When I awoke with a start over an hour later Chuck had parked in the Bled garage next to the Jaguar and was already on the phone.
“What are we doing here?” I asked with a yawn.
“I was going to let you sleep for a while,” he said.
I got out gingerly and stretched my stiff legs. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m not looking in that liquor cabinet myself.”
“You fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.”
“And now I’m rested.”
He sighed and turned his attention back to the call. “What about the plane? I didn’t catch that.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Rich. There was a Learjet rented and waiting. Canceled on the day you were kidnapped.”
“Any footage of our guys?”
He nodded and held up a finger. “Uh-huh. We should be able to track that.”
I stretched and pointed at the door to the garden. Chuck followed me to the house and he keyed us in. Joy heard us coming in and came out of the kitchen to ask if I wanted some hot chocolate. Aaron had given her a recipe and she was keen to try it out. Even though I was defrosted the lure of hot chocolate was pretty strong and I followed her into the kitchen.
“Try this,” said Joy, handing me a chunk of dark chocolate.
It melted on my tongue like warm butter. “That is exactly what I needed. Peruvian?”
“Close,” she said. “Ecuador.”
Chuck came in and started pacing beside the long island. “I’ll get on that.”
“What?” I asked.
“Rich wants his uncle disinterred for a new autopsy.” He started dialing. “I’m calling a DA I know so we can get it moving.”
“Can’t that wait? We’ve got a thing.”
“It’ll only take a minute. Your parents have just left for Luanne’s.” He turned away and I was about to climb out of my skin. I’d had chocolate and I was good to go. Waiting wasn’t my strong suit anyway and I knew my parents, or more especially my father. I wouldn’t put it past him to come right back and get to work. Food was always optional for Tommy Watts.
“I’m going,” I said.
“No.” Chuck snagged my arm. “I’m coming.”
“Where are you going?” Joy asked.
“To my parents’. I want to get something.”
The housekeeper wheeled her chef’s knife above an enormous block of chocolate. “It’ll be ready when you get back. I hope I do it right.”
I grinned at her. “It’s an Aaron recipe. You’ll do fine.”
Joy gave me a thumbs-up and began chopping as I eyed the door.
“I’m almost done,” Chuck said to me and then held up a finger. “I’m looking for Darnell Hill. This is Chuck Watts. Can you transfer me?”
Almost done, my foot.
My phone buzzed and it was our neighbor Sandy. She rarely called unless it was to check up on Mom so I answered despite my urge to get out of the house. “Hey, Sandy.”
“Hi, Mercy,” said a man. “It’s Terry.”
“Oh, everything okay?”
“Yeah. I was wondering if I could clean up that mess. Sandy says it’s Carolina’s purview and we shouldn’t overstep. But your mom’s still recovering. Would it really bug her if I did it?”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
Chuck raised a brow and I whispered, “Terry from next door.”
He nodded and went back to trying to locate the missing DA.
“Of course,” said Terry. “You’ve been busy. That adoption thing is wild. I’d love to hear all about it. You should come over for ribs. I do great ribs.”
“I know you do and I’d love to,” I said. “What do we need to clean?”
Terry explained that on the night of the insane Christmas party some moron had been in our alley with fireworks and had blown up potatoes. There were a bunch on the ground. They’d frozen and then thawed and frozen again. There was going to be a mushy mess, but Mom and Sandy had a deal. Mom took care of the alley, sweeping and whatnot, plus the back alley. Sandy took care of the sidewalks in front and up to the houses. Our sweet neighbor had tried to take care of the whole shebang after Mom’s attack, but Mom had kicked up a fuss, saying she could handle it. She couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t go into the alley at all, being that it was the scene of the crime. I couldn’t either and Mom’s friend Dixie had taken over the duty, but exploded potatoes was beyond the call of friendship. That was down to family.
“I’m sorry,” said Terry, “but I think they’ll stink.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said.
“Mercy, I’ll do it.”
“No, no. I’m going over right now. Why potatoes?”
Terry laughed. “Why any of it? The whole avenue was a wreck. Now everyone’s haggling over who has to pay for the cleanup crew.”
“That’ll be fun,” I said.
“I didn’t know rich people could be so cheap.”
“Don’t get me started.”
“I want you started. Those idiot butlers are still in jail. Their bosses won’t bail them out, even though they armed them to protect their properties.”
“Typical. I’ll be right over.”
I hung up and said, “I’m going to clean up frozen potatoes.”
Joy shook her head. “Terry can do that.”
“You knew?”
“Mrs. Haas had pumpkins. I think they were throwing them at each other. What a mess. There were seeds everywhere.”
“Wait,” said Chuck. “I don’t want you alone.”
“I’ll take Pick.”
He grumbled, but I exposed the new panic button and he gave in while asking which courthouse the DA was at. I didn’t know there were that many to choose from, but I’d only been in the straight up criminal court.
“Ten minutes. Tops,” he said and I rolled my eyes before heading to the library to get the poodle off his cushion. The fuzzball was not pleased, but I promised sausage and that got him moving. Since it was freezing, I put on his tartan jacket and booties. It made me feel ridiculous, but Pick danced around excited in his fancy duds.
We headed out into the blustery wind and jogged the whole way, despite my burning butt. It was not happy to move, but my freezing fingers insisted. As cold as I was, my mind was working. Potatoes in our alley. Why? We weren’t close to the action at the Klemp mansion at the other end of the street. We were mostly unscathed with only a few spent firecrackers in the yard and some minor damage to the trees from the Roman candles.
Pick and I arrived in front of my parents’ house and I was about to go to the front door when I saw the evil Siamese in the window, staring at me. So familiar. They didn’t usually sit there, but they weren’t acting like maniacs like they did on the day of Mom’s attack. So that was good.
I headed up the walk, but Pick yanked on his leash, wildly trying to get away from them. I couldn’t blame the poor poodle. Biting him was their favorite thing. Only Chuck could get the Siamese to back off, if Mom wasn’t around, and he would be there in ten minutes or so he said.
The side door would work. If we got in quick, I could lock the cats out of the kitchen, but I’d have to go in the alley. No matter. I had to anyway because of those stupid potatoes, but I had to use all my will to do it. It hadn’t sounded so bad when I was talking to Terry. Just the alley that I’d known all my life. But I hadn’t been down there since Mom’s case was closed and I could still see her there, lying helpless on the ground.
I let Pick turn me to the right toward the alley and the wind kicked up, freezing my ankles and driving that awful image from my mind. At the entrance, Pick backed up and yanked at his leash, making a grumbling sound.
“There’s nobody there,” I said and Pick answered with a deep growl.
The poodle was right. It felt wrong. Bad and off in some way, but I could see clear down through the wrought iron gate into Mom’s side garden all covered with frost. The potato mess was equally clear. There was spatter a few feet in and three gross Idaho bakers lay on the ground and they looked like stink was coming in a huge way.
The trash cans were next to the side door. I could just toss the potatoes in there and worry about the spatter later. I went for the potatoes and Pick growled in earnest, baring his big teeth. The feeling got worse. A pain in the gut.
“Okay,” I whispered and I stepped back, but not quick enough. A figure stepped out of the side door’s alcove. It wasn’t very big and neither was she. About five foot, wearing a black puffer coat with the hood up over a fat padded neck brace.
Fat head.
“Of course,” I said, stepping back again and pressing the panic button. I didn’t know if I got it pushed correctly. It was under a shirt, sweater, and coat, but what else could I do? She pointed a .22 at me with a shaking hand as she stepped around the cans with an awkward gait. It was a wonder she could get around at all. In addition to the neck brace, she had an eye patch, a walking cast, a purple can-shaped bruise on her forehead along with burn pattern, and bandaged hands.
Without thinking, I asked, “What happened to you?”
“You happened to me,” she said in a hoarse whisper. From the look of her, I imagined she’d damaged her voice by screaming. “Don’t move.”
“Don’t shoot me,” I said.
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Are you sure because I’m not feeling good about it.”
“I’m sure.”
The muzzle of her weapon bobbed around like crazy and her one eye was blinking rapidly.
I took a step back and the shaking got worse.
She’s going to shoot me on accident.
“Be careful with that,” I said.
“You…you go back and unlock that gate,” she said.
“No.”
“What?”
“No. I’m not doing it,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “I’ll…I’ll shoot you.”
I put a hand on my hip and sighed like I wasn’t totally freaked. “You just said you weren’t going to shoot me.”
“Well, I will if I have to.”
“Why would you have to? Who are you?”
“Never mind,” she said, her voice getting worse and harder to understand. “You’ll unlock that gate. I’m not doing this again.”
“Again?” I frowned and attempted to stall. “How many times have you done this?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got you now.”
“Did you blow up that potato?”
She pursed her cracked lips. “It was supposed to be a silencer.”
“Did you drill a hole?” I asked.
“Nobody did that in the movies.”
“So you were going to shoot me?”
She gestured with the gun for me to walk past her. Not going to happen. Even if I wanted to, Pick wouldn’t have let me. His growls were so loud, I was surprised that Sandy and Terry couldn’t hear them.
“No thanks,” I said. “So the potato didn’t work out. What’s up with the leg?”
“Move.”
“No. Tell me about the leg or get to shooting.”
“It got caught in the cord when I pushed out the air conditioner,” she said.
“You really want to kill me.” I have to admit I was astonished. This woman was about sixty years old and beat to hell. What did I do to her?
“No, I just have to deliver you.”
“So whoever can kill me,” I said.
“No, no.” Her eye widened. “They promised that they just want to ask you some questions.”
There was nothing to say to that. It was too ridiculous.
“You thought an a/c unit wouldn’t kill me?”
“I thought you’d get knocked out and I could put you in my trunk.”
Oh, she’s an idiot and I’m alive because she’s incompetent.
“Well, I’m not getting in a trunk. You can forget about that,” I said.
Her whole body was shaking now. “You are.”
“Not.”
“Unlock that gate. My car’s in the alley.”
“Never gonna happen,” I said.
“I’ll…I’ll shoot your dog,” she said. It was supposed to be an ominous threat but came out like Minnie Mouse with strep throat.
I, on the other hand, sounded the way I felt. Pissed off. “If you shoot my dog, I will take you apart joint by joint. I’m a nurse. I can do it.”
“You have to get in my trunk.”
I waved a hand up and down in her direction. “Look at yourself and get the picture. This is not going to work out for you.”
“I’m going—”
My phone started buzzing in my purse.
“I have to get that,” I said.
Her laugh sounded like ripping paper. “No way.”
“My boyfriend’s a cop. He’s meeting me here any minute.”
“Yeah, right.”
My phone buzzed again and again.
“He’s going to notice if I don’t answer,” I said and I could see her waver. No wonder she got beat up by an air conditioner. “He’s better with a weapon than you. I guarantee it.”
“Just unlock the gate,” she said.
“I’m not doing it and he’s going to come here fast.”
The woman gritted her teeth.
She’s never going to buy this, but…
“I’ll just say I’m fine. You’re watching me. There’s nothing else I can do.”
She took a ragged breath and said, “Okay. Just say you’re fine or I’ll shoot the dog.”
I’ll be damned.
I opened my purse, pressed the 911 emergency button on my phone, and grabbed my Mauser. “Pickpocket, sit,” I commanded and the poodle actually sat. Shocking.
I dropped my purse, put both hands on the Mauser, and started advancing on her. “I’ve been trained to use this. Have you?”
“I…I…” She pressed herself against Sandy’s wall.
“I suggest you drop that weapon. I don’t need you alive.”
She scooted along the wall toward the gate. “Stop.”
“I don’t stop. Haven’t you heard? I’m a Watts.”
She tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, stumbled and dropped the gun.
“That’s better,” I said.
She fumbled with her jacket as she backed up, reaching the edge of our house almost to the gate. She pulled out a black canister and said, “I’ll spray you.”
She can’t do anything right.
“That’s a fogger,” I said.
“It’s pepper spray,” she said.
I held the Mauser on her and said, “A fogger type of pepper spray has a range of six to eight feet. I’m over ten feet away.”
“I’ll still spray you.”
“Go for it.” I crept closer and backed her up. She raised the pepper spray and held it out straight as she stepped backward past the edge of the house. I kept coming. She backed into the gate and sprayed.
It did not work out for her. The wind was so gusty that it rolled the thick fog of pepper spray around her, wrapping her in its noxious embrace. She screamed and dropped to the ground, not that far from where I found my mother. A better image for me to remember, I have to say.
She screamed and writhed on the ground, and I picked up her weapon as a siren echoed down the alley, followed immediately by Chuck with his weapon drawn.
“What the hell?” he yelled.
“Chuck Watts, may I introduce you to my latest kidnapper. I didn’t catch her name, but she’s about sixty and super stupid.”
He sniffed. “Did you spray her?”
“She sprayed herself.” I waved my hand over her. “I think you’ll find she did all those injuries to herself.”
“Is she wearing a patch?”
“Oh, yeah. She also has a nifty can-shaped ring on her forehead.”
“From what?”
“Remember that smoke grenade that Dallas threw out of the Sentinel?”
“You can’t be serious.”
I shrugged. “She tried to drop an a/c unit on me.”
“Bitch.”
“I’m not crazy about her,” I said.
We watched her writhe around until the cops got there. Contrary to popular belief there’s not a lot to be done about pepper spray. You just have to wait it out. It’s not like you can wash your eyes out with soap and she got it in the mouth, too. It would be bad for days. Diarrhea, nausea, the whole painful deal. I was good with it. If you try to put me in a trunk, you deserve what you get.
An ambulance showed up about ten minutes later, just after she booted all over the place. Fan-freaking-tastic. Another thing for me to clean up, made worse by her rolling around in it. The EMTs were not at all happy and it took a while for them to haul her caterwauling butt away. She wasn’t exactly cooperative. Nazir and his new partner Waz got the case and we only gave them preliminary interviews because the guys were having a hard time keeping it together. Nazir tried not to laugh and failed. Wiping his eyes, he told me to come down and make a formal statement the next day. I said I would and they left with peals of laughter echoing down the alley.
“So that was The Klinefeld Group’s second string,” said Chuck as I unlocked the gate and Pick raced through and spun in a circle.
“It wasn’t them,” I said.
“Has to be. Who else would hire those dudes at the airport?”
“I’m telling you it’s not them. They’re not stupid and blackmailing that woman to snag me is stupid.”
“It doesn’t make much sense I admit,” he said.
I climbed the back stairs and unlocked Dad’s security system. “Because it’s not them.”
“She won’t be able to tell us anything, but it has to be them.”
“Wanna bet?” I opened the door and stepped into the butler’s pantry.
“Sure,” Chuck said. “What are the stakes?”
“I’ll eat a bucket of Aaron’s crab puffs if it’s them.”
He took off his jacket and tapped his chin. “I’ll clean the bathroom for a month if it isn’t.”
“Two months.”
“Get real.”
“We’re talking crab here,” I said.
Chuck stuck out a hand. “Deal.”
I leapt into his arms and kissed him. “Deal.”
“You ready to see what Stella put in that cabinet?”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “Nothing’s going to stop us now.”
The doorbell rang.
Dammit.
The Girls stood on the front porch of my parents’ house wearing their mother’s vintage mink coats, matching hats, and twisting their hands in worry.
“Are you alright, dear?” Millicent asked.
“That woman, who sent her?” Myrtle asked.
I brought them inside and cranked up the heat. They really shouldn’t have been out in that weather. It was getting worse by the moment.
“Didn’t Joy tell you that everything was fine?” I asked.
“She did, but you might have been sugarcoating the situation and Carolina isn’t here to take care of you,” said Millicent.
Chuck came down the hall. “I’m here and Mercy handled it like a professional.”
I put a hand on my hip. “I am a professional.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
He helped The Girls with their coats and said, “I meant to say you were amazing and I couldn’t have done better myself.” Then he muttered something about years of training, but I chose to ignore that. I had years of Tommy Watts training and you couldn’t beat that with a stick.
“In any event, I’m fine and Linda Snodgrass is in the hospital under arrest,” I said.
The Girls took my hands and looked me over carefully.
“You seem unscathed,” said Myrtle. “How did you—how do you say it—take her down?”
“Well, she sort of took herself down.”
They frowned and I explained.
“That doesn’t sound like The Klinefeld Group,” said Millicent.
I elbowed Chuck. “Told you.”
“We’ll see,” he said, checking his phone. “Your parents are heading back. Are we doing this or not?”
“Doing what?” Myrtle asked in a whisper.
“Nobody’s home,” I whispered back.
The Girls clapped their hands in delight and hustled back to the butler’s pantry, leaving us in the wake of their bespoke perfume.
“I guess we’re doing it,” I said with a laugh.
“Come on.” Chuck dragged me down the hall and we found The Girls already taking the bottles out of the liquor cabinet. Once it was clear, Chuck and I used flashlights to examine every inch. Nothing.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, dropping into a kitchen chair.
“Access must be from the back,” said Chuck. “Makes sense with having it built in like it is.”
Myrtle and Millicent stood up, straightened their twin sets, and picked up the flashlights.
“May we try?” Millicent asked.
“Be my guest,” I said.
The Girls went over the cabinet and found nothing as I knew they would.
“I don’t believe that Uncle Josiah would’ve made it so the cabinet would have to be broken out to access whatever Stella hid,” said Myrtle.
“I agree,” said Millicent. “He prized good workmanship and wouldn’t have wanted it destroyed.”
“What do you suggest?” Chuck asked.
“Well, my dears, you know all the secret compartments he built in this house are not to be seen, hence the secret part.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Uncle Josiah made them so they couldn’t be seen, only felt. That’s why Tommy probably hasn’t found them all. One could spend a lifetime feeling around this house trying to hit upon the hidden.”
“We felt it,” said Chuck.
“Thoroughly?” Millicent asked.
He shrugged. “I thought so.”
“Let us try. We are his nieces. He was giving us puzzle boxes before we were born,” said Myrtle.
“I get it,” I said. “But Uncle Josiah didn’t make this cabinet.”
“But he loved it and that says something.”
“Go for it.”
The Girls smiled and went in the pantry to run their soft fingers over every nook and cranny. I poured myself some of Dad’s special German peach schnapps and was about to throw it back completely despondent, when Millicent turned around. “We found it.”
Chuck and I jolted to our feet.
“What?” I asked.
“A tiny little indentation,” said Myrtle. “Nothing really unless you know it’s something.”
We gathered around the cabinet, holding our breath.
Millicent reached in, pushed something, and the base of the cabinet popped up. The illusion was perfect. The ornate marquetry hid the compartment completely.
Myrtle carefully opened the compartment and we all leaned forward.
“It’s empty,” I said, tears threatening to overwhelm me.
Millicent took my hand. “It’s not empty, my dear. Look there. A page of something.”
Chuck reached in and lifted out a single piece of yellowed paper. “It’s a poem.” He held it up and The Girls beamed. I was bewildered. Josiah Bled had ripped a page out of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.
The Girls hugged me and Myrtle said, “Uncle Josiah gave that book to Carolina for you.”
A zing went through me and I raced out to the living room. I searched the bookshelves until I found Where the Sidewalk Ends amongst all the other books Mom had read to me as a child. I knew that book. It had a missing page. The blank spot had annoyed me when I was little. It was like someone had stolen something special from us. Mom always said she’d get another copy to see what we were missing, but she never did. I turned to the empty spot with the jagged remnants where the page had been ripped out.
The Girls and Chuck walked in, and Myrtle placed the page inside the book. Complete as it hadn’t been my whole life.
“He must’ve taken out what was in the secret compartment right before he left with Tommy,” said Millicent.
“And put the poem in,” said Myrtle. “It’s a clue for you, Mercy.”
“Me?” I asked. “I wasn’t even born yet.”
“He knew you would be wonderful,” said Millicent. “He said so.”
“I could’ve been a dipstick.”
They hugged me and Myrtle said, “No chance of that.”
“Which side was up?” I asked. “Which poem?”
“‘Listen to the Mustn’ts.’” said Chuck. “‘Joey’ is on the other side. Are they important to you?”
“Me?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of either of them before.”
“He’s talking to you now,” said Millicent. “Uncle Josiah is telling you that you can do anything. You can find whatever he took out of there.”
Myrtle took the book from me and opened it to the title page. “Look here. He signed it.”
There next to the title was Josiah Bled’s neat signature. I’d seen it a million times, and it always struck me as odd. For a man so wild and impetuous, drunk and daring, his signature was contained and quiet. You’d think it would be an illegible scrawl, but Josiah signed the way he never lived.
“Check out the date,” said Chuck.
“The day he left,” said Millicent.
I’d seen and recognized that date, but I pointed to something else, a small arrow pointing to the light bulb drawn on the page. “Showing us the direction?”
“Let’s look at the poem,” said Millicent and Myrtle turned the page to the poem “A Light in the Attic”. We read it together. A lovely poem, but in itself the reading meant nothing. The seeing it did. Josiah had underlined five words “dark and shuttered” and “a flickering flutter.”
“What do you suppose that means?” Chuck asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “But I think we’ll find out.”
“Really?”
I smiled. “Uncle Josiah knew we’d get this far, so what’s a little farther?”
“I hope you’re right.”
I am.