The Bodies Left Behind

I don’t know. They started shooting at me. And I panicked. I just lost it completely. I ran outside. I didn’t have the car keys.” A disgusted look on her face. “I did something so stupid. . . . I was afraid they’d come after me so I shot out the tires. They would’ve just left if I hadn’t done that. Got in the car and left. . . . I was so stupid!”
    “That’s all right. You did fine. Nobody’d think straight at a time like that. You have the gun still?”
    Please, Brynn thought. I want a weapon so badly.
    But the woman shook her head. “I used up all the bullets. I threw it into a creek by the house so they couldn’t find it. And I ran.” She squinted. “You’re a deputy. Do you have a gun?”
    “I did. But lost it in the lake.”
    Suddenly Michelle became animated. Almost giddy. “You know, like, I saw this show one time, it was on A&E or Discovery, and somebody’d been in a car wreck, a bad one, and they lost a lot of blood and they were in the wilderness for days. They should’ve died. But something happened, like the body stopped the bleeding itself. The doctors saved them and . . .”
    Brynn had experienced this mania before, at car wrecks and heart attack scenes, and knew the implicit question was best answered simply and honestly. “I’m sorry. I was there, in the kitchen. I saw them. I’m afraid they’re gone.”
    Michelle held on to a fragment of hope for a moment longer. Then let it go. She nodded and lowered her head.
    Brynn asked, “You have any idea what they want? Ow!” She flinched. She’d bit her tongue. “Was it robbery?” Eyes lensing with tears.
    “I don’t know.”
    The shivering grew worse, consuming Brynn. Michelle’s perfect fingernails, she had noticed, were dark from plum-colored polish; Brynn’s, unpolished, were the same shade.
    “I understand you and Emma worked together. Are you a lawyer too?”
    A shake of her pretty head. “No, I was a paralegal in Milwaukee for a while before I moved to Chicago. That’s how we met. It was just a way to make some money. I’m really an actress.”
    “Did she ever talk to you about her cases?”
    “Not too much, no.”
    “Could be—a case at her law firm. She might’ve found out about a scam or crime of some kind.”
    Michelle gasped. “You mean they came up here to kill her on purpose?”
    Brynn shrugged.
    A snap nearby. Brynn gasped and turned fast. About twenty feet away a badger, elegant in its round, clumsy way, nosed past warily.
    Wisconsin, the Badger State.
    Brynn asked Michelle, “Will somebody start to wonder if they don’t hear from you?”
    “My husband. Except he’s traveling. We said we’d talk in the morning. That’s why I came up here with Steve and Emma. I had the weekend free.”
    “Look.” Brynn was pointing toward the Feldman house. Two flashlight beams were scanning the side yard, a quarter mile away. “They’re back there. Hurry. The other house. Let’s go.” Brynn rose to a crouch, both of them staggering forward.

    SO THE COP had gone into the water.
    Hart and Lewis had found debris and an oil slick.
    “Dead, gotta be,” Lewis’d said, looking distastefully at the lake, as if he were expecting monsters to slither out. “I’m outa here. Come on, Hart. Jake’s. I need a fucking beer. First round’s on you, my friend.”
    They’d returned to the Feldman house. The fire in the hearth had burned itself out and Hart had shut off all the lights. He’d put into his pocket all the used medical supplies stained with his blood. He didn’t bother with the spent shells that littered the house and front yard; he’d worn gloves when loading the Glocks and had watched to make sure Lewis had too.
    Then he sprayed and wiped everything Lewis had come near with his bare hands.
    Lewis couldn’t resist a snicker at this.
    “Keep that,” an irritated Hart said, pointing to Michelle’s purse.
    Lewis slipped it into his combat jacket pocket and took a bottle of vodka from the bar. Chopin. “Shit. This is good stuff.” He uncorked it and took a drink. He lifted the bottle to Hart, who shook his head because he didn’t want any booze just now, though Lewis took it as a criticism about drinking on the job, which was true too. At least he wore gloves when handling the bottle.
    “You worry too much, Hart,” Lewis said, laughing. “I know the score, my friend. I know how they operate in places like this. I wouldn’t do that in Milwaukee or St. Paul. But here . . .