Homefront. Part 14

All afternoon he'd driven the roads, his thoughts accelerating. He'd lost something. A cushion between his skin and everything else in the world. More and more he felt pressed right up against days full of sharp edges. It was a new sensation for him. Life hurt.

Wasn't hard to figure out why.

If she really was thawing out...then the truce that had existed between them as he nursed her would also melt away. They'd be right back where they were before Northern Route tricked weird-facing the unresolved issue in their marriage.

Would she go back into the Army?

Would he revert to dangling military spouse? Would Kit again become a bouncing ball between Nina's duty stations overseas and Broker playing stay-at-home mom?

Suddenly he was in a trip-wire region of resentments that had suspended, hang fire, during her bout of depression. When would they get aired? For starters, she had used Kit as part of her undercover ploy to penetrate the smuggling ring in North Dakota.

So d.a.m.n consumed by her G.o.dd.a.m.n mission, she put our daughter in the potential line of fire.

The feud with Jimmy Klumpe was forgotten as he tipped into the pit of grievances he had been saving up.

But.

One day does not spell recovery. Go slow. She was still balanced on the lip of her own pit. So Broker stuffed the clamor back in his head. He carried an armload of oak into the kitchen, built a fire in the Franklin stove, and went through the motions of creating his perfect family hour.

He boiled water for noodles, reheated spaghetti sauce, tossed a salad. Kit came into the kitchen, arms clamped across her chest, dagger-eyed. "Mom is getting mean," she said.

"No, Mom is getting better. You set the table."

He followed her as she placed the plates. Then made sure she got the fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right.

Then he served the food and announced, "Mangia." One of Kit's favorite imports from her time in Tuscany.

They took their seats.

Kit, eyes down, stared into her spaghetti. The vertical intensity lines made deep dents in her brow.

Nina raised her fork, chewed dutifully, and made an attempt to keep the new normal rolling. "This is good. I'm impressed."

Broker shrugged.

She continued. "You know, I think Irene is right..."

He looked up at the mention of his mother. "About what?" he said, not used to ordinary conversation with her.

"Well," she said, "Irene has this theory your stifled creativity gets expressed in odd ways; like in the kitchen, and in the role-playing of undercover work."

They studied each other in a perfectly routine way for two people who had been married for eight years, who had a child, who knew where all the hot b.u.t.tons were.

Broker averted his eyes, turned to Kit. "So how's your food?"

Kit let her fork drop, sat back in her chair, folded her arms tight, and planted her chin on her chest.

"Kit, I asked you a question."

"If the wolves didn't eat her, she's gonna freeze to death." Not looking up.

"Not now. There's other stuff we have to talk about, like what happened today at school. How's the new homeroom?" Broker asked, a bit testy.

Kit raised her eyes in full glower. "She's the only friend I got to play with. You won't let me bring anybody over."

"C'mon, honey, you know it's just for a little while." Broker was speaking gently to Kit, but his eyes moved to Nina's face, concerned the subject would rub her wrong.

"You always say that. But it's not a little while," Kit said. Her eyes flashed up, shot an accusing look at Nina, ducked down again.

Nina's fork trembled in her fingers. Broker reacted. His hand a blur, he snapped the fork in midair before it fell into the plate.

Broker's sudden movement made his daughter snap alert, wary. Seeing her uncertainty, he slowly set the fork back on the table where it belonged on the left side of Nina's plate. Then he placed his hands, palms down, on either side of his plate and spoke slowly. "Look, we've been over this. Mom needs to get better, okay..."

Kit slowly bobbed her head and said, "Right. So when kids ask me over to play, I have to make excuses why I can't because you don't want to meet the parents or have them over here and then the kids don't ask me anymore and I wind up playing alone on the playground. Dad! They think I'm weird."

Nina said in a calm voice. "She's right, Broker. No surprise they're starting to pick on her. We should have left her with your folks."

Broker shook his head and said firmly, "No, she's been left left with people half her life." with people half her life."

Kit grimaced. "It's not my fault that Auntie Jane and those people died," she cried, tearing up. "Why do I have to get punished for it?"

Broker and Nina locked eyes; unspoken between them the charge they had robbed their daughter of innocence. Abruptly Nina pushed her chair back from the table. "This isn't working. We should have left her with your parents," she restated in a taut, hard voice.

Broker put out his hands in a pacifying gesture. He was losing control of the situation. "Okay. Nina, calm down. We'll start over."

That's when the phone rang.

Broker stared at the Bakelite relic on the wall. When he didn't move to answer it, Nina got up, picked up the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo." Pause, then, "Not bad, how's yourself." Her eyes turned to Broker. "It's Griffin."

Broker heaved up from his chair, took the receiver, put it to his ear.

"I figured you'd you'd be calling be calling me me. Looks like you got a little situation going," Harry Griffin said, his voice coming to a point.

Good old blunt direct Harry. "Oh, yeah," Broker said ambiguously.

"You met Keith Nygard, right?"

"We met," Broker said.

"Well, being the sheriff, he don't exactly need an invite. But he stopped in to see me. He's here right now, he's got some questions for you. Figured he'd put me in the picture. He's low-key, likes to keep it friendly. He ain't in uniform. Tell Nina it's about the crew. Ah, put on your coat and boots. You might be taking a ride."

Broker picked up the cordless phone from the counter, hung up the rotary, and walked into the living room. When he was out of earshot, he asked, "What'd you tell him? About me?"

"Not a whole lot. That you were a cop; but he'd pretty much figured that out. Up to you how much more you tell him. But he ain't dumb. Relax, this dustup with Jimmy Klumpe is nothing major, humor him. We'll be over in half an hour," Griffin said, ending the call.

Broker walked back in the kitchen and hung up the phone. Saw Nina and Kit watching him. They didn't get many phone calls. "Griffin's coming over with a friend. Wants to talk," he said, sitting down at the table.

He felt Nina's eyes map his body language. Christ, she Christ, she is is coming back coming back. All the deadly green range-finding optics swimming into focus.

Broker shrugged and sat back down at the table. "Something about the stone crew."

"Uh-huh," Nina said.

"Yeah. Wants to look over the woodpile. Maybe take a drive, check out a job."

"In the dark?" Nina wondered.

"You know Griffin-when he gets an idea in his head, he never quits." Broker let the thought hang. Then he turned to Kit and said, "C'mon. Eat your dinner." He picked up his fork and looked down at his own plate, where the spaghetti lay twisted in a meaty red coil like a belly wound.

The sheriff. Great.

Chapter Twenty-one.

The first time Broker laid eyes on Harry Griffin was thirty-two years ago-this surreal red figure from a Fellini movie that emerged from the soaking white morning mist next to a sandbar in the Trieu Phong River. Griffin had been walking point with a squad of Popular Forces, moving between night positions. A roving ambush. He collided with a VC point man on a muddy trail, and they exchanged fire point-blank in the fog. The Viet Cong's AK rounds ripped through the red smoke grenades that had been hanging off the side of Griffin's radio, and the smoke seeped out and completely coated him in the thick chemical pigment; his hair, his teeth, his skin, and his gear.They met because of a bomb.Buck sergeant Griffin, the radio man on the local district advisory team, had killed the lead VC. The rest scattered. He also killed two water buffalo on the trail behind the VC point. The animals made an unreal racket going down, but not so loud that Griffin didn't hear the screeching metal ricochet. The Viet Cong had been moving four buffalo across the river. The two dead animals and the two survivors were lashed together with a bamboo yoke on which they were transporting an unexploded 2,000-pound bomb."Well, I'll be dipped in red s.h.i.t," Griffin had said to brand-new Second Lieutenant Phil Broker, who had choppered in from Hue City with Major Ray Pryce and a gaggle of bra.s.s to inspect the find.They met again, a short while later, in the cauldron battle for Quang Tri City. They stayed together until the end, in '75.

Broker, with a flashlight in his pocket, stood in the driveway smoking a cigar as Harry Griffin eased up the drive in his runaround vehicle, a '99 Jeep Sport. His work truck was still on the hoist at Luchta's. Griffin parked next to the Tundra and got out. He was in his late fifties now, and as he approached, Broker saw how the harsh yard light really dug into the creases and hollows under his gaunt cheekbones. After way more Peter Pan years than a guy should have, Detroit Harry was finally starting to look his age.

Griffin was alone. He walked up to Broker, followed him through the garage to the back deck, and glanced at the video flicker in the kitchen windows.

"Why do I get the feeling she ain't watching Survivor Survivor?" Griffin said.

"The War in the Box," Broker said.

"She feels left out, huh?" Griffin asked.

Broker shook his head. Not so much an answer as a weary dismissal of the subject. He did notice, even in the dark, that Griffin was watching him closely.

"You're no fun," Griffin said, "don't want to talk about the war-everybody's talking about the war; how cool it is. Reporters gushing all over themselves, getting to ride on tanks..." He paused, nodded toward the TV flicker. "How's she doing? I was surprised she answered the phone. She sounded more like her old self."

Broker nodded. "She coming out of it." Looked back through the garage. "Where's the local copper?"

Griffin shrugged. "A few minutes behind me."

"What's he know?"

"I been living up here ten years, so he knows me, some of what I did in the Army. He's called me a couple times, to help out in a pinch." Griffin shrugged. "Knows we were on the same team in the old days."

"Great, what else did you tell him?"

"Hey, numb-nuts, you were the one whipped a Kansas City lateral restraint on Jimmy Klumpe yesterday. Keith says you did it perfect, like it was pure reflex. Says he learned the technique in Skills and never has been able to get it right."

Broker turned and looked at the bluish flicker of the TV in the kitchen. "Does he-"

Griffin shook his head. "No. Nothing about her."

Broker changed the subject, poking Griffin not quite playfully on the shoulder. "Talked to Susan Hatch at the school today, huh? Actually, she she talked to talked to me me. She got right down to cases, asking questions about Kit. And me. Let it slip she knew you in the biblical sense. What have you you been telling been telling her her, like in bed?"

The question hung unanswered in the falling snow as a pair of headlights swept across the tree line to the side of the yard. Broker and Griffin walked back through the garage into the driveway. Keith Nygard drove a gray Ford Ranger, not his Sheriff 's Department cruiser. He parked it next to Griffin's Jeep, got out in jeans, a Filsen parka, and bulky La Crosse boots. He walked over to the two older men.

"He's okay," Griffin said, watching the sheriff approach. "Young but okay."

Broker nodded and said by way of greeting, "Sheriff."

"Jimmy Klumpe called the office today and lodged a complaint; says somebody dumped a can full of garbage at his office door. His driver, coming back from a route saw a green Tundra leaving the yard." Nygard said. His wire-rim gla.s.ses gleamed in the yard light, the lenses slightly fogged.

"That why you're here?" Broker asked.

"You tell me." Nygard's voice was low, almost quiet. His hard cop stare, however, was unmistakable in the bad light. Broker matched him, stare for stare.

"Guys," Griffin chided.

Broker relented, dropped his eyes. "Okay. This morning Klumpe was driving the truck that collected my canister. He picked it up with the hydraulic auto reach arm, then dumped it deliberately in the ditch and drove away. Took his time so's I got a good look at his face. I guess I overreacted, considering all the strange s.h.i.t that's been going on."

"Define strange s.h.i.t?" Nygard asked.

"This way," Broker said, starting to walk. They fell in step through the snow in the backyard. Stopped at the side of the garage by the doghouse. Broker shined his flashlight on the bowl of meatball antifreeze. "That showed up last night," Broker said. "Right after I found a brand-new tire flat on my truck. Had it repaired-old man Luchta said it was a puncture."

"You have a dog?" Nygard asked.

Broker shook his head and motioned to the two other men to follow him. As they left the radius of the yard light, Broker pointed the way up the connecting trail.

When they came to the ski pole where the trails T-boned, Broker stopped and switched on the light. Griffin and Nygard continued forward, stood looking at the stuffed bunny for a full minute. Slowly Griffin took out a pack of cigarettes and an old Zippo lighter. He lit the cigarette, put the lighter back in his pocket, then turned to Broker.

"b.l.o.o.d.y nose to crucified bunny. He escalated on you," he said.

"Every morning Kit makes her bed and puts that bunny in the same exact place on her pillow. Last night after the tire and the antifreeze happened, the toy was missing. I'm thinking somebody was in my house yesterday when Kit and I where out on the ski trail. Maybe he was watching the house, waiting until we left..." Maybe he was watching the house, waiting until we left..."

"What about your wife? Was she home?" Nygard asked.

"She wasn't feeling good and was taking a nap when we left," Broker said.

Nygard waited for Broker to continue. When he didn't, Griffin steered off Nina, asking Nygard, "Jimmy?"

Nygard nodded. "He's dumb enough to do something like this, 'specially if Ca.s.sie was egging him on."

"There's more," Broker said, extended his hand, finger pointing. "Check the collar around the bunny's neck. Our kitten disappeared last night. Nina and Kit think the cat got out because I left the garage door open."

"Was the door open?" Nygard asked. the door open?" Nygard asked.

"No," Broker said. Then he bit his lip, thought. "I don't think it was."