In the evening, after supper, Kit stomped back and forth waving a shotgun barrel swab that looked like a cattail. “Puf”
the Dragon loomed over her like a member of the monster chorus line in
Then she dragged her two favorite blankets, Bedtime Bunny, Cucaracha Dog, Kitty, and her tippy cup over to the fireplace. She set them down on the hearthstones, returned to the kitchen, seized the short step stool, pulled it all the way across the living room and positioned it in front of the fireplace. After recollecting her stuffed animals and blankets, she precariously mounted the stool and peered up at the Puf. Worry wrinkled her brow.
“Oh oh, Daa Dee, Oh oh,” said Kit over and over.
Broker waved at her and went back to cleaning his.45
automatic at the kitchen table.
Ida Rain called after Kit was asleep. “The Wanger story runs tomorrow morning. I can fax you a copy…”
“Don’t have a fax.”
“Well, then I can e-mail it as an attachment.”
“Don’t have one of those either.”
“You don’t have a computer?”
“Everybody says that.”
54
From mud-swept Cook County, Broker watched and read as Wanger broke the tongue story.
Then Wanger challenged the FBI to disprove the allegations.
The feds held a press conference. Faces washed out in the camera lights, backs against the wall, they stood for questions like candidates for a Pancho Villa firing squad. No Lorn Garrison in the lineup.
They stonewalled. The second day, they waffled. The third day, Wanger flew to Virginia, to Quantico, and filed a story that forecast an official FBI correction about the “evidence.”
The next day the media rep in the Minneapolis office read a brief press release: DNA testing proved conclusively that the tongue in the bomb hoax delivered to the federal building came from a woman.
“Does this change the government’s case against Keith Angland?”
“No comment.”
Keith Angland’s high-buck criminal defense attorney held his own news conference in front of the Washington 316 / CHUCK LOGAN
County Jail. He said he was encouraged by recent favorable turns in the discovery process. Cryptically, he predicted a jury might divine more than one interpretation for the events depicted on the famous FBI tape.
Broker watched Keith’s lawyer plant the first seeds for reasonable doubt.
But it didn’t solve Broker’s-or Keith’s-problem about James. He was down to one idea; he had one story left to leak to Ida Rain. But it was much thinner than the tongue expose.
The FBI would not report back on the hate letters, and soon they’d trace the tongue leak to him. Then there was the Ford Ranger lurking around. And the Chicago kids in the cabin down the shore.
He was cool. No big thing, walking around with a toddler in your arms and a loaded. 45 stuck in the back pocket of your Levi’s. People up here did it all the time.
That night, he rocked next to the woodstove and read passages from the
“Check this out: ‘Displays excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friend-ship.
“‘Emphasis on perfect performance. These individuals turn play into structured work.
“‘Reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others.
Stubbornly insist that everything be done their way.’
“Narrowly applied, that could be Uncle Keith,” Broker admitted.
Or any overworked, underpaid, strung-out copper.
Nowhere in the thick manual did they list the symptoms of, or a diagnosis for, hate, greed or lust. Or the laziness that led to criminal shortcuts. The book could excuse as much evil as it could trap. He yawned, shook his head and mused out loud: “Smile for the camera, say ‘victim.’”
At two in the morning, Broker got up to pee. Walking past Kit’s crib he encountered a minefield of toys he’d neglected to pick up. Tiptoeing carefully, almost through-but then, ah shit.
Cucaracha Dog. Stepped right on it. Immediately Kit bolted up and wailed. It took an hour to get her back down.
They both overslept, so Broker was still in bed when the phone rang. He fumbled. Picked it up. “What?”
“Hello, Broker, it’s Ida Rain. How about that Wanger, eh?” In good humor, she perfectly mimicked the Far North argot.
“They sure made a pretty pasty-faced bunch of suits on TV,” agreed Broker. “Ah, Ida, can I call you back, I have to change my kid.”
“Girl, right? What’s her name?”
“Kit.”
“That’s it? Kit?”
“Nina named her Karson with a
“Gotcha. You have my number?”
“On caller-ID.” He rang off, attended to Kit’s diaper, got her a tippy cup and then called Ida back. Her voice, still relentlessly upbeat, picked up right where she left off.
“We blew everybody’s socks off. We’re going national with the story. We want more.”
“Well,” said Broker, “there is one thing.” He played his last card. And it was mostly bluff. “Angland put me on his visitors list at the Washington County Jail. He had a complaint.
They’ll do that sometimes. They can be wrong straight down the line, but they cling to one thing, a perceived quirk in procedure or a fact they think the cops or the press got wrong.”
“The fact being?”
“That day, before Caren died, Keith and James had a shouting match up here. Keith told me James goaded him, said: ‘She took your money.’”
He could almost hear her connecting the dots long-distance. “Tom disappears. The money disappears…” Ida’s voice trailed off.
“You’re the one who said he wanted to be someone else.
Well, he is. And maybe he’s better off than we know?”
“Hmmm. And everybody was looking the other way.”
“You want to write that story?” asked Broker.
“It’s not a story. It’s hearsay. But Wanger might do some digging, considering you give such good tongue.”
Broker’s wince was almost audible.
“Sorry,” said Ida. But she wasn’t. She was having fun. “I’ll run it by my boss and see what he says.”
Broker hung up the phone, went to his desk, took the photo of James out of his briefcase, then removed the picture from the frame. Then he picked up Kit. “C’mon. Let’s get dressed and go to Duluth. Daddy’s got an idea.”
