A Murder of Crows (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #7) (3 page)

On her way back
to the hotel she passed by a bookstore she had seen earlier.  After what had happened in Cementville, Marla had wanted nothing to do with it when Darcy suggested checking out this one.  She only wanted to go to a nightclub or a bar or something.  Not exactly Darcy’s idea of a good time, even when she was with Jon. 

She frowned at her reflection in the bookstore mirror.  Was she a bookworm?  No.  No, she knew better than that.  She had things she liked to do
for fun, like camping and hiking.  If Marla’s idea of fun was different, that was fine.  It didn’t change who Darcy was.

Darcy stuck her tongue out at her reflection, being goofy.  Take that, reflection.  She laughed at he
rself, feeling a little better.

In the display behind the window, she saw an array of books.  She recognized a few from the current
best seller lists.  Behind those were a few older volumes, heavier than their newer companions, thick covers embossed with gold lettering.  “Spirit Tales,” one title read.  Darcy looked closer at it.  Stories of local spirits that haunted areas around this state and the neighboring ones.  Hmm.

It was after seven o’clock
now, and the sign in the store window declared store hours were only until 6:30 P.M.  Disappointed, Darcy went to walk away.  A knock on the door’s window pane from inside brought her attention back.

An old man, short and thin with frizzy gray hair ringing the lower part of his head, smiled up at her from a wrinkled face.  He opened the door and stepped back for her.  “Come on in, dear.  I saw you looking at
my window display and anyone with that much interest must be a book lover.  I’m always open for people like that.”

Darcy smiled
.  She liked this man instantly.  “Thank you.  I was noticing the book on spirits in your window display.”

The man nodded.  “Oh, yes.  Quite popular a few years back that one was.  Not so much anymore but I still keep a few copies on hand.
Always good for a sale or two every month.  My name is Goddard Hershing.  Pleased to meet you.”

“Good to meet you, too, Goddard.  My name is Darcy Sweet.”  She shook his outstretched hand.  “I actually run a bookstore a few hours away from here, in Misty Hollow.”

He pursed his lips.  “I don’t believe I’ve heard of…oh, wait a sec, yes I have.  There was a tale from that same book, actually.  Hold on now.”

Goddard went and plucked the Spirit Tales book from the window display.  Leafing thr
ough the pages, holding the tome out to help focus his old eyes, he came to a spot somewhere near the middle of it.  “Ah yes.  Here.  Take a look.”

Darcy took it from him, balancing the heavy book across her left forearm as she read.  Her eyes widened.  The book told about the spirit
of a pilgrim settler who haunted the town hall of Misty Hollow.  He’d been hung there for witchcraft, a charge not uncommon in those days and in that area.  Now, it was said, he came back every night before Halloween, the very night he’d been hanged, to wail and scream and throw objects around the upper chamber of the two story building.

The story came with a picture of the town hall as well.  Darcy recognized it easily, but she’d never heard anything about this. 
A haunting in Misty Hollow?  There were more than a few, actually, but all of them were benign spirits who wouldn’t ever hurt anyone.  Like the ghost of her Great Aunt Millie, still lingering around her bookstore.

This was something else.  Darcy promised herself to look into it as soon a
s she got back to Misty Hollow.

She smiled
again at Goddard.  “I’m glad you stayed open for me.  I definitely want to buy this book.”

Back in the hotel room Darcy read through the book well into the night.  It wasn’t until she was yawning nonstop that she realized it was after one o’clock in the morning.  Already snuggled down into the sheets of her bed, in her pink pajamas, Darcy set the book on the nightstand and fluffed her pillows under her.

Most of the stories in the book were interesting reads.  Ghost stories to scare people.  Some of them had even raised goosebumps on her arms, and she had lived through enough ghost stories to write her own book.

The story of the pilgrim’s ghost had been a very short one. 
Two pages.  Apparently the author didn’t know a lot about him other than his name, Nathaniel Williams, and the fact that he had been accused of witchcraft in the late 1700s.  He’d been found guilty after a short hearing and hanged from the rafters of the town hall in full view of everyone.  The town hadn’t been called Misty Hollow back then.  That name had been crafted when the town was incorporated in 1846, and the previous name was lost to antiquity.

The rest of the story
had been completely anecdotal evidence of people saying they had heard strange noises or had things fall to the floor when no one else was around, and always on October thirtieth, the day before Halloween.  It explained why Darcy had never heard anything about it before.  It was just an interesting folk tale with no real proof.  There might not even be a ghost there at all.

Great Aunt Millie’s ghost was far more interesting. 
Maybe she should write a book about her someday, Darcy mused with a faint smile, just as sleep overtook her.

Dreams came and went, all of them whimsical and barely formed, none of them memorable. 
In all of them, a dark man walked beside her.  He didn’t say anything, but she found his presence comforting.  She knew in her heart that it was Jon, her strong and caring boyfriend come to protect her.

When at last she looked up at him, in the middle of a dream where her cat Smudge
had invited her to a tea party, it wasn’t Jon.

It was Jeff.

“I told you so,” Smudge said to her, sipping from his cup of tea, sitting cross legged and very human-like.  “I always knew.”

“Darcy,” Jeff said to her.  “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” she heard herself ask.  “Sorry for what?”

“Beware the crow.”

It was very loud and very clear in her dream, even though his lips never moved.  She studied his face.  It was so much like how she remembered him from life.  Handsome, sort of, with a rugged face and a pronounced brow.  His hair was just a bit lighter than her own with natural highlights in it.  She had been so in love with him, once upon a time.  Funny how love can be twisted until it breaks away completely.

That thought settled into her mind as Jeff continued to stare at her.  Well, not the love she had with Jon, she thought hastily
.  Their love wasn’t in any danger of that.  She repeated it to herself again, almost as if she needed to convince Jeff of how strong her love for Jon really was.  He smiled knowingly, and she thought a little smugly as well.

From his side of the table, Smudge slammed his teacup down on the table several times in a row. 
Bang bang bang. 

She looked over at him, wondering why he was being so rude.  The whole table was shaking.

“You need to get the door,” he told her, blinking his big cat eyes.

Bang
bang bang.

The images of the tea
party and Smudge and Jeff all disappeared, slowly fading away to a hazy gray light.  Only the banging continued.  It was at her door, she realized, and whoever was there knocked again. 

Bang
bang bang.

Darcy tried to focus her thoughts
clearly enough to remember how to get out of the bed.  Sleep was still thick like a blanket around her.  She scrunched up her brow, trying to remember every detail of the dream she’d just had.  Jeff was trying to tell her something, but what?

The next thing she knew, the door to the motel room was opening.  She yelped and lifted the sheets up to her chin, now very much awake.
  “Who’s there?” she demanded, feeling foolish and scared both at the same time.

Two men stood there, staring at her.  One was dressed in the maroon shirt and gr
ay vest that the hotel used for its dress code.  The other was in a dark blue policeman’s uniform. 

“Oh.  I’m sorry,” the officer said
to her.  Even so, he kept coming into the room.  “We thought no one was in here.”

“Um.
  I’m here.”  Darcy said, a little stupidly.  She relaxed a little seeing the officer’s uniform with its gold badge and flag sewn on the shoulder.  Still, this wasn’t how she had expected to be woken up this morning.  She was obviously missing something.  “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

The officer
took out a little spiral notebook from his uniform pocket.  “You’re Darcy Sweet, right?  Here from Misty Hollow?”  He looked up at her and must have seen the surprise on her face.  “Don’t worry.  I got that information from the desk.  You’re not in any trouble.”

A cold chill filtered up her spine, and Darcy knew there was something bad going on.  “If I’m not in any trouble then why are you here in my hotel room?”

He looked very uncomfortable, and exchanged a look with the hotel employee before saying anything else.  “Miss Sweet, can you put some clothes on?  I need to talk to you.  I’ll be right outside.  Come get me when you’re ready, okay?”

She was actually wearing fuzzy pajamas.  The hotel employee’s eyes were becoming a little too friendly, though.  She nodded, and the officer nodded back and made sure the door was closed tightly behind them.

After they had left Darcy jumped out of bed and quickly went to the drawer where she had put away her clothes.  What was happening?  A police officer at her door at…she checked the clock on the stand between the beds.  At quarter to six in the morning.  The seminar was supposed to start today at nine A.M., so she hoped whatever this was about wasn’t too serious and wouldn’t take too long.

The cold chill went up her back again, like ice water being poured over her skin.  She turned with one leg in her jeans to look at the room’s second bed.  It was still neatly made
.  Marla’s bags were still next to the bed on the floor, her clothes spilled out over the sides from when she had gotten dressed to go out.

She’d never come back to the hotel.

***

Darcy knew she had cried at some point, bu
t now the tears were all done.

She hadn’t known Marla that well, sure, but she was a ne
ighbor.  Someone from the same town.  Not only that. Darcy had just talked to her last night.  She couldn’t believe Marla was now dead.

“I was in the bar with her last night,” she said.  She sat at the desk in the motel room, twisting the ring on her finger to give her hands something to do.  “Did I tell you that already?”

“You did, yes,” the officer said.  “Don’t worry.  Just tell me what happened at the bar.”

She nodded. 
“Um.  She had a few drinks.  Then she talked about asking a guy at the bar to dance.  I didn’t want to stay.  I didn’t want to go drinking in the first place but Marla did so I went and then I left.”  Darcy took a deep breath. 

“So you were drinking too?” he asked her.

“Yes.  I was.  I didn’t even finish my first drink.”

“That’s fine, Miss Sweet.  I was just trying to get a sense of what happened.”  He scratched some notes in his pad.
  Darcy studied his face.  For someone so young, there were deeply etched lines around his eyes.  His blonde hair had quite a bit of white in it, too, she realized now.  His uniform was clean and pressed and his leather equipment sat just so on his belt.  She could tell he took pride in doing what he did.

“I can’t believe this,”
Darcy said into the silence.  “She was killed?  Someone killed her?”

The Officer, Mark Phillips, hesitated at the question.  “Yes.  I’m afraid so, although I can’t say more. 
I am sorry.  Were you two close?”

“Not that close,” she had to admit.

He nodded, scratching out another note.  “Can you tell me more about this man Marla wanted to dance with?  Did you see them talking at all?”

“No.  I left before anything like that happen
ed.  Um.  He was white, and had brown hair that was very shiny.  Like he put too much hair gel in.  There was a blonde streak feathered into the right side of it.  I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything other than that.  No.  A silk shirt.  He was wearing a red silk shirt.”

“
That’s actually very good.  Most people don’t remember half that much detail.  And what time did you leave the bar?”

“I’m not sure…oh,
wait.  I went to a store right after I left the bar.  It was supposed to close up at six-thirty and I got there just after seven o’clock.”

“So you left the bar between six-thirty and seven?”

“Yes.  That’s right.”

“And you came right here after that?”

“I did.  Maybe if I’d stayed at the bar with her, she’d be okay now.”

He shook his head, concern in his voice.  “You can’t know that.  Whatever happened to her, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank you,” Darcy said.  “That makes me feel a little better.”

The officer nodded.  “Good. 
You’ve given us a timeframe to look for when we get the security tapes from the bar.  You’ve been very helpful, Miss Sweet.  Is there a phone number I can reach you at?  A cell phone?”