During my long trip home, I considered my options. I could go to the police. I could tell my mother. I could do nothing.
The choices tormented me the whole way home.
I fell into bed, no decision made. The girl’s eyes haunted my dreams.
Within a few days, they arrested another man.
I kept my mouth shut.
FORTY-ONE
Mercy saw Truman was right. A county patrol car sat across the gravel street from the Moody home.
She parked on the road behind Truman, and the deputy walked over to talk to them, rain dripping off his hat.
What a miserable job. Waiting in a cold car during a rainstorm.
“No one’s shown up,” the young man told them. “No one’s even driven down the road—it’s that quiet here.” He gestured at the house directly across from the Moodys’. “Although the lady there did bring me some cookies and hot coffee. She wanted to know what was going on.”
“Sally Kantor? Nice lady. Her cookies should be safe,” Truman stated.
“Ah . . . I didn’t even think of that.” Embarrassment flashed on the deputy’s face.
Mercy wondered how many cookies he had eaten. “What did you tell Sally?”
“Nothing. Just said I was waiting for Ryan to return home so I could ask him some questions.”
“Good.” Truman indicated he was ready to head to the house, and she walked up the long drive with him. Far away, thunder sounded, and both of them looked at the darkening sky.
“Have you seen any lightning?” he asked.
“I didn’t notice any, but maybe it was too far away. We’re supposed to get a good storm tonight.”
Mercy focused on the home before them. The house had no flowerpots or happy welcome signs, and large muddy boots sat by the front door. Men live here. There was no color anywhere. Everything was brown except the overgrown grass and the tree leaves. She and Truman bootied up and slipped on gloves before they entered. The house had been processed when Clint first went missing, but they had searched only for evidence of who might have hurt or taken the man.
Today she was looking for anything to tie Ryan to the Hartlage or Jorgensen family.
If I only knew what I was looking for.
I could be way off base.
The house appeared to have been built around the middle of the last century. The linoleum and countertops looked original. Again, there was no sign of a female presence in the house. This home was about male needs. Oversize furniture, gigantic TV, game consoles, and food. The cupboards were full of junk food and prepackaged meals. The refrigerator stocked with soda and beer.
At least it was decently clean.
She and Truman quickly searched every nook and cranny, looking for . . . something.
Down the hallway Truman paused in front of a closed door. His throat moved as he swallowed and then opened the door. The mattress had been stripped of bedding, and Mercy knew it had been Clint’s room. Black fingerprint powder covered several surfaces. She opened the closet. Clothes hung from hangers and were piled on the floor. She did a quick check inside the pockets, the shoes, and then the boxes on the top shelf.
Truman checked the bathroom and moved to the other bedroom. “Mercy?” he called.
She followed his voice and found him in front of a large gun safe. “It’s unlocked,” he told her. “Ryan used the combination to open it last time I was here.” He seemed hesitant to touch the door, so she reached over and swung it open.
Two rifles were present, and several rectangular containers she identified as handgun lockboxes.
“There were three rifles last time,” Truman stated. He picked up one of the lockboxes. “This feels like there’s still a weapon in it.” He hefted the others until he came to an open one. “I think they all still hold a weapon except this one.”
“Did he open the lockboxes for you?”
“Yes. I don’t remember how many there were, but they all were full.”
“We need to add to the BOLO that he is probably armed.” She studied the other contents of Ryan’s closet. The gun safe took up a large portion, and his clothes were pushed to one side. She did the same pocket check she’d done in Clint’s room and went through the junk on the upper shelf. One shoebox clanked. She removed the lid. “He’s got quite a few knives,” she commented, counting seven of them. Most of the weapons had old, battered sheaths.
I’d rather find a hammer that could be the murder weapon.
“The garage out back is packed full of junk,” Truman told her. “It could take days to go through.”
Mercy returned the box to the shelf. She was sliding the closet door shut when she spotted a three-ring binder between the safe and the wall. Sliding her hand into the narrow space, she wiggled it out and flipped it open.
A photo of Britta Vale stared back at her, and Mercy nearly dropped the binder.
“Truman.” She couldn’t say anything else. Her fingers were ice.
As she turned the page, he watched over her shoulder. Pages and pages of fuzzy long-distance shots of Britta were carefully tucked into protective sleeves. Then came the newspaper articles. They were photocopies of old articles about the Verbeek and Deverell murders. Mercy rapidly flipped through the articles. There was nothing about the Hartlage or Jorgensen murders.
Why Britta?
“Do you think this is Clint’s or Ryan’s notebook?” Mercy asked.
“It’s in Ryan’s room.”
He’s obsessed.
Mercy went back to the photos of Britta. “These are recent. Look . . . this one was taken outside her current house. And this one is at the diner in Eagle’s Nest.”
“It looks like he’s been stalking her, not Steve Harris as she suspected,” Truman pointed out. “But why?”
“We need to warn her.” Fear for the woman made her throat tighten.
“I think she’s already on high alert.” Truman reached up and one-handedly grabbed the box of knives Mercy had put back, then set it on top of the safe. “Look at these again.” He picked up one by the scabbard and held the wooden handle toward her. “Do you recognize that symbol?”
Mercy leaned closer. “It’s an eagle . . . with a swastika below it. Ugh. Are they all like that?” Were the Moody brothers Nazi fans?
“No,” said Truman. “This other knife has something written in Italian on it. Mercy, these are military collectibles.”
She met his gaze as a chunk of her case clicked into place. “Like the Asian skull.”
He held out the box. “Between these knives and those articles in the binders, you’ve got a connection between the old murders and new right here in this house. Ryan Moody.” Lines creased his forehead. “When Ryan was accounting for his handguns the first time I was here, I remember thinking that some of them looked very old.”
“War collector old?”
“Possibly.”
“You think Ryan could be the one who killed the Hartlages, because we found a war trophy with their remains?” Excitement prickled in her brain. “The victim in Clint Moody’s storage shed had his mouth beat in . . . just like the Hartlages and Jorgensens.”
“But what’s his obsession with Britta?”
“She’s the survivor of the original family murders,” Mercy suggested. “Ryan is only thirty. He would have been about ten when those murders happened. Wait a minute . . . Did the Moodys grow up around here? I don’t remember them.”