Vapor Trail

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Vapor Trail Page 5

by Chuck Logan


  Inside, John was waiting in the lobby in front of a framed map of the United States on which all the Washington Counties in the continental forty-eight states were indicated by police uniform shoulder patches.

  A husky six footer in a gray suit stood next to him. A young guy.

  “Broker, meet Lymon Greene,” John said.

  Greene’s style was strictly in your face. For starters, he made a strength contest of the handshake. Broker endured the viselike grip without commenting.

  “You have a first name?” Greene asked in that cop tone that implied, You have a first name, asshole? Except Greene projected a slight aura of stiff straightness that suggested he didn’t use words like asshole a whole lot.

  So Broker didn’t respond to that slight either. They were not off to a good start. There was the fact that Greene was barely thirty years old and was obviously caught in the rapture of indomitable youth. He wore his hair cropped in a tight black skullcap. His brown eyes smoldered with a carefully masked contempt for Broker that conveyed: geezer, retread, crony. And, complicating Broker’s gut-level aversion to Greene’s persona and style, was the fact that Greene was a black guy. Actually less black than light wicker tan. But, at any rate, a black guy.

  “Clearly this is a match made in heaven,” John said in a dry voice. “C’mon, this way, you two.”

  After a brisk tour through administration, Broker emerged with a badge and a sizzling new laminated picture ID. John held up a .40-caliber pistol, a holster, and a box of ammunition.

  Broker refused the weapon. “I never qualified with the forty. Never could hit squat with a handgun anyway.” He tapped the bulge on his hip. “Got my tamer right here.”

  Lymon smiled and said, “Forty’s a sweet weapon. I could take you to the range, check you out.”

  Broker remained silent, but John Eisenhower winced as they went down the hall to his office. Sergeant Maury Seacrest, Lymon’s supervisor, waited impassively next to the office. He had a mound of hard gut pushing over his belt, and sticking out under his gray 1950s flattop were extra-large ears, which had earned him his nickname.

  “Hey, Mouse, how you doing?” Broker said, extending his hand.

  They shook. “What’s a big dog like you doing in our quiet little town?” Mouse grumbled with the barest smile. A drinking buddy of Harry Cantrell, clearly he disapproved of this day’s work.

  Lymon watched suspiciously as Broker greeted his supervisor. “You guys know each other?” Lymon said.

  Maury’s and Broker’s eyes met, looked away. For a new guy, Lymon didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. They went into John’s office and sat down. Broker noticed that John still had the same two Norman Rockwell pictures on the wall. The same chemically treated plastic card on his desk with a thumbprint and the invitation: Test your stress level.

  Without preliminaries, John shot a question to Mouse. “As of this minute, who knows we got a saint’s medallion on the crime scene?”

  “The four of us; Joey Campbell, the Stillwater mayor; his police chief, Arnie Bangert; and Tim Radke, one of Arnie’s patrol cops. He was the first copper on the scene,” Mouse said.

  “And that’s how it stays until I get back in town. I’m bringing Broker in as Special Projects to do a little poking around. He reports only to me. So he wants anything, you guys give it him,” John said.

  “That’s clear enough,” Lymon said.

  John pointed his finger at Lymon. “Watch it.”

  The phone rang; John took the call, then rolled his eyes. “Sally Erbeck,” he said, “you must be psychic; I was just thinking of you. What’s up?”

  Mouse leaned over and whispered to Broker, “Sally Erbeck, St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter. Now it begins.”

  “Nothing much, Sally,” John said. “It’s pretty quiet out here in Sleepy Hollow. A couple cows got out of the barn, but I saddled up the boys and we rounded them up. Sure. See ya.” John hung up the phone. “Just routine checks; she hasn’t caught wind of the dead priest yet, so the troops are staying mum.”

  “I don’t know,” Lymon said, narrowing his eyes.

  “What?” John protested. “I don’t have an official cause of death yet. Sure, he had a bullet in his head, but he could have died of a heart attack. Get with the program, Lymon. Now, Mouse, what’s our fallback position?”

  Mouse shifted in his chair and spoke in a monotone. “The Church is in crisis; priests are being targeted; some guy shot one in Philadelphia a little while ago. We got a climate of scandal that could attract nutcases. This Moros wasn’t around long enough to put down roots here. So maybe it’s somebody striking from his past, or somebody with lots of grievances just lashing out at the Church in general. They throw in the saint’s medal as misdirection, to twist our crank.”

  “We don’t want to go anywhere near that yet,” John said. “Try again.”

  Lymon took a turn. “Moros was alone; it’s a fairly remote location. And there’s been a rash of church break-ins the last month in town. Satanist graffiti, stuff like that.”

  Mouse shook his head. “Aw, shit, that’s those little high school creeps with the green hair who wear black. I don’t buy this vandalism-goes-wrong theory.”

  “It’s not bad for a start,” John said. “Okay, we need a minimum press release to cover our ass. The stress is on minimum.”

  Mouse shrugged, looked at Lymon. “How old was Moros?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “’A forty-three-year-old male was found dead in Stillwater last night,’” Mouse said.

  “Sounds great,” John said as he checked his watch. “It is now nine-thirty. I board a plane to Seattle at twelve twenty-five. Have the Comm Center ship that out at eleven-thirty.”

  “So when the media calls and asks about the dead priest, what do we say?” Lymon asked.

  “We say jackshit,” John said. He pointed to Mouse.

  Mouse shifted in his chair. “You say we’re investigating, and we’ll keep them abreast of events as they develop. They need anything more detailed, they should get ahold of me.”

  “But you’re in federal court all week in St. Paul,” Lymon said.

  “Exactly,” Mouse said.

  “Okay, c’mon, guys.” John made a hurry-up gesture with his hands. “You know why we’re here. Broker is going to get us a read on Moros’s background, but mainly he’s going to take Harry off the table, so ah—well, Mouse, where is he?”

  Mouse folded his arms across his chest. “Got me. He don’t answer his phone. But he’s probably home sacked out, sleeping off a hangover. I reckon he’s been hitting the bottle steady since you took his badge. If he’s not home, you could try Annie Mortenson’s; she’s his on-and-off lady friend, but she won’t give him the time of day if he’s been drinking, so he probably ain’t there. I’d check every bar and casino within a one-hundred-mile radius.”

  “Great,” Broker said.

  “You asked.” Mouse shrugged, took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket, and handed it to Broker. “I’ll check around and put the word out. All the other poop’s there; addresses, phone numbers, the witness next to the church, the secretary who found the body. You can reach Mortenson at home or try the library; she’s part-time there.”

  Lymon squared his shoulders, came forward in his chair. “Harry had contact with the priest. Why not turtle up, go out to his place, and bring him in for questioning?”

  John waved his hand in a downward motion. “Don’t provoke him if he’s drinking; he could bounce weird. The last thing you want is to play guns with Harry. You got that, Lymon?”

  “What did I say?” Lymon said.

  Mouse scowled. “We don’t know he had contact with Moros. We know he asked around and cleared an anonymous tip.”

  Lymon smiled, shook his head. “You guys all stick together, the over-forty club.”

  “C’mon, Lymon; you gonna arrest him because he called you a name? Where’s your probable cause?” Mouse said.

  “At least we shou
ld test his hands for nitrates, to see if he fired a gun in the last twenty-four hours,” Lymon said.

  “Enough,” John said sharply. He turned to Broker. “See why I need a certain touch? None of these guys can think straight about Harry.”

  “Aw, bullshit,” Mouse said.

  John sighed. “Okay, Mouse; get it off your chest.”

  Mouse shrugged. “We’re running scared. Bringing Broker in on Harry is too much gun. Sends a bad message.”

  John smiled tightly. “Says you. I say we eliminate Harry up front. No more embroidering his name into the Saint legend. Plus, the guy needs help; let’s sock him away in treatment.” John glared at Mouse. “You want to take him to treatment?”

  Mouse shook his head. “Fuck that!”

  “So that’s it. Stonewall until I get back in town,” John said. They all stood up.

  Mouse said, “We’ll keep it low profile, talk to the congregation . . .”

  “All six of them,” Lymon quipped.

  Broker nodded. “I’ll touch base later this morning after I call on Harry.”

  Lymon stepped closer. “You know, you might need backup going out to Harry’s. I could . . .”

  “Take off,” John said sharply to Lymon as he took the young detective by the arm and walked him to the door. Then he turned to Mouse. “When it gets right down to it, Broker is going to need a hand with Harry.”

  Mouse shook his head. “Sure, but I’ll do it under protest. I don’t go for strong-arming him into the hospital.”

  “See what it’s like here?” John said to Broker. “I got a mutiny.”

  “So hang me,” Mouse said. “Harry breaks the law, I’ll put him down. But all Harry did was mouth off to Lymon. I ain’t defending it, what he said, but all he did was say some words.” Mouse paused and said to Broker, “What you and him have in the past is your business.” Mouse turned and left the room.

  “I’m going to be real popular around here,” Broker said. “And what’s Lymon’s story? The dude is barely housebroken.”

  “It’s a brave new world, buddy. Lymon is pretty typical of the new breed. Smarter than most. He went straight from high school in the suburbs to college to patrol in Park Rapids. You remember in St. Paul, the first thing they had us do at rookie school?”

  Broker shrugged. “Sober up?”

  “You know what they do now? They put gloves on them and stick them in the ring. Most of these kids have never been hit in their life. Then they take them to the morgue to see their first dead body.”

  “Fuck me dead,” Broker said. When he and John went through rookie school, 90 percent of their class was ex-marine and army grunts back from a shooting war.

  “And you gotta watch what you say these days. There’s age discrimination, there’s sexual discrimination . . .” John wagged an admonishing finger and raised his eyebrows for emphasis. “There’s racial discrimination. And there’s a need to be generally sensitive. For instance, Lymon is pretty serious about his family and going to church.”

  “Gosh,” Broker said.

  “That’s better. Now, here’s my cell; I’ll be monitoring it full-time in Seattle.” John handed Broker two cards. “Give your cell on the second one.” Broker scribbled the number and handed the card back. Then John asked, “Who are you going to approach at the archdiocese about Moros?”

  “I thought Jack Malloy,” Broker said.

  “He’d be my choice,” John said.

  “I’ll call him right now,” Broker said and reached across the desk, picked up John’s receiver and dialed information, got the number for Holy Redeemer in St. Paul, called it, and asked for Jack Malloy. He told the secretary it was urgent. The voice on the line said that Father Malloy was not available this morning. Broker covered the receiver with his hand and said, “Playing golf.” He requested a sit-down with Malloy as soon as possible. He used the word urgent again and left his name and cell number.

  When he hung up, John said, “Make nice to Mouse; he’ll come around and fill you in.”

  “Yeah, right,” Broker said. “Sounds like Lymon was part of the scene that got Harry in trouble.”

  “Harry comes into the unit stinking of booze, and somehow Lymon picked up the Mr. Coffee before he did, so Harry yells, ‘Who gave this nigger cuts to the front of the line?’ Bigger than shit in front of half the squad.”

  Broker shook his head. “Vintage Harry.”

  John pointed a no-nonsense finger. “I’m thinking when Harry sees I sent you after him, he’s going to blow his top. Everything’s going to come out. You push him hard on the Saint. But then he goes inside, in-patient, four weeks at the CD ward at St. Joseph’s. No treatment, no badge, no gun. You got it?”

  “I got it,” Broker said.

  “I mean, you get Mouse to help you, and you walk him into the hospital to the admitting desk, and you don’t leave till he has a little white plastic patient ID strapped on his wrist. And be careful; I don’t think Harry’s a threat to the public safety in general . . .”

  “Just to me,” Broker said.

  “Well, yeah.”

  Chapter Seven

  Broker had never been to Harry’s home, but he knew roughly where it was and he had Mouse’s instructions. It was the only house on a small unnamed lake in the middle of eighty acres of fallow farmland off the Manning Trail north of town. To get there, he drove past other parcels Harry had sold off and which now sprouted new homes in developments named Oak Grove Marsh or Pine Cone Ridge.

  Wearing Diane’s death date engraved in 7s on his arm, Harry hit Las Vegas, Atlantic City, the bigger casinos in the Midwest—he gamed across the board: blackjack, poker, slots.

  And since her death he just couldn’t seem to lose no matter how hard he tried. Ten, twelve years ago he’d started investing his winnings in farmland outside Stillwater just ahead of the housing boom.

  Getting closer, Broker mulled over the standard lecture about the foolishness of gambling and how it usually ended with stating the exception that proves the rule: Of course, some people do win.

  Harry didn’t have to be a cop. He certainly didn’t need the pension. Broker figured he liked to pack a gun and have the authority to pull people over and stick a badge in their face. Possibly he kept the job just to spite John Eisenhower, who had tried various ways to get him to move on.

  Broker consulted the directions, pulled off Manning, and drove down a gravel road hemmed by red oaks and overgrown fields. The dull space inside where he carried Diane Cantrell’s death began to ache. So what was it going to be? Manhandle a blubbering drunk to Detox?

  Or High Noon?

  Maybe it was being back in touch with the pent-up momentum from all the years of wary hostility, worrying about Harry. Maybe it was just being back in harness. Whatever it was, Broker was leaning forward, working an edge.

  He came to a plain mailbox with the name Cantrell handwritten on it in slanted block letters. He turned down the gravel drive that snaked off into the woods.

  Halfway down the drive he hit the brakes and pulled sharply to the side of the road going into a turn.

  Twenty yards ahead, in the belly of the turn, a silver Acura TL type S skewed at an angle, the left front fender punched in against the trunk of an oak tree. Broker glanced at the sheet Mouse had given him. The make, model, and the license matched. Harry’s personal car. The passenger-side door was sprung open. Broker stopped his truck, got out, and approached cautiously, circled, saw that the driver’s-side door was dented, striated with impact, and jammed. The air bag had deployed.

  He checked the road, the surrounding brush. No sign of Harry.

  He leaned into the interior through the open passenger side and saw a few dribbles of what looked like dried blood on the driver’s seat and smeared on the air bag.

  Dried. It would be hours old.

  He then studied the crash site and saw how the locked wheels had carved deep trenches in the gravel when Harry lost control overdriving the turn.

  Broker looked ba
ck in the car. Like a drunken red flag, the keys were still in the ignition. On a hunch, he reached in and twisted them, to engage the electrical system. The digital clock on the dashboard blinked on and off, repeating the same number over and over: 6:42. Then the clock flickered, went dim, and then opaque.

  He left the keys in the car and carefully inspected the road leading away from it. Squatting, moving slowly on his haunches, he searched for a blood trail.

  A careful minute later he found a small ant war seething over a pizza crust. He returned to the car, leaned inside, and carefully inspected the smear on the air bag.

  It had a dried anchovy stuck in it.

  Okay. The carnage appeared more involved with cuisine than bloodshed. He got back in the truck and drove toward the house, parked, and got out.

  Harry lived in a modest, comfortable rambler with stout vertical cedar planks for siding and a broad wraparound cedar deck. The door to the three-stall garage was open. A fishing boat sat on a trailer in one stall; the other two parking spaces were empty. Broker walked up and looked in the boat. It looked as if it had never been used.

  He left the garage, went up the steps onto the deck to the door, which was also open. He peered in through the screen. Quiet. Empty. He rang the bell. Then rapped on the doorjamb.

  “Yo? Anybody home?”

  Getting no answer, he walked around the house on the deck. A good-size lawn in need of cutting inclined down to the lakeshore. There was a small dock with a rowboat tied off on a piling; a picnic table and a Weber grill sat on a patio. Several bullet-scarred cast-iron targets in the shape of pigs lay on the picnic table. Another was propped up on a stand. Broker estimated it was fifty yards from the picnic table to the house; extreme pistol range for anyone except an expert.

  He turned toward the house and looked into the windows. In the living room, he saw a flat white Broadway Pizza box lying on the carpet next to the couch. A sliding patio door led from the living room to the deck. Like the front door, it was open. This time Broker slid back the screen and stepped in.

 

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