by A W Hartoin
“Mercy? Are you okay?” asked Chuck.
“I’m fine,” I said loudly and then whispered into the phone, “Gotta go.”
I opened the door and laughed when I saw Chuck hunched over with his head pressed against a low beam. “Finally, being short pays off for me.”
“You’ve been down here a long time,” he said, taking my hand.
“Sorry. I got a little dizzy. Must be the jet lag. I think I need to sleep.”
“The dessert’s here, but we can skip it and go home.”
“Not a chance. I ate mussels. I deserve dessert.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I think I should get you to bed.”
I did a little hip swish and gave him a saucy look. “With you?”
He dropped my hand. “It would be weird with Aaron in the apartment.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, attempting to recapture his hand, but he avoided it, kissing me lightly on the lips. “Nothing. I’m a gentleman. Get used to it.”
“No, you’re not. You’re Chuck. I’ve known you practically all my life. Something’s wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He went up the stairs and I had the sense that he did it to hide his face.
Chapter Ten
I woke up the next morning with sunlight in my face. I’d forgotten to pull the curtains and I wasn’t the first to discover it. An elderly man, holding a frying pan and smoking a long cigarette, waved to me from his window. Thank goodness I didn’t sleep nude.
I slipped out of bed, waved back, and closed the curtains. That’s when I realized the apartment was completely silent. No snoring. Chuck and Aaron had been doing a duet the night before. Chuck warned me that too much wine made him snore, but I had no idea the levels to which he would rise. Two doors weren’t enough to stop the onslaught. No more wine for him. I would get him beer if I had to brew it myself. For the first time, I was grateful not to be sharing a room. I would’ve ended up in the tiny bedroom for sure.
My door opened with a creak and I sniffed. No snoring and no cooking smells. That couldn’t be right. If Aaron was awake, he should’ve been cooking.
“Aaron,” I called out as I trotted down the hall. His bedroom was empty as was the kitchen. I checked Chuck’s room and it was empty. A chill went through me. I’d slept like a rock and the Fibonacci phone was under my panties in the dresser. Could Chuck have come in without waking me and found the phone? No. He wouldn’t search through my stuff. Another chill went up my spine. Who was I kidding? Chuck was Dad’s protégé. He would absolutely search through everything I owned if he thought something was wrong. It was the Watts way. Means to an end and all that. Chuck had been suspicious about my staying in the bathroom so long in the restaurant.
“Oh crap!”
I ran back to my room and yanked the drawer open. The phone was exactly where I left it. My panties didn’t seem like they’d been disturbed, but Chuck was a pro. He could search without a trail. Hell. Even I could pull that off.
Multiple clicking noises echoed through the apartment and Chuck called out, “Mercy! Wake up!”
I grabbed the Fibonacci phone and stuffed it under my mattress. “I am up. Where’ve you been?”
Chuck walked in covered in sweat and still huffing and puffing. “Running. What’d you think?”
“I didn’t think you’d keep up exercising on vacation. You’re seriously disturbed.”
“You can come with me tomorrow.”
I poked his hard chest with my finger and pushed him out the door. “I can’t. It’s against everything I hold sacred.”
“Like what?”
“Enjoying my life, for one. Go shower. You smell like Skanky when I bought him from that homeless guy.”
Chuck waggled his eyebrows at me. “You can have me for a lot less than a cold latte and a twenty.”
My heart leapt. That was kinda sleazy. I’d never have thought I’d miss it so much. “Oh really? I like the sound of that.”
Chuck instantly stepped back and grabbed my doorknob. “I’ll shower and we can get breakfast.” He started to close the door and I stuck my foot out to stop it. “What happened? What did I say?”
“Nothing. You said I stink,” he said, avoiding my gaze.
“I take it back. You smell like healthy exercise and I have a big shower. We could put it to good use.”
There was a time when that offer would’ve had him running into the bathroom, stripping as he went, but not any more. Chuck shook his head. “No French shower is that big.” He nudged my foot out of the way and closed the door before I could launch a counter argument.
I stood there, staring at the door with tears stinging my eyes. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I never felt further from Chuck than that moment. He’d bothered me senseless since we were kids, but I’d always felt connected, even when I was trying hard not to be.
I bit back a sob and got my regular phone and called Nazir.
“Mercy?” he said. “I thought you were in Paris.”
“I am. You have to tell me what’s wrong with Chuck right now,” I said.
Nazir hesitated and I could hear his wife in the background asking what was wrong. “What happened?” he asked finally.
“Nothing and that’s what’s wrong. Tell me. I think he’s really upset or something.”
“What makes you think I have the key to the inner workings of Chuck Watts?” he asked.
“Because of what you said at Kronos before we left. I know you know,” I said.
Nazir gave out a weak laugh. “You give me too much credit.”
“Fine,” I hissed. “You won’t tell me. I’ll get Spidermonkey on it.”
“I swear to God, you better not do that,” he said in the same tone he used at Kronos.
“Give me one good reason.”
“Because I’m telling you not to. You know me. I’m your friend and I’m Chuck’s. Don’t do it. If he wants to tell you, he will.”
“Nazir…”
“No, Mercy,” he said. “Don’t be a Watts. Not this time.”
I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. “What am I supposed to do? He’s not Chuck—not the Chuck I know anyway.”
“Be patient. I know that’s not your thing, but this time you have to be,” said Nazir before he hung up.
I tossed the phone onto the bed and got into the lukewarm shower. I should’ve waited until the heater had a chance to catch up. There I was, not being patient, and I paid for it by dropping my body temperature a good ten degrees. My teeth were chattering by the time I got out and pressed my frozen body against the towel warmer. That was France in a nutshell: enormous towel warmers, tiny water heaters.
Chuck banged on my door. “Are you ready yet?”
“Hell, no!” I yelled back. “I can barely feel my feet.”
He came in, saw me suctioned to the towel rack, and burst out laughing. “Why didn’t you wait a little?”
I glared at him, all clean and warm. “How could I wait? You’re already in here, demanding that I be ready, you giant hot water hog.”
He got a couple more towels and wrapped me up like a burrito. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Will a latte help?”
“Extra hot,” I said.
Chuck made me a steaming hot latte and I drank it before attempting to un-burrito. My hair was dry by that time and had curled into weird ringlets that for some reason all curled forward. Had to be the Seine air. It was not a good look. After getting dressed, I tried brushing it out and managed to make my hair look like Buckwheat from The Little Rascals.
Chuck came back in with a second latte. “Holy crap! What happened to your hair?”
“I’m being punished,” I said with certainty.
“For what?”
“Lack of patience.” I silently promised to be better in the future and tried applying a smoothing serum. That just angered it. Now it was frizzy and sort of greasy at the same time.
“I think you need a hat,”
said Chuck.
“You hate my hat.”
“Today, I’ll make an exception.”
That’s when I knew it was as bad as I thought it was. Groan. I jammed my hat on and asked, “Where’s Aaron? I assume he didn’t run with you.”
“Cooking school. Something about produce. It’s you and me,” said Chuck.
He didn’t sound too happy about it, but I decided to take Nazir’s advice and ignore it. “Are you hungry?”
“Oh yeah. Is there any place where we can get an American breakfast?”
“Not so that you’d recognize it,” I said, grabbing my purse and heading out the front door.
“I’m going to starve to death.”
“In Paris? Puhlease.”
“A man can’t live on yogurt alone.”
“I’ll find you an omelet.”
“Southwestern?”
I rolled my eyes at him before jogging down the stairs. “What do you think?”
Chuck grumbled his way down the street about how men had to eat and he needed real food. What a whiner. I found a café that agreed to make him an omelet, even though they heartily disapproved. Eggs for breakfast was wrong and in the waitress’s opinion might cause vomiting if eaten so early. When she brought out Chuck’s omelet, she held the tray as far from her nose as possible and gagged a little when she walked away.
“What’s the big deal?” Chuck cut into the fluffy omelet. “Hey. Where’s the cheese?”
“No cheese,” I said. “Just eat it.”
“What’s this green stuff?”
“Herbs, you weirdo.” I bit into my crusty croissant and washed it down with a café like a good girl.
Chuck polished off the omelet in three minutes flat. “You know, that was pretty good. Maybe I’ll get another one.”
I pulled his arm down before he could signal the waitress. “No, you don’t. We aren’t gluttonous Americans.”
“Speak for yourself. I want another one.”
“Today, I speak for you. I’ll get you a crepe later.”
Chuck looked around for a creperie. “Where?”
“Oh, for crying out loud. I’ll find one.” I finished my café and watched him scrape minuscule bits of egg off his plate.
It’s a good thing I love you.
“I think you got it all.”
“Hold on,” he said, trying to get the last crumb off the edge.
I paid the bill while trying not to pretend that I didn’t know Chuck, who wasn’t giving up on that crumb. “Please get up. You’re killing me here.” The kitchen staff had come out and were watching Chuck, perplexed at this person who would act in such a manner. Omelet in the morning. Trés horrible!
“If you lick that plate, I will murder you with a fork,” I said, tugging on his arm.
“Now I want to do it to see what’ll happen.” Chuck grinned up at me.
“Get up.”
He didn’t get up. He just had to act like a weirdo. Instead of forking him, I did the right thing. I slung my purse over my shoulder, nodded to the staff, and marched out of the café. Chuck was on me in three strides. “I was only joking.”
“Hilarious.”
“I thought so.”
“Would you burp at the table in Japan?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Would I?” Chuck laughed and grabbed my hand.
“Don’t make me take off my hat.”
He put up his hands in horror. “No, no. Anything but that. I’ll be good.”
“Alright then. Are we doing this interview today or what?” I asked.
“Right after we find a crepe stand.”
Groan.
We found two creperies on the way to the Richter residence and Chuck had to stop at both. He declared that Nutella and bananas were awesome on crepes. Only the threat of hat removal kept him from stopping at a third creperie to try another version, like Nutella was going to be different a block away.
“What was that address?” I asked, steering him away from the cook ladling out a generous amount of batter onto the griddle.
“There it is.” Chuck pointed down the street at a striped awning. The family fromagerie had a line out the door—always a good sign. Too bad we were in the market for information, not cheese. I started to cross the street, but Chuck held me back.
“What if they don’t speak English? Do you know enough French for this?” he asked.
“No idea,” I said. “Come on.”
He still didn’t let me go. “We should have a plan. Never go in without a plan.”
“We’re not storming an Al-Qaeda stronghold. They’re cheesemongers. We’ll figure it out,” I said.
“That’s not how I do things,” he insisted. “We need a Plan B.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I rarely have a Plan A and they never work out when I do.”
Chuck stared down at me with a look of confusion on his handsome face. I don’t think I’d ever seen him have that look. It was familiar. I remember my calculus teacher having it when I got a B on my final exam. Then he sent me to the office, claiming I must’ve cheated. The nurse searched me for evidence and found nothing because I didn’t cheat. I studied. That shocked everyone, including me.
“How have you solved anything?” he asked.
“It’s a mystery.” I grinned up at him.
“You wing it?”
“Pretty much. Are we going or what?”
He shook his head. “I have to have a plan or at least an idea of a plan.”
“You actually read all the police manuals, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean by that?”
The light changed and I pulled him across the street in a swarm of businessmen heading to the metro. “Nothing. Here’s your plan: if we can’t communicate, we’ll bring Aaron back with us. Good enough?”
“What’s Aaron going to do?” Chuck tried to hold me back. I never knew he was such a worrier.
“He’s fluent.”
Chuck peppered me with questions, trying to figure out whether my Plan B would actually work when we reached the apartment door next to the fromagerie. The name, Richter, was written in faded black ink next to one of the door bells. “Don’t push that button,” said Chuck. “We have to discuss—”
I pushed the button.
“Mercy! You have to listen to me,” he said.
“I really don’t,” I replied and turned my attention to the little speaker that gave out a screech.
“Oui?” said a woman’s voice.
Yes! We’ve got a Richter.
“Mercy,” whispered Chuck.
I shushed him. Then I told the voice who I was and that I needed to speak to Nadine Richter about her father and uncle. The voice asked me who I was and I told the truth, which Chuck didn’t look too happy about. The voice was suspicious. I explained in my halting French that I was looking into a case that her uncle investigated in 1963 not that long before his death and I wanted to know if she might have anything that pertained to the death of Jens Waldemar Hoff in Berlin.
The voice didn’t answer and Chuck squeezed my hand. “I told you—”
The door buzzed.
“We’re in,” I said and flounced through. I didn’t need a plan. Plans were for wussies and cops with the last name of Watts.
Chuck charged in after me and blocked the rickety staircase. “We should discuss how this is going to go down.”
“Go down? She isn’t a suspect. She’s a fifty-year-old mother of three. I’ll ask for her help and we’ll see what happens.”
“Mercy, you can’t flirt your way to every answer.”
I kicked him in the shin, the dirtbag. Chuck gasped and I darted past him up the stairs. “Then I’ll ask the questions and leave the flirting to you, Rico Suave.”
“What did you call me?” Chuck took the stairs three at a time, but I still beat him to the Richters’ door on the second floor. He ran up beside me as I straightened my skirt and took off my sunglasses.
“Mercy, what did you sa
y?” he asked, trying to pull me away from the door bell.
“Like I don’t know your squadron nickname. There’s a reason you interview eighty percent of the female witnesses that come through the door.”
“I hate that name,” he growled.
“Well, get used to it, because it’s not going away any time soon.” I rang the bell and Chuck put on what I assumed was his game face, somewhere between This is business and I’m all about you, baby. It was weird to watch and I wondered if Dad had the same look when he interviewed women. He was said to be charming, but it was hard to imagine. Chuck was hot without trying. Dad reminded me of a scarecrow. I might not have been the best judge, though.
The door latch clicked and the door opened. An older woman with thick, greying hair looked out and smiled. “Mademoiselle Watts?”
“Oui, ma’am.” I introduced Chuck and he gave her his most charming smile. One side of her smile lifted wryly. I think she’d seen his ilk before, but she wasn’t put off. She introduced herself as Nadine Richter Roche and invited us in.
I asked her if she spoke English and she nodded as we sat down in her small but neat living room.
“Yes. I speak a little,” said Nadine.
In my experience, that meant she was fluent but not perfect, but we’d never know the difference.
“If you don’t mind, Madam Roche, English is better. Chuck doesn’t speak French,” I said.
She nodded and her artfully-cut, asymmetrical bob swung into her face and she tucked it behind her ears. Her large brown eyes stayed on us, alert but not wary and I wondered why she let us in. I’m not sure I would’ve.
“Of course, I don’t mind. You wanted to know about my uncle?” she asked.
“Yes. Werner Richter. Did your father perhaps inherit anything from his brother? Case books? Files from Berlin?”
“Not that I know of. What are you looking for?”
Chuck leaned toward her. “Anything to do with Jens Waldemar Hoff?”
Mrs. Roche puzzled over the question. “I don’t recognize the name. It’s unusual, non?”
I smiled. “It is unusual. That’s why we were able to find Hoff in the first place.”
“What did he do, this Hoff?” She was growing more interested but tried to hide it by leaning back and forcing her hands to go slack in her lap.