Small Time Crime (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 10)

by A W Hartoin

  We went to bed at midnight and I fell instantly asleep. It lasted an hour. That’s how long she gave me. An hour. Then Elizabeth started playing “John Brown’s Body” and rattling the wardrobe. I’d doze off and wake up with a fresh chorus.

  Fats and Clarence slept through it. They barely moved. Fats snored lightly and Clarence muttered Hail Marys every once in a while. The wardrobe was rocking and rolling. I don’t know how they didn’t hear it and they sure didn’t see the eyes. I’d read on the website about some eyes in the dark. People tried to see them. They booked certain rooms, not ours, in hopes of catching a glimpse. Let me just say catching a glimpse of a pair of backlit eyeballs at three in the morning is highly overrated. I’m not going to lie. I peed a little when I rolled over and there they were, floating by the window. No body. No flipping eyelids. Two eyeballs. I think they’re what I saw in the window when we arrived so it wasn’t a strictly nighttime thing and they really were there. I turned on the light and they stayed. Eyeballs. I wished I had a tennis racket. I totally would’ve given them a whack.

  Fats and Clarence didn’t wake up with the light on and I didn’t have the courage to turn it off again, so I tried talking to Elizabeth. I begged her to go away and leave me alone.

  No answer.

  So I sat there, clutching my pillows in front of me, listening to “John Brown’s Body”, scared out of my mind, and watching those eyeballs in case they decided to, ya know, do something.

  They didn’t. They just were there, looking right at me. And people think that paintings with the eyes that watch you are creepy. That ain’t nothing. At one point I couldn’t hold it anymore. I absolutely had to get up and go to the bathroom. Those eyes watched me go and they watched me come back. I seriously considered waking up Fats, but she was halfway to crazy town as it was. I didn’t want to push it. Clarence was never going to happen. She’d taken off her veil to go to bed, releasing masses of light brown curls that made her look about twelve. Scaring her was not an option.

  I thought about going into another room. Surely Irene would forgive me, but I made the mistake of checking on which room was ghost-free. The only one that didn’t have stuff was ours. Awesome. Perfect. Fan-freaking-tastic.

  I stayed and at some point I must’ve drifted off only to be jolted awake by all our phones’ alarms going off at four. That woke up Fats and Clarence. They fumbled with their phones, swiped off the alarms, and fell back into what I can only describe as a stupor. You might ask why I didn’t say anything. I did.

  I said, “Look. Look. Look.” And I was pointing to no avail. They didn’t look at the eyeballs or the rattling wardrobe. Nope. That was all for me.

  When Fats woke me at seven with a none too gentle whack to the shoulder, she said, “What in the world, Mercy? That is not funny at all.”

  I opened my eyes to slits and looked out over the edge of my pillows. “You see them?”

  “Yeah, I see it. I’m not blind and neither is Clarence. She ran out of here like I flashed her. She actually thinks something went on while we were sleeping.”

  “It did,” I said, glancing at the window. The eyes were gone. Bastards.

  “Stop thinking you’re funny. You aren’t,” said Fats as she put her hair up in two little buns on either side of her head.

  “Funny?”

  “I’m not saying that doesn’t take talent, but save it for daylight.”

  I sat up and opened my eyes fully. The music was gone and the wardrobe was quiet. It took me a second to see it and when I did, the hair on the back of my neck prickled to the point of burning.

  “Oh, crap,” I said.

  “Yes. You scared a nun. Congratulations.”

  “I didn’t do that.”

  Fats stopped with one bobby pin in her mouth and another one positioned to be thrust in her right bun. She didn’t move. Her eyes slid to the left to the tower of Maggie’s belongings, precariously balanced in a kind of Pisa-like structure on top of the box, which was upside down. Her clothes were laid out on the floor, not floating, thankfully.

  “You didn’t do that?” Fats asked.

  “No. Nobody could do that,” I said. “Notebooks don’t typically hold up dictionaries like that.”

  “I thought it was odd.” She finished her bun and assessed the situation. “Elizabeth?”

  “I hope.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I told her about the eyeballs and she was hot. So pissed I thought she would start sizzling. Fats wanted to see those eyes. She wasn’t happy when Irene put us in the no eyeball suite.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t wake me up,” she said. “Why do you think we’re here?”

  “To solve a murder.”

  She waved that away. “Yeah, yeah. I meant here in Miss Elizabeth’s. We were supposed to have a ghostly evening.”

  “I did. Trust me, it sucked. I’m exhausted,” I said.

  Everything hurt. It felt like a flight to Australia where you didn’t sleep a wink. I needed a deep tissue massage and half a gallon of coffee just to put on my pants.

  Fats, on the other hand, was feeling just fine. She walked around the tower, examining it at all angles. “This means something.”

  “It means Miss Elizabeth hates me.”

  “You don’t listen at all. These things happen when you don’t follow the rules.”

  “Nobody told me the rules,” I said. “Thanks for that.”

  “No? Well, them’s the breaks.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  “Why are you complaining? You got to see the eyes,” she said.

  “That’s not a good thing. It was scary as hell.”

  “You mean, cool as hell. Now what about this tower. I didn’t read about this.”

  I got out of bed and stretched. I could hear my joints complaining. “She just wants to annoy me.”

  Fats raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t the first time?”

  “Hardly.”

  She flicked me on the forehead. Hard. “The rules, Mercy.”

  “Son of a bitch that hurt. What rule has to do with that kind of thing happening?”

  Fats went on to tell me the rules, two specifically. The first and foremost was don’t think of anything supernatural in Miss Elizabeth’s house. Check. Did that, not five minutes in. Second, if she gives you a job, do it. I didn’t think I got a job, but when I told Fats about the music that ended when I called Spidermonkey, she thought it fit. Elizabeth bothered people when she wanted them to do something. Change clothes. Take a bath. Get out of her house. Call their mother. Those were just some of the examples. I wasn’t the first to get the music, but, according to Fats, I was the most dense.

  “What do you think I’m supposed to do?” I asked, looking at the tower.

  “Something,” she said.

  “Helpful.”

  “Was it like this before?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She gave me the stink eye and I told her about Maggie’s clothes floating as if someone was in them. She did a fist pump. “That is the most amazing thing. Did you take a picture?”

  “I was trying not to poop my pants,” I said.

  She shook her head. “It’s a wonder nobody has killed you.”

  “Hey! I kick some butt.”

  “You’ve got balls and you’re lucky. Butt kicking is my department.”

  She had a point but it still stung. “What do you suggest? There isn’t a butt to be kicked.”

  “It’s obviously about Sister Maggie. You haven’t gone through this stuff yet, have you?” Fats asked.

  I hadn’t and I didn’t want to. Maggie’s stuff made her a real person, not that I didn’t think of her that way. I just didn’t want to know too much about her life because I was about to know way too much about her death.

  “No,” I said.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  For it to go away.

  “Nothing.”

  “You know there’s a clue in here, right? Elizabe
th wants you to find it.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe she wants me to be miserable,” I said. “Last night was miserable.”

  “Because you didn’t do what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Swell.”

  “Alright,” said Fats. “I’m going to get coffee. You get started.”

  “No coffee for you,” I said, a tad vindictively.

  “Irene has decaf. I checked.” Fats walked out and, the second she did, Maggie’s clothes filled up like a person was inside.

  “Fats!” I yelled.

  “What?” She poked her head back in. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I thought I might get used to it. I didn’t.

  “Mercy? What?” Fats came back in and froze. “So that’s happening.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “I see what you mean about the pooping.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “You better figure out what clue Maggie left us. Pronto.”

  “Definitely.”

  I edged around what I thought of as a body and plucked a book off of the tower. It didn’t collapse and it should’ve. The book was a textbook. The Handbook of Clinical Psychology. I sat on the edge of my bed and leafed through it. Maggie had underlined things, but nothing seemed relevant. The stuff she was interested in wasn’t about criminal behavior and there wasn’t anything like “Hey, there’s a guy who wants to kill me” written in the margins.

  I moved onto other books, paperback classics like Pride and Prejudice. Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, A Room of One’s Own, and The Second Sex. I can’t really say if I liked Maggie before I saw those books. It wasn’t a question I asked myself. She was a victim and beloved by those I loved. That was enough. More than enough really to bind me to her. But those books brought her to life and I knew why she was beloved. Maggie was my kind of girl. She liked the fun, witty romance of Austen and didn’t mind thinking about the hard questions in The Second Sex. And I wondered if she longed for her freedom and was she about to leave the male-dominated Catholic Church. Maybe Aunt Miriam would talk to me once I solved it, once she knew that it wasn’t her fault. Maybe she would sit with The Girls and remember the way Maggie should’ve been remembered, not closed off and in pain the way it happened back then.

  I went through the tower faster, driven by an engine, my eyes scanning for something Elizabeth wanted me to see. But I didn’t see it. I had her novels, so many novels, some textbooks, a teddy bear, extra clothing, a crucifix for the wall, a notebook, and her bank books, checking and savings. Both were modest and Maggie spent little. She had a cat apparently and bought little gifts for friends and family. The last year of her life only had twenty-seven entries. Not a lot going on when you didn’t have a car or regular bills. There were a few church documents pertaining to her christening and becoming a nun, but they weren’t unusual and didn’t have a single name that I recognized. Lastly, there was a little photo album with pictures of her and her fellow nuns. Aunt Miriam was there, smiling and sunny as I’d never seen her. That photo was taken three months before she died. The last photo in the album was of a group of people in front of a set of large institutional doors, the asylum maybe. Maggie, The Girls, several priests, doctors, an elderly woman, a middle-aged woman with an incredible beehive, and a bald man missing a leg. The expressions alone were fascinating. They ranged from apprehensive to joyful. The Girls, Maggie, two priests, and the old lady were in the latter category. Maybe the rest just weren’t crazy about getting their pictures taken. Grandma J was like that. She hated photos.

  I pulled the last photo out of the little black triangles that held it to the page and flipped it over. The date was on the back. Ten days before the murder. No names were listed. I could ask Myrtle who was there. She might remember.

  Fats came in with extra-large mugs. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing, except a photo of people who may or may not be at the asylum,” I said.

  She looked down at Maggie’s clothes and I saw a chill go through her.

  “I feel like that would go away, if you’d found it.”

  “Me, too.” I took the coffee and gratefully sipped.

  “No diary?”

  “That would’ve been too easy,” I said.

  “No letters?” Fats asked. “There has to be letters.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. “You’d think so, but no. I guess she didn’t need to write. Her family was just a few miles away and The Girls saw her all the time.”

  I could hear Fats going through the books and making little dissatisfied noises. “It has to be here.”

  “Unless Elizabeth is just messing with me.”

  “That could be. She does take a dislike to some people and drive them out,” said Fats.

  “You sound kinda jealous,” I said, opening my eyes and seeing her examine her mostly flat stomach. “You really shouldn’t be for multiple reasons.”

  “I am,” she said. “You got the eyes.”

  I pointed at the clothes. “That’s not nothing.”

  She raised a muscle-bound shoulder. “It’s beyond creepy, but I wanted a little more.”

  “Well,” I said. “It’s breathing.”

  Fats looked over and I saw the first twinge of fear I’d ever detected in her.

  “That could go away and it would be okay,” she said.

  It didn’t go away. The sweater and blouse moved up and down with the rhythm of a living, breathing person and my hands went a little numb from the chills going up and down my arms.

  “You aren’t easy to please,” I said.

  She grinned at me. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “How about you tell me? Can we get out of here today and do some interviewing?”

  “Still snowing, but the wind is down. Lefty’s already out plowing,” she said.

  Clarence spoke to us from the hall, but we couldn’t see her. “Would you like breakfast now?”

  “I think so,” I said. “The tower is gone by the way.”

  “So it’s okay in there?”

  Not in the slightest.

  “It’s fine. But we’re coming down,” I said.

  Clarence peeked in to see me next to the books and stuff on my bed. She couldn’t see the clothes behind Fats’ bed and it was a good thing. They were…panting.

  “Let’s go down now.” Fats went out and turned Clarence around in case she got any ideas.

  “I’ll change and be right there,” I said.

  That’s what I thought. I was wrong.

  I washed my face and checked my spider bites. Better, but I covered them up with powder anyway. Not bad. I sucked down the rest of my coffee, and threw on some warm clothes in anticipation of going out into what looked like a frigid morning. I took a picture of Maggie’s photo and sent it off to Myrtle. She probably wasn’t up yet. The Girls reveled in snowy days and were known to stay in bed until noon, watching episodes of the Mod Squad, a show that they for some unknown reason associated with bad weather.

  I almost went downstairs but remembered that I’d muted Dad and Spidermonkey last night. I took a look and smiled at the last message from Dad. “I still think you’re right.” I was totally saving that one.

  Dad and Spidermonkey’s messages told the same story. Yes, there was a bank robbery in Decatur. It was unsolved and 100,000 dollars in cash and securities was never recovered. Dad’s FBI contacts said it was an open case and had slipped him the suspect list. Guess who wasn’t on there. Daniel Snider. That didn’t mean a whole lot to my dad, but his cheapness showed up and he wasn’t willing to cough up any dough to Uncle Morty’s contacts when my guy was already going to do the research. Most importantly, he thought I was on to something. I loved that.

  And Spidermonkey agreed. It didn’t take long for him to discover there was something off about the Snider family money. They’d moved into a smaller house and sold their general store in St. Sebastian before that bank got robbed. Afterwards, they were sending kids to college and buying boats. It wa
s easy enough to trace the family tree and there wasn’t any wealthy aunt in Decatur. No family whatsoever.

  The robbery, as described by the FBI and the newspaper accounts that Spidermonkey found, was so straightforward, I couldn’t believe nobody caught the guy. And it was one guy. He walked into the bank five minutes before closing at noon on Saturday, stuck a gun in the lone bank teller’s face, and had him load up a large suitcase. That poor guy was the only one there. Everyone else had hit the road for the day, so he had no choice but to give the robber what he wanted. No alarm was sounded. The bank didn’t have one. The teller cleaned out the strongroom and let the robber tie him up. The guy left through a back door and was never seen by anyone else. If the teller hadn’t been gagged and tied up, the cops would’ve thought he did it. There were suspicions that it was an inside job and the teller, Jimmy York, had to be in on it. He lost his job and fell on hard times, ending up as a handyman and the town drunk.

  The unfortunate York said the robber never spoke a word. He had all his instructions written out crudely on a sheet of paper. The man wore dirty clothes that smelled like a pig farm, had a red bandana over his face, and a small-billed cap that York called Irish. That led the local cops and the FBI to think it was an Irish hood out of St. Louis and their main plan was to watch and wait for some Irish dude to start flashing a load of cash or rob another bank. They were still waiting.

  There it was again. Money. But what did it mean? If I assumed Daniel Snider did rob that bank, so what? The Sniders were dirtbags? Not really. The Bleds broke the law like crazy during Prohibition and who knows what else. That didn’t say anything about The Girls to me.