Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

Janey and Drew lived in a Victorian on the South Hill that looked like a three-layer wedding cake. From their front porch you could look over the town and see north down the river valley. Drew had kept Restoration Hardware in the black when he rehabbed this tusker.

Then all the trivia dropped away when Janey met him at the door and he saw the bloody towel in her hands.

“She cut her hands up. I don’t think it’s bad enough for the emergency room, but it’s just horrible,” Janey said.

“Calm down, breathe through your nose,” Broker said as he moved swiftly into the house toward the sound of the crying child.

Laurie sat on the kitchen floor blubbering. She held her hands out in front of her with bloody gauze stuck to her fingers. More blood was smeared on her T-shirt and shorts.

Immediately, Broker looked for signs of serious injury.

Blood smears, no great quantity. Nothing arterial. He removed the gauze pads and evaluated the wounds on Laurie’s hands.

One fingernail was split to the quick, and tiny bits of abraded skin hung from several fingers. Her knuckles were a mess.

Quickly, he felt over the rest of her body; he asked her to move her feet, asked if her back or neck hurt. As Broker worked through his checks, Janey said, “Laurie, honey, this is Phil Broker; he’s a friend, a good friend.” She turned to Broker and said, “I’ll show you.”

She swept Laurie up in her arms, settled her on a hip, and carried her out the back door.

Janey was talking too fast; her eyes and hair were spiky with tension. “About an hour after Drew made his scene and left, I found Laurie out here, in the corner of the yard.”

She put her hand on the back of Laurie’s head and pressed her to her chest, instinctively murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay. .” as she led Broker to a corner of the yard where tall hostas and ferns grew in the shade. “There,” she said, inclining her head.

Broker saw the freshly dug hole in the flower bed. Several gauze pads and some ripped pieces of dirty cardboard were scattered around.

“She. . she was digging with her bare hands,” Janey said, rocking Laurie back and forth. “Samantha was Laurie’s cat and slept at the foot of her bed for years. We had her put to sleep last May, and we buried her out here in the flower bed. Then today, after Drew left, Laurie disappeared, and I found her crying out here. And I went out there and. .”

Janey balled her free hand into a fist. “She’s just six years old, for Christ sake. It’s not fair she has to go through this. It’s just not fair. How could he do this to a kid, his own daughter? Fucking men. Goddamn fucking men and their fucking.”

“Shhh, easy, let’s get her back in and look at those hands.” Broker put his arm around her and started her back toward the house. But Janey was clasping and unclasping her hand, blinking rapidly. So Broker said, “Focus, Janey. We gotta do something about Laurie; forget the other for now.”

“Laurie, right,” Janey said.

They went back in the kitchen, and Broker sat Laurie down on a chair, then squatted to get at her level. Laurie was tall, with blond hair plaited in two braids. She had blue eyes like her father. She had tears in her eyes like her mother. He looked to Janey.

“I’m on it. Hot water. A clean sponge. Some disinfectant. .” Janey said, starting to move.

“And hydrogen peroxide if you have it, clean towels, and all the first-aid dressings you have, adhesive tape, and a sharp scissors,” Broker called after her.

As Janey set about assembling the items, Broker spoke to Laurie. “First we have to clean up your hands and see how bad they are.”

“Leave me alone,” Laurie sniffled.

“I will, but first we have to wash your hands.”

“I don’t want to wash my hands,” Laurie cried and waved her hands feebly in the air.

“They must hurt a lot,” Broker said, his voice conveying just a touch of admiration.

“They do hurt,” Laurie admitted.

“Well, we don’t want to get stitches, do we?” Broker said.

“Stitches?” Laurie said. Apparently that jogged a precrisis memory. “I don’t want any stitches.”

“Well, then you better let me look. If you don’t, we might have to go to the hospital.”

As Broker was examining Laurie’s hands, Janey put a pan full of hot water down. Then she put down a sponge, more gauze pads, adhesive tape, and a brown plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Hold her,” he told Janey. Janey kneeled down on the floor and put her arms around her daughter. “It’s all right; Mommy’s here,” she said. She held her tight as Broker cleaned away the coagulated blood and dirt and tried to ignore the girl’s screams. These intensified as he trimmed away the abraded skin with the scissors, then peaked when he poured the peroxide. Her hands foamed up white with tiny red bubbles.

“Hold her, good; Laurie; you’re doing fine.”

After blotting the hands dry, he took the tape and gauze and started bandaging. Soon she looked like a taped prizefighter just about to put on the gloves.

There was more holding and soothing with Janey, and in a few minutes Laurie was over the worst of her tears. Then she stopped crying altogether and said, “Am I a broken home, now?”

“What?” Broker said.

“There’s a boy in my first-grade class named David Knoll, and he’s a broken home. Are you going to live here now?” Laurie said.

Broker cocked his head. “No, no I live someplace else.”

“Mom yelled at Dad and said he had a girlfriend. I wondered if you were her boyfriend?”

“No, actually, honey. .” Broker reached in his pocket and pulled out the five-pointed county deputy star.

Laurie’s eyes widened, and she asked in a whisper, “Are you a wizard?”

“No, no; he’s a police officer,” Janey said.

“Are we in trouble?” Laurie asked, hunching her shoulders. “Is that why Dad left?”

“I’m here because I have a problem,” Broker said quickly. “You see, one of the things police officers do is rescue cats that get in trees. Well, I took this cat out of a tree today, and now I have it at home. But it’s not a grown-up’s cat. It’s a kid’s cat because it doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“What color is it?’ Laurie asked.

“Ah, it’s gray I think.”

Janey moved closer to Broker, their shoulders grazed. The anger in her face transformed into something warmer. Broker turned his attention to Laurie, took one of the clean towels and wiped her nose.

“Let’s take a ride. Go out to the river, collect a cat, and maybe order a pizza,” Broker said.

“You sure?” Janey said, and the expression on her face was far more probing than her words.

“You two need a breather. So we take a drive, clear the air, and I bring you back,” Broker said. He looked around the kitchen at the too-bright Italian patterns in the wall tile. The copper pots and pans hung on hooks like brass shouts.

“Okay. He could come back, and I want her more prepared for”-Janey closed her face around a harsh thought-“whatever.”

Janey went upstairs, leaving Broker in the middle of the light, airy downstairs that had lots of houseplants in planters and throw rugs on the gleaming hardwood floors. The Mission Oak furniture and the floor lamps had been selected with an Art Deco flair. The color coordination of the sofa, chairs, and carpet was impeccable. And the kid who lived in all this perfection had been driven to dig up a dead cat.

Janey returned with a stuffed bunny that had blue vertical stripes, and which Broker recognized as Goodnight Bunny from the book of that name. Then he went out and backed the Crown Vic right up to the back door so they didn’t show the whole neighborhood Laurie’s bandaged hands.