But then, like Compton Lewis, Michelle faded from his thoughts and he fell asleep with only one image in his mind: the calm, confident eyes of Deputy Brynn McKenzie, sitting beside him in the front seat of the van.
You have the right to remain silent….
THEY RETURNED FROM
the hospital at 8 P.M. Brynn and Graham picked up Joey from the neighbor’s house and they drove home. Brynn got out of the car first and went up to the deputy, Jimmy Barnes, the one whose birthday was today. The balding, ruddy-faced man was parked on the shoulder in front of their house, all grim and quiet—the way everybody was in the Kennesha County Sheriff’s Department, because of Munce.
In fact, the way a lot of people throughout the town of Humboldt were.
“Nobody’s come by, Brynn.” He waved to Graham. “Made the rounds a few times.”
“Thanks.”
She suspected that Michelle, whoever she was, would be long gone but the woman seemed frighteningly obsessed.
And, she reflected, Hart too knew her last name.
“Crime Scene’s got what they need. I locked up after.”
“They say anything?”
“Nope. You know the state boys.”
It’d be against the laws of nature for the brass and the slugs from Lake Mondac not to match those collected in her house.
Barnes asked, “Wasn’t her friends? She was making all that up?”
“That’s right.”
“And your mom. Heard she’ll be okay?”
“She’ll live.”
“Where’d she get hit?”
“The leg. Hospital another day or two. Therapy.”
“Sorry about that.”
Brynn shrugged. “Lot of people don’t make it round to see therapy.”
“Lucky.”
If your daughter bringing an armed killer into your house is luck, then I guess.
“’Night now. Somebody’ll make the rounds off and on.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You’ll be in?”
“Yep. You have a package for me?”
“Oh, yeah.” Barnes reached into the back and handed her a heavy paper bag. She looked inside at a well-worn department Glock and two extra clips, along with a box of Winchester 9mm hollow points.
He then lifted a clipboard. She signed for the weapon.
“You got a clip loaded. Thirteen. None in the bedroom.”
“Thanks.”
“Get some rest, Brynn.”
“’Night. And happy birthday.”
As he drove off she checked the clip anyway and chambered a round.
The family walked inside the house.
Upstairs she put the gun in the lockbox and returned to the kitchen.
Joey had eaten pizza at the neighbor’s. He walked around, staring at the bullet holes in the walls until Brynn told him not to.
Brynn took a long shower, the water hot as she could stand, and tied her hair back after towel-drying it. Didn’t want the noise of the dryer. She changed the bandage on her face, threw on sweats and went downstairs, where Graham was heating up spaghetti from last night. She wasn’t hungry but felt she’d abused her system enough in the past twenty-four hours and was expecting it to go on strike if she didn’t start to pamper soon.
They went into the dining room and ate for a while in silence. She sat back, looked at the label on her beer. She wondered what exactly hops were.
Then she asked Graham, “What is it?”
“Hmm?”
“There was something you wanted to say at the hospital.”
“Don’t remember.”
“You sure? I think you might.”
“Maybe something. But not now. It’s late.”
“I think now is good.” She was chiding but serious too.
Joey came downstairs and was channel surfing in the family room, sitting on the green couch.
Graham stuck his head in the door. “Joey, go upstairs and read. No TV.”
“Just ten min—”
Brynn started to speak. Graham continued into the family room. He said something that Brynn couldn’t hear.
The TV shut off and she caught a glimpse of her sullen son climbing the stairs.
What was that about?
Her husband sat down at the table.
“Come on, Graham.” They rarely used each other’s name. “What is it? Tell me?”
Her husband sat forward, and she saw he was lost in debate. Eventually he said, “Do you know how Joey hurt himself yesterday?”
“The skateboard? At school?”
“It wasn’t at school. And it wasn’t just three steps in the parking lot. He was ’phalting. You know what that is?”
“I know ’phalting. Sure. But Joey wouldn’t do that.”
“Why? Why do you say that? You don’t have any idea.”
She blinked.
“He was ’phalting. He was doing close to forty or fifty on the back of a truck down Elden Street.”
“The highway?”
“Yes. And he’d been doing it all day.”
“Impossible.”
“Why do you say that? A teacher saw him. His section teacher called, Mr. Raditzky. Joey skipped school. And he forged your name to a note.”
With yesterday’s horror less immediate, this news was shocking. “Forged?”
“Went in in the morning. Left and never came back.”
Was this true? She looked at the ceiling. A black dot of a bullet hole was in the corner. Small as a fly. The slug had come all the way through here. “I had no idea. I’ll talk to him.”
“I tried. He wouldn’t listen.”
“He gets that way.”
In a harsh voice Graham said, “But he can’t get that way. That’s not an excuse. He kept lying to me and I told him no skateboarding for a month.”
“Are you sure—” Her initial reaction was to defend her son, to question Mr. Raditzky’s credibility, to ask who the witness was, to cross-examine. She fell silent.
Graham was tense, shoulders forward.
More was coming.
But, fair enough. She’d asked for this.
“And the fight, Brynn. Last year? You told me it was a pushing match. Mr. Raditzky told me what really happened.”
“He was a bully. He—”
“—was just taunting Joey. Talking to him is all. But Joey hurt him bad. We almost got sued. You never told me that.”
She fell silent. Then said, “I didn’t want word to get around. I pulled some strings. It wasn’t all on the up-and-up. But I had to do it. I wanted to protect him.”
“He’s not going to break, Brynn. You spoil him. His bedroom looks like a Best Buy.”
“I pay for everything I bought him myself.” She instantly regretted the barbed words, seeing the grimace on Graham’s face. This had nothing to do with money, of course.
“I don’t think it’s good for him, all that indulgence. You don’t have to be mean. But have to say no sometimes. And punish him if he doesn’t listen to you.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t. It’s like you owe him, like you’re guilty about something and paying back this debt. What’s it all about, Brynn?”
“You’re making it into something more than it is. Way more.” She gave a faint laugh, though she felt her heart chill—the way her skin had when the cold, black water rushed into her car at Lake Mondac. “His fight at school…it was just something between Joey and me.”
“Oh, Brynn, that’s the problem. See? That’s what this is all about. It’s never been ‘us.’ It’s always you and Joey. I’m along for the ride.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? What’s this all about?” He waved his hand around the house. “Is it about us, the three of us, a family? Or is it about you? You and your son?”
“It’s about us, Graham, really.” She tried holding his eye but couldn’t.
No lies between us, Brynn…
But that was Hart. And it was Keith…. Graham was different. This is so wrong, she thought, being honest with bad men, while the good ones get lied to and neglected.
He stretched. She noticed that both their beers were exactly three-quarters full. He said, “Forget it. Let’s go to bed. We need sleep.”
She asked, “When?”
“When what?”
“Are you leaving?”
“Brynn. This is enough for tonight.” A laugh. “We never talk, not about anything serious. And now we can’t stop. Tonight of all nights. We’re exhausted. Let’s just get some rest.”
“When?” she repeated.
He rubbed his eyes, first one, then both. He lowered his hands, looked at a deep scratch inflicted at some point last night in the woods. A tear in the skin from a thorn or rock. He seemed surprised. He said, “I don’t know. A month. A week. I don’t know.”
She sighed. “I’ve seen it coming.”
He looked perplexed. “Seen it coming? How? I didn’t know it till last night.”
What did he mean by that? She asked, “Who is she?”
“‘She’?”
“You know who. That woman you’re seeing.”
“I’m not seeing anybody.” He sounded put out, as if she’d delivered a cheap insult.
She debated but kept to the course. She said harshly, “JJ’s poker games. Sometimes you go. Sometimes you don’t.”
“You’ve been spying on me.”
“You lied to me. I could tell. I do this for a living, remember?”
He’s no good at deception.
Unlike me.
Anger now. But more troubling, he sounded disgusted. “What’d you do? Put a bug in the car? Have somebody from the department tail me?”
“I saw you once. By coincidence. Outside the motel on Albemarle. And, yeah, I followed you later. You said you were going to the game. But you went there again…” She snapped, “Why are you laughing? It broke my heart, Graham!”
“To break somebody’s heart, you need to own a bit of it. And I don’t. I don’t have an ounce of yours. I don’t think I ever did.”
“That’s not true! There’s no excuse for cheating.”
He was nodding slowly. “Cheating, ah…Did you ask me about it? Did you sit down and say, ‘Honey, we have a problem, I’m concerned, let’s talk about it? Get it worked out’?”
“I—”
“You know your mother told me about what Keith did. To your face. You know my first reaction? Oh, my God, that explains so much. How could I be mad at you? But then I realized that, hell, yes, I could be mad. I should be mad. And you should have told me. I deserved to be told.”
Brynn had considered telling him a hundred times. Yet she’d made up a bullshit story about a car crash. She thought now: But how could I tell him? That somebody flew into a rage and hit me. That I cried off and on for months afterward. That I cringed at the sound of his voice. That I broke into a hundred pieces like a child. I was ashamed that I didn’t leave him, just bundle Joey up and walk out the door.
That I was afraid. That I was weak.
And that my delaying would have even more horrific consequences.
Keith…
But even now she couldn’t tell him exactly what had happened.
And here, she understood, was a clue to the crime she’d committed against Graham, against the two of them: her silence, this inability to talk. Yet she felt that whatever the clue led to, even if she managed to figure it out, the solution would come too late. It was like finding conclusive evidence as to a killer’s identity, only to discover that the perp had already died of natural causes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you still…” Her voice faded as she watched him pulling his wallet from his slacks, fishing in it. She watched, obsessively touching the bandage on her cheek.
Jesus. Was it his lover’s picture? she wondered.
He handed her a small white card.
Brynn squinted; the cheek wound made reading difficult out of her right, her stronger, eye.
She stared at the raised type: Sandra Weinstein, M.D., LLC. 2942 Albemarle Avenue, Ste. 302, Humboldt, Wisconsin. Handwritten at the bottom was: Friday 7:30, April 17. Brynn began, “She’s a—”
“Therapist. Psychiatrist…Shrink.”
“You—”
“You saw us near the motel, Brynn, but not at the motel. She’s in the professional building next door. I’m usually her last patient at night. Sometimes we leave the office at the same time. That’s probably when you saw us.”
Brynn flicked the card.
“Call her. Go see her. I’ll give her permission to tell you all about it. Please, go talk to her. Help me figure out why you love the job more than me. Why you’d rather be in your squad car than at home. Help me figure out how to be a father to a son you won’t let me near. Why you got married to me in the first place. Maybe you two can figure it out. I sure can’t.”
Brynn offered lamely, “But why didn’t you tell me? Ask me to go with you to counseling? I would have!” She meant this.
He lowered his head. And she realized she’d touched a painful spot—like her tongue probing the gum where her tooth had once been.
“I should have. Sandra keeps suggesting it. I almost asked you a dozen times. I couldn’t.”
“But why?”
“Afraid of what you’d do. Give up on us, think I was being too demanding, walk out the door. Or take control and I’d get lost in the shuffle…Make it seem like there was no problem at all.” He shrugged. “I should have asked you. I couldn’t. But look, Brynn, the time for that has passed. You’re you, I’m me. Apples and oranges. We’re so different. It’s best for both of us.”
“But it’s not too late. Don’t judge by last night. This was…this was a nightmare.”
Then, astonishing her, he snapped. He shoved the chair back and leapt to his feet. The beer bottle fell, spewing foam over the plates. The easygoing man was now enraged. Brynn froze inside, replaying those nights with Keith. Her hand rose to her jaw. She knew that Graham wouldn’t hurt her. Still, she couldn’t help the defensive gesture. She blinked up at him and saw the wolf hovering nearby in the state park.
Yet, she realized the rage wasn’t at her. It was, she believed, directed purely at himself. “But I have to judge by last night. That’s what did it, Brynn. Last night…”
What he’d said before. He wasn’t planning on leaving until then. What did he mean? “I don’t understand.”
He inhaled deeply. “Eric.”
“Eric Munce?”
“He’s dead because of me.”
“You? No, no, we all knew he was reckless. Whatever happened didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Yes, it did! It had everything to do with me.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I used him!” His own jaw, square and perfect, was trembling. “I know you all thought he was a cowboy. Last night nobody was going to look for you at the interstate. But I knew you’d go that way. So I told Eric if he wanted to see some action he ought to come with me. That’s where the killers were headed.” Graham shook his head. “I threw that out like it was a hunting dog’s favorite treat…. And he’s dead because of me. Because I went someplace I had no business going. And I have to live with that forever.”
She leaned forward. He recoiled from her hand. She sat back and asked, “Why, Graham? Why did you come, then?”
He gave a cold laugh. “Oh, Brynn. I plant trees and flowers for a living. You carry a gun and do high-speed chases. I want to watch TV at night; you want to study the latest drug-testing kits. I can’t compete with your life. I sure can’t in Joey’s eyes…Last night, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. Maybe that there was some gunfighter deep inside me. I could prove myself. But that was a joke. All I did was get another human being killed…. No goddamn business going out there. And I have no business here. You don’t want me, Brynn. You sure don’t need me.”
“No, honey
, no…”
“Yes,” he whispered. Then held up a hand. The gesture meant: enough, no more.
He gripped her arm and squeezed softly. “Let’s get some sleep.”
As Graham went upstairs Brynn absently daubed at the spilled beer until the paper napkins disintegrated. She got a dish towel and finished the job. With another she tried to stanch the tears.
She heard his footsteps coming downstairs again. He was carrying a pillow and blanket. Without a glance her way, he walked to the green couch, made up a bed and closed the family room door.
“ALL DONE, MA’AM.”
Brynn peered over at the painter, who was gesturing toward the living room and its repaired ceiling and walls.
“What do I owe you?” She peered around as if a checkbook floated nearby.
“Sam’ll send you a bill. You’re good for it. We trust you.” He gestured at her uniform. Smiled then stopped. “The funeral’s tomorrow? Deputy Munce?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry about what happened. My son painted his garage. The deputy was very civil to him. Some people aren’t. They gave him an iced tea…. I’m sorry.”
A nod.
After the painter left she continued to stare at the blank walls. No trace of the 9mm holes remained. She thought she should put up the pictures once more. But she didn’t have the energy. The house was completely silent.
She looked over a list of things she had to do—calls to return, evidence to follow up on, interviews to conduct. Someone named Andrew Sheridan had called twice—he had some business connection with Emma Feldman and was asking about the files recovered from the house in Lake Mondac. She wondered what that was about. And somebody from the state’s attorney’s office had heard from the couple injured when their SUV overturned on the interstate. They were suing. The owner of the house at 2 Lake View had made a claim too. The ammonia had ruined the floor. Bullet holes too, of course. She needed to file a report. She’d delay that as long as she could.
She heard footsteps on the front porch.
Graham’s?
A knock on the wooden frame. She rose.
“The bell’s out, I think,” Tom Dahl said.
The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Page 32