Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

Broker shook his head. What do you expect? Harry’s going to follow you in your own truck? The one he stole from you?

With the windows down and the cigar clamped in his teeth, he put the car in gear and continued north through Oak Park Heights, past the quaint shady residential streets. Then, off to the left, the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility hid in a fold of open field. The maximum security prison was sunk four levels deep in the ground, like a buried battleship.

The worst dudes in the state were entombed here like bad canned meat. Ten years ago, Diane Cantrell’s murderer was on his way here for his own protection-but they didn’t move him fast enough, and he was knifed to death in Stillwater Prison. Washington County was host to the state’s two serious prisons, Stillwater and OPH, located within a few miles of each other. The county could boast more killers and rapists per capita than any other jurisdiction.

He hadn’t consciously planned this; consciously, he was just buying some smokes. But now he knew that he was following a need to get close to the origin of this whole thing. So he stepped on the gas and raced past clusters of large framed homes. Then he topped a rise and saw the strip malls and monotonous condo barracks of Timberry sprawled below him.

He pulled over, consulted his Hudson’s street map guide, got his bearings, and drove on. Ten minutes later he was in more open country. Then he pulled into the entrance to Timberry Trails Elementary School, where he was surprised to find a line of yellow school buses along the entry road.

Summer school, maybe?

Eight- and nine-year-olds wearing red safety patrol belts were walking out the front door, taking up positions at the buses. Broker parked, stubbed out his cigar, and popped a Certs in his mouth. As he approached the school entrance, it was as if they’d opened a faucet. Children squirted out the front door in a blur of color and squeals. They sluiced past him wearing shorts and T-shirts.

He stood motionless as they swept past. Little nudges and tugs, like a happy rush of water. Open faces, innocent bright eyes.

Trusting.

He shook his head to clear out the sunspots and entered the building, crossed an atrium, and went into the administrative office. There was a basket on the reception desk containing red clip-on visitors’ badges. Broker picked one up, weighed it in his hand.

The receptionist eyed him, smiling less and less the more she looked. “Are you a parent?” she asked.

“Yes,” Broker said. “My daughter is in preschool.” In Italy. Broker dropped the visitors’ badge and took out the Washington County ID and showed it to the receptionist. “Maybe I could have a word with the principal?”

“I. . guess. .” The receptionist turned and called through a doorway, “Marian, we have a police officer here. .”

The principal was a short, vigorous woman in her early sixties. She came to the door and sized up Broker. Her expression steadied down, but she continued to smile.

“Come in,” she said. “Marian Hammond.”

“Phil Broker.” They shook hands.

“You don’t look well, Mr. Broker. Can I get you a glass of water?” Marian said as she closed the door.

“I’m fine. It’s the heat.”

“No, it’s the heat plus. I’m in the people business, and you look like trouble. May I see some identification, please,” Marian said promptly.

Broker showed his new ID card.

Marian scrutinized the ID. “Okay, so why is a detective in my school?”

“I thought school was out.”

“Special summer event day. Why are you here, Mr. Broker?”

“I’m a temporary officer assigned to clearing out old files. I have a few questions about the Ronald Dolman case.”

Marian raised her hand to her throat as Dolman’s name glided across the room like a dark-finned shadow. She dropped her hand and balled her fists. “What kind of questions?”

“The boy involved. .”

Marian nodded. “Tommy Horrigan. He was six then; he’s seven now.”

“Is he still. .?”

“Of course not; his parents moved out of state, and they requested no forwarding address be given out.”

“Okay. There’s no nice way to ask this one. Was Dolman buried in the county?”

Marian was probably a grounded, compassionate woman. But she curled her lip, showed her teeth, and did not conceal the flash of disgust. “I’d have thought you people would know about that. Ronald Dolman was cremated, and his remains were thrown in the trash.”

Brother, was J. D. Salinger ever full of shit.

Angel frowned as a mob of shouting eight-year-old boys rocketed past. Defiant, she refused to even wince when their churning bare feet pecked her with sand. She watched them tear along the crowded beach and yowl and smile goofy breathless grins when they trampled the sand castles that two quiet, serious-looking seven-year-old girls were constructing at the water’s edge.

See, it’s all right there. The rampant Y chromosome and testosterone.

Give me a break. No way boys could concentrate long enough to save anybody from running off a cliff. Much less find them in a field of rye. Look at them, tearing around. Probably, they’ll go off somewhere and light farts. Little fuckers.

Holden Caulfield, no, thank you.

Angel carefully picked grains of boy sand from her well-oiled arms, dusted off her towel, and then continued to rub SPF 40 sunscreen on her legs. She wore a broad sun hat, which left her face in shadow, and wide sunglasses. The tight wig was a bother in all this heat.

But necessary.

It was a sweltering late afternoon, the beach at Square Lake was packed with people, and Angel was far from invisible. No, today she had slipped free from her constraining sports bra and let out a little cleavage. Usually, she would wear a one-piece suit, but today was an exception. Today she was showing some skin.

Aubrey Jackson Scott spent his afternoons on this beach, and since the heat spell fell on them like hot dishwater she’d observed him here several times. Now she thought she had a plan that might work. So she’d bought the new suit.

He appeared to be omnivorous and might like a gal who was hanging out here and there. Angel got the impression that his appetites strayed all over the pasture and couldn’t be fenced in. He did kind of remind her of a goat.

And he was a borderline exhibitionist. Which was sad, purely on the basis of evaluating his body type. He’d clearly been in shape once and let himself go. About thirty pounds over the line. Aubrey wore the briefest of swimsuits, a European job a bit skimpier than a Speedo, which sometimes nearly disappeared in the dross of his belly, or skinnied up between the cheeks of his butt. Once in the last hour Angel had watched two teenage lifeguards put their heads together and consult in his direction, presumably about his appearance.

Angel could imagine their discourse: Well, he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Right. That epitaph had graced a lot of tombstones.

So they let Aubrey jiggle his overweight gut and rear end around the beach. With a heavy gold chain around his neck, he had to be the greasiest man Angel had ever seen. His body hair was matted in streaks. The man actually oozed. He looked as if he’d acquired his deep-fried tan from a full immersion dip in a vat of boiling fat at McDonald’s.

Maybe he’d been discreet once, but he’d passed the point of control. Aubrey was definitely surplus population. Somebody had to come along with a pooper-scooper and remove him from the scene.

Letting it all hang out wasn’t his only problem. From a distance of twenty feet, Angel watched Aubrey remove tobacco from the tip of a non-filter cigarette, then tamp something in the cavity. He lit up, took a deep drag, and held it in. She could distinctly smell the thick oily marijuana in the heavy air. She shook her head. The guy looked as if he lived in a cannabis haze of sensation. Men, women, boys, girls. You name it. He’d probably tried it with his vacuum cleaner.