Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“I will, then.”

“Just let me know what you want me to do, where I should start.”

“Deputy Meeker will bring you up to speed. He’s up there at Blue Rock now.” O’Donnell took another drag. “Listen, Trent, don’t go rogue on me, okay? This is still my county, and my ass is on the line. You’re working for my guys, got that? The detectives are still in charge. Ned Jalinsky and Tori Baines. You report to them.”

“Got it. But I take it they’re not here now?”

“No, and they won’t be up today. The roads were treacherous when we cut out last night. Good thing the crime scene crew handled everything yesterday, got what they needed.” Trent remembered the techs who had taken pictures, dusted for fingerprints, collected trace evidence, searched for footprints, and scoured the stable and surrounding area while the interrogations had been going on.

O’Donnell was saying, “I understand no one can make it up to Blue Rock until the snow lets up. My detectives will get back up there just as soon as Mother Nature gives us a break. For now, you’ll deal with Meeker. He’s on campus, sort of trapped up there.”

“Along with the rest of us.”

“The storm will let up soon,” the sheriff said, though they both knew the weather service predicted more snow.

“How’s the Prescott kid doing?” Trent asked, dropping his towel and using it to wipe up the puddle that had formed around his feet.

“Still critical. The docs were real positive when he came to, had that burst of consciousness, talking with everyone, but it seems he’s lapsed back into a coma again.”

Trent hated to hear it. “Too bad.”

“Yeah. The hospital is supposed to call the minute he wakes up again, but he’s still in the ICU. They’re talking about brain and spine injury.” After a brief pause, during which Trent hoped to God for a miracle, the sheriff wrapped things up. “I gotta roll. If you have any more questions, talk to Meeker, or call Baines or Jalinsky.” O’Donnell hung up, giving Trent the green light to investigate what had happened in the stable.

About time. He kicked his towel into a corner and added the sheriff’s number along with those for Jalinsky and Baines into his phone, then got dressed in heavy layers and headed to the stable. He had a couple of hours before he was expected in the gym for the group of kids who played pickup basketball or worked out on the equipment on the weekends, and he wanted to see the crime scene again.

Most of the stable had been off-limits while the sheriff’s department worked the scene. Since the crime scene investigators and the detectives were finished, Trent ignored the yellow crime scene tape that was already broken and flapping in the breeze and let himself into the stable.

He found Flannagan leading Omen, a black gelding, through the back door and into his stall. Omen was pulling on his lead, prancing and tossing his head, his black coat gleaming under the lights. The other horses had already returned to their boxes.

Trent reached into a stall to pat Arizona’s gray muzzle, and the gelding in the next stall snorted impatiently.

“Take it easy, Scout,” he said, scratching the paint behind his ears. He turned to Flannagan. “Need help?”

Dressed in camouflage pants and a Blue Rock down jacket, Flannagan shook his head. “Nah. This is the last one. Besides, I got extra hands today, the three from yesterday’s tussle. The new girl, Stillman, Lucy Yang, and Eric Rolfe. They’ve been assigned to muck out the stalls this weekend—that is, when they’re not shoveling snow.” His lips twisted in a smile that was more menacing than amused. “Guess that’s the start of their punishment for their little spat yesterday.”

“Start?”

“Hmm.” He locked Omen in his stall, then unclipped the lead from the gelding’s halter. “Usually the two involved would be left out in the wilderness for a day or two, separately, of course, just to give each of ‘em time to think about what they’ve done, how they disrespected the school and all that.” Slipping through the door to the stall, he walked to the area where the feed was kept. While the horses nickered and whinnied impatiently, Flannagan twisted off the top of a barrel of oats. “Because of the blizzard, Reverend Lynch is raining down a little mercy on the sinners’ dark souls.”

“So they’re sinners?” Trent asked.

“Isn’t everybody?” Flannagan snorted a laugh as he slipped through the gate. Trent’s eyes were drawn to the man’s hunting knife sheathed but at his side. An odd accessory for a man who worked with juvenile delinquents, but it was part of Flannagan’s persona and was definitely a necessity working with farm animals.

As Flannagan climbed up the ladder to the loft, Trent stared down at the floor, at the spot where Andrew Prescott had lain, crumpled and unconscious. Although someone had washed the area, the old, porous floorboards had soaked up the blood so that the stain remained, a patch of rusty brown. Farther away was the smaller stain, the one that had looked like another patch of blood, one the detectives had photographed, discussed, and taken samples from to ensure that it was either Nona Vickers’s or Drew Prescott’s.

“Stand clear,” Flannagan called as he dropped a couple of hay bales through the chute. Swinging down from the opening, he landed on the floor and deftly, one knee placed on the bale, used his knife to slice through the string holding the pressed hay together.

In his mind’s eye, Trent envisioned Prescott on the floor and Flannagan standing over him, wielding that wicked hunting knife.

Except Andrew hadn’t been stabbed.

“What?” Flannagan asked, grabbing a nearby pitchfork. “This bother you?” He pointed the tines at the bloodstain visible beneath the loose hay.

“Yeah, a little.”

“I tried to wash it down, but the damn stain is stubborn. Blood is hard to remove, you know,” Flannagan said, as if he’d had experience with trying to clean up like stains. He shook forkfuls of hay into the mangers, and the horses shuffled and snorted as they shoved their noses into the loose, dried grass.

“I guess it seems disrespectful to just pretend it isn’t there.” Trent measured rations of grain.