Black Bandana: A Humorous Twisty Murder Mystery (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 15) by A.W. Hartoin

Author:A.W. Hartoin [Hartoin, A.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It took me a good five minutes to dislodge Wallace from her cuddle buddies and another forty to get back home through terrible traffic for a Wednesday. On the upside, I had time to take a call from Uncle Morty. I figured it was an update, but instead of an update, I got a request.

“Why are you calling?” I asked after he hemmed and hawed.

“Yeah, well, I got nothing new,” he said and there was a burst of yelling in the background. I heard jerky twice.

“I didn’t tell Nikki. I swear.”

“Yeah, I know. She smelled it on me and the bloodwork came back.”

“Bad?”

“Not what they were going for,” he said. “I don’t get this. Everyone was happy I lived and now they’re mad about it.”

“Nobody’s mad that you lived,” I said. “They want you to get that high blood pressure and cholesterol under control.”

“That ain’t it.”

“No?”

“I’m now prediabetic. Can you believe that?”

I could. What I couldn’t believe was that he wasn’t prediabetic before.

“Well, that just sucks,” I said. “You’re so much healthier than before.”

“Yeah, alright,” said Uncle Morty.

I expected him to hang up on me but nothing happened.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Shut up. I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

He still didn’t hang up.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” I said.

“Whaddya mean?”

“You usually hang up on me.”

“Nikki’s lookin’ at me,” he said.

I turned into the alley behind Hawthorne Avenue and said, “In a bad way?”

“She wants me to ask you something.”

Oh lord!

“What is it?” I asked, wincing.

“If you know a good yoga studio. She doesn’t like the one she found.”

Will he admit it?

“Because you do yoga now?”

“Shut up!”

I bit my lip and didn’t laugh. “I’ll ask around.”

Then he hung up on me.

“Well, Wallace, this week just keeps getting weirder.” I said that not knowing how weird it was about to get.

I parked behind Chuck’s car and frowned. He was home early, but that wasn’t exactly a bad sign. When I opened my truck door that’s when I got a sign, not exactly bad though. Let’s call it unexpected. Country music was blaring from somewhere, not exactly normal for the avenue. The Girls had the most eclectic taste. Most residents, not including my parents, liked their music classical and quiet, if they liked music at all. Talk radio was very popular.

“Mercy, dear!”

I turned and found The Girls’ neighbor Mrs. Haas bearing down on me. She had a pair of hedge clippers in her right hand and a bag of lawn clippings in her left. She was one of the few on the avenue that did her own gardening. It was Mom, The Girls, and Mrs. Haas.

“Hi, Mrs. Haas,” I said with a smile, although she rarely came with good news.

“Can you please turn that down?” she asked. “It’s been going for over an hour and my begonias don’t like it.”

“Is it begonia time already?”

“Don’t change the subject. That’s loud.”

“What makes you think it’s us?” I asked.

She blew a lock of thick grey hair out of her face and said, “Mercy, please. I’ve been good about everything. But that is too far.

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