In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 5)

by A W Hartoin

  “What about Cherie?” Tiny asked.

  “What about her? I doubt our new victim would’ve climbed over the fence, attacked Cherie, and then waited around to strangle her before going back over. It’s totally separate. Dr. Watts knows something about John and Leslie. They are not on the up and up. Cherie wasn’t Leslie’s first body.”

  “Cherie’s the victim you’re supposed to be working on.”

  I waved him off. “I will. That’s why we’re going to see Morty. That and the phone call Flincher made.”

  I found Morty’s door all by myself. Not difficult since there were only two on the floor. But still, if anyone could’ve gotten lost it would be me. I knocked on the extra wide door. No answer. More knocking and still no answer.

  “Let me.” Tiny banged on the door as only a giant can and twenty seconds later Uncle Morty opened the door, red-faced and yelling, “What the hell are you bothering me for? Idiots! I’m working!”

  “On my case, I hope,” I said, plenty loud to get his attention.

  “What case? I got a dragon battle going on.” He pointed to his temple. “I’m gonna lose it.”

  I pushed my way past him. “Oh please. You can write a dragon battle in your sleep. It’s your thing.”

  Uncle Morty preened, smoothing his stained and rather smelly sweats. “I’m good, but you got to work at it.”

  “You make it look easy,” I said, smiling to myself. He was such a diva.

  “It flows outta me sometimes.”

  Just like the smell of onion pizza. Gross.

  “Well, you weren’t the number one fantasy author the last five years in a row for nothing.” I winked at Tiny from behind Uncle Morty’s back and he smiled.

  “I kicked that Martin’s ass,” said Uncle Morty and the preening got worse.

  “Yeah, you did.” I plopped down on the enormous carved bed and scanned the luxury Uncle Morty had rated. The room was nicer than any of the others I’d seen. It was completely paneled in gleaming wood, including the ceiling. An Italian marble fireplace took up half of one of the walls and there was a small chapel in a corner, adorned with gold crosses. “This room is fit for a king.”

  “Henry VIII. His room from one of them palaces,” said Uncle Morty.

  Henry VIII. Of course.

  Uncle Morty fit perfectly in that room. All he needed were royal robes and red hair. He had the gout and obesity covered, not to mention the surly nature.

  “Nice. So…I went to the funeral home and the mortician, who is super creepy by the way, cremated a body today. A body we can’t account for.”

  I told Uncle Morty everything that happened at Flincher Funerals and he straightened up. I knew that would get him, especially after the flattery. I ran it down for him as he wedged himself into the chair at the desk by the little chapel. “Let me see.” He typed more rapidly than I would’ve thought was humanly possible and thirty seconds later he said, “No one in a fifty-mile radius has been reported missing that stayed missing. No deaths. It ain’t local.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said like I hadn’t figured that out already. “How many people go missing on an annual basis?”

  “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 countrywide.”

  I gasped. “That many?”

  “Most show up. Ya got about 2,000 per year that stay missing. The missing ain’t gonna help you though.”

  “No kidding. Can you break into Flincher’s phone records?”

  After another thirty seconds, he nodded, “You’re right. He called the office line here at the castle. Call took all of two seconds.”

  “Two seconds? What can you say in that amount of time?” I asked.

  “You can’t say shit. He called a cellphone immediately after.”

  “Oh.”

  Tiny sat next to me on the bed. “Oh, what?”

  “Flincher made a mistake. He called the castle line. I’m guessing John hung up on him and he remembered to call an untraceable cell,” I said.

  Uncle Morty nodded. “I’m gonna look into that Flincher. I don’t like him.”

  “You’ve never met him.”

  “He wants your blood. I don’t have to meet him,” he growled. “You want the Cherie stuff?”

  “Did you have time?”

  “Hell yeah. I can do anything.”

  “I know. I know,” I said quickly. Dear lord that man was testy when he was writing. Dad said he once tried an anti-anxiety drug when it got too bad, but all it did was make him sleep. Personally, I thought some more sleep couldn’t hurt, but no one cared what I thought.

  “It’ll cost you,” he said with a sly grin.

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you going to charge me extra for interrupting your work?”

  “Nope. I want you to eat.”

  “Huh?”

  Tiny sucked in his lips and picked at the ornate tapestry bed cover. He was in on it. The giant was probably texting my mom, calorie counts and all. Traitor.

  Uncle Morty spun around in his chair and pointed at me. “Eat. I want you to eat. You’re worrying Carolina and that sucks. Eat for info. That’s the deal.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “How will you know if I ate?”

  “Aaron and Tiny. John and Leslie.”

  Groan.

  I flopped over and sneered at him. “Fine, you old buzzard.”

  “Don’t pretend like you don’t like me. I’m a second father to you,” he said with conviction.

  “You’re a deadbeat dad to me. Happy?”

  “Hell, yeah. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to fatherhood. Call me when you’ve had your first course.”

  “Can’t I just get it all over in one go?”

  “Nope. It’s one at a time or nothing. And no barfing. You got to get this shit under control with a quickness.”

  “I’m not an anorexic,” I said.

  “You’re something. Eat and we’ll talk.”

  I sat up. “No way. I need information now. We have a timeline.”

  “You can have dinner.”

  “Dinner?”

  “It’s five o’clock, fool. You’re gonna eat or I’m not giving you a damn thing.”

  “I’ll just call Spidermonkey and pay him to do it.” I crossed my arms.

  “I called that bastard already,” said Uncle Morty.

  Now that was unexpected. Uncle Morty hated Spidermonkey like herpes. He either pretended he didn’t exist or was very colorful in his descriptions.

  “What for? You hate him.”

  “I threatened the smug son of a bitch. If he helps you, I’ll jam him up good. Eat!”

  “You are an enormous pain in the ass. You know that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but you’re gonna eat.” He looked at Tiny. “Take this girl to dinner and keep track.”

  “There’s no dinner for another two hours,” said Tiny.

  “Figure it out!” Uncle Morty spun back around and that was the end of that.

  I had to have that information and Aaron was happy to oblige. The Thanksgiving dinner was all prepped and ready. I sat down in the copper pot kitchen and braced myself for more food than I’d eaten in two months. Aaron served it up on a platter. I’m not kidding. He served me on a platter and I ate it, turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry chutney, the works.

  When I was done, I couldn’t sit up straight. Hell, I could barely breathe. I gave Tiny my phone and whispered, “Get info.”

  Tiny managed to get Uncle Morty to answer on the third try. I could hear his complaining over my own groaning. My stomach wasn’t used to food anymore and it was not happy about the influx.

  “I’m gonna put you on speaker,” said Tiny.

  “What’s that noise?” Uncle Morty bellowed.

  “Me,” I said. “Sick. Your fault.”

  “You ate then.”

  “Yes. Happy?”

  “Ya damn skippy. Tiny, how much did she eat?” asked Uncle Morty.

  Tiny gave him every little detail. It was nauseating to hear. I slumped o
ver and braced my head on the table. “Info!”

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” said Uncle Morty. “I got it. Lane loved her mom. I went through her texts and emails. They were good. Normal mother daughter shit but the kid didn’t want her dead.”

  “Good,” I said. “That’s a relief.”

  “Nobody’s used any of Cherie’s accounts since last night. She started texting the daughter at 11:13 and kept it up until 11:40. All texts stop after that.”

  I sat up and suppressed a belch. “That must be when she met up with someone in the rock garden. Did Lane get her texts?”

  “Nope. The kid’s phone was off until this morning. That’s when she read them. She didn’t know her mom was looking for her.”

  “Did someone lure Cherie outside?” I asked. “Where there any other communications?”

  “She texted the son a few times asking about Lane, but his phone was off, too,” said Morty.

  Tiny sat down next to me and made the bench jump. “So she wasn’t lured outside.”

  “She went outside to look for Lane. Somebody saw their opportunity and took it,” I said.

  “Two somebodies.”

  Uncle Morty began to type and we listened to the clicking for a minute.

  “What else did you find out?” I asked. “How did she pay for this trip?”

  “She didn’t,” he said.

  “Come again?”

  “Not a freaking dime for any kid on the Lions. Everybody else paid out the wazoo. She had 2500 to her name.”

  “Did any of the other teams pay for them by chance?”

  “Nope. I checked. None of them had any contact with the woman, period.”

  “Can you get into John and Leslie’s finances?” I asked.

  “No,” Uncle Morty said with an edge in his voice.

  “What do you mean ‘no?’”

  “I mean I can’t do it. Is that okay with your highness?”

  Tiny and I exchanged a look. What the hell? Uncle Morty couldn’t get into their accounts? I couldn’t comprehend it.

  “Okay. What about the backgrounds?” I asked after a minute of digesting that information and the giant lump of turkey in my stomach.

  “Backgrounds? What the hell are you talking about? I got to get back to work. Those dragons won’t wait forever,” he growled.

  “Yes, they will. You’re the writer.”

  “Shows what you freaking know.”

  “Whatever,” I said with a sigh. “Can you just give me the backgrounds?”

  “Whose?” he asked.

  “Everybody’s. Two people attacked Cherie last night. I have to know the guests.”

  More typing.

  “I got it,” said Uncle Morty, but his voice had become suspiciously pleased.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “It’ll cost you extra.”

  I banged my fist on the table. “I ate like 5000 calories.”

  “That’s good for the financials. Backgrounds will cost you a reasonable breakfast.”

  “Define reasonable?”

  “Aaron’ll make it.”

  My head hit the table with a thump. Aaron’s breakfasts were the bomb, but eating one of his sausage hash brown concoctions would make me crazy. There wouldn’t be a lettuce leaf in sight.

  “Oh, come on,” I pleaded. “How about a smoothie with kale. I can eat kale.”

  “You’ll eat sausage and you’ll like it,” said Uncle Morty. He couldn’t have been more satisfied with his blackmail.

  “No. I can’t. I won’t.”

  “That’s the deal. If you don’t like it, solve it without me.”

  “Fine. Maybe I will.”

  Uncle Morty gave out a big juicy snort and hung up. Aaron had come over and was hovering, bouncing up and down and rubbing his hands together like the evil food genius he was. “What do you want to have?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You got to eat.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  Tiny shook his head. “It really isn’t. Morty won’t tell you if you don’t eat.”

  “Fine.” I pointed at Aaron. “Nothing too heavy. I can’t feel like this tomorrow.”

  Oliver walked in with a furrowed brow. “Feel like what? Are you sick?”

  “Not exactly.” I attempted to straighten up and failed.

  “Does it have to do with the investigation?”

  “I guess it does.” I told him about Uncle Morty’s food for info deal.

  “So you don’t normally eat?” Oliver asked.

  Normally? Has the last two months been normal? Hmm. No.

  “That’s hard to say. I’ve been on a…diet,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to see how the investigation is going. The boys are distracted. They think there’s a murderer on the loose here.”

  “There is,” I said.

  That stopped him in his tracks and he sat down opposite me. “You really think whoever did it is still here?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Oliver ran a hand over his morning stubble. “I think we have to cancel the camp. I can’t keep the boys here with this going on. I assumed…”

  “That someone broke into the castle grounds and strangled one of the moms randomly?” I asked.

  “It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

  I laughed. “It’s easier to think it was some stranger than someone you know.”

  “And it is someone I know,” he said, softly.

  We had a moment of silence that Aaron filled with pumpkin pie and dollops of rich whipped cream. I said no, but he persuaded me with putting in a good word with Uncle Morty. I barely managed to stuff the slender piece in my gullet without barfing. He didn’t make me eat the decorative crust with pastry leaves and pumpkins. They were a marvel. How Aaron’s stumpy little hands formed those tiny perfect images in the dough was a mystery.

  “So,” I said after several groans, “how is Taylor doing?”

  “Not well. He came down to practice for a while, but he didn’t get on the field.”

  “Understandable.”

  Oliver nodded, but he was tense and fiddled with his fork.

  “Can he still take the prize?” asked Tiny. “He needs that scholarship.”

  “He does,” said Oliver. “But I don’t know. We’ve never faced anything like this before. There’s always been a clear winner. This year it was a dead heat before his mom got killed.”

  “It could go either way,” I said.

  “Before it happened, yeah, but now Taylor can’t perform. The kid’s destroyed.”

  Tiny glanced at me and I nodded. “That’s a pretty strong motive.”

  Oliver’s broad shoulders twitched. “No. Nobody would do that.”

  “It’s happened before. Think about that cheerleader mom in Texas,” I said. “If Taylor can’t compete, Enrique takes the prize by default.”

  He shook his head. “These people aren’t like that. It’s not win at all costs. Robin and Tim want Enrique to win because he deserves it. You almost want to give it to him after what the kid’s been through.”

  “What’s he been through?”

  “He was adopted out of an orphanage in Ecuador.” Oliver went on to tell me how Robin had met Enrique through her church group six years ago. He’d been seriously ill with malaria and needed medical help the orphanage couldn’t provide. Robin and Tim paid for the treatment and eventually adopted him. He still had brothers and sisters in Ecuador. Oliver thought that Robin and Tim were supporting them in some way.

  “This sounds like a movie plot,” I said. “Poverty-stricken kid is saved by well-to-do family and goes on to rock whatever sport.”

  Oliver smiled. “It is a Cinderella story. Enrique would probably be dead without them. I’d hate to think you’d suspect them.”

  “I don’t suspect Robin or any of the women really. Their hands are too small.”

  Oliver grimaced. “He strangled her with his bare hands?”

  �
�He wore gloves but yes. I overheard Cherie arguing with a man the night of the murder before we all got to the fire pit for s’mores. Any idea who that was?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.” He looked into my eyes. “It wasn’t me.”

  “I didn’t think it was. You were at the carriage house. I suppose you could’ve run ahead and beat me there, but you weren’t winded. The argument was quite heated.”

  “That’s him then.”

  “Not necessarily but I’d sure like to know who it was.”

  “I can ask around,” said Oliver.

  “Please do. If you get a weird vibe from anyone, let me know,” I said.

  “I’m not sure I’d know a weird vibe if it was sitting right in front of me.”

  I laughed and barely held back a seriously unladylike belch that was bubbling away in my chest. “You would, trust me.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a woman in the sweat lodge with Cherie?” he asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “I heard from one of the cops that she was pushed and hit her head on a rock. A woman could’ve done that.”

  I drummed my fingertips on the table just like my dad. He said it helped him think and it helped me, too. “You’re right. That could’ve been a woman and it was much earlier.

  “How do you know?”

  “Autopsy. The head wound bled—”

  Oliver stood up. “I’ll take your word for it. Dinner tonight? Smells like Aaron made Thanksgiving.”

  “I know. I just ate it.” I put my hand over my mouth and did a mock vomit.

  He laughed. “You can watch me eat.”

  And my suspects will all be in one room. Sweet.

  “Your cousins will want you there.”

  I groaned. “Those three.”

  “What’s wrong with your cousins?” he asked.

  “Nothing, I suppose. On the other hand, everything.”

  “Everything is wrong with your beautiful red-headed cousins?”

  Bridget sashayed in, carrying a heap of files. “Our ears are burning.”

  They were, too. Bright pink and glowing. My cousins were like Beetlejuice, say their names three times and they showed up out of nowhere. Then they taped your legs together and poured lemonade on your head if it was available. I would say that was kid stuff, but it’d happened as recently as Jilly’s college graduation last year after she remembered that I graduated with honors and she didn’t. There’s always plenty of lemonade at graduations and I had just shaved my legs. I will never forgive that one. Never.