Justice & Mercy

JUSTICE & MERCY

Britni Patterson

Book 1 of the Justice & Mercy Mysteries

DEDICATION

To my mother who taught me to read, my father who taught me to laugh at funerals, and in memory of Polly Chandler, who told me to always remember I wasn’t a waitress. And, of course, to my beloved Casa Bellini.

CHAPTER ONE

The Givens Detective Agency does not handle murder cases. Normally, if a millionaire calls at two a.m. because his daughter is suspected of murder, the Givens Detective Agency answering service, (which is to say me), will politely decline and go back to sleep. Neither murder cases nor millionaires pay promptly. But when the bank balance has been hovering around two digits for a month, taxes are due in three days, and he promises to have his personal assistant standing outside the police station with a check for a sizeable retainer, I’ll get my ass out of bed.

Texas Senator Bob Simmons, independently wealthy gentleman rancher with a herd of oil wells, swore he’d pay us whatever we thought was fair to prove his only child, Genevieve Simmons, didn’t kill her boyfriend, Tyler Roxton, at the Last Dance nightclub. It sounded like easy money from a panicked father, so I’d gotten dressed and sailed out the door with a smile. I spent the next five hours at the police station getting information. By the time I got home, I’d given up any chance of sleeping, and I smelled like disinfectant and failed deodorant, but I was holding a check that would pay our taxes and fill our bank account back up to full.

You can understand now why I got so mad when Mercy, my twin sister and the brains behind the Givens Detective Agency, told me we had to drop the case and return the check because our client’s daughter was guilty as sin.

I’d gone upstairs to take a shower after getting back home, but I was too hungry to do much more than a quick rinse. I dragged on my robe before stumbling down the stairs and towards the coffee pot. Mercy was fully dressed, showered, and spooning hash-browns onto a plate with a pointed air of productivity. She wrinkled her nose at me as I squeezed by to grab my mug. Couldn’t you have washed your hair, Justice? You still smell like the police station.

I made a noise halfway between a grunt and a growl. Just because I was up was no reason for her to assume I was awake. I dumped a healthy base of sugar into the mug before drowning it in coffee. I clutched the cup to my chest and leaned back against the counter.

Here, go sit down. Mercy passed me a plate loaded down with eggs scrambled with pico de gallo, hash browns, and bacon. It almost made up for the lack of sleep.

I obediently took the plate and shuffled towards the table. I was halfway through eating when she said casually, By the way, after breakfast, you need to call Senator Simmons, return his check, and cancel our contract.

I choked on a piece of bacon. Are you out of your rabid ass mind?! We’re broke, our taxes are due in two days, and he’s our only client!

It’s not ideal, I agree, but— started Mercy, before I cut her off.

Not ideal? Not ideal doesn’t even begin to cover it. I spent all night getting statements on the case! You haven’t even had time to read them!

I had plenty of time while you were upstairs, she snapped.

I didn’t even wash my hair! There is no way you’ve had enough time to give this a proper think, I pleaded. Deep down, I knew I was going to lose the argument, but I hadn’t accepted it yet.

Mercy arched both eyebrows. Are you being contrary for a reason or is this about those boots you want?

They haven’t found the murder weapon yet. No murder weapon, no murder. And it’s not my boots I’m worried about, it’s our taxes, I lied. I had been dreaming about those cherry red boots with the white butterfly cutouts ever since I’d seen them, but business had been so bad, I’d told myself to forget them. I’d thought about them all the way home from the jail, proving I never listen to good advice. I crossed my arms over my chest, and leaned back in my chair. Come on, Mousy. You can’t be that sure.

Mercy sighed. "Just because they haven’t found it yet doesn’t mean that they won’t or that it doesn’t exist. It exists and they’re going to find it. We need to get out from under our contract before they do. You know why."

They were the San Antonio Police Department. And what Mercy meant was that we needed to cancel our contract before the police department officially charged Genevieve Simmons. If we cancel a contract after the police formally charge a client, it looks like we abandon clients when the police think they’re guilty. If we cancel beforehand, then it looks like we realized the client was guilty (or in this case, his daughter was), before the police. That makes us look intelligent and honest. That way the only down sides are possibly getting sued for what some smart-ass lawyer once termed implicit slander along with not getting paid.

I should’ve known something was wrong when I came downstairs. Mercy is a fantastic cook, but it was my turn to do breakfast. She was trying to soften the disappointment she knew was coming. But she still should have waited until after my second cup of coffee to drop it on me.

"But how do you know? We can’t afford to piss off a rich client based on a guess! I said again. Especially when he’s the only client we’ve had in the last six weeks." I was very carefully ignoring the fact that we operated our business primarily off of Mercy’s brainpower, but the alternative was asking our Aunt Irene for a loan to pay our taxes. For the third year in a row. She didn’t mind, but we damn sure did.

Mercy blew air out hard through her nostrils hard, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Justice, I’m just as aware of our financial situation as you are. Do you really think that I would tell you to call if I wasn’t sure?

I don’t see how you can be sure. The murder weapon hasn’t been found, and she isn’t being held as anything but a material witness. If we could string out one week of services, we could maybe squeak by. Not with my boots, but at least our taxes would get paid.

Mercy’s fingers started tapping on the table, a sure sign I was seriously irritating her. The police could find the murder weapon any second now. You need to stop wasting time arguing with me, and get us out of that contract. If we had a week, I would have told you to call in a week.

You know what it is! That’s why you’re so sure! I said, realization hitting me like a bat to the face. One of the biggest questions about the case was what killed Tyler. All they could say was that he’d been stabbed with something like a spike, but nothing had been found matching that description in the club or in Genevieve’s possession. Tell me what the murder weapon is, and I’ll call him right now, I offered, arms still crossed.

Mercy’s nostrils flared, and she gave me a tight-lipped smile. I had pushed her too far. Figure it out yourself. After all, you’re the one that told me all about the case, so you know everything I know. If you spent more time thinking and less time day-dreaming about what’s-his-name…

Sloan.

God. Sloan. You can really pick the names. Why not someone named Jim Bob or Leroy?

Jim Bob is too fat to dance, and Leroy likes dove-hunting.

"The point, Justice, is that you’re fully capable of figuring it out yourself, and since you’re being so contrary, you can damn well do so." With that, she wheeled back away from the table, and headed for the patio, leaving me with the dishes and the problem.

My sister is a paraplegic. On good days she can sometimes manage walking with a cane or a walker for very short distances. Most of the time she uses her wheelchair. When we were seven, she had been home from school with a cold. When she and our mother were on the way to pick me up, the car was hit by a semi with bad brakes. Our mother was killed instantly. Mercy nearly died, with resulting permanent spinal and hip injuries. Luckily, the accident hadn’t done anything to damage her brain.

One of her more annoying traits is being possessed of the unshakable belief that I am as smart as she is. Therefore when I disagree with her view of the facts, it’s because I’m not thinking properly on purpose. We’ve had six or twelve I.Q. tests over the course of our lives, on all of which I registered in the 150’s to 160’s, and all of which Mercy landed squarely in the immeasurable 200’s. I could be the smartest person in Wal-Mart if Mercy weren’t around. Despite all evidence to the contrary, my only problem, as she puts it, is that I’m too lazy to train my brain to work properly, and when she gets good and mad at me, she’ll tell me to go figure something out for myself.

What makes that particular aggravation worse is that I want to believe her. My pride wants to believe that I am just as smart as Mercy, but the truth is, whether you want to call it brain power or brain-training, she’s got me beat. In this particular case, I had done all the interviews, so I had heard all the evidence first. Mercy had gotten it secondhand from me hours later, and yet she’d still gotten to whatever conclusion faster, because I had believed our client hadn’t done it.

The cops hadn’t liked it when I showed up at the jail, but with a personal letter from Senator Simmons asking them to extend me every courtesy regarding his daughter, there wasn’t much they could do about it. They took me down to the holding room where Genevieve Simmons was making a pitiful sight. A perfect size two in a body that would have been healthy around size five, with big blue eyes swollen and red, rimmed with smeared black eyeliner and mascara, she looked like a mostly-starved raccoon. The dark purple bruise on her cheek showed up marvelously on her super-pale skin though it clashed with her glitter-green eye shadow. She was wearing a black cheongsam-style dress from some Italian designer who’d scrawled his name in illegible silver lame` across the chest. The dress was so short, tight, and thin it wouldn’t hide a stray pubic hair. Her four-inch Vivian Westwood platform heels were some sort of black faux reptile skin. Black thigh-high stockings with lacy tops still left an inch of skin uncovered before the hem of her dress reluctantly took over. Her dyed black hair had been pulled back into a bun that was falling apart, with two ebony hair sticks jabbed through it. She had a purse that was exactly big enough to hold one lipstick, two credit cards (both platinum, of course), a driver’s license, and an empty mini-perfume spritzer. Genevieve had tried overcoming the oppressive smells of bleach, unwashed bodies, and cheap paint that are permanent features of the Texas penal system by dousing herself in the fruity smell of Delices de Cartier. It wasn’t a successful pairing. She smelled like the ladies room in a dive bar after two-dollar margarita night.

I’d expected that I’d have to start the conversation, but she surprised me by looking up immediately and saying in a snotty tone. You’re not here from my lawyer. Are you? Where’s Fred? He’s the one they usually send out to do bail and all that crap. I told the last cop I’m not talking to any more cops. Her voice was slurred, the words drooling into each other, and her eyes were clouded with the haze of a painful descent back to reality.

I decided not to take being mistaken for a cop personally since she was having so much trouble focusing. I pulled the extra chair out from the table, and sat down. The room was only eight feet by ten, most of which was taken up by a steel table and the two chairs. The walls were cinder block covered in a thick layer of institutional green paint, with the standard security camera up in one corner. Other than that it was just me, the dust bunnies, and Genevieve.

I’m not a police officer, and I haven’t spoken to your legal team yet. I’m Justice Givens, private detective. Your father hired the Givens Detective Agency on your behalf. I held out our business card with my picture on it. It was expensive to print the cards in color, but we found it saved time with our unusual names. All thanks to our circuit judge father who had a far-too-high opinion of his sense of humor.

Wha’ for? She ignored my card, and slumped forward onto the table. Her head flopped onto her arms, and her hands scrabbled in nervous, squeaky twitches on the tabletop. I’m tired, and I feel totally shitty. I want to go home. When are they going to let me go home? Where is stupid Fred, anyways? What’s taking so long?

On a potential murder charge this close to the Mexican border with enough money to spend the rest of her life partying in Acapulco? She’d be lucky if they let her out at all.

I’m sure your dad has a lawyer working on that, I said. But in the meantime, why don’t you tell me what happened? I pulled a digital recorder out of my pocket, along with a notepad and mechanical pencil. She lifted her head enough to glare at the little recorder.

Can’t you go ask the cops and leave me alone? God! How many times am I going to have to go over this? She was trying to sound imperious and intimidating, but all she managed was an unimpressive whine. I bit my first answer off right before it made it past my teeth. Attitude and entitlement don’t bring out the best in me.

Look, Ms. Simmons. Genevieve. I’m here to help you. I’d like to hear it in your own words, without all the police questions and interruptions. The sooner I get what we need, the sooner you can get back to sleep, I said, trying to sound tempting and not like I wanted to give her a swift kick.

Like I could sleep. It smells and people are screaming and making noise down there. Whatever. Fine. Fine. Genevieve propped her chin up on her hand. She tried to focus on my face but gave up after a second or two.

So we went to the Riverwalk for dinner, and then we went to the Last Dance club. Tyler and I, she swallowed hard, and continued in a wobbly voice. We had a fight at the club, and so he went upstairs to the VIP part, and I stayed downstairs. I went up later to talk to him after we got calmed down. We … we made up, and then I went back downstairs. That was the last time I saw him alive, and I don’t know what happened. The cops came and arrested me, and now I’m here. That’s all. Her fingernails were digging into her arms, the flesh puckering and white around them.

I waited a moment to see if she was serious. She was. Well, let’s go back to the beginning. Was it just you and Tyler at dinner? I asked.

No, Mer, Lu-lu and Charlie, and Tank were there too.

Full names please?

What? Oh. Um. Mercedes Villanova. She’s my bestie. Her expression changed so suddenly from the wounded apathy to a lively interest that it was like someone had plugged her in. Could you get them to let me talk to Mer? I really NEED to talk to her.

I’ll ask, but don’t get your hopes up. They’re probably grilling her with questions too. Genevieve bit her bottom lip, and gave me a direct look as if she was seeing me for the first time. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms and looked back down at the table.

Why is it so cold in here? So um, Lulu is Lucy Dotham, but she hates being called Lucy. Charlie is Charles Bothinham, the third. Tank is Percy Wright, but he’s like, four hundred pounds of muscle. Everyone calls him Tank. They even put it on his football jersey. They thought it’d freak the other teams out.

So what’d you talk about over dinner?

Genevieve wrinkled her brow in concentration. Um, that was like, hours ago. I dunno, same stuff we always talked about. Lulu wanted to bore us to death about her French boyfriend, but French boyfriends are so cliché, right? Mer told her to shut up, and Lu got all butt-hurt about it, so I told them both to grow up. The boys were watching the Spurs game on the bar TV so they weren’t talking about anything but basketball stuff.

You and Tyler didn’t argue about anything over dinner?

Oh no. He was totally sweet then. He told the waiter to change the steak on the steak salad to a salmon filet because I’m going fishatarian.

I paused but didn’t pursue it. So you weren’t arguing at dinner? How about in the car while you were going to the club?

No, we were fine then too. He was mad because the Spurs lost by ten, but it wasn’t like a real mad, just a typical mad, you know?

What’s a typical mad?

She shrugged her shoulders. You know. Cussing about the damn coaches and bitching about this and that. I wasn’t paying attention.

So what started the fight at the club? I asked.

Genevieve started scratching at her forearms again, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. It wasn’t really a fight. We were just arguing, and it got out of hand. But we made up so it was fine.

You called it a fight earlier. I decided to provoke her a little. I was getting tired of being told nothing.

Well, I didn’t mean it, she snapped. I thought you were supposed to be on my side!

I’m here to try and help you, yes. How did you get the bruise on your cheek?

Her hand came up and touched the plum-colored lump, causing her to wince. Well, we were yelling, and I got mad. I slapped him, he pushed me, and I tripped and hit my face.

Where was this?

On the dance floor.

Before you went upstairs or after? And do you know what time that was?

Before definitely, ‘cause we had the fight before I went upstairs to make up. Duh. After midnight, maybe? We didn’t get there until eleven something, and we did shots for a while. I don’t know. It’s all kind of fuzzy.

What happened after he pushed you?

Nothing.

Nothing? I let the disbelief show in my voice.

He went upstairs then with Charlie and Tank, and I went to the bathroom to check my face with Mer and Lu-Lu.

What’d you do after you checked your face?

We hung around downstairs and had a few more shots. We started texting; he said he was sorry, and I said I was, too. I went upstairs to go make it up.

The police will have the cell logs, I’m sure. I’ll get a copy from your lawyer when he subpoenas them. You went upstairs. Was Tyler alone when you went up?

That won’t help. I wasn’t using my phone ‘cause I left it in the car. We were texting from Mer’s phone. Yeah, he was alone. Mer told Charlie and Tank to come downstairs so we could be alone. Tyler was feeling bad too, so we talked, and—um—we made up. Then I went back downstairs, and that’s all.

What were you arguing about?

It doesn’t matter. We made it up. I always told Tyler I wouldn’t hold old arguments against him. I’m not going to do it now that he’s d-dead. She was surprisingly firm on that point, and for a moment I saw her father’s stubborn jaw line set in his daughter’s face.

What did you talk about when you went upstairs?

That’s private.

Ms. Simmons, this is kind of important, I said with exasperation.

I don’t see how a private conversation matters. We made up, and I went downstairs afterwards. Ask the VIP dude, he saw me leave.

Ms. Simmons, if you tell me what you were talking about, maybe we can figure out how long it took, get a better idea for your alibi.

I don’t need an alibi. I didn’t kill Tyler.

Over and over again, we came back to that last sentence. I found it difficult to accept that she really believed that, but despite my going after her several more times from different angles, I could not get her to tell me what the fight had been about, when it started, or what happened after she went upstairs. She also couldn’t or wouldn’t get more specific on what time things happened because she’d been drinking pretty steadily since the moment they got into the club. I thanked her for her time, gathered my things, and went to go see if I could get any more useful information out of her friend Mercedes.

I found Mercedes Villanova in one of the real waiting rooms being babysat by a female police officer who looked half-asleep. This room had padded chairs and a wooden table, and the institutional paint shared wall space with several posters. Mercedes had the large brown eyes, heavy curtain of straight blue-black hair, and the dusky tan skin of mestizo heritage in a triangular face that was feline and feral with sharp scarlet-dusted cheekbones. She was also as underweight as Genevieve, though it seemed more natural on Mercedes’ shorter frame. Her persimmon-colored mouth was pinched and solemn, glistening wetly under the harsh fluorescents. Her nose struck me as artificially sculpted into more Caucasian lines. A giant handbag rested on her lap, and she was wearing a dress that was identical to Genevieve’s. She had gone with silver heels in a more sensible height than Genevieve’s monstrous platforms.

It would have been easy to confuse her with some of the hookers waiting to argue their way out of solicitation charges, except that her outfit cost more than my laptop, and her hair was delicately razor-cut from shoulder length to down her back.

Ms. Villanova? I asked, just