Mercy River

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  I nodded.

  As I left, I saw Rigoberto out of the corner of my eye, looking at Fain and shrugging. Worth a shot, he seemed to say. We can always bury Shaw if it doesn’t work out.

  At least we’d reached an understanding.

  The small town had quieted enough that I could hear the recorded chimes of the Methodist church from a quarter mile off as they tolled two o’clock in the morning. During the past hour, there had been only four people on the side street that fronted the Suite Mercy Inn. One had been a drunken local, shuffling through and mumbling grievances to himself. The other had been a pair of active-duty Rangers, equally soused but a lot happier. They had propped their asses on the windowsill of the post office until their beers were empty and their heads full of plans for the future.

  None of them had noticed the last person, me, standing in a sliver of an alley behind a row of compost bins, ignoring the reek of rotting cabbage and moldy bread while I watched the inn. When the street was empty, I took out my phone and scrolled through some old emails. I didn’t have a current number for the person I needed to contact. Armando Ochoa.

  I owed Fain one thing. He’d said the word intel, and that got me wondering how I might dredge up a little inside information for myself.

  Ochoa and I had survived the sixty-one hellish days of Ranger School together. Despite its name, the school was a leadership course open to all comers in the armed forces, not just those of us in the 75th Regiment. Anyone serious about an Army career aimed to graduate from the school and earn the two-and-a-half-inch tab that simply read ranger. Ochoa was serious about his career.

  Both of us were still shy of twenty years old, me a mere private first class, Ochoa fresh out of OCS wearing the shiny butter bar of a newly minted second lieutenant. Our service launched in different directions. I went to Iraq and eventually into the path of the rock shrapnel that tore my face apart for a while. He returned to the Intelligence Corps and on up the ranks.

  Last I knew, Ochoa was a captain looking hard at major, and working smack in the middle of the Department of Defense. Fine hunting grounds for a political animal like Armando. And a prime position to help me out.

  That was if Ochoa was still in the Army, and still assigned where he had some access, and most of all was willing to use that access to help me. A lot of hurdles. I found the right email and sent a request to call me ASAP.

  No sooner had I switched off my phone when Big Daryll’s GMC Yukon glided up the street until it found an open space. Fain and Daryll and Rigoberto and Zeke all got out and made their way into the hotel. A couple of minutes later, lights began to illuminate windows. One on the second floor. One, two, and three on the third. In one of the third-floor rooms, I saw Daryll’s unmistakably huge shape limp to the window to close the curtains.

  You never could tell what information might be useful. Captain Fain understood that. He’d somehow pulled my Army service history—highly classified information—mere hours after meeting me. That had been surprising, and a little unsettling. I felt marginally better now that I knew where Fain and his crew slept.

  Twenty

  I was waiting outside the Rally office with two coffees in hand when Dez arrived to start her morning shift, along with the elfin young woman I recognized from the card game.

  “You said something about an apology,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I handed her one of the coffee cups.

  Dez promptly handed off the cup to her friend, along with a ring of keys. “Jaye, would you open up? I’ll be back in five minutes. No more.” She eyed me to make sure I’d gotten the message before walking away. I strode to catch up.

  “Did Leo know about your mother and Erle Sharples?” I said.

  “I still don’t hear the word sorry coming out of your mouth. Just more accusations.”

  “Do you think Leo killed Erle? For you?”

  Her mouth parted, maybe halfway into telling me to stuff it, and then shut again.

  “Because Leo fears the same thing about you,” I said. “That you’re the one who shot Erle. You two are a matched set.”

  She stopped. “He—No, that’s not right.”

  “It explains some things. Why Leo’s so damned uncooperative with his lawyer. Why he pled guilty. He’s trying to keep the police from tagging you as a suspect. And it’s working.”

  Dez took that in, staring in my direction but not really seeing me. Her hand gripped the hitching post outside a small tack and feed store, as if she were afraid the post or she might suddenly float away.

  “Oh, Leo,” she said at last.

  “I had you wrong,” I said. “I learned that Erle cheated you out of your inheritance. Leo let slip that you needed money before you could get free of Mercy River. I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t go immediately to the cops when he found Erle’s body—unless he thought he was protecting you.”

  “No, I never went to Erle’s shop at all,” said Dez. “I had planned to, when I got off work that afternoon. I even told Leo I would. We’d argued about it the night before. He was upset. He didn’t think I should be alone.”

  “Alone with Erle?”

  “I couldn’t leave Mercy River without confronting him. I’d been avoiding it for too long. And having Leo with me would have—It wouldn’t be me standing up for myself. Not with Leo there menacing Erle at the same time.”

  “Then somebody shot Erle early that morning. You were gone. Leo found the body and thought you’d changed your mind and gone to confront Erle on your own.”

  “I didn’t learn what had happened until after I returned from picking up the Rally supplies down in Bend,” she said. “Late that evening. I was probably the last person to hear the news in the whole town. I thought of Leo immediately. I worried what he might have done. But he didn’t answer his phone. Why didn’t he call me?”

  Because Leo was smart enough not to talk about what had happened over an open line. He’d wiped the murder weapon after finding Erle’s body, in case Dez’s fingerprints were on it. Then he had lain low for the day, unaware that he was already a prime suspect thanks to Henry Gillespie spotting him entering the gun shop. When evening came, he went to the saloon to wait until Dez returned from her trip to Bend, and found himself facing mob justice.

  “Jaye went to Leo’s arraignment for me,” Dez said. “My spy. When I heard that Leo had pled guilty I thought he was throwing himself on the court for leniency. God.”

  “Your town is fucked up,” I said.

  “That’s why I’m leavin’.” Dez said it as a joke, but her voice wavered a little.

  “I mean it. I’ve been in hot zones that didn’t feel as tightly wound as Mercy River. When I first arrived I thought it was from the Rally, parading like Ringling Brothers with rifles. But everyone I’ve met here has a grudge.”

  “You’re a city kid, huh?” Her mouth twisted wryly. “After we leave, this town will be what it was before. Isolated. Rigid. People using their secrets and prejudices to chew one another to pieces.”

  “So I’m learning. Who’s got their fangs out for you?”

  “Just my ex. But you already know that.”

  I shook my head. “An ex-boyfriend?”

  Dez looked perplexed. “Wayne, of course. He’s my husband. Leo didn’t tell you?”

  The immediate rush I got wasn’t fueled by caffeine.

  “You’re married to Constable Beacham?” I said.

  “Technically. We’ve lived apart for more than a year now. That’s why Leo and I have been keeping our relationship so secret. God, if Wayne knew . . .”

  But he did know. I had no real proof of that fact. Except that Beacham had been right up front in the rush to capture Leo, and he’d made damn quick use of his baton. Like it was personal.

  “Wayne wants you back,” I said, sure enough to make it a statement.

  She inhaled. “He used to. I don’t know anymore.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I told Wayne last week I was filing the divorce pap
ers. And moving away. He took it a lot better than I’d imagined. Isn’t that strange?”

  “What?”

  “Breaking the news to Wayne went so well, it gave me the courage to confront Erle. I decided it was time to close out all my unfinished business.”

  Except somebody finished it for her. “Erle wouldn’t simply hand over the money.”

  “No. But I wasn’t going to give the creep a choice. He could pay me half the money that my mother left him, or I would contest the will on grounds of fraud. Try to prove Mom was too far gone to fully understand what she was doing and I was too young to raise hell about it.” She grimaced ruefully. “Erle was vain. He cared a lot for his reputation.”

  “That might have worked,” I said.

  “I’ll never know now.”

  We started back toward the Rally offices. Fain had nearly convinced me that Erle was killed by Jaeger when the deal to buy back the stolen drugs went shitways. It made sense. But there were a lot of weird overlaps that Wednesday morning. The timing of Leo showing up, and Constable Beacham—Dez’s goddamn husband—standing right up the road being the weirdest.

  Zeke Caton had been there. He’d talked to Beacham, and Gillespie. Maybe he could shed some light.

  “I know things are bad for Leo,” I said to Dez, “but there’s hope.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself. While things get worse and worse.” She halted, right before we reached the Rally office, and touched fingers to her eyes. “I wish I hadn’t given away that coffee.” She tried to laugh.

  I handed her the rest of mine. “I’ll get word to Leo. Tell him you’re still on his side.”

  “Thank you. Leo was right. You’re a good guy.”

  I believed she meant that. But then, I couldn’t hold on to Luce, so what did I know?

  Twenty-One

  I counted down to the right room, third door off the Suite Mercy Inn’s single stairwell, and thumped on it. No answer. I repeated the process on the next room over. After a crash of movement and a muffled curse, the maple-wood door flew inward, replaced by Daryll, who was no less solid.

  “Where’s Zeke?” I said.

  He glared balefully at me over his crooked nose. “Next door.”

  “Not at home. Where else?”

  “Try the pistol competition.”

  “I’ll do that. Tell me the timeline of the deal you guys made with Erle. When you got in touch, when you gave him the money, all of it.”

  “You’re supposed to be finding Jaeger.”

  “And I’m doing it fast. You want to talk about it out here?”

  He glanced down the empty hallway. Maybe checking whether anyone was listening, or judging whether he could clock me one without witnesses. After another quick glower he stepped aside and let me in.

  It was a small room, further reduced by Daryll and two packed four-foot-long duffel bags that took up most of the tatty carpet. He hefted one out of the way and tossed it onto the rumpled bed, which groaned under the sudden weight.

  “Zeke grew up here. Erle knew him.” Daryll limped three steps to the dresser, plucking a can of tomato juice from stacked six-packs and two-pound canisters of protein powder. Half the drawers in the dresser were open and stuffed full of clothes. The closet rack was equally packed with loaded hangers. Either Daryll traveled with a full wardrobe, or he’d moved into the inn for a long stay.

  He downed the juice in between sentences. “So we let Zeke handle the liaison shit. He gave the money to Erle on Tuesday morning. Then Erle calls back late that night. He tells us it’s already done, he’s got the box, and Zeke goes to meet him at the shop first thing Wednesday to confirm it. But Erle’s dead. No box, no money.”

  It had taken Erle less than a full day to go out of town, meet Jaeger, and come back. And, I reminded myself, to hide the box of opiates in his hiding place in the woods. That wasn’t a nighttime kind of job, driving the ATV up into the forest. I guessed that Erle had made it back to Mercy River before sundown on Tuesday, stashing the box and calling Zeke Caton to say mission accomplished.

  “What about the rest of the deal?” I said. “If the box confirmed the drugs were legit, when would you give Erle the two hundred thirty thousand to buy the whole score?”

  I must have needed more coffee. The words came out of my mouth before I connected them with the duffel bags. I reached out and unzipped the one on the bed.

  “Hey,” Daryll said, too late.

  Christ. FN riot guns with drum magazines. CS tear gas canisters. A case of 40mm sponge grenades and a big Milkor launcher that looked like a huge-bored tommy gun to go with them. And if all of those less-lethal options didn’t work out, two M4 carbines.

  “Paying off Jaeger wasn’t the plan,” I said. “You were going to take the drugs.”

  Daryll folded his huge arms and leaned against the dresser, making it creak dangerously.

  “Did Erle know, or was he just your stalking horse to get to the skinheads?”

  “Nobody trusted Erle,” Daryll said.

  “Guess not.”

  I didn’t have to wonder how far Fain and his men were willing to go to retrieve the drugs. If the white supremacists wanted to push back, no one was going to shed any tears about what happened next.

  “Same question applies,” I said. “How soon was the deal going down?”

  “No point wasting time. If we confirmed they had the right shit, we were going to make Erle set up a meet for the next day.”

  “Thursday.”

  “Thursday follows Wednesday, don’t it?”

  It was Saturday morning now. Had the First Riders already given up waiting and gone home?

  “If that’s all, get out,” said Daryll, shifting his stance. “I’ve been up all damn night, thanks to you.”

  “Painkillers not helping the foot?”

  “I don’t take ’em. Not anymore.”

  “In between jobs for Big Pharma”—I nodded at the duffel bags—“how do you make your money? All four of you musketeers.”

  “Out.”

  I grinned. “Keep those toes elevated.”

  Outside, I pieced together what I knew about Erle and his movements on the day before he died. He’d collected the ten grand and returned before nightfall to hide the red box full of Trumo. Sundown came early in October, full dark by eight o’clock or so. Say Erle had eleven hours, tops. That was still enough time for a round trip to Portland or Yakima or even across the Idaho border and back if you were pushing it.

  But I didn’t think the buy would have been set that far away. There was no reason for it. Jaeger and his skinheads knew who Erle was, where he lived. They would choose someplace a short drive from Mercy River, where they could crash unobtrusively for a couple of days before completing the deal and going home with nearly a quarter million in cash.

  Instead, they had sold Erle one lonely box and were still sitting on twenty-three, as well as their own thumbs.

  How had Jaeger been in contact with Erle? The police report listing Erle’s belongings hadn’t mentioned them finding a cell phone with the body, either a burner or Erle’s personal phone. That was odd. It was possible that Jaeger had taken it, covering his tracks after shooting Erle. Or maybe Erle had hidden the burner in his home, although Fain and his men hadn’t found it there.

  Erle’s home address had been dutifully listed in the police reports. I’d have to see the place for myself. Tossing Erle’s house had a slim chance of success, but better odds than throwing a dart at a map of Oregon to find where the skinheads might be holed up.

  Erle Sharples’s house echoed the man’s penchant for privacy. Set high on one of the hills overlooking the town, the ranch home with its fake log-cabin siding was large enough to let everyone know the owner had some money, and cheap enough to make it obvious that he hated spending it.

  A county sheriff’s SUV was parked in Erle’s driveway. Maybe Lieutenant Yerby had had the same notion about giving Sharples’s home a second look. I pulled my cap low and kept dri
ving. I’d have to circle back later in the day.

  As I passed, I saw that one windowless side of the house had been adorned with two dozen pairs of antlers. Six- and eight-point bucks, mostly, with a couple of the pairs large enough that they might have been taken from elk. There were deer skulls as well. All of the antlers had been bleached dirty-white by the elements, until their color matched the bone of the skulls. Dez had said Erle was vain. He certainly believed in showing off his trophies.

  I stopped for a light. A teenage Redcap was crossing the street in front of the truck.

  “Hi,” I called out the window. “Can you tell me where the pistol shooting is today?”

  “Pronghorn,” she said, apparently proud to answer so quickly.

  “What’s that?”

  “The ghost town. Up in the hills?” At my baffled expression she pointed. “You can take a shuttle over there at the hall.”

  I thanked her and turned right from the left-hand lane to change direction. A ghost town. I shouldn’t be surprised. Ganz and I had passed enough abandoned barns and corrals on the drive into central Oregon to house a herd of spectral cattle.

  Sure enough, a chalkboard sign in front of the town hall announced shuttles leaving for Pronghorn and the pistol competitions every ten minutes. Smaller writing underneath noted the start times for each round: Target Range, Moving Range, Stress Drill, and something called Special Games. The point leader from each round won a year’s worth of ammunition at the firing range of their choice. The overall leader would be awarded an engraved Beretta, an idea filched from the Army’s own Ranger contests.

  The prizes wouldn’t lack for contenders. Twenty men milled around the sidewalk, most of them toting cases for guns and gear.

  “Are you shooting today?” A Redcap, complete with clipboard.

  “Just watching. Is Zeke Caton on your list there? He’s a buddy of mine.”

  “Um.” She scanned the pages, tapping the last one. “Yes! He went up early this morning. He signed up for all of the rounds. Oh, here come the shuttles.”