by Chuck Logan
Broker knocked on the door. “Drew. It’s Phil Broker.”
Drew came to the door and cocked his head. “Hello, this is twice in two days. Come in.”
“It’s about your daughter,” Broker said.
Drew, who’d worked around a lot of cops, was immediately alert. “What about my daughter? Is this official?”
“No, no; Janey called me up. .”
Drew stared. Refocusing. “Janey called you up,” he repeated.
Pipes rattled in the wall, and then a slender blonde came out of the bathroom. She was dressed for the weather in tennis-type skirt, a sleeveless top, and sandals. Her blue eyes were magnified behind granny glasses.
“This is Lisa Mertin; she writes children’s books,” Drew said.
Broker and Lisa said hello. Drew turned back to Broker and said, “Now what about Laurie?”
“She cut up her hands. She was upset and tried to dig up Samantha,” Broker said.
Drew winced at Broker’s language. “Christ. Janey and I had a fight, and there you go-the kid soaks it right up.” He turned to Lisa and gestured at the drawing board. “Look, this isn’t going to work out today.”
“No problem. Take care of home,” Lisa said. She picked up her purse, came over, and pecked Drew lightly on the cheek. “I hope everything’s all right. I’ll leave you two.” Then she walked from the studio.
Lisa impressed Broker as being sharp and businesslike, with none of the bovine qualities that Janey had attributed to the other woman.
“Lisa is one of my authors; she was in town for a book signing today, so she dropped by to discuss this new project we’re working on,” Drew said.
“Whatever. Drew, look, I think you better go see Laurie,” Broker said.
Drew blinked several times and then stared at the empty doorway where Lisa had just disappeared. “We’re trying something new. You see, Rowling’s success with Harry Potter tells us that kids don’t want all this PC coddling. We should prepare them for the real world: villains, danger, and even death. I was thinking of calling it Bullies, Bad Guys, and Things That Bite.”
Drew’s eyelids fluttered after he finished speaking. Broker’s gut read on the man hadn’t changed since they’d met years ago; Drew still kept a one-second delay between himself and reality.
Finally, Drew shook his head. “The dead fucking cat?”
“Her hands are torn up a little; she doesn’t require stitches, but. .”
“Torn up.” Drew paused a beat and then said, “I suppose you’ve been talking to Janey.”
“A little. I ran into her at the grocery store last week.”
“Uh-huh. Well, you should know, she’s been pretty twitchy lately. Since the terror attack in New York, she’s obsessed with being vulnerable. She worries about poison in the food and water; smallpox being released at the State Fair. . she watches C-SPAN coverage of the congressional hearings on terrorism.
“And then there’s the personal side. I tell her Lisa is dropping by the studio, and she accuses me of having an affair. Christ-I work with six female kids writers in Minnesota. Two of them are fat, and two of them are lesbians,” Drew said.
“What about the other two?” Broker said a little too fast.
Drew made an attempt to stare Broker down, decided against it, and looked away. “Okay, so I blew up in the kitchen. And Laurie saw it. Now this has happened. What’s next?”
Broker looked around the studio, and his eyes settled on the big duffel bag full of clothes sitting on the futon in the alcove. Obviously, Drew was leaving some stuff out. Like walking out of his house with a packed bag. Broker said in a level voice, “I think you should go see to your daughter.”
“And I want to see her,” Drew said. “I just don’t want to see. . who’s with her right now.”
Broker said nothing, but his arms were crossed tight over his chest in a body language knot. Drew pulled the studio door shut. Side by side, he and Broker went down the stairs two at a time. On the street Drew shook Broker’s hand, mumbled a fast thanks, turned, and jogged toward the line of parked cars.
Broker got in his car and drove back to the house north of town where the dogs had found the body. The voyeur rush had subsided, and now only a few county cars remained. Mouse was talking to Joe Timmer, the chief investigator for the Ramsey County medical examiner. As Broker walked up, they were indulging in copper gallows humor about how the news media would handle the incident.
“Ten ways to tell if Rover has been eating corpses,” Timmer quipped.
Mouse’s cell phone rang. He raised the phone and said in a tired voice, “Whatta ya say?” He listened a moment, gripped the toothpick in his mouth between his clenched teeth, and snapped his eyes on Broker.
“Got him,” he said after he’d hung up. “He’s at Mystic Lake.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Angel watched Carol Lennon write a check for a bottle of Clos du Bois merlot at the MGM liquor store across from the Cub-Target strip mall in Stillwater.
Carol taught art at Timberry Consolidated High School. She was forty-two years old, had divorced in her twenties and never remarried. She had large oval brown eyes and smooth unblemished skin. Her plain angular face was absolutely clean of wrinkles or crow’s-feet. Her luxuriant black hair had not a trace of gray, and she wore it straight back in a long ponytail. If she’d been shorted some in the chest department, she made up for it with magnificent dancer’s legs, which she usually concealed under long dresses. But this sultry early evening she wore flaring tan shorts, a green sports top, and leather sandals.
The earth colors went nicely with her slightly olive skin.
Carol had a particularly fluid way of walking, and, as she left the crowded store, several men turned to look. One of them smiled and cocked his head as if he had just relived a special memory of a small-breasted woman with a great ass and knockout legs.
I don’t trust Miss Lennon around the young boys, the anonymous caller complained. She reminds me of that teacher who was in the news, who had the baby with the high school sophomore.
Angel had been observing Carol for two weeks.
She now knew that the anonymous caller had been absolutely right-on.
Carol had a penchant for a muscular young boy who-she reflected back on what A. J. Scott had said-could have modeled for Michelangelo. Angel suspected that Carol offered him marijuana, got him high, and then engaged in sex acts with him. He had showed up at her house last Friday evening, and, from what Angel had glimpsed peeking over the fence, the playing around was carried on under the guise of posing for life drawing.
This Friday night, Angel suspected the boy would appear again, and she was determined to get a closer look.
Angel watched Carol get in her car and drive across the street to the Cub parking lot. Just like last Friday night. She was doing her weekend grocery shopping.
Which gave Angel time to get in place. She went to her car and slipped into the hot traffic snaking back into the old residential district of Stillwater. Carol Lennon lived on a quiet street on the North Hill.
Angel parked downtown. This wasn’t like Moros or A. J. Scott. Angel felt no need to talk. So no wig. Just her sunglasses, running duds, and the backpack with the pistol, silencer, medallion, and the latex gloves. The only new item she carried was a short crowbar to pry open one of Carol’s rotting basement windows that she had scouted. She jogged down Main, then puffed her way up Myrtle Hill, turned right on Owens at Len’s Grocery, and took Owens north out of town.
Waiting for the twilight to crochet in and thicken.
Then, as the shadows lengthened and blended, she angled back toward Carol’s house.
Carol Lennon lived in a tidy rambler with a landscaped, and very fenced in, secluded yard. Angel glanced left and right. Lights were coming on all along the quiet leafy streets, the alleys filling with night. The garage was built under the front of the house. The backyard gate was unlatched.
Angel slipped down the alley, through the gate,
into the backyard. Carol’s house was more accessible than George Talbot’s wide-open homestead full of family and pets. Carol didn’t have a dog. She had two cats. And no security system. So Angel had no trouble getting in close.
Quickly, she ducked under a trellis thick with grapevines that ran along the side of the house. She knelt, forced the punky basement window with the crowbar, and went inside.
The cats were indifferent, especially the black shorthair who even rubbed up against Angel’s shin as she came up the stairs. Carol’s house smelled of sandalwood incense and the Alpine air-freshener machine that buzzed on top of the armoire in the living room.
For a few moments Angel thrilled at moving secretively through this strange house. House invasion. Lying in wait. The excitement tweaked her senses as she padded into the solarium addition that extended into the backyard, and stepped from the humdrum living quarters of a schoolteacher into a lush riot of plants, light, and color. Carol’s own private Babylon.
Obviously, the girl had a green thumb.
Carol’s jungle of houseplants thrived on the summer heat; the chlorophyll air was loamy with damp potting soil, peat moss, and vermiculite. Elephant-eared philodendrons were crowded in with palms, dwarf pines, a ming aralia, and scheffleras.
There was even an orchid under a grow light. Carol was especially fond of snake plants, several of which grew to seven feet tall. And she liked prickly pear cactus. .
And fifteen-year-old boys.
So this was where Carol wiggled out of her old-maid skin. A low futon couch sprawled amid the plants. A big sand-filled urn held stumps of incense sticks. The broad coffee table was made from the varnished hatch of an old sailing ship. Under it Angel found an ornate wooden chest banded with inscribed metalwork and dense with colorful designs.
From India or Pakistan maybe. Teachers had the summer off; they were big on vacations.
Angel opened the chest and found where Carol kept her stash of weed.
And her porn flicks. And her paraphernalia. Her slippery stuff, her vibrator.
With one ear cocked for the sound of a car in the driveway, Angel couldn’t resist taking a look. So she put a tape in the VCR. It wasn’t just stuff with guys. There were pictures of farm animals.
Amazing.
A bechained dominatrix strapped on a plastic dildo and made this guy in a black leather mask bend over. .
Angel carefully put it all back the way it was.
She’d studied the solarium and the dimensions of the backyard and made her plans. A small prefabricated toolshed sat in a corner of the yard; just big enough for a lawn mower, fertilizer spreader, a wheelbarrow, sacks of peat, composted manure, and a rack for garden tools. If you left the shed’s door ajar, you could see everything that went on in the solarium.
And that’s just what Angel did. There was just enough room for her to squeeze in and, leaving the door open a crack, she had a decent field of view. She’d walked off the distance. Twelve paces, about thirty-six feet across the thick grass to the solarium screen door.
She had not eaten or consumed liquids for the last three hours. If Angel was one thing, it was regular. No call of nature would interrupt her vigil.
So. Hide in the shed. Wait to see if the boy showed. Then, wait for him to leave.
If Carol deserved the full visit, Angel would give it to her.
Chapter Thirty-three
Broker observed that, for an old fart, Mouse still really enjoyed goosing the flasher and speeding in his Crown Vic. Drving over one hundred miles per hour, he zigzagged through the Friday afternoon traffic going west on Interstate 494 and then veering south on I-35W until he had to rein it in slightly-but only slightly-as he plowed right through red lights on County Road 42.
The Mystic Lake Casino complex was twenty minutes of freeway driving from the Twin Cities metro, which put it about an hour from Stillwater. Mouse made the drive in thirty-five minutes flat. The casino dominated the center of a mile-square parking lot like a twin-domed hit-me factory where people punched machines on three shifts, twenty-four hours a day.
“He’s bound to get tricky,” Broker said.
“We been over this. Not with both of us he won’t,” Mouse said.
Broker and Mouse showed their badges to two security cops in black blazers who were waiting under the front-door portico in valet parking. One stayed with the car; the other escorted them into the main circular gambling hall.
Broker wondered if maybe this was what the inside of Harry’s mind looked like: a smoky cavern filled with the low roar of slot machines and the shuffling shadows of the players.
They were walking fast around the periphery of the sunken gaming parlor. “He’s in the High-Stakes Slots alcove. And believe me, we got him so he isn’t going anywhere,” the security guard said.
“How? Are you restraining him?” Broker said.
“Nothing so crude. You’ll see.” The guard smiled.
“How’d you get onto him?” Broker said.
“You’ll see,” the guard said.
They stopped and were met by two more black blazers and two casino floor workers: a man and a woman in red shirts and black vests.
“We all set?” their escort said.
“All set,” said the woman.
“Let’s go,” said the escort.
High-Stakes Slots was a sparsely attended alcove done up in Art Deco, with a marble floor, tall snake plants, and a stone sculpture. Harry Cantrell slouched on a stool at the end of an arcade of machines in front of a huge slot machine that looked, to Broker, like a twelve-foot-high Wurlitzer jukebox.
A blue light flashed atop the tall machine.
Three red 7s were pasted across the video drum. They were a close match to the three 7s tattooed on Harry’s right arm.
With bloodshot eyes he watched them come down the aisle. “So what took you so long? I can barely keep my eyes open,” he said. His Cherokee cheekbones were puffy with bloat, and his tan was turning yellow.
“Just take it easy,” Broker said.
Harry’s face hung on in his cigarette smoke by a bare shred of willpower.
The escort pointed to the three sevens. “He hit a jackpot on our one-hundred-dollar machine. When our people came to verify the win, they noticed the tattoo-and they mentioned it to Security. We held up his check until you got here.”
“We appreciate it,” Mouse said.
“No problem; funny thing is, your be-on-the-lookout mentioned he’d probably be drinking. We’re a booze-free facility,” the escort said.
Harry said, “I confess, I got a bottle of rum in my room. I been spiking my Pepsi. Main reason I came is this machine. I always wanted to nail this sucker.”
“And you did,” the floor worker said. She handed Harry his driver’s license and a receipt, which he signed.
“How do you do it?” Mouse asked.
Harry handed back the receipt, got his carbon copy, accepted the check, and tapped his forehead with a shaky finger. “It’s a mind-set. You gotta study Ulysses S. Grant. Main thing about Ulysses was he never let losing bum him out. He’d lose ten thousand men. Go to bed, get up the next morning, and attack. You gotta believe that, in the end, you’re going to win.”
“Okay, Ulysses” Broker said, “it’s time to go.”
“Led you on a merry chase, though,” Harry said, getting slowly to his feet.
Mouse took Harry’s left elbow, Broker took his right; the security men went two in front, one behind and led them through the crowd to the door.
Harry pulled up short. “Gotta stop at my room.”
“No stops,” Broker said.
“Yeah, we do,” Harry said. “Papa Echo-I spell phonetically: PE, man. Physical Evidence. I’ve got physical evidence on the Saint.”
Broker and Mouse looked at each other.
“Bullshit,” Broker said.
“Exactly what have you got?” Mouse said.
“Hey, it’s in my room. I ain’t gonna talk in front of the whole fuckin
g world.” Harry pulled a key card envelope from his back pocket and handed it to the security escort.
“Okay,” Mouse said. “But you try anything this time, I’ll put my cuffs on you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Harry raised a Lucky Strike toward his exhausted grin. He missed his mouth, hit his chin, and the cigarette fell to the floor.
“Worth a look,” Mouse said.
“I’d cuff him, just to be safe,” Broker said.
“What?” Harry said. “I ain’t even drinking, I’m not resisting nothing. I’m ready to go take my medicine. Hell. I just heard that Viagra works better if you’re booze-free.”
“Okay,” Broker said.
Harry remained quiet but stumbled occasionally as they negotiated the corridors and malls to the adjoining hotel lobby; then they got into the elevator and went up to his room.”We’ll just be a second,” Mouse said to the security escort, who used Harry’s card to open the door. The escort nodded. He and his colleagues took up positions in the hall.
Harry’s room was totally undisturbed, just a leather travel bag on one of the beds.
“Open it,” Harry said.
Broker unzipped the bag. He saw several new pair of socks and underwear still in their plastic wraps. A shaving kit. “What am I looking for?”
“Green plastic box on the bottom,” Harry said.
Broker moved items aside and found the box sitting on a sheaf of paper. He took it out. An old piece of adhesive tape was stripped across the top with faded ballpoint notation: Brass/.38/ GR/158 Speer Wadcutter/4.8 grain.
“GR,” Broker said.
“Gloria,” Mouse said with no surprise in his tired voice.
Harry squinted at Broker. “’Fraid so. Remember, I told you how she made a grab for Lymon’s pistol after Dolman was acquitted; how she was screaming, ‘I’m gonna do the so and so’?”
“I didn’t know that,” Mouse said.
“Yeah, well, if your friendly local detective won’t hand over his pistol, what’s your next move?” Harry said.
