A Merciful Silence

by Kendra Elliot

  “Holy crap. That’s awful.” The tall man looked stunned. “I left a message on his cell phone when he didn’t show up for work. I figured he had a hangover or was sick . . . although I was surprised he didn’t answer his phone.”

  Truman remembered seeing a cell phone on Clint’s nightstand and assumed the evidence team had taken it.

  “A hangover? Does that happen often?”

  A thoughtful look crossed Nick’s face. “Not really. My guys know I don’t put up with that shit. They need to be on their toes when handling the lumber—it’s heavy. And if anyone had an accident while driving the forklift because they were hungover, they’d be out of a job. They know this.”

  “Did Clint get along with his coworkers?”

  Nick considered the question. “He did. He was the type to lose his temper pretty quick, but then he’d be laughing the next minute. No one held it against him. I’d say everyone likes him.”

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt him? Did he mention any arguments outside of work?”

  “I can’t think of anything he mentioned like that.”

  “How’d he get along with his brother, Ryan?”

  Nick’s brows slowly rose on his narrow face. “You don’t really think . . .”

  “I have to consider everything.”

  The man gave it careful thought before speaking. “Clint’s worked here less than a year. I think I’ve seen his brother stop in once. I knew they lived together, and he’s occasionally bitched about Ryan. But it was what I would expect of two brothers sharing a house.” He gave a wry grin. “One time Ryan ran into Clint’s truck in their driveway, and I know there was an issue about who would pay for the damage. Clint was in a foul mood for a few days about that.”

  “When was that?”

  “During the snow and ice earlier this year. Ryan slid. Claimed he couldn’t have prevented the accident.”

  “Anything else you can think of that might help? Did Clint ever talk about leaving town?”

  Nick shook his head.

  Truman held out his hand. “Thanks for your time. Let me know if you think of anything else.”

  “Anytime.”

  Truman was about to leave when he stopped and looked back. “How’s it going with Rose?” Belle’s ears perked up at Rose’s name.

  An easy smile crossed Nick’s face. “Good.”

  “Take it slow.” Truman had a soft spot in his heart for Rose. He’d witnessed the hell she’d been put through last fall. A weaker person would have been emotionally and mentally destroyed. Thankfully Rose was made of tough material. Like Mercy.

  “I will.”

  Truman pushed open the door, thinking about the blind woman and the quiet lumberyard owner. He made a silent wish that they’d have a good future together.

  As he left the lumberyard, he realized he’d forgotten to feed Simon that morning in his exhaustion after two nights with little sleep. Truman still had a good half hour before Ryan Moody was to show up at the police department for an interview, so he headed toward home, surprised his cat hadn’t made her needs known before he left for work.

  Maybe she did and I was too tired to notice.

  He’d started his coffee maker without any water that morning.

  He pulled into the driveway of his house and sat in his seat for a few seconds.

  Damn, I need a nap.

  He’d have time to stop and get some caffeinated fuel after feeding Simon. The thought of espresso and Kaylie’s apple coffee cake from her coffee shop perked him up. He got out of his SUV and headed toward the front door.

  He knew someone was behind him a split second before the blow hit him in the right kidney. Lightning shot from his lower back to the core of his brain, and he forgot how to breathe. He stumbled forward and fell to one knee as his right hand grabbed the railing to the porch stairs, stopping him from landing on his face.

  Protect my gun.

  He started to push to his feet and turn to face his attacker as his left hand tried to reach his weapon at his right hip. His balance relied on his right hand’s still gripping the railing, preventing him from using his gun hand. His body burned as if a mine had exploded in his back.

  The second strike hit his left kidney, and Truman fell to both knees. Both his hands shot forward to stop his skull from crashing into the concrete steps. Fire radiated from two places in his back. Bright lights flashed behind his eyes, momentarily blinding him.

  A baseball bat?

  “Fucking cop!”

  “Asshole!”

  Two attackers.

  He tried to turn again. A blow hit his temple, and the flashes of light went black.

  Simon will be hungry.

  His head bounced off the concrete, and then he knew no more.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “This has to be boring for you,” Dr. Harper said to Mercy as they looked at dental films in the medical examiner’s office for the second time that week.

  “Heck no. I find it fascinating,” corrected Mercy. It was true.

  The Hartlage films from the Burns office had been delivered to Dr. Harper, who’d called Mercy within an hour to tell her the first Caucasian skulls they’d found were definitely Corrine and Richard Hartlage. Mercy asked Dr. Harper to demonstrate how she’d come to the conclusion.

  Again the small grayscale rectangles on the screen looked like a jumbled mess to Mercy.

  “How long did it take for you to learn to read these?” she asked the dentist.

  Dr. Harper tilted her head as she thought. “It feels like I’ve always known, but we learned to identify the teeth in films very early in dental school. Years of working with them after I graduated also taught me hundreds of things I never encountered during school. I’ve easily examined fifty thousand films. Everyone has unique qualities to their teeth, the roots, and the bone around them.”

  Mercy looked again. She could recognize fillings and crowns and root canals, but that was about it.

  “What did you find?” she asked.

  “Let’s start with Richard Hartlage.” Dr. Harper’s lips twisted. “The copies his old office made aren’t the greatest. They’re dark. I would have told the assistant to redo them, but I can work with them. I put the films I shot at the top of the screen.”

  Mercy nodded, noting the films on the bottom were much darker.

  “On my film, he’s missing two molars on the lower right side.” She indicated a wide empty space on her film. “On the dark film, he has those teeth, but do you see how the crest of the bone steeply angles down toward the roots of both of those teeth? This was caused by gum disease. Over time it destroys the bone that anchors teeth. A healthy bone level would have been higher on the root, just below the bulbous part of the tooth, like on this one.” Dr. Harper pointed at another tooth on the film. The crest of bone was flat.

  “You’re not surprised that those teeth are missing on the films you took.”

  “Not at all. When comparing old films and new, teeth and their roots can always be missing on the newest films, but you can’t add a tooth and root that weren’t there before. Unless you count implants, but those are completely different. They look like screws in the jaw.”

  “That still doesn’t prove this is Richard. It could be someone else.”

  “It doesn’t. But then I look at the amalgam filling on tooth number thirteen on this old film, and it’s still the exact same shape on the new. Same with these three other amalgam fillings. They are identical on both sets of films. But on number five, the old film shows an amalgam filling that involves two surfaces of the tooth. Now that tooth has a filling that involves three surfaces.”

  “There’s an inconsistency?”

  “No. The filling was replaced with a bigger one. Fillings will never be replaced by smaller ones or disappear, but they can be replaced with larger ones. If tooth five had no filling, I’d know this isn’t Richard.”

  “You’re convinced it’s him?”

  “Without a doubt.”
Confidence rang in her voice.

  “And Corrine?”

  Dr. Harper pulled up new films. “Corrine had better dental health. Her old films show no fillings, but she’s received two amalgam fillings which show up in the films I took on the skull.”

  “Then how can you be sure it’s her?”

  Mercy swore the dentist’s eyes twinkled.

  “There are other markers besides fillings. Look at the roots on this tooth. See how the ends suddenly point toward the back of the mouth instead of going straight down?”

  Mercy noted that all the other teeth had perfectly straight roots.

  “I’d hate to extract this tooth with those difficult root tips—I’d send her to a specialist if she’d needed it removed. But my point is that the roots are identical on both sets of films. The same tooth on the opposite side of her mouth does the same thing, and they match.”

  “It’s not a common root formation?”

  “It’s not uncommon. But these are identical.” She moved one of her films over the old one and Mercy saw that everything lined up perfectly. The crooked roots, the straight roots, and the shapes of the other teeth. “I had to retake the new film a few times to match the angle of the old one, but I caught it.”

  “It’s Corrine,” Mercy stated.

  “Yes.”

  “That poor family.” The photos from the home flashed in her memory. Alison, Amy . . . gone.

  “We didn’t find any remains of shoes, or belts, or wallets,” Mercy mused out loud. “Does that mean they were put in the culvert naked? Or were they already skeletal remains when they were hidden there?”

  “Did you see the soil report that was just finished?”

  “Not yet.” She made a mental note to check her email.

  “I read it. The soil tests indicate that the bones have been there the whole time.”

  “Interesting.” Mercy tried to imagine the work involved in dumping an entire unclothed family in the culvert. “I wonder if he put them in the other end first. Maybe the bodies are what caused part of the backing up of the culvert to start with.”

  “And the bones were eventually washed out the other end?” suggested Dr. Harper.

  “Yes. They were really embedded in the debris backing up the culvert, weren’t they?”

  “They were.” One side of Dr. Harper’s lips curved up. “Could be ironic that the way he disposed of the bodies is what caused them to be eventually found.”

  “And it’s reasonable that the remains could have skeletonized since last summer?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How will we figure out if the last skull is the brother-in-law?” Mercy asked. The brother-in-law could be the murder suspect she was searching for. But did he kill the Jorgensens too? “I still don’t know his name. I can’t find any records of Corrine’s family, and Richard’s uncle was no help.”

  “There’s always DNA testing, but it will take time. We can compare the unknown skull’s DNA to Corrine’s. If they’re siblings, they should have about fifty percent matching DNA.”

  “I plan to get that test rolling as soon as possible,” Dr. Victoria Peres said as she entered the room. “Nice to see you, Agent Kilpatrick. I’m glad we had some good news for you.” She frowned. “I guess it’s not good news, but helpful news.”

  “Definitely helpful,” agreed Mercy, noticing Dr. Peres carried a skull. “Now we’re down to two mystery skulls instead of four.”

  “Actually we’re down to one mystery skull.” The usually calm and collected woman spoke in a voice that was higher than normal.

  Mercy’s skin tingled. “What did you find?”

  Dr. Peres held up the skull, and Mercy recognized the different shape of the eye sockets. “That’s the Asian skull,” said Mercy.

  “Yes.” The forensic anthropologist flipped it over and indicated the opening on the bottom. “Can you see in here?” She shone a penlight inside the skull.

  Mercy leaned closer, wondering what the doctor expected her to see. She couldn’t read every bump and fossa the way Dr. Peres could.

  “It’s always bothered me that the color of the skull was slightly different from the other five,” Dr. Peres said. “And it felt more brittle to me. I was about to run dating tests on it when I spotted something inside. I blame myself for not getting it fully cleaned out right away. Stubborn dirt and the awkward location kept me from seeing it.”

  Mercy searched the inside of the skull. Her gaze stopped on some small scratches. “Is that a year?” Mercy took the penlight from the doctor and moved closer to the opening. “It says 1969. But what do the letters spell?” She squinted. Someone had awkwardly carved the numbers and letters inside the skull.

  “I think they’re someone’s initials.”

  “Someone put the identity inside?” Her mind raced. It must be a birth year and the victim’s initials.

  “No. I think this is a war trophy from Vietnam.”

  Mercy drew back, horrified at the thought. “Seriously?”

  “It’s my theory. I’ve heard of soldiers smuggling back skulls or bones or clothing from wars. All the wars.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “There’s a market for it.”

  “That’s even sicker.”

  “Let me see it,” requested Dr. Harper. She opened a case and took out a pair of glasses with loupes attached to the lenses. Mercy’s dentist wore the same type. “The initials are HRR. I assume they belong to whoever originally brought home the skull?”

  “Who knows?” asked Dr. Peres. “It could have had multiple owners over the last fifty years.”

  “But why place it in the culvert? And was it put there at the same time as the Hartlages?” questioned Mercy, thinking out loud.

  “I suspect you won’t know the answer to that until you make an arrest,” Dr. Peres said solemnly.

  It wasn’t the answer Mercy wanted to hear, but she knew the forensic anthropologist was correct.

  TWENTY-TWO

  My father had a love of all things military.

  I didn’t understand his fascination with these items because of his hatred of his time in the war. He condemned our government, which sent men to war, but would make special trips to see war memorabilia for sale. Mother looked upset every time he came home with a new purchase, but she never said anything about the money he spent. I suspect she knew better. Even I knew Father was in charge of the money. Mother had to ask several times when she needed to buy us clothes for school.

  He had quite a war collection by the time I was ten. The items were kept in a big wooden armoire with a lock. When he was drunk he’d set a chair in front of the armoire and lovingly handle each item. If he was in a good mood, he’d let us touch some items in his precious collection. He’d tell us which war the item was from and speculate on the type of man who’d used it. Sometimes he’d recite stories about his collectibles . . . the men who carried the guns, wore the clothes, earned the medals. I knew the stories weren’t true; some of these wars had happened before he was born. How could he know who’d used those things?

  He’d let us try on the hats. There was a black metal helmet worn by Germans from a very old war, and a weathered tan hat with a brim and a dirty-looking metal pin with an eagle and a shield. He claimed this one was used by Americans. It smelled old . . . like dust and gasoline and oil. Both were too big on my head.

  My favorite hat was the red beret. It was slightly crushed but would mold to my head better than the others. Its patch had a star and a gold wreath, but Father said it wasn’t American. It was from Vietnam. The manufacturer’s label was in a foreign language, so I suspected he told the truth. Another neat thing from Vietnam was the camouflage-covered helmet. Someone had written Born to Kill on it with a fat black marker and drawn peace signs.

  He wouldn’t let us touch the weapons. He had about a dozen knives with battered scabbards, and the prize of this collection was a long bayonet. I don’t remember what war it was from. He had several handguns, but I thought
they looked like the weapons used on cop shows on TV and they didn’t hold my interest. The one gun I did like was a French submachine gun. It was long, black, and deadly. It looked like someone had added parts to a regular gun. My father claimed it had been stolen in another war and then used by Vietnamese guerrillas. Most of his memorabilia was from the Vietnam War . . . including some collectibles that shocked me.

  He rarely talked about his war. The keepsakes from his war were pushed to the back of the armoire, and he rarely brought them out. When I’d find the armoire unlocked, I’d look through them, wondering which belonged to him and which he’d bought. He called the camouflage from his war “chocolate chip.” I never knew if that was a joke or real. He had a medal in a box. I don’t believe he earned it, because it was on a red-white-and-green ribbon and imprinted with a foreign language, but I could read the year. 1991. I suspected the Operation Desert Storm patch was his.

  All these items were his obsessions. I believe he cared more about them than about his kids. Or wife. Sometimes he would lock himself in the bedroom for days and drink. Mother would sleep on the couch and tell us to leave him alone. I could hear him rooting through the armoire, muttering or swearing to himself.

  After one long binge, Mother pried open the bedroom door. She’d been listening and pacing outside the door for an hour, concern on her face. When it opened, I saw him motionless on the bed, wearing the chocolate chip camouflage. I stayed by the door and watched her creep close to bend her head to listen by his mouth. I saw his chest rise and she silently dashed back out of the room.

  I swear I saw disappointment on her face.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Where’s the boss?” Officer Ben Cooley asked Lucas.

  “Last I heard, Truman was going to the lumberyard to talk to Nick Walker.” Lucas frowned at the clock on the wall. “That’s been hours ago, and I left a message when he missed an appointment this morning, but I haven’t heard from him. I’ll try his cell.” He immediately punched numbers on a phone.