Laid to Rest (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 18) by K.J. Emrick Read Free Book Online Page B

stuttered to answer.  Darcy opened doors and closed them again and each time she did her heart sank a little more.  There wasn’t much to see.  The place was neat and orderly, with everything in its place.  Furniture just so.  Knick knacks on shelves.  Magazines piled into a square stack on a coffee table.  Even the kitchen was clean and organized.
    “Smudge?” she tried, one last time.  There was no answer.
    Except for the panting of a little scruffy dog who came running out of the bedroom when she opened the door, a long red leash trailing behind him as he trotted over to Roland Baskin and then pranced at the old man’s feet to be picked up.
    He bent with some difficulty to cradle the white-haired ankle biter in his arms.  Then he stood again, petting the dog between his two alert little ears.  A Yorkie, Darcy thought, or maybe a terrier.  It was obvious that the dog loved his master, and that his master loved the dog just as much.
    “Now, see here, both of you,” Mister Baskin grumbled at Jon and Darcy.  “What’s this all about?”
    Jon looked at Darcy with an unspoken question.  She shook her head.  Smudge wasn’t here.
    “Mister Baskin,” Jon said to him.  “We’re sorry to disturb you like this.”
    “Barge in on me, you mean.”
    “We’re sorry for that, too.  I’m investigating a break-in at my house today.  Your name came up in the course of that investigation.”
    “Hmph,” was the response to that.  “Not the first time you accused me of something I didn’t do.  Remember the whole deal at the Christmas pageant?  What’s the matter?  You run out of real criminals to harass?  Seems to me the last big case I heard our dedicated police force handled was a bunch of kids stealing from people’s garbage cans.”
    “All the same,” Jon continued in that same calm, reasonable tone, “I’d like you to tell me where you were today.”
    “And I’d like to be left alone.  You think either one of us is going to get what we want?”  But then he sighed, and answered the question anyway.  “The café.  You saw me there Darcy, you know you did.  Then I went for a walk around the park with Phineas here.  Since then I’ve been home.  You want to take my dog in for questioning, Chief?”
    Darcy reached out and put her hand on Mister Baskin’s arm.  Through the material of his sweater she could feel how frail the man had become.  He used to be a real terror around town, yelling at all the local kids to behave and be quiet and go home.  Now he was just a grumpy old man with nothing left in his life but a little mutt that was barely an armful for him.
    “Roland,” she said, holding his arm, trying to reach out with her abilities to feel anything at all from him.
    She felt absolutely nothing.  There was no vision, no sense of right or wrong or neutral indifference.  Just an angry old man in a knitted sweater and baggy slacks.
    It wasn’t him.
    A dead end.  Smudge was depending on her, and she had guessed wrong. 
    Turning away from Mister Baskin’s glare, she went to walk out of the front door, but a thought occurred to her.  “Roland, you knew my great aunt, didn’t you?”
    “Everyone knew Millie,” he answered.  “She was one of the few people in this town that I actually liked.  That’s saying something for me.”
    That was definitely true.  “Do you know,” she asked, “if there was anyone who held a grudge against my aunt?  Maybe somebody who wanted to hurt her?”
    “Your aunt?  Millie?”  Mister Baskin actually laughed, which was something Darcy was sure she’d never seen him do.  Ever.  “There wasn’t nobody didn’t like her, Darcy.  Oh, I remember she had her trouble with people same as you do, but that was because she didn’t back down.  If somebody needed to be taken down a few pegs or such, she was there to do it.  Always respected that about her.  Say.”  He screwed his face up now and peered closer at the both of them.