A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (9 page)

“No. Is this a college?” I asked.

“This is the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I hope so. Were you answering the phones last Friday?”

“No. I was out sick. Why?”

“If I knew I’d tell you,” I said.

I wouldn’t, but she didn’t know that. People like a little hopeless honesty.

“What’s wrong? What can I help you with?”

“I have a friend who called you on Friday and I’m trying to figure out who he talked to and why.”

“Well, like I said, I wasn’t here,” she said.

“Do you keep records of phone inquiries?”

“No.”

“Who would’ve been handling calls while you were gone?”

“I think they sent someone from personnel down.”

“You don’t know who,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“Could you find out?” I asked.

“I suppose so.” She didn’t sound too sure, so I decided to throw out some bait.

“I’m a private detective, and this is part of a very important investigation. I’d really appreciate your help.”

“Really? What’s the case?”

“That’s my client’s private information. I’m sure you understand,” I said.

“I do, I do, and I can’t give you any personal information either.”

“I understand completely. I just need to know why you were called in the first place.”

“OK. I can ask personnel who came up.” She was so excited she could hardly breathe.

“That would be great.” I gave her my name and cell number. Angela said she’d find out what she could.

I pushed my feet off the desk and let myself spin in Dad’s big chair. What did I know? Not much. For details, I’d have to rely on Dixie. She might know where Gavin was before he returned in such a lather, but, then again, she might not. Dixie wasn’t like my mother. She had nothing to do with the business, to the point that she didn’t answer the business line.

I wrote down my sad little list and doodled on it, drawing a pattern of paisley around the words and sentences. Gavin liked paisley. He wore paisley ties when he wore ties, which wasn’t often. He gave Dixie a paisley scarf for Christmas two years ago. I’d seen it knotted around her throat a hundred times. She’d had it on at our Easter brunch a few weeks before and Gavin unknotted it several times causing her to go to the bathroom and reassemble herself. He loved to pester her.

I couldn’t remember who said what or who ate what at Mom’s brunch, but we had a good time. Gavin smiled a lot. Dixie too. They held hands when they walked out the door. I watched them from the bay window, as they walked down the steps and through the gate. They turned left, got in their car and drove away. I would never see him alive again. I wished I’d known it at the time. I would’ve told him some things. How I liked his magic tricks and his barbecued ribs. I’d thank him for remembering that I only like dark chocolate with nuts. No one else ever did. Just little things, things that don’t matter much when people are alive, but become important when they’re not. I missed him, and I didn’t know if it would go away. Time heals all wounds they say, but I’d seen plenty of evidence that it didn’t. I didn’t think Dixie would heal. Hers wasn’t a flesh wound, and I hoped to God it wasn’t a mortal one either.

I dug out my cell phone and checked my messages. Sixty-eight. I hadn’t had sixty-eight messages in the last month. Heck. The last six months. On the upside, the first one was from Pete, the invisible doctor.

I called him and he actually answered. It might be a first.

“Hey. Where are you?” asked Pete.

“Mom and Dad’s. Where are you?” Like I needed to ask.

“Your apartment.”

“Wow. I thought you’d be at the hospital. I’m starting to think they have you on a choke chain.” I didn’t try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“It’s not that bad,” he said.

“Right.”

“Don’t be like that. I can take an hour at six. Let’s get some dinner.”

“Ooh, a whole hour.”

“What’s wrong?” Pete asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Don’t give me that. What’s wrong? And don’t say it’s my schedule because I know you don’t care.”

That wasn’t exactly true. I wanted to see him more, but I understood. Being a cop’s daughter taught me the value of independence. I lived my own life much as my mother had and fit Pete in whenever I could.

“It’s been a bad day.”

“The Siamese piss on the sofa again?”

“Not yet.” I hadn’t seen the cats. They were snots and had issues with being left in my care. They’d been known to pee on Mom’s favorite sofa to show their displeasure. Invisible cats weren’t a problem for me; as long as food disappeared from their bowls, I was happy.

“Well…”

“Gavin died.”

“MI?” Pete didn’t sound surprised. He was training to be a surgeon and people dropped dead around him all the time. I was the same way, but I knew Gavin and he didn’t.

“Sort of.”

“How do you have a sort of MI?”

“It wasn’t natural.”

“Define unnatural.”

“He was murdered.” I heard a gasp behind me. I turned and saw Dixie standing in the doorway with her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were round, and her knuckles were turning white.

“Oh, crap,” I said.

“What happened?” asked Pete.

“I’ll call you back,” I said, and hung up.

Dixie dropped her hands and yelled at me, “Shut up. You shut up. That’s not true. It’s not true, so you just shut your mouth.”

I couldn’t speak. Anything I might have said evaporated.

“You think you know. You think you know like your father, but you don’t. You don’t. He had a heart condition. So you don’t know and shut up.”

“Dixie, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“I said, shut up!” She brought her hands to her mouth, hard enough to knock her head back, and she screamed into them. She didn’t move. She stood in the doorway screaming and looking at me with rage. It overwhelmed me. I knew for the first time what it was like to be scared of someone you love. I stood up, and walked to her with my hands in front of me.

Before I reached her, Dixie’s eyes changed, her screaming stopped, and she walked out of the room. I followed her down the hall, trying to find the right apology inside of me. I wanted, no, I needed to say the right thing for the both of us. Instead, I followed her to my parents’ bedroom. She was drunk and unsteady on her feet. She lurched towards the stairs, over corrected, and before I reached her she bumped one of Mom’s framed needlepoint pictures. Mom had worked on the canvas for a year and it hung in a prime viewing spot. Tough luck for it because it fell off its hook and shattered at my feet. Dixie glanced at it and continued down the hall, slower and less sure with every step.

In the bedroom, she reached for the Ativan bottle I’d refilled in a fit of stupidity.

“That’s not a good idea, Dixie.” I took the bottle from her hand and put it in my pocket.

“What else am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“Just lay down for awhile.”

I pulled back the covers. She sat, and I took off her shoes. She lay back against the fluffy pillows. Mom’s small reading lamp lit the room and Dixie’s eyes shone wide and watery in its dim glow. In the near darkness, she looked as young as me; maybe younger because the unexpected had happened and no explanations were offered. Her eyes showed her confusion.

“Do you want the TV on?” I asked.

“What will happen?” she asked.

“With what?”

“Will they find out who did it?”

“Yes,” I said, confident in that, at least.

“Will you?”

“Yes, I will. I’ll do anything you want.”

“I think I want to sleep now,” she said, closing her eyes and turning her face from me.

I turned off the lamp and went downstairs. It was rare that I felt bad about anything. I mean really felt bad. Normally, I could negotiate with myself; tell myself it had to be done, things like that. But this was one of those rare occasions when I had done something with no excuse available. I needed chocolate and fast. There was only one place to go when I needed chocolate and comfort with no questions asked. Thank God Aunt Tennessee was always home.

Chapter Seven

AUNT TENNE LIVED in Chesterfield about a half hour from my parents’ house, far enough for me to calm down and form a plan. Halfway there I pulled over and looked up the Rockville Church of Christ on my phone. I couldn’t help myself, I had to know why Gavin called them. The church was a short detour on the way to Aunt Tenne, and I could take the guilt until then.

Due to my keen sense of direction, it took longer to find the church than expected. I drove around backstreets a good fifteen minutes before I found the right avenue. Then the traffic moved like a tortoise, when I was dying to be a hare. A block away, I saw why. Crime scene tape cordoned off the church, and everyone was slowing down to get a look. The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s van sat in the parking lot, and there were half a dozen cops and crime scene analysts moving around the building. I parked across the street and walked over to a couple uniforms doing guard duty.

Too bad I didn’t take the time to spruce up a little. Dad would shake his head in dismay if he knew. He had no shame when it came to gleaning info out of cops or anyone else. The younger cop would probably appreciate my Marilynness. I should’ve been able to take advantage, but I was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. The jeans weren’t even super low rise. I just had to go for comfortable. What an idiot. The T-shirt did have a scoop neck, and I was wearing a lacy bra. A little bra goes a long way. I reminded myself that this was for Gavin and tugged at my shirt, exposing the top of my secret weapons, and then added a little extra swing to my hips. The cop locked in on me at twenty paces. He straightened up and swaggered over to the barricade.

“Hey there,” I said.

“Hello, what can I do for you this fine afternoon?” he asked while thrusting his badge out at me.

“I was just driving by and saw all the hoopla. What’s up?”

He gave me what I supposed was his sexy look. It could’ve been confused for his I-just-took-NyQuil look. “Crime scene.”

Duh
.

I flipped my hair back. “What happened?”

“Murder.”

“Really? How totally awful.” I ran my fingers through my hair and let some thick, blond locks fall in my face. They ended at my lips. How convenient. “What happened?” I said.

“I don’t think you want to know. It’s pretty brutal. You don’t want that kind of thing on your mind, do you?” He fingered his gun holster.

No, no. I’m too busy thinking about my manicure
.

“Ooh, tell me. I’m dying of curiosity,” I said.

“Well, if it isn’t Mercy Watts.”

While I was busy setting feminism back twenty years, the officer’s partner snuck up on me. His name tag said Parker and he’d seen more than a few crime scenes, if I went by his craggy face and wrinkled uniform. Life’d been rough on Parker.

“Do we know each other, Officer Parker?” I asked sweetly.

“Not exactly, but I know your pop. You’d better stow it, Ameche,” he said.

“Who’s your dad?” asked Ameche.

“Her pop is none other than the famous Tommy Watts.”

“No shit, I mean, no kidding,” said Ameche.

“No kidding,” I said. “So what’s this crime scene, a trade secret?”

“It’s no secret. I suggest you go home and watch the news if you’re so curious,” said Parker.

“Yeah, that’ll be accurate,” I said.

“Maybe it won’t be accurate, but it’s the best you’re gonna get,” he replied.

“Isn’t Tommy Watts some kind of hero?” said Ameche.

“He is, but she ain’t.” Parker sneered at me.

“Aw, come on,” I said.

“Forget it. Tommy’s a PI now. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” Parker hitched up his belt and tried to look substantial. He’d need a few more sandwiches for that.

“Are you a PI?” said Ameche.

“Nurse.”

“Give a lot of sponge baths, do you?” He gave me another NyQuil look with his close-set hazel eyes.

“You’ve been watching too much porn,” I said. “I do put in a load of catheters though.”

“Oh, yeah? I could go for a little of that action,” said Ameche.

“Shut up, dumb ass,” said Parker. “A catheter involves sticking a tube up your dick.”

Ameche stepped back. “You do that?”

“It’s a dirty job,” I said.

“No shit,” said Ameche.

“So about this scene?” I asked.

“Forget it, sweetie pie. We got a job to do. Go thread some wieners,” said Parker.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said.

“Anytime,” Parker said over his shoulder as he started to walk the line again. I could feel Ameche’s eyes on me as I walked to my truck. I gave him an extra swish and wiggle just for fun. You never know when you might need a contact in the department.