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

by A W Hartoin

  “He lives on kimchi and pork sausage, so yeah,” said boxer short guy.

  A groaning moan came from upstairs. Not like a drunk coming to. There was real pain in it.

  “Mercy,” said Derek. “I don’t think it’s booze.”

  “It’s booze,” said Toby.

  “Did he eat anything else?” I asked. “Cupcakes?”

  Toby dragged me toward the door. “No.”

  Boxer short guy scratched his hairy belly and said, “There’re cupcakes in the common room.”

  “Shut up, Dillon.”

  I broke away from Toby and ran into the TV room. On the sofa table were two plastic containers filled with store-bought cupcakes in Mardi Gras colors. Five cupcakes were missing. Shit.

  Stevie went for the cupcakes. “Alright. I’m starving.”

  I smacked his hand. “Those are bacteria bombs.”

  “Are we sure about that?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Toby, where’d those come from?” I asked.

  Toby shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “Some girl brought them this morning,” said Dillon, still scratching.

  My stomach twisted. “Faith Farrell?”

  “Who?”

  “The one who accused Chris of rape, moron,” said Derek.

  “Oh. Nah, it was a blond chick. Never seen her before. Sweet body, though.” He gave me a horn-dog look. “Not as sweet as yours though.”

  “Gross,” I said. “Derek, find out who ate those cupcakes. Dillon take me to Alex.”

  Toby stepped in front of me. I expected another protest, but his face was in a deep frown. “You really think—”

  “Yes, I do. Get out of the way.”

  Stevie shoved him to the side and we ran up the stairs. Alex was lying on his bed, clutching his head and moaning. His fingers were pressing so hard into his dark hair that they were white up to the second knuckle. I ran over dirty clothes and pizza boxes to his bed. There were two cupcake wrappers on his bedside table, and he’d vomited so much that it coated the side of the mattress and dripped onto a pair of sweatpants on the floor.

  “Alex?” I pushed him onto his back, but he stayed in the fetal position with his knees drawn up to his chest. I didn’t try to check his pupils. His eyes were screwed shut and the sound of my voice made him flinch. I turned to Dillon. “Call 911.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Now!”

  He picked up Alex’s phone and called, telling them it was the flu.

  “It’s not the flu,” I said. “He’s been poisoned with listeriosis.”

  “Listerios…what?” asked Dillon.

  “Bacterial meningitis. Tell them now!”

  Alex groaned and another guy walked in carrying a half-eaten cupcake. “What’s going on?”

  I leapt at him and smacked the cupcake out of his hand.

  “What the fuck?” he yelled.

  “How many have you eaten?” I asked.

  “You are one crazy bitch.”

  Stevie gave him a light smack on the cheek. “Mercy asked you a question. How many?”

  His mouth fell open at the minor assault on his person and then he said to me in a respectful tone, “Just one. I mean, half of that one.”

  “They’re sending an ambulance,” said Dillon, holding out the phone.

  “Tell them there are multiple patients.” I turned back to Alex and squeezed his shoulder. “An ambulance is coming. When did you eat the cupcakes?”

  “My head,” he groaned.

  “I know, Alex, I know, but try to remember. How long ago?” I asked. “An hour?”

  “No.” Tears dripped down his face and his body jerked as he dry-heaved.

  Less than an hour. Very fast. Double dose.

  Toby and several other guys had squeezed into the room.

  “Toby, every cupcake is contaminated with the bacteria. I want you to bag all the remaining cupcakes for the cops and call Cortier. Tell her I’m here and what’s happened.”

  “Dillon said it’s bacterial meningitis,” said Toby.

  “It is. A form of it, anyway. Everybody who’s had one, even a tiny bite, has to go to the hospital,” I said.

  “I have to go?” asked the guy who’d eaten a half.

  “Yeah, dipshit. What’d she just say?” asked Stevie

  “Call your parents,” I said. “Call all the parents.”

  “What for?” Dipshit asked. “They’ll get pissed. They’re always pissed at me.”

  That kid was making Stevie look like a rocket scientist.

  “You’ve been poisoned, dipshit,” said one of the new arrivals, a guy with shaggy red hair and a good-sized beard. “What can I do?”

  “Name?” I asked.

  “Avery.”

  “Take Dipshit into the bathroom and make him throw up.”

  “Gross,” said Dipshit.

  “Like you don’t throw up every weekend,” I said.

  Everyone, but Alex laughed.

  “You do, dude,” said Dillon.

  “I do not,” protested Dipshit.

  I got up in his face. “Do you see Alex? You’re next. Stick your finger down your throat or they’ll be shoving a tube down it.”

  “Alright. Alright. Jeez. Keep your panties on.”

  Avery went to go with Dipshit, but he waved him off. “I’ll do it. I don’t need an audience.”

  Derek ran in and grabbed Dipshit. “Did you eat a cupcake?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I gotta go barf.” He left, grumbling about pushy girls, and Derek came to me at the bed.

  “I’ve got them all. There are six. Sean ate three. He just started vomiting. Oh, man. It, like, went all the way across the room and hit the wall.”

  “Six? How can there be six? Five cupcakes were missing. Alex ate two and that guy ate one. There’s only two left.”

  Derek’s mouth formed an “O” and he ran back out. Alex started to rock with the pain, moaning, and his teeth were grinding so hard I could hear it. He was the worst. The first infected.

  “Alex, who brought the cupcakes?” I asked. “It’s important.”

  He wouldn’t answer. He couldn’t. I doubt he could hear me through his agony. Sirens sounded in the distance. Thank god.

  “Did anyone see the girl who brought those cupcakes?” I said to the solemn group in Alex’s room.

  Avery raised his hand. He looked like he was about to get paddled. “I did.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Probably that crazy Faith Farrell,” said another guy.

  “No,” said Avery. “I wouldn’t take a toothpick from that chick. It was Vanessa from my American Lit class.”

  “Do you know where she is right now?” I asked.

  “No. I’m not some freaking stalker.”

  Toby squeezed back in the room. “I do. She’s on my girlfriend’s floor.”

  “Good. Go get her.”

  Toby rushed out and the room went silent. Alex’s body had gone limp. He was unconscious. I grabbed the phone from Dillon and dialed 911 again. I told them we needed another ambulance and that Alex was now unresponsive. He was burning up. I guessed his temperature at 104. The operator said two more ambulances were on their way.

  The siren was outside. I ran downstairs with Stevie on my heels, and met them at the door. Derek had all the infected guys in the TV room. Sean was bent over a trash can, shaking violently, but he was conscious, so I sent the EMTs up to Alex. They had him assessed and out the door in less than five minutes. The second ambulance showed up and they took Sean, who’d begun screaming and clutching his head. The rest of the guys stood in the entryway, white-faced and talking to their parents on their cellphones.

  “Okay. Who are the rest of my cupcake eaters?” I asked.

  Dipshit and three others raised their hands tentatively

  “Did you all vomit?”

  They nodded and told me their names.

  “Good. How are you feeling?”

  They
were all nauseous and had light headaches, except for Dipshit aka Leo, who’d only gotten a small dose and had cleared it pretty quickly.

  Two more sirens were in the distance. I didn’t have much time. This had to be about Faith. It had to be. Derek came in, holding an empty plastic container. “I found it in the dumpster out back. I think that’s it.”

  “Excellent. Avery, was that all the boxes?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. There were three.”

  “How come you didn’t eat any?” I asked.

  “Look at those artificial colors. That shit’ll give you cancer.”

  Leo snorted. “You are such a loser.”

  “I didn’t have to make myself barf, did I?” Avery crossed his skinny arms. “My mom was right. Don’t eat stuff if you don’t know where it came from.”

  “Tree-hugger.”

  “Barfer.”

  I put my hands over my ears. “Quiet! I have to think.”

  “About what?” asked Leo.

  “Who tried to kill you, for one.”

  Toby flung open the front door as the third ambulance rolled up with a squad car right behind it. He held a thin blond girl, wearing a push-up bra and a skintight tee, by the arm.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she protested.

  I peeled Toby’s fingers off her arm. They left pale marks in her thin skin. “I know you didn’t, but you know who did.”

  “No, I don’t. I just deliver for Gardenway,” she said.

  “What’s Gardenway?” I asked.

  “Grocery store,” said Toby.

  “Yeah,” she said. “They give me stuff to deliver and I deliver it. That’s it. I don’t know anything about any poison.”

  The EMTs raced up the stairs with a gurney and I pointed at Davis. He’d eaten one and a half cupcakes and had been the last to vomit. They were assessing him when the cops came through the door, looking bored and sweaty, each with a good thirty extra pounds to carry up those long steps.

  “What’s going on here?” asked the first one, so red faced he looked worse than Davis.

  I told him and he acted like I was nuts, complete with sputtering.

  “You’re telling me that somebody spiked their cookies?”

  “Cupcakes.”

  “So they got some bad pastry,” he said.

  “Call Cortier,” I said. “This is her case.”

  He snorted. “Cortier. That woman.”

  “Yes.” I gritted my teeth. “That woman. The detective. The one that outranks you.”

  His partner, less corpulent but a wheezer, put up his hand. “Yeah, Jones. You know her. She’s a good one.”

  Jones snorted again and I wondered what that meant. Either she wasn’t a good cop, or she couldn’t be, because she was a woman. I got the feeling it was the latter.

  “Just call her,” I said. “Tell her Mercy Watts is here. It’s about the Farrell case.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll call her,” said Jones. “I’ll tell her some tranny wants her to investigate some poisoned cookies.”

  “Cupcakes.”

  His partner put up his hand again. “Did you say Watts?”

  Derek walked over and stood behind me. “Yeah, as in Tommy Watts.”

  “Who the hell is Tommy Watts?” asked Jones. “It’s time for lunch, Moe. Do we have a crime here or what?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Poisoning is a crime.”

  The EMTs laid Davis on their gurney and the woman said, “Six cases of bacterial meningitis in the same household and they all ate the same cupcakes? Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.”

  “What does that mean?’ asked Jones.

  “It means, do your job, Jones. Donuts can wait. We’ve got six kids that need spinal taps here. You better find out why,” she said, opening the door.

  Davis’s head popped up. “Spinal tap. Nobody said anything about a spinal tap.”

  She gently pushed his head back down. “It’ll be fine, baby. Just a little poke.”

  “With a needle?”

  “It ain’t with a garden hose. You’ll live.” She rolled her eyes and looked around at the rest of the guys. “Who’s next?”

  Nobody moved.

  “Come on,” she said. “You may as well admit you ate one of them cupcakes. A screaming headache is on the way.”

  Leo’s shoulders slumped and he raised his hand. While I was being surprised by Leo, the delivery girl made a break for it by running into the TV room. I chased her through the first floor and caught her by the back door, trying to unlock the deadbolt.

  “Where do you think you’re going?’ I asked, grabbing her by the arm.

  “Back to work.”

  “Cops need to talk to you.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Sure you do,” I said.

  She shook her head as Jones’s partner came in the room. “Who’s this?”

  I filled him in and then said, “She’s lying.”

  “I am not. I do deliver for Gardenway,” she said.

  “That I believe. But this delivery wasn’t for Gardenway.”

  Moe crossed his arms and smiled. “Who was it for?”

  “Somebody who wanted to punish this fraternity and she knows who,” I said.

  She shook her head so hard, I’m surprised she didn’t give herself a concussion. “No, I really don’t.”

  “Who gave you the cupcakes?”

  “Nobody.”

  I crossed the room to Moe and leaned on his arm, giving our reluctant witness the stink eye that I’d learned from Aunt Miriam. I must’ve learned it quite well, because she backed up and bumped into the door. “Isn’t it a crime to withhold evidence, Moe?”

  He nodded. “Obstruction. This could be a murder investigation, so the penalties could be severe.”

  She paled. “I…I…”

  “You what?” I asked.

  She let out a ragged breath. “There was a guy waiting outside the store. He had these cupcakes and he paid me to deliver them. I didn’t know he’d done anything to them.”

  I took her by her shaking shoulders. “What exactly did he say?”

  “Nothing. He paid me twenty bucks. I needed the money.”

  “That’s fine. Did he say anything about the frat?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Not really, or he didn’t say anything?”

  She frowned. “Just something about a reward.”

  I gripped her tighter. “A reward for what? It’s important.”

  “Ouch. You’re hurting me.”

  “Think. What did he say?” I asked, not loosening my grip.

  “Um…a reward for good behavior.” She nodded. “Yes, that’s it.”

  Good behavior? Who rewards goodness with meningitis and a side order of death?

  “Are you sure he said good behavior?” I asked.

  “Um…yeah. You don’t give cupcakes for bad stuff.”

  “What did he say? Close your eyes and picture the conversation. Picture his face. What did he look like?” I asked.

  “I didn’t really see his face. He had on this fedora and a raincoat, but he was older with dark hair.”

  “Now think about what he said.”

  Her eyes opened. “It wasn’t good. He just said behavior. That’s weird.”

  I looked at Moe. He nodded and took his radio off his belt. “This 781. We need Cortier over at Tulane ASAP.”

  I hugged Vanessa. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Is it that big a deal?”

  “It’s a huge deal.” I urged her to the front of the house to wait for Cortier with the rest of the guys. I had to think. It was Faith Farrell’s father at Gardenway with his poisoned cupcakes. But this wasn’t the first time. I ran after Vanessa and caught her in the TV room.

  “Have you delivered here before?” I asked.

  “Huh?’

  “Cupcakes. Have you ever delivered cupcakes here before?”

  “Yeah, but it was just one.”

  Yes!
Eat crab, Wellow!

  “Who did you give it to, and who gave it to you?” I asked.

  “You know what? I think it was the same guy, but he had on different stuff. I didn’t think about it before. He gave me a twenty then, too.”

  “Who got the cupcake?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was supposed to leave it in a room as a surprise for his son.”

  “Which room?” asked Moe.

  “Second floor. I don’t remember exactly which room,” said Vanessa. “Is that bad?”

  “It’s okay. Go on to the entryway. I’m sure the detective will be here any second to take your statement.”

  Moe and I stood there, quietly looking at the cupcakes of death in the Ziploc bags marked, “Do not eat. Poisoned.”

  “Do you know who did it?” asked Moe.

  “Donald Farrell. He thinks one of the guys raped his daughter and got her pregnant,” I said, my mind spinning.

  “Did the kid do it?”

  “No on the rape. She was pregnant, I think. He may have been the father. I didn’t get that far.”

  “That’s pretty far. So, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your dad like? He’s kind of a legend around these parts. The Gator Bait case, but I guess you know all about that.”

  “Not really. He never mentioned it,” I said. “What was it about?”

  “Guy murdered his wife’s lover. He brought the body down here and fed it to the gators. Then the psycho started killing the lover’s family one-by-one. They knew about the affair. Gator bait. He was fishing with their parts.”

  “A nasty case of revenge.”

  “Yep. We had people going missing all over the city. Can’t believe your father never told you about it. That was a huge case,” he said.

  One-by-one.

  “Miss Watts? You alright? You didn’t eat one of those cupcakes, did you?”

  “He was getting revenge on the people who wronged him? The Gator Bait guy, I mean,” I said.

  “Yeah. Crazy. He blamed the lover’s sister for introducing his wife to the guy. Crazy connections like that.”

  “Anybody who he thought caused the affair?”

  “Yeah. What are you thinking?”

  “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hamlet’s about revenge and how revenge is inadequate sometimes.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Farrell tried to kill Christopher, failed, and now he’s out of reach. That’s inadequate. More punishment is needed.”