It took Freddy Lancaster about fifteen seconds to decide that the impending threat from Hart was worse than the equally dangerous but less immediate threat of Michelle Kepler. He told Hart everything he knew about her.
One glance out of the alley and one single muted gunshot later, Hart returned to his car.
He drove back to his house, thinking about his next steps. He had believed Freddy when he’d said that neither he nor Gordon Potts knew exactly where Michelle lived but the man had disgorged enough information to allow Hart to start closing in on her.
Which he’d do soon.
But for now he’d do what he’d been obsessing about for the past several weeks. He yawned and reflected that at least he could get a good night’s sleep. He wouldn’t need an early start. Humboldt, Wisconsin, was only a three-hour drive away.
AT 2:30 P.M.
on Monday, May 4, Kristen Brynn McKenzie was in the bar area of a restaurant in Milwaukee, having chicken soup and a diet soda. She’d just left appointments with an MPD detective and an FBI agent, where they’d compared notes about their respective investigations into the killings of the Feldmans and the meth dealers in Kennesha County in April. The meetings had proven to be unhelpful. The goal of the city and the federal investigations, it seemed, was to find a link to Mankewitz, rather than capture those individuals who had slaughtered an innocent husband and wife and left their bodies ignominiously on a cold kitchen floor.
A fact that Brynn pointed out to both the detective and the Feebie, neither of whom was moved by her assessment to do more than curl his lips sympathetically. And with some irritation.
She’d left the second appointment in a bad mood and decided to grab some belated lunch and head home.
In the past few weeks Brynn McKenzie had logged 2,300 miles in her own investigation. She was now driving a used Camry—very used. The waterlogged Honda had died in the line of duty, according to the insurance company, thus excluding it from her personal auto policy. She’d paid for the car herself, from her savings, which hurt, particularly since she wasn’t sure about her financial future.
Graham had moved out.
They’d discussed the situation several times again after April 18. But Graham remained badly shaken by Eric Munce’s death, for which he still blamed himself—though not Brynn, not at all (what a difference between him and Keith).
Graham had been gone only a few days, moving into a rental unit twenty minutes away. She found herself sad and troubled…but in some way relieved. There was also a large numbness factor. Of course, domestics were her specialty, and she knew it was far too early to say for certain where their lives were headed.
He was still paying his share of the bills—more than his share, actually, picking up all of Anna’s medical expenses that the insurance company wasn’t. But their lifestyle had been based on two incomes and Brynn was suddenly much more conscious of finances.
She ate a bit more of the cooling soup. Her phone buzzed. Joey was calling and she picked up immediately. It was just a check-in and she made cheerful comments as he told her a few things about gym and science, then hung up to hurry off to his final class.
After allowing that Graham might have been accurate in his comments about the boy—and about her rearing of him—she’d done some investigating (and interrogating) and learned that the reports of Joey’s ’phalting were true; he’d hitched rides on trucks a number of times. Only by the grace of God had he been saved from serious injury. The class cutting too had occurred.
She’d had several difficult talks with the boy—prodded largely by her mother, which had surprised her.
Brynn had swooped into her son’s life like a tactical officer from a helicopter. He was only allowed to board at a local free-style course, when she was there with him. And he had to wear his helmet, no ski hats.
“Mom, like, come on. Are you kidding?”
“That’s your only option. And I keep your board locked up in my room.”
He’d sighed, exaggeratedly. But agreed.
She also required him to call in regularly and to be home within twenty minutes of the end of school. She was amused to see his reaction when she reminded him that the police have an arrangement with the local phone company that allows them to track the whereabouts of cell phones, even when they’re not in use. (This was true, though what she didn’t share was that it would be illegal for her to use the system to electronically check up on him.)
But if she was getting the rebellious behavior under control, there seemed to be nothing she could do with his moods about Graham’s departure. Although her husband stayed in regular touch with his stepson, Joey wasn’t happy at the breakup and she didn’t know how to do anything about that. After all, she wasn’t the one who’d walked out the door. She’d fix it, though at the moment she didn’t have a clue how.
She pushed the soup away, reflecting that so much had changed since that night.
“That night.” The phrase had become an icon in her life. It meant a lot more than a chronological reference.
She was single again, had an injured mother in her care and a troubled son to keep an eye on. Still, nothing in the world would stop her from finding Michelle and Hart and bringing them in.
She was, in fact, wondering if there was anything she could salvage from the meetings she’d just had with the detective and FBI agent when she realized the bar was deathly quiet.
Empty. The waiter, busboy and bartender were gone.
And then she had a memory: seeing a slight man walking behind her on the way from the police station here. She hadn’t thought anything of it, but now realized that she’d stopped at one point to look in a store window; he’d stopped as well, to make a phone call. Or to pretend to.
Alarmed, she started to rise but felt the breeze of a door opening and sensed people behind her, at least two, it seemed.
She froze. Her gun was under her suit jacket and a raincoat. She’d be dead before she undid two buttons.
There was nothing to do but turn around.
She did so, half expecting to see Hart’s gray eyes as he steadied the gun to kill her.
The heavier of the two, a man in his sixties, said, “Detective, I’m Stanley Mankewitz.”
She nodded. “It’s Deputy.”
The other man, skinny and boyish, was the one she’d seen earlier, following her. He had a faint smile but humor was not its source. He remained silent.
Mankewitz sat on the stool next to hers. “May I?”
“You’re bordering on kidnapping here.”
He seemed surprised. “Oh, you’re free to leave any time, Deputy McKenzie. Kidnapping?”
He nodded to his associate, who went to a nearby table.
The bartender had returned. He looked at Mankewitz.
“Just coffee. A Diet Coke for my friend.” He nodded at the table.
The bartender delivered the coffee to the bar and the soda to Mankewitz’s associate. “Anything else?” he asked Brynn, as if saying, Want some cheesecake for your last meal?
She shook her head. “Just the check.”
Mankewitz prepared the coffee carefully, just the right amount of cream, a sugar packet and a Splenda. He said, “I heard you had quite an evening a few weeks ago.”
That night…
“And how would you know that?”
“I watch the news.” He gave off an aura of confidence that she found reassuring in one sense—that she was in no physical danger at the moment—but also troubling. As if he had another weapon, like knowing something that could destroy her life without resorting to violence. He seemed completely in control.
In this way he reminded her of Hart.
The union boss continued, “Very important to be informed. When I was growing up, before your time, we had an hour of local news—five P.M.—and then national and international. Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley…Just a half hour. Me, that wasn’t enough. I like all the information I can get. CNN. I love it. It’s the home page on my Bla
ckBerry.”
“That doesn’t answer the question of how you happen to be here, when I just decided to come in on a whim…. Unless you’d somehow found out I had an appointment at Milwaukee PD.”
He hesitated only a moment—she’d obviously touched something close to home. He said, “Or maybe I’ve just been shadowing you.”
“I know he has,” she snapped, nodding at his slim associate.
Mankewitz smiled, sipped the coffee and looked with regret at the rotating dessert display. “We have a mutual interest here, Deputy.”
“And what would that be?”
“Finding Emma Feldman’s killer.”
“I’m not watching him drink very bad coffee two feet away from me right now?”
“It is bad coffee. How’d you know?”
“Smell.”
He nodded at the can of soda by her plate. “You and my friend and that diet pop. That’s what’s not good for you, you know. And, no, you’re not in the company of her killer.”
She looked behind her. The other fellow was sipping his soda while he looked over his own BlackBerry.
What was his home page?
“Don’t imagine you work many murders in Kennesha County,” Mankewitz said. “Not like this one.”
“Not like these,” she corrected. “Several people were killed.” Now that she was alive and the bartender was a witness, even a bribable one, she’d started feeling cocky, if not ornery.
“Of course.” He nodded.
Brynn mused, “What kind of cases do we run? Domestic knifings. A gun goes off accidental during a 7-Eleven or gas station heist. A meth deal goes bad.”
“Bad stuff, that drug. Very bad.”
Tell me about it. She said, “If you’ve seen COPS, you know what we do.”
“April seventeenth was a whole different ball game.” He sipped the bad coffee anyway. “You in a union? A police union?”
“No, not in Kennesha.”
“I believe in unions, ma’am. I believe in working and I believe in giving everybody a fair shake to climb up the ladder. Like education. School’s an equalizer; a union’s the same. You’re in a union, we give you the basics. You might be happy with that, take your hourly wage and God bless. But you can use it like a diving board, you want to go higher in life.”
“Diving board?”
“Maybe that’s a bad choice. I’m not so creative. You know what I’m accused of?”
“Not the details. A scam involving illegal immigrants.”
“What I’m accused of is giving people forged documentation that’s better than what they can buy on the street. They get jobs in open shops and vote to go union.”
“Is that true?”
“No.” He smiled. “Those’re the accusations. Now, you know how the authorities tipped to my alleged crimes? That lawyer, Emma Feldman, was doing some business deal for a client and she found a large number of legal immigrants were union members—proportionately a lot higher than in most locals around the country. From that, somebody started the rumor that I was selling them forged papers. All their green cards, though, were legit. Issued by the U.S. government.”
Brynn considered this. He seemed credible. But who knew?
“Why?”
“To break the union, that’s why, pure and simple. The rumors start going around that I’m corrupt. That Local Four-oh-eight is a front for terrorists. That I’m encouraging foreigners to take our jobs…Bang, everybody votes to drop out and go open shop.” He was worked up. “Let me explain exactly why I’m being persecuted here. Why people want Stanley Mankewitz out of the picture. Because I don’t hate immigrants. I am all in favor of them. I’d rather employ a dozen Mexicans or Chinese or Bulgarians who come to this country—legally, I’ll add—to work hard, than a hundred lazy born-here citizens any day. So I’m caught right in the middle. The employers hate me because I’m union. My own membership hates me because I promote people who aren’t Amurican.” He drawled the last word, a good ole boy. “So there’s a conspiracy to set me up.”
Brynn sighed, having lost all interest in her soup and the soda, which had been flat to start with, probably as bad as the coffee, though it didn’t stink.
Mankewitz lowered his voice. “Did you know I saved your life on April seventeenth?”
Her attention swung fully to him now. A frown. She didn’t want to show any emotion but couldn’t help herself.
Mankewitz said, “I sent Mr. Jasons there to protect my interest. I knew I didn’t kill Emma Feldman and her husband. I wanted to find out who really did. That could lead me to who was trying to set me up.”
“Please…” she said, giving him a skeptical glance. Her cheek stung and she rearranged her expression.
Mankewitz looked over her shoulder. “James?”
Jasons joined them at the bar, toting a briefcase. He said, “I was in the forest, near that ledge you and that woman and little girl were on. I had a Bushmaster rifle. You were throwing rocks and logs down on those men.”
She asked in a whisper, “That was you?” Jasons didn’t look like he could even hold a gun. “Shooting at us?”
“Near you. Not at. Only to break up the fighting.” Another sip of soda. “I drove to the house at the lake. I said I was a friend of Steve Feldman. I followed your husband and that other deputy into the woods. I wasn’t there to kill anybody. Just the opposite. My orders were to keep everyone alive. Find out who they were. I broke up the fight but I couldn’t track them down to interrogate them.”
Mankewitz said, “We have reason to believe that the rumors about my alleged illegal involvement came from someone in a company called Great Lakes Intermodal Container Service. Mr. Jasons here managed to find some documents—”
“Find?”
“—some documents that suggest that the president of the company was in bad financial shape and trying desperately to kick out the union so he could cut wages and benefits. The head lawyer of Great Lakes provided us with some documents that prove the president was behind the rumors.”
“Did you tell the prosecutor?”
“Unfortunately, this documentation—”
“It was stolen.”
“Well, let’s say it isn’t discoverable under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Now, here’s the situation. Since I have never sold any illegal papers, nobody can prove that I did. So eventually the charges will be dismissed. But rumors can cause as much damage as convictions. That’s what the Great Lakes Containers and the other union shops are hoping for—to ruin me by destroying my reputation and break the union. So I need to stop as many of those rumors as I can. And my number one priority is convincing you that I didn’t kill Emma Feldman.”
“In police school they teach us not to give up when a suspect says, ‘Really, I didn’t do it.’”
Mankewitz pushed the coffee away. “Deputy McKenzie. I know about the shooting seven years ago.”
Brynn froze.
“Your husband.” He looked at Jasons, who said, “Keith Marshall.”
Mankewitz continued, “The official report was accidental discharge, but everybody believed you shot him because he attacked you again. Like he did when he broke your jaw. But since he was wearing his body armor and survived, he could testify that it was accidental.”
“Look—”
“But I know the truth. I know it was your son, not you, who shot Keith, trying to save you.”
No, no…Brynn’s hands were shaking.
Another nod toward Jasons. A file appeared. It was old, limp. She looked at it. Kennesha County Board of Education Archives.
“What’s this?” she gasped.
Mankewitz pointed to a name on the folder. Dr. R. Germain.
It took her a moment to recognize it. He was Joey’s counselor in the third grade. Joey’d been having trouble in school, aggression, refusing to do homework, and had seen the man several times a week. The boy had been further traumatized when the counselor had died of a massive heart attack the night after a session.
“Where did you get it?” Without waiting for an answer she ripped it open with sweating hands.
Oh, my God…
They’d assumed Joey, just five at the time of the shooting, had forgotten, or blocked out, that terrible night when his parents had fought, grappling on the kitchen floor. The boy had run to his parents, screaming. Keith had pushed him away and gone to hit Brynn in the face again.
Joey had pulled her weapon from the holster on her hip and shot his father in the chest, dead center.
They’d pulled in every favor they could and Brynn took the hit for an accidental discharge, which alone nearly ended her career. Everybody figured that she’d shot Keith on purpose—he was known for his temper—but no one suspected Joey.
As she now learned from the report, the boy had given Dr. Germain a coherent and detailed account of what happened that night. Brynn had no idea that Joey recalled the event with such clarity. Apparently, she realized now, the only thing that had saved him from going into foster care—and if a witch hunt had ensued, having Brynn and Keith criminally investigated for endangering a child because of the weapon—was Germain’s death and the file vanishing, unread, into the school archives.
Mankewitz added, “The FBI and Milwaukee PD were close to finding this.”
“What? Why?”
“Because they want you off the case. Their investigation is meant to nail me. Yours is to find out what really happened at Lake Mondac.”
The assistant added, “They’ve been looking into every aspect of your life. They’d use this for leverage to discredit you.” A glance at the file. “Maybe even get you prosecuted and anybody who helped in the cover-up about Keith’s shooting.”
Her jaw trembled as badly as on that night when she’d climbed from the pungent waters of Lake Mondac.
They’d take her son away from her…. Her career would be over. Tom Dahl would be investigated too, for abetting the cover-up. People at the State Police would also come under investigation.
Mankewitz looked into her eyes, now swimming with tears. “Hey, relax.”
She glanced at him. He tapped the file with a thick finger. “Mr. Jasons here assures me that this is the only file. There were no copies made. Nobody except you, Keith and your son knows what happened that night.”
The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Page 34