The Big Law pb-2

by Chuck Logan

  Boot prints led from the tire marks, down the slight slope into the trees. They stopped above the cabin the Chicago couple rented.

  Okay. Get home. Breathing heavily, he dashed up the porch, heard her wails as he unlocked the door. Setting the shotgun aside, he freed Kit from the chair, pulled off her coat and tried to console her.

  “I promise, I’ll never do that again.”

  After he put Kit down for her nap, he tried to write a letter to Nina. “Kit’s coming out of her ear infection. Breakfast: oatmeal, vitamin, bananas, milk. Reverses spoon and holds scoop for handle and shovels it in that way. Progress? Still sleeping three hours for nap. And averaging eleven hours at night. 8:30 to 7:30 A.M. Has settled on Bedtime Bunny as her sleep toy. Cucaracha Dog gets tossed out of her crib every night.”

  Broker kept the letter to providing information about Kit.

  Nothing about Keith. Nothing about snooping Ford Rangers.

  Nothing about his curiosity about his new neighbors to the south. Nina had enough to worry about.

  In the evening, after supper, Kit stomped back and forth waving a shotgun barrel swab that looked like a cattail. “Puf”

  the Dragon loomed over her like a member of the monster chorus line in Where the Wild Things Are.

  Then she dragged her two favorite blankets, Bedtime Bunny, Cucaracha Dog, Kitty, and her tippy cup over to the fireplace. She set them down on the hearthstones, returned to the kitchen, seized the short step stool, pulled it all the way across the living room and positioned it in front of the fireplace. After recollecting her stuffed animals and blankets, she precariously mounted the stool and peered up at the Puf. Worry wrinkled her brow.

  “Oh oh, Daa Dee, Oh oh,” said Kit over and over.

  Broker waved at her and went back to cleaning his.45

  automatic at the kitchen table.

  Ida Rain called after Kit was asleep. “The Wanger story runs tomorrow morning. I can fax you a copy…”

  “Don’t have a fax.”

  “Well, then I can e-mail it as an attachment.”

  “Don’t have one of those either.”

  “You don’t have a computer?”

  “Everybody says that.”

  54

  From mud-swept Cook County, Broker watched and read as Wanger broke the tongue story.

  A source in the Hennepin County coroner’s office…

  A source close to the BCA Crime Lab confirms…

  A well-known Twin Cities forensic pathologist, who prefers to remain anonymous, told this reporter…

  Then Wanger challenged the FBI to disprove the allegations.

  The feds held a press conference. Faces washed out in the camera lights, backs against the wall, they stood for questions like candidates for a Pancho Villa firing squad. No Lorn Garrison in the lineup.

  They stonewalled. The second day, they waffled. The third day, Wanger flew to Virginia, to Quantico, and filed a story that forecast an official FBI correction about the “evidence.”

  The next day the media rep in the Minneapolis office read a brief press release: DNA testing proved conclusively that the tongue in the bomb hoax delivered to the federal building came from a woman.

  “Does this change the government’s case against Keith Angland?”

  “No comment.”

  Keith Angland’s high-buck criminal defense attorney held his own news conference in front of the Washington 316 / CHUCK LOGAN

  County Jail. He said he was encouraged by recent favorable turns in the discovery process. Cryptically, he predicted a jury might divine more than one interpretation for the events depicted on the famous FBI tape.

  Broker watched Keith’s lawyer plant the first seeds for reasonable doubt.

  But it didn’t solve Broker’s-or Keith’s-problem about James. He was down to one idea; he had one story left to leak to Ida Rain. But it was much thinner than the tongue expose.

  The FBI would not report back on the hate letters, and soon they’d trace the tongue leak to him. Then there was the Ford Ranger lurking around. And the Chicago kids in the cabin down the shore.

  He was cool. No big thing, walking around with a toddler in your arms and a loaded. 45 stuck in the back pocket of your Levi’s. People up here did it all the time.

  That night, he rocked next to the woodstove and read passages from the DSM-IV to his innocent drowsing daughter.

  “Check this out: ‘Displays excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friend-ship.

  “‘Emphasis on perfect performance. These individuals turn play into structured work.

  “‘Reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others.

  Stubbornly insist that everything be done their way.’

  “Narrowly applied, that could be Uncle Keith,” Broker admitted.

  Or any overworked, underpaid, strung-out copper.

  Nowhere in the thick manual did they list the symptoms of, or a diagnosis for, hate, greed or lust. Or the laziness that led to criminal shortcuts. The book could excuse as much evil as it could trap. He yawned, shook his head and mused out loud: “Smile for the camera, say ‘victim.’”

  At two in the morning, Broker got up to pee. Walking past Kit’s crib he encountered a minefield of toys he’d neglected to pick up. Tiptoeing carefully, almost through-but then, ah shit.

  Dada dah da!

  Dada dah da!

  Cucaracha Dog. Stepped right on it. Immediately Kit bolted up and wailed. It took an hour to get her back down.

  They both overslept, so Broker was still in bed when the phone rang. He fumbled. Picked it up. “What?”

  “Hello, Broker, it’s Ida Rain. How about that Wanger, eh?” In good humor, she perfectly mimicked the Far North argot.

  “They sure made a pretty pasty-faced bunch of suits on TV,” agreed Broker. “Ah, Ida, can I call you back, I have to change my kid.”

  “Girl, right? What’s her name?”

  “Kit.”

  “That’s it? Kit?”

  “Nina named her Karson with a K. I thought Karson Pryce Broker sounded like a department store. So-Kit.”

  “Gotcha. You have my number?”

  “On caller-ID.” He rang off, attended to Kit’s diaper, got her a tippy cup and then called Ida back. Her voice, still relentlessly upbeat, picked up right where she left off.

  “We blew everybody’s socks off. We’re going national with the story. We want more.”

  “Well,” said Broker, “there is one thing.” He played his last card. And it was mostly bluff. “Angland put me on his visitors list at the Washington County Jail. He had a complaint.

  They’ll do that sometimes. They can be wrong straight down the line, but they cling to one thing, a perceived quirk in procedure or a fact they think the cops or the press got wrong.”

  “The fact being?”

  “That day, before Caren died, Keith and James had a shouting match up here. Keith told me James goaded him, said: ‘She took your money.’”

  He could almost hear her connecting the dots long-distance. “Tom disappears. The money disappears…” Ida’s voice trailed off.

  “You’re the one who said he wanted to be someone else.

  Well, he is. And maybe he’s better off than we know?”

  “Hmmm. And everybody was looking the other way.”

  “You want to write that story?” asked Broker.

  “It’s not a story. It’s hearsay. But Wanger might do some digging, considering you give such good tongue.”

  Broker’s wince was almost audible.

  “Sorry,” said Ida. But she wasn’t. She was having fun. “I’ll run it by my boss and see what he says.”

  Broker hung up the phone, went to his desk, took the photo of James out of his briefcase, then removed the picture from the frame. Then he picked up Kit. “C’mon. Let’s get dressed and go to Duluth. Daddy’s got an idea.”

  55

  Monday morning. Ida Rain called in the middle of Sesame S
treet.

  “Broker, I’m sorry. But there’s no story. Keith Angland won’t talk to Wanger. His lawyer painted you as a nut up in the woods with a personal ax to grind. The editors backed off for now.”

  “Well, thanks for the try.” A pause on her end stretched to awkwardness. “What is it?” asked Broker.

  “Probably nothing. I’ll let you know. Just wanted to touch base.”

  They said good-bye and hung up. He popped a piece of toast out of the toaster, buttered it, added jam, trimmed the crusts, sectioned it into wedges and placed it before Kit.

  The phone rang again. The store in Duluth, saying the delivery truck was en route. Broker thanked them and hung up. Kit’s spoon clattered on the floor. He took it to the sink, scrubbed it under hot water. Came back, removed the jelly from her face and had just managed to get one spoon of oatmeal into her when the phone ran again.

  “You got coffee?” asked Jeff, rumbling cell phone connection.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  You could never tell when Jeff was really upset. Bro 320 / CHUCK LOGAN

  ker had seen him jam a Muskie lure through the loose skin between his thumb and forefinger without as much as an ouch. Just asked calmly, “Ah, you got a little tin snips in that tackle box?”

  Just as calmly now, Jeff sat at Broker’s kitchen table and took three sips on his cup of coffee before he said, “You know how the U.S. attorney and the state attorney general don’t necessarily get along?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, they found something they can agree on. Namely, that you are a grain of sand under their blankets.” The sheriff took a pull on his coffee. “I know this because the AG’s office just called Pete over at the county offices and read him the riot act. Said how this loose cannon part-time deputy in Cook County has gone off half-cocked and stepped in a cow pie.

  Said you were interfering in an ongoing federal investigation for personal reasons.”

  “They found out where the tongue story came from.”

  Jeff took another pull on his coffee. “Be my guess. They also suggested that, if this is the kind of police work we condone up here, it might be a waste of taxpayers’ money to add another patrol deputy next year.”

  “Your Clinton cop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d Hustad say?”

  “Well, Hustad’s a Democrat, and the AG’s a big-cheese Democrat who’s running for governor. So Hustad, being a new guy, is going to toe the party line.”

  “And you came over here to take the badge back?”

  “Humph. Citizens of Cook County elected me, not the AG

  in St. Paul. They can keep their Clinton cop.”

  “So I can still try to find James?”

  Jeff screwed up his lips. “The feds are not exactly forthcoming. And now…”

  “I’ve been thinking of making the leap from analog to digital,” said Broker. He told Jeff his latest idea.

  Jeff scratched his hair, mulled it. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever done that before? Is it even practical?”

  “Doesn’t have to be. It’s news,” said Broker. “That’s why they won’t be able to resist putting it in the paper. They get enough bad press, they just might cough up James.”

  Broker and Kit drove to Grand Marais and went into the print shop and picked up his order. The picture of Tom James had been made into an old-fashioned wanted poster. Type at the bottom announced: WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN THE DEATH OF CAREN ANGLAND. If you see this man, immediately call Deputy Phil Broker at the Cook County sheriff’s department. The relevant phone numbers were on the bottom.

  There were a hundred of the posters. He left most of them at the sheriff’s office. Tonight, after school, Jeff’s oldest daughter, Allison, and her friends would plaster them all over town.

  The truck arrived from the Circuit City store in Duluth at noon. As arranged, it contained one tall, ponytailed, young computer nerd named Steve, who agreed to set up Broker’s computer for a fee of fifty dollars an hour and unlimited quantities of pizza and beer.

  Steve and Broker unloaded the cardboard packing crates that contained the computer package Steve had sold him.

  Computer, monitor, modem, printer, assorted software manuals and a program to connect with America Online.

  Broker cut doorways and windows into the cardboard boxes so Kit could crawl in and out. Jeff arrived with a case of beer and two deep-dish pizzas.

  Steve’s eyes, obviously cured in cannabis smoke, worked nervously over Jeff’s uniform. “Ah, what is this?”

  “Relax,” said Jeff. “I’m the pizza man. But if I was you, I wouldn’t pull any fast moves.” He pointed at the all-322 / CHUCK LOGAN

  purpose leather Mantool Steve wore in a small holster on his hip. “You have a license for that?”

  It turned out like Tom Sawyer painting the fence. Steve spent most of the time eating pizza and swigging on a beer and giving directions to Broker and Jeff, who sifted through piles of manuals, cellophane bags full of screws, and tangles of cables.

  Drinking beer and getting wired.

  By the time the pizza was gone they were hooked up. Steve sat at the keyboard and created a website. “Easy, comes right with the software.” He turned to Broker. “You get that picture J-pegged onto a disk at Kinko’s?”

  Broker handed him the disk he’d had made at a Kinko’s in Duluth. In a minute Tom James’s face appeared on the screen.

  Broker handed him one of the posters. “Let’s put in this type.”

  “What size?”

  “Big.”

  “What color?”

  “Loud.”

  Steve bumped the type way up across the top of the page: WANTED for questioning inthe death of Caren Angland

  Then Broker sat down at the keyboard and typed, below the picture. Local law officers could use some citizen help in locating this man. The government has hidden him in the Witness Protection Program and we would like to question him about a murder he witnessed. Since the government won’t cooperate with us, we are turning to the people. If you see Tom James please contact Deputy Phil Broker, Cook County sheriff’s department, etc., etc.

  Jeff maintained a hearty front throughout, but Broker could tell-the sheriff thought he was grabbing at straws. Jeff said good night and went home first. Steve departed with a wedge of cold pizza in his hand. The Pentium glowed in the twilight in Broker’s study, exuding the factory-fresh tang of upholstery in a brand-new spaceship.

  Broker called Ida Rain and left a message on her machine.

  “Check me out at broker@aol.com. Tell me if you think this is a story?”

  Then he gingerly removed his sleeping daughter from her nest of blankets and pillows among the cardboard boxes.

  With all the activity, she hadn’t had a nap, and now she’d be off her schedule for the next few days. With Bedtime Bunny and Cucaracha Dog clutched in her arms, Broker moved her to her crib and tucked her in.

  He went outside to stretch his legs and chew a cigar.

  Staying within earshot of the house, he picked his way through the ledge rock down to the shore. A thin knife-edged drizzle shot down. Thick mist mushroomed over the lake.

  The air had ice in it.

  Something moved a few yards away. Broker instinctively dropped to one knee, his hand moving to the grip of the.45 in his belt.

  The blond kid. David. From the cabin down the beach. A skier robbed of his snow, he clambered through the rocks.

  Broker stood up. David stopped, startled. He wore a running suit and carried a hiking pack over one shoulder. The pack cover was open and had been hastily stuffed with a blanket, a thermos and a smaller cylindrical shammy bag from which protruded collapsible tripod legs. A Leupold logo was stitched in the material of the bag.

  “Hi,” he said. “Lousy weather, huh.”

  “Not much skiing,” said Broker.

  David grinned. “And we took the place for the whole month; dumb.”

 
; “It could change,” said Broker.

  “We can only hope,” said David. “Well, have a good one.”

  He continued on and Broker watched his outline disappear in the mist. It was difficult to see this pretty boy brat as a threat. But the small drawstring bag sticking from his bag was familiar. Broker had one just like it in his closet, with his hunting rifles. It contained a high-power spotter scope.

  56

  Days took on a routine. Danny rose early and went for a two-mile run down Valentino and out Amesti. Then he did sets of push-ups and sit-ups. After a shower and a shave he brewed coffee and had a light breakfast of yogurt mixed with oats, raisins, and bananas. Then he started in to work. It took a day to remove the moldy carpet and carry it, like hunks of whale blubber, out to the trash cans by the gate.

  He found a serviceable hardwood floor under the carpet, but it was impregnated with rubbery glue and staples that he had to lever and pry out one by one with a pliers and screwdriver.

  On the third day he heard a knock on his back screen door.

  Through the mesh he saw a tall, willowy beach blonde. She was around thirty. The taut flesh of her thighs and the tight denim of her shorts looked to be the same surface painted different colors. Her eyes were aqua colored, dreamy. Fluffs of blue soapsuds.

  She held a platter in both hands, which supported a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread and a saltshaker.

  “Hi,” she said as he came to the door.

  “Ah,” he said, moving his hands awkwardly to apologize for his sweat-drenched T-shirt, his dirty arms.

  “I live next door. Ruby.”

  “Oh,” said Danny. “Daniel Storey. Danny. Hi.” He opened the screen. Tentatively, they shook hands. She balanced the tray in one hand expertly. Self-consciously, he yanked off his cowhide work gloves.

  “Danny,” she said.

  It should have been a defining moment. A good-looking woman was calling him Danny. He’d had to roll Ida Rain’s orgasms uphill like Sisyphian boulders to get her to call him Danny, and that was in the dark. But the tribute coming from Ruby’s lips was curiously unmoving.