A Sin and a Shame (A Mercy Watts Short)

by A W Hartoin

  “It’s raining.”

  “Ever hear of an umbrella?”

  “Give me your windbreaker if you’re so worried about a wet woman,” I said.

  He snorted. “You deserve what you get.”

  “What’s your wife’s number? I bet my mom has it.”

  Donny growled and gave me his windbreaker. “If you tell Eve, I will harm you.”

  I zipped up the jacket. “I can still outrun you, even with a cast.”

  He thought about it and decided I was right. “So what do you want, besides to cause a riot.”

  “The librarian.”

  “I thought she told you to get lost.”

  “She did, but I thought I'd give it another go.” Donny took my ID and said something about keeping the jacket on. I followed him to the visiting area, took a seat, and watched him hunch out of the room. Lorraine showed ten minutes later, and she wasn't pleased to see me.

  “I told you not to come back. Girls like you never listen,” she said.

  “With all due respect, you don't know what kind of girl I am.” Actually, she probably did, but I had my dignity.

  “I’m not speaking to you. Do not come back!”

  “I know about Harold.” That stopped her. She froze halfway out of her seat and wavered there for a second. Slowly, she sat back down and put the receiver to her ear.

  “I figured it out. I'm sorry, but I did,”

  “Why?” she asked with just a whisper of breath.

  “Why what?” I asked.

  “Why couldn't you leave me alone? Nobody asked you to do this to me.”

  “Your nephew did.’

  She bowed her head. “Gregory, sweet Gregory. He didn't know what he was asking.”

  “Obviously not, but here we are.”

  She jerked her head up. “You didn't tell him, did you?”

  “I don't know what to tell him, but I’ll have to say something.”

  Lorraine paused and thought that over. I could see the thought occur to her that I hadn't really said what I knew and I might be trying to trick her into something.

  “Go away.” She said it with a weak wave of her hand. She looked small in her seat, and she seemed to shrink further before my eyes.

  “I can't. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “Nothing. Don't do a thing.” She held the receiver in her right hand and hid her eyes with her left. She wasn't crying, but I thought she needed to.

  “I have to. The Mosbys are paying my father to find out, and this could help you, too. Don't you get that?” I asked.

  “I don't want help. Can't you just leave it alone?”

  “No. If Harold did…what I think he did to you, why not tell? What have you got to lose?”

  She raised her eyes out of her hand and looked at me like she had never seen me before. Her eyes were a shocking blue rimmed in red, but tearless. I found myself taken back by their intensity.

  “It was my fault. Do you think I want people to know what I did?”

  The ferocity of her words stung me. “You didn't do anything.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. I let him give me a ride. I knew it was wrong. Then I let him kiss me and touch me, and it all happened. I shouldn't have done that.” She gripped the edge of the Formica table so hard that the edge split off. “I should not have done that. I made him think I was that kind of girl.”

  “Lorraine.” My throat went hot and tight. “It’s not your fault. Nothing gave him the right. He should've gone to jail.”

  “For my mistake? I don't think so. It was different back then. No one would've believed me.”

  “Edna would've. She loves you.”

  “Edna.” Flecks of spit hit the Plexiglas. “Edna, with her perfect life, her perfect happiness? She would've walked away. She wouldn't have wanted to know me.”

  “Maybe that would've been true fifty years ago, but she's a grown woman now. She'd understand.”

  “It doesn't matter. I'm not going to tell her, and neither are you.”

  “She's not a ninny, as she recently informed me. The only reason she isn't here now is because I asked her to wait.”

  “I don't want to tell her.”

  I hunched over the table and said my words as gently as I could. “And I'm telling you, I think she already knows.”

  “How could she?” Tears hit the Formica.

  “She put it together, and she feels terrible that she didn’t help you then,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Really. She’s lost her husband. She doesn’t want to lose you, too.”

  “What’s done is done,” said Lorraine, her tears drying. “Please don't tell anyone else. Not even your father, and certainly not the Mosbys.”

  “But…”

  “No. You listen to me. You think Harold’s family wants to know. They don't. They want Harold to be the way they had him. You came here because your father asked you to. You must love him, respect him. What if I told you that he did what Harold did to me? Would you be happy? Relieved to know the truth? No. No. You'd hate him and hate yourself for knowing, and all your happiness with him would be tainted. Tell them anything you want, except the truth.”

  “What about you?” I said, unable to believe what I was hearing. She had a reason with circumstantial evidence to support it. Dad would dig and get more. The judge would take it into account, along with her lifetime of good works. She could get out. It didn’t have to be a life sentence.

  Lorraine waved at me. “Don't you see me? Don't you see where I am? I'm a murderer. I know that, and don't you forget it.”

  “You have…circumstances.”

  “He's dead. I killed him. No circumstances are going to change that. I deserve this, and I knew what I was doing. Now it's nearly time for lunch. Time for you to go.”

  “I still don't know what to do.”

  Lorraine smiled at me, and she became a lovely girl of seventeen for a moment.

  “Yes, you do. You just don't like it.” She rose out of her seat and turned away from me. I rapped on the Plexiglas and gestured to the receiver. She picked it up again.

  “Sorry. One more question. Why'd you wait? Why not kill him back then after it happened?”

  She said softly, “I wanted to do some good before I did some bad.”

  The corridor leading out of the visitor's room stretched out for miles. I began to count the tiles on the floor. It was a habit I'd kept from childhood. Usually, it helped me to avoid thoughts I didn't want to have. That time the rhythm didn't help, and Lorraine crept back into my mind. I began to feel like I did the first time I found out something I didn't want to know. I was six and forbidden to go into my father's office. Naturally, I couldn't wait to get in there. One night, my parents went out and left me with a sitter. Like most sixteen-year-old sitters, she spent the night on the phone and didn't pay any attention to me. I went right into Dad's office and took my time going through every single thing. At first, I couldn't see the need for the rule. There were stacks of paper everywhere. Most had a thin layer of dust. Even Mom didn't go in to clean. After looking through the closet and endless stacks of paper, I sat down at the desk. It felt good to be there. It smelled like Dad and had his feel about it. His favorite paperbacks were placed on every available surface. I saw well-read titles like The Day of the Jackal. The Longest Day was open on the desk, face down with a split down the spine. Dad read that one all the time, but never straight through. He would read a few pages, put it down, and not pick it up for weeks or months. Mom said it was his bad day book, and he never put it away. I picked it up and read the description on the back. It didn't look too interesting to me and I pushed it aside. Underneath it was a new manila folder that was tagged Chapman, L. and I opened it. I hadn't meant to open it. I was already bored with my adventure and ready to harass the sitter. But like so many times in my life, I opened it because it was there. Because I couldn’t contain my curiosity. Inside were notes in my father's handwriting, a copy of an initial police report a
nd crime scene photos. They were like nothing I'd ever seen or imagined. A body of a child, smaller than me, naked, bruised, partially burned and decapitated came at me in shot after shot. I shuffled through the photos time after time at first to make myself believe that they were real, then with amazement that something like that could happen. I'd seen that child murder on the news and had known that Dad was working on a big case. He'd scarcely been home in the last few weeks, and The Longest Day was getting a workout.

  I looked at those photos until I could see them on the back of my eyelids. Then I put everything back, went downstairs, and sat with the sitter. She was still on the phone. That night started the terrors. I would scream in the middle of the night and my parents couldn't wake me. This went on for months. Only time made the pictures fade. Even nineteen years later I could still recall them and the fear they gave me. Walking down the corridor, I thought about how little I'd changed. Mom always said that I never learned, and I supposed she was right. Once again, I knew things I didn't want to know, and I didn't know what to do with the information.

  I gave Donny his jacket and thanked him.

  “Not good?” he asked.

  “Is it ever?” I asked.

  “Not in here. No.”

  I went for the door but stopped short when I saw my father lounging against the frame. He looked like he didn't mind waiting all day. He smiled his usual wide grin, but his eyes were serious.

  “Have mercy! What are you doing here?” he said.

  I smiled at the familiar reference. The phrase, “Have mercy!” was the inspiration for my name. Everyone calls me Mercy, but few knew how I came to be called that. My real name is Carolina, and it fits me like a gunny sack. When my parents brought me home from the hospital, I wouldn't stop screaming for twelve hours, and during that time, all my father could say was, “Have mercy!” So those twelve hours are how I got my name, and they’re also the reason that I'm an only child.

  “Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?”

  “I asked you first,” he said.

  “Oh, nothing much.”

  He steered me out the door and opened an umbrella the size of Rhode Island. “So you've taken to hanging out at jails. Should I be worried?”

  “Not quite.” He put his arm around my shoulders and walked me to my truck. “Let's have it.”

  “What?”

  “Don't give me that. You came to see the librarian, and I want to know why.”

  “I told you I liked her,” I said.

  “Sure you do. What’s the motive?” he asked.

  I unlocked my truck. “I didn’t get it. She wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  Dad helped me in but wouldn’t let me close the door. “You could save me a lot of time and effort here. You know I'll find out.”

  “Good on you then.”

  I'd decided without knowing I had. I wouldn't tell him that Lorraine had been raped by her victim. Some say that knowledge is its own reward. Maybe that’s true, but sometimes it's a punishment, too. If Dad found out and told the Mosbys, then that was on him. Personally, I didn't think they deserved it. Besides, it was Lorraine's secret to keep or reveal. I never seemed to know what was best for me, much less anyone else. I just hoped Lorraine knew what she was doing because I certainly didn't.

  Dad gave me a hard look, similar to the one he gave me when I was six and wouldn't tell about the nightmares. Then he moved out of the way and watched while I drove away. In the rearview mirror, I saw him head back into the jail. I guess he thought he'd take his own shot at Lorraine. He was fifty times the detective I was, but I had the yearbook, and Edna wouldn’t give him anything once she talked to Lorraine. Old friendships are the strongest kind.

  When I got home, I found my door unlocked. I stepped in on the mat and smelled the comforting smell of Chicken á la king.

  “Aunt Miriam,” I said.

  She came around the breakfast bar, the sparkling clean breakfast bar. Under the smell of garlic cream sauce was the unmistakable scent of lemon cleaner. “Mercy, I’ve come for my update.”

  “Tell me you didn’t clean this place by yourself. Mom’ll kill me a lot,” I said.

  Aunt Miriam snorted. “This was a job for professionals. I hired Micah’s Magical Touch.”

  I’d never heard of Aunt Miriam hiring people to do anything. Forcing novices to do it was one thing. Actually paying for cleaning was admitting something she didn’t want to admit. Some form of weakness, I assumed.

  “Wow. I’m amazed. Thank you.”

  “Well, I couldn’t let you live in that sty a moment longer. What would people think?” sneered Aunt Miriam.

  What people?

  “Bad things, I guess,” I said.

  “Yes, they would,” she said. “Go change and we’ll talk. I can see your delicates. ”

  I did as I was told, then sat beside her on the sofa swathed in my freshly-laundered robe. I was afraid to say anything. Putting off Dad was one thing. Aunt Miriam was another.

  “I’m waiting,” she said.

  “I couldn't find anything.”

  She looked at me without blinking, and I tried to look incompetent. The state of my apartment should've helped in that regard, but she wasn't buying it.

  “Carolina Watts. Don't you lie to me.”

  Define lie. This could be a little white lie, like telling Mom her vegetable soup smells like heaven not day-old vomit.

  “I’m not lying.” I even had conviction when I said it.

  She smacked my knee so hard that I gasped. “You are, and I won't stand for it.”

  If I can stand it, you’ll have to.

  “I’m not lying. Lorraine just killed him. If she had a reason, she’s not telling me.”

  “I haven't a single thing to do for the rest of the day or night.” Aunt Miriam crossed her arms and leaned back on my sofa.

  Oh dear Lord.

  “I can't tell you,” I said.

  “Why not? Don't give me that privilege nonsense again.”

  “I just can't tell you. It would be wrong.”

  “Wrong.” She said the word slowly and let it sit in the air for a moment. She probably didn't think I knew the meaning of the word.

  “Why is it wrong?” she asked.

  “I can't say. Please take my word for it. Nobody is going to be happy if I tell you.”

  Aunt Miriam gave me the stink eye for what felt like ten minutes times two and then said, “Fine.”

  “That's it?” I asked, not quite believing it was possible.

  “That's it.” She grabbed her big black purse, the one she carried for protection when she searched the streets with her fellow nuns, looking for souls to save. It usually had a couple bricks in it. I cringed as she dropped the thing on my lap. “I’ll serve. You choose.”

  No. Please no. I was good. I did the right thing.

  “Choose?”

  “A movie. It’s movie night. Since it’s early, we can get at least three in.”

  “But…but I’m hurt.”

  “That’s right, and you’re going to rest. Choose,” she said with a glare and went into the kitchen.

  The purse sat on my lap, a lead weight filled with evil. I opened the little brass latch and found what I feared. Horror movies. Aunt Miriam loved horror. No sappy Nicholas Sparks stuff for my aunt. Oh no. That was for the weak-willed. I kept telling her I was weak-willed, but she refused to hear me.

  “Which one?” Aunt Miriam asked from the kitchen.

  There weren’t any good choices. I would’ve happily taken Psycho or Halloween. But I got to choose from Sinister, The Babadook, and The Conjuring. Aunt Miriam informed me that The Conjuring was one of the highest-grossing horror films in history, emphasis on the gross. I chose The Babadook because I didn’t recognize it, and how bad could it be? The answer is bad. Very, very bad. Sleeping through the night was no longer an option. I’d need to go to bed with pepper spray and possibly a gun.

  When it was over, Aunt Miriam asked me, “What did you think?
”

  “I think that no good deed goes unpunished.”

  She poked me with a bony finger. “That’s not it. Goodness is its own reward. Plus, we’re spending a cozy evening together.”

  I stand by my original statement.

  The End

  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)

  A.W. Hartoin grew up in rural Missouri, but her grandmother lived in the Central West End area of St. Louis. The CWE fascinated her with it’s enormous houses, every one unique. She was sure there was a story behind each ornate door. Going to Grandma’s house was a treat and an adventure. As the only grandchild around for many years, A.W. spent her visits exploring the many rooms with their many secrets. That’s how Mercy Watts and the fairies of Whipplethorn came to be.

  As an adult, A.W. Hartoin decided she needed a whole lot more life experience if she was going to write good characters so she joined the Air Force. It was the best education she could’ve hoped for. She met her husband and traveled the world, living in Alaska, Italy, and Germany before settling in Colorado where she now lives with her family, a Great Dane, a skanky cat, and six bad chickens.