by Paula Munier
“Got ’em all?” Troy looked around the Walker homestead, imagining how the desolate place must have looked overflowing with cats. At least they would have given it some life. Now it was just another crime scene, marked by violent death.
“We were just going to have Elvis search for any stragglers,” said Mercy, who managed to look good covered from head to toe even in this heat. He remembered his mother saying that women didn’t sweat, they glowed, and Mercy might just be the first evidence he’d found that proved this. She wore a straw beach hat, and her face was flushed with a fine mist. She was glowing, all right.
“Will the cone slow him down?” He smiled at her. “I’m sure Susie Bear would be happy to help.”
“Troy!” The veterinarian gave him a quick hug. She, too, wore a straw hat. Which explained why Mercy had swapped her baseball cap for the straw number. He could just imagine her grandmother insisting on it.
“You can take his cone off,” she told Mercy, “but just for the search. When it’s over, it goes right back on.”
“He’ll love that.” Mercy snapped off the cone, and the shepherd shimmied with delight.
“Hey, Warner.” Denise Boudreaux nodded smartly at Troy, saving her enthusiasm for Susie Bear, who greeted her with unreserved joy.
“Hey, Boudreaux.” He’d worked with the Northshire Animal Control officer many times, repatriating black bears and capturing rabies-infected raccoons and rescuing injured bald eagles. He admired her competence, as well as her ability to be tough and compassionate at the same time. Both qualities were required for law enforcement of any kind, but most people erred in one direction or the other. The ones who erred on the side of compassion often didn’t last—and the ones who erred on the side of tough often went on to give the rest of them a bad name.
“I guess we all know each other,” said Mercy.
Seeing grandmother and granddaughter together for the first time side by side, he was struck by a resemblance he had not expected. Mercy had her legendary grandfather’s coloring—redhead rather than blond—but she had inherited her grandmother’s fine features and blue eyes. She was taller by several inches, but the long legs and athletic build were the same. Good genes, he thought.
“How many cats did you get?” he asked.
“Thirty-three,” said Patience. “Most of them should make it.”
“That’s great.” Troy knew that it didn’t always work out that way.
“Let’s wrap this up,” said Denise, as Susie Bear ran over to greet Patience.
“Sure.” Mercy turned to Elvis, who’d been prancing in place, desperate to be released so he could give his canine friend a proper welcome.
“Search,” said Troy and Mercy in unison.
At the sound of the call to work, both dogs bounded off, happy to be together on the job again.
“Yin and yang,” said Patience.
At what must have been the blank look on Troy’s face, she added, “Male and female energies. Opposite, and yet complementary.”
“Right.” He loved the vet, but when she went all woo-woo on him, he tuned out.
“Exactly,” said Denise, grinning at him.
“Excuse us,” Troy said, as Mercy took off after the dogs.
“Certainly,” said Patience, who couldn’t resist winking at him as soon as her granddaughter’s back was turned.
“I saw that,” said Denise.
Troy raised his hands in defeat and followed Mercy.
The dogs scoured the perimeter, stopping along the way, trying to sniff out any wayward kitties. While the trees and the scrub and the earth did a good job of filtering out the worst of the bad cat smells—at least from the human nose’s point of view—he thought the foul feline odors might be overwhelming to the dogs’ more sensitive snouts. Of course, what smelled terrible to him might smell just great to them, or at least interesting. For their sake he hoped so.
“You think they can find anything?”
“Every dog loves the opportunity to corner a cat. Even the ones who like cats.”
“Like Elvis and Susie Bear.”
“They make a good team,” said Mercy.
“Yep.” Troy agreed with her there.
As if on cue the dogs ran to the porch and stuck their snouts under the loose boards, barking.
“I’ll check under the house,” said Denise. Armed with a flashlight and long tongs designed to capture feral cats safely by the neck, the animal control officer slipped the tool underneath the porch.
“Find anything?”
“Score!” Denise pulled out a frightened and feeble torbie and handed her to Mercy, who placed her into a carrier and closed it up.
Elvis yelped and circled around the house, Susie Bear lumbering right after him, apparently all yin to his yang. Or maybe it was the other way round.
Mercy and Troy trailed along after them. The backyard wasn’t really a yard at all, but rather a cracked and gutted narrow slab of concrete flanked by the forest. Nothing much there but a rusted old Weber grill and two broken green plastic lawn chairs.
The shepherd loped across the run-down patio and around the far end of the Walker home. Susie Bear crisscrossed the concrete slab in a more leisurely fashion, nose quivering, as if to say, What’s your hurry, dude. Then she disappeared around the corner.
Troy heard her bark. “She’s alerting to something.”
They sprinted around the house and found the dogs sniffing around at the edge of a pile of broken flowerpots. Susie Bear barked again and Elvis dropped to his haunches.
“What you got there, guys?” Mercy squatted down and peered between two of the largest shards of terra-cotta planters, which topped uneven stacks of old pottery. She put her gloves back on and pulled the pieces away.
“Careful.” Troy knew how sharp broken shards could be; he had the scars on his hands to prove it. She ignored him, but then he suspected that she ignored most caution against dangers large and small when she was focused on achieving a positive outcome—meaning the mission is won and no one gets hurt. It was a recklessness he could appreciate.
“There’s a cat in here.”
Troy pulled on his own gloves and helped her remove enough of the clutter to reveal a ginger kitty hidden among the fractured earthenware.
Mercy reached down to pick it up, but the sly little thing leapt past her long fingers.
Troy dropped to his knees and opened his arms just in time to catch it in his hands like an errant football. “Gotcha!”
“Good save,” she said, laughing.
And like a fool he grinned in pleasure for having amused her. He held out the orange kitten so she could get a better look at him.
“Another Munchkin.”
Susie Bear and Elvis gave the little guy a good snuffling, as the kitty meowed wildly and waved his short legs around as if he were dancing on air.
“He’s a lively thing.” Patience appeared with a carrier in hand. “You forgot this, and by the sound of that mewling you’re going to need it.”
Mercy opened the top and tossed a treat from her fanny pack inside. Troy put the kitty inside and it scrambled to collect the prize.
“We need Jade to name it.” Mercy told him how the teenager who was helping her named the cats after comic book characters. Closing the kitty in, she handed the carrier back to Patience.
Troy looked back down into the pile of pottery. “There’s more stuff here.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Patience. “They call Munchkins magpies, because they love shiny new objects. They steal pretty things and hide them.”
Mercy laughed. “Quite the stockpile.”
“Gambit,” said Troy. But he could tell that neither woman got the reference.
“Remy LeBeau,” said Denise, walking toward them. “The Cajun mutant thief from X-Men.”
Mercy shook her head.
“You know,” said Denise. “Wolverine.”
“Hugh Jackman,” said Mercy.
“With blades for fingers,
” said Patience. “I remember now.”
“Perfect,” said Mercy. “Jade would approve.”
“We’ll take Gambit back,” said Denise. “Unless there’s anything else.”
“Sure,” Troy said, but he didn’t move. Neither did Mercy.
“Are you two coming?” asked Patience.
“Not yet.” Mercy looked at Troy. “I’d like to go through Gambit’s stash first.”
“Technically this is a crime scene,” he reminded her.
“All the more reason to check it out. Maybe the crime scene techs missed something.”
“I didn’t hear that,” said Denise.
“Will we see you back at the Cat House?” asked Patience.
“Maybe later,” said Mercy, handing the straw hat back to her grandmother.
“Uh-huh.” The vet wrapped an arm around Denise’s shoulder. “I guess it’s just you and me and the Cajun mutant thief, then.”
“Don’t you kids stay out too late,” yelled the animal control officer over her shoulder as she and Patience walked away with the magpie Munchkin.
“She can’t be any older than you are.”
“Pay no attention to them.” Mercy pulled off her other rabies glove. “Got any more of those plastic gloves? God knows what’s on these by now.”
Troy pulled a couple of pairs from his pocket, gave her one, and swapped out his own rabies gloves for plastic ones. The woman was nothing if not thorough.
He stood there with a dog on either side of him as she picked through the jumble of stolen goods.
“Do you think that Gambit stole it all, or did they all contribute to the, uh, kitty?” Troy was thinking about what Patience said about the breed’s criminal tendencies.
Mercy rolled her eyes at his bad pun. He couldn’t help it, he loved puns, the worse, the better.
“Could be plenty of sticky paws here,” she said. “A den of thieves.”
“And not just the cats. Whatever Donald Walker was up to, it got him killed.”
Mercy opened her fist and he spotted a couple of mismatched earrings. “There’s more where that came from.”
Troy opened the only evidence bag he had on him and Mercy dropped in the earrings. “Hold this, while I go get some more bags.” He jogged around the Walker house to his truck, Elvis and Susie Bear accompanying him, just for the fun of it. Denise and Patience were gone; his truck and Mercy’s Jeep were the only vehicles left. As he gathered up some more bags and headed back with the dogs to Mercy, he thought about what Harrington would say about their removing evidence from the scene. If you could call it evidence. Probably not much, but then Harrington didn’t think much of anything Troy did outside of Fish and Wildlife.
Besides, he doubted anything a cat dragged in could bear much relevance to the case. But he kept that to himself as he held out the open bags for Mercy as she dropped the found items inside: a couple of thin silver bracelets, four old keys, a brass shell casing, two gold barrettes, a number of silver screws of various lengths and thicknesses, a plain gold wedding ring, and a few necklaces, one gold one with a small cross, one silver, and two cheap shiny pairs of beads that reminded Troy of the Mardi Gras beads that hung around the rearview mirror in Thrasher’s truck. The captain had worked search and rescue in New Orleans after Katrina.
They bagged everything.
“This is the last one.” Mercy held up a delicate if dirty silver chain with a silver pendant. “It’s a mountain range, with pines.” She pointed to the image on the pendant.
“Like the Vermont coat of arms.”
“Not exactly. But definitely inspired by a landscape like ours.” She squinted at the piece. “And close enough in style that it could have been made by the same jewelry designer. Maybe.”
“Coincidence or tied to the belt buckles?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” they said at the same time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SHE SMILED AT HIM. “It looks handmade, which means that there may be a maker’s mark.”
“I’m assuming you don’t mean the bourbon.”
“No. The best jewelers stamp their work.”
“The belt buckles didn’t have a mark.”
“No,” said Mercy. “But they were definitely handmade. Maybe whoever made them didn’t want to be associated with the Vermont Firsters.” She snapped a couple of photos of the pendant with her cell phone, front and back.
“I’ll have them take a good look when they clean them up.”
“Better safe than sorry. Maybe when I get home I can blow these up and get a better look myself.”
“You don’t have to do everything yourself, you know.”
“I know.” Mercy frowned. “You’re going to be in trouble for removing evidence. Harrington won’t like it.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” He grinned at her as she handed him the pendant. He dropped it into another evidence bag. “You found the Munchkin and removed the kitty’s favorite things, as part of an animal rescue.”
“Having first received permission from local authorities.” She grinned back at him.
“Unfortunately, the cat’s stash was found right after the Northshire Animal Control officer left the scene.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Okay, let me take in this evidence. And then we’ll go see Dr. Winters, as promised.”
They headed back around the house, dogs running ahead.
“Maybe we should stop off on the way somewhere and feed and water the dogs,” he said, as Susie Bear and Elvis sat by their respective vehicles, thick tongues hanging out. “I think they could both use a drink and a snack.”
“Me, too. I know you’ve got to get back on patrol eventually, but if you’ve got the time I wouldn’t mind a quick pit stop myself.”
“How about Hound Dawgs? It’s on the way.”
Susie Bear barked her approval and Mercy laughed. “Sounds good.”
* * *
THIRTY MINUTES LATER they were feasting on the best hot dogs in Northshire in the abandoned lot where the popular food truck was stationed every summer. Plain dogs and water for Susie Bear and Elvis, loaded chili dogs and vanilla cream sodas for Troy and Mercy.
“This is summer food at its best,” said Mercy, washing down the last of the bun with a slurp of soda.
“Yep.” Troy admired her appetite. Madeline would never have indulged in a Hound Dawg; she was a fussy eater who lived on kale and grilled chicken and insisted that no self-respecting female could survive on the meat-and-potato diets that men preferred. There was nothing fussy about Mercy, and yet she was still feminine. Maybe the captain was right, and he’d let Madeline define his idea of the ideal woman for too long. Maybe that’s what comes of marrying the high school girl of your dreams. Maybe you grow up, and everything changes.
“Want anything else?” asked Mercy. “My treat.”
Elvis and Susie Bear raised their heads at her question, their own frankfurters long devoured. She laughed, a big belly laugh like her grandmother’s. “I wasn’t talking to you, dogs.”
“I’m good,” Troy said. And he was.
Mercy snapped the cone back on Elvis, much to his distaste. He barked his disapproval, and shook his head so hard Troy thought he might harm himself.
“Knock it off,” she said in that command voice of hers. Elvis stopped in midshake. She laughed, and he licked her hand.
“Good dog,” said Troy.
“Was there any doubt?”
They piled back into their respective vehicles and drove to the police station, where he dropped off the evidence bags for Harrington. Luckily the detective was not there, and he could just hand it off to a uniform and bolt. He’d still have to tell Thrasher about it, and that would undoubtedly earn him another warning about the consequences of stepping on Harrington’s toes.
He came out of the building, gave Mercy a thumbs-up, and climbed into the Ford F-150.
“Onward,” he said to Susie Bear, and she thumped her plumed tail
in agreement.
They took both dogs and both vehicles, in case Troy got called in to work, which was very likely. He could sleep next week.
He and Susie Bear led the way, careful to keep Mercy and Elvis in his rearview mirror. Thirty minutes later down Route 7, he turned the truck into a quiet old neighborhood not far from downtown Bennington. Nineteenth-century houses lined the wide street under a canopy of oak and maple trees.
The professor lived in the most imposing of these Victorian piles, an enormous painted lady done in dark purples, reds, and blues. The kind of house that had both intrigued and intimidated him as a kid. His aunt Edith had lived in a place like this, and she’d been as finicky and foreboding as her hulk of a house. He wondered if Dr. Winters was anything like his aunt. If so, this might prove an unpleasant and unsuccessful interview. He parked across the street and waited for Mercy and Elvis to pull up behind him. Susie Bear whimpered when he told her to stay put and stepped out of the truck without her. Mercy followed suit, and Troy figured Elvis wasn’t any happier about being left behind than Susie Bear was.
“Creepy house,” she said.
“Yeah.” He didn’t tell her about his aunt Edith.
They walked up a long stone path made of granite and up a half-dozen steps onto the wraparound porch, crowded with dark wicker furniture and planters overgrown with succulents.
“That’s one angry gargoyle.” She pointed to the big brass knocker on the door.
“Go ahead,” said Troy.
Mercy raised her strawberry-blond eyebrows at him and he grinned. She banged the brass knocker, then stepped back, allowing him to take the lead. So far, so good.
The small woman who answered the door didn’t look like a gargoyle or his aunt Edith. At first glance she seemed every bit the mousy professor, with her messy brown hair, pale skin, and gray eyes huge behind her nerdy black glasses. But her lips shone with red lipstick, and her prim white blouse and navy pants fit so snugly it was obvious she was not wearing anything underneath them. Overall, the effect was as subtle as it was devastating. He could only imagine how she held her students spellbound as she expounded on whatever it was she expounded on in her classes at Bennington.
“And you are?” Dr. Winters slipped her thick glasses down her thin nose and peered up at him with those myopic eyes.
