Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

“Think about what I told you,” Mankewitz said. “Seems like you and the FBI and everybody else’s been looking in the wrong place.”

“Or,” the skinny man said, sipping from his glass as if the soda were a vintage wine, “looking for the wrong who.”

THE POLICE LINE bunting on the front porch had come undone; it wagged like a bony yellow finger in the breeze.

Brynn hadn’t been back to the Feldmans’ vacation house on Lake View Drive since that night, now almost three weeks ago. Oddly, in the afternoon daylight, the house looked starker than it had then. The paint was uneven and peeling in many places. The angles sharp. The shutters and trim unpleasing black.

She walked to the place where she’d stood beside her car, nearly hyperventilating with terror, in a shooting stance, waiting for Hart to rise from the bushes and present a target.

From that memory, her thoughts slipped back naturally to the school counselor’s report that Mankewitz had given her, now indeed both shredded and burned in the backyard barbecue. The counselor had transcribed the incident pretty much the way it happened.

The night was also in April, curiously. She pictured herself blinking in horror as Keith, just home from a long day of patrol, sat at the kitchen table and his anger slowly unraveled. She didn’t know what had sparked the outburst; often, she couldn’t remember. Something about their taxes and money. Maybe she’d misplaced some receipts.

Small. It was usually something small.

But the incident had escalated fast. Keith, getting that crazed look in his eyes, so terrifying. Possessed. His voice was low at first, then cracking, rising to a scream. Brynn had said the worst thing she could: “Calm down. It’s no big deal.”

“I’m the one who’s been working on it all day! Where’ve you been? Handing out parking tickets?”

“Calm down,” she’d snapped back, even as her heart stuttered and she found her hand protecting her jaw.

Then he’d snapped. He’d leapt up, kicking the table over, tax forms and receipts flying through the air, and charged her, beer bottle in hand. She’d pushed him away, hard, and he’d grabbed her by the hair and muscled her to the floor. They’d grappled, knocking chairs aside. He’d dragged her toward him, balling his fist up.

Screaming, crying, “No, no, no.” Seeing his massive hand rearing back.

And then Joey was charging into them, sobbing himself.

“Joey! Get back,” Keith raged, intoxicated-though, as usual, not from alcohol but anger. He was completely out of control, drawing back his huge fist.

She tried to twist away, so the terrible blow wouldn’t shatter her jaw again. Trying to protect Joey, who was stuck in the middle, screaming right along with his mother.

“Don’t hurt Mommy!”

Then: Crack.

The bullet struck Keith directly in the center of the chest.

And the boy began screaming once more. The five-year-old had slipped his mother’s Glock from her holster, probably meaning just to threaten. But the weapon has no traditional safety catch; just gripping the trigger could cause it to go off.

The gun spun to the floor as mother, father, son were frozen in a horrible tableau.

Keith, blinking, had stumbled back. Then dropped to his knees and vomited. He passed out. Brynn had gasped, sped to him and ripped his shirt open, seeing the disk of hot copper and lead fall from the Kevlar vest.

Ambulances and statements and negotiations…

And of course the indelible horror of the incident itself.

Yet Mankewitz and that skinny fellow Jasons didn’t know the worst part. The part that she regretted every minute of her life.

After that night, life got better. In fact, it became perfect.

Keith found a good psychiatrist and went into anger-management and twelve-step programs. They went to couple’s therapy. Joey too went into counseling.

And never again was there a harsh word between them, let alone a touch not motivated by affection or passion. They became the most normal of couples. Attending Joey’s events and church. Anna and her husband warily returned to their daughter’s life, having distanced themselves because of Keith.

No more big blowups, no harsh words. He became a model husband.

And nine months later she asked him for a divorce, and he had reluctantly agreed.

Why had she asked for one?

She’d spent hours, days wondering. Was it the aftershock of that terrible night? The accumulation of the man’s moods? Or that she wasn’t programmed to live a calm, normal life?

I wouldn’t trade the life I lead for anything. Look at most of the rest of the world-the walking dead. They’re nothing but dead bodies, Brynn. Sitting around, upset, angry about something they saw on TV doesn’t mean a single thing to them personally…

She thought back to that night after she and Graham had returned from the hospital after Anna had been shot. What he’d said to her.

Oh, Graham, you’re right. So right. But I do owe my son. I owe him big. I put him in a situation where he actually used a weapon to try to save his mother, when I should have taken him out of that household years before.

And then I left after everything got better, I took Joey away from a man who moved heaven and earth to turn his life around.

How can I help but spoil the boy, protect him? And hope for his forgiveness?

Touching her jaw, she now climbed onto the porch of the Feldmans’ house. The scene had been released but a State Police lockbox was still on the door. She worked the combination, took the key and stepped inside. The place smelled of sweet cleanser and fireplace smoke, lured out by the damp air.

She saw bullet holes-from Hart’s, from Lewis’s shotgun, from Michelle’s, from Brynn’s own weapon as well. In the kitchen the floor had been scrubbed clean. Not a trace of blood remained. There were companies that did this, cleaning up after crimes and accidental deaths. Brynn had always thought that would be a good murder-mystery novel: a killer who works for one of those companies and cleans the scene so completely the police can’t find any clues.

In the kitchen she saw a half dozen battered cookbooks, several of which she herself owned. She pulled down an old Joy of Cooking. She opened it up to the page where the red ribbon marked a recipe. Chicken fricassee. She laughed. She’d made this very dish. In the corner was written in pencil, 2 hours. And the words Vermouth instead.

Brynn put the book back.

She wondered what would happen to the house now.

Abandoned for another generation, she supposed. Who’d want to be up here anyway? Imposing, harsh woods, no grocery stores or restaurants nearby and that lake cold and dark, like an old bullet hole.

But then she cut all of these reflections loose, pushed them away, just like she and Michelle had shoved the canoe into the black stream and gone on their urgent way.

With a glance at where the bodies had lain-where she had almost joined them in death-Brynn returned to the living room.

“WE HAVE TO LEAVE.”

“Okay,” Joey replied to his mother and trooped down the stairs, wearing an Old West costume that Anna had made. Man, that woman knew her way around Singer sewing machines, Brynn thought. Always had. Some people are born to the skill.

Brynn had spent the past several days in Milwaukee and Kenosha, running down leads, some successful and some not. But she’d made a point of returning in time that evening to get to Joey’s pageant.

Brynn called, “Mom, are you okay in there?”

From the family room Anna said, “I’m fine. Joey, I wish I could come. But I’ll come to your party when school’s over. I’ll be fine by then. Who’re you playing?”