Mercy (Beartooth, Montana)

by B. J Daniels

  “Unless the victim was gay. Or the male killer broke into the house and searched it. He could also have been in a business where he was allowed access, say a cable-TV man or someone with a utility company.”

  She smiled, giving him that. “What else do you have to support your serial-killer theory?”

  “The knife wounds on the third victim. The killer is getting more creative. He’ll kill again, if he hasn’t already. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “That’s exactly what you’re doing,” Laura said and pushed the manila envelope across the table to him. “Take a look at the photos I found of your serial killer.”

  * * *

  LAURA SAW ROURKE’S gaze go to the manila folder, but he didn’t touch it for a moment. “You’re the only one who knows this, but I made copies of all my cases—and some that merely interested me,” she said. “Don’t give me that look. As if you’ve never broken any rules.”

  “Sorry, I was just surprised.”

  “I found the case that got you started on this...quest you’re on. You were right. I did take the photos of the people behind the crime-scene tape that day.”

  “So you have copies of the photos I have?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “These are four you haven’t seen.”

  Rourke looked at her in surprise, then opened the envelope and removed the photos. “You kept them out of the file?” He frowned. “I don’t understand. Are they of her?”

  Laura felt the way he said “of her?” like a weight on her chest.

  He looked at all four quickly, then more slowly. She saw the way his eye was drawn to the woman, Caligrace Westfield.

  “She’s looking right at the camera in these,” he said after a moment.

  Laura waited, watching him.

  When he looked up, she saw that he’d seen the same thing she had. “She sees something...someone who frightens her.”

  Laura shook her head. “She saw me in my uniform and realized she was being photographed at the murder scene. Look at the shot after that one. She realizes she was probably photographed at the other murders. That’s when she gets really scared and takes off.”

  He stared at the last photo for a long time before he looked up at her and frowned. “That could be one explanation.”

  “It’s the explanation.” She could tell that he was angry that she had kept back the four photographs. “I don’t have anything else on the case that you haven’t already seen,” she said, knowing him so well.

  Rourke nodded, still pissed.

  “Why are you being so obstinate about this?” she demanded, losing her temper. “She’s your serial killer. There is no boyfriend, no brother, no psychopathic uncle or cousin. She did them.”

  He shook his head as he looked down at photographs he’d spread out in order on the table. “I don’t see a woman coming back to the scene of the crime. Women can and do kill—I’ll give you that. But if you look at the famous women serial killers of our time, they didn’t do it for sport. They were more goal oriented.”

  “Who says your chick here isn’t goal oriented? Just because you don’t know why she killed those men yet...” Anger made her stomach roil. “You’ve been taken in by that face of hers.” She couldn’t believe this. “This woman got to you even before you met her.”

  “I think you’re reading a lot into these photos.”

  Laura laughed as she pushed to her feet. “I’m reading a lot into them? You’re here because of something you saw in that woman’s face. Well, keep looking at her, Rourke, because you’re looking at a killer.” She reached for her coat and purse. “I have to go.”

  He stood, his anger at her quickly turning to concern. “It’s late. The deer on the highway can be bad after dark. Stay and leave in the morning. You can have my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

  The concern in his voice plucked at her heartstrings. As if she could get any sleep knowing he was just in another room. “I have to go see my mother. That’s why I’m here.”

  He blinked. “Where is your mother? I thought you said she was—”

  “She lives in Harlowton. An hour north of here.”

  Rourke looked even more surprised to hear that not only wasn’t she dead, but that she also lived near here.

  “I didn’t realize you were from Montana,” he said. She could see that he was wondering why she hadn’t mentioned this when he’d told her he was coming here.

  “She moved to Harlowton a few years ago.” He reached to help her with her coat, but she stepped back, upset with him. The damned fool was too emotionally involved in this case, in this woman. He was going to get himself killed.

  “Still,” he said. “It’s so late. I wish you would wait and go in the morning.”

  “My mother’s...dying.” It surprised her, the amount of angst in her voice and how little it had to do with her mother. “She’s sent word that it’s urgent that she sees me.”

  His look said, “Then what the hell are you doing here?” but when he spoke, he said, “Then you should get to her as soon as possible.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THERE WAS NO traffic on the two-lane north of Big Timber at this time of the night. Laura wasn’t that worried about deer on the highway either. There was an almost full moon that turned the landscape silver. After driving in Seattle for so many years with traffic at all hours, day or night, this was a treat.

  She hadn’t been back to Montana since her mother had awakened her in the middle of the night and rushed her downstairs to an old pickup waiting just outside. She’d never seen the man behind the wheel before or since. She just remembered her mother paying him when they reached the bus station in some distant town. Most of her life she hadn’t known even the name of the town where they’d moved to before her mother lost her job and they had to move again.

  That time, when she’d awakened, they were in Michigan. When she asked what was going on, her mother told her they were making a new start and she was never to mention the past again.

  Tonight Rourke had been surprised to hear not only that her mother was alive, but also living nearby in a small Montana town. She shouldn’t be angry with him for knowing so little about her. When he’d first asked about her family, she’d let him think her mother was dead. She’d made the mistake of mentioning her sister, Catherine, only once, but Rourke hadn’t forgotten. He’d asked if she was coming for a visit.

  What he didn’t know was that she hated her sister’s visits. They were only once a year, fortunately. She couldn’t keep Catherine away longer.

  She never talked about her family. Nor did she tell anyone else. She’d put that life behind her years ago. But she especially didn’t want Rourke knowing. The last thing she wanted was his pity.

  Given that she knew everything about him, it did seem unfair that he knew nothing about her. He’d been raised on a ranch in Wyoming. When his parents had retired, they’d sold the ranch and left him enough money that he never had to work. When his parents were killed in a small-plane crash, he’d already graduated from college, been working in law enforcement and had finally crossed her path at the Seattle P.D.

  If she was honest with herself, she’d always believed that fate had thrown the two of them together. Seeing him again had made her realize that she’d always thought that someday they would be a couple. She knew it was crazy and certainly the feeling was all on her side. Rourke had never had an interest in her other than as a cop. Why she’d thought that would change, she had no idea.

  It didn’t keep it from hurting, though. Her psychiatrist insisted that if she told Rourke how she felt, she would finally be able to move past it.

  Well, the best she could do now was to try to keep him alive, she thought as she came over a hill and saw the rotating white blades of the Judith Gap wind farm in the distance.

  Closer, she co
uld see the lights of Harlowton, Montana, ahead. All her misgivings about coming here hit her in a rush. For all she knew, her mother was already dead, taking her secrets with her.

  Laura’s foot came up off the accelerator. It wasn’t too late to turn around. Or she could get a motel in town and get out of here tomorrow.

  She felt that old tightening in her stomach at even the thought of seeing her mother. She didn’t want to be here. What was the point in digging up all those bad memories?

  Ahead, she saw the highway sign. Turn around or drive into the heart of the small Montana town to her mother’s house, where she couldn’t even conceive what might be waiting for her?

  * * *

  ROURKE HADN’T BEEN able to sleep after Laura left. He’d traveled light to Montana, so it hadn’t taken long to get settled into the cabin. The fall night was still warm, although there was talk of an early winter storm coming in later in the week.

  Restless, he stepped out on the cabin porch into the moonlit night. Laura’s visit had left him shaken. So much of what she’d said made sense. So why did all his instincts tell him she was wrong?

  Knowing he wasn’t going to get any sleep, he decided to go for a walk. As he headed down the mountain into town, he looked at the small western community. The old buildings shone in the moonlight. The café was closed, had been for hours. Nor were there any lights in the apartment over it. Callie would be asleep like the other few residents who actually lived in and around Beartooth. Even the Range Rider bar was closed, although several pickups were still parked out front. Some of the cowboys must have hitched a ride home rather than drive.

  As he was headed back up the main drag, he heard an engine start up. A moment later, the glow of headlights poured out onto the two-lane highway that was Beartooth’s main street.

  Without thinking, he stepped back into the shadows as the old pickup turned in his direction. He stayed pressed against one of the old building’s stone walls as the driver passed.

  Callie. He recognized her in the glow of her dash lights. Her hair was down, skimming her shoulders, her face pale in the dim light.

  Rourke cursed himself for being without his own vehicle as he checked the time on his cell phone. Where was the woman going at a quarter after three in the morning?

  Stepping out of his hiding place, he watched her taillights grow dimmer and thought about Laura’s conviction that Callie was the killer he’d come looking for.

  She touched her brakes at the end of town near the old gas station and garage. Turning, she headed back toward the Crazy Mountains.

  Where did that road go? He didn’t know, but he planned to find out. Just as he would find out who she was going to meet in the wee hours of the morning up the mountain road.

  He ran back to the cabin, jumped into his rented SUV and took off down the road in the direction Callie had gone. He kept thinking about the first time he’d seen her. His reaction still surprised him. Was Laura right? Was he obsessed with this woman and had been since he’d seen her face in a crime-scene photo?

  If he was being honest, he’d had a theory since the first time he’d seen her image and realized she’d been at three crime scenes. He’d never thought she was a co-killer. But she was connected to the murders because she knew who the killer was. Why she hadn’t come forward...well, he didn’t know. Like he said, it was just a theory.

  He couldn’t explain it, even to himself. Just this gut feeling... He hadn’t shared his theory with Laura for obvious reasons. She had made it clear how she felt. Both of their reasonings seemed clouded by their own personal feelings. Laura really believed he was falling for this woman.

  He shook his head at the thought as he drove. He’d always trusted his instincts. But at the back of his mind was an inkling of worry that he was wrong. Dead wrong.

  Rourke reminded himself of what was at stake as he turned and headed back into the Crazies, as the locals called the mountains that shadowed the town of Beartooth. The gravel road narrowed quickly, turning to dirt. He had to slow down. When he came to a fork in the road, he stopped, unsure which route she would have taken since he didn’t know the area.

  He tried the road to the right since it appeared to go deeper into the thickest wooded side of the mountains, but a few miles up the 4x4 trail, he finally had to turn around. The area was a honeycomb of old logging roads. She could have taken any one of them.

  As he drove back to his cabin, he realized he wasn’t so sure about his theory anymore. Laura could be right. That sweet-faced woman who haunted his dreams could very well be a serial killer who, since it was almost October, was now looking for her next victim.

  Or she could be somewhere in those mountains with the man who did her killing for her. In that case, who had she already chosen for her next victim?

  * * *

  THE HOUSE WAS small and old. Only a single light glowed inside. Was her mother alone? Or was her neighbor Ruthie in there with her?

  Laura looked at the clock on the dash. 3:11 a.m. She knew she was stalling. How would she feel if she arrived too late? She would never know what it was her mother had to tell her. That, she realized, could be a blessing.

  She sat for a few minutes longer, fighting angry tears.

  “You really are quite ugly when you cry,” her mother used to tell her. Laura had made it a point of not crying, especially in front of people. She didn’t understand why she was crying now, but the last person she would let see her like this was her mother. Hastily wiping away the tears, she pushed open her door and stepped out in the cold fall air.

  Fallen, dried leaves crunched under her heels as she walked along the broken strip of concrete walled in by weeds to her mother’s door.

  Whatever it is she wants to tell me, I won’t let it hurt me. She can’t hurt me anymore.

  The screen door opened with a groan. Laura tapped at the weathered door beyond it and waited. She could hear the wind in the pines next to the house. One of the branches scraped the eave. She felt the noise getting on her nerves as she turned to look around the small neighborhood. Her mother’s house sat back from the street, away from the rest of the houses. She wondered which house Ruthie lived in, since none were close by.

  Moonlight cast an eerie pall over the town at this hour of the morning. She thought of her mother living here all alone. What in God’s name had brought her mother here?

  Turning back to the door, she started to knock again, but instead tried the knob. It turned in her hand, the door creaking open as the smell of death rushed out.

  A voice from the darkness, grating as coarse sandpaper, rasped, “Is that you, Laura?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  IN THE SMALL apartment over the Branding Iron Café, Caligrace Westfield woke with The Headache. She closed her eyes and lay perfectly still, willing it away. For almost two years, she’d held her affliction at bay, so long that she’d thought she’d somehow escaped by coming to Beartooth.

  A sob of a laugh escaped her lips. What she had wasn’t a disease that could be cured. Not by any scientific means on this earth. Or a spiritual one. Still, being here in Beartooth, Montana, she’d felt freer of the curse that had forced her to become a nomad.

  “You have what my grandmother did. Cherish this gift that has been given to you,” her mother had told her the day she died. “Cultivate it, control it.”

  But that was the problem. She couldn’t control it, no matter how hard she tried.

  Caligrace opened her eyes and tried to focus on the clock. The Headache was blinding in intensity, making her feel sick to her stomach. Since coming to Beartooth, she hadn’t missed a day of work. She wasn’t going to today either.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The room swam, and for a moment, she thought she might retch. With cast-iron will, she rose and dressed for work. Fortunately, she wasn’t required to wear a uniform.
She pulled on a long skirt and top, then drew her wild mane of dark hair back from her face, fighting it into a bun of sorts at the nape of her neck.

  Call Kate and tell her you can’t work.

  She could already smell the bacon frying in the café below the apartment. It turned her stomach. Did she really think she could waitress today?

  The alternative was staying in this apartment with The Headache and her growing apprehension. The air around her seemed to crackle as she moved. She held her breath as it sparked and buzzed. She could feel her heart pounding so hard it made her chest ache.

  Callie tried to still the thrumming in her veins. Nothing was wrong, she tried to tell herself. Nothing was any different than it had been since the day over a year ago when she’d arrived in Beartooth and seen the waitress-wanted sign. She hadn’t been that surprised when she’d gotten the job. Instead, she’d had an odd sense that she’d somehow come home.

  Now she moved to the window and her view of the mountains. It was one of those robin-egg-blue sky days. The recent snow in the high country had capped the high peaks. With her window open a crack for fresh air, she caught a whiff of the cold that rushed down out of the rugged, breathtaking mountains now afire with the sun’s morning rays.

  Callie stood, a little chilled in front of the window, as she tried to make sense of The Headache she’d awakened with. She knew the signs. Maybe she’d been here too long. It was the longest she’d stayed in one place in years. The thought of leaving, though, made her want to cry.

  And yet something was on the wind. Maybe nothing more than a storm, she tried to convince herself. She often felt odd when the barometer dropped. She’d never seen anything like the storms that ravaged this small town, often snowing her in until the plows could get through and clear the roads.

  For all her efforts otherwise, she couldn’t ignore The Headache, though. Or what it foretold. No wonder she felt sick to her stomach. It was happening again, and there was nothing she could do about it.