Pick and Moe raced into the Bled Mansion, over the Turkish rug, and onto the highly polished wood floor. Because they never learn, they immediately lost control and wiped out, running into a wall and rattling the many framed photos overhead before disappearing around a corner, only to hit another wall.
“Mercy!” called out Millicent. “We’re in the kitchen.”
“Coming!” I turned to Fats, who was leaning on the doorframe to the breakfast room. “You don’t have to stay. I’m in for the day.”
“Yeah, right.” She went toward the kitchen with her dignity more or less intact. I followed at a distance. I’d set my getting flattened limit to once a day and Fats wasn’t looking so steady.
“You coming?” The unmistakable voice of my father rang out from the kitchen and I groaned. It’d been a long day already and, if Dad was there, it was bound to get a whole lot longer.
I trudged in behind Fats and found my dad leaning on the marble pastry counter drinking a Bled beer out of the bottle. I stopped at the door and considered turning around. Dad had that look, the look I’d hated since I was deemed old enough to help with his cases. I was about to have a pain in my butt.
“What happened to you two?” Dad asked as Myrtle and Millicent rushed over to sit Fats down in Lester’s chair, tuck a blanket over her lap, and push a cup of peppermint tea into her hands.
“Pregnancy complications,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow, but asked, “How’d it go?”
“It went. How was Greta?”
“Walk with me.” Dad left the kitchen by the other door without checking to see if I agreed to follow. I didn’t agree and I didn’t follow.
“We made Ghirardelli,” said Myrtle.
“With double cream,” said Millicent. “I didn’t over whip it this time.”
Fats and I exchanged a look. This was not a good sign.
“What happened?” I asked. “Do the turtles need to be moved again?”
Myrtle poured a mug of hot chocolate and Millicent scooped a blob of stiff cream on the top. “Nothing’s happened, dear. You just deserve a treat.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Of course.” Millicent gave me the mug, shooed me out of the kitchen, and firmly closed the door behind me. No going back apparently.
I wandered around the house, looking for Dad and finally located him through my exceptional sense of smell. Dad was smoking. It didn’t happen very often and that alone would’ve been enough to give me pause. I followed the whiff of pipe I caught by the staircase through the house to Nicolai Bled’s smoking room. That’s right. He had an entire room dedicated to smoking. That’s when you know you’re well and truly loaded. And it wasn’t just any old smoking room—if there is such a thing—Nicolai’s was designed to look as though you’d stepped into an English manor house. There was nothing of the mansion’s Art Deco sensibilities. No potted palms, geometric shapes, and definitely nothing Egyptian. Nicolai filled his room with dark wood paneling, reclaimed from a renaissance palace, stained glass, and fat sofas with tufted red leather. I rarely went in there, but I liked its cozy, masculine vibe, so different from the rest of the house. The only thing I didn’t like was the blue haze that hung around my father’s head like a thunder cloud.
“That took a while,” said Dad from a spot next to a fire that was just coming to life.
“I didn’t expect you to be smoking.”
“Neither did I. Life’s full of surprises.” He pointed to the sofa opposite and I sat down obediently, mostly because my ribs hurt and I didn’t have the energy to run for it.
“How bad is it?” I asked, hoping Dad hadn’t gotten into Nicolai’s office and seen my Klinefeld Group stuff, because bad wouldn’t cover it. Catastrophic came close.
“I found out why Greta wanted me at her hearing,” he said.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Well, as fine as she gets.”
“Not getting out then,” I said.
“No. This is about who was trying to get in,” said Dad.
“Into…Hunt?”
Dad nodded and told me just about the last thing I expected. I’d like to say it didn’t knock me on my ass, but it kinda did. Greta had been doing better and, in an effort, to stabilize her condition, the staff decided to give her more time out of her cell. She got to be in the staff break room, wander the halls unsupervised, stuff like that. It cannot be stressed enough that this was against the rules, all the rules. Greta had been judged criminally insane. You don’t let criminally insane people walk around with access to other criminally insane people. That’s…insane. But it’s also what happened.
To be fair, Greta was about the sanest insane person you could ever meet and I didn’t think for a minute that she would walk down the hall and let Harvey the Head Case out of his cell. But I also wouldn’t have let her go free range. But since the staff did, Greta got to pick up some interesting tidbits. Wilson Cleves, the director of Hunt, had an affair with a twenty-year-old Golden Corral waitress, who kept trying to ineptly blackmail him with obviously doctored photos. One of the guards had a fight with his wife, got locked out of the house, and broke a leg while climbing a ladder to a second floor window. He’d hidden the injury until he got to Hunt and was now filing for Worker’s Comp. A secretary had diabetes but hadn’t told her husband because she loved M&Ms. A janitor was transgender and thought no one knew, but everyone did and were politely waiting for her to mention it.
And most interesting—for me, anyway—was Kent Blankenship’s visitor list. Kent Blankenship was a mass murderer who had a fondness for me and serial killers. The last time I’d seen him, he’d bitten me on the face. I kept hoping he’d die choking on his own tongue, but it hadn’t happened yet.
About a week before I was attacked, a man named Thomas Smith had shown up and requested a visit with Blankenship. He claimed he was a relative of one of the victims in the Tulio shooting and his paperwork was in order. Blankenship’s privileges were severely restricted after he bit me and they weren’t lax before that either, but it really didn’t matter. People weren’t exactly lining up to see that dirtbag and he refused everyone who did want in, except me. Thomas Smith wasn’t any exception. Blankenship refused him and we never would’ve heard about it, if it weren’t for Greta. She was in the staff break room at the time and it had a big bank of windows overlooking the parking lot. She saw Thomas Smith come in the visitor’s center and leave fifteen minutes later. Later, some staff came in and mentioned it while they ate lunch. Nobody paid Greta any mind and they discussed Blankenship’s visitor. She only noted it because of me and Blankenship’s visitors being so rare.
Then my attack happened. Greta found out about it two days ago when she walked by a security guard station and heard my name on the guard’s TV. Right there on the screen was the man she’d seen walking out of the visitor’s center and, low and behold, the car he got into was the very same silver Ford Taurus he used in the kidnapping.
Greta didn’t tell anyone. She was afraid they’d ignore her and cut off her privileges. Instead, she requested Dad speak at her hearing. She figured, given his fondness for her, that he’d show up and he did.
“You don’t think she was imagining it?” I asked.
“Always a possibility given her condition, but no. After the hearing, I went directly to Wilson at Hunt. We looked at the security footage and it was Anton Thooft alright.”
I sat back on the sofa with my mug growing cold in my hands. “When did he go to Hunt?”
“The day after landing at Lambert,” said Dad.
“So he had a plan.”
“It seems so.”
“But…have you heard of any connection to Blankenship?”
Dad puffed on his curvy Calabash pipe, doing his best to look like Sherlock Holmes. He had the Basil Rathbone intensity down, but the red hair ruined it. Dad always looked slightly goofy with that pipe, not that anyone was going to mention it. “Think, Mercy.”
“I am,” I said, but I wasn’t. I was panicking. Not this crap again. I was not going to Hunt to talk to Blankenship. My face couldn’t take it.
“You’re the connection,” said Dad.
“I don’t suppose I can ignore this.”
“It’s your case.”
Has to be a trick.
“Oh, really? You’re not going to make me go out to Hunt to get molested by that lunatic?”
Dad grinned at me, his dimples popped out and made him seem more handsome than he actually was. “I am not.”
“So I can just not do anything about it?”
“Yes.”
I gave my father the stink eye I learned so well from Aunt Miriam. “I can ignore this info and go on like it never happened?”
“Up to you,” he said.
“What’s the catch?” I asked.
“No catch,” he said.
We eyed each other for a minute until Dad asked, “When do you plan on telling Detective Rich?”
“About five seconds after you leave,” I said. “Anything to say about that?”
He thought about it for a second and then asked, “Good job?”
“Are you asking me?”
“I don’t know. This is new.”
“I’m not going to Hunt,” I said.
“Fine with me,” said Dad.
“I’m going to tell Mom you were smoking.”
He shrugged. “She’ll smell it on me anyway.”
“What’s the advice?” I asked.
Dad blew out a series of smoke rings and then said, “I got nothing.”
“Are you going to call your buds at the FBI?”
“I have no buds since they pulled that crap with your mother,” he said. “I wouldn’t call them if a tsunami were about to hit Quantico and they were unaware.”
Hard to believe.
“I thought you were back in,” I said.
“Thanks to you, I am. That doesn’t mean they’re back in with me.”
“I’m surprised,” I said and I was. Actually, more like astonished. My father was holding out on the FBI. How the tide had turned.
“So am I,” he said.
“You…seem relaxed.” Relaxed was not a word anyone associated with my father. Even saying it was weird.
“I think I am. That’s also new.” He glanced at the bookshelf behind. “Anything good on there?”
“To read?” I asked.
“I’m not thinking of turning it into papier-mâché,” said Dad, grinning again.
I got up and looked at Nicolai’s personal collection of books, something I’d never done before. “There’s a lot of poetry.”
“Figures. The Bleds love poetry. What’s he got?”
“The usual Pound, Poe, Keats, Eliot, Shakespeare, Wilde, Emerson,” I said.
“Any Missourians?”
“Well, Eliot.”
“Langston Hughes?”
“Him, too.”
Dad held up a hand and I put Shakespeare in Harlem in his palm. He opened it and began reading like I wasn’t there. He looked okay, but he might’ve been having a stroke.
“Are we done?” I asked.
“I am.”
“With what?”
Dad flicked a glance at me and smiled. “Giving you the information I had.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked because my father without an opinion on my impending crappiness wasn’t my father.
“I think you’re going to find out all of Anton Thooft’s secrets, solve the case, collect a hefty fee, and get us back in the news as the tremendously successful firm we always were.”
“Um…what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to read this book and then take your mother out to dinner, if she’s up to it,” he said.
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
“I hope you’re not having a stroke.”
“I’m not having a stroke.”
I slipped out the door and leaned on it. A calm Tommy Watts and no stroke. Something didn’t add up.
“Saddle up,” I said as I hurried into the kitchen.
Myrtle, Millicent, and Joy all whispered, “No.”
I skidded to a halt. “What?”
“Mercy dear, Fats is not going anywhere,” said Millicent. “She needs her rest.”
“It’s decided,” said Myrtle and Joy nodded, fiercely.
“Okay. Okay,” I said it like I was acquiescing when I had no choice. Fats was out cold in Lester’s chair with a dripping popsicle in her hand. I went to take it and got a bunch of nos in the form of wild gesticulations.
I shrugged and said, “Well, I’m off then.”
“Not so fast,” said Myrtle.
“You want me to wake her?”
If looks could kill, I would’ve been dead meat. Millicent went to the intercom and pressed a button. “Rocco, are you busy?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just cleaning your father’s Chapuis Savana. The firing mechanism is a little sticky. Where would you like to go?” Rocco asked over the crackly antiquated system.
“I’m not sure yet. Which of the cars hasn’t been out in a while?”
“The Isabella could use a run,” he said.
“Excellent,” said Millicent and she turned to me. “Will you need weaponry?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I hope not.”
“Best to be on the safe side.” She pressed the button. “Rocco, could you arm yourself for this trip?”
“So I’m taking Mercy.” He laughed and said he’d be there.
“I don’t need the cavalry,” I said.
“You don’t know what you need until you need it,” said Myrtle. “Where are you going?”
“Thooft’s old school district.”
She took my mug and looked terribly disappointed. “You didn’t drink it.”
“Dad was weird. I got distracted.”
Millicent steered me out into the breakfast room and gave out a low whistle. Pick and Moe came running, slipping and banging into the back door. That did not affect the wagging that was full on.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Fats taught me.” She gave me my coat and a kiss on the cheek. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
“I will.” I clipped on Pick’s leash and waved off Moe. “My dad’s weird, right?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he hit his head.”
Concerning.
“Does Mom know?” I asked.
“I believe so.” She hugged me and went back in the kitchen to make a Greek lemon orzo soup for Fats’ nausea.
Rocco came down the hall dressed like he was setting off with Shackleton to explore Antarctica.
“Where do you think we’re going?” I asked, pointing at his full Gore-Tex getup.
“With you, ya never know,” he said and pulled on a full-face black balaclava.
“Take that off,” I said. “We’re not robbing a bank. We’re going to Liberty High.”
He opened the door. “I should’ve brought another piece.”
“You’re insane.” I headed out to the stable/garage, said hello to the workmen working on the apartments, and got into the 1954 Borgwald Isabella. It wasn’t the most impressive car in the stable but certainly the most adorable. Rocco opened the garage, still full arctic, and got in after sticking Pick in the back with his service dog vest. “So where are we really going?”
“Liberty High in Wentzville.”
“Come on, Mercy. Nobody’s listening. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Take me to Wentzville,” I said.
“Ah, shit. Really?”
“Really.”
Rocco wasn’t happy, but he got over it once we were on the road. Such was his love for vintage automobiles. I got out my phone and considered the options.
“Detective Dustin Rich,” said an irritated voice on the phone and I thought maybe I chose unwisely.
“It’s Mercy Watts,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah, hold on.” The detective left wherever he was and came back a bit breathless. “Sorry. At a crime scene.”
“I can call back.”
“Screw that. It’s a 7/11. What’s up?”
I told him about Blankenship. He whistled and said, “Well, that’s not good.”
“Did his friends in Germany say anything about Blankenship?” I asked.
“They didn’t, but they were in shock and we only asked about you. Was he obsessive? Did he talk about you? The answers were all no.”
“Swell.”
“In my defense,” he said, “the guy was dead. We were dotting the Is and crossing the Ts.”
“Nobody mentioned Hunt or the Tulio shooting?”
“Absolutely not. If they had, we’d have been on it.”
We went back and forth about the Thooft family and then he went quiet. “What are you holding back?”
“Nothing,” I lied but it didn’t come off well.
Rich snorted. “Why’d you let Kimberly Thooft hire you?”
“Who’s going to care about this more than me?” I asked.
“That’s not enough. That family’s looking for mitigating circumstances for the guy that was going to rape and murder you.”
“I’m following your feeling,” I said.
“Flattering but no.”
“Anton Thooft was gay.”
Rocco chuckled and said, “That’ll do it,” and Rich began cussing and, I suspect, punching the air.
“Are you done?” I asked.
“We interviewed every member of his family, his former boss, his current boss, friends, past and present, and nada. How’d you get it?”
I told him how, but it only made him more mad. “I could’ve kept the case going.”
“You can’t reopen it now?” I didn’t want him to reopen. It was mine.
“I’d need a compelling reason.”
“That’s not?”
“He still kidnapped you. He’s still dead.”
“Did you hear any hints of childhood issues?” I asked and Rocco gave me the side eye, making him look a whole lot like his sister.
Rich didn’t have anything unusual on Anton’s childhood. It all came across as perfectly normal, but again he wasn’t looking that far back, so he didn’t ask. Thooft showed no signs of what was coming. Campbell and Rich had asked about that repeatedly. Interest in Blankenship and Hunt would’ve been a big sign, but nobody knew about that.
“I’ll go back through the notes and see if anything sticks out, but don’t hold your breath,” he said. “What’s all this got to do with the sister getting booted from a crappy high school play?”
“I don’t know, but I’m about to ask her about it,” I said.
“Keep me in the loop, will ya?” Rich asked.
“I will and I’ve already asked my guy to look into your uncle’s death.”
“I don’t know if it’s necessary.” He’d gotten the death certificate from his mother and talked to the doctor at the ER. A coronary sounded like a sure thing.
“Maybe, but I’ve got a bit of a feeling myself,” I said.
“Mercy…” Rich trailed off and then said abruptly, “Never mind. I’ve got to get back in. Good luck and I’ll check those notes.”
We hung up and Rocco said, “You got a thing with that guy?”
“A thing?”
He waggled his brows at me.
“No, idiot. He was the detective on my case,” I said.
“Which is closed.”
“Not so much anymore.”
“You sure you don’t have a thing with that guy?” Rocco asked.
I punched his arm and called Kimberly. She was at the grocery store and it didn’t seem like a good time, but she was anxious to talk.
“What did you find out?” she asked as breathless as Rich.
“A few things, but mostly I have a question.” I asked her about her brother’s interview with Tank Tancredi and it was fair to say she was completely caught off guard.
“I’d forgotten all about that. It was years ago,” she said. “Why on Earth would you care?”
“I never know what’s important,” I said.
Kimberly related the story much the same way Tank had and it wasn’t enlightening by a long shot.
“Why wasn’t your mother there?”
“Mom? Oh, well, gosh, why do you ask?”
“People seem to think you three were a trio, doing a lot together. I thought it was odd that she wasn’t there and your father was.”
Kimberly chuckled sadly. “We were, but Mom didn’t like the idea.”
“Why specifically?”
“My mother’s old school. She thinks that kind of thing is uncouth or bragging or something. Dad and I thought it was a good chance for some exposure. We’d sunk a lot of money into going organic and it would’ve helped get the word out.”
“Your mother didn’t want the word out?” I asked.
“Mom is very private. She hates that kind of stuff. So did Anton. We shouldn’t have tried it. He was too shy.”
I agreed and told her I’d keep her up to date as the investigation went on and hung up. Too shy. That kept coming up. Anton wasn’t too shy. He couldn’t have been, but she sounded completely genuine. She believed it, even though it made no sense.
“So how come you didn’t ask her about that play?” Rocco asked he pulled off the highway in Wentzville.
“Too personal,” I said. “She’d have known I was looking at her.”
“That’s bad? Shake her up. She knows something.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think she does.”
We arrived at Liberty High, a fairly new complex in tan and blue. Once Rocco truly believed the high school was my goal, he lost the arctic wear and the weaponry. The weaponry with reluctance. The Licatas were a family that felt most comfortable when armed, but we were going into a school. Weapons couldn’t happen. I put my Mauser into the glove box.
“Who are we here for?” he asked, opening the door for me.
“Whoever will talk to us,” I said.
“So you’ve got no plan.”
“That’s a plan.”
He rolled his eyes and sidled up to the desk with a school resource officer eying us with us so much suspicion I expected to be strip searched.
“No dogs,” he barked.
I dangled the service vest.
“Bullshit. I know who you are, Mercy Watts.”
Rocco kicked his desk and said in a low, incredibly threatening voice, “Then you know she’s a victim with a head injury. You want to deny a victim her support animal? Is that the way you want to play it?”
That took him back, but only for a second. “Who are you?”
“Rocco Licata, the chauffeur.”
The officer blinked for a minute at that and then asked me, “You have a chauffeur?”
“‘Cause of the head,” said Rocco. “You want Miss Migraine driving around endangering children?”
“No. I…uh…Rocco Licata?”
“That’s right,” said Rocco and he popped out a toothpick that dangled off his lip for a second before he used it to pick his molars. What was with that family and toothpicks? “Check me out. I got no issue with that.”
The officer looked at me and I got to see the situation dawn on him. He wasn’t wrong about Rocco, but he also wasn’t going to get anywhere with it.
“Who do you want to see?” he asked me.
“The principal would be great,” I said cheerfully. “Thanks.”
He lowered his voice. “It’s about that guy?”
“It is.”
“The detectives were here and they interviewed everybody and their brother.”
“I know. Detective Rich told me. I have different questions,” I said.
The officer took our IDs, wrote down the important info, and gave us a couple of visitor passes. “I don’t think you’ll find anything new.”
“I already have,” I said.
“You don’t say?”
“I do. Did you know Thooft?”
He shook his head and said, “Before my time.” Then he gave us directions to the office and watched us walk away. He still wanted to do a strip search, but now it was just me.
Inside the office, after a bit of confusion, we were ushered into the principal’s office and he was none too happy to see me or Pickpocket, who started spinning in a circle for no reason.
“What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me what you know about Anton Thooft,” I said pleasantly.
“I’ve been all over this with the police.”
“Then it won’t be hard to recall.”
Dr. Conway did find it hard to recall, because he didn’t want to. Having the police and the press showing up because he was once the boss of a would-be murderer wasn’t ideal for him or the school.
“Perhaps you could go out the fire exit by the gym,” he said, “since we’re done.”
“We’re not done,” I said.
“I don’t know anything,” he said.
“Sure you do. What was Thooft’s demeanor? Was he open, cheerful, friendly with staff? How did he interact with the community?”
He held up his palms. “How would I know? That was years ago.”
“Five years.” Rocco positioned his toothpick vertically and then crushed it.
Dr. Conway stared at him with something between fear and disgust.
I slapped my hand on his desk to get his attention back. “Did Thooft do well with the community? Open door policy? Closed door?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between me and Rocco. “He was a teacher.”
“That’s not helpful,” I said.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“What was he like?”
“It was five years ago. What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Dr. Conway,” I said. “The cops think he was going to rape and kill me. Call me crazy, but I’d like to know why.”
The principal wrenched his eyes off Rocco, who was sucking toothpick splinters from between his teeth. “He was…normal. Average guy. Nothing stood out, but I was just his boss, not his friend.”
“Who was his friend?” I asked.
“I can’t have you walking around the school bothering my staff,” he said.
I smiled and sat back. “Let’s hope I don’t have to.”
“I won’t allow that.”
“Do you know her at all?” Rocco asked and cracked his knuckles. “She uncovers serial killers and interviews murderers at Hunt. You think she can’t get to every goddamn person in this joint?”
“Evan Price.”
Rocco winked at me and I asked, “Good friend of Thooft?”
“Yes and head of our counseling department.”
Ding. Ding. Ding.
“Available now?”
He glanced at the clock and stood up. “Should be. Third door on your left.”
Rocco and I stood up.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Miss Watts, can you please stay out of sight? Our students are just starting to settle down.”
I flipped up my hood and he gave me a wan smile. “Good luck. I do hope you find what you need.”
“And hopefully it has nothing to do with your school,” I said.
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
Rocco and I slipped out past some students. I kept my head down so no one noticed me, but they sure noticed Rocco.
“Stop flirting with teenagers, Captain Creepy,” I hissed.
“They’re flirting with me,” he said with a laugh. “My mother taught me to be polite to girls.”
“Well, stop smiling.”
“How do you know I’m smiling?”
“I can feel it.”
He laughed and grabbed my shoulder. “You passed it, Super Sleuth.”
I glanced up at the door and the name tag. Dr. Evan Price. A male friend for Anton. Score. Rocco started to knock, but I grabbed his hand.
“You stay out here,” I said.
“Why? You’d let Fatasaurus Rex in,” Rocco said.
“She’s in the contract for this job. I shouldn’t have had you in with Conway.”
“He didn’t say crap.”
“I know, but he could have. I’m supposed to be keeping this close to the vest. You already know too much,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t say anything.” He raised his hand again and I grabbed it.
“I can add you to the contract, but for now you should stay out here.”
Rocco shook his head. “Naw. I’m watching you. The Baroness of Barf will have my ass if anything happens to you. Besides, I can’t say anything about you.”
I peeked up at him from under my fur-lined hood. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“The NDA. You’re covered. Let’s do this thing.”
“NDA?”
“Hello. The nondisclosure agreement I signed.”
A couple of girls walked by and whispered, “You’re hot.” When Rocco got done smiling or whatever, I asked, “What NDA?”
“For The Girls. I signed it when I came on board. We all have them.”
“I don’t.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Are you an employee?”
“I don’t understand. The Girls had you sign an NDA.”
They did and all the personal employees of the Bleds had them, including Joy, Rocco, and my cousin, Tiny. According to Rocco, the intent was privacy and protection. No giving out family info on location, money, visitors, or art. Rocco couldn’t give interviews about the family. He couldn’t write a book or a blog. It all made sense, except for the fact that I was included on the NDA.
“Tiny never told me any of this,” I said.
“He probably didn’t read the whole thing.”
“But you read it?”
“Hell, yeah. I don’t sign a damn thing without reading it,” said Rocco. “Tiny’s got trust in his heart. I don’t.”
“How long was it?”
“Six pages of legalese. Lawyers love to use a lot of words to say very little,” he said. “Can we go in?”
“Who was the lawyer?” I asked. “Big Steve?”
“No. Some corporate guy from the brewery. Total douchebag. He kept asking if The Girls really wanted to hire me, like I was tainted or something.”
I can’t imagine why.
“I was on the NDA? You’re sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. It surprised the douchebag, but The Girls said it was standard.”
“What did it say?”
Rocco thought for a second and said in a monotone, “All Bled family members by blood or marriage to include Carolina Watts also known as Mercy Watts.”
“Just me, not my parents?”
Rocco gave me the list. Grandad, uncles and cousins, Weepy, Snot, and Spoiled Rotten were in his NDA. Not my parents. The two people The Girls absolutely adored didn’t make the list.
“So you can write a blog about my dad, but not me?”
“Get real,” Rocco scoffed. “That dude wouldn’t say anything revealing around me.”
Or me.
“Do you have a copy of your NDA?” I asked.
“Sure. You wanna see it?”
“I would, yeah.”
“Nope.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not supposed to show it to anyone, unless part of a legal action,” said Rocco.
“But you can tell me about it?”
He lifted a shoulder. “No, but it’s you so screw it. Why can’t I tell you about how you’re protected?”
Good question.
“Well, I guess we can go in,” I said.
“Finally.” He knocked and we got a quick, “Come in.”
I expected to see a man behind the desk and hopefully one with some insight into Anton Thooft. Instead, I got a petite woman with two-inch long hair that was dyed purple.
“Evan Price?” I asked.
She gaped at me and then said, “Well, holy crap, I won.”
“Are you Evan?” Rocco asked.
She stood up quickly and slammed her chair against her bookcase. “I am. I…my parents thought naming a girl Evan was somehow edgy. Instead, it’s just confusing.” She stuck out a hand and we shook. Rocco held her hand a little too long making her blush and stammer. She covered by loving up the poodle.
We sat down in her institutional chairs that may as well have been rocks for all the comfort they provided.
“So what did you win?” I asked.
“My staff and I bet against the Science department that you’d come here about what happened and here you are.”
Rocco sat back and smiled. “There’s no science that explains Mercy or my sister, for that matter.”
“Who’s your sister?” Dr. Price asked.
He showed her a picture on his phone and her eyes went wide. “I can see your point.”
“She’s a freak and so’s this one.” He jerked a thumb at me. “You should always bet on Mercy.”
Ah, thanks.
“She’s kinda random, but it always works out,” he said.
Bastard.
Dr. Price smiled at him with big dopey eyes. “I’ll remember that.”
I doubt she remembered I was in the room and my name? Forget it.
“Hello?” I waved a hand between them.
“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Price. “What can I do for you?”
“The principal said you were good friends with Anton Thooft. Would you be willing to talk to us about him?”
“I already told the police everything I know.”
I smiled at her. “I bet you didn’t.”
“I assure you, I did.”
Rocco slipped off his hoodie and flexed. The guy might’ve been tiny compared to Fats, but he was built and Dr. Price noticed. A lot. “Did you tell the cops he was gay?”
Her mouth dropped open and then she shook her head. “No, I didn’t and I’m very surprised that you know about that.”
I looked over at the diplomas on the wall. She was all about social work and psychology and from some kicking schools, too. Truman, SLU, and Wash U. “Look, I know. He knows. Anton’s sister knew. At least one friend growing up knew and quite a few others. You have a doctorate in psychology. What do you make of that, Dr. Price?”
“Call me Evan.”
“I’ll call you cheesecake if it’ll get you to level with me.”
Evan took a deep breath and relaxed in her chair. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I warn you, it’s limited.”
“You were close friends?”
“Still were until the day…it happened,” she said. “But I’m not sure I should say close. That’s not really an accurate description.”
“‘Cause you didn’t see him throwing Mercy in a trunk?” Rocco asked.
“I didn’t, but that’s not why.” She reached down into a drawer and pulled out a framed photo. It was of her and Anton raising a glass under a banner saying “Congratulations, Dr. Price.”
“Did you have a thing with him?” Rocco asked after glancing at the photo.
“Anton was gay.”
He shrugged. “It happens. My cousin’s gay. She had a couple boyfriends back in the day.”
“I suppose it could happen, but it didn’t.” She told us the same old story about being the only one to know, sworn to secrecy, the whole spiel Anton always used. The difference was Evan didn’t buy it. She didn’t think she was the only one to know. His lines were too practiced and his pleas down too pat. Evan took her field seriously and she smelled a rat.
“That was it?” I asked. “Just the delivery?”
“That and Anton was great. I loved him a lot, but you couldn’t get close to him. He told me about being gay, but oddly everything else was off limits.”
“Like what?”
“His family, his favorite food. You name it, it was held close to the vest.”
“But not being gay?”
“No and wouldn’t you think tacos or burritos would be less of a big deal than being gay?”
“I would. So you’d say he was secretive?”
“Incredibly so and very good at it,” said Evan. “If you go down to the English department and ask Libby Mueller, she’d say he was the most open person she ever met. So would Jena Richards and Mary Johnston.”
“How does that happen?” Rocco asked.
“Anton was very good at asking you questions, so it seemed like you were bonding, sharing, but it was really only you sharing and Anton didn’t say a thing.”
Rocco nodded. “Slick.”
“Very,” she said. “I did like Anton a lot, but I didn’t know him.”
I leaned forward. “Any hint of what was up with that?”
“I figured abuse of some kind, but I couldn’t get within a mile of it. Before you ask, no, I didn’t think he would hurt anyone, particularly a woman. He was always kind and generous with female staff. He preferred us to the men.”
“But he was gay,” said Rocco.
“He didn’t dislike the men. He just didn’t seek them out. He preferred female friends.”
“Anything else strike you as odd?” I asked.
“Well, like you said, plenty of people knew,” said Evan. “After his death, I started asking around. Five other members of staff knew.”
“They all thought they were the only ones?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yes, they did and I’ve tried to work that out. Why he compartmentalized us, I mean.”
“And?”
Evan took the photo back and looked down at her friend. “There was this strange kind of atmosphere about Anton, like he yearned to be known and free, but had silence imposed on him.”
“He came from a very religious family,” I said.
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. He had faith, but it didn’t appear to rule him. It was something else. He was hiding, but he didn’t like it.”
“Hiding?” Rocco asked. “From who?”
“I don’t know, but he didn’t want his picture in the yearbook. He was nominated for Teacher of the Year and he withdrew his name from consideration. Dr. Conway wanted him in the paper for an interview to tout his AP methods. Anton had a pass rate of seventy-five percent for AP Government. The average is something like fifty-seven percent.”
“He wouldn’t do the interview?”
“He wouldn’t even consider it,” she said. “He said the work was its own reward, but that wasn’t the point. It was to highlight the school. We need funding like everyone else. If you’ve got a stellar teacher, you put them out front.”
“How hard did Dr. Conway push?” I asked.
“Pretty hard. He was frustrated. Anton was a great teacher. The kind that kids come back from college to visit and he wasn’t shy. I don’t know what the problem was.”
“He said he was shy?”
“He did and it was bull. Anton could talk to anyone about anything,” said Evan.
“Was anything else happening? Something Anton fought?”
She smiled. “You know there was. Our media kids wanted him to do a kind of Khan Academy for AP Gov, but he refused. You know how kids are. They saw right through the bull and didn’t buy the shy or work/reward thing.”
“Kids don’t give a crap,” said Rocco. “They’ll get right in your face.”
“I bet you did,” I said.
“You know it.” He looked at Evan. “So what happened?”
“They got a petition going. Pretty much the whole school signed and then the PTA got in on the act.”
Wait for it.
“Right after the PTA made a formal request, Anton announced his retirement and he took a job in Germany,” said Evan with a flourish.
“And that was the end of that,” I said.
“It was.”
“This weirdo moved to Germany so he wouldn’t have to teach a friggin’ class online?” Rocco asked. “He was a teacher.”
“I know. It was very strange. Nobody understood it, but Anton was absolutely opposed to getting out there.”
“And being known,” I said.
“He’d have moved to a desert island to avoid it,” said Evan.
“The question is why.”
“I wish I could tell you.”
Me, too.
With the help of a granola bar from Evan, we got Pick in the back of the Isabella. He spun round fifteen thousand times before curling up on his cushion and yipped for another bar.
“None for you,” I said. “Chuck will say I’m making you fat.”
Yip.
Rocco snapped his fingers and Pick hid his eyes under a paw. “Where to now?”
“I was going to say home, but let’s try Black Heart Books,” I said.
“That’s practically home.”
“So it works out.” I started digging in my purse for a Hersey’s Kiss or something. I needed chocolate and there was bound to be something in the depths.
Rocco started the Isabella and waved to his fan club that had gathered on the sidewalk to watch us leave. “Are you looking for Investigations for Dummies in that purse?”
“I will kill you.”
“I’d like to see you try,” he said.
“It’d be a good fight,” I insisted and held up a wonky Kiss covered in lint.
“If by good you mean incredibly short, I agree.”
I ate my Kiss and said, “You and Fats are so much alike.”
“Take that back,” said Rocco with a grimace.
“It’s true.”
“Do I look like I stepped out of a comic book?”
I shifted in my seat. “In a weird way, yeah, you do.”
“Freaking how?”
“You’ve got a super villain thing going on. People tend to look at you, not me. I dig that about you.”
Rocco grinned. “Chicks do like a bad boy and I’m all boy.”
“And plenty bad.”
“That’s how I come across anyway.” He popped out a toothpick. “It’s working for me.”
“And me,” I said.
“What’s at the bookstore?”
“A boyfriend.”
“Chuck know?”
I laughed. “Anton Thooft’s boyfriend from college.”
“Is it Jamie?”
“You know him?”
“He helped me find some knitting manuals. I’m moving on to socks.”
I cannot see that.
“In the meantime, let’s talk about Fats,” I said.
“Yeah, let’s do that.” Rocco eyed me. “When are you gonna take care of that BS?”
“If you’re talking about the morning sickness, I’m thinking you should take care of it.”
Rocco merged onto the highway and made a face. “What am I gonna do? I haven’t been able to take her since we were in grade school.”
“I heard you could never take her,” I said.
“Drop dead. I pounded her a couple times and she remembers it, believe me.”
“Whatever. You’re her brother. Talk to her. She loves you.”
“She likes me enough not to kill me and hide the body.”
“That’s something. You have to try.”
“You’re the nurse.”
“I tried. She’s freaked out about medication hurting the baby,” I said.
He nodded. “She’s not going to take meds.”
“I think she has to.”
“She wouldn’t take painkillers after some dipstick dropped a weight on her foot and broke six bones. It might’ve kept her out of competition. She’s not doping up her kid. It ain’t happening.”
“Wow,” I said.
“That sums up my sister,” said Rocco. “Wow.”
“What about your mother?”
He looked at me puzzled. “What about her?”
“Has she tried to talk to Fats?”
“I doubt it.”
I watched his face for a hint of what was going on, but he was blank. “Could you ask her to talk to Fats?”
“What would she say?” he asked.
Do I have to spell this out?
“Um…to take the meds so the baby can have calories,” I said.
“Yeah, no. She’s not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“They fight.”
“Define fight.”
Rocco looked at me and I got the picture.
Enough about that.
“Who else has influence?” I asked.
“You.”
“I don’t have any influence.”
We drove in silence and I wanted to ask about other female friends, but Fats already said I was the first. Sister Clarence was in there, but she was the original soft touch. I don’t think she could make Fats drink a glass of milk.
“What about guys?” I asked.
“Tiny’s trying. He practically begged her the other night, but it’s a no go.”
“What is up with that? This is an approved medication. A doctor prescribes it.”
Rocco’s jaw tightened and the muscles danced underneath the taut skin just like Fats.
Enough about that.
“What about other guys? Friend guys.”
“Guys aren’t my sister’s friends. She didn’t know that for a long time. They either want to dominate or do her.”
“For crying out loud, this is depressing,” I said. “Suddenly, I want to call my mom.”
“And you can,” said Rocco. “Get it?”
I got it and this was going to be harder than I expected. I didn’t want to appeal to Calpurnia and owe yet another favor, but I might have to.
“She’s such a pain in my ass.”
Rocco nodded. “Welcome to my world.”