by A W Hartoin
A bunch of honking erupted in the distance beyond the ball fields. There must be another entrance for service vehicles. John’s lip twitched at the sound and I stared at him for a second. I was beginning to think his facial muscles were incapable of moving à la Botox, but he didn’t seem like the type. The honking continued, more and more insistent. John actually frowned. Shocking. Phelong and Gerry looked like a couple of hamsters trying to escape a cage, and Leslie ran his hands through his long grey hair repeatedly. Tiny was looking at his feet. Hmm. Interesting.
“Tiny?”
“Uh huh?” He snuck a quick peek at me.
Now that was a look of abject guilt.
“Who did you call?” I asked. “My dad?”
“He’s out of town on the Costilla stuff,” he said, still staring at those ginormous feet.
“Uncle Morty? Why would you bother? He’s already here.”
John crossed his arms as the horn went to one long blare.
“Your mom. I have to give updates,” said Tiny.
Groan.
“Did you get any useful info? How’s Lester? Have the police caught anyone yet?”
“Nothing yet. Lester’s the same.”
“So who’s at the gate?” I could only think of a few candidates who’d be desperate to get at a crime scene.
Leslie walked out of the love garden. “I can answer that. It’s Dr. Watts. I’d recognize that horn anywhere.”
“Watts? Really? That’s a coincidence. Who is he?”
“She is the closest thing we have to a medical examiner,” said Leslie. All the muscles in his face were tight and he barely moved his lips.
“Not a friend then?” I asked.
“Dr. Watts has many friends.”
But you’re not one of them.
Leslie nodded to John. “Open it. She’ll start ramming the fence in a minute.”
“You say that like it’s happened before,” I said.
“It has,” said John before he returned to the kitchen with Tiny to check on Lane and Anthony. The honking stopped immediately and Leslie did a sort of bracing yourself shake.
A couple of minutes later an old sage green Morris Minor drove in with an older lady behind the wheel. She had a shock of spiky silver hair standing straight up and touching the roof of the car.
She was driving at least fifty and screeched to a halt in the parking lot next the police cruiser. She got out, hip-checked the door shut, put her hands on her hips and scanned the scene. She wore baggy green scrubs and a lab coat that looked like it’d been purchased in the seventies. Huge collar. She whipped a black stethoscope off her neck and stuffed it in her pocket in the manner of someone who always knew exactly what she was doing. I was intimidated even at a distance.
“Wow,” I said.
“You have no idea,” said Leslie.
Dr. Watts’ eyes settled on me and she nodded as she walked into the garden.
“Let’s go,” said Leslie and we met her before she reached the fountain.
“Well, it was only a matter of time, eh Leslie?” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Leslie without his usual charm.
Dr. Watts made a sneezing noise in the back of her throat. “You’ve got a body, don’t you?”
Leslie’s cheek twitched. “Yes.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Who called you?” he asked.
“Tommy Watts. We have what you might call a relationship.”
I gasped and she turned to me. “At last we meet, Miss Marilyn.”
“Are you…” I couldn’t say the word fan out loud. Instinctively, I knew it wasn’t right. The doctor didn’t fit the profile of my fans.
“A fan?” she chuckled. “No. I’ve never been a fan of anything.” Her eyes flicked a glance at Leslie, who did a micro flinch. If I hadn’t really been looking, I wouldn’t have seen it.
“May I introduce Dr. Watts? Doctor, this is Mercy Watts,” said Leslie.
“Are we related?” I asked.
She smiled as she looked me over. Dr. Watts was in her seventies. She wore no makeup, but her face had the soft pleasing lines of a woman who’d aged into beauty. “Ace never mentioned me then. Stands to reason. I’m the biggest skeleton in that man’s closet.”
Ace? That was my grandpa’s call sign from when he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
“Do you know my grandpa?” I asked.
She made the sneezing noise again. “Only in the biblical sense. Dorothy Watts, your ex-grandmother.”
Biblical? Ew.
“Did you say…grandmother?”
“I’m Ace’s first wife. The one they don’t talk about. You could’ve been my blood had he not dumped me for the luscious Janine.” She leaned in and her eyes roved over my face. “You wouldn’t be a looker, but you would be a doctor.”
I think she just insulted me.
“I’m a nurse,” I said.
“I know. Take me to your body.”
“It’s not my body.”
“You think it belongs to Keystone and Cop over there. I don’t think so. Sheriff Greer is up in St. Louis for another two days. His wife is having a hysterectomy and a bladder sling. We’re not bothering the man.”
“We’re supposed to call Springfield,” said Phelong aka Keystone.
“Forget it. We’re not passing this off to Springfield like we can’t handle it,” said Dr. Watts.
Gerry aka Cop fiddled with his jacket zipper. “We can’t handle it. We don’t have a crime scene unit and you’re retired.”
“You’re retired?” I asked.
“Technically. I’m the volunteer medical examiner. I like to keep my hand in for fun.”
Fun?
“We have to call Springfield,” I said.
“Are you questioning my abilities, my own almost granddaughter?”
“No, but I don’t have any lift cards on me. Do you?”
She jerked a thumb at Gerry and Phelong. “They’ve got the full kit. They just don’t want to use it without Greer. It’s time to put on your big girl panties, boys, and glove up.”
The boys didn’t move.
Dr. Watts rolled her eyes at me and said, “Gerry, you go get the kit. Phelong, you’re with me. Hop to it.”
“But Springfield,” said Gerry.
“You want to tell them that we’re incompetent boobs?”
“No.” Gerry didn’t sound sure about that.
“Go get the kit. We’ll have this wrapped up before Greer gets back.”
“But who’s the detective? I ticket illegal campers and Phelong handles speeders. There’s never even been a murder around here.”
“Wrong. Hal Jackson. 1993,” said Dr. Watts. “Shotgun blast to the stomach. Solved it in six hours.”
“That was like twenty years ago.”
“Twenty-two and we handled it. We didn’t call in Springfield. Go get the kit.”
Gerry reluctantly went back to his cruiser. Phelong watched longingly.
“Phelong, go get the guest list from John. Mercy, show me the body.”
I led her to the fountain and stopped at Cherie’s feet.
“Tell me what you know,” ordered Dr. Watts.
“It’s Cherie Marin, mid-forties, manually strangled, the rape is fake,” I said.
“Very good. Now, Leslie, go get my bag. It’s in the backseat. I’ve got to get a liver temp ASAP.”
Leslie scowled, but he did as she commanded. She could’ve brought the bag with her, but I got the feeling she enjoyed ordering Leslie around.
Dr. Watts squatted behind Cherie’s head and she sniffed her face. I shuddered and she smiled up at me. “Not long. Six hours, maybe seven.”
“You can tell that by smell?” I asked.
“Among other things. Lividity is fixed, for instance. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know the dead better than the living. They reveal more.”
Leslie came back with the doctor’s bag and she set about her work
, a seasoned pro all the way. She dictated notes into her phone with a headset, so I got to hear her every thought. Dr. Watts confirmed the time of death with liver temperature and a complicated calculation that took into account the outside temperature and gravel temperature with some sort of sliding scale I couldn’t follow. She took pictures of every inch of Cherie’s body before picking up her hand to bag it.
Dr. Watts exposed the palm to me and raised a scant eyebrow. “Interesting.”
Cherie had gravel embedded into her palm, but it wasn’t the white gravel of the love garden.
“Very interesting,” I said. “Her wrist looks slightly swollen, too.”
“Good catch.”
I squatted next to the doctor. “So she fell backward and tried to catch herself in…in the rock garden. Part of that garden has red and black gravel like that.”
Dr. Watts bagged Cherie’s hands and I told her I was going to check out the rock garden.
“Take those two with you. I hate hovering. Can’t stand it,” she said with a glare at Phelong and Gerry, who’d returned and placed the crime scene kit and guest list next to her.
Gerry’s lower lip jutted out. “We should probably help you.”
“You think you’re helping me?”
“We could help you if you tell us what to do,” said Phelong. He had a lot of dignity for a guy with pants that were three inches too short.
Dr. Watts tossed him a pair of gloves and a flashlight. “Alright, Mr. Helpful. You can check her vagina for abrasions and tearing.”
Phelong gasped and dropped the gloves and flashlight. Gerry said, “Where’s that rock garden?”
I pointed to the winding path around my tower and they scurried away.
“Get out of here, you kids. Jesus Christ. They’ll put anyone in uniform these days.” She jumped up and yelled after them, “Don’t touch anything! Or think about touching anything!”
“You weren’t really going to have him do a pelvic, were you?”
“No. This lady doesn’t deserve that. I’m a pro and they’re morons,” said Dr. Watts.
“They’re just young,” I said. “They have to start somewhere.”
“Sheriff Greer had to cite Gerry for cow tipping last weekend. His own deputy for crying out loud.”
“I take it back,” I said and started to follow the young cops who didn’t manage to find the path that was right in front of them and were wandering around aimlessly in the herbs.
I glanced back at Leslie, who said, “If they trample our basil, I’ll sue.”
Dr. Watts snorted and began taping the bottom of Cherie’s shoes for trace evidence.
“Wait,” I said. “Did he actually manage to tip over a cow?”
“Do you seriously think that kid could tip over a 1,500 pound Holstein?”
“Well…”
“You are so city. Tell your grandpa I said so. No, Gerry didn’t tip over a cow, but he was pestering the hell out of them. That’s not good for dairy cows. Those girls need their sleep.” She shooed me away. “You better go lead those two by the nose or they’ll never get there.”
I booked it out of the love garden, not feeling much smarter than Phelong who was now trying to open a door at the bottom of my tower. Did that look like a path? In what universe?
I gathered Phelong and Gerry and took them down the path and around to my side of the castle. At first glance, the rock garden was undisturbed. The path led through the middle of it. My window was right above, now with the window closed. I crossed my arms and kept looking up at it.
“What?” asked Phelong. “Do you see something?”
“No, but that’s my window and it was open last night.”
“So?”
“So my dog went bat shit crazy in the middle of the night. He must’ve heard something. You two stay here.”
“But we’re suppose—”
“Stay.” I went into the garden section under my window and I saw it. The mulch around some freshly planted lavender was messed up, scraped away from the dirt and showing what were footprints before the water system had run.
Damn. I could use some footprints.
“What is it?” asked Gerry.
“Ground is disturbed. Looks like what happened to Cherie started here. Give me a second.” I tiptoed around to get an idea of how big an area we were dealing with and spotted a larger area of messed up gravel next to three granite boulders. The left boulder had a smear of blood on it and, unless I was mistaken, a few hairs. I took some pictures with my phone and backed out carefully.
“This is the crime scene?” asked Phelong.
“It’s the first of two.” I checked my phone for my texts to Chuck. I’d sent one at 2:02 am. That’s when it happened exactly and the poodle knew it. We went back to Dr. Watts who was talking to someone on her phone. She’d packed up and had stripped off her gloves.
“Get a move on. Time’s a wasting,” she said and hung up.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Flincher, the local ghoul, he’ll pick up Cherie, and I’ll do the autopsy at the funeral home. What’d you find?”
“Cherie or somebody took a blow to the head at 2:02 am.”
“Why so specific?”
I told her about Pick and my text to Chuck. Dr. Watts got quiet and tapped her foot while staring down at Cherie. Phelong and Gerry edged toward the path to the parking lot like there was a possibility of escape. Puhlease. They weren’t going anywhere. Dr. Watts snapped her fingers at them without looking up. They might’ve been considering running for it and I kind of hoped they would. I had no doubt that my ex-grandma would chase them down and pummel them. It would make a great video for Dad. He collected funny cop videos. An old lady beating the crap out of a couple of deputies would be right up his alley, but the deputies didn’t make a move. Cowards.
Leslie elbowed me. “How much you want to bet that one of them quits before the weekend’s over.”
“A hundred bucks says neither quits,” I said.
“The cover girl’s a gambler. I’ll take that bet, but make it two hundred.”
I stuck out my hand. “Deal.”
“Just out of curiosity, why are you so sure they won’t quit?” asked Leslie.
“The worst part is over. Dr. Watts will pack off the body and do the autopsy. All they have to do is follow orders and keep everyone from leaving the property.”
He smiled and pushed up his glasses. “We’ll see.”
That doesn’t bode well.
There was a crunching of gravel behind us and Aaron walked into the garden with a big coffee mug. Finally. Coffee, my sweet friend.
I held out my hands so ready for my first sip, but Aaron skirted me and gave the doctor my coffee. Dr. Watts took a drink. “That’s just what I needed.”
“That’s what I need, too,” I told Aaron.
“Huh?”
“Coffee. How come that coffee isn’t mine?”
“It’s a vanilla cappuccino,” he said.
Dr. Watts sighed. “Exactly how I like it, too.”
Exactly how you like them? WTF?
“You know her?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
My hands went to my hips. “Who is she then?”
“Ace’s ex-wife,” said Aaron.
“How come nobody ever told me?”
Aaron was looking past me, far off into the distance. If it’d been anyone else, I’d have thought he was avoiding looking at the body, but that was just Aaron. “Tell you what?”
I groaned. “Never mind. Can I please have some coffee?”
“No.”
“No? Are you serious?”
“You didn’t eat yet.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“You got to eat.”
“Says who.”
“Your mom.”
Leslie was smiling. “You’ll have to eat.”
“I eat,” I said.
“I estimate that you consumed less than 800 calories yesterd
ay.”
“It had to be more than that.”
“Why?”
I didn’t know. Mostly, I didn’t want to eat whatever Aaron was cooking up. It was bound to have lard and guilt mixed in.
“It just had to be.”
“Very logical,” said Leslie.
“Bite me.”
He smiled, showing me his super white teeth in a carnal way. “Gladly.”
I had the strongest feeling that biting was not off the table with Leslie.
“No biting,” said Dr. Watts and she threw back the rest of the cappuccino. “We’ve got work to do and you, Miss Mercy, will eat if for no other reason than I don’t want to have to hear about you eating. Two a.m., was it?”
“Yes. 2:02 exactly.”
She gave Aaron the coffee cup and squatted. “Let’s see, shall we?”
Dr. Watts put on a fresh set of gloves, rolled Cherie’s head to the side, and revealed a small amount of blood. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Then she gently manipulated a spot on the back of Cherie’s head and nodded. “Hmm. Feels like a fracture, but I won’t know until I open her up.”
“Know what?” asked Gerry, getting a little paler.
“Whether this blow was fatal.”
“But I thought she was strangled.”
“She was,” she said
“But…”
I leaned on Aaron, breathed in the coffee scent that he was cloaked in. I didn’t even mind the hot dog stink that came with it. “It looks like she was attacked in the rock garden, she got away, ran and he caught up with her here. Then he strangled her. The head wound might’ve been fatal, given enough time.”
“Oh,” said Phelong.
“He?” asked Dr. Watts. “Are you sure?”
“Takes serious hand strength to manually strangle someone,” I said.
“I could do it.” Dr. Watts held up a larger than average hand with strong blunt fingers.”
“You probably could, but I’m guessing you’re not the average woman.”
“There’s the head wound to consider. She may have been incapacitated. That changes things.”
“I didn’t see any fibers or skin under her nails, did you?” I asked.
“No. They appear to be clean.”
“If so, she didn’t fight and he or she was right up in her face when he strangled her. That’s pretty up close and brutal.”
Dr. Watts shrugged. “Plenty of rage, but, if she was impaired, a child could’ve done it.”