The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Read online

  A snap sounded behind them.

  Loud.

  Michelle gasped.

  Both women tensed, rising to a crouch from their knees. Brynn slipped the compass away and grabbed the spear.

  Another snap and a rustle of footsteps.

  Brynn squinted until her cheek screamed in pain. But she couldn’t see anything.

  Was it the killers?

  “What? Do you—?”

  “Shhh.”

  Something was moving, circling them. Then stopped. Moved again.

  Snap…

  Then it vanished.

  A moment later, from their right, came another snap, a shuffle of leaves. They spun suddenly in that direction. Brynn could vaguely make out a shadowy form, rocking back and forth.

  It wasn’t the men. In fact it wasn’t a human. Brynn observed that it was an animal, about the size of a German shepherd.

  Brynn believed it was staring at them with shoulders tensed and hackles high.

  Michelle gasped and gripped Brynn’s arm.

  Was it a mountain lion? The last one in Wisconsin had reportedly been shot a hundred years ago. But every year there were supposed sightings. You’d see coyotes from time to time. They were timid, but rabid ones, their minds melting, had strolled right into tents and attacked campers. Lynx weren’t unheard of either.

  But this seemed too big for that. She decided it was a gray wolf, which were being reintroduced into the state. She didn’t know if they’d attack humans but the eerie, probing face—almost human—was unsettling.

  Had Michelle and Brynn come close to the creature’s lair? Were there pups to be protected? A crazed mother was the worst of enemies, Keith, an avid hunter, had told her.

  A flash of anger burned within her. They didn’t need another enemy tonight. She gripped the spear firmly and stood up. She strode forward, between Michelle and the creature.

  “What’re you doing? Don’t leave me.”

  Brynn thought: Don’t hesitate. Keep going.

  The animal’s head cocked and its eyes caught light from the lopped-off moon.

  Brynn kept walking, moving faster, hunched over.

  Still staring their way, the animal backed up then turned and receded into the night. Brynn stopped and returned to the young woman, who was staring at her. “Jesus,” Michelle said.

  “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t the animal she was referring to. “Are you all right?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Me?” the deputy asked. “Sure. Why?”

  “You were…you were making this noise. I thought you couldn’t breathe or something.”

  “Noise?”

  “Like, growling. It was scary.”

  “Growling?” Brynn was aware of breathing hard, teeth set tightly together. She wasn’t aware that she’d made a noise.

  Queen of the Jungle…

  She gave an awkward laugh and they continued on. Their route led them into a ravine, the rocks and trees along the side ensnared with vines, and the floor covered with patches of poison ivy and vinca. Boggy pools too, surrounded by mushrooms and fungus. They pushed through it all, exhausted, and struggled up the other side, using saplings and sandstone outcroppings for hand-and footholds.

  At the top they stumbled onto a trail.

  It wasn’t wide—about four feet—and was overgrown from disuse during the winter months but it was heaven compared with what they’d been slogging through since fleeing the Feldmans’ house.

  “Is this it?” Michelle asked.

  They found their answer only thirty feet away, a large wooden sign:

  PERKINSTOWN 64 MILES.

  DULUTH, MN 187 MILES

  CAMP RESPONSIBLY ON THE JOLIET TRAIL

  ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES

  “HOW MUCH TIME

  do you think it bought us?” Lewis asked. Referring to the conversation with Graham Boyd, Brynn’s husband.

  “Hard to say.”

  They’d come miles through the underbrush, adjusting their course occasionally after consulting the GPS, Google Earth and the paper map as they made their way north.

  “So that was why you turned it on, her phone?”

  “Right.” Though just after the conversation he’d removed the battery so the police couldn’t trace it. “I’ve been waiting for that. Wanted to hold out for as long as we could. Now we put him at ease. He’ll go to sleep and won’t worry until three or four when he wakes up in an empty bed. By then they’ll both be dead and buried.”

  “He believed you?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  As they walked on, Hart was wondering about her husband, somebody married to a woman like Brynn…what would he be like? Low voice, seemed smart, well-spoken, wasn’t drunk. He wondered if the man’s words had contained clues that might help him find and kill her more efficiently.

  Not really.

  Still, he kept replaying the conversation. It fascinated him.

  Two different last names. Didn’t surprise him that Brynn had kept her maiden name.

  Graham…The man she slept with, the man she shared a life with. Unusual name. Where did it come from? Was he conservative, liberal? Religious? What did he do for a living? Hart was interested in the relief that had filled his voice. Something seemed a bit off about it. Hart didn’t know what to make of that. Yeah, relieved…but another emotion too.

  He wished he’d gotten a better look at her in the Feldmans’ driveway. Pretty enough, he recalled. Brownish hair, pulled back. A nice figure. Hadn’t let herself go. Picturing her eyes. Brows furrowed as she registered his presence when he rose from the bushes.

  Hart had killed six people. Three had looked at him as he did it. Seeing their eyes meant nothing to him. He didn’t prefer that they look away. He didn’t look away either. The only one who hadn’t cried was the one woman he’d killed, a drug dealer.

  Yo, you gonna do this?

  He hadn’t answered.

  You and me, we work something out?

  She’d stolen money, or hadn’t, skimmed the drugs, or hadn’t. Wasn’t Hart’s issue. He’d made an agreement with the man who wanted her dead. And so he, a craftsman, made her dead, staring into her face as he did so to make sure she wasn’t going to leap aside or pull a hidden weapon.

  Brynn had looked him in the eye too as she fired.

  A craftswoman.

  “Hart?”

  Lewis’s voice shook him out of his reflection. He tensed, looking around. “Yeah?”

  “You’re a Milwaukee boy, I’m one too. How come we never worked together before?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You work in the city much?”

  “Not much, no. Safer that way.”

  “Where you live?”

  “South of town.”

  “Toward Kenosha?”

  “Not that far.”

  “Lotta building going on in those parts.”

  Lewis stopped suddenly. “Look up there, a post or something. A sign.”

  “Where?”

  “See it? On the right.”

  They moved forward carefully, Hart putting aside his thoughts about Brynn with some reluctance, and stopped at the sign.

  In the summer of 1673, Louis Joliet, a 27-year-old philosopher, and Fr. Jacques Marquette, a 35-year-old Jesuit priest, crossed Wisconsin on their way to the Mississippi River. Although the trail you are standing on is named for him, Joliet never hiked this 458 mile route. He and Marquette made their voyage mostly by waterway. The Joliet Trail was created by fur traders and people just like you, outdoor-lovers, some years later.

  Hart consulted the GPS on his BlackBerry and the paper map.

  “Which way’d those girls get?”

  “Has to be to the right. That’s the ranger station, few miles away.”

  Lewis looked up and down the trail, which, little traveled this time of year, was overgrown and tangled with branches and dotted with stubborn saplings rising through the sludge of leaves.

  “What’s
wrong?”

  “You ask me, this ain’t no trail at all. It’s just less forest.”

  Hart smiled at that. Which made Lewis smile too.

  HERE THEY WERE,

  two women moving relentlessly forward on a tourists’ trail. One with an inlaid rosewood cane, one with a matching spear. Bolos and knives in their pockets and grim faces both. The trail reminded Brynn of the last time she’d been horseback riding—one spring several years ago. She’d loved cantering along the bridle path in some woods near Humboldt. Years ago, before she’d become a deputy, she’d been an amateur competitive jumper and loved the sport. In fact, it was at a competition that she’d seen an exhibition by some mounted police from Milwaukee. The eighteen-year-old had spent time talking to an officer, which had ignited a fascination, ironically, not in the art of dressage riding but in police work.

  Which, a few years later, provided the same thrill she’d experienced hurtling over jumps atop a half ton of animal.

  Now, she realized how much she missed riding and wondered if she’d ever have the chance to get back into the saddle.

  As they continued along the trail they’d see poignant evidence that the park was usually a far more innocent place than tonight, signs dispensing bits of history and information. The most troubling dangers had to do with fires, steep drop-offs and ecological risks.

  EMERALD ASH BORER WARNING

  Firewood purchased from Clausen may be infested with Emerald Ash Borer. If you have purchased any Henderson brand firewood, please burn any such wood immediately to avoid endangering our hardwood trees with the Emerald Ash Borer!

  One tree—a massive oak—earned a sign all its own. Maybe the biggest or oldest (tourists loved their superlatives). Brynn, though, thought of it simply as a source of cover. Around here the trail wound through patches of bare fields, exposing them to pursuers. To move off the trail, into the lowland brush, though, would slow them down way too much.

  The flying squirrels were plentiful and bats flitted by silently, owls noisier. Several times they’d hear a beat of wing and a final squeak from a predator’s successful strike.

  Michelle kept up pretty well but Brynn was growing concerned about her. Her ankle wasn’t bad—from the job and from Joey’s many mishaps, she knew about serious injuries; when to dole out sympathy and when to call medics. Rather, it was the young woman’s resignation. She was lagging behind. Once, she paused and looked up a steep incline, grimaced.

  “Let’s go,” Brynn urged.

  “I need to rest.”

  “Let’s cover a little more ground.” She smiled. “Let’s earn a break.”

  “I’m tired now. I’m so tired. My blood sugar, I told you.” Then she gasped and jerked back as a small animal scampered past. “What was that?”

  A vole or mouse, Brynn told her. “Harmless.”

  “It could crawl up your pants.”

  Not yours, Brynn thought, considering Michelle’s tight jeans.

  The younger woman’s good mood from earlier had faded. She was like a child who’d missed her afternoon nap. Patiently Brynn said, “Come on, Michelle. The more we walk, the closer to getting back home. And we can’t stop here.” They were in a clearing, very visible in the moonlight.

  Her lips tight, almost in a pout, she complied and they climbed the steep hill. At the top Brynn suddenly smelled rosemary and wanted to cry, thinking back to the Easter lamb she’d struggled to roast for her family just weeks ago.

  They slipped through a copse of wiry trees, eerie, something out of Lord of the Rings.

  Her face was now throbbing with every step. She touched her cheek and inhaled as the ache flowed through her head and neck. The swelling was worse. She wondered if the wound would get infected. Would there be terrible scarring? The thought of plastic surgery came to mind, and she actually smiled, thinking, You vain girl. Maybe you should concentrate on staying alive before you worry about making yourself presentable for the multiplex on Saturday night.

  Graham had caught her once in the habit of stroking the dip in her crooked chin. She’d blushed and he’d smiled, then whispered, “It’s sexy. Don’t fret.”

  She grew irritated at how persistently thoughts of her past kept intruding tonight. She hadn’t thought about Keith so much in years. And Graham and Joey kept making regular appearances—while her only goal was getting to safety.

  Like that old cliché, memories flashing through her thoughts at the end of her life.

  Damnit, concentrate.

  They followed the trail around a bend to the left. Brynn looked back. A clear panorama was behind them and she could see, a hundred yards away, the crest of a rolling hill.

  There was movement along it, going from tree to tree.

  She gripped Michelle’s arm. “What’s that?”

  It was as if a sniper were crawling into position to take a shot.

  “Get down,” Brynn ordered. They both crouched. She surveyed the ridge and the trail. No clouds now and the half-moon cast light bright enough to shoot by. At this distance they were probably safe from a shotgun but Hart had fired at her with a Glock. A 9mm slug could easily make it here, and he obviously was skilled.

  She squinted at the ridge.

  Then she laughed. “It’s just our friend.” She pointed, standing up. “Or maybe one of his friends.”

  The pursuer was of the four-legged variety, loping from tree to tree. The gray wolf, she assumed. They usually hung in packs, Brynn believed. But this one was clearly solo. Was he following them? Maybe her growl hadn’t scared him off completely.

  Then the creature stiffened, looked back. Was gone in a fraction of a second.

  “You see that? Like he vanished…” Brynn’s smile faded. “No…Oh, no!”

  In the distance two men were moving quickly along the Joliet Trail, headed in their direction. A half mile away, moving doggedly. No doubt that they were Hart and his partner; one carried a shotgun. The men disappeared, where the trail dipped beneath the cover of trees.

  “No!”

  “It’s them,” Michelle whispered. “How did they find us?”

  “Bad luck. There were a dozen ways we could’ve gone. They gambled and won. Come on. Move!” The women began jogging, and hobbling, as quickly as they could, their breath coming fast.

  Go, go, go…

  “I didn’t think they’d really follow us,” Michelle’s rasping voice whimpered. It was a pathetic sound. “Why?”

  Hart, Brynn thought. The answer is Hart.

  The trail turned to the right, due east, and when they broke from the trees the ground opened up with a moonlit view of rocky terrain: tall hills rising above the path and deep ravines falling away below. Gashes in the trees revealed rugged sandstone bluffs.

  “Look. There.”

  They saw an intersection. Another path, narrower than the Joliet, branched off to the left and rose up a hillside, skirting a steep cliff into a dim valley. Brynn motioned her companion along. Michelle followed, glancing back from time to time, her hand in her jacket, where the Chicago Cutlery knife rested in her waistband. She seemed to find solace in making sure the weapon hadn’t vanished.

  At the juncture they paused. There was an open shelter with a bench—no phone, Brynn noted immediately. A trash can, which was empty. The area was trampled down, courtesy of a hard Wisconsin winter. The Joliet Trail continued on into the inky night, descending to the right—northeast. The small path was marked with a sign.

  APEX LAKE 1.1 MILES.

  TRAPPER GROVE 1.9 MILES.

  UMSTEAD RANGER STATION 2.2 MILES.

  Brynn walked to the fence marking the edge of the cliff and looked into the valley. She pointed to the left. “Down there. Can you see it? That building? It’s the ranger station.”

  “Oh. Way over there. I don’t see any lights.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s closed.”

  The place was less than a mile away—as the crow flew—through a deep valley, though hiking via this path would take them on a much lo
nger trip: more than two miles, according to the sign. The path would meander, leading to Apex Lake, the grove and finally to the station.

  Brynn had a vague memory of the station, which had served as a staging area for one of the searches she’d been on. It had been closed then too—the time of year was winter—but she could picture it clearly.

  “I remember phones there. But I don’t know if they’re working now. And a gun cabinet, I think. But we can’t take the path.” Nodding toward the sign. “It’s too long. We’d never make it in time.”

  “They might not go that way. Just keep going on the Joliet Trail.”

  Brynn considered. “I think they’d be inclined to figure that we headed for the station.” She was staring at the dark void beyond the cliff and stepped even closer to the edge. She paused by a Danger sign. Looked down.

  Climb it, or not?

  Whatever they did they’d have to choose soon. The men could be here in ten or fifteen minutes.

  “Is it straight down?” Michelle asked.

  Still gazing down into the murkiness, Brynn saw a narrow ledge maybe twenty feet below them; below that the cliff face descended for another fifty or sixty feet.

  Brynn whispered, “I think it’s climbable. Tough, but it can be done.”

  If they could make it to the forest floor they’d have an easy direct walk to the ranger station.

  The odds of a working phone and gun and ammunition?

  Brynn couldn’t say. A roll of the dice.

  She decided that breaking in wouldn’t be a problem. If they could get to the building, even the strongest lock in the world wouldn’t keep her out.

  “I hate heights,” Michelle whispered.

  I’m with you there, baby….

  “Are we going to try it?” the young woman asked in a shaky voice.

  Brynn grabbed a birch sapling and leaned out into space, studying the rocks below.

  THEY’D MANAGED A

  fast walk, breaking into a jog occasionally. Lewis pulled up, gripping his side. He leaned against a tree.