with all the money.
Broker shook his head. He’d had enough of the Cities. “When I worked the streets, back in the Dark Ages, we’d rough up the riffraff for bothering their betters and call it asshole control. Now, of course, everybody is empowered, especially assholes, and you have to be more civil.”
“And?”
Broker chose his words carefully. “You and me have sort of detoured off the record here?”
Milt nodded. “I’d say we’re pretty much operating on your old turf.”
“Okay. Consider a hypothetical-”
“We’re just talking, right?” Milt said.
“Yeah,” Broker said. “What if Garf has this excessive, electronic financial profile involving more credit card numbers than he charges items to? What if someone made a copy of his hard drive, but it was too complicated for him to figure out. Of course, Washington County and St. Paul have cyber cops who might have a different opinion, if the disks were to fall into their hands.”
Milt nodded. “All speculation, of course; but a simple quid pro quo.”
Broker nodded. “Garf moves out of the house and out of Jolene’s life. After a certain interval, he gets to watch me destroy the disks. No police involvement. I think Hank would approve. I get the impression he wanted Jolene to have a chance to outgrow the likes of Garf. I’m going to try and give him his wish. But, if Garf goes, there has to be provision for the money Jolene legitimately owes him. I want to be able to tell him that.”
“Understood. After Garf’s gone, I’ll take it up with Jolene,” Milt said.
Broker watched Milt tug at his lapels, straighten his tie. “So, do you think people can change?”
“Do you?” Milt bounced it back.
They explored each other’s faces for a few beats, then Broker stood up. “What about this deposition?”
Milt came around his desk to walk Broker to the door. “You know, I don’t think you’re the kind of guy I want to put on the stand.”
“You mean, where the other side can cross-examine me,” Broker said, mock-serious.
They shook hands.
Driving east out of St. Paul, Broker took less and less relish in the prospect of hassling Garf. It had degraded to the level of an onerous duty, like carrying out the garbage. And it reminded him that one of the reasons he’d lost interest in routine police work was the time spent shooing human rubbish away from the tidy lives of the Milton Danes and the Allen Falkens.
He shook his head, concentrated on driving, turned off the freeway, and threaded through the congested traffic and sprawling strip malls until his wheels struck country gravel. Driving the solitary back roads was an exercise in nostalgia-trying to make time stand still and hold on to the world he’d grown up in. Sometimes he thought that if he stayed out here on the margins long enough, he might come back into style. But truthfully, he knew now that even Garf was part of something new that was passing him by.
Chapter Thirty-five
Amy left a note tacked on the door: WENT FOR A RUN. Her bags were stacked on the porch, ready to go. So Broker phoned Jolene, got the machine, and left a message inquiring when Garf would be home.
Then he went back outside and walked down the gravel road that curved past the barn toward the fields and the paddocks. The wind had picked up. Overhead, fast-moving clouds jammed a busy sky. Sunlight and shadow alternated, slap-dash, on the paddocks’ bright tin roofs and the red barn lumber and the mowed green alfalfa fields. Standing on the high ground behind the paddocks, he spotted a flicker of blue and made her out, running the gravel road in a wind suit, on the far side of a long, undulating parcel of standing corn.
He tried to imagine Jolene running. Couldn’t see it.
Just wasn’t her style.
He lit a cigar, enjoying the bite of the smoke and the chilled scent of alfalfa stubble. A broken V formation of Canada geese passed high overhead, their wild calls plunging down the cold air.
He timed his walk back toward the house so he’d meet Amy as she jogged down the driveway, past the swaying willows. She slowed to a walk and watched him approach as she pulled an ear-warmer strip from her head and shook out her hair.
Broker held up his hands and inclined his head. Teeth together in a wayward smile, he said, “I was thinking. .”
She measured him with a stare.
He continued, “Maybe next week, when I get back to Ely, we could have dinner.”
Amy placed her hands on her hips, not necessarily because of what he’d said; more like that’s the way she walked it out, cooling down from a run. But she moved in a wary semicircle around him and her voice was apprehensive. “You were, huh?”
“Sure. You know, go out to a restaurant.”
Her chin rose in measured intervals. “You mean, take me out to dinner?”
“That’s what I said,” he said.
“No. You said, we can have dinner.” Her diction was deliberate, hammered.
Broker composed himself. “Amy, could I take you out to dinner?”
“You asking me to go on a date?”
Broker exhaled. “Yes.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, tossing the reply airily over her shoulder as she walked toward the house. Then, louder, she asked, “Have you had lunch?”
He followed her into the house and they wound up back in the kitchen. She removed her wind jacket and he could smell the sweat simmer in the navy blue fleece that molded her torso. Looking for something to do, he approached the red light on the Mr. Coffee and poured the inky dregs into the cup he’d used this morning.
“That’s been warming all day,” she said.
Broker shrugged and continued to pour.
She fluffed her hair and faced the cupboards. “It’s always a challenge, finding your way around a stranger’s kitchen.”
Broker took his evil coffee to the table and sat down. She moved to the refrigerator, opened it, and inspected the shelves. She took out a plastic container.
“Ostrich chili?”
“Sounds good.”
The social temperature in the kitchen gradually warmed as she found a pot, put it on the stove, played with the gas settings, then pried the cover off the Tupperware container. After she gave him a second medium-stern look, he finally got it and rose from his chair and searched the cupboards for bowls and silverware and glasses, which he arranged in two place settings on the table.
“So, how did it go with Milton Dane?”
“We talked,” Broker said.
“Did you give a formal deposition? I mean, did he ask you questions about me?”
“Like what?”
“You saw Nancy leave her post. You were in the recovery room after it happened.”
“No,” Broker said. “We never got around to that. Not today.”
“The wife,” Amy said, spooning globs of cold chili into a black pot.
“You got it. The wife, the boyfriend, the money. Hank adrift in limbo.”
She turned. “You left yourself out of the cast.”
“I don’t belong in it. I’m just passing through.”
“What about the accountant?”
“I think he was the victim of foul play, I think it involved Hank’s money, and I think her ex-boyfriend was in up to his neck. But I can’t prove it. So I have to let it go for now.”
Amy set the flame under the pot and looked through the clipboards until she found a package of Saltine
