“What did you find?”
“She works for a business that builds websites . . . her portfolio features a lot of restaurants and small businesses. She changed her last name to Vale a long time ago, but I couldn’t find any marriage records, so I suspect it was a personal choice.”
“Can’t say I blame her,” said Truman. “No doubt weird people have contacted her to ask rude questions about her story. Probably some reporters too.”
Mercy opened the binder and set aside her pork, searching for interviews with Britta Verbeek.
“How was the Verbeek family discovered?” Truman asked.
“A neighbor stopped by in the morning. And Britta was lucky he did. It was a summer weekend, so the kids weren’t expected at school and the father wasn’t expected at work. No one might have noticed for days that something had happened, because the Verbeeks lived on a dozen acres out in the middle of nowhere. According to the neighbor, the front door was open. When no one answered, he went in.”
Truman poked at his pad thai with his fork. “I can’t imagine.”
Mercy scanned the neighbor’s interview. “The father was found in the living room, the mother in the hallway, and the three kids in their beds.”
“Weapon?”
“A hammer.”
Truman looked up, his fork motionless in his noodles. “Seriously? That’s it?”
“A big hammer.” Mercy imagined a madman swinging the hammer. “The father had broken bones in his hands and abrasions on his arms. The mother did too. She was found in the hall outside the girls’ bedroom.”
He set down his fork. “Trying to protect her girls.”
“It appears the girls didn’t wake. They all had single blows to their heads.” Mercy closed the lid on her pork, her appetite gone. “Britta was on a top bunk. He probably didn’t have the right angle to get a killing blow.”
“The neighbor was cleared?”
“He was. The medical examiner estimated the deaths occurred between eight and midnight. The neighbor’s work shift covered the hours, and he had several witnesses to back up his presence at work.”
“Why did he stop by?”
“He was going to borrow a rototiller for the weekend. Phone records show a short call between the two homes the day before, which the neighbor said was about the rototiller. And the machine was sitting out and dusted off beside the Verbeek home, looking ready to go.”
Truman leaned closer to see the neighbor’s interview. “Steve Harris. I know him . . . if it’s the same one. Now he lives in a house just off the main drag in Eagle’s Nest. Older man. Rather crabby. A get-off-my-lawn type of guy. I dealt with him after he accrued a dozen parking tickets and refused to pay. He couldn’t accept that the curb right in front of the hydrant on his street wasn’t a legitimate place to park. Still doesn’t.”
“He sounds charming. Let him park there. He’ll get a surprise when the fire department bashes in his windows to get to the hydrant.”
“That’s what I told him. He responded that he’d sue the fire department.”
Mercy could only shake her head. “I’m sure I’ll interview him at some point.” She flipped through several pages. “All the detective notes say Britta had no memory of what happened. She remembers going to bed and then waking up in the hospital days later.”
“I’ve read that kids are dead to the world when they’re sleeping. Sometimes smoke alarms won’t even wake them.”
“Poor child woke up without a family.” Mercy’s heart contracted in pain for the girl.
“Was anything taken from the home?”
“No one was sure. Nothing obvious was missing. Guns and some money were left behind.” Mercy ran a finger down several pages. “It looks like Britta never went back into the home. I’d think she’d be the only one who could tell if anything was missing . . . although a child that young might not know. It looks like the detectives came to the same conclusion.”
“Any other . . . assault of the female victims?” Truman asked delicately.
“No.” Relief had filled Mercy when she verified that fact. But it didn’t help with the motive for the attack.
“But they think a sexual motive was behind the murders? He was interested in the mother, right?”
“I read that in the summaries. It said one of Maria Verbeek’s friends believed Grady Baldwin made a pass at Maria.” Mercy checked the summary of the contents on the binder. “That interview isn’t in this binder.”
“I’d like to see that one too.”
Mercy went back to the boxes and opened another binder, reviewed the contents, and then grabbed a third. “Here it is. Janet Norris.” She sat back down and found the detective’s notes on the interview, then slid the binder over so Truman could read too.
“Janet didn’t say Grady Baldwin by name,” Truman asserted. “Janet states the pass was made by a workman at the house.”
Mercy tapped her fingers on the table. Truman was right. “I wonder if they had an inaccurate accounting of the workmen. Everyone who knew which persons had worked in the home were killed. Except for Britta.”
“A good point. But Grady Baldwin was convicted.”
“They had physical evidence. A hammer with his fingerprints. His prints in the home. No alibi.”
Truman sat back and rubbed his eyes. “I have to imagine Grady had a decent lawyer who poked all the right holes in the prosecutor’s case.”
“I hope so.”
“What did the other crime scene look like?”
Mercy wasn’t going to open the other case boxes when she had binders from the first still on the table. “Two months earlier the Deverell family had been killed,” she recited from her research earlier in the day. “They hadn’t arrested Grady Baldwin yet, but he’d been interviewed because he’d worked on the Deverells’ home too. It was another late-night home invasion type. That time all the family members were in their beds.”
“Any sexual assaults?”
“No.”
“Anything stolen?”
“Again, they were unsure.”
Mercy reread Janet Norris’s interview summary. The woman had stated that Maria Verbeek rarely went into town, and that they’d worked in the same hotel for a short time. Mercy found the family photo of the Verbeek family that she’d shown at the FBI case briefing. Maria looked like a timid woman. She stood a half foot behind her husband, at his side, her hands clasped in front of her, her shoulders rounded.
She looked as if she didn’t have an assertive bone in her body.
But she’d fought to the death to save her girls.
I hope they put away the right person.
SEVEN
The next morning Mercy was filling her coffee mug as her niece Kaylie sleepily stumbled into the kitchen.
“You’re going to be late for school,” Mercy said as she watched the teen cram a bagel in the toaster.
“I’m skipping first period. The teacher’s still sick and the sub is just babysitting us. There’s no point for me to sit there and read a book.”
Mercy fought back a lecture on the teen’s attendance record. Kaylie got great grades; Mercy had nothing to complain about.
This isn’t how raising a teenager is supposed to be.
Kaylie was easy. Which immediately made Mercy suspicious. Where was the teen angst and drama? The two of them had experienced some hiccups, but for the most part the six months they’d been together had been smooth sailing.
“Cade around?” Mercy asked about Kaylie’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. Mercy approved of the hardworking young man, but Kaylie’s world was rapidly growing beyond Cade’s. Her amazing baked goods were displayed every day at the coffee shop she’d inherited after the death of her father, and she had talked about starting a new bakery south of Portland, where there were more people and shoppers. Then the next day she’d discuss marketing a line of brownies to grocery stores. Then she’d express an interest about a job in law enforcement. Her niece knew her options were open and limitless, and Mercy loved listening to her explore the possibilities. Even if she didn’t seem very focused.
That will come.
“He’s gone for the next three weeks. New project.” Disappointment rang in her tone.
“He has solid, stable work,” Mercy pointed out. “And most of the time he enjoys it.”
“I know. He’s happy at this new job.” Kaylie smeared cream cheese on her bagel. “I heard they found a bunch of bodies under the road up on March Mountain.”
“What else did you hear?” Mercy asked, startled at the abrupt change of topic and curious as to what rumors had started to circulate.
Kaylie gave her a side eye. “I saw a picture online of you at the scene in an article. You looked tired.”
“Sheesh. Let me guess. I was sitting on the bumper of a vehicle. How bad was the caption?”
“Not bad.”
“Kaylie,” she said in a warning voice.
The girl sighed. “Okay. It said you were sitting around waiting for others to do the investigation. I know that’s not how it was,” she quickly added.
“One of these days I’m going to kill Chuck Winslow.” Mercy sipped her coffee too fast and burned her tongue. She swore out loud.
Today is not off to a great start.
“The reporter only does it to annoy you. Ignore him,” advised Kaylie.
“Reporter is a kind word for him. He’s a bottom-feeder.”
“Who are the victims they found?”
“We don’t know yet. Have you heard of anyone missing around town? Is anyone speculating on who it could be?”
The teen took a big bite of bagel. “Not that I’ve heard,” she said around the mouthful.
“Keep your ears open. There’s often a bit of truth buried in rumors.”
“I’m around high school students all day.”