EIGHT
Mercy and Eddie parked in front of the tiny Eagle’s Nest police station.
It’d sat in the exact same location since Mercy was a kid. Even the outdoor paint was the same dull shade of khaki. She held her breath as she stepped inside, expecting to see white-haired Mrs. Smythe, who’d answered the phone and managed the police station since Mercy was born. Mercy had no doubt that the busybody would instantly recognize her. Instead a very young man the size of an offensive lineman sat at Mrs. Smythe’s desk.
A welcoming grin crossed his face as they entered. “Are you with the FBI? The chief is expecting you.” The nameplate on his desk said he was Lucas Ingram. His smile was contagious, and Mercy wondered if he was old enough to have finished high school.
Maybe he’s the son of an officer.
Eddie held out his hand. “You’re Lucas? Do you run the show around here?”
“I am. And welcome to my domain. You need anything, let me know.” Lucas stood to shake hands and he towered over Eddie, who wasn’t short.
“How old are you?” Eddie blurted.
“Nineteen. I’ve been working out front here for over a year, and I’m damned good at it.” Lucas’s wide face grew slightly defensive, and Mercy wondered how often he’d had to defend his holding a job that was typically filled by a woman.
“I can tell,” she told the young man. “They’re lucky to have you.”
“And no, I don’t want to be a cop,” Lucas said. “That’s everyone’s next question. I like keeping the station’s stuff organized and doing what I can to make their day go easier. I’d much rather sit at this desk, answer the phone, and delegate than ride around in a patrol car.”
“You’re a born manager,” said Mercy.
“Yep.” Lucas beamed.
“If you’re done managing the FBI, can you get them some coffee and bring it to my office so we can talk?” a familiar voice asked.
Truman Daly had silently appeared in the reception area. “Morning, Agents,” he said with a nod to Mercy and Eddie.
“Good morning, Chief,” said Eddie as Mercy nodded back.
The chief looked as if he’d barely slept, and Mercy wondered if his uncle’s death or the pressures of the job had kept him awake at night. Surely it wasn’t too demanding to keep watch over Eagle’s Nest.
“Sheriff Rhodes already dropped off Toby Cox. He’ll be back in a half hour for him, so I suggest we get started.” He turned and headed down a narrow hallway, leaving Mercy and Eddie to follow.
“He’s been cranky this morning. Don’t let it get to you,” Lucas whispered conspiratorially. “How would you like your coffee?” he asked in a louder voice.
“Black,” Mercy said in unison with Eddie, bypassing her usual heavy cream in favor of being easy. The two of them followed the chief to his office. The hallway was lined with photos. Mercy wanted to stop and study them, positive she’d recognize some faces, but she kept her gaze on the chief’s back. As they moved into his office, another young man waited patiently in a folding chair. He looked up as they entered.
Toby Cox had Down syndrome.
Mercy wondered why Sheriff Rhodes hadn’t been more specific in his report, but maybe he didn’t know the difference. Some people were ignorant. Or assholes.
“Toby, this is Mercy and Eddie from the FBI. They’re the ones with the questions about Ned Fahey.”
The boy stood and shook their hands. Close up, Mercy realized he wasn’t a boy and wondered how old he was. His grip was tight on her hand.
“Don’t I know you?” he asked Mercy, hanging on to her hand.
Her mind raced. She didn’t remember a Cox family or a boy with Down syndrome.
“I don’t think s-so,” she stuttered. “How long have you lived in Eagle’s Nest?”
He peered closer at her, ignoring her question. “The coffee shop. You look like Kaylie,” he said in satisfaction. “You look like Kaylie a lot. Except she’s not old,” he added triumphantly.
Eddie coughed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Truman grin.
“I’ve lived in Eagle’s Nest since I was twenty. We moved here ten years ago,” he answered, clearly pleased that he’d solved his mystery. “I knew you looked like someone.”
“I see the resemblance too, Toby,” Truman answered. “Have a seat, folks.”
Mercy abruptly wondered if Toby’s parents should be present. She was unclear on his rights. Of course, she had no idea of his mental capacity yet. To her limited knowledge, people with Down syndrome varied widely in their abilities. She looked to Truman, who sat in his chair and watched Toby with confidence. She decided that if he’d felt there was an issue, he wouldn’t have allowed the meeting.
“How often did you help Ned Fahey around his place?” Mercy asked, pulling out her pen and small notebook, jumping into the interview. “Do you live close to him?”
“I live a quarter mile from Ned. If he doesn’t call and tell me not to come, I go there every Monday and Wednesday to help for three hours.” Toby’s eye contact was good . . . well, partially good. He was slightly cross-eyed in one eye, but his answers were direct. Mercy smiled, pleased they had a good witness.
“Did you help last Wednesday?” Toby had been the one to find Ned on the following Monday.
“Yes. It was wood-chopping day. Wednesdays is almost always wood-chopping day. He chops, I pick it up and stack it. He didn’t call to cancel, so I went back on Monday.” He looked down at his clenched hands in his lap.
“That must have been horrible for you,” Mercy said gently. “He was a good friend, right?”
“Oh no. Ned was my boss, not a friend. He was very crabby. Even my parents say he was crabby.”
Mercy bit her lip at his blunt reply. “Did you like working for Ned?”
“I did. He needed help because his back and knees always hurt. It was the right thing to do.”
“Did he pay you?” Eddie asked.
“Yes.”
Mercy and Eddie waited to hear how much, but Toby didn’t volunteer the information. Mercy wondered if he didn’t know or if he’d been raised not to discuss money matters. Her parents had never told her how much money they earned or paid for anything. The only time money had been mentioned was when it wasn’t available. Which was often.
“When you got there yesterday, was the front door unlocked?” Eddie asked.
Toby turned to look at him and intently studied his face. “I like your glasses. Those are cool.”
“Thank you,” said Eddie, blinking rapidly. “Ummm . . . what was my question?”
“You asked if the door was unlocked,” said Toby. “It was. I knocked several times first. I always knock, but Ned didn’t answer this time. I opened the door and went in.” He looked down again. “I hope that was okay.”
“You did the right thing, Toby,” reassured Mercy.
“I found him dead,” he whispered. “He had a hole in his head.”
“Then what did you do?” asked Eddie.
“I ran home and told my parents. They called the sheriff.” He ducked his head. “Ned told me the cave man would try to get him.”
Mercy remembered the rumor Sheriff Rhodes had been embarrassed to bring up. “Did you ever see this cave man?”
“No.”
“Did Ned say he’d ever seen him?”
Toby scrunched up his face as he thought. “No. Because I asked what he looked like and Ned said he didn’t know. But he thought he was really big and really mean.”
“Why did Ned think the cave man would be interested in him?” Eddie asked.
“That’s what the cave man does,” answered Toby. “He steals other people’s hard work and then kills them. He’s lazy,” he said emphatically.
Laziness would be the ultimate sin to a prepper like Ned.
“Did you ever see a lot of guns in Ned’s house?” Mercy asked.
“No.” Toby paused. “But there were a lot of them out in the shed.”
“Which shed?”
“The one that you take the path to. You can’t see it from the house. The guns are buried in the ground.”
“Did you ever count them?” Mercy asked.
“No, but one time Ned said he had twenty-five. That was a long time ago. He might have sold some since then.”
“When was the last time you saw them buried in the ground?” asked Eddie.
Toby ran a hand through his short, straw-colored hair as he thought hard. “Last summer,” he finally answered. “I remember it was hot.”
Mercy had a thought. “Did Ned have stuff buried anywhere else?”
“Not that I know about. Well, his septic tank is buried in the ground. But that’s how everyone’s is.”
“Did you see any strangers visit Ned?” Mercy asked carefully, wondering if the question was too broad. She’d realized they needed to be very direct in their queries.
Toby shrugged. “People have to drive by our place to get to Ned’s. Sometimes I don’t recognize the vehicles that go by.”
“Toby’s parents’ house sits a good ways back from the road,” Truman clarified. “I assume you couldn’t see every car that drives by?”
“That’s right. I’d have to be watching outside. From inside the house, I can only hear them.”
“Did you hear anyone go by on the weekend?” Mercy asked.
“Yes.”
She waited a few moments and then finally asked, “Did you see the vehicles, Toby?”
“No.”
Mercy silently sighed and changed her line of questioning. “Did anyone visit Ned when you were helping him with wood chopping last Wednesday?”
His forehead wrinkled in concentration. “No. Not that Wednesday.”
“He had a visitor on a different Wednesday?”
“Yes. A few Wednesdays ago. He yelled at someone who’d stopped their truck on the road in front of his house. He told them to ‘fucking get lost.’”
“They didn’t get out of the vehicle?” Eddie asked.
“No, they took off when he waved the ax and moved closer to their truck.” Toby grinned. “It was funny. He was mad.”
Mercy raised a brow at Truman, who lifted one shoulder.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Truman said. “Could have been tourists or even a bill collector.” He leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk. “Hey, Toby, who did Ned dislike? Who’d he complain about all the time?”
“Leighton Underwood,” Toby said promptly. “And Uncle Sam.”
Mercy assumed he meant the Uncle Sam who was her boss, but she wrote it in her notebook beside Underwood’s name in case Ned had an actual uncle named Sam.
“Who’s Underwood?” she asked Truman.
“I suspect their property lines butt up against each other. I know Leighton lives out in the same general area, but he doesn’t come to town as much as Ned did. Someone else could tell you if there was bad blood between the two of them.”
“Toby, did Ned have anything else on his property that he was real proud of besides his guns?” Mercy asked.
“He was real proud of his food. He always said he had enough stored away to outlast the commies. He liked his garden too. We spent lots of hours working in his garden and building a tall fence to keep out the critters.”
“Those are important,” agreed Mercy. “If you were to go back inside Ned’s house, do you think you would notice if anything was missing?”
Toby sat up straight in his chair. “I don’t want to go back there! He was dead! Don’t make me go back in that house!” His fingers blanched as he clenched his hands. “I don’t want to see his ghost!”
Truman came out from behind his desk and put one hand on Toby’s shoulder in a tight grip. “No one’s going to make you go back.” He looked Mercy square in the eye, daring her to challenge him.
Mercy wasn’t interested in forcing Toby, knowing it would be counterproductive. But she believed he had a good memory and that with the right questions, they could hear more insight into Ned Fahey.
“You know Ned’s not there anymore, right, Toby?” she asked. “They took his body away.”
Toby wouldn’t look up. “Where’d they take him?” he asked slowly.
“They took him to a special doctor who studies dead people. This doctor knows how to look for clues about who killed him,” answered Mercy.
“A medical examiner.” Toby finally looked at her again. “Like on CSI.”
“That’s right. We want to know who did this to Ned. That’s why we’re going back to look for clues at his house. But we won’t know if the killer stole something. I bet you would notice if something was gone.”
Toby had started to shake his head as she talked. “I don’t want to go back.”
Mercy saw Truman’s fingers grip Toby’s shoulder a little tighter. “That’s fine, Toby. But please consider it. We could really use your help to figure out what happened.”
Lucas tapped on the office door and brought in the coffees. “Sheriff Rhodes is back.”
“We’re almost done,” answered Truman. He looked at Eddie and Mercy. “Anything else for Toby?”
“Not now,” said Mercy. “If we have more questions, can we talk with you again, Toby?”
“Yes.”
Truman walked him out of the office.
Eddie leaned close to Mercy. “What do you think?”
“He’s a good witness if we ask the right questions.”
“I agree. I don’t know if he saw anything helpful, though.” Eddie glanced at his notes. “We’ve got Leighton Underwood to follow up on and a random vehicle that stopped by one day. I think we need to talk with more of Ned’s cronies.”
“Ned’s cronies meet at the John Deere place at five a.m.,” said Truman as he reappeared.
“Does Leighton Underwood meet there too?” asked Eddie.
“Occasionally.”
Mercy looked at Eddie, trying to weigh priorities. They needed to stay on Ned’s case because it was fresh, but they had a lot of catching up to do on the other two deaths. She was torn.
“Where can I rent a car?” Eddie asked Truman. “I think we need another set of wheels so we can split up and cover more ground.”
Why didn’t I think of that?
“I can have someone run you back to Bend for a rental if you’d like. That’d save some time,” suggested Truman. At Eddie’s nod he hollered down the hall. “Lucas! Get Gibson back to the station. I’ve got an errand for him.”
Truman looked at Mercy. “What’s your plan?”
“I’d like to talk to Leighton Underwood. Now.”