The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Read online

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah. I quit smoking last week.” He inhaled deeply. “Well, pretty much a month ago but I had one last week. Then stopped for good. But it catches up with you. You smoke?”

  Wincing at a pang from his shot arm, Hart kept looking from side to side. “Nope.” He’d grown convinced that the women weren’t armed but he didn’t like that damn dog or wolf or whatever it was nosing around. People were predictable. He’d made a study of human nature in the extremes and he was comfortable taking them on, however dangerous they were. Animals, though, operated with a different mind-set. He recalled the paw print near the Feldman house.

  This is my world. You don’t belong here. You’ll see things that aren’t there and miss things that’re coming up right behind you.

  But then he inhaled hard and leaned against another tree. The men’s eyes met and they shared a smile. Hart said, “I haven’t run like this in years. I thought I was in shape. Man.”

  “You work out?”

  He did, regularly—his line of work required strength and stamina—but it was mostly weight-lifting, not aerobic. That wouldn’t’ve been helpful; Hart rarely chased anyone, and he didn’t think he’d ever run from anybody, not once in his life. He told Lewis, “I don’t do much jogging.”

  “Nope. Health clubs don’t figure much in the Lewis family. But I work construction some. Was working for Gaston on that tower near the lake.”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Gaston Construction? The big tower? Other side of the expressway. The glass is up now. I hired out with the concrete sub. That’ll keep you in shape. You handy?”

  Hart said, “Some. I’ve done plumbing. No patience for painting. And electricity I stay away from.”

  “I hear that.”

  “Carpentry’s my favorite.”

  “Framing?”

  “More furniture,” Hart explained.

  “You make furniture?”

  “Simple things.”

  Measure twice, cut once….

  “Like tables and chairs?”

  “Yeah. Cabinets. It’s relaxing.”

  Lewis said, “I built my grandmother a bed once.”

  “A bed? Come on, let’s keep going.” They started walking again. “How’d you happen to build her a bed?”

  Lewis explained, “She started going crazy, getting older. Maybe that Alzheimer’s thing, I don’t know. Or maybe she just got old. She’d walk around the house singing Christmas carols all year round. All the time. And she’d start putting up decorations and my mother’d take them down and then she’d be putting them up again.”

  Hart picked up the pace.

  “So she’s pretty flaky. And she starts looking for her bed. The bed she had with my grandfather. It musta got thrown out years ago. But she thought it was somewhere in the house. Walking all over the place trying to find it. I felt bad for her. So I found some pictures of it and made her one. Wasn’t all that good but it looked close enough. I think it gave her a good couple of months. I don’t know.”

  Hart said, “Like ‘making’ a bed. Only you really did make one, not with sheets and blankets.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.” He gave a laugh.

  “Why’re you in this line, Comp? You could be making union scale.”

  “Oh, I’m in it for the money. How can you score big at sweat labor?”

  “You score big doing this?”

  “I score bigger. Now my mother’s in a home too. And my brothers, they contribute. I can’t do less than them.”

  Hart felt Lewis’s eyes on him, like he wanted to ask about his family but remembered the story about the brother and the parents being dead.

  “Anyway, I’m good at this. What I do. Hell, you heard my rep. You checked, right? People vouched for me.”

  “They did. That’s why I called you.”

  “Banks, payroll offices. Collection work, protection…I’ve got a talent for it. I got contacts all over the lakefront. How ’bout you, Hart? Why’re you in this fucked-up business?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t do well working for other people. And I don’t do well sitting. I do well doing. Got that itchy gene.”

  It suits me….

  Lewis looked around. “You think they’re hiding?”

  Hart wasn’t sure. But he didn’t think so. He had a feeling that Brynn was somehow like him. And he would rather move any day, keep moving, however dangerous it was. Anything rather than hiding. But he didn’t tell Lewis this. “No, I don’t. They’ll keep going. Besides, I saw some patches of mud back there. Prints in them.”

  Lewis gave a crisp laugh. The sound had irritated Hart at first. Now he didn’t mind so much. The man said, “You’re the last of the Mohicans. That movie rocked…. You hunt, I’ll bet.”

  Hart said, “Nope. Never been.”

  “Bullshit. Really?”

  “Truth. You?”

  Lewis said he hadn’t for a while but he used to. A lot. He liked it. “I think you would too. You seem like you know your way around here.”

  “This isn’t the North Woods. That’d be different. We’re in Wisconsin. A state park. Just using logic.”

  “Naw, I think you’re a natural.”

  Hart was about to ask, “Natural what?” But froze. A shout, a woman’s voice, came to them on the wind. A shout for help. She was trying to keep it quiet, he got the impression, but he heard alarm, if not desperation. It was in the distance but not too far, maybe a quarter, a half mile up the Joliet Trail, the direction they were headed.

  Another call, the words ambiguous.

  “Same person calling?” Hart asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Staying low, they moved forward as quickly as they dared.

  “Keep a lookout. I don’t trust her. One of ’em screamed fake before, at the lake, don’t forget. Maybe they’re trying to sucker us in, wanting a fight. Maybe no guns. But they’ve got knives.”

  Ten minutes later the men, keeping low and scanning the greenery around them, paused. Ahead of them the trail broadened and a smaller trail branched off to the left. The intersection was marked by a wooden sign, visible in the moonlight. An arrow pointed out a path that Hart had seen on GPS. It went west and north and, after circling a small lake, ended at a ranger station. From there a two-lane road led to the highway.

  Hart gestured Lewis down into the bushes beside him. Scanning the surroundings. “You see anything?”

  “Nope.”

  Hart listened carefully. No more cries, no voices. Just the breeze, which hissed through the branches and made the leaves scuttle along like crabs.

  Then Lewis touched his arm, pointed. Fifteen feet past the intersection was a dark wood fence with a sign that said, Danger. Black space behind it, where cliff dropped into ravine. “That tree there, Hart.”

  “Where?” Finally he spotted it: A branch had broken off the tree beside the cliff. You could see the white wood below the bark.

  “I don’t know if it’s a trick or not,” Hart whispered. “You go round there to the right. That bunch of bushes.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m going to the edge and look around. I’ll be making some noise to give ’em a chance to make a move.”

  “If I see anybody I’ll take her out. Shoot high, then low.” Lewis grinned. “And I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  For the first time that night Lewis looked confident. Hart, finally at ease with his partner on this difficult night, decided the man would do fine. “Go on. Stay clear of the leaves.”

  Silently Lewis, crouching, crossed the path and slipped behind a stand of brush. When Hart saw he was in a good position to cover the area, he started forward, also low. Head swiveling back and forth.

  He noticed in the distance, at the bottom of the ravine, what appeared to be the ranger station.

  Holding his own weapon pointed forward, he moved to the sign. He examined the broken branch. Then peered over the edge of the c
liff. He couldn’t see anyone. Took out his flashlight and shone it down into the night.

  Jesus.

  He stood, put the gun away. Called Lewis over.

  “What is it?”

  “Look. They tried to climb down. But it didn’t work.”

  Peering over the edge of the cliff, they could see in the faint moonlight a ledge twenty feet below, at the bottom of a steep, rocky wall. One of the women, or maybe both, had fallen. On the ledge was a four-foot-long branch—the one that had broken off the tree beside them. And around it was a large smear of bright red blood, glistening under the flashlight.

  “Man,” Lewis said, “she hit hard.” He tried to peer farther into the ravine. “Broke her leg, I’ll bet. Bleeding plenty.”

  “They had to’ve kept going down. They couldn’t get back up, hurt like that. Or maybe there’s a cave. Behind the ledge. They’re trying to hide in.”

  “Well, we gotta go after ’em,” Lewis announced. “Like hunting. You follow a wounded animal till you find it. No matter what. You want, I’ll go down first.”

  Hart lifted an eyebrow. “Bit of a climb.”

  “I told you—construction on the lakefront. Thirty stories up and I’m strolling around on the ironwork like it’s a sidewalk.”

  NO. SOMETHING’S WRONG.

  Graham Boyd rose from the couch, walked past Anna, who had switched from knitting to a large needlepoint sampler—the woman found peace and pleasure in transforming cloth of all kinds—and walked into the kitchen. His eyes glanced at a picture of his wife as a teenager, sitting atop the horse she’d later ride to win the Mid-Wisconsin Junior Horse Jumping Competition years ago. She was leaning down, her cheek against the horse’s neck, patting him, though her eyes were focused elsewhere, presumably on one of her competitors.

  He found the county phone book and looked at the map. The nearest towns to Lake Mondac were Clausen and Point of Rocks. Clausen had a town magistrate’s office, Point of Rocks a public safety office. He tried the magistrate first. No answer, and the message referred callers to City Hall, which turned out to be just a voice mail. The public safety office in Point of Rocks was closed, and the outgoing message said that anyone with an emergency should call either the county sheriff’s office or the State Police.

  “And thank you for calling,” it concluded politely. “Have a nice day.”

  How can a fucking police department be closed?

  He heard Joey’s bedroom door open and close. The toilet flushed.

  A moment later: “When’s mom coming home?” The boy, still not in his pajamas, was at the top of the stairs.

  “Soon.”

  “You called her?”

  “She’s busy. She can’t be disturbed. Put your pajamas on and go to bed. Lights out.”

  The boy turned around. The bedroom door closed.

  Graham thought that he heard the video game again. He wasn’t sure.

  Anna asked, “Where is she? I’m worried, Graham.”

  “I don’t know. That deputy I talked to said it was just routine. But it didn’t feel right.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Her phone. Giving it to somebody else? No way.” He could talk to Anna without worrying that she’d become defensive. When it came to serious topics, he had trouble talking to Brynn and to her son—hell, that was tonight’s theme, apparently—but he could talk to his mother-in-law. “She’s too much of a control person for that.”

  He had, however, pulled back from “control freak.”

  Anna’s frown morphed into a smile, as if she’d caught on. “That’s my daughter. You’re right.”

  Graham picked up the landline. Made a call.

  “Deputy Munce.”

  “Eric, it’s Graham.”

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  “The sheriff in?”

  “Now? Nope. He goes home about six, seven most nights.”

  “Look, Brynn went out on something tonight. Up at Lake Mondac.”

  “Right. Heard about that.”

  “Well, she’s not back yet.”

  Silence. “Not back? Forty minutes from there to your place. You’re north of town. Forty minutes tops. I’ve drove it in a half hour.”

  “I called and got some other deputy. Said there was a domestic. And that Brynn was handling it. Child Services or something.”

  A pause. “That doesn’t sound familiar, Graham. Who were you talking to?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe Billings.”

  “Well, that’s nobody from our office. Hold on….” Muted sounds of conversation.

  Graham rubbed his eyes. Brynn had been up at five. He’d been up at five-thirty.

  The deputy came back on. “All right, Graham. Story is the guy who made that nine-one-one call called back and said it was a mistake. Brynn was going to turn around. That was close to seven, seven-thirty.”

  “I know. But this deputy said it wasn’t a mistake. It was some domestic dispute, and they wanted Brynn to handle it. Could she have run into some State Police up there, town cops?”

  “Could happen but that’s not the sort of thing the troopers’d handle.”

  Graham’s skin chilled at this. “Eric, something’s wrong.”

  “Let me call the sheriff. He’ll get back to you.”

  Graham hung up. He paced the kitchen. Surveyed the new tiles on the floor. Organized a stack of bills. Drew a line in the dust on top of the small, rabbit-ear TV. Listened to the computer game upstairs.

  Goddamnit. Why wasn’t the boy listening to him? He decided to ban Joey from skateboards for the rest of the school year.

  Anger or instinct?

  The phone rang.

  “’Lo?”

  “Graham, it’s Tom Dahl. Eric just called. We checked with the State Police. Nobody got any calls up at Lake Mondac. Clausen, Point of Rocks, even as far as Henderson.”

  Graham explained what he’d told Eric Munce, irritated that the man hadn’t filled the sheriff in. “The deputy was named Billings.”

  Silence for a moment. “Billings’s the name of a road between Clausen and the state park.”

  So it might’ve been fresh in the mind of somebody trying to make up a name. Graham’s hands were sweating.

  “Her phone keeps going to voice mail again, Tom. I’m plenty worried.”

  “What’s wrong?” a voice called. Joey’s.

  Graham looked up. The boy was standing halfway down the stairs. He’d been listening. “What’s wrong with Mom?”

  “Nothing. Go back to bed. Everything’ll be fine.”

  “No. Something’s wrong.”

  “Joey,” Graham snapped. “Now.”

  Joey held his eye for a moment, the chill look sending a shiver through Graham’s back, then turned and stomped up the stairs.

  Anna appeared in the door, glanced at Graham’s grimacing face. “What?” she whispered.

  He shook his head, said, “I’m talking to the sheriff.” Then: “Tom, whatta we do?”

  “I’ll send some people up there. Look, relax. Her car probably broke down and she hasn’t got cell phone reception.”

  “Then who was Billings?”

  Another pause. “We’ll get up there right away, Graham.”

  GASPING, FACE DOTTED

  with cold sweat, Michelle crouched, leaning against her pool cue cane, Brynn beside her. They were still on the Joliet Trail, hiding in a tangle of juniper and boxwood, which smelled to Brynn of urine. They’d come a half mile from the cliff top intersection with the Danger sign and shelter, running as best they could the entire distance.

  They now watched the beam from a flashlight, pointed downward, slowly sweeping the ledge and cliff face as Hart and his partner climbed down. They continued walking along the trail, moving quickly.

  The men had bought the sham Brynn had orchestrated: the shouting, the broken branch, the blood—her own—spattered on the ledge. The men would continue to the bottom now, either on the cliff or the path around Apex Lake, and make for the
ranger station. Which would give Brynn and Michelle an extra hour to get to safety before Hart and his partner realized that they’d been tricked.

  In the end it hadn’t been Michelle’s fear of heights—or Brynn’s—that decided the matter. Brynn had concluded that even climbing down the cliff and hiking through the tangled brush in the ravine would take too much time. The men would have caught up with them before they were halfway to the ranger station. But the cliff was a good chance to mislead their pursuers. Brynn had broken the branch to make it look like an accident, then carefully climbed down the cliff to the ledge. There she’d taken a deep breath, and cut her scalp with the kitchen knife. As a deputy she knew a lot about head injuries, and that lacerations on the head didn’t hurt badly but bled copiously. (She knew this from Joey as much as from auto accident calls.) After smearing the blood on the stone, she’d climbed back up to the cliff top and they’d fled down the Joliet Trail.

  She now looked back. The sweeping flashlight beam was still visible through the bones of trees. Then the path turned and the women lost sight of the killers.

  “How does it feel?” Michelle nodded at Brynn’s head. She apparently thought Brynn had made her decision not to climb down the cliff face because of the young woman’s fear of heights. She glowed with gratitude. Brynn said it was fine.

  Michelle began rambling, telling a story about how she’d been hit on the head by a schoolgirl on the playground, and had bled all over a new dress, which had upset her more than the fight. “Girls’re worse than boys.”

  Brynn didn’t disagree. She did antigang campaigns at the high schools. Gangs…even in modest Humboldt.

  An image of Joey, panting and bloody, after one of his fights at school also came to mind. She pushed it away.

  Michelle kept up the manic banter and Brynn tuned her out. She paused and looked around. “I think we should go off the trail now, find the river.”

  “We have to? We’re making good time.”

  But the trail, Brynn told her, didn’t lead them anywhere except deeper into the woods. The closest town that way was fifteen miles.

  “I need to use the compass.” She knelt to the side of the trail and set the alcohol bottle on the ground. With some prodding the needle finally swung north. “We go that way. It’s not far. A couple of miles, I’d guess. Probably less.” She put the bottle in her pocket.