"What'd he say about the case?"
Jasons blinked. "Well, nothing. But he wouldn't. I was just making sure he wasn't suspicious about my trip up there."
Mankewitz nodded, trusting the man's judgment. "What's up with our girlfriend?"
Referring to the deputy, Kristen Brynn McKenzie. Right after the events of April 17 and 18, Jasons had looked into who was leading the investigation into the deaths of the Feldmans. There was that prick of an FBI agent, Brindle, and a couple of Milwaukee cops, but it was the small-town woman who was really pushing the case.
"She's unstoppable. She's running with it like a bulldog."
Mankewitz didn't think bulldogs ran much but he didn't say anything.
"She's better than the Bureau and Milwaukee PD combined."
"I doubt that."
"Well, she's working harder than they are. She's been to Milwaukee four times since the murders, following up on leads."
"She have jurisdiction?"
"I don't think that's an issue anybody's worried about. What with all the shit that went down in Kennesha County. And the dead lawyer."
"Why do I end up in the crock pot?"
Slight James Jasons had no response to that, nor should he offer one, the union boss reflected. Besides, the answer was obvious: Because I think immigrants who work hard ought to be let into the country to take the jobs of people who're too lazy to work.
Oh, and because I say it in public.
"So, Ms. McKenzie's not going to stop until she gets to the bottom of what happened up there."
"She's not going to stop," Jasons echoed.
"Out to make a name for herself?"
His man considered this, frowning. "It's not like she wants a notch in her gun or career advancement, anything like that."
"What's her point then?"
"Putting bad people in jail."
Jasons reminded Mankewitz again about being in the forest that night in April--an unarmed Brynn McKenzie on top of a cliff, launching rocks and logs down onto the men pursuing her, while they fired back with a shotgun and automatic pistol. She had only vanished when Jasons himself began firing with the Bushmaster.
Mankewitz knew without a doubt he wouldn't like Deputy McKenzie. But he had to respect her.
"What's she found exactly?"
"I don't know. She's been on the lakefront, Avenues West, the Brewline, over to Madison, down to Kenosha. Went to Minneapolis for the day. She's not stopping."
The running bulldog.
"Anything I can use? Anything at all?"
Speaking from memory--he never seemed to need notes--Jasons said, "There is one thing."
"Go ahead."
"She's got a secret."
"Give me the gist."
"Okay, six, seven years ago--married to her first husband. He was a state trooper, decorated, popular guy. Also had a temper. Had hit her in the past."
"Prick, hitting women."
"Well, turns out he gets shot."
"Shot?"
"In his own kitchen. There's an inquest. Accidental discharge. Unfortunate accident."
"Okay. Where's this going?"
"It wasn't an accident at all. Intentional shooting. There was a cover-up. Might've gone all the way to Madison."
"The kind of cover-up where people'll lose their jobs, if it comes to light?"
"Lose their jobs and probably go to jail."
"This just rumors?"
Jasons opened his briefcase. He removed a limp file folder. "Proof."
For a little runt, the man sure did produce.
"Hope it's helpful."
Mankewitz opened the folder. He read, lifting an eyebrow. "I think it's very helpful." He looked up and said sincerely, "Thanks. Oh, and by the way, Happy May Day."
HE LIKED THIS
town. At least he liked it well enough as a temporary home.
Green Bay was flatter than the state park around Lake Mondac, less picturesque in that sense, but the bay itself was idyllic, and the Fox River impressive in that hard, industrial way that had always appealed to Hart. His father used to take him to the steel mill where the man worked in the payroll office, and the son was always excited beyond words to don a hard hat and tour the floor, which stank of smoke and coal and liquid metal and rubber.
His rental house here was on one of the numbered streets, working-class, not so great. But functional and cheap. His big problem was that he was bored.
Biding time never worked for Hart but biding time was what he had to do. No choice there, none at all.
If he got too bored, he'd go for a drive to the forest preserve, which he found comforting, especially since to get there he'd take Lakeview Drive--the name similar to the private road at Lake Mondac. He would go for walks or sit in the car and work. He had several prepaid mobile phones and would make calls about forthcoming jobs.
Today, in fact, he was just finishing one of these walks, and noticed a maypole set up in one of the clearings. The children were running in a circle, making a barber pole. Then they sat down to their picnic lunch. A school bus was nearby, a yellow stain on the otherwise pretty green.
Hart returned to his rental house, drove around the block, just to be sure, then went inside. He checked messages and made some calls on a new prepaid mobile. Then he went into the garage, where he'd set up a small woodworking shop, a tiny one. He'd been working on a project of his own design. It started out being just an hour or two a day. Now he was up to about four hours. Nothing relaxed him like working with wood.
As he sanded by hand, he thought back to that night in the woods, recalling all the trees there--oak, ash, maple, walnut, all the hardwoods that made up the medium for his craft. What he purchased as smooth, precisely cut lumber, with perfect angles at the corners, had begun as a huge, imposing, even forbidding creature, towering a hundred or so feet in the air. In one way it troubled him that the trees were cut down. In another, though, he believed he was honoring the wood by transforming it into something else, something to be appreciated.
He now looked over the project he'd been working on: an inlaid box. He was pleased with the progress. It might be a present for someone. He wasn't sure yet.
At eight that night he drove to downtown Green Bay, to a woody, dark bar that served pretty good chili and had a bowl and a beer, sitting at the bar. He got another beer when he finished the first and went into the back room, where there was a basketball game on. He watched it, sipping the beer. It was a West Coast game and the hour was later here. Pretty soon the other patrons began to check their watches, then stand and head home. The score was 92-60 well into the second half and whatever interest had existed before the halftime show had evaporated.
Anyway, it was just basketball. Not the Packers.
He glanced at the walls. They were covered with old signs from Wisconsin's breweries of the past, famous ones, he supposed, though he'd never heard of them. Loaf and Stein, Heileman, Foxhead. An ominous tusked boar stared at him from a Hibernia Brewing logo. A picture of a TV screen on which two women looked out at the audience. Penned below it was, Hey there, from Laverne and Shirley.
Hart asked for his check as the waitress passed by. She was polite but cool, having given up flirting with him when it wasn't reciprocated the first time, a week or so ago. In bars like this one, once is enough. He paid, left and drove to another bar not far away, in the Broadway District. He stepped out of the car and into the shadows of a nearby alley.
When the man came out of the bar at 1 A.M., which he'd done virtually every night for the past week, Hart grabbed him, pushed a pistol into his back and dragged him into the alley.
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 ste
ps. 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 checkin 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 BlackBerry."
"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."
&nb
sp; "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."