by Chuck Logan
Then he walked toward the toolshed in the lower level of the barn. He passed a bird pen, and several of the eight-foot-tall hens bobbed along in the heat; a gaggle of long legs, long necks, big popped-out curious eyes, and droopy gray feathers.
Broker selected two short-handled shovels and a hoe and stepped back outside. He was fighting the sinking thought that the whole truck cab was a write-off.
Goddamn Harry.
He went around the barn and spotted a green tractor hitched to a box kicker and the red rails of a hay wagon marooned out on an alfalfa field.
Then he spotted a golf cart scooting along the side of the field, heading in toward the barn. Broker waited in the barn shadow, priming the handle of the hand pump, then bending to the stream of cold artesian water and slaking his thirst. He straightened up and inhaled the heat-fermented malt from the bins of oats, the stacked alfalfa bales. He watched the barn cats scuttle through the stanchions of an old windmill tower.
J. T. Merryweather wheeled his golf cart up to the barn, got out, walked toward Broker, and flung an arm at the sky.
"Farmer's nightmare: burned on top and wet on the bottom. Not a good day to have a hay crop cut and lying in the field. Goddamn humidity is 83 percent. Just won't dry out." Broker followed J. T.'s gaze, squinting up at the orange smear in the haze.
J. T. wore a black Stetson, was six feet tall, and was cooked black on black by the sun. He was field-hand lean, leaner than he'd been in years. Farmwork and fresh air agreed with him more than the desk he'd used as a captain running St. Paul Homicide.
His face was large and generous, but his tight brown eyes had always preferred the mysteries of the sky to the predictable people beneath it. So he took early retirement and started up this farm.
They shook hands.
Broker looked around. "Where's Denise and Shammy?" J. T.'s wife and daughter were not in sight.
"Denise took Shammy to the Cities, club team tournament."
Broker nodded. The daughter practiced basketball like a religion.
"Okay, let's go have a look," J. T. said. He couldn't suppress a grin.
"Not funny, goddammit. Look at that." Broker jabbed his finger at the shattered mirror.
"Six hundred yards, you say." J. T. mulled it over.
"More like six hundred fifty. I walked it off," Broker said.
"The man always could shoot," J. T. said.
Broker dug in his pocket and showed J. T. the .338 round. "He gave me this as a taunt when it all started, like I told you on the phone. The drunk sonofabitch could have killed me!"
J. T., who, like Harry, had a basement full of reloading presses, took the rifle bullet from Broker and turned it over in his fingers. "That's a 378 Weatherby Magnum necked down to 338. Weatherby's a low-end elephant gun. Basically this shell casing is too big for the bullet, got way too much powder behind it. I'm surprised the whole mirror frame didn't explode. And if he would have clipped you anywhere around the head, we wouldn't be having this conversation because your head would be this fine red mist floating over a strawberry bog in Wisconsin."
"Spare me the hymn to gun freaks, okay?"
"Just saying . . . he hit what he wanted to hit. Six hundred yards is an easy shot for a guy like Harry. He's just fuckin' with you." J. T. tossed the bullet back to Broker, who caught it, stuck it in his pocket, and turned toward his truck.
Grumbling, he opened the passenger door, and the full aroma of the sun-ripened cow dung rolled over him.
J. T. spotted the badge-and-gun sign, the arrow pointing down, and began to howl.
Broker ignored his glee and started shoveling out clots of manure. J. T. went around to the other side with the other shovel. "Eureka," J. T. crowed as he gingerly lifted Broker's .45 on his shovel. A moment later they found the badge.
J. T. brought out a five-gallon can full of kerosene and dumped in the gun and badge. He turned back to the truck. "Forget the shovel. Get on the horn and call your insurance agent; call it vandalism, whatever. You're going to have to replace everything, the seats, the dash. I doubt you'll ever get the smell out."
"Can't hire a couple farm kids to scrub it out, huh?"
J. T. snorted. "Shee-it. They are no more farm kids. Average age of the American farmer is fifty-seven." J. T. toed the dirt. "You know, I was you, I'd think of changing trucks. You don't have a lot of luck with Fords."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, two years ago August, Popeye kicked your last Ranger to junk; now this," J.T . said.
True, J. T. had made the mistake of driving Broker's truck into a pen with Popeye, his four-hundred-pound aggressive stud. Popeye had pulverized the truck with kicks and damn near killed J.T. when he made a break for it. Now Popeye was gone. J. T. had sent for the fatal ride on the big truck.
"It ain't like you're on a fixed income," J. T. said. "What do you think about the Toyota Tundra?"
Broker waved his hand in a disgusted gesture. They left the truck and took the can of kerosene over to an outside workbench next to the toolshed. J. T. went in the shed and came out with two wire brushes and a handful of small glass jars.
Broker fished out the badge, unpinned it from the leather backing, and hurled the round hunk of leather at the nearby burning barrel. No way the leather would ever clean up. He scrubbed at the badge with the wire brush.
Meanwhile J. T. methodically took the .45 apart and put the various pieces in the glass jars. He took out a Leatherman tool and patiently began to remove the smallest screws.
"Whoa. I'll never be able to get that back together," Broker said.
"I'll give you a loaner," J. T. said. When he had the pistol totally disassembled, he poured clean kerosene into the jars.
They scrubbed their hands under the pump with Boraxo, then went over to the picnic table in the hot shade of the willow. J. T. went in the house and came out with a frosted pitcher of iced tea. He took out his pipe. Broker reached for a cigar, then, still hot and shaky from his walk in the sun, decided not to.
J. T. lit his pipe and poured iced tea. He took a sip and stared at the dusky waves of heat rolling over his fields. "Got a call this morning. Bubble Butt Reardon's dead. Dehydrated. Heat stroke. Just like Corey Stringer. Cutting his lawn . . ."
"Aw, Christ." Broker stared at the cold glass of tea in his hand. Reardon had been a notoriously overweight St. Paul detective.
J. T. lifted his iced tea. "Push fluids."
"Amen."
After a moment J. T. said, "You know, I never believed that bullshit about Harry being the Saint. Harry is a compulsive planner. That's his training. Look how he set up that shooting gallery for you today. At the very least, he would have waited a year till all the fuss over the Dolman trial died down." J. T. clicked his teeth and grimaced. "But I believe he's capable of letting it slide if he did know who the killer was. John E. is right-on in that respect."
"You worked with him, after I left St. Paul," Broker said.
"Yeah. In Homicide, before he split for Washington County." J. T. laughed. "And I kinda felt like Sidney Poitier playing Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night. You know, harnessed to redneck Rod Steiger. Harry was just this impossible bigot. But he was up front about it."
"You didn't get along."
"Didn't like each other from the jump—and said so. But we functioned because we respected each other, you follow?"
"He's good; give him that."
"Look, he's an asshole. But he's our asshole so he's worth saving," J. T. said. "But Harry all the way sober? I don't know if we're ready for that."
"This ain't funny, J. T. Look what he did to my truck."
"I told you, man. You got bad luck with Fords."
"Harry is a menace, J. T.; don't sugarcoat it."
"True, he's hard to take. I wouldn't want him around my family," J. T. said. "I certainly wouldn't want him talking to my teenage daughter. But I'll tell you a dirty little secret: if my kid was in Columbine High School that day, you better believe I'd have wanted Harry to be the
first cop on the scene."
Chapter Twenty-nine
"The heat index has exceeded one hundred ten degrees for two consecutive days," said the announcer on WCCO AM radio. "In Minnesota, the heat wave has now claimed seven lives."
Including Bubble Butt Reardon.
Broker clicked the radio off and drove back to the river through the gorgeous, and now lethal, sunset. When the sun went down, the heat just changed color from light to dark.
Broker had accepted J. T.'s offer and now had an old reliable
1911 military-issue .45 stuck in a borrowed holster on his hip. He had a badge, minus the leather backing, that smelled of kerosene.
He parked, went into Milt's house, and put his belt, the pistol, his wallet, pocket change, and cell phone on the kitchen table. Then he went outside to the garbage cans, stripped off his clothes, and threw them away. Back inside, he slapped a fresh battery in his cell phone and took an extralong shower.
Then he walked with a towel around his waist, opened a beer, and checked his e-mail box, which was empty. On impulse, he called his folks in Devil's Rock.
"Hello," Irene Broker answered.
"Mom, it's me."
"Phillip, how nice of you to surface and check in . . ."
"Ah, how's Dad doing?"
"Your father and your uncle Billie went out on the big water at dusk, after steelheads."
"He's feeling okay, then?"
"Seems to be. Of course, I had to remind both of them to wear their life jackets."
"What's the weather like up there?"
"Beautiful. Seventy-two, with a nice northwest breeze. How's it by you?"
"Don't ask."
"I won't. And there's no word about Nina and Kit on this end. You should make some inquiries," Irene said tartly.
"Don't start, Mom."
"I'm sorry. I'm sure you've got it all under . . . your control issues."
"I love you, too, Mom."
Broker hung up, finished his beer, and opened another one. The phone rang, and he braced for Harry. Except it was the house phone. He picked up. Not Harry.
It was Janey. "Broker, it's not real good here right now. Could I have your cell phone number, just in case I have to reach you when you're not home?"
"I'd prefer not to get involved in your . . ."
"Broker, for Chrissake, I got a kid to worry about here."
He gave her the number. She thanked him and hung up. He took his beer out on the porch and lit a cigar. Impervious to the smoke, the mosquitoes came out of the dark like a shower of darts. He went back in and turned the TV in the kitchen to the Weather Channel.
He tried to get interested in a newsmagazine show about global warming. He was told that 1995 was the warmest year since global records started to be kept in 1856. Then the weather lady told him there were reports of Eskimo hunters falling through the arctic ice as a result of global climate change. That did it. He thumbed the remote to kill the TV, then went through the house, closing all the windows. He flipped on the air-conditioning, opened his fourth beer—two was his usual limit—turned off the lights, and lay down on the bed with his cell phone for company.
Broker fell into an exhausted sleep as the slowly cooling darkness closed in on him.
After the ring and groping with the cell phone on his chest, a thoroughly drunken voice came out of the dark. "This is Harry, where am I?" The dark sounded like a roar on Broker's end.
"Harry?"
"Tai sao! Tai vi! Tai vi sao!" Harry belted out the Vietnamese slang loud as he could.
"What's that, the wind?" Broker asked.
"Fuck yeah, man," Harry yelled. "Going through my hair . . . a hundred twenty miles an hour, I shit you not." The line went dead.
Broker was up, pacing. He considered making a pot of coffee, but then he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. Another beer maybe? Christ, Harry was driving him to the bottle. He decided no beer. Instead he opted to brave the mosquitoes, go out on the deck, soak in the heat, and smoke another cigar.
Outside, he watched the running lights on a boat ease down the channel. The inky air hugged in close and suddenly evoked a sharp memory of the mosquito-repellent-soaked, very filthy, plastic stock of an M16 parked against his cheek.
Night after night.
The cigar started to taste like bad history, so he threw it away, went back inside, and settled down at the kitchen table. He concentrated on Ambush the cat. Ambush reclined patiently on the linoleum a foot away from a tiny space between the refrigerator and a cabinet. Ambush was absolutely motionless, covered in thick gray fur. She wasn't complaining about the heat. She smelled a mouse.
She was working.
So Broker sat with her until . . .
Rinnngggg . . .
Broker was getting so he could activate the cell with his eyes shut.
"Ha! You pooped your pants today," Harry said.
"Damn near. You this keep up, somebody's going to get hurt," Broker said.
"Count on it," Harry said. "And by the way, don't get too attached to my hat."
Broker could hear a new hivelike, much lower roar in the background. A very busy bar or a casino. Then Harry launched into a drunken monologue: "So three years ago, when the head of Investigations opened up, I thought I was a shoo-in to take over the unit. But John had other ideas; he brought in Art Katzer from St. Paul. I was upset and said so to John's face. It went downhill from there . . .
"Then I got onto Tommy Horrigan and started zeroing in on Dolman."
"And zeroing in on Gloria," Broker said.
"We hit it off, what can I say? Any rate, I'm doing interviews, building a file, and Katzer comes over and tells me John thinks it's a good idea to give the case to the new guy."
"The new guy was Lymon Greene."
"Yeah." Harry paused. "He took Dolman. I should back up here and admit I made a few wisecracks about Lymon when John brought him on board."
"Wisecracks? You mean, like: Gee, lookit this shiny new quarter?"
"No, ah, more like: John's lost his nerve, knuckling under to all this diversity bullshit."
"Were they overhead?"
"Oh yeah, and reported back to Katzer and to John. I got a letter of reprimand in my file. So when I bitched about giving my case to a rookie detective, they thought it was more of the same." Harry paused for a few beats. "The problem with saying something dumb is that it causes people not to hear when you say something smart."
"Like?"
"Like that Lymon was not seasoned enough to handle that kind of case. For starters, working with Gloria threw him for a loop. They struck these weird sparks from the beginning. I mean, everybody figured Gloria was a closet lez until I came along and turned her out. Suddenly, she starts lifting weights; hell, before that, she would barely acknowledge you, wouldn't shake your hand, like she couldn't bear to touch you or something," Harry said.
"I thought she was married."
"Oh yeah, right. Her husband was this PC bookend; guy wasn't even there. A fucking English professor at Macalester College. Any rate, they do Dolman. I came up with three kids I thought were violated, two in the neighborhood and one in his class at school. But the school kid, Tommy Horrigan, was the most credible, so they went with him.
"We had Dolman cold. I'd found a trunk full of kiddie porn in his house. I'd found Polaroids of the kids with their pants down. But Dolman thought he was smart. He cut the faces out of the pic
tures. But Tommy had a birthmark on his thigh. And that should have been the lock. Plus that kid took the stand, and he was a rock; I'll give that to Lymon and Gloria. The kid was prepared. And the scumbag defense attorney couldn't shake him. Not directly. But the defense attorney saw something. This one juror. White male, fifty-two years old. This fat guy who probably hadn't seen his pecker in ten years.
"It was subtle, but Mouse and me picked up on it; facial expressions, body language. This guy flat resented Lymon. It was textbook. I mean he hated seeing Lymon sitting next to Gloria. This was back when G
loria had this long black hair and looked like fuckin' Snow White. It was that goddamn simple.
"The defense kept calling Lymon back to go over procedures. Keeping him on the stand. I went to Gloria, and I told her to put Lymon down in the weeds, keep him out of court. But she wouldn't hear it, coming from me; she went the other way and kept Lymon by her side.
"So the jury stayed out for three days, and there was the one juror who wouldn't budge from not guilty. This puke didn't even see that little kid. All he saw was this black guy working with this white woman. It's subjective, but that's my take on how Dolman got off."