SIX
“Hey, Mercy! Welcome back!”
Mercy’s attitude improved at the sound of Lucas’s heartfelt welcome as she stepped inside the Eagle’s Nest police station. She’d grown fond of Truman’s police department manager. The giant young man had a gift for organization and telling people what to do. “Thanks, Lucas. Is your boss here?”
His grin widened. “He’s in the back. He’s moving a bit slow this morning. I did make him change his clothes once I got a whiff of him. He’s been wearing the same thing since that big fire.”
So much for Truman following her advice.
She’d checked in at her own office first thing and then driven to the scene where Ben Cooley had been shot at. The body had been taken to the morgue by the time she arrived, but a small crime scene crew and the fire marshal were still present. She’d asked Bill Trek if this fire had any similarities to the fire at which the deputies had been shot. His answer hadn’t been helpful. According to his nose, they’d used the same accelerant as in that fire, but that’s where the similarities ended. This one was simply too small and had been put out too early to be compared with the other.
But someone had shot a weapon at both fires.
Mercy was relieved that Cooley hadn’t been hurt and was determined to find the shooters. A resident had called Truman to say a fire had been started on his property last week and he’d gotten a look at the culprits before chasing them off and putting out the fire himself. She and Truman had agreed to meet him at the Eagle’s Nest station.
Lucas scowled at the clock. “Your witness hasn’t shown up yet. Clyde Jenkins said he’d be in by now. I’ll give him another ten minutes and then call him. He’s not known for being prompt.”
“What do you know about him?” She didn’t recognize the name from when she’d lived in Eagle’s Nest years before.
Lucas brushed his hair out of his eyes and tapped the keyboard on his desk. “He was charged once for disturbing the peace. I remember when that happened. He’d fired his gun in the air to get rid of some religious people who knocked on his door. Said he’d told them to leave and they were too slow to get off his property. They filed charges and somehow he ended up only pleading guilty to the disturbing-the-peace charge. I imagine the original charge was something worse. He’s sixty-five and lives alone on three acres east of town. Comes to town and hangs around with the old-timers at the feed store or the John Deere dealership. Seems pleasant enough.”
Lucas stood up from his desk and walked over to the printer. He moved awkwardly, and Mercy gaped at the giant boot over a cast on his foot. “Is that broken? What did you do?”
“It’s nothing, but yes, it’s broken.”
“How did it happen?” Mercy asked again. The young man seemed flustered and wouldn’t meet her gaze as he handed her a sheet of paper from the printer.
“Fooling around. It was stupid.”
Truman chose that moment to step in the office and greet her. An overwhelming need to touch him and greet him with a kiss filled her, but she stayed still. They’d agreed to keep it professional around both their coworkers. She tried to transmit her affection through her gaze. The smile in his eyes told her it’d been received.
“Jeez. Get a room or something,” Lucas ordered. “I swear the temperature just rose ten degrees in here.”
“Send Clyde back when he gets here,” Truman said as he led her to his office.
“What happened to Lucas’s foot?” Mercy asked as she took one of the wooden chairs across from his desk.
Truman relaxed into his big office chair and leaned so far back she expected it to tip over. “He didn’t tell you?”
“He seemed too embarrassed to tell me.”
“I had to get the story out of Royce. I guess Lucas and some buddies built a bike ramp and were trying to launch themselves over someone’s shed. Lucas didn’t make it.”
“How’s the shed?” asked Mercy, thinking of the muscular bulk of the former high school football player.
“Not a total loss.”
“Isn’t that the sort of stunt kids do in middle school?”
“Yep. No wonder he didn’t want to tell anyone. I often forget he’s only nineteen.”
Someone paused in the doorway, drawing their attention.
“Morning, Chief.”
Mercy assumed the older man clutching a cowboy hat was Clyde Jenkins. Truman made introductions, and Clyde shook her hand as if it were made of glass. He had the eye bags and lined face of Tommy Lee Jones, but that was where the similarities ended. He was taller than Truman and incredibly skinny, with a yellow cast to his skin that made her wonder about his health. His smile was warm, and he flashed perfect movie star teeth.
“Pleased to meet you. I didn’t realize the FBI would be here.” Caution filled Clyde’s tone.
“We’re taking an interest in all the recent arson cases in light of the deputies’ murders,” Mercy told him.
His face fell and the impossibly deep lines around his mouth grew deeper. “I knew Ralph Long well enough to say howdy. I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“It’s a horrible situation that’s shaken everyone.” Mercy gestured at the chair adjacent to hers, and they all took their seats. “Tell me what happened at your place.”
“When I heard about Ralph, I knew I needed to come forward.” Clyde stared at the hat in his hands. “I heard there’d been some problems with small fires around town, but . . . I didn’t think mine was worth mentioning. My neighbor told me two men were killed the other day, so I figured I should at least let someone know what I saw.”
He shifted in his seat and crossed and uncrossed an ankle over his knee. Mercy frowned. “Wouldn’t most people report an arson started on their property?”
Clyde fingered the brim of his hat. “I didn’t want any trouble.”
Mercy exchanged a glance with Truman. “How can reporting a fire cause you trouble?” she asked.
The witness set his hat on his knee and gave Truman a pleading look.
Truman twisted his lips. “Did you scare them off with a little gunfire?”
“Am I going to be arrested again?”
Mercy understood, remembering Lucas’s story about how Clyde had scared religious folks off his property. “No, Clyde. I don’t think that’s going to be a concern. Obviously the people you fired at last week never filed a report. We’re simply interested in what you saw.”
He exhaled and slumped back in his chair. “That’s a relief. It took me two years to pay off that fine last time.” His demeanor perked up. “This was Wednesday of last week. I spotted two people—possibly three—dashing through my orchard. I stepped out of the house and I could hear them laughing as they ran. I didn’t think much of it . . . I’m not far from the highway, and people have been known to park along it and cut through my orchard to the creek. Doesn’t matter how many No Trespassing signs I put up. But then a few minutes later I saw a light coming from the area of my burn pile. I’d been waiting for some wet weather before lighting it myself. It was just plain stupid to light anything last week.”
“I agree,” said Truman.
Clyde nodded vehemently. “It’s been dry for weeks. Anyway, I was all pissed as hell and maybe my temper got the best of me, so I let off one warning shot. Since the fire was where I usually burn, everything I needed to put it out was handy, and it was doused in a few minutes.”
“Where were the men when you fired?” Mercy asked.
“Heading back through the orchard toward the highway.”
“You didn’t try to get a look at their vehicle?” Truman leaned forward and rested his forearms on his desk, his entire focus on Clyde.
“I had a fire to take care of,” Clyde pointed out. “This might be November, but with our dry spell it could have spread like crazy.”
“Not doubting your judgment,” Truman told him. “Just hoping you had a vehicle description for us. Did you hear it leave?”
Clyde thought for a moment. “No, all my attention was on the fire.”
“What did they do after you fired your gun?” Mercy asked.
“Ran faster.”
“Could you make out anything they said? Or see what they wore?” she continued.
The older man closed his eyes. “All I saw was silhouettes. No features. I’m not even certain about how many people. I think there were two or three of them. Could be others I didn’t see.”
Mercy thought of the large man from the early-morning fire. “Any of them heavyset? Super thin?”
“Average size. I feel like they were younger because they could move so fast, you know?” He opened his eyes and tipped his head in thought. “They ran as fast as they could once I fired. It’s been several decades since I was able to run like that.”
“If someone fired at you, you might surprise yourself,” Truman suggested.
“Good point.” He frowned and opened his mouth to speak but closed it. His thick brows came together, and he picked at a button on his coat.
“What is it?” asked Mercy.
“I could be wrong,” he started.
“We’re interested in anything you can suggest,” Mercy said.
“Well, I think one of them was a woman. I swear I heard a woman’s laugh that night.”
Mercy couldn’t get Clyde’s words out of her mind. A woman? A woman might have done these fires and shootings?
She and Truman had puzzled over it for a good ten minutes after Clyde left, getting nowhere in their theories except in realizing they needed to be more open-minded. They couldn’t assume the shooters and fire setters were all male.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you since I got back,” Mercy said to Truman as he drove them out to the site of the deputies’ murders. They’d grabbed a quick lunch after Clyde left and made plans to meet the fire marshal at the remains of Tilda Brass’s barn.
“I’m pretty sure we slept in the same bed last night.”
“Briefly. And you passed out within minutes.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Maybe a tiny bit.” She took a closer look at him, noting the bandages on his neck looked clean and fresh. “You still look exhausted, which doesn’t surprise me, since I think you’ve had five hours of sleep in the last two days. How do the burns feel?”
“Fine.”
“Uh-huh.” She dug some ibuprofen out of her bag and handed it to him. The fact that he accepted them without protest gave her an idea of how the burns really felt. He swallowed them with a swig from the travel coffee mug in his cup holder. Mercy tried not to think about how old the cold coffee might be.
“What are your thoughts on one of the arsonists being a woman?” she asked him.
“You mean one of the murderers?”
“That too.”
“I don’t see why not. I’m more hung up on the fact that Clyde saw them sprinting through his orchard. The body I saw this morning hadn’t done any sprinting in decades. And he was definitely not of average size.”
“Maybe we’re looking at more than two or three people.” Mercy let that idea simmer in her thoughts. A group of people starting fires? She’d been under the impression that arson was generally a single-person crime, unless it was a case of a radical group like the Animal Liberation Front or the Earth Liberation Front. “I can’t see the motive yet,” Mercy said slowly. “In a case like this, I have to ask, ‘Who benefits?’ And so far I haven’t seen benefits for anyone. No one’s getting rich. No one seems to be the focus of revenge.”
She’d read Truman’s reports on the three small fires. None of the victims had any ideas about why they’d been targeted. There’d been no associations found among them; the arsons had seemed extremely random.
According to what she’d read about arsonists, they loved to see the flames and feel the power of destruction. They could target their fires to hurt someone, but more often it was about self-gratification. And they typically didn’t shoot the first responders. They liked to watch the responders in action.
Their arsonists—murderers—were still a mystery to her.
“I can’t see the benefit either,” Truman said. “The fire at the Brass farm changed it up. You know as well as I do that there’s been a backlash against law enforcement in several cities in our country. We can’t ignore that.”
She couldn’t ignore it; it was in her thoughts every day.
His focus was on the road, his profile to her, so she took a long moment to savor the sight of him. Was it wrong that she was thankful he rarely wore a uniform? His badge was on his belt along with his weapon, but at first glance Truman Daly did not look like law enforcement. To her he seemed safer not wearing a uniform that announced his profession. The same went for her. Unless she was wearing an FBI jacket with the letters emblazoned across her back, no one could guess what she did for a living.
Am I a chicken?
Appreciating the anonymity of their jobs when many good men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day made her feel sick to her stomach.
Who am I fooling? Truman Daly has COP written on his forehead.
“I really hate the theory that the fire might have been set for that purpose,” Mercy said.
“You and me both.”
“That doesn’t happen out here.”
He lifted a brow at her unlikely claim. “It can happen anywhere,” he stated.
I know. It doesn’t mean I like it.
A long silence filled the vehicle. Pines and rocks and sagebrush flashed by as they sped down the highway. Mercy waited until they rounded a bend in the road and then leaned forward to look out Truman’s side of the vehicle. The Cascade mountains were glorious. The sky was a hazy gray instead of the intense blue of summer, but the peaks were loaded with snow, looking much more white and full than when she had arrived in September. She never tired of looking at them.
She’d considered buying a home, but hadn’t rushed into it. The reasonable person inside her wanted to see how things played out with Kaylie, her job, and Truman. Neither she nor Truman talked about the future; it was way too early in their relationship. But she had a good feeling about him. He hadn’t raised any red flags for her. Yet.
Sometimes he seemed too good to be true.
He had demons. But he worked to keep them at bay. Who doesn’t have a demon or two under their bed?
Even she had a few. Ones that made her chop wood half the night and obsessively watch the international stock markets.
She hid nothing from him. He knew it all. Every worry and burden.
But do I know all of his?
For the most part the man was an open book. With Truman, what you saw was what you got.
But she still watched him, waiting for the bottom to fall out. She couldn’t help it; it was part of who she was.
“Have you made Thanksgiving plans?” he asked in the silence.
“When is it?”
He gave her a side-eye. “Next Thursday. Tell me you knew that.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had Thanksgiving plans.”
“Are you kidding me?” The Tahoe swerved slightly as his gaze left the road and he gave her a wide-eyed stare. “Are you anti-American?”
That stung. “No, I haven’t been around family in fifteen years,” she snapped.
“Thanksgiving isn’t only about family. I’ve celebrated Turkey Day with all sorts of people during the last decade. It’s been pretty rare that they’re related to me. Usually I don’t have the time to fly to see my parents for the actual day.”
She kept her gaze straight ahead. Holidays were awkward. And a bit of a sore spot that she preferred not to poke.
“My department in San Jose had a sign-up sheet for people who were looking for something to do on Thanksgiving. It was a different crowd every year and it was always a blast.”
“My Portland office had something like that,” Mercy admitted. She’d never signed up. Thanksgiving had always been a rare four-day weekend for her, and she’d spent it working at her cabin. Alone.
“I assume you haven’t heard from any of your family about the holiday?”
“No.”
“Then let’s make our own plans. I don’t suck as a cook, and we can do it at my house.” Enthusiasm filled his voice and the vehicle. “Kaylie might have a friend or two that she’d like to have join us. I can smell roasting turkey already. That’s the best part of Thanksgiving . . . the way the house smells all day.”
She remembered that smell, triggering memories of the holiday with her four siblings and their parents around a crowded table. Would they celebrate together this year? Would they even think to invite me?
They hadn’t for the last fifteen years. Why start now?
“That sounds good,” she told him, feeling a tiny degree of his excitement for the day. “Kaylie would love to bake the pies.” Dirty footprints in her kitchen popped into her head. “Crap.” She’d forgotten her plans to confront the teen.
“What is it?” Truman asked as he turned off the highway and down the road to the Brass farm.
She told him about the footprints in the kitchen, the makeup, and the perfume.
“You think she snuck out last night?” He sounded skeptical.
“Of course I do. And I assume it has something to do with a boy, since she wore perfume and a ton of eye makeup. I didn’t even know she owned perfume.”
“Hmmm.” He scratched his jaw.
“What? Am I overreacting? I’m sorta new to this parenting thing, you know.”
“Didn’t you ever sneak out as a teen?”
“No!”
He shot her a look that said he didn’t believe her.
“I didn’t! Are you saying all . . . or most teens do?”
“You might have been a very good girl while growing up, Mercy Kilpatrick, but I guarantee those two brothers of yours probably snuck out of the house a dozen times or so.”
“So it’s a male thing.”
“Well, when I did it, it was to meet a girl. So, I’d say it’s a fifty-fifty split.”
She sank into her seat. “I was a good girl. So were both of my sisters. That doesn’t mean I should overlook what Kaylie is doing now.”
“No, you shouldn’t. You need to make certain she’s not doing anything stupid.” He coughed. “Is she on birth control?” he asked weakly.
Mercy covered her eyes. “Oh sweet Jesus.” Her hands slid to her ears. “Stop talking.”
“I’ll take it that means you don’t know. Might be a discussion the two of you need to have, considering her age.”
I have to talk about sneaking out at night AND birth control?
“But my point about her sneaking out was to suggest that you don’t confront her in anger. A lot of kids do it, and I’m not saying it’s right, but you need to understand that it’s not unusual behavior for her age.”
“Next you’ll tell me the exact same thing about teens and sex.”
“Don’t put your head in the sand,” he advised. “Kaylie’s a smart girl and has a lot going for her. A little guidance from her aunt for her teen years could go a long way.”
“Noted.” She was relieved as they pulled into the drive that led to the burned barn. She spotted Bill Trek’s red pickup.
Truman parked and sat motionless in his seat, staring out the windshield at the destruction. He swallowed, and she noticed his hand shook slightly as he turned off the truck.
“Does it feel different in the daylight?” she asked.
“Very. It’s like looking at a sketch of a scene from a movie that I already experienced in 3-D. Still raises all the same feelings, though.”
She squeezed his hand and met his gaze. “It’s done and over. Nothing will change.”
He nodded, and she saw protective walls rise in his gaze as he prepared himself to face the remains of the hell he’d been in thirty-six hours before.
She didn’t blame him one bit.
They got out of the vehicle and headed to where Bill Trek dug through the debris. He used a snow shovel to move the piles of ash and wood chunks and was dressed in protective coveralls and a mask to keep the clouds of soot from getting into his lungs. As they approached he pulled off the mask and worked his way out of the pile. It was a contrast to the extreme care and precision Mercy had usually seen in evidence collection. Maybe arson was handled differently.
Fire investigation was a dirty job. Ash covered him from head to toe, but he grinned as they walked up and gestured that he didn’t want to shake hands. “Don’t touch me,” he warned, showing them his soot-stained gloves.
“Not a problem,” agreed Truman. “What’s with the shovel?”
“I need to see the floor,” Bill said, using his forearm to wipe away the sweat that ran through the ash on his forehead. “Can’t tell what happened without getting a look at it. It’s an important part of my map.”
“What have you found so far?” asked Truman.
“Basically I’ve found support for my original hypothesis. Someone soaked the outside walls with gasoline and did the same with everything inside. They were determined to make it burn big.” He gave them a serious look. “I spoke with the owner, asking her what was stored in the barn, and she claims that there wasn’t really anything that she was aware of, but I’d like to hear that from some of her friends or relatives too.”
“Why?” Truman asked. “I honestly don’t think she’s been to the barn in years.”
“If I get a relative that tells me there was a boat or expensive farm equipment stored inside, then we have a problem.” Bill looked pointedly at the burned remains. “Clearly there wasn’t anything like that left here.”
Mercy suddenly understood. “Someone would have moved things they wanted to protect if they’d set the fire themselves . . . if they were hoping to get the insurance payment for the structure they set on fire.”
“You’d be amazed at how many ‘accidental’ home fires are missing the big-screen TV the neighbor says was in the living room. Or the antique gun collection that just happened to be moved to storage the week before. They want the insurance payout for an accident, but they can’t help but first move their favorite belongings. A dead giveaway when a relative tells me the antique gun collection has had a place of honor in the den for twenty years.”
“I don’t think Tilda Brass set the fire,” Truman said.
“I agree. But I need to make certain all my t’s are crossed.”
“What else do you do outside of examining the actual scene?” Mercy asked with curiosity.
“Well.” Bill paused. “A lot. I’ll talk to the insurance company and the friends and neighbors. I’ll check with the hospital and clinics, looking for someone with burns or inhalation injuries. You’d be surprised how many get burns on their hands or their ankles. The fires always catch faster than they expect. Especially with the gasoline they used here.”
Mercy looked at the section of concrete pad Bill had cleared. The patterns meant nothing to her. “The gasoline was also dumped inside the barn? Not just around the outside?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“So they must have seen that there was a propane tank inside.”
“I assume so,” agreed Bill. “Either they didn’t care or saw it as a bonus. It wasn’t a big one.”
“Big enough to knock me a few feet and shoot burning debris onto me,” Truman pointed out.
“It was positioned against the wall you were closest to,” Bill agreed. “If it had been on the other side of the barn, you wouldn’t have felt the same strength of the blast.”
Truman turned away and walked over to the far side of the debris pile, staring at the ground. He stopped a few feet from where the two men had breathed their last breaths and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“How’s he doing?” Bill asked her in a low voice. “What he went through would send most men to their doctors begging for drugs to make their memories go away.”
“I suspect that’s crossed his mind,” Mercy admitted. “He’s been through a similar type of hell before. It nearly drove him out of law enforcement, but he seems well prepared to deal with the emotional aftermath this time. Sadly, it’s because he had to learn how the first time.”
“No one would blame him for stepping back.”
“That’s not who he is.”
“I can see that.” Bill met her gaze. “But he can still crash. He’s not Captain America.”
Truman often wore a Captain America T-shirt, and Mercy thought it suited him. “Actually, that’s a perfect description of him. Captain America has a mushy sentimental core; he’s very human. And yes, he can fall apart.” She glanced over at Truman. He stood motionless, and she knew he battled invisible demons. Her instincts told her to go to him, but she stood still. Truman would ask when he needed help.
She simply had to be available.