NINE
FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick followed Truman in her black Tahoe as he led the way to Leighton Underwood’s home.
Even though Leighton was a neighbor of Ned Fahey’s, the route to his home was in a completely different direction. There was no fast way to get there, and Truman suspected Leighton liked it that way.
Remembering Toby Cox’s comparison of Mercy to young Kaylie at the coffee shop, Truman told his phone to dial a number and listened to it ring as he drove. As soon as Toby had mentioned Kaylie, Truman realized why he felt as if he’d seen Mercy before. On the basis of looks, the FBI agent could be Kaylie’s mother. And since they both were named Kilpatrick, Truman had a strong suspicion that she was. He’d heard Levi Kilpatrick’s wife had left him and his baby girl years ago. Now it looked as if she was back in town.
But as an FBI agent?
One woman would know the full story.
“Hello?” Ina Smythe’s frail voice sounded in his car.
“Hi, Ina, it’s Truman.”
“Enunciate clearly, son. It sounds like you’re in a tin can.”
“Sorry about that, I’m in the car. I only have a minute, Ina, but I wanted to ask you about Levi Kilpatrick. What can you tell me about his wife who left?”
Truman had relied on Ina Smythe to help smooth his way into Eagle’s Nest. She’d sat at the front desk in the police station for forty years before retiring six months before Truman was hired. She was the one who’d reached out and told him about the police chief opening. “No one else wants it, Truman. They’ll have to consider an outsider, and you know how that could turn out. You’re sort of a familiar face around here, you’ve got the necessary experience, and we know your uncle Jefferson can pull some weight with the town council. What do you think about moving to Eagle’s Nest permanently?”
He’d been ready for a change.
Ina coughed three times, and it echoed in his vehicle before she answered his question. “Deirdre? She wasn’t his wife. She never married him, although he pushed for it. She took off for southern California somewhere when that little girl was one and left the baby with Levi. Her parents fought to get custody, but the court awarded it to Levi. Darn good decision. Her parents were too full of themselves, and I was glad when they moved not long after that. I don’t know if they keep in touch with their granddaughter or not.”
The name “Deirdre” made Truman deflate. Had she changed her name? If not, where did Mercy Kilpatrick fit in? She had to be a cousin of some sort; there was no denying her resemblance to Kaylie Kilpatrick. But the Kilpatricks had never mentioned any cousins in his presence.
“Does the name Mercy Kilpatrick mean anything to you?” Truman asked.
“Mercy? Mercy Kilpatrick? Where on earth did you hear about her?”
“Then you do know her.” His curiosity shot off the charts.
“Of course I know her. Why do you ask? Who’s talking about that girl?”
“No one’s talking about her. I just met her.”
“She’s here? In town?”
“Yes. Is that a bad thing?”
His vehicle grew silent. “Ina? You there?”
“Yes. I’m thinking . . . I’m trying to remember the whole story . . . but there’s pieces missing.” She colorfully swore, making Truman grin. “I’m trying to get the tale straight in my head, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“Who is she?”
“Why, she’s Karl and Deborah Kilpatrick’s youngest girl.”
Truman nearly missed his turn. He’d heard about only four Kilpatrick siblings. They were very active in the Eagle’s Nest community. No one had breathed a word about a fifth. Mercy wasn’t Kaylie’s mother; she was her aunt.
“But she hasn’t been in town since she finished high school,” Ina continued. “I can’t remember why she left, but everyone in her family was angry and I suspected something was hushed up . . . dammit. What did that girl do?” Ina made a sputtering noise in the phone. “It was something juicy, I’m certain, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Well, you answered my question. You can get back to me about the gossip.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“She’s an FBI agent out of Portland. She’s been assigned to Jefferson’s death along with the deaths of Enoch Finch and Ned Fahey. You heard about Ned, right?”
“Of course I did. My memory might not work that great anymore, but my ears work just fine. That old cranky coot probably waved his ax at the wrong person.”
Truman wondered if the ax was a habit of Ned’s he hadn’t heard about.
“But little Mercy Kilpatrick is an FBI agent, you say? That’s got to stick in her father’s craw. He’s not a fan of the federal government.”
“I wouldn’t call her little.” Mercy could nearly look him in the eye. He knew Karl and Deborah ran a small ranch just outside town, and their blind daughter, Rose, lived with them. Their other three adult children were scattered around the county.
And then there was Mercy.
Truman grinned. Mercy hadn’t said a word when Toby brought up Kaylie; she’d pretended not to know whom he meant. In other words, she wasn’t broadcasting her relationship to the Kilpatrick clan. Why?
“And Ina, could you keep it to yourself for a bit? I don’t think she wants to advertise that she’s in town, but please let me know when you remember what happened. I’d like to hear the story.”
Ina huffed but reluctantly agreed. “Is Lucas still doing a good job?” she asked. “Not slacking off yet, I hope. I knew he’d be a good replacement for me when I watched him reorganize all my recipes when he was fifteen. Did I tell you he put them on one of those tablet things? I can make the words nice and big so they’re easy for these old eyes to read.”
“Your grandson is a good fit,” said Truman. “And he likes his job.”
“Good.” Satisfaction rang in her tone.
“One more thing, Ina. Have you ever heard a rumor of a cave man who lives in the forest around here?”
“A what?” she asked.
“Cave man,” Truman repeated, feeling a flush cover his face.
“Can’t say I’ve heard that one mentioned in the last forty years.”
“You have heard of him?” Truman’s voice shot up an octave.
“I can remember hearing about some old mean man who lived in a cave. He hated children and would kill any who stumbled into his domain,” she mused. “Terrified me when I was a kid, and as I got older it kept me from ever venturing too far into the woods alone. But I suspect that was the intention of the story. To scare kids out of stupid behavior.”
“Like when a parent tells you to be good or the bogeyman will get you.”
“Yes, something like that. Might be originally based in some fact. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there were a few unsocial types illegally roughing it in the state forest.”
Is there a grain of truth to the cave man story?
Could the preppers have been murdered by an angry mountain man who wanted their weapons?
He didn’t know what to think.
Truman ended the call with a promise to visit next weekend. He tried to have coffee with Ina Smythe once a month. The woman had been close friends with his uncle Jefferson. Sometimes Truman had wondered how close, but neither of them had ever hinted at a romantic relationship. Truman had made teenage assumptions based on looks. Looks exchanged between the two of them during the summers he stayed in Eagle’s Nest, and the feeling that permeated the air when the two of them were in the same room. As a teen Truman had twice been hauled into the Eagle’s Nest police station for some juvenile prank, and Ina had always stuck up for him and then gotten him released from the holding cell after four hours.
Last month during coffee, he’d asked her why she hadn’t gotten him immediately out of the jail cell. She’d cackled and replied, “You deserved those four hours in that cell. Probably more. I figured it was a good place for you to think about the stupid things you’d done.”
She’d been right.
He frowned. Ina didn’t have memory problems. She never missed a beat when reciting some random incident that’d happened forty years before. Or remembering one of her eighteen great-grandchildren’s birthdays.
Why couldn’t she remember the reason Mercy Kilpatrick had left town?
Or is she not telling me on purpose?
The thoughts swirled in his brain for a few minutes as he took the last turn to Leighton’s home. Special Agent Kilpatrick preferred to keep things to herself. When she’d made the comment last night about being from a small town, why hadn’t she mentioned that she was from his small town?
If she wants to keep it a secret, I’ll let her.
Sooner or later she’d be exposed. This was Eagle’s Nest. A poor place to hide secrets.
He pulled onto the soggy road shoulder in front of Underwood’s home. Mercy hadn’t wanted him to accompany her, but he’d insisted, arguing that Leighton was the type to shoot a stranger and then ask their business. It wasn’t completely true—although Leighton was known to answer the door with his gun in hand—but Truman wanted to keep his finger in the investigation. If his uncle had been killed by the same person who had shot Ned Fahey, he wanted to know. He planned to keep the two FBI agents as close as possible. He’d offered his little meeting room as home base so they wouldn’t have to travel back and forth to Bend, and they’d accepted.
When he’d heard the agents had been put up in the roach motel halfway between Eagle’s Nest and Bend, he’d called Sandy’s Bed & Breakfast. She had two rooms opening up tomorrow. He’d casually mentioned the B&B to the agents. “She’s got a great breakfast buffet for her guests. Eggs, hash browns, amazing bacon,” Truman had said to sweeten the deal. Mercy hadn’t seemed interested, but Eddie’s eyes had lit up at the thought of getting out of the bare-bones motel. They’d agreed to stop by and talk to Sandy later in the day.
He’d do what it took to stay close to the FBI investigation.
He stepped out of his vehicle and walked back to Mercy’s Tahoe. The two vehicles matched, except for the department logo on Truman’s door. Mercy slammed her door and pulled up her jacket hood. Her heavy coat had a bit of black fake fur trim around the hood that made the green of her eyes pop. Now that he knew she was related to the other Kilpatricks, he recalled that her oldest brother, Owen, had the same intense eyes. Truman decided they looked better on Mercy. The color was wasted on a man. Other than the green, she was all black. Black hair, coat, pants, and boots.
“Looks wet,” she commented.
Truman agreed. Leighton had several lake-size puddles lining the mud driveway to his home. Truman hadn’t wanted to risk the driveway even in his four-wheel drive. And there was Leighton’s gun reputation to consider. Parking on the road had been the wise decision.
The two of them headed down the drive, stepping where the mud didn’t threaten to steal their boots.
“Leighton!” Truman cupped his hands and hollered. “You home?”
The roar of a shotgun answered him.