4 The Ghost of Christmas (3 page)

She laughed and said, “What sort of greeting is that?”

He rubbed a hand over his face and with a grin said, “Sorry. I’m really tired this morning.” He yawned again. His eyes lit up when he saw that she had coffee and muffins from the bakery. “Oh thank goodness, coffee.”

She grinned back at him as he stepped aside to let her enter. Taking one of the styrofoam coffee cups from her he took a big sip. “Oh my God, that is so good.” He flopped down into one of the chairs and put the cup down onto the coffee table in front of him. He reached up like a little kid when she held up the blueberry muffin. She made him pay for it with a kiss first.

“So how did the stakeout go last night?” She asked, sitting down next to him.

He swallowed his mouthful before answering. “Fantastic. Got the little, um, thieves,” he said, covering up the term he obviously wanted to use instead. “We arrested them, finally, but they didn’t show up until three in the morning. That’s why I’m so tired.” He took another sip of his coffee. “But this coffee is making me feel much more human. Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” she said as a warm glow spread through her. Any awkwardness from yesterday was gone. He was Jon again and they could sit together in comfortable silence. His eyes slid shut again for just a moment before they snapped open. She felt guilty for waking him up. “I can leave if you want to go back to bed.”

“No, baby. Thanks, but no. It’s fine. I have to get ready for work anyway.” He shoved the rest of the muffin into his mouth and Darcy took another bite of her own. They chewed in silence for a few moments.

“So, tell me more about your stakeout,” Darcy asked him, wanting to work up to asking him about Roger.

He shrugged. “We arrested four men.  Boys, really. The oldest was just twenty-one. It was pretty routine, but it was nice to do it the old fashioned way for a change.”

Darcy frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”

Jon gave her a long look through tired eyes and then said, “Lately I’ve been arresting people based on weird visions that my girlfriend has had.”

Darcy sat back, trying not to be offended. He must not have meant it the way it sounded, she thought. She knew that Jon wasn’t completely comfortable with her psychic abilities but what he had just said…it sounded like he resented them. Now she didn’t want to tell him about her vision of Roger the ghost or ask his help.

Darcy could feel the tears coming. There was no reason to cry. She knew that. She just couldn’t make it stop. Standing up she kissed him goodbye and quickly left without saying another word.

***

The whole rest of the day Darcy was out of sorts. Even Sue Fisher, her always bubbly assistant, couldn’t bring her out of the unhappy mood she was in. Darcy had thought things were going so well with Jon, but this thing over her abilities was becoming a giant rift between them.

She closed up at the end of the day with a sigh of relief. The bookstore was usually soothing to her but today it had been a grind. She headed over to the police station.

In the back of the police department, after being buzzed in, she found her sister Grace. She was older than Darcy, and her dark hair was a little shorter, but the resemblance between the sisters couldn’t be denied. She looked up now from her computer screen, a little smile erasing some of the lines around her eyes when she saw Darcy. 

“Hey sis. What are you doing here? Jon’s gone home.” Grace waved at the chair on the other side of her desk and Darcy flopped into it. “What’s up?”

Darcy explained everything about how she’d had a vision of a man named Roger August, who had been murdered. “I kind of need your help, Grace. Can you find out anything, do you think?”

Grace studied her for a moment. “Why aren’t you working on it with Jon?”

Darcy bit her lip and looked away. She didn’t want to try explaining to her sister the feeling she had that something might be wrong between her and Jon. She could be wrong, after all. He had been happy to see her this morning. If it weren’t for those constant comments about her abilities… “I’ve loaded him down with a lot lately,” she decided to say. “Could you do it for me this time? You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Grace looked at her intently for a moment and then shook her head. "Uh-huh, no, that's not it. There's something else." Darcy sighed. Trust her sister's eagle eye. She took a deep breath and then explained what had happened between her and Jon that morning.

Grace chewed on the inside of her lip. “Well, I do understand where Jon is coming from…”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, not you too,” Darcy said with an edge to her voice.

Grace held up a hand and said, “Your visions and whatnot can be a little hard to accept, Darcy. Even for me, someone who has known you all of your life. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, sis. You know that Jon loves you too, right?”

Darcy calmed down a little and nodded. “Oh, sure. I know. I just, um, don’t want to put too much on him.” The excuse sounded weaker every time she said it.

Grace shrugged and turned back to her computer. In a few minutes she had looked up Roger August and found out that he had died some twenty years ago. “He was killed in his house on Christmas Eve,” Grace said as she read the report out loud to Darcy. “These are files that were copied over after we got our computer system, from the old paper files, so they aren’t exactly complete. It says he was shot in the back, no leads, no one ever arrested. That’s about it.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?”

Grace shook her head. “Guess you’ll have to rely on your abilities to get you anything else on this one.”

Darcy pressed her lips together. Her abilities. Right.

For the first time in her adult life, she came very close to wishing her abilities would leave her alone.

“Twenty years ago?” Darcy repeated what Grace had said. “That means that the killer could still be alive.”

Suddenly solving this mystery had become much more dangerous.

Chapter Three

Early the next morning, after a very sleepless night of tossing and turning, Darcy pulled out all of the old photo albums she had stuffed in the back of her closet. Some had belonged to her great-aunt and they’d passed to her with the house.

Jon hadn’t come over last night either. She tried not to put too much thought into that.

As she sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, she wondered if Roger August would be in any of the pictures. Worn pages flipped between her fingers, old photographs held in place with plastic corners at their edges. She started with the old albums of her aunt’s figuring that there was a greater chance of finding something useful in those. Thankfully her aunt had taken the time to leave notations under them with names of people, dates, places and so on.

She didn’t find a single photo of Roger in any of them. What a waste of time. At least it had kept her mind off Jon for a while. She wasn’t sure what to do about him, or if she should do anything, or if she should just let it alone. If she said anything, would it make it worse? Was there anything even to make worse?

Exasperated, she threw herself back on the rug with a little groan. Smudge came over to see what was wrong, nuzzling her cheek with his nose until she started rubbing his ears and neck. His purring was loud, and comforting.

Darcy figured she could at least solve Roger’s problem. She could find out who killed him, and give his spirit some rest. Thinking on how to do that she decided she could talk to other townsfolk, particularly the people who had lived in the town for more than twenty years. There was a good chance that somebody would remember him, especially if he had been involved in town affairs like that photo in her aunt’s journal suggested.

At least it was a place to start.

***

After work that day, Darcy took a stroll through town, taking in the sight of all the pageant preparations that were going on. Several of the town’s residents were there, helping in one way or another or just watching, and she used it as an opportunity to casually ask about Roger August.

She looked all around at the work that was being done. There were a lot of people working on the stage development, including her friends Helen, Sue and Linda. Her brother-in-law, Aaron was also working there and he lifted his hand to wave at her. She smiled and waved back at him. Clara from the La Di Da Deli was busy hammering nails into the framework and Leo Hanway was looking at some papers that looked like they may have been plans for the stage structure.

One after another, Darcy talked to the older residents of the town.  There were several people she asked who either said they had never known the man or who only remembered that he had died, and nothing more. She was beginning to wonder if Roger had made any impact on the town at all. How could he have lived here and no one remember him?

Leo Hanway, for instance, looked bored with her questions. He didn’t seem to be helping with the work either and explained to Darcy that he was only there because the others needed to borrow his tools. He was more than happy to talk about how he had worked in construction before being forced to retire because of his cancer. He went on and on about being a foreman and how he’d even built some of the houses that were still standing here in Misty Hollow, but had no interest in discussing anyone named Roger August.

Helen Nelson, taking a break from her duties as mayor to pitch in with the preparations, told Darcy that she knew a little about Roger August. “He used to be friends with Wally Marlow when he was mayor all those years ago.” Helen stopped what she was doing and brushed her hands on the front of her puffy white coat. “He had a daughter. I just can’t remember her name. I know she had a different last name than his.” Helen shrugged and apologized for having to go off to help someone else.

“Thanks Helen, you’ve been a help.” Darcy smiled at her and was about to leave and go back to the bookstore when Helen put a hand on her arm to stop her.

“You should keep an eye out for Roland Baskin. He’s going around with that petition of his to stop the pageant. Thankfully, no one is signing it. Still he might know something about Roger.”

Darcy nodded. She wasn’t looking forward to talking to that old grump. Maybe someone else would know something.

***

Her interviews had turned up hardly anything on Roger. Hard to believe a man could live his whole life in this town and not have anyone remember him. Later that night when Darcy was back home she gave Grace a call.

“Hi sis,” Darcy said when Grace answered.

“I’m real busy right now, Darcy. I can’t really talk.”

“Okay, I know. I’m sorry. I found out Roger had a daughter, though. Can you find out for me who she is?”

“Yeah alright, but I can’t do it until tomorrow. What was her name?”

“I don’t know.”

Grace blew out a breath over the phone. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“Thanks sis,” Darcy said. Grace had to go so they said their goodbyes.

She hung up the phone thoughtfully. She realized that she would have to tell Jon the truth. She couldn’t keep hiding it from him and using her sister, his partner at work, this way. Reluctantly she pulled on her coat and boots and started off for Jon’s apartment.

***

As Jon swung the door open to Darcy’s knock the smile on his face was wide and genuine. She thought he looked happy to see her and was glad about that but she could only raise a small smile in return.

She didn’t know how to start. She felt tense and unsure of herself, so much so that she started to pace around his living room.

Jon stood with his arms folded, watching her. “What’s wrong?” he said with no trace of the smile on his face now.

She stopped pacing and made herself look at him. “I have something to tell you. It’s nothing really. It’s silly actually.” She tried to smile but it slipped. His face looked like it was carved out of stone. Taking a deep breath, she tried to rush through what she needed to say.

“Look I don’t know why I kept this from you. I had a visitation from a spirit of a man named Roger August and he needs my help because he was murdered here in town years ago and, well, you know how I’m the only one who can help in situations like that. I asked Grace to look into it and she’s going to let me know what she finds out.”

She thought she would feel better after saying it out loud but she found the lump in her throat was still there. Jon didn’t look any happier when she had finished speaking, either. Fidgeting with her ring, Darcy tried to explain herself. “I guess I kept it from you because of what you said about my abilities making you upset. You know? You’ve never said anything like that to me before and I didn’t want it to get in the way of you and me.”

Jon just stood silently with his arms folded. He didn’t say a word. Darcy felt him putting a wall up, like he had raised some invisible defense between them. She sighed. This hadn’t helped at all.

“Please tell the truth about how you feel about my abilities,” she asked softly, terrified of what his answer was going to be.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell you.  They make me uncomfortable and I wish that you wouldn’t use them. It seems to me you’re just asking for trouble and we don’t need any more of that.” Darcy bit her lip, but he had more still to say. “I’m also really mad that you kept this latest vision or whatever it was from me.”

Darcy didn’t think that was entirely fair. “You can’t have it both ways, Jon. Either I should have told you or I shouldn’t have. Which one is it?” Her feelings were in a knot, and she felt like she’d been punched in her gut. Anger like hot bile stirred in her.

“I just want you to be honest with me Darcy, that’s all. When you have one of these visions you should tell me about it instead of keeping it a secret.” He stabbed the air with a finger.

Darcy could feel tears stinging the corners of her eyes. This was getting out of control. They were both mad, about the same thing, and she knew she should just admit it to him and try to fix it. She just didn’t know how to get past it. “I should tell you? Every time? What, even if it upsets you like you are now?”