The Bodies Left Behind

guys do anything fun?”
    “Not really. In-laws over. That father of hers . . . man is skinny as your pencil. Had three helpings of chicken and before we were done he was dunking his bread in the mushroom soup at the bottom of Carole’s green bean casserole. I mean, for pity’s sake.”
    “That’s a good casserole,” said Brynn, who’d had it several times.
    “God made serving spoons for a reason.” Dahl glanced down at the doughnut balancing on a paper plate atop his coffee mug. “Krispy Kreme today. I myself am partial to the ones you bring.”
    “Dunkin’ Donuts.”
    “Right. They don’t make ’em with that little knob anymore, do they?”
    “I don’t know, Tom. I just ask for three dozen. They mix ’em up for me.”
    She kept waiting.
    He said, “So. You heard, didn’t you?”
    “Heard?”
    He frowned. “Milwaukee PD called. That detective working on the Lake Mondac case?”
    “Nobody called me.” She lifted an eyebrow.
    “Hart was killed.”
    “What?”
    “Looked gangland. Shot in the back of the head. North side of Chicago. That’s where he lived, it turned out.”
    “Well. How ’bout that.” Brynn sat back, eyed her own coffee. She’d seen the doughnuts but hadn’t given in.
    “You were right. Man had some enemy or another.”
    “Any leads?”
    “Not many.”
    “They find out anything about him?”
    Dahl told her what Chicago PD had relayed to Milwaukee: Terrance Hart was a security consultant, with an office in Chicago. He made $93,043 last year. He would provide risk assessments to warehouse and manufacturing companies and arrange for security guards. Never been arrested, never been the subject of any criminal investigation, paid his taxes on time.
    “Man traveled a lot, though. A lot.” The sheriff said this as if that alone was a cause for suspicion.
    Dahl added that he’d been married briefly, no kids.
    Marriage doesn’t suit me. Does it suit you, Brynn?
    His parents lived in Pennsylvania. He had one younger sibling, a brother who was now a doctor.
    “A doctor?” Brynn frowned.
    “Yeah. The family was pretty normal. Which you wouldn’t expect. But Hart himself was always living on the edge. In trouble at school a lot. But, like I said, no arrests. Kept up a good front. His company’s done okay. And, get this, he was a woodworker. I mean, high-class stuff. Furniture, not just the bookshelves I hammer together. Had this sign above his workbench, what a teacher of mine told me: ‘Measure twice, cut once.’ Not your typical hit man.”
    “What was the story with the shooting?”
    “Pretty simple. He’d moved back to his townhouse from Green Bay, where he’d been hiding out. But with Michelle away there was no reason not to go home. He went to one of his old hangouts for lunch on Saturday afternoon. Walked out and somebody got him from behind.”
    “Any witnesses?”
    “Not really. Everybody in the bar hit the deck as soon as the gunplay started. Chicago, after all. Nobody could tell the cops anything concrete. Street was deserted. A few cars took off fast. No tag or IDs.” He paused. “There’s a connection here.”
    “Here?” Brynn asked, watching him take a bite of the fried dough, as crumbs parachuted to the faded carpet.
    “Well, Wisconsin. The ballistics on the slugs match a weapon might’ve been used in a shooting in that gas station thing over in Smith about six months ago? Exxon. The clerk nearly got killed.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “The State Police handled it. Nobody here was involved.”
    “The same gun?”
    “They think. But who knows? That ballistics stuff. Not as easy as CSI makes it look.”
    Brynn said, “So the perp here ditched the gun and somebody found it and it got sold on the street.”
    “Guess so.”
    “Recycling at its worst.”
    “Amen.”
    Brynn sat back, made a bridge across the top of her coffee mug with a skinny wood stirrer. “What else, Tom? Looks like there’s more.”
    Dahl hesitated. “Guess I should say. Hart had your name in a notebook in his pocket. And your address too. And in the apartment they found some other things. Pictures.”
    “Pictures?”
    “Digital ones he’d printed out. Of the outside of the house. Taken recent. You could see the spring buds. The pictures were in this wooden box—a fancy one. Looks like he made it himself.”
    “Well.”
    A long sigh. “And I have to say, there were some of Joey’s school too.”
    “No. Of Joey?”
    “Just the school. I was thinking he