The Big Law pb-2

by Chuck Logan

  Broker went to his study, removed the letter from his desk, and brought it to the table.

  “Okay, homework’s done.” She pushed an envelope down the table. “Here’s mine.”

  He took hers, handed over the one in his hand and sat across the table. Nina had poured cups of fresh coffee. The afternoon had turned gray and windy. A fine sleety snow pecked the windows. Superior brooded, humpbacked with black swells.

  Broker opened the letter. “The type is the same,” he said.

  “I make it Courier, ten point,” Nina said without looking up.

  Broker read:

  Dear Ms. Pryce, or should I say Dear Ms. John, I just thought you should know. While you’re over there freezing your famous butt in the Balkans your husband is augmenting his baby-sitting duties by living a B movie behind your back. He’s seeing his ex-wife, Caren Angland, and I mean seeing.

  Now these kinds of things can go two ways; there’s the Bridges of Madison County theory of adultery, where nobody gets hurt unless they drop a heavy metaphor on their foot, or there’s the Presumed Innocent scenario, where they do.

  Phil Broker is currently sweating out the latter story line. As the enclosed press clipping will verify, he got caught with Caren by husband, Keith. Keith flipped out and killed her dead.

  Merry Christmas and keep up the good work,

  An admirer.

  Broker looked up. Nina’s smoldering eyes were waiting for him. Fast reader.

  She asked, “Are you and Kit in danger?”

  “No,” said Broker.

  “Who wrote this garbage?”

  Broker pointed to the articles. “I’d say Tom James.”

  Nina scanned the articles, looked up. “The reporter?”

  “The witness,” said Broker.

  “Why? What’s he got against Kit?”

  Broker explained the fight in the yard, James and Kit in the workshop, Kit choking on the money, James running.

  Then finding another hundred in the Subaru.

  He pointed to the articles. “What they don’t say in there is the tape shows Keith getting a two-million-dollar payoff, in a suitcase. In hundreds. And the suitcase has disappeared.”

  “So let’s go have a talk with James,” said Nina.

  “Can’t, he’s in Witness Protection. He used Caren’s tape for trading material. Interesting, huh,” said Broker. “Caren comes to see me with this tape. And gets killed.” Broker held up his left hand and counted off fingers:

  “No one has questioned me. She had a reason for wanting me to see the tape.

  “Why did Keith crawl down into that pothole. Why not just point down and shoot Caren.

  “When they pulled Keith out, he had inch-deep claw marks raked down his left forearm into his palm. Caren’s flesh was rammed under his fingernails. Her wedding ring was clutched in his fist.”

  Nina exhaled. “Trying to save her or pound her in?”

  Broker nodded. “Rescue is my interpretation. But he wouldn’t say anything. So why’s he keeping quiet?”

  Nina screwed up her lips, lowered her eyes, needing to deal with something concrete. She placed the letters and envelopes side by side. “If these were run off on the same printer…”

  “I thought of that; James has been in FBI or U.S. Marshals’

  custody since he left the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic. If he wrote the letters, he did it on their equipment. But the new laser printers are pretty slick. They don’t leave signatures like typewriters or dot-matrix printers.”

  “A specific machine could have an anomaly that we can’t spot. But maybe a forensic documents expert could.”

  Broker nodded. “I’ll give them to Jeff. He can pass them on to the feds. Except the feds are real blind where James is concerned.”

  “James is a reporter, reporters have editors,” said Nina.

  “Ah,” said Broker.

  “So-one of his editors might recognize something in the way these are written, some idiosyncrasy.”

  “You’re pretty smart.”

  “Nah, just smarter than you,” she said. Then more seriously, “You sure this is a spin-off from Caren, not some baby raper you put in jail, coming back on you?”

  “I’m sure. Sixteen years I busted people. This is the first time I’ve got a threatening letter. But there’s only one way to be sure.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Find James.”

  Nina got up, came over and patted his cheek. “Poor cave fish. You don’t find people in Witness Protection. That’s the whole idea.”

  “Bullshit. This guy lets babies steal his money. He leaves hundred-dollar bills lying around. This is a guy who makes mistakes.”

  35

  Nina rode at his side, girding, getting ready to go back. Kit snoozed in her car seat. Trees stood at attention on the right.

  Superior was an endless parade field to the left. Nina wore her uniform. Broker was driving her to Duluth, to catch a plane.

  “We never talked about what you’re doing,” he said.

  “We’re not supposed to talk about what I’m doing,” said Nina.

  Broker drove in silence for a few minutes. “Special assignment,” he speculated aloud, “they’ve finally decided to go after some mass killers. You’re back here to be briefed.”

  She smiled thinly. “I envy you your mystery. And a good old-fashioned motive like money.”

  “What’s it like?” he asked.

  She smiled wryly. “The Serbs look like people; they talk, walk, laugh, just like us…” She glanced in the back-seat, to make sure Kit was asleep. Under her breath, she mused, “But they don’t eat fish caught in the Sava River anymore.”

  “What?”

  “The Sava runs past my duty station, Brkco. The Serbs established a death camp there. They’d march Muslims out, stand them against a wall and shoot them. You can still see the shot patterns on the wall: AKs, full automatic, pulls up and to the right.

  “They threw the bodies in the river. The Sava runs into the Danube, so the bodies bobbed up in Belgrade and upset people having their morning coffee. The word was put out.

  Hey, stop dumping bodies in the river.

  “The Serbs in Brkco, being practical fellows, got out their chainsaws and dismembered the bodies before dumping them in the river. But pieces still floated down to Belgrade.

  “Fix the problem, they said in Belgrade. So the local Serbs put away the chain saws and, with workmanlike initiative, took the bodies to the meat packing plant in town. They literally ground them up in the sausage machines. Then they dumped the “meat” in the river. Bodies and body parts stopped floating into the Danube at Belgrade, but nobody eats sausage in Brkco anymore and nobody eats fish out of the Sava River.

  “That’s what it’s like. And while this was going on, I was doing the moral equivalent of watching O.J. or Seinfeld, like everybody else. But after you’ve been there awhile, and hear the stories, see some mass graves and see your two-thou-sandth rape victim, you get the impression that society is just a scab formed over a nightmare.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “In ’45, my dad helped liberate one of those camps in Germany, and you know what-between you and me, I really hope some of the fuckers I’m going after resist arrest.”

  “I asked,” said Broker.

  “I told you,” she said.

  At the airport, Nina carried Kit, still asleep, on her shoulder into the terminal, to the departure gate. With her free hand she reached up and touched Broker’s cheek. “My dad was overseas half my life when I was little. Do you think he felt like this every time he left?”

  “I don’t know, I only know how I feel.”

  They stood without speaking, holding hands. The PA announced that her flight was loading. Carefully, she transferred the warm weight from her shoulder to his. “You’re doing a good job with her,” she said. Fiercely and gently, she touched the baby’s hair, her back, her leg, held on to the tiny booted foot. Let go.

  The parting
kiss tasted of tears. She shouldered her bag.

  Just before she turned to leave, she said, “The other day on the beach, when we made the snowman? Those kids from Chicago-the girl taking pictures, she zeroed in on you. Like she was IDing you, she got you full face, three-quarter, and profile both sides. I thought that was a little bit odd.”

  “Thanks, take care.”

  They squeezed hands and their fingers pulled apart as she turned and walked toward the boarding ramp.

  To be married to her, he had to section her off, keep her in a separate compartment. As her jet taxied and took off, he shifted his attention back to his own concerns. Her observation about the couple on the beach was curious. He’d keep an eye out.

  He left the terminal, walked to the lot, loaded Kit into her car seat and drove north on 61. This morning, before leaving for the airport, he had called Jeff and told him about the letters. They agreed to meet, after Nina was safely off, at The Blue Water Cafe in town.

  The streets in Grand Marais were quiet under an unseason-ably warm blue sky. Forty-six degrees. You could hear the snow and tourist dollars melt.

  Broker went into the cafe, took a booth and sat Kit in his lap. Patiently, she pulled a string of napkins from the table dispenser. He ordered coffee and apple pie. He stared out the plate glass window at a seagull sitting on the tall Amoco station sign across the street.

  Two rugged men in worn pile jackets, dirty jeans, and Sorel boots pushed up from the counter and stood at the cashier’s station to pay their checks. Carpenters. One of them, Lunde, had worked on Broker’s house last summer.

  Lunde nodded. “How’s it going?”

  Broker nodded back. “Just fine.”

  “Well, have a good one.”

  Last summer, as right now, the carpenter treated him with the aloof attitude locals reserved for soft-hand tourists with money. Except Broker had been born here, had graduated from Cook County High, had put his hand to kinds of work the carpenter couldn’t even dream of. The new crop of “locals” didn’t know him.

  His coffee and pie arrived. He picked up a Cook County News-Herald that had been left in the booth and was showing Kit the picture of a wolf on the front page when Jeff pulled in.

  Jeff, usually placid, looked mildly excited. He sat down, reached over and tousled Kit’s hair. “Hiya, Kitten.”

  “Bo Bra,” said Kit, absorbed in Broker’s apple pie with both hands.

  “How’d it go with Nina?” asked Jeff.

  “Good. We didn’t have much time.”

  “Well, you look better.” Jeff grinned. He didn’t grin for long. Broker handed him the Ziploc containing the two letters. Jeff started reading. Once, he looked up at Kit. He was a solid man sworn to uphold the law. He had deep reserves.

  But push him far enough and you saw firing squads in his steady brown eyes. Broker saw one there now. When he finished, he folded and inserted the letters in their envelopes, which he returned to the plastic bag.

  “You ever have one come back on you before?” he asked.

  Broker shook his head. “Couple guys made threats on the inside, but nothing like this.”

  “This could be-him? James? How the heck did he get Nina’s military address?” Jeff raised an eyebrow.

  “No clue. But it’d be nice if the FBI could put those letters through their documents section. If it is James, the only access he had to computers and printers was in their custody.”

  Jeff said, “You can give them to Garrison yourself.”

  “How’s that?”

  “John Eisenhower called, after I talked to you. Said he tried to reach you, but you must have left. Seems Keith put you on his visitors list.”

  Broker came forward. “No shi-fooling.” Eyeing Kit.

  “Except, the way he wrote you down was, Cook County Deputy Phil Broker.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. John thinks it’s Keith’s way of bossing you around one last time. You aren’t wearing a badge, you don’t get in to see him. And John says there’s a lot of people would love to talk to him.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Broker.

  “Yeah, hmmmm,” agreed Jeff. “About five minutes after John calls-Garrison calls, all warm and folksy, and says he’d like to chat with you before you talk to Keith.”

  “Not like the FBI to reach out to a remote outpost like us,”

  said Broker.

  “Not like them at all, especially after the way they swooped down. I guess the threat of doing life in a federal joint hasn’t impressed Keith into giving up whatever they want,” said Jeff.

  They both studied Kit as she heaved a fistful of apple pie into her face, some of which actually hit her mouth.

  “John said the talk’s starting.”

  “Talk, huh?”

  “Yeah, word’s out about all the money on that tape. Now every cop in St. Paul is looking at every other cop, trying to figure out who was in this thing with Keith. Now that you’re on his visiting list, there’s talk it could be you.”

  “The Russian mob’s man in Devil’s Rock. I must be in charge of the northern smuggling route.” Broker smiled.

  Jeff sipped his coffee and leaned back. An amateurish wall mural, configured in the shape of Lake Superior, hovered over his head like an opaque blue thought caption.

  “Do you suppose,” pondered Jeff, “that Keith is ready to clear his conscience?”

  “You willing to badge me up to find out?” asked Broker, reaching for more than one napkin to clean up his daughter.

  “Sure. You need to get out of the house anyway,” said Jeff.

  They left the cafe and walked up the street to the sheriff’s office. In his windowless bunker, Jeff pawed in a desk drawer, found a silver badge and slapped it on the blotter.

  “Okay, raise your right hand and swear.”

  Broker covered Kit’s ears in a loose headlock with his left arm, raised his right hand and stated, “I’ll be damned.”

  “Fine, you are now a sworn temporary deputy with the rank of investigator. You’ll only work one case, the death of Caren Angland. I can hire you for only sixty-seven days, after that I need a resolution from the board of commissioners.

  “Your salary comes out of the discretionary budget, except we used that up when Lyle maxed out the tranny in the Ranger up the Gunflint last month, so I can’t afford to pay you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Go over to the courthouse and have a picture ID made.

  I’ll call ahead. And I don’t have an extra pistol. County guidelines specify a forty-five automatic. One of which I happen to know you own. Don’t really see why you’d need it. Unless you’re the kind of hair shirt, bigoted savage who likes to strap iron when you go down to visit the Cities.”

  “Hmm, have to think about that one.”

  Sheriff Tom Jeffords, father of three, shook a stern finger in Broker’s face. “Sally and I will watch Kit, but you will spend no more than four, five days max, down in the Cities before checking back in. Your kid shouldn’t lose total contact with her parents.”

  “Agreed.”

  Jeff scratched his square dimpled chin. “And remember, you represent the least-populated, most remote county in the state. Keep us out of the newspapers.”

  “Absolutely,” said Broker solemnly.

  “There’s a powerful raft of, well-bullshit-in all this. Be nice if Keith would tell us what happened out there that day.”

  Broker nodded, stood up and handed Kit the badge to play with. “Say good-bye to Uncle Jeff,” he said.

  “Boo chit,” said Kit.

  36

  Broker woke slowly from a dream of running wolves. Their howls sounded like sirens echoing down rainy, neon-streaked city streets.

  In the dark, he showered, shaved and tucked toilet articles into his light travel bag. One ear was cocked to Kit’s slightly congested breathing. He checked to make sure the humidifier was working properly. Then he leaned over the crib and placed the inside of his wrist along her forehead. S
he sprawled, ravished by sleep, in an orgy of stuffed animals: Cucaracha Dog, Good Night Bunny, Pooh, and Kitty.

  The emotion tugged him; never left her before.

  He had been with her constantly since the doctor, a woman who wore red rubber boots on the floor of the operating theater of the Stillwater Hospital, had dug and levered in Nina’s slit stomach with a tool that resembled a stainless steel spatula. She’d yanked Kit out like a scowling purple potato trailing a tuberous umbilical root.

  Nina’s hips were more narrow than generous, and Kit’s head had been ninety-ninth percentile. Nina dilated, effaced, and it was gridlock. There were also questions about the wounds in her hip. Bullet fragments could have damaged the birth canal. The doctor waited three hours, said the dreaded word complications, examined Nina again and went for her knife.

  They wheeled her into surgery for the prep; he paced in a waiting room, clad in a mask, gown and shoe booties.

  Waiting to be summoned. Alone, he had dropped to one knee and fumbled his first daddy prayer.

  Into your hands-something like that. The only other time he’d touched knee to ground he’d been a green twenty-one.

  All around him, Vietnamese troopers were writing prayers on slips of paper and burning them in the predawn darkness.

  The wisps of smoke summoned the helicopters that flew him to his first battle.

  He touched a lock of his daughter’s copper hair. Learned it backward, all about death before he had any idea about life. He eased the door shut behind him.

  With a cup of coffee, he went over his meager brief-case on the kitchen table. Just a spiral notebook, the two hate letters-originals for the FBI agent, Xerox copies for Broker’s use-a laminated county ID he’d had made at the courthouse. And the Colt. The.45 caliber automatic pistol made a stumpy steel question mark, snugged in a holster and curling straps.

  Shaking his head, he took the pistol back to his study and locked it in the lower desk drawer. This trip was about talking, not rousting people. He didn’t see the need for a weapon.