A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red (48 page)

I went inside, gave Phoebe back her glass, and she smiled knowingly. “So you’ve decided it’s not so bad.”
 

“Oh, it’s plenty bad. Just not in the way I thought.” I headed out the glass door and down the street. It was a leisurely walk home. I stopped to pick up a good Irish whiskey for Chuck, a little peace offering. He’d be surprised after all the yelling, but I was the one who was surprised. I opened the back door and was met by silence.
 

“Chuck! Stevie!” I called out, going from room to room, but they were gone. Cleared out. All their clothes, everything. I checked the bathtub. Stevie wasn’t in it. My phone was on the counter where I’d left it. I called Chuck over and over. He didn’t answer. I left messages. Good ones, I think, but he didn’t call back. It was all silence. I usually wanted to be alone when I was off on one of Dad’s cases, but now that was the last thing I wanted.
 

I called Stevie and then I called Chuck. I repeated the process until I thought I’d go crazy. Then I set down the phone and turned on the TV. I don’t even know what was on. My mind couldn’t settle. Mostly, I stared out the windows or at my phone sitting on the sofa table and I remembered the picture we’d found of my great grandparents and Stella and Nicky Bled. That was something I’d done right. But then I remembered that Chuck was the only one besides Spidermonkey that knew what I was up to with the Klinefeld Group and I felt lonelier than I ever had. We were supposed to be in it together and I screwed it up. Royally, as Stevie rightfully pointed out.
 

Then my phone rang. I dove for it, but it was a number I didn’t recognize and had no name attached. Usually that meant some sort of sleazy prank caller. I got those all the time and, with the new video, it was to be expected. But I was desperate and hoping I was wrong, so I answered.
 

“Hello?” I said, trying to sound as un-sexy as possible.
 

“Miss Watts?” said a deep voice with a Southern accent.

“Yes.”
 

“It’s me, Tiny.”
 

Huh?

“From the airport,” he said with a hint of worry.
 

“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”
 

“You wrote your number on your dad’s card. Is this okay?”
 

“Of course. What can I do for you?” I asked.
 

“I googled you and it said your people are from N’awlins.”
 

“My mother’s people are. I’m at my nana’s house right now.”
 

Tiny’s voice went up an octave. “You ever hear the name Robard Boulard?”
 

Where’s this going?

I turned from the window and looked at the framed family tree. “Yes. He’s an ancestor of mine.”
 

“You ever hear of Josephine Plaskett?” he asked.
 

“Yes,” I said, softly. “There’s a tomb with her name on it near my family’s tomb.”
 

“I’m looking at it,” said Tiny.
 

“Why?”
 

“Cause my name is Tiny Plaskett. You’re my people, Miss Watts.”
 

I stared at the family tree and instantly pictured another beside it. “You’re a Plaskett? For real?”
 

“Yes, ma’am.” He laughed, a great warm jolly laugh. “Can you believe it?”
 

“It’s true then. Robard and Josephine?” I asked.
 

“You didn’t know for sure?”
 

My heart was beating hard. Nana would freak out. She loved family history stuff. “It was a family legend. You’re not…angry with me, are you?”
 

“About what?”
 

“Well, my ancestor sort of purchased yours. It’s not exactly the decent thing to do,” I said.
 

“Plaçage was okay then. Josephine was free and it was a contract, not a purchase.”
 

“But still…”

“We’ve got the deed,” he said.
 

“The deed to what?”
 

“Robard gave Josephine a house in the contract. My Aunt Willasteen lives there.”
 

I could hear a woman’s voice tittering away in the background. “That is so crazy. I’m in Robard’s house right now. You have to come over.” I gave him the address and Tiny said he was going to bring his aunt with him. He started naming Josephine’s children as they walked out of the cemetery in case I recognized the names. I walked around the sofa table to get a better look at the family tree and Blackie stalked out of the kitchen and hissed. A great big hiss, showing all his very pointy white teeth. This from the cat who never blinked. He went up in a stiff arch, but he wasn’t looking at me. I turned and froze. Outside Pop Pop’s bank of windows was man wearing a dark grey hoodie. A thrill of recognition went down my arms. He’d been in the parking garage at St. John’s. The confidence was the same. It was him. The man stared at me from the depths of the hood with malicious dark eyes and raised a brick.
 

I screamed and the window shattered.
 

“Mercy!” yelled Tiny.
 

I dropped the phone and scrambled backwards, hitting the sofa as he walked in through the still falling shards of glass. “Where is he?”
 

I went over the back of the sofa and fell painfully on my rump. He was on the sofa, looking down at me. “Where is he?”
 

“Who?” I asked, my mind a blank.
 

“Stevie.”
 

“Gone. I don’t know where. He left.” I scuttled back, hit the wall, and the family tree came off its nail and cracked me in the head. Dazed, I stared at him.
 

“Where is he?” He held up a knife, a small one with a four-inch blade.
 

“I don’t know!” I screamed.
 

He started over the sofa. I grabbed the heavy picture frame to shield myself, but Blackie launched himself at the man’s face. His claws were full out and struck him high on the cheeks. The man flipped back out of sight behind the sofa and I scrambled to my feet, looking for a weapon. There was nothing but sports magazines and furniture. I couldn’t paper cut him to death. Real weapon needed.
 

I dashed past the sofa. It was either the stairs or the kitchen.

Knife or gun. Knife or gun. Gun.
 

I juked to the left and ran up the stairs, two at a time. Three million of my dad’s lessons went through my head. Don’t get yourself cornered was in there and repeated. No, I wasn’t cornered. I had a plan. My Mauser was still in my side table drawer. I hammered in the clip, racked the slide, and flipped off the safety in a half second, the way Dad forced me to practice it. Thank god I had the Mauser. It was so easy to arm. I ran back onto the landing, grabbed the bannister with my left hand and swung myself around to the stairs. I was down two before he appeared at the base.
 

“Stop!” I yelled, assuming the proper position, so well practiced.
 

Blood was streaming down his face in long gashes, but he smiled, reached down, and pulled a blue and silver hilt out of his pocket. A long stiletto ratcheted out with a mechanical snap and his smile widened.
 

“Stop now!” I screamed.

“You’re going to tell me where he is.”
 

“I don’t know!”
 

“You’re his best friend. You know.”
 

Best friend? Damnit, Stevie!

“But I’m not his best friend. I’m nothing to him.”
 

“Stevie came to you and now you’re going to tell me where he is.”
 

He ran up the stairs, his blade extended, and I shot him in the face. Very Scarlett O’Hara, except the movie got it all wrong, as usual. He kept coming for another three steps and I fired a second shot, missing him completely. Then his body stopped, frozen in the moment before he arched his spine and flipped backwards. He went ass over tea kettle, striking his head on the wooden stairs twice before landing at the foot of the stairs in a heap on Nana’s silk rug. It happened very fast and very slowly all at the same time. I remember it in great detail, the explosion of his facial features as my bullet struck, the blood spatter as it hit the wall, and smell of powder harsh and acidic in my nose as I watched him fall. My gun hand stayed out and I braced myself against the wooden bannister. My gun hand began to shake, but I didn’t feel it. I could only see the vibration, like the hand was attached to someone else entirely. If I dropped it, my weapon would roll down the stairs to my assailant. He looked quite dead, but you never know. I pressed the hot Mauser to my chest and stepped back up the stairs to grab onto the newel post. I clung to it, trying to think of what to do. I’d just killed someone. Dad never covered that at the gun range.
 

“Mercy!” yelled a deep voice and I looked reluctantly down the stairs. Outside of the broken windows was Tiny and an elderly woman with a cane.
 

“I’m up here!”
 

They saw me and stepped in, crunching the glass and sending shivers up my spine. “Are you okay?” he asked.
 

“She’s fine. Can’t you see that?” The old lady walked over to the body and poked it with her cane. “He’s not. Shot to the face. You don’t shoot them in the face. Look at this mess. This carpet’s past saving and it was expensive to my eye.” She shook her head. “Gut shot is cleaner. Young people never think about the cleanup.”
 

Tiny slapped his forehead. “Auntie, she was attacked.”
 

“That’s no excuse. You’ve got to think about these things. What’s her mother going to say?”
 

I had no idea. I’d never killed anyone before. The territory was newly discovered.
 

“I’m sorry?” I asked, not sure what to do.
 

“Good enough,” said Auntie. “You stay there until the cops get here.” She checked the small gold watch on her wrist and frowned. “Taking their sweet time about it.”
 

It wasn’t so long. I found out later that the cops were on the scene six minutes after Tiny called 911. Not bad at all, but it felt like forever. Once the cops were there, I was allowed to walk down the other stairs, the servant stairs, on the other side of the house. I’d forgotten they existed. It was Aunt Willasteen who pointed out that a house of this age would have a second set for those who were not to be seen as they served. The cops pushed aside the bookcase in Pop Pop’s office to reveal the door and I was brought down to the living room and put in his favorite chair as Cortier showed up. She walked in through the window, wearing paper overalls the color of toilet water and booties to protect the scene.
 

She shook her head. “You again. I should’ve known.”
 

“You took your sweet time,” said Aunt Willasteen over her compact as she powdered her nose and then smoothed her salt and pepper hair back into its tiny bun at the base of her small skull.
 

“And you are?” asked Cortier.
 

“Willasteen Plaskett. I see your memory is as good as your speed.”
 

“Do we—”
 

“We do. Three years ago. The Flavortime shooting. Your number one witness.”
 

Cortier’s head jerked back, I suspected, in horror. Then I realized who Willasteen reminded me of, Aunt Miriam. I would say it must run in the family, but Aunt Miriam was a Watts and no relation to the Plasketts.
 

“Yes, ma’am. Of course I remember you.” Her eyes switched to me. “Who is he, Mercy?”
 

“I have no idea.”
 

She frowned.
 

“But I know who sent him and it wasn’t for me.” I gave her Stevie’s details and then ran through the events. It took about three minutes. There wasn’t much to say and I found it very dissatisfying. An incident of that magnitude should take longer to explain, but, as Cortier pointed out, death doesn’t take that long to accomplish.
 

“And how did you two come to be here?” Cortier asked Tiny.
 

“We were coming over to visit. We’re family,” interjected Aunt Willasteen.
 

Cortier stopped writing in her little pad.
 

“You don’t believe me?”
 

“Ma’am, I believe everything you say,” Cortier replied smoothly as she looked for a family resemblance and found it. Willasteen and I had identical widow’s peaks.
 

After she finished taking our statements, I refused an ambulance for a second time. I wasn’t hurt, not where any doctor could find the injury anyway and I didn’t want to be poked and prodded. I sat in a lawn chair, swathed in quilts, and looked through the family albums with Tiny and Aunt Willasteen. The body was directly in front of me, lying in its pool of coagulated blood. After a couple of hours, it ceased to feel like it had anything to do with me. Mom would later tag that disconnected feeling as denial. Whatever. It worked for me, because that body was there for over four hours as they processed the scene. Evidence gathering is a long, drawn out process and when they finally carted the body away, the stretcher passed my mother and Aunt Miriam. Cortier had called Dad and he got Big Steve to borrow a private plane for them to fly down in.