by Chuck Logan
“Peas. She ate a lot of them last night.”
“Or Kermit the Frog met an awful fate in there,” said Jeff.
Gingerly, Broker tucked the overflowing diaper into a plastic bag, put it in the diaper bag and rigged Kit’s clothes.
Then sat her on his lap. She grabbed the first thing within reach, a Vietnam Era forty-millimeter grenade launcher round, used as a paperweight.
“So, what about Tom James?” asked Broker.
Jeff cocked his head to the side. “You remember that agent who ran the show up here, Garrison?”
Broker nodded. “Old-style G-man.”
“I called him up, and he’s at least up front about it. He says, ‘Oh yeah, that guy. We don’t have him. Don’t even need him for chain of evidence. This Sporta flipped. And Sporta live on the stand is better than some tape. We turned James over to the U.S. Marshals Service.’
“So I call the U.S. Marshals in Minneapolis, and these guys have no sense of humor at all. They just say, ‘We’re not authorized to discuss our caseload.’ They gave me the number of their PR office in DC.” Jeff exhaled. “Sounds like James went through the looking glass.”
“Funny, don’t you think? Most reporters would kill to write a story like that. He goes into Witness Protection.”
“Most reporters don’t stop a bullet. Maybe getting shot made a believer out of him,” said Jeff.
Broker scratched his chin. “But how the hell did a zero like James get on to Caren in the first place?”
“Don’t know.”
Kit dropped the grenade round. As it clattered to the floor, both men flinched. Broker picked it up, handed it to Jeff, who put it out of sight, in a drawer.
Broker sat up in his chair. “That gray Subaru Caren drove up here. What happened to it?”
Jeff shrugged. “Towed it in. Have it parked out back. Hertz is supposed to send somebody to pick it up. No one showed yet. Probably the holidays. Never got the keys.” Jeff opened his top drawer, dug around, held up a door slip.
The station wagon was just outside the back door. Jeff inserted the slip and unlatched the driver’s side, reached over and popped the passenger door. Broker placed Kit in the back and began looking into cracks, under seats, feeling in the cushion crevices in the seats. Shards of Caren’s pill bottle were scattered on the floor carpet. He picked up a triangle of plastic with the prescription label attached. Read the doctor’s name: Dr. Ruth Nelson. Slipped the label in his pocket.
Jeff opened the glove compartment. “No way,” he said.
The unwrinkled hundred-dollar bill lay on top of a neat plastic folder containing rental information. Jeff removed it and showed it to Broker.
“This James guy seems to leak hundred-dollar bills,” said Broker.
29
Tom traveled in a black velvet casket. That’s what the inside of the U.S. Marshals Chevy van resembled; it was totally masked with black material to shut out light and sound. Part casket, part birth canal. Tom James was going to burial.
Danny Storey was being born.
Lorn Garrison and Agent Terry had said good-bye and wished him luck. The farewell was hasty, the agents were rushed; off to join the raid being mounted against Red, White and Green Pizza Parlors throughout the Twin Cities.
Tom was touched when Agent Terry gave him his bag of workout equipment. The canvas satchel contained hand weights, leg weights, a jump rope and two hand squeezers.
Tom sat in the plush van and pumped a hand spring in each fist until his forearms ached.
Two U.S. marshals were driving him to his intake interview. They were polite young men with short haircuts, of a lean body type; ex-military, Tom thought. They didn’t wear suits like the FBI but dressed like normal people, except for the big Glock pistols under their jackets.
The van’s front seat was sealed off from the locked rear compartment physically but not visually. The marshals sitting in front could watch Tom through a pane of two-way mirror.
Tom had a low camp bed, magazines, a CD player, earphones and a rack of CDs. A plastic cooler was stocked with ice and cans of pop. At intervals a hatch would slide open next to the mirror and one of the marshals asked how he was doing. Did he need to use the john?
They obviously knew the stretch of road because they always asked him when they were close to a rest stop.
At supper time, they consulted Tom about what kind of menu he preferred, but he had to eat it, take-out, locked inside the van. Later, when they stopped at a motel, the van pulled up right next to the door; the marshals stood on either side, and Tom stepped from the vehicle to the door.
They stayed in the same room. Tom asked and was told this was normal procedure until he was out of the “Danger Zone,” a radius of unspecified miles around the Twin Cities.
Just as well. Had he been left alone he would have used the phone. To call Ida Rain. Just to hear her voice and fantasize a little. Then hang up.
He could wait.
In the morning, Tom showered and then inspected his slack body in the mirror over the sink counter. He couldn’t do anything about the flab immediately. But, on impulse, he shaved off his soft-looking mustache. He left his glasses off.
First thing he’d ask for: contacts.
Starting to change. To emerge.
Before they got back on the road, one of the marshals opened a large first aid kit and changed the dressing on Tom’s leg. As he removed the old gauze pad, he remarked how well the wound was healing.
The other marshal told Tom how lucky he was. Catching a clean flesh wound like that.
Tom kept a straight mild face, inside he growled all over.
Lucky.
Finding the hundred-dollar bill in the Subaru was a single puzzle piece on a bare board. But Jeff and Broker agreed; 166 / CHUCK LOGAN
quiet, ordinary Tom James was starting to cast an unclean shadow over Caren’s death.
Jeff tucked the bill into an evidence bag and, assuming the State BCA was handling the Angland investigation for the U.S. attorney, called the crime lab in St. Paul.
“Nah,” said a forensic scientist. “The feds are hogging the show, routing all the good stuff-like the famous tongue-through their lab in Virginia. So call them.”
Jeff did. Garrison wasn’t in the St. Paul office. An agent listened, consulted a supervisor, then told Jeff they’d send some agents up to collect the car. He could send the bill certified mail. Jeff said he would, hung up and turned to Broker, “There. Now, go home, and remember, you’re a civilian. Have Christmas with Nina.”
Broker drove back to babyland and spent a quiet night cooking, cleaning, bathing and putting Kit to bed. A rising wind woke him before dawn. He was up, refreshed, focused.
Barefoot, he padded the plank floors of his living room, chewing on a cigar. Coffee water heated. A soft plague of gray snow blotted out the dawn. He couldn’t talk to James.
But maybe he could talk to Keith.
“Dada Dah Da
“Dada Dah Da…”
Kit announced herself upon the morning with authority, hurling “Cucaracha Dog” out of her crib. Broker’s day began; remove diaper, take shower, dress her. As he spooned oatmeal, he started a list of “things to do for Christmas”: Buy a tree.
Buy Kit a sled.
Get Nina a present.
He’d considered writing her a letter explaining Caren’s death and Keith’s arrest. But he figured she’d be in transit, working through echelons between Bosnia and the States.
She’d call when she got situated. He’d tell her then. And she’d be home in less than a week.
The dishes hummed in the dishwasher. The clothes were folded. The weekly menu posted on the refrigerator had Tuesday and Wednesday marked off. Today, Thursday, was cabbage soup. When Kit was down for her nap, he walked through the trickling snow, up to the road, to get the mail.
He opened his mailbox, scooped the letters and walked back, sifting through the junk, put the propane bill from Eagle Mountain Energy under his arm. Insp
ected a beat-up envelope.
No return address. The address caught his attention-printed, cut out and pasted on the envelope-was imprecise: General Delivery, Devil’s Rock. The mail sorter in Grand Marais had penned in his route number.
Postmarked four days ago. From St. Paul. Lost in the Christmas rush. He tore the flap. At first, he thought it was a homemade Christmas card. Desktop format, in stanzas, like a poem. Words like fishhooks ripped his eyes: What does Daddy fear the most
Crib death right off
sneaks into daddy’s head at least once every day tiny nostrils plugged. A faceful of blanket.
Cats they say can steal baby’s breath
half a handful of air to stop the tiny pink lungs.
so put crib death up there on the top of the list.
And Kitty Cat
There’s choking. All those things that lay about can find their way into baby’s mouth. Pennies and buttons and pins and pills.
germs
poisons
cellophane bags
the fall down the stairs.
the lake is never far away.
cars jump the curb
Hey, daddy; who watches baby when you sleep?
A hard shuffle stirred in his chest, a stamping, like impatient hooves. Broker had always had a reverse nervous system. He descended now into that cool practical chamber where he kept the men he’d killed. Very calmly, he harnessed the surge of anger and continued to read:
is he can he will he be
strong enough to protect baby
every second of every minute of every day from bad men lurking and dogs who foam and bite from black widow under the pillow and invisible visitors in the night
poor baby
doesn’t even know she is alive
she doesn’t even know how easily she can die soft and fragile tiny breaths
tiny ears that don’t understand
bump bump bump in the night
which tree is Wile E. Coyote behind today do crosshairs tickle copper ringlets
how hungry is the cold lake water
how cruel and hard the rocks
or the fire that burns
or the glittering eyes of five hungry rats needle teeth and beady eyes and greasy whiskers chew chew chew
through the tender flesh, the soft red muscle and tendon and ligament until they seize on a shiny clip of bone snap it and gobble marrow that’s soft butter yellow daddy daddy, I don’t even know what is destroying me I don’t even know that this is pain
daddy daddy
Be seein’ you
Broker took a deep breath to center himself. He looked around. Sky, water, trees, house. All clean and smoothed by the new snow. Familiar, reassuring. His safe place.
His eyes settled back on the sheet of paper.
Not somebody from the past he’d put in jail. Most of those guys couldn’t write a complete sentence. He’d been up here for five months. The reference to choking. Cold water. Rocks.
And how did the writer know Kit had copper ringlets?
Because he had seen them. Even touched them. Because he had held her in his arms.
Like with the hundred dollars in the rental Subaru, Broker’s intuition was immediate: James, dropping crumbs of money behind him all the way into the maze of the Federal Witness Protection Program. Now this.
Giving him the finger again.
Slowly, Broker walked a circuit of his home. The house occupied a finger of granite with sloping boulders on two sides and a cobble beach descending in front, facing the lake.
The approach from the highway was screened in old red and white pine, smaller evergreens, brush.
The summer cabins were shuttered, locked. Cheryl and Don Tromley, the closest neighbors, were half a mile away.
The only visible habitation was a new log cabin, set on another point, a hundred yards to the south. A doctor from Chicago had built it. A rental. A black Audi had parked there, with skis on the roof, for three days. He’d glimpsed a young couple coming and going in cross country ski togs. Saw their lights at night. Smelled their wood smoke.
He had sited his house for maximum appreciation of the lakefront. Defending it against attack had not been a consideration. Distance, geography, weather-they were supposed to provide that margin.
Should have a dog. His folks had a hell of a dog. But a guy named Bevode Fret had killed it almost two years ago.
Then.
He stopped himself. If it was James, and he was processing into WITSEC, he was far away, under heavy security. There was no immediate threat.
By overreacting, he was doing what the “writer” wanted him to do. Getting angry, on the verge of calling the FBI, demanding to talk to Agent Garrison and accusing him of harboring a dangerous nut. And he had nothing but intuition to go on.
In which case Broker would sound like a talk radio con-spirator. And that’s how he would be remembered if he contacted them again. No. He had to cultivate a good relationship with Agent Garrison, or someone like him. Because they had the forensics to check this letter and envelope against every printer that Tom James had been near while in their safekeeping.
But first, there was something he had to try. He went in the house and called the Washington County sheriff, John Eisenhower, in Stillwater. John’s gatekeeper, Elaine, answered.
“Broker, how are you? Just terrible about Caren Angland, just terrible. And we have the bastard who did it in our jail.”
“Pretty ugly. Is John available?”
“No, he’s at this state gang task force planning session in St. Paul. What’s up?”
“Ask John if he can get word to Keith Angland, see if Keith will put me on his visitors list.”
“Oough, sounds nasty; what are you, working again?”
“Thinking about it.”
He hung up and carefully slid the letter and envelope into a Ziploc bag and slipped them into his desk drawer.
He’d used up the early afternoon. Soon Kit would be awake, and he hadn’t started supper. He resorted to the freezer and the microwave. When Kit woke up and was changed, he opened frozen packages and zapped them while she stumped back and forth in front of the fireplace.
She had found a Magic Marker and streaked her face with blue scribbles. “Puf,” she shouted. The word they’d worked out for the dragon head on the chimney. “Puf,” she shouted again, doing a stomp dance. The blue markings on her face and her fierce lumbering gait gave her the aspect of a midget Maori warrior.
Watching his baby cavort, Broker considered the mind that would write such a letter. Then, practical; the food was getting cold. He washed Kit’s face and stuffed her in her high chair. Sitting side by side, Broker watched his daughter eat, oblivious to the creepy vibrations squirming in his desk drawer.
“The thing about Tom James is he looks so harmless. He’s the kind of guy they write commercials for.”
“Spa Ga,” said Kit. Her word for spaghetti. She waved her spoon back and forth like a windshield wiper. Most of her microwave spaghetti was down the front of her bib. By curling her wrist back and down, he was able to scoop a spoonful off the bib and guide it toward her mouth. It was not to be. The windshield wiper motion took precedence over hunger and an orange meatball flew into Broker’s lap.
“Looks can fool you. Sometimes the most dangerous guy is a gifted amateur. They don’t react according to pattern.
They make it up as they go along. Do you think James could be like that?”
Kit began banging on the high chair tray with her spoon.
Broker took the spoon away and pushed her tippy cup into her red-orange sticky fingers.
“So it’s like this. Daddy knows there’s something there.
I’m looking right at it, but I can’t see it. There are times the best way to find what’s missing is to not look for it, to kind of look away. Then you might catch it, all of a sudden, from the corner of your eye.” Broker acted out his words, with dramatic hand gestures, pointing to his eyes, turning his hea
d. Kit slurped her milk.
“So we won’t bother Uncle Jeff about the bad letter we got today. We’ll put it away for a while. And when Mommy comes home we’ll talk to her about it, because she’s got a mind like a steel trap.”
For all his attempts to downplay the sick letter, Broker found himself holding Kit constantly for the rest of the night.
Making himself into a bunker of love, muscles and vigilance.
He lingered over a bath, washing her until she was on the verge of wrinkling, apologized profusely when the shampoo nipped her eyes. After drying her off, he rubbed her down with lotion, taking care to massage each finger and toe. Then he dressed her for the night in a fresh green sleeper with a moose on the chest.
Broker read Kit The Cat in the Hat twice, sitting in the rocking chair next to the woodstove. After the book, he played a tape of old standard songs and danced with Kit in his arms. Since establishing this routine, he had become familiar again with the songs of his own childhood and now could sing along without missing words. “Red River Valley,” “Old Smokey,” “East Side, West Side.” Kit settled on his shoulder, and her breathing began to lengthen and deepen. Broker spun around his living room, experimenting with flourishes that he would never attempt on a dance floor.
As he twirled by the wall he switched off the lights. The lakeshore floated in his bank of windows, a moonlight aquarium of stone, surf and pines. He managed a decent accompaniment of “Waltzing Matilda” in the dark, and when the song was over, he turned off the tape player.
He padded along the windows, scanning the subtle shadows moving in the swaying pine boughs. Quiet, vigilant, he walked guard with a sleeping child on his shoulder instead of a rifle.
30
The Hallelujah Chorus swelled out of the speakers on Duluth Public Radio, making the seasonal argument that humans were the musical instruments of God. Right now, the exuber-ant choral voices reminded Broker he hadn’t bought a Christmas tree, and time was getting short.
He’d looked at trees in town but didn’t like the pickings.
So he’d brought a Jeepful of poinsettias back from the flower shop. He arranged them along the fireplace mantel and hearth. His dragon now seemed to be rising out of a sea of fire-a sight some ninth- and tenth-century Christians might have seen before.