by Paula Munier
“Everyone loved Wayne,” she repeated.
“Not everyone, Ma,” said Paul.
“The tree huggers hated him,” said Louis, obviously emboldened by his brother’s remark. “And the Godettes.”
“Tree huggers?”
“You know, those losers always talking about saving the trees,” said Paul.
“And the bears,” said Louis.
“And the moose,” said Mrs. Herbert.
“And the fish,” said Paul.
“Morons.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re all about ‘reducing their footprint’ and living ‘off the grid.’ Just a fancy way of saying poor.”
“That Adam dude hated Wayne,” said Paul.
“Adam?”
“I don’t know his last name,” said Louis. “But he’s the worst of them. Always sneaking around in the woods, looking for trouble.”
Mrs. Herbert shook her head. “They don’t like outdoorsmen like Wayne. But they’re basically harmless.”
Troy knew that to people like the Herberts, outdoorsman was code for poacher.
“Wayne had been in trouble with the law from time to time,” he said. “Poaching, drug dealing, gambling.”
“No one ever proved anything.” She glared at him. “My Wayne was a good boy.”
“And the dogfights.” He glanced over at the pit bulls, who still lay on their cushions in the corner, alert and seemingly ready to pounce.
“Ridiculous accusation,” she said. “Wayne would never hurt a dog. Any dog. He loved dogs. We are a dog family.”
Right, thought Troy, and tried another tack. “The remains were found in the Lye Brook Wilderness. Did Wayne go there the day he disappeared?”
“He went out early with the dogs. Said he might do some fishing.”
“Not hunting?”
“Now, Warden, you know very well Wayne went missing in June.” Mrs. Herbert regarded him slyly. “Off season.”
“He’d been accused of hunting off-season before.”
“Those charges were dropped.”
“All three of your boys pled no contest to bear baiting.”
She shrugged. “As I was saying, Wayne was out in the woods with Baron and Bruiser. When the dogs came home the next morning without him, I got worried. I called the police, but you lot never found him. So I figured he didn’t want to be found.”
“I see.”
“Wayne knew the woods. He knew how to take care of himself.” Mrs. Herbert shrank back against the back of the couch, and her sons leaned over her in a tunnel of protection. “My Wayne was a good boy.”
Revisionist history, thought Troy. A common enough phenomenon among the bereaved. A closing of the ranks. Time to go.
“Thank you for your time.” He picked up his file. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” An unsatisfactory thing to say, and he knew it. But nothing else worked any better.
“You’ll find him, then.” It was an order, not a request. “The man who killed my Wayne. You’ll find him.”
He nodded. “If you think of anything else…” he said, looking directly at Paul and Louis.
They said nothing but stood up, then shifted on their feet, and sat back down again, the couch sagging under their weight. Troy would have to find another time to talk to them.
He left the three of them there, the surviving brothers flanking their mother, her shuttered face as solid and impenetrable as stone, her grief coursing through her tattooed arms to hands once again swallowed by her sons’ huge paws.
“I’ll let myself out.”
The pit bulls watched him leave. No one on the sofa moved, a closed circle of sorrow.
As soon he shut the door quietly behind him, the keening began. Mrs. Herbert’s terrible wails followed him all the way to the truck, and echoed in his ears long after he’d turned down the rutted dirt road and driven away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MERCY WOKE TO FIND HERSELF STILL ON the couch. She’d slept late, hours past her usual rise-and-shine routine. Elvis, still lying on her feet, raised his elegant head and looked at her, dark eyes bright, eager to start the day. Martinez’s dog was always eager to start the day.
“Coffee first.” She groaned and dragged herself upright, wondering when she would stop thinking of him as Martinez’s dog. If she ever would. Especially before breakfast.
The shepherd padded over to the kitchen ahead of her, waltzing on his feet as she filled the pot with water and ground the medium-roast organic Vermont Coffee Company beans. He knew the drill.
As soon as she finished her prep and switched on the brewer, Elvis soared for the back door, landing in a dead stop as gracefully as an Olympic gymnast, long nose level with the knob. Mercy laughed as she slipped on her Wellies and let the dog out.
She stepped onto the wide deck that ran along the back of the cabin. The sun shone brightly in a cloudless blue sky. The unnamed anxiety that had plagued her yesterday was gone, replaced by the dull pain of prolonged sorrow. Today was the anniversary of her fiancé’s death. She’d mourn later, she thought, after breakfast. After she found that missing baby.
Usually she’d pull a few weeds in the fenced herb and vegetable garden she’d inherited from the previous owners, raised beds that stood between the cabin and the old red barn, while she waited for the dog to do his business in the yard. But rather than head for the deep end of the lawn, where the woods met the grass, Elvis shot toward the barn, barking all the way.
Mercy scrambled after him. She wished she’d brought along her Beretta, but she’d left it under her pillow. She considered going back into the house to fetch it, but the Belgian shepherd was already scratching at the double wagon doors on the gable end of the barn.
Mercy ignored him, spotting the footprints left by sneakers she guessed to be about a size 9 in the mud leading to the small door to the left of the big wagon doors.
“Quiet,” she ordered.
He stopped midbark, trotting over to her, tail up. Ready to work. Noiselessly she opened the door, the shepherd at her side. Together they crept across the threshing floor, Elvis drawn by scent and Mercy drawn by the stamped hay. There were three makeshift horse stalls along the right side of the building and a tack room in the far corner. All signs and smells, apparently, pointed to the tack room, but she checked each stall anyway. Empty.
Not surprising, since no horses had been kept here for decades, at least as far as she knew. She’d always wanted a pony as a child, and Martinez had promised her a quarter horse when they moved to Texas, but that dream had died right along with him.
Slowly she and the dog approached the opening of the tack room. The only sound was the skittering of the mice as they disappeared into the nooks and crannies of the old barn they called home. All she could smell was the fading sweet, musty odor of old hay. But she knew the Malinois could smell intruders on the other side of the jamb by the way he stood, every muscle tense, his carriage proud, his desire to cross that threshold so strong his tawny fur seemed to ripple along his spine.
She flattened against the wall and whipped her head around in a quick surveillance of the room. Empty.
Except for a pile of horse blankets along the wall. Just sizable enough to cover something big or someone small.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Go.”
Elvis barreled through the tack room, halting at the stack of stable covers. He turned back to Mercy and wagged his tail.
Friend not foe, she thought, and quickly strode across the space and tugged the sheets away from the wall.
Baby Doe looked up at her and smiled, even as the teenage girl holding her hid her face.
“Peekaboo,” said Mercy.
The baby laughed and the girl lifted her face. She was about eighteen, slim and fair and scared. She looked ready to bolt, but Mercy and Elvis blocked her way.
“Are you her mother?”
The girl nodded.
Mercy fought the urge to lambaste the girl for leaving the baby in the woods. “Would you like a cup o
f tea?”
The girl nodded again.
“Come on inside, then.” She held out her hand.
The girl looked at the dog, who pounded his tail on the barn floor and licked Baby Doe’s tiny little bare foot. The infant giggled again and twinkled her toes.
Mercy grinned. “Elvis loves babies.”
* * *
THE GIRL’S NAME was Amy Walker. She was very hungry, and once Mercy served up her famous blueberry multigrain pancakes, very chatty. In a stream-of-consciousness, nonlinear kind of way.
“I named her Helena, after the character in A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” Amy cut a piece of pancake for her little girl, whom she held on her lap with one hand while she forked food into first her baby’s mouth, then her own. “That’s Shakespeare.”
“Yes.” Mercy pushed the Corse Maple Farm syrup a little closer to Amy. “It’s a beautiful name, for a beautiful baby.”
“Yeah.” Amy swapped her fork for the jug of syrup. “Dad took us to the Corse Farm sugarhouse when I was little.” She drenched the diminishing stack in the sweet dark amber liquid. “It was so much fun. Even Mom said she had a good time.” She swirled her index finger in the syrup and lifted it to the baby’s little pink lips. Helena tested it carefully with her tongue, beamed, and then licked the rest off as enthusiastically as a puppy. “You love it, don’t you, baby girl?” Amy beamed back at her, showing deep dimples in a heart-shaped face framed by choppily cut light brown hair. “I knew you’d love it.
“I mean, who doesn’t like Vermont maple syrup?” Amy addressed Mercy now. “It’s what we’re known for, right?”
“Right.”
The young mother looked even younger than her eighteen years when she smiled. At least she claimed to be eighteen, as of Valentine’s Day, her favorite day of the year, until Helena was born on Thanksgiving. Now Amy liked Thanksgiving best.
Mercy doubted she had made that up. Or anything else. Only an accomplished liar could talk so much and so fast and so randomly about whatever seemingly popped into her head and make it up as she went along all at the same time.
Or maybe all teenagers were like that. Martinez had five young siblings, and he called them all little mercenaries. Mercy knew that she should contact the police, or at least Troy, but she wasn’t ready to turn over this young mother and child to the authorities quite yet. She justified her procrastination by telling herself that she wanted to make sure the pair got a good home-cooked meal before they left her. God knew when they’d get another.
“Where are your parents now?”
Amy frowned. “Dad died when I was ten years old.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“He was the best, you know, the best.” Her dark blue eyes filled with tears. “I still miss him every day.”
The baby, sensing her mother’s distress, started to wail. Elvis leapt from his spot on the couch, skirting the table to check on Helena.
“More tea?”
Amy sniffed. “Sure.”
Mercy filled her cup with more Earl Grey from the Old English Rose bone-china teapot her grandmother had given her as a housewarming present when she moved into the cabin. “My grandmother says tea fixes everything.”
“Grandma Peg—she’s my mother’s mother—used to say that, too.” Amy bounced her crying baby on her knee, and the little one settled right down. “But it couldn’t fix my mother.”
Mercy didn’t know what to say to that. But she also knew that the less she said, the better. Silence was the best weapon in any interrogation. Er, interview, she corrected herself. She was a civilian now, conversing with other civilians.
And civilians liked to talk. Especially this one.
“Hmmmn,” she said finally, accommodating but noncommittal.
“I think she’ll take a nap now.” Amy stood up, pulling the baby to her chest.
She was very good with her, thought Mercy. Amy was a good mother. So why did she leave her alone in the woods? This was the question she needed answering. Before she called the police. Before she called Troy. “Why don’t you set her up on the sofa while I wash up?”
“I should help you.” Amy bit her lip.
“Not necessary. I’m sure that you are both exhausted.” She cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, one eye on Amy, who wandered around the great room snuggling Helena on her left side, close to her heart.
She was quiet until the little girl fell asleep. The young mother spread a quilt on Mercy’s side of the leather couch and laid the baby down, positioning pillows around her to keep her from rolling off. Elvis curled up on his side, his dark eyes always on the infant.
Amy backed away softly as Helena dozed. Drawn to the bookcases, she fingered the spines of the many leather-bound copies of the Bard’s plays. Mercy watched as the girl pulled down a cheap paperback copy of Othello and studied it.
“I guess you like Shakespeare.”
“Yes, I studied him in college.”
Amy opened the book and started reading, somewhere in the middle, as far as Mercy could see. After a couple of minutes, the girl seemed to sense Mercy watching her, and looked up.
“I thought you were a soldier.” She put down Othello, still open as if not to lose her place, and pointed to the photograph of a smiling Mercy and Martinez in uniform in Afghanistan that stood on the end table.
“I was.” She smiled. “Soldiers like Shakespeare, too, you know. He wrote a lot about the military.”
“Is that why you like his plays so much?”
“Partly. But mostly I like him because he makes me feel better about being human.”
Amy stared at her. “Okay.”
Time to change the subject, Mercy thought. “Some scholars believe that Shakespeare may have been a soldier himself.”
“My stepfather was in Desert Storm. He hates Shakespeare.”
“Maybe he’s the exception that proves the rule.”
“He’s a jerk.” Amy shrugged and tapped the silver frame with her fingers. “You look happy in this picture.” She regarded her carefully, as if searching for that same happiness in her face now.
She wouldn’t find it, thought Mercy.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
She nodded. “My fiancé.”
“Cute. He looks like a good guy.”
“He was.” Mercy glanced away, looking past the girl to the window and the woods beyond. “He died.”
“I’m so sorry.” Amy sighed. “The good guys are always dying on you. Like my dad. And your fiancé.”
Mercy was relieved when the teenager turned back to the wall of books.
“Actors on Shakespeare, Will in the World, The Language of Shakespeare, Hamlet’s Advice to the Players…” Amy read off the names of several titles. “I didn’t know there were so many books about him.”
“Thousands and thousands,” said Mercy. “This only represents a small sampling.”
“Wow. We had some at the school library. But nothing like this.”
Amy tapped the spine of a slim paperback of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.
“We did this one junior year,” she said. “In Mrs. Berentz’s English lit class. I played Helena.”
“I bet you were good.” Mercy could see her in the role of the devoted, thoughtful romantic desperately in love with the indifferent Demetrius.
“I was. Mrs. Berentz said so.” Amy smiled. “She liked me. She said I was ‘college material.’” These last two words punctuated by her slender fingers twisted into imaginary quotes marks. “Like that was ever going to happen.”
“It’s not too late.” Mercy climbed up the library ladder and retrieved a stunning limited edition of the Bard’s most beloved comedy, beautifully illustrated by W. Heath Robinson.
“I never graduated. Quit when I got pregnant senior year.” Amy paused. “But it’s cool. I’m a mama now.”
Mercy bit her tongue to keep from asking who—and where—the father was. She climbed back down and handed the girl the book. “I think you’ll lik
e this one.”
Amy held the old volume carefully and slowly flipped through the pages. “These illustrations are so pretty.”
“Yes.” The book was one of her prized possessions. At least it was back when she still cared about possessions.
“I still think it’s weird,” said Amy. “A soldier who likes Shakespeare.”
“You sound like my parents.” Mercy grinned. “They wanted me to be a lawyer, like them.”
“Boring.”
“You have no idea.” She laughed at that, then sobered. “But speaking of mothers, would you like to call yours? You can use my phone.”
“No, thanks.”
For the first time, the girl looked scared.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”
The baby fussed a little, and Amy picked her up. “You can’t tell my mother I was here.”
“Okay.”
“Or my stepfather.” She shot to her feet, Helena in her arms. “Especially him.”
The bitterness in her voice told Mercy everything she needed to know. “Okay.”
“Promise.” She bounced the startled baby against her chest. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.
“I promise.” Mercy fought the urge to reach for the child. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Amy wound down the bouncing to a slow swaying. Helena giggled.
Time to take the plunge, Mercy thought. “What about the father?” she asked gently.
“No.” The girl’s voice was firm.
“Not a good guy?”
Amy shut the old book and returned it to the shelf. “He’s not a bad guy. I mean, I love him. And he loves Helena.” She shook her head. “But he’s all stage-five clinger now.”
“How’s that?”
“It started out fine.” She settled onto the sofa, holding Helena on her lap. “Adam is an artist. Real creative. Real smart. A genius, you know?” She paused. “You should see the sculptures he makes. Out of stones and salvage and wood. Recycled art, it’s called.”
“Art trouvé,” said Mercy.
“Yeah. Of course he only uses reclaimed wood. He loves trees.”
Mercy sat on the arm of the couch. “Trees?”
“He’s totally into saving the woods. One tree at a time.” Amy smiled. “That’s what he says. We put up posters, held rallies, planted trees. Disease-resistant elm trees. To save the forest.”
