Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

“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.

Friday morning dawned with an arsenic yellow haze and hit 102 sticky degrees by 9 A.M. Another no-run day. Broker drove into town trying to take J. T.’s long view on Harry: just round him up and get him off the streets, sober him up, and then seal him in a cabinet like a fire ax. Maybe hang instructions around his neck: Break Glass in Case of Emergency.

Investigations was empty, except for Benish, who sat glumly watching his phone.

“Where is everybody?” Broker said.

“They just found a body north of town.”

“Another one?”

“Nah, this is superweird.” Benish straightened up and stared at Broker. “Don’t you have a radio in your car, a computer?”

“Sure,” Broker said, grinning. “I just never turn them on.”

Benish shook his head. “Any rate. This guy had a heart attack, and dogs got to him is what I heard. Kinda grisly, a real eye-fuck special. Now everybody’s piled on to get a look, and I’m stuck waiting on a must-get call.” Benish jotted an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Broker.

Dogs?

Broker took the address, headed out the door, and got back in his car. For a moment he studied the Mobile Data Terminal grafted onto the dashboard like an unplugged R2D2. He picked Harry’s hat off the passenger seat, the one that announced “I Am Not Like the Others,” and placed it on top the computer.

Then he drove down Main Street, through downtown, and ran an amber light on Myrtle. Horns blared behind him. He glanced in the rearview and saw a dusty green Volvo had run the red light, skewing the crossing traffic.

He continued on north with an eye to the mirror. The Volvo kept pace. At the north end of town he speeded up on Highway 95. The Volvo paced him, staying four car lengths behind.

Okay. So who was following him? In his general experience, threatening people did not drive Volvos. Soccer moms drive Volvos. People who shop at the food co-op drive Volvos. Volvo owners listen to Minnesota Public Radio. They love wolves; they hug trees.

He squinted into the rearview. And this person didn’t believe in car washes, because the dust on the windshield was as good as a tint; he could not make out the driver.

Broker scratched his chin and went with his gut: Volvo owners do not usually tail cops unless they are psychos.

Or reporters.

North of town the highway dipped and rose through a turn in a raw cut in the limestone river bluff. Heading into the incline, Broker floored the gas. When he lost the Volvo in the shoulder of the turn, he gained the top of the hill going almost eighty, braked sharply, and turned into a blind intersection on the left. Spitting gravel, he swung around and punched the accelerator as the Volvo raced to catch up. He pulled back on the highway and flashed his lights on and off, pulled alongside, and looked over at Sally Erbeck, the Pioneer Press reporter.

Emphatically, he held up his badge and pointed to the side of the road. She rolled her eyes and pulled over.

Broker parked behind her and approached down the shoulder trying to keep a straight face. He hadn’t gone through the motions of a traffic stop in over twenty years.

“You should wash this car, lady,” Broker said. “I can’t see your brake lights.”