Vapor Trail

by Chuck Logan

  “How’d he move out so fast?”

  “Like I said, things are different. Moros wasn’t assumed to be a sinner who needed a thrashing. His bishop didn’t try to minimize or hide the allegations. There’s policy. The bishop moved immediately to investigate; he called in the cops.”

  “Ah.”

  Malloy nodded. “It should be on file with Albuquerque PD. They talked to witnesses who had a different interpretation of the event and decided that the charge was groundless. The bishop was all for fighting in court if need be. But . . .”

  “The intangibles. The gossip.”

  Malloy nodded again. “Maybe Moros didn’t want to wage a long battle to resurrect his reputation in what was an upscale Anglo parish. I think he left because he could never confront the racist whispering campaign. That’s only a personal gut read.”

  “So how did he wind up here?”

  Malloy pursed his lips. “Because God is a golfer. Moros’s bishop and my bishop play golf together in Florida. A favor was requested; a favor was granted. And we parked Moros out at St. Martin’s as an interim posting.”

  Broker shook his head. “What’s the moral to this story? Don’t dust spilled chalk off a teenage girl’s blouse?”

  The creases in Malloy’s face ran deeper than Broker cared to contemplate, through a system of consequences that receded back through centuries, millennia, past mystery into eternity.

  “So,” Malloy said. “You may well have a sicko out there who has a twisted sense of humor. But, according to my information, the Saint’s victim profile doesn’t fit. We obviously have our share of bad apples, but Moros wasn’t one of them. Even so . . .”

  “Yeah,” Broker said. “The appearance of it is still going to be a huge damage-control problem.”

  Malloy raised his hands, let them fall. “We brought it on ourselves. The sin of clericism, all the shady in-house solutions that are now coming out. The Church has taken a beating for six months on this; Cardinal Law running a protection racket for Shanley and Geoghan in Boston, Weakland resigning in Milwaukee . . . our very own sequestered coven of monks and priests at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville who’ve been accused of or have admitted to abuse. It’s been . . .”

  “Hot.”

  “Exactly. So—no leads at all?”

  “We have a guy who lives next to the church who saw a woman go in before it happened. We’re keeping him under wraps for now. And there was some fresh graffiti on the church, a Satanist pentacle. But that could be just creeps acting out. There’s been a rash of church break-ins in Stillwater . . .”

  Malloy raised his eyebrows.

  Broker shrugged. “But our witness has the suspect wearing a navy blue Saints baseball jacket.”

  “That sort of puts it, like we used to say, right on front street. Okay, so what do I tell people?”

  “Nothing for a couple of days. John has me working a long shot,” Broker said.

  “Hail Mary,” Malloy said.

  “Knock on wood,” Broker said as he stood up. “Could you get a transcript of the bishop’s investigation? It will be useful to have it in the file. I’ll get our guys in contact with the coppers in Albuquerque.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Malloy said. “But I’m not sure about this secrecy about the medallion. I understand the need to protect your investigation—but there’s a serious public safety question. Priests should be warned.”

  “I’d think every priest in America is already pretty security conscious right now,” Broker said. “Like I said, John thinks we have a solid local angle. We might catch this guy before . . .”

  “He kills another priest.”

  “Okay, you’re right; but if we go public and put priests on warning, you get the media storm. For right now, let’s keep St. Nicholas between you and me, under the seal as it were.”

  They walked out into the hall and were silent for a few beats. “I guess no one is really ever safe, are they?” Malloy said.

  Going down the stairs, Broker said, “I was wondering. Isn’t it unusual to have a Catholic church named after a guy named Martin? I mean after what happened in Wittenberg and all?”

  Malloy shrugged. “The fact is, we have our own Martin on the books. He was bishop of Tours, in the fourth century. He was your kind of guy: the patron saint of the infantry. And horses and, ah, beggars and geese, I think.”

  They shook hands in the vestibule, and Broker left the quietly lit, ordered sanctuary of Malloy’s living quarters behind, stepped back into the street, and walked toward the absurd mob of short, round cartoon characters in the park.

  He put on his sunglasses, stared into the sun, and spoke aloud for no particular reason the first words to enter his mind: “Beggars and geese.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Broker paced back and forth on the top level of the Victory Ramp smoking a cigar and combing through his talk with Malloy. The ramp had been full, and he’d had to park the Crown Vic on the roof. There wasn’t a square inch of shade in sight.

  Recalling the determined look on Sally Erbeck’s face, he figured the medallion would be outed within twenty-four hours, if not sooner. The Saint was going to stage a return whether or not Father Moros was deserving of his—or her—attentions.

  It was time to check in with John in Seattle.

  He punched in John’s cell number, got voice mail, and left his own cell number. Then he waited. Sweat stewed in his hair and trickled down his forehead. He made a note to get a hat.

  Broker was getting down into the less tasty end of the cigar when his cell rang.

  “So, where are we at?” John asked without preamble.

  “Malloy says no way the priest was a child molester. But he was transferred from his last parish after he was cleared of allegations of child abuse. Malloy says the Albuquerque cops ran the investigation.”

  “But there’s the appearance that Moros was a child molester.”

  “There it is,” Broker said. “And the only people who had that information, besides the church secretary, were in Investigations: Harry and whoever else saw the complaint.”

  “I’ll call Mouse, get him to run the phone logs to see if anybody else got tipped about Moros. And I’ll have him liaison with Albuquerque. It’s long shot, but maybe somebody followed Moros to Minnesota. You get Harry to the hospital?” John said.

  “Not yet; he’s still out there.”

  “Is he giving you a hard time?”

  “Oh yeah. A regular barrel of laughs and crazier than a shithouse mouse. But he’s hinting he knows something about the Saint.”

  “Good. Good. So, how are the troops holding up?”

  “Everybody knows about the medal, the whole damn building, patrol and detectives.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Which means any minute the press is going to have it. Seventy, eighty cops can’t stay mum on something like this.”

  “Actually,” John said, “you might be surprised about that.”

  “You may believe in that blue-code-of-silence bullshit, but I don’t,” Broker said. “Yesterday some wit wrote on the unit bulletin board, ‘The Saint lives: Harry 2, Pedophiles 0.’”

  “So what? Gallows humor.”

  “Goddamn Harry. He’s fencing with me.”

  “Keep reeling him in; he’s the key.”

  “What if he isn’t? Malloy has a point; if someone’s targeting priests, they should be warned.”

  “It’s local. It’s in our shop. I’m not going to panic the whole state.”

  Broker thought for a few beats and said, “I don’t think panic is the right word; more like sensation. If the Saint comes out of the closet people will come out in those baseball jackets cheering him on. So if you think you have a cop who is going around killing suspected child molesters, I wish you’d tell me.”

  “Who said it has to be a cop?”

  “Say some names, John.”

  “I’d prefer to hear them from you.”

  “When the fuck did you
start talking like Bill Clinton?” Broker said loudly.

  “Push Harry, push him hard,” John said and hung up.

  Broker dug Mouse’s phone number out of his wallet and punched it in. He got the voice mail. Goddamn, he hated talking to machines.

  “Mouse, it’s Broker. I talked to Malloy. I’m on my way in, about twenty minutes out.”

  Ten minutes later, Broker’s cell rang. He flipped it open and hit the button. Not Mouse. Harry Cantrell sounded like he was calling from inside a pinball machine. Broker heard lots of electronic bells and jingles going off.

  “So what do you think of Sally Erbeck, neat chick, huh?” Harry said.

  “You put her on to me?” Broker said.

  “Au contraire. I’d never rat a brother officer out to the yellow press, not me,” Harry said with elaborate seriousness.

  “Where are you?” Broker said. But he thought he knew; the electronic calliope music he heard in the background sounded like the intersection of five hundred slot machines.

  “Uh-uh. The question is, where are you?”

  Broker endeavored to comb the burrs of anger from his voice. Be cool, he told himself. It’s a game. “Driving east on thirty-six, heading into town.”

  “You know the Civil War statue in front of the old courthouse on the South Hill?”

  “Sure.”

  “Be standing in front of the statue at noon,” Harry said.

  “A meeting, Harry?”

  “Silly boy, I want you where I can see you’re alone. I’ll call. Noon sharp.”

  “Make it at one. I have a sit-down with Mouse,” Broker said.

  “Okay, at one. Don’t get smart on me. Be alone,” Harry said. The connection went dead.

  As he drove east on Highway 36, Broker entertained a fantasy replay of the last scene in Easy Rider. The black Ford Ranger would pull up next to him, and a leering Harry Cantrell would lean out the driver’s side with a shotgun cradled in his elbow. Then, after he pumped four rounds of .00 buck into Broker’s face, he’d drive away.

  At 120 miles an hour.

  Broker walked into Investigations looking for Mouse, who was in his cube on the phone. When Mouse hung up, Broker said, “We’re still on, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” Mouse said. “John called. Sally Erbeck’s calling every cop she knows in the county. The Star Tribune called, and so did Channel Four and Channel Five and Channel Eleven. Word’s out we got a dead priest. They all asked the same question: was foul play involved?”

  “And you told them?”

  “We’re in the initial stages of an investigation, and we’ll keep them informed. They’re closing the ring.”

  “Great. So where’s Lymon?”

  Mouse’s battered face conveyed a perfect Gallic shrug. But he got up and motioned with a jerk of his head for Broker to follow him. Benish joined them. They stopped at Lymon’s cube, which was along the outer wall and had a window that faced the lawn between the sheriff’s offices and the government center.

  Lymon kept his space orderly. Just one personal picture, an attractive light-skinned woman and a smiling toddler in a frame on his desk. Mouse pointed at the Levolor blinds on the window, which were tilted, the right side up at an angle. Then he summoned Broker forward to look out the window and pointed up at the government center.

  “Third floor,” Mouse said.

  Broker scanned along the third floor windows and stopped on one that had its blinds tilted in a position similar to Lymon’s. The county attorneys’ offices were on the third floor, where he’d been this morning.

  Benish stepped forward and said, “We’ve come to think of it as jungle telegraph . . .”

  “Benish,” Mouse warned.

  But Benish went on. “Although now, since they have matching Palm Pilots, they tend to message each other. Like the ad says, there are times when text is better than talk . . .”

  Mouse held up a key. “Why don’t you cruise by the gym downstairs and tell Lymon it’s time to meet.”

  Broker took the key and went down two flights of stairs, took a few turns, and opened the door to the gym. The room had blue cinder block walls, a blue carpet, and was too small for the thicket of stainless steel exercise stations. In among the crowded steel it was silent but not empty.

  Lymon stood on one side of the room with a sheen of sweat on his smooth face. He was methodically lifting dumbbells in alternating biceps curls. Not showy, he wore gray wind pants and an oversized white T-shirt. Thick grids of veins swelled in either forearm as he slowly hoisted and lowered the forty-pound weights.

  Across the room Gloria Russell sat at the pec fly machine, spreading her arms, aligning her back, and dragging her arms together, working her delts. She wore black spandex shorts and a black tank top. Broker could not see a hint of fold in the tanned belly above her waistband. Gloria’s eyes bored into the middle distance, concentrating on the reps.

  Tremendous fatigue streamed off both of them. Broker could almost see it, like smoke. Lymon couldn’t miss Broker coming into the small area, but his eyes didn’t register Broker’s entry. In the zone, his focus remained fixed elsewhere; his lips continued counting reps.

  Lymon’s lips mimed eight as he lowered the weight in his right hand. Then he repeated the silent eight as he lifted the barbell in his left hand, and his eyes moved across Broker and fixed on a point in space about a foot off Broker’s shoulder. No one spoke.

  So Broker watched them progress gracefully through their compact jungle of iron and steel. After she finished with the pec fly, Gloria moved to the inclined bench press. She started with dime plates on the bar. Did a steady set of ten reps.

  Lymon had finished the alternating curls and continued his biceps work on a barbell. But now he was no longer staring into space. He monitored Gloria, who had added a pair of nickel plates to the bar for her second set. On her seventh rep her arms began to tremble but she maintained her form and was able to pump out the eighth rep. The barbell clunked into the weight stand; she sat up and stared, catching her breath.

  Broker intruded into the interval between sets and said, “Lymon, we have a meeting with Mouse.”

  “Ten minutes,” Lymon said.

  Now Gloria added another pair of nickels to the bar and locked her knees over the raised supports and lay back, resuming her head-down prone position on the inclined bench. She composed herself, carefully placed her hands, and lifted the weight. Smooth, concentrated; two, three, four . . .

  At four she began to fall apart. She struggled.

  Lymon was there instantly, hovering, adding a light tug with his fingertips. His spotting made the difference, and she completed the lift. In that second, as she braced her arms and prepared to lower the weight, their eyes locked.

  Then, for the first time, they acknowledged Broker’s presence. As a pair, they looked back at him. Broker thought they appeared romantic, arranged there together among the benches and the barbells, which was to say they looked young, beautiful, and haunted. They also looked guilty of something.

  And doomed.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Broker, Mouse, and Lymon sat down to talk. Broker thought it ironic that Mouse chose the soft interrogation room to have their chat, the room where victims were questioned gently. They sat in cheap but comfortable easy chairs. A short child’s blackboard and a box of toys sat in the corner. Broker could clearly picture Harry interviewing Tommy Horrigan in this room a little over a year ago.

  Broker related his off-the-record talk with Malloy, underscoring Malloy’s obvious worry that someone was declaring open season on priests. Then he kept his mouth closed and listened.

  Mouse said, “Okay, here’s the deal. John’s not back till Friday night. We have to stall the media going into the weekend. Then, on Monday John will hold a press conference. If we don’t come up with anything by then, he goes public with the medallion. So . . . if the press gathers, we avoid the front door. I’m telling everybody to enter and leave the building through the basement garage
. The call takers in Dispatch are screening all the media calls.”

  Mouse turned to Lymon. “Get on the horn with Albuquerque PD and check out the family that accused Moros. See if they’ve done any traveling lately, like to Minnesota.”

  Lymon shook his head. “This is big,” he said. “We should call in the state guys right now. If we have a new player out there who’s going after priests . . .” He stared like a man watching a tidal wave coming ashore. “These back-channel games, meeting Malloy on the sly, chasing after Harry, they amount to gambling with people’s lives.”

  Mouse said, “Go call Albuquerque.”

  Lymon narrowed his eyes but managed to keep his mouth shut. Without another word he stood up and left the room.

  Mouse turned to Broker. “He’s right, you know.”

  Broker nodded. “I agree about the gambling part. John’s gambling this is local, and that Harry has been sitting on a solid lead. I’m gambling that Harry will tell me what it is before he sneaks up and skull-fucks me in my sleep.” Then Broker reached over and thumped Mouse on his dense chest. “And Harry is gambling, because he called me thirty minutes ago, and I heard the goddamn slots banging in the background. So get on those casinos. He’s driving in from one right now.”

  “How do you know?” Mouse said.

  “Because he wants me someplace where he can see me for a meet. Not in person. On the phone.”

  “Hell, where? We’ll stake it out.”

  Broker shook his head. “No way. This is Harry, remember. Anything looks out of place, he’ll spot it. The last thing we want is a confrontation. Did you call your pal in Hinckley?”

  “Called him and sent the faxes. It’s being put in place. C’mon.” Mouse motioned for Broker to follow him back to his cube, where he had a state map spread on his desk.

  “Okay, I sent stuff to every joint in the state; that’s sixteen in all. But we’re concentrating on these.” Mouse tapped place-names highlighted in yellow magic marker on the map that formed a rough circle around Minneapolis and St. Paul. “The Grand Casinos in Hinckley and Onamia, Mystic Lake in Prior Lake, Treasure Island in Red Wing, Turtle Lake in Wisconsin, and Jackpot Junction in Morton—but that’s getting way out there.”