The Price of Blood Part 10

"He's tricky, we lost him in the trees. Mark swung down to the sh.o.r.e in case he was coming up from the beach. Then I saw him creeping toward your place. He went in and I came running and he comes flying out the screen door with the banshee. She a new love interest?"

"That would be too simple." Broker shivered, bare-chested in jeans and tennis shoes.

"This some kind of snaky UC s.h.i.t that followed you up from the Cities?"

Broker shook his head. "This is personal. Can you take him down and put him on ice, no rights, no phone call, nothing. I'll get dressed and meet you at the station. We'll have a talk with him."

"Okay, but I'll have to wake up Tom. This guy's really a cop. He's in our jurisdiction without bonafides."

"This has nothing to do with police work."

"I gotta take the stuff he was bringing out of your house."

Broker nodded. "Just keep it quiet."

"Gotcha." Lyle went back up the steps. "On your feet," he ordered.

"How 'bout you take off the cuffs, huh?" said Fret. "Seeing's I'm a brother officer-"

"You ain't s.h.i.t," said Lyle. "I saw on Sixty Minutes last week about the NOPD. Feds busted twenty of you guys and the crime rate in New Orleans went down eighteen percent."

"Listen, d.i.c.khead, I realize you got it rough up here in the woods going round scooping bear s.h.i.t off the roads-"

"Move," said Lyle Torgeson. With a menacing glance, Broker warned Nina to stay clear as he handed the map over to Lyle. Coated with gooseb.u.mps, he walked Lyle and his prisoner up the drive to Lyle's cruiser. Mark Halme shined his flashlight and led Broker into the thick brush on the shoulder of the highway. They stopped and Broker knelt and put his hand on the still warm mound of dark fur.

Halme shined his light on the silver whistle and the electric stun gun that lay next to the dog's body. He speculated, "That guy had a lot of b.a.l.l.s letting that dog in close enough to zap him with the Tazer."

"Real good or real desperate," said Broker.

"I already took some pictures. I'll be at the cabin the rest of the night in case there's more of them," said Halme. He gingerly folded the Tazer and the whistle in plastic evidence bags and backed away, giving Broker some room.

Broker jerked nervously. Mosquitoes starting to flock. He fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes and matches from his pocket, lit up, and blew smoke at the insects. It was quiet now except for the waves breaking on the sh.o.r.e. Hyper alert, he could hear his sweat dry, feel the salt crack on his skin.

He took his vows seriously. He'd upheld the ones he'd sworn to the U.S. Const.i.tution and to the people of Minnesota. His failed marriage he still wore like crippling chains.

The Cyrus LaPorte he had known wouldn't use the likes of Bevode Fret. For the first time he formed the thought that maybe it was LaPorte who had not minded his vows. But it was wrapped in hot angry instinct.

For the dog alone I'll hurt you bad, General.

Back off. Think. Cool gears of reason shifted through the wrath. Sorting it. Delaying it. He lifted the huge shepherd in his arms and plodded back to the cabin. Nina confronted him, shaking in her torn shirt. There were purple claw marks down her shoulder and on both arms. She had trouble breathing.

"Now you believe me," she insisted and her voice rasped, barely under control. Then she saw the dead animal. "Aw, G.o.d."

Broker nodded and laid Tank down. Then he noticed the blood oozing from her bruised throat in the porch light. The dark shape of Fret's thumb prints. "Your neck?"

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d tried to choke me."

"I'll take you to the hospital-"

"I don't need a f.u.c.king hospital. I need some f.u.c.king help."

Broker patiently h.o.a.rded his anger, pushing it into his heart like icy bullets into a spring-loaded magazine. "Get cleaned up, make some coffee. There's a cop named Mark Halme staying close. I'll be back after I talk to this Fret."

"He won't tell you anything."

Broker squinted in the harsh light at the damage on her throat. Sonofab.i.t.c.h, she'd been fighting for her life.

"He'll tell me a lot," he said slowly. "But I'll tell him more and then he'll tell LaPorte..."

Nina shook her head in a quandary of pain and anger. Broker clamped a hand on her shivering shoulder. "You're not alone anymore, okay?"

She set her lips to keep them from quivering. "We're going to take LaPorte down," she said.

Broker narrowed his eyes. "We'll see. I'm on my way to lay the opening move on Fret."

Nina collapsed into his arms in a tremendous release of anxiety and laughed. Quickly she sobered. "Where do you keep a pick and shovel?" she asked, squaring her shoulders. "You can't dig with that hand and your dad can't and I sure as h.e.l.l won't let Irene do it."

Broker knelt and patted the stiffening fur. "Wait for Mike. He'll want to pick the spot."

19.

THE NORTH Sh.o.r.e DAWN ROLLED THE FOG IN OFF the big water and glossed the black granite boulders with glacier sweat and it was the first day of June. Broker stood on the waterfront across from the police station and sipped coffee and waited for Tom Jeffords. Lyle was inside the cop shop running Fret on the computer.

Jeffords showed up in sweats, running shoes, and a light windbreaker. Unshaven, he nodded as he eased from his Chevy pickup. He reached out his hand for Broker's coffee cup and took a sip. "Lyle says we got big city bulls.h.i.t before breakfast?"

"f.u.c.ker killed Mike's dog."

"Lyle told me. Why, Phil?"

"Remember that kid who stayed with Kim and I? Nina Pryce."

"Sure. Your army brat surrogate kid sister, the celebrity."

"She grew up," Broker said laconically. "This guy says he's a cop followed her up here from New Orleans. Played real rough with her."

"Lyle's got him for burglarizing your house and a.s.sault. The dog will be impossible to prove. He could claim self-defense. You want to press the breaking and entering?"

"Not yet. Want to talk to him first."

"This headed in the direction of me doing you a favor?"

"I'd appreciate it."

Jeffords turned Broker's injured hand in his fingers, winced and said mildly, "You started smoking again."

They went into the station and Lyle handed them a sheet of fax paper. "He's dirty. Administrative leave from NOPD, implicated in narcotics and two homicides. Case dropped. Circ.u.mstantial. No witnesses. Sound familiar?" Lyle handed over a plastic card. "He also had this in his wallet. Registered PI with New Orleans."

"Big deal," said Jeffords, "you can send away to a magazine and get one of those."

Lyle held up the map. "All this trouble over a piece of paper."

Jeffords unrolled the map. "Hmmm. This is the coast of...Vietnam." He took out a sheet of paper that had been rolled inside the map. The murky graphic could have been a close-up of a rock formation in a lunar crater. "What's this?"

Broker had avoided taking a good look at the contents of Nina's briefcase up until now. He shrugged, but he felt his stomach tighten and the part of his mind that was an intricate museum of facts drew a connection to a picture he'd seen in a National Geographic article. Sidescan sonar. A shape emerged in the wavy gray lines. The unmistakable rotor masts of a Chinook cargo helicopter. Not on the moon, on the ocean bottom. He looked at Tom and shrugged. "I don't know. Yet." Then he said, "Is there a Xerox in town big enough to copy the map and this thing, good copy?"

"Maybe at the hospital," said Jeffords.

"Could Lyle run copies on the QT while we talk to this guy?"

"I can do that," said Lyle. "One other thing. I had Gloria at the motel pull his phone bill. He made two calls to New Orleans and received one back. All the same number. Listed to a Cyrus LaPorte."

Broker instinctively disliked former New Orleans detective sergeant Bevode Fret. Not just because he wore a men's cologne that had little girls in its ads. Or because he oozed casual superhero violence out of a Nietzschean comic book. When Broker walked into the detention room where they were holding Fret, the southern cop nodded and smiled at him in sinister welcome.

Like he was proud of the brawny backwoods mojo that enabled him to lure a big dangerous animal into killing range. Like he was in control.

The Louisianan sat at a small table under bright electric lights. His lanky frame was relaxed on a folding chair as, tentatively, he sipped from a Styrofoam cup of coffee. He had a bandage on his big jaw and a puffy bruise down his left cheek. He had meticulously combed his duck-b.u.t.t hair. The charcoal gray, athletic-cut tropical suit he wore must have cost eight hundred bucks. With a twinge of disgust, Broker noticed the prominent day-old suck mark on his neck under his left ear. Vain Elvis boy has a hickey.

"You gonna charge me?" he asked as Broker and Jeffords entered the interrogation room.

"How's B&E and felony a.s.sault sound?" said Jeffords.

"Where's the felony? She had the shotgun, bro, not me. I ain't carrying. Got no permit up here."

Broker did not mention the marks on Nina's throat or the dog. That would be a personal discussion he'd have later. He said, "You came through my door at four A.M. You didn't knock."

"Door was open."

"Door was locked," said Broker.

Fret shrugged. "Opened for me. I just walked in. Was going to collect some things that didn't belong to her and quietly be on my way. She jumped me."

Jeffords folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Broker sat down in the other chair, facing Fret.

Fret grinned. "Give me my rights and my phone call. I ain't saying do-do."

Broker and Jeffords stared at him. His muddy hazel eyes did not waver. His grin broadened. "Didn't think so. This ain't the kind of situation we want getting more complicated than it already is for you guys or my client."

"Tom, could Sergeant Fret and I could talk privately?" asked Broker.

"Sure, just keep the door open."

Fret grinned again, showing alligator rows of teeth. "You the local bada.s.s? Going to trip me down some stairs?"

"Talk," repeated Broker. Jeffords nodded and left them alone. "I'm a cop," said Broker.

"Yeah, so I gathered when I saw the army bust into your house in Stillwater. Checked you out..." A little honey humor ran with the mud in Fret's eyes and he let Broker fill in the blanks. Fret knew he had history with LaPorte and Nina and they were talking between the lines. "You're the kind of cop who don't wear a uniform. So if you're a cop why you been driving that c.u.n.t around?"

"Her name's Nina Pryce," said Broker.

"Yeah, the nasty little c.u.n.t who wormed her way into my client's social circle and then robbed some items."

"What're you getting at?" asked Broker.

"She took some stuff. I take it back. Everything's copacetic. Oh yeah," Fret loosened his features and like some lightbulb coming on in the dungeon of his mind, he recollected, "my client has a soft spot for the...girl. That's why he didn't charge her down home. Yet."

"We checked your phone calls. You work for Cyrus LaPorte."

"General Cyrus LaPorte."

"And he has a soft spot for Miss Pryce?"

Fret smiled and shifted into a lazy intimate tone of voice, a personal touch that southerners seemed to own as a birthright and that Broker resented because it was absent in himself. "It's like this," said Fret reasonably. "Mr. LaPorte and the girl's daddy were in the army together. Some f.u.c.kin' thing way back. She blames General LaPorte for her daddy's shortcomings, you could say. She's messed up her life behind this s.h.i.t and the general don't necessarily want to lean on her. He'd be willing to let it go if he gets his stuff back and some kind of understanding she leaves him alone." Fret knit his thick blond eyebrows in a convincing display of concern.

"What's the big deal about this map?" asked Broker.

"Not real sure on that, bro," said Fret, smiling broadly and winking. "Not my area of expertise. Something to do with illegal oil drilling General LaPorte detected over in Asia. General LaPorte has these do-good projects, sorta like Jimmy Carter, you understand. Some deal with the Vietnamese government. If it gets in the wrong hands, it could create a problem. But it ain't the paper. It's her intent. General LaPorte is a prominent member of the community. Don't need extra ha.s.sle from a nutcase."

"So you're up here on a goodwill mission?"

"Yeah," said Fret. "Just my nature, I guess." He paused and ma.s.saged his hands together and a lazy, bullying contempt surfaced in his swampy eyes. "You could say all my life big dogs been lickin' my hand."

The ugly challenge hung like smoke between them. The barest of smiles drew down Broker's lips. This new ogre was intentionally goading him.

Fret, enjoying himself, asked, "You her boyfriend, huh?"

"Friend of the family," Broker said.

"Oh yeah?" said Fret. They were playing a game. Broker didn't mind games.

"Yeah," said Broker. "She's been...upset. Since her mother died. She doesn't need any more c.r.a.p in her life."

Fret became absorbed in dusting at a dirt smudge on his trousers with his big hands. And Broker chastised himself for being so cavalier about security last night. Fret had contempt for them, and he was vain. Mind the threads. He had worn a suit. He didn't expect to get dirty. He had planned to get caught. I'm letting you do this, you understand. Just a s.a.d.i.s.tic sonofab.i.t.c.h who couldn't resist killing something. Casually, Fret looked up. "She don't count, bro. Turns out now it's you the general wants to talk to."

Broker stood up. "I'll be in touch."

"Do that," said Fret. As Broker left the room he sang out, "Hey, sun's coming up. Can a guy get some breakfast?"

Jeffords pushed off the wall when Broker came into the hall. "How long can you hold him?" Broker asked.

"Thirty-six-hour rule," said Jeffords. "Which doesn't include weekends. So it's Sat.u.r.day. So I can run him up to county and lock him up and the clock will start as of midnight on Sunday. We don't have to charge him till noon on Tuesday. That give you enough time?"

"That'll do just fine."