Vapor Trail (13 page)

Scricchhhhh. . . .

The rasping sound brought Broker stark upright. Skimming like a water bug, he’d barely made a dent in sleep.

Scricchhhhhhhh. . . .

He eased up on the bed, holding the shotgun that was slick with his sweat, looking around. Another night without the A/C, thinking he could hear better with the windows open.

Scricchhhhhhhh. . . .

It wasn’t quite fingernails screeching on a blackboard. But it was close. He oriented quickly on the sound of cat claws raking across a screen door.

Ambush wanted to go out.

When Milt got involved with Hank Sommer’s widow, he also inherited Hank’s cat, Ambush, who was now Broker’s responsibility for the summer. The cat was getting old, plump, fussy. She communicated her desire to go outside by pawing at the patio screen door, and now she had managed to get one of her claws tangled in the ripped wire mesh.

“Okay, just a minute,” Broker mumbled as he rolled from the sheets and padded barefoot across the kitchen to the door that led onto the deck. He freed the stuck gray paw from the abraded screen and slid the patio screen open. Ambush strolled across the deck and disappeared down the stairs.

He looked past the deck. The river had acquired a muddy Nile-brown complexion under an overcast gray sky. He stood there naked for a while and let the malarial dawn drip over him.

The thought formed that the Saint was out there, waking up in this very same heat. And Harry, the midnight crooner. Unless, of course, they were, as a third of the cops in the county believed, the same person.

Onward.

Sweat trickled from his scalp, streaked down his check, dripped from his chin, and splashed on the oak floor. Running in this heat would be an exercise in hydraulics. He’d have to grow gills. It would be absolute madness. Sort of like the general atmosphere in Investigations at Washington County.

Harry could be out there, could have put him to bed. Could be waiting to get him up in the morning. He considered lugging the Ithaca along on the run. Screw it. Broker sat down and pulled on his Nikes.

Five minutes later, he couldn’t tell where the air stopped and his sweat started. By the time he’d made it up the hill, he was back remembering his Camus from a literature class at the University of Minnesota—
The Stranger
, Meursault, on the torrid Algerian beach absurdly killing a man purely because of the heat. Broker completely understood the condition as he jogged into entry-level heat exhaustion. He crossed the road to catch some patches of darker humidity disguised as shade. He took a long look down the road at the steamy licorice waves rising off the black asphalt. He made his first really smart decision in the last couple of days.

He turned around and walked back down the driveway, skipped the plunge in the river, which was probably the temperature of warm spit, and went straight for a cold shower and a hot shave.

And he skipped making coffee; easier to grab some on the way into town. He did pay attention to the note he’d left under a magnet on the refrigerator, next to a snapshot of his daughter, Kit.
FEED CAT!

He dumped about a pound of dry Chef’s Blend into a large stainless steel mixing bowl and remembered to check to make sure the toilet seat was up so Ambush could get to water. Then he pulled on a pair of loose khaki’s, a light cotton polo shirt, and loafers. He debated about the shotgun and decided to put it back in the trunk. Loaded. Okay. He had the ten o’clock meeting with Jack Malloy, pastor at Redeemer in St. Paul.

Heading south down 95, he hit an open stretch, so he put the souped-up Crown Vic cop package to the test, easing off the gas just shy of one hundred miles per hour. Going fast didn’t change the fact that the morning air was turning to sticky gray vapor right before his eyes.

It was a little over half-an-hour drive time to St. Paul, so he figured he had time to stop by the Washington County government center for an unscheduled office call on Gloria Russell, ostensibly to get the deal machinery going for Ray Tardee.

In reality he wanted to get a close-up look and see if the Harry-Gloria-Lymon gossip really had legs.

He parked on the government side of the county offices, went in, and took an elevator to the attorneys’ offices on the third floor. He showed his ID to the secretary and asked the location of Ms. Russell’s office.

No, he didn’t have an appointment.

Broker found the office and rapped on the doorjamb.

“Yes?” Gloria Russell spoke without looking up from the paperwork on her blotter. She sat behind her desk in a gray sleeveless blouse that complemented her short black hair. There was enough definition in the muscles of her upper arms so that a discreet puddle of purple vein rested in the hollow of her elbows and disappeared up either biceps. Her office space was Doric, basic, unadorned; just shelves of a law books and law degree on the wall.

“I’m Broker,” he said. “I called you yesterday about Ray Tardee.”

Gloria’s tanned face came up like a bronze figurehead. Broker saw heat and danger but not a lot of warmth; Joan Crawford from 1940s noir. Not a bad face if it learned how to relax.

Lavender triangles of fatigue stamped the smooth tan below her lower eyelids. The eyelids quivered slightly. A faint stripe on the third finger of her left hand had almost completely faded into her tan. She took her heavy framed, black, plastic glasses from the desktop and put them on like a mask.

“Oh yeah, Broker. You’re Special Projects on the dead priest,” Gloria said. “John Eisenhower brought you in to spy while he’s out of town.”

“Nice meeting you, too,” Broker said, giving her his best empty grin.

“I checked around. The book on you is BCA left you out in the cold five years too long. A lot of people think you migrated to the other side.”

“Yeah, well; I just did a fast migrate back. Can we talk, or do I go down the hall and talk to Jerry?” Jerry Hassler was the county prosecutor.

“And you know Jerry going way back to when he worked in St. Paul, I know. You know everybody. The Old Boys’ Club. That’s why the sheriff sailed you in here on a sky hook.” Gloria exhaled. “Fine. Come in, sit down, get comfy, and stay for about thirty seconds.”

Broker entered her office and sat at the stiff-backed chair in front of her desk. A stand-alone picture frame on the corner of the desk faced the visitor’s chair and held an enlarged block of type:

NO PERSON IN THE UNITED STATES SHALL, ON THE BASIS OF SEX . . .BE SUBJECTED TO DISCRIMINATION UNDER ANY EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM OR ACTIVITY RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE.

Broker thought about it and decided to jazz her a little, to see where it went. He pointed to the frame. “So are you really the dark side of Title IX? Funny, you don’t look like that kind of feminist . . .”

“Really.” Gloria inclined her head and raised her hand, a reflex to fluff hair that was no longer there. “And why is that, because I’m not ugly?”

“But, on the other hand, you could be an Amazon.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Sure, feminists talk; Amazons do.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Absolutely. I married an Amazon.”

Gloria managed a small grin on her drawn face and said, “That sounds like a good title for a weepy male memoir. So how’d it turn out?”

“She left me for a younger guy.”

“Good for her.”

He leaned forward. “We need Ray Tardee as a witness on the dead priest. John wants to deal him down to some light county time. No commit to prison,” Broker said.

“No way. Tardee is a scumbag repeater who sells dope to high school kids. He’s over the line on points. He’s on his way to a new career as a wifey and pole smoker in Stillwater Prison.” Gloria
paused. “Unless you can tell me why you’re pulling a news blackout on this priest thing.” She pointed out her window, across a grassy plot at the LEC. “We’re all getting calls from our favorite reporters. Everybody in our shop is real curious just what you have going.” She leaned forward and said, “Motive? Suspect?”

Broker rubbed the bruise circling his wrist that was starting to look like a Maori tattoo. “You mean Lymon hasn’t told you?” If Patti Palen down in the patrol basement knew about the Saint’s medallion yesterday afternoon, this legal diva had to know too.

Gloria sat up straight in her chair. Her voice went dead formal. “Lymon Greene? No. As a matter of fact he hasn’t.”

“What about Harry—he tell you anything?” Broker said.

She narrowed her eyes. “I heard you were going to escort Harry to St. Joseph’s, and somewhere things went . . . awry.”

Broker couldn’t put a fast comeback together and granted her the point. So he let his eyes wander past her shoulder to another picture frame on top of her bookcase that he’d missed when he first walked in the office. A small school picture of a smiling boy with freckles and a cowlick, maybe six years old. Besides her law degree, the picture was the only personal touch in the office.

“Your son?” he said, pointing past her at the picture.

“No. I don’t have any children,” she said. Then she stood up, turned, plucked the picture from the bookcase and put it in her desk drawer. Then she fussed with some papers on her desk, worried her lower lip briefly between her teeth, and said, “Look, I don’t know you. And I don’t like being dictated to by strangers. You have to give us a legitimate reason to back off on Tardee.”

Broker raised his hands in a reasonable gesture. “John’s orders. That’s really all I can tell you right now.”

She jabbed her index finger at him. “If—and it’s a big if—Tardee helps you make a case, we might consider a departure from guidelines. So let’s see the case.”

“When the time’s right.” Broker stood up and extended his hand. “Thanks.”

Gloria did not accept his handshake. Her face was gray beneath her tan. Her eyes were as flat as her voice. “Are we through?”

“Yes,” Broker said, heading for the door.

“Broker.”

He turned in the doorway.

“For your information: Mouse and Benish should mind their own business,” Gloria said.

Broker gave a noncommittal nod, then walked from the office, went down the hall, and stopped at the receptionist’s desk. “Tell me something,” he said.

The receptionist sized him up, looked down the hall in the direction he’d come from, then back at Broker. Apparently, she was not a neutral when it came to Gloria, because she enunciated in a hard, level voice, “Maybe, baby, but I kinda fuckin’ doubt it.”

Broker was unperturbed. “The kid in the picture on Gloria Russell’s bookshelf looks familiar. Who is he?”

“You’re new, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m new.”

“That’s Tommy Horrigan; he was the victim in the Dolman case.”

“You mean, alleged victim? Dolman was acquitted.” Broker chose the words to get a reaction.

She responded with cold, controlled hostility. “Yeah, right.”

Broker turned and walked from the office with what felt like a sheaf of daggers planted in his back. It looked as if the Dolman case had never stopped festering in the county, and now the dead priest with the St. Nicholas medallion in his mouth had ripped off the scab.

He took the stairs down, worked through the corridors, went out the door and hit the heat—
Jesus—the fuckin’ heat actually throbbed, like the theme from
Jaws . . .

He hardly noticed a young woman who was smoking a
cigarette next to a square brick column. He was absentminded, thanking his friend John Eisenhower for dropping him into the middle of this nutcase mess.

A sudden movement to his left rear had him crouching, hands coming up.
Yikes.
She darted in front of him; her breath smelled of tobacco.

“Jumpy, are we? You know, if you’re smart, you’ll talk to me,” she said.

Like most of the people who annoyed him these days, she was young; a little over thirty. Five-six or -seven. She wore loose white cotton pants, Chaco sandals, and an armless rayon blouse. The headband tied in her brown hair conveyed a certain fashion statement; it was July, so maybe she was showing solidarity with the Parisian mob that stormed the Bastille. She had brown eyes, freckles, and a spiral notebook in her hand. She would be attractive if you liked skinny reporters.

“Hi, I’m Sally Erbeck, with the
Pioneer Press
. You’re Broker, special assignment on the dead priest, right? “

“Excuse me, you’re in the way.” Broker put his head down and walked toward his car.

“Hey, you . . . you’ve got a dead priest. I’m going with a lead that says he died Tuesday night in his confessional and foul play is suspected. You want to comment?”

“Better show me some ID,” Broker said, still walking. He was halfway to the car.

“Hey you, wait—I’m the Washington County reporter for the
Pioneer Press
.” She whipped a laminated card from her purse.

“Never heard of you.” Broker kept walking swiftly. He nodded at her identification. “And you can get one of those faked up anywhere. I saw it on the Learning Channel. If you’re really a reporter, get a letter of introduction from your editor.” Broker opened the car door and climbed in.

“If I was a guy, you wouldn’t pull this shit! I’m gonna remember this,” Sally yelled.

Broker popped the ignition and raced the engine. He cupped his left hand to his ear and leaned slightly out of the driver’s-side window. “What?”

Then he rolled up the windows, cranked up the air-conditioning, stepped on the gas, and fishtailed toward the exit, leaving Sally Erbeck in a patch of burned rubber.

As Broker drove west
on Interstate 94, a bright migraine blue sky burned through the haze while, up ahead, the skyline of St. Paul levitated in a heat island bonfire. Crouched over the wheel in his air-conditioned bubble, he exited the freeway and drove into the downtown loop.

Holy Redeemer was just off Kellogg Boulevard, overlooking the river bluff, in the shadow of the Landmark Center. In keeping with Minnesota’s basic law of nature—there are two seasons: winter and road construction—Kellogg was torn up for blocks in either direction. A maze of chain-link barriers and yellow tape blocked the adjacent streets. Broker had to park in a ramp and circle back through the west end of the downtown loop.

So he found himself on foot in the new St. Paul walking across snug, newly laid cobblestone streets. He passed by Hmong women in traditional embroidered tunics and Somali women wearing the hijab who had laid out vegetables and fresh flowers in outdoor stalls. He walked past caffeine addicts bent over their laptops outside cafés.

He tried to count the rings pierced into the ears of a youth on a scooter with orange buzzed hair. And he stared at slices of tanned bare midriffs decorated with navel rings as they swung by. Tattoos were on parade; they circled arms, they climbed bare calves like clinging vines.

As he walked across Rice Park, he discovered that the tarnished bronze statue of St. Paul icon F. Scott Fitzgerald had been surrounded by a lynch mob of bulbous, vacantly grinning cartoon sculptures: Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Snoopy. Charles Shultz was being celebrated as St. Paul’s new favorite son. Charlie Brown was in; Nick Carraway was out.

But some things never change.

Up ahead, past the silly cartoon characters, Holy Redeemer’s gray stone shoulders hunkered down between the face-lifted building and the commercial finery like a Roman linebacker—strictly playing defense these days.

Broker walked past the church and up the steps to the rectory, rang the bell, and introduced himself to the secretary who answered the door. The interior of the rectory was low lit, gray, and musty. Crossing the threshold, Broker felt like he was entering an American catacomb. When the door closed behind him, he was standing in 1956, and God was in his heaven, and the cars were still made out of steel.

“Father Malloy will be with you in a moment,” said the secretary, a middle-aged woman whose dress and demeanor matched the quiet decor.

Broker sat on a hardwood chair flanked by large amber glass ashtrays set in metal pedestals. The carpets, walls, furniture yielded an underscent of cigar smoke.

“Hello, Broker,” said Jack Malloy, coming into the vestibule, right hand outstretched. Broker rose, and they shook hands. In his youth, Malloy had evaded his calling to the ministry by hiding in
the St. Paul Police Department. He and Broker had met in the patrol division.

Malloy’s golf shirt stretched taut over his flat stomach. His grip was strong, his blue eyes direct. “You want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

Malloy walked back into the rectory kitchen and returned with two mismatched coffee cups. He handed one to Broker.

“Do you really think the Saint has reappeared?” Malloy asked as he led Broker up a flight of carpeted stairs, down a hall, and into a study.

“We don’t know. So we’re taking it real quiet until John gets back in town. He had to go to Seattle. Death in the family,” Broker said.

“I’m sorry to hear it; give him my regards.” Malloy pointed to a pair of stuffed leather chairs. They sat and sipped their coffee for a moment.

Malloy’s eyes became a little tight, the muscles working in his cheeks. “So the hysteria has arrived in Minnesota and killed a priest,” he said.

Along with the 1950s decor and the tincture of tobacco, the rectory had sluggish, ancient air-conditioning. Malloy’s words were floaters in the sodden air.

“You tell me. Did you know Moros?” Broker said.

Malloy shook his head. “No. But it’s obvious that St. Martin’s was not an ideal post. There was bound to be talk about any priest moved quickly into an obscure cranny of the Church these days.”

“Right now WashCo is totally stalling the press on this,” Broker said. “When they have to give up some information, they’ll feather their way into it—tell them we’re handling it as a burglary gone bad. Which is true up to a point since they’re investigating along that track.”

“So you think someone might call in to take credit?”

Broker shook his head. “I don’t know. That wasn’t the Saint’s style.”

“No, it wasn’t. The Saint didn’t leave a trace, as I recall,” Malloy said.

“So, you can see . . . ,” Broker said.

“Exactly. The imagery is irresistible: Saint returns to clean house when the bishops won’t. Once you add the medallion to the mix, an entire scenario falls into place. High carnival on the archdiocese,” Malloy said.

Broker put down his coffee cup. “Jack, somebody from Moros’s parish in Albuquerque called in an anonymous tip. They told the secretary at St. Martin’s he’d assaulted a girl.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You knew?” Broker leaned forward.

Malloy held up his hand. “Slow down. I did some checking last night. I have a buddy in the archbishop’s office. We were classmates together in Rome, so we’re pretty tight. He expedited Moros’s transfer from Albuquerque. If the Saint is active again, he got the wrong guy. Moros comes up clean.”

“Tell me.”

Malloy nodded. “I don’t have documentation. But I can get it. And so can you. This is what happened. Moros dabbled in painting. Murals mainly, but he was competent enough in other mediums to teach classes, which he did on a regular basis at his parish in New Mexico.

“Last April there was an incident in one of his classes. The students were junior high kids, and this particular day they were working in pastel chalk. At the end of class, they were putting their sketches away.” Malloy paused. “You know anything about pastels?”

Broker shrugged. He thought vaguely of sherbet colors.

“Well,” Malloy said, “they’re real powdery. Unless you zap
them good with fixative, they get all over everything. One of the students, who happened to be a teenage girl very mature in the physical department, tipped her sketch as she was putting it on a shelf. The chalk dusted down the front of her blouse and jeans. So Moros was standing there, and without thinking he goes—‘Oops, look out.’”

Malloy pantomimed sweeping his hand across Broker’s chest. “Moros goes like this, to wipe away the chalk. There were witnesses who said it was pure reflex, like shooing a fly.”

Broker winced, seeing it coming.

“Exactly,” Malloy said. “The girl blushes, sobs, and runs from the room.”

“Oh boy,” Broker said.

Malloy nodded. “The next morning, the parents and their lawyer come banging on the bishop’s door and it’s, ‘What’s this Mexican Rasputin doing molesting my lily-white daughter?’”

Broker felt a wrinkle of sadness. He remembered the tape outline of the shape Victor Moros’s body left on the carpet in the confessional. He had not even seen the crime scene photos yet. He did not know what Moros looked like. He could not put a face to the name.

Malloy continued. “So we have this great window into the current state of our culture—we have issues of hair-trigger litigiousness, of parental hysteria. And there’s a robust serpent of racism slithering through the whole business.”

“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.”