A Merciful Promise (Mercy Kilpatrick #6)(54)

What did he plan to destroy?

Was that the purpose of the explosives in the van?

“You agents of Babylon try to suppress us when all we want is to be left alone.”

Agents of what?

“We are peaceful. We can govern ourselves. We deserve our own place to live in the US apart from the rest of you. It’s not out of line to demand such a place. Even Martin Luther King Jr. suggested a separate nation for the colored.”

Racist and wrong.

She swallowed and spoke up. “King supported an integrated community. You’re thinking of Malcolm X.”

His face flushed red, and fury lit his eyes. Fear ignited all her nerves.

Why did I open my mouth?

“Cunt.” He stepped aside and swung a steel-toed boot at the edge of her left kneecap.

Pain radiated through her body and exploded in her brain like a firework. She collapsed to the floor, blind from the tears. She rolled onto her right side as an inferno raged in her leg.

“Racist asshole,” she managed to say between clenched teeth.

The steel toe connected with her stomach.

She couldn’t breathe, her diaphragm refusing to function.

The door swung open behind her.

“Lock her up,” ordered Pete. “She won’t need rations.”





TWENTY-ONE

Truman entered the medical examiner’s office the morning after the discovery, ready to observe the newest John Doe’s autopsy. He had a body to identify.

After interviewing Gerry Norris’s girlfriend, Kim Fuller, Truman and Bolton had driven to the friend’s home where Norris had been dropped off the night before. A bleary-eyed Norris answered the door. He wasn’t dead; he was just pissed at his girlfriend.

For once, Truman had been relieved that Royce was wrong about something.

Truman chose to be present for the autopsy. It was his case, and he felt an affinity to the victim, who appeared to be about his own age. He hated that the man had been left alongside the road, and he kept comparing the death with that of the man found in Britta’s field. Both had been shot and dumped recently. Why?

He stuck his head inside the lone autopsy suite. Dr. Lockhart worked in a small facility, just herself and three other employees. Truman had been afraid she’d send his victim to the bigger office in Portland, but she’d worked on the other two John Does that Truman suspected could be related to his case, and she wanted to see the third.

“Hi, Truman,” Dr. Lockhart said cheerfully as she lifted something out of the torso of the body on her table. She set the organ on a scale hanging from the ceiling, and her assistant made a notation. An eighties rock anthem played in the background, and the aseptic room smelled of strong disinfectant with an undertone of something very, very foul. “Protective gear is to the right of the door.”

Truman had just grabbed a gown when his phone buzzed. He checked the screen, intending to let it go to voice mail, but Detective Bolton’s name appeared.

“Daly here,” he answered.

“Truman, I’ve had an unusual turn in the second John Doe’s case.”

Truman looked over at Dr. Lockhart. She was concentrating on her work. “What do you have?”

“Something a bit hard to believe. You at your office?”

“No, I just arrived at the medical examiner’s. She’s working on the third John Doe.”

“That’s right. I wanted to be there.”

Dr. Lockhart set a different organ on the scale, and Truman’s throat tightened. “I haven’t talked to her yet.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Bolton ended the call.

Truman put on the gown, slipped on gloves, and then added a mask and face shield. He felt ready for battle. He didn’t mind autopsies. He’d always had an interest in anatomy and physiology, and he respected that mysteries were solved through the invasive examination.

His victim lay on a wheeled stainless-steel table with a raised edge on all four sides. The far end of the table butted up against a sink where a long hose could stretch to rinse the victim—hence the need for the raised edge. Dr. Lockhart stood on a small stool beside her patient. Her male assistant was still taller than she. Truman was too.

She’d already completed the large Y cut from shoulders to groin. The sternum and a portion of the ribs had been cut and lifted away so she could access the lungs and heart. Truman glanced at a side table, spotting the large pruning shears with curved blades. The cutters were nearly as long as his arms. Shock had rattled him the first time he saw a medical examiner pick up the gardening tool and coolly start snapping ribs. They were effective.

Dr. Lockhart hadn’t peeled back the scalp, opened the skull, and removed the brain yet. The sound of the Stryker saw examiners used to remove the cap of the skull was one that Truman would never forget. He gazed at the victim’s face and prepared his stomach for what he knew would come soon.

“Have anything for me?” he asked the pathologist as she hummed along to Bon Jovi.

“I do.” She looked up, and her eyes danced, glittering behind her mask. “We identified him with his fingerprints.”

Truman nearly pumped his arm in celebration. “Sweet. Who is he? Wait—how come you didn’t call me?”

“Because you will have to share jurisdiction on this murder—and I knew you were on your way here.”