Fatal Mercy by Dan Padavona (hot novels to read .txt) 📕

head to toe as Gray helped Thomas lift the woman. Fighting the current, they carried her up the bank and laid her out on the grass. With the woman facing skyward, Gray knelt and performed the sign of the cross.

“That’s Cecilia Bond,” said Gray, wiping the water off his face.

“You know her?”

“She moved to Wolf Lake a decade ago. Kind woman. I used to see her at the Broken Yolk when I grab coffee in the morning.”

“Used to?”

Gray shrugged.

“I haven’t run into her in a year or two. I wonder if she fell ill. From the looks of her, she lost a lot of weight. Her cheekbones were never that drawn.”

Virgil eased down the bank. Two members from the county forensics team accompanied Virgil. Slight of build, the gray-haired sixty-year-old ME took slow, careful steps down to the trail.

“What do you have?” Virgil asked.

“A jogger spotted a woman in the river,” Gray said. “That’s Cecilia Bond. Her husband reported her missing last evening around eight o’clock.”

Thomas parted Cecilia’s matted hair and said, “Another laceration and more bruising along her temple.”

Gray pointed up the ridge to the overlook.

“It’s possible she fell off the platform and smashed her head on the rocks.”

Several large, jagged rocks jutted out of the river below the bank. Thomas searched for a blood smear, knowing the water would have washed it away.

“Or someone hit her.”

“That would turn this into a homicide. If she was sick, it’s not beyond reason she slipped off the platform and struck her head.”

Thomas rubbed his chin.

“She has another laceration on the back of her head. How could the back of her head and temple strike the rocks simultaneously?”

Gray pulled his lips tight. Wolf Lake had dealt with a serial killer three months ago. The sheriff didn’t want to accept another murderer was loose in the upscale village.

A confusion of shoe prints covered the trail. Thomas photographed the prints while a female forensics technician assessed whether she could take casts. With the number of joggers and hikers crossing the river trail, it seemed impossible they could pick out Cecilia’s assailant. Then again, perhaps Gray was right about Cecilia falling off the overlook. Given the distance from the platform to the river, a fall would have left bruising and lacerations, and could have broken the woman’s neck.

Thomas gave Virgil and his team room to work. While the ME examined the body, Gray supervised, and Thomas cleared away the onlookers. A half-hour later, the forensics team lifted Cecilia onto a stretcher and hauled the dead body up the ridge.

Thomas turned to Gray.

“What do we know about the husband, Duncan Bond?”

Gray stroked his mustache, still beaded with water droplets.

“He’s an eccentric.”

“How so?”

“He keeps to himself, and he spends too much time at St. Mary’s. The guy found religion,” Gray said, making air quotes around religion. “He committed his life to the church.”

“Isn’t that Father Josiah Fowler’s church?”

“Yep,” Gray said.

Thomas spotted the heat in Gray’s eyes when he mentioned Fowler.

“Do you believe Duncan Bond is capable of murder?”

“He’s weird, not a murderer. But I always suspect the spouse first.”

Thomas set his hands on his hips and strode to the riverbank. An orange kayak caught his attention. A mustached man paddled with the current, arrowing toward the bank. Waving at the man, Thomas shouted, “Bring the kayak to the bank!”

“What?”

It was difficult to hear over the roar of the river.

“Your kayak. Bring it ashore and get out of the water.”

The man nodded and stroked the water until the kayak angled toward them. Drenched from the thighs down, Thomas stepped into the current and helped the man.

“How often do you kayak on this river?”

The man slung the water off his face and climbed out. Gray lent his hand and led him out of the water.

“Two or three times a week. The rest of the time, I’m on Wolf Lake.”

The man seemed familiar to Thomas. He must have seen him on the lake.

“I’m Deputy Shepherd, and this is Sheriff Gray.”

“Jasper May,” the man said, shaking their hands.

“Were you on the river yesterday between the hours of three and eight o’clock?”

Jasper bobbed his head up and down.

“Six-thirty. Work ran late, so I didn’t get to the river until after dinner.”

“Did you see a woman in her early sixties walking along the river?”

Jasper crinkled his eyes in thought.

“Yeah. Light-haired woman. I suppose she was around that age. But I didn’t stop to talk.”

“Did she climb to the platform or walk along the ridge?”

“Not that I noticed. She walked the dirt trail along the water. The one we’re standing on.”

Thomas glanced at the sheriff. That punched a hole in Gray’s theory.

“Was anyone else on the trail when you rode past?”

“Two joggers.”

“Did you recognize them?” Gray asked.

“No. A couple women in their thirties or forties.”

“Any men on the trail?”

Jasper pondered the question.

“Not that I recall.” After a pause, Jasper snapped his fingers. “You know, there was a guy. He wasn’t on the trail, though. A fisher sitting on the bank. I remember because he’d cast his line so far into the water, I almost rode through it. The guy cursed at me, but I kept going.”

“Any idea who the fisher was?”

“Sure,” Jasper said. His mouth twisted. “He hangs out at Hattie’s and gets sloppy drunk. I think his name is Garrick.”

“Garrick Tillery?” asked Gray, straightening his shoulders.

“Yeah, that’s the guy.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Wednesday, July 15th

12:40 p.m.

 

Scents of toast and bacon rolled past the screen door as Deputy Aguilar approached Garrick Tillery’s residence. Lambert eyed the windows.

“Weren’t we just here?” Aguilar asked, glancing down the road at Kay Ramsey’s house.

“Trouble seems to be everywhere on this street.”

The Wolf Lake residential neighborhood appeared like any other in the village—single-family homes with a couple vehicles in the driveways, kids riding bicycles and running from one yard to the next. But Aguilar’s skin tingled as they climbed the stoop to the Tillery house. Potted flowers greeted them outside the white two-story. Aguilar heard grease crackling on the stove, the clink of silverware.

“So this guy raped a minor. But