Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

Broker had ridden over with Mouse. They parked in front. As they walked up the sidewalk, Mouse paused and stared at the letters chiseled in stone over the door. The tiny glow of recognition flared in his eyes, then faded back to sorrow. “I went to elementary school here,” he said in a quiet voice.

Benish snapped his rubber band, exhaled, got up, and said, “Second floor, top of the stairs on the right.” He raised his chin at the cop cars converging on the street.

Broker watched some neighbors stand frozen in the red slap of the flashers. The sudden police presence transformed them into shell-shocked refugees in their own yards.

“There’s a deputy in the lobby with the tenants. I’ll try to keep the crowd down, but it’s going to be a zoo in about three minutes,” Benish said.

Broker and Mouse entered the building, nodded to the copper who was questioning a small crowd of people gathered in the lobby. Then they climbed the stairs, broad slate with heavy oak blond banisters and black wrought-iron filigree. At the top of the stairs, on the right, the door to number six was open. The doorway was very tall, splendid with old wood, with a wide glass transom window on a chain.

Mouse ran his hand down the varnished wood of the doorway and said simply, “I learned to read in this room.”

Lymon met them. Broker noticed that his eyes were hard and steady, as if he’d aged ten years in the last two hours. “In here,” Lymon said.

As they stepped through the door, Lymon said, “She’s in the bathroom. But we gotta be careful; there’s feathers all over the place.” They edged past a small kitchen and down a hallway.

Lymon raised his hand. They stopped. He pointed at the claycaked soles on a pair of running shoes that lay casually strewn, one on its side, on the hallway oak flooring.

The gunshot-ripped pillow lay on the bathroom tile floor. As if in a miniature snowstorm, the sink and tub were carpeted with the white lint.

“I guess she used the pillow to muffle the shot,” Lymon said, then stepped aside so they could see. Moving cautiously, they eased in the bathroom door.

A pair of dirty gray running shorts, a sports top, and a pair of grimy socks lay on the floor. A wafer of dark plastic lay next to them. The Palm Pilot.

Like someone who didn’t want to make a mess, Gloria Russell lay toppled into the bathtub. And, like Carol Lennon, she was naked. Unlike Carol’s face, hers was turned away. A scum of dirt and tiny bits of leaves formed a swirl of sediment in the bottom of the tub. As if she’d showered first. The tiny feathers had drifted down and settled on the bare soles of her feet. There were abrasions on the left knee consistent with scraping through thick brush.

There was very little blood, just the single entry wound above her right eyebrow. Her right index finger was still tangled in the trigger guard of the gun she’d used, a Ruger.22 automatic that lay under her twisted arm.

Lymon pointed to the gun. “Look at the barrel housing, on the end.”

They looked and saw a gummy residue and tiny pieces of frayed duct tape.

“The exhaust fan was on, and the door was closed when I got here. I turned off the fan with a pen; it was blowing the feathers around. Maybe the fan helped suppress the sound of the shot, like the pillow. The neighbors didn’t hear,” Lymon said. They carefully backed out of the room. “The closet,” he said.

He led Broker and Mouse back to the entryway hall and pointed to the askew folding closet door. A canvas gym bag sat inside. Using a pen, Lymon lifted the flap on the bag. Inside there were several crumpled pieces of paper, one of them with blood on it. Broker knelt and tried to make it out; a computer printout of a kid, dancing maybe. Beneath the paper Broker saw a wig, a portion of a Saints logo peeking from the folded material of a jacket.

“What’s that other stuff?” Mouse said.

“Some kind of padding, I don’t know. I didn’t want to dig around,” Lymon said. “And there’s this.” He poked a pencil flashlight into the pack.

Broker craned his neck and saw a plastic baggie in the bottom of the bag, a glint of tiny chain links and silver.

“But no thirty-eight,” Mouse said. “We’ll have to tear this place apart looking for it.”

Broker had had enough; he stood up. “I don’t see any reason for me to stick around here,” he said, moving toward the door.

Lymon followed him into the outside hall and said, “Remember when you asked me about the night Moros was killed, where she was?”

“Yeah,” Broker said.

“I saw her in the gym. But I split, and she stayed. So she was alone. There would have been plenty of time,” Lymon said.

Mouse joined them, and they looked down the stairs at the lobby filling up with the sheriff, the mayor, the police chief, the state guys, and a dozen blue and tan uniforms.

“That whole game Harry ran on folks, drawing the Saint rumors to himself-he was trying to protect her,” Lymon said.

“Yeah. Ah, Christ, now somebody has to tell him in the hospital,” Mouse said.

“Me,” Lymon said.

“You sure?” Mouse said.

“Me,” Lymon said firmly.

“Okay. That’s it. I’m leaving,” Broker said. He turned to Lymon. “Welcome to the job, huh.” He extended his hand, and they naturally hooked thumbs, clasped wrists, did a finger snatch on the release.

“Where’d you come by this shit?” Lymon said.

“What, this?” Broker said, opening his hand.

“Yeah, the old Soul Brother dap shit,” Lymon said with some spark in his new tough eyes.

Broker flashed on Harry driving dead drunk from casino to casino past midnight. The wind rushing in his hair had sounded like helicopters on the phone. “It was something long ago,” he said.

They left Lymon on the job at the head of the stairs and went down and pushed through the crowd. Outside, Broker raised his head, as if to sniff the wind. But there wasn’t any wind; just the heavy air and too many cop cars. A few houses down, a surreptitious lawn sprinkler hissed, defying the watering ban.

Cody, the young narc, walked up, handed Broker a slip of paper, and said, “From Dispatch. Sorry to lay this nickel-dime shit on you, but you’ve been requested by name at a domestic downtown. Some woman named Jane Hensen. Says it’s personal.”

“Aw, shit.” Broker grimaced. He looked at the address on the slip of paper. Drew’s studio.

Mouse handed his car keys to Broker and said, “Go on, take my cruiser. I’ll be busy here all night. Bring it back tomorrow.”

Broker got in Mouse’s cruiser and left the crowd of people, vehicles, and equipment that had descended on Gloria Russell’s suicide.

A dark blue Stillwater squad was parked in front of the warehouse. Broker pulled in back of it, got out, went up the stairs, and walked into the studio.

The town cop was a young guy Broker had never seen before. He had removed his hat and wore his hair high and tight and was buckled and harnessed with gear. His mobile radio squawked in the center of the studio, calling attention to the place Broker had just left. The cop stood between Janey and Drew, whom he had positioned in separate corners-Drew at his drawing table, Janey on the couch. A tipped bookcase and about twenty books lay on the floor between them.

“You Broker?” the cop said.

Broker just nodded.

“You were in on the chase up the hill?” the cop said.

“Yeah, what a mess,” Broker said.

“I heard, on the radio. I would have been there, but I got this call first.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “Is it true it’s the Saint? They found a medallion in her mouth? And about the prosecutor?”

Broker nodded again. “So what have you got here?”