by Paula Munier
* * *
MERCY SLIPPED OUT the door into the hallway—and ran right into William Montgomery.
“What were you doing in my room?”
“I’m going downstairs.” She continued past him down the hall, ignoring him.
He caught up to her and grabbed her by the shoulder to swing her around. “What did you take?”
She gripped his arm with her free hand and squeezed until he let go. “I didn’t make off with your drugs, if that’s what you mean. Although you really should hide them better.”
William stared at her. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to tell me why there’s a longbow in a ski sleeve in your closet.” She whistled for Elvis. Just in case the snowboarding playboy tried to take off.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he stammered.
George appeared at the top of the staircase. He was carrying a silver tray, loaded with a full tea service, probably for Cara, who was still ensconced in her room. For once, Mercy was glad to see the butler arrive without warning.
“Leave him alone,” he said, putting the tray down on a Hepplewhite hall table.
She realized that he wasn’t coming to help her; he was coming to help his grandnephew. “It’s time to stop protecting him, George. You know that.”
“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to. I’m out of here.” William stepped forward, but Mercy blocked him.
“No way.” She could hear the soft padding of Elvis’s paws as he flew up the stairs and down the carpeted hallway behind the butler.
“Let him go.” George squared off against Mercy. For once the butler mask slipped, and the tough constable shone through.
“Elvis won’t like that,” she warned.
“Go on, William,” said George. “Go downstairs to your mother.”
Elvis came to a dead stop between George and Mercy, his muzzle dangerously close to the fly on the butler’s perfectly creased trousers.
Nobody moved.
Troy bolted down the hallway, followed by Ethan, Feinberg, Blake, Lea, and the bodyguards, all clamoring up the stairs to see what had happened. Troy glanced over at Mercy.
“We were just discussing the contents of William’s room,” she said.
William started to move toward the staircase, but he stopped when Troy shook his head at him. “Stay a while and talk.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” said William.
“Yes, you did, and your granduncle here lied to protect you.” She addressed Troy. “You’ll find a longbow hidden in a ski sleeve locked up in the closet. Along with a considerable stash of opioids.”
“Good to know.”
“That’s not true,” said William. “I swear, Dad, it’s not true.”
“You promised, son,” said Blake. “No more drugs.”
“She’s crazy, Dad. Don’t listen to her.”
“I think it’s about more than drugs, Blake,” said Feinberg. “Let Mercy explain.”
Mercy let him have it straight. “It’s a long story. But it starts with William. He is not your biological child.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“I’m afraid it’s true.”
William laughed. “You’re saying the butler is my father?”
“No. The butler’s nephew. Richard Wilcox. He worked at the stables at Elliott Academy.”
“The stable boy?” Blake seemed astonished.
“Yes, the stable boy.” Rich people, Mercy thought.
“The stable boy, as you call him so derisively, was my brother’s child,” said George. “A good son and a good nephew.”
“That Wilcox boy was a monster,” said Blake. “He assaulted Katharine, and then ran off.”
“Nonsense,” said George.
“I don’t think that ever happened.” She showed Blake the photo of Katharine in bed with the man with the signet ring. “When you married Katharine, she was carrying Richard Wilcox’s baby.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You were all sleeping with each other. Katharine slept with the stable boy and you slept with Lea and Max Sanders slept with everyone.”
“Impossible.”
“But as it turned out, free love wasn’t so free, after all. Katharine got pregnant and Lea got pregnant and Max got AIDS.”
“William is right. You are crazy.” Blake turned to Feinberg. “Stop this.”
“Hear her out.”
“Lea had your baby, and she gave her up for adoption. Alice de Clare was your daughter, and she was going to tell you. That would make her your blood heir, not William. She could inherit at least half of all that lovely Montgomery money.”
“That can’t be true,” said Blake. “It makes no sense.”
“Oh my God.” Lea backed up against the wall.
Mercy’s eyes met Lea’s. “When you gave your baby up for adoption, you gave the adoptive mother that Alpenblumen postcard and that silver rose pin with the feathers. The one that adorned Alice’s Tyrolean hat. Alpenrose.”
“They made me sign her away. Made me promise I’d never return, never contact her, never see her again.” Tears gathered in the corners of Lea’s dark eyes. “But when she grew up, I thought she might try to find me. It happens. I knew the odds were against it, but just in case, I left her Alpenrose. I always hoped that someday it would lead her back to me.”
“Alpenrose is an anagram of Lea Person. The clue you left behind for your daughter to find you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Blake.
“It’s true,” Lea told Blake. “I got pregnant, and I didn’t know what to do. It was your baby. I went to Switzerland after graduation to think about what to do. Katharine was my best friend and I knew she had her heart set on marrying you. I wasn’t sure if I loved you or Max.” She wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I thought of telling you, but then Katharine was pregnant, and you two were already planning to get married.” Lea sobbed. “I had the baby there and gave her up for adoption.”
“Alice’s adoptive parents died in a car crash. Her adoptive mother must have kept the postcard and the silver rose fastener all those years, bequeathing them to Alice upon her death. She must have started looking for her birth parents then,” Mercy told Blake. “Her search took her to the Elliott School and the class of 1982. She started checking out possibilities, and eventually she came to you and Katharine. She arranged to meet you, to get to know you better, hoping she could find some answers. Remodeling your apartment was the perfect opportunity to do that. She grew to like you, and especially Katharine. She trusted her. When she got pregnant, her desire to find her biological parents intensified. She must have confided in Katharine, hoping she could lead her to her birth parents. Katharine figured out that she was your daughter. She loved being a Montgomery and wasn’t going to give up a dime of it to some upstart bastard child.”
Mercy turned to William. “She told you, didn’t she? And she encouraged you to put a stop to it. That’s why you killed her.”
“It was all Mother’s idea. She told me to find out what Alice was up to,” said William, wrangling against the bulk of the bodyguards. “Take care of her, she said. She sent me out to the woods after her. But—”
She interrupted him. “Where is your mother?”
“Katharine took Henry outside for some fresh air,” said Blake. “A walk in the woods.”
“Oh no.” Mercy yelled for Elvis and dashed past them all and down the steps. She raced through the kitchen, grabbing her orange puffy vest at the door and Yolanda’s longbow and arrow. Not as good as a gun, but it would have to do.
She and Elvis tore through the snow, the shepherd far more gracefully than she. She could hear Troy and Susie Bear huffing behind them.
Now that the storm was over, the sun shone brightly, and the snow glinted like diamond dust. Henry’s small boot prints and Katharine’s larger ones were visible. Mercy tracked them easily until they got to the woods. There the tracks were harder to fol
low.
But Elvis leapt ahead, hot on Henry’s scent.
Mercy caught up with him just in time. The Belgian shepherd alerted, stopping short as they approached a blowdown, dropping down into his Sphinx position. She crouched behind the fallen log at the perimeter of the blowdown. About ten feet away from Elvis. About thirty feet away from Henry and Katharine.
The boy stood there, transfixed, staring at a six-foot stone arch set between two massive oak branches. The branches were supported by a mandala of rock nestled into the lap of the old tree. It was the art installation Feinberg had hired Mercy to find earlier that summer. Henry had found it.
“I know you’re out there,” said Katharine. “I can hear you.”
The slender woman stood behind Henry. She stepped up closer, placing her gloved hands on his small shoulders.
“It wouldn’t take much, you know. All I’d have to do is push. His head would crack like an egg.”
She could crush his skull against the stone, thought Mercy. And she’d do it. She wouldn’t think twice about it.
“Why on earth would you do that?” She wanted to keep Katharine talking.
“The boy saw what happened out there in the woods. To Alice.”
“Alice was going to ruin everything, wasn’t she?”
“She was a bastard child carrying another bastard child. Unworthy of the Montgomery name.”
“Caspar Farrow knew, didn’t he?” Silently, she pulled the arrow from the quiver and drew the bow. “He was always following you around, watching you. Wanting you.”
“He was a foul man.”
“He knew about you and Richard Wilcox. He knew about the baby. He helped you come up with the assault accusation, and he backed up your story. Your ploy worked. Richard ran off, and Caspar kept your secret … for a price.” She pulled back the string and aimed for the center of Katharine’s back. “But being part of the inner circle wasn’t enough for Caspar. He wanted you, too. All those years of sexual blackmail. When Alice showed up and told you her story, you knew that it was all going to come out. The secrets, the lies, the betrayals. You knew that in the end Caspar would sacrifice you to save himself—and you would lose everything. He had to go. So you killed him.”
“You can’t prove any of this.”
Be the arrow, Mercy thought.
“Stay where you are. The dog, too.”
She released the arrow. It hurtled forward. Katharine twisted unexpectedly, pivoting, pulling the boy in front of her, placing Henry between her and the flying bolt.
Mercy whistled the command to attack. Startled, Katharine turned toward the whistle.
Elvis sailed out of the bushes. Going right for Katharine.
“Hide, Henry!” yelled Mercy.
Katharine stumbled out of Elvis’s path. Henry wrenched free and scrambled away. Elvis followed Henry.
The arrow missed the intended bull’s-eye of Katharine’s back, clipping her right bicep instead. She cursed.
The tip collided with the stone wall.
Henry ran.
The arrow broke.
Katharine slogged after Henry in the snow, holding her bleeding arm. Mercy huffed after her.
Katharine ran about a dozen steps, then abruptly stopped at the sound of a terrible crunch. A terrible shriek echoed through the forest.
Mercy realized Katharine had stepped in one of the night hunters’ traps, the sharp teeth snapping shut on her foot with a devastating crunch.
She ignored the woman’s wailing and went after Henry. She found him hiding behind a fallen log rocking back and forth, chanting prime numbers, Elvis standing guard.
“Henry, it’s safe, you can come out now.” The shepherd licked the boy’s face and nuzzled his neck with his nose.
The boy went limp as Mercy lifted him into her arms and carried him back to the blowdown. The others had followed Katherine’s harrowing howls. Feinberg. Lea. Blake. Troy and Susie Bear. The bodyguards.
Ethan ran to Mercy and scooped Henry from her arms. He hugged his son tight. Henry let him and for the first time, she saw the boy hug his father back. The dogs licked the faces of father and son.
Katharine, still caught in the trap, on the ground, was silent.
In shock now, Mercy thought.
Blake ran to help his wife. He looked up at the rest of them. “She’s going to bleed to death.”
“Don’t you dare help that woman.” Lea pulled a small pistol out of her pocket. “She deserves to die.”
Blake edged forward. He opened his hands in a silent plea to save his wife. “Stop.”
“She murdered my child,” Lea told him. “Our child. And our grandchild.” Her face was still wet with tears, but now her warm brown eyes were cold with grief.
“Lea, please.” Blake stepped forward, getting between the two women.
Just as Lea pulled the trigger.
He cried out, wobbled on his buckling legs, and crumpled to the ground.
Pistol in her trembling hand, Lea seemed stunned by her actions. Mercy carefully approached her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Troy rush to Blake’s side.
“Give me the gun, Lea. It’s over.” Mercy reached out and removed the weapon from Lea’s hand.
Lea sank to her knees in the snow. Feinberg went to comfort her.
“Dark trees,” said Henry.
* * *
TROY AND MERCY stood behind the Nemeton mansion, about a hundred yards from the helicopter pad. They watched as EMTs loaded Blake Montgomery into the helicopter, headed off to fly him to Tufts for surgery. Katharine was on her way to a local hospital under police guard, her arm wrapped, her mangled foot released from the trap. William was in police custody, still insisting that he was innocent, and that it was all his mother’s fault.
Lea was also under arrest, although Mercy believed that she’d get off in the end. Feinberg was determined to hire her the best defense attorney money could buy. And he had a lot of money.
“I can’t believe Katharine fell into a bear trap,” she said. “Are these thy bears? We’ll bait thy bears to death. And manacle the bear-ward in their chains, If thou darest bring them to the baiting place.”
“Well said.”
“Aren’t those traps illegal here in Vermont?”
“Yep. They should be illegal everywhere. Another nail in the Buskey boys’ coffin.”
Troy’s phone pinged, and he read the text to her. “They ran that partial plate. Matches one Johnny Buskey.”
“So Johnny tried to run me off the road.”
“Do you think he set the fire, too?”
“I don’t see how. That SUV was pretty beat up.”
“He probably put Daryl up to it. We should know soon. If anyone cracks, it’ll be Daryl.”
Together they watched the helicopter disappear from sight, and gazed into a bright blue sky, the promise of a better day, a better tomorrow.
“You did it again,” he said.
“I was too slow. It took me so long to figure everything out.”
“You need to give yourself more credit. You were brilliant.” Troy smiled at her, taking her hand. He squeezed it, and she squeezed back.
“Let’s go see Henry.”
Henry was in the kitchen with Elvis and Susie Bear. Mrs. Espinosa was showering him with peanut-butter treats, which he in turn was sharing with his canine pals.
“You really have to stop feeding them so much people food,” Mercy said.
Henry had been drawing again.
“Working on something new?”
The boy nodded, pointing to three drawings of stick people. There was a picture of a woman, with a bow and arrow and a hat with feathers. Henry had printed the words monster slayer above her.
Poor Alice de Clare. She’d died protecting Henry. Which suggested that her motives were pure, after all. Odds were that all she wanted to do was protect her unborn child. She wanted her medical history so that she could deliver a healthy, happy baby. She didn’t care about the money. She didn’t c
are about the legacy. That was all Katharine and William.
Another stick figure labeled Assassin wore a crude ski mask, carrying a crossbow. And the last was a figure that was part tree, part person. With leaves covering its face and head. This one was called Dark Tree.
Mercy tapped the Dark Tree figure with her index finger. “Is this who shot Alice?”
Henry nodded.
“Troy, you should see this.” She showed him Henry’s handiwork.
“It’s one of those tree monsters we talked about.” He crossed his arms against his chest and leaned back. “Go ahead, enlighten me. What does it mean?”
“It means all of William’s protests of innocence may be correct. Remember the leafy bucket hat and mask we found in Macon Boone’s backpack with the guns?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what Henry saw. Macon Boone wearing that leafy bucket hat and mask. He killed Alice.”
“Dark tree,” said Henry.
“You’re a mind reader,” said Troy as he checked another text message from Thrasher. “The captain says they found a bow and arrow under the bed in Macon Boone’s hotel room, along with a cell phone they believe belongs to Alice. It’s got what looks like a rose on the case.”
“Alpenrose.”
“Anything else you’d like to wrap up for Harrington today? He’s going to be here soon.”
“Time to get out of here.”
“Susie Bear and I will give you a ride. Anywhere you and Elvis want to go.”
“I’ve got the Land Rover.”
“Feinberg can get it back to you.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “There’s one more place we need to go first.”
* * *
LAURA DAWSON AND her dog Hemingway met Mercy and Troy and the dogs in front of the stables at the Elliott Academy. Dr. Wright was there waiting for them, her bright orange toque covering her white hair. She watched the three dogs—one handsome Malinois, one big shaggy Newfie retriever, and one Lab–shar-pei–pit bull mix—greet each other with enthusiasm and lots of rude sniffing.
“This is why I have a cat,” she told Laura, as Mercy introduced the professor to the leader of the Green Mountain Search and Rescue K9 Volunteer Corps. Laura was a feisty, middle-aged woman with a big smile and a big voice. The counterpoint to Dr. Wright’s sharp reserve.