Small Time Crime (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 10)

by A W Hartoin

  He batted his eyes again. “Do you want to know how it feels to come inside a corpse?”

  “That’s not exactly news I can use.”

  “You can’t use any of this,” he said. “It feels like pumping—”

  “Kenneth Young.”

  “That’s not interesting,” he said with a pout.

  “Try me.”

  “He’s not mine.”

  I raised an eyebrow and Bertram Stott told me that Robert Snider followed the reporter out of town, ran him off the road, and while he was dazed drowned him in a creek. Then he called Stott in Tennessee in a complete panic. Stott came and “used the body” before burying it on the grounds of one of the Augusta wineries. Stott drove Young’s VW until it got out on the news that a man who’d murdered several women had been driving a 1968 beige Beetle.

  “Ted Bundy?” I asked.

  He scowled. “Amateur. They thought he was so smart. If he was smart, he wouldn’t have been caught. You haven’t caught most of my family.”

  “You’ve been caught,” I pointed out. “Here I am.”

  “But I won’t go to prison. It’s just your word against mine.”

  “You’ll be arrested at the very least.”

  “I knew when I came back here I’d probably be found out.”

  “Why’d you do it then?” I asked.

  “I had to. I couldn’t get work anymore and appearing like other people was getting harder. I didn’t expect that nun to kick up a fuss at the building site and put that skinny hippy on my trail, but he was easy to put off.”

  “Tank Tancredi?”

  “Yes. Easily distracted that one.”

  “You call that easy. You burned down his business, his house, and killed his dogs.”

  “Yes, I killed them,” he said with a most horrible smile. “And not in the fire either.”

  He told me what he did to Tank’s dogs. I don’t want to say it was worse than what he did to Maggie, Kenneth, or all the others, but in those moments it was. Dogs and kids. Dad always said they were the hardest. As usual, he wasn’t wrong. I only hoped Tank and his family would never find out.

  “It’s so nice to share,” he said. “It takes me back.”

  My skin felt tight on my body, like I couldn’t quite fit into it anymore, and I began to wonder what was taking Chuck and the FBI so long. I wanted them to come and stop this horror, but they didn’t and I had to keep going.

  “Tell me more about the others,” I said. “You have other sites, not just Kansas.”

  “You’re not just a pretty face.”

  “Not right now.”

  He smiled and told me. He had sites in Rhode Island, Florida, and Kentucky. He told me about Janet Lee Fine and what he did. I decided to lie on the spot and swore to God that her parents would never hear what happened from me. If they asked me, I’d lie to their faces, and I wouldn’t be sorry.

  To make it worse, that little girl wasn’t the only one. Stott’s tastes varied and if he had a M.O., I couldn’t find it, unless you count insatiable. The woman in Tennessee was his one mistake. He’d gotten so good so young, he’d become careless. He was never careless again.

  “What about Dr. Desarno?” I asked. “Was that you or Robert?”

  “That again?” he asked. “It’s not nearly as interesting as that family in Newport. They still believe the father did it and ran off.”

  “Dr. Desarno.”

  He sighed and adjusted his oxygen level. “Yes, that was me. Robert wasn’t up to it. He was delicate. I was surprised he didn’t blow his head off earlier.”

  “He didn’t blow his head off,” I said.

  “No? I assumed the hunting accident was a story to tell the kids.”

  “His mother shot him, on purpose.”

  “Helen was a tough nut. I liked her and that tells you everything you need to know about her mothering,” he said.

  A knock on the door startled me and Mosbach said, “I think they’re heading this way. You better wrap it up.”

  “But I’m not done with you,” said Stott.

  “Bummer,” I said. “One more question.”

  “If you promise to visit while I’m briefly in jail.”

  “I told you I would.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  He frowned.

  “I’ll visit just like Blankenship,” I said.

  “Quality time with me isn’t like Blankenship. You know he’s only a garden variety psychotic.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Did you kill Father Dominic?”

  He licked his lips slowly and admitted he did it at Robert’s request. Chief Lucas had told people that Bishop Fowler thought Father Dominic was having an affair with Sister Maggie. Dominic seemed an obvious scapegoat and Robert was scared. His father noticed that he left the asylum and didn’t come back. Robert made up an excuse, but Davis was suspicious. Despite their own criminal history, Robert feared that killing a nun wasn’t going to be okay. So Stott called up the young priest and told him he had information about Maggie’s murder to lure him to the bridge.

  “He was a grown man. You were just a kid,” I said. “How’d you do it?”

  “We walked up on the bridge, I hit him in the head with a hammer, and threw him over.”

  “No one saw? How’d you manage it?”

  “I was lucky.”

  “Just lucky?”

  He smiled that smile again. “I’ve always been lucky.” Then he transformed into a helpless old man again. It was so creepy I shivered and he totally enjoyed it.

  “There were witnesses,” I said.

  “Were there?” he asked innocently. “A young man who happened to be taking a walk and a couple coming out of a bar, perhaps?”

  “You were a witness?” I was truly astonished by the audacity of it. “How?”

  “I told you that it’s easy when they’re stupid. It’s even easier when they’re drunk.”

  After Stott threw Dominic off the bridge, he went to a bar overlooking the river and waited for a couple to come out. He started yelling about a man falling off the bridge and when he got done with the drunk duo, they were convinced they’d seen it themselves. Stott was pretty proud of that and I had to admit it, he had skills.

  “So that’s why the three witnesses didn’t see the second person on the bridge,” I said.

  He smirked, picked something out of his yellowed teeth, and ate it.

  “Who was the fourth witness? The one that did see you.”

  That question wiped the smirk away and he said, “I couldn’t find out. The newspaper didn’t name them.”

  “What would you have done if they had?”

  “Guess.” The smirk came back.

  “I’m going to tell the FBI everything you told me,” I said.

  “No, you won’t. Not everything. You won’t tell him how I climbed on top of—”

  “Almost everything.”

  “They won’t be able to convict me on hearsay and that’s all you’ve got.”

  “Robert Junior confessed. He’s with the cops right now,” I said. “His kid will talk.”

  If Stott had an inkling of worry, he didn’t show it. Maybe he couldn’t feel fear. “And say what? He saw some pictures? Where are the pictures?”

  “We have the businesses that you worked for. You used their credit cards and vehicles to move bodies.”

  “I like to take road trips.”

  “The businesses can press charges for theft,” I said.

  “Statute of limitations.” Stott turned back into the horrid predator he was and he looked like he wanted to bite me. He probably did and that wasn’t the end of his desires. “Miss Watts, I don’t make mistakes. You won’t find a strand of DNA to connect me to any of what I’ve told you.”

  “They’ll throw everything they have at you.”

  “Even if they plant evidence, get witnesses to lie, it won’t matter,” he said with ultimate confidence. “Trials like the one you’re talking about take at least a
year. How long do you think I’m going to last?”

  I smiled at him. “I’m willing to give it a shot.”

  “The worst that will happen is that I’ll spend some pleasurable time at Hunt while they try to pick me apart.” He leaned forward. “I won’t come apart, Miss Watts.”

  “I believe you,” I said and turned to go.

  “Miss Watts.”

  I looked back and he tossed me something. I caught it, which probably wasn’t a good idea, but it was the switchblade that he’d been concealing in his lap.

  “I’d like you to have my favorite tool, since you alone know how many times I’ve used it and how much pleasure it gave me,” he said. “Put it in your panty drawer. Every time you get dressed you’ll think of me.”

  “I’ll put it in an evidence bag,” I said.

  His face distorted further. It hurt me to think that for so many that was the last face they saw. “You won’t find anything on it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  I went out and nearly ran Mosbach over.

  “Are you okay?” He was panting and sweat ran from his temples and stained his collar. “You were in there forever.”

  “I’m fine.” Totally horrified, but fine. “He confessed to everything or at least a lot of things.”

  “That won’t be enough, but we can get a warrant for his room.” Mosbach said something else but my legs started to buckle.

  Clarence grabbed me. “You have to get to the hospital.”

  “I need some air.” I walked as fast as I could without running, since running wasn’t an option in my braless state.

  Unfortunately, they chased after me. Stephanie said she’d get a wheelchair. Mosbach was on his walkie, asking where the hell the FBI was. Clarence was tearfully praying. I turned a couple of corners and said, “Please, just give me a minute. I need a minute.”

  They stopped at the nurse’s station and I followed the signs toward the exit alone. When I turned a corner, two men came walking toward me. I probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all, since I was so upset, but they were wearing what I guess you’d call leisure suits. They were straight out of the seventies, one wearing avocado and the other sickly beige. Both had fuzzy mustaches and feathered hair. They were so weird I questioned whether I was seeing actual live humans. It was St. Seb after all.

  When we crossed paths, they glanced at me and did a chin thrust, signaling that they knew me, but I didn’t recognize them. I nodded and turned the last turn to go to Mosbach’s cruiser, but standing at the exit was Chuck Watts, casually leaning on the handrail and looking at his phone.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  He looked up and he clenched his jaw for a second when he saw my face. “I’m waiting for you. Did you get it?”

  “You’re just standing there? I was talking to a serious psycho.”

  Chuck came to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Tommy told me to let you do what you do, so I did. Now did you get it?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Proof. Evidence,” he said. “I assume you didn’t go in there for kicks.”

  “That’s why you didn’t try to stop me? You thought I might get something on Stott?”

  “Mercy, my love, I’ve been trying to stop you and it just pisses you off. I thought I’d help for once and see how it works out. Did you get something on Stott?”

  I reached up and painfully pulled away a good portion of the bloody bandages over the splint on my face.

  “Wow…that’s really bad,” said Chuck as blood droplets started hitting the floor. “Maybe you should think about stopping that.”

  “Nope.” I peeled a little black disk attached to a wire and tiny battery pack off my nose and cheek.

  “Holy shit. You recorded him.”

  “I did.”

  Chuck looked down at me, his blue eyes getting all moist and red. “I’ve never loved you more.”

  “I’m not sure how to take that,” I said.

  “I want to kiss you so bad.”

  “Please don’t. My face is on fire.”

  “Hospital?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  BERTRAM STOTT WAS dead and he didn’t go easy. I went to the hospital, got enough X-rays to make me glow in the dark, while two men went into Stott’s room and severed his vocal cords. Then they made small, strategic cuts in his neck that spoke of their expertise, and Stott choked on his own blood slowly. Very slowly. I was still in the ER when Stott’s body was brought in. My doc guessed it took around fifteen minutes for him to die. Fifteen minutes is a long time, but not long enough in my opinion. Stott couldn’t suffer enough for me and I said so, which wasn’t the best idea. Luckily, the tiny body cam and voice recorder I wore worked. Fats always had the best equipment, thankfully, or I might have been suspected of killing Stott.

  The recording was clear and captured everything, but Gansa and Gordan crabbed that I didn’t always point my nose directly at Stott. It was a conversation. Give me a break! The FBI is never satisfied, not with me anyway. I was up half the night giving my statement over and over again. I fell asleep halfway through the fourth time and Gansa’s boss shook me awake. Chuck threw a fit and got me out of there, but not before they stuck a couple of rough sketches in front of my face. I wasn’t the only one who saw those two weirdos at the nursing home. Three nurses, including Stephanie, saw them. She said that they looked like they stepped out of a 1975 Sears catalog. Mosbach and Clarence saw them, but were so transfixed by the clothes and hair, they couldn’t give the remotest description of the men’s features. Mosbach thought they were white, but he couldn’t swear to it. I was no better. I could pick the suits out of a lineup, but not a face or even a build or height. They were taller than me. That’s not hard and Clarence thought they were wearing lifts. They left no prints and were so good that when the nursing trio went in to check on Stott a half hour after I left, they thought he was asleep. No blood and they’d superglued the incisions closed. Somebody heard something fall a couple hours later and that’s when they found Stott’s body on the floor.

  The seventies guys were back in the current decade and long gone. They wouldn’t be found and while the cops and FBI were putting on a good show, nobody gave a crap. Doc said Stott had two months to live on the outside. He wasn’t going to trial. I got asked repeatedly who I thought might’ve murdered Bertram Stott. I played dumb, which is easy to do when your face is covered in bandages and the guy asking is looking at your breasts when he asks. And I didn’t know who killed him, but I damn well knew who ordered it. My vocal cords may as well have been cut ‘cause I was never ever going to say it.

  When Fats came into the ER, I said, “Stott’s dead.”

  She nodded, gave me a look, and that was it. Calpurnia Fibonacci let me investigate and she delivered the sentence. Justice and it was quick.

  Two days later, I was curled up next to Irene and Lefty’s wood stove and there was a party going on. If you haven’t seen law enforcement celebrate, let’s just say, everything’s Irish and the stories never stop. And Tommy Watts was the biggest storyteller of them all.

  Dad was in his element with the FBI agents, firefighters, locals hanging on his every word. I’d traded my recording of Stott and his switchblade for a statement at the press conference that the bureau had misjudged my father, they apologized, and welcomed him back into the fold where he always should have been. Mom was so happy she did the ugly cry and I got credited for assisting the FBI in their investigation into the death of Sister Maggie. Nobody had said I was a brainless dingbat so far and they wouldn’t if they wanted me to talk to Blankenship or any other psycho in the future.

  It was all worth it just to see my parents smiling. Mom was out in public, not hiding or covering her mouth. The droop was still there, but even that seemed better. My dad was back with a vengeance and was already scheduled to teach a seminar on work/life balance while tracking murdere
rs. One breakdown and he was an expert. Mom was in the kitchen making five kinds of bread pudding with Aaron and Grandma Janine in hopes that it would soak up some of the alcohol. Grandad was talking bachelor parties with Tiny and Fats.

  When Tiny heard his beloved had suffered an injury on the news, he hightailed it down to St. Seb with The Girls in tow. My cousin, the big sweetheart, walked into Miss Elizabeth’s, took one look at the stitches on Fats’ face and dropped to one knee.

  “Mary Elizabeth Licata, you are the woman I dreamed of and never believed existed, will you marry me?”

  Fats tried to hold it but broke down in tears and dropped to her knees to kiss his face off. They had to get a room. I wish I could unsee that.

  Later, when they emerged, she cornered me. “How did you do it?”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “I’ve been a little busy, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “You didn’t tell him about the baby?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Fats frowned, wrinkling her stitches. “Then why did he do it?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. He loves you madly.”

  She got all shifty-eyed. “Ya think?”

  “It’s not because he knows and he had to. He saw those stitches, thought about losing you, and did what he’s been wanting to do since he met you.”

  “It was love at first sight,” she said.

  “I know I was there.”

  “Do you remember when we were in your truck and he said—”

  I held up my hand. “Do not take me back. I’ve never heard anything so clean and dirty at the same time.”

  She had a good laugh and then asked, “When should I tell him? I can hardly wait.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Let him enjoy this moment fully. Then he can enjoy that one the same way.”

  “For someone so uptight you can make sense every once in a while.”

  “Thanks and I’m not uptight,” I said. “You’ve seen me on the DBD covers.”

  “Those are just pictures, not who you really are,” said Fats.

  It was my turn to get teary-eyed. “Thanks.”

  “I wish I could do something about your face.”