Vapor Trail (15 page)

Goddamn you, Harry—where are you?

Frustrated, Broker scanned the neighborhood. Just the still foliage of the trees and the shadows on the deserted streets. Harry probably wasn’t on foot . . .

Moving now toward the car. What about Annie Mortenson? She had been lying about helping Harry. . . . But by the time he reached the car, he’d decided he needed more help than Annie could provide. Annie didn’t really know Harry.

Harry had only wrecked Annie’s car. But he’d wrecked Gloria Russell’s marriage.

Ten minutes later, Broker was inside the government center, taking the elevator to the third floor. The receptionist, who had been hostile to him earlier, saw him coming, and her expression froze. Her eyes went wide, then filmed over, unfocused.

Broker had seen this response before, as a young operator in MACV-SOG doing fast ugly missions with the Provincial Reconnaissance Units. He remembered sweeping into Vietnamese hamlets, the villagers numbing their faces into empty smiles. Their
eyes had escaped inward as fear bred the hope they could make themselves invisible.

When he slowed to take a good look at her, it struck him that she was a low-rent version of Gloria Russell. The same gym-rat tan. The same muscle tone. The same shortish hair, only hers was dishwater blond.

He continued down the hall and into Gloria’s office.

A slender guy in a blue shirt and tie was talking to her. He had a sheaf of manila folders in his hand.

“Sorry, but I got to talk to Gloria,” Broker said.

“Is this . . . ?” the guy said.

“Yeah, this is Broker,” Gloria said.

“I can come back.” The guy turned and left the room.

Gloria pushed a Washington County edition of the
Pioneer Press
across her desk. “You see the paper?” she said.

Broker shook his head.

She handed it to him and said, “The story stripped down the right side.”

Broker scanned the headline: “Priest Found Dead in Stillwater Mission Church.” Under Sally Erbeck’s byline, the lead sentence read: “Foul play has not been ruled out in the death of Father Victor Moros.”

“The gossip jumped buildings this morning. Now I know why you want to deal Tardee up; he saw a woman in a Saints jacket go into the church about the time the priest died,” Gloria said. “You could have told me yesterday.”

“I just talked to Harry,” Broker said, evading her remark.

Gloria tensed visibly. “How is he?”

“Drunk. He has these two forward gears when he’s drinking. One is lucid. The other is . . .”

“I know, dangerously crazy.”

“So, can we talk straight?”

“Sure, Lymon filled me in. The priest was murdered in his confessional. He had a St. Nicholas medallion in his mouth.”

“And?”

“And . . . you’ve determined that the priest was not a pedophile. So somebody is playing games with the Saint’s calling card.”

“You know what Harry says?”

Gloria raised one hand in the stiff, dismissive gesture Gena Rowlands made famous in
A Woman Under the Influence.
“By all means, lay it on me.”

“Harry says the Saint is back with bad target information. He says somebody in-house has been retrieving his notes from the computer trash and has put together an erroneous list of child abusers.”

Gloria was careful not to bristle too much. “Ah, Jesus. I’ll make it simple for you. Harry Cantrell is brilliant but erratic. He had quite a juggling act going, but now he’s dropped his balls, as it were. Now he’s grabbing at straws. I know the man. We, ah, had a thing . . .”

“I heard.”

“I broke it off. Hell hath no fury like an old macho scorned.”

“He’s teasing me on the telephone. He won’t give me a name.”

Gloria cocked her head. “Okay, let me tell you about Harry. Do you know how we initially got onto Dolman?”

Broker shook his head.

“Sometimes cops go out to schools and talk to teachers about reporting child abuse, what to look for, stuff like that. So a year ago last spring Harry goes out to Timberry Trails Elementary and talks to the staff.

“There’s this one paraprofessional who’s got this chest like a shelf, right? This dish. So after he gives his talk, Harry starts putting the moves on her. Naturally, being the snake that he is, he uses the elements in his talk as an entrée.

“And this lady has a pile of these storybooks at her desk that kindergartners have written about themselves, and Harry is paging through them as he’s doing his thing. The kids draw self-portraits on the front of the books and write their names. The teachers help them with the text. And he comes across this book that looks different from the others. Instead of a happy smiley face, the face is all colored in. So he holds it up and asks, ‘What’s this?’

“And the lady answers, ‘Oh, that’s Tommy Horrigan; he always draws himself with his back turned.’ Harry opens the book and reads things Tommy has written, ‘The leaves are coming back’ or ‘Mommy plants tulips.’ He sees that Tommy does not put himself in his story.

“So Harry asks to meet Tommy Horrigan, and the rest is history.” Gloria shook her head. “Harry starts out trying to get laid and winds up detecting the trail of a child abuser.”

Broker looked her square in the eye. “And you started out with Harry, building a case against Dolman. And you wound up getting laid.”

Gloria pursed her lips, looked at the wall, and said, “You know, it really bothered me that a guy that old, with such lousy personal politics, could be so damn . . .” She mugged a smile, turned back to Broker, and said, “Is this what you came for?”

“You asked to have Harry taken off the case,” Broker said.

“Had to. When I took on Dolman, my marriage was on life support. The
thing
I had with Harry basically pulled the plug. But it was interfering with the work.”

“Enter Lymon,” Broker said.

Gloria leaned forward. “Don’t get distracted by the boy-girl and the racism. Bottom line: Harry has it worked around in his head that if he had stayed on the case Dolman would have been convicted.”

Broker studied her. She came across as bright, candid, and brave; plus sinewy in her armless blouse and raven crew cut. She looked as if she belonged on the front of a Patagonia catalog, scaling a sheer rock face.
Gloria Russell conquers El Capitan over a long lunch.

“Do you know what it was like, losing that case?” Gloria said. “I was so mad at first that I stormed out of the chambers. But then I realized I had to go back . . .”

She drew herself up, and Broker watched it come, a memory like electrodes clipping onto her body, sending electric current up the corded muscles of her neck, into her face, and burning in her eyes.

“Because . . . I left that little boy in there alone watching Dolman grinning and pumping the hand of his attorney.”

She shook her head violently. “And we said we’d never leave him alone. We always said we’d be there to protect him.”

Gloria was tough. Gloria didn’t cry. She kept talking in a dead, level voice. But her body cried. It was like looking at a statue of grief and seeing the unmoving bronze eyes trying to water.

“We had to go back and
explain
to Tommy and his parents. How do you explain that to a six-year-old? Here we told him that we were going to protect him. . . . Christ, do you have any idea what we put that kid through? The physical examinations—our doctor, the defense’s doctor . . .”

And Broker watched her dissociate with the moment and retreat into a private limbo. Gloria spoke as if to Tommy Horrigan. “We told you we’d get the guy who did those things to you. But we didn’t get him. We didn’t do our jobs good enough, and he got away.”

In a purely visceral way Broker now understood why John had brought him in. Nobody who’d been close to the thing wanted to pick up this particular live wire.

“Worst day of my life,” Gloria said.

Gloria caught herself and looked across her desk. “I don’t have to be here carrying water in county, you know. I could be almost a partner by now in a legal money factory in St. Paul or Minneapolis, driving a Beamer, working seventy hours a week, and taking files on stressed-out vacations to wherever. I chose not to do that because I believe there’s more to life than making money. And I believe in being involved in this system out of self-interest, to protect all of us from people who will take the law into their own hands.”

“So Harry gets your vote for Saint,” Broker said.

An expression of painfully acquired revelation came over Gloria’s face. She said, “Just as I’m sure I get his. But
Saint
is much too kind a word. The next time you see Harry, take a good look at him. He’s the face of the mob.”

“Majority of U.S. Bishops
Have Protected Abusive Priests,” declared the headline in the newspaper box at the front door to the county building.

Broker walked out into the heat with Gloria’s parting shot stuck in his mind. Fuckin’ Harry. He crossed the parking lot and kicked the Crown Vic’s tires. Fuckin’ Harry’s car. As he flopped behind the wheel, his phone rang. He whipped it open and braced for another Harry mind game.

“Mr. Broker, this is Annie Mortenson; I’ve been thinking about what you said and we should talk.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the library, but I’m through for the day.”

“I’ll meet you on the front porch in ten minutes.”

Eight minutes later, after scalding his hands on the red-hot steering wheel, he met her on the library steps. They sat down side by side on a bench.

“Harry did contact me and asked me for a favor. Am I in any trouble?” Annie asked.

“No, no. What was the favor?” Broker said.

“He asked me to call you and give you this information anonymously.” She handed him a note written in concise Palmer penmanship:
Broker’s truck can be found in the vicinity of County Road 97 and Merril Lane today after 3
P.M.

Broker took the note and tucked it in his chest pocket.

“Your truck isn’t going to wind up like my car, is it?” Annie said.

“I hope not,” Broker said as a shadow fell across them.

“Is this guy bothering you, Miss?” an amused voice said.

Broker looked up. The tallish man standing in front of him had calm, angular features and straight blond hair falling an inch over his ears. His powder-blue eyes ruminated behind wire-rim glasses.

Drew Hensen, Janey’s husband, had always reminded Broker of Garrison Keillor’s radio persona: congenial and wise in a cute way and several comfortable steps removed from the real world. Broker remembered him lanky in chambray shirts and faded jeans. Today the heat had him in a tank top and running shorts and flip-flops.

Taken by surprise, Annie put her right hand to her throat, then dropped it to the top button of her blouse. Self-consciously, she twirled the button with her fingers. “Drew? Oh no, we were just talking . . .”

Broker stood up. “Drew, how you doing?” They shook hands.

Drew shrugged. “Same old stuff, waging war against junk food and prime-time TV.”

“You two know each other?” Annie said.

“Sure, we used to work together,” Drew said.

“You two, really?”

“In another life. At the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I used to be a police artist,” Drew said. “Remember, I told you.”

“Okay,” Anne said. Her eyes rolled back, placing a memory.

“It’s been a while, though,” Broker said, practicing small talk
while he checked Drew out. The artist appeared totally relaxed and untroubled by any marital discord Janey had alleged. However, Broker did notice that, in his presence, Drew and Annie adjusted their gaze to avoid looking directly into each other’s eyes.

“Janey tells me you married a soldier,” Drew said with a sly smile.

“An Amazon hoplite, actually,” Broker said.

“
Hoplite.
Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day,” Annie said.

Drew smiled, warming to the repartee. “They burned off their breasts, didn’t they?”

“The right breast. So it wouldn’t get in the way drawing a bow,” Annie said.

“Now I think they just burn off men’s balls,” Broker said, smiling pleasantly.

“Always the mellow fellow,” Drew said. “So are you still on the job?”

“I’m filling in as a deputy for John Eisenhower, just for a few days,” Broker said.

Drew nodded. “Sure. I know John. Are you, ah, working now?” He nodded toward Annie.

“No, we have an acquaintance in common. That’s all,” Annie said.

“Well, I gotta go in and set up this program,” Drew said.

“He has this afternoon reading group for third graders,” Anne said.

“Watch yourself, Annie. Broker worked deep undercover; he’s a sneaky sort of guy,” Drew said amiably.

“I’ll be careful,” Annie said.

“See ya,” Broker said.

Drew waved good-bye and went in the library. When he was gone, Annie said, “Do you know his books?”

Broker nodded. “He draws these friendly monsters like Sendak, but in brighter colors. I read a couple to my daughter.”

“He’s very good,” Annie said.

“Right. Look, Annie: keep in touch about Harry. Anything at all.”

“I will.”

Broker thanked Annie, accompanied her out to the street, and then they went separate ways. Briefly, he watched her walk down a line of parked cars and wondered who was worse for her, Harry or Drew. Then Broker turned away and went in search of his truck.

Not sure about the whereabouts of Merril Lane, he opened the glove compartment on a hunch and found a Washington County road map. He also found a black billed cap with a motto stitched in yellow across the crown: I Am Not Like the Others. And below, in smaller letters: 3rd Mar Div Force Recon. Broker consulted the map, and seeing that he was headed into the country—maybe for a walk in the sun—he put Harry’s hat on his head.

Broker drove northwest of town toward White Bear Lake into rolling countryside. He passed acres of long, white slat fences and horse barns. Overgrown gravel driveways wandered into the brush with signs that said things like Excellent Development Site. He found the intersection of Manning and Merril and saw only rolling empty fields. Probably the farmers had them in the land bank.
In the vicinity of
, the message said. He continued down Merril, topped a slight hill, and feathered the brakes. In the distance an American flag tossed in a hot gust of breeze.

Nothing unusual there; more and more flags had popped up in the countryside since 9/11, flying from mailboxes or fence posts. This flag, however, was attached to a black Ford Ranger.

The truck was parked way out in a weedy pasture that was gated and fenced with barbed wire.

A tractor path meandered into the field, but the gate was padlocked. So Broker got out and climbed over the gate. After a few minutes walking through the knee-deep grass and thistles, and avoiding numerous cow pies, he was thankful for the hat because he had to walk toward the west into the lowering sun. As he crossed the field he saw that the truck had been parked with the hood facing east, the direction he was walking in from.

Clearly, this was Harry’s idea of a joke. He took out his cell phone and held it at the ready.

About one hundred yards from the truck, he caught a powerful draft of manure fermenting in the sun. He saw a pile of it dumped next to the truck.

Uh-oh.

A dozen steps later, he realized that some of the smell was coming from inside the truck.

Harry, you . . . son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch . . .

Broker walked closer in and saw that the interior of the cab had been shoveled full of cowshit. A note was stuck on top of the crud with a downward-pointing arrow. The note said:
Badge and gun this way.

There was no sound except the buzz of insects and the faint rustle from the flag when it caught and released a nudge of steaming air. Instinctively, Broker backed off and started to circle the truck looking for some sign, tracks maybe . . .

A flash of opaque gray stood out against the green of the grass and weeds. Approaching, Broker saw it was a plastic gallon milk container. It had been planted upended on a stout, sharpened sapling. Then it had apparently been pushed over. Dirt still clung to the stick’s sharpened end.

With a definite pucker contracting between his lips, Broker saw
that it had been discarded after it served its purpose. Its purpose was obvious from the three bullet holes grouped in a two-inch radius in the middle of the container.

Harry had taken a few practice shots. Then he’d left the target in plain view.

Broker thought about it . . . Harry’s finger out there attached to a nervous system drowned in Jack Daniel’s, caressing the trigger on the black rifle. A trigger with a pull so fine a sneeze could set it off.

So now what? Jump under the truck? Into the weeds?

He squinted to the west, because that’s where Harry would have set up his firing position with the sun at his back, in that tree line about six hundred yards away. Broker raised his right hand in that direction, middle finger extended.

Then he turned and noticed that the side-view mirror on the truck was cranked out and had some tiny writing on it in Magic Marker.

He took several steps forward and read:
Smile! You’re on candid camera.

Broker watched his own eyes freeze in his face in the mirror. Instinctively, he understood that Harry had planted the flag on his truck to keep track of the wind direction. He could even appreciate the twist of elegance in the way Harry had set him up, looking at his face in a mirror at the precise moment the .338 slug . . .

The hot sizzle passed through the air where his shoulder and his neck formed two sides of an angle. Broker watched the image of his face explode in the mirror before he could react.

A tiny fragment of flying glass cut his cheek as he dropped to his knees in an involuntary reflex. Otherwise he was untouched. Most of the glass had been knocked from the mirror frame, and there was a small hole a little off the dead center.

Broker took a deep breath, turned, and fixed on the tree line
about six football fields away. Far enough that he wasn’t aware of having even heard the sound of the shot.

He just had to go see, so he got up, started walking toward the trees, and began to count his steps. 1, 2, 3, 4, . . .
damn it was hot . . .
54, 55 . . .
used to be able to shed the heat . . .
74, 75 . . .
Jesus, it can’t get any fuckin’ hotter
. . . 124, 125 . . .
when is this fucker gonna break? . . .
290, 291, 292 . . .
shoulda brought some water, dummy
. . . 340 . . .
dehydrated for sure, gotta watch it . . .
430, 431 . . .
not a kid anymore
,
at least you’re still putting out sweat
. . . 510, 511 . . .
be careful, you could crap out in this field, just sink in these weeds
. . . 587, 588, 589. Dizzy, squeegeed dry by the sun, he staggered into the shadow of the trees and looked back. His truck was about the size of his hand. He checked the tree line carefully and couldn’t find any sign of a person having been there.

He mopped sweat from his face, squatted down, and thought about it. Harry had perfectly positioned him for the shot, down to the direction of the truck, even the angle of the mirror. And Broker had made the obvious assumption: the firing position had been in these trees, the best cover in sight.

Exactly the misdirected conclusion Harry had wanted him to reach. Like an opponent putting out counterfire would assume. Harry, meanwhile, would be somewhere else.

He got up, walked through the narrow line of trees, and climbed the gentle hill behind them. His truck was now obscured from view by the foliage.

Then he found the props Harry had left behind on a low hillside.

A small sandbag lay on a hummock of dirt. The kind used for prone support on rifle ranges. Broker walked over and found a dug-out area where Harry had made himself comfortable. Five Lucky Strike butts were ground into the dirt in a little circle.
Squatting in the depression behind the hummock, Broker could clearly see his truck through a deceptive opening in the tree canopy.

Again plastic gleamed in the sun, bright transparent this time. Harry had left a liter bottle of spring water in the grass. Almost full. Like a diagram of insanity, the water bottle lay next to an empty pint of Johnny Walker.

Greedily, Broker twisted off the cap and drank the hot water in three long gulps. Only when he’d finished did he see the patch of bare dirt that had been scraped flat. Harry had used something pointed, a twig or pen, and had printed very legible uppercase block letters in the earth:
YOU FLINCHED!

After he stopped swearing, Broker called J. T. Merryweather. Then he called Stillwater Towing. Then, as he walked back across the field to the gate, to meet the tow truck, he called J. T. again.