“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 pictures. 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 Gloria 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.”
“And you probably didn’t keep this perceptive observation to yourself.”
“Nah, I had a few drinks and talked it around. It got back to John and he had me on the carpet and tore me a new asshole. Threatened to suspend me. I had to attend goddamn diversity classes. So I buttoned up and stuffed it. I had this equal and opposite reaction. I buttoned up too much. ’Cause, thing is, the day the verdict came down and Dolman got off, I followed Lymon and Gloria out of the courtroom. Lymon was hustling her out of sight because she was so pissed. I mean volcanic. I caught up with them in this empty office and. .
“. . I swear to God, man, he was restraining her, and she was grabbing at his holster and she was saying, ‘That creep will never be around kids again. I’m going to blow his fucking head off.’
“I never told that to anybody until right now. See, I figured they wouldn’t believe me, all the stuff I’d said about her and Lymon already.
“And two days later, somebody did just that. Put twelve rounds in Dolman’s fat face. And they left a St. Nicholas medallion in his mouth. Okay, so finally I get put on a case. I worked the Saint with the BCA.
“I remembered what Gloria said after the trial, so just to run out all the grounders, real quiet so as not to draw any attention, I checked on her and Lymon’s whereabouts the night Dolman got whacked. And you know what? They were together. And not any place that could be verified. They were together in his car, driving the freeways, talking.”
“What are you getting at?” Broker said.
“Gee, I dunno. Maybe somebody should, ah, check where Gloria was the night the priest got whacked,” Harry said.
The connection went dead.