A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(15)

What the hell do I do with this?

He walked back out to the waiting area, where Lucas was working at his computer. “Check this out.”

The young man’s eyebrows rose as he read. “Holy shit. Does he really believe he can get that kind of money out of you? I’d like to see a case where an SC was successful with a demand like this.”

“I’m sure one doesn’t exist.”

“Did you assault him?” Lucas asked with a gleam in his eye.

“Hell no. All I did was stop his vehicle and ask some questions. County took him to the ground and I helped cuff him, but it was an easy arrest. At the most he got his clothes a little muddy.”

“So he should be suing you for the cost of his laundry.”

“His clothes weren’t that clean to begin with,” Truman pointed out.

“What’s with the weird signature?”

“That’s an SC oddity. The best I’ve been able to figure out is that it shows the letter was really signed by Joshua the human being, not the legal entity Joshua Forbes, created by the United States. I think the SLS stands for sovereign living soul.”

“In English, please.”

“There’s no easy way to explain it. You need to watch one of those three-hour lectures on YouTube, but the way I understand it is they believe the United States has done some illegal machinations that created a straw man for every physical person. Your taxes are billed to your straw man, and laws apply to the straw man, so he as a person isn’t liable for the taxes or held accountable to our laws. The actual human is only accountable to God. By signing the letter this way, he’s showing that it’s really him, not the US’s straw man.”

Lucas stared at him. “Everyone is two people,” he recited slowly. “One is a fake entity that is accountable to US laws, and the other is the real human being that can do whatever the fuck he pleases.”

“Bingo.”

“It’s notarized, and is that his fingerprint at the bottom?”

“They like to notarize everything—I’m surprised it wasn’t delivered by registered mail, and I suspect you’re right about the fingerprint.”

“Isn’t he in jail?” asked Lucas. “How’d he get it notarized and delivered?”

“Probably had a friend do that part for him. His arraignment is tomorrow. I’ll try to be there.”

“This is so cool,” announced Lucas. “Can I post a photo of it on Twitter?”

Truman grabbed the paper out of his hand. “No. And don’t talk about it to anyone else.”

Lucas’s face fell. “I’ll black out your name.”

“No.” Truman headed back to his office, done with the conversation. He sat in the chair at his desk and leaned back, reading the letter again, wondering if he should show it to an attorney. Joshua Forbes had no real laws behind his claim, although Truman knew Joshua firmly believed he did.

“What’s he going to do? Take me to court?” Truman mumbled. A judge would laugh himself off his chair. Truman filed the letter in a drawer. Mercy would be the person to show it to. While assigned to the Portland FBI office, she had worked in Domestic Terrorism, and sovereign citizens had been involved in some of her cases. She’d said that the majority of them were harmless and kept to themselves, but some of them associated with militias and took their beliefs seriously enough to create disruption in the current government. Usually they fought with paper, overloading the courts by filing nonsense complaints and liens.

He knew Mercy would review the letter even though she was focused on her new case. There had been an obsession in her eyes when she talked about the small skull found in the culvert.

Violence against kids got under her skin. His too.

The old crime reports he and Mercy had reviewed last night had stuck in his head. More horrible attacks against children.

Why murder the entire family?

Someone isn’t right in the head.

Not that those who murdered a single person were right in the head, but to take out an entire family spoke to a new level of illness.

Truman wanted the new case solved as much as Mercy did.

But what can I do?

Steve Harris. The man’s face popped into Truman’s mind. The neighbor who’d discovered the Verbeek family.

Truman had interacted with him several times. Not usually on the best of terms, but he felt Steve respected him even if he didn’t respect the fire hydrant in front of his home. Truman knew Steve’s small house. It was three blocks away from the police department.

None of my business.

He logged on to his computer and discovered that Steve still owed the city for three parking tickets. They were about to be sent to collections.

Maybe I should be neighborly and give him a warning.

Truman put on his hat and walked out into the rain.



“We’ve got a lead.”

“I’m listening,” Mercy told Jeff as she drove away from Britta Vale’s home, where she’d silenced her phone for her interview. There’d been three missed calls and two texts from Jeff.

“I’m sending you the address. There’s a family missing. It’s possible they’ve been missing for months.”

“Sounds like a good lead.”

“Deschutes County Sheriff’s Department is already at the home. It’s not far from where you’re at.”