by A W Hartoin
I spotted a thin strip of a slider door with a balcony beyond. I pointed at it as Catherine said she wasn’t coming into work after all and she nodded at me. I did my best not to run for it. I may not have succeeded. I don’t know. I was that desperate to get out. I pulled back the drapes and unlocked the slider, preparing to squeeze myself out when Catherine said, “Everything’s fine. I have a guest.” She glanced at me. “Mercy Watts.”
I went through the opening and found myself on a deck that did not belong to the same person. It couldn’t. It was clean with matching furniture and a little barbecue that didn’t have so much as a smudge. I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the interior as I checked out the view, a nice one over a small park with other lofts on the other side. If anyone was looking at Catherine’s loft they’d see a perfect place. There were drapes on the inside of the slider, hiding the inside completely.
“Mercy?” Catherine looked out.
“Uh huh?”
“He wants to talk to you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“My boss, Mr. Calabasas.” She gave me the phone and disappeared inside.
“Hello,” I said.
“Did you tell her?” he asked.
“No. Have you been here?”
“Where?”
“Here,” I said. “Catherine’s place.”
He hadn’t been there. Catherine was a private person and didn’t have parties. He was anxious to tell me that she came to his house and that she was lovely. Mr. Calabasas sensed something was off, but he didn’t want to know.
“What about her father?” I asked.
He paused and then said, “Why do you ask?”
“He needs to come here.”
“Why?”
“Trust me.”
“Are you going to tell her about the pictures?” he asked.
I said I would and he was worried that I would be harsh with her. I wouldn’t. I hated what Catherine did, but I didn’t want to hurt her anymore. She was hurting herself. Living in that place was punishment enough.
“Everything alright?” she asked me through the opening in the slider.
“Yes and no,” I said. “Can you come out?”
“I’d rather you come in here.”
Nope. Can’t do it.
“Can we please talk out here? It’s nice out. Crisp and the leaves are beautiful.”
“I’m more comfortable in here,” she said.
That said a lot about Catherine and it freaked me out. She was more comfortable in that stink hole. Not a good sign. I wanted to hate her. But how do you hate someone like that? I didn’t know much about hoarders, just the little mentioned during my psych classes and rotation. I thought it was an obsessive compulsive disorder linked to depression, but I’d never seen it, unless you counted Uncle Morty and collections. I didn’t after meeting Catherine. She wasn’t coming out of that self-made hellhole and I was trying to figure out if I could gracefully climb down the fire escape to avoid going back in when I left.
“How about you stay there and I hang here?” I asked.
She breathed out a tense breath and agreed. I turned a chair around and calmly told her why I was there, starting with Big Steve roping me in. She didn’t interrupt. She barely blinked.
“So,” I said, “I told Big Steve that you need security until we catch the guy. It might take a while and I think it’s a mistake not to involve the police, but he insisted that I try my hand before we involve them.”
“You’re making this up,” she said finally. “It’s ridiculous.”
“I agree, but here we are.”
Catherine held herself tightly, crossing her bare feet over each other, and scrunching her head down into the fat collar of her robe. “Why would you believe those things about me? What did I ever do to you?”
“Are you saying nobody threw urine on you this morning?” I asked.
She bit her lip.
“Catherine, I saw the pictures and my expert convinced me that it’s you. He doesn’t have a motive to do that. Nobody wanted it to be you.”
“It’s not.”
“He matched your stretch marks and your birthmark. There wasn’t any doctoring of the photos. It’s you.”
“No.”
A flame started inside me, white-hot and sizzling. “You’re having sex with my friend’s husband. I’ll help you because you desperately need it, but don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not having sex with anyone but my boyfriend.”
She emphasized the word sex and she looked me in the eye when she said it. Catherine didn’t think she was having sex with those men. She really didn’t.
“So if you’re not having sex with those men, Theo knows all about them?” I asked. “Has he seen the pictures?”
She swallowed hard.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“With married men.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not my fault they’re married.”
“That’s a weird way to put it,” I said. “You know and you do it anyway. Why?”
Catherine sank to the floor and blubbered into her knees. “I don’t know. It’s just something I do.”
“Okay. We’ll leave it at that.”
“You hate me,” she said.
“I don’t hate you.” Much.
“You do. I can tell. Girls always hate me,” she wailed.
Imagine that.
“Has anyone ever threatened you before?” I asked.
She wiped her nose on a very used tissue she pulled out of her pocket. “Maybe.”
“Catherine, you’re killing me. Who threatened you?”
“Joe’s wife.”
“Joe Hove?”
“Uh-huh.”
Patty Hove tracked down Catherine and showed up at the loft. She told her to leave her husband alone or else. The “or else” was not defined, but Catherine had no intention of getting back with Joe. She was the one that dumped him. Interestingly, Patty had confronted Catherine two months ago, right after Joe was dumped. Patty wasn’t shy. She didn’t muck about with emails, Facebook, or even a phone call. She looked her rival in the eye and she wasn’t afraid to do it. Didn’t sound like a urine thrower to me.
“It was only the one time?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Anybody else?”
There had been a few harsh words over the years, but Catherine seemed genuinely mystified about the pain she caused. As far as she was concerned, they were consenting adults and she didn’t make anyone do anything. She had a point, but I tried to explain that there’s a sisterhood and you don’t betray the sisterhood. She didn’t understand that. Catherine wasn’t in the girl club. The last female friend she had was her mother and that made me so sad I found it difficult to focus on how much I loathed her.
“You need a friend,” I said after a moment.
“I have friends.”
“Those men aren’t your friends.”
She watched me with those swollen eyes and I was at a loss to explain what she was missing out on. I had male friends, of course, but it wasn’t the same as Ellen. I needed that warmth that only a best girlfriend had.
“Tell me about your work,” I said after a moment.
That’s when she brightened up. Work was her salvation. She loved it. The detail. The organization. The hunt for the hidden. She was working on a special project at the moment and expected it to take months. It was confidential and she wouldn’t give me even the smallest of hints about it.
“It’s a big deal then?” I asked.
“I can’t say.”
“You just did.”
She bit her lip.
“Okay just nod if the answer is yes,” I said.
“I can’t. It’s confidential.”
“General questions. That’s all.”
Catherine pulled her knees in tight to her chest and nodded.
“Is there a possible crime?” I asked.
<
br /> Nod.
“Murder?”
She shook her head.
“White collar.”
Nod.
“Big money?”
Nod.
“Huge money?”
Nod.
“I really can’t tell you anything, Mercy, and I don’t see what it has to do with anything.”
I stood up and looked off the balcony. “Money and sex are the biggest motives there are and now we have both.”
Catherine tried to give me tea, but I couldn’t force myself to accept it, making a lame excuse. She looked at me with a hint of hope. She thought I could be a friend. I couldn’t be her friend. Clem would never forgive me. Heck, I wouldn’t forgive myself.
So I refused the tea and got a few more details on the men. Catherine didn’t believe for a moment that any of them would hurt her. She dumped some. Some dumped her. Wives and girlfriends found out, but for the most part they sounded like rational people.
When I ran out of questions, I did what Mom would consider unforgivably rude. I don’t remember what I said or what excuse I gave. I’m sure it was stupid. Unforgivable was probably spot on, but I did it anyway and I’m not proud. I climbed down the fire escape, feeling saturated with unhappiness and guilt. I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve sucked it up, but I didn’t. The misery was seeping into my skin and taking ahold of my heart. The last two months had been hard enough. I couldn’t take anymore.
With my feet on the ground and breathing clean, crisp air, I called Uncle Morty. I’d have to work my way through Catherine’s list, unless he came up with something fast. There were about a million things I’d rather do than talk to Catherine’s lovers.
“You again,” Uncle Morty said. “Didn’t I just get rid of you?”
I stopped at the side of the building and leaned on a parking structure pillar. “I need you to get into Elite Accounting and find out what Catherine’s working on.”
“Aren’t you there? Friggin’ ask her.”
“I did. It’s confidential and she takes that seriously,” I said.
“So she’s alive?”
“Puhlease.”
“You were the maddest I’ve seen you since Tommy charged that boyfriend of yours with Grand Theft Auto,” he said.
“First of all, he wasn’t my boyfriend and second, he went joyriding in his aunt’s Pontiac.”
“He was a bad seed,” said Uncle Morty.
I rolled my eyes. “He was fifteen and an honor student.”
“Bad seed.”
“Since when do you believe in bad seeds?” I asked.
“Since that kid’s doing five to fifteen on felony assault,” he said.
Dammit.
“Are you going to look into Catherine’s accounts or what?”
“Don’t we think this is personal?”
“People take money very personally,” I said.
Uncle Morty grumbled, but he agreed. I hung up and started to walk to the entrance of the covered parking, but I didn’t get far. Standing just inside were two people I hoped never to see together. I considered turning tail and running, but I had to face the music or in this case the anger and recriminations.
Mom and my super hacker, Spidermonkey, watched me silently. He looked rather horrified in his lime green cashmere sweater and elegantly tied scarf. Mom was pissed with hot pink spots of indignation on her cheeks that were barely visible above the upturned collar of her heaviest coat.
“Carolina Watts.” Mom pointed at me.
“Sorry, Mercy,” said Spidermonkey. “I didn’t know she’d be here.”
“You’re cheating on your uncle. How could you?”
“Well…it’s not really cheating,” I said.
“Does he know that you’ve hired his rival?” Mom asked.
“Why does my luck always suck?” I asked. “Other people have good luck.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Spidermonkey. “When I realized we were both looking for you, I should’ve left, but I didn’t, and she recognized me.”
Mom patted his arm. “It’s not your fault. You’re lovely. Get over here, Mercy.”
I dragged my feet, but I went over to smacking distance. “How in the world did you recognize him? Most people think Spidermonkey is a skater.”
“Not Morty,” said Mom. “He used to have a dartboard with Spidermonkey’s picture on it.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Morty called me,” she said. “He thought I could talk to you and stop you from doing something rash, but you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I’m going to do something rash to him.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“Why didn’t he just come?” I asked.
“I told him I’d send Grandad so he gave me the address,” said Mom.
“And people wonder where I get it from.”
“You’ve been lying to me, your father, and Morty for months. I can’t believe you’re my daughter. I taught you better than this.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You obviously didn’t. You’re here. Where does Dad think you are?”
She put her nose in the air. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Mom.”
Dad thought Mom was at my apartment because she was for a little while. Mrs. Sims called. My Alexa went off again and she had had it. Dana, Big Steve’s temp, talked Dad into letting Mom go and I could’ve kicked her for it.
“I thought Chuck unplugged it,” I said.
“Well, he didn’t and here I am,” Mom said. “I can’t believe you.”
“How did you get here?”
“I took an Uber.” Mom gave me the stink eye. “How did you get here? We discovered each other because we were both searching for your truck. I thought Morty was wrong. But you’re here. Where’s your truck?”
I told her the truth because she knew better than anyone Dad could not find out about my truck. Then I went through the Catherine stuff because I’m crazy like that and saying it out loud helped me to think.
“You gave this to Morty?” asked Spidermonkey.
“Well, I had to. Big Steve already told him about it. Why wouldn’t I?”
Mom took my arm and stifled a yawn before asking, “How is he?”
“Morty? I don’t know. Weird. I mean, weirder than usual.”
She and Spidermonkey exchanged a look.
“What?”
“You don’t remember Jodie, do you?” asked Mom. “She was Morty’s wife. Briefly.”
I didn’t remember Jodie or that Uncle Morty had ever been married. Apparently, they divorced when I was four after Uncle Morty discovered she’d been cheating on him with several men. According to Mom he went into a tail spin that lasted a couple of years.
“That’s why he doesn’t work on cheating wife cases,” Mom said.
“He does,” I said.
“Name one.”
I couldn’t. “Are you sure that’s why he’s sweating and acting weird? It’s a lot, a whole lot.”
“That’s why.”
“I can take it over,” said Spidermonkey. “This has to be painful for Morty. The cheating was pretty bad.”
“So you knew about Jodie, too? Does everyone know?” I asked.
“No. Clearly, Big Steve doesn’t. He thinks they fell out over money,” said Mom. “Morty didn’t tell people obviously.”
“I only know because Morty stopped working for a period of time and I got curious about why.” Spidermonkey took Mom’s other arm. “You’re tired. I’ll drive you both home.”
“Why did you come?” I asked him.
“You sounded like you might hurt someone.”
We got in Spidermonkey’s Jag and Mom said, “Catherine sounds pathetic. Why would you want to hurt her?”
I considered not telling Mom about Clem’s husband, but if anyone knew what to do, it would be her. “So I have to tell her, right?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Tell John
that you know and it’s his job to confess,” said Mom.
Spidermonkey nodded and drove without comment.
“What if he won’t tell her?” I asked.
“Then you tell her,” she said.
“This sucks.”
Mom reached over her seat and I took her hand. “It does, but maybe they’ll be stronger for it.”
“You think?”
“Could be,” said Mom. “Now let’s discuss our next move.”
“We don’t have a next move. You’re going to nap and I’m going to see John at La-Z-Boy.”
“I meant about The Klinefeld Group.” She looked at Spidermonkey. “What have you got?”
He glanced back at me and I shrugged. “I told her everything.”
“Except about me.”
“Except that.”
Spidermonkey drove into the Central West End as lunch was winding down. “Can you use a hot chocolate? I could.”
“Mom doesn’t like to be out in public,” I said.
“She’s out right now.”
“I am,” said Mom. She seemed surprised by the fact. “I had to find out what you were up to and I didn’t think about it.”
“That’s kind of good,” I said.
“I guess it is. I wasn’t self-conscious at all. What do you have in mind, Spidermonkey? Aaron does hot chocolate for Mercy, but we can’t go to Kronos. It will get back to Tommy or Morty eventually. You’re quite striking.”
“Mom, don’t flirt with Spidermonkey,” I said.
“I’m not flirting. It’s a fact. People will remember him.”
I couldn’t deny that. Silver hair and a lime green sweater combined with us. Forget about it. Spidermonkey chose what he called “the competition”, Handcrafted By Bissinger’s, and Mom agreed, buoyed by her recent boldness but mostly because she didn’t think she’d see anyone she knew.
I was less enthusiastic although I’d loved Bissinger’s since the first molasses sucker Grandad gave me. Pure pleasure. That was back when Bissinger’s was on McPherson and I still missed the original shop that was pure chocolatier with the icy dark interior and the wall-to-wall dark wood cases where I’d get to pick a treat if I was very good, which wasn’t very often I’m sorry to say.
The venue was different now. You could sit down in a chic spot, still with dark wood but not quite the same. I only went there on the rare occasion because Aaron caught the scent of a stranger’s hot chocolate on my breath once and it was like I kicked him in the heart. I went when he was out of town at Star Trek conventions or Dragoncon or Nerdcon or whatever, but I still felt guilty about it for days.
