Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

The miracle of modern electronics. God bless Edison. Or Marconi. Or Sprint.

Dahl stretched and massaged his leg near the leathery spot where a bullet had come and gone, not stinging much at the time and probably fired by one of his own men in the county’s only bank robbery shootout in recent memory. “Whatta you think, Todd? I don’t think you say, ‘This is the number I want,’ to four-one-one. I think you say, ‘This is an emergency.’ To nine-one-one.”

“And then you pass out.”

“Or get shot or stabbed. And the line just went dead?”

“And Peggy tried calling back. But it went to voice mail. Direct. No ring.”

“And the message said?”

“Just ‘This is Steven. I’m not available.’ No last name. Peggy left a message to call her.”

“Boater on the lake?” Dahl speculated. “Had a problem?”

“In this weather?” April in Wisconsin could be frigid; the temperatures tonight were predicted to dip into the high thirties.

Dahl shrugged. “My boys went into water that’d scare off polar bears. And boaters’re like golfers.”

“I don’t golf.”

Another deputy called, “Got a name, Todd.”

The young man produced a pen and notebook. Dahl couldn’t tell where they came from. “Go on.”

“Steven Feldman. Billing address for the phone is two one nine three Melbourne, Milwaukee.”

“So, it’s a vacation house on Lake Mondac. Lawyer, doctor, not a beggarman. Run him,” the sheriff ordered. “And what’s the number of the phone?”

Dahl got the numbers from Jackson, who then returned again to his cubicle, where he’d look up the particulars on the federal and state databases. All the important ones: NCIC, VICAP, Wisconsin criminal records, Google.

Out the window the April sky was a rich blue like a girl’s party dress. Dahl loved the air in this part of Wisconsin. Humboldt, the biggest town in Kennesha, had no more than seven thousand vehicles spread out over many miles. The cement plant put some crap into the air but it was the only big industry the county had so nobody complained except some local Environmental Protection Agency people and they didn’t complain very loudly. You could see for miles.

Quarter to six now.

“‘This,’” Dahl mused.

Jackson came back yet again. “Well, here we go, Sheriff. Feldman works for the city. He’s thirty-six. His wife Emma’s a lawyer. Hartigan, Reed, Soames and Carson. She’s thirty-four.”

“Ha. Lawyer. I win.”

“No warrants or anything on either of them. Have two cars. Mercedes and a Cherokee. No children. They have a house there.”

“Where?”

“I mean Lake Mondac. Found the deed, no mortgage.”

“Owning and not owing? Well.” Dahl hit REDIAL for the fifth time. Straight to voice mail again. “ Hi, this is Steven. I’m not available-”

Dahl didn’t leave another message. He disconnected, let his thumb linger on the cradle, then removed it. Directory assistance had no listing for a Feldman in Mondac. He called the phone company’s local legal affairs man.

“Jerry. Caughtya ’fore you left. Tom Dahl.”

“On my way out the door. Got a warrant? We looking for terrorists?”

“Ha. Just, can you tell me there’s a landline for a house up in Lake Mondac?”

“Where?”

“About twenty miles north of here, twenty-five. House is number three Lake View.”

“That’s a town? Lake Mondac?”

“Probably just unincorporated county.”

A moment later. “Nope, no line. Us or anybody. Everybody uses their mobiles nowadays.”

“What would Ma Bell say?”

“Who?”

After they disconnected, Dahl looked at the note Jackson had given him. He called Steven Feldman’s office, the Milwaukee Department of Social Services, but got a recording. He hung up. “I’ll try the wife. Law firms don’t ever sleep. At least not ones with four names.”

A young woman, an assistant or secretary, answered and Dahl identified himself. Then said, “We’re trying to reach Mrs. Feldman.”

The pause you always got, then: “Is something wrong?”

“No. Just routine. We understand that she’s at her vacation house at Lake Mondac.”

“That’s right. Emma and her husband and a friend of hers from Chicago were driving up there after work. They were going for the weekend. Please, is anything wrong? Has there been an accident?”

In a voice with which he’d delivered news of fatal accidents and successful births Tom Dahl said, “Nothing’s wrong that we know of. I’d just like to get in touch with her. Could you give me her cell phone number?”

A pause.

“Tell you what. You don’t know me. Call back the Kennesha County Center’s main number and ask to speak to the sheriff. If it’d make you feel any better.”

“It would.”

He hung up and the phone buzzed one minute later.

“Wasn’t sure she’d call,” he said to Jackson as he was picking up the handset.

He got Emma Feldman’s mobile number from the assistant. Then he asked for the name and number of the friend driving up with them.

“She’s a woman Emma used to work with. I don’t know her name.”

Dahl told the assistant if Emma called in to have her get in touch with the Sheriff’s Department. They hung up.

Emma’s mobile went straight to voice mail too.

Dahl exhaled, “‘This,’” the way he’d let smoke ease from his lips up until seven years and four months ago. He made a decision. “I’ll sleep better… Anybody on duty up that way?”

“Eric’s the closest. Was checking out a GTA in Hobart that turned into a mistake. Oops, should’ve called the wife first, that sort of thing.”

“Eric, hmm.”

“Called in five minutes ago. Went for dinner in Boswich Falls.”

“Eric.”

“Nobody else within twenty miles. Usually isn’t, up there, with the park closed and all, this time of year.”

Dahl looked out the interior window, over the cubicles of his deputies. Jimmy Barnes, the deputy whose birthday was tomorrow, was standing beside two coworkers, all of them laughing hard. The joke must’ve been pretty funny and it’d surely be told again and again that night.

The sheriff’s eyes settled on an empty desk. He winced as he massaged his damaged thigh.

“HOW’D IT GO?”

“Joey’s fine,” she said. “He’s just fine.”

Graham was in the kitchen, two skills on display, Brynn observed of her husband. He was getting the pasta going and he’d progressed with the new tile. About twenty square feet of kitchen floor were sealed off with yellow police line tape.

“Hi, Graham,” the boy called.

“Hey, young man. How you feeling?”

The lanky twelve-year-old, in cargo pants, windbreaker and black knit hat, held up his arm. “Excellent.” He was nearly his mother’s five-foot-five-inch height and his round face was dusted with freckles, which hadn’t come from Brynn, though he and his mother shared identical straight chestnut brown hair. His now protruded from under the watch cap.

“No sling? How’re you going to get any sympathy from the girls?”

“Ha, ha.” Graham’s stepson crinkled his nose at the comment about the opposite sex. The lean boy got a juice box from the fridge, poked the straw in and emptied the drink.

“Spaghetti tonight.”

“Al-right!” The boy instantly forgot skateboard injuries and female classmates. He ran to the stairs, dodging books that were stacked on the lower steps, intended for putting away at some point.

“Hat!” Graham shouted. “In the house…”

The boy yanked the cap off and continued bounding upward.

“Take it easy,” Graham called. “Your arm-”

“He’s fine,” Brynn repeated, hanging her dark green jacket in the front closet, then returning to the kitchen. Midwest pretty. Her high cheekbones made her look a bit Native-American, though she was exclusively Norwegian-Irish and in roughly the proportion her name suggested: Kristen Brynn McKenzie. People sometimes thought that, especially with her shoulder-length hair pulled back taut, she was a retired ballet dancer who’d settled into a size-eight life with few regrets, though Brynn had never danced, outside of a school or club, in her life.