MERCY STOOD WITH ELVIS AT THE EDGE of the crime scene, behind the tape, as the Crime Scene Search Team sorted through the detritus of the forest floor for evidence. They’d roped off a large circle about sixty feet in diameter around the slight mound where the dogs had found the bones. At first they concentrated their efforts on that spot, but after coming up with only a couple of finger bones and hair, they’d widened the search area.
“Bone fragments everywhere,” Troy was saying to the medical examiner, a short, cheerful woman of about fifty named Dr. Darling. “Some bear must have gotten to the body fairly early on.”
“We may not find many more of the large bones left intact,” said the medical examiner. “You know how much black bears love their marrow.”
Mercy knew they were probably right. She’d spent many a summer helping her grandmother at her veterinary practice—and she’d learned a lot about animals, wild and domestic, in the process. Bears were omnivores that fed on nuts and berries and ants and honey, but they weren’t above feasting on small mammals like fawn and moose calves, rats and rabbits and more, when the opportunity presented itself. But they usually didn’t bother with bigger animals unless the prey was already injured or dead. When their superior noses led them to a dead moose, bears would rip through the thick hide that kept other scavengers out and binge on the meat inside.
They didn’t swing their meal around like coyotes or wolves; they preferred to straddle the dead animal to protect it from rivals, or grab a big piece and go sit down, enjoy it, and then come back for more. Some even napped on the carcass between snacks. They especially liked the marrow, so they’d crush the bones to get at it, leaving not much but shards behind.
The question was, how did the victim die? Did the bear kill the victim—or was the victim already dead when the bear came along for a sweet postmortem snack? Black bears rarely attacked humans, and then usually only when protecting their cubs. From what she knew about bears and what she knew about humans, she’d bet money that human nature was to blame here, not Mother Nature.
“But the remains are strewn all over,” said Troy. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“We’ll keep on looking.” Dr. Darling squatted on the ground, sorting contentedly through the remains, her foghorn tenor easily heard across the clearing.
“This must be a fairly old burial site,” he told her, “given the state of the remains.”
“What we’ve found so far has been picked pretty clean, so they’ve probably been here awhile,” she conceded.
Dr. Darling reminded Mercy of a pug. The game warden, on the other hand, was your classic Labrador, good-hearted and good-looking in the earnest and energetic way of retrievers. Martinez always compared people to canines—he’d called Mercy a pit bull, loyal, smart, and misunderstood—and she’d picked up the bad habit. But there was something to it.
She remembered the first day she’d seen Troy at the Northshire Center Pool all those years ago. She’d been sitting on a deck chair tucked under a blue umbrella close to the chain-link fence surrounding the pool area, down by the shallow end of the Olympic-sized pool, where the moms gathered with their toddlers on the steps. Away from the middle depths, where raucous prepubescent boys played water polo, and away from the deep end, where high school guys splashed high school girls sunning on deck chairs nearby.
Mercy was reading Romeo and Juliet, the play that obsessed her at the time, appealing as it did to her teenager’s overactive romantic imagination. Damien Landry, the skinny, six-foot-and-still-growing fourteen-year-old and scourge of her existence, towered above her, casting a shadow over her pages. O! I am fortune’s fool …
“Whatcha reading?” Damien grabbed the book out of her hands and held it up just out of her reach. “Shakespeare?” He snickered. “You are such a dork.”
Takes one to know one, she thought.
Damien read a couple of lines aloud, stumbling over With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out …
Mercy laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Damien slammed the book shut and backed up until he hit the edge of the pool. He straightened out his long bony right arm and dangled the slim volume over the water.
She jumped to her feet. “Wait.”
“Don’t even think about it.” The lifeguard—the one named Troy—placed a large well-formed hand on Damien’s shoulder and squeezed. “Give me the book.”
Wincing, Damien handed it over.
“Go get yourself a Coke or something.”
Damien strutted away, and Troy handed the book back to her with a smile. “You know he likes you, right?”
“If you say so.”
He grinned at her. “Are you ever going to go in?”
“Sure.” She watched him as he leaped back into his chair, and then she headed for the diving board. Whereupon she executed a perfect pike dive. When she came back up out of the water, Troy gave her a thumbs-up.
Classic Labrador.
He really hadn’t changed much at all since then, Mercy thought. He’d filled out a little, but he still had the athletic build, that outdoorsy tan, those warm brown eyes. Although there was a hint of sadness around them now.
Elvis sat leashed at her side, ears up, watching Susie Bear, also banished to the far side of the clearing, her lead tied to a tree. The Newfie mutt’s eyes—like hers—were on the game warden, although from time to time the big dog snuck a glance at the Belgian shepherd.
The doctor and the Crime Scene techs kept on sifting and sorting. Troy nodded at Dr. Darling, then strode over to Mercy. She wondered how he’d treat her this time. He seemed to alternate between liking her and questioning her every move. Not that she blamed him. She was the only common denominator in three very suspicious circumstances: an abandoned baby, an explosives alert, and unidentified remains. Not to mention her erratic dog Elvis. Troy probably thought she was as mixed up as the dog.
“You should go on home,” he told her.
“I don’t think so.” She didn’t want to go, not really. This was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since coming home from Afghanistan.
“You’ve got to be exhausted.”
“Not really.” She petted Elvis’s head. “We’re fine.”
“I could order you off the scene.”
She knew he didn’t really want to do that. She smiled at him. “Are you going to arrest me?”
He smiled back. “Okay, don’t say I didn’t try.” Troy shrugged and turned away.
She could read the strain of the day in his shoulders. They’d both fed and watered their dogs with supplies from their packs, but not themselves. Elvis and Susie Bear were resting now, leashed but alert.
There was no rest for Troy or Mercy. Not yet. She knew he must be tired. And hungry. She certainly was, not that she would ever admit as much to him. She refused to go home until she was sure that there was nothing more she or her shepherd could do.
“Victory!” Dr. Darling’s celebratory shout boomed across the clearing.
Mercy watched the game warden stride quickly over to the doctor.
“What is it?” he asked.
She held up a dusty roundish pale object in her gloved hands. “An intact skull. More or less.”
Troy said something in reply, but she missed most of it. His back was to her now, and he spoke quietly. She couldn’t hear what he was saying to the doctor. She leaned forward across the tape. “Warden Warner!”
He turned to look her way.
“Come on!”
The medical examiner grinned at Mercy and raised her already resounding voice. “An adult male, shot in the head.”
Troy held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, but watch your step.”
“Stay,” she said to Elvis and joined them in the circle.
Dr. Darling was on her feet now, cupping the cracked dome in her open palms. “You can see the entrance wound here.” She pointed to a round hole in the crown of the skull. Long fissures radiated out from around its center in a telltale starburst pattern.
“I guess the black bears are off the hook.” Mercy wasn’t surprised. People were far crueler to each other than animals were to them.
“Yep.” She smiled at Mercy and tipped the skull forward to reveal its back side.
“No exit wound?” asked Troy.
“No.” The medical examiner beamed as she tipped the skull forward again. “Hear that?”
“You mean that scraping sound? What is it?”
“The bullet is inside.” Mercy laughed. “That’s wild.”
“But a stroke of luck for us.”
“Maybe,” said Troy. “If we can find the weapon or the casing.”
“Weird that the bear who crushed the other bones for marrow didn’t crack the skull to get at the brains.”
Troy gave her a sharp look. “Maybe the bear was interrupted.”
“Who interrupts a bear?” asked the doctor.
“Poachers,” said Mercy and Troy in unison.
* * *
“I’LL KNOW MORE when we get back to the lab,” the medical examiner said. “But don’t expect any answers too soon.”
“All right.”
“Everyone’s taking off for the long weekend,” she explained to Mercy.
“Right.” Or pulling extra duty in Bennington. Troy was going to need her help up here, whether he liked it or not.
A tall, skinny man in a Tyvek suit approached them in a seemingly purposeful slow and steady gait that Mercy suspected drove the game warden crazy. She smiled.
“What do you have for us?” asked Troy, failing to hide the note of impatience in his voice.
“Bob,” said the doctor pointedly, “this is Mercy Carr. Mercy, meet Bob, head of the Crime Scene Search Team.
“Pleasure.” He did not look her in the eye or move to shake her hand.
“Hi.”
Bob dismissed her and addressed Troy and Dr. Darling. “Not much left of the victim’s clothes, and the boots are so common as to be useless in terms of identification.”
“Any teeth?” asked the medical examiner.
“Just fragments. Any left in the skull?”
Mercy knew that teeth were often the easiest way to identify a victim, thanks to dental records. And the fact that even if DNA couldn’t be found anywhere else, it could usually be retrieved from inside the teeth.
“A few. But that’s not all we found left in the skull.” Dr. Darling told him about the bullet, which Bob acknowledged without comment.
“You didn’t walk all the way over here to tell us about teeth fragments,” said the game warden.
Or to meet me, thought Mercy.
Bob held out his gloved hands, palms open. There revealed in his cupped fingers was what appeared to be a tarnished pewter belt buckle.
In unison the three of them leaned toward the ornament for closer inspection.
“Is that a pine tree?” asked Dr. Darling.
“Yes, set against the mountains,” Mercy said. “One of the classic symbols of Vermont.”
Troy peered at the buckle and read the words that ran underneath the pine tree, still so grimy Mercy could barely make them out. “‘Freedom and Unity.’”
“Interesting,” said Dr. Darling.
“That it?” asked Troy.
“For now,” said Bob. “I’ll bag this and get on with it.”
“Thanks.”
“Later,” he said.
They watched him amble back across the crime scene.
“I’ll be wrapping up soon,” Dr. Darling told them. “See you back at the ranch.” The medical examiner tapped her forehead in a casual salute and went back to her work.
Troy ushered Mercy back to Elvis. “Now you really do have to go home.”
She didn’t say anything. But she didn’t move, either.
“Look, there’s nothing more to do here.” He frowned. “The crime scene techs are about finished, and the bomb squad says they haven’t found any explosives.”
“Nothing?” She stared at him. “I find that hard to believe.”
He looked down at his boots. Same tell as Martinez. Mercy knew he was lying, or at least not telling her the whole truth. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Look, I’ve already crossed over the line here.” Troy straightened up and looked at her with those warm brown eyes. “Besides, it’s out of my hands. The Vermont State Police are running this show now. It’s their crime scene.”
“But you’re still here.”
“I’m not a civilian.”
You’re not a detective, either, thought Mercy. But she didn’t say that. They’d found these bones, and there was a responsibility that came along with that. Whether you were a game warden or a civilian.
“‘Blessed be the man that spares these stones,’” she quoted quietly. “‘And cursed be he that moves my bones.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Shakespeare.”
“What’s Shakespeare got to do with anything?”
“Somebody killed this man and then abandoned his body in the woods. Robbed him of the dignity of a decent burial. In effect failing to spare his stones and honor his bones.”
“And cursing himself in the process. I get it.”
“That curse begins with us.” She stood a little taller and leaned forward. Elvis growled softly. He was on the leash now, sitting by her side, giving the warden his evil eye. Martinez used to say that your emotions traveled right down the leash from handler to dog, which is why Mercy knew she had to control her feelings, notably the negative ones. She made an effort to keep her voice steady and asked the question again. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“What’s wrong with your dog?”
“He’s just being protective.” Mercy willed herself to loosen her hold on the leash, a signal to the dog that she was calm so he should be, too. The fierce Belgian shepherd had always stood ready to defend his sergeant, but today he’d indicated he was prepared to defend her as well. Maybe he was settling in with her, after all. “Quiet, Elvis.”
“Are you hungry?” Troy grinned at her. “I’m starving. How about we go back to town and grab something to eat? For us and the dogs. My treat.”
She knew he was changing the subject, but she also knew an olive branch when she saw it. “Sure.”
“I’ve got to drop by the hospital later anyway,” he said. “And we can go over your statement.”
And she could drill him over dinner.