“You really think I’d help you find my friends?” He stretched his shoulders, hampered by the chains, and looked away for the first time in the interview.
“Do you believe you’re the only one of the five who should be in prison for the robbery and death of the guard?”
“More power to them if they’ve lived a normal life. I hold no ill will.”
Mercy raised her brows. “That’s generous.”
“They were my friends. Not their fault I ended up here.”
“You’re saying that after all these years of silence from them as you sat in prison, their friendship still means something to you?”
He was silent.
A minute ago he was gung ho to help us identify the body. What happened?
“You don’t want to help us figure out what happened after the robbery?”
“I’d call the case solved. I’m in here paying for the crime, and the cops know the full names of who else was there, except for Jerry. And I doubt there’s any money to be recovered after all this time.” His tone was pragmatic, and he looked at her as if he were schooling a pupil. “It’s over.”
He’s not going to share anything.
“None of your good friends have contacted you over the years? Maybe to thank you for not helping the police?”
He gave a half smile. “Maybe I did hear from someone. Or maybe I didn’t. Sounds like one might have been dead for a long time.”
Mercy held his gaze. He’s heard from someone.
“It’s possible the body isn’t related to the robbery,” she stated, slightly changing the direction of the conversation as she contemplated how one of the thieves might have contacted Gamble. Letters . . . phone calls . . . what kinds of communication records does the prison keep?
He nodded solemnly. “I was waiting for you to realize that.”
“Of course we’d realized it.” She internally flinched at the flicker of enjoyment on his face. Dammit. He’d put her on the defensive.
“Then this conversation is truly pointless,” he stated. “I’m shocked the FBI is wasting valuable time talking to me when you don’t know who the remains are.”
“Do you want me to come back when we have an identity?” Mercy shot back, annoyed that she’d reacted to his statements.
He held up his hands in a gesture of Who knows, and the clanking of his chains echoed in the room. “It wouldn’t hurt to come back when the FBI actually knows something,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe a confirmed identity will trigger a memory. I’ll spend some time reflecting on it. I might come up with something.” His condescending smile made her toes curl. In a bad way. Not a Truman way.
He wants me to come back.
But is it because he’s bored or because he’s playing a game with information?
Or both?
She stood, knowing she needed to be the one to end the interview. “I’ll be in touch,” she said, making one last moment of eye contact with the creep. “Or maybe I won’t. I’ll spend some time reflecting on it,” she mimicked.
Without looking back, she headed toward the exit.
I got nothing.
FIVE
“I told Lucas not to bother you. It’s nothing. Probably drunk teens.”
Truman took a long look at Bree Ingram, wondering if the woman really believed her statement. When Lucas had asked him to take a look at some vandalism on his mother’s property, Truman hadn’t hesitated. Now he stood in Bree’s small stable, looking at six horse stall doors that had each been spray-painted with a big red X. And that was in addition to the red X on the door of her pickup.
“The symbolism bothers me,” Lucas stated, his arm protectively around his mother’s shoulders. “To me a red X means something is going to be eliminated.”
My thoughts exactly.
“It’s on her fucking truck,” Lucas went on, anger flushing his usually calm face. “On her driver’s door. It feels deliberate. It’s not drunk teens,” Lucas told his mother. “They’d draw dick pics and write curse words.” He tightened his arm on her, and she briefly rested her cheek against his chest. Over her head his glare met Truman’s gaze, transmitting his fury about the situation.
Truman sympathized, understanding that the big man felt powerless against a threat he couldn’t see.
A horse stretched its neck over the stall door toward Truman in curiosity, and Truman held his palm under its nose. Warm air covered his hand as the animal’s nostrils flared, and then its velvety lips nibbled at his hand, the horse oblivious to the threatening X on its door.
I feel as if it’s been selected for slaughter.
“There was a horse in each stall that received an X?” Truman asked.
“Yes.” Bree pointed at two unmarked stall doors, a tremor shaking her hand. “No horses were in those.”
“These horses are like her kids,” Lucas said. “Short of marking an X on my forehead, this is like threatening our family.”
“The mare in the first stall is Sandy’s,” Bree added. “But she’s like one of mine.”
“Sandy boards a horse here?” Truman asked. “Sandy from the bed-and-breakfast in town?”
“Yes,” said Bree. “We do competitive trail riding together.”
“You mean you sucked her into that craziness,” Lucas corrected. “Sandy could barely ride when she moved here, but she hung around with my mom so much, she got horse fever.”
Truman faintly recalled Lucas mentioning his mother’s horse competitions in the past. “Cameras anywhere?” he asked.
Lucas snorted. “No.”
“How much land do you have?” He stroked the horse’s cheek, admiring the trust in its black eyes and wondering if the horse had looked at the vandal in the same way.
“Ten acres,” answered Bree.
“Have you seen any signs that someone has been on your property recently?”
Lucas and Bree exchanged a look. Both shook their heads.
“Any vehicles you don’t recognize hanging around?”
Lucas’s expression darkened. “A few times recently I’ve seen a truck I don’t recognize on her road. Old, faded red Ford. Needs some bodywork. Probably from the early nineties. Even though I don’t live here anymore, usually I recognize most people out here.”
A small chill touched Truman’s spine. Old red Ford?
“Maybe he’s doing work on someone’s property,” Bree suggested. “We can’t recognize everyone.”
Truman met Bree’s gaze. “I don’t know how this would be possible, but have you pissed off anyone lately? Since there is an X on your truck, maybe you accidentally upset someone on the road who figured out where you lived?”
She paled. “I—I—don’t know. Not that I’m aware of.”
“She doesn’t make enemies,” Lucas snapped. His chest expanded, and he seemed to hulk up a size.
“I know that,” Truman said in a calm voice. “But it’d be shortsighted of me not to ask.” The horse jerked its head away and paced a circle in its box stall.