The Bodies Left Behind

who walked around with a pleasant smile most of the time. Some of this might have been because Jasons, although he did have a law degree from Yale and an office in the union’s legal department, didn’t technically work for Mankewitz. A “labor relations specialist,” he was an independent contractor, powerful in his own right. He had his autonomous fiefdom—with the authority, and budget, to hire whomever he wanted. Jasons could also use money in ways that were beneficial to the union and Mankewitz but that avoided various inconvenient reporting regulations.
    Then there was a lifestyle difference too. Mankewitz was not a stupid man. Nobody was going to do what Jasons did without his complete dossier—verbal at least—being delivered to the union boss. He’d know that Jasons lived alone in a nice detached house near the lakefront. That his mother lived in a nice apartment connected to her son’s house. That his boyfriend of several years, Robert, lived in an amazing townhouse near the lakefront. And he probably knew that Robert, a successful engineer and one hunky bodybuilder, shared Jasons’s interest in hockey, wine and music and that the partners had planned a civil union next year, with a honeymoon in Mexico.
    But Jasons appreciated that Mankewitz did his homework. Because it was exactly how he himself worked his magic.
    Alicia especially. Every day after school in that rehearsal room, three to four-thirty. . . . Impressive.
    Mankewitz didn’t care about Jasons’s lifestyle, of course. Which was ironic, considering that the membership of Local 408 was made up of blue-collar folk, men mostly, some of whom would beat the crap out of James Jasons and Robert, given no excuse, some opportunity and a few too many beers.
    Welcome to the new millennium.
    A last bite of apple, sweetened by the diet soda.
    He put the second hamburger back in the bag, which he twisted closed.
    He passed a sign that announced it was forty-nine miles to Clausen, which he knew was about eight miles before the turnoff for Lake Mondac. Since he hadn’tseen any traffic, let alone a patrol car, on the road for miles, he edged the speed up to seventy-five.
    And clicked the selector to the Christian CD, just for the fun of it.

    HOLDING THE HEAVY Savage rifle, Henry headed down the path toward where Rudy had directed him. He took a foil pack out of his pocket, a pipe and lighter too. Then he hesitated and put them away. He blew into his hands and continued along the path, scratching at the scars on his arm.
    He stopped where the small path met the bigger one, the one that led down to the lake they got their water from. He stood there for five minutes, squinting, looking from right to left. Didn’t see a soul. He leaned the rifle against a tree. As he was reaching into his pocket again for the pack of meth and the lighter, a man stepped out of the shadows and hit him in the forehead with the butt of a shotgun, which was rubber padded but still hard enough to knock Henry off his feet. His head lolled back, eyes unfocused. A gurgling rose from his throat and his hands flailed and his knees jerked.
    When the butt of the deer rifle, which wasn’t padded, crushed his windpipe Henry stopped thrashing quite so violently. After a minute he stopped moving altogether.

    CRADLING THE DEER rifle in his arm, Hart tensed as someone approached. But it was just Lewis, who glanced at the body on the ground, grunted and picked up the shotgun.
    Hart bent down and felt the skinny man’s neck with the backs of his fingers. “Dead. You know they can lift prints from skin.”
    “No. I didn’t. They can?”
    “Yep.” Hart pulled his gloves back on. “What’s the story?”
    Lewis said, “That girl deputy Brynn’s in the van. I saw some guy put her there. Looked like she was taped, her hands behind her, I mean.”
    “So they walked right into the helpful arms of meth cookers.” Hart gave a faint laugh. “Everybody’s having a reversal of fortune tonight. We end up with a cop coming to visit in Lake Mondac, and they end up with a trailer full of slammers. Was she alone in the van?”
    “I didn’t see anybody else. I wasn’t that close.”
    “So where’s Michelle?”
    “No idea.”
    Hart pressed the catch on the bolt of the deer rifle, slipped it out of the gun, flung it away. Threw the gun itself in the opposite direction. He was a much better shot with a pistol than a rifle. Besides, a bolt action letyou fire off a round only every few