I left the police reports on the coffee table and grabbed my barn jacket and Mariners cap to set out for town on foot. My leg muscles were aching for a walk after all of the driving during the past day. The sun had begun its dive behind the hills, leaving a clear sky and that same steady cool wind that had blown all afternoon.
The walk gave me time to think about Leo. I had to believe he was innocent, despite the evidence and his own strange behavior. He’d told me straight out that he hadn’t killed Erle Sharples. If I didn’t trust him on that, I didn’t trust him on anything.
So who had shot Erle? And why? Whoever the killer had been, they must have arrived at the shop before Leo that same morning. Neither Beacham nor the two witnesses had reported seeing anyone else. The back entrance had been found unlocked. Erle had turned off his security cameras. Had he been doing something that he didn’t want captured on the feed, when someone slipped in and shot him? Or had Erle been expecting them? Maybe Erle had let his killer in through the back door himself.
I wanted a look at the gun shop. Its address put it roughly between my path through the residential blocks and the town center, and I changed course to stride past the school’s athletic field. Any fall season football or soccer practices had ended for the day. A few high school kids in MRHS Rams sweatshirts and shorts jogged around the track in loose packs, more socializing than exercising.
Erle’s Gun Shop and Firing Range lay at the terminus of Larimer Road, a sloped dead-end branch off Main, no more than a hundred and fifty yards from end to end. At the top of the road, I passed the dress store where Constable Wayne Beacham had been investigating their vandalized window on the morning of the murder. Wood slats and cardboard covered the broken pane of glass. From the dress store I could see an unbroken stretch of Main Street for a quarter mile in both directions. The heart of the town to the north, and the long reach south toward residences and farms and eventually isolated homesteads like Dez’s.
The short road was quiet at dusk and looked to stay that way. Only one structure stood within a hundred feet of the gun shop. A two-story brick storefront, under renovation, its rooms empty and X’s of masking tape still marking newly installed windows.
Instead of the imitation western façade of the town center or the boutique trimmings of its dress store, Erle had limited his design efforts to broad corrugated steel sheets bolted directly onto the shop’s adobe walls. There were no windows. An accordion gate extended the breadth of the locked entrance to create a second barrier. Or a third, if you counted the police tape sealing the doorjamb.
Attached to the side of the shop was a simple carport, another large sheet of galvanized steel held aloft by four-by-four posts. A Honda ATV sat within like a faithful hound, squatting low on fat muddy tires, its bright red paint turned purple by the shadows.
From under the narrow awning above the door, a closed-circuit camera stared down at the space in front of the shop’s entrance. The housing of the camera had been painted over with the same brown paint as the wooden awning. But the trim shape of the camera was familiar. Distinctive.
I looked around. No one in sight. I risked climbing up to balance on the railing of the front steps and scratched at the brown paint with my car key.
Under the flecks of brown, the side of the camera was emblazoned with the maker’s logo. One word crowned by a blue laurel wreath. Kjárr.
I knew Kjárr. Every thief knew it. An alarm firm based in Oslo. Top of the line, for the private sector. Around Seattle, I might expect to find a Kjárr system installed at a Saudi exile’s Broadmoor estate, or in a tech exec’s penthouse condo in Bellevue. I would not expect to find Kjárr providing a line of defense for what was, at most, a hundred grand worth of merchandise in backwater Oregon. The Kjárr system alone probably cost that much.
Erle Sharples might have been paranoid. Or he’d landed a serious deal on a used system and reinstalled it at his shop. But if that were the case, why not go ahead and plaster the famous brand name on every door to ward off burglars?
No. Erle wanted his shop very secure, and to keep that security to himself. The question was why.
I could beat a Kjárr, given time and some computer-assisted equipment to fool the Wi-Fi signal. But I didn’t have to. The alarm had been turned off when Erle was killed. Any man security-conscious enough to want a top-flight system wouldn’t trust the local LE with the codes. Odds were good that Yerby and team had simply left the alarm off and relied on the shop’s dead bolts to keep things secure.
I’d test that theory later. Right now, I wanted to join the crowd for the Rally’s opening night, to see if I could catch wind of Constable Wayne Beacham or his brother Lester. If the constable really had been spouting off about the shooting to his family and God knew who else in town, maybe Ganz could use that as grounds for moving Leo to another location. A safer one.
The Mercy River town hall was an actual hall, extending for half a block beyond its comparatively small entrance. A bronze plaque on the post by the broad stone steps declared that the original hall had been built in 1898, and thanked the sponsors who’d overseen a renovation in 2005. Those benefactors had opted for a timeless aspect, red brick and white-paned windows, unremarkable but sturdy.
Dozens of men milled around the grass, talking and laughing with language raw enough to blister paint. It took me back. There was something unique about Spec Ops when we got together in large numbers. Even separated by different social classes and generations—I saw motorheads and Hawaiian shirts and businessmen in Burberry raincoats, ears with gauges stretching their lobes into circles and ears with hearing aids—we all examined the world with similar eyes. Watchful. Assessing. Categorizing everything in our surroundings into threat or opportunity or neither, even as we laughed and hugged one another in greeting. It didn’t matter if we were honed like razors off our last deployment or carrying twenty years of civilian chow around our middles. Put a hundred of us together, and you could feel a charge in the air like ozone foreshadowing a thunderstorm.
I liked it. I’d missed it.
The average age of the men in the crowd was a fraction below thirty. It might skew even lower as more active-duty men arrived for the Rally on forty-eight-hour passes. Which meant the overwhelming majority of us hadn’t known service without being at war. I could have figured that out by counting the number of KIA bracelets adorning wrists. Each ring of black metal engraved with the name of a fallen brother.
I spotted Moulson and Booker, the active Rangers. They had changed from their camos into golf shirts and jeans. Moulson waved me over.
“This the starting line?” I said.
“Just in time,” said Booker. No one had given a signal, but the volume of conversation quieted and men dropped cigarettes to crush them out, as the crowd began to move toward the entrance.
The space inside the long hall had been cleared, benches and plastic folding chairs pushed to either side along the walls. A few rows at the very front had been left alone, close to a stage. Three men in wheelchairs chatted in an open area next to the rows. A portly man in a knit sweater excused himself as we made room for him to pass. He supported his gait with a cane in each hand as he walked slowly toward the seats in front.
Moulson nudged me with an elbow. “Okay if I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
His eyes flicked to the left side of my face. “Is that injury why you left the Army?”
“No. This happened on my first rotation with the battalion, in Iraq. I was twenty.”
“Fuck me. And you went back?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It was me, I might have packed it in.”
“Doubtful,” I said. “After earning my way into the regiment, I wanted to do what they taught us to do. I hadn’t gotten much of a chance.”
Plus the idea of going back to civilian life, with a face still looking like a mountain lion had mauled it, had scared me a lot more than combat at that age.
“I hear that,” Booker said. “It would feel like you were getting cheated.”
“Plus I missed the sergeants’ smiling faces,” I said.
A man climbed the stairs to the stage, one step at a time. He was somewhere past fifty, and built like a well-fed grizzly, his limbs thick but short in comparison to his substantial chest and belly. That impression was heightened by his deliberate movements and his heavy chocolate-colored wool shirt and pants.
“That’s Macomber,” said Booker.
I placed the slight stiffness in the general’s gait. At least part of his left leg was artificial. He stepped forward to the edge of the stage.
“You’re all veterans,” Macomber said, his basso profundo voice carrying easily over the dimming sounds of movement and muttering, “so you know nothing’s official unless some asshole gives a speech.”
The audience laughed. Macomber smiled, too, his open face growing even livelier.
“Welcome. I see a lot of faces I haven’t met yet. And if I haven’t met you, that means you’re new to the Rally, because every man here last year shook my hand and shared his story. I look forward to hearing yours.”
The crowd was hushed, listening. So was I. A small part of that silence was the reflexive attention of soldiers to anything that a senior officer said. But most of our focus was due to the man himself. He stood as solid as a marble pillar, his smooth bald scalp over a ring of dark hair the brightest piece of him, save for his eyes.
“We’re growing,” Macomber continued. “In numbers, and in influence. Our mission is simple. Even a politician could understand it.” Another chuckle from the crowd. Behind me, I felt more spectators pressing into the hall, eager to hear Macomber’s words.
“Every support possible, to every Ranger, at any time,” Macomber said, reciting it like a credo. “In the past six months alone, the Ranger Rally has contributed thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars to hospital and therapeutic services, mental health, family care for Rangers overseas or those out of work, education grants, and career guidance. That’s what we’ve done with only a dozen people on our year-round staff, our volunteers, and a couple of corporate sponsors. Imagine what we’ll do this year.
“There are other organizations, with similar goals. The Army runs some of them, and good people have created their own groups to shore up what the Army can’t or won’t do. Which is a hell of a lot.” Macomber held up a hand to quell the hooting. “But the Rally is for us. Just us. Our brothers, and our families.” The jeers turned into sounds of encouragement. “Those lost, and those who carry on.” The sounds melded into a single shout.
“If you’re new here . . .” Macomber waited until the noise quieted again. “If you’re new, you might be worrying that I’ll hit you up to volunteer.” He smiled. “I will absolutely hit you up to volunteer. And you’ll do it. Not just because it’s the right thing to do. Not only because when you need it, the Rally will be there to help you, too. You’ll step forward because that’s what we do. Rangers lead the way.”
“All the way,” we answered the regimental motto.
“One of the Rally’s guiding principles is that we share our experiences. From combat, certainly, but also life in the service, and your lives stateside since you’ve left. That’s what this is about. Once family, always family. Those of you who have been here before will recognize the Wall of Remembrance we’re creating on Main Street, where we record the sacrifices both we and our brothers have made and those that we continue to make. Introduce the newcomers to the Wall. It’s important that we know our history, past and current.
“But in the meantime, we have some celebrating to do. This town hall will be our gathering point for the duration. All of the information on the Rally’s events will be posted outside. If you have questions or need directions to an event, ask a Redcap.”
Macomber waved a hand toward the rear of the hall. We all turned to see a dozen young women, some carrying clipboards and rolls of paper tickets. Each of them wore a scarlet baseball cap with a Double-R insignia on the crown. A predictable chorus of whistles erupted from a few younger men in the crowd.
“Stow that,” Macomber said. “Redcaps are Rally employees, and they run the show when it comes to organizing our events and contribution booths. I’ll put my plastic foot up the ass of any man fool enough to disrespect them. And I expect all of you to do the same.”
I had to admire the pivot. Macomber had turned every right-minded guy at the Rally into the Redcaps’ protective older brothers. At least temporarily.
“One last thing,” said the general. “You may already have heard that a lifelong resident of Mercy River was shot and killed yesterday. Leaving aside the terrible crime, this town has suffered a loss, and every one of you knows firsthand how that feels. Please treat our generous hosts with the respect they deserve, and play safe out there this weekend. Hard, but safe.” That earned another laugh.
“Now, given the forecast is for rain, we figured that holding tonight’s barbecue inside the town grange might help keep the sauce on the ribs. Get your butts over there and get some food. You can consider that an order.”
Applause and a final emphatic roar gave Macomber a fanfare in his slow walk off the stage.
“Man,” Moulson said, “he was even better than last year.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “Macomber wasn’t a CO while I was around.”
Booker nodded. “I talked to one of the older guys last year who served under him in Kosovo, back when the general was just a captain. That’s where Macomber lost the leg. He stayed with the regiment another few years after that. The shake-ups after 9/11 put him in the Pentagon for a while, my guy said.”
“A hard-charger?”
“He retired as a major general before he hit his thirty.”
Unusual. I looked around at the crowd of over three hundred, drifting out of the hall and toward the free food. “So now he does this.”
“Don’t piss on it,” Booker said. “The Rally paid the balance on our buddy Tag’s tuition and books last year, whatever the GI Bill didn’t cover. I’m aiming for the same help when I get loose.”
“No urination at this station,” I said. “Macomber knows how to motivate. What was that about corporate sponsors?”
Moulson said something about an auto parts chain with a former Ranger on its board, whom Macomber had convinced to subsidize car repairs for families in need. I wasn’t fully listening, distracted by one of the Redcaps handing out drink tickets to eager men. She was striking enough to draw attention on her own merit, with big dark eyes and a toned body.
Dez, Leo’s secret girlfriend. Working for the Rally.
And as I allowed myself to flow with the crowd back toward the street, I saw more townspeople wearing red windbreakers acting as guides, motioning the way toward the grange and handing out flyers printed with the weekend’s schedule. Volunteers, or maybe another way that the Rally channeled dollars into the sleepy local economy.
The grange turned out to be a short walk away, on a side street parallel from the Methodist church that Ganz and I had passed during our conversation. I smelled the savory aroma of cooking meat long before I saw the Grange itself. Moulson and Booker quickened their steps.
I hung back. A silver-gray Ford Interceptor was angle-parked in the middle of a cross street, blue and yellow lettering on the side. police in capital letters, mercy river in a smaller type underneath. The vehicle was about ten years off the assembly line, and I guessed it had been bought on the cheap from a larger department, lights and push bumper and all, and repainted for the town’s use.
It had to be Constable Beacham’s. I looked around and spotted the man through the crowd, half a block away, talking with a local. I’d expected some rent-a-cop with a beer belly, but Beacham was young, wide-shouldered, and clean as a needle in a crisp white shirt, navy-blue pants, and blue cap. His shoes had a mirror finish that was echoed in his service belt.
The belt held Beacham’s sidearm on the right and the nightstick that had clubbed Leo hanging on his left. The sight of the baton made me aware of my own pulse.
I walked over.
“Hey,” I said. Beacham and the townie he’d been talking to, a bearded guy as broad as an armoire, both turned. “The general told us there was a shooting yesterday, and my girlfriend, she’s kind of freaked out now. Everything secure?”
“No sweat,” said the big man through the tangle of his beard. He had the solid swell of gut that Beacham lacked, and a bottle of ale in his hand to keep it in tune. His soiled corduroy coat and tattered watch cap completed the look of a man well past giving a shit. “The motherfucker’s gonna burn, thanks to Wayne here. He coldcocked the punk.”
“I was just first on the scene,” Beacham said with a tight smile. He was excessively chiseled—strong jaw, straight nose, long sideburns forming perfect rectangles. So proportional that his left profile could have been a mirror image of his right.
That wasn’t the only symmetry about his face, I realized. Beacham and the big guy had the same nose, the same brow ridge and blue eyes. The larger man’s sagebrush beard and their differences in size and general hygiene had thrown me off at first.
Brother Lester. My luck was running hot.
“Holy shit, man.” I clapped the constable on the shoulder. “Way to kick ass.”
“A team effort,” said Lester, protesting. “I was the one found the little turd in the saloon.”
“Wait.” I pointed at Lester. “Was this the bar fight I heard about? Was that part of the same deal?”
“Hell, yeah,” Lester said. “I was the first sumbitch on the scene, if you get right fuckin’ down to it. I tagged that egg roll so hard it’s amazing he ever got up again.”
“Lester,” Beacham said.
“You’re like a bounty hunter,” I said to Lester. “The cops give you the wanted poster, and you track ’em down.”
Lester roared. “Yes! Where’s my reward, bro?” He touched his head, prodding at the watch cap with thick fingers. “Hazard pay.”
But Beacham was scrutinizing me. “You’re here with the Rally?”
“Sure,” I said. “Best party anywhere. Not counting your saloon.”
“Did I see you around the sheriff’s station earlier today?” Beacham pressed.
I was rescued by a Redcap with a blond ponytail pulled through the hole at the back of her scarlet hat, who appeared with a heaping plate of ribs and macaroni salad.
“Wayne, we’re bringing food out to all the officers on duty. You want some?” she offered. I wasn’t sure she was only talking about the ribs.
“Good to meet you guys,” I said, and beat it before Beacham’s memory got a firm lock on me.
It might not hold up in court, but I was certain that the constable had—intentionally or not—sicced his big bad brother on Leo. Maybe it had been pure chance that Lester had found Leo in the saloon before the cops did. But it didn’t improve my opinion of law enforcement in Mercy River.
Dez crossed my path. She spotted me, and her eyes darted away quickly. I wanted to ask her whether it was normal for Leo to go into Erle’s shop so early in the morning, but she had hastened her walk and was stretching the distance between us. Maybe wary of people connecting her to Leo through me. Whatever their relationship was, Dez and Leo both appeared dead set on keeping it private.