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

Speak for yourself.

“You punch sleaze bags in the ear,” I said.
 

“That was different.”
 

It always is when it’s you.

“So what’s the plan?”
 

“You’re going away for a few days. It’s all arranged,” Dad said.
 

I jumped to my feet. “What? Why?”
 

“We were going to keep you with us for the duration but the situation has intensified.” Dad glanced at Myrtle, who watched him intently. I could tell she didn’t know about Richard Costilla yet, but it wouldn’t take long for her to get it out of Dad and he knew it. He sighed and continued, “There have been multiple inquiries about you.”
 

“What does that mean?” I asked.
 

“Men have shown up at your agency, Kronos, and three hospitals looking for you. Five hours ago, a man was observed waiting outside your apartment building.”
 

“You don’t know that was about me.”
 

Dad looked at me like I was too stupid to breathe. “Of course it’s about you, moron. You’re out of here.”
 

My phone started ringing. It was the theme from
The Godfather.
I really was a moron. “I can’t. I have work and stuff. I have stuff.” I fumbled for my phone.

Button. Button. Where’s the damn off button?

“Whose ringtone is that?” asked Dad.

“Nobody.”
 

Dad snagged the phone before I could press the button and he looked at the screen. “Who is Great Butt?”
 

Oh my god!

Myrtle’s ring-laden hand fluttered over her chest and I wanted to crawl under the carpet. You didn’t say butt in front of my godmothers. It was derrière at the very worst.
 

“Well?” asked Dad.
 

“Um…it’s a guy,” I said.

“I assumed that. Who is it?”
 

“He’s Italian.”
 

“Also a safe assumption. What’s his name?”

“Er…”

Dad leaned over me with a brittle smile. “His name is Er?”

“No. It’s…it’s Felix.”
 

Felix? What the hell, Mercy?

“You know an Italian guy named Felix?”
 

“Italian guys can be named Felix,” I said.
 

“They can, but they’re not.”
 

My phone was still ringing in Dad’s hand, having started up again after my voicemail picked up. Dad made a move to answer it and I snatched it out of his hand. “Hi, Felix. How are you?”
 

“Felix?” asked Oz Urbani, a man who couldn’t have been farther from a Felix. Oz was the nephew of Calpurnia Fibanacci, the head of St. Louis’s most notorious mafia family. Oz claimed he wasn’t a part of the family business. I had my doubts on that. He did have a great butt though.
 

“Of course I remember you, Felix,” I said.
 

“Oh. Your dad is there, isn’t he?”
 

“Sure thing.”
 

“Alright. I’ll make this quick. My aunt just told me that the Costilla organization has a hit out on you.”
 

Be calm. Look calm. It’s only Felix. He wants to date you, not tell you about your impending death.
 

“Oh, yeah. That sounds great, but I don’t like horror. How about
The Woman in Gold?
” I asked.
 

“That looks boring,” he said.
 

Oh my god.
 

“I don’t think it’s bad,” I said.

“It’s bad.”

The movie?

Dad moved in closer to try and listen in and I backed up nearly falling over Pick who yelped.
 

“The starting price on your golden locks is fifty thousand,” said Oz.
 

Not the movie then.
 

“Good to know.”
 

“So you killed Richie Costilla.”
 

Damn. That was fast.

“Well, you never know until you see it.”
 

“Huh? Oh, right. The movie. Look, Mercy, I just wanted you to know. Keep your head down.”
 

“Thanks. See you later.”
 

“Good luck,” he said and hung up. Is there anything more ominous than ending a phone call with good luck? I don’t think so.

I tucked my phone away. “So…you were saying, Dad.”
 

“What did
Felix
want?”
 

“To go to the movies. We have different tastes. You said I’m going away.”
 

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Suddenly you don’t seem to mind.”
 

Hell, no, I don’t. Fifty thousand isn’t chump change.

I shrugged. “I can fight you, but I won’t win.”
 

He threw up his hands. “Finally, she admits it.”
 

Myrtle smiled and I grimaced. I’d never live this down and Dad would expect to win forever. Not going to happen. This was a onetime thing.
 

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Go ahead and rub it in. Where am I going? Prie Dieu? Grandma’s house?”
 

“A girl trip. Your mother has arranged it all,” he said with a diabolical grin.
 

“A girl trip? With who?”
 

“Your cousins.”
 

I went cold. My toes were probably blue. “But…I only have three girl cousins.”
 

“That’s right. You, Mercy Watts, are the lucky winner of an all-expenses-paid trip with your only three female cousins.”
 

“Weepy, Snot, and Spoiled Rotten? What did I ever do to you?”
 

“We don’t have that much time,” Dad said, the grin growing wider.
 

Myrtle handed me a thick packet of
Amedei Prendime dark chocolate bars.
“Good luck, dear.”
 

“No way. I’m not doing it. I can go somewhere that they’re not. How about federal prison?” I asked.
 

Myrtle stood up and hugged me. “May God give you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change.”
 

Oh my god!

Chapter Four

DAD LET ME get my truck from Soulard Market’s parking lot, but only because my veg would rot and ruin the upholstery. I was not allowed to go alone. Officer Samson accompanied me and stuck so close I felt like a toddler with a helicopter mom.

I pulled in the alley behind my parents’ house after dark and closed the garage door on the trio of squad cars behind me. I retrieved my phone and checked for messages. There were plenty of messages. None were from Chuck and he was the only one I wanted to hear from.
 

“Dad’s sending me off with the Troublesome Trio,” I texted him.
 

I waited and nothing. Of course. Of course, there was nothing. I screamed and banged on the steering wheel. Samson whipped open the garage side door with his gun drawn.
 

I waved and got out. “Sorry. I just had a moment.”
 

His eyes darted around the dim garage like he didn’t believe me. “Yeah?”
 

“Yeah. It’s been a bad day. Aren’t you off shift?” I asked.
 

“We’re doing Detective Watts a favor.”
 

Dad was still Detective Watts. I guess he always would be. Samson helped me gather up my cloth bags and lug them down the long brick walk past Mom’s lush gardens. The tulips were blooming, fat and heavy. The cold spring air accentuated the scent of the flowers. For a moment, I forgot the break-in and the rest of it and just breathed in the fruits of Mom’s labor.

We tromped up the back stairs before I said goodbye to Samson and unlocked the door. I picked up my umpteen bags, walking sideways into the butler’s pantry at the rear of my parents’ house. It was ice cold as usual. Dad stood at the marble counter pouring himself a generous glug of whiskey and watching me out of the corner of his eye. Pick trotted in from the parlor and sat on Dad’s foot. Dad looked down and frowned. “Why does he always sit on my feet?”
 

“It runs in the family,” I said. “You want to help me with these bags?”
 

“Hell, no. I’m not taking the blame for that.”
 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
 

“You will.” He put the highball glass to my lips. “Drink. You’ll need it.”
 

I took the smallest of sips. It was nasty, but I smiled and choked back a cough for Dad’s benefit. He swore that when I was a real adult I’d appreciate whiskey. Not going to happen. Burning throat liquid wasn’t for me.

“Tommy, is that you?” Mom’s voice came right through the kitchen door along with the faint smell of her beloved ragu bolognese. It took four hours to make and contained, to my dismay, chicken livers.
 

Dad raised his glass to me and said, “No. It’s a crazy sick maniac, drinking all your handsome husband’s good whiskey.”

“My husband is just okay. You can drink his whiskey.”

“What?”
 

Mom laughed in the kitchen, but Dad couldn’t stop frowning.
 

“Don’t come in. My boyfriend’s still here,” she said.
 

Dad began some serious muttering.
 

I nudged Dad out of the way. “Hello. She’s joking.”

“It could happen,” said Dad.

 
I rolled my eyes at him and turned the old brass doorknob. It couldn’t happen. Not that Mom couldn’t get a boyfriend. She could get twelve plus two. But she wouldn’t. For some reason, she was devoted to my father, a six foot four redhead that wouldn’t eat for days, if she didn’t watch him. Seriously, my father had a feeding schedule. He was that skinny.
 

I opened the door and the bolognese smell rolled in like a thick fog and enveloped me so completely that I was light-headed for a blissful moment. It smelled like we were Italian, which we weren’t.
 

Mom twirled around, holding a wide wooden spoon and wearing one of Dad’s white dress shirts that came to her knees and a pair of black leggings. Even though she’d been cooking for hours, her hair was perfectly done and never looked more like Marilyn Monroe, cat eye makeup and all. My mother never looked bad. I, on the other hand, had no makeup, dog slobber on my jeans, and spider webs in my hair. Sometimes people confused me for Marilyn, but nobody ever mistook me for my mother.
 

I hauled my bags to the kitchen table and heaved them on. Vegetables were heavier than they looked. “Hi, Mom. Sauce smells great.”
 

“What do you expect me to do with all that lettuce?” She jabbed the air with her spoon. “Don’t even bring those in here.”
 

“What am I supposed to do with them? Leave them on the porch to rot? This cost good money.” There! I was using my mother’s own words against her. Did she ever hate wasting good money.
 

“How many heads of lettuce did you buy?” she asked.
 

“A few.”

“Define a few.”
 

“I don’t know,” I said.
 

“You don’t want to tell me,” she said.

Correct.

“I’d tell you if I knew.”
 

I did know. I had twenty-two heads of lettuce in my bags. In retrospect, it was a lot of lettuce. At the time, it seemed like a snack portion.
 

Mom stalked over and whacked my bags with her spoon in rhythm with her words. “This. Has. Gone. Too. Far.”
 

“It’s just lettuce, Mom,” I said, trying to hide the radishes, cucumbers, kale, and carrots. “You love salads. You eat salads all the time.”
 

“How much weight have you lost?” she asked.
 

I groaned. “Do we have to talk about this again?”
 

“How much?”
 

“A little.”
 

“I’d say it’s closer to twenty-five pounds,” said Mom.

Holy crap! Right on the money.

“It’s not that much.”
 

“You’re starving yourself.”
 

“I am not. I eat.”
 

“You eat nothing.” Mom picked up a bag of arugula and threw it at Dad. “I told you to talk some sense into her.”
 

Dad held the bag up like a shield. “We had a situation.”
 

“We have a situation right here. Look at her. She looks like a scarecrow.” Mom plucked at the waist of my jeans. It was bunched up under the belt.
 

“Thin is in, Mom. You don’t know,” I said.
 

“I know something’s wrong and it ends here. You’re eating my bolognese tonight.”
 

“No, I’m not.”
 

“Why not?” Mom asked her face an inch from mine.
 

Because I have to eat a salad.
 

“Because…because I ate with Millicent and Myrtle.”
 

“You ate at a crime scene where Lester may very well have been bludgeoned to death.” Mom looked at Dad. He grimaced. For a man, who lied to suspects with an aplomb people wrote articles about, Dad sucked. Any fool could tell I didn’t eat and Mom was no fool.