The Bodies Left Behind

Mankewitz.”
    She nodded. “It’s Deputy. ”
    The other man, skinny and boyish, was the one she’dseen earlier, following her. He had a faint smile but humor was not its source. He remained silent.
    Mankewitz sat on the stool next to hers. “May I?”
    “You’re bordering on kidnapping here.”
    He seemed surprised. “Oh, you’re free to leave any time, Deputy McKenzie. Kidnapping?”
    He nodded to his associate, who went to a nearby table.
    The bartender had returned. He looked at Mankewitz.
    “Just coffee. A Diet Coke for my friend.” He nodded at the table.
    The bartender delivered the coffee to the bar and the soda to Mankewitz’s associate. “Anything else?” he asked Brynn, as if saying, Want some cheesecake for your last meal?
    She shook her head. “Just the check.”
    Mankewitz prepared the coffee carefully, just the right amount of cream, a sugar packet and a Splenda. He said, “I heard you had quite an evening a few weeks ago.”
    That night  . . .
    “And how would you know that?”
    “I watch the news.” He gave off an aura of confidence that she found reassuring in one sense—that she was in no physical danger at the moment—but also troubling. As if he had another weapon, like knowing something that could destroy her life without resorting to violence. He seemed completely in control.
    In this way he reminded her of Hart.
    The union boss continued, “Very important to be informed.When I was growing up, before your time, we had an hour of local news—five P.M. —and then national and international. Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley . . . Just a half hour. Me, that wasn’t enough. I like all the information I can get. CNN. I love it. It’s the home page on my BlackBerry.”
    “That doesn’t answer the question of how you happen to be here, when I just decided to come in on a whim. . . . Unless you’d somehow found out I had an appointment at Milwaukee PD.”
    He hesitated only a moment—she’d obviously touched something close to home. He said, “Or maybe I’ve just been shadowing you.”
    “I know he has,” she snapped, nodding at his slim associate.
    Mankewitz smiled, sipped the coffee and looked with regret at the rotating dessert display. “We have a mutual interest here, Deputy.”
    “And what would that be?”
    “Finding Emma Feldman’s killer.”
    “I’m not watching him drink very bad coffee two feet away from me right now?”
    “It is bad coffee. How’d you know?”
    “Smell.”
    He nodded at the can of soda by her plate. “You and my friend and that diet pop. That’s what’s not good for you, you know. And, no, you’re not in the company of her killer.”
    She looked behind her. The other fellow was sipping his soda while he looked over his own BlackBerry.
    What was his home page?
    “Don’t imagine you work many murders in Kennesha County,” Mankewitz said. “Not like this one.”
    “Not like these, ” she corrected. “Several people were killed.” Now that she was alive and the bartender was a witness, even a bribable one, she’d started feeling cocky, if not ornery.
    “Of course.” He nodded.
    Brynn mused, “What kind of cases do we run? Domestic knifings. A gun goes off accidental during a 7-Eleven or gas station heist. A meth deal goes bad.”
    “Bad stuff, that drug. Very bad.”
    Tell me about it. She said, “If you’ve seen COPS, you know what we do.”
    “April seventeenth was a whole different ball game.” He sipped the bad coffee anyway. “You in a union? A police union?”
    “No, not in Kennesha.”
    “I believe in unions, ma’am. I believe in working and I believe in giving everybody a fair shake to climb up the ladder. Like education. School’s an equalizer; a union’s the same. You’re in a union, we give you the basics. You might be happy with that, take your hourly wage and God bless. But you can use it like a diving board, you want to go higher in life.”
    “Diving board?”
    “Maybe that’s a bad choice. I’m not so creative. You know what I’m accused of?”
    “Not the details. A scam involving illegal immigrants.”
    “What I’m accused of is giving people forged documentation that’s better than what they can buy on thestreet. They get jobs in open shops and vote to go union.”
    “Is that true?”
    “No.” He smiled. “Those’re the accusations. Now, you know how the authorities tipped to my alleged crimes? That lawyer, Emma Feldman, was doing some business deal for a client