Mercy Kill

EIGHT

The sky was full-on black the next morning. No moon glow or sherbet blush of sunrise.

My brow was damp as I scaled the porch steps. Shoonga greeted me, tail wagging, tongue lolling, rubbing against me like he’d gone feline.

After I started the coffee, I fed Shoonga-outside. I gulped a glass of water, feeling like a stranger in my own house. The floorboards creaked above my head. Since the noise hadn’t been preceded by a baby’s cry, I bet Jake was up. I poured two cups and stifled a yawn.

Jake looked groggy as he entered the kitchen, but not particularly surprised to see me. “Mornin’, Mercy.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“Unci ain’t about to haul her carcass out of bed this early, so it was either you or a break-in. I doubted a thief would’ve started coffee.” Jake took a big gulp of the steaming liquid and curled his hands around the mug. “What brings you by at o’dark thirty?”

“We need to talk.”

“I figured.”

No need to beat around the bush with Jake. “Was it all bullshit? The speech you gave me last summer about embracing my heritage and us finding a way to work together since we were both tied to the ranch? Or were you feeding me lines so I wouldn’t sell?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

Jake stared into his coffee cup, avoiding looking me in the eye, so I knew what he had to say wouldn’t be easy for either of us to hear.

“A combination of things. I remembered something Wyatt had said to me right before he died. He warned me not to push you too hard and too fast if you returned. Said you’d burn out quickly and be full of resentment that you’d made the wrong decision.”

Not the answer I’d expected, and I couldn’t contain my skepticism. “Really? You just conveniently remembered that while I was gone?”

His cheeks flushed with color. “Actually, unci brought it up right after we’d sent the cattle to market.”

I frowned. “The ones that tested negative for pregnancy, right?”

“Yep. You mentioned to her that the burdens of being barren were the same in bovines and human females-shipped off for slaughter or forced out to pasture to die alone.”

Man. I did not remember saying that. “Had I been drinking?”

He nodded. “A couple days later you went off on a tangent about how you’d lost everything that’d ever mattered to you. You said you’d sunk so low as to look for life answers in manure.”

“To which you responded I wasn’t gonna find answers in the bottom of a whiskey bottle neither,” I murmured. Some of the conversation was coming back to me. The ugly parts. Hell, knowing me, it’d probably all been ugly.

Jake drained his coffee and refreshed both our cups. He sat down and looked me in the eye. “I understand your loss. First your dad, then Levi…” He cleared his throat. “But then I realized you weren’t only talking about human loss. You were talking about losing your career, your livelihood, losing who you were. None of us knew that side of you, Mercy, although soldiering played a big part in who you’ve become. I don’t know what that’s like. Going from being highly trained with specialized skills. Ranch work is all I’ve ever known. Ridin’ the range. Fixin’ fences. Birthing, feeding, and selling cattle. Military work is all you’ve ever known. And I imagine you’d be pissy if someone said your life had been a big waste of time and the skills you honed were useless. You said a trained monkey-”

“Could do your job.” That jab I remembered. Guilt vibrated through me. What a drunken self-righteous jackass I’d been. In voicing my frustration, I’d leveled the biggest insult on Jake and how he’d chosen to live his life. No wonder he hadn’t wanted anything to do with me. At this point I wanted nothing to do with me either.

“I ain’t proud of it, but I stopped trying with you right away. I expected you’d get in my face and accuse me of bein’ set in my ways, cutting you out, but you didn’t. Not once.”

“So you backed off completely.”

“To be blunt, when you came back from the war, nothing changed for me. Stuff around here still needed done, no matter who did it. So yeah, I resented you and the luxury you had of tuning everything and everyone out.”

The truth of my selfishness, meanness, and stubbornness sucked the air from my lungs.

I don’t know how long I sat there, mired in flashbacks of my self-indulgent and self-delusional behavior.

Jake repeating my name brought me out of my stupor.

Embarrassed on so many levels, I don’t know how I mustered the guts to look him in the eye. “Jake. I’m sorry. So damn sorry.”

He studied me for several long seconds that felt like minutes. Then he said, “’Bout time,” and finished his coffee. “Chores ain’t gonna get done with us sitting here yakking about the past. Come on, let’s get a move on.”

That was that. I never appreciated Jake being a man of few words until right then.

The salmon rays of sunrise reflected off patches of dew like pink pearls. With the wet spring, the pastures were laden with newly sprouted grass. But it also meant the cow/calf pairs were relocated frequently to prevent overgrazing.

We’d taken the four-wheelers and managed to move part of the herd. One calf got tangled in the barbed-wire fence. He bleated in fear while mama kept trying to bump us out of the way so she could get to him. Be hard for her to untangle him without opposable thumbs.

Exasperated, Jake said, “Keep her away, or we’re gonna lose this calf.”

“How do I do that? Got a red cape handy?”

“No, and I ain’t got a cattle prod either. Block her line of sight, and nudge her when she gets too close.”

Nudge a fifteen-hundred-pound agitated animal? Right. I’d definitely be buying my own cattle prod. I gritted my teeth and pushed. “Come on, Bessie.”

She huffed a weird noise at her baby.

I blocked her view of the calf with my body. She put her head down and butted me in the stomach. I lost my balance and almost fell into the damn fence.

“Watch it,” Jake said.

I patted Bessie on the neck, slyly attempting to turn her head to the right. “Hey, look! They are some hot bulls in the next field. Man are they hung. Check it out.”

That actually got a laugh out of Jake.

But Bessie? Not so amused. She flicked her tail at me with the precision of a cattle driver wielding a bullwhip. The sting could’ve been worse, had I been closer. I shoved her fat ass. “Knock it off, you old sow.”

Finally, Jake freed the little guy. The young steer trotted after Mama into the herd. Mama, who’d been willing to take on both Jake and me mere minutes ago, now ignored her precious baby.

“Let’s break for lunch,” Jake said.

Back at the house, I eyed the freshly dug flower beds running the length of the porch. Sophie hadn’t yet planted petunias, zinnias, snapdragons, and geraniums, but the promise of the bare dark earth bursting with blooms buoyed my mood. I wiped my feet on the welcome mat, the scents of coffee and laundry detergent teasing me through the screen door as I stepped into the kitchen.

Sophie had braced one hand on the counter and one on her hip. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I’ve been out with Jake. He said to tell you he’ll be along shortly.” I chugged a glass of tap water and poured another. “How are you today?”

She shuffled to me, placing her hands on my forehead, checking for goose eggs or skull fractures. “Did you slam your head in the pickup door again?”

“You are such a riot, Sophie.”

“I’m happy to see you.” She patted my cheeks affectionately. “I miss you hanging around, brooding, snapping at me. You hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Lucky for you I was gonna fry up some egg sandwiches.”

“Sounds good.” I sipped the water, noticing the quiet in the house-highly unusual with a fussy five-month-old baby. My gaze hooked Sophie’s, and I lifted a brow.

“Sleeping. Both of them. Finally.”

“Rough morning?”

“A rough night, according to Hope. You didn’t stay here?”

And things had been going so well. “I work late nights, Sophie. Rather than get my ass chewed by my sleep-Nazi sister for waking up Joy, I crashed at the cabin.”

Sophie muttered, “It ain’t right.”

“What?”

“You not being able to come and go in your own house.”

“It’s Hope’s house, too,” I reminded her. “As long as she’s happy here, I don’t mind.”

“What makes you think she’s happy?”

That stopped me. “She’s not?”

“Ain’t my place to say.”

I snorted. “Since when have you ever let that stop you?”

Hope came into the kitchen with Joy cocked on her hip. As always, the pleasure at seeing my niece was laced with wariness. Ironically, the same feelings Hope brought out in me.

“Mercy. I didn’t know you were here,” Hope said.

“Seems to be a theme today.”

Sophie said, “That nap didn’t last long, eh?”

“No.” Hope turned to talk to Sophie, and Joy faced me.

The one-two punch of her sweet baby face settled low in my belly. Joy’s anime eyes were the same golden brown as Levi’s. Her dark hair stood straight up in a funky baby Mohawk. With her chubby cheeks and perfect rosebud mouth, she epitomized adorable. Then she blinked those haunting eyes at me and gave me a drooly grin.

Damn kid was wearing me down.

“Hey, Poopy. Nice threads.” Joy was dressed in the bright purple onesie I’d bought for her; it was dotted with golden crowns, the word Princess in fancy lettering above each tiny tiara.

She immediately screwed up her face and wailed.

Shit.

Mama Hope whirled on me. “What did you do to her?”

“Me? I just poked her in the eye a little.” When my sister’s mouth widened in horror, I backtracked. “Hope, I’m kidding. I did nothing. I didn’t even move. Hell, I didn’t really even look at her.”

“Like that’s something new,” Hope sniffed.

I forced a smile. “You know, Sophie, thanks for the lunch offer, but I’m gonna head out. See you.”

“But-” The rest of her protest was lost when the screen door slammed behind me.

I’d had my fill of overprotective mamas-bovine and human-

for one day.

Seemed I was the one who needed a damn nap.

On the rare nights Dawson and I both had off, he’d show up, ply me with food, challenge me to a game of cards before we fell on each other and into bed.

Last night he’d been a no-show. On one level it bothered me; on another level I admitted Dawson had a right to his anger as much as I did. We’d always butted heads when it came to his job, or maybe my issues with the way he did his job. Since we were both stubborn, we’d need a few days apart to cool off. Not that I missed him or anything.

I’d spent the morning helping Jake and the afternoon finishing ranch paperwork. Following a supper of peanut butter crackers and an apple, I’d crawled into bed. I counted the chinks in the log walls, the ceiling, and the floor, instead of counting sheep. Damned insomnia. But I was determined not to drink myself into a coma. I’d drifted off, dreaming of a fifty-two-inch big-screen TV, when my cell phone buzzed on the pillow. “Hello?”

“Mercy? Thank God you’re still up. I don’t know what to do. He won’t even let me see her-”

“Whoa. Slow down, Geneva. What’s going on?”

“Dawson arrested Molly!”

“Where are you?”

“At the jail.”

“Hold tight. I’ll be right there.” After three decades of rock-solid friendship, Geneva and I had hit the skids upon my permanent return to South Dakota last summer. It’d taken effort on both our parts to repair the rift, and we were almost back to normal.

Twenty minutes later, a loud argument involving a half-dozen people greeted me as I entered the sheriff’s department.

“-absolutely ridiculous! This has been going on for years!” a plump redhead insisted.

I recognized her as Brenda Simmons. She’d graduated two years before me.

“Which is why it’s past time it was stopped, Brenda,” Dawson calmly replied.

“So rather than giving them a warning, you’re throwing them in jail?”

“They’re all eighteen.”

Some wormy-looking guy with sandy-brown hair stepped forward. “It was sneaky as hell, how you and your deputy just waited out there in the field for them to show up.”

“And when they did show up, they broke the law.”

“Where’s the harm?” Brenda demanded. “It’s just a prank. Otis always gets his damn ugly statue back.”

“That’s hardly the point,” Dawson said.

Geneva waved me over.

I muttered, “Who are all these people?”

“The other parents. In addition to Molly, Sheriff Dawson arrested Jaci Carr, Robby Brinkhouse, and Lyle Evans for attempted robbery and trespassing.”

I whistled. “Heavy charges. What’d they do?”

“Snuck into Otis Brandhier’s pasture to borrow his prairie chicken statue for graduation.”

That was still an Eagle River High School tradition? I’d heeded Dad’s wishes not to participate in the annual event, but he’d never taken it as a serious crime.

“Don’t you think jail is excessive punishment?” BeeBee Carr asked me. “God knows your dad never would’ve done anything so harsh.”

I avoided meeting Dawson’s eyes.

“Wyatt Gunderson isn’t sheriff, and I don’t give a good goddamn how you all think he’d react. If he’d nipped this ‘prank’ in the bud years ago, we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

That shut them up.

“Look, it ain’t gonna hurt any of them to spend the night in jail. Maybe next time they’re tempted to instigate a dumb prank, they’ll remember their stint behind bars and make a better decision.”

Everyone talked at once. The verbal sparring was pointless: Dawson wouldn’t budge.

Then Geneva leveled the final blow. “This is grandstanding, Sheriff. Maybe you think these pissant arrests will convince voters you’re finally doing your job, but there are plenty of us in this county who know better. And guess what? We vote, too.”

“And guess what else, Missus Illingsworth? You’ve wasted enough of the taxpayers’ time by harassing me into changing my mind.” His hard gaze encompassed the group. “We’re done. You can bail your sons and daughters out tomorrow morning at nine a.m. Deputy Jazinski will escort you out of the building.”

The beanpole deputy started herding angry parents. But Dawson said, “Miz Gunderson? A word, please?”

The parents waited, even Geneva had a hopeful look, like I could magically change Dawson’s mind.

Wrong. I shook my head at her.

As soon as they were gone, Dawson said, “What are you doing here?”

“Geneva called me for moral support, you know, since I’ve spent time in the county slammer. She’s afraid Molly will become a hard-core criminal after a single night behind bars.”

No smirk. No biting remark. Were we beyond a smile or a snarky comment easing the tension between us?

“I won’t apologize for doing my job, Mercy.”

“You made that clear.”

His focus shifted to my right cheekbone. “Jesus. Is that another bruise?”

Under normal circumstances I’d tell him about the stupid sow knocking me into the stock tank. We’d laugh. He’d tease me about being blind as a bat. But I kept the tale to myself. “Yeah. I seem to be collecting them.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

We stared at each other uneasily.

I brought the conversation back around to business. “Did you get the lists?”

“Yes. I haven’t had much of a chance to look at them.”

“Been too busy staking out teenage pranksters?” Right after it tumbled from my mouth I knew it’d been the wrong thing to say.

His lips compressed into a thin white line. “Like I said, I won’t apologize for doing my job.”

“But are you doing it?”

Flared nostrils, clenched jaw, eyes hard as granite. I’d struck another nerve, this time intentional. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you’ve got time to waste in Otis’s pasture, does that mean you’ve made progress on finding out who killed Jason Hawley?”

No answer. No change in his demeanor. He offered a flip “Why do you care?”

I had my answer.

“Maybe the question should be why you don’t.” I turned on my heel and walked out.

The parents grilled me the instant I cleared the doorjamb. I suggested that if they were worried the incident would show up on their kids’ permanent record, they should head out to Otis Brandhier’s place and convince him to drop the charges.

Evidently that hadn’t occurred to them; they took off en masse.

I meandered through town, dwelling on what Dawson wasn’t doing. It was frustrating. Dawson hadn’t changed or learned from his mistakes from last year. Talk about a case of déjà vu-I’d had these exact same issues with his investigative technique last summer. It appeared that after he left the crime scene and finished interviewing the witnesses at said crime scene, he rarely followed up.

You don’t know that. Maybe he’s changed.

Doubtful, from what I’d seen. He hadn’t even checked the lists yet. It bugged me he wasn’t more concerned with a murderer running loose in Eagle River County. But not as much as my suspicion he’d dismissed J-Hawk’s murder as an unfortunate accident, affecting a no-account out-of-towner that no one liked anyway. I’d expected that attitude from locals-not local law enforcement.