A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(85)

At least it was decently clean.

She and Truman quickly searched every nook and cranny, looking for . . . something.

Down the hallway Truman paused in front of a closed door. His throat moved as he swallowed and then opened the door. The mattress had been stripped of bedding, and Mercy knew it had been Clint’s room. Black fingerprint powder covered several surfaces. She opened the closet. Clothes hung from hangers and were piled on the floor. She did a quick check inside the pockets, the shoes, and then the boxes on the top shelf.

Truman checked the bathroom and moved to the other bedroom. “Mercy?” he called.

She followed his voice and found him in front of a large gun safe. “It’s unlocked,” he told her. “Ryan used the combination to open it last time I was here.” He seemed hesitant to touch the door, so she reached over and swung it open.

Two rifles were present, and several rectangular containers she identified as handgun lockboxes.

“There were three rifles last time,” Truman stated. He picked up one of the lockboxes. “This feels like there’s still a weapon in it.” He hefted the others until he came to an open one. “I think they all still hold a weapon except this one.”

“Did he open the lockboxes for you?”

“Yes. I don’t remember how many there were, but they all were full.”

“We need to add to the BOLO that he is probably armed.” She studied the other contents of Ryan’s closet. The gun safe took up a large portion, and his clothes were pushed to one side. She did the same pocket check she’d done in Clint’s room and went through the junk on the upper shelf. One shoebox clanked. She removed the lid. “He’s got quite a few knives,” she commented, counting seven of them. Most of the weapons had old, battered sheaths.

I’d rather find a hammer that could be the murder weapon.

“The garage out back is packed full of junk,” Truman told her. “It could take days to go through.”

Mercy returned the box to the shelf. She was sliding the closet door shut when she spotted a three-ring binder between the safe and the wall. Sliding her hand into the narrow space, she wiggled it out and flipped it open.

A photo of Britta Vale stared back at her, and Mercy nearly dropped the binder.

“Truman.” She couldn’t say anything else. Her fingers were ice.

As she turned the page, he watched over her shoulder. Pages and pages of fuzzy long-distance shots of Britta were carefully tucked into protective sleeves. Then came the newspaper articles. They were photocopies of old articles about the Verbeek and Deverell murders. Mercy rapidly flipped through the articles. There was nothing about the Hartlage or Jorgensen murders.

Why Britta?

“Do you think this is Clint’s or Ryan’s notebook?” Mercy asked.

“It’s in Ryan’s room.”

He’s obsessed.

Mercy went back to the photos of Britta. “These are recent. Look . . . this one was taken outside her current house. And this one is at the diner in Eagle’s Nest.”

“It looks like he’s been stalking her, not Steve Harris as she suspected,” Truman pointed out. “But why?”

“We need to warn her.” Fear for the woman made her throat tighten.

“I think she’s already on high alert.” Truman reached up and one-handedly grabbed the box of knives Mercy had put back, then set it on top of the safe. “Look at these again.” He picked up one by the scabbard and held the wooden handle toward her. “Do you recognize that symbol?”

Mercy leaned closer. “It’s an eagle . . . with a swastika below it. Ugh. Are they all like that?” Were the Moody brothers Nazi fans?

“No,” said Truman. “This other knife has something written in Italian on it. Mercy, these are military collectibles.”

She met his gaze as a chunk of her case clicked into place. “Like the Asian skull.”

He held out the box. “Between these knives and those articles in the binders, you’ve got a connection between the old murders and new right here in this house. Ryan Moody.” Lines creased his forehead. “When Ryan was accounting for his handguns the first time I was here, I remember thinking that some of them looked very old.”

“War collector old?”

“Possibly.”

“You think Ryan could be the one who killed the Hartlages, because we found a war trophy with their remains?” Excitement prickled in her brain. “The victim in Clint Moody’s storage shed had his mouth beat in . . . just like the Hartlages and Jorgensens.”

“But what’s his obsession with Britta?”

“She’s the survivor of the original family murders,” Mercy suggested. “Ryan is only thirty. He would have been about ten when those murders happened. Wait a minute . . . Did the Moodys grow up around here? I don’t remember them.”

“I can find out,” said Truman, pulling out his phone.

Mercy’s nerves vibrated in anticipation as she listened to him make a call. The answer to the murders felt very close, circling in the air just beyond her reach. She worried that if she moved, the tenuous connection between Ryan Moody and the Hartlages would fall apart.

I’m positive it will be confirmed that Clint Moody was the body in the storage unit.

Did his brother kill him?