Lucas handed Truman an envelope as he walked into the Eagle’s Nest station for work that morning. “This was taped to the front door.”
Truman noted his name on the outside and opened the envelope as he strode down the hall to his office.
He studied the single piece of paper and halted. What the fuck?
He laughed and then read it again. Is this for real?
Joshua Forbes claimed that Truman had trampled on his God-given rights and he wanted $3 million in compensation. Truman had heard of judges and police officers receiving this type of letter. It was a jumbled mess of legalese and fantasy.
The signature at the bottom captured his attention.
joshua; forbes SLS
What the hell do I do with this?
He walked back out to the waiting area, where Lucas was working at his computer. “Check this out.”
The young man’s eyebrows rose as he read. “Holy shit. Does he really believe he can get that kind of money out of you? I’d like to see a case where an SC was successful with a demand like this.”
“I’m sure one doesn’t exist.”
“Did you assault him?” Lucas asked with a gleam in his eye.
“Hell no. All I did was stop his vehicle and ask some questions. County took him to the ground and I helped cuff him, but it was an easy arrest. At the most he got his clothes a little muddy.”
“So he should be suing you for the cost of his laundry.”
“His clothes weren’t that clean to begin with,” Truman pointed out.
“What’s with the weird signature?”
“That’s an SC oddity. The best I’ve been able to figure out is that it shows the letter was really signed by Joshua the human being, not the legal entity Joshua Forbes, created by the United States. I think the SLS stands for sovereign living soul.”
“In English, please.”
“There’s no easy way to explain it. You need to watch one of those three-hour lectures on YouTube, but the way I understand it is they believe the United States has done some illegal machinations that created a straw man for every physical person. Your taxes are billed to your straw man, and laws apply to the straw man, so he as a person isn’t liable for the taxes or held accountable to our laws. The actual human is only accountable to God. By signing the letter this way, he’s showing that it’s really him, not the US’s straw man.”
Lucas stared at him. “Everyone is two people,” he recited slowly. “One is a fake entity that is accountable to US laws, and the other is the real human being that can do whatever the fuck he pleases.”
“Bingo.”
“It’s notarized, and is that his fingerprint at the bottom?”
“They like to notarize everything—I’m surprised it wasn’t delivered by registered mail, and I suspect you’re right about the fingerprint.”
“Isn’t he in jail?” asked Lucas. “How’d he get it notarized and delivered?”
“Probably had a friend do that part for him. His arraignment is tomorrow. I’ll try to be there.”
“This is so cool,” announced Lucas. “Can I post a photo of it on Twitter?”
Truman grabbed the paper out of his hand. “No. And don’t talk about it to anyone else.”
Lucas’s face fell. “I’ll black out your name.”
“No.” Truman headed back to his office, done with the conversation. He sat in the chair at his desk and leaned back, reading the letter again, wondering if he should show it to an attorney. Joshua Forbes had no real laws behind his claim, although Truman knew Joshua firmly believed he did.
“What’s he going to do? Take me to court?” Truman mumbled. A judge would laugh himself off his chair. Truman filed the letter in a drawer. Mercy would be the person to show it to. While assigned to the Portland FBI office, she had worked in Domestic Terrorism, and sovereign citizens had been involved in some of her cases. She’d said that the majority of them were harmless and kept to themselves, but some of them associated with militias and took their beliefs seriously enough to create disruption in the current government. Usually they fought with paper, overloading the courts by filing nonsense complaints and liens.
He knew Mercy would review the letter even though she was focused on her new case. There had been an obsession in her eyes when she talked about the small skull found in the culvert.
Violence against kids got under her skin. His too.
The old crime reports he and Mercy had reviewed last night had stuck in his head. More horrible attacks against children.
Why murder the entire family?
Someone isn’t right in the head.
Not that those who murdered a single person were right in the head, but to take out an entire family spoke to a new level of illness.
Truman wanted the new case solved as much as Mercy did.
But what can I do?
Steve Harris. The man’s face popped into Truman’s mind. The neighbor who’d discovered the Verbeek family.
Truman had interacted with him several times. Not usually on the best of terms, but he felt Steve respected him even if he didn’t respect the fire hydrant in front of his home. Truman knew Steve’s small house. It was three blocks away from the police department.
None of my business.
He logged on to his computer and discovered that Steve still owed the city for three parking tickets. They were about to be sent to collections.
Maybe I should be neighborly and give him a warning.
Truman put on his hat and walked out into the rain.
“We’ve got a lead.”
“I’m listening,” Mercy told Jeff as she drove away from Britta Vale’s home, where she’d silenced her phone for her interview. There’d been three missed calls and two texts from Jeff.
“I’m sending you the address. There’s a family missing. It’s possible they’ve been missing for months.”
“Sounds like a good lead.”
“Deschutes County Sheriff’s Department is already at the home. It’s not far from where you’re at.”
“On my way.” Mercy pulled over and plugged the address from his text into her GPS. She could be there in twenty minutes. She frowned at the map, surprised that someone lived in the desolate location. She would have expected it to be only rock and shrubs and wildlife.
Twenty minutes later she put her Tahoe into four-wheel drive to get through the mud. No one had done maintenance on the private road in ages. She rocked and bounced her way down into a valley, crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t get stuck. Fresh tracks assured her that the county vehicles had made it. Moments later she found the home.
If Britta Vale’s home was welcoming, this home advised people to stay away. The house looked abused and exhausted.
Three broken-down trucks sat in front of the home. Two still had wheels; none had windshields. The front of the home hid behind overgrown bushes. It had a sagging roof, and Mercy spotted several squatty outbuildings with pens to the left of the house. One she assumed was a chicken coop, and the others looked as if they would hold small farm animals. She parked next to a Deschutes County vehicle and slid out. A familiar figure stepped out of the home and Mercy recognized Deschutes County Detective Evan Bolton.
Mercy pulled up her hood in the misting rain and went to greet Bolton. The detective always looked as if he’d just wrapped up a difficult interview. He had a seen-it-all gaze in his brown eyes, even though he was a bit younger than Mercy.
She shook his hand. “What did you find?” she asked him.
“Something happened here, but who knows how long ago. There’s a lot of old dried blood in the bedrooms, and all their stuff is still here, but the place is deserted. I assume this family didn’t move away to a new city.”
Not with dried blood left behind.
“What’s the name?”
“Last name is Hartlage. Richard and Corrine Hartlage own the home.”
“Kids?”
“Judging by the pictures inside, they have one young girl and a teenage girl.”
The small skull flashed in Mercy’s brain.
“We’re searching for relatives. I sent a deputy to the closest homes, which are a good mile or two away, to get some information about this family.”
“Vehicle registrations?”
“There’s a missing Chevy Suburban. Fifteen years old. I put out a BOLO on it.” Bolton pointed at the three old trucks. “None of these are registered.”
“Not surprised.” The silence of the property was overwhelming. “Are there animals?”
“The doors to the pens and the buildings were open when we got there,” said Bolton. “I can tell there had been chickens in one pen and other animals in the other buildings . . . There are bales of hay and some feed bins.”
“Someone let the animals out. I guess that’s good.” Mercy turned in a circle as she eyed the remote location. “I assume they’re totally off the grid out here? No utilities to pay or fall behind on?”
“Nothing. Self-sufficient.”
“Does it appear the home has been empty a long time?”
“Come take a look.”
Mercy followed Bolton up the steps. “I think more than four people lived here,” Bolton said. “You’ll see what I mean.”
A smell of mildew and old dust pervaded. “Was that window open like it is now?” Mercy gestured at a large one in the living room. Water had stained the wall and wood floor below the window. The boards had started to curl.
“Yes,” said Bolton. “There are a few windows open. The wood floor is saturated over there.”
“Not surprising after the storms we’ve had.”
She took a quick pass through the kitchen, noting the layer of dust on the counter and the few dishes in the sink. “Did you look in the fridge?”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Her stomach was already tight at the sight of the empty home. The weather must have been better when the family was last here. It hadn’t been warm enough to leave windows open since September. A crime scene tech with a camera in hand moved into the living room from the hallway. He nodded at Mercy and started taking photos in the kitchen.
She followed Bolton down the hall and glanced in the small bathroom. A holder with five toothbrushes sat on the counter. The next doorway was to a tiny bedroom. Pink walls. Old white furniture. My Little Pony sheets on one twin bed, plain blue on the other. Clothes and Barbies on the floor.
Rust-colored stains on the pillows.
Mercy took three steps to the My Little Pony bed. The covers were pushed back, and a reddish-brown trail was smeared from the pillow to the floor. Then it stopped. It was the same for the blue bed.
“He put them in something.”
“It’s the same in all the rooms. The blood trails abruptly stop.”
The next bedroom appeared to belong to the mother and father. Men’s and women’s clothing hung in the closet. The queen-size bed had dried blood on both pillows. Both sides of the bed had bloody stains down the sides of the mattress and box springs to the floor, where it had pooled in the carpet. No blood trail to the door, but blood spatter went up the walls and across the ceiling, showing how the killer had raised and swung the weapon.
Mercy stared at the blood patterns.
They were bludgeoned.
“The other bedroom is similar,” said Bolton. He led her to the last room.
This room was slightly smaller, and the bed was the same size as the last one. It also had a bloodstain on the pillow. Mercy checked the small closet. Adult male clothing. “Another man lived here?” she asked, thinking of the second male skull. “Did you find a wallet?”
“We haven’t found IDs anywhere in the home. No wallets with credit cards or anything. I suspect he took them.”
“He may have wanted to use the credit cards. Jeez. He could have been charging up a storm for months and no one would know.”
“No doubt the cards were frozen once no payments showed up.”
“Good point. But he still had a wide window of opportunity.” Mercy made a mental note to check the Hartlages’ credit reports.
“Think this is related to yesterday’s discovery up on March Mountain?” Bolton asked.
“It’s a good possibility. Same number of victims. Obviously they’ve been gone from this home for a long time.”
“The remains you found were skeletal. How long does that take?”
“Depends on the environment they were left in.” Mercy took a deep breath. “So far there doesn’t appear to be any clothing or even shoes with the bodies we found. Either they were stripped before they were buried in the culvert, or possibly the bones were recently put in there.”
Bolton scowled. “They were dumped somewhere else first and then moved to the culvert?”
“I’m speculating out loud. I know they can test the bones to analyze the soil they were buried in, and then they can analyze the soil and debris in the culvert. I’m curious to find out if they’re the same.”
Bolton stared at her for a long moment. “You don’t think they were in that culvert for very long.”
“We have to consider that as an option. Why hadn’t they already washed away? We had rain last fall and this spring.”
“But I heard the water was flowing around the culvert. Maybe it’s been doing that for months.”
“True. This is just a theory bouncing around in my brain.” She studied the blood on the pillow. “You said there were some family pictures?”
“This way.”
On a small table in the living room were six framed photos. A young girl with dark hair clutching a white-and-tan cat smiled in one. Another frame held a school photo of a teenage girl. The others showed the girls with their parents.
“What’s her name?” Mercy picked up the picture of the young girl. She was missing two top teeth, but her wide smile proved she didn’t care.
“I found some coloring book pages in the pink bedroom with the name Alison signed on them. I haven’t figured out the teenager’s name yet.”
The tiny skull suddenly had a potential name. No longer would Mercy think of it as “the child.” Now it was Alison.
Maybe.
“Dammit.” She set down the picture and looked away. It’d been easier to think about the bones when they were nameless.
“I think we found the murder weapon outside.”
“Saving the most important evidence for last?” Mercy asked.
“I like to make an impact.” Bolton’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
They went out the front door and around the side of the home. In the tall grass next to the home lay a large hammer. It’d been washed by the rain and probably frozen by the snow over the last few months. Will there be any fingerprints?
“Awfully cocky to leave it behind,” Mercy murmured.
“I took it as a big fuck you,” said Bolton.
“What kind of hammer is it? I’ve never seen a head like that before.” Two-thirds of the head was a solid cylinder shape before it narrowed to a point at one end.
“I don’t know either. I’ve got an evidence team on the way,” Bolton said. “I’m not touching it until then.”
“I want the photos from this scene as soon as possible.”
“Not a problem.”
“Ask your team to look for dental or medical bills. We need the name of their dentist to get copies of their dental X-rays. If they don’t find any paperwork, check with the local dentists and see if any of them had the Hartlage family as patients.”
Bolton nodded as he tapped a notation into his phone.
“Meeeeoooow.”
A white cat with tan patches wound itself around Mercy’s ankles. “Oh my God.” The cat’s blue gaze met hers as it rubbed the side of its face against Mercy’s shin. It’s the cat from the photo. It was skinny but not deathly thin. “How on earth . . .” Shock and pity shot through her.
“The cat must have been living in one of the outbuildings. Catching mice.”
“You poor thing.” Mercy scooped up the cat and it immediately started to purr, pressing its head against Mercy’s hand.
“Looks like you acquired a cat.” Bolton leaned to one side and studied it. “A female cat.”
Mercy stared at Bolton. “Hell no, I didn’t.”
“Why not? I bet your niece would love it.”
True. “My place is too small.”
“Does it allow pets?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m sure you can work it out.” Bolton finally gave a real grin. “Or we can drop her off at a shelter.”
No! “Maybe.” The cat vibrated contentedly under Mercy’s stroking hand.
“I’d noticed two small pet bowls on the floor in the kitchen. And there was a cat bed in the pink bedroom. I bet she misses her people.” Bolton ran a hand over the cat’s back.
Damn him.
“We’ll see,” Mercy admitted. “Maybe there are some Hartlage relatives who would take her in.”
But deep down she suspected she’d just acquired a cat.