The Big Law

He had sited his house for maximum appreciation of the lakefront. Defending it against attack had not been a consideration. Distance, geography, weather-they were supposed to provide that margin.

Should have a dog. His folks had a hell of a dog. But a guy named Bevode Fret had killed it almost two years ago.

Then.

He stopped himself. If it was James, and he was processing into WITSEC, he was far away, under heavy security. There was no immediate threat.

By overreacting, he was doing what the “writer” wanted him to do. Getting angry, on the verge of calling the FBI, demanding to talk to Agent Garrison and accusing him of harboring a dangerous nut. And he had nothing but intuition to go on.

In which case Broker would sound like a talk radio con-spirator. And that’s how he would be remembered if he contacted them again. No. He had to cultivate a good relationship with Agent Garrison, or someone like him. Because they had the forensics to check this letter and envelope against every printer that Tom James had been near while in their safekeeping.

But first, there was something he had to try. He went in the house and called the Washington County sheriff, John Eisenhower, in Stillwater. John’s gatekeeper, Elaine, answered.

“Broker, how are you? Just terrible about Caren Angland, just terrible. And we have the bastard who did it in our jail.”

“Pretty ugly. Is John available?”

“No, he’s at this state gang task force planning session in St. Paul. What’s up?”

“Ask John if he can get word to Keith Angland, see if Keith will put me on his visitors list.”

“Oough, sounds nasty; what are you, working again?”

“Thinking about it.”

He hung up and carefully slid the letter and envelope into a Ziploc bag and slipped them into his desk drawer.

He’d used up the early afternoon. Soon Kit would be awake, and he hadn’t started supper. He resorted to the freezer and the microwave. When Kit woke up and was changed, he opened frozen packages and zapped them while she stumped back and forth in front of the fireplace.

She had found a Magic Marker and streaked her face with blue scribbles. “Puf,” she shouted. The word they’d worked out for the dragon head on the chimney. “Puf,” she shouted again, doing a stomp dance. The blue markings on her face and her fierce lumbering gait gave her the aspect of a midget Maori warrior.

Watching his baby cavort, Broker considered the mind that would write such a letter. Then, practical; the food was getting cold. He washed Kit’s face and stuffed her in her high chair. Sitting side by side, Broker watched his daughter eat, oblivious to the creepy vibrations squirming in his desk drawer.

“The thing about Tom James is he looks so harmless. He’s the kind of guy they write commercials for.”

“Spa Ga,” said Kit. Her word for spaghetti. She waved her spoon back and forth like a windshield wiper. Most of her microwave spaghetti was down the front of her bib. By curling her wrist back and down, he was able to scoop a spoonful off the bib and guide it toward her mouth. It was not to be. The windshield wiper motion took precedence over hunger and an orange meatball flew into Broker’s lap.

“Looks can fool you. Sometimes the most dangerous guy is a gifted amateur. They don’t react according to pattern.

They make it up as they go along. Do you think James could be like that?”

Kit began banging on the high chair tray with her spoon.

Broker took the spoon away and pushed her tippy cup into her red-orange sticky fingers.

“So it’s like this. Daddy knows there’s something there.

I’m looking right at it, but I can’t see it. There are times the best way to find what’s missing is to not look for it, to kind of look away. Then you might catch it, all of a sudden, from the corner of your eye.” Broker acted out his words, with dramatic hand gestures, pointing to his eyes, turning his head. Kit slurped her milk.

“So we won’t bother Uncle Jeff about the bad letter we got today. We’ll put it away for a while. And when Mommy comes home we’ll talk to her about it, because she’s got a mind like a steel trap.”

For all his attempts to downplay the sick letter, Broker found himself holding Kit constantly for the rest of the night.

Making himself into a bunker of love, muscles and vigilance.

He lingered over a bath, washing her until she was on the verge of wrinkling, apologized profusely when the shampoo nipped her eyes. After drying her off, he rubbed her down with lotion, taking care to massage each finger and toe. Then he dressed her for the night in a fresh green sleeper with a moose on the chest.

Broker read Kit The Cat in the Hat twice, sitting in the rocking chair next to the woodstove. After the book, he played a tape of old standard songs and danced with Kit in his arms. Since establishing this routine, he had become familiar again with the songs of his own childhood and now could sing along without missing words. “Red River Valley,” “Old Smokey,” “East Side, West Side.” Kit settled on his shoulder, and her breathing began to lengthen and deepen. Broker spun around his living room, experimenting with flourishes that he would never attempt on a dance floor.

As he twirled by the wall he switched off the lights. The lakeshore floated in his bank of windows, a moonlight aquarium of stone, surf and pines. He managed a decent accompaniment of “Waltzing Matilda” in the dark, and when the song was over, he turned off the tape player.

He padded along the windows, scanning the subtle shadows moving in the swaying pine boughs. Quiet, vigilant, he walked guard with a sleeping child on his shoulder instead of a rifle.

30

The Hallelujah Chorus swelled out of the speakers on Duluth Public Radio, making the seasonal argument that humans were the musical instruments of God. Right now, the exuber-ant choral voices reminded Broker he hadn’t bought a Christmas tree, and time was getting short.

He’d looked at trees in town but didn’t like the pickings.

So he’d brought a Jeepful of poinsettias back from the flower shop. He arranged them along the fireplace mantel and hearth. His dragon now seemed to be rising out of a sea of fire-a sight some ninth- and tenth-century Christians might have seen before.

Broker was deep in a binge of housecleaning. Nina was due home in two days. Kit sensed something imminent. She took shelter from the fumes of Comet and Spic and Span under the kitchen table. For company, she had a wedge of toast heaped with peanut butter and jelly. In trying to lick off the jelly, she managed to plaster the bread flat against her face. Wads of her curly hair stuck to it. Broker picked her up, carried her to the sink, turned on the tap, grabbed a washcloth, and started scrubbing off the jelly.

Toast in one hand, a mangle of paper in the other, she tried to ward him off.

Hey. Wait. Aw God. Patience. Patience. He took a deep breath and stripped, first the toast and then the mashed sheet of paper, from her determined grip. He toed the trip lever on the trash can, raised the top and threw the toast and paper inside.

The paper caught his eye. Columns of type and numbers.

Jogged his memory. He plucked it up and smoothed it out on the counter with one hand as he tried to steady Kit with the other. It was the US West printout Keith had brought with him-to accuse Broker of having a phone conversation with Caren. Where in the hell did the perfect little female human find that?

Carefully, he wiped most of the jelly from the paper and stuck it with a pushpin, beyond Kit’s grasp, on the corkboard over the phone. He was staring right at the phone when it jangled.

“Hello there,” said Nina Pryce.

“Hey. Where are you?” Broker’s voice surfed between the Hallelujah tsunami and Kit’s wailing.