CHAPTER THREE
The Deton police station was about what Kate had expected. It was tucked away on the far end of the main stretch along the highway, a plain brick building with an American flag billowing at the top. A few patrol cars sat parked along the side of it, their meager numbers a reflection of the town itself.
Inside, a large bullpen area took up most of the space. A large desk sat at the front, unattended. Actually, the place looked basically deserted. They followed Barnes to the back of the building, down a thin hallway that boasted only five rooms, one of which was labeled by a placard on the door with Sheriff Barnes. Barnes led them to the last room on the hall, a very small room set up as a conference room of sorts. An officer sat at the table inside, rifling through a small stack of documents.
“Agents, meet Officer Foster,” Barnes said.
Officer Foster was young man, probably creeping up on thirty years of age. He wore his hair in a buzzcut and had a scowl on his face. Kate could tell that he was a no-nonsense officer. He would not be cracking jokes to ease any tension and probably wouldn’t bother with small talk to get to know the agents sitting in front of him.
Kate decided that she liked him right away.
“Officer Foster has basically served as the hub for this case ever since we got that call from Pastor Poulson,” Barnes explained. “Any piece of information that has come through here has gone through his ears or eyes and he’s added it to the case files. Any questions you have, he can probably answer.”
“That’s some lofty praise,” Foster said, “but I can certainly do my best.”
“Well, what do we have on information regarding who all three of the Fullers spoke with—aside from one another—before the murders occurred?” Kate asked.
“Alvin Fuller spoke with an old friend of his from high school as he was checking out at the Citgo out on Highway 44,” Foster said. “He was coming home from work, stopped by to grab a six-pack of beer, and they ran into each other. The friend says they simply chatted about work and family. Very surface-level stuff just to seem polite. The friend said Alvin did not seem strange in any way.
“As for Wendy Fuller, the last person to speak to her other than her family was a co-worker. Wendy worked at the little shipping warehouse just outside of town. The co-worker in question said the last thing they spoke about was how Wendy was concerned that Mercy was starting to show a lot of interest in boys. Mercy had apparently had her first kiss recently and Wendy was afraid of what that could mean. But other than that, things seemed pretty much the same as always.”
“And what about Mercy?” DeMarco asked.
“The last person she spoke with was her best friend, a local girl named Anne Pettus. We’ve spoken with Anne twice, just to make sure she told the same story. She said the last conversation they had was about a boy named Charlie. According to Anne, this Charlie kid was not Mercy’s boyfriend. Anne also told us something that sort of bumps up against what her parents might have known about her.”
“Like a lie?” Kate asked.
“Yes. According to Wendy’s co-worker, they spoke about this supposed first kiss. But according to Anne Pettus, that’s not true. Apparently, Mercy had her first kiss a very long time ago.”
“Was she promiscuous?”
“Anne would not say as much. She just said that she knew for a fact that Mercy had done much more than kiss a boy.”
“In regards to her disappearance, where does the evidence lean at this point?” Kate asked. “That she was taken or that she left of her own accord?”
“Unless the two of you found something new in the house, there is no evidence to suggest that Mercy was taken against her will. If anything, we have small pieces of circumstantial evidence that suggests she might have left on her own.”
“What sort of evidence?”
“According to Anne, Mercy had a small amount of cash saved up. She even knew where she kept it: at the bottom of her sock drawer. We checked and there was about three hundred dollars hidden there. That actually goes against her leaving on her own because she would have taken that money, right? However, the last thing put on Mercy’s credit card was a full tank of gas. She got it about two or three hours before her parents’ bodies were found. Before that, two days prior, she purchased a few travel-sized cosmetics at a Target in Harrisonburg: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant. We have that in her credit card history as well as confirmation from Anne Pettus, who went shopping with her that day.”
“Did she happen to ask Mercy why she needed travel-sized cosmetics?” Kate asked.
“She did. Mercy said she was just low on stuff at home and hated to feel like a child asking her parents to buy her stuff.”
“And no known boyfriend?” Kate asked.
“Not according to Anne. And she seemed to know just about everything about Mercy.”
“I’d like to speak with Anne,” Kate said. “Do you think she’d be open to it or are we going to get pushback?”
“She’d be very open to it,” Foster said.
“He’s right,” Barnes added. “She’s even called us a few times in between questioning to see if we have any new information. She’s been very helpful. So have her folks, letting us talk to her. If you want, I can call and set something up.”
“That would be fantastic,” Kate said.
“She’s a strong girl,” Foster said. “But between you and me…I think she might be hiding something. Maybe nothing big. I think she just wants to make sure she doesn’t convey anything bad about her missing best friend.”
That’s understandable, Kate thought.
But she also knew that the fact that they were best friends would be more than enough reason to hide something.
***
Anne’s parents had understandably allowed her to stay home from school. When Kate and DeMarco arrived at the Pettus residence—located down a road very similar to the one the Fullers had lived on—the parents were standing at the front door, waiting. Kate could see them both through the glass screen door even as she parked the car in their U-shaped driveway.
Mr. and Mrs. Pettus stepped out onto their porch to meet the agents. The father kept his arms crossed, a sad look on his face. The mother looked tired, her eyes bloodshot and her posture worn down.
After a quick round of introductions, Mr. and Mrs. Pettus cut right to the chase. They were not rude or insisting, but simply concerned parents who did not intend to put their daughter through any unnecessary hell.
“She seems to get better each time she talks about it,” Mrs. Pettus said. “I think as more time passes, she starts to understand that her best friend is not necessarily dead. I think the more the idea that she might simply be missing sinks in, she wants to be of more help.”
“That being said,” Mr. Pettus added, “I would greatly appreciate it if you kept the questions brief and as hopeful as possible. Make no mistake…we won’t interfere as you question her, but if we hear anything at all that seems to upset her, your time with our daughter is over.”
“That’s more than fair,” Kate said. “And you have my word that we will tread carefully.”
Mr. Pettus nodded and finally opened the front door for them. When they stepped inside, Kate saw Anne Pettus right away. She was sitting on the couch with her hands clasped between her knees. Like her mother, she looked tired and worn out. It then occurred to Kate that teenage girls tended to bond rather strongly with their best friends. She was unable to imagine the kind of emotions this young girl must be going through.
“Anne,” Mrs. Pettus said. “These are the agents we told you were coming. Are you still okay with speaking to them?”
“Yes, Mom. I’m fine.”
Both parents gave Kate and DeMarco a little nod as they sat down on either side of their daughter. Kate noticed that Anne didn’t start to truly look uncomfortable until her parents flanked her.
“Anne,” Kate said, “we will keep this quick. We’ve been filled in on everything you’ve already told the police, so we won’t ask you to repeat all of those things again. Well, with one exception. I’d like to know about the shopping trip you and Mercy took out to Harrisonburg. Mercy purchased several travel-sized things, right?”
“Yeah. I thought it was weird. She just said she was running out of that stuff at home. Toothpaste, a small toothbrush, deodorant, things like that. I asked why she purchased them and not her parents but she sort of brushed it off.”
“Do you feel she was happy at home?”
“Yeah. But I mean…she’s fifteen. She loves her parents but hates it around here. She’s been talking about moving away from Deton ever since we were ten years old.”
“Any idea why?” DeMarco asked.
“It’s boring,” Anne said. She looked over at her parents apologetically. “I mean, I’m a just a bit older than Mercy; I’m sixteen and have a license and she and I go here and there sometimes. Shopping. The movies. But you have to drive like an hour to do any of that stuff. Deton is dead.”
“Do you know where she wanted to move?”
“Palm Springs,” Anne said with a laugh. “She saw some show where people were partying in Palm Springs and thought it was pretty.”
“Did she have any particular college she had her eye on?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, at the little thing they had for us at school, she looked pretty hard at material from UVA and Wake Forest. But…yeah, I don’t know.”
“Can you tell us anything about Charlie?” Kate asked. “We saw her name in her journal and know they were at least familiar enough to share a quick kiss between classes. But the police told us that you said Mercy doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“She doesn’t.”
Kate noticed right away how Anne’s tone shifted a bit at this comment. Her posture seemed to go a little rigid as well. Apparently, this was a sensitive topic. But, being that she was only sixteen and her parents were both sitting beside her, Kate knew she could not directly accuse the girl of lying. She’d have to take another approach. Maybe there were some dark secrets concerning her friend that she simply did not want to voice.
“So are she and Charlie just friends?” Kate asked.
“Sort of. I mean, I think they maybe liked each other but just didn’t want to date. You know?”
“Did she and Charlie ever do anything other than kiss that you know of?”
“If they did, Mercy never told me. And she tells me everything.”
“Do you know if there were any secrets she was keeping from her parents?”
Again, Kate noticed an uneasiness settle across Anne’s face. It was brief and barely there, but Kate recognized it from countless cases in the past—particularly where teenagers were involved. A quick dart of the eyes, shifting uncomfortably in their seat, either answering right away without thinking about their answer or taking far too much time to come up with an answer.
“Again, if she did, she never told me.”
“What about a job?” Kate asked. “Was Mercy working anywhere?”
“Not recently. She was working like ten hours a week as a tutor for middle school kids a few months back. Algebra, I think. But they shut that down because there weren’t enough kids interested in getting the help.”
“Did she enjoy that?” DeMarco asked.
“I guess so.”
“No horror stories from when she was tutoring?”
“None that she told me.”
“But you feel confident that Mercy told you everything about her life, right?” DeMarco asked.
Anne looked slightly uncomfortable at the question. Kate wondered if it was perhaps the first time she’d been questioned in such a confrontational way—questioning something she had spoken as truth.
“I think so,” Anne said. “We were…we are best friends. And I say are because she’s still alive. I know it. Because if she’s dead…”
The comment hung in the air for a moment. Kate could see that the emotion on Anne’s face was real. Based on her expression, she could tell that girl would start crying soon. And if it came to that, Kate felt certain her parents would ask them to leave. It meant they likely didn’t have much time—and that meant that Kate was going to have become a bit of a bully if she hoped to get some answers.
“Anne, we want to get to the bottom of this. And, like you, we are working under the assumption that Mercy is still alive. But, if I can be honest with you, with missing persons cases, time is the enemy. The more time that passes, the smaller our chances of finding her become. So please…if there is anything you might have been reluctant to tell the local Deton authorities, it’s important that you tell us. I know in a town this small, you worry about what others will think and—”
“I think that’s enough,” Mr. Pettus said. He got to his feet and walked toward the door. “I don’t appreciate you implying that our daughter has been hiding something. And you can look at her and tell that she’s starting to get upset.”
“Mr. Pettus,” DeMarco said. “If Anne is—”
“We’ve been more than fair about letting her speak with the authorities, but we’re done here. Now, please…leave.”
Kate and DeMarco shared a defeated look as they got to their feet. Kate made about three steps for the door before she was stopped by Anne’s voice.
“No…wait.”
All four adults in the room turned toward Anne. There were tears rolling down her cheeks and a stern kind of understanding in her eyes. She looked at her parents for a moment and then quickly away, as if ashamed.
“What is it?” Mrs. Pettus asked her daughter.
“Mercy does have a boyfriend. Sort of. But it’s not Charlie. It’s this other guy…and she never told anyone because if her parents found out, they would have gone nuts.”
“Who is it?” Kate asked.
“It’s this guy that lives out near Deerfield. He’s older…seventeen.”
“And they were dating?” DeMarco asked.
“I don’t think it was dating. They were sort of seeing each other. But when they got together, I think…well, I think it was just physical. Mercy liked it because there was this older guy giving her attention, you know?”
“And why would her parents not approve?” Kate asked.
“Well, the age thing for one. Mercy is fifteen and this guy is almost eighteen. But he’s sort of bad news. He dropped out of high school, runs with a rough crowd.”
“Do you know if the relationship was sexual?” Kate asked.
“She never told me. But I think it might have been because whenever I would joke with her and tease her about it, she’d get all quiet.”
“Anne,” Mr. Pettus said. “Why did you not tell the police?”
“Because I don’t want people thinking bad of Mercy. She’s…she’s my best friend. She’s kind and nice and…this guy is scum. I don’t understand why she liked him.”
“What’s his name?” Kate asked.
“Jeremy Branch.”
“You say he’s a dropout. Do you know what he does for a job?”
“Nothing, I don’t think. Tree work here and there, like cutting limbs and helping logging crews. But according to Mercy, he sort of just sits around his older brother’s house and drinks most of the day. And I don’t know for sure, but I think he sells drugs.”
Kate almost felt sorry for Anne. The looks on the faces of her parents made it clear that she would be getting a stern talking to when Kate and DeMarco were gone. Knowing this, Kate walked over to Anne and sat in the place her father had been sitting only a minute before.
“I know this was hard for you,” Kate said. “But you did the right thing. You’ve given us a lead and now maybe we can get to the bottom of things. Thank you, Anne.”
With that, she gave a polite nod to Anne’s parents and showed herself out. On the way to the car, DeMarco pulled out her phone. “You know where Deerfield is?” she asked.
“About twenty minutes deeper into the woods,” Kate said. “If you thought Deton was small, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
“I’ll call Sheriff Barnes and see if we can get an address.”
She was doing exactly that as they got back into the car. Kate felt a sudden feeling of energy wash over her. They had a lead, the involvement of the local PD, and most of the day still ahead of them. As she pulled out of the Pettuses’ driveway, she couldn’t help but feel just a little hopeful.
CHAPTER FOUR
Although DeMarco had gotten a very clear address from Barnes, Kate couldn’t help but wonder if Barnes had been wrong or if something had been lost in the transfer of communication. She saw the address five minutes after passing into the Deerfield town limits, plastered on the side of a dingy mailbox in black letters. But, like most everything else in Deerfield, Virginia, everything beyond the mailbox was open field and forest.
Roughly two feet from the mailbox, she saw the sketch-like lines of what she assumed was a driveway. Weeds had sprouted up along the side, hiding most of the entrance. She turned into the driveway and found herself on a narrow dirt road that led to a wider open space several yards ahead. She guessed she was looking into a large front yard that had simply not seen a mower in a very long time. There were three cars, two of which looked like total losses, parked in the yard. They were positioned along a dirt strip that served as the end of the driveway.
A few feet away from the cars, tucked not too far away from the tree line of the expansive forest beyond, was a doublewide trailer. It was the type that was decorated very much like a house from the outside and, if it had been properly cared for, would look like a rather nice place. But the front porch looked slightly slanted, one of the railings having fallen completely off. There was also a loose gutter on the right side of the house and, of course, the savagely overgrown yard.
Kate and DeMarco parked behind the junked cars and slowly made their way to the house. The grass, which was mainly weeds, came up to Kate’s knees.
“I feel like I’m on some deranged safari,” DeMarco said. “Got a machete?”
Kate only chuckled, her eyes on the front door. Stereotypes and Anne Pettus’s information made her feel like she already knew what they would find inside: Jeremy Branch and his older brother, sitting around doing nothing. The place would probably smell like dust and mild garbage, maybe even like marijuana. There would be beer bottles scattered round cheap furniture, all of which would be pointed at a relatively nice television set. She’d seen the set-up countless times before, particularly when it came to young freeloaders living in rural areas.
They made their way up to the porch and Kate knocked on the door. She could hear the murmur of music coming from inside, something heavy but at a low volume. She also heard heavy footsteps approaching the door. When it opened several seconds later, she was greeted by a young-looking man dressed in a tank top and a pair of khaki shorts. A five o’clock shadow bordered his face. His entire left arm was covered in tattoos and both ears were pierced.
He smiled at the sight of the two women on his porch at first but then the reality of the situation seemed to catch up with him. It wasn’t just two women—it was two women dressed in a professional manner with serious looks on their faces.
“Who are you?” he asked.
DeMarco showed her badge, taking a step closer to the door. “Agents DeMarco and Wise,” she said. “We were hoping to get a word with Jeremy Branch.”
The young man looked legitimately confused and slightly scared. He took a small step back away from the door, looking back and forth between them with caution. “That’s…well, that’s me. But what do you need me for?”
“We assume you’ve heard the news about a girl over in Deton by now,” Kate said. “A girl by the name of Mercy Fuller.”
The look on his face told Kate all she needed to know. Without saying a word, Jeremy all but confirmed that he knew Mercy. He nodded and then looked back into the trailer, maybe for assistance from his older brother.
“Can you confirm that for me?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, I heard. She went missing. Her parents were killed, right?”
“Right. Mr. Branch, can we please come in and talk for a moment?”
“Well, it’s not my place. It belongs to my brother. And I don’t know if he…”
“I don’t know if you know how this works or not,” Kate said. “We’d like to come in and chat. We can do it here or, based on what we’ve heard about you, we can do it at the police station over in Deton. It’s your choice.”
“Oh,” he said. The kid looked absolutely cornered, like a threatened animal looking for a way out. “Well, then, I guess I can—”
He then interrupted himself by slamming the door in their faces. After the thunderous slam and a quick jerk back from the unexpected action, Kate could hear quick footfalls in the house.
“He’s on the run,” Kate said.
But before she could open the door again, DeMarco was already leaping down from the porch and heading to the back of the trailer. Kate drew her sidearm, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
She heard just a few more footsteps from further in the trailer and then the sound of another door opening. A back door, Kate thought. Hopefully DeMarco will cut him off.
Kate raced through the house, finding that her assumptions were right. There was a very faint aroma of pot, mixed with the smell of spilled beer. As she ran through the kitchen, she entered a hallway that led back toward two bedrooms. There, at the end of the hall, a back door was still wobbling in its frame from someone having just run out of it. She sprinted to the door and pushed it open, ready to attack if necessary. But she had seen the fear in Jeremy’s eyes. He was not going to attack at all; he had every intention of outrunning them. And if he made it to the woods no more than fifteen feet away from the back door, he might very well be able to do it.
She saw him, streaking toward the tree line, but then she also saw DeMarco. She was closing in from the left side of the house. She wasn’t bothering to draw her weapon or to scream for Jeremy to stop. Kate was astounded by just how fast her partner was, barreling after Jeremy at a speed that easily bested the teenager’s.
She caught up to him just as Jeremy had reached the first line of trees that led into the forest. DeMarco reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around to face her. In doing so, Jeremy ended up spinning like a top, making an entire three-hundred-sixty-degree spin before losing his balance and falling to the ground.
Kate hurried down a shaky set of back steps and joined DeMarco, helping her to handcuff Jeremy Branch.
“When you run,” Kate said, “it makes us think you have something to hide. And you also just made our choice easier. We’ll be talking to you down at the station.”
Jeremy Branch had nothing to say to this. He panted heavily as DeMarco hauled him to his feet with his hands cuffed behind his back. He looked bewildered and out of sorts as they walked him to their car. And when he looked nervously back toward the trailer, Kate was pretty sure she’d find enough suspicious evidence to get Jeremy and his brother in quite a bit of trouble, even aside from the disappearance of Mercy Fuller.
***
The search inside the house did not take long. While DeMarco remained outside, Kate scoured the place and within fifteen minutes, had found more than enough to get the Branch brothers into a lot of trouble.
Half a pound of cocaine had been found in one of the bedrooms, along with half a dozen ecstasy pills. In the other bedroom, there were several plastic baggies of pot, another dozen ecstasy pills, and a few containers of prescription pain medicine. The real kicker had come when Kate had found a small black notebook beneath the bed of the second bedroom. It looked to be a tally book of sorts, recording who owed money and for what.
She also figured out that the first bedroom she’d checked was Jeremy Branch’s. She knew this because of a rather provocative picture sitting on his bedside, featuring himself and Mercy Fuller, who was mostly undressed. But she could find no journals, no laptop, nothing that might lend clues as to his involvement in her disappearance or the deaths of her parents.
She did find one thing of note, though. Something that answered at least one question. In the small bathroom just off of Jeremy’s bedroom, Kate found a new travel-sized toothpaste, female deodorant, and a new miniature-sized toothbrush. Apparently, Mercy had bought those things to keep here, trying to cover up any traces of having been physical with a boy before she went home.
She headed back outside, wading through the tall grass for the car. “All of the travel-sized stuff is in Jeremy’s bathroom. Apparently, Mercy was keeping it all here.”
“That’s…cute, I guess?”
“Or a bit obsessive,” Kate suggested as she got behind the wheel. “Also, we now know one of the reasons he ran.”
From the back, Jeremy spoke up, his voice panicked and ringed with fear. “All of that stuff is my brother’s.”
“So he was just keeping some of it in your room, then?”
“Yeah, he sells it and…and…”
“Save your wind for the station,” Kate said. “Truth be told, the drugs are only secondary right now.”
“I had nothing to do with Mercy or her parents,” he said. “I swear.”
“I hope not,” Kate said as she started the car forward. “But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”