by A W Hartoin
I snorted. “You’re not working. I can tell.”
“The hell you can.”
“You’re not home, and you only work at home,” I said.
“I could be home.”
“What are you doing?”
“Eating.”
“I’ll be right over.”
I hung up before he could protest. If Morty wasn't home and he was eating, he had to be at Kronos. A couple of his Dungeons and Dragons buddies owned it, and it was the closest thing he had to a hangout. Unfortunately, Dad was known to be there as was half the St. Louis Police Department. Rodney and Aaron, the buddies, had the bright idea to open a restaurant dedicated to Star Trek. Their joint was seriously weird, but also seriously successful. Rodney added police and firefighter memorabilia and Kronos became their joint, packed with first responders and those in the know. Aaron was the best cook ever. I guess he was really a chef, considering the kind of food he could produce, but that mantle didn’t really fit the tubby little oddball.
When I got there, Kronos was between the lunch and dinner rush. There were a couple of paramedics at the bar, and Uncle Morty sat in a booth in the back beneath a display of vintage fire hoses.
Morty sipped a root beer float and scowled when he saw me.
“Dammit,” he said. “Can’t a man eat in peace?”
“If you wanted peace, you should’ve stayed home,” I said, sliding in the booth opposite him.
“You saying you wouldn’t have showed up there?”
I laughed and waved to Aaron behind the twenty-five-foot walnut bar. He was polishing the vintage masterpiece with linseed oil and didn’t acknowledge my wave. That was Aaron, so I didn’t mind.
I stole Uncle Morty’s float and pretended to take a sip just to bother the old gasbag. “Oh no. I’d be there. It’d just be quiet.”
A crew of firefighters came in and proved my point by yelling for Rodney and asking for the special.
"Shit. I gotta get a new spot,” said Uncle Morty before he grabbed his float.
“That’ll happen. So I need a little help,” I said.
"What's new?”
I crossed my arms. “You got something better to do?”
“Hell yes, like sit here and not be bothered.”
“You could've left.”
“What, and waste my float?”
I rolled my eyes and made another play for the float that he fended off easily. “Okay,” I said. “It's like this. I need to get onto St. Stephen's campus. I need a good lie.”
“You need more than a lie. They had another bomb threat this morning.”
“You're kidding?”
“Nope, they're very popular these days. What's with St. Stephen's, anyway?”
“I need to get a look at some old yearbooks.” I avoided his penetrating gaze and prayed Dad didn’t happen in.
“Does this have anything to do with Lorraine Grady?”
Dammit!
“I just need to get into St. Stephen’s.”
A short, wide shadow came over our table. “I went to St. Stephen’s.”
I looked up and saw Aaron holding a plate of fresh cut fries with a heavenly poutine of creamy white sauce and thin-sliced black truffles with cheese curds poured over them. Aaron wore a Wrath of Khan t-shirt and a pink hairnet, God help him.
“You went to St. Stephen's? The one in Sunset Hills?” I asked, astonished. Aaron didn’t seem like St. Stephen’s material. I wasn’t actually sure what kind of material he was.
“Yeah,” he said, staring over my head.
“Perfect,” I said. “Are those fries for me, by chance?”
Aaron sat down next to me and slid the plate over. I speared a fry and discovered a layer of short ribs underneath. Heaven. I was so distracted that I didn’t even realize that Uncle Morty had wolfed down half my fries.
“Hey.” I scooted the plate away from his hovering fork. “Get your own.”
“That is mine. I ordered it and this doofus gave my food to you. Gimme,” said Uncle Morty.
“I’m his favorite. Right, Aaron?”
“Huh?”
I stabbed a chunk of short rib and offered it to Uncle Morty, who ate it so slowly that the meat probably disintegrated in his mouth.
“You hungry?” asked Aaron.
“I was. Thanks for the fries. They’re amazing.”
“You want a burger?”
“I’m good.” I eyed his head. "Please take off that hairnet. It’s impossible to take you seriously.”
“Can’t. Rodney made me.”
Maybe taking it off wasn’t such a good idea. Rodney must’ve had his reasons.
“Okay, but does it have to be pink? You are a guy.”
Sort of.
“Pink?”
“Your hairnet is pink. Really, really pink. Like electric pink.”
He shrugged. I looked at Uncle Morty, who shrugged too and said, “Why do you care?”
“It’s a little strange.”
“Like that’s the only thing. Keep up,” he said. “Am I getting my own damn fries or what?”
Aaron started to get up, but I grabbed his arm. “Wait. Can you get me on campus?’
“Campus?” he asked.
Oh dear lord.
“St. Stephen’s. I need to get a look at their yearbook collection.” I forked a couple of fries into my mouth and batted my eyelashes at Aaron. Mort rolled his eyes. I don't know why I bothered. As far as I could tell, Aaron was A-sexual. I'd never heard him mention the opposite sex, same sex, or any sex. Period. Give me a little lip gloss, and I've been known to stop traffic. Aaron treats me like a favorite brother.
“I got four,” he said.
“Thanks, but I need ones from the forties,” I said.
“Pat works there. He'll get you on campus.”
I grinned at him. “Does Pat happen to work in the science department?”
“How'd you know?”
“Lucky guess. Do you think he can get me in tomorrow? I want to get this over with.”
“Yeah.” Aaron left and came back five minutes later with Morty’s poutine fries, extra truffles. “Pat said okay.”
“Thanks.” I relaxed. Tomorrow, all would be revealed. I hoped anyway.
Uncle Morty smacked his lips, clasped his arms behind his balding head, and said, “So I guess that means you owe Aaron a favor.”
Aaron was my investigating partner, so I owed him about a million favors, but this didn’t sound good.
“I suppose so. Okay. I have to go,” I said quickly.
“Not so fast. Aaron, can you think of anything you might need Mercy to do for you?”
“No,” Aaron said with a blank look on his face. Actually, it was pretty much his normal expression.
“Your cat?” said Morty.
“Cat? Who has a cat?” I asked.
“Aaron.”
I looked up at the little weirdo, who stared at the wall, completely disinterested. “Since when do you have a cat?”
“Thursday.”
“You got a cat on Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know how to take care of a cat?” I asked. Cat care was pretty basic, as long as it wasn’t Skanky the tinfoil eater, but Aaron couldn’t manage to keep his glasses clean so I had my doubts.
“Yeah.”
“What do you need then?”
Uncle Morty chuckled and scraped the remainder of his cheese sauce off his plate. “Crystal needs a sitter.”
“You named your cat Crystal?” That didn’t sound likely.
“Crystal is short for Dilithium Crystal,” said Uncle Morty when Aaron didn’t respond.
Of course it is.
“She needs a sitter,” he said. “We’re going to DragonCon.”
“When?” I asked.
“September.”
“Planning ahead, I see.”
“We gotta lock you down, or you’ll run off,” said Uncle Morty.
I might do that anyway.
“Fine. I’ll tak
e Crystal in September,” I said.
Aaron, who didn’t seem to have a clue, pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket. It was a feeding schedule and meal plan.
“Foie gras? Where did you get this cat? Buckingham Palace?”
“Humane society.”
I groaned. “I’ll take her, but she’ll eat cat food and she’ll like it.”
“She likes foie gras,” said Aaron.
“I bet, but she’s a cat. You’re going to clog her arteries.” I tried to hoof it out of there, but I wasn’t fast enough. Aaron gave me Crystal’s grooming schedule. I didn’t have to watch this cat for five months. What a nut bag. Even if St. Stephen’s was worth it, I wasn’t shampooing Crystal or any cats. Not gonna happen.
Scene Five
DO THOUGHTS MAKE things happen? If they do, I’m in trouble. I went to bed blissfully happy and woke up with something sticky plastered to my face. Skanky had broken into my stainless steel trashcan and bitten open a container of sweet and sour sauce. Then he rolled in it. Because why wouldn’t he?
I spent a good hour washing Skanky and cleaning the red out of the carpet. It doesn’t pay to think. Clearly.
It was ten before I drove through the St. Stephen’s sculpture garden and gave my name to the surly gate guard. He let me in after searching my trunk and purse. He wanted to give me a pat-down, but I threatened to call his boss. He looked so sad. Sleaze. The gate opened for me, and I drove away with my dignity intact. I don’t have much, but at least I kept it.
St. Stephen's was a good deal larger than Lorraine’s school and well-kept. They'd switched to co-ed a few years back and expanded their donor base considerably. I found the library and asked for the yearbook section. It didn't take me long to find the forties. I pulled out 1946 and 1947, slowly flipping through the pages and enjoying my own moment of nostalgia for a time I'd never known. I wondered what it was like to live when girls didn't ride in cars with boys and kids didn't shoot their classmates every so often.
Then I got to the senior class and found forty-odd boys who looked alike. They were all white with short, slicked-back hair and dark suits. If they'd been from a poor school, I'd have thought it was the same suit, but with St. Stephen’s, probably not. I decided to cut to the chase and look for who I expected to find. Harold Mosby was on page fifty-seven. I compared his face to the one in Edna's snapshot, but I couldn't decide. The snapshot was a side view. It could be him, but it could easily be someone else. I had a feeling it was him, probably because I wanted it to be him, but I just couldn't say for sure. I'd have to let Edna take a look. I'd seen a photocopier when I'd come in, but I needed quality, and the machine looked pretty basic. Plus, if the librarian saw what I was copying, she might put two and two together. If I was right about Harold and Lorraine, the whole world didn't need to know about it. At least not for a while. My other choice was borrowing the thing and taking my chances. By borrow, I meant steal and return. You can’t check out yearbooks. Since I didn't see any alarm tags in the yearbook, I guess they thought nobody would steal a 1946 yearbook. They'd be right, except for me, of course. I had no scruples when it came to the truth. I got that from my father. To him, the truth was the most important thing. Rules didn’t apply to Tommy Watts. That was one thing that everyone agreed on.
I wasn’t in the same category as my father. I was famous for getting caught, usually by my father, but still. In the last few years, I’d learned some tricks of the Watts trade. If I tried to be too sneaky, I’d get caught. Sometimes it's better to be bold and let people see what you're up to. If you look like you're supposed to be doing something, no one wants to insult you by asking a question. Keeping that thought in mind, I tucked the book under my arm and walked out the door. People noticed me. They always do, but no one said a thing. I gave the security guard a little wave, limped to my truck, and drove away with some smoking hot evidence.
Scene Six
EDNA'S RETIREMENT VILLAGE was as quiet as it had been earlier. A few of the other residents were walking their dogs under the budding maple trees, and they waved cheerfully as I drove in. I didn’t think Edna would be quite so pleased to see me. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Sister Monica at Lorraine’s library said Edna wasn’t volunteering today and that she’d be home. I would’ve called ahead, but Edna was a sharp old lady. She’d hear it in my voice. I was an accomplished liar, but I didn’t want to lie to her.
I parked next to her Honda Accord, went to her apartment, and rang the bell. Edna answered the door like she'd been standing on the other side of it, waiting.
“Hi, Mrs. Downing,” I said. “Sorry to bother you. Can I ask you a couple of questions?’
“What’s happened? You look terrible,” she said.
“Oh.” I looked down at myself. Everything went together and I wasn’t covered in cat hair. I thought I was doing pretty well, considering the cast.
“Sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I must be losing my tact as well as my mind. You look fine, quite beautiful, in fact. It’s just that you appear tired.” She waved me in to a different apartment, one with fresh flowers on the coffee table and the smell of a heavenly stew in the air.
“I am tired,” I said. “I had a cat incident this morning.”
“Your pet is okay, I hope.”
“He’s indestructible.”
Edna led me to the sofa and made me a cup of tea. “You called in reinforcements.”
“I hope you don’t mind. This is what Aunt Miriam does,” I said, hoping Aunt Miriam hadn’t overstepped her bounds…if she had any. I really wasn’t sure.
“Not at all. She showed up last night with a couple of novices. She made the stew and they cleaned this place from top to bottom. Then we talked. She made it clear that it’s not your fault.” Edna gave me a cup of jasmine tea and sat in the wingback chair opposite me.
“What isn’t?”
“All that nasty publicity about your cases and your face. It’s not your fault that you look the way you look and that you’re good at solving murders. It’s in your blood.” She sipped her own tea. “No one would say a thing if you didn’t have that face.”
“Aunt Miriam said I was good at something?” My mind was spinning. That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.
“Why do you sound so surprised? Miriam is your family.”
“That’s why I’m surprised. Aunt Miriam is my greatest critic. She loves me with grave reservations.”
Edna laughed. “We’re always hardest on the ones we expect the most of.” She handed me a framed photo of a balding man in his fifties. “That’s my son, John. He’s an appeals court judge. I have four boys, but I was the hardest on John. He resents it to this day, but you can see where he is. I knew he was the one.”
“What about the other ones?” I asked, feeling sorry for the other three who’d inspired so little devotion.
“Oh, they’re successful, all in their own way. Good boys, all three, but John had the brains. I refused to let him waste them. He gave it a good try though.” She laughed at the memories, and I hated to bring up Lorraine when she was in such a good place.
We sat for a moment, saying nothing.
“What have you got in the bag?” she asked after a bit.
I’d forgotten that I had the yearbook tucked away in a Whole Foods bag. “Something I want to show you, if you think you’re up to it.”
Edna took a breath and her eyes got all misty. I’d gone and ruined it, but what else could I do?
“I’m sorry. It’s just a picture. Nothing horrible,” I said.
“It’s not that. I’ve been thinking about what we spoke about yesterday. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I'm going to see Lorraine this afternoon. John is going to take me. He said he can make sure she sees me,” she said.
“I wish you wouldn't. You're obviously upset.”
“Of course, I'm upset.” Edna’s voice went tight with emotion. “I should've known. I should've done something.”
I clutched the offending
bag to my chest and shook my head. “We don't know anything. You're jumping to conclusions.”
“Don't treat me like a ninny.” She slammed her teacup down on the table. Tea ran along the edge of the table and dripped onto the floor. Edna took no notice of it. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m going to speak to Lorraine. It's the least I can do,” she said.
“Can you wait until I see her? I might save you a lot of trouble.”
“I can wait until tomorrow, but no longer. It’s already been nearly sixty years. Let me see the picture. I’d like to have done with it.”
I took out the yearbook and opened it to the page I'd marked with a bookmark. Before I'd come up to Edna's apartment, I'd covered the names on both pages with pink stickies. I hoped she wouldn't pull them off, looking for her answer that way. I squatted in front of her and held out the book. She leaned forward but didn't uncross her arms. She looked carefully at each picture and then looked at me.
“They all look the same,” she said.
“You don’t recognize anyone?”
A muscle twitched in her jaw. “He's there, isn't he? The one she killed.”
I closed the yearbook and sat on the floor. “I don't know. They all look alike to me, too.”
“But we know, don’t we?”
We drank the rest of our tea in silence, then I left. Edna promised to delay her visit to Lorraine, but I wasn't sure she'd keep her promise. She might've been humoring me. She looked a lot like Aunt Miriam when she was up to something. Of course, Aunt Miriam was nearly always up to something, and Edna was a nice old lady.
The day turned warmer, and a light spring drizzle started as I arrived at the lockup. Just what I needed and the wet pavement didn’t make me any faster. I was half soaked by the time I got through the door.
Donny was on duty again. I caught him with a Ding Dong halfway to his mouth and an untouched bag of carrot sticks on his desk.
“So much for the diet,” I said.
“A man can't live on carrot sticks alone,” Donny said.
“But I bet he can live on cream filling.”
He stuffed the rest of the Dingdong in his gullet and said, “Why’re you wet? We’ve got enough problems with the men in here. I don’t need this.”