Mercy

CHAPTER SIX

ROURKE STOOD OUTSIDE the Branding Iron with Sheriff Frank Curry, trying to decide how much he wanted to tell the man. If he hoped to keep his identity a secret, then he couldn’t see any way around this other than to confide in Frank. “Can we talk about this somewhere...private?”

The sheriff nodded slowly. “There’s my office in Big Timber.”

“I was hoping for somewhere even more private than that.”

Frank lifted a brow. “I ranch down the road a spell. If you’d like to follow me...”

“I’ll do that,” Rourke said. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call my office in the meantime.”

The older man looked a little concerned, but not overly. “I look forward to our chat.”

On the drive to the sheriff’s ranch, Rourke’s cell phone rang. He checked it. Laura calling. He let it go to voice mail, feeling a little guilty. Had she already come up with a profile on his serial killer and possible co-killer? It was hard for him to think of the young waitress he’d met this morning as a co-killer, but he knew she could surprise him.

Right now he was more concerned about whether or not he should have brought Laura in on all this. His instincts told him she wasn’t well enough. The wounded Laura seemed...fragile. He was afraid working on this case might... What? Push her over some edge he hadn’t been aware even existed before seeing her yesterday? He hated the thought that she was that close to an edge that it should even be a concern.

But there was no doubt that she was different. Maybe working on this case would help her, he tried to tell himself. He knew the police department had required her to see a psychiatrist after the shooting. Standard protocol, he was pretty sure. She’d never mentioned it. Was she still seeing someone?

With a sigh, he knew he had bigger worries right now than Laura. He debated for a moment what to tell the sheriff, but his real concern was the P.I. he’d hired. Edwin should be in Flat Rock by now, and yet he hadn’t called. That made Rourke nervous. He was counting on Edwin to come up with more information on Caligrace, something that would lead him to the person who’d committed the actual murders.

He’d done a little homework on women serial killers. Few worked alone. Most set up the victim while their so-called “co-killer” did the dirty work. It was the killer in the shadows he told himself he was looking for, although Callie, if he was right, was a part of it. He just didn’t know what part yet.

True, the crime-scene photos hadn’t done her justice, but still there was something about her in person... He’d been more than a little surprised when he’d gotten a good look at her. How was that possible, given how many times he’d studied the photos of her? Hell, he’d dreamed about that face for weeks.

He hadn’t expected the freckles. Or those eyes so full of intelligence. The woman was even more of a mystery now that he’d met her face-to-face. He couldn’t help being fascinated by her. So few criminals were interesting. Their motives were often clichéd. Jealousy, greed, revenge. Serial killers had their own crazy reasons for killing.

Rourke was convinced that this woman was hiding something and that the something was a man. He couldn’t wait to see the profile Laura was compiling for him. What kind of man would a woman like this find herself drawn to?

He realized the sheriff might be able to shed some light on Caligrace Westfield. Not that he would have gone to the sheriff for help if Frank Curry hadn’t recognized him. Rourke had really hoped to make this a quick trip with as few people as possible knowing what he was doing in town.

As he drove out to the sheriff’s ranch, he thought again of Callie’s reaction to meeting him. From the moment she’d looked at him, she’d been...wary, as if she’d sensed he’d come looking for her. It was almost as if she’d tagged him as being a cop. Was it possible they’d crossed paths in Seattle? Perhaps at some other crime scene?

What if the three murders were just the tip of the iceberg? And maybe even more troubling, what if this woman knew more about him than he did her?

* * *

AS EDWIN LEFT and walked down the deserted main drag of Flat Rock, he tried to make sense of what the woman at the gas-station-slash-convenience-store had told him. Westfield Manor had closed twenty-five years ago. Caligrace Westfield was thirty—at least according to her fake birth certificate. Even if she’d lied about her age, she couldn’t have been one of the bad girls from the place because she would have been only a child.

But her last name and the address she’d given on her driver’s license were proof of a tie-in to the place, weren’t they?

“You’re sure there aren’t any Westfields around? Maybe whoever started the home?” he’d asked before leaving the woman at the store.

“There were no Westfields. The home was located in the west field of Pauper’s Acre. That’s how it got its name.”

“So the manor part was supposed to be a joke?”

“A sick joke. It was always just called Westfield when I was growing up. Then someone started calling it Westfield Manor and it caught on, the way bad jokes do.”

“You must have met some of the girls in school.”

She’d looked appalled at even the idea. “They weren’t allowed to attend our school, and we weren’t allowed to go near the home. I’d see them occasionally playing outside or looking out one of the windows.” She’d hugged herself as she’d shivered. “They were scary. I wasn’t about to go near any of them.”

“What about the people who worked there? Surely some of them are still around.”

She’d shaken her head. “No one around here was insane enough to work there.”

“Any idea who ran the place?”

“No, but I can tell you she was gone just minutes before the raid on the place. I heard she set a fire to burn any evidence of how badly she’d operated things. If she hadn’t escaped when she did, I’m sure she would have gone to jail.”

Edwin had been so hopeful, but now he’d hit a dead end—and after that horrendous plane ride—but he couldn’t bear the thought of flying back to Missoula without something for his client.

“Is there a newspaper in town? There must have been a story about—”

“No paper, no story. The town kept it hushed up and so did the state authorities. We were told not to talk about it. Everyone just wishes that old place would fall down, but the town can’t afford to tear it down. Part of it burned the night they took the girls away, but all the fire managed to do was gut some of the lower floor. It was like even fire couldn’t destroy it.” She’d glanced toward the west field and the dark skeleton etched against the skyline and shuddered.

* * *

“COME ON IN and have a seat.” The sheriff studied him as Rourke Kincaid stepped into his modest farmhouse. “I’ll get us a cup of coffee.” Rourke opened his mouth, no doubt to say he didn’t need any more coffee, but Frank didn’t give him a chance to speak as he hurried out to the kitchen.

He liked to give a man time to think. The U.S. marshal wanting to meet here instead of the sheriff’s department told Frank a lot. He was curious, but he’d learned to take things slow, especially when dealing with people who had secrets. Rourke Kincaid, Frank was betting, had a secret that had brought him to Beartooth. The same one that had the man not wanting Frank to call the U.S. Marshals’ office.

When Frank came back into the living room, he found Rourke standing at the front window, looking out at the crows lined up on the telephone wire.

“Are you interested in crows?” he asked as he put down a mug of coffee on the small table between the chairs and handed the other to Rourke. “They’re part of my family. I lost them for a while....” He couldn’t put into words how desolate that had left him. “I’m so glad to have them back. Crows are fascinating birds. I’ve been studying them for years.”

Rourke looked over at him as if a little surprised.

One of the crows closest to the house seemed to see Frank and let out a loud caw. Frank smiled and touched the window. “That’s Uncle. I think he’s the boss of the family. He has the most to say, anyway.” He turned back to his chair, sitting down and picking up his mug, which disappeared in his big hands.

His guest wandered away from the window after a moment and took the chair he’d been offered. He watched Rourke stare down into his coffee before he took a tentative sip, as if he had a lot on his mind. Frank suspected he did. Local law enforcement often got a little nervous when the feds showed up unannounced. Rourke Kincaid being in Beartooth gave him cause for concern.

Good to his word, though, he hadn’t checked with the U.S. Marshals’ office. He mentioned this now and waited to hear the younger man’s story, hoping it would be somewhere near the truth.

“I’m not officially with the U.S. Marshals’ office right now,” Rourke said. “I have a couple of weeks off.”

Frank nodded. “But you aren’t here on vacation.”

Rourke smiled. “No. I’ll be honest with you, Frank. I’m looking for someone but on my own time. Because of that, though, I’d just as soon no one around here knows my connection to the U.S. Marshals’ office.”

Or the U.S. Marshals’ office know what he was up to. “Maybe if you told me who you’re looking for...”

Rourke took another sip of the coffee and put the mug down on the small table between them. He glanced toward the front window and the crows all still on the line, before he turned back to him.

“I’m investigating a cold case in which one individual’s name came up several times.”

Frank wondered why he was pussyfooting around telling him, but kept quiet.

“I believe I’m looking for someone close to her.”

“Her?” Frank said, lifting a brow.

“Caligrace Westfield.”

“Callie? The waitress at the Branding Iron. I’m familiar with her.” He didn’t mention that last spring his fiancé, Nettie Benton, had told him there might be more to Callie than anyone knew. Now he realized he was not as familiar with Callie Westfield as he should have been if a U.S. marshal was interested in her. He could feel Rourke’s gaze on him.

“Is there something I should know about her?”

Frank cleared his throat. Rourke was certainly not being forthcoming about what had brought him to Beartooth. He hadn’t even said what kind of crime was involved.

“Let me ask you this,” Frank finally said. “What are we talking here?”

“Murder. She is a lead in three separate cases at least.”

That got his attention. “Where were the crimes committed?”

“Seattle area. If you know something about Caligrace Westfield...”

Frank sighed. “I don’t know anything actually. However, last spring a friend of mine hired a private investigator to run a check on Callie.” He saw he’d piqued the marshal’s interest. “My friend was just curious.” That hadn’t been quite the case, but it was close enough. “My friend hadn’t expected anything to come up on the girl.”

“But something did.”

Frank nodded. “The problem is my friend never found out what. The private investigator was killed before he could give his report.” He shook his head when he saw Rourke’s surprise. “The investigator was killed in a completely separate matter. But he told my friend that he found something that would surprise her.” And Nettie Benton, formerly the worst gossip in the county, wasn’t easily surprised.

Rourke seemed to take that information in for a moment. “How long has Callie worked at the café in Beartooth?”

Frank rubbed his jaw as he thought. “About a year or so. As I understand it, she just showed up one day, saw the sign in the window at the café, asked for the job and got it. You know she lives upstairs in the apartment over the place?”

Rourke nodded. “Was there a man with her? A boyfriend? Husband?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know of. Kate LaFond...sorry, Kate French owns the café. She might be able to tell you. But I’ve never seen Callie with anyone.”

“So she doesn’t date at all?”

“Not that I know of.” He frowned as he remembered overhearing a discussion at the café one morning.

“Did someone come to mind?” Rourke asked.

Frank hesitated before he said, “Carson Grant has apparently asked her out on more than one occasion. He works as a wrangler on his sister and brother-in-law’s ranch. He’s been back a couple of years now. Probably not the man you’re looking for, though.”

* * *

THE LONGHORN CAFÉ was just as small-town local as Edwin had suspected it would be. The narrow building opened into a room with three tables and six stools at a counter. The place smelled of floor cleaner and old grease. The decor consisted of a few photos of cows, and the floor was noticeably out of level.

Edwin felt his stomach turn as he stepped in. Given that it was the middle of the afternoon, the café was nearly empty, but then again, so was the town. He wondered how the café could stay in business—it and that old motel he spotted at the far end of town. But he was reminded of all the cultivated fields he’d seen flying in. Must be ranches around the area for miles. Not to mention, the town was on what Pete had called the Hi-Line—the most northern two-lane highway across the top of the state.

An elderly man sat at one end of the counter, Pete at the other. The older man was slumped over a cup of coffee, head down. Edwin headed for the pilot. Pete was busy putting away a stack of pancakes and a side of bacon. Just the thought of food made Edwin sick again, but he sat down next to him and ordered a glass of milk.

“Milk?” Pete asked with a laugh. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Not really.” He’d gotten more than he’d expected, and yet he still couldn’t prove that Caligrace Westfield had lived in Westfield Manor.

“So who’s this woman you’re looking for?” the pilot asked between bites.

“Caligrace Westfield.”

He frowned. “Never heard of her.”

Not a surprise. Pete was in his early twenties, and while he knew the area, he was from a town farther east along the Hi-Line.

“Whadda you say?” At the other end of the counter, the elderly man had lifted his head from his coffee and was now looking in their direction.

Edwin gave the man his full attention. “Have you heard of a woman named Caligrace Westfield?”

“Caligrace,” the man said and closed his eyes. “Pretty as a Montana morning.”

Edwin figured the old man might be senile, but he said, “Dark hair and eyes?”

“Black as coal sometimes.” Opening his own eyes, the old man said, “But her name wasn’t Westfield.”

Edwin got up and moved down the counter. The man could be full of bull, just wanting attention. Edwin ran into those sorts all the time during an investigation. They were the ones who wanted to contribute—even if they had nothing to offer. They were often happy to make it up.

As he neared the man, he was surprised that on closer inspection, though not shaved and gray of both hair and beard, the man wasn’t as old as he’d first thought.

“Where do you know her from?” Edwin asked.

“That home outside of town.”

“Westfield Manor?”

“Weren’t no manor,” the man said with obvious disgust.

Knowing it couldn’t be possible, he still reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph Rourke had supplied him with. “The woman I’m looking for, though, isn’t very old. If the home closed twenty-five years ago, Caligrace wouldn’t have been more than—” He was going to say “five.”

“Sixteen,” the man interrupted.

Sixteen? Edwin did the math. No way was the woman in the photo forty-one. He tried to hide his disappointment.

“That her photo?” the man asked and took the enhanced snapshot with his thick fingers.

“It’s not a great photo. But you think you know the woman?” Edwin asked even though he already knew the answer. This man couldn’t have known her. The dates were all off.

“That’s not my Caligrace.”

“No.” Edwin started to take the photo back when he realized the man was crying. He glanced toward the waitress, wondering if he’d been right the first time to suspect this man was unbalanced. But the waitress was flirting with Pete and not paying any attention to this end of the counter.

“She looks just like her mama, though,” the man said, wiping his eyes before he handed back the photo. “It’s good to see that she made it all right.”

Edwin frowned at him. “Her mama?”

“That’s the Caligrace I knew. But she’s buried out at Pauper’s Acre,” he said with a nod of his head in the direction of Westfield Manor.

“You’re telling me that this woman’s mother was one of the girls who lived at Westfield Manor?”

“She’s the spittin’ image of her mother, so I’d say, yeah, I am. The home took the bad girls, but they also took unwed mothers when no one wanted them. Caligrace was pregnant. Had a baby girl.”

Edwin frowned, trying to make sense of this. “So Caligrace and her mother shared the same first name, and this woman in the photo is the baby girl she had after she came to live at the home?”

The man nodded.

“How is it that you know this?” Edwin asked, still not sure he could trust this man—or his information.

The man blew his nose into his paper napkin, took a drink of his coffee, then said, “I saw her the night the bus dumped her off. She was crying. I could see that she was pregnant. She had nothing but the clothes on her back. It was winter. I gave her an old coat I had in the back of my rig. I would have given her more, but...”

“But?” Edwin prodded.

The man looked away. “I was thirty-one, married with a pregnant wife at home and two little kids of my own.” He shrugged, his hand trembling as he lifted his coffee cup again. “I couldn’t help her. That’s just the way it was.”

So the man was fifty-six. He looked a whole lot older. Chalk it up to a hard life, apparently. A married man with a pregnant wife at home and two kids when he met the pregnant sixteen-year-old Caligrace.

“How was it that you were there that night? Did you work there?” Edwin asked hopefully as he tucked the photo back into his jacket pocket.

“I was a sheriff’s deputy returning one of the runaways that night.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“WHAT ABOUT THE CHILD Caligrace gave birth to?” Edwin asked after he and former sheriff’s deputy Burt Denton introduced themselves. “What happened to her?”

Burt shrugged. “Never heard.”

By Edwin’s calculations, the Caligrace in the photo would have been about five at the time of the raid. So maybe her birth certificate was right and she was thirty. Apparently, she’d been put on the state bus that had taken the girls away. Unless someone in town had taken her.

“Any chance some couple felt sorry for the little girl and took her as their own?” he asked.

“I would have taken her in a minute, but like I said, I had enough mouths at home to feed, not that my wife would have stood for it.” He shook his head. “No one around here took her in, but someone must have somewhere else since, according to you, she’s still alive.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t say why you were looking for her.”

“She might be a witness in a homicide,” he said carefully.

The former deputy merely nodded as if he recognized bull when he heard it. “I hope she has a better life than her mother did,” he said, getting to his feet. He glanced at Edwin. “Is that too much to hope for?”

“No,” Edwin said. “By the way, you wouldn’t have any idea where in that building the two lived, do you?”

The former deputy, in a telling gesture, looked away. “Facing the building, farthest room to the right on the third floor.”

“Did the woman you knew ever tell you her last name?”

Burt shook his head. “She said her family had disowned her. She had no name, and neither did her kid. It broke my heart. I guess that’s why she gave her little girl her own name. It’s all she had to give the kid.” He looked like a broken man as he started to leave. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. What’s done is done. Some things are best left in the past.”

Edwin watched the former deputy leave, then joined Pete at the other end of the counter.

“Now what?” Pete asked as Edwin took a stool next to him.

“I have one more thing I have to do,” he said. “You should come along.”

Pete gave him a wary look. “If it’s what I think it is, not a chance in hell.”

* * *

AFTER HIS TALK with Rourke, Frank Curry climbed into his pickup and headed for the state mental hospital. It had been months since he’d seen his daughter. Not that he hadn’t tried to visit. He’d gone up there anyway because he hadn’t known what else he could do.

Unfortunately, after Tiffany had injured a nurse and several guards during a short-lived escape, she’d been locked up in the isolation ward. At first the doctor hadn’t wanted her to have any visitors—maybe especially the father she hated.

But through the use of some heavy-duty drugs, she had been downgraded as a threat and was now able to have visitors, Frank had been told. She just hadn’t wanted to see him the times he’d driven to the hospital to visit.

So he’d been surprised—and with good reason, a little worried—when he’d gotten a call from the hospital saying that Tiffany had asked to see him.

He tried not to be too hopeful. Up until a year and a half ago, he hadn’t known he had a daughter. Tiffany was the secret his ex-wife, Pam, had kept from him to punish him because she’d felt he hadn’t loved her enough during their short marriage. She’d raised the girl to hate the father she’d never laid eyes on. Pam had poisoned Tiffany against him to the extent that when they’d finally met, Tiffany had tried to kill him.

After she’d been sent to the mental hospital for evaluation, Frank had hoped that someone there would be able to help her. Pam had washed her hands of her daughter, making it even more painful for Tiffany.

The last time Frank had seen his daughter, he’d had to tell her that her mother was dead, murdered, and that he was a suspect. Actually, the number one suspect.

But in a turn of events, his name was cleared. Unfortunately, it was too late for Tiffany, who’d compounded her problems by making her escape and almost killing several people in the process.