The sheriff shrugged and looked into the freezer. “Lots is my guess.”
“You said there were three chains locking the door?” Eddie asked. “To me that screams, ‘I’ve got something valuable in here.’” He pointed at a narrow steel rod on the dirt floor. “If I broke through three sets of locks and chains and found an empty shed, I’d start plunging that into the ground until I hit something.”
Sure enough, there were narrow holes in scattered places across the floor of the shed.
“He’s a prepper,” Mercy stated. “It’s expected he’d have a stash of guns somewhere.”
“They didn’t have to murder him in his bed to steal his guns,” Rhodes pointed out.
“They?” asked Mercy, her ears perking up.
The sheriff raised his hands defensively. “No proof. Just going by the amount of work I see here and the number of footprints found in front of this shed. The techs are running a comparison on Fahey’s and Toby Cox’s boots to see what’s left. They’ll let us know how many people were here.”
“Can’t rule out Cox,” Eddie pointed out.
Sheriff Rhodes nodded, but Mercy saw the regret in his eyes. She suspected he liked this Toby Cox who wasn’t “right in the head.”
Mercy mentally placed Toby Cox at the top of her list to interview.
TWO
“I want to see the other two murder sites,” Mercy told Eddie as she drove toward Eagle’s Nest.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod as he focused on a file in his lap.
“They’re both on the other side of Eagle’s Nest,” he replied. “I’ll pull up the location of the first.”
The two agents had driven directly to Ned Fahey’s hideaway from Portland after Mercy’s office exchanged several phone calls with Bend’s supervisory senior resident agent (SSRA). The other two murders had taken place closer to the city of Eagle’s Nest, but the locations were still a good half hour from the Bend office. The Bend office needed help, Mercy’s supervisor had explained as she told the two of them about their temporary assignment. It had only five agents, a few support staff, and no domestic terrorism agents.
“Because of the victims’ histories, the large number of missing weapons from all three murders could point to someone preparing for a domestic terrorism event.”
Her boss’s words rang in her head. Several dozen guns were missing from the first two murder sites, and Ned Fahey had buried a large illegal stash on his property.
An event. A calm way of saying a group might be gearing up to overtake a federal building. Or worse.
The rain clouds had blown off as they left Ned Fahey’s home, and now blue sky peeked through as they departed the denser forest, headed for lower altitudes. As they pulled away from the foothills, Mercy spotted the white mountain peaks of the Cascades in her rearview mirror, thrilled she could see several at a time. She’d taken the sight for granted as a kid. In Portland she saw primarily one peak; on a clear day she might see one or two more. But in this part of Central Oregon, where the skies were often blue, multiple peaks gleamed.
The air felt cleaner too.
She headed down a straight stretch of highway, tall pines towering along both sides of the road.
“Hey. The trees changed color,” Eddie said as he stared out the window.
“They changed back where we crested the Cascade Range. Those are ponderosa pines and they’re a paler green than the firs you’re used to on our side of the Cascades. The trunks are redder too.”
“What are the silvery, scrubby-looking bushes everywhere?”
“Sagebrush.”
“The forest feels different over here,” Eddie remarked. “There’s still giant green trees everywhere, but the underbrush isn’t dense at all like on the west side. Tons of rocks here too.”
“The pines will thin out soon. And you’ll see acres of ranchland and lava rocks and brush depending on where you go.”
Mercy noticed her knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. She drove without thinking, instinctively heading toward the town where she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life.
“Turn at the next left,” Eddie instructed.
I know.
“I grew up in Eagle’s Nest.”
Eddie’s head jerked up, and she felt his stare bore into the side of her head. She kept her eyes on the road.
“I don’t believe that you remembered that particular fact two seconds ago,” Eddie stated. “Why didn’t you say something? Does the boss know?”
“She knows. I left home when I was eighteen and haven’t been back. Family stuff, you know.”
He shifted in his seat to face her. “I hear a good story percolating, Special Agent Kilpatrick. Spill it.”
“No story.” She refused to look at him.
“Bullshit. You haven’t been home since you were eighteen? Did they beat you? Do they belong to a cult?”
She gave a short laugh. “Neither.” Not exactly.