Vapor Trail (22 page)

Men and women in uniforms,
barefoot civilians in shorts, men without shirts, kids—they all came out from the dark houses to see the cops cordon off the entire North Hill around the ravine.

They got somebody trapped in the sewer.

They hoped. Broker leaned forward, forearms planted on a steel rail running along the limestone wall that overlooked the ravine. Not far away, Lymon sagged against a car. There was never a good time for a situation to totally unravel, but the heat definitely made it worse. The adrenaline jag of the chase had blown back on them, and now a knot of cops sulked around the woman Lymon had pursued through the woods. Freed from her handcuffs, she stood with her arms crossed, listening to an officer who took great pains to explain the murder, the description of the suspect . . .

“We’re really sorry about the mix-up,” the patient cop said.

“I know my rights. I want everybody’s badge numbers,” she said.

Another group of cops was talking to a teenage boy with a
skateboard under his arm. Benish was with that group, scribbling notes in a pad in the bad light.

Down the wall from Broker, flashlights played over an old limestone sewer spillway. The newer underground storm sewer intake was located about thirty feet farther down into the ravine. Cops had strung crime scene tape and were searching the area around the sandy apron in front of the intake grille. The branches of a fallen cottonwood obscured the grille and made it hard to see.

The shouts went back and forth.

“There’s this clay-type dirt. We got a fresh cleat pattern from a running shoe. She crawled in here.”

Another cop gingerly fished a green pop bottle out from inside the sewer intake and held it with a pen stuck through the neck. “What do you make of this? It’s got punctures and duct tape . . .”

And: “She definitely slipped into this sewer intake. We got people blocking the other end.”

Mouse—arm up, neck scrunched to the side in cell-phone silhouette—walked up to Broker. “Somebody has to go in there,” Broker said.

“Yeah, somebody young. And that ain’t you or me,” Mouse said. He gestured with the phone. “We got it sealed. SWAT’s on the way. We’ll watch this end, and the manholes on top. They’ll go in on Second and push through. If she’s in there, we got her.”

The cops fanned out along the length of the ravine and waited for the SWAT team. Broker sat down and adopted a wait-and-see attitude; he did not directly think of Gloria hunkered down under the ground gripping a pistol. And he didn’t revisit the experience of being shot at point-blank in the dark less than half an hour ago.

He was past the adrenaline spike of the chase, coming down. He fingered the deputy’s badge in his pocket. He tried to stay in the moment. And at the moment he smelled like tomato plants and fresh dirt.

Then the tension cranked up again when the SWAT members went into the sewer. The radios cracked, and everybody leaned forward, waiting . . . and . . .

“Get ready, something’s coming. Ready, ready . . .”

Hisses and chittery growls came from the sewer, and then three raccoons scrambled between the bars of the grille and raced through the blocking force.

One of the SWAT guys popped his head out of the intake and said, “She ain’t here.”

The gathered cops dispersed in a wider search pattern. Broker accompanied Mouse, who went over to Benish and told him to locate Gloria Russell and find out where she was tonight.

“Where’s she live?” Benish said.

“How the fuck do I know?” Mouse said. “You’re a cop, find her. Take Lymon. Hey Lymon, c’mere.”

Lymon walked over to them, then stopped, plucked his Palm Pilot from his pocket, and hunched over to read something off the tiny screen. His face tightened; then he reached out and grabbed Benish’s arm so hard Benish said, “Ow.”

Broker and Mouse joined closer with Lymon and Benish. Lymon thrust the small screen up for them to read:
LYMON, I’M SO SORRY. GLORIA
.

“Go, go!” Mouse shouted, pounding Lymon on the shoulder. He grabbed Broker, held him back. “John just arrived at the victim’s house on Beech. I ran it down about Harry and Gloria. He wants to talk to both of us.”

One of Sheriff John Eisenhower’s favorite maxims was that nothing good happens at the end of a car chase. He arrived at the address on Beech Street to find cops, paramedics, and some citizens already openly discussing the Saint.

Broker and Mouse parked down the block and walked toward the lights.

The medical examiner was there and the Stillwater mayor with his police chief. The state crime lab van from BCA had backed up to Carol Lennon’s gated yard, an area that was now as brightly lit and tightly secured as a space shuttle launch.

The crowd of citizens swelled, some of then grinning the kind of rubbernecking smiles that reminded Broker of old photographs of gawkers at a lynching. At least one Saints baseball jacket was being worn in the impossible heat.

It was starting.

Sally Erbeck moved swiftly toward the sheriff. As she passed Broker she gave him a quick wink. It was truly amazing to see the way the lines of her face streamlined forward; it was a fresh kill, and she was on the scene. Broker wondered if she had a police scanner surgically implanted in her ear.

John Eisenhower held up a hand to halt Sally, signaling with his fingers that he’d talk to her in five minutes. He detached from a knot of coppers and walked over to Broker and Mouse.

“Mouse told me,” John said. “What a mess. You had to go round and round with Harry. And she took a shot at you—could you ID her?”

Broker shook his head. “Too dark.” He took the deputy’s badge and ID card from his pocket and handed them to John.

“Not now, Broker,” John said. He pushed the badge and card away and then warmly squeezed Broker’s arm. He turned to Mouse. “This here”—he indicated the crime scene—“is BCA’s now. But we have to find and question Gloria. She’s ours.”

“Benish and Lymon are looking for her right now. We’re gonna need a warrant, the whole schmeer,” Mouse said.

Art Katzer, the lean head of Investigations, had also returned. He pushed through the crowd with a cell phone glued to his ear.
He said, “Somebody from the governor’s staff just called; he’s thinking of coming out here if it’s the Saint.”

“Great,” John said.

Broker felt deformed. He was the only nonuniformed person in a ten-yard radius who didn’t have a cell phone growing from his ear. Now Mouse was on his again. Broker watched Mouse’s lined face tighten. At the same time, he heard a spike of radio static ripple through the crowd. The uniforms started melting away toward their cars.

Mouse had this look on his face, as if thinking:
Why am I always the guy who has to tell the kids their parent is dead?

“They found her,” he said.

John and Katzer lowered their cell phones. “You mean they’re questioning her,” John said.

“No, they
found
her,” Mouse repeated. Then he raised his right hand, extended his index finger, curled his other three fingers, made his thumb into a hammer, pointed the finger at his head, and let the thumb fall forward.

“She ate the gun.”

The address was on the South Hill, an imposing two-story redbrick school building constructed during the New Deal. It had been remodeled into condominiums. Benish sat on the steps of the entryway with a baleful guard-dog look in his eyes. Elbow planted on his knees, he was methodically pulling on a rubber band he wore around his wrist.

Broker had ridden over with Mouse. They parked in front. As they walked up the sidewalk, Mouse paused and stared at the letters chiseled in stone over the door. The tiny glow of recognition flared in his eyes, then faded back to sorrow. “I went to elementary school here,” he said in a quiet voice.

Benish snapped his rubber band, exhaled, got up, and said, “Second floor, top of the stairs on the right.” He raised his chin at the cop cars converging on the street.

Broker watched some neighbors stand frozen in the red slap of the flashers. The sudden police presence transformed them into shell-shocked refugees in their own yards.

“There’s a deputy in the lobby with the tenants. I’ll try to keep the crowd down, but it’s going to be a zoo in about three minutes,” Benish said.

Broker and Mouse entered the building, nodded to the copper who was questioning a small crowd of people gathered in the lobby. Then they climbed the stairs, broad slate with heavy oak blond banisters and black wrought-iron filigree. At the top of the stairs, on the right, the door to number six was open. The doorway was very tall, splendid with old wood, with a wide glass transom window on a chain.

Mouse ran his hand down the varnished wood of the doorway and said simply, “I learned to read in this room.”

Lymon met them. Broker noticed that his eyes were hard and steady, as if he’d aged ten years in the last two hours. “In here,” Lymon said.

As they stepped through the door, Lymon said, “She’s in the bathroom. But we gotta be careful; there’s feathers all over the place.” They edged past a small kitchen and down a hallway.

Lymon raised his hand. They stopped. He pointed at the claycaked soles on a pair of running shoes that lay casually strewn, one on its side, on the hallway oak flooring.

The gunshot-ripped pillow lay on the bathroom tile floor. As if in a miniature snowstorm, the sink and tub were carpeted with the white lint.

“I guess she used the pillow to muffle the shot,” Lymon said,
then stepped aside so they could see. Moving cautiously, they eased in the bathroom door.

A pair of dirty gray running shorts, a sports top, and a pair of grimy socks lay on the floor. A wafer of dark plastic lay next to them. The Palm Pilot.

Like someone who didn’t want to make a mess, Gloria Russell lay toppled into the bathtub. And, like Carol Lennon, she was naked. Unlike Carol’s face, hers was turned away. A scum of dirt and tiny bits of leaves formed a swirl of sediment in the bottom of the tub. As if she’d showered first. The tiny feathers had drifted down and settled on the bare soles of her feet. There were abrasions on the left knee consistent with scraping through thick brush.

There was very little blood, just the single entry wound above her right eyebrow. Her right index finger was still tangled in the trigger guard of the gun she’d used, a Ruger .22 automatic that lay under her twisted arm.

Lymon pointed to the gun. “Look at the barrel housing, on the end.”

They looked and saw a gummy residue and tiny pieces of frayed duct tape.

“The exhaust fan was on, and the door was closed when I got here. I turned off the fan with a pen; it was blowing the feathers around. Maybe the fan helped suppress the sound of the shot, like the pillow. The neighbors didn’t hear,” Lymon said. They carefully backed out of the room. “The closet,” he said.

He led Broker and Mouse back to the entryway hall and pointed to the askew folding closet door. A canvas gym bag sat inside. Using a pen, Lymon lifted the flap on the bag. Inside there were several crumpled pieces of paper, one of them with blood on it. Broker knelt and tried to make it out; a computer printout of a kid, dancing maybe. Beneath the paper Broker saw a wig, a portion of a Saints logo peeking from the folded material of a jacket.

“What’s that other stuff?” Mouse said.

“Some kind of padding, I don’t know. I didn’t want to dig around,” Lymon said. “And there’s this.” He poked a pencil flashlight into the pack.

Broker craned his neck and saw a plastic baggie in the bottom of the bag, a glint of tiny chain links and silver.

“But no thirty-eight,” Mouse said. “We’ll have to tear this place apart looking for it.”

Broker had had enough; he stood up. “I don’t see any reason for me to stick around here,” he said, moving toward the door.

Lymon followed him into the outside hall and said, “Remember when you asked me about the night Moros was killed, where she was?”

“Yeah,” Broker said.

“I saw her in the gym. But I split, and she stayed. So she was alone. There would have been plenty of time,” Lymon said.

Mouse joined them, and they looked down the stairs at the lobby filling up with the sheriff, the mayor, the police chief, the state guys, and a dozen blue and tan uniforms.

“That whole game Harry ran on folks, drawing the Saint rumors to himself—he was trying to protect her,” Lymon said.

“Yeah. Ah, Christ, now somebody has to tell him in the hospital,” Mouse said.

“Me,” Lymon said.

“You sure?” Mouse said.

“Me,” Lymon said firmly.

“Okay. That’s it. I’m leaving,” Broker said. He turned to Lymon. “Welcome to the job, huh.” He extended his hand, and they naturally hooked thumbs, clasped wrists, did a finger snatch on the release.

“Where’d you come by this shit?” Lymon said.

“What, this?” Broker said, opening his hand.

“Yeah, the old Soul Brother dap shit,” Lymon said with some spark in his new tough eyes.

Broker flashed on Harry driving dead drunk from casino to casino past midnight. The wind rushing in his hair had sounded like helicopters on the phone. “It was something long ago,” he said.

They left Lymon on the job at the head of the stairs and went down and pushed through the crowd. Outside, Broker raised his head, as if to sniff the wind. But there wasn’t any wind; just the heavy air and too many cop cars. A few houses down, a surreptitious lawn sprinkler hissed, defying the watering ban.

Cody, the young narc, walked up, handed Broker a slip of paper, and said, “From Dispatch. Sorry to lay this nickel-dime shit on you, but you’ve been requested by name at a domestic downtown. Some woman named Jane Hensen. Says it’s personal.”

“Aw, shit.” Broker grimaced. He looked at the address on the slip of paper. Drew’s studio.

Mouse handed his car keys to Broker and said, “Go on, take my cruiser. I’ll be busy here all night. Bring it back tomorrow.”

Broker got in
Mouse’s cruiser and left the crowd of people, vehicles, and equipment that had descended on Gloria Russell’s suicide.

A dark blue Stillwater squad was parked in front of the warehouse. Broker pulled in back of it, got out, went up the stairs, and walked into the studio.

The town cop was a young guy Broker had never seen before. He had removed his hat and wore his hair high and tight and was buckled and harnessed with gear. His mobile radio squawked in the center of the studio, calling attention to the place Broker had just left. The cop stood between Janey and Drew, whom he had positioned in separate corners—Drew at his drawing table, Janey on the couch. A tipped bookcase and about twenty books lay on the floor between them.

“You Broker?” the cop said.

Broker just nodded.

“You were in on the chase up the hill?” the cop said.

“Yeah, what a mess,” Broker said.

“I heard, on the radio. I would have been there, but I got this
call first.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “Is it true it’s the Saint? They found a medallion in her mouth? And about the prosecutor?”

Broker nodded again. “So what have you got here?”

Janey and Drew began to speak at the same time. The young copper held up his hand. “People, we’ve been through this; you will speak in turn, you will not raise your voices, and you will listen to Mr. Broker. If I have to come back, we will continue this discussion at the county jail.”

Drew and Janey shut up. The cop said to Broker, “You know the Hensens. Right?”

“Yes, I do,” Broker said.

“Okay. The husband called for assistance. Said the wife was wrecking his studio. Reason I called you—their little girl, Laurie, is in the bathroom. She’s the only one with any common sense; she says she won’t come out until everybody stops yelling. The thing is, her hands are all cut up and bandaged, which looks like rough stuff I have to report—so naturally I have questions. They both said you could explain.”

Broker nodded a second time. “They had a fight; he walked out. Laurie’s way of dealing with it was to go in the backyard and dig up her dead cat. That how she tore up her hands.”

The copper growled at them, “If it was up to me, you’d have to pass a competency test before you’d be allowed to have children.”

“I can take it from here,” Broker said.

“Good luck,” the cop said, heading for the door. “I’ll be up the hill at the scene if you need anything.”

“Thanks, I think we’re good,” Broker said. He stood with his hands folded in front of him as the officer left. Then he went to the bathroom and knocked on the door.

“This is Phil Broker, remember? I let you take the cat home; gray, shorthaired?”

“I’m not coming out till they stop yelling at each other,” Laurie said.

“Okay. We’ll do something about that. You wait right here. I’ll be back in a minute,” Broker said.

“Okay,” Laurie said.

Broker turned back to Janey and Drew, who sat facing each other with their arms folded tightly across their chests.

“Okay, why are you yelling at each other?” Broker said.

“We have agreed to separate,” Janey said. “He wants to move out and live here. Fine. I just don’t want him to run his parade of bimbos past Laurie. Just keep it away from my kid, okay?”

“What? Lisa—a bimbo? C’mon Janey,” Drew said, “she has a master’s in child psychology for Chrissake.”

“Ohhh, a
master’s
. . .” Janey wiggled her fingers.

“So this is a custody dispute,” Broker said.

“Yes. I want Laurie to spend tonight here with me. Janey says she has to go home,” Drew said.

Broker jerked his thumb toward the bathroom. “What about her? She’s involved in this too.”

They were silent for a moment, then Drew sat back, refolded his arms, and said, “I promised to take Laurie to Camp Snoopy tomorrow.”

Broker looked at Janey. “Is that okay with you?”

“Of course. It’s tonight I’m worried about,” Janey said.

“There you go again; just settle down,” Drew said.

Drew was also staring at him. Broker looked down and noticed that his shoes were caked with drying mud from his night walk around Lake McKusick, his jeans and shirt were gritty from diving in the tomato patch.

Drew said, “It’s no big deal. I have to work. She can watch movies on the TV with the headset.”

“Where will she sleep?” Janey asked. “Certainly not back there
where you . . .” She pointed at the alcove where Drew had his futon.

“No, no; I’ll take the small futon off the chair and make a pallet in front of the VCR.”

“I suppose that would be all right,” Janey said. Grudgingly, they nodded to each other.

“Okay, I’m going to bring Laurie out,” Broker said. He went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “Fight’s over. Time to come out.”

Slowly, Laurie opened the door. “I heard,” she said as she squinted past Broker at her father. “Can I watch three movies?” Laurie asked.

“Not
three
movies,” Janey said.

So Broker watched them work out the details. Absently, as they talked, Janey began to pick up books and stack them back in the shelves. Immediately, Drew stooped to help. Broker thought the behavior bizarre, yet also comforting. Or saddening. He wasn’t sure which.

Finally, Broker and Janey left the studio and stood on the sidewalk.

“Hop in, I’ll give you a ride,” Broker said.

They got into Mouse’s car. As they drove away, Janey brightened with a forced eagerness. “Don’t take me home yet. Let’s take a drive. Now that we’re both separated persons, we could go somewhere and have a drink. A lot of drinks. In fact, we could get drunk,” she said.

Broker studied her across the front seat. Scraps of moonbeam caught on her teeth and the whites of her eyes. She was looking very warm and available. But the glimmers on her face reminded him of the tiny feathers stuck to Gloria Russell’s cold skin. “I don’t get drunk,” he said.

“Not even during a moment of weakness?” Janey said.

He had the windows open, and the night pressed in feeling foreign; Galveston, New Orleans—someplace else. So hot you wanted to take off everything to cool down, and not just your clothing—your normal restraints. Broker thought about it. For the second day in a row, bullets had zipped past his head. He’d seen two dead women . . .

“Weak moment, huh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Janey said.

“Separated,” Broker said.

“Uh-huh. You know, Broker, you’re, ah, all dirty,” Janey said.

“We were chasing somebody tonight,” Broker said.

“Did you catch them?” Janey said.

“Catch them . . .” He thought of his first wife, Caren; how after hunting season she would say, “Phil caught a deer,” not “shot” it, not “killed” it. “Yeah, I guess we did,” Broker said. “Okay, look; I’m going out to Milt’s and jump in the river. You want to come along?”

Broker floated on his back and stared up at the stars. He considered a world in which Diane Cantrell and Gloria Russell had to die while he and Harry continued to live.

Janey surfaced beside him, a gleam in the moonlight.

“Just relax, just let it happen,” she said.

An experiment at playing skinny dipping in the dark. Pale flashes of skin, like fish, curving out of sight. Laughter. Splashing.

Then the bodies grazing, just nibbles of touch at first.

So just let it happen. Forget the death. Embrace the life.