Lori Armstrong - Merciless

Or… I could look for a spare set of keys. Remembering the big key ring Sheldon carried at the archives, I knew he had at least one extra set. Where would I keep them?

In my office. In a place where they’d be clearly marked, but out of plain sight. I returned to Sheldon’s bedroom and started opening drawers in his desk.

Bingo. In the back of a filing cabinet was a metal box containing keys. And score, they were all marked. I snagged the sets for the spare bedroom and the garage.

The padlock to the bedroom clicked open easily.

In hindsight, I wished it hadn’t worked at all. Because what I found behind that door was beyond disturbing.

I’d kept my gun out and swept the room. At first, I thought I’d walked in on a sleeping man. Easy to do with a human shape stretched out on the bed with the covers pulled up. But something about the too-pale, too-still form resting atop the pillow bothered me. I stepped closer.

My breath stalled.

Not only was the guy on the bed dead, but he was mummified. Mummified.

Holy shit.

I’d never seen anything like this.

The top of the head hadn’t been wrapped in gauze, so graying black hair stuck up in dull tufts. The strands looked as if they’d disintegrate upon contact. It also looked like an entire can of shellac had been poured on the face and neck. The mouth was open, covered in gauze, in a parody of The Scream.

The star quilt had been tucked beneath the man’s mummified neck, blocking the rest of the body from view. I knew I had to pull that quilt back. I studied the lump under the covers for a solid minute to make sure nothing was moving, like rats or mice feasting on rotten flesh and living inside a dead-body cavity. Critters that would shriek at me with high-pitched outrage that I’d discovered their secret snack and home combination.

Inhaling deeply, I grabbed the corner of the quilt hanging on the floor. I hesitated and felt like a total pussy for it. What was my problem? I had no issue dealing with soldiers whose innards were dragging in the dirt after being gut shot, so why was I hesitating when this guy was already dead?

Just jerk it back like a bandage.

So I did.

The rest of the body was wrapped in gauze. The arms were secured alongside the body, not wrapped separately. The legs were wrapped as one unit, too. The entire form held a shiny glaze, like this was a kid’s art project. I half feared if I looked closely, I’d see glitter. But I knew it wasn’t papier mâché crafted to resemble a human when I noticed the feet hadn’t been wrapped. A greasy, soiled spot on the sheet gave the impression of decayed flesh beneath the skeletal bones.

Fucking nasty. I shuddered.

The body didn’t smell like rotten flesh, but there was a sour herblike odor. I had no way of knowing how long this dude-who I presumed to be Harold War Bonnet-had been dead.

No wonder Sheldon kept his house locked up tight.

Why would he do this?

Some kind of loneliness?

No, Sheldon hadn’t struck me as the sentimental type, if mummifying your relative’s body could be considered sentimental.

Another thought turned my stomach.

He’d done this for money.

With no one the wiser about his uncle’s death, Sheldon had kept collecting his uncle’s Social Security checks and tribal pension checks after the man had died.

Another shudder rippled down my spine. What if Sheldon had killed his uncle? He could’ve done it five years ago, right after he’d taken over the archives job. Officer Ferguson mentioned she hadn’t seen Harold War Bonnet for a long time.

Sheldon War Bonnet was one sick puppy. This creepy asshole had a lot more to answer for now than stealing a goddamn ceramic mushroom out of my garden.

I left the mummified body exposed and backed out of the room. No sense in trying to cover my tracks. I swept the perimeter of the house one last time for signs of a basement or a crawl space but found nothing. I unlocked the back door and left it wide open. Same with the front door. I shoved the token he’d stolen from my garden in my outside jacket pocket.

As I stood in front of the door to the garage, manipulating the lock, I tried to figure out a way to tell Turnbull what I’d found here and why I hadn’t reported my suspicions right away.

Mainly because I hadn’t had any suspicions about the man. The archivist hadn’t been on my radar at all. He’d seemed the mild-mannered type, content with his (boring) role in life. Curious, but no more curious than Margene, the snoopy gossip at the Q-Mart. And I hadn’t considered her a suspect, either.

Did I consider Sheldon War Bonnet a suspect in the murders because I’d found a mummified body in his house?

It certainly put him on my bring-in-for-questioning list.

I imagined my conversation with Agent Turnbull about the situation: So… Fergie swore this Sheldon guy had a mad crush on me, so I thought I’d check it out. You know: Sneak onto his property. Break into his house to see if he’d penned love letters to me. Find out if, as an amateur herbalist, he’d been concocting a love potion that would make me fall madly in love with him. And during my search for those incriminating items, can you believe I found his uncle? Mummified.

Yeah. That was a feasible and reasonable explanation.

Not.

The padlock opened, and I removed it from the latch. I turned the doorknob with my left hand, keeping my gun in my right.

Damn dark in here.

I paused and listened.

Nothing.

I patted along the wall until I found a light switch, then I flipped it on.

What I saw was beyond déjà vu.

Pictures were spread out on a long wooden bench. Random pictures-except they were all of me, copies of the ones I’d found in my truck yesterday. But there were more. Most photos were recent, but… where had he found a picture of me in my uniform? I peered at it more closely and wanted to throw up. He’d taken this out of my dad’s office.

Not only had he been sneaking around outside my house, he’d been inside. When?

Whenever he wanted-I’d forgotten to lock the doors since Dawson had been in the hospital. He could’ve dropped food off, just like my friends and neighbors had, the day after the accident. Word had spread fast, and if anyone had questioned him about who he was, he wouldn’t have had to lie. I had been working with him.

When had this gone beyond crush behavior? Sheldon had always been too… earnest and helpful. And now I realized it hadn’t been a coincidence when he’d shown up that night at Stillwell’s, or when he’d just happened to be walking past my truck yesterday. He’d broken in and left an envelope of disturbing images, then he’d hung around to see my reaction. Why? In hopes that I’d confide my fears in him?

Fuck that. Fuck him.

I gathered all the pictures, methodically searching every nook and cranny for more. On the very bottom shelf, I found a photo printer with a memory card still in it. I took the memory card and the camera hidden behind the printer.

I’d really believed that Latimer Elk Thunder had left those pictures as a warning. If I was that far off base with him, how far off base had I been with everything else? What else was Sheldon capable of?

Maybe you don’t want to know.

But I’d gone this far. I pulled back the heavy plastic curtain and stepped to the other side of the garage.

My gaze scanned the wall. A whole lot of dried herbs hung from hooks in the ceiling. How had I forgotten Sheldon had told me he was an herbalist? I had no idea what foxglove looked like, but I’d bet the ranch it was up there.

I squinted at the rafters and froze. Those hooks. I recognized them. It was the exact same type of hook used on Penny Pretty Horses. Yes, they were common hunting tools around here… but coupled with the herbs… I spun around and saw a collapsible cot. Leather restraints hung from both sides, top and the bottom. Bloodied restraints. Bloodied ropes.