A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (39 page)

“Alright. I’ll give you a break.”

“Will you please come in the conference room? She’ll fire me if I don’t get this deposition done.”

I crossed my arms. “I thought she was going to kill you.”
 

Leonard barely glanced at me. “Same thing. Please. I’m begging you.”

“She’s quite the dragon, isn’t she?” said Big Steve.

A bead of sweat rolled down Leonard’s cheek. Poor guy didn’t know Big Steve made dragons look like house cats. He worked sixteen-hour days because he thought the law was good fun and didn’t understand that other people needed to do things like, you know, eat and sleep.
 

“I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”
 

Damn. So close.

Leonard led us into the conference room and I sat in a chair designed to be so comfortable that you’d relax and be off your guard. Fat chance. Big Steve touched my hand. “We’re in and out. Remember what I told you.”

I nodded. How could I forget? He’d told me a dozen times to answer questions briefly and to offer up absolutely nothing. As if I would. I’d been around. This was my tenth deposition in a month, including the murder cases. If this kept up, I’d have to buy stock in pantyhose or paint my legs.
 

Leonard settled in across from us and spread out his papers like a fan. Jay set up at the end of the room and tried not to look at me. Nice.
 

“State your name for the record,” said Leonard.
 

Sigh.

“Carolina Watts.” I was named after my mother, but my dad had nicknamed me Mercy. I preferred Mercy to Carolina. I was already too much like Mom for comfort.
 

“Is that the name you’re commonly known by?” asked Leonard.

“No.”
 

Leonard looked up and waited. I could see a flicker of a smile on the edge of Big Steve’s lips. He loved it when I did as I was told. My parents loved it, too. I didn’t get the appeal.
 

“Let’s move it along,” said Big Steve.

“Yes, of course. State the name you’re commonly called,” said Leonard.

“Mercy Watts.” I almost said Marilyn, since I was a dead ringer for the late bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, and got called Marilyn as much as I did Mercy.
 

“Describe your relationship with Myrtle and Millicent Bled.”
 

“I’m their goddaughter.”
 

Defining my relationship to The Girls went on for another five minutes. I don’t know what he was looking for and I wasn’t sure he did either. Every deposition was the same. Who are you? What’s your relationship? Who’s decision was it that you attend Whitmore Academy? Who paid for it? Blah. Blah. Blah. But then it got interesting.
 

“What did your parents pay for the house on Hawthorne Avenue?” asked Leonard without looking up.

“It was a gift,” I said.
 

“A gift from Myrtle and Millicent Bled to your parents whom they barely knew.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“Are you aware of the worth of the Hawthorne house at the time it was signed over?”

“No.”

“Would it surprise you if I said that house was worth over seven hundred thousand dollars the year you were born?”
 

“No.”
 

“You’re not surprised that the Bled sisters gave away a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar house to strangers?”

“No.”
 

“I’d be surprised.”
 

“Is that a question?” I asked.

Big Steve’s lips twitched. “She’s not surprised. Next question.”
 

“Are you aware that the Hawthorne house was signed over to your mother alone? That your father, Tommy Watts, is not in fact on the deed?”
 

“No.”
 

“You thought it was signed over to both your parents?”

“I’ve never seen the deed and I never thought about it,” I said, stifling a yawn.
 

“Do you know when exactly your parents met the Bled sisters?”

“No.” What in the world was he getting at?

“Would it surprise you that at the time the deed for the Hawthorne house was signed over to your mother, Myrtle and Millicent Bled had never actually met your mother?”
 

That stopped me cold and I felt Big Steve stiffen beside me.
 

“Miss Watts, please answer the question,” said Leonard with a smile. The goofy lost lawyer act was gone.
 

“I don’t know that’s true,” I said.
 

“Did your mother tell you she had met the Bled sisters at the time the deed was signed over?”
 

“No.”
 

“Why do you think that the Bled sisters gave such an expensive property to a woman they’d never met?”
 

“I don’t know that’s true,” I said.
 

“Do you concede that the house was signed over to your mother?”
 

“No.”

“Do you know what cases your father was working on at the time of this supposed gift?”
 

Supposed?

“No.”
 

“Your father had just become a homicide detective on the St. Louis police force at the time of the signing of the deed. Correct?”
 

“I guess.”
 

“You don’t know?” asked Leonard with such smugness, I wanted to kick him in the shin, but Jay was taking it all down and looking pretty interested, too.
 

“I don’t know the exact dates, since it was before I was born.”
 

“You don’t know the events surrounding the giving of this extraordinary house?”
 

“No.”
 

“What did your parents tell you?”
 

“Nothing.”
 

“Tommy Watts, a man known for his attention to detail, told you nothing about how your family got entrance into the exclusive world of Hawthorne Avenue?”
 

“No.”
 

“I find that extraordinary.”
 

Big Steve stood up and his chair flew backwards and hit the wall. “Your fifteen minutes is up.” He took my arm and lifted me out of my seat.

“I’m not done,” said Leonard.

“Then you should’ve been on time.” Big Steve opened the conference room door and steered me through.
 

“She’ll have to answer these questions.”
 

“She has answered them. My patience is at an end.”
 

We walked through the waiting room and were met by Lane, who handed me two large safety pins.
 

“For until you get home.”
 

“Thanks,” I said, my head still reeling from Leonard’s insinuations.
 

“Did you pick out this dress?” asked Lane.

“My mother did.”
 

“Burn it. It says everything you don’t want to say.”
 

“I will. Don’t worry. Thank you.”
 

Leonard came charging out of the conference room. “One more question, Miss Watts. How well did your father know Josiah Bled?”
 

I started to answer that I didn’t know, but Lane stepped in front of Leonard. “You’re late for court. The Rina case. The clerk has been calling.”
 

Big Steve pushed me through the office door into the warm hall and began yelling into his phone as we walked to the elevator. “Freya, get Bub over to the office now and I want a list of every damn person in the squad when Watts made homicide.” He took a breath. “Every person. Right down to the cleaning staff.”
 

I pressed the elevator button and watched Big Steve order poor Freya to pull up his employee list for the same time period. My mom was his legal secretary for years and she would’ve been in his office when she got the house. He must’ve thought that someone in their circle had blabbed, but what could they possibly know? Dad always said the house was a thank-you. I gathered there was some kind of favor involved, but I always thought the truth was more special than that. Myrtle and Millicent fell in love with my parents. They adored them and my parents adored them right back. If Leonard thought the house was payment for some kind of illegal act on Dad’s part, he was wrong. I’m not saying Dad wasn’t above bending the rules or even breaking them. I’d seen him do it and it was always the right thing. My godmothers didn’t pay Dad off. There was no way. If they had, it would’ve been a dirty back-alley deal. They’d never want to see him again. That didn’t remotely happen. I was born in the Bled Mansion. The Girls babysat me, while Mom worked. They taught me to garden and bake, against my will but still. Mom was the one they called when they were sick or wanted to shop for ridiculous hats. Dad took care of their security system and fixed faucets for them. Whatever Leonard thought just simply couldn’t have happened.
 

The elevator opened and Big Steve put his phone in his pocket. “I don’t want you to worry about this.”
 

“What exactly is this thing I’m not supposed to worry about?” I asked.

“The lawsuit.”
 

“I’m not worried about the lawsuit. Myrtle and Millicent aren’t incompetent. What’s all this about the house?”

“Nothing to worry about.”

Whenever someone says that, I know there’s definitely something to worry about.
 

“Was that dillweed right? Is the house in Mom’s name?”
 

Big Steve looked at the floor numbers slowly counting down.
 

“You know I can check. It’s public record.”
 

“She’s on the deed.”
 

“Alone?”

“Yes.”
 

“Had she met The Girls at the time the house was signed over?”

The elevator hit the first floor and the doors started to open. I hit the stop button and an alarm clanged, echoing off the wood paneling.
 

“Did Mom meet them or not?”
 

“Mercy, that was twenty-six years ago.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
 

“Mercy.”

“They’re my parents, like it or not. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
 

“It’s better if you don’t know anything. I won’t have you lying under oath.”
 

“So that’s a no.” I let go of the button, the alarm stopped, and the doors jerked open. A crowd stood there, looking as confused as I felt.
 

“Everything’s fine,” said Big Steve as he pushed through the crowd.
 

Yeah, right. I don’t think so.

He walked me to my truck and opened the door for me. “Don’t worry. Tommy will dig up something on Brooks and the lawsuit will be a thing of the past.”
 

That was supposed to make me feel better? It didn’t. He might as well have said there was something to find out about our house.

I must’ve looked worried, because he put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Your parents are good people. The best. Leonard has nothing.”
 

“Come on. Leonard isn’t fishing without bait,” I said.
 

“He doesn’t even have a hook. Trust me.” He moved to close my door, but I blocked it.
 

“Did Dad know Josiah Bled personally?”
 

Big Steve grinned. “I have every confidence that you’ll be able to figure that out.”
 

He slammed my door and got into his big gold Lexus and squealed the tires on the way out of the parking lot probably yelling into his phone the whole time. Big Steve was right about most things and he was right about me. I’d figure it out eventually, but wouldn’t it be nice if my parents would just tell me and save some time. I googled Josiah Bled on my phone and found his Wikipedia page. I’d seen it before, but it still seemed weird that The Girls’ uncle had one. Josiah Bled was famous in his own way. First for being a Bled. The Bled Brewery was known all over the world and so was the fabulously rich family. Second for being a WWI flying ace and third being a spy in WWII. He was known to a lesser extent for building our house and The Girls’ house. Pictures of both featured prominently on the page below his picture taken in France next to his bi-plane in 1917. He couldn’t have been more dashing with his leather flying helmet and white silk scarf. Myrtle and Millicent said their uncle was bad in the best way possible and he looked it as he smiled a rakish smile at the camera, his eyes crinkled like a great joke had just been told.
 

I scrolled down to his dates. Josiah Aloysius Bled, born July 4, 1900, died unknown. What the heck? How could they not know? He was definitely dead.
 
He’d be over a hundred and ten, if he wasn’t. Come to think of it, I’d never seen his grave in the family plot. I wasn’t looking for it, but The Girls took me to the family estate Prie-Dieu for picnics and they liked to visit the family. I didn’t remember ever visiting Josiah Bled’s grave. Maybe he was in Arlington cemetery or some place like that, but everyone else was in the family plot, no matter where they died or how. Why would the much loved Josiah be any different?

I called Prie-Dieu to ask and got the answering machine. Since their accounts were frozen, The Girls were staying at the old estate to save money. They spent most of their time tending the grounds and giving tours since the mansion was in trust to the Missouri Historical Society. They’d never been so busy.
 

Then I tried Dad’s cell and Mom’s. I got voicemail on both. The home office was a lock. Claire, my old high school rival, had taken over after I did a favor for her in exchange for her transcription skills. She practically lived in Dad’s office. He was now a private detective and he’d never been so organized. My parents loved Claire. She was the daughter they never had. Obedient, respectful, and quiet. She did absolutely everything they said right down to her dating life. Dad checked out all potential suitors, so Claire hadn’t had a date in six months, which was a good thing. If there was a loser con artist in the vicinity, Claire would find him.