The Hiding Place Read online

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  For Michael

  To those who keep their hearts their own The winter is the spring.

  —JOHN CLARE

  SUMMER 2000

  Beautiful women kept you waiting with a clear conscience because they really believed that the party didn’t start until they got there. Ruby was one of those women, Beth thought, as she waited for her friend in the ornate if faded lobby of the Two Rivers Theater. Ruby was in the ladies’ room, freshening up her face, as she called it. Ruby was always freshening up her face.

  Beth only used makeup to hide the bruises. She glanced at her watch. It was getting late. If she didn’t get home before Thomas, she might have more black-and-blue to cover.

  Ruby sauntered into the lobby as if she owned the place. Beth envied that confidence. She wondered what it would be like to go through the world believing it was your oyster.

  “I’ve got to get back.”

  “No, you don’t.” Ruby smiled the Las Vegas smile that had seduced half the men in Lamoille County. “You’ve got to get out. You and me both.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Anywhere but Vermont. If we don’t get out of here, I’m going to die of boredom and you’re going to die, period.”

  * * *

  THOMAS KILGORE WATCHED the two women from behind the popcorn stand on the other side of the lobby, where they couldn’t see him. They were about the same size, but his wife seemed much smaller. Bethie was a mouse of a girl, afraid of her own shadow. Even more afraid of his.

  Her friend didn’t look afraid of anything. She was the kind of woman who was bound to get a guy in trouble sooner or later. The kind of woman his wife had no business hanging out with. She was waving her arms around as she talked to Bethie—and Bethie was listening closely to her, her dark eyes peeping out from under her long bangs. The bangs she’d grown to cover that jagged little scar over her left brow.

  Bethie’s friend was up to no good. He was right to have followed them. And he’d keep on following them, until he knew what was going on—and what needed to be done.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Some people take their secrets with them to the grave. Others leave them behind on their deathbeds, riddles for the survivors to solve. Mercy Carr suspected that August Pitts was one of the latter. She stood in the neat living room of his farmhouse, at the foot of the portable hospital bed on which he lay dying. She knew he was dying by the way her Belgian shepherd, Elvis, the smartest dog in the world, huddled with the old man’s golden retriever, Sunny. Both of their noses pointed through the metal bars onto Pitts’ bony hip. One dark muzzle and one yellow muzzle, side by side, shiny black noses stark against the white cotton sheets.

  Pitts raised a mottled hand to pet them. The effort was great, and his arm fell limply back toward the bed, catching on the dogs’ ears. Elvis and Sunny licked his knobbled fingers.

  He smiled. But even that small gesture seemed too much for him. His weary face tightened against the pain, and the lines crisscrossing his face deepened. He closed his eyes.

  She hoped to hell that was a morphine drip in his arm.

  “He does that a lot.” Pitts’ sister Eveline stepped up to join Mercy. The heavy-limbed woman wore too-tight yoga clothes and a smile to match. “The painkillers, you know.”

  “Will he wake up again soon?”

  “Hard to tell. Not usually.” Eveline lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “He’s not long for this world. Every breath could be his last.”

  Pitts was in the late stages of cancer; Eveline had told her as much when she called to ask her to come up to Lamoille County to see him. “It’s his dying wish,” she’d said.

  Pitts was her Grandpa Red’s last partner. Her grandfather was the sheriff, and Pitts his deputy, when he’d died in an arrest gone wrong when Mercy was nine years old. She still missed him.

  “We’ll wait awhile,” she told Eveline.

  “Suit yourself.” Eveline pointed to a worn brown vinyl recliner in the corner. “Make yourself at home.” She stomped off to the kitchen nook at the far side of the great room and busied herself at the sink.

  Mercy settled into the old recliner and tried not to sweat. The farmhouse was as warm as a hothouse, its noisy old furnace obviously working overtime to keep the cold gales of early March at bay. Elvis and Sunny panted as they continued their watch at the old man’s bedside. Both dogs would need water before long.

  Her grandmother Patience had warned her against this trip.

  “Nothing good ever came of your grandfather’s association with that man and nothing good will come of yours, either.” Pitts was late to work the day her husband died, and Patience believed the deputy’s absence contributed to his death. She had never forgiven him, and her dislike of the man only intensified over the years.

  “He says he needs to see me. For Grandpa Red’s sake.”

  “He’s unreliable and untrustworthy. You can’t believe a word he says.”

  “I’ll hear him out. It may be nothing.”

  “You just want to get out of Dodge. To avoid running into a certain game warden.”

  It was true that she’d had a falling out with Troy Warner a few months ago, but that had nothing to do with this. This she had to do for her grandfather.

  “Out of the frying pan into the fire,” her grandmother said when she realized there was no talking Mercy out of heading north to Lamoille County.

  But as she sat there watching August Pitts, his breath shallow and his lips moving in his fitful sleep, she could see no fire. No fire at all. Only the cool specter of death, hovering over the old man as he slept. His death’s upon him, as Shakespeare would say.

  “He left those for you.” Eveline was back, a kitchen towel tossed over her shoulder. She pointed to a stack of dilapidated cardboard file boxes stacked in the corner next to an old brown crock filled with fishing poles and hockey sticks. “Something to do with Sheriff O’Sullivan. He wanted you to have them.”

  Deputy Pitts opened his eyes, staring at Mercy. He grabbed the bed rails and pulled himself up, his watery blue eyes still on her.

  Eveline rushed forward, grabbing the remote and pressing the button to raise the head of the bed. “You know you’re supposed to use the control, August.”

  Pitts ignored his sister. He leaned forward, and started to speak, his voice weak with pain. Mercy left the recliner, squeezing between Elvis and Sunny at the edge of the bed.

  “Find the girl,” he whispered.

  “What girl?”

  He fell back against the pillows, wheezing.

  “That’s enough,” said Eveline, pushing Mercy aside and stepping on Sunny’s paw in the process. The retriever yelped.

  “Sorry, dog,” Eveline said.

  You don’t sound sorry, thought Mercy. As if to confirm her suspicion, Elvis growled.

  Eveline ignored the shepherd. “He’s upset. Talking about that girl always upsets him.” She put down the remote
and picked up a glass of water from the table next to the bed and placed the rim up against her brother’s lips. “Drink, August.”

  “I don’t know anything about any girl,” said Mercy.

  The old man jerked his head away from the glass, spitting water at his sister.

  “Great,” said Eveline crossly. She used the kitchen towel to wipe the spittle from her face and then her brother’s. He whined a bit under her rough ministrations. “That’s enough out of you.” She turned to Mercy. “You need to go now. Take those boxes with you.”

  “Sure.” She told Elvis to stay and spent the next several minutes loading the boxes—all labeled BETH KILGORE—into the back of her Jeep. Pitts watched her from his bed, but he didn’t say anything, maybe because his sister was standing guard, her arms crossed and her lips pursed.

  “I think that’s all of them,” said Mercy. “Do you think we could come back and visit again?” She knew she’d have questions about what was in those boxes.

  Eveline shrugged. “If he’s still alive.”

  Mercy glanced over at the old man, and was relieved to see he appeared to have nodded off again. She pulled a card from a pocket of her cargo pants and handed it to Eveline. “Please keep me informed of his condition.”

  “Hold on a minute.” Eveline disappeared down the hallway. As soon as she was out of sight, Pitts spoke, startling Mercy.

  “Save my dog,” he said, his eyes still shut.

  “What?” She wasn’t sure that she’d heard the old man right.

  “Find Beth for Red,” he wheezed. “Save Sunny for me.”

  At the sound of his sister’s footsteps he fell silent again, appearing even closer to death than he had before.

  Eveline handed Mercy a sheet of paper with a photo of a much younger August Pitts with a full head of strawberry-blond hair, and a headline that read “Obituary.” At her dismayed look, Eveline frowned. “The paper said to have it ready. The information about the memorial service is all there. All I have to do is add the date when the time comes.”

  “Right.” Eveline was certainly ready for her brother to pass, thought Mercy. She must stand to inherit. “What will happen to the farmhouse?”

  “I’m his only kin.”

  “He never married?”

  “Not the marrying kind, my brother.”

  “I see.” Mercy paused to scratch the golden retriever’s head. “And Sunny?”

  “I’m allergic.”

  Not, thought Mercy. She feared for this lovely golden. “What will happen to her?”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “But if you’re allergic…” Mercy let her voice trail off, the better to let Eveline finish the sentence.

  “After I sell the house, I’ll take her home with me. Find her a forever family there.”

  “Home?”

  “North Carolina.”

  “Uh huh.” She suspected that Eveline would get home and drop Sunny off at the nearest kill shelter. There were plenty down there. She’d found Elvis in North Carolina, crowded into a cramped “kennel” with several other military working dogs, deserted by the defense contractor responsible for them. She took Elvis home to Vermont, but not before emailing the kennel’s GPS coordinates along with video of his neglected pals to the local newspaper and several animal rights organizations so they’d be rescued, too.

  Elvis growled again. He didn’t trust Eveline any more than she did. Patience had warned her against August Pitts, but at least he was good to his dog.

  A phone rang somewhere deeper in the farmhouse.

  “I’d better get that. You can let yourself out.” Eveline tramped down the hallway toward what Mercy assumed were the bedrooms in the back.

  Now that the coast was clear, she hesitated. Sunny was not hers to take, and she doubted the golden retriever would willingly leave her dying master’s side. She wasn’t even sure that taking Sunny was what the old man meant when he told her to save the dog. She looked at Elvis. “What to do?” The shepherd nuzzled Sunny, but the golden retriever did not react. She seemed resolved to stay put for the foreseeable future.

  Mercy didn’t know what was worse, forcing the golden to abandon her post or leaving her to an uncertain fate with the unpredictable Eveline. “Come on, Elvis.”

  The Malinois snorted his displeasure, but he heeded her call and headed for the door. When Sunny didn’t follow, Elvis returned to the hospital bed, leaning against the golden retriever. She pushed back. A zero sum game.

  “Good girl.” Deputy Pitts patted his devoted dog’s head with a limp hand. “Now go.”

  Sunny whined, licking his curled fingers.

  He pulled his hand away. “Go,” he said again, more harshly this time.

  “Sir,” Mercy began, not sure what to say. In the background, she heard Eveline on the phone, her voice growing louder, coming closer.

  “Take her now.” The old man stared at her, faded blue eyes wet with tears. “Before it’s too late.”

  “Sir.” Mercy slipped her hand around Sunny’s collar and guided her out of the farmhouse into the wind, Elvis on her heels. She opened the passenger door to the Jeep with one hand and held the dog with the other. Elvis leapt in without hesitation. Mercy picked up the reluctant retriever, who had to weigh around seventy pounds, grunting as she placed her on the seat next to the shepherd, and shut the door.

  Spotting Eveline on the porch, Mercy hustled around the vehicle, scrambled into her seat, and started the engine. Squealing down the drive and onto the county road as Eveline shouted after them, she headed south.

  Sunny barked all the way to Northshire.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Vermont Game Warden Troy Warner and his park ranger pal Gil Guerrette trudged along in companionable silence, the click of their snowshoes echoing through the forest. They were hiking through one of the most remote areas of the Green Mountain National Forest, and one of the most beautiful. Troy’s Newfoundland retriever mix Susie Bear scampered ahead, circling back to them from time to time whenever they zigged when she zagged. Troy and Gil were both in good shape, but they couldn’t keep up with the energetic Susie Bear, who loved the snow almost as much as she loved the hunt. The hulk of shiny black fluff was arguably the best search-and-rescue dog in Vermont, and she seemed to know they were on a mission, even though she had yet to hear the magic word Search.

  Spring may have been only a few weeks off according to the calendar, but it was still winter here in the forest. March was typically the state’s snowiest month, and the deep drifts were more than proof of that. Not to mention the wind, which howled through the woods, tossing bare branches and pine boughs alike.

  All of which made their task more difficult. Troy and Gil were on the lookout for Joey Colby, a young wildlife biologist and filmmaker from the University of Vermont. Colby was spending the winter tracking moose deep in the forest. He’d missed his daily check-in with his department head two days running. His professor called Gil, and Gil called Troy. They both knew how to read the woods, but Susie Bear was their secret weapon.

  Colby had been following a young moose calf navigating his first winter on his own. He was documenting his work on film, for all the world to see. The truth was, moose were in trouble in Vermont. After nearly going extinct in the mid-1800s, the moose population rebounded in the 1970s as abandoned farmlands went wild again and forest management practices changed. But now the moose were under the gun again, not so much from hunters but from loss of habitat, the scourge of winter ticks, and the insidious brainworm disease.

  “Colby knows what he is doing,” Gil told Troy. “He was here last year, too. Tracking another calf. She did not make it. Died in April, emaciated by ticks. The coyotes got what was left of her.”

  Troy shook his head. Warmer winters meant more ticks and more ticks meant more dead calves. The death rate for young moose was up as high as 70 percent these days.

  “And this year?”

  “He is tracking a new calf. The good news is, winter started early
this year.”

  “Less time for the little bloodsuckers to find hosts for the winter.”

  “Exactly. All we can do now is pray for a wicked long cold season.”

  The earlier winter sets in and the longer it lasts and the snowier it gets, the less harm the moose ticks could do. And the better the chances for New England’s favorite mammal to survive and thrive.

  “Colby’s no neophyte. What do you think happened to him?”

  “I do not know. Nothing good.” Gil pointed to a thinning of the trees ahead. “His last known campsite is in that clearing up there. With any luck, that will shed some light.”

  Susie Bear bound ahead of them, heading straight toward the little glen, squeezing between the snow-covered red spruces and disappearing from sight. Troy and Gil hurried after her, crunching along in their snowshoes at a faster clip now that their initial target was in sight.

  The wildlife biologist had set up a nice camp with a state-of-the-art cold-weather tent. There was a sled parked nearby.

  “Doesn’t seem to be anyone around.” Troy and Gil both examined the ground, looking for prints.

  “With this wind, we may not find any tracks,” said Gil.

  “That’s why we’ve got Susie Bear.”

  “I will check inside.” Gil stepped out of his snowshoes. He unzipped the tent and scooted in. Susie Bear bounced up to the opening, eager to follow the ranger, but Troy waved Susie Bear into a sit. There was only so much room in the tent, and she was a very big dog.

  “Good girl,” he said, and scratched between her ears while they waited for Gil to reappear.

  It wasn’t long before the ranger popped his head outside the tent. “Not much in here.”

  “No bedding, no gear?”

  “Nada. Just a few articles of random clothing at the bottom of his duffel.”

  “Weird.”

  Gil frowned. “Looks like someone raided his camp.”

  “Then where’s Colby?”