Twenty-four hours later, FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick watched as bones were removed from the culvert. The Eagle’s Nest Police Department had reached out to the state police for help with the removal and investigation of the remains. The team from the state police had gotten a good look inside the large pipe and immediately requested a medical examiner, who had asked for a forensic anthropologist, who had then suggested the FBI be brought in.
A long chain of requests for assistance had landed Mercy on the site.
Beside her, Eagle’s Nest police chief Truman Daly stood with his arms folded across his chest, his sharp gaze watching every move of the forensic anthropologist’s team. What had started as his case had ended up being Mercy’s. The chance of that happening had been small, and she was slightly amused, considering they’d been dating for about six months. Mercy had heard about the situation the moment Ben Cooley reported the skull to Truman and had been aware of every step of the investigation after that. A perk of sleeping with the police chief.
“That’s the fifth skull,” she whispered to Truman, knowing he could count just fine.
He nodded, his stance stiff.
It looks a lot smaller than the others. A shudder rippled through her.
The entire group of observing professionals was quiet and respectful. Two state police troopers were there to handle any traffic—which meant they stood around a lot. A forensics team from the state carefully removed the remains under the watchful eye of a tall, elegant black-haired woman Mercy knew was the forensic anthropologist, Dr. Victoria Peres.
The anthropologist ran the scene, giving orders and being in three places at once. Mercy watched her gently accept the fifth skull and study it for ten seconds longer than she had the others. Dr. Peres’s jaw tightened, and she passed it off to one of her assistants.
The rain had stopped overnight, and the water rushing under the road had slowed to a trickle. Mercy knew their respite wouldn’t last long. More rainstorms were expected, blowing in from the Pacific and down from Canada. A double whammy of weather.
At least it was better than ice.
Or feet and feet of snow.
Her thigh twinged, a reminder that she’d been standing in the same position for an hour and that less than two months ago, she’d been shot in that leg as she pursued a killer. She still couldn’t move as comfortably as she’d like and had learned the hard way not to ignore her body’s warning signs. “I need to sit down,” she whispered to Truman, hating her weakness.
Truman jerked as if she’d shocked him. “Your leg?” Concern filled his brown eyes.
She grimaced and nodded, looking around for a perch. The bumper of the medical examiner’s vehicle was the closest, and she took a seat. She lost her good view, but she wanted to be able to walk tomorrow. She’d be no help to anyone if she couldn’t move.
Was that last skull a child’s?
“Well look at that, the FBI sitting down on the job again.”
Mercy closed her eyes. She didn’t need to see Chuck Winslow to recognize his voice. The internet reporter had become a thorn in her side over the last two months. Truman claimed Winslow had developed an obsession with writing about Mercy. The reporter had published how she’d been shot in the leg and had strongly implied that it’d been her own fault for being friends with the shooter’s brother. He wove the facts to suit the story he wanted, even dropping hints in his story that Mercy had refused to arrest the killer for his first two murders because she knew him. Her integrity had been stung by that story, and Mercy knew she’d screwed up when she’d cursed at the reporter over the phone when he asked personal questions about Kaylie, her seventeen-year-old niece. Winslow had gloated about it for weeks.
He reminded her of a grade school boy who would punch a girl because he wanted her attention.
She hadn’t read anything about her and Truman’s relationship in his articles. Anyone could find out that Truman spent a few nights a week at her apartment. Maybe Chuck was a bit lazy. It was a good thing she’d talked Truman out of confronting the reporter about his coverage of her, but Mercy knew that if Chuck included her relationship with the police chief in his stories—or personal details about Kaylie—she wouldn’t be able to stop Truman from losing his temper.
She didn’t look in Winslow’s direction, keeping her gaze toward the recovery scene. Truman started to turn toward Chuck, but Mercy tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t give him the satisfaction,” she ordered. She knew the reporter was at least twenty feet away, behind the yellow tape, his view of the crime scene strategically blocked by tarps and tents.
“Asshole,” Truman muttered. “One of these days . . .”
“Careful!” the forensic anthropologist snapped at one of her assistants. The assistant didn’t flinch, but everyone nearby did. The two women had climbed up from the culvert to the blacktop, their hands full with buckets of dirt and bones. The state’s structural engineers had shored up one side of the washed-out hole and deemed the site safe enough for the bone removal, but one engineer had stayed at the scene, noting the dwindling runoff and keeping a sharp eye on the movement of the mud.
Dr. Peres watched her assistant add the skull to the growing collection of bones and debris. The evidence would be taken to the medical examiner’s office, where the bones would be studied and hopefully reveal a lead for the investigators. Mercy had already pulled up a list of missing people from the immediate area. Since she didn’t yet know the sex or age of the remains, it might turn out to have been a waste of time, but Mercy had felt the need to do something to get the case moving.
“Dr. Peres.” Mercy pushed to her feet after her fifteen-second relaxation period. “I’m Special Agent Kilpatrick.” She held out her hand to the tall woman. An intelligent but impatient brown gaze met hers, and even though the doctor had been digging in mud for hours, there wasn’t a hair out of place from the large bun at the back of her neck.
“No, I don’t know who these people are yet,” the doctor immediately stated. Extreme patience filled her tone as she shook Mercy’s hand, but Mercy saw her annoyance flash. Dr. Peres seemed to be the type of person who just wanted to do her job and not be bugged by the police until she was ready.
Mercy raised a brow. “You’re not a miracle worker?”
“Not today. Try me next Tuesday.”
Mercy leaned closer. “Was that last skull from a child?” she asked in the softest possible tone.
Dr. Peres gave an imperceptible nod.
“How many more are in there?”
The doctor glanced from side to side, checking for listening ears. Truman had stepped away a polite distance. “I believe we’ve found them all, but I won’t guarantee that until the culvert is completely empty.”
“Just this end was blocked, right?”
“Correct. It appears that three-quarters of it was empty. We’ll need to check the surrounding area too.” She sighed. “There’s no telling how much of the remains have washed away.”
How can the doctor put together this puzzle when several pieces might be missing?
“Do you have an age and sex on the last skull?”
The doctor’s large brown eyes narrowed, her lips thinning.
Mercy pushed on. “I’m not asking for perfect answers, but I know you have a rough idea. I’m simply looking for a place to focus my efforts while I’m waiting for your report. I’m trying to save some time.”
Dr. Peres’s face softened, and she looked over at the vehicle holding the bins of recovered bones. “That last skull belonged to a child between the ages of five and eight. I’m leaning toward female, but I’m not positive yet.” She met Mercy’s gaze. “Sexing a skull is hard at a young age. Clothes and hair help, but we’ve found neither. One of the other skulls belongs to a young person too. I estimated in their teens.”
“Five skulls.”
“So far.” Dr. Peres gestured toward the downward slope of tall pines. “Who knows what we’ll find down there?”
The scope of the search suddenly hit Mercy. Acres and acres of dense sloped woods and rushing water. “It could take days,” she gasped, overwhelmed by the task.
The anthropologist simply nodded. Her eyes looked tired, but Mercy believed she wouldn’t give up until she was completely satisfied. She’d heard rumors about the state’s Bone Lady. Tough. Brass balls. Ice princess. Damn good at her job.
Mercy wouldn’t mind the descriptions for herself.
“Are you taking the remains back to Portland?” Mercy asked, wondering how many trips to Dr. Peres’s office at the medical examiner’s building were in her future.
“I’m going to use a facility here at the county morgue,” Dr. Peres told her. “I prefer to be close to a scene like this. Especially when it could take quite a while to get all the missing pieces.”
“That will make it easier on me too.” Mercy paused but couldn’t stop herself from asking the question. “Have you seen anything to help us yet, Dr. Peres?”
“Call me Victoria. Did you get a look at any of the skulls?”
“Only from a distance.” Bones didn’t make Mercy squeamish. In fact, she found them fascinating and wished she knew how to read them the way this doctor did.
“It appears they all had powerful blows to the head in the temple area. The teeth have been forcibly broken. Someone took a hammer or club and bashed them in the mouth several times.”
Mercy’s teeth and jaw ached. “Postmortem?”
“I suspect so, but I’m not positive yet.”
“Were they trying to hide the identity?”
“They didn’t do a very good job if that was their goal. There’s plenty of teeth left, and people can even be identified by the roots of the teeth if we have previous dental X-rays. I’ve called for a forensic odontologist to come take a look.”
“Which skulls?” The idea of the child being hit in the mouth made her queasy.
“All of them.”
“Wait—what? All of them had the same injury?” A memory started to poke and prod in the back of her brain.
Victoria nodded. “All.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied Mercy’s face. “Why?”
Mercy simply stared back at her, her mind scrambling to uncover the memory emerging in her mind. Broken teeth. Smashed in the mouth.
It rushed to the surface.
It’d happened before. A family who’d been murdered in their home. Mercy had been in grade school, but she’d overheard her parents discussing the brutal destruction to their mouths. The imagery had horrified her and stuck in her young imagination.
Then it’d happened again two months later. Two families murdered.
She’d never heard of that type of mass injury again until this moment.