The Big Law

Whatever.

Sorry, Broker.” A flash of anger. “Dammit, I know why you’re digging in this and it just isn’t worth it. St. Alban was a long time ago.”

Silence.

Her voice changed, less jangled, full register. “God, you’re married, I heard you have a baby.”

“All true. Girl. Fourteen months.”

“That’s a nice age,” said Janey. “Call me when this is all over. Gotta go.”

Broker hung up the phone. Janey was no prude and had never been squeamish, but she had been uncomfortable talking. Nobody really wanted to know what happened to the Anglands. They just wanted it to go away. Instead of doing their jobs, people were worried about their jobs in a new political climate.

He got up from the desk, crossed to the bed, took out a cigar from a Ziploc and bit the end. On the way out the door he scooped up his hat, coat and gloves.

Looking up, he saw meager stars washed out by the neon smear on the horizon. Traffic grumbled on Highway 36. The parking lot light illuminated a large red wooden horse with a flower-patterned saddle that was fastened to the motel’s brick wall. The Balahast, a traditional Swedish symbol. Like Broker, an old- fashioned Minnesota derelict, lost on fast-food row.

He remembered something Caren used to say: “Do people change or do you just get to know them better?”

Good question to ask Keith tomorrow.

40

Washington County, the fastest growing county in Minnesota, was also the site of the main state prisons: Stillwater and the newer maximum security lockup, Oak Park Heights.

People, Broker among them, moved to Washington County for more open space, less crime, better schools- and wound up living with the largest prison population in the state. On humid summer nights you could almost smell the funky weight of all that incarcerated flesh bead up and sweat in the haze that drifted up the Saint Croix River Valley.

The Washington County Jail could have been a tidy brick and glass corporate headquarters. No taint of punishment attached to its clean exterior. Inside, the climate was almost medical in its spotless isolation; movement was remotely controlled by electronically triggered doors, needle-nosed surveillance cameras tucked in corners, baffles of bullet-proof glass, intercoms.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons rated institutions numerically, from one to six, based on their level of security. The Washington County Jail, like Oak Park Heights about a mile to the south, was referred to as a “seven.”

The U.S. Marshals liked the jail because of its advanced security features and gave it a lot of business. Which was good, because it had been overbuilt and it would take a decade for the county to grow enough bad guys to fill it.

Sheriff John Eisenhower had developed the skills of a hotelier to keep his beds full.

Broker checked in on the administrative side. A deputy behind a glass bubble recognized him, lowered his eyes and buzzed him into the sheriff’s offices. Eisenhower met him in the hall. Broker had been a year behind Eisenhower going through the St. Paul Police Academy. He went to BCA, and Eisenhower ran for sheriff. Working undercover, Broker had reported to Eisenhower on a number of cases. Eisenhower, Broker, Keith, Jeff, and J. T. Merryweather. The old days.

Bluff, ruddy-faced, blond, blue-eyed, and mustachioed, John usually wore a tan department uniform. Today he was in a suit and tie. They shook hands briskly. He asked, “How’s Nina and the kid?”

“Fine.”

Eisenhower tapped the laminated ID Broker had clipped to his chest pocket. “You went and got badged up over this?”

Broker nodded. “Just walking out Caren’s death. Jeff and I don’t buy the FBI version.”

“Forget it. He won’t tell you anything.”

“Then why’d he send for me.”

Eisenhower studied him. “A lot of people are curious about that. They think Cook County should have left him down in the ice water to drown.”

Broker smiled thinly. “Janey Cody in St. Paul called me a leper.”

“They’re spooked in St. Paul.” Eisenhower exhaled, grimaced slightly. “Another thing. It’s hard to be around him if you knew him before. He’s nuts.”

“Some kind of legal ploy? Insanity defense?”

Eisenhower shook his head. “No. He’s lucid enough.

He”-Eisenhower chose his word carefully-“turned.” He shrugged. “Maybe all the stuff he was holding inside all these years came out when he killed Caren. I don’t know.”

A gesture toward the darkness that walked with cops, step for step.

Eisenhower shot his cuffs, his hands circled his belt, tucking at his shirt. “I’ve got to hand you over to Dave Barstad.

Got this damn meeting with a bunch of consultants.” He raised his eyebrows. “Some brilliant mother’s son has this plan to hook all the jail toilets up to a computer. Get all the assholes to crap on-line or something.”

He shook his head. “We have Keith down in separation; I didn’t think it was a good idea to throw him in general population. There could be people he busted in there.”

They went down a corridor, got on an elevator and descended two floors. A stocky blond man in a white shirt and tie met them at the master control station.

“Dave, Phil Broker, he ran some stuff for us when he was with BCA. He’s up in Cook County now.”

Broker and the jail administrator shook hands. Eisenhower touched Broker on the arm and excused himself. Barstad pointed to a small locker inset in the brushed stone wall, twist-out key in the lock. “You can leave your weapon and cuffs-”

Broker shook his head. “All I have is this.” He held up his spiral notebook, which contained the photo Garrison had given him. Barstad took the notebook, indicated the spring spine and left it at the control station. He handed the photo back to Broker, then walked him into a maze of glass parti-tions and security doors. An intercom voice monitored their progress, unlocking and locking the doors for them on the jailer’s command.

They passed the normal visitors’ cubicles, went through more doors and down on another elevator. They came out on the bottom level, where new inmates were processed.

Walled off behind glass were large pens-called pods- with bolted tables and guard desks. Tiered cells were built into the walls of these bays. Solid steel slotted doors. The inmates couldn’t see out. Broker couldn’t see in. He had been through three levels of the jail. He had yet to see a single prisoner.

The disembodied voice of the master control operator sang a cadence back and forth with Barstad. They negotiated the quiet electronic click of locks on thick glass doors opening, then closing. “Leaving such-and-such. Entering Thingama-bob.”

No Christmas carols. No little decorative trees. No paper plates set out with sugar cookies. It was what the tax-payers wanted today: a seasonless storage locker for hazardous waste. Broker missed the feel of air transfixed by steel bars-the notion of a cage. Even whips and chains and tormented jailhouse cries were preferable to this silence. Too clean. Too orderly-an antiseptic womb in which the lethal injection was conceived.

He had a headache. Had only slept three hours last night.

Strange bed. Strange task.

They exited the large reception area and walked down a corridor. “I’ve got him waiting in Transport. You’ll have the most privacy there.”

Broker nodded. Transport was a small holding pen where prisoners were picked up or dropped off when they had business outside the jail.

“Open Transport,” said Barstad to the eyes and ears in the walls. Click-click.