Brain Trust Read online

  “Really? How many times?”

  “Three times. Flesh wounds.”

  “I bet. You’re like all flesh.”

  “But no fat. Ten percent,” she said with considerable pride.

  I spun in the seat and started pushing with my legs. “That’s not healthy for a woman. Get out.”

  She was unmoved. Literally. “Says who?”

  “Everybody. Please get out. I’ve got to get Mom’s stuff and go back to the hospital.”

  She grinned and opened the door. “Ah, the magic word. Finally.”

  I slid into the driver’s seat. “Hopefully, this won’t take long.”

  “I’ll be watching,” said Fats.

  “Don’t. You’ll be seen.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You’re the most visible woman in the world,” I said. “Chuck is going to make you.”

  “I’ve got skills.” She slammed the door and gave me a finger wave.

  Swell.

  I drove off and watched in the rearview as Fats darted between a hipster coffee bar, that for some reason also sold pool tables and fedoras, and an antique silver shop that specialized in tea urns. They’d been in business my whole life. And in my whole life, I’d never seen anyone actually go in. They had to be a front for something, but I’d never mentioned it to Chuck. He’d shut them down and the neighborhood would be pissed. The rich aren’t crazy about change. Or crime, for that matter. It was okay as long as it wasn’t near them or if they didn’t have to notice it.

  Knowing that, I should’ve seen what was coming, but I had murder on my mind. I turned the corner to see a crowd around Mr. Knox’s pagoda. You’d think it would be news crews and there were three, but the rest were our neighbors and some servants. Mr. Knox had his hands up as if he was about to be shot.

  I sighed and edged around a news van to go to the service alley, but the crowd extended into the street. Mr. Knox spotted me and waved. The entire group turned and converged on my truck. What did I say about how it couldn’t get any worse?

  I rolled down my window and listened to a barrage of complaints from the street being blocked to the unseemliness of crime scene tape on their beloved avenue.

  Mrs. Haas, The Girls’ neighbor and a woman I usually considered to be normal, said, “I knew this would happen. It was inevitable.”

  “My mom getting attacked was inevitable?” I asked.

  Mr. McCallister’s butler said with his nose in the air, “I said it then and I’ll say it now. That element should not have been allowed to move in.”

  “Please, Palfry,” said Mrs. Haas. “That is not what I meant.”

  It’s exactly what she meant. Heaven forbid a cop without an ounce of blue blood move in. Crime must certainly follow.

  “We’ve lived here for twenty-six years,” I said.

  “And we’ve had Lester’s murder and now this thing,” said Nina, the Coventrys’ maid. “We have to do something.”

  “Are you at all worried about my mom, a woman who bakes you cakes and the wife of a man who did your security systems for free?”

  They looked guilty. A look that immediately turned to defiance. “You have to get them off the street,” said Mrs. Haas.

  “Them?” I asked.

  She leaned in my window, filling the cab with the scent of gardenias from her incredibly thick grey hair. “The police and those crime scene people. They have vehicles parked in front of your house.”

  I looked at the ceiling and practiced some deep breathing techniques meant to control rage. “So what?”

  “So what?” asked Palfry. “People will think there was a terrible crime on our street.”

  “There was.”

  He pulled up to his full five-eight and said, “A person like you couldn’t possibly understand. You, with your rock band and unseemly habit of being on the news.”

  My hand shot out my window, grabbed him by the silk tie, and yanked him into my door. Hard. “You know what, Palfry? An unseemly person like me might just get out of this truck and grant an interview to every single reporter that asks.”

  “What would you say?” His beady eyes darted around, looking for a way out.

  “I might say that the residents of Hawthorne Avenue couldn’t care less about the wife of a celebrated detective who’s lying in the ICU with a traumatic brain injury. They only care about traffic and how it looks.”

  Mrs. Haas gasped, “Brain injury?”

  “What did you think happened? They gave her a cuddle?”

  Mrs. Haas and Nina burst into tears, apologizing. That’s how it was with the wealthy of Hawthorne Avenue. Appearances first. Reality later.

  I shoved Palfry back. He did not apologize. I didn’t expect he would. Dad had arrested his brother for solicitation of an underage boy in connection with a murder-suicide a couple of years before he retired. Palfry hated us like herpes, said we were trash, the works. He had no problem with his brother, oddly enough.

  “Well, don’t expect me to help with this mess,” he said, straightening his tie.

  “Do you know something?” asked Mrs. Haas. “You have to tell the detectives.”

  Palfry’s eyes darted around again and he said quickly, “I don’t know anything.”

  He glanced at me with loathing. He knew something alright.

  “You’ll help if I say you’ll help.” I put my truck in gear.

  “I already gave my statement.”

  “You can always give another one.”

  He stepped back. “No. I can’t. Good day.” He turned on his gleaming heels and disappeared into the crowd.

  I didn’t bother to go after him. Like Fats said, there was nowhere he could go that I couldn’t follow.

  The crowd dispersed, wiping their eyes, shoulders hunched with guilt. I drove onto the avenue to see why Mrs. Haas was so unnerved. There were two crime scene vans, a command center, for some reason, and no fewer than six squad cars, not to mention all the unmarked cars. Half of them were parked on the sidewalks and there were uniforms meandering everywhere, drinking coffee and chatting. The avenue liked dignity and decorum. Cops have neither and I say that as the daughter of one.

  I parked four houses away and cringed at the crime scene tape ringing the manicured lawns and trampled flower beds. I jogged down the street, waving at the greetings from the cops that knew me. Actually, they all knew me, if not then through Dad through Kronos, Aaron’s restaurant. It had a Star Trek/cop/firefighter theme that kept it packed with uniforms of all types.

  I ducked under the tape across our front walk and ran across the lawn to the side yard, where most of the action was. When I turned the corner on our house, I stopped short in astonishment. It was lit up with portable lights and swarming with cops and techs. I spotted Dr. Grace, the M.E. I didn’t think he came out unless there was a body.

  Oh shit!

  “Chuck!” I went up on my tiptoes, not a huge help…or any help, to be honest.

  Everyone turned to me, but Chuck wasn’t among the faces.

  “Miss Watts, you can’t be in here,” said a uniform.

  “Do you have a body?”

  His brow furrowed under the brim of his hat. “Why do you think that?”

  “Dr. Grace is here,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah. Everybody wants to help.”

  My lip trembled.

  “Are you okay?” he asked kindly.

  I barely stopped myself from the ugly cry. Why does kindness make crying happen?

  “Chuck,” I managed to squeak out.

  “I think he’s in the house. I’ll get him.”

  The uniform took off and I watched the flurry of activity. There was a lot going on, but not in the area in front of the side door where I’d found Mom. Dr. Grace was squatting in a bed of hosta. The shade plants were flattened and Dr. Grace was measuring something. I couldn’t tell what. Crime scene techs were taking pictures of every inch of the garden, the house, and the door to Sandy’s garden next door.

  A couple o
f techs and a cop were looking at Mom’s chicken sculpture and measuring it. They had some plastic sheeting and seemed befuddled about what to do with it.

  Dr. Grace stood up, saw me, and walked over in his sterile booties as he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up with a gloved knuckle. His unruly iron-grey hair was completely contained underneath a surgical cap. If it weren’t for the glasses, I wouldn’t have been sure it was him.

  “Mercy,” he said, snapping off both pairs of gloves. “How’s Carolina?”

  “Pretty good, considering.”

  “No interview yet?”

  “Just me.”

  He nodded. “What does she remember?”

  “Very little. She thinks she might remember a man,” I said.

  “Might?”

  “It’s very hazy. The stroke was major and she took a blow under her right ear. The memory might improve.”

  The doctor looked at his booties. “Or it might not.”

  I let him think for a moment, knowing, for once, when to stay silent.

  He looked up after a minute and asked, “Tell me the condition of her body. I talked briefly to Calloway, but I’d like your view.”

  My view echoed Calloway’s.

  “So no other trauma?”

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Cuts, specifically.”

  “She has abrasions, but nothing that would bleed much.”

  He rocked back and forth. “I thought not.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got blood.”

  “A hell of a lot of blood. At least four liters,” said Dr. Grace.

  I looked at the flower bed. “But no body.”

  “No body.”

  “A person doesn’t just walk away after losing that much blood.”

  He turned and looked back at the hosta bed. “And yet…”

  “Mom didn’t have blood on her. Not really. Just a little from the scrapes. You know about the bruising?”

  “Yes, but I need pictures.”

  “I’ll take some tonight,” I said. “I couldn’t bring myself to ask right after she came out of surgery.”

  “I understand.” Dr. Grace hesitated and then said, “What’s the verdict on the rape?”

  I suppressed a shudder. “Doesn’t look like it. An attempt, at most, but a counselor will talk to her.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  We stared at the hosta bed until I said, “So we’re thinking what? At least two other people were here.”

  “I would think so. The bleeder didn’t walk away without help,” he said.

  “Could be two bleeders. Two liters each.”

  Dr. Grace tapped his chin. “A possibility. But my preliminary results say two blood types. This is just between us, you understand.”

  “Of course. What types?”

  “B positive and O negative.”

  “Mom’s B positive. So am I.”

  He turned toward the side door. “That fits. There are traces of B positive by the door. The large amount is O neg.”

  I looked around the scene, waiting for something to jump out at me, but nothing did. Still, there was an itchy feeling like I was missing something.

  “Mercy.” Chuck had come up behind me and even in his crime scene getup, I would’ve recognized him anywhere. Nobody had a body like Chuck. “I thought you were staying at the hospital.”

  “Mom wanted stuff,” I said.

  He thought it over and surprised me by not getting pissed. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Okay, I guess,” I said. “Can I get Mom’s PJs and whatnot?”

  He gave me a faint smile. “I’m surprised you didn’t just barge in the house and get what you wanted.”

  I crossed my arms and glared. “I understand about crime scenes. I’m not an idiot.”

  The smile fell off his face. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, you don’t ask permission.”

  Dr. Grace laughed. “That is your reputation.”

  “It serves me well.”

  “I can’t disagree.”

  A tech from beyond the end of the house waved frantically. “Dr. Grace! I found more blood.”

  “Jesus,” said the doctor under his breath before he gloved up again and headed off to the weird topiary Mom loved and Dad said looked like a penis. It kinda did, but I sided with Mom. She said it was an obelisk. Whatever, Mom.

  “So can I get Mom’s stuff?” I asked.

  “Are you speaking to me?” Chuck asked in a contrite voice.

  “You called to find out if Pete was really on Mom’s team, didn’t you?”

  The muscles tensed under his lean cheeks. “Why are you asking that?”

  “Because you look guilty and it’s what Dad would’ve done,” I said.

  Chuck was my father’s protégé. They were very alike in ways I wasn’t crazy about. But that’s what happens when you get adopted by my uncle and trained by Tommy Watts. Chuck was the only cop who could hold a candle to my dad and that made him the favorite. I was just the daughter who took forever (half an hour) to learn to pick a lock and insisted on having regular showers during stakeouts. ‘Cause that’s just ridiculous.

  “Trust but verify,” said Chuck after mulling over his options.

  “Sounds like all verify and no trust to me, but whatever. Can I go in?”

  “Sure. I need you to see if anything’s missing.”

  “You didn’t look?” I asked.

  “I did, but you grew up here. I didn’t.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You were always here. Annoying me. Being sleazy.”

  “You liked it.”

  “I really didn’t.” I went around to the front and trotted up the stairs, only to stop halfway up. “Where are the cats?”

  Chuck’s guilty expression went from mild to major.

  This is going to be so bad.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  Chuck backed away, holding up his hands still sheathed in nitrile gloves. “It was necessary.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “You hate those cats.”

  “Mom loves those cats. Did you kill them?” I asked.

  He scoffed. “Of course I didn’t kill your mother’s precious Siamese. I shot them with—”

  I think I blacked out for a second. When I opened my eyes, Chuck had me by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “You shot Swish and Swat. Mom will have another stroke. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Wait a second. With a tranquilizer dart. They’re asleep.”

  “You tranquilized them like tigers? Who does that? They weigh ten pounds each.”

  “Have you met the Siamese?” He pulled up his sleeves and his poor arms were etched with bloody scratches. “You should see Nazir. He was bleeding so much he had to leave. Grace thought he might contaminate the scene. You should’ve named those cats Beelzebub and Lucifer.”

  “They’re upset. They knew something was wrong.”

  “Why did they attack us?” asked Chuck.

  “Why did they lick off all the fur on my cat’s butt the last time he was here? I don’t know. They’re evil. Where are they?”

  Chuck clenched his jaw and said, “It’s procedure.”

  “Where?”

  “The ASPCA.”

  I grabbed a pair of booties out of the box by the front door and slipped them on. Chuck handed me a pair of gloves and I snapped them on before saying, “Mom is never going to know that.”

  “No problem.”

  “The cats went to the cat spa, willingly. They were angels.”

  “I guess I’ll be wearing long sleeves for a while.”

  “Yes, you will.” I walked through the front door and started going through the house, one room at a time. Nothing was missing that I could see, but my parents had a lot of stuff. The things thieves would normally target weren’t anything special. Mom and Dad didn’t care about electronics. The two TVs they had were over ten years old. There were a couple of stereos, but they wer
e older than me. There were laptops. Mom’s was in the kitchen, open to Allrecipes. She had some high-end kitchen appliances like an Italian gelato maker, but it was still there.

  Chuck raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged. “Nothing’s gone. Do you think they were in the house at all?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. The side door automatically locks and it was closed,” said Chuck.

  I sniffed.

  “What?”

  Sidney Wick walked in through the butler’s pantry door, reeking of cigars despite wearing the complete crime scene ensemble. I knew him but not well. Dad had a good opinion, which wasn’t easy to get. “Well?” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” said Chuck.

  “Figures. We got bupkis outside, except for the blood. We’ve got too much of that,” said Sidney. “I suppose you didn’t see anything.”

  “Sorry. The cats were going berserk and I was searching for Mom.” I only paused for a second, but Chuck saw it.

  “Chuck says there were attempted break-ins. What do you know about that?” asked Sidney.

  “Nothing really. They were amateurish. Didn’t come close to overcoming Dad’s system.”

  “Was your mother frightened?”

  “Not at all.” I leaned against Mom’s beast of a stove. “It wasn’t unusual. Dad makes enemies.”

  Sidney snorted. “Tommy does that, for sure. Does your mother carry when he’s gone?”

  “No,” I said, surprised. “Mom’s not a huge fan.”

  “But she can shoot?”

  “Sure. Dad made us both learn. She’s a good shot.”

  “What weapon does she use?” asked Chuck.

  “A .22 Remington. Pretty generic, but it’s light and doesn’t make a lot of noise. Haven’t you found it?” I asked.

  “Gun safe’s biometric and I don’t have access.”

  I yawned, a tremendous tiredness coming over me. “I can open it.”

  We went up the servant stair to the second floor. Dad’s office was undisturbed and I opened the enormous safe. Chuck and Sidney went through the inventory and two weapons were missing, Dad’s favorites, a Glock and a Colt revolver. Sidney got excited until I reminded him that Dad would’ve taken them with him. Dad was never unarmed.

  Sidney groaned and waved me away. “Go check and give me the bad news.”

  It was bad news in a good way. My parents did have some expensive things, but a thief would have to know what he was looking for. Everything was there, including some pricey porcelain, Mom’s Lalique perfume bottles, and Dad’s fancy watches that he forgot to wear. If the guy had gotten in, it wasn’t to steal.