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

by A W Hartoin

  “Who’s Christopher?” Moe asked.

  “The supposed rapist. Today Farrell tried to take his revenge on Christopher’s frat. This is where Farrell thinks his daughter was harmed, so it’s their fault.”

  “Oh, I get it. This Farrell needed more revenge, so he poisoned these kids. I’ll call it in. We’ll pick up Farrell.”

  “He’s not done,” I said.

  “What do you mean, not done?”

  “These guys wronged his daughter, but they’re not the only ones.” I dug around in my purse and came up with the scrap of paper with Anne Marie’s cellphone number on it. She didn’t answer. Oh, no.

  “He’ll go after his daughter’s roommate.” I gave Moe her room number and I kept calling.

  Anne Marie, answer the damn phone.

  Moe grabbed my shoulder. “I’m going over there. The school is getting her schedule. We’ll find her.”

  I nodded and he left the room, yelling for Jones.

  Revenge. Is a little ever enough?

  “Derek!”

  He ran in, out of breath. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got a problem.” I dialed Wellow’s number. No answer.

  “What should I do?” he asked.

  “Keep calling this number and tell Wellow that Farrell is going to try to kill him.” I shoved my phone at him.

  “What about me?” asked Stevie.

  “You’re with me.”

  “Where’re we going?”

  “To save a man so he can eat some crab.”

  “Is it me?”

  “No!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  THE DOOR WOULDN’T open. I yanked on the metal handle a second time, but the campus police station was locked. Locked. What the hell?

  Stevie gave it a try as if I hadn’t done it right. “I’ve been to a lot of police stations.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I said.

  “I never saw a locked one.”

  I pounded on the glass, rattling it on the hinges. “Me, neither.”

  We both started pounding, so hard I half expected the glass to break.

  “Wellow! Wellow!” I yelled.

  Students walking by stopped and stared. We must’ve looked like total nuts. Who the hell is desperate to get into a police station? I called Wellow’s number again and then the general number. No answer for either.

  “Maybe there’s a window open,” said Stevie.

  “In New Orleans. Please. It’s 80 degrees today and 100 percent humidity.” I gave him my phone. “Call 911. I’m going to circle the building.”

  “Probably shouldn’t.”

  “How come?”

  Stevie pointed through the glass at something on the floor. I pressed my nose against the door. It was a shoe. A shiny black oxford. A cop shoe up on its heel and barely visible behind a desk. There was a foot in that shoe and a body on the floor.

  I frantically rattled the door again. “I have to get in there.”

  “How about this?” Stevie stood next to me, cradling a small decorative boulder.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Flower bed.”

  I tried to pull it out of his grasp, but he held on tight. “Let go.”

  “I’ll do it. Your sheet is clean.” Stevie stepped back and heaved the rock. The door exploded and I glanced back. About fifteen people had their phones out, documenting our breaking and entering of a police station. If that didn’t make it on YouTube it would be a miracle. At least I wasn’t wearing a bikini.

  Stevie kicked the remaining glass out to make a hole big enough for me and I stepped through, slipping on the shards of glass on the tile floor. I nearly went down and Stevie caught my arm as my feet went out from under me.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I dove for the desk and cleared the glass. The cop on the floor wasn’t familiar to me. He was ten years older than Wellow, balding and well-muscled. I knelt by his side and checked his pulse. Strong and steady. No blood. No obvious wounds. I felt around his head and neck. There was a large hematoma on the back of his head. I checked his pupils. Both dilated. They did react to my penlight slightly. Not great, but it was something.

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked Stevie.

  “Closed head injury.” I pointed at my phone in his hand. “Tell them.”

  “Tell them what?”

  “Give me that.” I started the rundown when a series of gunshots went off over our heads. Four shots in quick succession. I shoved the phone at Stevie and jumped to my feet. “Stay with him.”

  “Hell, no!”

  A crowd of students were gathered around the broken door, all looking up in bewilderment at the second floor.

  “Hey! Any med students?” I yelled.

  An African-American guy the size of a twelve-year-old shot up his hand.

  “Get in here!”

  He ran in, slipping on the glass.

  “Talk to 911 and find the defibrillator. Monitor his heart rate and breathing,” I ordered, shoving the phone at him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I sprinted for the stairs while fumbling through my purse.

  Where is it? Where is it?

  The Mauser wasn’t there, but my hand found my pepper spray as I leapt up the last two stairs.

  “Mercy! Don’t go up there!” yelled Stevie.

  I ran onto the second floor and found the two desks empty. Wellow’s office was on the other side of the floor with the door open. A second volley of gunshots went off. A full clip from the sound of it. The large glass window next to Wellow’s door shattered and the drawn shade billowed into the open area. I ran across the room as Stevie called my name behind me. I hit the wall next to Wellow’s door and that’s when I heard the screaming and the sound of something hard hitting something wet.

  Stevie reached the wall beside me and grabbed my arm. “You’re not going in there.”

  “Wanna bet?” I bit his hand. He screeched and let go.

  I kicked the door open, crouched, and looked in. I was eye level with Donald Farrell. He sat on Wellow’s chest, a brick in his left hand poised to strike. Wellow’s hands were up, bloody as his face, which looked like meatloaf.

  “Stop!” I screamed.

  Farrell’s arm continued a swing back—lucky for me—and he exposed his face fully to my can of pepper spray. I doused him right in the kisser. He flipped backward, dropping the brick and clutching his face. I leapt at him and did what my mom taught me. I kicked him in the junk. Dad would not be proud. Junk-kicking was not to be included when the guy was going down. Mom would’ve kicked him a couple more times to be on the safe side. I only kicked him once and that was plenty, if I went by the screaming.

  I dropped to Wellow’s side and grabbed his Smith & Wesson revolver, lying on the floor next to a writhing Farrell. I handed it back to Stevie and he snapped open the cylinder. “He got off four shots.”

  “There’s another weapon. Find it.”

  I checked Wellow’s vitals. Heartbeat, yes. Breathing, no. I grabbed a pair of latex gloves and my CPR mask out of my purse. Nurses have these things next to their lip gloss. I’d never had the occasion to use the mask before, but Mom got it for me after I graduated. I was so glad I didn’t have to put my mouth on Wellow’s blood-filled one. I gave him two quick breaths and reassessed. It was enough to jump-start him and he took some shallow breaths on his own. He moaned and I checked his pupils. Equal and reactive.

  “Wellow, it’s Mercy Watts. You’re okay. EMT’s are coming.”

  His mouth moved and he gasped in pain. I checked the line of his jaw. Multiple fractures, and he was missing several teeth.

  Stevie walked around the desk. “Oh, shit!”

  “What?”

  He pointed into the corner behind me. Chuck was lurching to his feet. Blood dripped down his jaw and soaked into his shirt. He held his Glock loosely in one hand and groped vaguely behind his hips with the other. “I can’t find my cuffs.”

  “You don’t hav
e them,” I said. “Stevie. Belt.”

  Stevie trussed up Farrell with an efficiency that only comes from being cuffed many times.

  Chuck staggered toward me and grabbed the desk for support. I jumped up and caught him before he went down. “Are you okay?” he asked me as his knees buckled.

  I’d like to say I eased him to the floor, but he took me down with him. Stevie had to roll his limp body off me. I checked his vitals. No breathing. I positioned his head, not bothering to retrieve my bloody mask. I never imagined I’d need two of them. I pinched Chuck’s nose and saw, a second before his lips touched mine, a small flutter of his lashes. I sat bolt upright and punched him in the sternum.

  “Ow!” he yelled.

  “You deserve it, you big faker,” I said.

  “I told you I was going to get that kiss you owe me.”

  “I was going to give you CPR.”

  “Close enough,” he said.

  “You are an idiot.” I shifted his head to the left. He had an open laceration about the size of brick on the side of his head. He’d need stitches.

  Chuck smiled. “It works in the movies.”

  “What movies?”

  “I don’t remember. Probably bad ones. I’ve been injured in the line of duty. Don’t you want to kiss it and make it better?”

  “I’ve got pepper spray and I’m not afraid to use it,” I said. “See if you can track my finger.”

  “I’m tracking your lips.”

  “Shut up.”

  “How can I tell you what I’m tracking if I’m shutting up?”

  I groaned. “You’re impossible.”

  Wellow’s moans took on a desperate quality so I crawled back over to him, taking his hand. He had several compound fractures with one bone splinter poking through the skin. Nasty. It was his gun hand and it looked like Farrell had bricked it pretty good.

  “Get up, Chuck, and tell me what happened. Why are you even here?” I asked.

  Chuck crawled dramatically into a chair. “When I got to Schwartz’s office, guess who was already there?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “The FBI.”

  “Seriously? What for?” I asked as I tilted Wellow’s head to the side and cleared the accumulating blood from his mouth. “Stevie, where the hell is that ambulance?”

  “I think I hear the sirens,” he said.

  There were sirens. I could barely make them out over Wellow’s distress. “Good. Go down and get a crew up here. What did you say, Chuck?”

  “I said, it was bid rigging and mortgage fraud. The Schwartzes had quite a ring going,” said Chuck.

  An EMT ran in, carrying his trauma bag. He knelt by Wellow and gloved up in purple. I got out of the way and took Chuck’s Glock out of his hand, ejecting the clip.

  “You emptied the clip and didn’t hit him once? Seriously? That’s embarrassing,” I said.

  “I’d been clobbered with a brick,” said Chuck, a blush creeping across his cheeks.

  A cop ran in with his gun drawn and pointed it at me. I held up my hands and Chuck flashed his badge. The cop bagged Chuck’s Glock and Wellow’s revolver and then took a quick statement from us. Chuck would probably never live down that series of events, but it wasn’t his fault. He was seated with his back to the door when Farrell came in and cracked him with the brick. Chuck went down and Farrell dove for Wellow, who had his gun in a drawer. He was able to get it and fire the first four rounds, none of which connected. Farrell got Wellow down and started clubbing him as Chuck came to. He was disoriented and seeing double. He emptied his clip in the general direction of Farrell. We didn’t find out until later that he did hit Farrell twice. Once in the thigh and a graze to the head. I couldn’t tell, because of all the blood spatter from Wellow. Farrell didn’t seem bothered by either wound. He was screaming about injustice when they dragged him from the room, half-blind from my pepper spray and holding his crotch. They wouldn’t discover the thigh wound for another fifteen minutes. Frankly, I don’t think anyone was trying all that hard.

  After the EMTs carted Wellow and his partner off, another ambulance arrived for Chuck. It was a standoff of epic proportions. Chuck didn’t want an ambulance and the EMTs didn’t care what he wanted. Chuck was about to win when he got nauseous and barfed in Wellow’s trash can. I pinched him until he agreed to get into the damn ambulance. He sat on the gurney, looking wobbly and pathetic. It made my heart twist a little. I am such a sucker for a wounded cop. Stevie and I climbed in and sat with him.

  “I think I might throw up again,” he said.

  The EMT gave me a basin and I held it under his chin. “Go ahead. Nobody cares.”

  “This isn’t how I thought this trip would go.”

  “No kidding. Usually I’m the one who goes to the hospital,” I said. “It’s a nice change for me.”

  Chuck did throw up again, and we laid him down for the ride to the hospital. A short ride thankfully, since the nausea increased with every bump.

  “So, how did the FBI find out about the Schwartzes?” I asked to distract him.

  “Rob tipped them off before he got on the plane to St. Louis,” Chuck whispered.

  “So the agents just told you all this in the midst of arresting Mrs. Schwartz?”

  “She was already gone when I got there. They were executing a search warrant.”

  “Still. That’s awfully nice of them.”

  Chuck smiled. “I have my ways.”

  “Of course, you do.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Terribly.”

  “I thought so.”

  We arrived at the ER, cutting off anymore insinuations. Chuck was diagnosed with a serious concussion and admitted for observation. I stayed with him on the sleeper chair in his room. Stevie charmed his way into the nurse’s lounge and got a date with a nurse that was way too good for him. Lana was charmed by his tale of peril at the campus police station and the blood on his shirt didn’t hurt. I gave him a hundred bucks to take her to dinner, but it was really to keep him from talking to anyone who would listen. The hospital was crawling with cops and nobody, as of yet, had thought to ask him who he was beyond his cursory statement that he’d been with me. Pretty soon somebody was going to ask and he’d be arrested for whatever he’d done in Missouri.

  It took forever to get Chuck settled into his room. He had a screaming migraine and squeezed my hand so hard I expected bruising. Once the Vicodin was onboard, he relaxed and I retreated to my chair to watch his monitor and the nurse coming in for repeated unnecessary blood pressure checks. She asked me several times about our relationship. I suppose she was hoping we were blood related, which we weren’t, despite the same last name. My uncle adopted Chuck during his brief marriage to Chuck’s mom and it stuck.

  The nurse left reluctantly after the third check and Chuck gazed at me, all drugged and bleary. “You can come over here.”

  “I’m not getting in your bed if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “You could. There’s room.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  He held out an arm that looked completely out of place in a hospital gown. “I can’t sleep, if you’re so far away.” His eyelids drooped and my resolve softened. There were still traces of blood on his face, a good section of his hair was shaved for the twelve stitches he required, and he hadn’t been able to keep down jello so far. In short, he was pathetic and it hurt me to see it.

  “Alright, but don’t be trying to feel me up or anything.” I dragged my chair over to his bedside and lowered his side rail. “Better?”

  He reached for my hand and I gave it to him. “Much. Now get in bed.”

  “What does it take to get you to sleep?” I asked.

  “You. Naked.”

  “If I was naked, you’d go to sleep?”

  “Oh, yeah. I wou…”

  And he was out. I leaned on his bed and put my head on the mattress.

  “Mercy,” said a woman’s voice.

 
I looked up and found Cortier peeking around the curtain. She was wearing skintight workout clothes and her hair was in a ratty ponytail.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  I rubbed my eyes. “Sure. What’s up?”

  She laughed softly. “Plenty, with you in the center.”

  Chuck stirred and reached for me. I took his hand again. “Right place and all that.”

  “Definitely the right place for Wellow,” she said.

  “How is he?”

  “Looks like someone put his face in a meat grinder.”

  “They let you see him?”

  “No. That’s what the wife said.” Cortier pulled up a chair on the other side of the bed. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’ll be fine. They’ll keep him overnight, but it’s nothing dramatic.”

  She eyed the stitches. “That’s not what I’d think if it were me.”

  “Could’ve been worse,” I said.

  “It was worse. Johnson had a stroke. He’s in a coma.”

  I nodded, thinking of nothing useful to say. Stroke after a head injury could happen. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Surprised and saddened. I had a pit in my middle. Not a new pit. An old one, freshly opened. Rory Dushane, from my adventure in Copper Mountain, was still in the hospital, trying to learn how to hold a fork. I couldn’t think about that at the best of times and now wasn’t the best of times. Change of subject required.

  “The lab confirmed listeriosis in both the frat boys and the remaining cupcakes,” I said.

  “I know,” said Cortier. “Have you seen the boys?”

  “Briefly. Alex’s having a rough time, but it looks like they’ll all recover fully. Did Vanessa pick Farrell out of the lineup?”

  “We did a photo array, but no. The best she could do was a probably. We did get one print off of a cupcake box. It looks like he tried to wipe it clean and missed a spot.”

  “What did Farrell say?” I asked.

  “Not a damn thing. Bastard clammed up tight. He has four lawyers hovering outside his room.” Cortier rubbed her hands together. “God, I’d love to get him in interrogation.”

  “Do you think it would do any good?”

  She sighed. “It’d make me happy to harass the hell out of him. But no, he wouldn’t give anything up. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”