by A W Hartoin
A Sin and a Shame (A Mercy Watts Short)
by A.W. Hartoin
Copyright 2016 A.W. Hartoin
Smashwords Edition
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Also By A.W. Hartoin
Young Adult fantasy
Flare-up (An Away From Whipplethorn Short)
A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)
Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)
A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)
A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)
Mercy Watts Mysteries
Novels
A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)
Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Two)
Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Three)
Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)
In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)
The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six) coming soon
Short stories
Coke with a Twist
Touch and Go
Nowhere Fast
Dry Spell
A Sin and a Shame
Paranormal
It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)
Scene One
I’D SQUATTED AND I couldn’t get up. This was a new low for me. Literally. I lay on my bathroom floor with my leg cast wedged between the toilet and the vanity, and I wasn’t exactly sure how it happened. One minute I was squatting with my cast stuck out straight, and the next I was on the floor. All I was trying to do was scoop the cat pan, a chore that was easy until I broke my ankle in a river while chasing a would-be murderer.
Skanky, user of said cat pan, sauntered in when he heard me cry out. He jumped on the toilet and, being the least graceful cat in recorded history, promptly fell in, let out a horrific yowl and jumped out. He landed next to my face and shook, spraying my face. So now I was trapped in my own bathroom with toilet water on my face and a soaking wet cat yowling at me. He wanted me to towel him off because he was apparently too fancy to lick off toilet water. This from a cat that ate tinfoil and used tissues. The worst part was that I couldn’t remember when I’d last cleaned my toilet. At least two weeks. Ew.
I whacked my knee in an attempt to knock the cast free and pain rocketed through my ankle. It hadn’t been healing well, and this wasn’t going to help, but I had to do something. I tried a second time. The cast didn’t move, but the pain intensified.
“Why didn’t I bring my phone in here?” I asked Skanky.
He yowled and shook, spraying me with more toilet water. Awesome.
“How about you pretend you’re a dog and go get my phone?”
Skanky head butted me and yowled in my face. Useless animal. I tried to sit up and discovered that my abs were practically non-existent. I was still heavily bruised from being battered against boulders and had a certain Walking Dead look that had kept me homebound for the last week and a half. Staying home was much easier than explaining what happened to me, or worse, having some sleazy photographer take a picture and sell it to the tabloids with the headline, “Marilyn Monroe look-alike dying of injuries.” I was famous for my face and my family.
My father was Tommy Watts, a homicide cop with a phenomenal closure rate. He’d retired and opened his own agency. I’d gotten dragged into a few high-profile cases. Whenever I was involved, headlines happened. I decided I’d rather wait until my hovering mother came looking for me with a ready lecture on how I should be living at home so she could watch me than call 911 or anybody else. Mom could at least be trusted to keep this quiet. She hated unfavorable publicity and this would embarrass her to the extreme if I made it into the papers. Again.
Everyone else would talk, including Chuck, my new boyfriend. Chuck was my cousin by marriage and a homicide detective with absolutely no shame or discretion. He’d recently informed me that I’d been in love with him since the day we’d met at the courthouse when my uncle married his mother. The first thing Chuck said to me was that he was my boyfriend. I wasn’t exactly sure what that entailed, since I was nine, so I punched him and said that he wasn’t good enough for me. My dad overheard the whole thing and bought me an American Girl doll as a reward for obeying orders. Dad had decided that I wasn’t allowed to date until I was thirty-eight, but Chuck had grown on him considerably since then. He followed Dad onto the force and was Dad’s favorite, beating me by a wide margin. Chuck always followed orders, unlike me. I thought of Dad’s orders as suggestions that I was free to ignore.
I could just picture Chuck answering the phone and immediately telling every cop within shouting distance about the hilarious thing that Mercy just did. No thanks.
My phone started ringing from its spot on the breakfast bar, and I tried twisting my leg to try to pop the cast out. I nearly barfed from the shooting pain in my ankle. The phone sent the call to voice mail and then started ringing again. Normally, I would’ve groaned. Nobody was that persistent, except family. For once, having an overly-involved family was a good thing. I never expected that to happen.
My phone went through the same cycle three more times before my landline rang. Dad insisted that I keep one in case of emergency. It wasn’t much help since I couldn’t reach it.
The ancient answering machine beeped and Dad’s voice bellowed out, “Mercy. I know you're home. Pick up.” He paused, giving me a chance, I suppose. “If you don't pick up I'm coming over.”
“Yes!” I shouted and relaxed, looking up at the underside of my toilet. I really needed to clean.
Skanky head butted me and yowled.
“You’re fine. Dad’ll be here in a minute.”
Skanky went up into an extreme arch, hissed, and ran at the mention of Dad. My cat wasn’t a fan. Dad had stuffed him into his carrier one too many times. The carrier was a harbinger of doom as far as Skanky was concerned and so was Dad.
Ten minutes later, there was a tremendous pounding on my front door.
“Dad!” I yelled.
More pounding and faint yelling, “Mercy! Open the door!”
“Come in!”
“Mercy!” yelled Dad.
“Use your key!” I yelled so loud my throat burned.
I heard a metallic thump. Damn. I’d put on the chain.
“Mercy!” yelled Dad with a hint of panic. It surprised me. Dad wasn’t normally panicky.
“I’m in the bathroom! I fell!”
“Hold on! I’m coming!” There was a thump and a crash as Dad broke through my door. I heard him run toward the bathroom, and he appeared in the bathroom door holding an afghan over his face. “Are you naked?” he asked.
“No.”
Dad lowered the blanket slowly like I might be tricking him. Like I’d do that. Ew.
“What the hell happened?” he asked.
“I told you. I fell,” I said with what I hoped passed for dignity.
“Why’s your head wet?”
Nope. No dignity.
“Never mind that. My cast is stuck.”
Dad tossed the afghan aside and leaned on the doorframe, crossing his arms. He grinned at me, popping out the famous Watts dimples. “Spill it.”
“It’s toilet water. Okay?”
&n
bsp; “You stuck your head in the toilet?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. Are you going to help me or what?”
“Or what. Why’s your head wet?”
“Skanky fell in and shook next to my head. Happy?”
Dad burst out laughing, bending over and slapping his bony knee. His face turned as red as his hair.
“Yeah, Dad. It’s hilarious. Come on. Broken ankle here. Pain.”
At the word ‘pain’, Dad snapped into cop mode. He crossed the room in two big strides and dropped to his knees to examine my situation. “That is really wedged in there. I’m going to have to pry it out. Where’s your toolbox?”
“Toolbox?”
“Mom gave you a full toolbox. Where is it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s in my truck.”
“You should have one in the house,” said Dad.
“Is this really the time to lecture me?” I asked.
Dad grinned at me. “I always have time for a lecture, baby girl.” He pulled out his Leatherman and opened it to the tiny pry bar. A few quick pries and I was free.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said as he helped me to my feet.
“Don’t mention it.” He didn’t look at me, and my alarm bells went off.
“Dad, why were you calling me?”
“I sensed you were in trouble,” he said, unable to suppress a huge smile.
I hobbled past him. “Yeah, right. Whatever it is, I’m not doing it.”
He followed me into the bedroom. I could sense the smugness. Dad was nothing if not smug when he was assured of a win. “Yes, you will. I just saved you.”
“Mom would’ve turned up sooner or later.” I sat on the bed and shook out a fresh trash bag to cover my cast for a much-needed shower.
Dad tapped his chin. “You’re absolutely right and if Mom had showed up to save your bacon what would happen next?”
“She’d make me…no…you can’t tell her. She’ll want me to move home until I get this stupid cast off.”
“Yes, she will.”
I shook my head. “I won’t do it. I simply won’t. I’m a grown woman.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Your mother has a key and she loves you. You always wanted a roommate, right?” he asked with a laugh.
“This is not happening.”
“Oh, it’s happening. But lucky for you, my silence can be bought.”
I slumped. “With what?’
“I need a coffee. You want a coffee?” he asked.
“No. Just tell me.”
He didn’t just tell me. He went out into my tiny kitchen and made an espresso, hunching over to do it properly. My father was too big for my apartment and for my kitchen, in particular. What he didn't have in girth, he made up in height. I was the exact opposite, but like my father, I found ways to make my looks pay. He always said that criminals underestimated him because he was a tall goofy-looking redhead. Think a 6’4” Howdy Doody and you've got my dad. I, on the other hand, was a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe. People, usually men, think I'm empty-headed right up until I get their nuts in a vise.
He threw back the espresso and licked the crema off his thin upper lip. “I’ve got something for you.”
“Not for me, you don’t.”
“It's right up your alley.”
“I have no alley.”
“Hear me out. You owe me and it'd be a big help.”
“I bet. My father had built a successful private investigations outfit after his retirement. He always considered me an excellent, unpaid labor resource. When I was a kid, it was washing his car or mowing the lawn. Now it was tailing suspects, interviewing, and even the occasional investigation if he was busy. Dad had several real detectives on staff, but he had to pay them. I was a nurse and that gave me the extra advantage of free medical advice.
“You won’t tell Mom about the toilet thing?” I asked.
Dad gave me a lopsided grin. “What toilet thing?”
“Fine. What is it?”
“Lorraine Grady ring a bell?”
I wrinkled my nose. “The killer librarian?”
“The one and only.”
Oh my god. An easy one. Finally.
“What's to investigate? She did it. She confessed.”
Dad shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.”
Lorraine Grady was a seventy-two-year-old retired librarian. One night a month earlier, she had gone to Harold Mosby's house and shot him three times in the chest on his front porch. Then she calmly set the gun next to the body and waited for the police to arrive. She waived her rights, confessed, and was awaiting sentencing.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“The family wants a more thorough investigation.” Dad said.
“They think she didn't do it?”
Dad made me a quick latte. “Not her family. His. They want to know why she did it.”
“What did she say?” I took a sip, and suddenly having toilet water in my hair didn’t seem so bad. Coffee cures a lot.
“Nothing. Conway caught the case, and he says that she's completely clammed up about motive. He can't even prove they knew each other, much less why she'd want to kill him. Not that he's knocking himself out over it.”
“Does he need to find a motive?”
“Not necessarily. She confessed so no trial. Nobody cares, except the Mosbys, and that's where we come in.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Go talk to her. Tell me if she's a loon.”
“I’m not a psych nurse and even if I were, I wouldn't be able to tell from one interview anyway,” I said.
Dad made a second espresso. “You can give me your general impression. That's all I ask.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That's all?”
“I swear.”
I finished my latte and the good feeling faded. It couldn’t be that easy. It was me, after all. “Will the lockup let me in?”
“Sure. She's not restricted.”
Skanky trotted in from the bedroom, took one look at Dad, and darted under the sofa. Coward.
“When do you want me to do it?” I asked.
“Now.”
“Forget it. I’m beat to hell. That’s why I’m not out doing my real job.”
“You can do this on one leg, and nobody cares what you look like,” said Dad.
I snorted. “Since when? Half of me is purple, and the other half is green. If I go to the lockup, there might be press.”
“Press is good for business, and you're curious. You know you are,” he said. “Donny's working the lockup now. He'll take care of you.”
“Since when is Donny off the street?”
“Since he got shot in the lung last year.”
“Right.”
“Remember,” said Dad. “I need this done right.”
Dad left after giving me a lecture on the importance of success. Actually, he called it a lecture. I called it a threat.
After bagging my leg, I showered with a double shampoo for the toilet water. Then I dry-shampooed Skanky. He thanked me by curling up on my pillow and sneezing repeatedly.
I tried to think of something else to do, but there was no use fighting the inevitable, though I was dreading it. I've never gotten along well with librarians. They don't like the look of me or so I've been told. Maybe that’s because I was always looking for boys in the stacks instead of research material. I do alright with old ladies, if I'm careful to look demure. Demure isn't easy for me, but I can pull it off with effort.
I blow-dried my hair, pulled it back into a barrette, and put on lip balm. There wasn’t enough foundation in the world to cover my bruises and bare face was my only hope with a librarian. If I wore blush or lined anything, I looked like a tart. Librarians don’t like tarts so I wore a jean skirt, a white cotton button-up shirt and a pair of brown flats. I hoped my getup made me look like a young, guileless victim instead of a girl on a mission. If I didn’t, I’d bette
r go ahead and make up the sofa. Failure meant I had a roommate.
Scene Two
LUCKY FOR ME, the county lockup was a half-hour away. A couple of more weeks and the killer librarian would be transferred to Chillicothe. No amount of pestering would get me to drive out there for a fifteen-minute interview, not using my left foot to drive. It was surprisingly difficult, especially with the old school brakes in my 1958 Chevy pickup.
By the time I parked, I was ready for a nap, not an interview with an elderly murderer. But if I wanted to avoid a Mom freak-out, I had no choice but to go in the flat, gray building with little to recommend it. I walked in and went to the visitor's desk. Donny was sitting there so slumped that his chin was touching his chest. He didn’t look up, staring at a bag of celery and carrot sticks.
“Hey, Donny. Nice snack,” I said. I'd never before seen Donny eat a vegetable. He was the kind of guy who told waitresses not to bother bringing the salad that came with the meal.
He perked up and said, “Hey, Mercy. Tommy said you'd be by. Want to get a look at the librarian, huh?”
“Want is putting it a bit strong. More like have to.”
“Little favor for the old man?”
“Yeah. I’ll add it to the list.”
Donny laughed and then saw his celery. The smile fell right off his face.
“What's with the veggies?” I said.
“Goddamn diet. First I get shot, then they put me on a diet. Doc says I gotta lower my cholesterol or I’m gonna have a heart attack. I wish that bastard had shot me in the head.”
“Well, you look good.” That was being generous. Donny was as skinny as my dad but with an added grey pallor and sad eyes that reminded me of Skanky when I wouldn’t give him his favorite smoky cheddar. “How high was the cholesterol?”
“273.”
“Holy crap. How’d the docs miss that?” I asked.
“I never had it checked. Then that bastard shot me, and they checked it in the hospital,” said Donny.
“Tough break.”
Donny pulled out a carrot stick and stared at it morosely. “My wife is pissed. I told her my cholesterol was good. Now she’s got me weighing food on a freaking scale. I lost six pounds, and now she’s mad about that. How am I supposed to gain weight eating rabbit food?” He looked up like he thought I might actually know. “Whoa, doggy. That bruising is something. It looks like you went to a blanket party.”
