55
Monday morning. Ida Rain called in the middle of
“Broker, I’m sorry. But there’s no story. Keith Angland won’t talk to Wanger. His lawyer painted you as a nut up in the woods with a personal ax to grind. The editors backed off for now.”
“Well, thanks for the try.” A pause on her end stretched to awkwardness. “What is it?” asked Broker.
“Probably nothing. I’ll let you know. Just wanted to touch base.”
They said good-bye and hung up. He popped a piece of toast out of the toaster, buttered it, added jam, trimmed the crusts, sectioned it into wedges and placed it before Kit.
The phone rang again. The store in Duluth, saying the delivery truck was en route. Broker thanked them and hung up. Kit’s spoon clattered on the floor. He took it to the sink, scrubbed it under hot water. Came back, removed the jelly from her face and had just managed to get one spoon of oatmeal into her when the phone ran again.
“You got coffee?” asked Jeff, rumbling cell phone connection.
“Sure.”
“I’m coming over.”
You could never tell when Jeff was really upset. Bro 320 / CHUCK LOGAN
ker had seen him jam a Muskie lure through the loose skin between his thumb and forefinger without as much as an ouch. Just asked calmly, “Ah, you got a little tin snips in that tackle box?”
Just as calmly now, Jeff sat at Broker’s kitchen table and took three sips on his cup of coffee before he said, “You know how the U.S. attorney and the state attorney general don’t necessarily get along?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, they found something they can agree on. Namely, that you are a grain of sand under their blankets.” The sheriff took a pull on his coffee. “I know this because the AG’s office just called Pete over at the county offices and read him the riot act. Said how this loose cannon part-time deputy in Cook County has gone off half-cocked and stepped in a cow pie.
Said you were interfering in an ongoing federal investigation for personal reasons.”
“They found out where the tongue story came from.”
Jeff took another pull on his coffee. “Be my guess. They also suggested that, if this is the kind of police work we condone up here, it might be a waste of taxpayers’ money to add another patrol deputy next year.”
“Your Clinton cop?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d Hustad say?”
“Well, Hustad’s a Democrat, and the AG’s a big-cheese Democrat who’s running for governor. So Hustad, being a new guy, is going to toe the party line.”
“And you came over here to take the badge back?”
“Humph. Citizens of Cook County elected me, not the AG
in St. Paul. They can keep their Clinton cop.”
“So I can still try to find James?”
Jeff screwed up his lips. “The feds are not exactly forthcoming. And now…”
“I’ve been thinking of making the leap from analog to digital,” said Broker. He told Jeff his latest idea.
Jeff scratched his hair, mulled it. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever done that before? Is it even practical?”
“Doesn’t have to be. It’s news,” said Broker. “That’s why they won’t be able to resist putting it in the paper. They get enough bad press, they just might cough up James.”
Broker and Kit drove to Grand Marais and went into the print shop and picked up his order. The picture of Tom James had been made into an old-fashioned wanted poster. Type at the bottom announced:
There were a hundred of the posters. He left most of them at the sheriff’s office. Tonight, after school, Jeff’s oldest daughter, Allison, and her friends would plaster them all over town.
The truck arrived from the Circuit City store in Duluth at noon. As arranged, it contained one tall, ponytailed, young computer nerd named Steve, who agreed to set up Broker’s computer for a fee of fifty dollars an hour and unlimited quantities of pizza and beer.
Steve and Broker unloaded the cardboard packing crates that contained the computer package Steve had sold him.
Computer, monitor, modem, printer, assorted software manuals and a program to connect with America Online.
Broker cut doorways and windows into the cardboard boxes so Kit could crawl in and out. Jeff arrived with a case of beer and two deep-dish pizzas.
Steve’s eyes, obviously cured in cannabis smoke, worked nervously over Jeff’s uniform. “Ah, what is this?”
“Relax,” said Jeff. “I’m the pizza man. But if I was you, I wouldn’t pull any fast moves.” He pointed at the all-322 / CHUCK LOGAN
purpose leather Mantool Steve wore in a small holster on his hip. “You have a license for that?”
It turned out like Tom Sawyer painting the fence. Steve spent most of the time eating pizza and swigging on a beer and giving directions to Broker and Jeff, who sifted through piles of manuals, cellophane bags full of screws, and tangles of cables.
Drinking beer and getting wired.
By the time the pizza was gone they were hooked up. Steve sat at the keyboard and created a website. “Easy, comes right with the software.” He turned to Broker. “You get that picture J-pegged onto a disk at Kinko’s?”
Broker handed him the disk he’d had made at a Kinko’s in Duluth. In a minute Tom James’s face appeared on the screen.
Broker handed him one of the posters. “Let’s put in this type.”
“What size?”
“Big.”
“What color?”
“Loud.”
Steve bumped the type way up across the top of the page: WANTED for questioning inthe death of Caren Angland
Then Broker sat down at the keyboard and typed, below the picture.
Jeff maintained a hearty front throughout, but Broker could tell-the sheriff thought he was grabbing at straws. Jeff said good night and went home first. Steve departed with a wedge of cold pizza in his hand. The Pentium glowed in the twilight in Broker’s study, exuding the factory-fresh tang of upholstery in a brand-new spaceship.
Broker called Ida Rain and left a message on her machine.
“Check me out at [email protected]. Tell me if you think
Then he gingerly removed his sleeping daughter from her nest of blankets and pillows among the cardboard boxes.
With all the activity, she hadn’t had a nap, and now she’d be off her schedule for the next few days. With Bedtime Bunny and Cucaracha Dog clutched in her arms, Broker moved her to her crib and tucked her in.
He went outside to stretch his legs and chew a cigar.
Staying within earshot of the house, he picked his way through the ledge rock down to the shore. A thin
