A Merciful Silence Read online

  “That is correct, sir.”

  The man’s confirmation told Truman he was of the same beliefs as the two men who’d leaped out of their vehicle and murdered the cops in Arkansas.

  A sovereign citizen. Someone who believes they are above all laws.

  Truman kept a sharp eye on the man’s hands. “Well, you’ve endangered other innocent people by speeding, and your plate tells me that you haven’t paid the taxes to drive on these beautiful roads of ours.”

  “I know my rights. You’re enforcing corporate policy, sir, and unless you suspect me of a criminal act, you have no right to detain me.”

  A Deschutes County cruiser stopped behind Truman’s vehicle. “How about you simply tell me your name?” Truman asked politely. “That way we can have a civil discussion.”

  “I’m not operating in that capacity.”

  The capacity of being sane?

  “I am the human being that owns the entity. You know a legal person is a nonhuman entity, right?”

  “How about you share your entity’s name?” Truman didn’t bother to try to understand the man’s logic. There was no logic when it came to dealing with sovereign citizens. They firmly believed every word they said, indoctrinated by the internet and other like-minded people. Most were polite to a point but had an arsenal of word magic and pseudo-legal phrases to make anyone’s head spin.

  The man considered Truman’s question and then handed him a plastic card from his wallet. “Are you the Deschutes County sheriff?” the driver asked, twisting his neck to see Truman’s uniform.

  Right now, I wish I were. Sovereign citizens recognized only a sheriff as law enforcement because sheriffs were elected by the public.

  Truman took the card without answering and stared at it. “What is this?” he blurted, confused by the identification the man had handed him.

  “That’s my diplomatic identification card.”

  Truman was pretty certain the young man in the dirty jeans and yellowing white T-shirt wasn’t a diplomat. But according to the card, which showed the name Joshua Forbes, his photo, the word ambassador across the top, and the seal of the State Department, he was exactly that.

  Completely bogus.

  Truman had heard of the cards but had never seen one before. He’d now met his first card-carrying sovereign citizen.

  “I don’t suppose you have an Oregon driver’s license?” Truman asked.

  “Don’t need one. This card shows the state has recognized my claim as a sovereign citizen. I am not a citizen of the United States. I have diplomatic immunity, and I am the representative of Joshua Forbes. This card replaces all other forms of identification.”

  Why not just state your name is Joshua Forbes?

  The man stuck his head out the window and got a look at Truman’s Eagle’s Nest uniform. “Sorry, Mr. Daly, but you have no claim over me. I only stopped to be mannerly.”

  Joshua’s tone was still polite, but Truman suspected that wouldn’t last long.

  “How much did you pay for this card, Joshua?”

  Joshua frowned. “What does that matter?”

  “Because this is a money-sucking scam. This card has no authority whatsoever. Who sold it to you?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand it,” Joshua said, his blue eyes narrowing. “It’s above your law.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s no one’s law. Someone took advantage of you. What’d it cost? Three thousand dollars?”

  The young man was silent.

  “All you did was pad someone’s pockets. He’s selling hopes and dreams, not legal IDs. This card doesn’t declare that you’re exempt from US taxes and laws. It declares that someone is running a scam.”

  “I had to get an apostille—”

  “An apostille simply confirms the notarization was legitimate. Not the document. I don’t suppose he sold you lifetime car insurance too?”

  “It’s good for—”

  “It’s good for shit.” Truman felt a microscopic twinge of sympathy for the young man. Money was dear out here. This man had probably spent years of savings on the printed garbage. “Here’s a life lesson for you: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You know your license plate is illegal too, right?” Truman was relieved to see a second county patrol unit stop behind the first. He and Joshua were currently outside Eagle’s Nest city limits, but when he’d first spotted the speeder, they’d been in Truman’s territory. He’d be more than happy to let county take over Joshua Forbes.

  “I have an unimpeded, God-given right t-to t-travel as I wish,” Joshua stuttered. “You’re violating my rights.”

  Two county deputies approached as rain started to sprinkle. “I like that license plate, Truman,” said the tallest one. His casual tone belied the sharp, understanding look in his eyes. The deputy had taken in the entire situation with one glance. Both men had their hands near their weapons, their alert stances stating they knew how violent SCs could turn when facing law enforcement.

  “I don’t think Josh here knew he was breaking the law.” Truman handed the diplomatic card to the tall deputy, whose eyes lit up and face filled with a grin as he showed it to the second deputy. The second one looked fresh out of high school to Truman.

  “Our supervisor would love to see this card,” the tall deputy said. “He’s fascinated with these guys.”

  “I know my rights.” Joshua’s voice rose an octave. “You’re violating my rights.”

  “Why don’t you step out of the car?” suggested the tall deputy.

  “I do not consent!” Joshua tightened his grip on the steering wheel, anxiety filling his face.

  “All we’re going to do is have a discussion about where you got your plate and your . . . diplomatic card,” Truman said in a calm voice as his heart rate accelerated. Joshua was pushing his luck. “It’s illegal to create and sell those.”

  “I do not consent!”

  “You can get out of the car on your own free will or I’m going to assist you,” said the tall deputy.

  “You do not have authority over me!”

  The younger deputy whipped open the car door, and the other repeated the command to get out of the car. Joshua lunged for his car door’s handle, attempting to yank it closed. “I do not consent! You are violating my rights! I will sue you for violating the rights of a free man!”

  The tall deputy impressed Truman with a quick maneuver with the driver’s arm that had Joshua out of his seat and his chest on the damp gravel in the blink of an eye. Together the three of them cuffed the struggling man as he continued to shriek about consent and violated rights.

  Truman stepped back and brushed the dirt off his knees, shaking his head. The stop hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped, but at least no one had been hurt. Why didn’t he just step out of the car?

  “These people make no sense to me,” admitted Truman, meeting the gazes of the two deputies. “You got him?”

  “Yep. We can take it from here. Unless you want to handle it,” the older one said with a wink.

  Hell no.

  The sky opened up and the rain turned into a downpour. Truman squatted next to Joshua, who was facedown in the gravel, and he spoke in a quiet voice, the rain dripping off the brim of his hat. “You seem like a decent guy. I’m going to assume you got sucked into something that sounded pretty terrific. Take a little time and educate yourself, okay? A real education. Not extremists on the internet.”

  “Fuck off!” Joshua sent a furious look that seared into Truman’s brain. “You are going to regret violating my rights.”

  Ouch.

  Truman sighed and stood. He shook hands with the deputies and went on his way, thankful Deschutes County was willing to book the sovereign citizen.

  Time to see if there’s any pulled pork left.

  FIVE

  It was nearly 8:00 p.m. by the time Mercy reached the small building where the local medical examiner kept an office. Typically bodies went to the medical examiner’s primary building east of Po
rtland for autopsy, but Dr. Natasha Lockhart had a small facility in Bend for herself and an assistant. Two vehicles were in the lot, and Mercy hoped one belonged to Dr. Peres. The other she assumed was the odontologist’s or Dr. Lockhart’s.

  Inside, Mercy followed the sounds of conversation and found Dr. Peres in a large room with three stainless steel tables. Bins from the recovery were stacked along one wall, and Dr. Peres had set out four dirty skulls on one table. She and a petite blonde woman were deep in discussion, studying a fifth skull in the small woman’s hands, and didn’t hear Mercy enter.

  “Dr. Peres?” Mercy asked quietly, not wanting to startle them and have a skull drop.

  Both women turned. Victoria Peres had a scowl on her face, while the blonde woman gave Mercy a wide smile. Mercy couldn’t help but smile back. She was tiny, with wavy hair and warm brown eyes. Mercy immediately felt like a giant. No doubt the tall Dr. Peres felt the same way around the woman.

  “You must be Agent Kilpatrick.” The blonde woman held out her hand, balancing the skull in the other. “I’m Lacey Ca—Harper.”

  Mercy took her hand. “Caharper?”

  “Harper,” Lacey said firmly. “I married recently. Victoria was one of my attendants,” she added with a quick glance at the forensic anthropologist.

  Dr. Peres gave the first smile Mercy had seen from the woman. “Dr. Harper is the forensic odontologist I told you about.”

  “I’m still not used to hearing ‘Dr. Harper,’” admitted Lacey. “My husband, Jack, loves the sound of it, but I’ve been called Dr. Campbell for too many years. My father was Dr. Campbell too.”

  “As in the former state medical examiner?” Mercy asked. She’d met the man a few times in Portland before he retired.

  “That’s him.”

  “You didn’t want to follow his path?”

  “Teeth are sufficient for me, thank you,” she said with a small eye roll.

  Mercy gestured at the skull in Lacey’s hand. “What do the teeth on that tell you?”

  Lacey’s eyes lit up. “All sorts of things. But I’ll let Victoria start. She’s been looking them over.” Lacey set the skull in the line with the others. Three of the skulls had mandibles set next to them. Victoria hadn’t exaggerated about the damage. Broken and missing teeth made the group look as if they’d been stolen from a Halloween store. Again Mercy’s attention was caught by the smallest skull. Many of its tiny teeth were brutally shattered. Each skull also had a spiderweb of fracture lines near a temple. Some had a hole or two in the same area.

  Are those impacts the cause of death?

  “I haven’t had time for a proper examination of each skull,” Victoria said, distinctly reluctant to share any findings. “I still need to clean them up better.”

  “But you have first impressions,” Mercy coaxed. “I’ll take them all with a grain of salt, understanding they aren’t concrete and could change.”

  “This isn’t how I work.” Victoria frowned.

  “Completely understandable. It’s a risk I need to take because we must move as fast as we can.”

  Victoria took a deep breath and exchanged a look with Lacey, who lifted one shoulder. “We are positive about some things,” Lacey pointed out.

  “True.” Victoria gestured at the five skulls. “You ever play that game of ‘one of these things is not like the other’?” Her voice took on a lecturing tone.

  “Like from Sesame Street?” Mercy was amused. Clearly one of the skulls was much smaller.

  “Yes. And I’m not referring to the size of the child’s skull. I’m talking about ancestry.”

  “Oh.” Mercy looked again. To her all the skulls were similar. Dirty ivory in color, with eye sockets, an opening where the nose had been, and seams across the smooth parts. She couldn’t see them as people. Except for the tiny one. Every time she looked at it, for no reason she pictured a young girl with blonde curls. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  “Exactly. But before I get into ancestry, first of all, there is one adult female, one teenage female, and two adult male skulls in addition to the child’s skull.” She ran a finger above the eye sockets of the first large skull. “See how the bone juts out over the orbits of the eyes? And how the forehead slopes back? This one is male. Now compare it to the one next to it. The brow ridges are smoother; the forehead more vertical. Not to mention the skull is smaller and the bones more delicate. It’s also much lighter than the other one.”

  Mercy looked at the next two skulls in line. “The third is a male and the fourth is female,” she said slowly.

  “Correct.” The forensic anthropologist was pleased with her new student.

  “And the child?”

  Dr. Peres gently lifted the small skull and looked directly into the deep spaces where its eyes should have been, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Lacey and I have agreed the child is between five and eight. I feel the structure has more feminine characteristics, but like I said at the scene, it’s difficult to tell at this age.”

  “She was hit in the mouth and the side of the head,” said Mercy as she blinked rapidly, staring at the damage to the temple. The killer had abused the child the same way as the adults.

  “The blow to the side of the head was perimortem—right before she died or else immediately after. I can tell by the edge of the broken bone.”

  “Bastards,” breathed Mercy.

  “Quite,” agreed Lacey.

  The three women were silent for a long moment as Victoria gently set the small skull back down.

  “What did you want to tell me about ancestry?” Mercy asked, needing to fill the lull.

  “Three of the adults are Caucasian. One is Asian.”

  “Interesting. Let me try to figure it out.” Mercy studied each skull and finally had to admit defeat. “Again . . . I have no idea what I’m looking for. They all look alike to me.”

  “Start with the shape of the eye orbits,” suggested Lacey.

  Mercy pointed at the first. “This one’s orbits are very round. The other four are sort of angled.” Now it was very obvious to her.

  Lacey picked up the first male skull and turned it upside down to show Mercy the top teeth. “The maxillary incisors are a good indicator too . . . even though three have been broken off, the fourth shows a shovel shape with defined ridges when viewed from the lingual.”

  “Tongue?” Mercy asked in confusion.

  “Viewed from the tongue side of the teeth,” Lacey clarified. She showed Mercy the smooth shape of the back of a front tooth on another skull for comparison.

  “When they’re side by side, I can see the differences. If I had a single skull, I’d be lost,” admitted Mercy.

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” said Victoria, and Lacey gave a snort of laughter. “Well, sort of big bucks.”

  “The Asian skull is darker,” Mercy observed. “Does that mean anything?”

  Both Victoria and Lacey frowned. “We were just talking about that,” said Victoria. “It could be from a few things. Possibly it was buried longer than the others, or the dirt right around it was a different composition, staining it darker.”

  “Buried longer?” Mercy’s ears pricked up. “We’re considering that this might be a family. But if one has been buried longer and is Asian, maybe he doesn’t belong.” She couldn’t help but smile a little as she referenced Victoria’s earlier words about the Sesame Street game.

  “Maybe he married into the family,” suggested Lacey. “Your theory is still viable.”

  “It is,” agreed Mercy. “None of the others have the slightest Asian characteristics?”

  “Not really,” said Victoria. “I have to take dozens of measurements to see where the skulls fall in the ancestry guidelines, but the two prominent features—the orbits and the incisors—aren’t apparent in the others.”

  “Do you mind if I take some photos?” Mercy asked.

  “Go right ahead,” answered Victoria.

  As Mercy snapped picture
s with her work phone, Lacey asked, “I heard this might be similar to some past murder cases?”

  Mercy didn’t take her gaze away from her work. “Yes. A little over twenty years ago. The main similarities are the blows to the teeth and the possibility that this is a family. But they caught the killer back then. He’s in prison.”

  “Uh-huh. Sometimes that doesn’t matter,” stated Lacey.

  Mercy looked up from her shooting. “What does that mean?”

  The woman shrugged and lightly traced the faint line across her neck, not meeting Mercy’s gaze. “Sometimes someone else takes up the cloak and continues the deadly work.”

  An odd prickling started on Mercy’s scalp. What happened to her?

  “Lacey.” Victoria touched the woman’s arm, concern in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  Lacey looked up and forced a smile. “Yes. It’s been years now.” She finally met Mercy’s gaze. “I’ll tell you about it over a beer sometime.”

  Mercy nodded. After I Google you.

  SIX

  It was nearly ten o’clock when Mercy returned to her office. After seeing the skulls, she wanted more information about the old family murders. Her brain was spinning in a dozen directions with a million questions. She couldn’t fall asleep if she tried. Truman had called as she left the medical examiner’s office, and she’d told him she was headed back to the office. He wasn’t surprised and offered to meet up and bring food.

  She’d suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and every starving nerve in her stomach roared with hunger. Pleased with his thoughtfulness, she told him to bring whatever sounded good to him. Quickly.

  Thirty minutes later she was eating pork massaman curry straight out of the container, occasionally trading off with Truman and his carton of pad thai as they looked over the old murders together. Boxes and boxes of records had arrived from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. She’d briefly scanned some summary reports before her meeting with Jeff, Eddie, and Darby earlier, but now that she had the physical evidence and written records, she wanted to take her time.

  “Shouldn’t you be focused on finding the identities of the current victims instead of wading through solved cases?” Truman asked.