The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Read online

  “We can’t stop. We have to keep going.”

  “Where?”

  “North.”

  “What does ‘north’ mean? Is there a cabin that way or something, or a phone?”

  “We’re getting as far away from them as we can. Into the park.”

  Michelle slowed. “Look at this place. It’s all a mess, it’s tangled and…well, a mess. There aren’t any paths. It’s freezing.”

  And you in that two-thousand-dollar coat…complaining, Brynn reflected.

  “There’s a ranger station maybe four, five miles from here.”

  “Five miles!”

  “Shhh.”

  “That’s bullshit. We can’t walk five miles through this.”

  “You’re in good shape. You run, right?”

  “On a treadmill at my health club. Not in places like this. And which way do we go? I’m already lost.”

  “I know the general direction.”

  “The woods? I can’t!”

  “We don’t have any choice.”

  “You don’t understand…. I’m afraid of snakes.”

  “They’re more afraid of you, believe me.”

  Michelle displayed the crackers. “This isn’t going to be enough food. Do you know about hypoglycemia? Everyone thinks it’s nothing. But I could faint.”

  Brynn said firmly, “Michelle, there are men out there who want to kill us. Snakes and your blood sugar really come pretty low on the scale of problems here.”

  “I can’t do it.” The woman reminded Brynn of Joey’s first day at elementary school: he’d planted his feet and refused to go. It took two days for her to persuade him to attend. In fact, Brynn now recognized similar signs of hysteria in Michelle’s face. The young woman stopped walking altogether. Her eyes were wide and she gestured broadly with twitchy hands. “I shop at Whole Foods. I buy coffee at Starbucks. This isn’t me, this isn’t my world. I can’t do it!”

  “Michelle,” Brynn said gently, “it’ll be okay. It’s only a state park. Thousands of people come through here every summer.”

  “On the paths, the trails.”

  “And we’re going to find one.”

  “But people get lost. I saw this thing on TV. This couple got lost and they froze to death and the animals ate their bodies.”

  “Michelle—”

  “No, I don’t want to go! Let’s hide here. We’ll find a place. Please.” She looked as if she was going to cry.

  Brynn remembered that the poor woman had seen her friends shot down—and had nearly been killed herself. She tried to be patient. “No. That one man, at least, Hart, he’ll come after us as soon as he finds we tricked ’em with the boat. He won’t know for sure we came this way but he might guess.”

  Michelle looked back, her eyes zipping around in panic, her breath fast.

  “Okay?”

  Michelle ate another handful of crackers, not offering any to Brynn, and then shoved them back into her pocket. She gave a disgusted grimace. “All right. You win.”

  With one more glance back, the women started their trek, moving as fast as they could, picking their way around the tangles, many of which would be impossible to get through even with machetes. There were plenty of conifer woods, though, and it was possible to find flat routes unobstructed by steel-wool underbrush.

  They continued on, away from the houses, Michelle doing a fair job of keeping up the pace despite the limp. Brynn gripped her spear firmly, feeling both confident and ridiculous because of the weapon.

  Soon they’d covered another quarter mile, then a half.

  Brynn started and spun around. She’d heard a voice.

  But it was only Michelle, muttering to herself, her face ghostly in the blue moonlight. Brynn too had the habit of self-dialog. She’d lost her father to disease and a dear friend in the department to a drunk driver. And she’d lost a husband too. She had talked to herself during those times of sorrow, praying for strength or just plain rambling. For some reason, she’d found, words made pain less painful. She’d done the same just that afternoon, with Joey in the X-ray unit at the hospital. She couldn’t remember what she’d said then.

  They skirted scummy ponds choked with bog bean and cranberry. She was surprised to see a swath of moonlight illuminate a cluster of pitcher plants—a carnivore Brynn had learned about when helping Joey with a report for school. Frogs screeched urgently and birds gave mournful calls. It was too early in the season for mosquitoes, thank the Lord. Brynn was a magnet and in the summer wore citronella like perfume.

  Reassuring herself now as much as Michelle, Brynn whispered, “I’ve been to the park on two search-and-rescues here.” She’d volunteered for the assignments to put to use some of the expertise she’d picked up at the State Police tactical training seminars, which included an optional—and extremely exhausting and painful—mini–survival course.

  One of the two search-and-rescues here had actually become a very unpleasant body-recovery operation. But Brynn didn’t mention that.

  “I don’t know the place real well but I have a rough idea of the layout. The Joliet Trail’s near here someplace, no more than a mile or two. You know it?”

  Michelle shook her head, eyes on the bed of pine needles in front of her feet. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  “The trail’ll take us to that ranger station. It’ll be closed now but we could find a phone or a gun there.”

  The station was Brynn’s first choice. But, she went on to explain, if they missed the building or couldn’t break into it they could continue on the Joliet, which angled northeast till it crossed the Snake River. “We can follow the river east to Point of Rocks. That’s a good-sized town on the other side of the park. They’ll have stores—for a phone—and a public safety office of some kind. Probably part-time but we can wake ’em up. It’s a ways, six or seven miles, but we can follow the river and it’s pretty flat walking. The other option when we hit the Snake is to turn west. And climb the rocks along the Snake River Gorge. That’ll take us to the interstate by the bridge. There’s traffic all the time there. A trucker or somebody’ll stop for us.”

  “Climb the rocks,” Michelle muttered. “I’m afraid of heights.”

  So was Brynn (though that hadn’t stopped her rappelling down a sheer cliff face to a waiting keg of Old Milwaukee—the traditional graduation exercise in the State Police course). And the climb at the gorge would be steep and dangerous. The bridge was nearly one hundred feet above the river and the rocks were often nearly vertical faces. It was in that part of the park where the body the law officers had been searching for had been recovered. A young man had lost his footing. The fall was only twenty feet but he’d been impaled on a sharp tree limb. The coroner said it probably took him twenty minutes to die.

  To this day Brynn McKenzie was haunted by the image.

  As they moved from the pine into ancient forest—denser and slathered in darkness—Brynn tried to pick out the route that would be easiest on Michelle’s ankle. But the way was often impacted with rooty brush, tangles of saplings and vines, forcing them around. Some they just had to fight their way through.

  And some routes were so dim they avoided them completely for fear of missing a steep drop-off or deep bog.

  And always, reminders that they weren’t really alone. Bats zipped by, owls hooted. Brynn gasped when she trod on the end of a deer rib rack, which swung up and clapped her in the knee. She danced away from the bleached, chewed bone. The scarred skull of the animal was nearby.

  Michelle stared at the skeletal remains, eyes wide, without response.

  “Let’s go. It’s just bones.”

  They pushed through the tangled wilderness for another hundred yards. Suddenly Michelle stumbled, grabbed a branch to support herself and winced.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She ripped off her thin glove, staring at her hand. Two thorns from the branch had punctured her palm and broken off into her skin. Her eyes flushed with horror.

  “No
! no, it’s just blackberry. You’re fine. Here. Let me look.”

  “No! Don’t touch it.”

  But Brynn took the woman’s hand and flicked the candle lighter over the skin, examining the tiny wounds. “We just want to get them out so it doesn’t get infected. In five minutes you won’t feel a thing.”

  Brynn eased the thorns out of her skin and the woman winced, whimpering and staring at the growing dots of blood. Brynn pulled out the bottle of alcohol, dampened the edge of a sock with it and started to bathe the wounds. She couldn’t help notice the dark, artistic nails.

  “Let me do it,” Michelle said and dabbed at the skin. She handed back the sock and found a tissue in her pocket, pressed it onto the wound. By the time she lifted it away the bleeding had almost stopped.

  “How is it?”

  “It’s okay,” Michelle said. “You’re right. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  They continued on their route, heading in the direction that Brynn pointed.

  Sure, she thought, Hart would pursue them and they’d have to remain vigilant. But he’d have no idea where they were headed. The women could have gone in any direction except south to the county road—since they’d have to sneak around the killers to get there.

  With every passing yard, Brynn grew more confident. At least she knew something about the forest and where the trail ahead of them lay. The men did not. And even if Hart and his partner happened to choose this direction, the men would surely find themselves lost in ten minutes.

  BACK ON THE

  shore near the Feldman house Hart was looking over the GPS function on his BlackBerry. Then he consulted the map of the area they’d brought with them. “The Joliet Trail,” he announced.

  “What’s that?”

  “Where they’re headed.”

  “Ah,” Lewis said. “You think?”

  “Yep.” He held up the map. “We’re here.” He tapped a spot then moved his finger north. “That brown line’s the trail. It’ll take ’em right to that ranger station there.”

  Lewis was distracted. He was looking over the lake. “That was smart, I gotta say. What they did.”

  Hart didn’t disagree. Their short row into the lake had revealed that the women had propped up life vests to resemble bodies hunched down in the canoe and then shoved the boat into the water. The scream—at the sound of the shots—was ingenious. Had Brynn or Michelle uttered the sound? Brynn, he bet.

  Hart wasn’t used to having to out-think his opponents. Part of him liked the challenge but a bigger part liked being in control. The contests he preferred were those in which he had a pretty good idea that the outcome would be in his favor. Like working with ebony: the wood was temperamental—hard and brittle—and could split easily, wasting hundreds of dollars. But if you took your time, you were careful, you foresaw any potential problems, the end result was beautiful.

  What kind of challenge was Brynn McKenzie?

  Smelling the ammonia.

  Hearing the crack, crack, crack of her gun.

  Ebony, of course.

  His aching arm prodded him to think too: And what kind was Michelle?

  That would remain to be seen.

  “So you’re thinking of going after them?” Lewis asked. He opened his mouth and puffed out a bit of steam.

  “Yep.”

  “I gotta say, Hart. This isn’t what I planned on.”

  Putting it mildly.

  Lewis continued, “Everything’s changed. That bitch shooting you, trying to shoot me. The cop…You or me, in that bathroom, the ammonia trap. If it’d worked, one of us’d be blinded. And that shot in the house, the cop? Missed me by inches.”

  I can dodge bullets…

  Hart said nothing. He wasn’t riled up the way Lewis was. The women were just being true to their nature. Like that animal he’d seen. Of course they’d fight back.

  “So that’s what I’m thinking,” Lewis said. “I just want to get the hell out of here. She’s a cop, Hart. Lives ’round here. She knows this place. She’s halfway to that ranger station or something right now. They’ll have phones in the park…. So we’ve gotta get outa here now. Back to Milwaukee. Whoever that girl is, Michelle, she’s sure as hell not going to ID us. She’s not stupid.” He tapped his pocket, where her purse, containing her name and address, rested. “And the cop didn’t really get a good look at us. So, back to Plan A. Get to the highway, ’jack a car. Whatta you say?”

  Hart grimaced. “Well, Lewis, I am tempted. Yes, I am. But we can’t.”

  “Hmm. Well, I’m inclined to think otherwise.” Lewis was speaking softly now, more reasonable, less surly.

  “We have to get them.”

  “‘Have to’? Why? Where’s that written down? Look, you’re thinking I’m scared. Well, I’m not. Tonight, against two women? This’s nothing. Let me tell you a story. I did a bank job in Madison? Last year?”

  “Banks? Never done a bank.”

  “We got fifty thousand.”

  “That’s pretty good.” The average bank robbery take nationwide was $3,800. Another stat Hart knew: 97 percent of the perps were arrested within one week.

  “Yep, was. So. This guard wanted to be a hero. Had a backup gun on his ankle.”

  “He’d been a cop.”

  “What I figured. Exactly. Came out shooting. I covered the other guys. Right out in the open. Kept him down. I didn’t even crouch.” He laughed, shaking his head. “One of my crew, the driver, was so freaked he dropped the keys in the snow, took a couple minutes to find them. But I held that guard off. Even stayed upright while I reloaded, and we could hear sirens in the distance. But we got away.” He fell silent to let Hart digest this. Then: “I’m talking about what makes sense…. You stand your ground when you need to. You get the hell out when you need to. And then take care of ’em later.” Another tap of Michelle’s purse. “Nothing good’s going to come of this.” He repeated, “Everything’s changed.”

  A mournful call filled the moist air, a bird of some sort, Hart guessed. Waterfowl or owl or hawk, he couldn’t tell them apart. He squatted down, pushed his hair off his forehead. “Lewis, I’m thinking that nothing has changed, not really.”

  “Sure it has. The minute she tried to cap you, it all went to shit in there.” A nod back at the house and a skeptical glance.

  “But it’s shit we could’ve foreseen. We should’ve foreseen. Look, when you make a choice—signing on for this job, for instance—there’s a whole slew of consequences that can follow. Things could go left, they could go right. Or, what happened tonight, they could turn around and slug you in the gut….”

  Or shoot you in the arm.

  “Nobody forced me to live this kind of life. Or you either. But we chose it and that makes it our job to think everything through, figure out what could happen and plan for it. Every time I do a job I plan everything out, I mean every detail. I’m never surprised. Doing the job itself’s usually boring, I’ve been through it so often in my mind.”

  Measure twice, cut once.

  “Tonight? I figured out ninety-five percent of what could happen and planned for that. But what I didn’t bother to think about was the last five percent—that that Michelle was going to use me for target practice. But I should’ve.”

  The slim man, rocking on his haunches, said, “The Trickster.”

  “The what?” Hart asked.

  “My grandmother said when something went wrong, something you didn’t think could happen, it was the Trickster’s fault. She got it out of a kid’s book or something. I don’t remember. The Trickster was always hanging around looking for ways to make things go wrong. Like Fate or God or whatever. Except Fate could do you good things too. Like give you a winning lotto ticket. Or could make you stop for a yellow light, even if you would’ve gone through, and save you from getting T-boned by a garbage truck. And God would do things that were right, so you’d get what you deserved. But the Trickster? He was just there to mess you up.” He nodded again at the house. “Trickster paid u
s a visit in there.”

  “Trickster.” Hart liked that.

  “But that’s life sometimes, ain’t it, Hart? You miss that five percent. But so what? Best thing still might be to get the hell out of here, put it all behind us.”

  Hart rose. He winced as he accidentally reached his shot arm out to steady himself. He looked out at the lake. “Let me tell you a story, Lewis. My brother…younger’n me.”

  “You have a brother?” Lewis’s attention had turned from the house. “I’ve got two.”

  “Our parents both died about the same time. When I was twenty-five, my brother was twenty-two. I was kind of like a father figure. Well, even back then we were into this kind of stuff, you know. And my brother got this job one time, easy, just numbers. He was a runner mostly. He had to pick up some money and deliver it. Typical job. I mean, thousands of people do that shit every day, right? All over the world.”

  “They do.” Lewis was listening.

  “So I didn’t have anything going on at the moment and was helping him out. We picked up the money—”

  “This was Milwaukee?”

  “No. We grew up in Boston. We pick up the money and’re about to deliver it. But turns out we were going to be set up. The guy ran the numbers operation was going to clip us and let the cops find the bodies and some of the books and some of the money. The detectives’d think they closed up the operation.”

  “You two were fall guys.”

  “Yep. I had this sense something was wrong and we went around back of the pickup location and saw the muscle there. My brother and me, we took off. A few days later I found the guys hired to do the clip and took care of them. But the main guy just vanished. Word was he’d moved to Mexico.”

  Lewis grinned. “Scared of your bad ass.”

  “After six months or so I stopped looking for him. But it turns out he never went to Mexico at all. He’d been tracking us the whole time. One day he walks up to my brother and blows his head off.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Hart didn’t speak for a moment. “But see, Lewis, he didn’t kill my brother. I did. My laziness killed my brother.”