The Bodies Left Behind

shades of blue. It was pretty.
    “Graham, you know Brynn had some trouble with her face.”
    “Her jaw? Sure, the car accident.”
    He had no idea where she was going with this.
    The woman’s gray eyes were on his. That was one thing about Anna McKenzie. As demure as she could be, as polite and proper, she always looked you right in the eye.
    “Accident,” she repeated slowly. “So you don’t know.”
    More yellow jackets, Graham was beginning to sense.
    “Go on.”
    “I just assumed she’d told you.”
    He was alarmed and hurt at the lie, whatever it might be. Yet he wasn’t very surprised. “Go on.”
    “Keith hit her, broke her jaw.”
    “What?”
    “Wired shut for three weeks.”
    “God, it was that serious?”
    “He was a big man. . . . Don’t feel too bad she kept it from you, Graham. She was embarrassed, ashamed. She didn’t tell hardly anybody.”
    “She said he was moody. I didn’t know he hurt her.”
    “Moody? True. But mostly it was his temper problem. Like some people drink and some people gamble. He’d lose control. It was scary. I saw it happen a few times.”
    “Rage-aholic. What happened?”
    “The night he hit her? I’m sure it wasn’t anything big that set him off. It never was. That was the scariest. It could be the power went out before a game, the store was out of his brand of beer, Brynn telling him she was going back to work part-time when Joey got a little older. Whatever it was, he’d just snap.”
    “I never knew.”
    “So domestic problems—they mean a lot to her.”
    “She does run those a lot,” Graham agreed. “I always thought it was Tom Dahl. You know, wanting a woman there.”
    “No. She’d volunteer.”
    “What did she do? After Keith hit her?”
    “She didn’t have him arrested if that’s what you mean. I think she was worried about Joey.”
    “He ever do it again?”
    “No. Not that she ever told me.”
    Hitting someone you were married to. He couldn’t imagine it. Hell, hitting anyone, unless it was selfdefense, was almost impossible to picture.
    Graham was matching this information against other incidents in their past, against his wife’s words, her behavior. Dozens of times she’d touch her jaw in the morning. Even her waking, sweaty and groaning, from dreams. Her moodiness, her defensiveness.
    Her control . . .
    He pictured her hand, coasting along the uneven line of her jaw as they sat at the dinner table or watching TV on the green couch.
    Still, sitting back, he said, “She didn’t know what was going on at Lake Mondac until she got there. Domesticmay’ve been why she stayed tonight. It’s not why she volunteered to go in the first place. That ’s what I want to know.”
    “I think the answers’re pretty much the same, Graham.” The needle clicks resumed as Anna cranked up the assembly line of yarn once again.

    THEY PAUSED TO take a compass reading, as they’d been doing every quarter mile or so.
    The routine was that Brynn and Michelle would kneel down, rest the alcohol bottle on its side and tease their magnetic vessel into the center of its tiny ocean, where it would nose out north for them. The compass was a lifesaver. Brynn was astonished at how easily they would start to veer in the wrong direction, though she’d been absolutely convinced they were on course.
    Michelle asked, “How did you know how to make that?” Nodding at the compass as Brynn slipped it back into her pocket. “You have children? A school project?”
    “A course I took through the State Police. But I do have a son.” She tried to imagine skateboarding fiend Joey sitting still long enough for a science fair project. The idea was amusing.
    “How old is he?” Michelle was suddenly animated.
    “Twelve.”
    “I love children,” she said. Then she smiled. “What’s his name?”
    “Joseph.”
    “Biblical.”
    “I guess so. We named him after his father’s uncle.”
    “Is he a good boy?”
    “He sure is.” Hesitated. “Though he gets into things sometimes.” She told Michelle about the skateboarding incident today, some of his scrapes at school. The woman listened with interest—and sympathy. Brynn asked, “You and your husband have kids?”
    Michelle glanced at her. “Not yet. We lead pretty busy lifestyles.”
    “And you’re an actress, you were saying?”
    A shy smile. “Just little things now. TV commercials, community theater. But I’m going to get into Second City. The improv comedy troupe. I’ve had a couple