THIRTEEN
Truman tried to focus on his email at his desktop. He yawned several times, even though he’d gotten a good six hours of sleep.
Last night Mercy had been right. The olive oil ice cream was unique. He didn’t have an overwhelming urge to rush back to Portland and get some more, but it’d been an eye-opening experience. He wished he’d had the courage to try the flavor made with bone marrow and smoked cherries instead of settling for the sea salt and caramel, which had sounded safe.
He’d watched Mercy indulge in her odd ice cream and had enjoyed the blissful look on her face. She was weird about food. Selective and particular in a way he’d only read about online or seen in movies. But when it came to ice cream, all her rules went out the window. He’d never seen her pass up the dessert.
Someone tapped at his door and pushed it open. Mercy’s sister Pearl stepped in. “You got a moment?” she asked.
Surprised, he stood and gestured at the chair in front of his desk. “Absolutely, Pearl. What can I do for you?”
She wore her apron from the Coffee Café and had her hair pulled back in a long ponytail. It was nearly 8:00 a.m., and he was shocked she wasn’t behind the counter during what had to be a busy time. She didn’t sit and he continued to stand.
“Some of the customers told me the man that was found at that fire had been identified.” She tipped her head to one side as she spoke to him, her hands buried in her apron’s deep pockets. “I pulled up the article from the paper on my phone this morning. It said the FBI is trying to track his whereabouts for the last few months. Is that right?”
“That’s true. We don’t have a current address for him. Do you know him?”
“I don’t know him, but I recognized his picture. I didn’t know his name was Joshua Pence until I read it. He’s been in the shop recently. Maybe a half dozen times over the last month or two.”
“So he was definitely living around here.”
“I don’t know that for certain,” Pearl clarified. “He could have lived an hour or two away and his route to work brought him through town.”
“Good point.” Truman watched her. She fussed with her pockets and had a hard time looking him in the eye. “I take it you don’t recall discussing where he lived with him.”
“I don’t remember him as being a talker. But his size stood out to me, which is why I recognized him.”
Truman waited. Pearl wouldn’t have left her coffee shop to tell him she simply remembered a customer.
“He came in with Tom McDonald a few times.”
There it is.
Truman didn’t know McDonald except to nod at him in the street. His ranch was far out of town, and the police had never responded out there for any incidents. Truman liked that in a resident, but he also liked getting to know his people. McDonald hadn’t made himself available to get to know. He kept to himself.
“McDonald’s a big guy too,” Truman commented.
“That’s why I remembered him. Together they made quite the pair.”
“So McDonald is the guy to talk to,” Truman said. “Hopefully he can shine a little more light on Pence’s history.”
“I need to get back to work. That was all I had to tell you. I wasn’t certain it’d be helpful.”
“It was definitely helpful.”
Pearl turned to leave, and Truman came around his desk. “Hang on, Pearl.” She stopped and looked at him with a deer-in-headlights gaze. “That newspaper article said the FBI was looking for any information on Joshua Pence, right?”
She nodded.
“How come you didn’t contact Mercy?”
Her gaze darted from side to side. “I figured you would know what to do with the information. And it was easy to dash over here.”
“You could have called her just as easily,” he said gently, knowing he was on fragile ground. Pearl looked ready to dash out the door.
“This was easier,” she admitted.
“I understand.” Although Pearl’s efforts to avoid her sister hurt a mushy spot in his heart.
She tilted her head again. “Do you?”
“I think you try to walk a tightrope between your sister and the rest of your family.” He lightly touched her arm. “You feel like you’re in the middle. Trying to keep the peace, not piss off either side. But still keep a tenuous contact.”
Her lips tightened.
“I think you just want everyone to be happy.”
“I do.”
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” he asked.
He might as well have poked her with a cattle prod.
“Probably going to my oldest’s house.”
“You don’t have plans yet?”
Pearl shifted her weight from foot to foot. “It’s a given. It’s what we’ve done the last couple of years. We haven’t really talked about it yet.”
Truman found that hard to believe. He remembered when his mother would plan Thanksgiving dinners. She had the menu delegated among family and the grocery list written down two weeks before the date. Pearl struck him as the same type of organizer.
“Perhaps you and your family can swing by my place for dessert. I’m cooking for Mercy and Kaylie, but we’d love to have everyone come by.”
She relaxed a fraction, as he’d expected. He knew dessert would feel less threatening than the entire meal.
“I’ll check with everyone and let you know.”
Truman held her gaze. “Please do. Kaylie will be baking, and I’m sure there will be ton of goodies.”
Pearl looked thoughtful. “In that case I may skip baking any desserts. Kaylie always outbakes all of us. Even my mother.”
Relief flowed through Truman. She’s considering it. He didn’t want to overwhelm Mercy with a crush of family, so Pearl’s family was a good choice. He’d heard about Mercy’s last conversation with Owen and knew better than to try to contact him. He didn’t know what to do about Mercy’s parents. Maybe a quick word with Rose would shine some light on the question. “Thank you, Pearl. It means a lot to me.”
Contemplative eyes regarded him. “You’re a different man, Truman Daly. In a good way. My Rick would never consider stirring any pot but his own.” She laughed. “That’s a good thing for me most of the time, but sometimes I wish he saw beyond his dinner plate.”
Truman wondered if Pearl dished up Rick’s plate for him. Twenty years ago he’d had dinner at an aunt’s home where she’d done that for her husband. His mother had rolled her eyes, but his father had liked it. It’d led to an interesting car ride conversation on the way back home. “What’s he think of your hours at the coffee shop?”
“Mmmph.” Her lips turned up the littlest bit at the corners.
“That good, huh?”
“He’ll get over it. With one kid out of the house and the other nearly independent, I needed this. It feels good that I’m adding financially to the household. I know Rick likes that part too . . . it’s just taking him a while to come around.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.” She turned again to leave but stopped and glanced back. “Take care, Truman,” she said awkwardly, dipping her chin as if slightly embarrassed.
He watched her leave, feeling good about their conversation. He’d do whatever it took to smooth Mercy’s transition back to Eagle’s Nest. He wanted her to stick around for the long term.
Mercy had received a call from Truman to tell her that Joshua Pence had been seen in town with Tom McDonald over the past few months, so she immediately found his address and recruited Eddie for the ride out to the McDonald ranch. Eddie had been supervising the evidence processing from all the fires, which he stated primarily involved a lot of emails and phone calls begging people to speed up their work.
Following her GPS, Mercy turned off a highway, and her Tahoe bounced through deep ruts on a dirt road.
“Are you sure this is right?” Eddie grabbed the “oh shit” handle above his door. “It looks like no one has driven here in a few months.”
“I suspect that’s exactly how he wants it to appear.” Sure enough, after a minute the rough road was replaced by a well-tended gravel road. “Maybe there’s a back way in that gets used more often.”
“Why does everyone out here spend so much effort trying to avoid people?” Eddie muttered.
Mercy grinned. “I don’t have an answer for you.”
“They’ve got too much time on their hands,” Eddie mused. “And I think they watch too much conspiracy TV.”
“Maybe.”
They drove between two buttes as they climbed in elevation. The vegetation around them was dry and scarce, giving the area a dull beige tone amid the rocky landscape, typical of the Deschutes County high desert. The road took a sharp turn and Mercy drove into a large level area of several dozen acres. A small old farmhouse sat far off to one side, looking as if it’d been lonely since the 1950s. Barbed-wire fences surrounded multiple pastures. Fresh lumber framed several outbuildings, and a dozen pickups indicated that humans were around somewhere.
Mercy parked next to the pickups and hopped out, studying the new construction. A few older buildings sat beyond the new ones, looking as old as the farmhouse. Mercy glanced at the farmhouse and then back at the buttes they’d driven past, feeling a sense of déjà vu.
She was positive she’d never driven out to the ranch before, but it had the same aura of another place she’d visited. She continued to scan the buildings, searching her memories for the connection and waiting to see who’d greet her and Eddie.
My uncles’ ranch.
That was it. Satisfaction curled through her. Her mother’s five brothers had owned a similar ranch in southeast Oregon. Three of the uncles had passed away over the years. Two had died from heart problems, and the youngest had been killed in the eruption of Mount St. Helens back in 1980. The two remaining uncles now lived somewhere in eastern Washington, and Mercy hadn’t given them a passing thought since she’d left home fifteen years ago.
She remembered long car trips from her childhood that had ended at her uncles’ ranch on the far side of the state. She and her siblings had been let loose to explore the property while the adults talked for hours. Thinking hard, she figured their last trip had occurred before she turned twelve. She wasn’t certain why the trips had stopped, but once two of the brothers had died, she knew the others agreed it was time to sell and go their separate ways.
Her memories were of a property dominated by men. With so many uncles and their numerous ranch hands, that was understandable. She couldn’t remember much interaction with her aunts outside of helping with cooking and chores. Her remaining uncles’ contact with her mother seemed to dissolve once they moved to Washington, and Mercy suddenly wondered if there’d been a falling out on that side of the family that she’d been blissfully unaware of.
A perk of being a child.
“This reminds me a lot of my uncles’ ranch,” she told Eddie. “I used to visit it when I was a kid. A great place for playing hide-and-seek with my siblings.”
“Was it this remote?”
“More so.”
The look on Eddie’s face said he wasn’t surprised.
Someone stepped out of the closest new construction building. The young man was wearing a tool belt and glanced around as if looking for someone more senior to take charge of the visitors. Mercy took pity on him and strode over, deciding to make the first move.
“Good morning,” she said. “I’m Special Agent Kilpatrick and this is Special Agent Peterson.”
The young man stared at her for a moment and then blanched as he ducked his chin. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to get her in trouble.” His words tumbled over one another.
“Excuse me?” Mercy was lost. He was a good-looking kid who had clearly misunderstood the reason for their visit. She saw Eddie stifle a grin out of the corner of her eye.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Eddie asked in a serious tone.
Mercy wanted to elbow him for harassing the man.
The young man straightened and turned to Mercy, meeting her gaze directly this time. “I really like Kaylie,” he said with a quiver in his voice, and nervously licked his lips. “I’m sorry I talked her into sneaking out at night. That was on me, not her.”
Comprehension dawned. “You’re Cade?” Mercy exclaimed, as she realized this was the young man she’d seen exchange a brief look with Kaylie at the memorial service. She didn’t know whether to give him a piece of her mind or admire his guts for standing up to her.
He blinked rapidly. “Ummm . . . yes. Isn’t that why you’re here? To talk to me? Kaylie told me you wanted to meet me.”
“Well, yes, but I imagined it’d be over dinner somewhere,” Mercy managed to say. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
Cade looked from her to Eddie in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re here to talk to Tom McDonald,” Eddie told him. “Not you.” He turned to Mercy. “This is the guy who Kaylie snuck out with?” He gave Cade an evil eye. “How old are you?”
“I-I-I’m twenty.”
“She’s in high school,” Eddie pointed out, still using his tough-cop voice.
“Stop it,” Mercy interjected. “This isn’t the time or place. Is Tom around?”
“What’s going on? Everything okay, Cade?” A new voice spoke as two men came around the building. Like Cade, they wore tool belts, but they were at least a decade or two older. One was short and wiry, while the other was a few inches taller and hung back, looking slightly uncomfortable at the sight of visitors.
Mercy immediately disliked the shorter man who’d spoken. His eyes were mean and squinty. “We’re looking for Tom,” she said pleasantly.
“Who’s looking?” said the jerk as he crossed his arms and challenged her with those eyes.
“The FBI.” She smiled, showing all her teeth, as she introduced herself and Eddie.
“Tom’s not here,” answered Squinty Eyes.
“He went to Salem,” added the second man in a friendlier voice. “He said he might not come back today.” He received a glare from Squinty for sharing the extra information. Or for being helpful.
Eddie held out the photo they’d lifted from Joshua Pence’s old DMV records. Mercy estimated he weighed quite a bit less in the photo, but the hair and beard looked about right. “Know this guy?”
Squinty glanced at the photo and looked away. “Nope. Never seen him before.”
Liar.
The second man shook his head while keeping his gaze on the picture.
Too chicken to challenge Squinty.
Eddie held the photo so Cade could see it. Cade studied it for a few seconds and frowned. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Did something happen to him?”
“He’s dead. Murdered. We’re trying to find out where he lived and worked for the last six months.”
Cade paled. “That’s too bad, but I don’t pay much attention to the people who come visit. A lot of guys drop in here.”
A safe answer.
“Why is that?” Mercy asked. She made a show of looking around the property. “Tom sell cattle or pigs? I don’t see a lot of livestock. What causes all the traffic?” She smiled innocently at Cade.
“Not livestock. I dunno, I guess. I just work here and don’t ask a lot of questions.” His gaze dropped to his feet, and he kicked some gravel in the dusty dirt. “I haven’t been here that long. I just do my job.”
“What exactly is that?” Eddie asked.
Mercy watched Squinty out of the corner of her eye as Cade answered. The man had shifted his weight to his toes and leaned forward an inch, his intense stare on Cade as he spoke.
“Construction.” Cade pointed to the building that smelled of fresh wood behind him.
“And you two?” Eddie asked the other men.
“Same. Construction,” answered Squinty. The other nodded silently.
“Tom must have some big plans,” Mercy stated, taking an obvious look at all the new buildings.
No one answered her.
Fifty yards away a woman stepped out of another building. Her braids were tucked inside a man’s heavy canvas coat, and she wore camouflage pants with heavy boots. She glanced at the visitors and proceeded to empty a large pot of water a few feet away from the door, then disappeared back inside.
“We’d like to show this photo to a few other people,” Eddie said.
“I’m not comfortable with you walking around Tom’s property when he’s not here,” said Squinty. “I don’t think he’d like you to interrupt his employees while they’re working. I’m sure he’d be happy to set up a time to meet with you.” Squinty decided it was his time to grin at Mercy.
She held eye contact and ignored his crooked teeth with the black bits of chewing tobacco stuck between them. “We’ll leave our cards, and you can pass them on to Tom. Tell him to give us a call when he gets back.” She deliberately handed the cards to Cade, who reluctantly accepted them, as if he were getting a traffic ticket. She didn’t let go until he raised his gaze to look at her. She met his confused look and then released the cards.
“Nice meeting y’all,” said Eddie with a little wave as they turned to leave.
“Where’d the Southern accent come from?” Mercy muttered to him as they headed to her vehicle.
“It felt like the right thing to say at the moment.”
“Were you expecting a ‘Y’all come back now, ya hear?’ in reply?” She yanked on the handle to her Tahoe.
“A man can hope. Think Cade will reach out to you?”
“A woman can hope.” She started the vehicle, pulled a tight U-turn, and headed out in the direction from which they’d come. “Actually, I’m certain I’ll hear from him soon.”
Twenty-five years ago
“Hold steady, honey.”
Mercy could smell pipe smoke on Uncle John’s breath as he crouched behind her and moved her eight-year-old arms and hands into the correct position on the big rifle. Straw from the bales of hay poked the skin of her stomach and knees as she knelt on one to properly reach the weapon on the gun rest.
Behind her Owen muttered about her turn taking too much time.
“She’s faster than you were at this age,” Uncle John informed her brother. “Better shot too.”
Mercy smiled but kept her eye turned to the sight. Sixteen-year-old Owen could do everything better than she. But if her uncle said she was a better shot than he at her age, then it was true.
“Just let her shoot, Owen,” Rose added. “Your turn was a lot longer.”
“But it’s useful for me to learn. It’s stupid for a girl.”
“Back off for a minute,” her mother’s brother said in her ear.
Mercy took her finger off the trigger and looked over her shoulder. Owen wore his pouty face, and Rose was shaking her head. Beside her Levi crouched, ignoring the small squabble and drawing something in the dirt with a stick. It was a rare moment when all the siblings got along. Discord between at least two of them was the norm.
Her uncle John stopped in front of sixteen-year-old Owen. “You don’t think your sisters deserve to learn to shoot?”
Owen shrugged. “I don’t see the point.”
“What if they’re out hiking and come across a pissed-off bear? What if someone breaks into their home when they’re adults and tries to attack them? What if their husband is hurt and unable to defend them?”
Owen looked away and gave a smaller shrug. “I guess.”
“Everyone benefits from learning to shoot. Being able to defend ourselves is our right.”
“It seems stupid to teach a child.”
Uncle John slowly shook his head, and disgust filled his tone. “How do you think you learned? Your dad and my brothers agree it’s best to learn early respect for weapons to eliminate the fascination of the untouchable. A kid who’s taught the proper respect is less likely to cause an accident. This is serious business, and I’m proud your daddy let me have a hand in teaching all of you.”
“Even me,” Rose said. She’d learned right alongside all of them. Studying the weapons with her fingertips, learning the recoil of each gun. She couldn’t hit a target, but she knew how to fire, and their uncle had said she just needed to fire in the right direction to scare off any threat.
“That’s right,” he said to Rose. “You never know when a person will have to take up a weapon to defend themselves,” he told Owen. “Maybe even defend yourself from your own government. I hope it never comes to that one day, but if it does, we’ll be ready.”
“Why would the government attack us?” Owen asked.
Her uncle ran a hand over his beard, his gaze distant. “That’s not something you need to worry about now. Just be prepared for every uncertainty and you won’t have to worry about anything. Now keep your mouth shut until I’m done with your sister.”
Mercy turned her eye back to the sight, deliriously happy that Owen had gotten in trouble.
“Quit your grinnin’,” her uncle whispered in amusement next to her ear. “Take a deep breath and let it out and then shoot. Five shots.”
Mercy did as he asked and was pleased to see five holes in the third and fourth rings of the bull’s-eye fifty yards away.
“Nice job, Mercy.”
She beamed and lined up her next series of shots.
That night at the adults’ dinner table, her uncle bragged about her precision. It was a packed table. Her parents, her mother’s four brothers, and two of their wives had squeezed together while the five kids ate on folding chairs around a card table. Owen had sulked because he’d been made to eat at the kids’ table, and her uncle’s statement about Mercy’s shooting made his shoulders sag even more.
As he sank lower, Mercy sat up straighter. She listened closely to the adults’ talk, and ignored Levi and Pearl’s argument about who got to ride which horse tomorrow. She enjoyed visiting her uncles’ ranch. The four men had lots of horses, which made the long car ride worth it to her. Mercy loved to ride the horses, explore the vast ranch with her siblings, and help her aunts cook big meals for the ranch hands.
Her aunts were always very quiet at dinner, letting the men do most of the talking. Even her mother spoke less here than at home. Probably because there were more people to listen to. Her uncles had a way of talking over one another, each one getting louder than the others to get his words heard. Especially when they talked about the government. That subject was certain to get them fired up. They didn’t trust the government and would argue over the best way to avoid any interaction with it.
She grew bored as the adults changed the topic to cattle, and her gaze strayed to the family photos on the wall. She knew them by heart. They never changed from visit to visit. There were pictures of her mother’s parents, who had both died before Mercy was born, and there were pictures of her mother as a little girl, younger than Mercy was now. Everyone said Mercy looked just like her mother as a child, but Mercy didn’t see the resemblance. Her mother had worn impossibly short bangs and had a ton of freckles. Her uncle Aaron had a place of honor on the wall. He’d been camping near Mount St. Helens when it erupted and been one of the nearly sixty deaths. Multiple pictures of him were hung in a circle around his high school senior picture.
She had no memories of this uncle who’d died in his early twenties before she was born, but his picture showed a strong resemblance to her other uncles. Uncle John was her favorite; he was always a lot of fun.
“Eat your peas,” Pearl ordered her.
Mercy glared at her older sister. “You’re not the boss of me.” She hated peas.
“Pearl’s the boss when Mom’s not here,” Levi stated, shoveling peas in his mouth. He chewed and then showed her a tongue covered with green mush.
“Mom’s here.” Mercy shot a nervous look at the adult table to see if her mother was paying attention to their argument. Any other day she would have told on Levi for being gross, but she didn’t want to call her mother’s attention to the uneaten peas on her plate. “And I ate all my carrots. So there.”
She glanced at the big table and caught her uncle John’s eye. He’d been listening. He winked at her and made a show of pushing his peas to the edge of his plate. Her heart warmed, and she ducked her head in embarrassed happiness.
Even with the large number of men on her uncles’ ranch, she didn’t feel outnumbered as she did at home with just Levi and Owen. Her brothers had a way of dictating every moment of her life.
There were three more days left in their visit, and Mercy planned to enjoy every minute.