A Merciful Secret Page 8

  “She’s a good kid,” Hannah continued. “Polite and kind. She wept over her grandmother, but has a strong faith that she’s moved on to a better place. She said her grandmother had a lot of pain.”

  “Has she mentioned her mother?”

  “She says she’ll be back soon. It doesn’t disturb her at all that she hasn’t called. She does wish her mother could have said good-bye to her grandmother . . . and sent her off with ‘words of guidance.’” Hannah paused. “That’s exactly how she said it. It was such an odd phrase for a child her age.”

  “Hello, Morrigan,” Mercy said.

  Both girls spun around, and Morrigan’s eyes lit up as she spotted Mercy. “Hi, Mercy. Did you see what I did to her hair?” The girl pointed at the screen, delight on her face. She wore flannel pajamas patterned with cat faces, similar to the pajamas Jenny wore. Both sported matching braids, and Mercy wondered if they’d done each other’s hair.

  Mercy had done that with Rose.

  “Does she have to leave now?” Jenny asked, her eyes pleading for Mercy not to take away her playmate. Morrigan’s expression mirrored her new friend’s.

  “No. I’m just here to visit and see how you’re doing.” Clearly she’s in a good spot. A weight lifted from her shoulders; she hadn’t realized she carried stress about Morrigan’s safety.

  “Have you heard from my mom?” Morrigan asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay.” Morrigan turned to Jenny. “Let’s find her a ball gown.”

  Mercy exchanged a look with Hannah. No anxiety in that child.

  The two of them headed back toward the front door. “She’s amazingly well adjusted,” said Hannah. “I’ve had a number of temporary fosters and usually they’re emotional and scared. It’s almost eerie that she’s doing so well.”

  “Do you think she’s avoiding the feelings?”

  Hannah thought. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “She was very open with her sorrow about her grandmother, and she exudes confidence about her mother’s return. I think she’s simply a resilient, well-grounded kid.”

  “Knows how to roll with the punches.” Mercy approved. Morrigan had held it together quite well during their emotional hours together. Mercy’s admiration for the child grew.

  Along with her determination to find the mother.

  She thanked the kind woman, who emphasized that Mercy was welcome to return at any time, but Hannah’s gaze faltered as the sentence left her mouth.

  Unspoken words hung between them; if Mercy had to return, it meant there was a major issue with Morrigan’s mother.

  TEN

  Mercy drove to the medical examiner’s office, pleased that Morrigan was in a good place.

  Eddie had texted her as she left Hannah’s home, asking her to meet him and Ava at the examiner’s office. The ME wanted to discuss her findings and had specifically asked if Mercy could be present since she’d been at the death.

  Her cell phone rang through the speakers in her Tahoe as she drove. Mercy glanced at the screen on her dashboard. Truman.

  Happy butterflies fluttered in her stomach. At what point in a relationship does that feeling go away?

  Truman filled up the lonely and vulnerable parts of her brain. The subtle scent of his aftershave, the shadow on his jaw every evening, the heaviness of his hand at her waist. It wasn’t all physical. Truman understood her; he got her. He’d seen her deepest fears and accepted them. She didn’t scare him.

  She accepted the call. “Hey,” she said. “How’s your morning?”

  “Interesting. Yours?”

  She gave him a positive update on Morrigan.

  “Did you meet the reporter from The Oregonian yesterday?” he asked in a restrained voice.

  Mercy looked at her dashboard as if she could read Truman’s face. “I did. Ava later vouched for him. Why?”

  “He paid me a visit and suggested that the investigators look into a mystery visitor at Judge Lake’s office. He claims someone was there one of the days before he died and it was kept off the visitor log. He said the judge’s assistant knows more than she’s told investigators.”

  “Why did he tell you? That makes no sense. And how on earth would he know that?”

  “Trust me, I asked the exact same questions and got convoluted answers. Let’s just say it makes sense in Brody’s head. Can you pass the tip on to Eddie?”

  “I’m on my way to meet with him and Ava now.”

  “Good. Gotta go. I love you,” he said in a low, warm voice infused with innuendo.

  Her face flushed with heat and her smile broadened. “I love you too.”

  It was easier to say those three little words to Truman now than it had been two months earlier. Mercy had struggled with the simple oral contract of commitment. In her head she’d believed it meant she was reliant on him. A tough situation, as she’d promised to never allow herself to rely on anyone. This independent philosophy was the core of everything she’d learned as a child of preppers. To her surprise she’d discovered that loving Truman made her more confident, fearless. After she ended his call, a piece of her longed for him with an urgency that still unnerved her. That need for another person.

  The instant love she’d felt for Kaylie had emboldened her to take that plunge with Truman. Her heart had easily expanded to make room for her niece and then expanded again as she repaired fences with her formerly estranged family. Being deliberately cut off from her family had left her with an empty heart for years, but since she’d returned to Eagle’s Nest, she suddenly had a small crowd to care about.

  It hadn’t weakened her foundation. She was stronger.

  Her oldest brother, Owen, had finally accepted her return, and Mercy had quickly added his wife and children to her “my people” list.

  The only holdout was her father. She suspected it was pride that kept him from speaking to her.

  One day.

  She parked and strode into the ME’s building, where she spotted Eddie and Ava in the waiting area. She greeted them and recounted her visit with Morrigan. “Anything new on Salome?”

  Ava looked grim as she shook her head. “There’s been no activity on her cell phone for three days. She has one credit card, and it hasn’t been used in months.”

  Suspicion weighed heavy in Mercy’s gut. “Do you think something has happened to her?”

  “We were just talking about that,” said Eddie. “We can’t rule it out.”

  “I don’t want to discover that she’s the third victim,” Ava stated. “But damn, it’s not looking good. People don’t just vanish.”

  “People vanish all the time,” argued Eddie. “Especially out here. If they don’t want to be found, we won’t find them.”

  “I can’t believe she’d leave her daughter behind,” countered Ava.

  “Maybe she feels her disappearance is protecting the girl . . . leading a killer away,” suggested Eddie.

  Mercy’s brain spun with the possibilities, but in her mind only one thing mattered right now. “That poor child. She needs her mother.” What will happen to Morrigan if Salome doesn’t come back?

  “Let’s hope we’re wrong. We’ll handle it if it comes to that,” Ava stated briskly, shutting down the topic.

  Eddie cleared his throat. “We did find out that so far none of the knives tested positive for poison or blood. The lab was surprised to find how clean they were. Usually there’s something left on even the cleanest knives.”

  “Maybe they’re never used,” suggested Mercy, remembering the rows and rows of blades. “Perhaps they’re truly a collector’s hoard.”

  “I saw the pictures,” Ava said. “I’ve never encountered anything like that. It was creepy.”

  Mercy silently agreed. “Say, Truman called me and said your reporter friend claims that Judge Lake had a mystery visitor at his office one of the days before he died. Brody claims this person was deliberately left off the logs and that the judge’s assistant might be covering it up.”

 
“Why didn’t Michael just tell me?” Ava sighed. “Never mind. I know he likes to do things his own way. I’ve learned not to question his actions.” She rubbed her neck, her gaze unfocused, as she considered Mercy’s statement. “The assistant, huh? Marcia Mallory. I talked to her. I thought she was very forthcoming. I guess I need to pay her another visit.”

  “Are there video cameras in the judge’s office?”

  “In the waiting area. Not in his chambers. We pulled the recordings, but they haven’t been reviewed yet. We went through the logs first. We were going to check the video if we found something odd in the logs.” She sighed. “I guess I better get someone on the recordings to compare them to the logs. Although I don’t understand why Marcia would hold back information that might help us find the judge’s killer. She seemed very devoted.”

  “Maybe she worried this visitor would tarnish his reputation,” Mercy suggested.

  “He’s dead,” Eddie pointed out.

  “It can be important to some people.”

  Dr. Lockhart appeared, looking more like a college student in scrubs than a medical examiner. The slick, perky ponytail added to the facade. “Come on back,” she said, directing the three of them through a door and down a hall to a large office. Mercy had expected the office to be extremely neat and organized. It wasn’t. There were stacks of files and journals on every available surface. A life-size skeleton hung from a stand in the corner. The lower half of its arm was missing and Mercy spotted it on a nearby stack of files, its bony structure looking lost and lonely. Boxes and thick textbooks were crammed into three crowded, ceiling-high bookshelves. Natasha’s framed degrees and numerous awards hung on the wall, and Mercy fought the urge to straighten the lowest one.

  Mercy exchanged a look with Eddie, who also looked surprised. The mess wasn’t what they’d expected from the tiny ME.

  Small knickknacks cluttered Natasha’s desk, leaving her little space to write. Stepping closer, Mercy saw they were all cats. Glass, plastic, ceramic.

  “You’re a cat lady?” asked Eddie with a grin.

  “I like cats,” Natasha answered. “But I only have two real ones.”

  Natasha took the chair behind the desk and gestured for them to sit. Mercy removed a stack of files from a folding chair, and Eddie picked up an open box from another chair and searched for a place to put it. “Just set them on the floor,” ordered Natasha. They did.

  “Everyone has read the preliminary report I sent yesterday, correct?” asked the doctor.

  “Not me,” stated Mercy. “But I’ve heard some facts secondhand. You said at the scene that you believed someone tried to smother Olivia first. Did that turn out to be true?”

  “Yes. She may have passed out for a few moments, leading her killer to believe she was dead.”

  “And that’s when they cut her?” asked Eddie.

  “I believe so,” answered Natasha. “The throw pillow came back positive for saliva, as I expected.” She paused. “Olivia was awake for part of the attack. She has defensive wounds on both hands.”

  Mercy pictured Olivia’s bloody hands, remembering the wet warmth against her palm as the woman took her last breath.

  “And I was right that she slowly bled out from minor damage to several arteries. Even though some of the slashes were quite long, the artery nicks were small, prolonging her death.”

  “That’s horrible,” murmured Ava. “Judge Lake had several arteries with major damage. They say he died quite rapidly.”

  Dr. Lockhart nodded emphatically. “The patterning of the cuts is very similar.”

  “I didn’t see any pattern on Olivia,” said Mercy. “All I saw was blood. And sliced flesh.” She shut down her mental images of Olivia’s suffering.

  “Once I heard about Judge Lake’s injuries, I immediately got Olivia on the table.” Dr. Lockhart’s face softened. “I know this isn’t important, but Olivia wouldn’t have lived more than another few months. She had advanced pancreatic cancer. It moves very fast.”

  “Morrigan said her grandmother had been in pain,” added Mercy. Did Olivia know she was so ill? That poor woman.

  “Definitely,” agreed Natasha. “And surprisingly the blood labs I ran here show no presence of painkillers. I sent samples out for more extensive testing, but my gut tells me they won’t find anything.”

  “Were prescription medications found in the home?” Mercy asked Eddie.

  “None. Not even over-the-counter stuff like Advil or Tylenol.”

  “That’s crazy,” stated Ava. “I’m healthy, but I always carry a small pharmacy in my purse. What if Morrigan had a fever? Nothing for her either?”

  Mercy thought of the glass jars of powders and herbs. “I suspect they used natural ingredients to treat that sort of thing.”

  Ava sniffed. “Along with spells? Ridiculous. God made drugs for good reasons.”

  “Is it possible Olivia hurt herself?” Eddie asked. “If she knew she was terminally ill . . .”

  “No,” stated Natasha and Mercy in unison.

  “One of the officers asked that at the scene,” said Mercy. “There was no weapon nearby and she wouldn’t have tried to smother herself with a throw pillow.”

  “Inefficient,” Natasha wryly added.

  “If she wanted to kill herself,” said Mercy slowly, “I suspect she could have made a concoction from those workroom jars that would peacefully do the job. But I don’t think she would do it if she knew her granddaughter would be the one to find her body.”

  “Agreed,” said Ava. “They immediately ruled out suicide with the judge for a number of reasons too. The first being no weapon left behind.”

  Natasha had turned to her keyboard, and Mercy was amused to see she typed with only her pointer fingers, but her keystrokes were rapid and confident.

  “Take a look at these.” Dr. Lockhart turned a large monitor for the three of them to view. “On the right is Olivia Sabin. On the left is Judge Lake.”

  Mercy sucked in a breath. The photos were from the autopsies, the stainless steel of the tables looking sterile and stark in contrast to the abused torsos. The two photos showed the bodies from the neck to the groin area. The victims were both old, their wrinkles and folds stating they had lived full lives. Olivia didn’t match the memory in Mercy’s head. Here she was a faceless body, almost a mannequin’s torso in her anonymity. But her flesh gaped where the killer had made his marks.

  Or is the correct phrase “her marks”?

  Mercy’s gaze jumped from one image to the other; the bodies couldn’t have been more different. The judge was clearly male and had tanned skin, indicating a recent sunny vacation. Olivia was extremely thin, her breasts deflated with age, and Mercy wondered if her low weight was due to the cancer.

  But the pattern of the slashes was similar. Too similar. Nearly identical.

  “Son of a mother trucker,” said Eddie under his breath.

  Dr. Lockhart raised a brow as she looked his way.

  “I’m trying to swear less,” admitted Eddie.

  Mercy’s brain had instantly translated Eddie’s statement. “That’s not an effective technique.”

  “Either way, Eddie’s words are accurate,” stated Ava. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve seen a lot of nightmares.”

  “What is the image?” asked Mercy, trying to make a pattern out of the cuts. “Clearly it means something.”

  “I’ve sent pictures to the Portland gang unit and reached out to a tattoo association,” said Natasha. “I feel like I’m grasping at straws, but I’d hoped it’d be familiar to someone.”

  “The FBI must have someone in a random department who specializes in something like this,” said Ava. “Send me the photos and I’ll get them to the right person. I know we’ve searched our databases for other similar murders, but nothing has turned up. Yet.”

  Mercy pulled a pen and notebook out of her bag and tried to sketch the shapes. She shook her head at her finished product. “I can’t see what it is. But
it definitely is something.”

  “I’m pointing out the obvious question again,” said Eddie. “But why is it on these two seemingly unrelated people?”

  “I think the key word there is seemingly,” stated Mercy. “Our job—your job is to find the connection.”

  Truman stepped through the doors of the church without knocking, feeling like a trespasser. It wasn’t a Sunday, so simply being in the building felt off-kilter to him. He took a left and headed down a long hall that he knew would lead to David Aguirre’s office. He assumed the minister was in the building because his ancient Ford pickup was parked in back of the church.

  Truman had spent his lunch break at his desk, using Google to do a bit of research, and had a fresh appreciation for the rule about not believing everything on the Internet. Unable to get some of the rumors about Olivia and Salome Sabin out of his brain, he’d decided to educate himself on current-day witchcraft.

  He was now more confused than when he’d started. He should have stuck with his previous education from Disney villains.

  From what he’d read, there appeared to be no rhyme or reason to witchcraft. He saw it in his mind as a giant tree. The trunk was the catch-all witchcraft label and the hundreds of branches were the possibilities for how to practice. There was no consistency. Black magic, white magic, evil and good. Solitary practitioners and covens that ranged from a few to hundreds. He’d decided to pick David Aguirre’s brain. The minister had lived in Eagle’s Nest all his life, and Truman hoped he had a bit of insight into the rumors that surrounded the Sabin women.

  The faint sounds of a TV show came down the hallway, and Truman stopped outside David’s office door. It was ajar. He knocked and then pushed it open. David sat at an ancient wooden desk, tapping away at a keyboard. The back of a giant monitor faced Truman, the Apple logo prominently displayed. Behind the minister a small television was tuned to a cooking competition show that Truman often watched with Mercy.