by Chuck Logan
She tossed her hair. "Whatever. And Nancy Ward, the recoveryroom nurse, was having a bad day; she'd had a fight with her husband and she'd worked all the previous night. Technically, she'll catch the brunt of a malpractice suit. It looks like she neglected to program Sommer into the monitor. So she takes the blame for leaving him untended. But I was in charge. So it comes back to me."
"You agree with them?" She crossed her arms across her chest.
"You don't agree with them?"
She uncrossed her arms, then recrossed them, stood up, and changed the subject. "There's this rumor how you smuggled two tons of buried gold through Laos into Thailand and banked it in Hong Kong? Dave says if you didn't have connections in the FBI, the IRS would be all over you."
The rumors. Broker waved his hand. "Hell, I should pull it out of the stock market, put it all back into bullion, and bury the stuff again."
"Bury it? Like a pirate?"
"Exactly." He heaved up and went to the counter, selected a knife from the rack on the wall, and sliced an orange, then a lemon, followed by a lime. The tart citrus circles tumbled off the blade and laundered the air; orange, yellow, and green in a pile like tropical doubloons. He dumped the slices into another large pot, added a quart of cider, a generous splash of vinegar, two tablespoons of honey and a cinnamon stick, and set the flame.
Amy got up, joined him at the counter, and looked over his shoulder. "You're going to have the most expensive urine in Minnesota."
"Mom's home remedy."
"Whatever." She held out her left hand. "Look, see that?" She pointed at a faint white line on the edge of her palm.
It was an old scar. He said, "So?"
"Thirty years ago, the summer you helped Billie put in the boat dock." She pointed out the window toward the old, hump-backed dock jutting into the lake. "You cut a fishhook out of my hand. You were eighteen. I was seven." She appraised him. "You don't remember."
He didn't recall the fishhook. He remembered building the damn dock, though.
"You're no fun today," she said as she put on her coat. "I have something else for you." She removed a bag from her purse and handed it to him. It contained a cardboard and cellophane toy box and a copy of the outstate edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
"What's this?" There was a kid's action-figure called War Wolf in the box—plastic wolf head on a pumped-up body, dressed in camo fatigues.
"Way uncool, Broker; everybody's heard of War Wolf, the poor man's Star Wars," Amy said, patting his cheek. "You know what else Dave said? He said you were lost in the modern world. I'll bet you've never seen Seinfeld? Ally McBeal?"
"Hey, knock it off, I read Doonesbury every once in a while. And I watch The Crocodile Hunter." He held up the toy and hunched his shoulders, questioning.
"Read the paper, there's an article about Hank Sommer in the feature section folded on top."
Amy touched his cheek lightly once more, told him to keep washing his hands, and outside, clomped down the steps, got in her practical, reliable car, and disappeared into the early evening. She probably drove the speed limit when nobody was around.
As he turned his mom's cider remedy down to a simmer he wondered if she kissed with her eyes open.
It was not much of an article, with just a tiny picture of Hank squeezed into the type. A bigger picture showcased the plastic toy.
Creator of War Wolf in Coma.
Timberry writer Hank Sommer was diagnosed as being in a coma due to complications following emergency surgery in Ely, Min nesota, last week. After a daring boundary-water seaplane rescue in a violent storm, Sommer was operated on to repair a rupture and perforated bowel suffered during a canoeing accident. Milton Dane, prominent St. Paul attorney, is representing Sommer and his wife against the Duluth Medical Group that manages Ely Miner Hospital.
According to Dane, "Ely Miner violated the standard of care with respect to Sommer's post-operative treatment. It is ironic that Hank survived the storm, the hypothermia, the rescue, and the surgery, only to be deprived of oxygen in a hospital recovery room." Irony has stalked Sommer throughout his writing career. His first two novels garnered critical attention but little in the way of sales. Then he wrote War Wolf, a satire in which a returning veteran afflicted with dioxin poisoning becomes a vengeful Communist werewolf.
Director Bruce Cook found a copy of War Wolf three years ago in the remainder bin. The movie—which earned over ninety-three million dollars—established Sommer's career as a novelist. It also produced a financial bonanza for the author, who shrewdly negotiated lucrative deals on other War Wolf spin-offs, including the action figure and video games.
Broker shook his head, pushed up off the couch, put on his parka, and selected a cigar. Brandy seemed like a good idea, so he raided Billie's liquor cabinet and poured two inches into a cup, hit the play button on Billie's CD player, went out on the front porch, and sat down on the steps. Through the open door he heard Jay and the Americans kick in as he popped a match.
Cigar smoke clawed his throat, so he took a soothing drink by way of a solitary toast: Whiskey, Women, Work, and War—to Hank Sommer, who wears a coral snake on his wrist, who saved my life, who takes second billing to a kid's plastic toy . . .
C'mon, Broker, tell the truth, you voted for Ventura, didn't you?
Yeah, Hank, damned if I didn't. Just to spite the suits.
He looked out over the dark lake and shivered. Damn, it was cold for October this year. Tiny glints clamped down along the shore; there'd be a skin of thin ice in the morning.
Uncle Billie's porch faced north up Lake One and as the night filled in, the edges of the pine crowns feathered out and melted into a black sky. As the tree line disappeared so did perspective. Broker
was alone with a star dome virtually unblemished by artificial light
and, except for the occasional airliner and the seldom satellite, it
was the cosmos of the ancients.
The Big and Little Dippers hung high to the north around the
polestar, and Orion hugged the eastern horizon. The summer trian
gle of Deneb, Vega, and Altair slipped away to the west a little more
each night.
Mom, hoping he could be the artist she had never been, tried to
nurture in him a sense of discovery, and never missed an opportu
nity to slip a few coppers of wonder into his piggy bank of instincts. See the shapes of animals in the clouds. The constellations.
Dad taught him to find the real animal in the forest; the deer by
his tracks, where he bedded, where he fed; by his rubs and scrapes.
Honoring both his parents, he'd let his practicality cross-fertilize his
imagination.
The Cities, stacked with high-rise humans, had never been his
home. This was home and, as always, the wilderness beckoned with
silent beauty, absent mercy. Broker sipped his brandy and mused
how the death traps in nature were always feminine: oceans, moun
tains, deep woods. Which was as it should be because their victims
were usually young, romantic, dumb men.
Jay and the Americans called it accurately:
Come a little bit closer
you're my kind of man
so big and so strong . . .
Moved by the rhythm of the old music, he didn't have to travel
far to find the memory of Jolene Sommer's green eyes.
Broker stood up, poured out the rest of his drink, grimaced at
the cigar, and threw it away. Getting cold, he went inside, shut the
door, and placed another log on the coals.
He dippered out a cup of his mom's cider, settled back on the
fold-out bed, took a sip, and let the citrus mix of honey and vinegar
trickle down his sore throat.
The damn newspaper stared at him again, and he was about to
toss it across the room when he caught the headl
ine below the fold
on page one.
ACCOUNTANT FOUND DEAD, CRUCIFIED IN WOODS
"Crucified?" he said out loud. They gotta be kidding. But they weren't.
A bow hunter found a frozen body in the woods northwest of Marine on St. Croix yesterday afternoon. The deceased, identified as Timberry financial planner Cliff Stovall, had his left hand nailed through the wrist into the stump of an oak tree with a six-inch pole barn-spike. Sources close to the sheriff's office said that a hammer and evidence of heavy drinking had been located at the scene. Stillwater resident Jon Ludwig discovered the body while deer hunting.
Stovall's partner, Dave Henson, told the Washington County sheriff's department that Stovall had gone to look at some property. Henson also explained that Stovall was distraught over a recent separation from his wife.
An anonymous source in the sheriff's department said Stovall had been treated in the past for alcoholism and self-mutilation.
Broker slowly sat upright. The flu lost its grip as he calmly worked back through the delirious landing on Snowbank Lake. Distinctly, he remembered Sommer raving:
Tell Cliff to move the money.
Chapter Sixteen
Directory assistance listed the number of Stovall and Hensen Associates in Timberry, a suburb east of the Twin Cities. Broker didn't have to get past the receptionist.
"I know this is bad timing, but an acquaintance, Hank Sommer, recommended Cliff Stovall for investment counseling. And now, well, I thought maybe his partner . . ."
"Of course, Mr. Sommer is—was—is one of our clients, I guess . . ." her voice caught. "I'm sorry, it's a little crazy around here."
"I, ah, understand, maybe I should call later."
"No. I'm sure Mr. Henson will talk to you. It's just that these tragedies have hit our office kind of hard. Cliff and his wife were friends of Mr. Sommer and Dorothy . . ."
"Were?"
"Well, before Mr. Sommer remarried. And, ah, before Cliff and his wife broke up."
Dorothy? "Dorothy Sommer, right," he said.
"No, she was—well, she'd never changed her name. So it was always Dorothy Gayler."
"Right, is she still . . . ?"
"At the St. Paul Pioneer Press."
"Of course. You know, I think I will wait awhile and call later. Thank you."
Broker hung up and drummed his fingers on a yellow legal pad. Freshly showered and shaved after ten hours of healing sleep, he doodled circles bisected by crosshairs on his notepad. Then he printed "Sommer." Under Sommer's name he printed "Stovall." He drew a circle around Sommer and Stovall. Then he printed "Trophy Wife— Bonnie (Parker?)and Clyde." He drew a crude open arrow around Bonnie and Clyde and aimed it at Sommer. In a third column he wrote: Dorothy?
He went back to directory assistance, got the newspaper's number, and punched it in. The switchboard passed him to the features department where he listened to Dorothy Gayler's voice mail. The businesslike voice on the recorded message revealed nothing: "I'm not here; leave a message." He hung up, poured another cup of coffee, and had better luck on his second call.
"Dorothy Gayler."
"Dorothy, you don't know me, my name is Phil Broker. I was on the canoe trip with Hank Sommer."
"Yes." Crisp, the perfunctory voice was precise as the strike of a typewriter key.
"I'm calling from Ely. I'm not a friend, I was the guide."
This seemed to warm communication. "You went for help, with Allen Falken; I remember now," she said.
"You know Allen?"
"I've met Allen. I wouldn't say I know any of my ex-husband's new friends." Distancing.
Broker speeded up his voice, reaching to catch her flagging interest. "Well, I was just doing a job and I got caught in the middle of that lake and pooped out. The fact is, if it weren't for Hank I wouldn't have made it. I'd be dead."
"How refreshing." She was making up her mind whether to talk to him. "Mr. Broker. Everyone else has talked about the ironic tragedy of Hank's . . . situation. You call me up and express a kind of gratitude." Her voice strayed close to sarcasm and closer to Broker. Okay.
He continued quickly. "Except the way it turned out, I can't say it to him." He paused, then said, "I'll be in the Cities the next few days. I wondered if you'd be willing to have a cup of coffee tomorrow?"
"Why?"
"I want to know who he was. I saw this article in the Minneapolis paper but it didn't feel like the guy I met."
"The father of the toy, you mean. Ours wasn't much better. Well, that's what he turned into but that wasn't who he was when I knew him." She paused, then said, "What time tomorrow?"
"Lunch?"
"Make it one P.M.; I work out at lunch. I'll meet you on the street, in front of the building. How will I know you, Mr. Broker?"
Broker looked at the coatrack by the door. "I'll be wearing a fleece jacket, sort of blaze orange."
"Of course; it's getting toward that time of year," Dorothy said.
Broker thanked her and hung up.
Picking up momentum, he thumbed through Uncle Billie's permit applications and found Sommer's number. Deep breath. Slight shuffle of nerves. Jolene Sommer picked up on the third ring. He let the breath out.
"Hello?"
"Mrs. Sommer?"
"Yes."
"My name is Phil Broker, the guide on the canoe trip with Hank." Broker heard a click as someone picked up an extension phone in the Sommer house.
"Earl," Jolene said, "put down the phone. I've got it." They waited. The other person on the line did not put down.
"Is this, ah, a bad time to call?" Broker asked. Earl evidently didn't waste any time moving in.
After a pause, Jolene said frankly, "When's a good time?"
"How is he?"
"He's comfortable," she said in a controlled, tired voice as if she decided on these words after many conversations. "Milt Dane suggested I surround him with familiar things so I set up his bed in his office where the windows overlook the river. And he can see his desk and books. He's got a feeding tube now. So . . ."
A little shocked, Broker blurted, "He's at home?"
"It's become a little complicated, financially," she said, in a quick, defensive burst. Then more slowly, "Actually, I think he's better off. Since I brought him home I get the feeling he's looking at me. Of course, everyone says that's impossible."
After an awkward silence, Broker said, "Ah, I've still got his truck up here."
"Oh God, I'm sorry, a lot of things have been falling through the cracks. I'll send . . ."
"Actually, I'm coming down to the Cities. I could drop it off."
"Oh."
"Say tonight, around four or five P.M.?"
"I guess . . . that would be fine." She gave Broker directions which he wrote down on the pad. After he said good-bye he doodled more circles and crosshairs. On the trip Hank had been arguing with her about money. Now he was at home and not in a hospital because of money. In the seaplane, Hank's last words were about money. Broker printed in big blocky letters—FOLLOW THE MONEY.
He sipped coffee, debated briefly, then picked up the phone again and called a number in Lake Elmo, a rural township on the eastern fringe of the Twin Cities metro area, near Timberry. On the second ring he got a woman's voice.
"Hi, Denise, is J.T. there?"
"It's him," he heard her call out, and he knew she had rolled her eyes in that expressive way. "You know, him."
The guarded but also curious deep voice of J.T. Merryweather came on the line. "Uh-huh?" In the background Broker heard Denise whisper: "Find out why Nina split."
"Hey J.T., I need a little help."
"Hmmm," J.T. said. "You know, so do I. Maybe we should give a call over to Manpower, get us a temp. And by the way, hello, how are you, how's the family."
Broker smiled. He and J.T. came out of the service around the same time. Bored with ordinary life, they took the civil service test and were rookies together in St. Paul. They'd partnered together in narcotics a
nd homicide before Broker went to BCA and specialized in guns. J.T. made it up to captain in St. Paul where he flunked office politics and took early retirement to go into business for himself.
"Very funny. Look, could you do me a favor? Call John E. over at Washington County and get the word on that crucifixion in the woods last week." John Eisenhower was the Washington County
sheriff. Also a graduate of the St. Paul Police Academy in the same class with J.T. and Broker.
J.T. said, "Wasn't no crucifixion. Newspaper got carried away. Guy nailed his hand to a stump. You can't call, huh?"
"I don't really want anybody knowing I'm around."
"Uh-huh. Just can't shake the old peek-a-boo UC habits?"