oatmeal.
When you pressed the toy’s tummy, it played a zoned-out version of “La Cucaracha.” A present from his folks.
Besides no swearing and no smoking, there was no hitting in Broker’s house. So he needed help to referee Keith and Caren. He picked up the phone and called a friend, Jeffords, in Grand Marais. Good. Jeff was in his office.
“Jeff, it’s Broker. I have a touchy situation coming my way this afternoon. Ah, Keith Angland and Caren are having a mean fight and she’s on her way here. No kidding. I’m serious…. She says he hit her…Yeah…I know. Haven’t seen either of them for years. Must be bad if she’s running. Yeah, guess he finally came apart. Nope. Keith just called and said she’s got something going with a reporter. So it could be that again. Who knows? But they’re both headed this way.
If he goes crazy on me I have the baby here. No. Hey. Okay.
I doubt they could be here earlier than noon. Okay. Appreciate it.”
Broker hung up the phone and lifted his daughter out of the highchair. “Looks like we’re going to have a party. Uncle Jeff is coming over, too,” he said.
Tom Jeffords had copped with Broker in St. Paul, part of the freewheeling rookie “big five” that had included Keith, before he became a power-hungry asshole, and J.T. Merryweather and John Eisenhower. Jeff was the Cook County sheriff.
17
Caren staring straight ahead, tugging on her wedding band, driving eighty-five miles an hour.
“What’s Broker like?” Tom tried again.
Thoughtful chevrons creased her forehead. “He never grew up. He’s an…adventurer, I guess.” The creases deepened.
“He and Keith were partners for a while, way back, when Phil was a St. Paul cop. Then Keith used to be his boss. It’s like-Keith loves giving orders. And Phil hates taking orders.
And Keith was always trying out new approaches to improve Phil’s attitude. And then there was me.”
She smiled gamely. “They don’t really like each other much. Funny thing was, they made a hell of a team.”
Quite possibly she was impaired. Concussion perhaps.
Out on the road, alone with him. With a priceless tape and at least a million dollars. Spiraled off on a tangent, reliving her first marriage.
“Is he still a cop?” he asked.
She shook her head. “He got rich. His folks have this cabin resort in Devil’s Rock, he plays at managing it sometimes.”
Tom cleared his throat. “Is he quick-tempered? Calm?”
Armed? Dangerous? Still in love with you?
She removed her sunglasses, inclined her head and searched for words. “He used to watch that Robert Redford THE BIG LAW/83
movie-
“Be serious.”
“I am. It drove me right up the wall, every November.”
She cranked her neck and stared at the rearview mirror. “I hope nobody is following us. Something bad always happens at the end of a car chase.”
“So, does he know about…the stuff on the tape,” Tom thought out loud.
“Not yet. I need you to act as go-between? To, you know, set up a meeting. Let him know it’s serious and not just some dumb fight I’m having with Keith.”
Tom stared out the window at the toothpick wreckage of a cornfield. A woman has a fight with her husband. The husband hits her. She runs for help to her former husband.
The two husbands dislike each other. The only thing they agree on-being cops-is that they hate reporters. Tom could wind up being a lightning rod for all the hot emotions zig-zagging around. She could be dissembling-it could be a romantic triangle that involved at least one alleged murder, some crooks, more than a million bucks and an FBI investigation.
What if Caren and Keith made up? It could happen.
They’d have this tearful and probably sexually very hot re-union. Then Keith would get up, take a leisurely Clydesdale pee, and make Tom James disappear along with the guy whose return address was on the bomb hoax.
They wouldn’t let him write his story and this was for keeps.
And then, a cool, veteran insight squinted down twenty years of seedy crime stories-
He began this way, in a dry voice. “Pull over. We have to talk.”
She slowed and then turned off on a wide portion of shoulder. Tom said, “It’s the money in the back. If there are bad guys and they follow us, we need to hide it.”
Her brow furrowed. She removed the glasses. “Not exactly secure back there, is it?”
“No it isn’t.”
“So,” she said with aimless practicality. Her attitude was strong on mission and weak on details. Clearly she needed help.
But then…
There was Ben Franklin’s enigmatic smile.
He fixed his vision on a line of spruce across the road. A flock of crows detached from the trees and rose in a black scatter against the wool sky.
“A murder of crows,” said Caren.
Her words yanked the hair on the back of his neck up on end. He jerked around and faced her.
She shrugged. “My dad used to say that, back in North Dakota. There’s probably a dead deer over in those trees.”
“We could put the tape in a luggage locker in Duluth, at the airport. And hide the money somewhere,” he suggested.
Caren considered, nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Where can we hide the suitcase? I don’t want to be seen dragging it into a public place.”
She mulled his question. In less than a minute, she had an answer. “Keith’s dad has an old hunting shack up the Witch River trail, just past Lutsen. He moved to Florida after Keith’s mother died, but he keeps up the taxes on it. There’s a filled-in cistern back in the woods. We could put it there.”
“Good,” said Tom, who didn’t have a better idea. It THE BIG LAW/85
would have to do. He opened his door. “Take a break. Let me drive the rest of the way,” he said equably. They traded places, and as he put the car in gear, his eyes beheld the wheeling turmoil of the crows.
Two tense, mostly silent, hours later they arrived in the port city of Duluth. Tom knew the area and drove to the airport.
Caren didn’t even blink when he told her to change seats and drive the car around the parking lot and pick him up at the terminal front entrance. He quickly found the security lockers, put the tape in one locker, dropped coins in a second locker and left it empty. He ducked in the gift shop to buy a Minnesota highway map.
