by A W Hartoin
“Are you trying to scare me to death?” I yelled.
Uncle Morty chuckled. “If that was possible, Tommy’d have done it long ago.”
“Why are you here?”
“You know why I’m here, Nosy Parker.”
“Did Claire call you? That little traitor,” I said, trying to look wronged instead of being wrong.
“You two was never friends. You got all the looks. She got all the dates. Boys are smarter than they seem.”
I plopped down in Dad’s comfy chair. “What does that mean? Guys were right to ask out Claire instead of me? Claire doesn’t have two opinions to put together.”
“Looks ain’t everything. You are trouble with a capital T.”
“I am not.”
“What are you here for? Dusting, I suppose.”
“I could be.”
He snorted. “You’re here to find information that’s none of your business.”
“It’s my family and I want to know what happened with our house.”
“Get used to being in the dark. It’s where Tommy wants you,” he said.
“No way. I’m getting deposed on this crap.”
“That’s an easy deposition for you then. You don’t know nothing and that’s how it’s going to stay.”
I crossed my arms. “You have to leave sometime. I’ll wait you out and get in those files.”
Morty picked up a black nylon briefcase and dropped it on the desk. “Ain’t nothing to find.”
Chapter 3
RIGHT AFTER MORTY left my parents’ house with his briefcase and all the information I wanted, I got called in to work a twelve-hour night shift in a Pediatric ICU. I took the shift, despite the heartache it would inevitably bring ,because I worked PRN, which meant I filled in when someone was short a nurse. Peds was my least favorite work, but I have to admit there was something about taking care of a child when a family was living their worst nightmare. I could do a good job. I could help. Sometimes I needed to be what other people needed. It was a quiet night and nothing much happened. There were about ten people on that floor who didn’t think I was trouble, so that was a bonus and I scored a second shift the next night.
I got home in the morning and into bed while managing to ignore cellphone messages. Six hours later, the landline Dad insisted I have for his own nefarious purposes began ringing with a decidedly crabby tone. I ignored it. That never worked out for me, but I tried it anyway.
After ten separate calls, the answering machine picked up. “Mercy, don’t make me come over there.”
Dad. The writer of confidentiality agreements and ruiner of many a date.
The phone rang again. This time I picked up. “What?”
“Is that how you greet your loving father?” he said.
“It is today.”
“Were you asleep?”
“I worked a twelve-hour shift last night,” I said.
“Well…this is important.”
“It always is.”
“Did you meet Oz Urbani yesterday?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say. That was fast, even for Dad.
“Mercy. Oz Urbani. Did you meet him?
“Um…yeah. I guess so,” I said.
“Did you or didn’t you?”
“I did. Why?” I asked.
“Don’t speak to him again.”
“Why not?”
“Can’t you just listen and obey?” asked Dad.
“Hello. This is your daughter speaking.”
“Alright. This is how it is. His full name is Oswald Fibonacci Urbani. Get it?”
“Not really.” I yawned. This conversation wasn’t nearly as interesting as Dad thought it was.
“He’s a Fibonacci as in the Fibonaccis.”
“Are you talking about the Mafia family?” I asked.
“That’s the one. Oz is the nephew of Catone Fibonacci, the supposed head of the family.”
“Supposed?”
“Rumor has it that Catone’s twin, Calpurnia, is the power behind the throne, but it seems unlikely.”
I blinked. A woman heading a Mafia family? That was unexpected, and, if it were true, the Fibonaccis would be a very well run organization. I shuddered to think what my mother could do with such an army at her beck and call.
“So Oswald’s in the mob,” I said. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“He’s not officially. He’s a golf pro,” said Dad.
“Then why can’t I talk to him?”
“He’s a Fibonacci. What did he want?”
“Maybe he wanted a date,” I said.
Dad made a grunt full of sarcasm. “What did he want?”
“He wanted me to find out if his sister’s husband is an asshole.”
“Stay away from him. You don’t want to owe him or have him owe you.”
“No problem.”
Dad hung up after giving me a dozen dire warnings about getting involved with a Fibonacci. They sounded eerily similar to the warnings he used to give me about boys. I almost asked him about the house, but it was pointless. He’d never tell me anything. I’d have to find out the hard way. I wondered what Claire liked more, vodka or tequila. She looked like a lightweight. That would make it easier to get information out of her.
I fell asleep thinking of the best way to booze information out of Claire. After much less sleep than I wanted, I went in for my last shift before vacation. It ended up being one of my worst nights as a nurse ever. Two children died, one from a head wound sustained falling out of a second story window and the other leukemia. I managed to keep my crying to a half hour in the bathroom and vowed never to return. I told my service not to book me any more shifts on Peds, but I don’t think they took me seriously.
I got up when it was dusk and started packing, only to realize my one suitcase was too small for everything Sheila made me buy. I put on one of Sheila’s favorites, a sleeveless shirtdress that managed to cover all my bits, and decided to walk over to my parents’ house to borrow one of Mom’s suitcases. I left my apartment barefoot and swinging my sandals in one hand. The day’s heavy humidity had lifted, leaving a slight chill in the air and a smell that only happened in St. Louis in late August, a sort of clean dirt smell. I did my best to push those two kids out of my mind. I don’t know how Dad worked on cases involving kids as much as he did. He seemed to handle it pretty well with the help of a bottle of Tullamore Dew. I wasn’t much of a drinker, so the best I had to cope was to put those faces into a little box deep inside my mind and promise myself I’d visit them again one day.
“Hey, Mercy!” A man waved at me from the door of Black Heart Books, the best bookstore on the planet and the only one in the Central West End.
I waved back, but didn’t cross the street. It was Nardo, a photographer who’d started stalking me after the public became aware of my uncanny resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. There was a market for pictures of me and he didn’t care how he got them. Eventually, we came to an understanding. Nardo would be my official photographer and would keep the rest of the paparazzi away from me. Since then he’d taken to hanging out in my neighborhood and I saw him nearly every day.
“I have some jobs for you!” he yelled.
“Vacation! See you in a couple weeks!”
He saluted, turned back into the shop, and joined his book group on the cushy sofa next to the front window. Nardo, after he stopped stalking me, turned out to be a pretty reasonable person. He belonged to multiple book groups and made fantastic salsa verde.
I took a right onto Lexington and then found myself walking on the gaslit sidewalk of Hawthorne Avenue. The houses were huge on our end of the street, but not as big as the ones on Myrtle and Millicent’s end. I’d avoided their side, since they left for Prie-Dieu. Their house looked so lonely and sad without them. Mom went over to water the plants, but I couldn’t bear to. It made me feel like Myrtle and Millicent had died and I’d never see them again. Most of the houses on our end were just as quiet and dark. Their inhabitan
ts were spending the hot summer months in Europe or on private islands in the Caribbean. My parents, on the other hand, were home. The lights were blazing on all three stories. Mom liked light and music, all kinds, and reggae blared out into the night.
I let myself in and yelled, “Mom!”
“In the kitchen!”
I dropped my sandals and found Mom packing snacks in a gallon ziplock bag, like they didn’t have snacks on cruise ships.
“How many granola bars do you think we need?” Mom asked, holding a box of the really dry crusty ones.
“None,” I said.
“Don’t be difficult. We have to have snacks.”
I groaned as my Aunt Tennessee came in. She was wrapped in an enormous orange shawl thing. Since she weighed well over two hundred pounds, you can imagine the size of it.
“Mercy, I bought a new swimming suit. Do you want to see?” she asked, her face lit up with hope.
I’d been through this exercise every year of my life. Aunt Tenne bought a suit every year, hoping it would be different, that something called “Magic Suit” or “Hope on a Hanger” really would be the answer, and it never was.
“Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.
Aunt Tenne opened her arms like a joyfully dramatic butterfly and my mouth dropped. Holy crap! It was a magic suit. There was a waist where there’d never been one before. Curves. A lovely line.
“That is the best suit I have ever seen,” I said. “I want one.”
She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”
Mom watched me over Aunt Tenne’s shoulder, her pretty face puckered in a frown.
“What?” I mouthed.
Mom shook her head and Aunt Tenne stepped back. “It’s going to be different this year. I won’t think about it. I’m going to be happy.” She flounced out of the kitchen, singing Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain.”
“What’s she talking about?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said Mom, avoiding my eyes. “She’s turning over a new leaf. That’s all.”
“Doesn’t sound like you believe it.”
“Sometimes it’s just hard hoping for things to get better.”
“What’s supposed to get better? The weight?” I asked.
“It’s not about the weight.”
“What’s it about then?”
“Never mind. We need to talk,” she said.
I didn’t like the sound of that. Usually I came out on the losing end of our mother/daughter talks. “I just came for a suitcase.”
Mom brightened up, thoughts of Aunt Tenne forgotten. “That’s what I want to talk about. You don’t need to pack all the stuff you bought from Sheila.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t sound so suspicious. We’ve been upgraded.”
“To what? A nude cruise?”
“Don’t be disgusting. It’s not a cruise anymore.” Mom shook the entire box of nasty granola bars in the snack bag and looked at me, triumphant.
“What happened to the cruise?”
“Ava called this morning from the travel agency and she found us an even better deal.”
“I can’t believe you still use a travel agency.”
“Ava is a specialist and I don’t have time to search for deals. Do you?” asked Mom.
I did, but I said, “No.”
“Alright then. We’re going to…Roatan.” Mom flung out her arms like she was presenting an award.
“Where’s that?” I plopped down on a chair and picked through Mom’s pile of Belgian chocolate bars, looking for a seventy percent. No luck.
“Honduras. Haven’t you always wanted to go there?”
“To Honduras? Um…I’m going to go with no.”
“It’ll be fantastic. We’re going to scuba dive. It’s all included.”
“Do we want to scuba dive?” I asked. Scuba diving was right up there with base jumping. I had enough excitement just being Tommy Watts’s daughter.
Mom rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. The fluffy curls that always behaved landed and framed her face. At forty-seven, she could’ve passed for my sister easily. I can’t tell you how many of my dates liked her better than me. Between her and Claire it’s a wonder I ever got a boyfriend. Maybe I was trouble. I snatched a sixty percent Galler bar and inhaled it.
“Where’s your passport?” Mom asked.
“In my dresser.”
Mom handed me a printout of airline itinerary and reservations at La Isla Bonita Beach and Dive Resort.
“What about Dixie?” I asked. “The cruise was kind of her thing.”
“She’s fine with it. Very excited.”
I couldn’t tell if Mom was telling the truth or not, but I doubted Mom’s best friend was okay with the change. Her husband Gavin had died two months ago. He was one of the murders I’d been deposed about. Gavin never wanted to go on a cruise. He thought they’d be boring. The cruise was supposed to be some sort of a fresh start for Dixie.
“Mercy.” Mom came over and hugged me. “She’s okay with it. I promise. We can go on a cruise anytime.”
The door to the butler’s pantry flew open and my cousin by marriage, Chuck, strode in carrying a sparkly pink gift bag. He wore St. Louis police department workout clothes and shone with sweat. Every muscle stood out on his long, lean limbs and he smelled like man. Another one for my think-about-later box.
He dropped the bag on the table. “Why the long faces? Isn’t it girl trip time?”
“We’re going to Honduras,” I said.
“I heard. You two will be something in wetsuits,” said Chuck.
“I’m not sure about the scuba diving.”
“I’m advanced certified. It’s not that difficult. They’ll take good care of you.” His blue eyes twinkled at me and his mouth suppressed a grin.
“You say that like you think I need coddling or something.”
Mom laughed and packed the chocolate bars. “Well, honey, you’re not known for your toughness.”
“What?” I jumped up. Only later did I discover that I had flecks of chocolate all over my face. “I’m tough. I brought down Gavin’s murderer, didn’t I?”
“Technically, your partner brought him down and I arrested him,” said Chuck.
“Aaron is not my partner, and I figured it out.”
“Aaron clocked him,” said Mom. “You make a good team.”
“We are not a team. Nobody could team with Aaron,” I said.
This had been an ongoing argument for the last two months. Dad had declared Uncle Morty’s friend Aaron and I a team after I solved his best friend, Gavin’s, murder with, I suppose, a tiny bit of help from Aaron. So every time I did something for Dad now, Aaron was right there helping. That mainly meant boring me senseless with talk of Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, and hot dogs. Actual help was not on the list.
“Aaron’s a good guy and he saved your bacon. I won’t hear anything against him,” said Mom.
“I’m not saying he’s evil. He’s Aaron. And I am tough.”
Mom put her hands on her hips. “You’re difficult. Can’t you be more accepting of the special people in your life?”
“Yeah,” said Chuck, stepping closer. “Can’t you accept the special people?”
“Aaron’s special alright.” I backed away. “You stink.”
“What’s in the bag, Chuck?” asked Mom.
“Present for Mercy. Wear it in good health,” he said.
I opened the bag and pulled out the smallest bikini I’d ever seen. It had pink polka dots and couldn’t have been used to cover an entire melon much less me.
“It’s adorable,” declared Mom. “I love the color.”
“Are you kidding? You said I had to have one-pieces with underwires,” I said.
Mom snorted. “This is a gift.”
“I can’t wear that. It’s illegal in fifty-eight countries.”
“But not in Honduras.” Mom l
eft with the snack bag and yelled over her shoulder. “Thank your cousin.”
Chuck pursed his lips. “I’m ready to be thanked.”
“Ooh, gross.”
Chuck wasn’t a real blood relation. His mom married my uncle when he was thirteen and he’d been bothering me ever since.
“No kiss?” he asked.
“Not a chance. I do have a question for you though.”
“Yes, I’ll help you try on the bikini. It’s the least I can do.”
“It’s more than you can ever hope for. My question is about our house,” I said.
Chuck crossed his arms. “Oh, yeah. What about it?”
“Do you know when Myrtle and Millicent signed it over?”
“Before we were born. I don’t know the day.”
“Do you know why they signed it over?” I asked.
He watched me for a second and then said, “Why are you asking?”
“Because I got deposed about it.”
“Then it’s good you don’t know.”
“But you do?” I asked. “Did Dad tell you not to tell me?”
“Nope. He didn’t have to. If he wanted you to know something, he’d tell you. End of story.” Chuck opened the pantry door and a rush of coldness came in from my favorite space.
“But he told you?”
Chuck moved so quickly I didn’t have time to flinch. He gave me a peck on the lips and went into the pantry. I followed, a little breathless. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He gave me his best rakish grin. “Getting my thank-you.”
“Did Dad tell you about the house and how they got it?” I asked.
“No, but it doesn’t take a genius to know something weird’s going on there.” Chuck left through the back door and I stayed standing on the marble pantry floor, feeling the cold creep up my ankles.
Chapter 4
AN HOUR LATER, I found my boyfriend, Pete, in an on-call room, sleeping off back-to-back bowel resections. He claimed his surgical residency would end some day. I had my doubts.
I slipped in the room and knelt by the bunk bed and pushed the dark blond hair off his broad forehead. He didn’t move. His phone began vibrating away on the floor next to his slack hand that hung off the side of the bed. The screen said ICU Stat. Great. Foiled again. We’d had a few romantic moments in on-call rooms, but that night wasn’t going to be one of them.
