Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 9)

by A W Hartoin

  “No clue, but it will make you feel as though you can face anything,” I said.

  “I could use that.”

  “That is Aaron’s specialty.”

  Patty leaned over to me. “He can’t be your…you know.”

  I smiled. “He’s sort of my investigating partner and personal chef. It wasn’t my idea. My father’s idea of keeping me safe.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  Aaron froze.

  “Um…all the time. He’s a genius at keeping me alive and fed.”

  He went back to sautéing the onions.

  “Our kids don’t know,” whispered Patty. “We haven’t told them anything about what’s happened. They don’t know that anything’s happened actually. Please don’t say anything around them.”

  Oh, they knew. At least the big one did. Why do parents think kids are stupid? You can’t hide a thing like Dad sweating through cashmere and Mom walking around like the Night of the Living Dead. You just can’t. I knew the exact day when Mom locked Dad out of the bedroom for not showering after the morgue again. He wouldn’t give in and she kept him out for a month before he got desperate and agreed to shower in the basement and not stink up the house like dead people. I mentioned that incident once and Mom was flabbergasted that I knew. Hello. Dad snoring on the sofa, in the office, and once notably in the room next to mine in an antique trundle bed made for a five-year-old. That bed’s no longer in mint condition. Just because Dad came home late and left for work at six didn’t mean anything. I noticed.

  “If you say so,” I said.

  “You didn’t, did you?”

  “No. Of course not, but they’re not dumb.”

  “They’re boys. Dumb is practically their middle names. They’ve flooded our basement twice because they forgot to turn off the water after they washed their hands.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re not observant,” I said.

  “What’s my name?” she asked.

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “I asked Jeremiah last week and he said, ‘Er…Peter?’ I love them to death, but we’re not dealing with rocket scientists here.”

  I thought she was wrong, but I agreed that it didn’t look good.

  Aaron sliced the top off of a head of garlic and nestled it down into a pot of rice and beef. It smelled so good I was drooling and it wasn’t even cooked yet. He programmed the Instant Pot and got the puddings out of the freezer, giving them to me, Aunt Miriam, Patty, and Joe.

  We gathered around the large granite island with Joe staying as far from Patty as he dared. She rolled her eyes and took the first bite. “Oh, wow. You made this from what we had? How? It’s impossible.”

  Aaron didn’t answer. He bobbed up and down, looking in my general direction.

  “He excels at impossible,” I said and he settled down.

  The pudding was amazing and didn’t taste like grocery store chocolate at all. Patty and Joe’s tears of grief and guilt changed to tears of happiness. Chocolate fixes everything, at least temporarily.

  “So,” I said, “Joe, I need your alibi for today.”

  Joe’s face changed and he sat down his pudding with a clunk.

  Patty backed away from us all. “Oh, my God.”

  She didn’t get a thwack with the cane. Instead, Aunt Miriam came around to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “He didn’t do it. He told me the alibi.”

  “Where were you?” Patty asked, her voice tinged with intense anger, ready to erupt.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Spill it,” I said. “This isn’t going away.”

  “You were supposed to be with the Brodericks viewing houses,” said Patty.

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Well, what?”

  Joe Hove canceled his appointment with the Brodericks and went to a bar. He got hammered and then managed to sober up enough to drive home. I hoped so anyway.

  “What bar?” I asked.

  Joe looked everywhere but at us.

  “Joe!” exclaimed Patty. “There better be a bar.”

  “There is. There is. Can I just tell Mercy?”

  “No.” Patty had her pudding in hand and was ready to wing it at him.

  “Don’t get mad,” he said.

  Nothing good comes after “Don’t get mad.” Nothing and that time was no exception.

  “O’Malley’s,” said Joe.

  I drew a blank and so did everyone else. It was silent.

  “Did you…meet a woman there?” asked Patty.

  “God no!” exclaimed Joe. “Sorry, Sister.”

  “It’s alright,” said Aunt Miriam in a kind and generous tone I didn’t know she possessed. “Why is O’Malley’s a problem?”

  “It’s not,” said Joe in a rush. “It’s good. It’s all good.”

  Whenever somebody says that, you know it’s not all good.

  “I seriously doubt that,” I said. “What’s the deal? You might as well tell me. ‘Cause I’m going there to confirm.”

  “Don’t go there. Just call them or something.”

  “Why?” asked Patty. That pudding was ready to fly.

  Joe finally got down to it. O’Malley’s was the site of that triple homicide Chuck had taken off of Julia. That would’ve been okay in and of itself, but O’Malley’s was rough, a biker bar that deserved its bad reputation with bar fights as a form of entertainment. The bartenders were known to knife customers if they were annoying.

  “Why on Earth would you go there?” asked Patty.

  Joe started snuffling and I feared the fresh cashmere sweater, this time in sky blue, wouldn’t survive any better than the grey one had. “I don’t know.”

  “People get killed there. Jabberwocky’s is a block away from the office. Why not go there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I pictured O’Malley’s. It was cruddy and not in a cool way. “Is Jabberwocky’s nice?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Patty.

  “That’s why he didn’t go there.”

  Joe looked at his feet. “It’s fine. Nothing happened.”

  “But you wanted it to,” I said.

  “I’ve ruined everything.”

  “No, you haven’t. Just some things,” said Patty.

  “That’s enough.”

  “Not enough to go down to O’Malley’s and get stabbed.” Patty crossed the room and stood in front of Joe.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

  Joe didn’t, but Aaron did. He released the steam on the pressure cooker and then left the kitchen, heading for the front door. I went after him, dialing the number Patty gave me and passing the two younger Hove boys on the stairs. They didn’t say anything, but their eyes were scared. Joe had ruined more than Patty thought.

  I found Aaron in the truck with the engine running.

  “I guess we’re done now?” I asked.

  He put the truck in reverse as a response and Aunt Miriam came walking out as Mr. Broderick answered my call and confirmed Patty’s alibi. He was intensely curious about why I wanted to know, but I said something about a car that resembled hers sideswiping a SUV and he bought it.

  “That’s one down,” I said. “One to go.”

  Aunt Miriam marched over and I boosted her into the truck. “You can’t seriously believe that Patty or Joe shot those people.”

  “I believe it’s a possibility,” I said. “Alright. That’s it for tonight. Aaron, to the Bled Mansion.”

  “Aaron, to the hospital,” said Aunt Miriam.

  “I’m not going to the hospital. Julia will probably be there and I’m supposed to make myself scarce.”

  “O’Malley’s then.”

  “Chuck,” said Aaron.

  “That’s right. It’ll be crawling with cops for days,” I said. “Uncle Morty will have to track down a bartender that was on shift and I’ll go straight to the source.”

  “To the hospital, then,” she sai
d.

  “How about you go home and I go to the mansion? I can hide the truck there and Aaron can walk to work.”

  Aunt Miriam thought it over and came up with what she considered a compromise. It really meant Mercy loses.

  Chapter Fifteen

  IT WAS WELL after dark when we drove into the Central West End and the moon was shining over the stately houses and old trees. Something was nagging me and for once, it wasn’t Aunt Miriam. I’d forgotten something and it was bouncing around in my brain, just out of reach.

  We put my truck in the Bled garage next to the 1945 Jaguar and I felt like patting my hood in consolation. My 1958 Chevy pickup didn’t fit in. Like me in high school, it was never going to be cool enough for that crowd. You can’t beat a 1921 Maybach. You just can’t.

  Aaron took off the moment he parked and left me with Aunt Miriam, who couldn’t get out of the truck easily without help. I’m not proud to say that I considered running for it. The intense stink eye she was giving me put an end to that. Also, we were family. It wasn’t like I could truly ever escape.

  I helped her out and she stalked down the row of impressive vehicles. “Which one should we take?”

  “None,” I said. “Because we’re not going anywhere.”

  “We are.”

  “Aren’t.”

  Aunt Miriam stopped in front of Millicent’s Borgwald Isabella. “This one. I’ve always liked convertibles.”

  “I’ve never driven that in my life and I’m not starting now.”

  “We need a car.”

  “I need a pizza.” I left the garage and walked through the garden without turning on the floodlights. I got halfway there and a strange feeling came over me. I wasn’t alone.

  “Don’t come out here!” I yelled.

  “What?” asked Aunt Miriam.

  “Mercy?” Mrs. Haas popped her head up behind the fence. “What are you doing here?”

  “Er…checking on the house while The Girls are gone.” The feeling didn’t go away. It got worse.

  “Well, call your mother. She’s very upset.”

  That’s what I forgot.

  “She called you?” I asked.

  “She called everyone. Tommy doesn’t know yet, but he will,” said Mrs. Haas.

  “Oh, I know. I definitely know.”

  Aunt Miriam came down the walk and the ladies chatted about the lovely fall weather while my stomach did a game of Twister all on its own.

  “Mrs. Haas,” I interrupted. “Why are you out here?”

  “I thought,” she waved her hand in dismissal, “I heard someone out here and I did.”

  I might throw up.

  “You did?”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “You.”

  “Right,” I said.

  Aunt Miriam peered at me curiously as I maneuvered her past me to the back door.

  “Have you had dinner yet? Terri has outdone herself with tonight’s bouillabaisse.”

  “That’s sounds—”

  “We’re not staying,” I said. And I’d rather lick my truck’s wheels.

  “It’s traditional Marseillaise,” said Mrs. Haas.

  Not better.

  “Thanks. I’ve got to get to the parents and ya know somewhere.” I punched my code in and pushed Aunt Miriam inside. “Go inside, Mrs. Haas. Right now.”

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s late and you don’t want cold bouillabaisse.”

  “That’s true.”

  “See ya later.” I closed the door and nervously watched through the window as Mrs. Haas went inside. “Thank God.”

  Aunt Miriam gave me a super hard crack with her cane. “When will you learn?”

  “Never. Accept it.”

  “You will learn if I have anything to say about it.”

  “Well, you don’t.”

  “That was very rude,” said Aunt Miriam. “I love bouillabaisse and you know her cook is excellent.”

  I ignored her and pulled up the access logs on the security screen inside the door. No one had been inside since Mom and I had been there. I rearmed the alarm, applying the backup, too, and tried to shake off the fear that was still tight around my chest. “We’re not going out tonight. Period.”

  “That was not our agreement.”

  “I didn’t agree at all and we aren’t going out,” I said.

  Aunt Miriam put her cane in the Egyptian art deco umbrella stand by the back door. “Do they have Netflix?”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re watching Winchester.”

  Welcome to my nightmare. I was convinced that someone was lurking around outside. We were in a deserted old mansion a week before Halloween and I got to watch a horror movie about an old mansion teeming with ghosts with the scariest nun on the planet. Fantastic.

  “Sometimes I think you hate me,” I said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous and why are you looking like that?”

  “Like what?”

  Aunt Miriam stepped closer and took my arm. “Like you’re afraid. You aren’t afraid ever.”

  “Not true.”

  “Was there someone out there?” she asked.

  I hesitated but gave in to the truth. “I think so, but it was just a feeling.”

  “Like your father’s feelings, they tend to be correct. We won’t order food. That’s taking a risk.”

  “We don’t have to. Aaron’s taken to stocking the freezer with The Girls’ favorites.”

  “That’s promising. You find something for us.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. With Aunt Miriam, you never know.

  “I’m calling Carolina.”

  “Don’t let her come over here and can you ask Mr. Cervantes to feed Skanky and the bird?”

  She walked ahead of me through the mansion, dialing her phone. “I’ll take care of it as soon as this thing decides to behave.”

  I dug through the freezer while Aunt Miriam tried to call Mom. It took her four tries, but she finally nailed it. Mom wasn’t as upset as I feared and Aunt Miriam used some of that soothing voice she had with the Hoves. Without saying we worried about going out, she got Mom to stay in. There were promises of pedicures involved, but it worked and Mom promised not to tell anyone where I was.

  By the time I got Aaron’s truffle, taleggio, and mushroom pizza hot, Aunt Miriam had discovered the new season of American Horror Story was on Amazon. It was going to be a long night.

  We settled in The Girls’ parents’ room because I convinced Aunt Miriam that my room was messy. The last thing I needed was her seeing The Klinefeld Group stuff. Mom was bad enough.

  Aunt Miriam put on Mom’s pajamas and I tucked her in with a big glass of Chianti and some pizza. She was so happy I almost felt good about what she was calling our girls’ night in. So good I decided to hazard a question that I normally wouldn’t have, after she’d gone through her first glass of wine and was well into her second.

  “Aunt Miriam?”

  She paused the movie. “Yes?”

  “Did you really know Cardinal Law?”

  “I did.”

  I sipped my own wine and thought about what I wanted to ask. I knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t break a promise, even if it was to someone like Law. “Why did you listen to him? Why would you want to hear that?”

  “Want is not part of it. He was dying and I’d known him in my youth as a kind person and as a good Catholic.”

  “But he wasn’t,” I said. “Good, I mean.”

  “It is not my place to judge,” she said calmly.

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  She lifted her bony arm and drew me to her. “You could if it was required. If Patty Hove is to be believed, it is in this case you’re working on. It’s difficult and judgement will not be helpful.”

  “I don’t like Catherine.”

  “Do you need to in order to help her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  She took off her
veil and rather ragged and faded red curls fell down around her face. “I think you can because you already are.”

  “I want to beat Julia.”

  “You will.”

  “That’s not the same as wanting to help Catherine,” I said.

  “You have to separate the person from their deeds.”

  “Like you did with Law?”

  “No.”

  I sat up and looked at her weathered face, “No?”

  “With him, I failed and that is my burden to carry,” said Aunt Miriam.

  I settled down again. “I’m kinda happy you failed.”

  She was smiling when she said, “I think the good Lord understands.”

  In the end, it wasn’t too bad. Mostly, because I was exhausted and fell asleep half way through the first episode and Aunt Miriam gave up on pinching me awake at the “good parts” after a while.

  But that wasn’t the end. The end came when a mad man came banging on the door at two a.m. And I had cause to think staying at The Bled Mansion was a very bad idea, horror had nothing to do with it.

  “Mercy.”

  I rolled over and buried my head under my pillow.

  “Mercy.”

  “No,” I said.

  Aunt Miriam pushed my shoulder. “Someone’s at the door.”

  “They’ll go away.”

  “They’ve been out there for ten minutes.”

  I peeked out from my pillow at the clock. Two in the morning. Unbelievable. Unless. I grabbed my phone. Eight thousand messages from Chuck, but nothing from Mom or Dad.

  “Who is it?” Aunt Miriam sat up and lifted the lace and satin sleep mask she’d happily donned after four episodes of horror about the 1600s. It was a wonder that I slept at all. Exhaustion finally worked in my favor.

  “Chuck.”

  “Go let him in. He’ll disturb the neighbors.”

  “He’s disturbing me.”

  She sent a slinging slap my way, but I rolled out of bed to avoid it and landed on my bruise.

  “Son of a—”

  “Mercy!”

  “Gun,” I said. “I was going to say gun.”

  She glared at me and cuddled down under the three comforters I had to pile on her to keep her almost warm. “You picked that man. Deal with him.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “It’s about that Julia.” Aunt Miriam pulled down her sleep mask. “You know how cops are. All for one.”