out there, though, and truth be told they were a pretty accurate way of saying exactly how she felt.

Jon stared at her.  He didn't blink.  He didn't move.  That went on for so long that Darcy started shifting her weight from foot to foot and had to make herself stand her ground.  It was like he was waiting for her to say something. 

When she didn't, he sighed and stood up again. 
He handed her the documents back that she had brought from Vivica Chartrand's house.  "Here.  Keep these.  I can work around you getting evidence for us illegally.  I already had the bank statements anyway, so I don't even need these.  That wasn't what was bothering me."

"Then why did you pull me back here?" Darcy asked.  "You just wanted some place private to yell at me?"

He sighed and almost looked sorry.  "No.  I didn't mean to yell.  That's not why I brought you back here.  It was about my sister."

"Your sister?
" Darcy said, pulling back her own anger, waiting for him to say more.

"See," he said, "
I've spent so long being angry at her, searching every face in every crowd hoping that I might see her again, even if I have to arrest her, that I guess I've grown kind of a blind spot when it comes to her.  I can't see her as anything other than a criminal."

Taking her hands with his, he pulled her to him, and wrapped his arms around her.  "You were the only one here who believed she might be innocent.  Thank you, Darcy.  Thank you for helping us
prove she isn't a murderer."

It felt good to be held by him this way.  It helped take some of the weight away that had settled around her heart in the last few days. 
Some of it.  Not all, but some.  She leaned into him and soaked up his warmth, breathed in his cologne and the smell that was uniquely him.  She loved this man.  Aunt Millie had been right.  They needed to work something out, because she wasn't sure she could stand losing him.

"Please don't take the job in Oak Hollow," she surprised herself by saying.

His embrace shifted subtly.  "Can we talk about it later?"

That was definitely not the answer she had been hoping for.  Worse, that was becoming a pattern with her and Jon. 
Somehow Darcy had the feeling there wasn't all that much "later" left for them.  But she smiled anyway, and told him that it was okay with her, and took what she could get out of that moment.

They couldn't release Aimee yet, of course.  Not until they actually had a confession from Richard, or more solid proof than bank statements and a tie found in the backyard of
Vivica's house.  The tie could be sent away for testing at the State Police crime lab, of course, but that could take days to produce results.  In the meantime, Richard could run away or have time to concoct a story.

"All he has to say," Jon pointed out, "is that his mom cut herself peeling an onion for him to eat and since he was a good son he used his best tie to stop the bleeding."

Yeah, right, he had added, but still they needed to get to him quickly.  He pulled two uniformed officers off their desks and told them to come with him to assist in an arrest.

Grace glared after him from her own desk.  "Men," she grumbled.  "
I'm just as much of a detective as Jon is.  But, I get pregnant, so here I sit."

Darcy
dropped down into the chair situated on the other side of Grace's desk.  "Don't worry yourself about it," she said.  "I think it has less to do with you being a woman and more to do with being my sister right now."

Grace raised an eyebrow at her. 
"Yeah?  What gives with you two, sis?  I thought you and Jon were as close as two people could get.  I was very happy for you.  Ever since you got back from Ryansburg yesterday it's like you're walking on eggshells around each other."

Was it really that noticeable?  Darcy guessed it had been.  She'd never been good at hiding her emotions.  "We're working through some things," she decided to say.  It was as good an explanation as any.

"You mean, like getting married?" Grace pressed.  "You mentioned that last night.  Are you two going to tie the knot?  Because I have to tell you, I wouldn't mind standing in as Maid of Honor.  Oh.  Hey, maybe you and mom could get married at the same time and I could be Maid of Honor for you both."

"I think it's technically
called Matron of Honor if you're already married," Darcy pointed out, knowing that hadn't been her sister's point at all.

Their mother,
Eileen, had come back into their lives just a few months back to declare she had found someone new and was getting married again.  It had actually gone a long way toward fixing the hard feelings between the two sisters and Eileen.  Having their mother reach out to them like that was a good first step, anyway, as far as Darcy was concerned.

"You know what I mean," Grace said to her. 
"Seriously, what's with you and Jon?"

Secrets.
  Veiled answers.  Too many things, all at once.  Darcy thought there was probably a dozen different ways she could answer her sister's question.  They all amounted to the same thing.  "Honestly, Grace, it feels like he and I are drifting apart.  Every time I try to talk about it with him he just clams up and says he'll talk about it later."

"Uh-oh," Grace said.  "That's guy code for never."

"Yeah, I know, and that's the problem.  We can't just not talk about it.  He's planning on moving to Oak Hollow, for Pete's sake.  He's really, seriously considering it.  So I'm just supposed to pack up everything and leave you and the bookstore and all of it behind so that he can go chase his dream and give me the joy of tagging along like a puppy dog on a leash."

Grace's eyes grew a little wider.  "Is that really the way you see it?"

"Well, yes, kind of."  Darcy hated that she was being so wishy-washy about it.  She didn't want to leave Misty Hollow and the house she'd grown up in with Aunt Millie and all of her friends.  But at the same time, she didn't want to lose Jon, either.

It was looking more and more like she'd need to choose one or the other.

"You know, sis," Grace tried, "this job he was offered in Oak Hollow is a good one.  He talked to me about it a little bit.  Oak Hollow isn't that far away, and you'll have more money than Millie's old book store ever brought you just from his salary increase.  Well, sort of.  Still, having money in the bank can take care of a lot of other problems."

Darcy supposed that was true.  Look what having money in her bank account had done for Aimee Tinker, after
all.  It was going to clear her of being a murderer.

"So, what are you going to do?" Grace asked.

"Do I have to decide now?"

"Well.  Soon, right?  Oak Hollow won't hold that job out to him forever."  Grace grimaced like she just thought of something.  "I hope they don't hold this thing with his sister against him.  He'll have to clear that up one way or the other before he goes over there.  I mean,
if
he goes over there," she corrected herself hastily.  "It's just a good thing that you helped us clear Aimee of being a murderer."

Darcy sat bolt upright in her chair. 
Of course.  How could she have missed it?

"I have to go," she told Grace, standing and coming around to give her sister a hug.  She patted Grace's belly as she let go.  "You be good to my little niece."

"Gah, I wish people would stop doing that."  Grace smiled as she said it and Darcy knew she was loving the attention.  "It could be your nephew, you know."

It could be, Darcy admitted to herself, but she had the feeling it was going to be a niece. 
On her way to the back of the police station, she forgot all about the mystery of what gender Grace's baby would be.  She had just put another piece together in this puzzle of Vivica Chartrand's murder that she hadn't even realized was there.

Just like the puzzle Millie had been working on in that dream, the picture was turning into
something altogether different.

There was a door that led out of the station from the back.  Darcy had used it any number of times, even though they liked people to come and go from the front so the desk sergeant could keep track of who was in the building.

She made it seem like she was going to go out the back door for Grace's benefit.  What she was really about to do skirted a few more of the rules that Jon had already accused her of breaking.  His harsh words still stung.  Darcy didn't want to get her sister into trouble, too.

At the back of the building was where the holding cells were.  When there were a lot of people on duty, they were guarded by one and sometimes two officers, watching whatever unlucky soul had been picked up for shoplifting or drunk driving. 

On busy days like today, when there were already three people out of the building going to make a felony murder arrest, there just wasn't enough manpower in Misty Hollow's police force to watch a prisoner face to face.  Closed circuit cameras kept a steady eye on the lockup at times like this.  The image was sent directly to a monitor at the desk sergeant's station, the only officer guaranteed to always be there.