Mercy River

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “I’m not joking,” Veronique said, already climbing into the pilot’s seat. “If this plane isn’t back before dawn . . .”

  Hollis and I ducked under the wing to load the tanks into the back.

  “No chance you’ll get inspected when you land?” I asked.

  “The lovely V there is simply picking up her passenger and dropping him off at Friday Harbor, as per the flight plans filed a week ago.”

  “Quite a coincidence.”

  “You’re all right, then?” he said. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  I handed him the empty jerry can. “Luce is getting married.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it.

  “Oh.” He set the jug gently in the plane. “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When you get home we’ll raise some hell,” he said, clambering into his seat. “Drink and cards and enough food to make the Francesca list to one side. How much longer will you be down here?”

  “If it’s more than a week, you’ll hear my scream from all the way in Seattle.”

  He laughed.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said to Veronique.

  “Just have my money ready.”

  Hollis shrugged—What can you do?—and shut the door. I backed off and watched as the little Cessna revved, picked up speed, and floated into the sky as easily as a feather caught by the wind.

  Twenty-Six

  Thunder groaned in the distance as the Dodge crossed the line back into Griffon County. I stopped to toss my collection of empty boxes into a Future Farmers of America donation bin. Maybe the red containers would make good chicken roosts.

  By the time I hit Mercy River, rain was pelting down. The surprise storm had driven the Rally’s final hours of celebration indoors but hadn’t put a damper on the party. The Trading Post Saloon and the diner across the street were both standing-room-only. Revelers who couldn’t squeeze their way inside crowded the boardwalk planks, huddling under the saloon’s awning or standing in the rain with heads under hoods and hands cupped over their pint glasses, not letting the downpour interrupt their conversations. For many of them, the Rally was their last chance to cut loose for many months.

  Moulson stood with a knot of men outside the diner, wearing a slouch hat with a brim so stiff I guessed he’d bought it at the mercantile this same weekend. He spotted the Dodge, and quickly and emphatically motioned for me to join the party.

  I was tired. Too tired to stand around and throw back beers, and too tired to chase down Fain and his soldiers right this minute. I waved to Moulson and kept moving.

  Two blocks later I changed my mind. I coasted to stop at the curb, my tires splashing a long wave of rainwater up onto the sidewalk.

  “Where you been, dude?” Moulson said as I joined him. “You missed one hell of a party. Well, mostly.” He waved an enthusiastic arm at the packed diner, nearly knocking another man onto his ass.

  “I’ve seen some fireworks already,” I said. Rain trickled off the brim of my cap. “But I didn’t want to miss saying good luck. You and Booker headed back to Lewis tomorrow?”

  “Tonight,” he said. “Ken’s drivin’, he lost the coin toss. Hey!” he shouted through the diner window. Booker turned at the sound, along with half a dozen others. He nodded assent and began to squeeze his way through the throng to the door.

  “When do you roll out?” I said, meaning when would their battalion deploy.

  “We start workup next week. Figure we’re on the ground at Bagram sometime after Thanksgiving.”

  Booker finished fighting his way to the sidewalk and pulled his collar tighter. “Thought you were in the wind, Shaw.”

  “Not yet. Moulson was telling me about your rotation. Your first time?”

  “As a Ranger, yeah.”

  I took out my phone. “Give me your numbers.”

  They did and I texted them mine. “Call me when you get back to the world. We’ll grab a beer.”

  Booker, the sober one of the pair, glommed on first and smiled. “You making sure we reassimilate okay? A lifeline outside the regiment?”

  “Never hurts to talk.”

  “Damn. Guess the Rally’s mission statement sank in with somebody.”

  I stayed for a round and talked with the two specialists about their assignments, their excitement at finally putting their training to use, and their plans for after they came home. Moulson was going to find an apartment off base with his girlfriend. Booker’s parents were moving up from Oakland to be closer, now that he’d be with the Second Bat for a while. Tomorrow the two men would be back on base, readying themselves. But not tonight. Tonight was the drink before the war.

  When I woke, it was to the sound of water splashing and spilling over the sides of the house’s gutters. The room seemed out of focus, daylight shimmering through heavy rain outside the windows.

  No dreams this time. And no pill to help me sleep, either, I realized.

  I checked my watch, which meant pulling back the sleeve of the shirt I was still wearing from the day before. At least I’d taken my shoes off before falling onto the bed.

  Ten-fifteen. Sunday morning. Okay. At least I had my bearings.

  The house was cold. Maybe Ganz had turned the heat off before he’d left for Seattle. I dredged up the memory of a note on the kitchen counter, Ganz saying that he’d be back for Leo’s sentencing, and something about the house being paid up through Monday. No valediction or signature. Politeness apparently wasn’t worth Ephraim’s expensive time. Or I wasn’t, after the fiasco in court. I wondered how Leo was holding up. Five days until his sentencing.

  After an icy shower, the room felt warmer and my head felt like it was screwed on right. With fresh clothes and a clean rain jacket, I might be presentable. The twenty-three pages of folded HaverCorp invoices made a thick paper brick in my pocket. I stuck my baseball cap—still damp from the night before—on my head and the Browning on a belt clip and walked out the door to find John Fain.

  General Macomber must have ordered the rainstorm to help Mercy River clean up after the Rally. Except for the odd red Solo cup in the gutter and some torn banners still touting active military discounts, the town looked clean and ready for Sunday services. For once the citizens on the street outnumbered the Rangers. While quick-marching to the inn, I was assailed by the heavy scent of frying meat.

  The food won out. I hadn’t eaten since before I’d demolished Jaeger’s cabin the night before, and my stomach urged me to make up for lost time. The aroma carried me down the street to the diner, where I had the kitchen throw pancakes and bacon and sausage into a paper container. I ate the meal with my fingers as I walked up the boardwalk.

  Two blocks on, I spotted Fain. He was leaning against a lamppost, smoking as he watched the people hurrying through the rain on the main drag with an expression like he was ready to cut the weaker civilians from the herd.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he said when I was ten yards away.

  “Working.”

  “The men had bets going that you’d skipped town.”

  “Not while Leo’s here.” I pulled the invoices from my pocket and unfolded them to show Fain. His eyes widened as he took in the HaverCorp company logo, and below that, Aaron Conlee’s name.

  “Where did you—” he began.

  “I’ll be outside the town hall in twenty minutes. Bring the evidence to clear Leo. If you’re not there, or your hands are empty, I’m gone for good.”

  “Shaw.”

  I walked away, down the block and around the corner, to watch the reflection of the road in a sports store window. Would Fain follow? No, he had turned and was striding in the opposite direction, likely to the inn. Three blocks north and on the other side of Main Street. I circled the block at a run, determined to beat Fain there.

  Big Daryll’s GMC Yukon was parked at the curb in front of the inn. I waited behind the same row of compost bins that had been my cover two nights ago. A more conspicuous hiding place now
that it was daylight, but I would only need a moment.

  Fain appeared on the street. He went into the inn. Five minutes later, Rigoberto and Zeke Caton came out and half ran to a bright orange Challenger. Rigo jumped behind the wheel and they raced off. Another minute, and Fain emerged as well, carrying a paper grocery sack. Daryll followed, walking carefully on his broken toes. The Yukon’s parking lights flashed as Daryll unlocked the car and crossed in front of the vehicle to get into the driver’s seat. Fain was already inside, as eager to roll as a Labrador.

  I jogged across the street, opened the back door of the Yukon, and jumped inside.

  “Easy,” I said, putting a warning palm on Fain’s shoulder as his own hand dipped into his jacket. “Let’s play nice.” I sat right behind him. If Daryll had a weapon, it had to be in an ankle holster; out of quick reach now.

  “We’re the good guys,” said Fain.

  “Jury’s still out on that,” I said, reaching into the front and taking the grocery sack. “Put your hands on the dash.”

  He complied. “Where is Jaeger?”

  I ignored him, glancing in the sack. Inside was a large sealed freezer bag, holding folded clothes. Gray coveralls or work pants. And paper boots, the kind with elastic to slip over regular shoes, so you didn’t track dirt into the house that a real estate agent was showing, or get spatters on them during a paint job.

  No paint on these. But plenty of flaking, rust-colored drops.

  “Start talking,” I said to Fain.

  He took that as permission to turn a fraction, so he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “That night you broke into the gun shop. Daryll was covering the back. I covered the front, watching from the vacant store next door.”

  I’d seen the renovated store, awaiting tenants. “Go on.”

  “It was a prime vantage point. The upstairs windows let me see the entire street.” Fain started to twist around and I moved another foot to stay in his blind spot. “Somebody had already forced the lock on the door. I went through the place to make sure no one was camped there. Squatters wouldn’t surprise me in a town like this. I found the coveralls and the shoes, up on a high shelf.”

  “Just sitting there.”

  “Not for long. I could still smell the blood on them. The shooter must have worn the coveralls over his civvies to keep himself clean, and set them there right after. I don’t know why he didn’t trash them. But they can’t be Leo Pak’s. The coveralls are size XL. Your guy would be swimming in those.”

  Not exactly exculpatory evidence, wearing baggy clothes. But it did undercut the police theory that Erle’s shooting had been a crime of opportunity. The killer had brought gear to keep blood off of him.

  “And”—Fain tapped his forefinger on the dashboard—“the marks inside the paper boots are from a big flat tread. Street shoes.”

  “Leo wears desert boots,” I said, finishing the thought.

  “Yes, he does. Pak’s innocent. Those clothes prove it.”

  “If I believe you.”

  “Come on. That would be a pretty elaborate lie.”

  “I’ve heard weirder. But let’s go with it. You found the bloody clothes. Then what?”

  “Then you and Daryll start beating the shit out of each other and I left the clothes where they were to go and find out what the hell was happening.”

  “John had to help me walk back to the inn,” Daryll said, speaking up for the first time. “Humiliating.”

  “It gave me a chance to think on the situation,” said Fain. “The shooter might come back to get his clothes. But I couldn’t stake out the vacant store around the clock. I didn’t tell anybody about the clothes, not even the men. I came back an hour later and sealed them up in plastic and hid them.”

  “You should have trusted us,” Daryll said to his boss.

  “Trust is at a premium right now,” I said.

  “We delivered,” said Fain. “Where is Jaeger?”

  “Probably running back to Idaho with his tail between his legs,” I said. “You’ll get the Trumorpha when Leo’s free.”

  “Our deal was you lead us to Jaeger.” Fain’s voice rose, startling an elderly woman passing by on the sidewalk. I smiled and nodded to her. Boys being boys.

  “Your objective was to acquire the Trumo,” I said. “Keep it off the street, you told me. Or was that bullshit?”

  Fain and Daryll were silent.

  “Thought so,” I said.

  “Those freaks butchered people,” Daryll said through his teeth. His eyes in the mirror told me it was eating him up, not being able to turn around and get his hands on my neck.

  “I found that out,” I said, “too late to do any good. Whose damn fault is that?”

  I popped the lock to open the door. Fain took his hands off the dash, more frustration than conscious choice, and thought better of it. My Browning’s muzzle made a circular indent behind his ear.

  “At least hand over the drugs,” he said. “Maybe they’ll give us a lead on Jaeger.”

  “The Trumo stays where it is. If anything happens to me, a package with three thousand vials will show up in the nearest FBI office, along with a letter explaining everything. My insurance that you and your boys behave.”

  I slipped out of the Yukon. As I walked away, I kept an eye peeled in case Zeke and Rigo circled back, wondering what had happened to their boss. Bad enemies to have. I’d have to step very lightly around Mercy River until Leo was a free man.

  But that wasn’t the problem at the front of my mind.

  Leo wears desert boots, I had said.

  Yes, he does, Fain had answered.

  Leo had only worn socks when Fain had visited him in the jail. His boots had been bagged and tagged in an evidence locker.

  Did Fain’s reach extend to every corner of the sheriff’s station? Or was there more to this than I was seeing?

  Twenty-Seven

  Ganz picked up on the fourth ring, at the instant I had resigned myself to leaving a voice mail.

  “Surprised you answered,” I said.

  “I thought about ignoring it,” Ganz said, “and decided that not talking now would lead to unwanted visitors at my home in the middle of the night again. I will give you two minutes.”

  “Okay. A hypothetical situation. If I came across evidence that pointed to someone other than Leo being the shooter, but that evidence had been removed from the scene, what are my options?”

  Ganz’s pause ate up a good five seconds of my allotted one hundred and twenty. “You have quite an imagination, with a hypothesis like that.”

  “If I dropped it on the sheriff’s doorstep, what would happen?”

  “I’m assuming the supposed evidence is forensic.”

  “Good assumption.”

  “Then the situation might—might—lead to that evidence being brought into the chain, and examined, and proven to be linked to the case. But that’s a long step away from having it admitted in court. The prosecution can throw up all kinds of arguments, especially involving the mystery of where the evidence was all this time. Convincing a judge that a piece of evidence might be compromised is a lot easier than proving its purity, in these circumstances. Judges such as Clave don’t like it when the defense’s Exhibit A magically falls out of the sky. Plus, lest we forget, your guy has already confessed to the damn crime. None of this even comes into play until Leo’s appeal.”

  “Which you’re not spearheading.”

  “Don’t put this on me, Van.”

  I exhaled. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “If the police found the evidence during the normal course of their investigation, that would be one thing,” Ganz said, maybe to soften the blow. “We could push for a reevaluation of the plea based on Leo’s mental history, et cetera. But the case is closed. So are our options, for now.”

  “I almost forgot. Lieutenant Yerby has clamped down on Leo’s visitors since the plea. Can you get a message to him? Tell him that Dez is on the side of the angels.”

&nb
sp; “Am I supposed to understand that jargon?”

  “You’ve gone over two minutes,” I said.

  “I’ll bill you.” He hung up.

  Dammit. I’d held out hope that the bloodstained clothes—if they were legit—would allow Ganz to get a crowbar into the case against Leo. But Leo’s kamikaze choice to plead guilty may have sealed his fate.

  And I’d let Jaeger walk. The likeliest suspect in Erle Sharples’s death, and the certain killer of at least two other innocent people.

  Two so far, I reminded myself. Jaeger would undoubtedly keep robbing HaverCorp trucks, and more guards would die. Thanks partly to me.

  I had the drugs and the blood evidence and none of it did me or Leo any good. Holding all the cards. Still losing the damn game.

  If the cops had Jaeger in their sights, they might have the resources to place him in Mercy River when Erle Sharples was killed. Maybe there was DNA on the coveralls that could link Jaeger or one of his skinhead goons to the shooting. An outside chance, but one I’d miss if I didn’t try.

  I might not know where Jaeger was now, but I did know where to find his inside man at HaverCorp. Aaron Conlee. I looked at the system admin’s online profile again. Conlee didn’t fit with the Hitler-worshippers I’d seen at the cabins. Just a regular guy with a wife and a life. His face was familiar, and I wondered if I’d seen it before. Take off his old-school glasses and change his hair, and he’d be another person entirely.

  Portland was less than three hours away. Worth the drive to find out if Aaron Conlee, possible skinhead, probable accessory to murder and armed robbery, was as unassuming in person. Fain might want to keep Conlee and HaverCorp under wraps, but I had no such concerns if it could lead the cops to Erle’s real killer.

  Conlee’s home address had been easy to find through the public records. He’d applied for a build permit on his property in University Park on the north side of Portland. Nice house, nice neighborhood. I wondered how much systems administrators made, and whether it would cover the mortgage on the sleekly modern three-level townhouse I was assessing from across the suburban street.