A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red (45 page)

“What kind of tennis are you playing?”
 

“Combat tennis.”
 

“That’s not a thing.”
 

“It is in my world.”
 

I didn’t know what to say to that. It was off the wall, even for someone in my life.

“Did I hear someone say combat tennis?” asked Dr. Purdy, walking in with an open chart.

“You play?” asked Chuck.
 

“It’s the best rush you can get on a flat surface.”
 

Chuck waggled his eyebrows at me. “I don’t know about that.”
 

Dr. Purdy laughed. “I take it back. You play double points?”
 

“Is there any other way to play?”
 

I plopped down on my chair. “This cannot be a thing. What’s double points?”

“You play doubles and you can score points against the other team and your own partner.”
 

“What do you do, tackle them?”
 

Chuck showed me his pearly whites. “I bite.”
 

He and Dr. Purdy shared a hearty laugh and got down to business. We reviewed Chuck’s stats, checked his stitches, and went over his aftercare instructions. Then they moved onto the intricacies of combat tennis and I went to my happy place; me on my sofa, under an afghan, drinking Aaron’s hot chocolate and watching Pride and Prejudice, the good version.
 

“Mercy?” Chuck’s voice broke into my luscious thoughts.
 

“Huh?”
 

“Doc says I’m outta here.”
 

Dr. Purdy nodded. “Pronto.”
 

I smiled at pronto. In hospitals, pronto means eventually, when we get your paperwork done.
 

In Chuck’s case, pronto meant four hours. His latest labs went missing for a time and there were two codes on the floor. If I hadn’t taken out his IV, we might’ve been there for the rest of the day. But I did take it out and we got home at two. Despite Chuck’s protests, I made him take a nap. He was asleep before I tucked him in.
 

I decided I’d better locate Stevie before taking a shower. The Costillas hadn’t shown up yet, and I figured they were past due. A part of me was afraid Stevie’d been nabbed on his date, possibly along with his date, and the thought was bothersome. I called him and heard a faint ringing on the second floor. I checked all the bedrooms and ended up in my bathroom. Stevie was asleep in the tub with his phone ringing away on his chest.
 

“Stevie,” I said.
 

One unfocused eye crept open.
 

“Why are you in here?”
 

“Feels good on my back.”
 

“You’re twenty. Everything feels good on your back. Go to bed.”
 

“I did.” He turned off his phone without answering it and rolled over. I sighed before covering him with a couple of towels. No shower for me in there so I went into my bedroom to get my robe and found Blackie perched on the headboard, watching me as if I were late.
 

“How do you keep getting in here?” I asked as I plucked him up and tucked him under my arm for the trip to the back door.
 

No meow. No nothing. I had the vague notion that the cat didn’t much care what I did. I certainly didn’t have any effect on him.
 

I tossed him out the back door and he plopped down on his skinny rump and watched me in the doorway. I made a shooing motion. “Go away. The neighbor’s supposed to have food for you.”
 

Nothing. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve questioned whether or not he was breathing.
 

“Blink,” I ordered.
 

The cat didn’t blink, not a whisker moved. So disturbing.
 

“Fine, you freak. One of these days I’m going to figure out how you’re getting in and then I’ll fix your wagon.” Pop Pop always said the wagon thing and it never made sense to me. How was fixing someone’s wagon a bad thing? Now I was saying it. Pretty soon, I’d be telling patients to finish their dinners because it would put hair on their chests.

I closed the door and, since Stevie was in my shower and I had nothing better to do for once, I went to bed to dream of green-eyed cats and menacing shadows that I would later realize were the Costilla brothers.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

CHUCK WOKE UP before me. I found him in the kitchen, freshly showered and reading a
Sports Illustrated
. He glanced up and frowned at my rumpled appearance. I’d slept in my clothes. Not sure how that happened. I meant to put on a big tee and somehow missed the mark.
 

“Wow. You look worse than me, and I got hit with a brick,” he said.
 

“Coffee.” I stumbled toward Nana’s beloved espresso machine.
 

Chuck headed me off. “I’ll make you a latte. You go get ready.”
 

“For what?”
 

“You won the bet, didn’t you?”
 

I blinked slowly. My eyeballs felt like parchment paper. “I’m not making Wellow eat crab. He’s been punished enough.”

“Nobody’s eating crab, especially not Wellow. They wired his jaw shut, remember?”
 

“Oh, yeah.”
 

“I’m taking you to Irene’s to celebrate,” said Chuck, assuming a triumphant stance. I don’t know who he thought he’d triumphed over, but I had a suspicion that it was me.
 

“What for?”
 

“You solved the listeriosis case.”
 

“Farrell confessed?” I asked.
 

Chuck snorted and looked like he pitied me. “No. There was a truckload of evidence in his attic, including pie charts and case studies. Why do you always ask that? They never confess. This isn’t Perry Mason.”
 

“Perry Mason?”
 

“You know, that old detective show. Lawyer in a wheelchair. They always confessed on the stand.”
 

“How old are you?” I asked.
 

“My mom says I’m eighty-five,” said Chuck, smiling.
 

“That’s because your mother is perpetually fifteen.”
 

“I’d give her sixteen, but you’re close. So it’s Irene’s at seven.” He turned me around and pushed me by my rear toward the door. “Hurry up.”
 

I tried to go back to the espresso machine. “You got reservations at Irene’s in prime time. I don’t think so.”
 

He turned me again. “I have my ways.”
 

I eyed him over my shoulder. “Do you perhaps have a date later with a buxom maître d’?

“Yes, to the buxom. No, to the maître d’. Go.”
 

“Waitress?”
 

“You. I have a date with you.”
 

I was out the door, but my heels were digging into the thick oriental carpet runner. “It’s not a date.”
 

“It’s not a business meeting,” said Chuck.
 

“I have a boyfriend and you’re you.”
 

“We’ll see about that.”
 

“Yeah, we will. It’s not a date.”
 

Chuck stopped and squeezed my shoulders. “You sure are protesting a lot.”
 

“Not a date,” I said.
 

He pushed me into Nana’s bathroom and said, “A celebratory dinner then.”
 

“Good.” I closed the door. That was alright. Just a celebratory dinner and we were family. Pete wouldn’t think anything was wrong with that. Except that we weren’t really family. Not blood, anyway. No. Pete wouldn’t mind. It was fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine? Of course, it was fine. Not a date. I wouldn’t
date
Chuck. Nobody would date Chuck. He was so…
 

I turned on the water and stripped. Boiling hot water. Good for sterilizing dirty objects as well as minds. In other words, good for me.

Irene’s at seven was crowded, dimly-lit, and smelled the way I hoped heaven would. Everything was good at Irene’s. The patrons were happy and used to goodness. The wait staff are pros, not people waiting for their big break. Of course, I could barely see my hand in front of my face, but that was good. I looked as tired as I felt. Chuck’s latte, while excellent, hadn’t perked me up. I needed to good sleep, three days at least.
 

They sat us in a prime corner spot and Chuck ordered a hundred dollar wine. I started to protest the expense, but decided a serious celebration was in order. The prosecutor in the Farrell case called. Farrell was screwed. There was so much evidence, he’d have to agree to a plea bargain or risk a life sentence. The guy was so anal and controlling, evidence collection had never been so easy. His lawyer was already saying that Farrell saved Abrielle and Colton, because the listeriosis kept them and Donatella out of Tulio, where they would probably have been shot and killed. But since he tried to brick two cops to death, the prosecutor wasn’t worried. Plus, Farrell had, in his piles of paperwork, the name and number of a Russian who worked at a Moscow medical research company. It looked like he was the one who supplied Farrell with the bacteria, since Farrell had returned from Moscow the day before the poisoning. The prosecutor was surprised when I asked about Faith, but I had compassion for the girl. Her mother’s sister had taken her home and was staying with her. Faith was mute with shock at her father’s arrest and she had suffered a miscarriage. That fact was on one of her father’s spreadsheets, labeled “Evidence of Guilt.” There was no other real evidence against Christopher Berry on the rape charge. The fact that he was a boy, and had slept with Faith, was enough for Farrell to condemn him to death. Faith wouldn’t say anything about anything. They’d gotten the exhumation order on Faith’s mother and expected to find that she’d been murdered. The medical examiner on the case had been put on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the new autopsy. He’d received an influx of cash around the time of her death that they hadn’t been able to trace yet. The prosecutor said my dad was a genius. He said I was lucky. Thanks, loser.
 

“Fill ‘er up,” I said when Chuck offered.
 

He poured a big glug and I watched the ruby red liquid fill my glass. I felt better just looking at it.
 

“You’re not still pissed about that prosecutor, are you?” asked Chuck.
 

“Lucky,” I hissed before taking a sip.
 

“You were lucky. Tommy, too. Me, most of all. We’re celebrating here, not obsessing.” He poured me more wine and I drank it while going through the menu, squinting.
 

Our very mannish waitress, who was inexplicably named Jessica, came back and Chuck tried to order crabmeat gratin for the appetizer. I kicked him in the shin and he laughed. Jessica probably thought we were nuts, but she hid it well by recommending the escargot. I’m not usually a snail girl outside of France, but Chuck looked so horrified I ordered it. They weren’t nearly as bad as he expected, since they didn’t come in shells but were instead tucked into mushroom caps. Chuck ate most of them and declared snails to be a do-again. We ordered and got a second bottle of wine. The edges of the room were getting fuzzy in the best possible way. Chuck was smiling across from me and managed not to say a single sleazy thing. Was this the Chuck that Philappa got to see?
 

It was very warm in the dining room and the buzz of quiet conversations wrapped us in cotton wool, safe from everything. I forgot there was a world outside of Irene’s, away from delicious food and fabulousness. I completely forgot everything but him.
 

Our plates came and, before I could pick up my fork, Chuck’s hand slid across the white linen. “Mercy?”
 

“Yes?”
 

“I think—”

“There you guys are.” Stevie grabbed an empty chair from the table next to us and plunked himself down with a bright-eyed grin.