limit, and she’d be damned if Dolman was going to come back to school and teach
“Slow down. What if your witness talks to a reporter, the neighbors? There goes your breathing room,” Broker said.
John smiled quickly. “Not likely. He’s sweating a possession charge. He’s an aging biker who sold a bag of grass to one of my undercover guys. Which put him over the line on points. He’s looking at going inside. We can deal him up. He’ll stay quiet.”
“So who knows about the medallion?”
“The Stillwater cop who answered the call. And the Stillwater mayor and his police chief. My investigator, Lymon Greene; his sergeant, Maury Seacrest.” John paused. “You know Maury.”
Broker winced. “So every cop in the metro east of the Mississippi knows. What about the secretary who found the body?”
“She’s cool; she didn’t see the medallion. We took her statement, and she and her husband agreed to go on vacation up to Mille Lacs a few days early.”
“What about the Ramsey County ME and the BCA Crime Lab guys? They processed the scene.”
“They don’t know. It stays quiet until I get back,” John said.
“Back?” Broker sat up in his chair, skeptical. “The Saint just blew into town, and you’re leaving?”
“My wife’s dad just died. So the funeral’s in Seattle.”
“That’s not immediate family, John.”
“Sorry, gotta go.”
Broker gave his old friend the barest smile. “What the hell are you doing?”
John’s expression was clearly conflicted. “I’m understaffed. My top investigator is drunk on his ass and a total embarrassment; my other sergeants are tied up in court.
“Bullshit. You got Art Katzer in charge of Investigations,” Broker said.
“He took off for SWAT training.”
“When? At midnight when he heard about the priest and the medallion and Harry falling off the wagon?”
“Okay-I’m throwing the dice on this one. If I’m right and Harry knows who the Saint is, I’m betting you can get him to cough it up. If I’m wrong. .” John shook his head.
“Yeah, right or wrong you bring in somebody expendable, who isn’t part of your department, so it can’t blow back on you,” Broker said.
John grinned tightly. “I wouldn’t put it that way, but, ah, yeah. So is that a yes or a no?”
“You’re asking a lot,” Broker said.
“I know, but I figure you can handle it. Look, there’s a national scandal about the Church, and I got a dead priest with a radio-active clue stuck in his mouth that identifies him in the popular mind as a child molester. I gotta know if this priest was dirty.” John paused. “We’re not set up to handle a high-profile murder investigation. I don’t want the state guys moving in on this before we know what we’ve got. And I don’t want a media high carnival-the archdiocese in St. Paul doesn’t need that kind of grief on top of everything else. I need someone to check out Moros’s background without making any waves. I mean like invisible. I got Maury, but he doesn’t exactly have the contacts you do.”
Broker shrugged. “I never was a straight-ahead investigator, John. You know that.”
John let a cynical smile play across his face. “C’mon, Broker. You tell people you retired because you invested wisely in real estate on the north shore years ago. And you own a resort up there. But I know that five years ago you and Nina smuggled several tons of buried gold bullion right under the noses of the Hanoi politburo, on through Laos and Thailand and into Hong Kong.” John paused, got no denial, then began again.
“You live off credit cards. Banks in Bangkok and Hong Kong pay the bills. Last year your credit card totals were twice your declared income. The FBI keeps the IRS off your back because you helped the bureau penetrate the Russian Mafia three years ago.”
“You’re being dramatic, John,” Broker said. “But I’ll admit I’m just a little curious about where you got the stuff about the credit cards.”
John rolled his eyes. “I sit on task-force planning sessions with all this alphabet soup: FBI, ATF, DEA, IRS. People have a few drinks, and they talk. C’mon, you pirate. Do me this favor, okay?”
They went silent, and then the silence became awkward as John started to speak and wound up chewing back false starts until finally he said, “There’s a card inside on the table. It’s your birthday, right?”
“Fuck you, John.”
John chewed some more silence, then spoke. “Nina and Kit, you. .”
“Don’t,” Broker said sharply.
John sat back and folded his heavy arms across his chest and waited. Twenty seconds. Thirty.
“Who would I report to?” Broker said.
John grinned. “Nobody. Your kind of play, totally on your own. I hire you as a Special Projects consultant.”
“No paperwork, no office, no desk,” Broker said.
John held up reassuring hands. “No paperwork, no desk. We can stay in touch by phone. You said your license was current?”
“Yeah, no problem there.”
“So I’ll get you an ID and a badge. You need a gun?”
“I still have the old forty-five. That’ll do, if it comes to that.”
John gave Broker a direct fatal look and said, “You know me, I don’t go in for dramatics, right? But we’re talking you and Harry here. If he’s drinking, you wear the gun. Okay?”
Broker nodded. “Gotcha.”
John nodded. “Okay then. We’re on. Just keep it mostly legal.”
Broker smiled thinly. “I won’t alienate any voters, John. I understand you have to get reelected.”
“Good. But we have to put it together fast. Like this morning. I have to go home and pack.”
Broker shrugged. “Let me grab a shower and get dressed. I’ll meet you at the Law Enforcement Center in half an hour.” He pointed at the medallion. “What about this?”
John put it back in the envelope. “It’s going in my safe until I get back.” They walked down the steps toward John’s truck. John shifted from foot to foot and pursed his lips. “Another thing. .”
“What?”
“Keep an eye on this young cop who’s working the case, Lymon Greene. Give me a gut read on him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Sometimes the sheriff is the last to hear what the troops are saying down in the trenches. I want to know why Lymon and Harry are always about an inch from fist city.”
John Eisenhower got in his Bronco, fastened his seat belt, put both hands on the steering wheel. “You know what the troops call rumors about Harry being the Saint-they call it ‘the elephant in the living room.’” He started the truck, then leaned forward feeling with his hand for the cold air to start coming through the A/C vent.
Broker shook his head. “Too hot to go elephant hunting.”
“Broker, the guy needs help. Somebody has to have a Come-to-Jesus with him. I wish it wasn’t you. But he’s got most everybody else either dazzled or buffaloed.” John shook his head. “I never liked Harry, going all the way back to the rookie school in St. Paul. He’s got the best instincts of any cop I ever knew and the worst methods of acting on them.” John paused a few beats and then stared directly at Broker. “And you know that better than anyone.”
Chapter Five
Broker watched John Eisenhower’s Bronco disappear up Milt’s driveway and then stood soaking in the heat as he calculated Harry Cantrell’s influence on his life.
