I knew who it was before they got to the top of the stairs. The creaking gave it away. My cousin Tiny Plaskett made stairs suffer like no one else. At six six and three hundred pounds, a small man he was not. Tiny was also one of my favorite people but not on that day.
Tiny’s footsteps slowed and he emerged only to the point that I could see his dark eyes over a box of dress patterns. I stared at him and he at me. Not a good sign.
“So you coming up or what?”
“Yeah.” Tiny watched me for a second and then sighed before trudging up the final few stairs.
“Hey,” called out Stevie. “Did you come to help?”
“Get real,” I said. “My dad sent him or forced him to come is more like.”
Tiny smoothed his tie and glanced away. Yep. I was dead on.
“How do you know?” Stevie asked.
“Look at that handsome face. He does not want to be here,” I said. “Spill it, Gigantor.”
Tiny crossed his arms and his biceps bulged so much I feared for his seams. “So now I’m a robot.”
“I meant that you’re huge and fighting crime.”
Tiny wrinkled his nose. “I forgive you.”
“Swell. Will I be forgiving you?” I asked.
“Don’t kill the messenger.”
“So that’s a no.” I crossed my arms and my cousin came into the attic. He began looking around, stalling.
“Go ahead,” I said. “What does he want?”
“Who?” Stevie asked.
“My dad.”
“Oh, yeah. Ya know, I used to think your dad was better than mine.”
“What do you think now?” I asked.
“It depends on what you got to do,” said Stevie.”
I turned to Tiny, who’d discovered the Sinatra albums. “Just tell me.”
“He wants you at the house,” said Tiny.
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“Is my mother there?”
Tiny grimaced and said, “She’s at her speech therapy with Tenne.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “So what is it? Tailing a suspect? Pointless paperwork? Find the dingbat lover of an idiot husband?”
“None of the above,” he said. “It’s an interview.”
“So that’s a hard no. Tell my loving father to stick it.”
“I’m not gonna do that. Come on, Mercy. Just go. You know you’re gonna go.”
“Give me one good reason I should do it,” I said.
“You’ll make my life easier.”
“Low blow.”
He grinned at me. “Thanks.”
“Still not going.”
“Alright. I’m authorized to carry you, drag you, whatever I got to do.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked.
“Nope. You’re goin’.”
“Tell me what it’s about then. I deserve that at least.”
Tiny considered it and I was pretty sure Dad had told him not to tell me, which didn’t bode well. Dad knew me. It was something I was not going to agree to.
“He’s got a couple of FBI agents over there,” he said.
I relaxed. “Is that all?”
“That ain’t all.”
“Gordan and Gansa? The rookies?”
“New agents,” said Tiny.
“From the Kansas investigation?” I asked.
“Kinda.”
“Just tell me. I’m going to find out.”
Tiny bit his generous lower lip.
“How about this? I’m definitely not going if you don’t tell me what I’m walking into without my mom’s backup. I’m supposed to be resting. That’s why I’m not in Germany right now,” I said.
Tiny bowed to the inevitable and told me that two female agents were parked in my parents’ kitchen. They were from the Behavioral Science crew and were there to interview me, but the way Tiny described them, it sounded more like they wanted to study me. I knew from experience that whenever anyone wanted to find out how I did what I did, it wasn’t a compliment to my skill. It was an investigation into how a moron like me got lucky.
“Why would I want to do this?” I asked.
Tiny shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s for the family.”
“Not you, too.” I pointed at Stevie. “That’s for the family. I’m already on family stuff.”
Stevie stared at us blankly. “Huh? What?”
“Tommy said you wouldn’t go if he asked you,” said Tiny.
“No kidding,” I said. “He might be over the FBI’s bullshit when Mom was attacked, but I’m not. They can bite my butt. I knew he was up to something with that whole ‘Relax, Mercy,’ ‘Take it easy, baby girl’ and I still fell for it. I’m the idiot in this attic.”
Stevie did a fist pump. “Yes. It’s not me.”
Tiny and I rolled our eyes in unison. We might be distant cousins, but we were a lot alike. Dad should’ve known Tiny would tell me what was up. Deep down, my cousin was on my side no matter who signed the paycheck.
“What are you doing with Stevie?” Tiny asked.
“I’m getting him straightened out before his mother sees him and hey, hey, hey I’ve got to take him to the doctor so darn it all, I can’t go see the FBI agents. So sorry. Buh-bye.”
“Don’t make me haul your little ass over there,” said Tiny.
“Little?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a liar, but I like you,” I said.
“Who wants a small ass?” he asked.
“I’d like to try it out and by the way, you have not won me over. I do have to go to the doctor with Stevie.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Tiny eyed my charge as he opened a trunk and put a woman’s gold turban on top of the top hat and added another boa to the collection around his neck.
“ADD for starters,” I said.
“I was thinking traumatic brain injury,” said Tiny.
“It’s on the menu. We’ll see.”
We looked back at Stevie just in time to see him lick a crusty silver fork.
“That’s ADD?”
“I have my doubts,” I said.
Tiny went over and whipped the hats off Stevie’s head. “Stop that. You look crazy.”
“I’m not crazy and my head is cold,” said Stevie.
“What the hell happened to the back of your head?” Tiny asked.
“I got a tattoo.”
“On the back of your head the day you got out of prison?”
“It was a swastika. Now it’s flowers.”
Tiny looked at me and I shrugged. “That was my day yesterday and you still want me to do the FBI thing?”
“You got to.”
“You want to take that to the doctor and explain the head?” I asked.
Tiny looked at the rafters. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
“You get paid plenty. You make a hell of a lot more than me and you’re the new head of stuff and things.”
“I’ll put that on my card. Department head. Stuff and Things.”
“Seriously, the Head of Genetic Research and Related Crime is a big deal,” I said.
“And I like it. That genealogy stuff is fascinating.”
Tiny had been thrown into the quagmire of DNA during the Thooft investigation when we found out about the baby adoption scam that a certain doctor had going in St. Sebastian. We were overrun by people wanting to know who they really were and where they came from. Dad put Tiny in charge and he was working fourteen-hour days, working his way through birth certificates, DNA profiles, and family trees, but he’d found a passion for it.
“Aunt Willasteen is very proud of you,” I said. Willasteen was Tiny’s imperious aunt and the only person as scary as my Aunt Miriam. Those two weren’t related, but they seemed like they were.
“You told her?” Tiny asked.
“She told me.”
“How’d she know?”
“How does she know anything? She’s Willasteen.”
“Good point. Do we have a deal?” Tiny asked.
“You’re going to take Stevie to the doctor? Really?”
Tiny heaved a huge sigh that sounded like enormous fireplace bellows. “Why not? I can work while I’m there.” He checked his phone. “I’ve got thirty-two emails to return and sixteen phone calls.”
“Holy crap. I’d rather deal with the agents.”
He shooed me to the stairs. “Good. Get ’er done.”
I gave him the doctor’s details and told him, “Just so you know I’m not doing what those agents want.”
“I know,” he said with a chuckle. “And I told Tommy that. But he doesn’t believe me. He thinks he can get you in a tight spot.”
“I’m great at getting out of tight spots.”
My cousin grinned at me. “Yes, you are. Watch out, Tommy. Mercy’s gonna bring it.”
I was and I did.
I went in the front door of my parents’ house, avoiding the side alley. I still wasn’t recovered from Mom’s attack that happened there. My therapist said it would fade with time and it was but not fast enough. For now, it was safer to go in the front.
“Tiny!” Dad yelled from the back of the house. “You got her?”
“I’ve got myself!” I yelled back and tossed my coat on the bench in the receiving room before I strolled back to the kitchen. I didn’t have a plan. When do I ever? But I didn’t need one. I wasn’t doing it. Period.
Sitting at the kitchen table were two women, looking both snotty and irritated. I guess waiting wasn’t their usual thing. Or maybe it was waiting for me that was the problem. I did have a rep for being difficult. Well deserved, I’m happy to say.
Dad grinned at me from the espresso machine and asked, “Latte?”
“Absolutely.”
Dad pressed a button and leaned on the counter, looking just as gangly and goofy as a man could get. I caught the agents giving him sidelong glances. They knew all about Tommy Watts. Who didn’t? He’d been a famous police detective before they were born and despite his recent much ballyhooed breakdown had come back into the FBI fold with a vengeance, thanks to me. I’d worked a deal that got my dad back in and it was like he never left, but I could tell they were having a hard time relating the reputation with the man grinning at them with his graying red hair sticking up and two day’s worth of scraggly beard on his chin. I did, too. My father’s appearance did not belie his mind or ability in any way.
“Here you go, baby girl.” Dad gave me a lovely latte. “I take it you know why you’re here.”
“I do,” I said.
“But you came.”
“I did.”
Dad took that as a sign of cooperation. It was not.
“This is Agent Kelly Ladd and Agent Katerina Owens.”
They showed me their badges. Whatever. Do not care and not impressed.
I sipped my latte and calmly eyed them over the rim of my cup.
“We’re here to interview you about your recent interactions with various criminal elements,” said Ladd as she tucked her dishwater blond hair behind her ears.
I said nothing and they seemed surprised.
Then Owens started in and she spoke slower than Ladd. Maybe I was as dumb as I looked. Maybe I just didn’t get it. “We are from Behavioral Science and we will be working up in-depth profiles of the criminals you’ve had contact with.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
Ladd put her phone on the table and started recording. “To start, please, state your name and tell us why you think you have been so attractive to criminals.”
I’m attractive to criminals? What does that even mean and is it really about what I think?
I didn’t respond and Dad came over and clicked off the recording to Ladd’s surprise. “My daughter is attractive to most people and what she thinks about her attractiveness is not relevant to this discussion.”
Ladd and Owens regrouped and went into telling me what they were after. In short, everything about me that worked for criminals. How did I talk? Smile? They thought I worked it somehow and that meant it could be replicated. The whole thing was insulting. As far as I could tell, they thought I was a flirt and my success with solving crimes was really about sexuality. They should’ve been as insulted as I was. The FBI sent two very attractive agents to learn how to turn on psychos. That was their value.
“So you want to talk to Blankenship and he won’t see you. Is that it?”
Both agents froze and a smile flickered across my dad’s face. The whole pointless exercise was worth it just for that. “I told them you were sharp,” he said.
“And they didn’t believe you,” I said.
“Seeing is believing.”
“I’m not interested in being studied or used,” I said. “If you want in with that bag of crap, figure it out. See ya, Dad.”
Dad’s pleasant expression switched off and we were back to Dad, Demander in Chief. “Mercy, you need to do this.”
“Need is such an overused term. I don’t need this, Dad.”
Ladd leaned forward. “The bureau needs this.”
“And that’s supposed to move me? I don’t think so and I’m not going back in to see Blankenship. I’m simply not.”
“We didn’t—” started Owens.
“You didn’t have to. That’s always next. You couldn’t get in so you want me to do it. Sweet talk him. Intro you. Heads up. He can’t be sweet-talked. He doesn’t give a crap.”
“You can tell us how you survived—”
“When I clearly shouldn’t have,” I said. “I know. You don’t get it. I’ve had no formal training. I look like I look so I must be a drug-addled nitwit like they say on the news.” I stood up and put my cup down.
“Mercy, they’re not giving you an attitude,” said Dad.
“They are. You see it. You just don’t care.”
“I care. We just have to—”
“What? Go in with Blankenship one more time? No thanks. Been there. Done that to freaking death.”
“How about Shill?” Ladd asked.
“Will you go in with him?” Owens asked.
“You go in with that sleaze. I just got him washed off.”
The agents clenched their jaws and I threw up my hands. “Are you kidding me? He won’t talk to you, either?”
Dad put a hand on my shoulder. “He won’t talk to anyone, including his lawyer.”
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“He’s asking for you.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“He says he will only talk about the murder of Cassidy Huff with you,” said Ladd.
“Why?” Back to yelling. It was a wonder I wasn’t hoarse yet.
“We don’t know and we have to figure it out,” said Owens.
“And your plan is to toss me in there and see what happens?” I asked all screechy.
“We have to start somewhere.”
I glared at them. “Then you’re going nowhere.” I turned around and stalked out. It was worse than I thought. Studying me was bad enough. Studying me under glass with Blankenship and Brian Shill was another matter.
Dad chased me down the hall to the front door. “Mercy, God damn it! Stop!”
“Leave me alone,” I said, yanking on my coat.
“It’s for the greater good.”
“Not my greater good. That’s why Mom isn’t here. She’d beat you to death with a rock if she was.”
“She’d understand that we have to do these things to learn and get better.”
“You mean I have to do these things,” I spat at him.
“You’re the one they want,” he said. “If the FBI can learn something from you, then we have an obligation to cooperate.”
“We? Give me a break.”
Dad adopted a soothing tone and said, “You’ll be getting a nice consultant fee. Think of the publicity.”
“Do you know me at all? I hate publicity,” I said.
“You’d never know it.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Why not? You’ve got nothing else going on,” said Dad.
“So much for resting,” I said.
“Resting.” Dad snorted. “You don’t need to rest. You can do this.”
“What would you tell Mom?”
Dad crossed his skinny arms and the look I was so familiar with came over his face. The sneaky bastard. “Nothing. You’re resting like we said. She doesn’t watch you like a hawk and Christmastime is busy. You’re busy.”
“Busy resting?”
“Whatever. It’s fine.”
“And you think I should do Christmas by going to Hunt Hospital for the Criminally Insane and talk to someone who bit me on the face?”
“That won’t happen again,” he said with utmost confidence. He probably believed it. My dad had a very selective thought process.
“You said the same thing about my first stalker, not to mention everything else that’s happened,” I said.
“It’s for the family.”
“You always say that, too.”
“Well, it is. We’re rebuilding a brand here and helping society at the same time. It’s a good thing,” said Dad.
“I’m not doing it and you can’t make me.”
“You sound like a child.”
“Your child. Try to remember that for a change.”
The front door opened and Leo Frame walked in, carrying a laptop and a bunch of case files. “Hey. Oh, what’s happening here?”
“My father’s trying to pimp me out to the FBI,” I said.
“Jesus, Mercy,” said Dad.
“I’m not doing it.”
“Why not? Give me one good reason.”
“I don’t want to.”
Dad straightened up and said, “That is not a valid reason. The agents and I will pick you up at eight sharp tomorrow morning for Hunt. End of discussion.”
Unbelievable. Did he hear anything I said?
“No.”
Dad spun around and headed back to the kitchen. “Don’t forget the dinner at Uncle George’s tonight. It’s not negotiable.”
Just like my whole life.
Leo put down his stuff and slipped off his jacket, his old weathered face warm with concern that my own father had rarely shown. “So that went well.”
“It did not,” I said. “He doesn’t listen.”
“Your father has a focus that’s hard to deny,” said Leo.
“I’m denying it.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad this time.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I said.
Leo hugged me and said, “I know and I hope it’s true.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Better find an escape route then and fast,” he said.
I zipped up my jacket. “I already have one.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Germany, here I come.”