Blind Search

by Paula Munier

  “These are smart bucks. They know better than to go straight for the bait. They’ll hang around, checking it out until they feel it’s safe.”

  Troy gave Gil a look. “Eventually, those bastards will spot them, blind them, and then just pick them off.”

  “Dousing themselves in scent killers first.” The deer’s superior sense of smell was one of the creature’s few defensive weapons, so hunters used scent killers to keep the deer from smelling the predators out to get them.

  “You can get anything off the Internet,” said Troy. “A guy up north used an ozone generator.”

  Gil shook his head. “I heard about a guy down in Texas who got arrested for poaching, and the judge sentenced him to weekends in jail during hunting season for five years.”

  Troy laughed. “Some tough Texans, only poaching on weekends.”

  “Yeah. Yankee poachers are out all night, every night.”

  “Wish we could try that here. Think about how much easier our weekend patrols would be with these clowns in jail.”

  “True. I could take my Françoise out on a Saturday night for a change.” Gil grinned at him. “You might even be able to spend some quality time with la belle Mercy.”

  “Very funny.” Troy swept his flashlight back and forth across the small clearing. “There must be a recorder around here somewhere, a camera they use to track the deer’s comings and goings. Let’s see if we can find one. Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch them on camera.”

  Gil began a sweep at his end.

  “Search,” Troy said to Susie Bear, hoping that she could catch the night hunters’ scent on the camera or in the air. Although if they de-scented themselves sufficiently, the dog might not succeed. Susie Bear sniffed around desultorily, which told Troy that at the moment she was not excited by anything olfactory.

  “Over here,” said Gil.

  Trapped in the cross of thick oak branches they found a small digital camera operating on sensors. They took off their gloves to manipulate the device. Gil checked it out while holding the light on the camera.

  “The memory card’s gone.” Gil looked at Troy. “They must have heard us coming and taken off with the evidence. What do you want to do? Pursue on foot?”

  “Well, they’re probably gone for the night, but they’ll be coming back sooner or later. Let’s plant our own camera.” From his duty belt, he pulled out a camera with a motion sensor, much like the one the night hunters were using, only smaller and lighter and dressed in camouflage.

  Susie Bear watched them, dark eyes and nose glinting in the blackness, while they looked for the best spot to put the camera. Someplace close enough to capture the poachers in the act but far enough from their bait camera to avoid detection.

  Troy and Gil found the perfect hiding place in a small opening in a bush. They set up the camera, then stepped back to examine their handiwork.

  “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see,” quoted Gil.

  Thoreau, Troy thought. “Well, let’s hope we get something we can use.”

  “Do you think Susie Bear is getting something?” Gil pointed at the Newfie mutt as she scampered into a thick clump of scrub.

  “Susie Bear! Come back here!” Troy knew she wouldn’t go far without him, but with night hunters on the loose, he wanted her to stay in sight.

  The shaggy dog reappeared as quickly as she’d disappeared. She danced around, a whirl of black fur barely distinguishable from the darkness around her until Troy turned the flash on her, spotlighting Susie Bear’s jig. Her thick paws pounded the ground.

  “What is it, girl?”

  Troy focused the flashlight on the scrub and followed her. They found Susie Bear on her haunches in her usual sit, alerting to something indistinguishable from the leaf-strewn forest floor.

  “What’s she got?”

  Troy bent down, shining the flashlight on the area in front of the dog. There was something there, something that did not belong. That’s what Susie Bear was trained to find and that’s what she’d found.

  “What is it?”

  Troy picked it up. “A dead bird, or part of one.”

  Susie Bear looked up at him, big brown eyes shining. Troy wished he could read her mind.

  “There are a lot of dead birds in the woods,” he said. “Not sure why she’s set on these.” He held the clutch of long feathers in his outstretched gloved hand, shining the flashlight on it so that both he and Gil could take a closer look.

  Four beautiful feathers, ranging in length from about six to ten inches. Even in the small spotlight they glowed, long stripes of cream and slate shimmering in the dark.

  “Not part of a dead bird. Just the feathers.”

  “They look like the falcon feather I found in Henry’s pajamas.” He told Gil about it.

  “Peregrine falcon.” Gil turned the feathers over with the tip of his gloved hand. “They’re connected, sewn together in a patch held by a pin.”

  Troy stared at a small silver fastener, no bigger than a quarter, but in the shape of a flower. Maybe a rose, maybe not.

  “These are feathers from a woman’s hat. My wife collects hats.” Gil ran a finger lightly along the rachis of the longest feather. “She has a beach hat from California, a blue beret from Paris, a black fascinator from London … you name it, she’s got it.”

  “You seem to know a lot about them.”

  “Why not?” Gil shrugged. “An easy way to keep her happy.”

  Troy wondered what it would be like to be married to a woman who’d be content with just a new hat.

  “Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.” Gil stepped back, leaving him standing there with the feathered fastener.

  Thoreau again, thought Troy. “What kind of hat do you think this came from?”

  “Françoise has a brown Tyrolean decorated with feathers much like this.”

  “Tyrolean?”

  “You know, like Will Ferrell in Elf?”

  “Elf?” Troy laughed.

  “Or maybe a chapeau à bec. Like Robin Hood.”

  “No hat at the crime scene, but Alice de Clare was wearing the kind of fancy outfit that might go with a hat with feathers on it. Elf. Robin Hood. Whatever.”

  “She was French.”

  “Yes. From Paris.”

  “If the feathers are here…” Gil looked around, swinging his flashlight around the clearing.

  “Maybe the hat is here, too.”

  Troy whistled for Susie Bear, playing around in a blowdown area nearby, chasing her tail.

  “Search,” he told her, and the three went to work again. They went farther afield this time, in concentric circles from the scrub where the dog had emerged with the feathers.

  Susie Bear disappeared into a small copse of birches, tall slim ghosts reaching into the dark sky. A cool breeze rustled through the trees. If they weren’t out looking for poachers and gunrunners and murderers, it would have been a perfect night.

  They kept on walking their grid, but Troy knew their best bet was Susie Bear. The Newfie retriever mutt had been gone about ten minutes when she crashed back through the birches.

  She did her usual enthusiastic clomp, then disappeared.

  Troy and Gil hurried after her, finding the big dog again in her alert position, head held high, plumed tail whomping away.

  A pale object sat just shy of her large paws.

  “Good girl.” Troy scratched the top of her pumpkin head as he leaned over to retrieve the object.

  “Hat.” He showed the hat to Gil.

  “Tyrolean,” the ranger corrected.

  “Yep.” He turned the soft butter-colored cap inside out, looking for a label. All he found was a monogram with the initials ADC.

  “The fact that we found this hat—and the feathers—so close to the bait site…” Gil paused. “Maybe the night hunters killed that woman after all.”

  “Only one way to find out. Do you think there’s enough scent on that hat for Susie to track?”
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br />   “Maybe,” said Troy. “But even if there’s not, she’ll find something. She always does.”

  He held the feathers and the hat back to Susie Bear, put them under her thick cold black nose.

  The dog snorted and sniffed, sneezed and wheezed, feathers tickling her nose.

  “Search,” he said.

  Troy and Gil trailed in her wake—night goggles on, careful not to trip over logs—as the bouncing Susie Bear barreled through the dark forest. She was excited, always a good sign.

  They watched for signs in the woods. Listening, all they heard were animal sounds. Eventually they came to a marsh. A muddy slope led down to the water. Susie Bear sat at its bottom, flailing her tail in the mud. She’d definitely need a bath when they got home. She barked once.

  Two shots rang out. The cracking and hissing echoing over the water.

  “Rifle,” said Gil.

  “On the marsh.”

  The forest rustled around them in response to the gunfire. Creatures everywhere took cover. Troy whistled, and heard what he hoped was an uninjured Susie Bear crashing back up through the woods. Safe under the canopy of the forest, with any luck.

  He and Gil each readied their own rifles, then silently slid slowly down the incline. Tree by tree. The camouflage of trunks and foliage.

  Susie Bear appeared to Troy’s right, apparently unharmed, plumed tail swishing hard, brushing the scrub. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

  He raised his gloved finger to his lips, and she settled down. She could be quiet when she had to be, though she didn’t like it. It was hard for Susie Bear to curb her natural enthusiasm, to contain her considerable energy.

  Her wagging tail slowed to a stop, and she stood completely still.

  Troy smiled. He put his hand out to his side, and swatted it back, commanding her to stay behind him.

  Gil was closer to the marsh now, to Troy’s left near the bottom of the slope. He and the dog continued down the bank, catching up to him. They paused before leaving the cover of the trees. They entered the marsh, crouching among the cattails, rifles at the ready.

  Deserted. No one in sight.

  All Troy could see was a gray gloom. All he heard was the faint slapping of paddles across the water.

  They pulled off their goggles. Gil shone his flashlight along the bank, where they could just make out footprints leading down to the water.

  “They must have taken kayaks from here,” Troy said.

  “That would explain how they got in here to begin with. This marsh funnels into a stream that eventually leads down to the lake. Easy access to ATV trails back to the trailhead.”

  “Do you have a kayak up here?”

  “Yeah, but it’s docked several hundred yards down. They’re long gone by now.”

  “Well, at least we have the cameras. And the hat.”

  “Tyrolean.”

  “Right.” Troy patted the sweet spot between Susie Bear’s ears. “That definitely makes the night hunters persons of interest in the murder of Alice de Clare.”

  “What about Jenkins?”

  “This will help cast some doubt, but you know Harrington.”

  Gil smiled. “Never let the evidence get in the way of a good collar.”

  “I’ll show this to the captain and Mercy before I turn it in to Harrington. Make sure I know what we’re looking at.”

  “Any excuse to see her is a good excuse.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Troy and Gil headed back toward the ranger station, Susie Bear on their heels.

  “Did I ever tell you about my first wife?” asked Gil.

  “No.” Troy didn’t know that his friend had been married before Françoise. “Did she collect hats, too?”

  “She collected favors.”

  Not knowing quite what to say to that, Troy said nothing.

  “That’s the secret to women,” Gil told him as they made their way through the dark forest. “What they collect.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The objective of the game is simple: Win all the cards.

  —WAR

  LILLIAN JENKINS’S HOUSE WAS a big eighteenth-century white Colonial on the outskirts of town, the centerpiece of a two-hundred-acre farm that had been in her family for generations. Mercy smiled every time she saw the ARDEN ACRES, EST. 1760 plaque by the dark-red front door. It reminded her of As You Like It and the Forest of Arden, where the banished duke escapes and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England.

  If Vermont had a Robin Hood, it was Lillian, who wrangled more money out of more of the state’s richest citizens for more good causes than anyone else. It was said that the old house had been a stop on the Underground Railroad, and that Lillian’s ancestors had hidden slaves in a cellar beneath the sugar shack where they made the farm’s justifiably famous maple syrup. Good works were in her DNA.

  She was waiting for them. Elvis led Mercy and Henry into the hallway.

  Lillian crushed the boy to her chest, hugging him tight, as if she hadn’t just seen him at Mercy’s cabin. Henry went limp, allowing his grandmother to fully embrace him. He was a small boy, and Lillian was a small woman. They were locked together like two perfect puzzle pieces. Henry and Lillian reminded Mercy of her and her grandmother. Patience was the one person who understood Mercy best. Now that Martinez was gone.

  The myth was that mothers understood their children, but Mercy’s mother didn’t understand her. Or maybe the problem was that she did, and she disapproved. To be understood and accepted, Mercy felt that was the true nature of love. Though she knew her mother still loved her. It just seemed so hard for both of them.

  Henry wriggled out of Lillian’s arms. Elvis stood at his side, ever watchful.

  “Henry, why don’t you show Elvis around,” said his grandmother. “I’ll see what kind of treats I can round up for you and your pal.”

  The little boy walked away without looking back, Elvis following.

  Then Lillian gave her a long hug, too.

  “It’s okay,” Mercy told her. “I talked to Daniel Feinberg. He believes Ethan’s innocent. He’ll do what needs to be done for Ethan. Starting with bail.”

  Lillian brusquely wiped away the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Patience called to say that Dr. Jacobs is on his way here.”

  “More good news.” She knew that her grandmother could talk the surgeon general into making house calls. Great Dane or no Great Dane.

  “Go find Henry and Elvis. I’ll see to those snacks.”

  The boy and the dog were in the den, a large wood-paneled space with a wood-burning stove and a big dark-red leather sofa. On the walls were a collection of vintage Vermont signs. Fiddle Head Old Tyme Beer. True Blues Ammo. Peche Reserve.

  Sitting at an antique oak game table, Henry was surrounded by maps, dice, and little figures of elves and dragons and dire wolves. He pulled out a nut-brown scroll that he spread out on the table, sweeping aside the other maps and scattering the dice.

  He looked up at Mercy to see if she minded the mess, but she just laughed.

  “Doesn’t bother me. You can pick up your toys later. If you can wait that long.” She gave him a pointed look.

  Henry secured the edges of the scroll with the figurines, and then dropped out of the chair to his knees. Elvis roused himself from his Sphinx pose to check him out.

  “I was just kidding, Henry. I know you like things tidy.”

  Henry gave her an inquiring look.

  “I’ve seen you eat mashed potatoes and gravy.”

  Mercy watched as Henry retrieved the fallen objects and placed them in a woven basket. Elvis joined in, picking up folded-up maps and scrolls carefully in his mouth and dropping them—slightly damper than they’d been before—into the basket. The Belgian shepherd left the dice for Henry.

  “Thank you.” He placed the basket on the Windsor chair next to him, then pointed to the one on the other side.

  She pu
lled a chair close to the boy, to his right, and sat down. Elvis stayed on the floor to his left. Henry traced his index finger along a ley line drawn across a map with the heading The Sword of Saint Michael.

  This was the same kind of line that had appeared on the map Brodie had showed Henry earlier that day. But this was not the ley line that ran through Glastonbury on Brodie’s map. This line—the sword of Saint Michael, if the heading were any indication—ran from Ireland to Israel. Seven monasteries were points on this line, from north to south.

  Mercy read each out loud, hoping to get some response from Henry, her index finger marking each location as she made her way down the map, from left to right.

  “Skellig Michael, off the southwest coast of Ireland.” She looked at Henry, whose eyes were fixed on the map. “I know that one. Star Wars, right? Where Rey finds Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi.”

  Henry raised his head, regarding her with an air of expectation.

  She frowned. “I don’t know much about it, apart from the film.”

  The boy frowned, too. Disappointed in her.

  “I’ll look it up later. Promise.” She moved her finger down to the next dot on the map. “Saint Michael’s Mount, Cornwall. Don’t know anything about that one. You?”

  He ignored her question, so she moved on. “Mont-Saint-Michel in France. An island off the coast of Normandy. Even I’ve heard of that one. Wasn’t it a prison once upon a time?”

  Henry nodded curtly. Telling her in his nonverbal way to get on with it.

  “Okay, okay.” She tried the next location. “Sacra di San Michele. On the top of a mountain in Val di Susa, Italy.”

  The boy went back to examining his map, not bothering to look up.

  She moved her finger on to the Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel in Puglia. Still Italy. She looked over at Henry. “I got nothing.”

  He shrugged, so she pointed to Symi’s Monastery, on the Greek island of the same name. No response. “Okay, on the last one. Stella Maris Monastery, on Mount Carmel in Israel.”

  Gently, Henry pushed her finger away from the map. He stabbed a stubby finger at Skellig Michael, at the far end of the Saint Michael line.