Mercy had been in the room with Landon Hecht for sixty seconds.
The young man slouching in a chair across the table from Mercy gave off enough disdain to fill a football stadium. He was all sharp angles. Pointy elbows and chin and shoulders. Even his eyes seemed sharp—not in an intelligent way, but in an angry way. As if the world were out to get him and he was constantly on the edge of striking back. The contempt he directed at her and Truman told her he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed; most people at least pretended to give officers respect. Especially in an interview room. If he’d shot the deputies, he did it on a whim, she decided, not because he’d planned some elaborate scheme. He didn’t seem to be the type who thought further ahead than two hours. Or one.
Truman had called her an hour ago and said he was delivering four subjects to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office for questioning. When she’d found out he’d caught them at the scene of a fire with dirt bikes and weapons, she’d leaped out of bed. Now Eddie was questioning the other male subject in a different interview room, and the two female subjects were talking separately with county detectives. Truman leaned casually against the wall in the interview room with her and Landon, keeping quiet as she decided how to get Landon to open up.
The county deputies had taken his rifle, a lighter, and a knife big enough to slaughter a horse.
Not unusual items to carry in Central Oregon.
Mercy knew her father and brothers had carried the same sort of gear. In fact, she carried the same in her emergency pack. Except for the rifle. She kept hers in a safe in her apartment.
“I understand you already got in trouble this week for alcohol possession,” she stated.
Landon threw a glare at Truman. “Yeah.”
“Seems to me like a rational person would wait until they were twenty-one.”
This time the glare was aimed at her. “It’s a stupid law.”
“A lot of people would agree with you, but the fines alone keep most of them in line. They can hurt the wallet.”
Landon shrugged.
“You were trespassing for the second time too.”
“Are you here to remind me about what I’ve done this week? Because my memory’s pretty good,” Landon said. “Did you hear I ate at Burger King three times?”
“How do you eat out so much when you don’t have a job?”
“I get money.”
Mercy waited, but Landon didn’t take the bait. He leaned back in his chair, tucked his hands behind his head, and held her gaze.
Creep.
He injected a sexual predator vibe into his stare that made Mercy want to shower. Behind her she heard Truman shift his stance. No doubt Landon’s creeper aura was affecting him too.
“What’s an FBI agent doing here in the middle of the night?” Landon asked. When she’d first introduced herself, he hadn’t blinked at her title, but it seemed to have finally sunk into his skull that being interviewed by the FBI wasn’t the norm.
“The county sheriff is a little shorthanded,” Mercy replied.
“Huh,” was his response.
“Are the two girls good friends of yours?” she asked.
“Just met them tonight. They were at the 7-Eleven when we stopped to buy—” His lips slapped shut.
“That wasn’t very smart of them to leave with guys they’d just met,” Mercy observed, purposefully passing up the chance to ask him if he had a fake ID to buy alcohol.
Landon grinned. “They wanted to party.”
Mercy sent up a silent prayer that Kaylie used better decision-making skills.
“How often do you ride dirt bikes?” Mercy asked, changing the subject.
Landon rubbed his hands on his thighs as he thought, pointy elbows poking the fabric of his plaid shirt. “More during the summer. We took them out tonight because Jason wanted to test the new brakes on his. Usually we have our trucks, but since the weather was clear it seemed like a good time.”
“I assume you take them off road usually?”
“Yep.”
“Where do you like to go?”
He thought. “There’s good riding back of the old gravel pit place. And around the Smalls’s farm. They don’t care if we ride back there,” he added quickly.
“Do you always ride with friends?”
“Usually. Kinda boring by myself.”
“I understand you were target shooting when you were arrested the other night.” She jumped to another subject.
“Yeah.” The gaze darted to Truman again.
“You a good shot?”
“Not bad.”
“Better than your friends?”
“Lots better.” He grinned.
“You have contests with them?”
“All the time. I usually kick their butts.”
“Rifle or pistol?”
“Both,” he said with pride. “I’m better with the rifle. I have three-hundred-yard targets set up at my place, and I practice all the time.”
Mercy made a mental note to add the shells from Landon’s homemade firing range to the warrant that was currently being written up to search his home for his weapons. She slid a piece of paper across the table. “These are the weapons that are registered to you. Does this list everything you have?” The FBI was especially interested in one of the rifles.
He leaned forward and studied it, his head hanging over the document. It took forever for him to read it, and she wondered about his reading skills. It listed three rifles and two pistols. He should have been able to verify that with one glance.
“That’s everything.” He shoved the paper back at her.
“Nothing else? Maybe a gun a friend gave you or a relative passed on?”
“Nope. That first rifle on the list was a gift from my uncle. We did it by the book.” His smug look made her skin crawl.
Mercy nodded and changed the topic again. “Do you always carry gasoline with you?”
“The tank on my bike doesn’t hold much. Better to be safe than sorry.”
“So it was simply convenient to set the Cowler shed on fire.”
“I didn’t plan it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why did you light it?”
He shrugged again and looked away.
“Your friend says you have a thing for fire,” she lied. She hadn’t heard anything from the other interviews. But he’d sat alone in this room for nearly an hour before she’d entered. He’d had plenty of time to wonder what was being said in the other rooms.
Landon sat up straight. “He’s a liar.”
“Know anything about a fire on Clyde Jenkins’s property? Someone lit his burn pile in the middle of the night two weeks ago.” Mercy mentioned a fire that hadn’t been a source of gossip. Since Clyde had waited several days to report it, the only people who knew about it were the police, as far as she knew.
Landon ducked his head to the side, a sly grin on his face. “It was a burn pile. Nothing illegal about that. They’re supposed to be burned.”
One fire admitted. Two including tonight’s.
“Who was with you that night?”
The ceiling suddenly became very interesting to the young man. “Jason was there,” he said as he stared at the tiles in the ceiling. “The usual group. Finn. Cade.” He glanced behind her at Truman. “Same people as the other night.”
Mercy held her breath. The night Kaylie was with them?
“The night at the gravel pit?” Truman asked.