In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 5) (34 page)

“For the most part?” I asked.
 

“Are you familiar with cutting?”
 

It took me a second because it was so unexpected. “A little. Why?”
 

She pulled down the sheet to Cherie’s waist and rolled over her right arm. Thin white scars marred her skin from her forearm nearly to her armpit. “It’s the same on the other side.”
 

I almost reached out and touched the delicate skin she’d slit open. “I wonder why.”
 

“It’s your job to find out,” said Dr. Watts.
 

My eyes jerked up to meet hers. “What’s this got to do with her murder? These are old.”

“They are old. I would guess she began cutting in her teens, but these,” she pulled down the sheet farther, “are new, done in the last 24 hours.”
 

Cherie’s thighs were crisscrossed with angry red slits, fresh with no signs of healing. I forced myself to look closer. Some of them were quite deep, right down into the muscle. So painful. What would cause a person to do that to themselves? I remembered one of my teachers in nursing school talking about cutting. She said something about the pain being a release. Cherie must’ve needed a big release.

“She started cutting again while at the castle. I wonder if it’s common to start up at her age.”

Dr. Watts fingered the edge of the sheet. “In my experience, cutting starts for a specific reason. If the reason isn’t resolved, they can start again when certain triggers occur.”
 

“Your experience?” I asked. “Since when do pathologists handle cutters?”
 

“What are you talking about?” asked Tiny, still seated on the floor.
 

Dr. Watts looked at me in a way that said she wanted to say something that she’d rather Tiny didn’t hear.
 

“Nothing,” I said. “Just trying to nail down the timeline.”
 

“Oh. Okay.” He didn’t make a move to stand.
 

Dr. Watts smoothed the sheet. “Your grandfather doesn’t know.”

“Know what exactly?”
 

She glanced over at Tiny then lifted the hem of her scrub top. Pale scars like spider webs spoiled her smooth skin. They covered her entire abdomen. I didn’t know what to say and, for once, I stayed silent.
 

“You see I had nice arms and legs. The stomach was much easier to conceal.”
 

Now silence was wrong. I knew that, but what do you say to such a revelation. It was so painful, so private, I found it hard to bear. “Why?” I managed to squeak out.

“When I went to Vietnam as a nurse, I had no fear. I thought I knew what I was getting into. I didn’t. I wasn’t prepared. No one was, but it was especially hard on me. I was a pampered only child. Even my nursing school protected me from the harsher side of medicine. I didn’t do an ER rotation. It wasn’t required. Over there, people were dying every day in hideous, unspeakable ways. I made mistakes I couldn’t take back. No place was safe. There were times I thought I wouldn’t make it out alive, but I was never injured. I was lucky. So many weren’t.”
 

“You were punishing yourself for living?”
 

She shrugged. “I don’t know what I was doing.”
 

“How’d you hide it from my grandpa?” I asked.
 

“We got married on leave in Hawaii in a whirlwind. It didn’t last long and we hardly saw each other what with the war. I convinced him I was shy and always kept a top on. When we were together, it was better anyway. Ace had a way of making me forget all the bad things. I stopped when I got back to the States and began med school,” she said.
 

“Did you ever start again?”
 

“No, but I’m sure I would have if I’d ever been in a war zone again. Mayhem was my trigger. That’s why I ended up out here after years of practicing in Kansas City. It’s very quiet.”
 

“I can see that, but why in the world did you become a pathologist. Every day is death.”
 

“The patients are already dead and they certainly can’t suffer if they’re already gone.”
 

“Oh.” I counted the scars on Cherie’s arms. There were a lot, crisscrossing and some on top of each other. “This went on for a long time.”
 

“Looks like it.” She pointed to the fresh cuts on Cherie’s leg. “No hesitation marks. She went headlong back into it. She needed the release. What went on over there at the castle?”
 

“Nothing that I know of.”

“Exactly.”
 

Tiny tried to get up. “What did you decide?”
 

I helped him as Dr. Watts covered the body. “Nothing yet.”
 

“Are we getting closer?”
 

“Not really. It just got a whole lot more complicated.”
 

Tiny glanced at Cherie’s shrouded body and swallowed hard. “How?”
 

“Cherie was attacked twice. Once possibly before the lockdown and once after.

“You mean the guy attacked once and came back to strangle her. Why? She looked like an ordinary mom to me.”
 

“I don’t think he did,” I said.
 

“She’s definitely dead,” said Dr. Watts with a wane smile. “I notice these things.”
 

Tiny clutched his stomach. “Yeah, she is.”
 

“I mean, I don’t think he came back. It was two people. Two separate attacks.”
 

“I like it,” said Dr. Watts.
 

“But why two? The guy who cracked her on the head probably just came back to get rid of the body and discovered she was still alive,” said Tiny.
 

“That makes sense, except he didn’t.”
 

“Didn’t what?”
 

“Get rid of the body. We found her in the love garden.”
 

“Oh yeah. Well…maybe he just wanted to finish her off.”
 

Dr. Watts crossed her arms. “Maybe, but if he wanted to kill her, the rock garden was the time to do it. She would’ve been unconscious for a period of time. Easy as pie then. Why wait so long to do the deed? She could’ve gotten up and alerted the staff.”
 

I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense. This was a crime of passion complete with regret.”
 

“Because of her clothes?” asked Tiny.
 

“Exactly. If you planned to go back and kill her, you wouldn’t regret it and cover her up. You dump her in the river and hope for the best.”
 

“So it is two,” said Dr. Watts. “This isn’t so hard. The Castle has a code system. Who left after the lockdown?”
 

“Me,” I said.
 

“You?” asked Tiny, his eyes going wide.
 

“My code anyway.”
 

“Did you give someone your code?” asked Dr. Watts.
 

“Of course not. I don’t even know it. I flushed it like John said. I wasn’t planning on going out or letting anyone in.”
 

“So who would know it?”
 

“John and Leslie, I presume, but they know my dad. There’s no way they’d involve me if they wanted to kill someone.”
 

Dr. Watts made her sneezing noise. “Those two. They wouldn’t make such a mistake. Certainly not.”
 

“What do you know about them?” I asked.

“Nothing that concerns you.”
 

“That’s not comforting.”
 

“I’m a pathologist. I don’t do comfort.”
 

“You might be interested to know that there was a shooting out at Cairngorms last night,” I said, nice and casual.
 

Her brow wrinkled and her eyes went back to Cherie’s body. I could see her having a moment of doubt about the cause of death and then shaking it off. “Why wasn’t I called?”
 

“Because there’s no victim.” I told her what happened and Tiny looked longingly at the door.
 

“Where are those idiots?” she exploded and called the deputies.
 

There was a faint ringing outside the room. Dr. Watts stalked over and flung open the door. “What are you doing?”
 

Gerry dropped his phone that they had both been looking at. “Nothing.”
 

“What are you waiting for? Get in here.”
 

Phelong picked up the phone and they shuffled their feet, glancing at Cherie’s shrouded body.
 

Dr. Watts pointed at them. “Let me remind you that she’s dead and can’t hurt you. Flincher’s alive and there’s a good chance that he would.”

They were in the room in two seconds flat. Flincher was definitely scarier than a body in pretty much everyone’s opinion. Dr. Watts took the evidence box and sorted through the various bags. Some she’d send off to bigger labs and others she’d handle herself.
 

“So,” she said to Phelong and Gerry, “you mucked up the other murder.”
 

“There’s no body,” said Gerry.
 

“And you think you’re off the hook.”
 

“What are we supposed to do without a body?” asked Phelong.
 

“What are we supposed to do without the blood?”
 

Phelong had the good sense to blush and stutter. Dr. Watts whacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. This is what I call a blessing in disguise.”
 

“What?” I gasped. “There was a crime. I know there was.”
 

“I don’t doubt it. But no one from around here has been reported missing. Your victim was from out of town.”
 

“That makes it okay?”
 

“Think about it, Mercy.”

I thought about it and came up empty. Murders went unsolved. It happened.
 

“My dad would never let this go,” I said.
 

“You’re wrong about that. Tommy Watts knows what’s what. You weren’t sent to John and Leslie by accident.”
 

“You suspect them.”

“I didn’t say that.” She clapped her hands together and gave them a furious rub. “Alright now. Who wants to help with organ weighing?”
 

Phelong and Gerry didn’t hesitate. They ran out and slammed the door. Dr. Watts burst into laughter and slapped her knee. “Gets them every time.”
 

It looked to me like the autopsy was done, but I was still nervous. “Is there any other evidence I should know about?”
 

“Sadly, no,” she said. “Cherie’s nails were clean and the only blood was hers. She wasn’t raped. Good call on that. I’d say you’re looking for a man six feet or over.”
 

“Nothing else?” I asked.
 

“Afraid not. I swabbed her neck and face, but, unless he spit on her, we’re going to get bupkiss.” She smiled at Tiny, who wasn’t looking so good since the mention of organ weighing. “You can go. I just wanted to impress upon you Cherie’s mental condition at the time of her death.”
 

“I get it,” I said.
 

She narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you get?”
 

“That she had a history with someone at the castle and they killed her.”
 

She nodded. “I’ve got to sort out this evidence. What there is of it.”

“What’s next?” asked Tiny as he edged toward the door.
 

“I’m going to visit Uncle Morty in his lair and then talk to Lane,” I said.
 

“Lane, the daughter,” said Dr. Watts, tapping her chin. “The hands aren’t big enough.”
 

“I don’t think she did it. But Cherie might’ve been able to hide those scars from her son, but not her daughter. They were close and it’s hard to hide something like that for sixteen years. Plus, they shared the same room, the same bathroom this weekend. And while we’re on the subject, Lane claims to have been in their room all night. How is it that she didn’t know her mother got up in the middle of the night? They slept five feet apart and Lane’s bed was the closest to the door. Cherie got up and got dressed, all without her knowing? And why did Cherie go out at all. Clearly she wasn’t well liked by more than one person and by the state of her leg she knew it.”
 

“She must’ve been scared,” said Tiny softly.
 

“I think she was and there’s only one thing that would make my mother go out in the middle of the night if she was scared,” I said.
 

“What?” asked Dr. Watts.
 

“Me. Cherie was looking for Lane.”