Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 9)

by A W Hartoin

I didn’t have the strength to break out the vacuum so I gave up and went to bed, only to be woken up by NPR blaring at quarter to six. I’ve never listened to NPR in my life. Why the Alexa chose that was beyond me. I ran out and told it to shut up. She did, but there was something in the way her lights zipped around her top that told me this wasn’t over.

  Going back to bed wasn’t an option. I was so awake I felt like I’d put my finger in a socket. Li Shou was awake, too. Last night, I’d put him next to his cage to see if he’d go in it. He didn’t. He was in the exact same spot. I could’ve drawn around his claws and he wouldn’t have gone outside the lines.

  I fed him and Skanky, who gave me a look of pure disdain. I suspect the building was not feeding him cat food but something more tasty like steak or kidneys. Thanks a lot people. I ate my yogurt, washed my scrubs from the day before, and found the only clean set I had stuffed in the back of my armoire behind Grandad’s Mauser. They were covered in ice cream cones and lollipops. I bought them because I thought they were cute and kids would like them. Kids liked them just fine, but so did every man I came in contact with and they felt compelled to ask me if I wanted to be licked. Then acted affronted when I didn’t enjoy the comments. Awesome.

  Shawna called at seven, saying she couldn’t wait any longer. She’d been up at four, freaking out about Beth Babcock and the incoming lawsuit. When she took a breath, I told her I had a friend that would handle it for free, but she wasn’t soothed until I name-dropped Big Steve.

  Then she gave me my assignment for the day. No good deed goes unpunished. The clinic was closed because of structural integrity issues and we were doing home health. I didn’t mind that, but I got Mr. Cadell, the rogue diabetic, because he was the one patient we hadn’t seen. He threw a right little old fit about professionalism and made the senior care van take him home. I would have to go there and it wasn’t a good thing. Mr. Cadell’s house smelled like a humongous cat pan and he didn’t even have a cat. He always made me clean his kitchen and he was due for a foot soak and toenail trim. I tried to get out of it. I’d seriously pay someone else to fill in, but Shawna pointed out that he only liked me, evidenced by the one encyclopedia he threw at me last time, not the six he threw at Shawna.

  I agreed because I had no choice, spending the morning with lovely people, doing blood draws and strep tests, checking ears and giving shots. Then I got to Mr. Cadell. He refused to let me in and called me a smelly slut. I considered that a success. I’d been called worse and he was alive. We were always worried we’d be the ones to find him dead. Shawna didn’t agree with me and said I had to go back the next day and try again. Swell.

  Since I didn’t have to spend the rest of my afternoon debriding Mr. Cadell’s remaining foot, I decided to treat myself to a pedicure. Uncle Morty must’ve sensed my happiness because he called during toe art.

  “Whattayawant?” he said it so loud the whole place heard him.

  My pedicurist raised her perfect eyebrows at me and I shrugged. “You called me, Uncle Morty.”

  “Yeah. Well. I’m doing it.”

  I contained my smiley voice and said, “Never mind. I’ll call Spidermonkey.”

  “If you call that poaching bastard, I’ll…” he said.

  I waited, but nothing came after the I’ll.

  “What?” I asked. “What will you do?”

  “I’ll disinherit you,” he said in triumph.

  “Puhlease. I’m not getting anything. You’re leaving it all to your college.”

  “You know about that.”

  “I do. Now what?”

  He grumbled and said, “I did the work. Get over here.”

  I could’ve tortured him for a while, but I couldn’t work up the energy. Worrying about dealing with Mr. Cadell really took it out of me. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  Uncle Morty’s apartment, formerly musty and filled with nerd crap, was now neat, nerd-filled but organized and best of all smelled like lamb shanks and spicy tomato sauce. I didn’t have to move a single pizza box to sit down. I almost didn’t know where I was.

  “Where’s Nikki? Smells fantastic in here.”

  “Helping Aaron,” said Uncle Morty, settling in at his desk with all five monitors fired up.

  “What’s Aaron doing?” I asked

  “I don’t give a crap. We’re working here.”

  “Alright. Alright,” I said. “I take it you’ve got Catherine’s harasser.”

  “No, I friggin’ don’t.”

  The emails to Catherine’s work had been sent from a burner phone, paid for with cash at a Walmart in Toronto of all places. The messages had been sent from various locations around the country, using open wifi at airports. One was sent from a bar in St. Louis. The only local one. No home wifi.

  “You can find all that out from a jpeg?”

  “Yeah. It ain’t that hard.”

  I sat back and crossed my arms. “It’s a little creepy.”

  “Digital age. Nothing’s private.”

  “But you can’t find who’s sending them?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’ll find out, but it will take time,” he said, rubbing his hands together. Challenge issued. Challenge accepted.

  “How in the world?”

  It wasn’t as hard as I would’ve thought. Uncle Morty would start with where the messages were sent, Dulles in D.C. for instance. He’d find the terminal that the message came out of using the I.P. address and maybe even the section if the pings were tight enough. Then he’d do the same at the other places, cross referencing until he found some person that was in those places at the right times.

  “That’s a tremendous amount of data, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll get the flight manifests.”

  “But that’s probably thousands of people during the time frame and we’re assuming they sent it from the terminal that they were flying out of.”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy,” he said.

  I bit my lip, rolling this information around in my mind. “That sounds pretty sophisticated.”

  Uncle Morty narrowed his beady eyes at me from beneath freshly-trimmed eyebrows. “I do good work.”

  “Of course you do. I meant that it sounds sophisticated for a betrayed spouse.”

  “Anyone with a triple digit IQ can figure it out. Throwaway cell and they travel.”

  We were silent for a few minutes. I had a feeling and it wouldn’t go away. Something wasn’t right.

  Uncle Morty finally said, “She’s pissed. The wife or dude she dumped is pissed. Pissed equals motivated.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “But if I’m a betrayed spouse, I’m fired up, right? I want to hurt Catherine. I get the pictures. I send the pictures. Immediately. Bam. Bam. Bam. This is so controlled. Planned.”

  “So she’s a control freak,” he said.

  “But why would anyone do this? What’s the point?”

  He steepled his fingers and stared at his main monitor. “Revenge.”

  I scooted over beside him. “But why send it to her work?”

  “That’s pretty humiliating. That chick…woman wouldn’t want people to see that crap. They want her fired.”

  “If it were me, I’d send it to her boyfriend.”

  Uncle Morty got thoughtful and his hands went to his keyboard, but he didn’t type. “Unless she wasn’t with that guy when this shit was going on.”

  “Maybe. But she’s enraged enough to send these pictures. Does she really care about the timeline?”

  “Could be the lover doing it,” he said.

  “He really wouldn’t care.”

  Uncle Morty started typing. “A new one came in today.”

  “Is it the same thing?” I cringed a little.

  “It’s got another message.” He pulled up the text, mercifully without the picture. “‘Catherine Cabot is a whore. Get rid of her.’”

  “That’s it? Pretty generic.”

  “It ain’t very creative. I’ll give you that.”

  “How man
y emails do we have all together?” I asked.

  “Nine,” he smiled. “What are you thinking?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. What are those locations again?”

  He pulled up a list and printed it for me. Phone purchased in Toronto. Emails sent from a bar in St. Louis, Dulles airport, and Miami.

  “What’s the point of sending more than one, do you think?” I asked.

  “They’re different pictures.”

  “How different?”

  He clicked a few keys and I yelped, holding up my hand to block the screen. “Just tell me.”

  “Some are boob shots and more of the other…parts.”

  “But are they worse? Do they make some different kind of point?”

  He elbowed me. “Just look, ya freaking wuss.”

  “I’m probably going to have to talk to this woman at some point, whether she knows about this or not. I don’t want this in my head when I do it.”

  “You’ve shot a guy in the face. How bad can this be?”

  He was right, of course. I’d done all kinds of gross stuff, usually in a nursing capacity, but this was private, intimate. I didn’t want to know that stuff about anyone.

  Uncle Morty pushed down my hand and Catherine was all over the monitors. If she’d known this was going to happen, I bet she wouldn’t have taken a single shot. We could do anything with those pictures. Twitter, Facebook. Anything at all. That brought me back to the work thing. It wasn’t the best revenge, if that was what they were going for. Firing seemed like a weird thing to ask for. Who was this person? Who was Catherine? She was the key.

  “Catherine Cabot sent these to someone. Why in the hell would anyone do that? And who would she send them to?”

  “Somebody she trusted,” he said. “That Weiner guy did it and football players seem to have a thing.”

  “Those are men.”

  “So what?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems like more a guy thing than a girl thing,” I said.

  “It’s her thing. I know a guy who’s into women’s shoes.”

  I sneered at him. “Again, a man. Why would a woman like that do…that? I mean gross.

  He sat back, his eyes roving over the screens, a clinical interest. “A woman like what. What is she?”

  “Normal, I thought. Big Steve says she does charity work. What else do we know?”

  “Not a flipping thing other than she’s got a boyfriend.”

  “Why not?

  “You didn’t ask me to profile your victim.”

  I stood up and slung my purse over my shoulder. “Well, profile her then. Catherine knows somebody who would do that to her. I want to know who she is really.”

  “Who’s paying?” Uncle Morty asked, back to rubbing his greedy hands together.

  “Who do you think?”

  “You. Ya sucker.”

  I headed for the door. “Big Steve. Cabot III is loaded and motivated.”

  He shrugged and got to work, typing furiously.

  I was going to leave, but those pictures kept coming back to me. I tried to banish them, but they wouldn’t go. The more they came the more I started to get a feeling, a Tommy Watts kind of a feeling. I hadn’t had one in a while and I hadn’t missed it. The feeling that something wasn’t right always came right before me getting a huge pain in the butt.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Uncle Morty. “Get out.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Hurry up.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause I said.”

  Has there ever been a more parental phrase ever spoken? I don’t think so. I think it really means you’re annoying and pointless so go away. But parents can’t say that.

  “Mercy. Now.”

  I got out, but I wasn’t quick about it and he just about got out of his chair. If you knew Uncle Morty, you’d know he was against getting out of his chair period and would usually only move for food. Anger worked too though.

  I didn’t make it home before the phone rang. I expected it to be Morty either with information or complaining, probably both. But it was Mrs. Sims. She wasn’t so much complaining as enraged. My Alexa was on again. First, she was giving the weather report and then back to salsa.

  “Please don’t call management,” I begged. “It’s my Alexa. I’ll fix it.”

  “You had better, Mercy,” she said. “We put up with a lot from you because you’re a nice girl in spite of you know what.”

  You know what?

  “But this is beyond the pale. Technology is ruining our lives. Throw that thing away.”

  “I’ll unplug it. I swear,” I said as I parked and dashed up the stairs.

  The music was louder than the day before. Alexas had good speakers, but this was ridiculous. I fumbled with the lock and flung open the door. “Alexa, stop music!”

  Instant stop. Thank goodness.

  This really sucked. The Alexa was the best gift Chuck had given me and he’d given me a lot, mostly against my will. He finally asked me what I wanted. I said I’d take an Alexa, if that was the last thing he got me. He got her and that was the end of the insane guilt gift giving. Chuck was not going to be happy and even worse he might start buying me stuff again. I’d managed to get it all sorted, returned, etc. I couldn’t go through that again.

  I got my laptop and started looking through the help section on Amazon. Nobody was having the problem I was. I would have to ask Uncle Morty. He’d come over, plant himself on the sofa, and tell me I was stupid.

  “I’d rather buy a new Alexa,” I said to Skanky, except Skanky wasn’t there. Li Shou was. Still in the same spot, but I think he had eaten so at least he wouldn’t starve to death before The Girls got back.

  “Skanky?” I went around the apartment and sure enough that cat was gone. I found him at Mrs. Humbolt’s licking his chops and so bloated he looked like someone had stuffed him with newspaper.

  “What did you feed him?” I asked the little old lady who couldn’t have a cat because Mr. Humbolt was allergic.

  “Pâté. He likes it.”

  “I bet. You know, I do feed him.”

  She looked doubtful so I left it at that and carried my happy cat back up to the sofa where he promptly threw up. “Why do you do this? You know you get sick.”

  Skanky yarked again. Let the cleaning begin. I should really have stock in Spot Shot.

  I got the sofa cleaned and desmelled before my phone rang again. The only good news was that it wasn’t about my music. It was Dad and I very nearly gave up on life.

  “What did you do?” I asked plopping down next to an unrepentant cat.

  “Nothing,” said Dad. “I’m going to go find your mother, but that new secretary that you hired won’t let me. I don’t like her.”

  “Then I do. What’d you do to Mom?”

  “I was worried.”

  “And?”

  “I picked the lock on the bathroom door to make sure she was okay.”

  “Was she?”

  “Yes, but I had to be sure.”

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She threw a shampoo bottle at me.”

  I’m surprised it wasn’t worse.

  “Did she drive?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dad. “Oh my god!” He dropped the phone.

  And now it’s worse.

  I yanked Alexa’s plug out of the wall and ran out, jogging down the stairs and wishing I had on a better bra. Mom was always telling me about support, but did I listen? No. I had to wear pretty bras. Idiot.

  Where would Mom go? Not to the Bled Mansion. Too obvious. But people did do things over and over again. Look at me and the pink polka dotted number I had on.

  The Bled Mansion it was. I jogged over and the phone rang.

  “She didn’t drive. Thank God.” Dad sounded funny.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just a little woozy.”

  “Did you eat?”

  “I m
ight’ve.”

  That meant no.

  “Dad, why do you do that? It makes no sense.”

  I skidded to a halt. People did do things over and over. Things that didn’t make any sense. Things that ultimately hurt them. Things that were gross.

  “Don’t lecture me, girl. I was a—”

  “Gotta go, Dad.”

  “What about Mom?”

  “I’ll find her. You sit down. Right now. Sit down.”

  I hung up and called Uncle Morty as I took a wide turn and nearly face-planted into a tree.

  “Whattayawhat?” he asked.

  “People do…things over…and over,” I gasped.

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Catherine. Pictures.”

  “Are you running? You know you can’t run. You’ll get sued.”

  I turned onto the alley behind Hawthorne Avenue and jogged up to the Bled’s garage/stable, quickly keying my code in. “Mom took off again.”

  “Ah crap.”

  “Did Tommy go out?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hurry up and find her.”

  “What do you think I’m doing.”

  “Callin’ me.”

  “Oh, yeah. The pictures.” I sucked in a breath. “Are they time stamped?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, take a look and tell me. There might be more than one guy.”

  He hemmed and hawed as I walked through the back garden. The fall blooms were in full force and it finally looked normal after The Girls denuded the summer foliage to take flowers to the hospital for Mom.

  “Are you looking or what?”

  “Yeah, I’ll look tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Look now.”

  He hung up on me. What in the world? He loved rooting around in people’s lives, finding things that they were trying to hide. I called back as I trotted up the back stairs.

  No answer. Great.

  Please let her be here.

  The house was open. Thank goodness. I whipped open the door and yelled, “Mom! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m not going back!” Mom yelled from somewhere in the house. It was a big house. It could be coming from anywhere. I hoped she wasn’t in my room. I was so over stairs.

  I called Uncle Morty again and again. He answered on the third try.

  “What’s that noise?” I asked. “Is someone singing over there?”