The Big Law (1998)

by Chuck Logan

  Rookies. Crazy brave. Run every red light in town to be the first one to get shot at.

  Pieces of Caren lingered, literally. Nina had unearthed artifacts during her pregnancy, as she and Broker emptied out the old cabin in preparation for the wrecking crew—a cup with a lipstick mark on the rim, a slinky, black knit dress stuffed in the back of a drawer. Nina in her eighth month, at first self-conscious, then bewildered that her body could swell up like special effects. Not the best time for her to find old snapshots of lithe, sable-haired Caren.

  In the female hierarchy, Nina disapproved of Caren, whom she saw as a woman who attached herself to men. To Nina, Caren's home remodeling business was an affluent hobby. Not serious work.

  Nina's current idea of serious work was to parachute into Belgrade and personally arrest Radovan Karadzic.

  A car swerved off the highway at reckless speed and interrupted his rumination. Broker moved through his house, toward the sound of frozen gravel ricocheting across the hardpack. The gray Ford Crown Victoria drifted in a fourwheel, controlled skid around a turn and down the driveway.

  Unmarked cop car. Keith had gotten in front of her. Broker watched his former friend, partner and boss snap the big car out of the slide, rock it to a stop, roll from behind the wheel, cross the drive and trudge up the porch steps. Broker met him at the front door.

  Behind the menacing sunglasses, Keith's features twitched like mummy ribbons coming undone.

  He was an inch taller, thicker and had a gregarious side; he would look at home at a prayer breakfast, something Broker could never do. He'd been to the FBI Academy. Broker always suspected there was an uptight fed inside him, filing applications in triplicate, trying to get out.

  The grievance list was long; Keith had made Broker's life miserable until he left the St. Paul Police Department and went to the BCA, Bureau of Crinimal Apprehension, to get away.

  He'd hunkered down in his new life, within walking distance of the Canadian border, and now here was Keith, coming up his steps. But not the old control-freak Keith; this Keith was a shiver of barely contained fury. Broker opened the door.

  "C'mon in. No sense freezing," said Broker in a calm, almost inaudible voice. He noted Keith's sloppy appearance, the underscent of alcohol layered by Certs.

  So the stories were true.

  Keith reacted with caution, knowing that voice and the trip wire tension it conveyed. He nodded, removed his sunglasses and swung his head. Fatigue threaded his eyeballs, bloody wires around the jonquil iris. A day's growth of rust-blond beard roughed his jaw. "Christ, I was hoping she'd be here. She shouldn't be driving the way she's fucked up."

  "Getting hit can do that to you," said Broker.

  Keith looked away. His eyes tracked the high-beamed living room, the blaze of new wood, skylights—and stopped on the fireplace. Broker's one indulgence, a fearsome, coiled gilt bronze dragon's head, an actual hood ornament off a tenthcentury Viking long ship, weighing over a hundred pounds, was bolted to the chimney over the mantel. Attracted, Keith walked to the serpentine metalwork, reached up and clasped it in both hands, like a derelict Norseman making a vow.

  He rubbed his bleary eyes. "God. What'd this set you back?" Looked some more. "Place looks like a goddamn mead hall now. "Frowned. Curled his lip. "You still don't own a computer." He pointed to the brightly colored plastic baby toys heaped in boxes by the Franklin stove. "Where's the kid?"

  "Sleeping."

  "Nina?"

  "She's overseas, Keith."

  Keith grimaced. He pointed to the table. "Can I sit down?"

  "Coffee?" asked Broker.

  Keith nodded and went for a chair. Broker walked to the kitchen counter and the coffeemaker. They moved with decorum, walking on eggshells. Broker returned with two coffee cups. Another car came down the drive.

  Keith came around in a half crouch. Then he collapsed back in his chair when he saw that it was a tan on brown county sheriff's Bronco. Sheriff Jeffords got out of the truck wearing a patrol belt with a full load. Keith swung his eyes on Broker.

  "Sorry, Keith. I thought we might need an umpire," said Broker, waving the big lawman in.

  "Great, Jeff," said Keith. "Another fuckin' runaway to the fuckin' woods."

  Jeff was six two, weighed 240, had sandy iron hair and quiet brown eyes. Banded in a cold leather gun belt, he creaked when he walked into the room. "How you doing, Keith?" he asked as he padded to the coffeepot.

  "Not so hot," said Keith.

  "You know," said Jeff, giving him his chilly lawman's eye, "they got this new law for cops. Pop your wife and it's domestic abuse and you lose your right to carry a gun. You heard of that new law, Keith?"

  Keith sagged and reached in the pocket of his over-coat. He pulled out an empty plastic pharmacy bottle and placed it on the table with a decisive click. "I found it in the bathroom this morning. Empty. Couple of pills were in the toilet bowl."

  Broker reached over and read the prescription aloud: "BuSpar."

  "Read the rest of it," said Keith.

  "Caution: Do not stop taking this medication abruptly without consulting your physician." Broker and Jeff exchanged glances.

  Keith reached in his other pocket and brought out a mangled photograph. He tossed it on the table.

  There was a slight, but tribal, tightening of jaws all around. Quietly, with distaste in his voice, Broker said, "Who is he?"

  "Tom James. Reporter for the St. Paul paper." Keith expelled a lungful of air.

  "And…," said Broker.

  "And"—Keith strained his breath between clenched teeth—"Caren has a borderline personality disorder. She's been seeing a shrink for a year…"

  Two vertical worry marks deepened above the center of Broker's thick eyebrows.

  "She's anxious, depressed," explained Keith.

  Broker looked away. "Caren and I didn't agree on a lot of things, but she was always resilient."

  "The strain got to her," said Keith, looking him straight in the eyes.

  "The strain, huh?" queried Broker. Time slipped, missed a beat. It seemed they'd had this conversation before.

  Keith exhaled. "Yeah. Of living with me." He nodded at the empty pill container. "She quit taking the medicine four, five days ago and went totally snake shit."

  "What about the reporter?"

  Keith muttered under his breath. His eyes swung, trapped. "The little creep is witch-hunting me. I'm real quotable these days."

  "We heard," said Jeff.

  "Well, it must have been a slow news day because he came out to dig some dirt. And the shape she's in…" He shook his head. "I just lost it. Went after both of them. This time it's my job. The press'll blow this thing way out of proportion."

  Caren said she might be bringing someone. Broker took a breath. Hit an air pocket. Why bring a reporter? Great. Caren would show up. His kitchen table would be an autopsy slab for dissecting a failed marriage and Keith's dead career. "Who took the picture?" he asked.

  Keith looked away. "I followed them, I wanted something, to get in her face."

  "Besides a fist?" asked Broker.

  Leather hitched. Jeff shifted from boot to boot.

  "What happens if you stop taking the pills suddenly?" asked Broker.

  Keith enunciated in a weary voice. "Overreaction to stress. Violent mood swings." Then, with elaborate precision, he quoted, "A propensity to misperceive reality."

  19

  The ex-husband's resort was just minutes up the road. Tom really wished Caren Angland would just disappear in a puff of smoke. Presto. Go back for the suitcase, cross the border into Canada. No more Ida Rain sending him to school board meetings. No more child support payments.

  But the fantasy was full of holes.

  Caren faced away, her forehead leaning against the window. He touched the money packet next to his chest—saw himself walking into a casino in Vegas with that wad in his pocket.

  "Turn in up there," she said suddenly. A bridge, a sign: BRULE RIVER. The trees opened. A
nother sign. NANIBOUJOU LODGE AND RESTAURANT. The structure had the obtuse shape of an ornate barn roof rising out of the ground.

  Tom turned down the driveway. Wooden lawn chairs froze on a stark band of cobble beach; under a slag sky, sixfoot Superior breakers auditioned for North Atlantic surf.

  "I'll stay here, you'll go ahead to talk to Phil," she directed.

  "I will?" But the fact was, he liked the way it gave him some control, keeping her separate from the ex-husband. Letting him lead the play. He drove on, turned and parked the car; they got out, and Caren laughed as they walked to the office.

  "What? he asked.

  "Personal joke. I'll tell you sometime," she said.

  "Tell me now."

  "Okay. This lodge is where Keith and I started, I guess you could call it. Later, he brought me back up here, to propose to me."

  Tom stopped and cocked his head. "He drove all the way up here to propose?"

  Caren shook her head. "There's a waterfall up there in the park." She pointed to the ridge across the road. "That's where." She yanked at her wedding ring. The knuckle was really swollen, agitated by her constant worrying at it. The ring would not come off.

  "Try some soap," he suggested.

  They entered and she asked the man behind the counter if she could get something to eat. The clerk stared at her bruised face; the sunglasses and scarf, given the time of year, were a gruesome costume. He told them the kitchen was closed until supper time. But she could get a cup of coffee.

  Caren said that would be fine.

  The dining room dwarfed them—towering stone fireplace, soaring walls and ceiling. Flamboyant reds, oranges, yellows, greens swirled around Tom; the batik, cutwork and quilting of an immense pagan fun house.

  Wild, like his thoughts.

  "North Woods baroque," quipped Caren, joining him. "It's Cree, the designs." Then in a more serious voice: "Let's go outside. I want to use your cell phone to call Phil," her voice accelerated. Breathy.

  Like a teenaged girl, thought Tom.

  Outside, they stood in the lee of the wind. She tapped the numbers and all of her tension drained out in a loud hopeful, "Phil?"

  Keith Angland slapped a US West printout on the table. Not a regular billed account. A copy a cop could get pulled in a hurry. He pointed an accusing finger at an underlined number. Acid voice, "C'mon Broker—she called you this morning. What'd she tell you?"

  "That you hit her, Keith. So I told her to get clear."

  "Clear up here, huh?" Keith pushed the sheet of paper in Broker's face. Broker swatted the accusing hand aside. The phone sheet fell to the floor.

  Jeff stood close, striving for an impartial expression, with his heavy hands on his hips and his weight poised on the balls of his feet.

  When the phone rang, Keith and Broker were speaking at once and pointing fingers. Broker stepped over to the wall phone under the bulletin board next to the kitchen cabinets, picked up the receiver and barked, "What?" Then he sagged. "Aw, Jesus."

  "What you got going on behind my back, asshole!" Keith seethed, suspicious. He lurched up, banged the table and crossed the room in long strides. Broker sagged, exhaled. It was going to hell. Keith grabbed at the phone. Broker sidestepped, still holding the receiver to his ear.

  Caren's voice, in the handset, said, "I need you to look at something."

  "Not now," said Broker tensely.

  "Caren, goddammit, where are you?" yelled Keith.

  Behind a closed door, the baby cried.

  "Oh my God, he's there. Did you tell him I was coming?" Caren's tiny voice whined inside the plastic.

  "No. Wait," Broker addressed them both. Caren on the phone and Keith, who was dancing in front of him. Jeff shadowed them, his large square hands held up, signaling for calm. In the bedroom, Kit began to cry in long rolling sobs.

  "Keep him away from me," shouted the tiny voice. "He'll kill me." A male voice came on the line. He was shouting, too.

  To quell the riot breaking out in his house Broker

  slammed the phone down on the hook and turned to face Keith.

  Four miles away, Caren blurted: "He's there, Keith is." She pressed the telephone to her chest.

  Tom took a deep breath, grabbed the phone and yelled, "This is Tom James. I won't let her near that guy, is that clear?" The line went dead.

  She hugged herself, rocked in place.

  "That's it," said Tom. "It's FBI time."

  "Just don't tell them where we are until I get to talk to Phil. Okay?"

  "Uh-uh. I'll handle this from now on." In the cold wind, his fingers left dots of sweat on the square number pads when he touched them.

  "FBI," said a mechanical male voice.

  "Lorn Garrison."

  "Agent Garrison is in a meeting—"

  "Listen, it's Tom James. It's about Keith Angland. It's urgent, goddammit!"

  Garrison was on the line immediately, "Tom, it's Lorn. Did you put some reporters on us this morning?" First-name basis.

  Tom overrode Garrison's question, "You want Angland?"

  "What've you got?" asked Garrison. The patented, lowkey all-purpose FBI question.

  "A home video of him and some people. His wife made it. Like Rodney King." Tom's sentences were breathless. Runon.

  Garrison came back fast, chiseled. "What people?"

  Tom covered the handset and asked Caren. "What people?"

  Caren grabbed the phone and blurted, "Keith gave Paulie Kagin and Tony Sporta a picture of Alex Gorski posing with some FBI guys and a pile of confiscated cocaine. Kagin gave Keith over a million bucks. It's on videotape and the sound is good." She handed back the phone, turned to the cedar shake wall of the lodge and hid her face in her hands.

  Tom took a deep breath while Garrison's voice hockey stopped, changed direction and lost its sandpaper grit. And its distance. Tom knew that agents were trained to negotiate with tense people on telephones. "Tom. Are you all right?" Good buddies all of a sudden. Real concerned.

  "I'm with her. Angland roughed both of us up this morning."

  "You have to be careful. If it's Paulie Kagin, he's real bad news. Where are—"

  "We took off. We're up on the North Shore."

  Garrison yelled, not into the receiver: "Get onto the flight lines. Find me a chopper, ASAP. National Guard, Army Reserve." He turned back to the phone and said to Tom, "Where's this tape?"

  "We put it in a secure place. Look, I gotta figure a few things out. I'll call back when I feel safe."

  "Wait. We got these calls from the paper. Tom…are you working on a story?"

  "Lorn. That wasn't me. Angland marched into the newsroom this morning and pushed me around in front of the whole staff. I'm working on staying alive. Can you get up to Grand Marais? We're just north of there, at the Naniboujou Lodge. Angland's up here and the sonofabitch is after us. We may be moving around, so I'll have to call you from my cell phone. Stay in contact with this number, will you?" his voice pleaded. Then he thumbed the power button and extinguished the conversation.

  Twin jets of fear and excitement propelled Tom past the lodge, out across the broad back lawn. Superior snapped at the beach a hundred yards away. Sleety spray pecked his face. Slowly his breathing returned to normal. Caren moved to his side.

  "You can see a hundred miles. It's so big," he said softly.

  "Actually about fifteen miles, then the horizon falls away. You know, the curvature of the earth."

  She spoke matter-of-factly. Smart. Probably valedictorian and homecoming queen. Tom felt a powerful resentment. The only reason he was remotely close to these events was because he'd once written about something she'd done.

  "The water's real cold," he said in a distracted voice.

  "Stays about thirty-four degrees all year. Bodies don't float. Water temperature is too low for decomposition. They stay down."

  Violent waves smashed the shore. Not as violent as the scenario he was trying to concoct in his mind. All the icons dropped in place, almost in perfect seq
uence. He faced her. Saw the wind strip away her flimsy scarf.

  Lady Luck with a black eye.

  The angry husband had a motive to shut her up. He had struck her earlier in the day. The motel clerk, if shown a photograph, would testify to the damage on her face.

  She'd told her ex-husband of the attack, that she was leaving Angland and felt the need of his protection.

  She had assured a member of the press she had an incriminating tape of her husband's collusion in the disappearance and alleged death of a federal informant. Now the FBI knew of the tape and were in motion. That left one thing.