Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 9)

by A W Hartoin

  “They can still afford it,” I said, propping my elbows on the cold granite. “But there’s a connection. Weeks kills himself the day Catherine gets the account and someone at Midwest didn’t want her to have it. That had to be Weeks.”

  “He has nothing to do with Rolla,” said Fats. “Was Weeks a hacker by any chance?”

  Spidermonkey grinned. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “It’s not beyond the realm,” I said. “People generally think Spidermonkey is a skater boy, not an elegant man in his seventies.”

  “I’m pleased that you think I’m elegant and my identity is not well-known. Let me look at Weeks background. It will only take a second.”

  We waited and I felt myself getting twisted up with the need to move, to go, and be done with it all. I couldn’t hide at Calpurnia’s for long and in that case the shorter the better.

  “It’s all on Midwest’s site and the obituary,” said Spidermonkey. “Keen financial mind, etc. He graduated from Northwestern with an economics degree and got his MBA from Wharton. I’m not seeing any cyber interest, but he could’ve kept it hidden.”

  “What’s your instinct?” I asked.

  “I think no.”

  “What about the kids? Any computer science junkies?”

  A quick check revealed an art student, law, and another econ.

  “It’s not instantly recognizable, but it’s possible,” said Spidermonkey.

  “I guess that settles it,” I said.

  Fats stood up and did a quick stretch. “You have to get into that bank. Calpurnia, can I borrow a car? Mine’s not fit for valet and we have to come in strong.”

  “You are not coming in anywhere,” said Calpurnia and then she put a critical eye on me. “And neither are you. Lorenzo, call Hervé.”

  Lorenzo, who had been hovering in the background quickly stepped up. “I can do it, Aunt Cal.”

  “You aren’t doing anything,” she said and then blasted him with some blistering Italian.

  “What did I do to deserve that?” he asked, giving her the puppy eyes that melted my heart, but apparently froze hers.

  “Just about everything,” said Calpurnia. “Call Hervé. Mercy is off-limits to you.”

  “How off-limits?” he asked, his smooth voice sending chills up my spine.

  “Completely. Hervé, now.” She turned to me. “Are you ready to hear about Chicago?”

  My brain was full and blank at the same time. “Chicago?”

  “Detective Jones had an issue in Chicago.”

  A shiver of joy went through me. “Please tell me she’s a skank.”

  “No. She’s a fool.”

  “That works. What’d she do?”

  As it turned out, Julia did very little, but it pretty much ruined her rep and career in Chicago. Three years ago, it was all going swimmingly as my mother would say, and then Julia got a new partner, Rory Kavanaugh. He was a kind of father figure to Julia and they did well, particularly on drug cases. No one questioned Kavanaugh’s vintage corvette or Italian loafers. He was single without kids and it was assumed he had plenty of cash. He did, mostly because he was pocketing drugs from their busts and reselling on the streets through his brother. It only came to light because a young prostitute came in and charged Kavanaugh with blackmail. If she didn’t have sex with him for free, he’d have her arrested every night until she did. Monica Lewis was the spirited sort and considered herself to be an entrepreneur. She wasn’t about to be taken advantage of. When the detective she talked to brushed her off because she was a prostitute she informed him that Kavanaugh was selling seized drugs through his brother and more importantly she gave him the undercover cop that was helping him do it. His cover name was Claude and he had a relationship with Monica and told her who he really was. That information was sealed and never reported to the public, so the other undercovers that were connected to him wouldn’t be compromised. But, of course, Calpurnia knew a guy on the investigation.

  “So how did this hurt Julia, if she wasn’t in on it?” asked Spidermonkey.

  “People thought she must’ve been in on it,” said Calpurnia. “She was his partner and they found 800,000 dollars’ worth of cocaine, meth, and painkillers in the brother’s house. 150,000 in Kavanaugh’s.”

  “But none in Julia’s?” I asked.

  “Not an ounce. She was completely cleared.”

  “So?”

  “So she fought for Kavanaugh. She believed he’d been setup and she was belligerent with the investigators, told Kavanaugh what they asked her when she was ordered not to, and she harassed Monica Lewis trying to get what she thought was the truth. Julia Jones dug herself a hole before it became clear that Kavanaugh was guilty and he’d let her ruin herself, thinking her faith would help him.”

  “How did she get hired here?” I asked.

  “That I don’t know. Would you like me to find out?” asked Calpurnia with a twinkle in her dark eyes. One more favor for Mercy. She wouldn’t mind that at all.

  “I’m good,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I would almost feel sorry for Julia if she wasn’t repeating the same pattern here.”

  Spidermonkey chuckled. “Some people can’t stop themselves.”

  “Why are you looking at me?”

  “Your ditch water hair, my dear. I’ve seen it all before.”

  Calpurnia pushed back her laptop. “Speaking of hair. Lorenzo, where is Hervé?”

  “On his way,” said Lorenzo as he flexed for my viewing pleasure and I admit it was a pleasure.

  “Who’s Hervé?” I asked in an attempt to get ahold of myself. “And what’s he going to do?”

  Before Calpurnia could answer, a tiny little man walked in. He was straight up delicate, without an ounce of fat, no taller than me, but wearing four-inch heels under his exquisitely-tailored black suit. His dark eyes ran up and down my body, not sexual but in a clinical assessing way and he found me lacking, distasteful even.

  “I’m Hervé and I’m the answer to most of your problems.”

  “Excellent,” said Calpurnia. “I’m thinking vintage. Can you find Mercy something that will show her off and make her look…competent?”

  “Hey! I look fine.”

  She didn’t dignify that with even a glance and I started checking myself. It wasn’t that bad. Just a little vomit.

  “And who will we be meeting today?” asked Hervé, pulling out a measuring tape and eyeing me.

  “We?” I asked. “You mean, me and Fats?”

  “I mean, we, as in you and me,” said Calpurnia. “I have a friend at Midwest. We will see him together.”

  Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I couldn’t go to a bank with Calpurnia Fibonacci. I couldn’t go anywhere with Calpurnia Fibonacci. I might get away with Fats because of Tiny, but I couldn’t explain Calpurnia away. Not to mention this was a huge favor, the biggest favor. What would she expect in return? I got nauseated just thinking about it.

  “Don’t panic,” said Calpurnia. “We will enter separately. No one will connect us. It behooves me not to be connected to you.”

  “But what will you expect—”

  “Don’t ask the price when you have no other options.”

  “I have options,” I said.

  “Really? Enlighten me,” said Calpurnia, her voice purring as much as Lorenzo but the chills she was giving me weren’t the nice kind.

  “I don’t know.” I pointed at Spidermonkey. “He’s good. He’s very very good. He’ll get into the bank eventually.”

  “You have time for eventually?”

  “I could.”

  “Let me remind you that Detective Jones is walking the streets without a target on her back. My man in Chicago says she’s very smart.”

  “Not that smart. Chicago booted her,” I said.

  “She’s intense and blindly loyal. If she gets that under control, she’ll beat you.”

  “And you do have an APB,” said Fats. “She’ll t
ake you into custody for your own protection.”

  “Or she’ll arrest you for something and lose your paperwork for a day,” said Calpurnia.

  “That happened to me,” said Lorenzo.

  “Because I told them to.”

  “Aunt Cal!”

  “You needed a cooling off period and so did I.” She ran her fingers through her silky hair and it flowed over her shoulders like the Madonna’s veil. “So Miss Mercy Watts, do you want to walk into Midwest and get your answers today or not? I believe this handsome gentleman has other things he could be doing like finding out who exactly wrote that mysterious code.”

  I don’t know what to do.

  “Miss Watts, I’m waiting,” said Calpurnia.

  “The answer is yes,” said Fats. “I want that 4000 bucks.”

  “A reward?’

  “From the families. We have twelve hours to solve it.”

  “An interesting wrinkle,” said Calpurnia. “And I’m still waiting.”

  “She doesn’t like to wait,” said Hervé.

  “Okay,” I said because no other word was coming to mind.

  “Excellent,” said Calpurnia. “Hervé, I would like to make a statement. People should remember me coming in, not our Marilyn lookalike. Can that be done?”

  “I will see to it,” said Hervé, although his eyes were doubtful. “Do you want her to disappear?”

  Oh, my God!

  “I don’t want to disappear. Appearing is good,” I said.

  Calpurnia gave me the stink eye and said, “She should be stunning but subtle. Herself,” she waved her hand up and down in my direction, “but not this.”

  “And you will be going to…?” asked Hervé.

  “Midwest.”

  “Our friend?”

  “Yes. You know what he needs to see,” she said.

  Hervé ushered me out of the room and up an open-air staircase, seemingly unsupported and so delicate looking I feared stepping on it. He brought me to the closet to end all closets. Like something Oprah would have only bigger.

  “Holy crap,” I said.

  “Yes. It is holy crap.” Hervé began measuring me and making discontented noises. “You are very short.”

  You should talk.

  “I can’t help that.”

  “Yes. None of us can. But you are proportional. I can work with this. Strip.”

  “What?”

  “Get undressed,” he said, making no move to turn around or leave.

  “Are you going to go?” I asked.

  “Do you imagine you have something I haven’t seen?”

  I went to my happy place, basically it was me alone anywhere but there, and stripped, leaving on the tattered but ever so comfortable bra and panties that I’d unwisely chosen to wear that day.

  Hervé measured me again, making more displeased noises and I started to think a diet was in my near future. “Yes, we will do the vintage, unique but classic.”

  He went through the racks on the left and pulled out a gorgeous forest green dress. It was long sleeved with a tie at the waist and a slit that went from the waist to the neck where a jeweled clasp held it together. It was the kind of dress that Stella would’ve worn before the war and I rarely felt such longing. Certainly not for something that wasn’t human.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Hervé’s chilly demeanor warmed slightly and he said, “We will have to do something about that bra. You obviously can’t go without.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Calpurnia has the same issue. I’ll figure something out. Let me see. We’ll have to do something about your hair.” He touched a lock and drew back in horror. “What in the world did you put on it?”

  “Oily ditch water.”

  “Oh, yes. I saw that on the news.” He touched my scratches and bruises. “Easily mended. Off you go into the shower.”

  “I don’t have time for that,” I said.

  “Do you want to be successful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll do what I say. Impressions matter. When you sit down with Calpurnia, looking the way I will have you looking, our friend will understand the situation,” said Hervé, putting the dress back on the rack and shooing me into a huge bathroom.

  “What is the situation exactly?” I asked.

  “You are we.” He turned on the shower and adjusted it for me.

  “We?”

  “Yes.” He pointed at me. “There is you. Me. And she. We.”

  “Er…”

  He sighed. “And they say you’re clever.”

  “Do they?”

  “Occasionally. We is us. We have a friend at Midwest,” he said, handing me bottles in sequence, telling me exactly the order to use them in. Two shampoos. Two conditioners and an oil spray.

  “Isn’t that overkill?” I asked.

  “Have you seen your hair?”

  Hervé left and I showered as quickly as possible. It wasn’t very fast. Calpurnia knew how to shower. Nozzles everywhere, including special ones for the feet. It was heaven in a box.

  I got out and the work began. Hervé buffed and polished me, a lot like Dorothy at the Wash and Brush Up Company, except it was only him and I was done in remarkable time, dressed with breasts in a contraption that kept them in the right spot but wasn’t visible in the slit.

  “There you go,” said Hervé.

  “Who are you?” I asked, admiring my transformation.

  “I’m the queen’s confidant.”

  “The queen?”

  “There are many kingdoms, Miss Watts, of varying size,” he said. “You’re ready.”

  I touched my hair. It was magically soft and shiny. “I need that shampoo.”

  “It’s fifty euros a bottle.”

  “Never mind.” I looked around. “Where are my clothes?”

  “I put them out of their misery.”

  “You threw them away? I need those. I have to give this back,” I said.

  “Not today.”

  “Those were my good jeans.”

  “No, they weren’t. They weren’t good at anything. They say, ‘I’m depressed.’”

  I put my nose in the air and sauntered out of the closet. “I’m not depressed. I’m comfortable.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Calpurnia, who was standing in the hall wearing the most astonishing Pucci dress, pinks, browns, and silver with long fringe on the sleeves and hem. Her hair was piled up in sixties-style knots and loops. With the heels and hair, she had to be six six.

  “Holy crap,” I said.

  “Good. I will be the one people remember at Midwest,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “Where’s Fats?”

  “She’ll see you later. This isn’t the kind of meeting that she’s effective in.”

  We went down the stairs and out into the crisp fall air. Calpurnia got in a limo and was whisked away. A few minutes later, I was in a Mercedes, heading to Midwest.

  “Miss Watts,” said the driver, a man I didn’t know.

  “Yes?”

  “I will escort you. Don’t open the door or go anywhere without me. I’m Charles by the way,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  “Good.” He turned on the stereo to Florida Georgia Line and I checked my messages. My inbox was full, mostly with messages from that loathsome Julia, some from Chuck, and one from Mom.

  “We found him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I DIDN’T KNOW where they found Morty and I didn’t much care. I was too nervous. I’d sashayed into plenty of places asking for answers but never as we and I didn’t know what to expect.

  Charles drove into a parking garage below the Midwest building to a special section blocked off from prying eyes. I was obedient and got out when told. It was a new experience, obedience, but it didn’t rankle. Getting shot at in broad daylight next to Fats Licata will change your perspective on most things.

  Charles led me to the executive elevator that required a special key.
He produced the key and cleared the elevator before we got in and stood next to me watchful in a black suit with a black shirt and silver tie.

  “Have you met our friend?” I asked.

  “I don’t meet people.”

  “Er…never?”

  “Not when I’m working,” he said.

  The door chimed and slid open to reveal a surprisingly small lobby about the size of Calpurnia’s closet and done in teak. A woman sat at a small ebony desk, typing and looking at two monitors. She saw us and pushed a button built into the desk. “She’s here.”

  “Send her in,” said a man’s voice.

  She came out from behind the desk and showed me to one of the four identical doors, opening it and taking me down a short hall with four more doors and no windows. She stopped with her hand on the knob and said, “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  She opened the door, stepped in, and said, “Mercy Watts to see you, sir.”

  I walked into a huge office done in paneling that looked like it had been liberated from a sixteenth century chateau. Château de Fontainebleau came to mind with its dark wood and rich colors. But just like Fontainebleau it didn’t feel dark or oppressive but instead warm and right, just like the man who sat behind the ornately carved desk. He was eighty if he was a day with thin silver strands of hair that sort of floated around his mostly bald, wrinkly scalp. He wore a dark blue suit and a paisley bow tie. He totally looked at home in the gorgeous room. He did not look like an Eric Schneider or anybody else that Spidermonkey said was involved with Elite.

  “Miss Watts,” he said, coming to his feet slowly. “Come in and join us.”

  That’s when I noticed the stiletto heels poking out from a large wingback chair. I looked back for Charles, but she’d already closed the door so I took a breath and walked over to the other wingback. Mr. Schneider or whoever he was discreetly watched me, noting every single thing about my appearance. It wasn’t exactly rude, but I felt more comfortable in front of Hervé in my ratty bra and panties. He wasn’t trying to figure me out. This man was.

  I sat down, tucking the velvet of my wide skirt under my rear and crossing my ankles. Mom would be so proud.