The Bodies Left Behind

outfit was a black pantsuit and gold shell. Her short ’do had been put in place by the hairdresser just yesterday. Thursday was her day at Style Cuts.
    “Just a few scrapes, a few bruises.”
    Graham said, “He was skateboarding down stairs.”
    “Oh, my.”
    “Three steps. Not ‘stairs.’” Brynn sipped. “Everything’s fine. He won’t do it again. Nothing serious, really. We’ve all done things like that.”
    Graham asked Anna, “What’d she do when she was a kid?” Nodding at his wife.
    “Oh, I’ve got stories.” But she told none of them.
    “I’ll take him paintballing or something,” Graham suggested. “Channel some of that energy.”
    “That’d be a good idea.”
    Graham ripped up lettuce with his hands. “Spaghetti okay, Anna?”
    “Whatever you make’ll be lovely.” Anna took the glass of Chardonnay her son-in-law poured for her.
    Brynn watched her husband take plates from the cupboard. “Think there’s some dust on them? From the tiling?”
    “I sealed it off with plastic. Took it down after I was done.”
    He hesitated then rinsed them anyway.
    “Can somebody take me over to Rita’s tonight?” Anna asked. “Megan’s got to pick up her son. Just for an hour and a half or so. I promised to handle bathroom duty.”
    “How’s she doing?” Brynn asked.
    “Not good.” Anna and her dear friend had been diagnosed around the same time. Anna’s treatment had gone well, Rita’s had not.
    “I’ll take you,” she told her mother. “Sure. What time?”
    “Sevenish.” Anna turned back to the family room, the heart of Brynn’s small house on the outskirts ofHumboldt. The nightly news was on. “Lookit. Another bomb. Those people.”
    The phone rang. Graham answered. “Hi, Tom. How’s it going?”
    Brynn set the beer down. Looked at her husband, holding the phone in his large hand. “Yeah, I saw it. Good game. You’re calling for Brynn, I’m guessing. . . . Hold on. She’s here.”
    “The boss,” he whispered, offering the handset then turning back to dinner.
    “Tom?”
    The sheriff asked about Joey. She thought he was going to lecture her about skateboards too but he didn’t. He was explaining about a situation up in Lake Mondac. She listened carefully, nodding.
    “Need somebody to check it out. You’re closer than anybody else, Brynn.”
    “Eric?”
    Graham lit a burner on the Kenmore stove. Blue sparks ascended.
    “I’d rather it wasn’t him. You know how he gets.”
    Graham stirred the pot. It was mostly the contents of cans but he still stirred like he was blending hand-diced ingredients. In the family room a man’s voice was replaced by Katie Couric’s. Anna announced, “That’s more like it. What the news should be about.”
    Brynn debated. Then she said, “You owe me a half day, Tom. Give me the address.”
    Which turned Graham’s head.
    Dahl put on another deputy, Todd Jackson, who gave directions. Brynn wrote.
    She hung up. “Might be a problem up at Lake Mondac.” She looked at the beer. Didn’t drink any more.
    “Aw, baby,” Graham said.
    “I’m sorry. I feel obligated. I left work early because of Joey.”
    “But Tom didn’t say that.”
    She hesitated. “No, he didn’t. The thing is I’m closest.”
    “I heard you mention Eric.”
    “He’s a problem. I told you about him.”
    Eric Munce read Soldier of Fortune magazine, wore a second gun on his ankle like he was in downtown Detroit and would go prowling around for meth labs when he should have been Breathalyzing DUIs and encouraging kids to get home by 10 P.M.
    From the doorway, Anna said, “Should I call Rita?”
    “I guess I can take you,” Graham said.
    Brynn put a stopper on her beer bottle. “Your poker game?”
    Her husband paused, smiled then said, “It’ll keep. Anyway, with Joey being hurt, better to stay here, keep an eye on him.”
    She said, “You guys eat. And leave the dishes. I’ll clean up when I get back. It’ll be a couple hours is all.”
    “Okay,” Graham said. And everybody knew he’d clean up.
    She pulled on her leather jacket, lighter weight than her Sheriff’s Department parka. “I’ll call when I get up there. Let you know when I’ll be back. Sorry about your game, Graham.”
    “Bye,” he said, not looking back, as he eased the jackstraws of spaghetti into the boiling pot.

    NORTH OF HUMBOLDT the landscape is broken into bumpy rectangles of pastures, separated by benign fences, a few stone walls and hedgerows. The sun was