A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red (8 page)

I pressed the button next to the PICU doors, identified myself, and was buzzed in. The PICU was just as cheerful as the rest of Children’s, but it was very quiet. I walked down to the desk and saw Clementine Collier going through a stack of charts with her back to me. Her waist-length steel-grey dreadlocks were held back by a purple bandana and she wore a pair of black cat ears and a tail. That was so Clementine. I met her when I was fourteen when my friend, Ashton, fell off the top of our cheerleading pyramid, shattering her pelvis and puncturing her lung. Clementine made a huge impression on me and was the reason I started thinking about a career in nursing. Dad blamed her for keeping me from my true vocation which was, of course, law enforcement. But I was never going to be a cop, even if Ashton had better balance. The smell of Dad when he came home from the morgue, when Mom didn’t catch him before he got into the house, cinched it for me. I didn’t want to shower in the basement or smell like that on a regular basis.
 

“Hey Clem,” I said.
 

She spun around, and her hair beat a drum solo on the cabinetry. “Ah, shit. Are you on the schedule? I can’t remember a damn thing.”
 

“I’m here about the Berry kids. It’s a friend thing.”
 

Clem leaned on the desk and cocked an ear at me. “You can tell me. I won’t tell any complete strangers. The entire staff will have to know, my husband, Channel 5, CNN, just my regulars. Why are you really here? Big investigation, huh? Case of the decade. Your hotty cousin was just here. He was up to no good, but that’s normal for Chuck. You know, he’s dated half my staff. Looking for love in all the wrong places, if you know what I mean.”
 

“How much coffee have you had?” I asked.

“The shift’s barely begun. One pot…maybe two.”
 

I was grinning like an idiot. “You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”
 

“Got it covered. It’s been a rough month.” Clem came around the desk and hugged me so hard she realigned my spine, then hooked her arm through mine. “Let me introduce you to my crew.”
 

Our first stop was Payton Stills, a thirteen-year-old burn victim. I was touted as a nurse/detective and forced to tell the story about how I once captured a bigamist with the help of a giant black poodle. I must’ve told it well, because I made Payton laugh. Next was leukemia patient James Laird. Clem told him how I was once clobbered at a funeral home and stuffed in a red casket. I was never stuffed in a casket, but James declared that it was awesome. There were three more patients in the PICU and I was trotted out for all of them, me and my various mishaps. By the time we got to the Berry kids’ rooms, I wasn’t tired anymore. Not a bit. You forget how easy your life is until you meet Clem’s crew.
 

Clem stopped in front of Abrielle Berry’s room. The curtain was drawn across the glass panel, so I couldn’t see who was in there. She reached for the door handle, but I touched her shoulder. “Wait.”
 

“I knew it,” said Clem. “This isn’t a social call.”
 

“I know Joey Ameche, the uncle, but you’re right as always. My dad wants me to look into the medical stuff as a favor to Ameche to help his sister.”
 

“I figured it was something like that.”
 

“What exactly do they have?” I asked.
 

“Exactly? We don’t know. It’s a form of bacterial meningitis, listeriosis. Unbelievably bad. Colton coded in the ER. They got him back, but it was tight. Keep in mind that this was one hour and forty-two minutes after the first signs that the kids were ill. Freaking crazy. They were both in a coma for over a day.”
 

“Will they recover fully?” I asked.

“They’re coming around. Abrielle’s healing faster, but she wasn’t as bad. Colton’s out of the woods, but he’s going to have some problems. Speech, motor control. It’ll be a long haul. You want to go in?”
 

“Not necessary. It’s a terrible time for them. I don’t want to disturb the family. Who’s the doc?” I asked.
 

“Elise Lydia. You know her?”

“I might. Young, pretty?”
 

“That’s her. Damn good, too,” said Clem. “She’s in with Colton. You go to the family waiting area and I’ll get her.”
 

It took a while and I was nearly crashed out when Dr. Lydia came in and I could see why Clem liked her. Lydia looked about twenty. She wore enormous fuzzy boots with claws on the toes, plenty of sparkly jewelry, and her fingernails were painted with orchids. Lydia wasn’t your typical doctor. I liked her instantly.
 

“So you’re the famous Mercy Watts.” She shook my hand and plopped down on a green beanbag. “What can I do for you? You’re involved with the Berry case.”
 

“As a friend of Joey Ameche, I’m looking into the medical stuff,” I said. “Any idea where they picked up the listeriosis?”

“That’s the big mystery,” said Dr. Lydia. “There are no reported cases in New Orleans or even the state of Louisiana. The CDC is looking into it. But until we have the strain pegged, there’s not much to do except treat the kids and get them well.”
 

“Any idea what food was tainted?”
 

“None. But they ate something that no one else ate.”
 

I didn’t like the sound of that. Coincidences happened, but, seriously, that was some pretty bad luck to come down with a mysterious form of meningitis on the day, the very day, half your family is massacred.

“What did the kids say?” I asked. “Have they given you anything to go on?”
 

Dr. Lydia shook her head and her dangly earrings made a tinkling sound. “I wish. Colton isn’t completely aware of his surroundings yet and Abrielle doesn’t remember anything but eating cereal for breakfast. Their school verified that they ate lunch at the cafeteria with a hundred other kids. None of them are sick. None of the school employees have so much as a cold. This is isolated.”

“A little too isolated.” I rubbed my eyes and shifted in my bean bag.

“What are you getting at?” asked Dr. Lydia.

I was too tired to dance around the subject. “I’m supposed to make sure that Donatella didn’t poison the children in order to save them from the shooting that killed their father and the rest of the Berrys.”
 

She stared at me and I could see she wasn’t getting it.
 

I yawned and said, “The remaining Berrys think she arranged the murders at Tulio to get rid of her husband’s family and him, of course.”
 

Dr. Lydia’s mouth fell open and she closed it with a snap. “I hadn’t heard that. I admit it was pure luck that the children lived. Did you hear about how Donatella got standby slots?”
 

“I did.”
 

She shook her head hard and her earrings went crazy, banging into her cheeks. “Donatella loves those kids. I don’t think any decent parent would take the chance, even if she desperately hated the husband, which I doubt.”

“Why do you doubt that?” I asked. Parents weren’t always rational and sometimes their kids got dead because of it. The thought was abhorrent, but it happened.

“Because I was in the room when Donatella got the news that her husband was dead. I’ve given a lot of horrible news, but none so bad as that. She wasn’t faking. I’d stake my license on it.”
 

“What did she do?”
 

“She didn’t believe it. She thought it was a mistake. Kept calling her husband’s phone. Wanted to go to Tulio. She wouldn’t answer any questions, because she just didn’t believe it. She was hysterical. Finally, Clem turned on the TV in the break room and took her in there. Then she went into absolute shock. Her pressure dropped into the basement and her lips turned blue. She couldn’t fake that. It’s not possible. I’m telling you. Donatella had nothing to do with Tulio or with the listeriosis.”
 

That was good enough for me. Job well done.
 

Chapter Six

TWO DAYS LATER Spidermonkey was waiting for me in his usual spot. He did like a good blaze and Café Déjeuner had a big fireplace with lots of crackling logs and a set of brass fireplace tools. My cyber spy spotted me over his
Wall Street Journal,
nodded, and went back to reading as I headed for the barista. She was blond, twenty-something with the unlikely name of Sally on her tag. I ordered a cinnamon roll and a latte and leaned on the counter, careful not to look at Spidermonkey. It wasn’t easy, but he liked to, for whatever reason, pretend we didn’t know each other and decided to sit together on a whim in a tiny café in Laclede’s Landing, because
that
would happen. Spidermonkey did have his oddities, but he was worth it. He was a high-level snoop and he’d been working for me since The Girls’ nasty nephew sued them in an effort to get control of the Bled Collection and their money. Oz Urbani was the one who had gotten Brooks off The Girls’ back, but the case hadn’t ended there. Brooks’ lawyers had implied that my dad had done something illegal in order for The Girls to give him our house. So far Spidermonkey had discovered that Dad had taken a mysterious flight to Europe that coincided with the disappearance of Josiah Bled, The Girls’ uncle and a multimillionaire. That had led us to The Klinefeld Group, a not-for-profit trying to get control of the Bled Collection through the St. Louis Art Museum.
 

Sally gave me my latte and cinnamon roll and I pretended to be unable to find another place to sit in the empty café. Spidermonkey offered me a seat at his table, like the white-haired old gentleman he was.
 

“So…” I said.
 

“So
the name is fake. Jens Waldemar Hoff doesn’t exist. Sloppy. He never thought we’d look as far as Germany. The name was unusual enough for me to trace easily. There have been two real, or shall I say possibly real, Jens Waldemar Hoffs residing in Berlin. One died in 1963 and the other is four.
 

“How do you know this Hoff isn’t real? Maybe he moved and they didn’t update the website.”

“Because he told your Aunt Miriam that he just flew into St. Louis and there’s no one by that name on any flight manifest for the last six months. Plus, I found a woman in Vancouver who made a complaint to the German embassy in Canada about a Jens Waldemar Hoff of the Klinefeld Group because he was harassing her.”
 

“So what?”
 

“Her description doesn’t match Aunt Miriam’s. Different ages, hair color, build. It’s two different guys using the same name.”

Why do I feel so nervous?

“What was that Hoff bothering her about?” I asked.
 

Spidermonkey smiled. “Guess.”
 

“Artwork, circa WWII?”
 

“Bingo.”
 

“Who is she?”
 

“A pharmacist with absolutely no artwork from the war or any other era. Her name is Amber Patterson. Ring a bell?”
 

“Not even a little bit. Why would he bother her if she doesn’t have any artwork? She has to be something more than a pharmacist.”
 

“You’d think so, but no. Amber is who she says she is. But according to her statement Hoff was threatening and insistent. He left the country and the embassy dropped it.”
 

“I don’t get it. What the heck does this have to do with our house, my parents, and the Bled Collection?”
 

“I don’t know yet, but I will.”
 

“So we’re nowhere,” I said, wanting to put my head down on the table.
 

“Except…” said Spidermonkey.

I raised an eyebrow. “Except?”
 

“The one that died in ’63 had a wife with the maiden name of Klinefeld. What are the chances of that?”
 

“What did you find out about him?”
 

“Nothing yet. His records are inconveniently missing.”

“Define missing,” I said.
 

“As in, he doesn’t exist before 1950.” Spidermonkey smiled and I could see that all his juices were flowing. This was a tasty bit of mystery.
 

“So what are you thinking?”
 

“It will take serious digging. Other than the death record, I have nothing. I may have to resort to hand sifting in Berlin. A picture would be helpful. If I can get that, we’ll be on our way.”
 

“But you don’t know if this has anything to do with the Klinefeld Group. How much is this going to cost?” I was getting even more nervous now. There were only so many double shifts I could pull and my modeling job for Double Black Diamond hadn’t started yet. I’d already spent my advance by paying off my debts.

“What do you say we split the cost?” he asked.
 

“Why would you do that?”
 

“I have a special interest.”
 

“In a guy that died in 1963?” I asked.

“Yes.” Spidermonkey took a drink and became thoughtful. “I have a connection in the Mossad. He’s retired, you understand, but still in the know.”
 

“
The
Mossad? What can an Israeli do for us?”
 

“Think about it, Mercy. What does the Mossad do so well?”
 

“They’re spies, aren’t they?”
 

“And…”

Then I remembered Myrtle and Millicent discussing Simon Wiesenthal, a friend of Stella Bled Lawrence and a recently revealed Mossad agent. “Nazi hunters. Do you think Hoff was a Nazi?”