Mercy River

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  Right. The voice on the recording had identified itself as Mercy River police, not Griffon County.

  “He’s a real cop? Not some security guard?” I said.

  “Constable Beacham is law enforcement,” said Roussa.

  “So what does Beacham do for your town besides beat down suspects?”

  “There’s over two thousand square miles in this county,” she said. “Our resources can’t be everywhere. The constable handles most of the patrolling around town and the citizen outreach work. I expect that’s why he was first on the scene.”

  And swinging.

  “We looked after your guy,” Roussa said, reading my frown. “His pupils weren’t dilated and Mr. Pak had already told us that he wasn’t feeling nauseous, so I let him sleep. We checked on him every ten minutes during the night. The sheriff is at a national conference in Indianapolis right now, else he’d be here to handle the case himself.”

  Instead we got what was probably the county’s only detective, Yerby. Terrific. It was likely a sign of how open-and-shut they thought Erle Sharples’s murder was, that the sheriff wasn’t hopping the first plane back.

  The other deputy opened the interior door. He beckoned to Roussa.

  “Mr. Ganz,” Roussa called. Ganz nodded and pocketed his phone.

  “Best wait outside,” he said to me, “before the lieutenant finds a reason to link you to the Lindbergh baby.”

  He disappeared with both deputies into the depths of the building.

  Waiting, inside or out, didn’t appeal. I had to move. I left the station, walking back to Main Street. The breeze shoved the growing heat of the morning around. I took off my canvas jacket and held it clenched in my hand.

  That fucker Yerby had stuck Leo in the cell after he’d passed out. Leo might have died right there. I wondered if Ganz could get him transferred to a hospital for detention. Someplace where they could check his head for concussion, or clotting. There must be a hospital with an MRI somewhere in the nearby counties. I could handle the bills. If Leo was forced to stay in the holding cell through arraignment, maybe longer, who knew whether he’d wake up the next time he fell asleep? We could—

  My careening train of thought was derailed by the sight of two men walking on the opposite side of the street. Early twenties. Jocks. Polo shirts and jeans and distinctive haircuts—shaved almost bald on the sides with a squared-off wedge of hair left on the top. I didn’t need a closer look at their sleeve tattoos to know who they were.

  Army Rangers.

  And past them, another one, a younger guy crossing the street to my side dressed in full Op Camo ACUs, crisp tab on his upper left arm. What the hell?

  “Hey. Ranger,” I called. He glanced at me. “What’s going on? Street’s full of brothers.”

  “What’s your unit?” he said, giving me a once-over that stopped at my facial scars. Everyone needed a moment to take in those. Vets weren’t shy about it. They’d seen worse.

  “Nine years in the Three,” I said. Third Battalion of the 75th, the Ranger Regiment. “I became a free man last January.”

  “Roger that.” He held out a fist for a bump.

  “I came to town for a buddy,” I said. “What’s shaking here?”

  “Well, shit.” He grinned. He had a face that looked like he grinned a lot, broad and heavily freckled, pink splotches only a couple shades lighter than his red hair. “You lucked out, man. It’s the Rally.” My baffled expression made him laugh. “A three-day party. See?”

  He pointed down the street. Two blocks down, workers had placed ladders on either side of Main. One worker climbed the rungs, pulling a broad fabric banner already held high on the other end taut, so that the banner spread and the words printed on it in green and gold became visible over the street.

  Welcome U.S. Army Rangers

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. And the redheaded kid laughed again.

  Four

  On our way to the center of town, the ginger-haired Ranger told me his name was Moulson. He was active duty, out of the Second Bat at Fort Lewis near Tacoma.

  “That’s why the Rally’s so hot,” he said. “West Coast. For us.”

  I understood. Every two years in July, the Army threw their Ranger Rendezvous, a week-long event for active and veteran Rangers. The Rendezvous offered more things to do than there were hours in the day. Air jump shows, team sports, Hall of Fame meet-and-greets, shooting and fitness competitions, ceremonies for incoming and outgoing COs, family barbecues. I had gone to the Rendezvous a couple of times, when I wasn’t deployed and wasn’t tired of company. I could remember about half of what I’d seen. Being drunk a significant portion of the time was part of the fun.

  But the Rendezvous was always in Fort Benning, Georgia. Home turf for guys in the Third, like me, and only a skip away for the First Battalion in Savannah. Rangers from the Second Bat, at Fort Lewis in Washington State, had a long haul to join the fun.

  Was the Rally why Leo had come to Mercy River? He didn’t drink anymore, but that didn’t mean he was opposed to tearing it up. I was surprised he hadn’t called to let me know about the shindig. And a little ticked off.

  “The Rally isn’t an Army event,” Moulson continued. “No demonstration drills, no curfews, no nothing. Just us.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” I said. “I was in theater in Afghanistan most of the last few years, but still.”

  Moulson swiped a hand dismissively, practically bouncing on the toes of his desert boots. “It’s only the Rally’s third year. And the first time, I hear that was nothing but a dozen dudes sitting around a table drinking beer and talking about how to make the Rally into something. Like, they put it all together, got the town to host it, all of that crap happened last year. This is the big push. Me and my buddy Booker from Lewis, it’s our second time around. We are going to shred this place.”

  The actives in town might as well have been carrying signs—all with haircuts to match Moulson’s and looking like they could run ten miles before they started to sweat. I counted half a dozen before we stepped onto the wooden boardwalk that fronted the shops at the heart of Main Street.

  Ten o’clock in the morning. Lunchtime, on Ranger hours. And while Ganz was seeing what he could do for Leo, I was stuck waiting.

  “I need food,” I said to Moulson, indicating the diner across the street with its placard in the window. “Call your buddy. The Bambi burgers are on me.”

  In fifteen minutes we were sitting at a window table where I could keep an eye peeled for Ganz. Moulson had introduced me to Booker, a black man whose rounded spectacles contrasted with his Greco-Roman wrestler’s build. Both soldiers were twenty-three years old and the same rank, specialist. When I told them I’d mustered out as a sergeant first class, Booker raised an eyebrow.

  “Couldn’t make master?” he said. “Sad.” Moulson and I laughed.

  Moulson pointed up the street. A shopkeeper at the mercantile was setting out a sandwich board, on which was written Active Duty Discounts! Lowest Prices in Town! in blue chalk.

  “Funny,” said Booker, deadpan. “Every store here says they got the best deal.”

  “Yeah,” Moulson said to me. “Make sure you tell ’em you’re with the Rally, or wear something that lets them know. That’s why we rolled into town with our camo. Cheap food, and happy hour runs all twenty-four.”

  “Mercy River really rolls out the mat,” I said. “How many guys come to this?”

  “Who knows?” Moulson shrugged. “Last year they had a couple of hundred coming through for at least a day apiece. With the talk on the Spec Ops boards, you gotta figure at least twice that many this time.”

  Almost half the population of the town. It was like an invasion, by actual soldiers.

  “Most’ll arrive by tonight, for the opening,” said Booker. Off my questioning expression he jabbed a thumb up the street. “The town hall is where the general kicks things off. It’s the only place in town big enough to hold everybody.”

  “
The general?” I said.

  “General Macomber. The big brass. He founded the Rally.” Booker took off his glasses to clean a smudge off the lens. “It’s more than just slamming beers and talking shit. It’s a whole support network. Or it’s gonna be.”

  The waitress arrived, arms laden with giant plates of omelets and burgers and fries. While she was dealing out the meals, I noticed something past the sandwich board sign that I’d missed before. Painted on the side of the building in swooping silver script were the words trading post saloon.

  Leo had said he was attacked in a trading post. Or the Trading Post.

  “You guys ever hang at that bar?” I said, pointing.

  “Shit”—Moulson chuckled—“we closed it down every night last year. Biggest joint in town.”

  “About the only joint in town,” Booker muttered.

  “Know the owner?”

  They looked at each other. “You want to buy it or somethin’?” said Booker around a mouthful of hash browns.

  “Or something.”

  “I remember him,” he said to Moulson. “The scarecrow with the boots.”

  “Riiiight.” Moulson nodded. “Real tall.”

  “Okay,” I said. And for five minutes, none of us said another word. Rangers ate like they did everything else. Aggressively.

  Ganz found me as I was paying the bill at the register. I’d already seen Booker and Moulson off. They were headed to check in at the only real hotel in town, the Suite Mercy Inn, where they’d booked rooms months in advance of the Rally. The town of Mercy River had embraced the annual event to the point where some residents had begun moving away for the week. Whether that was to earn a couple hundred bucks renting out their houses or just to “get out of the way of the fuckin’ hurricane,” as Moulson laughingly put it, latecomers still had plenty of options.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Ganz said.

  We chose a side road, away from the stream of pedestrians. Apart from Main Street, the town of Mercy River didn’t appear to have any zoning restrictions on residential and business areas. We walked by a small house with toddlers playing in their yard, a few dozen paces off Main. An auto body shop took up the remainder of the same short block. Some stores blurred the line even further. A realtor had converted a large family home into her offices. A yarn-and-fabric shop might double as the owner’s apartment. There wasn’t a single building in town over four stories tall, and I saw nothing like apartments or chain stores anywhere. Everything close to the earth, and homegrown.

  “I talked to Leo,” Ganz said, “and had a phone conversation with the district attorney who covers major crimes in four of the more rural counties around here. She’s down in Prineville. They’re handling the case and the evidence from there through your good friend Lieutenant Yerby for now. We’ll see the DA at the arraignment.”

  “Can they move Leo? He needs a doctor, at least.”

  “Leo in his wisdom refused medical treatment. And no way will Yerby insist on it.”

  “He’s got a mild concussion. Minimum.”

  “Are you a doctor? Is Leo your patient?” Ganz shook his head. “He’s an adult, and adults make stupid choices sometimes. Let’s concentrate on what we can do. The DA couldn’t wait to share the evidence against Leo with me. She’s expecting Leo will plead guilty first thing, and hope for leniency.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It ain’t good. They have Leo’s fingerprints on the shells found at the scene. An eyewitness saw Leo enter the gun shop ten minutes before Erle Sharples’s body was found inside. No one saw him leave, so it’s reasoned he fled out the back after the shooting.”

  “Shit.”

  “There’s worse. Flecks of blood were found on the bottoms of Leo’s shoes when he was arrested. His hands tested positive for gunshot residue, too.” Ganz shrugged. “I can work with the fingerprints and the powder test. Leo was working at the shop, he might have touched or fired anything. The other evidence is tougher to challenge. Lab results will take a while, but we have to assume that the blood on his shoes is going to be a match for Erle’s. The witnesses and the blood set him at the scene after the fact. And Leo didn’t run right out of that shop and call for help. That’s their case.”

  Yerby had hauled me out of the cell block before I’d gotten a chance to press Leo about Erle’s shooting. And Leo hadn’t volunteered any details. Had that been deliberate?

  “He had no motive to kill Erle,” I said.

  “The till was open and empty. That’s motive enough.”

  I almost protested that Leo didn’t have the kind of loose wiring that would make him murder a man for a few bucks, but stopped myself. Ganz didn’t care. Ganz would lay out the legal arguments like a surgeon laid out instruments, deciding what was needed at any given moment. Leo’s personality didn’t matter. Leo’s guilt didn’t matter.

  Who might have had a reason to kill Erle Sharples? Could it really be as simple as a burglar, startled in the act?

  “What we need to worry about now is the arraignment tomorrow,” Ganz continued. “I’ll read the police report this afternoon, see what holes I can find. Arronow is already working on a discovery demand to the prosecutor’s office, to make sure they don’t get cute and forget to send us a different witness’s statement, or anything else that might place Leo elsewhere during the crime.”

  “What about the attack on him?”

  “What about it? Concerned citizens chasing a murder suspect? They’ll probably get citations.”

  “I mean the fact that he nearly had his brains spilled.”

  “Get real. Your buddy knocked one of his attackers unconscious, and broke the wrist of another man. A bump on our guy’s head from a law enforcement officer doesn’t buy us a damn thing.”

  Lost in our conversation, Ganz and I had followed the side road past a schoolyard and a field to its end, where a church stood facing the town head-on. A Methodist house, with white clapboard siding and a fifty-foot spire at its front. As we paused, bells—or the modern prerecorded electronic equivalent—began to sound the hour. Eleven chimes. It felt like they were counting down instead of up.

  “I’ll make a pitch for bail,” Ganz said, “and we might get lucky. But the likeliest result is that they’ll keep Leo right where he is, at least until he’s transferred to the big jail in Prineville.”

  I wasn’t sure Leo could hack being behind bars until the trial. He’d struggled with claustrophobia in the past, enough that he would sleep outside without any more than a blanket over him.

  Ganz fixed me with a wary eye. “You’re thinking of making trouble.”

  “I’m not going to coerce any witnesses, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Maybe not. But even just poking around—watch your butt. These backwaters protect their own, and that goes double for the police here. You already made an enemy of that lieutenant. I don’t want you up on charges of dealing crystal meth after one of those deputies happens to find a bag of it in your truck during a traffic stop. That would be horrible.” Ganz’s face wrinkled as a farm tractor rattled past us on the street, towing a trailer full of manure. “I’d never get out of this cowflop town.”

  Five

  I didn’t have to push open the batwing doors to know that the Trading Post Saloon had gone all-in on the Old West motif of the town center. The tavern had hitching posts along the boardwalk outside. Who knew, maybe some residents of Mercy River really did ride their steeds right down Main Street to grab a brew.

  Inside the saloon, round tables and high-backed wooden chairs would have served equally well for family meals or for dealing faro to prospectors and ranch hands. Barrel ends housed the beer taps. A giant mirror behind the long bar with gold filigree snaking around its edges reflected the entire room, making the already large room appear the size of a basketball court.

  The only person in sight was a teenage girl in a fringed rawhide vest and silver star, busily wiping down the bare tables.

  “Morning,” I said. “The
owner around?”

  “Mr. Seebright? Um.” She looked toward the rear of the saloon, as if her boss might appear from behind the taxidermy brown bear rearing up on its hind legs. “He’s in a meeting?”

  “I’ll wait.” I took a seat at the bar, and no sooner had my butt hit the stool than a bartender hustled out from the room behind the mirror, still pinning his own star onto his black shirt. A garter adorned his upper arm. At least he was spared the fringed vest.

  I was one swig into a Deschutes ale when two men appeared from the back room. Rangers, both of them, but not clean-cut regimental actives like Moulson and Booker. The man in the lead was rangy, late thirties, and dark in both hair and very tanned skin. He had the chin-up-chest-out walk that only career officers and cherry boots fresh out of basic training hung on to for long. The rangy man dressed like an officer, too. Business casual in chinos and a white button-down, instead of the jeans and polo shirt that were virtually the civilian uniform of younger Rangers. He marched straight for the door, targeting his next destination.

  Five steps and ten years of age behind him sauntered the second Ranger. Shaggy light brown hair framed his fox-like face. He wore a tight T-shirt reading mastodon over a graphic of a bearded skull. As he passed my seat, he nodded to me in lazy recognition. I didn’t have a shield tattoo like his, but I guess I was just as easy to classify.

  As the mismatched pair of Rangers left the saloon, a third man sidled out from the back rooms. He was a character. Almost a caricature. Six-foot-eight and as lean as a lamppost, in blue denim from head to toe, interrupted only by a big oval belt buckle of polished copper. A leather band encircled his forehead and tied back his heavy gray ponytail. His ensemble was nearly enough to distract from a fresh purplish bruise under his right eye. He was counting a slim roll of cash as he walked.

  Part of his height came from cowboy boots made of green python skin. Booker had described the saloon’s owner as a scarecrow with boots. Couldn’t be two like this one.