In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 5)

by A W Hartoin

  Traub’s notes were factual, but, reading between the lines, it was easy to see that he doubted that Hoff did this to himself. There was an interoffice memo tucked in the file informing Dr. Traub that no more inquiries from him would be tolerated. He was ordered to finish the paperwork and move on. Dr. Traub named the cause of death on the same date as the memo and made no more notes. Message received.

  “So he was murdered,” I said.

  “Traub thought so.”

  “Did you get into the police files?”

  “I did, but Hoff’s file is missing,” said Spidermonkey.

  “Fantastic. A big fat dead end.”

  “Not exactly.” Spidermonkey was lucky. His wife, Loretta, was very tired after so many museums and her naps were long so he was able to dig into the cops. Traub named Frederik Meyer and Werner Richter as the lead investigators. Both were dead and childless. Werner Richter was killed by a hit and run driver in1965. No one was ever prosecuted. Meyer quit his job three days after the funeral and became an alpine goat herder, only to die six years later of throat cancer. Spidermonkey had a feeling that something was off about Werner Richter’s death, but he couldn’t find anything to connect the accident to the Hoff suicide. Richter’s twin brother, Paul, had inherited his worldly goods, including what was called work files in his will. Paul was alive and living in Paris.

  “Are you going to Paris?” I asked.

  “Not on this trip. I’ll leave that to you.”

  Paris. I could be talked into that.

  I looked at my cast. “I don’t know when I can get over there.”

  “There’s no hurry. Paul Richter may have trashed his brother’s files or they may have nothing in them.”

  “But you think there’s something there.”

  “I think the police knew Hoff was murdered and they knew who did it.”

  I put another pillow under my foot and slid down six inches, trying to get comfortable. “If they didn’t, there was no point in covering it up. What does your Israeli contact say?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t active at that time and he’s never heard of Hoff, but he has found out that there was an operation in Berlin in 1963.”

  “Nothing more specific?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If Hoff was a Nazi and the Mossad killed him, why would the German police cover it up?”

  “I’m not the detective. You’ll be the one to discover the motivations. I deal in facts.”

  “You do much more than that.”

  “Mercy, you flatter me. Are you ready for the rest?” he asked.

  “There’s more?”

  “Always.” Spidermonkey decided to look into Hoff’s wife when his trail petered out. Her name was Claudine Schmidt Hoff. She fell off the map shortly after her husband died. Their apartment was abandoned and their landlord filed paperwork to take possession of their goods after months of missing rental payments. On a hunch, Spidermonkey decided to check flight manifests and he found Claudine or a least a woman with her exact birth date and birth place flying to Argentina one week after Hoff died.

  I smiled. “The Nazis liked Argentina.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Am I supposed to go to Argentina?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answer to be yes or no. I’d never been to Argentina. It could be interesting.

  “At this point, no. Claudine Hoff aka Geraldine Homburg committed suicide in 1967.”

  “Autoerotic asphyxiation?” I asked.

  “She jumped out a window. Nothing suspicious about it.”

  “This makes my head hurt.”

  Spidermonkey laughed. “Mine, too, but we are getting somewhere.”

  Are we? I can’t tell.

  “If you say so,” I said.

  Spidermonkey did say so, but I wasn’t persuaded, especially after he told me what he found out about the break-in at the Bled Mansion. Some computer nerd along the lines of Spidermonkey and Uncle Morty breached the security company from a cybercafé in Bangalore, India.

  Please don’t make me go to Bangalore. It takes forever to get there and diarrhea is mandatory.

  “So who is it?” I asked.

  “We’re not going to find out and it’s pointless to try. I doubt he knows who hired him or why. He just opened a door in St. Louis. That’s it.”

  “It could be a girl, you know,” I said.

  “Absolutely, but this particular subject searched for ‘hot girls’ while he was routing his commands through multiple IP addresses. He likes you by the way.”

  “Ew. What about the guys who went in the mansion?” I asked.

  “No luck there either. One of the neighbors saw the car and got the plate number. The men rented the car under a fake name at the airport and somebody has a sense of humor. The name was Mr. Nichts Hier.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Not here. The name was Mr. Not Here?”

  “Or Nothing Here. Very funny.”

  “Hilarious,” I said. “What about descriptions? The renter must’ve been seen.”

  Another dead end. The clerk didn’t remember the man that called himself Mr. Nichts Hier, according to the police report. The car was dropped at the airport forty-five minutes after the break-in at the Bled’s and the men in suits vanished. The general consensus was that they got on a plane, using different identification, but no one knew for sure. The case was at a standstill and, barring new evidence, it would stay that way.

  “Do you know how Lester’s doing?” asked Spidermonkey.

  “Not well. I doubt he’ll survive. They murdered him to get the inventory. It seems so pointless. Lester would’ve slept through the whole thing. They didn’t have to kill him.” My eyes filled and got hot.

  “I didn’t see anything in the police report about it but have the families been warned?” asked Spidermonkey.

  “Families?”

  “Some of the objects Stella smuggled out were returned to their owners, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Oh my god.” I hadn’t thought about that. Very few people survived the Nazis, but the Bleds had returned objects to those that did or to their relatives.

  “Was that information on the inventory?” asked Spidermonkey.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not. I used a copy to check the house. I never thought about those other pieces. What they’re looking for could’ve been returned to one of the families. I’ll tell Dad.”

  “Do that. Then we’ll have to wait and see what they do next.”

  “Unless we can figure out what they’re after. What are you going to do?”

  Spidermonkey sighed. “I’m going to Salzburg.”

  “Are you looking into my dad and Josiah while you’re there?”

  “Yes.” He sounded glum.

  I looked at the clock. Almost time for a painkiller. Hooray. “You don’t think you’ll find anything?”

  “I might, but I have to pay a significant price for this side trip. Loretta wants to do The Sound of Music tour. I’d rather get a root canal.”

  I laughed and felt like I could hold off on the painkiller a while longer. I told Spidermonkey that the tour was fun in a way, but he wasn’t any more convinced about the tour than I was about The Klinefeld situation.

  I hung up as just as Tiny knocked and came in. “How’re you doing?” he asked, a little shame-faced.

  “Fine. What’s up with you?” I asked.

  “Sorry about earlier.”

  “Er…what happened earlier?”

  He stared at his belly. “You don’t remember?”

  And that’s when my ankle started really hurting again. “You’re going to have to give me a hint and a glass of water.”

  Tiny got me water and I took my pills. “So?”

  He held up his phone. “You gotta call your dad.” Tiny’s screen showed about sixteen million missed calls and texts from Tommy Watts. Great.

  “What’d you tell him?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” said Tiny, stil
l not meeting my eyes. “I told him to ask you about that whole river thing. He didn’t like that.”

  “No kidding.” I bit the bullet and called Dad, ready for some serious yelling, but I didn’t get it.

  “So,” said Dad. “Up to your old tricks, I hear.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said using my innocent-as-the-driven-snow voice.

  Dad snorted. “Haven’t I taught you anything?”

  Nothing I wanted to learn.

  “Mercy, why do you insist on doing this for free?”

  This?

  “We own a small family business.”

  I don’t own anything. What’s this we?

  “Do you hear me?” he asked.

  I grimaced at Tiny and he shrugged. “Sort of. What did I do wrong?”

  “You didn’t charge. Small family business. Think, Mercy,” said Dad.

  “First of all, your business isn’t small and, second, charge for what?”

  “Detectives don’t come cheap. You caught three, count ‘em, three criminals. Do you know what we could’ve charged for that?”

  “Dad, there’s nobody to charge. Cherie’s family’s broke and I’m not a detective. I don’t work for you.”

  Dad ignored the facts he didn’t like as usual. “How about John and Leslie?”

  “You want me to charge them? I thought they’re your friends. I never noticed you charging friends for your services before.”

  “We have a particular kind of friendship. Never mind. It’s all settled. They’re comping the weekend for you all.”

  “Why are we even talking about this then?” I asked, praying that the pills would kick in and make talking to my father less excruciating.

  “Because you can come home. I’m sending Terrance out tomorrow morning to pick you all up,” Dad said.

  I wanted to be happy, but Dad’s tone made that impossible. “What’s the hurry?”

  Dad’s tone didn’t change and there wasn’t a hurry. The news was good though. The Costilla brothers had been picked up in New York and their organization was in turmoil. They dropped the price on my head.

  “When did this happen?” I asked.

  “Homeland Security picked them up on the first day you were gone.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “Absolutely. They increased the bounty on your head after they were picked up and wouldn’t deal. You were completely off the table for them.”

  “What changed?”

  “Benny Costilla got shanked in the shower room and one of their lieutenants decided it was a good time to take over the operation. He’s making serious headway with no one there to get in the way.”

  “What about the other lieutenants?”

  “There’s one other one, but the Feds think he fled to Mexico when the brothers were picked up.”

  The pill kicked in and I yawned. “Did Costilla die?”

  “No. It was a precision shanking. Maximum pain, non-lethal,” said Dad, not as triumphant as I would’ve expected.

  “So why are we coming home early. Bridget won’t be happy.”

  Dad paused and I listened to his breathing. It wasn’t like him to hesitate. Then there was a scuffle and Mom said, “Mercy, it’s Mom.”

  This is not an improvement.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Your father doesn’t like delivering bad news.”

  “Since when?”

  Dad yelled in the background about how he’d deliver anything about anything. Mom groaned. “See what you did? Your father’s upset.”

  What is happening?

  “So why am I coming back early and angering the Troublesome Trio?”

  “The Girls want you back.” Then more softly, “And we want you back. Lester’s not improving and the doctors don’t believe he will.”

  “Are they going to take him off life support?”

  “The family’s considering it. I think they’ll wait a few more days.”

  I told Mom I’d be ready to go bright and early and tried to hang up, but Mom stopped me. “Talk to Tiny. He wants to quit.”

  I said I would and Mom said she loved me, a rare occurrence. Lester’s situation must be even worse than she was saying.

  Tiny stood next to my bed, looking at his phone but not doing anything with it. His hands had a slight shake.

  “We’re going home tomorrow.” Then I told him about the Costillas and Lester.

  “I’m not going to St. Louis with you,” he said.

  “No?”

  “I’m going back to New Orleans.”

  I sat up and tugged my foot off the pillows with a wince. “Why? We did good. Everything’s fine.”

  He shook his head and began to wring his hands. His breathing went rapid and he flushed. “Naw. When you needed me, I freaked.”

  “When?”

  Tiny told me that he wasn’t good with blood. Cherie’s body was difficult, but since she was strangled he was able to stay mostly calm. Cory’s rear shot was barely bloody and he hyperventilated over that. When Lane and I came back with blood all over us from various cuts, he lost it. I gathered that he broke down, crying and having flashbacks. Dr. Watts ended up sedating Tiny, which was why he didn’t go to Flincher’s. I didn’t remember any of that, only the pain from the ride on Sly Dog and Lane convulsing with sobs.

  “I’m no good to you or anybody,” said Tiny.

  “Not true. You’re of great use to me. I hear you can kill people with your thumbs. That could come in handy.” I grinned at him. “As long as they don’t bleed.”

  It worked and I was rewarded for my impudence with a wry smile. “You can’t count on me.”

  “It’ll get better. Your meds aren’t right. We should think outside the box. There’s a doctor getting ready to do a marijuana study on PTSD. Maybe we can get you in.”

  “I don’t want to get high.” His voice went down. “I’m already drinking too damn much.”

  “You’re drinking? When?”

  “To sleep. I got to have something…a lot of something. Here I been using vodka so you wouldn’t notice. It makes me snore more though.”

  “Well, I noticed that. Tiny, we’ll figure it out,” I said. “It’ll get better and we’ll have you on background work until it does.”

  “This shit ain’t gonna get better. I can’t get in that study. My next appointment at the VA isn’t for three months and those docs just put me on more drugs or different drugs. I get fatter. I don’t sleep.”

  Three months? That’s crazy.

  I texted Mom and asked her about our insurance. Tiny wasn’t on it because he said he wanted to stay with the VA. I suspected that he thought Dad would find out about his PTSD if he went on the company insurance. That was moot now. Mom said she’d handle the insurance and told me I’d better get Tiny back to St. Louis or else. Like I could wrestle the giant into the limo or something.

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re going on the company insurance. It won’t take three months to get you in, more like three days.”

  “I don’t know any docs in St. Louis,” said Tiny, his hands shaking violently.

  “You’ve met my mother?”

  “Yeah.”

  I slipped out of bed and hugged him. “Then you know how determined she can be and she’s well versed in PTSD specialists. She found me a guy and he had credentials out the yin-yang.”

  “It didn’t help. You was starving yourself,” said Tiny, barely controlling his hands. He was going to cry and I wished he would go ahead and do it. So much pain begged to be released.

  “I didn’t go,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “I didn’t go to the therapist. I told Mom I did, but I didn’t. She found out and has been pissed at me ever since.”

  “Why’d you lie?”

  “I thought I could handle it. I thought I would stop seeing his face.”

  “You see his face?”

  “I do. Not eating helped so I stoppe
d eating. It was a simple solution,” I said.

  Tiny pushed me back from him. “It was crazy ass stupid.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  He raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t take it back.

  “If you go, I’ll go,” I said. “Deal?”

  He hugged me like I’ve never been hugged before which is to say I was nearly smothered and my vertebrae got realigned. Aaron came in with a double cheeseburger and more hot chocolate and we talked while I ate. That is, Tiny and I talked. Aaron sat there and looked confused. I don’t know when I fell asleep with half a burger on my chest, but it was without scream-worthy dreams. A nice change of pace.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  IT’S HARD TO pack with a cast on one leg and even harder to shower. Dr. Watts helped me with both, taking our sweet time because the Springfield cops were back and waiting to talk to me. I wasn’t interested. If I could’ve thought of a way to get off the property without talking to them, I would’ve done that. I hadn’t actually admitted to killing Tim or shooting Cory. It was time to decide and I wasn’t into it.

  Aaron helped with the delaying by feeding me until I almost couldn’t breathe. Nobody should eat that much food. Nobody. But Aaron was watching and I couldn’t disappoint the little weirdo. He’d gone all out. Cheese soufflé, corned beef hash, eggs benedict. It was ridiculous, but oh so good.

  I finished the last bite of hash and he held out his phone. “You got a message.”

  It was from Spidermonkey saying, “Is this the guy?” with a mugshot attached.

  “Oh shit!”

  “What?” asked Dr. Watts, hustling over.

  I pulled Flincher’s packet from under the covers and dumped it out. She pointed at the nude pictures. “Who is that?”

  “Our mysterious dead guy from the woods,” I said, comparing the mug shot to the pictures.