by A W Hartoin
“What is wrong with you?” I asked.
“I ate six cookies. One after another,” said Fats as she hopped down the rest of the stairs in the squat position.
“What’s wrong with that?” Lefty asked. “Irene’s cookies are the best.”
“I haven’t eaten that many cookies in the last six months.”
I crossed my arms. “Six months?”
“Okay. A year.” She reached the end of the stairs and asked, “How far is Crabapple’s?”
“You’re not going out for tofu tonight,” said Lefty. “They’re closed. Irene is making dinner.”
“Tofu?”
“No.”
“Broccoli?”
“Maybe.”
I threw up my hands. “It’s steak and ale pie and it smells fantastic.”
Fats started doing squat thrusts. “I have to get ahold of myself.”
“I agree, but I don’t think my meaning is the same as yours.”
“Is this normal?” Lefty asked.
“It depends on your definition of normal,” I said.
“I have a gym setup in the basement.”
Fats rocketed to her feet. “Where?”
He pointed at a door.
“May I?”
“Knock yourself out.”
She dashed for the door and I yelled after her, “Not literally!”
We stared after her and listened to the pounding down the stairs and the “Hell, yeah,” when she saw the equipment and then a metallic thwack of weights being put on a bar.
“It guess it takes a lot of focus to stay in that kind of shape,” said Lefty.
I grinned. “I wouldn’t know and I don’t want to.”
“Do you think she’s okay?” Clarence asked.
“She’s okay for her.” I turned to Lefty. “Do I have time for a bath before dinner?”
“I’m sure you do. Dinner should be in about an hour.”
I thanked him and tromped up the stairs, my body feeling heavier and heavier by the moment. My arm was aching something fierce and I hoped I hadn’t messed it up. When Nancy cut off my cast, I never expected to go tumbling into snowbanks at high velocity. I should’ve known better.
“Are you okay?” Clarence asked when I finally got to the top of the stairs and stooped to pick up Moe, who was chasing her tail to no avail. “You look as though something terrible happened.”
“My Uncle Morty had a heart attack,” I said. “And Lefty tried to kill me with fun.”
“Is he okay?”
“For now. I see some lifestyle changes in his future. It’s not going to be pretty.”
“Did you find anything out about Sister Maggie?” Clarence was wringing her hands and her cherub-like face had transformed into a mask of worry. She wasn’t her cheery self at all.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, well. I shouldn’t worry you.”
“Consider me worried.”
“It seems that Sister Miriam knows where we are,” she said.
“Is that all?”
Clarence let loose a torrent of fears as we walked down to our room. Would Aunt Miriam be very angry? What would she do? Did she feel betrayed?
I couldn’t muster one ounce of give a crap. I smelled. My arm was burning, and I was interesting to a ghost. And it could get worse. It would get worse. It was me.
“She’s always angry with me, so I’m not so much worried about it.” I opened the door to our room and there in the center all Sister Maggie’s belongings were out. And I mean out out. Her things were stacked in a tower with her clothes floating in the air above. A whole outfit. Skirt, skirt, sweater, and veil, full, like someone was wearing them and holding a book in front of themselves.
I slammed the door shut and bit back the mother of cursing rants, my heart pounding.
“What’s wrong?” Clarence asked.
“I…uh…”
Moe growled and yipped as she wiggled, struggling to get to the door. Not going to happen. Clarence couldn’t go in there. I wasn’t sure she was ready for real life, much less the afterlife or whatever that was.
“Moe hasn’t gone out, has she?” I asked with a bit of a pant.
“No. Do you think she needs to?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. Can you take her? I’ve got to do a thing and stuff.”
“Um…okay.” Clarence hesitated but then carried the pocket dog down the hall.
I waited for her to turn onto the stairs, knowing she would look back to check on me. She did and I waved with a pasted on smile. She frowned but went down the stairs.
Breathe, Mercy. Just breathe. It’s not what it looks like.
Wrong.
I opened the door and I was not seeing things. Everything was still there. Stacked up in a precarious and, dare I say, impossible to maintain tower, or floating with no strings attached.
“Mercy?” Clarence called out.
I didn’t think. If I had, I sure wouldn’t have done what I did. I dove for Maggie’s things, launching myself at her veil. I half-expected to connect with something solid, but it was just air and musty clothes. I snatched the veil out of the air and the whole tower collapsed back into the box. I landed on the balls of my feet and tumbled forward to my knees, whacking my good arm on the edge of the box.
The door opened behind me and Clarence said, “Do you want me to—what are you doing?”
I looked back, veil in hands, and drew a blank. “Nothing.”
“You don’t have to hide that from me.”
“Er…what?”
“You don’t have to go through her things alone. I can handle it,” said Clarence stoutly. “I have to toughen up and, besides, we’re honoring her by caring.”
“Okay. I just didn’t know.” I got to my feet with the veil still in my hands. “I am going to take a bath though.”
“Good. Would you like some hot chocolate? I think Irene has a fresh pot.”
“That would be great. Thank you.” I laid the veil on the top of a well-used notebook and rubbed my arm.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.” Clarence left and I said, “Knock it off.”
“No,” said the voice speaking inside my head.
Hearing voices isn’t a good sign for anyone at any time, but I’d seen on Irene’s website that Elizabeth occasionally talked to the guests, so I decided that insanity wasn’t looming. Besides, what choice did I have, stop investigating? I had a feeling Elizabeth wouldn’t be keen on that, so instead of calling for a psych consult, I filled up the six-foot-long claw-foot tub in the big bathroom off our bedroom. It was seriously luxe in there with double sinks, a glassed-in shower with about twenty spray nozzles for massages, and a reclining chair that had a foot bath attached.
I plugged the tub and filled it with steaming water and a generous helping of bubble bath. The room filled with lavender-scented steam and I sank into the tub. I might’ve been just a little scalded, but it was worth it.
At least it was worth it until I put my head under the water and came up with a song in my head. I’m not talking about an ear worm like when you can’t get some catchy lyrics out of your head. I’m talking about hearing music. Hearing it, like there was an Alexa in the room, which there wasn’t.
“John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave. John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave.”
That’s right. It wasn’t even a song I liked or written in the current century. I’d spent the whole day thinking about death. A little break would’ve been nice, but it wasn’t happening. The song kept going in a loop. It was probably Miss Elizabeth’s favorite. I assumed she was from the 1880s like her house, but I might be wrong on that. She loved the hell out of that song.
Because I’m me, I decided to ignore it and picked up my phone when it sounded off with a generic ringtone. I almost didn’t answer because usually generic means loser stalker that got my number somehow, but I needed a distraction so I swiped green.
“Hello?” The instant I spoke the music vo
lume went down. Elizabeth was just trying to bother me.
“Mercy? This is Tank Tancredi.”
“Oh, hi. How’s it going? Do you have Italian beef yet?” I asked.
“Eating isn’t in the cards for me tonight,” he said.
I sank down until the bubbles were over my chin. “Bad news, I take it.”
“You were right.”
“About?” I asked, but I already knew from the sound of his voice. Animal lover that he was, this would be hard to bear.
“The animals.” Tank was choked up and it took a minute for him to continue. “A bunch of pets went missing.”
The music stopped abruptly and I mouthed, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said the voice in my head.
The animal thing was so upsetting, the voice didn’t even bother me.
“Were there articles in your paper?” I asked.
“Yes, but they were after the murder.”
Tank had shown his investigating skills with his incredible thoroughness. He went through every edition for six months before and after Maggie’s body was discovered. No mention of animals before. All the coverage was on the fires and escalating thefts and break-ins. He went back another six months. No fires, but there were plenty of thefts and break-ins. Those went back about two years and Tank made an Excel spreadsheet to track them. Once he had it all down in a handy color-coded graph, he could see the trends. The crime rate with regard to thefts had steadily been rising for the two years before Maggie’s murder. At first, the thefts were far apart, but as time went on they got closer and closer together and became bolder. The thief or thieves came in while families were sleeping and stole things right under their noses. Interestingly, violent crime didn’t change. For St. Seb proper, that meant no violent crime at all. Zero. Not even a domestic. Outside the city limits, yes. They had various problems, but not a lot. Inside, nothing. Tank said this was normal for them.
The most interesting thing about Tank’s graphs was that they showed a dramatic uptick during the two summers prior to Maggie’s murder and there were also bumps on holidays.
“That says kids to me,” I said.
“Definitely. They’ve got the time to do the crime,” said Tank.
“So what happened after with animals?”
Tank took a breath and told me that there was a lot just outside of town, past the city limits sign, where a family had made a grisly discovery during the summer after Maggie’s murder. An old farmhouse had been left to fall into ruin and a local dentist’s family had gone out to look at the location. They were thinking of building a new house and the property had a nice setting. While they were there they found a series of what looked like small graves, complete with crosses. They didn’t think much of it, assuming it was a family plot for the farm and back in the day, infant mortality was high. But then they went inside the dilapidated house and found animal skins nailed to the remaining walls. Cats. Dogs. Even a few hamsters and Guinea pigs. There was a cobbled together table made from the farmhouse’s old front door and it looked like it was stained with blood.
“How many?” I asked, feeling as barfy as when I rolled out of Lefty’s Gator.
“Twenty-six total.”
“That’s a whole lot. Nobody reported missing pets?”
“If they did, it wasn’t covered in the paper.”
“We need to know when that started.”
“We do,” he said with a shake in his voice.
I waited while Tank got himself together. Then he told me that Barney Scheer had reported on the discovery and had done a pretty bang up job. Some animals were identified by their owners and he determined that the first one to go missing was a dachshund that belonged to Mrs. Louisa Henderson. He found the missing pet ad Mrs. Henderson put in the classifieds in the June before Maggie died. A lot of the missing animals were in the classifieds. Thirteen in total. As far as Tank could tell until the discovery at the farmhouse, all the owners thought their animals had simply gotten lost. Every single animal that had a known owner disappeared between June and December 1965.
“None after?” I asked.
“Not that Barney found. I saw a couple of ads for lost cats in the six months after, but they weren’t on the list.”
“That six months is very important.”
“Looks like it,” said Tank.
“Nobody connected it to the fires that were happening at the same time?” I asked.
“Not that I can see. Of course, if we had the police report, we’d know more.”
“That flooding is awfully convenient for the cops.”
Tank took a deep breath. “You think they’re lying about the files being lost?”
“I think it’s weird that they kept putting files in a basement in a flood zone.”
“That’s a yes.”
“It’s a maybe,” I said. “You know the chief, how much does he hate me?”
“I give you an eight out of ten. He was nearly replaced after you found that little girl. A lot of questions about his competency came up.”
“What about his liver?” I asked.
Tank went quiet and I could feel the struggle going on by his breath and the needless shuffling of paper. Family loyalty versus the truth was always a tough choice.
“Yes,” he said finally. “How did you know?”
“I’m a nurse, but a career in medicine isn’t really necessary. Your brother-in-law isn’t looking good and the family history is a red flag.”
“He’s got a problem. Mallory tries to talk to him about it, but he denies it completely. He says he only drinks socially.”
“I have it on good authority that he’s up to three or four bottles a week.”
“Shit.”
“It’s not good, but I’m more interested in whether you think Stratton would lie to me. She said it first and the deputy, Dallas Mosbach, looked a little uneasy about it.”
“Dallas is a good kid. He worked for me in high school, covering football games.”
“Do you consider him a liar, in general?” I asked.
“Not at all. He’d lie to you, but it wouldn’t come easy, and he’d only do it if he was told to.”
“What about Stratton?” I asked.
“She’s Will’s girlfriend.”
“Well, there you go.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I like her a lot. She’s about our only hope of getting Will on the wagon. Candy doesn’t drink at all. Her father had a problem.”
“It was an instant reaction when I asked for the files. Do you think they discussed what to say to people who came in?”
“I doubt it,” he said with a chuckle. “Mercy, you are a known troublemaker. They don’t want you around, making people take another look at Will.”
“Like I’m going to go away just because there was a flood,” I said.
“I’m not saying it’s a good plan,” said Tank. “On another note, I copied all the articles on that plane crash. Do you want me to email them to you?”
I gave him my email address and asked, “Anything interesting?”
“Well…”
I got barfy again. “What?”
“Nothing earth-shattering. It was a small plane crash, deemed an accident. Faulty wiring or something. Plane was coming in from New Orleans and supposed to land in St. Louis. They almost made it.”
Almost.
“Nothing about it not being an accident?” I asked.
“No, but Melanie, Will’s mom, she was the chief then, didn’t investigate. Our cops just secured the scene and I guess Jeff City took over.”
“Why not St. Louis?”
“I have no idea. No one seemed bothered by it at the time.”
I swirled my free hand through the bubbles. Agatha and Daniel. Nobody was bothered. “Sounds straightforward.”
“There’s nothing in our coverage to say it wasn’t.”
“Why did you sound funny when I asked if there was anything interesting then?” I asked.
“There are photos of the crash site.”
“Pretty bad?”
“Have you seen the photos of the Buddy Holly crash?” Tank asked.
“No.” I’d heard of that crash, but only because Grandad loved a song about it and insisted on telling me where he was when the music died whenever he heard it. In bed is the answer, but he heard about it on the playground at his elementary school. According to him, tag was never the same after that.
“Do you want to know more right now?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, but I needed to know more. Agatha and Daniel died for a reason. Something they had with them or something they knew, but that could wait. It had to wait. “Is there anything else?”
“There is, but it’s just interesting.”
“Okay. Consider me interested,” I said.
“Chief Lucas’ comments on the animals.”
“Let me guess. He called it a small time crime.”
“Nailed it. Now he did express horror and said he would work with the ASPCA, but that animals weren’t people after all.”
“I bet that went over well.”
“Like a lead balloon. He barely held onto his job. Frankly, it looks like nobody else wanted it, dead nuns and somebody killing family pets doesn’t look like a fun gig.”
“But that was all over,” I said.
“He notes that in his statement and he was right. It was over. No other animals were ever found and just the normal amount wandered off after that.”
“No suspects, I suppose?”
“It was suggested that your priest came down and was stealing people’s pets to practice before he killed Sister Maggie,” said Tank.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Well, that’s a hell of a lot better than thinking it could be your neighbor and it ended with Maggie’s death, so it kind of makes sense, if you really want to think he did it.”
“I guess so,” I said, feeling sad and worn out. I needed to call Spidermonkey, but I found the prospect of interrupting his family reunion with my big fat mess a seriously unpleasant thought.
“Do you have anything else for me?” Tank asked. “Don’t forget we have a deal.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“How’s your uncle?”
“Good, I think. Waiting on results.”
We said goodbye and I looked at the phone for a second, trying to make myself call Spidermonkey. I couldn’t do it and set the phone back on the tray. The second I did, the music started up again. No rest for the wicked as my mom would say.