killing off Bodines, his own family.
That left Cassie. And him.
Got him thinking how there’s wolves and there’s wolves, like the alpha wolves who cull the pack.
He had watched Broker chopping wood in back of his house that first day. But he’d only seen him up close once. Fast but close, going past him on the ski trail. But he got a good look at the man’s severe agate eyes under those shaggy eyebrows. Thinking back on it now, Broker looked sort of like a wolf.
To hear Sheryl tell it, this Shank fella was a real pro. Looks like they were going to find out.
Gator looked up at the dark wall of nimbostratus clouds coming in low-snow clouds. He shook off the chill, dumped his coffee, walked to the house, went inside, and shut the door tightly against the baying of the hunting pack. Dumb, thinking like this.
He jumped when the wall phone rang in the kitchen. Approached it tentatively. Picked it up and heard Barnie Sheffeld’s gritty voice. Barnie had the antique Case on display at his implement showroom in Bemidji.
“Thought you might want to know,” Barney said. “Got a buyer for that Case. When it’s all wrapped up, you be looking at eighteen thousand, how’s that.”
“Hey, Barnie, that’s great,” Gator said, grinning.
After a few more pleasantries they ended the call, and Gator paced the cramped kitchen. It was like a sign.
Like-after all the planning and hard work, he and Sheryl were going to succeed. He was dreaming barefoot, sand between his toes. Boat engines would be cleaner than country tractors. Surf and sun. No more skinning his knuckles in a freezing junkyard, looking for parts. He’d take his time. Put together his own boat. An island runner. Things to learn, navigation, charts…
Never seen the ocean. Just Lake Superior.
Damn. He cocked his head and imagined a gruff shadowy gremlin god for grease monkeys and dope-dealing jailbirds who rewarded hard work.
Imagined this crafty demon looking up from counting his money. Imagined him smiling.
Chapter Forty-one
At 8:03 on a sunny but brisk cloudless Monday morning Shank wheeled the gray Nissan Maxima to the curb in front of Grand and Dale Drugs, where Sheryl was standing in dress jeans, boots with two-inch heels, a slightly clingy blouse, and her good leather car coat. No hat, no gloves, no scarf. As she got in the passenger side, she missed the way he appraised her choice of clothing, like it might be a problem.
“Hey,” she said, upbeat, scanning the leather interior. “Nice wheels.”
Pulling smoothly into traffic, Shank pointed to an envelope on the dash. “Check it out,” he said.
Sheryl picked it up, an old Fotomat envelope with a blurred date entered in ballpoint, “7/23/92.” She opened the flap and pulled out a stack of four-by-six colored photographs. An almost starry moistness came to her eyes when she saw the top one; the old gang in better times, more hair showing, bare-chested, tank tops, tattoos taking the summer sun…maybe two dozen guys and their old ladies, clustered around a tall ponytailed already gray eminence. Danny Turrie, hands on hips in the middle, anchoring the crowd. They were arranged linking arms in a cluster. This smoky pile of dirt in the foreground. And there she was right in front, ten years younger, nut brown in cutoffs and a bikini top. Blissed-out grin on her face…musta been tripping…
“Jesus, this was-” She thought back.
“Uh-huh. Back in the day. The pig roast, on the bluff out at Danny’s Lakeland place. Before my time,” Shank said.
“Where’d you get these?”
“Spent all day yesterday tracking them down. Joey Chatters took them.”
“I know Joey,” Sheryl said.
“He ain’t doing so good, type-two diabetes,” Shank said.
“Jeez, next to Danny, that’s-”
“Yep. Jojo, holding a bottle of Bacardi. Check out the dude in front, with the shovel. Take your time.”
Sheryl sorted through the pictures. They diagrammed a process; the crowd watching the lean guy with the shovel, shirt off, glistening with sweat, tiger muscled. No tattoos. He was digging into the smoky coals, opening a hole in the pit, unearthing a long greasy bundle. He had shaggy dark hair, prominent cheekbones, and these heavy eyebrows that grew almost together in a line across his forehead.
“I sorta remember him, we called him…” Sheryl bit her lip, concentrating.
“Eyebrows, you called him Eyebrows back then,” Shank said.
“Yeah,” Sheryl said. “Eyebrows. He roasted the pig. Wasn’t patched, sort of a-”
“Handyman, helped Danny out. Made himself useful,” Shank said. He had turned off Dale onto westbound I- 94, accelerated into the rush-hour traffic. “Remember, Saturday, I asked you if you had a picture?”
“No shit; that’s
“Up north,” Shank said.
“Yeah,” Sheryl said.
“I spent all Sunday talking to three people in those pictures, they all remember clearly the guy’s name was Phil Broker.”
“You been busy,” Sheryl said.
Shank shrugged. “You got a job, sometimes you have to actually do it, huh. Ain’t done yet. I need one more ID.”
Sheryl thought about that as Shank expertly threaded the car through lanes of traffic on the 280 curve near the University of Minnesota; the IDS tower up ahead, Minneapolis skyline catching the morning sun.
Seeing the question taking shape on her face, Shank gave her a sidelong glance and asked, “How do you usually drive to Glacier Falls?”
So it was happening fast, Sheryl thought. Important now to lean forward, into it. She answered crisply, “I take 94 to St. Cloud, then pick up 371 going north, then west on Highway 2. Gets a little tricky when we head north again past Bemidji.”
Shank focused on her. “How, tricky?”
“We’ll bypass Glacier Falls, work a jigsaw on back roads. Gator says, in the winter, the locals notice every new car. This Nissan will be like a neon sign. We gotta come in the back way, like that.”
“Gotcha.” Shank nodded and concentrated on working through a cluster of cars. When he passed then, he said, “Here’s the deal. We do a photo spread for Gator just like the cops do. If he picks Broker out, we’re in business.” He removed his right hand from the wheel and gave her a thumbs-up.
Sheryl exhaled and leaned back in the seat. “I gotta call Gator. We got this system. I page him, he goes to a pay phone, then I call from a pay phone…”
Shank said, “We’ll wait till we get free of the metro, then we’ll stop. Gotta have breakfast anyway. And keep your eye out for an outfitters. I checked the weather; you’re gonna need some boots, a sweater, gloves, stuff like that. We could hit some snow. I got stuff in the trunk but I don’t think it’ll fit you.”
“Thanks,” Sheryl said, “that’s thoughtful of you.”
Shank shrugged. “Hey, no biggie; I’ll expense it.”
They settled back for a few miles, Sheryl thinking about what he had in the trunk. Jesus. She’d see soon enough. Then Shank began to talk, casual, to pass the time.
“You know Joey, how he loves to talk? Well, he told me about that whole day of the pig roast. Broker shows up the day before. He’s got a load of firewood in his truck, has the pig on ice from a butcher shop. He digs this pit, oh, four feet deep, and starts a fire…” He turned to her. “Joey says, Danny’s coming out of the house, bringing him a beer, whatever he needs. See, Danny was always interested in learning new things. Like how to roast a pig.”
“Yeah,” Sheryl said. “Danny didn’t miss much.”
“Missed this fucker.” Shank pursed his lips. “Can you imagine those fucking narcs, sitting in a bar, yukking it up about roasting a pig. Some of those assholes have these little pig studs they wear in their ears when they hang
