by Paula Munier
There were the usual documents: the original missing persons report filed by Beth Kilgore’s father, photographs, witness statements, including the ones from Kilgore’s drinking buddies and family members from both sides confirming when and where they’d last seen her and her husband, and a couple of sightings that went nowhere. Since there was no body and no crime scene, there was only so much data. Still, overall, her grandfather had put together as thorough and comprehensive a case file as possible given the paucity of information.
Seeing her Grandpa Red’s notes in his bold handwriting took her back to her childhood. Her grandfather was your classic Vermont outdoorsman; he’d taught her to swim and ski and snowshoe, shoot with rifle and bow, identify local flora and fauna, track two-legged and four-legged creatures through the forest. They’d gone ice fishing in the winter and fly fishing in the summer, jet skiing in warm weather and snowmobiling in cold weather, hiking through the Green Mountains in every season. She owed much of who she grew up to be to those early years of her childhood. The years with Grandpa Red.
She thought he would have approved of her life as a soldier and military police officer. He would have loved Elvis; he loved a good dog and trained his own hunting dogs. Pointers, mostly, but she remembered a sweet Weimaraner named Baron and a rambunctious vizsla named Copper, too. She wished he were here to help her decide what to do about Hallett. About Troy. About her life.
No time to think about that now. There were still more boxes to sort through, the ones left undisturbed during her scuffle with the intruder. It was getting cold on the floor, so she dragged the remaining boxes over to the sofa and settled back into the quilts. The Malinois slept on.
She started to read.
The files in the next box were mostly background on Beth and her father, Clem, Thomas Kilgore, and his family. News clippings and court documents outlining Clem’s many drunk-and-disorderly arrests, along with two DUIs, one resisting-arrest charge, and three counts of poaching. Only the poaching charges stuck. Thomas Kilgore’s record was not much better; he was by all these accounts a drinker and a gambler who spent most of his time drunk and broke and looking for an easy score. Seemed like Clem had simply chosen a younger and meaner version of himself to be his only child’s husband.
There wasn’t much about Beth Kilgore herself. There were a few photos: Beth at seventeen as the smiling president of the French Hill High School Book Club, Beth as a shy bride in a simple white empire-style dress with a scoop neckline and lace cap sleeves holding a bouquet of wildflowers, Beth standing awkwardly with her hulk of a husband, Thomas, in front of the double-wide up in Marvin, squinting into the sun. Mercy wondered who had taken this photograph, which substantiated what Patience had told her about the place. It was a dump. She tried to imagine what it would be like living in that trailer married to that man. She bet she’d had more fun in Afghanistan.
She looked again, this time studying Beth’s face. From the time she’d gotten married to the time this Marvin photo was taken, she’d had her nose broken. Her devoted husband showing his deep affection for her, no doubt.
Beth Kilgore had led a very small life. And a very short one, if her grandfather had been right about her fate.
She’d found nothing that supported Red’s claim, at least not so far. But she still had a couple of boxes to go. She pulled the empty box toward her, the better to repack the files. She lifted the first stack of files and straightened them. Leaning forward to replace them, she spotted something tucked in the corner, one edge sticking to the side. She’d nearly missed it. She set the files down on the floor under the coffee table and retrieved the card from the box.
It was a postcard of the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. The brightly colored illustration captured the long line of casinos from the Luxor and the Hacienda at one end of Las Vegas Boulevard, to the Stratosphere at the other end. Mercy had only been to Las Vegas once, with her parents years ago when she was a teenager. They’d stayed at Caesars Palace, where her parents were attending a lawyers’ conference. Mercy was left on her own most of the time. She was too young to gamble, not that she would have found playing the slots much fun anyway, and it was 110 degrees, too hot for anything but swimming. She’d spent most of the time cooling off at the casino’s biggest pool, watching her fellow tourists take pictures and wishing she were back home in the mountains of Vermont.
She flipped the card over, to the address side. There she found a note written in metallic gold ink that read: Hello from Sin City. Glad to be home. Don’t look for me. It’s over. XOXO Ruby. Under the signature someone had planted a kiss in what was once bright red lipstick. The lips were just a faded smooch now.
The postmark was dated Las Vegas, Nevada, August 5, 2000. The card was addressed to George Rucker, care of Rucker Realty on Main Street in Peace Junction, Vermont.
Nice, thought Mercy. Ruby didn’t send her Dear George letter in an envelope to her husband’s home address, she dumped him on a postcard for the world to see, and mailed it to his family’s business, where all his relatives would witness his humiliation up close and personal.
Mercy stared at Ruby’s girly handwriting, with its loops and whirls and hearts dotting the i’s. This was the demeaning missive that drove George Rucker to drink, to madness, to thoughts of suicide—and, ultimately, to murder. She felt bad for George, but she felt worse for her grandfather.
She placed the postcard on the coffee table in front of her. One of these things is not like the others, she thought. This last recorded communication between Ruby and George did not belong in Beth Kilgore’s missing persons case file.
So why was it here? Her grandfather must have put it in here for a reason. Her grandfather may not have been quite the man she thought he was, if the rumors of his affair with Ruby were true, but he was a first-rate sheriff. He was not a sloppy cop, he was a thorough and dogged investigator. He was a professional, and his case files were consummate models of good police work.
So why was the postcard here in the Beth Kilgore files? What did one case have to do with the other? She had to go through the rest of the files, to see what else she might find that would shed light on both the Beth Kilgore cold case and Ruby’s decamping for Vegas.
She made herself another cup of tea and got to work. She went through the last two boxes, examining each and every file. She did find a copy of the domestic violence report filed by a doctor who treated Beth at the free clinic for her broken nose. Her husband was the prime suspect in the assault but Beth refused to press charges. She had just turned eighteen—there was a note from her grandfather that this punch in the face had been a kind of sick birthday present—and so there was nothing the police could do about it.
Mercy found nothing else related to Ruby and George Rucker. These files just held more of the same records documenting her grandfather’s fruitless search for Beth Kilgore and Thomas Kilgore. Maybe Red was wrong and she hadn’t disappeared, after all. Maybe the postcard had been misfiled by a clerk or even Deputy Pitts.
But she didn’t believe that. She still believed in her grandfather, even if her mother, Grace, did not. If he believed that Beth Kilgore had met with foul play, and given her abusive husband that was not much of a stretch, then she would proceed on that assumption. If he believed that her disappearance was somehow linked to this postcard from Ruby, then she would proceed on that assumption as well. No matter how tenuous the link may be.
She was not ready to give up on Red.
She yawned. She was getting sleepy, and she really should get some rest. It had been a very long day. And tomorrow would be another long day.
She was going back to Lamoille County.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Troy and Susie Bear spent the night in the truck, parked just far enough down the long driveway from Mercy’s cabin that she and the dogs wouldn’t notice. Susie Bear loved surveillance, sitting up front and placing her big pumpkin head on the dash, watching for trouble while Troy dozed off and on.
Not long befo
re dawn he got a text from the captain telling him to meet him at Eggs Over Easy at 7:00 A.M.
“Red flag,” he told Susie Bear as they left the cabin and headed for Main Street to the best breakfast joint in town. Normally Troy would just call in their favorite order—triple servings of venison blueberry sausage, wild turkey hash, cornbread, and coffee—and pick it up on his way into work before the place was even technically open. The better to avoid the hungry customers who lined up in the cold outside the tiny restaurant hoping for a table as soon as the doors opened, and the flirty hostess, Monique, who, like most of the women in town, had a crush on the captain. The fact that his boss was willing to breach that queue and brave that woman to eat inside was troubling.
Troy pulled the Ford F-150 into a parking spot on a side street a block away. Susie Bear barked, acknowledging their proximity to one of her favorite eateries. He hooked her lead onto the thick red leather collar buried in her dense double coat and let her out of the truck. She shuffled alongside him, enormous head held high, already sniffing the sweet scents of a meat-lover’s breakfast that always wafted down from the restaurant, which was located on the second floor of a revitalized nineteenth-century mill building once famous for its textiles. The friendly Newfie greeted everyone lining the steps up to the entrance of Eggs Over Easy, licking the fingers of those who reached out to pet her. She made dealing with the public easy for Troy, smoothing the way as breezily as a drum major leading a marching band.
“Let the game warden and the mutt through,” yelled Monique from the top of the stairs. “Come on up, Susie Bear!”
The big dog barked a hello and scrambled up the remaining steps, her gaze focused on Monique. Restaurant people were Susie Bear’s favorite people, and that was saying something, because she liked practically all people.
“We open to the rest of you in five,” the hostess shouted as she let Troy and Susie Bear into the café and shut the door behind her.
Monique led them toward a table tucked in a corner at the very back of the otherwise empty dining area, where Troy spotted Captain Thrasher and Detective Kai Harrington.
“Told you,” he said to the Newfie, who held back at the sight and smell of the arrogant head of the Major Crime Unit. The one person she did not like very much. “It’s okay, girl.”
Thrasher waved them over. His expression was neutral, but Troy thought he could read a warning in his eyes.
Harrington smiled at Troy in welcome. That was a first. Usually the detective greeted him with a scowl and an order to remove Susie Bear from the premises. This 180-degree turnaround only made Troy more uneasy.
The detective was wearing his usual bespoke slim gray suit with a bright white button-down shirt and black-and-white polka-dotted silk tie, and black Chelsea boots. His expensive black woolen overcoat was neatly folded over the back of his chair. He reminded Troy of a rooster, although Mercy, who tended to classify humans according to dog breeds, once told him that the detective reminded her of a Doberman—sleek and handsome and liable to attack when you least expected it. “Have a seat, Warner. Monique, please get this fine canine a bowl of water.”
“Sure.”
Harrington kept his eyes on the attractive brunette until she disappeared around a screen that separated the front desk from the rest of the restaurant. Troy exchanged a glance with Thrasher. Harrington was always just a woman away from a sexual harassment charge.
“We’ve gone ahead and ordered,” said Thrasher. “The usual for you.”
“And Susie Bear.” Harrington smiled again.
Troy felt actual alarm. “What’s going on?”
“That’s just it,” said the detective. “There is so much going on.” He tapped his fork on the blond wood table. “The Colby murder, the pipe bomb at Patience O’Sullivan’s, George Rucker’s prison escape.”
Monique appeared with a pot of coffee and a bowl of water for Susie Bear. As the hostess, her main duty was running the front desk and seating the customers, not playing waitress, but for the captain she made an exception. She put the water down on the floor for the dog, poured a new cup of coffee for Troy, and topped Harrington’s and Thrasher’s cups, making sure to brush the captain’s shoulder when she poured his. He did not react, his face still unreadable. “I’ll be back with your order right away,” she said, her eyes on the captain.
He nodded, and she strutted away like the cat with the canary. Harrington frowned. Troy smiled. The detective always expected to be the center of attention. And when Thrasher was around, he wasn’t. Troy took advantage of the distraction to ask a question of his own. “Any word on Rucker?”
“Not yet,” said Thrasher. “They had a possible sighting in Tennessee the day after his escape, but nothing since.”
“Any forensics in from the blast site?”
Harrington leaned in toward Troy. “You know how the feds are. They keep us at arm’s length until they need us.” He straightened up as Monique returned with a tray holding four plates heaped with sausage, hash, and cornbread. She served Troy and the others and then placed Susie Bear’s plate next to the water bowl on the floor. She balanced the empty tray on her left hip, tilting her right one against the captain’s chair. “If you need anything else, gentlemen, you just whistle.” With a flounce of her skirt she went back to the front desk.
“How is Mercy Carr?” Harrington slathered butter on his cornbread. “I understand she surprised an intruder at her cabin.”
“Yes,” he said. This sudden interest in Mercy’s welfare set off more alarms. Harrington didn’t like Mercy any more than he liked Troy.
“She should never have checked herself out of the hospital,” said Harrington. “Why would she do that?”
“My guess is that she wanted to get back to Patience,” said Troy.
“Of course.” The detective finished off the cornbread and started in on the sausage and hash. He ate nearly as quickly as Susie Bear, though admittedly more neatly. “Her devotion to her grandmother is admirable.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “She’ll want to protect Patience from any further danger. She’ll believe that the only way to do that is to get to the bottom of this nasty business.”
Troy sensed a trap. He looked at Thrasher, but the captain didn’t say anything. So he didn’t, either.
“She has a history of interfering with our investigations,” said the detective.
“She has a history of solving our investigations,” said Troy.
Harrington gave him a sharp look. “She is clever, I’ll give you that. But we have a murderer running around on the loose, a bomber running around on the loose, and an escaped prisoner running around on the loose. We can’t have Mercy Carr running around on the loose, too.”
“I’m not sure how we can stop her, short of arresting her,” said the captain dryly.
Troy stared at Thrasher. Whose side was he on? The captain smiled at him enigmatically.
“Obviously we can’t arrest her,” said Harrington, as if there were nothing that he wanted to do more. “The press is calling her a hero—along with that damn dog of hers. Again.”
“They did save Patience O’Sullivan’s life,” said Troy.
“Whatever.” Harrington carefully placed his knife and fork in the middle of his plate, signaling that the meal was over. “But you know that won’t be enough for her. She’ll want to do more. She’s probably doing more as we speak. So you’d better get moving.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean, get over there. Pay your interfering friend a visit.”
“Forensics will be by to check out the crime scene soon,” said Thrasher. “It would be good for you to get there first.”
“You can’t be serious.” Troy tried to keep the furor out of his voice, but he failed. If the detective was saying what he thought he was saying, well, that was simply unacceptable.
Harrington ignored his angry tone. “I want to know what she knows. I want to know where she goes, what she does, who she talks to.”
“You want me to spy on her.” Troy couldn’t believe it. He looked to the captain for assistance, but he remained conspicuously silent.
The detective sipped the last of his coffee and rose to his feet. “And her dog.”
Troy rose to his feet, too, his arms at his side, hands clenched into fists.
“Steady, man,” said the captain quietly.
“I’ll expect a full report by the end of the day.” Harrington retrieved his coat and sauntered out of the restaurant.
Troy watched him go, and then turned back to glare at Thrasher. “You know I can’t do this.”
“You spent the entire night surveilling her house.”
“That’s different.”
“Not by much.” The captain smiled. “Think of it as a way to spend time with her and pursue the investigation at the same time. You make a good team.”
“She already hates me for not telling her about still being married. I can’t not tell her about this.”
“So tell her.”
Troy stared at Thrasher. “What do you mean?”
“Do what you have to do to keep her and her family safe and solve the crimes.” The captain pulled out his wallet. “Ask for her help with the case. Tell her you know Harrington will screw it up. Women can never resist a call for help.” He put a fifty-dollar bill on the table. “Tell Monique to keep the change.”
“Sir.”
“Think outside the box,” said the captain. “If you want to keep up with Mercy Carr—and I know you do—you’re going to have to get creative.”