by Chuck Logan
Mouse took Broker by the arm and walked him into the shadows under the deck. “Lookit this. We put the dog stuff over the radio, and there’s sheriff deputies here from St. Croix County, Wisconsin, Forest Lake, Cottage Grove. And, ah, it must be a slow day in St. Paul because the ‘A Team’ from BCA just arrived.” Mouse pointed at two guys in suits who were striding down the driveway.
A Stillwater cop and county patrol sergeant Patti Palen were standing a few feet away. The Stillwater cop said, “The tall guy in the blue suit with the dark hair, is that. .?”
Patti said, “You mean the guy in the thousand-dollar blue suit.”
The Stillwater cop said, “Yeah. So that’s him, Davenport?”
Patti said, “That’s him. He bailed from Minneapolis, now he’s with the state.”
The Stillwater cop said, “I hear he cuts notches in his gun.”
Patti’s face was deadpan, her timing perfect. “The way I heard it, he cuts notches in his dick.”
The Stillwater cop said, “BCA ain’t gonna be the same.”
Patti said, “No shit, looks like the Sears catalog is out and GQ is in.”
Broker rolled his eyes and turned to Mouse. “This is a circus. You know what you’re doing?”
“Orders. I been on the horn to John E. He said throw it wide-open. I got guys keeping an eye out so the press doesn’t disturb anything. But how can you contaminate a scene like this? There’s pieces of this poor pilgrim spread out for a hundred yards in every direction,” Mouse said. “The point is, it takes the heat off our dead priest for a news cycle.”
“Gotcha. Who was this guy anyway?” Broker said.
Mouse scratched his flattop. “His name was Scott. Some kind of photographer.”
“Our boy called again last night. It sounded like he was in a casino,” Broker said.
“Don’t worry, they’ll spot him,” Mouse said. “In the meantime, prepare yourself to hear, see, and read a lot about the dogs of Washington County this weekend.”
Then Broker spotted Lymon Greene walking uncertainly up from taking a look at the body.
“Lymon,” he called out, “you got a minute?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Lymon said.
“About time you got wet,” Broker said.
“Is that some kind of joke?” Lymon said. He was clearly upset; sweat dotted his skin like BBs of mercury.
Broker shook his head. “No joke. Part of the job is protecting the public from seeing stuff like that. The civilians live up on top the water. We get to see what swims under it.” Broker paused a beat. “Like the Saint.”
Lymon nodded and motioned Broker to follow him up the driveway. They counted three TV vans. Cops from other jurisdictions were coming down the drive three abreast.
“It’s like a circus sideshow,” Lymon said.
“You got the sideshow part right,” Broker said.
When they reached Lymon’s car, he reached in the open window, took out a manila folder, and handed it to Broker. “Benish said you were out here, so I thought I’d bring these,” Lymon said.
The folder contained several glossy black-and-white photographs of Victor Moros lying in a small pool of blood on the carpet of his confessional. He was a stocky, strong-featured man, more Indian than Spanish, with longish black hair. His eyes were closed in death, but his mouth was open in a grimace of even, white teeth.
Lymon tapped a sheaf of faxes that were in the folder along with the photos.
“Cause of death, a.22 long fired point-blank into his temple. The two other wounds, one in the neck and in the cheek, would not have killed him if he’d received medical attention promptly. So they speculate the killer lured Moros close to the screen, shot twice, then came around and put one in his head. They found plastic residue in the wounds, like from a commercial container. A pop bottle. They think the killer might have used a homemade silencer.
“No cartridges found on the scene. No latent prints, no blood or body fluids. They’re still running tests on fibers and residue on the carpet.
“I talked to Albuquerque, and they say Moros was a solid, old-fashioned plodder. Nothing remotely in his past that suggests he’s anything other than what he was. They put the whole incident down to media-induced hysteria.
“The father and mother who accused Moros out there have been in town all summer. No vacations to Minnesota.”
Broker reached in and put the folder back on the front seat of Lymon’s car. “This is your kind of stuff, not my kind of stuff,” he said.
Lymon’s face was unusually candid. “Your kind of thing is Harry, right? Fast and loose, high risk, and no rules. Benish just told me about what happened between you two back in St. Paul. About Harry’s wife.”
“Let’s get out of here, walk a little,” Broker said. He pointed toward the highway. They walked the rest of the way up the drive, crossed Highway 95, and followed an asphalt bike trail that meandered under the shade of the trees.
“So how do you handle what happened with Harry’s wife?” Lymon said.
“You don’t handle it. It’s always there, walking beside you, like we are now,” Broker said.
“I hope I never get put in that situation.”
“Chances are you won’t. A big part of living is believing that bad stuff happens to other people. Usually it works that way.”
“Up on top of the water.”
“There it is. But you’re right. Harry is my kind of thing.”
Lymon studied Broker carefully. “Explain your kind of thing.”
“Sure. Start with fundamentals. What was the world’s first recorded murder?”
“You’re patronizing me,” Lymon said, guarded.
“Uh-uh. C’mon. Answer the question.”
“Cain kills Abel. God asks Cain where his brother is, and Cain says, ‘I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?’” Lymon quoted.
“God interrogates his suspect.” Broker nodded. “The suspect denies the crime. But Cain gets busted. That’s a fairy tale. What’s missing that would make it real?”
Lymon stared at him.
Broker continued. “What’s missing is the tip that put God onto Cain. Once you add the snitch, you have the world’s first solved crime.”
“And you think Harry’s the snitch on the Saint.”
“There it is. My job is getting Harry to talk.”
They walked in silence for thirty seconds. Then Broker said, “The gossip says you’re sleeping with Gloria. Are you?”
Lymon avoided Broker’s eyes and looked into the trees. “I might have strayed a little. .” He held up his left hand, palm inward, and stared at the gold band.
“Bad question. Nobody tells the truth about sex. Or the Saint,” Broker said.
Lymon made a face.
“So what’d she do, take you like an antidote to Harry? She’s still in love with him, isn’t she? Must be hard on her, being stuck on a guy who shouldn’t have his ticket punched into the twenty-first century,” Broker said.
“The human heart is. .” Lymon said.
“Dog food, remember?” Broker nodded back toward the house. “Was Harry protecting her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me put it a different way. Where was Gloria the night Moros got killed?”
“Down in the gym, working out.”
“Anybody see her who can vouch for the time?”
“Me.”
“Anybody see the two of you?”
“No, we were alone.”
“So you could have been somewhere else.”
“Prove it.”
Broker squinted at the younger man. “That’s what Harry used to say when people suggested he killed Dolman.” Broker turned and walked back toward all the cop cars lining the driveway. He was about ten feet from his car when his cell phone rang.
It was Janey Hensen, and she was crying.
“Broker, I need some help. Drew and I had this fight, and he totally lost it, says he’s moving o
ut, and the thing is, Laurie is-she took it kind of hard and she hurt herself. . ”
Hurt herself? “Did you call nine-one-one?” Broker said.
“It’s not like that exactly. I need some help talking to her,” Janey said.
“Okay. I’ll be right over.”
Chapter Thirty-one
You will regret this.
Broker did not play games with women. And one of his basic rules was not to meddle in other people’s marriages, especially when an old girlfriend was involved.
Janey and Drew lived in a Victorian on the South Hill that looked like a three-layer wedding cake. From their front porch you could look over the town and see north down the river valley. Drew had kept Restoration Hardware in the black when he rehabbed this tusker.
Then all the trivia dropped away when Janey met him at the door and he saw the bloody towel in her hands.
“She cut her hands up. I don’t think it’s bad enough for the emergency room, but it’s just horrible,” Janey said.
“Calm down, breathe through your nose,” Broker said as he moved swiftly into the house toward the sound of the crying child.
Laurie sat on the kitchen floor blubbering. She held her hands out in front of her with bloody gauze stuck to her fingers. More blood was smeared on her T-shirt and shorts.
Immediately, Broker looked for signs of serious injury.
Blood smears, no great quantity. Nothing arterial. He removed the gauze pads and evaluated the wounds on Laurie’s hands.
One fingernail was split to the quick, and tiny bits of abraded skin hung from several fingers. Her knuckles were a mess.
Quickly, he felt over the rest of her body; he asked her to move her feet, asked if her back or neck hurt. As Broker worked through his checks, Janey said, “Laurie, honey, this is Phil Broker; he’s a friend, a good friend.” She turned to Broker and said, “I’ll show you.”
She swept Laurie up in her arms, settled her on a hip, and carried her out the back door.
Janey was talking too fast; her eyes and hair were spiky with tension. “About an hour after Drew made his scene and left, I found Laurie out here, in the corner of the yard.”
She put her hand on the back of Laurie’s head and pressed her to her chest, instinctively murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay. .” as she led Broker to a corner of the yard where tall hostas and ferns grew in the shade. “There,” she said, inclining her head.
Broker saw the freshly dug hole in the flower bed. Several gauze pads and some ripped pieces of dirty cardboard were scattered around.
“She. . she was digging with her bare hands,” Janey said, rocking Laurie back and forth. “Samantha was Laurie’s cat and slept at the foot of her bed for years. We had her put to sleep last May, and we buried her out here in the flower bed. Then today, after Drew left, Laurie disappeared, and I found her crying out here. And I went out there and. .”
Janey balled her free hand into a fist. “She’s just six years old, for Christ sake. It’s not fair she has to go through this. It’s just not fair. How could he do this to a kid, his own daughter? Fucking men. Goddamn fucking men and their fucking.”
“Shhh, easy, let’s get her back in and look at those hands.” Broker put his arm around her and started her back toward the house. But Janey was clasping and unclasping her hand, blinking rapidly. So Broker said, “Focus, Janey. We gotta do something about Laurie; forget the other for now.”
“Laurie, right,” Janey said.
They went back in the kitchen, and Broker sat Laurie down on a chair, then squatted to get at her level. Laurie was tall, with blond hair plaited in two braids. She had blue eyes like her father. She had tears in her eyes like her mother. He looked to Janey.
“I’m on it. Hot water. A clean sponge. Some disinfectant. .” Janey said, starting to move.
“And hydrogen peroxide if you have it, clean towels, and all the first-aid dressings you have, adhesive tape, and a sharp scissors,” Broker called after her.
As Janey set about assembling the items, Broker spoke to Laurie. “First we have to clean up your hands and see how bad they are.”
“Leave me alone,” Laurie sniffled.
“I will, but first we have to wash your hands.”
“I don’t want to wash my hands,” Laurie cried and waved her hands feebly in the air.
“They must hurt a lot,” Broker said, his voice conveying just a touch of admiration.
“They do hurt,” Laurie admitted.
“Well, we don’t want to get stitches, do we?” Broker said.
“Stitches?” Laurie said. Apparently that jogged a precrisis memory. “I don’t want any stitches.”
“Well, then you better let me look. If you don’t, we might have to go to the hospital.”
As Broker was examining Laurie’s hands, Janey put a pan full of hot water down. Then she put down a sponge, more gauze pads, adhesive tape, and a brown plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
“Hold her,” he told Janey. Janey kneeled down on the floor and put her arms around her daughter. “It’s all right; Mommy’s here,” she said. She held her tight as Broker cleaned away the coagulated blood and dirt and tried to ignore the girl’s screams. These intensified as he trimmed away the abraded skin with the scissors, then peaked when he poured the peroxide. Her hands foamed up white with tiny red bubbles.
“Hold her, good; Laurie; you’re doing fine.”
After blotting the hands dry, he took the tape and gauze and started bandaging. Soon she looked like a taped prizefighter just about to put on the gloves.
There was more holding and soothing with Janey, and in a few minutes Laurie was over the worst of her tears. Then she stopped crying altogether and said, “Am I a broken home, now?”
“What?” Broker said.
“There’s a boy in my first-grade class named David Knoll, and he’s a broken home. Are you going to live here now?” Laurie said.
Broker cocked his head. “No, no I live someplace else.”
“Mom yelled at Dad and said he had a girlfriend. I wondered if you were her boyfriend?”
“No, actually, honey. .” Broker reached in his pocket and pulled out the five-pointed county deputy star.
Laurie’s eyes widened, and she asked in a whisper, “Are you a wizard?”
“No, no; he’s a police officer,” Janey said.
“Are we in trouble?” Laurie asked, hunching her shoulders. “Is that why Dad left?”
“I’m here because I have a problem,” Broker said quickly. “You see, one of the things police officers do is rescue cats that get in trees. Well, I took this cat out of a tree today, and now I have it at home. But it’s not a grown-up’s cat. It’s a kid’s cat because it doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“What color is it?’ Laurie asked.
“Ah, it’s gray I think.”
Janey moved closer to Broker, their shoulders grazed. The anger in her face transformed into something warmer. Broker turned his attention to Laurie, took one of the clean towels and wiped her nose.
“Let’s take a ride. Go out to the river, collect a cat, and maybe order a pizza,” Broker said.
“You sure?” Janey said, and the expression on her face was far more probing than her words.
“You two need a breather. So we take a drive, clear the air, and I bring you back,” Broker said. He looked around the kitchen at the too-bright Italian patterns in the wall tile. The copper pots and pans hung on hooks like brass shouts.
“Okay. He could come back, and I want her more prepared for”-Janey closed her face around a harsh thought-“whatever.”
Janey went upstairs, leaving Broker in the middle of the light, airy downstairs that had lots of houseplants in planters and throw rugs on the gleaming hardwood floors. The Mission Oak furniture and the floor lamps had been selected with an Art Deco flair. The color coordination of the sofa, chairs, and carpet was impeccable. And the kid who lived in all this perfection had been driven to dig up a dead cat.
Janey returned with a stuffed bunny that had blue vertical stripes, and which Broker recognized as Goodnight Bunny from the book of that name. Then he went out and backed the Crown Vic right up to the back door so they didn’t show the whole neighborhood Laurie’s bandaged hands.
As they were pulling out of the drive, a stout woman in her fifties stood at the right side of the driveway.
“Who’s that?” Broker asked as they drove by.
“Mrs. Siple standing with her big ears right on the property line as usual,” Laurie said, obviously imitating something her parents had said.
“What’s her story?” Broker asked.
“She hates Dad,” Laurie said from her mom’s lap. “She called the cops on him.” Then Laurie dropped down low in the seat and chanted under her breath, “Hag. Witch. Prune. Daddy’s going to put her in a book.”
Janey shook her head. “She made all these ridiculous charges, but it was really about the property line.”
“It’s a small town,” Broker said. The biggest single complaint to police in the city of Stillwater concerned property line violations.
Broker made small talk with Laurie. They discussed his favorite movie when he was a kid, which was Peter Pan. And his favorite food, sloppy joes. What about pizza? Laurie asked. Broker said he’d never had pizza, maybe they could try some now? Laurie liked that idea.
They drove north on 95, past the cop car rally in A. J. Scott’s driveway, to Milt’s place. They put Ambush the cat in a plastic carry basket, drove back past all the cop cars again, picked up the pizza Janey had ordered on her cell, and returned to the house on the South Hill.
While Laurie got acquainted with Ambush, Broker took directions from Janey and went to call on Drew.
Drew Hensen kept a studio at the north end of town over a rambling antique warehouse. Broker parked and studied the layout. Access to the studio was up a flight of wooden stairs; there was a long porch overlooking Main Street.
Broker crossed the street, went up the steps, and peeked in through the screen door; there was a small kitchen, a futon in an alcove, and one big room full of shelves, books, a taboret, a computer, and a drawing table at which Drew sat, hunched over.
