A Merciful Silence Read online

  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.

  THREE

  “Grady Baldwin was arrested more than two decades ago for the murders of the Verbeek and Deverell families,” Mercy informed the other agents in the meeting room at the Bend FBI office. “I checked, and he’s still in the Oregon State Pen in Salem.”

  “What was his motivation?” asked Special Agent Eddie Peterson. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his fascinated gaze locked on Mercy’s face, clearly wishing he’d caught her case.

  “Baldwin claims he had no motivation because he didn’t do it,” Mercy said. “The state argued that he was attracted to Maria Verbeek, hit on her, and she’d turned him down. He was a handyman of sorts and had worked on both the Verbeek and Deverell homes during the six months before they were murdered. I’m trying to set up an interview with him.”

  “All those children,” data analyst Darby Cowan said quietly as she made notes on her laptop.

  “Exactly,” said Mercy. Between the two families, four children had been murdered with their parents. Mercy pulled up the photos of the families on the big wall screen. The Deverell family photo showed everyone in red pajamas in front of a Christmas tree. Happiness and mischief radiated from the family. The father held mistletoe over his wife’s head and kissed her cheek as she laughed at the camera. Ten-year-old Michelle and twelve-year-old Glenn had their arms around a black Lab wearing a Santa hat, and Mercy idly wondered if someone had adopted the dog.

  It’d been over twenty years. Odds were the dog was also dead.

  The Verbeek family picture was more sedate, shot outdoors in front of a river. Dennis and Maria Verbeek stood formally behind their three blonde daughters. Only the children smiled, and Mercy couldn’t look away from one of the daughters, Britta, a fifth grader who had been a year ahead of Mercy in grade school. Mercy remembered the shock and astonishment from the other students and teachers when the family was killed. The other girls, twins Astrid and Helena, had been in first grade at the same school.

  “Which girl survived the attack?” asked Eddie.

  “Britta. The oldest,” answered Mercy. “She was hit in the temple with the weapon but survived the blow. He knocked out several of her front teeth, but she must have been unconscious during the blow and didn’t react. He probably assumed she was dead.”

  “Blessed Jesus Christ,” Darby murmured. “The world we’re in . . .”

  “Where does she live?” asked Jeff.

  Mercy took a breath. “I looked her up. She moved to the outskirts of Eagle’s Nest last summer. Before that she lived in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.”

  Everyone at the table exchanged glances. “She lives here now,” repeated Darby. “After how many years of living away?”

  “As best as I can tell, this is the first time she’s been back. An aunt in Nevada took her in after the murders years ago.”

  The room was silent. Mercy’s stomach had done a small spin when she learned Britta Verbeek had returned after decades of living elsewhere. She suspected the other agents were feeling the same thing.

  “Weird,” Eddie finally commented.

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said Darby.

  “I’m trying to reach her,” said Mercy.

  “And we still don’t have a lead on the identities of our current case?” asked Darby. “Those remains were all bone, so they’ve been dead for a while. Who doesn’t report an entire missing family?”

  “Don’t assume it’s another family,” Jeff pointed out. “It could be a mix of individuals.”

  Mercy nodded. Individuals had been her initial thought, and she’d considered that the site might have been a serial killer’s dumping ground. It wasn’t until she remembered the past family murders that she’d wondered if this was another family. “I pulled a list that includes missing children between five and twelve in our county. Dr. Peres—the forensic anthropologist—gave me a narrower age frame, but I widened it a bit, and I went back thirty years. I wanted to include the time frame of the other murders.”

  Eddie sighed. “How many names on the list?”

  “Five for Deschutes County.”

  “Only five children unaccounted for in thirty years?” Jeff asked. “That’s not horrible.”

  “Unless you’re one of their parents,” added Darby.

  “Touché,” admitted Jeff. “You’ve been in contact with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?”

  “Yes,” Mercy stated. “I’m waiting on a callback.”

  “Do you know how difficult it will be to follow a trail thirty years old?” Eddie’s eyes were hopeful, but he slowly shook his head in sympathy.

  “I do.” It was a challenge. One she wanted to tackle.

  “I’ll help you look into Grady Baldwin’s family and friends,” said Darby. “And get an in-depth history on Britta Verbeek.”

  “Thank you,” said Mercy. “I know he has a brother still in the area. Don Baldwin.”

  “When will the road be open?” asked Jeff.

  “They can’t get started on repairs until the medical examiner releases the scene,” Mercy stated. “And that won’t happen until we’re positive we have every shred of evidence collected.” The rugged slope of the hill flashed in her mind. “It will be a difficult scene to process. How far down do we look for evidence? The water could have washed it miles away.”

  “We’ll have to work with what we have,” said Jeff. “I think the skulls found so far will be very helpful. When will the forensic anthropologist have an initial report?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Mercy. “But I’m going to stop by there tonight to meet the odontologist, and I’ll try to get more information
from Dr. Peres.”

  Jeff glanced at the time and tucked his pen in his pocket, signaling the meeting was over. Eddie and Darby immediately headed out the door, Darby typing one-handed while she walked, balancing her laptop on the other hand.

  “Any work getting done on your cabin?” Jeff asked Mercy conversationally as he shoved in his chair.

  Mercy swallowed hard. Her boss hadn’t known she owned a cabin in the Cascade foothills until it recently burned to the ground, destroyed by her friend’s brother during his hunt for a woman he believed had ruined his life. The woman had survived; Mercy’s cabin had not. A decade of Mercy’s prepping and hard work had gone up in flames as her cabin burned. It’d been the source of her sanity, a place she could run to if the world started to crumble.

  A safe house. Prepared with years of food and fuel and a solid defense.

  Mercy had grown up looking over her shoulder for the end of the world. Her parents had ingrained in her to take nothing for granted and taught her the skills to feed and protect herself in a crisis.

  Jeff thought she had a mountain getaway. A place to escape for a weekend of skiing. He didn’t realize she had created a fortress with enough stores to last at least five years. She didn’t correct Jeff’s thinking; she didn’t correct anyone’s assumptions.

  Her secret was hers. If the United States’ food sources or power grid collapsed, she couldn’t save everyone. For the sake of her own survival, only Truman and her family knew her secret.

  “All the burned rubbish has been hauled away,” she told him. “The area has been cleared and prepped to start building again. But they can’t get started for another month or two.”

  Against her instincts, she’d hired a builder. She’d wanted to tackle the project herself, keeping her secret hidden from the world, but Truman had put his foot down, logically pointing out that it could take her a year to simply build the frame. She relented and hired a builder to do the basic structure; she would do the customizations herself.

  Along with Truman.

  Luckily her barn of supplies hadn’t been touched, but she still felt naked and exposed without her cabin. She’d rapidly outfitted the barn with a sleeping area, but it was rough. No running water or heat. But it settled her anxiety.

  A bit.

  She wouldn’t relax again until she had her hideaway.

  Who am I fooling? I never relaxed to begin with.

  There was always something to improve or prepare. Together she and Truman had gone over the cabin plans. It would be bigger than her previous A-frame . . . but not too much. A bigger house took more fuel to heat. The home would have a true second story, not just a loft. Truman had suggested a safe room, believing it would appeal to Mercy’s protective nature. She’d violently disagreed, imagining being trapped in a box as her home burned around her, unable to fight and defend herself. They’d compromised on a hidden closet big enough to hide in if immediately needed. The same type that had protected her niece in the barn when the killer had come hunting.

  “The builder promises to have it done by the end of summer,” she added. “Then I’ll finish the interior myself.”

  “Perfect. Just in time for skiing. Will your leg be ready to hit the slopes?” Jeff asked with concern.

  The same man who had burned her cabin had shot her in the right thigh. The residual pain from the injury still woke her up at night, along with nightmares of how defenseless she’d been as he’d aimed his gun at her head. In her dreams she died, but in reality he’d been shot a split second before by his brother.

  Mercy had no intention of skiing. “I don’t know. It hasn’t healed as quickly as the doctor expected.”

  “It hasn’t even been two months. You had a huge hole in your leg. Give it time.”

  “I’m trying to be patient.” Mercy smiled, feeling like a liar. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t walk very far, and she could barely do the stairs to her home. The first week she’d overworked her leg and received a stern lecture from her doctor and Truman along with more nights of agonizing pain. It’d been a tough lesson to learn, so now she tried to listen to her body instead of pretending a bullet couldn’t slow her down.

  “You’ll have to throw a housewarming when your cabin is done.”

  “We’ll see. It will be pretty bare bones. Just the basics, you know,” she hedged. The idea of people congregating in her hideaway created an itch deep inside her skull.

  Rule one of a secret hideaway: keep the location a secret.

  “But I’ll figure out something,” she added noncommittally.

  “Great. Let me know what you find out from the odontologist about the skulls.”

  “Will do.” She exhaled a sigh of relief as her boss left the room.

  I hate lying to people I trust.

  FOUR

  The El Camino flew by Police Chief Truman Daly, leaving the rumble of a powerful engine in its wake.

  Truman immediately had two thoughts.

  I haven’t seen an El Camino in decades.

  What kind of license plate was that?

  He dropped his scone into his Tahoe’s cup holder and hit his lights and siren as he pulled onto the two-lane highway. The speeder had to be driving at least twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. Truman hadn’t recorded his speed, but his gut told him the license plate would be all he needed to pull over the El Camino.

  He pressed the accelerator and picked up his radio to let Lucas know what was going on.

  “Try to wrap it up quickly,” his office manager told him. “My mom dropped off pulled pork here at the station. It’s not going to last.”

  “Did she use the Dr Pepper sauce?”

  “Yep. Royce and Samuel are already digging in.”

  “Save me some,” Truman ordered. “Because I have a hunch this might take a while.”

  “You need county?” Lucas’s voice sharpened. The twenty-year-old man would make a good cop, but he was happiest maintaining the organization of the tiny Eagle’s Nest Police Department and telling everyone what to do.

  “That’s a good idea. Or state. Whichever is closest. The license plate looked homemade.”

  “Gotcha,” Lucas replied in a knowing tone. “I’ll make the calls.”

  Truman pushed the Tahoe up to eighty-five and gained on the white El Camino. The driver was enjoying the gentle curves of the highway, cutting from one lane to another to straighten his course. This particular highway wove between flat ranch lands dotted with sagebrush and lava rocks. No other traffic was present. Normal for this stretch of remote road.

  Everything around the tiny city of Eagle’s Nest was remote. The Central Oregon town was thirty minutes from Bend and several hours from Portland, the biggest city in the state. Distance wasn’t the only thing that separated Eagle’s Nest from population-dense Portland. They were separated by the Cascade Range, whose peaks averaged around ten thousand feet. The big city sat at the north end of the fertile Willamette Valley, while Truman’s small town perched on the high desert. Politics in the valley were generally blue; in Eagle’s Nest they were firmly red. And Portland’s median household income was double that of Eagle’s Nest. They were two different worlds.

  Truman wouldn’t trade his city for anything. It was God’s country. Sun, rivers, mountains, lakes. Forests to the west and fields to the east. And he laughed at the rush-hour traffic that made the locals moan. He’d lived in San Jose—he didn’t mind Eagle’s Nest’s two-minute wait at 5:00 p.m. to turn onto the highway.

  The El Camino started to slow. Truman held his breath as he drew closer, squinting at the license plate.

  No state DMV authorized that plate.

  It was white with blue lettering and had a flag on one side. The vehicle pulled over, and Truman stopped behind it. There was no point entering the small numbers along the bottom of the plate into his computer. The license plate read US CONSTITUTIONAL LICENSE PLATE in big letters above the numbers.

  He sighed. Over the radio Lucas announced that a Deschutes Co
unty deputy was minutes away.

  Might as well get this over with.

  Truman put on his cowboy hat, stepped out of his truck, and sniffed the air, noting a damp odor; the rain was coming back. He slowly approached the El Camino. It wasn’t in bad shape for a vehicle that had to be at least thirty years old. The paint was shinier than Truman’s dusty SUV’s, and he saw only one dent on the driver’s side. There appeared to be a single person inside, and the bed of the vehicle was loaded with plastic tubs and fresh-cut lumber. The driver made eye contact in the rearview mirror, and Truman saw he was young, maybe in his twenties or thirties.

  Truman stopped a few feet behind the driver’s door, getting a good view of the front seat through the rear window. No apparent weapons. Yet.

  A traffic stop in Arkansas nearly a decade earlier flashed in Truman’s brain. It hadn’t been his stop, but not a single cop in the United States would ever forget it.

  It’d been in the news for months.

  The homemade license plate had brought the memory front and center.

  Maybe I should wait for county.

  His hand hovered over the butt of his gun.

  “Did I do something criminal, sir?” The voice from the car was calm and polite.

  Truman tensed at the man’s emphasis on the word criminal. “License and registration, please.” He took a step closer. Now he could see the man’s lap and both hands. No weapon.

  “Did I do something criminal, sir?” he repeated. “You cannot stop me unless you suspect me of a criminal act.”

  Moving closer, Truman decided the driver was in his midtwenties. “What’s your name?” he asked the driver.

  “I don’t have to identify myself,” he stated, piercing blue eyes meeting Truman’s. “That’s my right. I know my rights.”

  “You have an illegal license plate on your car, and you were exceeding the speed limit.”

  “I don’t care what your highway traffic act says. I have no contracts under that act. I’ve canceled them all so you can’t enforce them on me.”

  I don’t have the energy for this today. “Let me guess. You’re a free man and have a God-given right to travel freely.”