In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 5)

by A W Hartoin

  “The cops were here.”

  “Yes. They’re out gathering evidence now,” I said. “I’m trying to get a picture of where everyone was at 2:02 this morning.”

  Taylor’s howling came to a slow shuddering end and he looked at me with streaming eyes. “Where’s my mom?”

  Flincher appeared in my mind and I shoved him right back out.

  “She’s at the local funeral home.”

  He jolted to his feet. “I don’t want her there. Her funeral has to be at home.”

  Anthony put his head in his hands and shook once. I came over and took Taylor by the shoulders. Sometimes you need to be touched. I learned that when David disappeared. Taylor gazed down at me—he was quite a bit taller—and then fell into my arms. “I have to take her home.”

  I rubbed his back. “I know and you will. I promise.”

  “Why does she have to be there?” he asked between soft sobs.

  “For the investigation,” I said.

  He jerked back. “Are they doing something to her?”

  I squeezed his shoulders. “It won’t take long.”

  “I don’t want them to do anything to her. What are they doing?”

  I took a slow breath, feeling a tear slip down my own cheek. “There has to be an autopsy in the case of a suspicious death.”

  He got stock still. “Suspicious death?”

  “Didn’t Coach Jakes tell you?” I asked.

  “I did,” Oliver said behind me.

  He came over and gave Taylor a mug of hot chocolate that I recognized as Aaron-made. It had a distinct super chocolate smell and was so thick a spoon could’ve stood straight up in it. Taylor sat and stared down into the mug and a muscle quivered in his tan cheek. “You didn’t say what happened to her.”

  Oliver sat down with the boy and placed a big hand on his back. “Because I don’t know and I’m not sure you should ever know.”

  Lane put her phone away and pulled a quilt around her shoulders. “I want to know. I keep thinking she was…you know.”

  “She wasn’t,” I said.

  Both kids looked at me with doubt and fear radiating off of them.

  “I’m sure, but the doctor will confirm shortly.”

  Lane began to cry again. This time in relief that her mother hadn’t been violated.

  “I’m sorry, but I do need to ask you a few questions,” I said.

  “Now?” Oliver’s eyes grew hard.

  Anthony stood up and walked to the window. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “Where were you all at 2:02 a.m.?” I asked.

  “In bed,” Anthony said. “Alone. That doesn’t help, I guess.”

  “It’s just a fact and they do help. What about you, Taylor?”

  The boy glanced at Oliver.

  “It’s fine,” said his coach. “I don’t care what you were up to, just tell her.”

  “Quinn stole some of his dad’s whiskey. We got up after you went to bed and went up into the attic to drink it,” said Taylor.

  “Who was there? All of you?” I asked.

  Taylor thought about it. “No. Not everybody. The Grizzlies were too good for us. They had their own bottle. That’s how they are. The Vipers were there and my team.”

  “How big was that bottle?” asked Oliver.

  “Pretty big. Quinn said his dad got it at Costco. The Grizzlies had more than us.”

  “So you were drunk,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “None of you are going to remember who was where. Great.”

  A blush lit up Taylor’s cheeks.

  “What time did you start drinking?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe eleven.”

  Oliver nodded. “I went to bed at eleven fifteen.”

  “All the coaches went to bed by then?” I asked.

  “They were in bed before I got back from the fire pit. It was a long day.”

  So any of the Grizzlies or the coaches could’ve slipped out after 11:15.

  “Was everyone present this morning when you got up?” I asked Oliver.

  He thought about it for a second and then nodded. “Yes. All the boys and my coaches were there when we got them up at five.”

  “I assume you didn’t hear or see anything unusual?” I asked them.

  They all shook their heads, but Lane got out her phone and fiddled with it.

  Interesting.

  “Lane?”

  Her head jerked up, but she avoided my eyes.

  “Where were you at 2:02 this morning?” I asked.

  “In bed, of course,” she said.

  Taylor frowned. “Didn’t you notice Mom was gone?”

  “I was asleep, Taylor.” She began to cry again. “It’s not my fault.”

  Anthony knelt by her side. “Nobody thinks it’s your fault.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said.

  I got Lane’s version of the timeline and Lane wasn’t being truthful. She never met my eyes and cried whenever I pushed her to be specific. Lane’s story was simple. She was in bed when her mother came up to their room. Cherie got in bed and went to sleep immediately and when Lane woke up that morning her mother was gone. She didn’t think anything of it. Cherie was an early riser. Lane thought she’d gone down for coffee.

  This smells like boy.

  “Your mother was out of the castle before midnight when the lockdown happened. Can you think of anything that would get her to go outside?”

  Lane’s lip trembled. She had a pretty good idea, but she wasn’t going to tell me. At least, not until I backed her into a corner, and I would back her into a corner. I darted a knowing glance at her and she ducked her head, burrowing down into the quilt.

  “Do you have the key to your room on you?” I asked Lane and she nodded. “Can I have it?”

  Lane gave me the key without looking up.

  Yeah, girl. If you don’t look at me, I won’t know that you’ve got something to hide. Puhlease.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Taylor, wiping his cheeks dry.

  “I’m going to search the room and see if anything turns up.”

  “Like what? My mom didn’t do anything bad.”

  “I know, but maybe someone threatened her. Did she have a laptop?”

  Taylor gave me his mother’s password for her computer and her email password. I was briefly taken aback. If Cherie gave that info to her kids, she had nothing to hide or she thought she’d hidden it so well that her kids wouldn’t find it even with the passwords.

  “How good was your mom with technology?” I asked.

  Anthony gave a little laugh. “Terrible. I’m bad and she was worse than me. She told us her passwords because she could never remember them.”

  So it’s nothing to hide.

  “She told you everything then?”

  A shadow passed over Anthony’s face. “Not everything.”

  “How about how she paid for this trip?”

  The kids’ both frowned and Anthony said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I heard you arguing at the gas station yesterday.”

  Anthony picked at a jagged fingernail. “Oh, that was you behind the rack.”

  “I was heating up a burrito. What were you arguing about?”

  “This place,” Anthony gestured out the window, “this camp. We couldn’t afford it. That money should’ve been spent on personal coaching. Taylor needed that, not this.”

  “What about the prize?” I asked.

  He scoffed, “The prize? You mean the one they give out to the shiniest pitcher, not the most talented.”

  “Shiniest?”

  “That Enrique, he’s had the best of everything. New uniforms every year, every tournament, and the best specialized coaching money can buy. He makes a good story. Poor kid from Ecuador gets adopted by wealthy family and they turn him into a winner. That kid’s been buffed until he gleams. We shouldn’t have bothered with this place.”

  “I have a chance,” said Taylor, bowing his head. “Mom believed I co
uld get it.”

  Anthony instantly turned bright red. “I’m sorry, boy. You shouldn’t have just a chance. You should win hands down, but that junker will take it because he’s the story. You’re just another poor white kid.”

  “Enrique’s got a rifle.”

  “I’m not saying he can’t throw, but you’re better and more consistent.”

  Taylor stood up and walked out of the room, saying over his shoulder, “I don’t care who wins anymore. I just don’t give a fuck.”

  Anthony watched him go. “His mother cared. Cherie would’ve done anything to help him. It would…break her heart to see him give up.”

  “Mom just got killed, Grandpa,” said Lane, standing up and following her brother. “Who cares about stupid baseball? It’s just a game.”

  She left and Anthony said, “Just a game? Baseball’s never been just a game to this family.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Maybe that was the problem.”

  “You think someone killed Cherie over baseball? No. It’s…”

  “Just a game?”

  Anthony turned away and leaned on the window sill. Unless I was completely off, baseball was much more than just a game to someone at Cairngorms Castle.”

  Cherie and Lane’s room was in the South Wing. I never would’ve found it if Aaron hadn’t been there, trotting along ahead of me. His sense of direction was spot on even when I told him I wanted to interview Nicole and Cory first. Instead, of taking me to their tower or the ball fields, he took me to a staircase modeled on a flying buttress. At the top of the buttress were arched cathedral doors. Aaron opened a door and we emerged onto the parapet, the parapet where more than one Cairngorms owner decided to end it all. I stopped. I can’t say why I didn’t want to go through those doors, but I couldn’t stop staring at the low wall ahead with its crenelated stonework like bad dental work. How could anyone climb over that rough stone?

  Aaron touched my arm and the smell of hotdogs washed over me, bringing me to my senses with a wrinkled nose. “Listen.”

  I stepped out onto the parapet and heard Nicole say, “Why did you bring us up here? You know I hate heights.”

  “Me?” asked Cory. “You were leading.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said Nicole.

  “You’ve been up here at least six times.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “How do you climb all those stairs on accident?” asked Cory.

  “I don’t know. How do you keep ending up in the armory? I hate it up here. It makes me think about Quinn and then I think about Cherie. I hated her, but she was so young.”

  “She wasn’t that young,” said Cory.

  “Thanks. She was my age.”

  “You’re always angry. I thought you didn’t—”

  “You called me old.”

  “No, I didn’t. I meant Cherie seemed older. Older than you.”

  “Don’t you know exactly how old she is? You’ve memorized every other fact in the world.”

  “Nothing I do makes you happy,” said Cory.

  Somebody blew their nose and Nicole said in a strangled voice, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Come here,” said Cory.

  “Get off me,” said Nicole.

  “There’s nothing to do. She’s dead. Don’t think about her anymore.”

  Nicole cried softly. “I think we should go. The murderer could get back in.”

  “Whatever you want. Come on.”

  They walked around the corner. Nicole’s hair hung around her face in limp waves, no more Aqua Net, but Cory’s crew cut was just as pointy as ever. They looked like they dressed in the dark with mismatched workout gear. They stopped short when they saw us, and Nicole started peeling off the paint on her nails.

  “Were you spying on us?” asked Cory, his cheeks going red to match his wife’s eyes.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Nicole wiped her eyes with a very used tissue. “You admit it.”

  “Absolutely,” I said, smiling. “I’m supposed to find out who killed Cherie.”

  “You think we did it?” Cory rubbed his head and Nicole pulled his arm down to stop him.

  “Not necessarily, but I have to ask you some questions,” I said.

  Nicole tried to push past me. “Forget it. That was unforgivably rude.”

  It was, but I didn’t care. Dad considered eavesdropping a high art and if I told him I missed an opportunity because I was honest he would chase me around with a rubber spatula, a stick, or a handful of lemon curd. I know because all three of those have happened, the curd more than once.

  I blocked her path. “It won’t take a moment. Where were you at 2:02 and 3:15 this morning?”

  Cory tried to lift me out of the way, but Aaron said, “John won’t like that.” Cory stopped instantly. “What time did you say?”

  “2:02 and 3:15.”

  “We were asleep,” said Nicole. “That’s the middle of the night.”

  “We’re heavy sleepers,” said Cory.

  “You didn’t hear a gunshot?”

  “Gunshot? Was she shot?” asked Nicole. “Who would shoot Cherie? She was…annoying but…”

  Cory edged around me, careful not to touch. “We have to go. The boys are going down to the field.”

  “I’m surprised you aren’t with them,” I said.

  Nicole trotted out behind Cory and said over her shoulder, “The coaches wanted to talk to the boys about what happened before practice.”

  I watched them hustle down the buttress stairs. “Sleeping. Everybody’s going to say they were sleeping.”

  “I was,” said Aaron, staring off into space.

  “Well, I don’t think you strangled Cherie,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go to Cherie and Lane’s room.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Do I?”

  “I hope so because if you don’t we may as well call for help right now,” I said.

  Aaron didn’t answer. He trotted down the stairs like he knew something and I followed with crossed fingers. Ten minutes later, we were standing in front of a door with a green crystal embedded into the knob. Since Aaron didn’t offer up any information, I used Lane’s big brass key with a dangling green crystal to open it, but we didn’t go inside.

  I stopped on the threshold and looked in at the destruction. The room had been torn apart. In the mess, I recognized some of the clothes Lane and Cherie had worn. We had the right room.

  Aaron looked around my shoulder. “What?”

  “It’s been searched. Thoroughly.”

  “Huh?”

  Well, to me it had been torn apart. To others, perhaps not. The others, in this case, was Aaron. He was wearing his favorite Bat signal tee. It’d been washed to grey and had shrunk up to reveal the hairy belly protruding over his formerly navy sweatpants. I could only imagine what his apartment looked like. Probably like Cherie’s room without the girly clothes. The drawers were open. Panties and bras strewn on the floor. Women don’t throw our lacy bras on the floor. We just don’t. The closet was open and Cherie’s good dresses were off their hangers and lying in silky heaps where her shoes should’ve been. The shoes weren’t paired but were tossed at the foot of one of the double beds. Both beds were slept in but not seriously. The covers had been neatly drawn back in a triangle as if someone slid in to read a book for a bit, not for a full night’s sleep.

  Most importantly, Cherie’s laptop was nowhere to be seen. Even the bag was gone. Either she took it with her or someone helped themselves. I didn’t see her phone and it wasn’t on her body. Lane told me she had a Kindle Fire. It was gone, too.

  “I didn’t expect this,” I said.

  “I did,” said Aaron.

  I eyed the little weirdo, who appeared even less with-it than usual. He was staring at a random point on the wall and scratching his chest. “You expected this?”

  “She got murdered.”

>   “Obviously, but who would steal her stuff and why? Can’t be for profit. Everyone here had better stuff than Cherie.”

  “Evidence?” asked Aaron, flashing a piercing look that was usually aimed at food.

  I pulled out my phone. “Yes. Evidence. I assumed this was about rage. Maybe an argument about the prize. It wasn’t. Or, at least, that’s not all it was. She left the safety of the castle in the middle of the night. She could’ve been lured by the killer.”

  I hated to think Lane was a part of that, but the girl was hiding something. Daughters did kill mothers. It happened. Did it happen here? I shivered and Aaron put a warm hand on my shoulder. I had the strongest urge to call my interfering I-know-what’s-best-for-you mother, but I resisted. She’d probably ask why I wasn’t sitting in bed eating French toast with my cousins.

  Uncle Morty got my call instead. He couldn’t care less about my cousins or the wedding.

  “What?” he yelled. “I’m working.”

  “You’re working? Now? Right now?”

  He growled. “I’m pulling an all-nighter. Got to get it out. It’s flowing.

  “It’s after ten in the morning. Time for a break.”

  “To work for you?”

  “Yes.”

  Click.

  “He’s working,” said Aaron.

  “So I gathered.” I dialed again and got his voice mail. Angry bastard.

  “It’s me,” I said. “I’ll call Spidermonkey.”

  Then we waited. Spidermonkey was Uncle Morty’s main competition and, even if he was working, I didn’t see him letting Spidermonkey get one over on him.

  My phone rang and his water buffalo voice burst out of it, “Make it quick!”

  “One of the guests has been murdered. If you came up for air once in a while, you’d know that.”

  “Why the fuck do I care?” he yelled.

  “Because Dr. Watts put me in charge of the investigation and, let’s just say, John made it clear that it behooves me to do a good job.”

  “John who?”

  “The owner. Leslie’s partner of some sort.”

  His voice lowered and got gravelly. “Oh, that one.”

  “Yeah, that one. Do I need to call Spidermonkey or what?” I asked.

  “I’ll freaking do it. What do you want?”

  “Cherie Marin got strangled. I want you to look at her financials and email. I have her passwords.”