THE MAN WAS DEAD. Mercy knew that just by looking; she’d had enough experience to know death when she saw it. She didn’t have to feel for a pulse, but she did anyway. She assumed that he was Donald Jonas Walker, Amy’s stepfather. There was nothing she could do for him now.
She didn’t think he’d been dead very long, so she and Elvis were careful as they checked the remaining rooms of the house—a small cramped combination kitchen/dining area, a master bedroom, a smaller bedroom, and one large if outdated bathroom with a claw-foot bathtub—but there was no one around. They checked the back of the house, too, but there was nothing out there but a weed-choked strip of concrete barely keeping the woods at bay.
Nothing to do but contact the authorities. She texted Troy about the murder, and he texted her back right away to say that he was out in the field and that she should call the police and let them handle it. Understandable, since he was a game warden, after all, not a homicide detective. And that’s what this situation called for. He may have already overstepped his boundaries, and if he had that was probably her fault. But she could only feel so bad about that, because she had done what she thought she needed to do, for the baby’s sake.
She called 911, and while she waited for the authorities, she snapped photographs of the scene with her cell phone while Elvis amused himself in the yard raising dirt and chasing cats. He was going to need a bath when they got home.
When she heard the sirens, she whistled for the shepherd, and he trotted up to her, nose in the air. His way of bragging. That’s when she realized that he had something in his mouth. “Drop it,” she said. But he didn’t drop it; instead he waited and when she finally held out her open palm in frustration, he opened his mug and let a purple pacifier fall into it.
She stared at the baby binky. A car door slammed outside. Mercy slipped the pacifier into one of her cargo pockets and by the time footfalls sounded on the porch, she and Elvis were standing quietly in the front room.
The young deputy who walked in the front door had rookie written all over him. His name was Josh Becker and this was obviously his first violent death. He shook her hand, petted Elvis, and secured the crime scene—all by the book with a careful, if nervous, thoroughness.
Then he excused himself politely to throw up behind the house. She could hear the sounds of his retching outside. She knew how the first time felt—an assault on all your senses, most notably your sense of smell and your sense of humanity.
She waited patiently for him to pull himself together and get on with it. After a couple of minutes, she could hear him call in the Major Crime Unit before rejoining her inside.
“Detective Kai Harrington, the Crime Scene Search Team, and Dr. Darling will be here shortly,” he told her. “I’ll take your statement, but he’ll want to talk to you, too.”
“Fine.” She smiled at him, hoping to put him at ease.
Becker still looked green, whether from the aftereffects of murder or the thought of Harrington, she wasn’t sure. He took her name and address and phone number, and asked her what happened. She told him, and she answered all his questions truthfully. Which was easy, because he was not a skilled investigator. At least not yet. She didn’t say anything about the pacifier.
Before he could drill down more deeply, she was saved by the arrival of the medical examiner. The ever-cheerful Dr. Darling gave her a big smile. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
Mercy smiled back. “An unexpected pleasure.”
“Indeed.” The doctor leaned in conspiratorially. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Harrington won’t like it.”
“Detective Harrington didn’t come to the other crime scene.”
“He likes them fresh.” Dr. Darling laughed as she began her examination of the dead man.
“What?”
“No glory in a cold case.” The medical examiner winked.
“I see.”
“Kai will be here for this one.” Dr. Darling stared past Mercy at something behind her. “Speak of the devil.”
“Doc.” Detective Harrington nodded at the medical examiner. He was tall and dark and slickly handsome and he carried himself like he knew it in his way-beyond-his-pay-grade custom-tailored gray suit.
He introduced himself to her with a quick firm handshake and a frank once-over that infuriated her.
“I understand you discovered the body.”
“Yes. I dropped by to see Mrs. Walker.”
“And you just let yourself in?”
“The door was open. Nobody answered me when I called out. I knew something wasn’t right.”
“So you went in to check it out. Alone.”
“I had Elvis with me.”
“Elvis?”
“My dog.” She felt Elvis stiffen at her side as he stared down the detective.
“Right.” Harrington stepped back under the shepherd’s glare. “I understand that this is your second crime scene in as many days.”
“Just lucky, I guess.” Mercy smiled back at him, her equilibrium restored, thanks to Elvis. She wasn’t going to let this guy get away with anything.
Dr. Darling laughed.
Harrington shot her a dirty look, but the perky medical examiner remained as imperturbable as ever. Mercy decided that she really liked this woman, who could obviously hold her own in the testosterone-driven world of law enforcement. She knew firsthand how hard that could be.
“What can you tell us about the deceased?”
“Nothing, really. I assume it’s Donald Walker. But I never met the man, so I can’t make a positive ID for you.”
“You say you were here to see Mrs. Walker.” The detective checked his notes. “That would be Karen Walker?”
“Yes.”
“We’re trying to locate her. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
“No.” She stopped at the sound of a ruckus on the porch. A distraught woman burst into the room, poor Becker hot on her heels.
“I’m sorry, sir, she just barged right by me,” said Becker.
“Don? What’s happened?” The plump blonde rushed into the room, right smack into Detective Harrington, who held her away from him with long strong arms. Her resemblance to Amy Walker was striking: the daughter’s same heart-shaped face and narrow build burdened and bloated with age in the mother.
“Where’s my husband?” Her voice was shrill now.
“Karen Walker?” asked the detective in a growly voice that managed to be intimidating and ingratiating at the same time. He turned a practiced look of compassion on the hysterical woman, and all the energy fueling her distress emptied out of her.
Mercy marveled at the man, whom she knew would have the poor widow weeping on his shoulder and spilling all her secrets in short order.
“Let’s talk on the porch,” he said quietly to Mrs. Walker, and ushered her out of the house, looking back over his shoulder to tell Becker to take Mercy’s statement.
“I already did,” said Becker.
“Then do it again.”
Becker stared at the detective’s back as he disappeared outside with Mrs. Walker, murmuring his condolences. Then he remembered her. “I’m sorry, but…”
“It’s fine,” she said, and walked him patiently through her discovery of the body one more time. When she’d finished and it was obvious the rookie had no clue what to do next, she took him aside. “Look, you have all my information. If you need anything else, you know where to find me.”
“You can’t leave yet.”
“I’m just in the way here.” Mercy waved a hand at the team working the scene behind them. “And my dog is tired.” Elvis had dozed off, not so much because he was tired but because there was little else to do now that all of the cats had abandoned the porch and the crime scene techs had arrived. She suspected that the kitties were all hiding under the house, away from the commotion.
Through the front room window she could see Detective Harrington leaning against the porch railing, talking to Mrs. Walker, who sat on one of the sagging sofas, her back to the house. If he had known how many mangy cats had slept on that railing, she thought, he’d never do that. She wished she could hear what they were saying.
“Let her go.” Dr. Darling was standing now, backing up from the victim. “Not much more to do here.”
Becker relented, and Mercy mouthed a thank-you to the medical examiner. She whistled for Elvis, who took his sweet time getting to his feet. “Come on,” she said, and took the long way around the house to the Jeep, hoping to eavesdrop on the detective. But all she heard was an angry Karen Walker.
“Amy hated him,” she was telling Harrington. “If anyone killed my Donald, she did.”
Mercy stopped to listen, hoping to hear more. Elvis heeled. She patted her pocket to reassure herself that the binky was still there.
“Ms. Carr,” yelled the detective, calling her out. “Don’t leave town.”
Not trusting herself to turn and face them, she held up a hand and wiggled her fingers in reply. Without a backward glance, she strode toward the Jeep.
Elvis beat her there. He stretched himself out along the passenger door, his long nose pointed at the front tire.
“You are full of surprises today.” Mercy squatted down by the dog. “What have you found now?”
She peered under the vehicle. A thin, straggly tiger-striped cat with a white chin and white paws was curled under the wheel.
“It’s just a cat,” she told him. “This place is crawling with them.” She turned back to the sleeping tabby. “Come on, kitty. Time to go.”
The cat slept on. At least she thought it was sleeping.
“I can hear it breathing.”
Elvis pushed at the cat’s belly with his nose.
“She’ll move,” she told him. “Don’t worry about it.” She opened the door and slammed it, thinking that was sure to startle the cat into action.
But the little feline only meowed faintly, winding herself more tightly into a furry ball.
“She must be sick.” She gathered the poor thing into her arms, intending to take it back to the house.
Elvis whined his disapproval.
“They’re probably all sick. I’m going to call animal rescue as soon as we get home,” she told him. “They’ll come get this one and all the others, too.”
The Belgian shepherd whimpered again. The cat lifted her tiny head and licked Mercy’s hand with a scratchy pink tongue.
“Oh, all right.” She didn’t need a cat. She had her hands full with Elvis.
With a sigh, she deposited the too-quiet kitty on the floor in the back. “Now let’s go, boy, it’s way past lunchtime.”
His dark eyes brightened at the word lunch, and he jumped in, settling on the backseat to keep watch over his new charge. He stayed in that same position, still as stone, while Mercy drove them all home.
When she pulled into the long drive that led up to the cabin, Elvis alerted. She let him out of the Jeep, and he barged up the path to the cabin, barking so wildly that there was only one explanation Mercy could think of: someone was in the house.