Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

As he walked up to the desk, he sketched her quickly: She was independent, she owned a cat. She took long, solitary vacations and enjoyed them. She’d never marry. Men like Harry would always break her heart.

Broker came in fast with a stiff cop edge to shake her a little. “Anne, I’m Phil Broker. We talked yesterday about Harry.”

She blushed slightly. “My poor car. How could I be so dumb? The dealership gave me a loaner, which I will never let Harry Cantrell go near, ever.”

“Good. Because Harry’s being difficult. It would be a mistake to offer him any kind of encouragement,” Broker said.

She dropped her eyes, then recovered quickly.

Broker stepped in closer and said, “Are you and Harry. .”

“Close?” She furrowed her eyebrows. “As in, do opposites attract?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Not when he’s drinking.” She said it clear-eyed and emphatically, and she was lying through her straight, even teeth. “It’s a game with him, you know. Outwitting the sheriff. He thinks he can make a deal, get reinstated without going into the hospital. He doesn’t believe in alcoholism. The only thing he believes in, as far as I can see, is winning streaks.”

Broker picked up a slip of notepaper from the desk and a short, sharp #2 pencil and jotted down a number. “This is my cell. If Harry contacts you, call me,” Broker said in his best cop voice. He turned and left without saying good-bye. But as he stepped back into the sun, he was smiling. Maybe he had learned something. Maybe Harry wanted to make a deal.

Thinking he might actually be getting a break, he drove up South Third and parked next to the old Stillwater courthouse, a graceful storied building with Italianate arches and a cupola on the top. He walked down the sidewalk and up the steps and across the grass to the monument set in the corner of the lawn by the flagpole.

Broker knew this place well.

He reached up and patted the weathered bronze replica of a Civil War soldier who, rifle at the ready, leaned perpetually forward, advancing to the attack. Eighty-four years of heat, snow, rain, and cold had mottled the statue’s surface with pewter blues and grayish blacks and lacy green flourishes. Broker thought of the weathered metal as the color of history, like black-and-white photographs.

His dad had first brought him to this spot when he was six years old. He remembered only a fragment of what his father had explained to him. Mainly he had acquired the powerful impression that this was a statue of his great-great-grandfather Abner Broker.

Abner’s name was one of hundreds recorded on the broad plaque behind the statue. The names represented Washington County men who’d served in Minnesota regiments. Abner had left his logger job in the north shore pineries, moved to Stillwater, and joined up with the First Minnesota Regiment in 1861.

He had caught the train right here in Stillwater to go to Mr. Lincoln’s war to save the union and free the slaves. His journey included the rough afternoon of July 2, 1863, on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The regiment had charged an Alabama brigade and stopped them in their tracks. Only a handful of Minnesota boys came back from that fight, including a limping Abner. But they had bought General Winfield Scott Hancock the five minutes he needed to rebuild his collapsing line and perhaps save the country.

So, as six-year-old Broker would remember it, Grandpa Abner won the war.

Broker sat down, rested his arms on his knees, and watched black ants boil in the thick green blades of grass. He thought of the picture of Tommy Horrigan sitting all alone on Gloria Russell’s bookshelf. What did Tommy have to associate with being six? For sure, something far less secure than swinging on the resolute unbending arm of Grandpa Abner.

His cell phone rang. He popped it on.

“So did the priest deserve it?” Harry said.

“No, Moros was hounded out of Albuquerque by gossip. The local cops cleared him,” Broker said.

“That’s what I thought. So you and John have a real problem. .”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “The Saint has returned with bad target information.”

Broker shivered. Mocking the heat, a cold needle of adrenaline jabbed through his heart. “You know this how ?”

“I keep this personal log of anonymous tips, stuff too flimsy to file a formal Initial Complaint Report. I clear them and delete them off my computer. But last week I found a pile of printouts in this drawer in a desk. Somebody had gone into my computer and retrieved my notes from the trash. Moros was on top of the stack.” Harry paused a beat. “I always had a problem emptying my trash. .”

“Harry?” Broker was on his feet, squeezing the chunk of Samsung plastic in his hand as if he could force Harry’s voice back into the circuits. But the line was dead.

Goddamn you, Harry-where are you?

Frustrated, Broker scanned the neighborhood. Just the still foliage of the trees and the shadows on the deserted streets. Harry probably wasn’t on foot. .

Moving now toward the car. What about Annie Mortenson? She had been lying about helping Harry. . But by the time he reached the car, he’d decided he needed more help than Annie could provide. Annie didn’t really know Harry.

Harry had only wrecked Annie’s car. But he’d wrecked Gloria Russell’s marriage.

Ten minutes later, Broker was inside the government center, taking the elevator to the third floor. The receptionist, who had been hostile to him earlier, saw him coming, and her expression froze. Her eyes went wide, then filmed over, unfocused.

Broker had seen this response before, as a young operator in MACV-SOG doing fast ugly missions with the Provincial Reconnaissance Units. He remembered sweeping into Vietnamese hamlets, the villagers numbing their faces into empty smiles. Their eyes had escaped inward as fear bred the hope they could make themselves invisible.

When he slowed to take a good look at her, it struck him that she was a low-rent version of Gloria Russell. The same gym-rat tan. The same muscle tone. The same shortish hair, only hers was dishwater blond.

He continued down the hall and into Gloria’s office.

A slender guy in a blue shirt and tie was talking to her. He had a sheaf of manila folders in his hand.

“Sorry, but I got to talk to Gloria,” Broker said.

“Is this. .?” the guy said.

“Yeah, this is Broker,” Gloria said.

“I can come back.” The guy turned and left the room.

Gloria pushed a Washington County edition of the Pioneer Press across her desk. “You see the paper?” she said.

Broker shook his head.

She handed it to him and said, “The story stripped down the right side.”

Broker scanned the headline: “Priest Found Dead in Stillwater Mission Church.” Under Sally Erbeck’s byline, the lead sentence read: “Foul play has not been ruled out in the death of Father Victor Moros.”

“The gossip jumped buildings this morning. Now I know why you want to deal Tardee up; he saw a woman in a Saints jacket go into the church about the time the priest died,” Gloria said. “You could have told me yesterday.”

“I just talked to Harry,” Broker said, evading her remark.

Gloria tensed visibly. “How is he?”

“Drunk. He has these two forward gears when he’s drinking. One is lucid. The other is. .”

“I know, dangerously crazy.”

“So, can we talk straight?”

“Sure, Lymon filled me in. The priest was murdered in his confessional. He had a St. Nicholas medallion in his mouth.”

“And?”

“And. . you’ve determined that the priest was not a pedophile. So somebody is playing games with the Saint’s calling card.”