by Paula Munier
“Warden Troy Warner.”
“A man in uniform.” She ran those expressive eyes over him once more before turning her attention to Mercy. He could feel his companion stiffen behind him. She stepped forward, and suddenly he felt like a moose caught between two she-wolves.
“This is Corporal Mercy Carr,” he said.
“Not in uniform,” said the professor.
“We’re here to talk about Adam Wolfe,” said Mercy.
“Oh, Adam.” Dr. Winters walked away from them, down a wide marble-tiled hall that served as the very formal entry to the very formal house. She stopped and turned, her long tousled hair falling around her pale face, framing her red mouth. “Come on.”
He caught Mercy rolling her eyes behind the professor’s back as they followed her into what his aunt Edith would have called her parlor. Heavily curtained mullioned windows ran the length of the room, which was decorated within an inch of its life with antique furniture and cupboards cluttered with knickknacks against walls papered in peacock feathers. At least he thought they were peacock feathers. All historically accurate—he knew enough to know the reason these old houses were so awful was because they were historically accurate—but not a single place to sit that looked the least bit comfortable. Aunt Edith would have loved it.
There was nothing of his aunt in the way Dr. Winters curled up in a love seat as neatly as a cat. “What’s Adam done now?”
“We understand that he’s active in the Vermont First movement.”
The professor laughed. Laughed just like Madeline. A tinkling sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck.
“Adam is an artist, not an activist.” She dismissed the thought with a flutter of her small hands. “No matter what he says.”
“You seemed to take him seriously enough when you wrote that article about him in the arts and politics journal,” said Mercy.
Dr. Winters smiled. “When it comes to politics, Adam is a poseur. But when it comes to art, he’s the real deal.” She pointed to the only modern note in the room other than electricity, a two-foot bronze sculpture that sat on an ornately carved stand in the corner under a recessed spotlight. The striking piece was of a vaguely female form, all curves and whirls and hollows, all strength and softness and shine.
“That’s his work?” Troy had to admit the guy had talent.
“It’s lovely,” said Mercy.
“It’s brilliant,” corrected the professor. “That piece is one of the last of his series of bronze nudes.”
“He sold the rest?” asked Troy. “He must be very successful, then.”
“He would have been.” Dr. Winters shook her head. “He sold a couple of the pieces and kept the remainder of the series of bronzes in a locked warehouse close to his studio. Thieves broke in and stole them all.” She sighed. “I comfort myself with the thought that they’re locked away somewhere in some sheik’s private art collection for the amusement of his harem.”
“But that’s not what happened,” he said.
“No one really knows, but the suspicion is that the pieces were sold for scrap.” She unwound her lithe body slowly. “Such a waste. Criminal.”
“You were the model,” said Mercy with a small smile.
“Yes.” Dr. Winters licked her red-stained lips. “I’m grateful that in recognition of my contribution as his muse he gifted me with my first choice of the series. This one is my favorite, and it’s safe here with me.”
“No more modeling, then?” asked Mercy.
“Alas, no. Adam abandoned his work in metals to create natural sculptures.”
“Which means what, exactly?” Troy never had looked it up.
“He gathers material he finds in nature—stones, sticks, feathers, bones—and creates sculptures there on site, integrating the art into the natural landscape.”
“In the woods?” He was trying to picture this art, and failing.
“Woods, fields, bogs, streams, wherever.”
“How can it last?”
“It’s not meant to last. It’s meant to be ephemeral. Like life.”
“Like a sand painting?” asked Mercy.
“Adam does not create work only to have it blown away with the first strong wind. He designs it to last as long as possible, with the understanding that Mother Nature will have the last word.”
Troy wanted to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand: Adam Wolfe’s recent illegal activities and current whereabouts. “He’s been accused of setting fire to logging trucks, trespassing, and creating his art on private property. Among other things.”
“Absurd.” The professor slid over to the sculpture. “Adam only wants to preserve the gallery that houses his art now.”
“The woods?” asked Mercy.
“Exactly. He wants to save the trees.” She ran her slender fingers along the curves of the artwork, which modeled her own. “It’s called Candy.”
“So you were close.”
“We were more than close.” The professor backed away from the sculpture and regarded Mercy in that feline way some women had of challenging other women. “We met at a party, and then we went to the south of France together.”
“The south of France,” repeated Troy.
“The French understand love. Or at least lovers.” She smiled at them. “I spend every summer there. With a lover.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“It’s July,” said Mercy. “You’re late.”
“It’s un-American to leave before the Fourth of July,” the professor said, her eyes still on Troy. “I’m leaving for Provence on Tuesday. And I have an extra ticket.”
He heard Mercy stifle a laugh. “Back to Adam Wolfe.”
“Of course.” She crossed her hands over her heart and sighed. “It was très merveilleux while it lasted.” She turned to Mercy. “You know how it is. Or at least I hope you do.”
Mercy nodded curtly, but he could see the sadness that suddenly clouded her eyes.
“These things run their course, don’t they?” Dr. Winters smiled, whether in sympathy or spite he wasn’t quite sure.
“I had other interests,” she continued. “And tramping around in the wilderness … let’s just say that’s not my natural habitat.” She curled back up on the love seat, perfectly framed by the peacock feathers—he was sure now—on the wall. “Adam became a hermit of sorts, living out in the woods, creating his art, growing more distraught over the loss of his natural space. Vermont’s loss of wilderness. We lost touch. The last I heard he was in Canada.”
“Lots of secessionists up there,” he said.
“Lots of wilderness, too.” She raised a pale eyebrow at him. “You said your name was Warner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He could guess where this was going.
“As in Seth Warner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Seth Warner was a captain in the Green Mountain Boys, the militia group active in the formation of the Vermont Republic. He later served as a colonel in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, lauded for his leadership during the capture of Fort Crown Point, the Battle of Longueuil, the siege of Quebec, the retreat from Canada, and the battles of Hubbardton and Bennington.
Troy’s famous ancestor—at least famous among Vermonters and American history buffs—was a subject he usually tried to avoid.
“Then you should understand. ‘Freedom and Unity.’”
“The Vermont motto.”
“Then you do understand.”
Troy did not bother to correct her. “Is there anything else you can tell us about his whereabouts?”
“I’m afraid not.”
He handed her a card. “If you think of anything…”
“You know where I live.” She smiled at him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You never told me what this was about.”
“Adam Wolfe is wanted in connection with a possible murder,” said Mercy.
Dr. Winters laughed. That tinkling sound again. “
Impossible.”
They left her there in the parlor, tinkling still. Troy felt a surge of relief as he stepped out of that woman’s hothouse into the cool shade of the oaks and maples.
“Wow.” Mercy inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.
“Some house,” he said.
“Some woman,” she said. “‘Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.’”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I didn’t believe a word of it. Except the part about her being the model for that sculpture.”
“Why would she lie?”
She shook her head. “You don’t know much about women, do you?”
Troy shrugged. “Maybe not.” He checked his phone for messages. “I’ve got to get back to my patrols.”
“Understood.”
They crossed the street to their vehicles.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said.
“I’m not sure what we’ve accomplished here.”
“We’ve learned that everyone wants us to believe that Wolfe is in Canada.”
“You think the Feds and local PD are lying?”
“I think they’re mistaken.”
“Unlikely.”
“Amy says he’s here.”
Troy shook his head. “He’s long gone. And so is she.”
“You don’t really think she killed her stepfather.” Mercy shook her head. “Her mother is not to be believed.”
“Agreed,” he said. “But Amy remains a person of interest.”
“So you are looking for her.”
“Yes. But she’s probably in Canada by now. With him.”
“She was serious about leaving him.” Mercy shook her head again, a flurry of loose curls. “I’ve met her. I can’t believe she’s capable of killing anyone.”
“Amy is not capable of murder, Wolfe is not capable of murder, none of our suspects is capable of murder, and yet two men are dead.”
Troy walked Mercy to her Jeep. Elvis was sitting up, cone in place, leaning against the window, alert as ever.
“You should go home. Get some rest.”
“Sure,” she said. “But first I’m going to get me and Elvis a creemee. Do you want to join us?”
“Thanks, but we’ve got to get back.”
“Suit yourself.”
He could feel her bright blue eyes on his back as he jumped in the truck, scratched Susie Bear’s ears, and took off down the road. He watched her in the rearview mirror as long as he could, then tried to put her and her dog and the Vermont Firsters out of his mind.
Back to his real job.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MERCY WAITED UNTIL TROY’S TRUCK had disappeared from view. Then she drove around the block, coming back to the street where the professor lived and parking out of her sight several houses away behind a blue Land Rover. She bided her time feeding Elvis treats and sipping bottled water. She was used to waiting. The army taught you patience if nothing else. A patient soldier was a smart soldier.
Elvis was a smart soldier, too. Martinez had seen to that. The high-energy shepherd could stay perfectly still, quiet, and alert, as long as needed. Even when wearing the Cone of Humiliation, as Troy had called it. She smiled and patted the dog’s head, scratching that sweet spot between his ears.
“I don’t think it will be too long,” she told him. “That’s a woman in a hurry.”
But not too much of a hurry. Nearly two hours passed before the heavy oak door with the angry gargoyle knocker opened and Dr. Winters came out, now dressed in cargo pants, hiking boots, and a white T-shirt. She had tied a beige cardigan around her shoulders and a camouflage-colored fanny pack around her hips.
Mercy watched as the woman drove off in a forest-green SUV. Her Vermont vanity license plate read DR ART.
“Let’s see where Dr. Art goes,” she told Elvis. “Ten bucks says she takes us right to Adam Wolfe.”
When the professor was a couple of blocks away, Mercy began to follow her. The streets were relatively quiet; there weren’t many vehicles on the road. It was late afternoon now; most everyone who was going anywhere on this holiday weekend was already there. When she could stay a car or two behind she did, but when she couldn’t, she fell back, slowing down to avoid detection.
“I think we’re in for a long ride,” she predicted, as Dr. Winters headed onto Route 7 going north. She was right, not that Elvis argued the point. He was always content to let her drive.
Nearly an hour later, the SUV exited Route 7 and navigated a number of increasingly remote and rugged roads. Mercy pursued her at a discreet distance, thankful for the many highs and lows and twists and turns of these roads, which afforded her red Jeep some much-needed cover. Surveillance was a critical skill for a cop, military or otherwise. She excelled at it; she liked the role of observer, especially when she herself was unobserved. People behaved differently when no one was looking—usually for the worse than for the better, but not always. She wondered how the professor would behave, but she didn’t hold out much hope that it would be for the better.
The SUV jostled down an old logging road. Mercy drove carefully, maneuvering the Jeep to minimize the bumping for Elvis’s sake. Although he seemed fine, apart from the cone, which he obviously hated even more after his taste of freedom, shaking his head vigorously from time to time in an effort to remove it.
Her cell phone had stopped working several miles back. If she was going to keep this up, she’d need a vehicle with satellite GPS, she thought. Not that she was going to keep on surveilling people. This was just for Amy and Helena. A one-off. She was done with police work.
The SUV came to a sudden stop. She stopped, too. They were the only vehicles on this road, and odds were that would not change. She had to be even more careful now. The risk of exposure was high.
Elvis whined and tossed his head, and the cone shuddered.
“You are so smart.” Mercy held the cone steady with one hand and the steering wheel with the other. “You know I’m going after her, don’t you, and that you won’t be coming along.”
The professor did not get out of her car, but again began to bump along the logging road, which grew narrower and rougher as it led deeper into the spruce-fir forest.
The more slowly Dr. Winters went, the greater the risk of Mercy being spotted. She let the SUV go on ahead and the Jeep fall back. If the woman drove any more slowly, she’d have to pull over and pursue Dr. Winters on foot.
Elvis was agitated now, banging the cone against the side of the passenger door.
“Settle down,” she ordered.
He ignored her, bashing the cone harder. He began to bark.
“Quiet.”
The stubborn shepherd bellowed.
“Look, she’s getting away. I’ve got to go now.”
Elvis continued to whip his head around, more wildly still.
“Okay, okay.” She unsnapped her seat belt. “You’re going to go hurt yourself if you keep this up.”
Patience had warned her that he’d resist the cone, and that it should stay on until he was healed or he destroyed it. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before he achieved the latter. She didn’t have the time to deliberate, so she made a decision. She released him from the cone and hoped she wouldn’t regret it. Elvis shook his handsome head, his dark eyes shining with triumph.
“Show-off.” She tried not to laugh as she parked the Jeep as far over to the side of the road as she could in a little clearing behind a thin copse of young birch. Not the perfect camouflage, but better than nothing.
“Let’s go,” she said sternly, slipping her pack onto her back and pushing the door open for him. He leapt along the road, which was little more than a pitted path at this point, overjoyed to be free of impediments and on the job again.
She jogged after him, her eyes on his bandaged backside. He seemed completely normal, suffering no ill effects that she could tell. Whether that was from a lack of pain or an excess of pride she wasn’t sure. Just like Martinez.
/> The SUV was out of sight, but she could still hear it caroming farther and farther into the wilderness. The sun hung lower in the sky now, an orange blaze on its slow descent toward a summer sunset. Only a few hours of daylight left. Mercy let out a low whistle and Elvis bounded back to her.
They kept to the tree line, veering off into the woods when the road straightened and they were in danger of being seen. The sound of the SUV was their guide, competing with the pounding of woodpeckers and the rustling of squirrels and the distant cries of loons. The logging road wove in and out of the national forest proper, skirting private property. No Trespassing signs appeared from time to time, marking areas forbidden to strangers.
The hardwoods forest was thick with pine, maples, beech, and birch, but as they climbed pockets of spruce and fir appeared, eventually to give way to the softwoods forest of the higher elevations. She navigated the thickets of hobblebush, beaked hazelnut, and shadbush, admiring the mountain azalea even as she avoided the stinging wood nettle.
This was obviously a road little used by loggers in recent times. There were only a few sets of tire treads, made by ATVs mostly, along with the professor’s own SUV and the odd truck. Mercy knew that squatters were scattered throughout these woods in abandoned camps and makeshift shelters and hand-built cabins. They were an eclectic bunch: seasonal farmers and marijuana growers, hermits and the homeless, survivalists and cultists.
Vermont had its share of crazies like everywhere else. As Patience liked to say, “Where there’s woods, there’s wacky.” Mercy wondered what kind of wacky Dr. Winters was leading them toward. She suspected that it was Adam Wolfe’s compound or art colony or whatever it was.
The professor drove so slowly that they were in danger of catching up to her. The so-called road was little more than a wide ditch now. Mercy and Elvis trudged along a parallel path close to the trail’s edge, but when the SUV finally came to a full stop before a clumsily fenced encampment, they ducked deeper into the forest. The barbwire rolls that comprised the barrier were standard-issue military-grade perimeter controls, three-foot-wide cylinders of sharp points designed to discourage intruders—hastily constructed but effective enough to dissuade most interlopers.
