you migrated to the other side.”
“Yeah, well; I just did a fast migrate back. Can we talk, or do I go down the hall and talk to Jerry?” Jerry Hassler was the county prosecutor.
“And you know Jerry going way back to when he worked in St. Paul, I know. You know everybody. The Old Boys’ Club. That’s why the sheriff sailed you in here on a sky hook.” Gloria exhaled. “Fine. Come in, sit down, get comfy, and stay for about thirty seconds.”
Broker entered her office and sat at the stiff-backed chair in front of her desk. A stand-alone picture frame on the corner of the desk faced the visitor’s chair and held an enlarged block of type:
Broker thought about it and decided to jazz her a little, to see where it went. He pointed to the frame. “So are you really the dark side of Title IX? Funny, you don’t look like that kind of feminist. .”
“Really.” Gloria inclined her head and raised her hand, a reflex to fluff hair that was no longer there. “And why is that, because I’m not ugly?”
“But, on the other hand, you could be an Amazon.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Sure, feminists talk; Amazons do.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“Absolutely. I married an Amazon.”
Gloria managed a small grin on her drawn face and said, “That sounds like a good title for a weepy male memoir. So how’d it turn out?”
“She left me for a younger guy.”
“Good for her.”
He leaned forward. “We need Ray Tardee as a witness on the dead priest. John wants to deal him down to some light county time. No commit to prison,” Broker said.
“No way. Tardee is a scumbag repeater who sells dope to high school kids. He’s over the line on points. He’s on his way to a new career as a wifey and pole smoker in Stillwater Prison.” Gloria paused. “Unless you can tell me why you’re pulling a news blackout on this priest thing.” She pointed out her window, across a grassy plot at the LEC. “We’re all getting calls from our favorite reporters. Everybody in our shop is real curious just what you have going.” She leaned forward and said, “Motive? Suspect?”
Broker rubbed the bruise circling his wrist that was starting to look like a Maori tattoo. “You mean Lymon hasn’t told you?” If Patti Palen down in the patrol basement knew about the Saint’s medallion yesterday afternoon, this legal diva had to know too.
Gloria sat up straight in her chair. Her voice went dead formal. “Lymon Greene? No. As a matter of fact he hasn’t.”
“What about Harry-he tell you anything?” Broker said.
She narrowed her eyes. “I heard you were going to escort Harry to St. Joseph’s, and somewhere things went. . awry.”
Broker couldn’t put a fast comeback together and granted her the point. So he let his eyes wander past her shoulder to another picture frame on top of her bookcase that he’d missed when he first walked in the office. A small school picture of a smiling boy with freckles and a cowlick, maybe six years old. Besides her law degree, the picture was the only personal touch in the office.
“Your son?” he said, pointing past her at the picture.
“No. I don’t have any children,” she said. Then she stood up, turned, plucked the picture from the bookcase and put it in her desk drawer. Then she fussed with some papers on her desk, worried her lower lip briefly between her teeth, and said, “Look, I don’t know you. And I don’t like being dictated to by strangers. You have to give us a legitimate reason to back off on Tardee.”
Broker raised his hands in a reasonable gesture. “John’s orders. That’s really all I can tell you right now.”
She jabbed her index finger at him. “If-and it’s a big if-Tardee helps you make a case, we might consider a departure from guidelines. So let’s see the case.”
“When the time’s right.” Broker stood up and extended his hand. “Thanks.”
Gloria did not accept his handshake. Her face was gray beneath her tan. Her eyes were as flat as her voice. “Are we through?”
“Yes,” Broker said, heading for the door.
“Broker.”
He turned in the doorway.
“For your information: Mouse and Benish should mind their own business,” Gloria said.
Broker gave a noncommittal nod, then walked from the office, went down the hall, and stopped at the receptionist’s desk. “Tell me something,” he said.
The receptionist sized him up, looked down the hall in the direction he’d come from, then back at Broker. Apparently, she was not a neutral when it came to Gloria, because she enunciated in a hard, level voice, “Maybe, baby, but I kinda fuckin’ doubt it.”
Broker was unperturbed. “The kid in the picture on Gloria Russell’s bookshelf looks familiar. Who is he?”
“You’re new, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m new.”
“That’s Tommy Horrigan; he was the victim in the Dolman case.”
“You mean, alleged victim? Dolman was acquitted.” Broker chose the words to get a reaction.
She responded with cold, controlled hostility. “Yeah, right.”
Broker turned and walked from the office with what felt like a sheaf of daggers planted in his back. It looked as if the Dolman case had never stopped festering in the county, and now the dead priest with the St. Nicholas medallion in his mouth had ripped off the scab.
He took the stairs down, worked through the corridors, went out the door and hit the heat-
He hardly noticed a young woman who was smoking a cigarette next to a square brick column. He was absentminded, thanking his friend John Eisenhower for dropping him into the middle of this nutcase mess.
A sudden movement to his left rear had him crouching, hands coming up.
“Jumpy, are we? You know, if you’re smart, you’ll talk to me,” she said.
Like most of the people who annoyed him these days, she was young; a little over thirty. Five-six or — seven. She wore loose white cotton pants, Chaco sandals, and an armless rayon blouse. The headband tied in her brown hair conveyed a certain fashion statement; it was July, so maybe she was showing solidarity with the Parisian mob that stormed the Bastille. She had brown eyes, freckles, and a spiral notebook in her hand. She would be attractive if you liked skinny reporters.
“Hi, I’m Sally Erbeck, with the
“Excuse me, you’re in the way.” Broker put his head down and walked toward his car.
“Hey, you. . you’ve got a dead priest. I’m going with a lead that says he died Tuesday night in his confessional and foul play is suspected. You want to comment?”
“Better show me some ID,” Broker said, still walking. He was halfway to the car.
“Hey you, wait-I’m the Washington County reporter for the
“Never heard of you.” Broker kept walking swiftly. He nodded at her identification. “And you can get one of those faked up anywhere. I saw it on the Learning Channel. If you’re really a reporter, get a letter of introduction from your editor.” Broker opened the car door and climbed in.
“If I was a guy, you wouldn’t pull this shit! I’m gonna remember this,” Sally yelled.
Broker popped the ignition and raced the engine. He cupped his left hand to his ear and leaned slightly out of the driver’s-side window. “What?”
