The Bodies Left Behind

that at last she’d have a use for her skinny-girl jeans, which she hadn’t worn in two years but hadn’t quite been able to throw out.
    Anna said, “There’re bath towels in the closet. I’ve got coffee. Do you want tea? I’ll make you some food.”
    “Thanks. If it’s not too much trouble.”
    Brynn noted that the woman’s last complaint about her blood sugar had been eons ago.
    Anna led her to the bathroom and returned.
    “I’ll give you the details later, Mom. They tried to kill her too. She found the bodies.”
    “No!” Anna’s hand went to her mouth. “No . . . What’s the poor thing going to do? Should I call Reverend Jack? He could be here in ten minutes.”
    “Let’s ask her. Might be a good idea. But I don’t know. She’s had so much coming at her. And one of our deputies was killed.”
    “No! Who?”
    “Eric.”
    “That cute boy? With the brunet wife?”
    Brynn sighed. She nodded.
    With the brunet wife and a young baby.
    “Did you get shot?” Anna asked abruptly.
    “Collateral injury. Like a ricochet.”
    “But you were shot?”
    She nodded.
    “What on earth happened?”
    Brynn’s calm broke, like pond ice cracking. “Some really bad things, Mom.”
    Anna hugged her, and Brynn felt her frail body shaking,as was her own. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry. But everything’s going to be fine now.” Her mother stepped away, turning quickly, wiping her eyes. “I’ll get breakfast going. For you too. You need something.”
    A smile. “Thanks, Mom.” Brynn watched her go and then called into the kitchen, “Where’s Graham?”
    “Was here. I don’t know. Out back, I guess.”
    Water began to flow in the front bathroom. The pipes squealed.
    Brynn went upstairs to get some clothes for Michelle. In the bedroom she looked at her matted hair, the cuts and bruises, the white bandage with its aureole of yellow and purple.
    She replayed Comp’s horrific death: the look on his face as he gazed at Hart, revealing pure betrayal.
    Then the image of Hart’s face looking back at her as he sped away in the stolen sedan, the image frozen over the bead sight of the pistol she held firmly.
    You should’ve killed me.  . . .
    She wanted a shower badly but she’d get clothes for Michelle first. She’d interview the young woman, then call Tom Dahl and the State Police and FBI with any new information about Emma Feldman or Hart or his partner that Michelle could recall—something that might lead to Mankewitz. Then she’d speed up to Gardener and bully the evidence through the crime lab.
    Brynn found a T-shirt, sweats, the jeans, socks and a pair of running shoes. She’d get a garbage bag for Michelle to put her dirty clothes in. She supposed the designer items would have to be dry cleaned. She whiffed,smelled her own sweat, powerful. Smelled rusty blood too, mixed with the perfume of antiseptic.
    In the kitchen the tea kettle started whistling, then stopped.
    Listening to the whining pipes in the first-floor bathroom, Brynn rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window, looking out at Graham’s truck. She was thinking of the evidence in the glove compartment, wondering how long it would take to get answers from the State Police lab in Gardener. Fingerprints could be done quickly now, thanks to the FBI’s integrated identification system. Ballistics would take longer but Wisconsin had a good database that might be able to trace one of the slugs in Hart’s or Comp’s pistols to prior crimes. Which might in turn lead to a full identification . . . or at least to somebody who could be pressured to dime Hart out.
    Not a single print on the brass . . . She sighed, shaking her head.
    A thought occurred to her. Brynn sat down on the edge of the bed, absently poked her tummy, as she often did, and called Tom Dahl.
    “How you doing?” he asked. “Exhausted, betcha.”
    “Not yet. Waiting for it to hit. Got a question.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “About the scene at Lake Mondac.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “You said Arlen’s Crime Scene folks searched the house with a metal detector and all they recovered was brass, right?”
    “Yep. Fancy thing. Not like what the tourists use looking for arrowheads.”
    “And no firearms?”
    “Just brass and spent shells.”
    “You said they searched the streams?”
    “Yep. Found some brass there too. It was everywhere. Place was a turkey shoot.”
    As I well know. “Now, Michelle said she picked up one of their guns. She shot Hart