A Merciful Silence Read online

“Two of them. And an older sister.”

  “That’s probably it. I went to live with my aunt immediately after . . .” She looked away, and her jaw muscles flexed.

  “I remember,” Mercy said gently. “The whole school was rattled. Students and teachers.”

  Britta stared into her teacup. “Are you sure he’s locked up?”

  She had asked the question four times now.

  “I’m positive. I called last night and requested a visual check.”

  The woman nodded absently and rubbed Zara’s head more vigorously.

  “He always swore he didn’t do it,” Britta stated, staring off into the distance.

  “Evidence placed him at the scene. His fingerprints were on a hammer and in the home,” Mercy countered.

  “I know. No one knows the evidence better than I do,” Britta snapped as her pale gaze returned to Mercy and flashed in anger, but she immediately calmed. “Please excuse me. I’m a little rattled.”

  “You have every reason to be,” Mercy asserted. “But I’m curious why you mentioned his claim to be innocent while you know the evidence.”

  The woman’s gaze fixed on Mercy. “How long ago were they killed?”

  Britta hadn’t answered her question.

  “We don’t know yet. But the remains were fully skeletal.”

  “Where were they found?”

  Mercy shared an abbreviated description of the scene as Britta shed her sweater. Underneath she wore a short-sleeved T-shirt, and her toned arms were covered in an assortment of tattoos. There was little room left for more. She emitted the aura of a woman who could take care of herself, and Mercy figured the fear and uncertainty she’d just witnessed were rare for Britta.

  She looked like a survivor who was determined to never again be a victim.

  Britta was not her mother’s daughter. At least not the mother Mercy had seen in the pictures.

  “I read that you moved here last summer,” Mercy said. “What prompted you to come back?”

  “I’ve lived in a lot of places,” said Britta. “I’m lucky that I can work anywhere there is internet. My job doesn’t limit me.” She scowled and took a long drink from her cup. “I’m not sure why I came back. For a long time I’ve felt as if I’m searching for something, but I can’t name what it is. All my other homes have felt stale after a time. I find that moving to a completely new place invigorates me in a way I can’t describe. I love the space available to me here, and I feel like I can stretch out my arms.” Her face fell. “I’m sure I’ll feel suffocated at some point and move on again, but the last nine months here have been fine.”

  “You rented the home?”

  “Yes.”

  The house had very little furniture. Even the table only had two chairs, but Britta had hung large framed black-and-white photos on the wall. Stark trees and muddy, deep ditches, icy rivers and broken fences, a lone gravestone with a somber flag. They were powerful images, colorless and stripped down to their essence. Sort of like the woman in front of her. Three long foreign-looking swords were mounted next to the photos. Deadly and silent. Mercy had no doubt they were real. Britta’s kitchen counters were completely empty, but there was a cozy chair with a lamp and small bookshelf in the sitting room that looked like a good place to curl up on a rainy day. No TV.

  Britta noticed her scan of the first floor. “I travel light. I don’t like clutter.”

  Mercy’s gaze went to the crowded tattooing of her arms. Britta stored her possessions on her skin.

  “Yesterday I read the reports from your family’s death,” Mercy said. “But I’d like to hear your words.”

  “I was interviewed dozens of times. Surely you read those.” Britta’s spine was rigid, her chin up, her lips pressed in a line.

  “I did.” Mercy had been up half the night reading. “But you were ten years old. Looking back as an adult, what goes through your head?”

  Britta looked away. “I’m not doing this today. I’m sorry, Agent Kilpatrick, but you can’t show up on my doorstep and expect me to unload. I spent a decade in therapy learning how to survive with my memories. They’re all neatly packed up in manageable boxes. You’re asking me to rip them open and scatter my emotions across the floor. I can’t do that.”

  She slid her chair back and stood, her face carefully composed in a blank shield.

  I pushed too hard.

  Mercy fingered the handle on her mug of tea. “That was rather presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I apologize.” Mercy stood and set her card on the table. She held Britta’s gaze. “I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through—”

  “No, you can’t.” Britta leaned closer, holding Mercy’s gaze. The lamplight gave her eyes an eerie glow. “There are few people in this world that know what it’s like to wake up and find out your family has been murdered and that you are now alone. It never leaves you. The survivor’s guilt eats away at your brain until you’re convinced you’ve pissed off death and it will return one day for painful revenge. Every noise in the night. Every person who knocks on my door. I wonder if my borrowed time is up.”

  Mercy held her breath, unable to break eye contact. Anger and pain fueled Britta’s words.

  “I can state out loud that I won’t be punished for surviving. Therapy taught me to say and believe those words, but my heart doesn’t trust that belief. My heart trusts nothing. And do you know what? It’s my heart that gets me out of bed every day. It drives me forward. I’m too damn stubborn to let fear overtake every aspect of my life. When the fear does strike at night or when a federal agent shows up on my doorstep, I power through. It may take a few minutes, but every time I come out on the other side.”

  Mercy couldn’t speak.

  “You’ll leave here today and go back to your office to see your FBI buddies and go on with your normal life. Maybe you’ll hit a Starbucks drive-through. Get coffee orders for everyone. Be the office hero for the afternoon. You know what I’ll do? I’ll take Zara on a run. We’ll run and run until I can’t breathe or think about the demons you stirred up with your visit today. I don’t care if it’s raining. All I want is to be damned exhausted when I crawl in bed.” She straightened, briefly looking uncertain, as if she’d just realized how close she’d leaned to Mercy. “That will be my evening.”

  Mercy waited a long moment. “Are you done?”

  Britta nodded.

  “My evening will be spent digging through the dozens of case boxes from the Deverell family and yours—just like I did last night until two a.m.—searching for a needle in a haystack that might point me in a direction to solve the current murders. That’s after I stop at the morgue to see skeletal remains again. No Starbucks. No office hero. I’m just doing my job.” She kept her tone light and matter-of-fact. Britta didn’t look away.

  “You’re not the only victim here, Britta. I respect everything you’ve gone through. But you’re upright and walking. My priority is the people who can no longer do that. I’d appreciate any help you can give us. Someone else has committed murder, and I doubt they are finished. A small fact might be tucked away in your memory to help us figure out who it is.”

  “I’m not opening my brain up for your perusal.” Britta’s hand crept up and touched the side of her head where Mercy knew the killer had hit her with a hammer.

  “Think about it.”

  “I just did.”

  Her resolute expression stated she was done with the topic.

  But there was a streak of honor in Britta that hovered underneath the tough exterior. One that Mercy hoped would step forward to prevent another human from experiencing her horror. Mercy prayed she hadn’t overstepped her bounds and scared Britta further away.

  One step at a time.

  EIGHT

  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 en
velope 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.

  “Relatives? Neighbors?”

  “We’re searching for relatives. I sent a deputy to the closest homes, whi
ch 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?”

  “It’s pretty nasty.”

  “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.