Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (39 page)

“Well…how did you know it wasn’t true?” I asked, wincing a little. “Mickey was a rock star. Stuff happens.”

She patted my arm. “Look at you worrying about me getting hurt. Well, I love you for it, but there’s no babies waiting to come out of the woodwork. Mickey and Cliff had mumps when they were little guys. When Mickey and I decided to get married, he got tested. Sterile.”
 

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay. It was sad at the time, but what can you do? Cry all the time about the unfairness? We decided to adopt.” She got out her phone and showed me pictures of four kids, all in their teens. “Aren’t they beautiful? I heard about those horrible orphanages in Russia and that’s where we got them. They’re doing really well. There were a lot of surgeries and therapy, because they all have issues, but Mickey’s just crazy about being a dad. I wasn’t sure how he’d take to it.”

“And you never had any problems with these women who sued you?” I asked.

“Honestly, we ignore them and the courts take care of it. Of course, we wouldn’t want this to be public.” Nina stood up. “Is there anything else? I should really get back to Mickey. We’re about to reach an agreement.”
 

“Will they be beating the crap out of each other during negotiations?” I asked.
 

She laughed and everyone in the Belgian Bean looked at her as she retied her scarf. “Probably, but they don’t mean it. There’s a lot of love under the fury.”

“So they’re getting back together. My dad will be thrilled.”
 

“Just a few kinks to work out. Wade will have to give in. That’s all there is to it.”
 

I put a completely spastic Wallace on the floor and she started spinning. Fantastic. I thought she was crazy before. “He’s going to give up the song rights?”
 

“Yes, but I think it really hinges on the new album’s name,” said Nina.

“What’s Mickey want?”
 

“A memorial album for Cliff. Wade wants something sexy. Mickey is adamant. It has to be Cliff’s initials or no dice.” Nina turned to Uncle Morty and put out her hand. “It was nice to meet you.”
 

Uncle Morty gulped and shook her fingertips, but didn’t manage to speak. Pathetic. Nina started to go and I don’t know what made me do it, maybe it was all the times Uncle Morty fed me the junk food that Mom had declared inedible. Maybe it was the boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese or the frozen burritos that I loved and Mom said weren’t fit for a dog to eat. Without Uncle Morty, I would’ve had a childhood of healthy nutritious food. I owed him.
 

“Nina, hold on,” I said. “You haven’t really met my uncle yet.”
 

She raised her perfect eyebrows behind her cat’s eye sunglasses. “I haven’t?”
 

“No, you haven’t.” I grabbed a napkin and quickly scribbled an agreement on it. “If you sign this, he’ll tell you who he really is.”
 

“He’s not Morton Van Der Hoof?”
 

“It’s on his birth certificate, but it’s not who he is. Sign it. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
 

Nina signed and looked at Uncle Morty expectantly.
 

“Tell her your other name,” I said.
 

Uncle Morty squeaked it out. His pen name. A closely guarded secret.
 

“Oh my god!” exclaimed Nina. “I love those books.” She dropped back into her chair and scooted close to him. “Is there really going to be a TV series?”
 

Uncle Morty’s redness faded. “It’s in the works at HBO.”
 

They bent their heads together and were soon discussing plotlines and character motivations. Uncle Morty became himself, not a tongue-tied weirdo, just a plain weirdo. I liked him better that way. I said goodbye and he looked up and I winked. I think he might’ve smiled and that would be the most thanks I would get. I was still me after all.
 

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Pete, if you don’t put on your ski pants I will disown you,” said Calvin.
 

“Nina Symoan might need me,” said Pete.
 

Aaron and I walked in and I closed the condo door silently behind us. We stood there listening to a fight. At least I thought it was a fight. Nobody was yelling, so it was hard to tell. Wallace was spinning next to my feet and I didn’t know how she hadn’t thrown up. She had to be crazy dizzy. Maybe she had to be in my purse to barf.
 

“Nina Symoan doesn’t need you. I do. Your mother is going to cry. Do you want your mother to cry?”
 

Pete said no, but he didn’t sound sure about it.
 

“I don’t want your mother to cry. She loves you to distraction and she wants to ski with you,” said Calvin.
 

“Why?” asked Pete.

“I don’t know. She’s a girl. I don’t have to understand her. I just have to do what she wants. You are skiing.”
 

“Maybe if I’m gone before she gets back…” said Pete.
 

“You aren’t going anywhere.”

“I don’t think you can stop me. I’m big now.”
 

“Big is relative. I’m Dad.”
 

“I’m not skiing. I hate skiing,” said Pete.

“I’ll tell Mercy more of your crazy crap,” said Calvin in a smooth voice I recognized from my own blackmailing father. Maybe they all did it.
 

“There’s nothing left,” said Pete. “You’re already told her everything.”
 

“What about the time you wrapped yourself in Bubble Wrap and jumped off the roof?”
 

“Lots of kids do that.”
 

“Name one,” said Calvin.
 

“I was young.”
 

“You were fourteen and taking calculus. You couldn’t figure out that five layers of Bubble Wrap wasn’t going to do it?’

Aaron looked completely disinterested, but I had clamped my hand over my mouth to hold back the laughter. I couldn’t hold back tears of joy in my eyes. Bill Nye the Science Guy was also an idiot. The world was put right somehow. The next time I did something stupid, I pull the old Bubble Wrap out and we’d be even.
 

“Dad, I already paid for that,” said Pete.
 

“You mean I paid for it. Between the ER and the physical therapy you met our deductible all on your own that year. You’re lucky you didn’t land on your head.”

“I had the trajectory all figured out.”
 

“Oh yeah? How come you hit the swing set?”
 

By this time I was doubled over, picturing Pete wrapped up in Bubble Wrap like a burrito and leaping off a roof, yelling, “Bonzai!”

The door opened behind me and bonked me in the butt. I fell onto the floor and nearly squashed Wallace, who promptly peed on me. Despite the pee, I erupted in laughter, not even trying to hold it back. It felt so good after a week of worrying about Keegan, about Mickey and about myself. Laughter made it all go away. Nancy stood over me with a sack of celery for some reason and stared. Pete and Calvin came in and joined her. When I’d gotten through the worst of it and was left with burning abs and a sore jaw to match the rest of my soreness, Pete said, “I guess you heard that.”
 

I spasmed on the floor and could only nod.
 

“Heard what?” asked Nancy.
 

“We were talking about the Bubble Wrap incident,” said Calvin.

She sighed. “That wasn’t one of your better experiments.”

“It was one of the more costly.”

Nancy got a wad of paper towels and cleaned up the pee as Calvin helped me up.
 

“You really did that?” I asked Pete. “You could’ve died.”
 

“I wasn’t close to dying,” he said. “Can we not talk about this anymore?”
 

Nancy shooed me towards the bedroom. “Go change. The lifts are running. We’ll all be together today.”
 

Pete shook his head and started to speak, but I grabbed his arm and dragged him into the bedroom. “Don’t even think about it.”
 

“What?” he asked.
 

“You are skiing.”
 

“I told you that I don’t like it.”
 

“So what? I don’t like getting peed on, but I’m doing a lot of that,” I said, stripping off my pee jeans.

“That’s different.” He crossed his arms.

“Why, because it’s me? You brought me on this ski trip and we are skiing.”
 

“Don’t you have a criminal to catch?” he asked in a rather sneaky tone.
 

“Nice try. There is a criminal to catch, but I don’t know who it is. I’m going to ski until I figure it out.”
 

“You don’t need me for that,” said Pete.
 

“Nope, but you’re still going to be there.”
 

We got dressed and I bagged the pee jeans for the maid to send out to the laundry. A half an hour later we were out the door. Aaron had settled on the sofa with a snoring Wallace and everyone seemed to think his presence was completely normal. Sometimes I think I’m the only one that notices how strange that little guy is.

In the elevator, Nancy started questioning me about where I’d been, but I couldn’t really tell her anything. I went over everything Nina said in my head, but no one was coming to mind. It was all connected, but I couldn’t quite put it together.
 

We got down to the lockers and put on our boots and went out into a day that was bright with sunshine. I squinted and put down my goggles, and then dropped my skis at the rack and clipped in.
 

“I should really get their autographs,” said Calvin.
 

“Why?” asked Nancy. “You barely know who they are.”
 

“Stan the cleaning guy loves them. He’d be so happy, if I got their autographs for him.”
 

I poled up beside Calvin. “Who does Stan love?”
 

“That band that’s staying here. He plays their music all the time.” He pointed a pole at the American Eagle line. “There they are. Maybe I can catch them on the slopes.”
 

All four members of Double Black Diamond were in the lift line. They poled into position and the chair scooped them up. It was the first time I’d seen them together with no bodyguards or women in between. I caught a glimpse of Mickey’s face as they sped away. He was smiling, a natural, relaxed smile that I’d never seen before. They must’ve hammered out a deal. The next couple of chairs contained the bodyguards also very relaxed. They didn’t have to worry about the guys murdering each other as least for a few minutes. I didn’t see Jessie, Wade’s glum arm candy or the other girls. It was kind of nice to see, just DBD, like it was when they started.
 

We went into the line at the Eagle. It was short with singles and doubles going up on the four-person chairs.
 

“You and me, Pete,” I said.
 

He started and said, “What? Why?”
 

“We need to talk.”
 

“Now? I think we should talk later. Much later,” he said, looking at his dad.
 

“There’s no hope, boy,” said Calvin. “When a woman says you need to talk, you’re going to talk.”
 

So Pete and I went on a chair by ourselves and Nancy and Calvin were two chairs behind us.
 

“About the Bleds,” I said.
 

“The Bleds?” asked Pete.
 

“They’re my family. You know that, right?”

“What are we talking about?” Pete shifted and faced me.
 

“Myrtle and Millicent.”
 

“You’re not breaking up with me?

“Not yet,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.
 

“What about The Girls?” Pete’s voice got all cagey like he couldn’t possibly imagine what I wanted to talk about.
 

“Why are you hiding my godmothers from your parents?” I asked.
 

He blew out a deep breath and said, “It’s not you. It’s them. My parents, I mean.”
 

“What about them?”
 

“My mom’s a Evrard.”
 

Obviously I was supposed to know what that meant, but I was drawing a blank. If I could’ve discreetly googled the name, I would’ve, but I’d insisted on having this conversation where Pete couldn’t escape, so I couldn’t either.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What’s a Evrard?”
 

“Evrard Family Brewers.”
 

“Really? I didn’t know your family owns a brewery. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that brand. Are they a micro?”
 

“They’re a nothing. Went out of business before Prohibition hit.”
 

“And this matters because…,” I said.
 

“The Bleds put them out of business. Hatred of the Bled family is big on my mom’s side. She isn’t going to be thrilled that you know them, much less love them.”

“I’ve never heard of the Bleds putting people of business. That doesn’t sound right.”
 

“That’s because you’re basically a Bled. Who’s going to say it to you?”
 

“Good point. Any suggestions?” I asked.
 

“Hide it until we can’t hide it anymore,” said Pete.
 

“What happened to the guy who jumped off his roof in Bubble Wrap?”

“He landed. Hard.”
 

We sat in silence, looking at the Mardi Gras beads on the trees and wishing the wind would stop blowing in our faces.
 

“Are we okay?” asked Pete.

I leaned on his scrawny shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”
 

My phone started vibrating. It was Dad and for once it was nice to have him interrupt my life.
 

“Did you get the autographs?” he asked.
 

“Not yet,” I said. “But I will.”