Free A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries) by A.W. Hartoin Page B

natural.”
    “Define unnatural.”
    “He was murdered.” I heard a gasp behind me. I turned and saw Dixie standing in the doorway with her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were round, and her knuckles were turning white.
    “Oh, crap,” I said.
    “What happened?” asked Pete.
    “I’ll call you back,” I said, and hung up.
    Dixie dropped her hands and yelled at me, “Shut up. You shut up. That’s not true. It’s not true, so you just shut your mouth.”
    I couldn’t speak. Anything I might have said evaporated.
    “You think you know. You think you know like your father, but you don’t. You don’t. He had a heart condition. So you don’t know and shut up.”
    “Dixie, I’m so sorry,” I said.
    “I said, shut up!” She brought her hands to her mouth, hard enough to knock her head back, and she screamed into them. She didn’t move. She stood in the doorway screaming and looking at me with rage. It overwhelmed me. I knew for the first time what it was like to be scared of someone you love. I stood up, and walked to her with my hands in front of me.
    Before I reached her, Dixie’s eyes changed, her screaming stopped, and she walked out of the room. I followed her down the hall, trying to find the right apology inside of me. I wanted, no, I needed to say the right thing for the both of us. Instead, I followed her to my parents’ bedroom. She was drunk and unsteady on her feet. She lurched towards the stairs, over corrected, and before I reached her she bumped one of Mom’s framed needlepoint pictures. Mom had worked on the canvas for a year and it hung in a prime viewing spot. Tough luck for it because it fell off its hook and shattered at my feet. Dixie glanced at it and continued down the hall, slower and less sure with every step.
    In the bedroom, she reached for the Ativan bottle I’d refilled in a fit of stupidity.
    “That’s not a good idea, Dixie.” I took the bottle from her hand and put it in my pocket.
    “What else am I supposed to do?” she asked.
    “Just lay down for awhile.”
    I pulled back the covers. She sat, and I took off her shoes. She lay back against the fluffy pillows. Mom’s small reading lamp lit the room and Dixie’s eyes shone wide and watery in its dim glow. In the near darkness, she looked as young as me; maybe younger because the unexpected had happened and no explanations were offered. Her eyes showed her confusion.
    “Do you want the TV on?” I asked.
    “What will happen?” she asked.
    “With what?”
    “Will they find out who did it?”
    “Yes,” I said, confident in that, at least.
    “Will you?”
    “Yes, I will. I’ll do anything you want.”
    “I think I want to sleep now,” she said, closing her eyes and turning her face from me.
    I turned off the lamp and went downstairs. It was rare that I felt bad about anything. I mean really felt bad. Normally, I could negotiate with myself; tell myself it had to be done, things like that. But this was one of those rare occasions when I had done something with no excuse available. I needed chocolate and fast. There was only one place to go when I needed chocolate and comfort with no questions asked. Thank God Aunt Tennessee was always home.

Chapter Seven
    AUNT TENNE LIVED in Chesterfield about a half hour from my parents’ house, far enough for me to calm down and form a plan. Halfway there I pulled over and looked up the Rockville Church of Christ on my phone. I couldn’t help myself, I had to know why Gavin called them. The church was a short detour on the way to Aunt Tenne, and I could take the guilt until then.
    Due to my keen sense of direction, it took longer to find the church than expected. I drove around backstreets a good fifteen minutes before I found the right avenue. Then the traffic moved like a tortoise, when I was dying to be a hare. A block away, I saw why. Crime scene tape cordoned off the church, and everyone was slowing down to get a look. The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s van sat in