Small Time Crime (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 10) Read online

  Contents

  Smashwords Copyright

  Also by A.W. Hartoin for Smashwords

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Also by A.W. Hartoin

  About the Author

  Small Time Crime

  by A.W. Hartoin

  Copyright 2019 A.W. Hartoin

  Smashwords Edition

  “This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Also By A.W. Hartoin

  Historical Thriller

  The Paris Package (Stella Bled Book One)

  Strangers in Venice (Stella Bled Book Two)

  Young Adult fantasy

  Flare-up (Away From Whipplethorn Short)

  A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)

  Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)

  A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)

  A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)

  To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)

  Mercy Watts Mysteries

  Novels

  A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)

  Diver Down (A Mercy Watts Mystery Book Two)

  Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries BookThree)

  Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)

  In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)

  The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six)

  My Bad Grandad (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Seven)

  Brain Trust (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Eight)

  Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Nine)

  Small Time Crime (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Ten)

  Short stories

  Coke with a Twist

  Touch and Go

  Nowhere Fast

  Dry Spell

  A Sin and a Shame

  Paranormal

  It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)

  For my beloved daughter, Maddie, who, like most girls, is stronger than she knows or can even imagine.

  CHAPTER ONE

  PEOPLE SAY EVERY cloud has a silver lining. They insist upon it. They’ll tell you that even if you’re up to the hip in bullshit. Really? Every cloud? I ask because I’m waiting. My life has been pretty cloudy lately and I haven’t seen any silver. Not a hint or glimmer of the good stuff. Instead, I got a bolt of lightning, right in the butt. Because if you’re going to kick someone, you may as well do it when they’re down.

  I got fired. Of course, Shawna didn’t call it firing because she’s nice. Shawna is very nice, but I was still fired, even though she called it “letting go”. What does that really mean? She’s returning me to the wild so I can forage with the other unemployed nurses?

  If so, I’ll be all alone, because there are no other unemployed nurses. It’s a field with more jobs than people to fill them and you can have your pick, unless you happen to be radically incompetent, one of those killer nurses you see on the news, or me, Mercy Watts. I’m the exception that proves the rule.

  It was a real low point, employment wise. I’d already called my old temp agency and they said, “You’ve got to be kidding,” and their biggest requirement seemed to be a warm body. Nobody was going to hire me, that much was clear, not with the current situation or, should I say, situations. If you hired me, you’d have to expect the worst was coming and you wouldn’t be wrong.

  I closed my locker for the last time and leaned on the cold metal, blowing my nose and feeling so low I wanted to sink down and sob on the floor. No one would care. I was alone. Me and my sad little bag of crap would have to skulk out the back like a big, fat loser. The last thing I wanted to do was see patients. Plus, the cops were out there. They’d laughed the first few times, but they were past laughing now.

  I peeked out into the hall and found it empty, which was rare, so I took off and dashed for the back exit.

  “Where the hell are you going?” yelled Steve, the practice receptionist, as my hand hit the back door’s metal bar.

  For a second, I considered hoofing it out and not looking back, but I couldn’t do it. Steve was a big sweetheart and it was hardly his fault, so I pushed the door open and let the chilly November wind rush in, drying my cheeks and providing a little clarity.

  “I’m leaving,” I said, eyes closed, not looking back.

  “You can’t leave,” he said. “We’ve got a full waiting room. You’ve been requested.”

  “I know and yet…I’m leaving.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Nope.”

  Steve walked up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, my God. Is it your mom? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. On vacation, actually.”

  “Then what happened?”

  I took a breath and told him. “Shawna fired me.” I have to admit it was pretty nice to see his mouth drop open.

  “But…but…she can’t fire you. Why would you get fired?” Steve asked.

  “Have you seen the parking lot? ”I asked.

  Steve gulped a couple of times. Of course, he had. Everyone had. Just over a month ago, Beth Babcock rammed her enormous truck into the Columbia Clinic in a fit of rage over her unpaid bill. Then she tried to set fire to it and, in a moment of supreme stupidity, I tackled her and we rolled into a ditch, which would’ve been fine, but I ended up all over the news, not to mention YouTube, looking like I’d been in a wet tee shirt contest. That kind of thing really brings out the weirdos. Nutters drove in from all over to ram the clinic, in hopes I’d tackle them, too.

  Currently, there was a guy, who claimed to be named “Heaven”, chained to the porch, having stolen a tractor that was able to get over the barriers the practice had put in, and hit the front steps. For once, there wasn’t much damage. He’d hit the steps going five miles an hour. He didn’t steal wisely. It was a very old tractor.

  But Heaven chained himself to a post, armed with fake grenades, bug spray, and a lighter. He said he wouldn’t unchain himself until I kissed him all over.

  Not going to happen. The standoff had been going on for forty-five minutes with Heaven keeping the cops at bay with his improvised bug spray flame thrower.

  “He’s just a nut,” said Steve. “He needs treatment.”

  I shrugged. “The latest in
a long line of nuts who need treatment.”

  “It’s not your fault crazy guys want to, ya know, get close to you.”

  “The insurance doesn’t see it that way. They’re threatening to cancel the practice’s policy and the provider policies if we don’t get this under control.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, shit. What about us?” Steve asked, a set of frown lines forming on his incredibly tanned forehead.

  “What about you? I’m the one with bills, a bad rep, and no job.”

  “You are very popular with the patients. They are not going to like you getting fired, even with everything else.”

  The “everything else” hung in the air like the stank from a broken septic tank. Steve shifted from foot to foot and avoided my eyes. “I’ll talk to Shawna and the docs. There has to be something we can do.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

  Steve hugged me. “We didn’t get to have a going away party.”

  “It would be a get out and good riddance party.”

  “It wouldn’t.” He hugged me again. “We all love you.”

  “So do all the sex-crazed maniacs,” I said. “And off I go.”

  “It’ll calm down. You’ll be back.” Steve tried to sound cheerful, but it didn’t come out all that well.

  I stepped outside and a gardener yelled, “Hey, Smelly, where ya going?”

  Steve winced and I said, “That’s my life. Wanna trade?”

  “Dude, you couldn’t pay me enough to look like you.”

  This coming from a guy who did a drag routine every other weekend. I kill with drag queens. But my situation was so bad, I had it on good authority that even the Marilyn Monroe impersonators had to change up their acts, lest they be confused for me. There was a little odd satisfaction that, for the first time, Marilyn was taking it on the chin for looking like me, instead of the other way around.

  The gardener yelled again. That time calling me “odious” and bursting into laughter. That word didn’t mean what he thought it meant, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it. The sooner I got home to hide out with a half-gallon of ice cream the better.

  I rounded the corner and headed into the parking lot, keeping my head down and hoping for the best. I didn’t get it.

  The cops had cleared the area directly in front of the practice, except for the squad cars and the fire trucks. I was in clear view and Heaven spotted me straight away.

  “Mercy! Mercy! I love you!”

  I didn’t look and wished my coat had a hood. I really could’ve used a hood right about then.

  “Don’t do it!” yelled Carrie, a local cop, who never called me anything but my name, which is more than I could say for her boss and the firefighters. “Oh man!”

  The men started laughing and yelling, “Hey, Smelly! Get a load of this.”

  “Get a blanket, you assholes!” yelled Carrie.

  “Smelly’ll get it.”

  Then I heard a little kid say, “Why is Mercy smelly?”

  That was rock bottom and I have to say there’s some stiff competition for the honor. I think the parent said I wasn’t actually smelly, but it didn’t matter. Once the internet says you smell, you flipping smell. I wished that tractor had hit me. Maybe I should stick around. It was only a matter of time before another one showed up.

  “Mercy!” yelled Carrie and I looked up on instinct. That did not work out for me. Heaven had stripped and was pouring something out of a plastic grenade all over his head.

  “I’ll do it! Come over here or I’ll do it,” he yelled, his skinny, pale body shaking violently in the cold.

  Jordan, another cop and Carrie’s boss said, “It’s not gas, Heaven. For God’s sake, pull up your pants.”

  “I want Mercy!”

  A woman ran up to me, shielding her son’s eyes, “This is ridiculous. Talk to him, Mercy. He needs help.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Shawna fired me. I’m supposed to leave the premises immediately.”

  “You cannot be serious. Logan needs his shots.”

  Logan looked up, his blue eyes huge. “No shots.”

  “Other people can give shots,” I said.

  “I want Mercy,” wailed Logan.

  “Can they?” asked his mother. “Can they? I don’t think so. Where is Shawna or Dr. What’s-his-face?”

  “Inside.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, marching past Heaven, who’d opened another grenade while holding a lighter to his face.

  I will not be here.

  I went for my car, my mother’s car to be accurate, since my truck was still in the shop after being demolished by another kid that needed professional help.

  “It’s lemonade, Heaven,” yelled Jordan. “You can’t light lemonade.”

  “I can light roach spray. What do you think of this, Pig?”

  There was the sound of streaming flames and a firefighter yelled, “Get Smelly over here!”

  I ran for it.

  “Mercy!” yelled Carrie. “Wait! You gotta help us with this guy!”

  “Let’s spray him!” yelled someone.

  “We can’t spray him. He’ll get frostbite.”

  “Shoot him!”

  “Get a hostage negotiator. This is getting old.”

  “There’s no hostage.”

  “I’m a hostage. It’s thirteen degrees out here. My butt’s numb.”

  I got to the new Mercedes Dad bought Mom after she said she didn’t want it and very nearly got the door open before Carrie hit the door full tilt, ramming it closed. She bent over gasping, “Why did you make me run? I hate running.”

  “I’m leaving. Get out of the way,” I said.

  “You can’t leave. This guy…this guy, you gotta talk to him. Throw him a bone so we can break out the bolt cutters and get the hell outta here.”

  “Just spray him and do it,” I said, tugging on the door handle.

  “How’s that going to play on the news? We spray a mentally ill guy with water and give him hypothermia.”

  “He’s already wet with lemonade.”

  “He needs help.”

  “He needs a professional.”

  “You’re a professional.”

  “I just got fired.”

  I was rewarded with a blank look.

  “I don’t work here anymore thanks to the flipping media and Heaven and all the other Heavens out there.”

  “You can still talk to him. You’re still a nurse.”

  “Look. I just cleared out my locker and spent the last fifteen minutes crying, so I think I’m gonna pass.”

  Carrie pushed me away from the car and I flinched. She’d touched my casted arm and I was sensitive about it. Another young man, Porter Weeks, gave me a spiral fracture after he found out his father’s secrets. Secrets and publicity were two things that never worked out for me.

  “Oh, crap. I’m sorry, but please, Mercy, he really needs your help.”

  “It will just encourage this stuff.” I pointed at a news van pulling up, satellite dish perched on top and ready to roll. “You know it will. I have to draw the line somewhere.”

  “Well, draw it somewhere else,” said Carrie. “I know your life sucks right now, but his life is worse.”

  I looked over at the now sobbing Heaven. “This is so unfair.”

  “I know.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Don’t blame you.”

  “I am not kissing him at all or anywhere,” I said.

  “Understood.”

  “Fine.”

  “Great. Let’s go see what he’ll settle for.” Carrie turned me around and steered me toward Heaven. Jordan ran over to the news crew, ordering them off private property, but they were rolling and more vans were pulling up. No matter what happened this was not going to work out for me. Period. No chance at all of it working out.

  We stopped ten feet away, well out of roach spray range. Now
that we were closer, I realized Heaven was a lot younger than I originally thought. College-age. Twenty. Maybe less. That made it worse, for some reason, and I felt so sad it was like a big hand was pushing me down into the dirt.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  He continued to cry.

  “Heaven!”

  He looked up and focused. Sort of. He was on something. His eyes were bloodshot and, even from there, I could tell his pupils weren’t reacting right. “Mercy?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Want to talk?”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. But I need you to put your clothes back on,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked, although the reason was painfully obvious.

  I took a breath and kept my eyes up. You know how it is when you don’t want to look at something? Your eyes just absolutely insist on going there.

  “There are kids in the clinic. You don’t want them to see…your stuff, do you?”

  “Kids?”

  With perfect timing, Logan’s mom came out, still shielding his little eyes, and said, “Shawna says you can give Logan his shots. She’ll put you in as being let go after.”

  Well, isn’t it just my lucky day.

  “Alright. Give me a minute. Kind of in the middle of something,” I said.

  She glanced over and clenched her jaw. “You’re a good person, Mercy. And I want you to know that we all know that you don’t smell.”

  “Could you put that on Twitter? I’m getting roasted.”

  “Yeah, I know. You were on The Daily Show last night,” she said.

  “I saw that,” said one of the firemen.

  “Friggin’ hilarious,” said another.

  Don’t start crying again. Don’t do it. Crap. You’re doing it. For the love of God, stop.

  “People suck,” said Logan’s mom to the firefighters and they had the decency to look away.

  “Yes, they do,” said Carrie. “Can you go inside, ma’am? This will be resolved in a minute.”

  Will it? That sounds optimistic.

  Carrie gave me a tissue and Heaven pulled up his pants. That was something anyway.

  “Now the shirt,” I said.