A Sin and a Shame (A Mercy Watts Short)

by A W Hartoin

  “What about a boyfriend?”

  “She's an old lady, Mercy!” He blushed and looked out the window.

  I suppressed a smile at his naïveté. One of my great grandmothers got married at eighty. Passion could happen at any age. “How about a close friend?”

  “Edna Downing. They've been friends since grade school. She volunteers at the library, too,” he said. “I have Aunt Lorraine’s books. Do you want them?”

  “Books?” I asked.

  “Her scrapbooks.” He lifted a pile of scrapbooks out of a drawer.

  “Where'd you get them?”

  “She keeps them here. We have dinner once a week and afterwards she works on her books or quilts while I write my sermons.”

  I frowned. “Why didn't you give them to the police?”

  “No one asked,” he said, surprised.

  “Have they interviewed you?”

  “No.”

  Dad said the cops weren’t knocking themselves out and he was right as usual. Motive was important. They could’ve given it a shot.

  “Did she ever mention Harold Mosby to you?” I asked. “Did she act any different before it happened?”

  “Not at all. I had no idea she was going to do that and I never heard of Harold Mosby until I heard it on the news.”

  “Lorraine didn't call you from jail?”

  “No, I went down on my own.”

  “Okay then. I'll take the scrapbooks and let you know what comes up. Call me if you think of anything.” I wrote my number on a sticky pad and left with a feeling that something wasn’t right. Lorraine Grady wasn’t a random killer. I just needed to find out exactly what she was.

  Scene Three

  ON THE WAY home, I picked up Skanky. He yowled until we got through the door and I bribed him into silence with his favorite smoky cheddar. He ate his weight and fell asleep on the floor next to my bed because the greedy bugger was too bloated to jump on the bed.

  Aunt Miriam hadn’t restocked my fridge yet, so I ordered Chinese and went through Lorraine's scrapbooks while I waited. Her life was average to the extreme. She was the only daughter of a dentist and a homemaker. She went to a Catholic all-girls school for her first twelve years and then on to college. It looked like Lorraine documented everything, which was good for me. She kept ticket stubs, notes passed in class, and programs from recitals that she wasn't even in. She started scrapbooking when she turned five. Her childish scrawls were charming, but they saddened me after what she’d done so many years later.

  After flipping through the entire collection once, I started over when my food arrived. I looked for Harold Mosby's name on every single page, but he was nowhere to be found. I wasn't really surprised. Conway would've found any obvious connections already. Mosby wasn't a classmate or co-worker. If they'd ever run across each other, I found no evidence of it. What I did find surprised me more. I found a block of missing time. Lorraine documented everything from kindergarten to a week before the murder. But in her high school years, when the most was happening, she skipped a year and a half. In October 1946, Lorraine stopped documenting until her graduation nineteen months later. There was no explanation. She just stopped and then started up again in the summer.

  All that page turning wasn't much to show for an entire afternoon, but at least I had something to take to Edna Downing. She was my next stop at the Immaculate Conception school library. I did a little rooting around and found IC to be a very tight community as well as a conservative one. There was no mention of Lorraine Grady on the library page. She’d been quickly scrubbed away like she never existed, and, for some reason, that bothered me. According to Father Gregory, she’d done a lot for the school, not to mention working there all her adult life. They couldn’t be bothered to visit her to so much as ask why, and it grated on me. Did this terrible thing she’d done wipe out every other good act of her life?

  I pondered these questions as I limped across the campus. Class was in session and I saw nobody, a relief because the vet had visibly cringed when she saw me and then proceeded to ask all kinds of questions I didn’t want to answer.

  The map on the website showed the library in the middle of the tiny campus, surrounded by stately brick buildings named for school donors. IC was exclusive and far out of most parents’ price range, including mine. My godmothers, Myrtle and Millicent Bled of the Bled Brewing family, paid for my education, so I went to Whitmore Academy. It was a long twelve years. I didn’t exactly fit in with a cop and a paralegal for parents, but at least we were co-ed. IC clung to the outdated all-girls philosophy.

  I spotted the library as a bell rang. Groups of young girls with straight hair, clear skin and plaid skirts walked closely together and stole curious glances at me as I hobbled into the library. It was quiet, but it got even quieter when I entered. I might've had a flashing neon sign over my head for all the attention I gathered. On second thought, I didn’t need a sign. I had bruises. A nun in traditional black covertly stared at me from behind a stack of reference volumes, and I took that as an invitation.

  “Excuse me. Can you tell me if Edna Downing is here today?” I said.

  “May I ask who you are?” she said.

  “Mercy Watts. Sister Miriam's niece. I really need to talk to Edna for her.”

  A little name dropping never hurt anyone.

  She frowned and fussed with her skirt while eyeing my injuries. “Sister Miriam? I don't believe I know her.”

  “She's with the Sisters of Mercy at St. John's. You can call if you like, Sister,” I said sweetly.

  “Well, I don't know,” she said. “May I ask what happened to you?”

  The sister must not watch the news. My face had been splashed all over in the last week and a half, and it wasn’t the first time.

  “I had an accident,” I said.

  She gently touched my sleeve. “Do you think you ought to be out and about?”

  “Probably not, but Sister Miriam asked me to do her this favor, and it won’t take long.”

  The nun leaned in. “You're not a reporter, are you?”

  I laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m a nurse.”

  “Good. There have been so many of those people around lately. Poor Edna can't take much more.” The sister tucked a few strands of gray back into her veil and smiled, turning her face into a roadmap of happiness. “Since you’re not a reporter, I’m pleased to meet you. I'm Sister Monica. I'll take you to Edna. She's taken to hiding, just in case.”

  We walked to the back of the library and into an office stacked with old textbooks. An elderly woman was sitting at the desk, writing in a large green ledger. She didn't acknowledge us when we came in. She continued to write in flowing cursive while Sister Monica calmly waited. Edna looked older than her friend, Lorraine. She was a thin woman and her cheeks sagged from recent weight loss. Her hair was tightly permed and sprayed into perfect coils, but she wore no makeup or jewelry except for a wedding ring that barely clung to her bony finger. I recognized her from the dozens of pictures in Lorraine's scrapbooks, but it was a stretch. The last photo Lorraine put in was dated six months ago, and Edna was hardly the same woman.

  ‘Yes, Sister Monica?” she asked, still not looking up.

  “Edna, this is Miss Watts. She'd like to talk to you.”

  “I’m rather busy at the moment,” she said in a brittle voice.

  “I’m not a reporter. Sister Miriam and Father Gregory sent me,” I said.

  Edna looked up and scanned my face for lies as if she expected to find them written there in thick ink.

  “Have a seat. Thank you, Sister Monica.”

  Sister Monica left and closed the door behind her. The smell of school closed in around me, and, for a moment, I was seventeen again, having lost yet another book.

  Edna tapped her pen on the ledger. “Lorraine’s nephew sent you?”

  Yeah, me. What’s wrong with me? Besides the obvious.

  “Yes, he did. He's asked me to look into his aunt's case.”

&nb
sp; “You’re a private detective. How is he paying you?”

  “It’s a favor by way of my aunt, Sister Miriam. Do you know her?” I asked.

  “By reputation. You’re the famous niece.” She said ‘famous’ like she would’ve said diseased. Nice.

  I rubbed my aching knee and gave her the stink eye. Aunt Miriam had taught me well. “My history isn’t the issue here. Miss Grady’s is.”

  Edna caught her breath at my impertinence and then nodded. “You’re right, of course. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

  “It’s alright,” I said.

  “I’m afraid it’s not. I’m not myself these days. What would you like to ask me?”

  “For starters, have you ever heard of Harold Mosby?”

  She shook her head sadly. “As I told the police, I don't know him or why Lorraine would want to kill him.”

  “Okay. I've been going through Lorraine's scrapbooks, and there's a period of time when she stopped working on them. Do you know anything about that? It was from October 1946 to June 1948.”

  “That would be our junior and senior years. Can't imagine why she'd stop…except that she didn't do much during that time.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don't know. She had her heart broken or some such nonsense.”

  “She didn't tell you what was wrong?”

  “No. She denied that anything was wrong, but I could tell. She quit all our clubs, except Latin. She wouldn't go to any socials or outings. She said she had to study, but Lorraine never had to study.”

  The ache in my ankle intensified, and I got a couple Motrin out of my purse. Edna got up without asking and got me a cup of water with a kind look of sympathy. “Thank you.” I took the pills and asked, “Can you think of anything special happening that October?”

  “Oh, it was so long ago. Can you remember October of your junior year?”

  “Not really.” That’s what I said, but I did remember. I was testifying in a murder trial. It was my first trial, but far from my last. I’d have paid good money to forget it.

  Edna refilled my cup. “And I'm a lot older than you. Sometimes I forget what I’m supposed to be doing or confuse my sons. It happens to us all, I'm afraid.” She took up her pen again and gave me a stern look. “Do you think you can help Lorraine?”

  “I don't know. I'll do my best. Do you scrapbook?”

  “Not since my boys were little.”

  “But you did in high school?”

  She smiled. “Yes, it was the thing to do.”

  “Do you think I could take a look at your junior year scrapbook?”

  Edna stood up, came around the desk, and offered me a hand up. “A very good idea, Miss Watts. They're at home. If you’ll come with me, I’ll give them to you.”

  It took us quite a while to make it to the cars. I don’t know who was more unsteady, me or Edna. The Motrin wasn’t helping, and I was going to have to break down and take some serious painkillers. Edna was just weak. She probably hadn’t been eating or drinking much. I took her arm and felt the skin of her forearm. Very dehydrated. It was none of my business, but I’d have to find a way to say something. Aunt Miriam would have something to say if she saw Edna, and she’d have more to say to me if she knew I kept my opinions to myself. She never did.

  I followed Edna's car at a brisk twenty miles per hour to a retirement village. She led me to a small studio apartment decorated in white wicker and plants. She opened a hope chest used as a coffee table and pulled out several scrapbooks.

  “Here it is,” she said, handing me the thickest one.

  I thumbed through it and found her junior year. It began with all the same memorabilia that I'd seen in Lorraine's book, but it continued where hers left off. October had two events, a Home Ec fashion show and the fall dance with St. Stephen's School for Boys.

  “Do you remember this?” I said, pointing to a picture of Lorraine and Edna at the dance. They were both wearing the dresses they'd made for the fashion show.

  “Oh, yes. The fall dance. I loved to dance, and so did Lorraine.”

  “What happened?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing, just a regular dance.”

  “Nothing with Lorraine?”

  “No.”

  “Did you always have dances with the same boys’ school?”

  “No. There were several boys’ schools.”

  “Did Lorraine ever go to another dance after this one?”

  Edna leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers under her chin. “Now that you mention it, I don't think she did. That's right. She wouldn't even go to our Senior Fling and I was mad. She wouldn't help me shop for my dress or do my hair. She was very good with hair.”

  I looked through the pictures again and sipped the tea Edna brought me, but not until she agreed to have some. “Do you know who this is?” I pointed to a picture of Lorraine and a boy sitting with their knees touching.

  “Let me see. I'm not sure. Lorraine had plenty of boyfriends. She was crazy about some boy at St. Stephen's. I guess that must be him.”

  “Do you remember her talking about him after the dance or about any other boys?”

  “I don't remember. We had a falling out for a while. All she would do was study, and I wanted to have a good time. I suppose I wasn't a very good friend.” Edna began to wring her hands in her lap. “Do you think something happened to Lorraine?”

  “Possibly. You were with her the whole time, weren't you?”

  “Yes, we were always together.”

  “How did you get home? Did your dates drive you?”

  “Absolutely not. Our parents picked us up. We weren't allowed to be alone with boys, but we certainly wanted to be.”

  “So your parents took you home that night?”

  Edna turned the page in her scrapbook and looked up. “No, that time I went home with Miss Martin. She was our Spanish teacher. We were having an outing with Spanish Club the next morning.”

  “Did Lorraine go with you and Miss Martin?”

  She looked at her book again and said, “No, she didn't. Lorraine was a bit of a fusspot when it came to sleeping over, especially with a lot of girls. Miss Martin invited the whole club. Lorraine didn’t like that. She wouldn’t change in front of anyone else, not even me. I teased her about it. I shouldn’t have, but I was young and silly.”

  My chest got tight and I gripped the mug. “How did she get home?”

  “I have no idea at all. I assumed she called her father,” said Edna.

  I looked down at Lorraine at the dance, so pretty, so happy. “But she might not have. Did the boys drive?”

  “Some, I believe.” Edna let out a tense little laugh. Her forehead creased in worry. “We were supposed to stay away from those boys. It was a different time.”

  “Maybe she got a ride with one of them.”

  She shook her head, and her Easter egg earrings bounced against her neck. “I doubt it. We weren't supposed be alone with them. The nuns warned us. So did our parents, but we were less frightened of them.”

  “But Lorraine wanted to be alone with boys just like you, right?”

  Edna stiffened up. “We weren't hussies, Miss Watts.”

  I patted her hand. “I know that, but Lorraine might've accepted a ride from this boy she liked, right?”

  Edna hesitated but then admitted, “She might have.”

  “You can't remember who he was?”

  “No, but you could go to St. Stephen's and check the yearbooks.”

  “I’ll do that. Can I take this picture with me for reference? I promise I'll bring it back.”

  “Please do. These books are what I have left of Lorraine.”

  I stood up and she grabbed my hand. “Is it certain? Do you believe it?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “That she did it,” said Edna. “I just can’t believe it.”

  “Didn’t you ask her when you visited her?”

  “She wouldn’t see me.” Edna be
gan to cry softly. “First, my husband and now, Lorraine. I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m losing everyone.”

  I stayed with her for an hour and got her to eat some scrambled eggs and drink an Ensure. I was right. Edna wasn’t eating or drinking. Her milk was expired, and the eggs were the only things in the fridge that weren’t covered in mold. Her food situation made my kitchen look overstocked. She didn’t want to hear about eating. Her appetite had died along with Harold Mosby.

  Edna laid down for a nap and I left, but not before calling in reinforcements. Aunt Miriam would know what to do for Edna. It was a good thing, because I had no clue.

  Scene Four

  ST. STEPHEN'S WAS in upscale Sunset Hills, and it had been all over the news in the past year. A school shooting had given it notoriety and a closed door policy. I needed help to get on campus. I had a few options like calling my dad, but then he'd want to know what I was up to. If I couldn't figure out why Lorraine had done it, I'd rather not let him know that I'd tried. I decided to call Uncle Morty. He was my dad’s best friend and not a blood relative, but Mom said that Morty was the family we choose. It was easy to understand if you only saw Morty on paper: best-selling fantasy writer, world-class hacker, what’s not to like? I’ll tell you what. Uncle Morty was also a world-class grump who often smelled like onion pizza instead of deodorant.

  His computer skills were without rival, and he worked with Dad on a regular basis. But when I had to help Dad with a case, Morty charged me. A lot. There was no family discount. Not for me, anyway. Since I wanted Uncle Morty to keep this a secret from Dad, it would cost extra. I checked my bank balance and sucked it up.

  Morty picked up on the first ring, which meant he wasn’t home, a rarer occurrence than nose hair trimming.

  “Hi,” I said cheerfully, despite my need for narcotics. “It’s me.”

  “Me who?” he growled.

  “Who do you think? Mercy,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  Charming.

  “A little help.”

  “It’ll cost you. I’m a busy man,” he said.