Vapor Trail

guy’s a priest.”

Broker inclined his head. “There’s kinda a lot of that going around this season.”

“Yeah. It’s getting to be-say five Hail Mary’s and give kindly old father Murphy a hand job. The media. .” John raised his hands and pawed at something distasteful in the air. He pronounced “the media” as if he were raising Satan.

“I get the picture. What do you want?” Broker said.

“I want you to check around to see what’s in Moros’s background. See if the shoe fits.”

“C’mon, you got people who can do that,” Broker said directly.

John met Broker’s squint with tired but very steady blue eyes. “I need a certain touch on this, just for a few days,” he said.

“Uh-huh. Where’s Harry fit in?”

John nodded. “Okay, I’m getting to that. This priest transferred into St. Martin’s two months ago from Albuquerque. So last week the secretary-the one who found him-gets this anonymous call from his old parish. The caller insists Moros got chased out of Albuquerque for molesting little girls. One of those hush-hush geographic cures the Church is not supposed to be doing anymore.

“So the secretary’s no dummy; she watches the news about the current priest hysteria. So she called it in. Since the Dolman case, Harry has this proprietary interest in anything that sounds like child abuse, so the call was routed to him. He made some inquiries and cleared it. We checked his computer last night, and his notes said, basically: this priest just transferred into a defunct church where the average age of the dozen remaining parishioners is seventy-two, with no kids. In his opinion, just another bullshit anonymous tip,” John said.

“Sounds pretty straightforward,” Broker said. “So what’s the deal?”

“I just want you to check out where Harry was last night. To eliminate him from the git-go.”

Suddenly on edge, Broker came forward in his chair. “He’s your sergeant. Goddammit, John; Harry and I barely say hello to each other anymore.”

John’s eyes did not waver. “Harry fell off the wagon just about the time he took the complaint call last week. Looks like he drank all weekend. He came in shit-faced Monday morning and pulled a horror show in the unit. I took his badge and gun and suspended him for fifteen days. And I got it in writing from the union, he has to go into chemical dependency treatment, in-patient. We’ve reserved a bed for him at St. Joe’s in St. Paul.”

Broker rubbed his forehead, amazed. “Jesus,” he said.

“He isn’t answering his phone. So I want you to find him and put him in that bed. In the process, you push him hard about this case and the Saint’s case. He’s on the ropes, he just may come apart and tell us something,” John said.

“I dunno, John, sounds like he’s a sick man,” Broker said.

“Fuck sick, I want you to lean on him.” John put special emphasis on the you.

Broker exhaled and looked past John at the solid wall of heat rising over Wisconsin. “Harry always has trouble with the first half of July,” he said.

Chapter Four

John got up to use the bathroom. Alone, Broker reviewed the Saint’s case that had created a sensation in the St. Croix River valley and throughout the state last summer.

“The Saint” was the nickname the media attached to a vigilante killer who, in the popular mind, stepped up to dispense punishment to Ronald Dolman. Dolman had taught first grade at Timberry Trails Elementary School. Timberry was a sprawl of housing, malls, and cul-de-sacs that had popped up like pricey toadstools on the farmland south of Stillwater.

After a thorough investigation, Dolman had been charged with molesting six-year-old Tommy Horrigan. Washington County assistant prosecutor Gloria Russell had gone after Dolman with great energy. Her method of eliciting testimony from Tommy was earnest but carefully orchestrated to avoid the appearance of leading or coaching.

But the defense attorney had skillfully questioned the veracity of Tommy the child’s testimony compared to Dolman the adult’s. The jury handed down a troubled verdict; although believing that Dolman was probably guilty, they could not unanimously dispel reasonable doubt.

Dolman was acquitted.

Two days after the acquittal, somebody did a Mickey Spillane on Dolman. He was found shot to death in his living room with twelve pistol rounds at close range.

Like I the Jury, people said.

Rumors raced through the county that Washington County detective sergeant Harry Cantrell, the original lead investigator on the case, had taken upon himself to step in and correct some basic system failure. Then there was a debate about the six spent.38-caliber cartridges that had been found next to Dolman’s body. The Saint had reloaded to make his twelve-shot point. Some argued that Harry would never be so thoughtless as to leave brass lying around a crime scene. Others said that it would be just like Harry to leave the brass on purpose, to make it look like some asshole civilian.

The investigation went cold. And no one really mourned the passing of Ronald Dolman.

After Dolman’s murder, thousands of people in the Twin Cities began wearing St. Paul Saints baseball jackets to show support for the vigilante. The Saint became a mythic unsolved case and a cautionary tale in metropolitan Minnesota.

In addition to being a top cop, Harry Cantrell cut a colorful figure as a drinker, womanizer, and gambler. He loved cultivating rumors about himself; the more provocative the better. And not least among the baggage he carried was an acute reputation for meting out street justice.

When John returned, Broker was studying the St. Nicholas medallion in the evidence bag. The Saint’s calling card.

“Dolman was a thirty-eight, right? The famous mystery cartridges left on the scene,” Broker said.

John nodded. “And the priest is a smaller caliber. It’s preliminary, could be fragments. But, like I said, probably a twenty-two.”

“Is this the same medallion?” Broker said.

“Looks the same to me. I’m not about to call the state Crime Lab and get the original for a comparison. I don’t want that getting out. Not yet. It’ll be an instant made-for-TV movie when the press gets ahold of this. We need a little breathing room.” John chewed the inside of his lip. “St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children. I looked it all up again last night. Butler’s Lives of the Saints.”

“Quaint touch,” Broker said.

John nodded. “Nicholas was a bishop in Asia Minor in the fourth century. He was rich, and he donated his wealth to charity. He’s associated with the legend of the three children. He knew this guy who went broke and was on the verge of selling his three daughters into prostitution. Nicholas would sneak over to the poor man’s house when it was dark and toss in bags of gold to provide dowries for the daughters. So the children were saved.”

“What about the Santa Claus angle?”

“That came later, after his legend got mixed up with our German ancestors who wouldn’t let go of their damned evergreen.”

“Well, this guy isn’t tossing bags of gold.”

“We’d always assumed the Saint was a guy. Now we got this witness throwing in a twist: was it a woman, or a guy in drag? And in case we’re slow with the medallion-the suspect was wearing a Saints jacket.”

Broker came forward in his chair again, but slower this time. He leaned his elbows on the table and gave John his full attention. “John, did you drive out here to suggest that Harry Cantrell got drunk and dressed up like a woman to go shoot a priest?”

John raised his arms and scratched at his sweaty hair with both hands in an exasperated gesture. “When Dolman got off, a lot of people in the county said, ‘I ought to shoot the sonofabitch’-including me. Then somebody did. Some people think Harry was the Saint. Like I said, I’m not one of them. But he knows something. I always figured the Saint was a soccer mom who reached her bullshit