A Merciful Secret

Mercy exchanged a look with Eddie, who also looked surprised. The mess wasn’t what they’d expected from the tiny ME.

Small knickknacks cluttered Natasha’s desk, leaving her little space to write. Stepping closer, Mercy saw they were all cats. Glass, plastic, ceramic.

“You’re a cat lady?” asked Eddie with a grin.

“I like cats,” Natasha answered. “But I only have two real ones.”

Natasha took the chair behind the desk and gestured for them to sit. Mercy removed a stack of files from a folding chair, and Eddie picked up an open box from another chair and searched for a place to put it. “Just set them on the floor,” ordered Natasha. They did.

“Everyone has read the preliminary report I sent yesterday, correct?” asked the doctor.

“Not me,” stated Mercy. “But I’ve heard some facts secondhand. You said at the scene that you believed someone tried to smother Olivia first. Did that turn out to be true?”

“Yes. She may have passed out for a few moments, leading her killer to believe she was dead.”

“And that’s when they cut her?” asked Eddie.

“I believe so,” answered Natasha. “The throw pillow came back positive for saliva, as I expected.” She paused. “Olivia was awake for part of the attack. She has defensive wounds on both hands.”

Mercy pictured Olivia’s bloody hands, remembering the wet warmth against her palm as the woman took her last breath.

“And I was right that she slowly bled out from minor damage to several arteries. Even though some of the slashes were quite long, the artery nicks were small, prolonging her death.”

“That’s horrible,” murmured Ava. “Judge Lake had several arteries with major damage. They say he died quite rapidly.”

Dr. Lockhart nodded emphatically. “The patterning of the cuts is very similar.”

“I didn’t see any pattern on Olivia,” said Mercy. “All I saw was blood. And sliced flesh.” She shut down her mental images of Olivia’s suffering.

“Once I heard about Judge Lake’s injuries, I immediately got Olivia on the table.” Dr. Lockhart’s face softened. “I know this isn’t important, but Olivia wouldn’t have lived more than another few months. She had advanced pancreatic cancer. It moves very fast.”

“Morrigan said her grandmother had been in pain,” added Mercy. Did Olivia know she was so ill? That poor woman.

“Definitely,” agreed Natasha. “And surprisingly the blood labs I ran here show no presence of painkillers. I sent samples out for more extensive testing, but my gut tells me they won’t find anything.”

“Were prescription medications found in the home?” Mercy asked Eddie.

“None. Not even over-the-counter stuff like Advil or Tylenol.”

“That’s crazy,” stated Ava. “I’m healthy, but I always carry a small pharmacy in my purse. What if Morrigan had a fever? Nothing for her either?”

Mercy thought of the glass jars of powders and herbs. “I suspect they used natural ingredients to treat that sort of thing.”

Ava sniffed. “Along with spells? Ridiculous. God made drugs for good reasons.”

“Is it possible Olivia hurt herself?” Eddie asked. “If she knew she was terminally ill . . .”

“No,” stated Natasha and Mercy in unison.

“One of the officers asked that at the scene,” said Mercy. “There was no weapon nearby and she wouldn’t have tried to smother herself with a throw pillow.”

“Inefficient,” Natasha wryly added.

“If she wanted to kill herself,” said Mercy slowly, “I suspect she could have made a concoction from those workroom jars that would peacefully do the job. But I don’t think she would do it if she knew her granddaughter would be the one to find her body.”

“Agreed,” said Ava. “They immediately ruled out suicide with the judge for a number of reasons too. The first being no weapon left behind.”

Natasha had turned to her keyboard, and Mercy was amused to see she typed with only her pointer fingers, but her keystrokes were rapid and confident.

“Take a look at these.” Dr. Lockhart turned a large monitor for the three of them to view. “On the right is Olivia Sabin. On the left is Judge Lake.”

Mercy sucked in a breath. The photos were from the autopsies, the stainless steel of the tables looking sterile and stark in contrast to the abused torsos. The two photos showed the bodies from the neck to the groin area. The victims were both old, their wrinkles and folds stating they had lived full lives. Olivia didn’t match the memory in Mercy’s head. Here she was a faceless body, almost a mannequin’s torso in her anonymity. But her flesh gaped where the killer had made his marks.

Or is the correct phrase “her marks”?

Mercy’s gaze jumped from one image to the other; the bodies couldn’t have been more different. The judge was clearly male and had tanned skin, indicating a recent sunny vacation. Olivia was extremely thin, her breasts deflated with age, and Mercy wondered if her low weight was due to the cancer.

But the pattern of the slashes was similar. Too similar. Nearly identical.

“Son of a mother trucker,” said Eddie under his breath.

Dr. Lockhart raised a brow as she looked his way.

“I’m trying to swear less,” admitted Eddie.

Mercy’s brain had instantly translated Eddie’s statement. “That’s not an effective technique.”

“Either way, Eddie’s words are accurate,” stated Ava. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve seen a lot of nightmares.”

“What is the image?” asked Mercy, trying to make a pattern out of the cuts. “Clearly it means something.”

“I’ve sent pictures to the Portland gang unit and reached out to a tattoo association,” said Natasha. “I feel like I’m grasping at straws, but I’d hoped it’d be familiar to someone.”

“The FBI must have someone in a random department who specializes in something like this,” said Ava. “Send me the photos and I’ll get them to the right person. I know we’ve searched our databases for other similar murders, but nothing has turned up. Yet.”

Mercy pulled a pen and notebook out of her bag and tried to sketch the shapes. She shook her head at her finished product. “I can’t see what it is. But it definitely is something.”

“I’m pointing out the obvious question again,” said Eddie. “But why is it on these two seemingly unrelated people?”

“I think the key word there is seemingly,” stated Mercy. “Our job—your job is to find the connection.”

Truman stepped through the doors of the church without knocking, feeling like a trespasser. It wasn’t a Sunday, so simply being in the building felt off-kilter to him. He took a left and headed down a long hall that he knew would lead to David Aguirre’s office. He assumed the minister was in the building because his ancient Ford pickup was parked in back of the church.

Truman had spent his lunch break at his desk, using Google to do a bit of research, and had a fresh appreciation for the rule about not believing everything on the Internet. Unable to get some of the rumors about Olivia and Salome Sabin out of his brain, he’d decided to educate himself on current-day witchcraft.