A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red

by A W Hartoin

  I shifted in the seat, leaned over, and batted my eyes with a slightly open mouth a la Marilyn. “Did you ask nicely?”

  Derek scooted back and stammered, “I…I…I.”

  “Boy,” said the driver, “I’d tell that little lady anything she wanted to know.”

  “Thank you for your vote of confidence.” I grinned at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Always happy to help. What information you looking for?”

  “Who might’ve been prowling around a certain frat house at the time a cupcake was dropped off,” I said.

  “Are we talking cupcake or cupcake?”

  I grinned wider. “The edible kind.”

  “Some would say you’re good enough to eat.”

  “It has been said.”

  “Many times.”

  “A few. It’s true.”

  “I will say it again. You are good enough to eat.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.

  “That’s what it was.”

  Derek looked back and forth between me and the driver with a confused, slightly embarrassed expression.

  “How’d you end up in the back of a cab with this lady, boy?” the driver asked Derek.

  “I really don’t know. Luck, I guess.”

  “That I believe.”

  “He’s helping with some research.”

  The driver grinned in the mirror. “I shoulda gone to college.”

  My phone rang and I didn’t recognize the number. Normally, I didn’t answer for people I didn’t know. I had a history of obscene callers and had to change my number on a regular basis. It was a hassle, but you get used to it. This time I answered out of desperation. Uncle Morty hadn’t called and I was hoping it was him. It wasn’t.

  “Hello.”

  “Mercy Watts?” asked a low male voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m calling on behalf of Tulane University. We’re sending you a cease and desist letter.”

  I licked my lips. “Oh, really. Whatever for?”

  “You must stop harassing our students and faculty immediately,” he said.

  “How are you going to send it?”

  “Huh? I mean, I will be mailing out the letter immediately. If you do not comply, we will sue you.”

  “Are you using a courier, USPS, FedEx? Is the letter registered? What am I looking at here?”

  Derek and the driver looked at me curiously and I rolled my eyes.

  “Courier,” said the guy. He even sounded sure.

  “What address?”

  “For what?”

  “What address are you sending the courier to?” I asked.

  “Oh, well, your address.”

  “Which is?”

  “I have it right here.”

  I leaned back and sighed. “Look. I don’t know who you are, but here’s a tip, so far in my life I’ve been drugged, beat up, and nearly drowned. If you’re going to try and intimidate me, you’re going to have to do better than that. Bye now.”

  I hung up and Derek stared at me. “Who was that?”

  “No idea, but he sucked. I’ve dealt with thirteen-year-old girls that are tougher than that.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, and smarter.” I texted Uncle Morty about the so-called Tulane threat and asked him to look into it.

  The driver came to a halt at a stop sign and shifted in his seat. “I’m going to have to go around. There’s some kinda nonsense goin’ on up there.”

  I looked down the street and my stomach twisted. There was police tape and a crowd of bystanders under wide umbrellas, craning their necks to get a look.

  “Where’s that address I gave you?” I asked, feeling sicker by the moment.

  “Up there somewhere. Don’t know for sure.”

  “Pull over.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned left and parked on the cross street. We were in a down market area, but it was clean with little shotgun houses painted in cheerful pastels. I bit my lip and then told Derek to stay in the cab.

  “Why? I better go.”

  “No. You stay here.” I grinned at the driver. “Make sure he doesn’t leave me here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “But Mercy, I think I better—”

  I got out and closed the door on more protests. My umbrella popped open and I crossed the street, hopping over the gushing gutter to a cracked sidewalk. The crowd was oddly silent. That’s how you know something horrible has happened. Even in the taxi I knew. Disaster has a look about it, a way of being draped over those who are on the outside watching. I knew what had happened, and I knew who it had happened to.

  I reached the edge of the crowd and, sure enough, the address was Sheila’s, a pink shotgun house with green shutters. There were two patrolmen holding back the onlookers, not that they seemed inclined to rush the scene. They stood together, holding hands and sometimes murmuring with the rain beating on their umbrellas, drowning out what might’ve been said.

  “Excuse me,” I said to a little old lady with skin the color of well-roasted coffee beans. “What happened?”

  “Oh lord. It’s a terrible thing. Terrible thing.”

  “What is?”

  “Young girl living in that house. She’s dead. I’ve known her for months. Sweet girl. Not too bright, mind you, but a sweet, sweet girl.” She wiped away a tear and I felt tears rise in my own eyes.

  “Sheila,” I whispered.

  “You know her, too. Wasn’t she a sweet girl?”

  “I think, she was. What happened? She was awfully young.”

  The lady edged closer to me and said in a low whisper, “Man come in, tear up the house, and strangle Sheila. Sweet girl. Why he want to do a thing like that? Those girls didn’t have a pot to pee in.”

  I swallowed hard. Why indeed?

  “When did it happen? I asked, all choked up. I couldn’t help it and it disgusted me. I was supposed to be a professional. Sort of, anyway.

  “I saw her come home the day before yesterday. She was all crying about some man at her work who got himself killed. She was torn up about it. Didn’t want to talk, though. She went inside and never come out again.”

  “Who found her?” I asked.

  “Her roommate last night. The house was torn clean apart and there Sheila was dead in the kitchen. Poor little Leslie. What a thing to find. They had to take her away in an ambulance. She was wailing something fierce,” said the lady.

  “Where does Leslie work?”

  “She’s one of those airline stewardesses. I don’t know which airline, but that girl’s always gone.” She looked at me closer with hazy cataract-filled eyes. “Do I know you?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m from out of town, but I met Sheila a couple days ago.”

  “Were you coming to see her?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  She patted my arm. “What a shock for you.”

  Yes. Quite a shock.

  I thanked her and went back to the taxi, feeling heavier and heavier with every step. Sheila gets strangled right after I show up at Rob Berry’s office, asking questions. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  I got in and slammed the door, dropping my sodden umbrella at my feet.

  “What happened?” asked Derek.

  “Someone got murdered.”

  “Jesus. What is this world coming to?” The driver shook his grey head. “Are we going now, little lady?”

  “Yes.” It was hard to get that little word out, but I did it.

  “To the address you give me?”

  “No. Tulane.”

  He looked at me in the mirror and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Right away.”

  I sunk into the door, ignoring questions from Derek and wishing I’d never come. Dad should’ve been the one. I couldn’t handle this. It was too much. Sheila was dead. Dead. That was so damn permanent I wanted to scream.

  But I didn’t scream. Dad always said feel however you want, just keep it on the inside. So that’s what I did. I had the
driver drop a protesting Derek off at the frat and then told him to take me to St. Louis cemetery No. 1. Feeling the way I did, I needed family. It wasn’t required that they be alive. In fact, they listened a lot better if they weren’t.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE HEAVY BUNCH of sunflowers and yarrow on my lap cheered me up considerably. The driver took me by his favorite florist, so I could pick up flowers for the family vaults. His wife required flowers on a regular basis and he knew just where to go for a good deal. I combined three bunches and the pile covered my lap with cheerful goodness. I’ve always thought that sunflowers are the happiest plant. If I ever have a garden, it will have sunflowers.

  “You sure about this, little lady? You had a shock with that murder and all. The dead might not be good for you,” said the driver kindly.

  “I always come to see them. Now might be my only chance while I’m here,” I said.

  “Not a good day for it.”

  I looked out at the passing buildings, grey and lifeless in the continuing drizzle. “It’s okay. They don’t mind.”

  He pulled up at the gate, a black wrought iron affair between two white blocky pillars. The gate was open, which surprised me. I had terrible luck with that gate. Half the time when I showed up, the gate had a chain wrapped around the metal bars and was sealed with a big padlock for no apparent reason other than I was there.

  “Do you want me to wait?” asked the driver.

  “No, thanks. I’ll walk.”

  He made a grumbling noise in his chest.

  “It’s okay. I’ve done it bunches of times.” I pulled out the fare with a generous tip.

  He gave me his card and told me to call if I changed my mind. He’d be in the neighborhood. I got the feeling that he would be just for me. I gave him his money and he didn’t bother to count it. I guess he liked me, a nice feeling considering the day I was having.

  I stepped out onto the sidewalk right into a puddle, of course, popped open my umbrella, and waved to the driver before he drove away down the misty street toward Canal. My sopping shoes crunched the gravel as I walked past the pillars into ‘the domain of the dead’ as Pop Pop called it. He avoided it at all costs. It was all those generations stacked up in their ovens or worse jumbled up together under the floor when their vaults had been taken over by new occupants. He hated the idea that all those generations had come down to just one. Me. I was the only egg left in the family basket. Pop Pop thought it was a lot of pressure. I didn’t agree. It wasn’t my fault we weren’t good breeders. Nana was always asking about Pete and hinting about marriage and babies. She thought six was a nice number. I thought she was insane. Six of me? My parents could only handle one.

  I took a left past Nick Cage’s future resting place, a white pyramid big enough for three, and meandered through the warren of tombs. Most were no longer cared for, their families had died out or forgotten their responsibilities. But some, like ours, were very much loved. Nana kept up the maintenance. She did the cleaning on both tombs, actually, Pop Pop’s family and hers. They were in different parts of the cemetery. The old dividing lines of religion and race were still in place. Nana’s family was Catholic and Pop Pop’s were Protestant. She made a point of telling me that someday those tombs would be my responsibility. Now that was a daunting thought. All those generations counting on me not to be a loser and keep their bricks from showing.

  Pop Pop’s family tomb appeared in front of me first. It was very tall and ochre yellow with a double row of vaults, each with a plaque inscribed with names and dates. I divided the sunflowers and put them in the vase at the base. I’d forgotten about water, but, with all the rain, it was taken care of.

  “Hi, everyone. It’s Mercy, the last egg, come to see you,” I said, feeling silly, but Nana said you had to talk to them out loud or it didn’t count. She was probably crazy, but what the hell. The cemetery was empty, not a tour group in sight, so I told them, my people, all that had happened. I ended with Sheila and found myself overcome with regret and tears.

  “I think I got that girl killed.” I put my hand on the plaque that contained my great grandmother Amelia’s name. “I wish you could tell me I didn’t. Maybe you could give me a sign. Anything would do.”

  I waited like an idiot and nothing happened. I dropped my umbrella and let my tears get washed away. The rain kept coming and all was silent in the domain of the dead. I wasn’t surprised, but you never know.

  I leaned over and kissed the plaque as I’d been taught to do. “Look out for Sheila, if you can. I’d appreciate it.”

  My phone started ringing, but I wasn’t inclined to answer. This was my time to feel rotten and I didn’t want any intrusion. But it wasn’t family. It was Spidermonkey. I’d completely forgotten about him and the Klinefeld Group. New Orleans made me forget that there was another world entirely.

  “Where are you?” Spidermonkey asked.

  “New Orleans.”

  “Still?”

  “Connecting the dots takes time.”

  “They’re not connected yet?”

  “I’m on to something. I’m just not sure if it has anything to do with Donatella. I think it does. I have a feeling that it does.”

  “So it does.”

  “Let’s hope. What’ve you got?”

  “I, too, have been finding some dots. I found the first connection between your family and the Bleds prior to Myrtle and Millicent giving your mom the house. It took me two days in the St. Louis University archives to do it, but I got it.”

  “Seriously? What has SLU got to do with it?”

  “The Bleds helped your mother get in. Josiah Bled wrote a letter to the Dean of Admissions.”

  “How in the world did you find that?”

  “I got desperate. Nothing was coming up. The Bleds donate big bucks to the university yearly. Your mother went there. I was going through the records to see if their paths ever crossed. Josiah was a guest lecturer. I thought they met that way.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “Not that I know of, but did you know that your mother received a 50 percent scholarship to the prelaw program?”

  “No way. I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, she did and all the freshmen that received scholarships got together to take a picture. Your mother was in that year’s picture, naturally. And surprise, surprise, so was Josiah Bled.”

  “Why would he be there?”

  “He’s named as a university benefactor, but he never appears in any other photo with the scholarship winners. Then I took a look at your mother’s application and, no offense, she shouldn’t have gotten that scholarship. She’d done well in high school, just not that well.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I thought so, too. So I looked into admissions. Turns out Josiah Bled and the Dean of Admissions were old friends. Knew each other during the war. I went through the dean’s papers and that’s where I found the connection.”

  “Which is? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Josiah Bled wrote a recommendation letter to Dean Frank for your mother. He suggested that she be admitted and given a 50 percent scholarship as a favor to the Bled family that he would personally fund,” said Spidermonkey.

  “Did he say why?”

  “Unfortunately no, but Frank knew Josiah very well because all Josiah said was that Frank would know the reason and left it at that. Your mother was admitted and given the scholarship. Carolina wasn’t to know anything about it, and I can’t find any evidence that she did. She still might not know, even now.”

  “Why do I feel like we’re getting both closer and farther away at the same time?”

  “We’re getting closer, much closer. It just isn’t coming together yet.”

  “What’s next?” I asked.

  “I’m looking into the job that brought your grandparents to St. Louis and you are looking into your grandparents.”

  “Me? What can I do?”

  “You’re staying in your grandparent�
�s house. Search it.”

  “I can’t do that. They’re my grandparents.”

  “Exactly. Something in that house connects your family with the Bleds. Go find it.”

  “I’m not going through their stuff. It’s creepy and weird.”

  Spidermonkey heaved a sigh. “Look. Public records will only take us so far. This is personal. Very personal. The Bleds trusted your parents. We have to find out why.”

  “Would you want your granddaughter searching your house if she suspected you were Spidermonkey?”

  “I see your point. So start with the easy stuff. Check out their books. There might be inscriptions by the Bleds. Photo albums. Expensive artwork. Your grandparents were known to the Bleds before your mother applied to college. Look around. The answer might be right on the wall.”

  I hung up and rubbed my eyes. Great. Just great. I didn’t want to look through anything in my grandparent’s house. And how was I going to do that with Chuck and Stevie right there? Impossible.

  I touched the cold stone. The marble was real and sent a chill up my arm. “One of you knows, don’t you?”

  A couple walked by and gave me a funny look. Talking to graves. That wasn’t so odd, was it? What was the point of visiting if I couldn’t talk to them? They were my people, after all.

  I waited for the couple to turn the corner and then rested my forehead on the stone. “Please help me figure it out. Millicent and Myrtle need this. I need this. The Klinefeld Group isn’t joking.”

  My phone rang again. I expected Spidermonkey this time, but it was Oz.

  “Andrew Marlin,” he said.

  “Who? What?”

  “The other Berrys’ Andrew is Andrew Marlin.”

  “Great. Who is he?” I asked.

  “I don’t really know. All I have is the name,” said Oz.

  “Well, how’d you get that?”

  “Ken Berry bankrolled a small-time meth operation and this Andrew is involved.”

  And these were the people trying to take Donatella’s kids. Scumbags.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “I’m sure your Uncle Morty can take it from there.”

  I thanked him and hung up as the rain increased, deepening the puddles. I had to hop over one to avoid getting thoroughly soaked. Even so, my toes were freezing. I sped up to find Nana’s family tomb. It was very different from Pop Pop’s. His was conservative, simple. Nana’s wasn’t. That side of my family made a show of death. Don’t tell anyone, but it was my favorite. It was so big, I could see it several rows over. The gothic stone cross on top towered over the neighbors and proclaimed exactly who they were being compared to.