SHE SMILED AT HIM. “It looks handmade, which means that there may be a maker’s mark.”
“I’m assuming you don’t mean the bourbon.”
“No. The best jewelers stamp their work.”
“The belt buckles didn’t have a mark.”
“No,” said Mercy. “But they were definitely handmade. Maybe whoever made them didn’t want to be associated with the Vermont Firsters.” She snapped a couple of photos of the pendant with her cell phone, front and back.
“I’ll have them take a good look when they clean them up.”
“Better safe than sorry. Maybe when I get home I can blow these up and get a better look myself.”
“You don’t have to do everything yourself, you know.”
“I know.” Mercy frowned. “You’re going to be in trouble for removing evidence. Harrington won’t like it.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” He grinned at her as she handed him the pendant. He dropped it into another evidence bag. “You found the Munchkin and removed the kitty’s favorite things, as part of an animal rescue.”
“Having first received permission from local authorities.” She grinned back at him.
“Unfortunately, the cat’s stash was found right after the Northshire Animal Control officer left the scene.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Okay, let me take in this evidence. And then we’ll go see Dr. Winters, as promised.”
They headed back around the house, dogs running ahead.
“Maybe we should stop off on the way somewhere and feed and water the dogs,” he said, as Susie Bear and Elvis sat by their respective vehicles, thick tongues hanging out. “I think they could both use a drink and a snack.”
“Me, too. I know you’ve got to get back on patrol eventually, but if you’ve got the time I wouldn’t mind a quick pit stop myself.”
“How about Hound Dawgs? It’s on the way.”
Susie Bear barked her approval and Mercy laughed. “Sounds good.”
* * *
THIRTY MINUTES LATER they were feasting on the best hot dogs in Northshire in the abandoned lot where the popular food truck was stationed every summer. Plain dogs and water for Susie Bear and Elvis, loaded chili dogs and vanilla cream sodas for Troy and Mercy.
“This is summer food at its best,” said Mercy, washing down the last of the bun with a slurp of soda.
“Yep.” Troy admired her appetite. Madeline would never have indulged in a Hound Dawg; she was a fussy eater who lived on kale and grilled chicken and insisted that no self-respecting female could survive on the meat-and-potato diets that men preferred. There was nothing fussy about Mercy, and yet she was still feminine. Maybe the captain was right, and he’d let Madeline define his idea of the ideal woman for too long. Maybe that’s what comes of marrying the high school girl of your dreams. Maybe you grow up, and everything changes.
“Want anything else?” asked Mercy. “My treat.”
Elvis and Susie Bear raised their heads at her question, their own frankfurters long devoured. She laughed, a big belly laugh like her grandmother’s. “I wasn’t talking to you, dogs.”
“I’m good,” Troy said. And he was.
Mercy snapped the cone back on Elvis, much to his distaste. He barked his disapproval, and shook his head so hard Troy thought he might harm himself.
“Knock it off,” she said in that command voice of hers. Elvis stopped in midshake. She laughed, and he licked her hand.
“Good dog,” said Troy.
“Was there any doubt?”
They piled back into their respective vehicles and drove to the police station, where he dropped off the evidence bags for Harrington. Luckily the detective was not there, and he could just hand it off to a uniform and bolt. He’d still have to tell Thrasher about it, and that would undoubtedly earn him another warning about the consequences of stepping on Harrington’s toes.
He came out of the building, gave Mercy a thumbs-up, and climbed into the Ford F-150.
“Onward,” he said to Susie Bear, and she thumped her plumed tail in agreement.
They took both dogs and both vehicles, in case Troy got called in to work, which was very likely. He could sleep next week.
He and Susie Bear led the way, careful to keep Mercy and Elvis in his rearview mirror. Thirty minutes later down Route 7, he turned the truck into a quiet old neighborhood not far from downtown Bennington. Nineteenth-century houses lined the wide street under a canopy of oak and maple trees.
The professor lived in the most imposing of these Victorian piles, an enormous painted lady done in dark purples, reds, and blues. The kind of house that had both intrigued and intimidated him as a kid. His aunt Edith had lived in a place like this, and she’d been as finicky and foreboding as her hulk of a house. He wondered if Dr. Winters was anything like his aunt. If so, this might prove an unpleasant and unsuccessful interview. He parked across the street and waited for Mercy and Elvis to pull up behind him. Susie Bear whimpered when he told her to stay put and stepped out of the truck without her. Mercy followed suit, and Troy figured Elvis wasn’t any happier about being left behind than Susie Bear was.
“Creepy house,” she said.
“Yeah.” He didn’t tell her about his aunt Edith.
They walked up a long stone path made of granite and up a half-dozen steps onto the wraparound porch, crowded with dark wicker furniture and planters overgrown with succulents.
“That’s one angry gargoyle.” She pointed to the big brass knocker on the door.
“Go ahead,” said Troy.
Mercy raised her strawberry-blond eyebrows at him and he grinned. She banged the brass knocker, then stepped back, allowing him to take the lead. So far, so good.
The small woman who answered the door didn’t look like a gargoyle or his aunt Edith. At first glance she seemed every bit the mousy professor, with her messy brown hair, pale skin, and gray eyes huge behind her nerdy black glasses. But her lips shone with red lipstick, and her prim white blouse and navy pants fit so snugly it was obvious she was not wearing anything underneath them. Overall, the effect was as subtle as it was devastating. He could only imagine how she held her students spellbound as she expounded on whatever it was she expounded on in her classes at Bennington.
“And you are?” Dr. Winters slipped her thick glasses down her thin nose and peered up at him with those myopic eyes.
“Warden Troy Warner.”
“A man in uniform.” She ran those expressive eyes over him once more before turning her attention to Mercy. He could feel his companion stiffen behind him. She stepped forward, and suddenly he felt like a moose caught between two she-wolves.
“This is Corporal Mercy Carr,” he said.
“Not in uniform,” said the professor.
“We’re here to talk about Adam Wolfe,” said Mercy.
“Oh, Adam.” Dr. Winters walked away from them, down a wide marble-tiled hall that served as the very formal entry to the very formal house. She stopped and turned, her long tousled hair falling around her pale face, framing her red mouth. “Come on.”
He caught Mercy rolling her eyes behind the professor’s back as they followed her into what his aunt Edith would have called her parlor. Heavily curtained mullioned windows ran the length of the room, which was decorated within an inch of its life with antique furniture and cupboards cluttered with knickknacks against walls papered in peacock feathers. At least he thought they were peacock feathers. All historically accurate—he knew enough to know the reason these old houses were so awful was because they were historically accurate—but not a single place to sit that looked the least bit comfortable. Aunt Edith would have loved it.
There was nothing of his aunt in the way Dr. Winters curled up in a love seat as neatly as a cat. “What’s Adam done now?”
“We understand that he’s active in the Vermont First movement.”
The professor laughed. Laughed just like Madeline. A tinkling sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck.
“Adam is an artist, not an activist.” She dismissed the thought with a flutter of her small hands. “No matter what he says.”
“You seemed to take him seriously enough when you wrote that article about him in the arts and politics journal,” said Mercy.
Dr. Winters smiled. “When it comes to politics, Adam is a poseur. But when it comes to art, he’s the real deal.” She pointed to the only modern note in the room other than electricity, a two-foot bronze sculpture that sat on an ornately carved stand in the corner under a recessed spotlight. The striking piece was of a vaguely female form, all curves and whirls and hollows, all strength and softness and shine.
“That’s his work?” Troy had to admit the guy had talent.
“It’s lovely,” said Mercy.
“It’s brilliant,” corrected the professor. “That piece is one of the last of his series of bronze nudes.”
“He sold the rest?” asked Troy. “He must be very successful, then.”
“He would have been.” Dr. Winters shook her head. “He sold a couple of the pieces and kept the remainder of the series of bronzes in a locked warehouse close to his studio. Thieves broke in and stole them all.” She sighed. “I comfort myself with the thought that they’re locked away somewhere in some sheik’s private art collection for the amusement of his harem.”
“But that’s not what happened,” he said.
“No one really knows, but the suspicion is that the pieces were sold for scrap.” She unwound her lithe body slowly. “Such a waste. Criminal.”
“You were the model,” said Mercy with a small smile.
“Yes.” Dr. Winters licked her red-stained lips. “I’m grateful that in recognition of my contribution as his muse he gifted me with my first choice of the series. This one is my favorite, and it’s safe here with me.”
“No more modeling, then?” asked Mercy.
“Alas, no. Adam abandoned his work in metals to create natural sculptures.”
“Which means what, exactly?” Troy never had looked it up.
“He gathers material he finds in nature—stones, sticks, feathers, bones—and creates sculptures there on site, integrating the art into the natural landscape.”
“In the woods?” He was trying to picture this art, and failing.
“Woods, fields, bogs, streams, wherever.”
“How can it last?”
“It’s not meant to last. It’s meant to be ephemeral. Like life.”
“Like a sand painting?” asked Mercy.
“Adam does not create work only to have it blown away with the first strong wind. He designs it to last as long as possible, with the understanding that Mother Nature will have the last word.”
Troy wanted to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand: Adam Wolfe’s recent illegal activities and current whereabouts. “He’s been accused of setting fire to logging trucks, trespassing, and creating his art on private property. Among other things.”
“Absurd.” The professor slid over to the sculpture. “Adam only wants to preserve the gallery that houses his art now.”
“The woods?” asked Mercy.
“Exactly. He wants to save the trees.” She ran her slender fingers along the curves of the artwork, which modeled her own. “It’s called Candy.”
“So you were close.”
“We were more than close.” The professor backed away from the sculpture and regarded Mercy in that feline way some women had of challenging other women. “We met at a party, and then we went to the south of France together.”
“The south of France,” repeated Troy.
“The French understand love. Or at least lovers.” She smiled at them. “I spend every summer there. With a lover.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“It’s July,” said Mercy. “You’re late.”
“It’s un-American to leave before the Fourth of July,” the professor said, her eyes still on Troy. “I’m leaving for Provence on Tuesday. And I have an extra ticket.”
He heard Mercy stifle a laugh. “Back to Adam Wolfe.”
“Of course.” She crossed her hands over her heart and sighed. “It was très merveilleux while it lasted.” She turned to Mercy. “You know how it is. Or at least I hope you do.”
Mercy nodded curtly, but he could see the sadness that suddenly clouded her eyes.
“These things run their course, don’t they?” Dr. Winters smiled, whether in sympathy or spite he wasn’t quite sure.
“I had other interests,” she continued. “And tramping around in the wilderness … let’s just say that’s not my natural habitat.” She curled back up on the love seat, perfectly framed by the peacock feathers—he was sure now—on the wall. “Adam became a hermit of sorts, living out in the woods, creating his art, growing more distraught over the loss of his natural space. Vermont’s loss of wilderness. We lost touch. The last I heard he was in Canada.”
“Lots of secessionists up there,” he said.
“Lots of wilderness, too.” She raised a pale eyebrow at him. “You said your name was Warner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He could guess where this was going.
“As in Seth Warner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Seth Warner was a captain in the Green Mountain Boys, the militia group active in the formation of the Vermont Republic. He later served as a colonel in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, lauded for his leadership during the capture of Fort Crown Point, the Battle of Longueuil, the siege of Quebec, the retreat from Canada, and the battles of Hubbardton and Bennington.
Troy’s famous ancestor—at least famous among Vermonters and American history buffs—was a subject he usually tried to avoid.
“Then you should understand. ‘Freedom and Unity.’”
“The Vermont motto.”
“Then you do understand.”
Troy did not bother to correct her. “Is there anything else you can tell us about his whereabouts?”
“I’m afraid not.”
He handed her a card. “If you think of anything…”
“You know where I live.” She smiled at him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You never told me what this was about.”
“Adam Wolfe is wanted in connection with a possible murder,” said Mercy.
Dr. Winters laughed. That tinkling sound again. “Impossible.”
They left her there in the parlor, tinkling still. Troy felt a surge of relief as he stepped out of that woman’s hothouse into the cool shade of the oaks and maples.
“Wow.” Mercy inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.
“Some house,” he said.
“Some woman,” she said. “‘Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.’”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I didn’t believe a word of it. Except the part about her being the model for that sculpture.”
“Why would she lie?”
She shook her head. “You don’t know much about women, do you?”
Troy shrugged. “Maybe not.” He checked his phone for messages. “I’ve got to get back to my patrols.”
“Understood.”
They crossed the street to their vehicles.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said.
“I’m not sure what we’ve accomplished here.”
“We’ve learned that everyone wants us to believe that Wolfe is in Canada.”
“You think the Feds and local PD are lying?”
“I think they’re mistaken.”
“Unlikely.”
“Amy says he’s here.”
Troy shook his head. “He’s long gone. And so is she.”
“You don’t really think she killed her stepfather.” Mercy shook her head. “Her mother is not to be believed.”
“Agreed,” he said. “But Amy remains a person of interest.”
“So you are looking for her.”
“Yes. But she’s probably in Canada by now. With him.”
“She was serious about leaving him.” Mercy shook her head again, a flurry of loose curls. “I’ve met her. I can’t believe she’s capable of killing anyone.”
“Amy is not capable of murder, Wolfe is not capable of murder, none of our suspects is capable of murder, and yet two men are dead.”
Troy walked Mercy to her Jeep. Elvis was sitting up, cone in place, leaning against the window, alert as ever.
“You should go home. Get some rest.”
“Sure,” she said. “But first I’m going to get me and Elvis a creemee. Do you want to join us?”
“Thanks, but we’ve got to get back.”
“Suit yourself.”
He could feel her bright blue eyes on his back as he jumped in the truck, scratched Susie Bear’s ears, and took off down the road. He watched her in the rearview mirror as long as he could, then tried to put her and her dog and the Vermont Firsters out of his mind.
Back to his real job.