by A W Hartoin
“Thanks,” whispered Fats.
“That’s what maids of honor are for.”
“You do it then?”
“Of course, I’ll do it. There was never any question.”
“What about Tiny? We’re running out of time,” she said.
“I’ll think of something.”
“Fast.”
“Double fast.” I leaned forward. “I don’t know about this weather. We’ll never be able to go out to the crime scene today.”
“Where is it?” asked Fats.
“Outside of town. Uncle Morty couldn’t give me an exact location. Let’s hit the cop shop first off and then find a hotel that takes dogs.”
Fats grinned, showing no teeth. “Already taken care of.”
“Why does that make me feel nervous?” I asked.
“Because it’s me. We’re at the Miss Elizabeth’s Bed and Breakfast.”
I googled Miss Elizabeth and got an eyeful. “It’s haunted. Why would you do that?”
“I thought it would inspire you,” said Fats. “Plus, they have a killer breakfast, inspired by the last breakfast of Miss Elizabeth’s victims.”
“Ooh, that is creepy,” said Clarence from the back. “Real life. I’m so excited.”
“See,” said Fats. “She likes it.”
I twisted in my seat. “Alleged murderer. Nothing was proven.”
“She confessed on her deathbed.”
“To killing five men and stashing their bodies on the property,” I said. “No bodies were ever found.”
“Maybe you’ll find one,” said Clarence. “You find things.”
Swell. Five more murders.
Instead of dignifying that hope, I messaged Chuck, who was less than pleased. The storm was only going to get worse and he worried. I mostly think he wanted to show me his listings. I promised to go over them on my tiny phone later and that calmed him down.
I hung up and Fats pulled off the main highway onto a rural route. Even through the snow I could see how pretty it was. Rolling hills with dense trees dotting the landscape and I started to think, against my will, about my great grandparents. They died here. Somewhere in these lovely hills their plane crashed, taking their secrets with them. I should go see the memorial while we were there if I could find it in the snow.
We drove past a Walmart at the edge of town and Fats asked her nav system to find the police station. She didn’t ask me because I hadn’t mentioned that I’d been there before. It wasn’t a pleasant memory and most of it a blur. Just seeing the “Welcome to St. Sebastian” sign made me want to turn around instead of deal with the local cops again. Don’t get me wrong. St. Seb was a lovely town once you got past the small section of urban sprawl with the fast food chains and rows of tract homes, disturbing in their sameness.
Downtown was another matter entirely. Filled with 1930’s bungalows, painted ladies of the Victorian era and a main street with quaint shops that probably hadn’t changed since they were built. Fats parked at the former public library, complete with pillars, built in the 1880s, if I had to guess. They’d built a new library next door, all modern, but matching in style so that you had to do a double take to notice it wasn’t original.
The police station occupied the old library and there was a jail in the basement. I gave my statement there after I was outed as the one who found the body of Janet Lee Fine in the city park, but I remembered few details of the interview, mostly feeling sad, exposed, and wanting to go home to forget all about it.
“Here we are,” said Fats. “What’s the game plan?”
“We’re winging it.”
“Why can’t you plan? I have a plan.”
“Okay. Let’s do that.”
Fats adjusted the super fuzzy fur-lined hood on her jacket. “My plan is to see a ghost, workout, and eat at Crabapple’s.”
“Crabapple’s?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. It’s got great reviews.”
Please don’t be vegan.
“It’s vegan,” she said.
Dammit.
“What happened to cheeseburgers and malts?” I asked. “I was down with that.”
“Over. The baby wants tofu.”
Clarence stuck her head between us. “Baby? Who has a baby?”
For once, Fats was struck dumb with horror. She made a little finger point at me, but no way. I was not taking a baby for the team. “She meant Moe,” I said. “She’s her baby.”
Clarence gave me a side eye, but she went with it. “Dogs eat tofu?”
“My dog does,” said Fats. “Now go get that police report.”
I agreed, but I had no idea how to do that, since I never had to do it before. Everything was online and if it was online, Uncle Morty could get at it. I couldn’t remember much about the cops in St. Sebastian, but I didn’t think they had a drunk in charge anymore.
“Put on some lipstick,” said Fats, eyeing me with disappointment. As usual, her makeup was flawless. Mine was nonexistent. Aunt Miriam didn’t believe in makeup or wasting time. I was lucky to get some lip balm on and it wasn’t even tinted.
“It’s in the back in a bag,” I said. “I look okay. The bites are better.”
“You look like Marilyn Monroe got an infectious rash. You’ve got to cover those bites and play up the sex kitten angle. They’re cops. Give them a show.”
I glanced back at Clarence, who was wide-eyed and slightly confused. “Won’t they want to help?”
“Not as a rule, no,” I said.
Fats got her purse out of the center console. “You’re hopeless. It’s a good thing you’ve got the face you’ve got or forget it.” She pulled out concealer, powder, some kind of green glop, mascara, and a liquid liner that I would never have dared to try. No. That’s not true. I tried liquid liner one time. It was bad.
“Do that cat’s eye thing,” said Clarence.
We looked at her.
She pinked up. “I saw it on one of the mothers at school. It was very striking.”
I said I couldn’t do it, but I was in luck. Fats could. I never had so much makeup applied to me so fast. Her hands were a blur. When I looked in the little visor mirror, I was in full Marilyn, Marilyn on the cover of Playboy Marilyn. It was amazing what Fats could do with spare makeup and a little hairspray.
“You are gifted,” said Clarence. “Are you good with scars?”
“Scars?” asked Fats.
“There’s a mother in my class.” She went on to describe the mother’s situation and I was left to wing it alone.
You’d think I’d have a leg up with my dad and all. Half the time I saw him growing up was in the shop as he called it. Mom would haul me down there when he had a break and we’d have a snack together. I think we were supposed to be bonding. Mostly, it was just weird and Mom stopped taking me after a pedophile in holding took a liking to me. I heard Dad might’ve smacked him around, but I’ve been careful never to ask him directly.
I flipped up my hood and rushed inside while my team discussed that green glop that Fats had decided against spackling me with. A bored-looking deputy, sitting at the front desk, looked up from a magazine and dropped his coffee. Mission accomplished, Fats.
“Good afternoon,” I said, briskly walking up to the desk and leaning on it. “Who can I talk to about a police report from 1965?”
“19—what?” The young cop sopped up his mess with an entire box of tissues.
An older woman wearing sergeant’s stripes walked in and said, “Not again, Dallas. This is getting embarrassing.”
“Sorry, Sergeant Stratton,” said Dallas. “She came in and I don’t know what happened.”
Stratton gave me the once-over. She knew what happened and she wasn’t happy about it. Maybe I should’ve stuck with my spider bites and lip balm. “What can I do for you, Miss Watts?”
“You remember me,” I said.
“You’re hard to forget.”
“In a good way?”
“No.”
“Oh,
um, I like to see someone about a police report from 1965,” I said.
That surprised her and I got a zing of pleasure from the consternation.
“What crime?” she asked.
“A murder. Victim’s name was Margaret Mullanphy.”
“We don’t get a lot of murders in St. Seb.” Dallas tossed his wad of Kleenex in the trash and hitched up his belt. He was pretty handsome in a slightly scruffy way and I gave him my help-me-out smile. He liked it. A lot.
“You got this one,” I said. “Do you think you can help me out?”
“No,” said Stratton. “You don’t have standing.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because, during the dry spell, you came into our town without a heads-up and started digging, making us look like half-witted yokels that couldn’t find a body that was right under our noses.”
This is going well.
“That was never my intent. I didn’t want credit.”
She crossed her arms. “You got it. Headlines for a month. ‘Hot Body Solves Cold Case’.”
“An anonymous tip led you to the body. I gave zero interviews,” I said.
“You were seen at the burial site digging. The family found out and told everyone,” said Stratton.
“That’s their right.” I crossed my own arms. “Their little girl was kidnapped and murdered. They can do whatever the hell they want. I didn’t enjoy the coverage, but I wasn’t going to throw a hissy fit about it either.”
We eyed each other for a minute and she finally said, “Your father’s a good man. He’s getting a raw deal from the FBI.”
“Yes, he is,” I said.
“How’s your mother?”
“Recovering. Slowly.”
Stratton clicked her walkie. “Hey, Chief. Guess who I’ve got up at the desk?”
The walkie crackled and a tired man’s voice said, “The abominable snow man.”
“Mercy Watts.”
No answer.
“I’d duck if I were you,” said Stratton.
Dallas winced as we listened to someone pounding down the stairs, paused, and then marched into the foyer. I’d like to say I recognized him, but I didn’t. The chief wasn’t memorable in any way. A casting director could put him in any generic cop role and he’d fit perfectly. Dad had at least three bosses that could’ve been confused with that hefty bald guy with a bristly mustache and a network of broken veins on his cheeks. I assumed he wasn’t one of Dad’s old bosses by the way he was looking at me. Dad’s bosses usually liked him even when he was driving them nuts with his obsessive work ethic.
“I knew you’d turn up again,” he said.
I tilted my chin down and gave him the smile that got The Girls to order a pizza instead of making it from scratch. “I tend to do that. It’s not intentional.”
“Like you didn’t intend to dig up that girl?”
I actually didn’t, for the record, but there was zero use in saying it. “I didn’t intend to cause you an issue.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Sometimes I can’t help myself. I do things that, even while I’m doing them, I know it’s a bad idea. Mouthing off to my dad about chores and the fact that he never did them. Telling my algebra teacher that she made another error while grading my test. And I did it just then, right at that critical moment. ‘Cause I’m stupid.
“Why don’t you ask whoever was the chief in 1999, why they didn’t notice someone burying a child and her bicycle in the dried up lake bed four hundred yards from the town fair?”
“I was the police chief in 1999,” he said with a snarl.
I will never learn.
“Well, what’s the answer?”
Wow. I really won’t.
I waited, literally biting my tongue. It was my only hope. The Chief, Gates, according to his name tag, just stared at me.
“Miss Watts,” said Dallas, hesitantly, “wants to know about a murder in 1965. That’s before you.”
Chief Gates shot the kid a look that should’ve melted the heavy coating of pomade in his hair. “Yes, Deputy Mosbach. That was before I was chief, seeing as I’m fifty-five years old.”
“I just meant—”
Stratton shushed him and said, “I told her she doesn’t have standing to request the records.”
“Good. Don’t let the door hit you.” He turned around and marched out.
“Wait.” I dashed after him and caught him three stairs up. He wasn’t the fittest cop out there.
“I’m sorry about saying that. I don’t know what came over me. I do it with my dad. It’s crazy and it never works out for me.”
Through his irritation, I saw a flicker of amusement. A very tiny flicker.
“Miss Watts, I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Why you chose to show up in the middle of a blizzard to ask about a fifty-year-old unsolved case is beyond me, but the city manager’s on vacation and nobody can find the key to the snowplow facility. I’ve got things to do that might just include using the jaws of life to get the plows out.”
“It’s not unsolved,” I said.
Exasperated didn’t begin to describe his expression. “You’re joking?”
“No, really. It’s considered solved. There was a suspect who died, but I have a very good reason to believe that he didn’t do it. There wasn’t any real proof, just a little wishful dot connecting.”
“What was the case?”
“Sister Margaret Mullanphy.”
“You think we made a mistake on a murdered nun?” he asked.
I took a breath and thought fast. “Not you. Not anyone currently in your department. Something was going on here in St. Sebastian, a crime wave, I think. The chief back then couldn’t handle it. He was in a bad way.”
Someone behind me cleared their throat and I glanced back. Stratton and Dallas were in the doorway. He was freaked and she was giving me the hairy eyeball.
“What makes you say he was in a bad way?” asked Gates. There was a warning in his voice, but because I’m me, I didn’t heed it.
“I spoke to a witness this morning that described him as sad and drunk while on the job and in the middle of searching the victim’s rooms at the convent.”
He put his hand on his nightstick, never a good sign. “What was his name?”
“Actually, I don’t know. There’s nothing online and the death certificate was faked.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Stratton.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you want me to tell you his name?” asked Chief Gates.
Please don’t say Gates.
“I’m thinking maybe no.”
“His name was Chief Woody Lucas.”
Whew!
“Okay. Thanks for telling me. Now about Sister Maggie’s file, what do I need—”
“He was my grandfather,” said Chief Gates.
I took a step back. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“No, ma’am. He died in 1972.”
Ten bucks it was alcohol-related.
“Liver failure?” I asked.
Shut up.
“Forget I said that.”
He smiled the coldest smile I’d ever seen outside of Hunt Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
“I won’t forget.” Chief Gates went up the stairs. He might’ve been stomping. It was hard to tell.
I turned around. “That could’ve gone better.”
Stratton shook her head. “It’s like you’ve never done this before.”
“I haven’t.”
She screwed up her mouth and then said, “You’re all over the news. Didn’t you jump off a bridge in Paris to chase a terrorist?”
“I never had to ask for a police report before,” I said.
“How is that possible?”
I walked down the three steps and looked out a window. Ice pelted the glass. They say when it rains it pours. When it’s me, it sleets.
“Everything’s online and accessible normally.”
“So you get what
you need illegally.”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Stratton sighed. “Well, beat it. We’re the last two here and I’m sure we’ll be heading out any minute.”
“Can’t I just see that file?” I asked. “It won’t take long. Autopsy. Photos.”
“Miss Watts, you didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.”
I grinned at her. “And that’s why I think you might just give me a peek.”
“It’s gone,” she said.
“As in…”
“We’ve been flooded over the years.” She pointed to her left. “The Missouri River is less than a half mile away.”
“Where do you keep your files?”
“Used to keep what survived in the basement. Then our pipes burst three years ago, Dallas can tell you, we were five feet deep.”
Dallas nodded, but he wasn’t quick about it.
“Dallas, did you have burst pipes?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. It was bad. My first winter on the job. The plumber redid our plumbing. He didn’t insulate or something.”
“Like I said,” said Stratton, “we couldn’t give them to you anyway. You’re not family or a defendant’s counsel, are you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I know the family. They could request.”
“They could, but all the old stuff is gone.”
I groaned.
Stratton laughed. “Sucks to be you.”
“You have no idea.”
Her radio crackled. “Hey, Candace. Arnold’s in the ditch.”
“Oh, man,” said Dallas. “Already?”
She answered. “Dallas is on it.”
“Bring some chains. He doesn’t have his,” said the radio.
“Will do.”
Dallas went over to the coat rack and started layering up, muttering about every time it snows. Stratton went to the desk and gestured to the door while answering the phone. I sighed and put my hood back up. I was halfway out when I stopped and turned around.
“Hey, Stratton,” I said.
“For the love of God, what?”
“So if I was family, you’d have to let me have evidence, if it survived?” I asked.
She put her hand over the receiver. “You aren’t family.”
“Like I said, I know the family. They like me,” I said.