A Merciful Silence

by Kendra Elliot

  At least it was decently clean.

  She and Truman quickly searched every nook and cranny, looking for . . . something.

  Down the hallway Truman paused in front of a closed door. His throat moved as he swallowed and then opened the door. The mattress had been stripped of bedding, and Mercy knew it had been Clint’s room. Black fingerprint powder covered several surfaces. She opened the closet. Clothes hung from hangers and were piled on the floor. She did a quick check inside the pockets, the shoes, and then the boxes on the top shelf.

  Truman checked the bathroom and moved to the other bedroom. “Mercy?” he called.

  She followed his voice and found him in front of a large gun safe. “It’s unlocked,” he told her. “Ryan used the combination to open it last time I was here.” He seemed hesitant to touch the door, so she reached over and swung it open.

  Two rifles were present, and several rectangular containers she identified as handgun lockboxes.

  “There were three rifles last time,” Truman stated. He picked up one of the lockboxes. “This feels like there’s still a weapon in it.” He hefted the others until he came to an open one. “I think they all still hold a weapon except this one.”

  “Did he open the lockboxes for you?”

  “Yes. I don’t remember how many there were, but they all were full.”

  “We need to add to the BOLO that he is probably armed.” She studied the other contents of Ryan’s closet. The gun safe took up a large portion, and his clothes were pushed to one side. She did the same pocket check she’d done in Clint’s room and went through the junk on the upper shelf. One shoebox clanked. She removed the lid. “He’s got quite a few knives,” she commented, counting seven of them. Most of the weapons had old, battered sheaths.

  I’d rather find a hammer that could be the murder weapon.

  “The garage out back is packed full of junk,” Truman told her. “It could take days to go through.”

  Mercy returned the box to the shelf. She was sliding the closet door shut when she spotted a three-ring binder between the safe and the wall. Sliding her hand into the narrow space, she wiggled it out and flipped it open.

  A photo of Britta Vale stared back at her, and Mercy nearly dropped the binder.

  “Truman.” She couldn’t say anything else. Her fingers were ice.

  As she turned the page, he watched over her shoulder. Pages and pages of fuzzy long-distance shots of Britta were carefully tucked into protective sleeves. Then came the newspaper articles. They were photocopies of old articles about the Verbeek and Deverell murders. Mercy rapidly flipped through the articles. There was nothing about the Hartlage or Jorgensen murders.

  Why Britta?

  “Do you think this is Clint’s or Ryan’s notebook?” Mercy asked.

  “It’s in Ryan’s room.”

  He’s obsessed.

  Mercy went back to the photos of Britta. “These are recent. Look . . . this one was taken outside her current house. And this one is at the diner in Eagle’s Nest.”

  “It looks like he’s been stalking her, not Steve Harris as she suspected,” Truman pointed out. “But why?”

  “We need to warn her.” Fear for the woman made her throat tighten.

  “I think she’s already on high alert.” Truman reached up and one-handedly grabbed the box of knives Mercy had put back, then set it on top of the safe. “Look at these again.” He picked up one by the scabbard and held the wooden handle toward her. “Do you recognize that symbol?”

  Mercy leaned closer. “It’s an eagle . . . with a swastika below it. Ugh. Are they all like that?” Were the Moody brothers Nazi fans?

  “No,” said Truman. “This other knife has something written in Italian on it. Mercy, these are military collectibles.”

  She met his gaze as a chunk of her case clicked into place. “Like the Asian skull.”

  He held out the box. “Between these knives and those articles in the binders, you’ve got a connection between the old murders and new right here in this house. Ryan Moody.” Lines creased his forehead. “When Ryan was accounting for his handguns the first time I was here, I remember thinking that some of them looked very old.”

  “War collector old?”

  “Possibly.”

  “You think Ryan could be the one who killed the Hartlages, because we found a war trophy with their remains?” Excitement prickled in her brain. “The victim in Clint Moody’s storage shed had his mouth beat in . . . just like the Hartlages and Jorgensens.”

  “But what’s his obsession with Britta?”

  “She’s the survivor of the original family murders,” Mercy suggested. “Ryan is only thirty. He would have been about ten when those murders happened. Wait a minute . . . Did the Moodys grow up around here? I don’t remember them.”

  “I can find out,” said Truman, pulling out his phone.

  Mercy’s nerves vibrated in anticipation as she listened to him make a call. The answer to the murders felt very close, circling in the air just beyond her reach. She worried that if she moved, the tenuous connection between Ryan Moody and the Hartlages would fall apart.

  I’m positive it will be confirmed that Clint Moody was the body in the storage unit.

  Did his brother kill him?

  The boxes in the storage unit.

  Mercy struggled to remember what she’d noticed written on the neat row of cardboard boxes stacked along the wall in the unit.

  Old dates. Countries. She’d assumed they were possessions of someone’s older relatives. Checking the time, she wondered if the evidence team had looked in the boxes yet.

  Truman ended the call, a scowl on his face. “Lucas is going to get back to me. He’s having computer problems.”

  “We need to go back to the storage unit.”

  His nose twitched in memory. “Why?”

  “Did you notice the stacks of cardboard boxes?”

  “Yes. But I was focused on the carpet.”

  “I saw dates. Old dates. I remember thinking they were from before I was born and wondered if they held old items. I also saw Germany written on one.”

  “You’re right. I did see that but ignored it. I wonder if there are more military collectibles in the boxes.”

  “Let’s take a quick look in the cluttered garage here first,” she suggested.

  As they went outside, Mercy phoned Britta, but the call went straight to voice mail.

  She left a message for the woman to keep her eyes open and immediately call her back. Voice mail didn’t seem the appropriate place to explain about the binder she’d found in the Moody home.

  A quick search through some very dusty boxes in the Moody garage turned up only old sporting goods and camping equipment, so Mercy and Truman drove back to the storage unit.

  The body was gone, but the smell lingered. Dr. Lockhart had left, and two evidence techs remained, taking photos and recording evidence. Rain pounded on the large tent they had set up outside the unit. They hadn’t opened any of the boxes yet, and Mercy pointed at the one labeled Germany and 1942, requesting it be opened.

  Inside were old military uniforms, magazines, and a metal helmet.

  “Okay,” said Truman. “One or both of the Moodys were collectors.”

  “Everything is pointing at Ryan Moody. Where the fuck did he go? Wait a minute.” A memory prodded at Mercy, and she strained to bring it into focus. Where did I see other war memorabilia? She ran a hand across her forehead. “Truman . . . Britta has swords hanging on her wall and black-and-white photos that could be old war photos.” Cold dread unfurled in her stomach. How many times was it pointed out that the murders happened after Britta moved to town?

  Truman’s jaw clenched as he weighed her statement. “She’s definitely an unusual woman. I don’t know what to think.”

  “We can’t make any assumptions.”

  “She’s been through a lot of trauma in her life,” Truman stated. “Who knows how that affected her mentally?”

  Mercy
checked her phone, hoping to see a missed call from Britta.

  Nothing.

  Please don’t have lied to me.

  “I need to drive out there,” Mercy stated. “At the very least, she needs to be warned about Ryan Moody.”

  “I need to stop by the station first, and then I’ll meet you there.” Truman took a hard look at her. “Do not go in until I arrive.”

  Thunder boomed after Truman’s words.

  Mercy thought of the deadly-looking swords hanging on Britta’s wall. “Not a problem.”

  FORTY-TWO

  She was no longer the small blonde girl who had haunted my dreams for decades.

  When I first saw her last summer, I struggled to replace my memory of the bloody child with the tall, dark woman who’d returned.

  She’d answered her front door, and I instantly recognized her eyes. I repaired the water issue in her new home, a million questions running through my head. I handed her the bill, trying not to stare as my brain screamed, It’s her. She insisted on writing a check for payment right then. Britta Vale.

  Confirmation. How many women are named Britta?

  After that I followed her everywhere, not that she left her home that often, but I was obsessed with the girl who’d gotten away. The girl who’d survived impossible odds. The girl who’d won against my father.

  Her return to Central Oregon released something from the hidden depths of my soul. Evil things I’d long buried now stirred to life. They stretched and yawned and looked around at the world with fresh eyes. They saw my father’s work was unfinished.

  She walked the streets with confidence, her black clothing and hair like armor, and she never let her guard down. Britta always focused on her surroundings, checking behind her and across the street. It ate away at me that she walked around, living her life as if the world hadn’t changed. The night I climbed the bunk ladder and looked into her eyes decades ago, my life had changed.

  I learned what my father was capable of. What I was capable of.

  I’d noticed after the Verbeek murders that my father was normal for several months. Even throwing a ball with us kids and smiling at my mother. He’d exorcised some demons that night.

  My personal demon had pale-blue eyes and now sported black hair.

  I needed her out of my head.

  Her dog was always at her side, a four-legged guard. One time I’d approached her at the hardware store and admired the dog and asked to pet it. She’d refused, stating the dog didn’t like people and might bite.

  But she never leashed it.

  The encounter bolstered my confidence and the need to purge the voices and urges in my brain. I pledged to finish what my father had started. It was the only way I’d find peace. Getting close to her and speaking to her had made it worse. The desire swelled inside me, and I felt unstoppable; I needed to take action, prove my strength.

  My father had had strength, but he used it in the wrong ways. Like with his fists on my mother.

  When I was eighteen, I took action for the first time. As usual he had passed out in his bed after leaving my mother black and blue. I stared at him from the doorway for a long moment, hating the stink of alcohol and body odor. I strode in and yanked open the drawer next to his bed. He’d shown the weapon to me many times, lovingly stroking it as he speculated about the soldiers who’d fired it half a century earlier.

  The gun was always there and was always loaded.

  I didn’t stop to think. I wrapped his hand around the butt, moved the barrel to his mouth, and pressed his finger against the trigger.

  The spray from his skull covered the pillow and headboard. Bits of matter hit me in the face, but I didn’t care. I left his hand and gun where they naturally fell on his chest and stepped back, examining my handiwork. A gasp sounded behind me.

  I turned and met my mother’s gaze.

  Relief. Understanding. Accusation. Fear. They all flickered across her face, and I knew she’d dreamed of doing what I had just done.

  Probably wished it a thousand times.

  My father had been diagnosed with PTSD. He’d visited dozens of doctors and tried every medication. No one would be surprised at his final action.

  My brother appeared beside my mother, and the same conflicting emotions shone in his eyes.

  “I’ll call the police,” he said in a monotone. “You’d better wash up and get rid of those clothes.”

  The police came. The detective came. They looked sideways at my mother, noting her black eye and the two sons who stood firmly beside her.

  It was ruled a suicide.

  We never spoke of it.

  For a long time, his death was enough for me. My burdens evaporated and life was good. But years later, I started to have nightmares. My brother urged me to talk to a shrink, but I refused. There was no statute of limitations on murder, and I feared I’d spill my secret about killing my father. The incident had bubbled up to the surface of my inner thoughts and fought to escape. I yanked it back down, locking it away, but it kept coming back. Bigger and louder each time.

  Then my father began to speak to me from the skull.

  His favorite keepsake of Vietnam. The one I couldn’t bring myself to sell or store away with his other treasures.

  I moved the skull to the safe, but I still heard his voice.

  Is this what happened to him? Did he hear these voices too?

  I remembered how he would drunkenly talk to inanimate objects and the one phrase I could make out: Stop talking to me.

  Were they talking back to him? Is that what he was trying to escape from all those years?

  That is why he battered their mouths. To stop the voices.

  For the first time I understood my father’s rage and confusion.

  How did he combat it?

  Then I saw Britta. It was a sign. Finish my father’s work and find my peace again. The voice will stop.

  But I couldn’t get close enough to her. I tried and tried. She was always prepared.

  Someone else would have to do.

  The first time, I came home and confessed to my brother what had happened. I cried and raged as I told him our father had taken over my thoughts and I suspected his soul had entered me after I shot him. Why else would I feel the need to kill?

  In a panic my brother helped me hide the bodies in the dead of night, telling me everything would be fine, that we’d never talk again about the incident, that it would simply go away. I shattered the teeth of the cursed skull from Vietnam and then added it to the pile of bodies under the road, convinced that would quiet the voice in my head.

  It did.

  Until it didn’t.

  FORTY-THREE

  I see my breath in the fading day’s light as I wait.

  I know she is coming soon. I’ve watched her enough times to know her routine. Every late afternoon, she runs. Rain or shine. She and that dog head west for several miles and then return. On the way back they run by a small rock formation about a hundred yards from her house. It’s where I now hide. The rain and wind have picked up, and far away the thunder sounds, but I keep my ears open for the sound of her feet. I am confident in her habits.

  She always follows the bank of the dry creek bed during the return part of her run but leaves it behind as she gets closer to her house and passes by my rocks. Today the creek is no longer dry; it is full of rushing water. When I first started watching her, I could see the dirt bottom of the creek bed and how the water had eaten away at its sides over the decades, digging deeper and deeper into the landscape, creating stunning small cliffs. During the winter I saw its dry bottom coated in snow. Only recently did it fill with the first water since last fall. It’s narrow and not too deep, but its noise interferes as I listen for her.

  The dog is an unknown in the equation, the one factor I’m not confident about, but I’ve planned the best I can. It needs to be eliminated first. I’ve worn heavy boots and thick sleeves in preparation. I close my eyes and see myself kick the dog squarely in th
e face, enough to knock it senseless, and then I swing my hammer at Britta. She’ll be too stunned over the attack on her dog to react.

  I have my rifle and pistol, but it is the hammer that is important. She needs to be eliminated the same way her family was.

  Then my father’s voice will be silenced in my head.

  I need it to end.

  Clint had been about to betray me. After the Jorgensen family died, he refused to help me hide their bodies, and he begged me to turn myself in. I explained that it wasn’t my fault; I was driven the same way our father had been. But Clint pushed and pushed, claiming I needed help.

  I’d agreed to go to the police in the morning, but I silenced Clint that night. It wasn’t my fault. He left me no choice.

  I hear her coming.

  She breathes hard, her feet making rhythmic sounds on the hard dirt. All our rain hasn’t softened that hard-packed ground.

  My heart speeds up, and I hold my breath, gripping my hammer. I rise to a loaded crouch, ready to spring.

  It’s almost over. My peace is at hand.

  The dog’s black snout comes into view and I leap forward, planting my right foot and swinging my left with all my might. I’m too slow to hit its face and instead catch it in the ribs. Its body hurtles into the air and then slams into the dirt.

  Its sharp yelp pleases me.

  I spin toward Britta, expecting her to be stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of her immobile dog, but instead a tall black figure tackles me in the gut, knocking me backward to the ground, and I drop my hammer. I wheeze for breath, but my lungs won’t function. Britta scrambles to sit on my chest as I suffocate. Stars explode in my eyes as a blow knocks my jaw to the side.

  And again.

  This is wrong! It’s all going wrong!

  I taste blood, and a high wail erupts from my throat as my lungs get air. Suddenly her weight is gone from my chest and I roll to my side, still struggling for normal breaths. She kicks me twice in the groin and the blinding pain shoots its way to my head and detonates. I curl into a ball, no breath left to scream. I try to close my jaw, and hot fire shoots from its joints into my brain.