by Paula Munier
Patience grinned as she sorted through her bag for a tissue and handed it to her. “Wipe away that slobber.”
Anything anyone ever needed was in her grandmother’s battered wine-colored leather backpack, a worn and weathered antique she’d had as long as Mercy could remember. She was, in some ways, the Mary Poppins of Vermont. And like a rabbit from a hat, she always pulled from it whatever the moment required: Band-Aids, ointment, coins, keys, paper money, pen and paper, apples, chocolate Kisses, pet treats, and more.
Patience pulled a doggie biscuit from the pack and slipped it to Elvis. “Go to your bed now and rest.”
He chomped the bacon chew happily and retreated to his side of the sofa.
“Eat,” her grandmother ordered, handing Mercy an empty dish. She poured herself a glass of wine and refilled Mercy’s as well. “His anxiety seems to have abated. Of course the meds help.”
“That’s good news.” Mercy spooned some of the shepherd’s pie onto the blue plate. She wondered how he’d be when they wore off. He’d had a very stressful day. “How long does he have to wear the cone?”
“Until he’s completely healed or until he destroys it. Whichever comes first.” Patience sighed. “I know he hates it. They all do. But a dog like this one … if there’s a way to get it off, he’ll find it. And he’ll probably drive you crazy until he does. Just try to keep him away from that wound.”
“Will do.” Mercy sipped more wine. “How’s the kitty?”
“She’s fine. Still no name?”
“Not yet.”
“Maybe tomorrow’s cat rescue will inspire you. The crime scene has been processed, so the Cat Ladies have gotten the clear to go over to the Walker place in the morning.” Her grandmother gave her an expectant look.
“I don’t know. Elvis needs to rest.” The Cat Ladies was a rescue group funded by the estate of a local heiress who’d left her big farmhouse as part of the bequest. The eighteenth-century Northshire saltbox served as home base for the foundation—and home to more than a hundred felines at any given time, waiting for forever friends to adopt them. Mercy liked the Cat Ladies, and she knew she should help, but she wanted to look for Amy and the baby.
“He’ll be fine.” Patience raised her eyebrows. “Let me remind you that like it or not you are now a civilian. You need to stay out of this investigation.”
“I know.” Mercy looked down at her food, away from her grandmother’s scrutiny.
Patience sighed. “But if you need a legitimate reason to revisit the crime scene, this would be it.”
“Well, when you put it that way … count me in.” Mercy raised her head and grinned at her grandmother. “Always glad to help.”
“I thought so. I’ll be keeping an eye on you both.”
“No doubt.”
Patience paused, and Mercy knew she was watching to make sure she was actually eating.
“I’m eating, I’m eating.”
Her grandmother nodded, and speared a bite of her own from the edge of the pie and popped it into her mouth. “This is good.” She leaned toward her. “Now tell me the rest of it. What happened to your masked man?”
Mercy recounted her unsuccessful trek through the Feinberg property to the ATV trail and the cleanup effort after her return to her trashed cabin.
“I don’t get it,” Patience said. “Why do you think he tossed the place? What was he looking for?”
“Nothing that I can tell. At least so far.”
“Weird.”
“I have the feeling that I’m missing something.”
“It’s really not your problem.”
“It’s my house. My dog. My life.”
“I know.” Patience sighed and served herself some pie. “Want to talk it through? I used to do that with your grandfather. He always said it helped.”
“Okay.” Mercy washed down the last of her pie with a gulp of wine and retrieved her cell phone, flipping through the photos of the murder crime scene for her grandmother. Including the close-ups of the victim, Donald Jonas Walker.
“Lovely guy. No wonder the poor child ran away.”
“Yeah.” Once again Mercy examined the middle-aged man with the seedy, spotty beard and the pale bloodshot eyes—open even in death, as if he’d been surprised by his violent passing, as he’d undoubtedly been—and the bloodstained, dingy white wifebeater shirt that bore the rust-red marks of the knife wound that killed him.
There were several pictures of the victim, from different angles. In one of the photos, the tattoo that inked his upper left arm was more visible than in the others. Something familiar about it drew her attention.
The art was crudely drawn, but the faded black-and-white images clearly revealed a pine tree against the mountains, bundles of grain, and a stick-figure cow.
“What is it?”
“This tattoo.” Mercy enlarged the image on her phone and handed it to her grandmother. “What does it remind you of?”
“It looks like the Vermont coat of arms.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PATIENCE POINTED TO THE POORLY PRINTED WORD Vermont and the state motto, “Freedom and Unity,” that ran along the bottom of the tattoo. She drew her finger upward. “But are these crossed rifles? That’s not right. They’re supposed to be evergreen branches.”
“You’re a real Vermonter,” said Mercy. “This adaptation is the same image that appears on the belt buckle we found.”
“With the bones.”
“Yes.”
“So the two deaths may be connected.”
“Looks like it.”
“You knew it.” Patience beamed at her. “Clever girl.”
“But I don’t know what it means.”
“Your grandfather used to say that the best clues raise as many questions as they answer.”
“He got that right.”
“You’ll figure it out. You’re your grandfather all over again.” She gave her back the phone. “Aren’t you going to tell Troy?”
“I want to check a few things first.”
“Of course you do.” Patience pushed her stool away from the bar and stood up. “You have work to do. I’ll let myself out.”
“What about Elvis?”
“I’ll be back tomorrow. You won’t be going anywhere tonight.”
Mercy hesitated. “Probably not.”
“Don’t. Because if you do, he’ll want to go with you. And while he’s not badly hurt physically, emotionally he could use a rest. So could you.”
“If I do go out, he’ll stay right here on the couch.”
Patience shook her head. “No, he won’t. Would he stay put if it were Martinez?”
“No.”
“What he needs more than anything is you.” Her grandmother gave the dozing dog a pat. “You’re his Martinez now.”
“We’ll stay right here tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” Patience kissed her forehead. “If you do anything stupid, take him with you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her grandmother laughed and headed for the front door. When she heard it slam behind her, Mercy poured herself another glass of wine and moved to her side of the couch. Careful not to disturb Elvis, she sat down cross-legged, balancing her laptop on her knees, and logged on to research the various symbols of Vermont. Some of the information confirmed what she already knew: the scene depicted on both the belt buckle and Donald’s tattoo was very much like that on the coat of arms, which dated back to the time of the Vermont Republic, when Vermont was an independent state, before joining the United States in 1791.
That explained the motto, thought Mercy. But not the rifles that replaced the evergreen branches on both the belt buckle and the tattoo.
She kept on Googling and hit on several articles on the Vermont Republic’s latter-day imitations. The so-called Second Vermont Republic was one of the most active secession movements in the country, its members dedicated to the reestablishment of an independent Vermont. Detractors of the cause called these “Ve
rmont Firsters” everything from anarchists to racists to ecowarriors, depending on their respective associations and affiliations.
A man called Adam Wolfe was mentioned briefly in one of the pieces, and a search on his name revealed a couple of profiles of the self-proclaimed Vermont Firster, an artist activist dedicated to “saving the authentic Vermont.”
Amy’s Adam.
She couldn’t wait to tell Troy.
This was the guy the young mother had talked about, the father of Helena. He certainly looked the part of the wild creator, with his wire-rimmed glasses and shoulder-length brown hair and full, unkempt beard. She didn’t see much of him in Helena, who far more resembled her mother, and she was unfairly glad of it.
One essay in an academic journal expounded on the relationship between art and politics, and featured Wolfe and his sculptures, a series of big and bold abstract bronzes that the author—one Candace Winters, PhD, professor at Bennington College—said explored the political nature of the cosmos.
Did politics and art and the cosmos equal explosives? Mercy wasn’t sure, so she figured she’d just have to track this woman down and find out.
Elvis twitched in his sleep, paws moving as if he were running. He yipped and yapped as if he were a pup in pain—sounds he never made when awake. A nightmare.
Mercy cuddled up to the shivering shepherd. “Just a bad dream,” she said, stroking his back. “You’re okay, big guy. We’re okay.”
She couldn’t leave Elvis. Not like this.
It was up to Troy. She texted him, filling him in on all that she’d discovered about Wolfe, Donald Walker, Wayne Herbert, and Dr. Winters. She left out the part about the intruder and Elvis; she didn’t want him playing her rescuer. She could take care of herself.
She told him they’d have to follow up, and he told her he was out on patrols, but that he’d pass it all along to Thrasher. She asked about Amy and Helena, but there was no news there.
She hoped Troy and Thrasher could do what she could not.
Because her grandmother was right: she had a dog who needed her. She would stay right here on the sofa, watching over her poor suffering shepherd, and hoping that Amy and Helena were safe and on their way back to her.
Mercy pulled up the quilts around her. Her mind raced with random thoughts and images and associations just out of reach, but she knew she should at least try to get a good night’s rest. Her grandmother and her animal rescue friends were morning people. Early morning people. She reached for her wineglass. If deep breathing didn’t help her sleep, more Big Barn Red might.
Her Beretta was still under her pillow. In case the masked man returned for whatever he was looking for—and had obviously failed to find.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TROY WAS SWEATY, TIRED, AND WET. Susie Bear sat beside him in the truck as they drove home for a shower and a change of clothes. And a nap, time permitting, before his late-night shift. The big dog thumped her thick plume of a tail to the beat of Spoon and “Can I Sit Next to You.”
They’d spent hours checking fishing and boating licenses, and chasing down those driving under the influence, failing to provide life vests on board, and exceeding the catch limit. One drunken boater had thrown a wild punch at Troy, stumbling right into the water in the process. Susie Bear leapt in after him, but the guy was so inebriated that he thought she was a real bear and panicked, kicking and splashing so desperately that Troy had to go after him himself. That’s how he got so wet.
He was really looking forward to a hot shower and a cold beer. But by the time they got home and he cleaned up and fed Susie Bear and popped the tab on a Heady Topper, there was a text waiting for him from Thrasher telling him to call him. He answered on the first ring.
“We followed up on that information your girlfriend sent you.” Thrasher waited for his reaction, but Troy had no intention of giving him the satisfaction.
“Sir.”
“We ran Adam Wolfe by the local PD and the Feds,” said Thrasher. “They say he’s in Quebec.”
“Quebec?”
“Hobnobbing with the secessionists up there.”
“What about his activities down here?”
“They suspected him of setting fire to a couple of logging trucks, but they couldn’t prove anything. They did cite him for putting in art installations on private property without permission.”
“Art installations?”
“Apparently he’s a sculptor. Pretty good one, at least until he gave up doing bronzes for big money and switched to creating works of natural materials for free.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Look it up.”
“So no one’s going to move on this.”
“He’s in Quebec.”
“Right.”
“We’ve got our hands full with the holiday. Stay out of it.”
“Right.” He knew how territorial law enforcement could be. But he didn’t see how he could stay out of it as long as Mercy wouldn’t stay out of it. And she was nothing if not stubborn.
All he could do was try to discourage her somehow. Because as long as she was in it, he was in it, too. No matter how much everyone tried to warn him off.
“You like her.” Thrasher laughed.
Troy ignored that. “Sir.”
Thrasher was still laughing when he hung up.
* * *
THIS TIME MERCY let him in right away. She seemed surprised to see him. Her blues eyes were sleepy and she held a glass of red wine in her long fingers.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Troy said, sounding stiff even to himself.
“No problem.” She scratched Susie Bear between her shaggy ears, then stood aside to let the black dog rumble in to say hello to Elvis, who lay forlornly on the couch, obviously embarrassed by his condition.
“The Cone of Humiliation,” he told Mercy. “What happened?”
She told him about the intruder.
“This is the first I’ve heard of this.” He was not happy.
“I didn’t report it.”
“Why not?”
“He’s long gone.”
“For now.” There she goes again, he thought. Her own private army of one. Two, if you counted the dog. Troy always counted the dog. He suspected she did, too. “He could be connected to this investigation. We should at least dust for prints.”
“He wore gloves. He knew what he was doing.”
“You don’t think he’s left any evidence behind.”
“No, and I don’t think anything is missing. Besides, Elvis is my first priority.”
“Understood.” Troy looked over at Elvis, seemingly content to hang with Susie Bear, cone and all.
“Patience says he’s fine. Just a little rattled.”
“If she says so, then it must be true. She’s the best.”
“Yes, she is.” Mercy looked at Susie Bear. “She told me all about your rescuing this big girl. She said she’d been badly abused down South.”
“Yeah. But with your grandmother’s help, she recovered.”
“That’s not how Patience tells it. She says you saved Susie Bear.”
“She would.” Troy looked over at the Newfie mutt, who raised her heavy head at the sound of her name. “She was very scared and subdued. So timid she’d shake whenever I came near her. But over time she learned to trust me.” He grinned. “Now she’s the happiest dog in the world.”
“You must have worked with her a lot.”
“I did. Lots of classes over at Two Swords.” Troy smiled at her. “And of course your grandmother’s good influence.”
“You just missed her.” She smiled back at him.
And he could see her grandmother in that smile. “Did she leave any carrot cake behind?”
“I’m afraid not.” She laughed. “But I have some shepherd’s pie left if you’re hungry.”
Troy hesitated.
“Come on. We’ll never eat it all.” She headed for the kitchen. “Want a glass of wine?
Or are you a beer guy?”
“Whatever’s easiest.”
“So you’re a beer guy.”
He followed her and expected Susie Bear to follow suit. She loved kitchens for all the obvious reasons, but she stayed behind with her friend Elvis as a show of support. Between the two of them, there was not a free full inch left to spare on the sofa. Troy wondered if Mercy allowed Elvis on the furniture all the time or if this was a special circumstance due to his injury.
The shepherd looked pretty comfortable there so Troy suspected that he’d taken his usual seat. Either way it was too late. The dogs had the couch now and they weren’t going to give it up.
The kitchen opened right onto the living room, separated by a long pine dining table and an island topped with what appeared to be an old barn door, which also served as a bar.
“I’ve got Heady Topper and Battenkill Ale.”
He had to admit that the woman had good taste where it mattered: dogs and beer.
“The Heady, please.”
She pulled a cold one from the fridge and handed it to him.
“Thanks.” Even better, she knew that real Vermonters drank this beer right from the can.
While he popped the tab, she scooped up a large heaping of shepherd’s pie onto a blue plate and put it in the microwave to heat up. He drank his beer and watched her move around the counter, cutting thick slices of pumpernickel and serving it in a basket along with a small pot of homemade butter.
“Animal Farm Butter,” she said, grinning as she handed him a knife and fork wrapped in a bright yellow cloth napkin. “Patience takes care of their cows.”
“Sweet.” Troy smiled as he smeared the golden butter on the dark brown bread. “Thanks.”
She nodded and placed the now hot shepherd’s pie before him.
He ate and she talked, briefing him on the break-in.
“He didn’t take anything, at least that I can tell.”
“So you have no idea what he was after.”
“No.”
“But when you interrupted his search, he ran.”
“And then fired.”
