Homefront. Part 7

Done.

"Al dente, bravo," Kit said in approval, emerging from the half bath off the kitchen. Her expression changed, remembering something. She dashed from the room.

As Broker drained the noodles in the sink, he heard Kit running up the stairs. Nina moved in beside him, began to grate the Parmesan. Their elbows touched.

"You look like a harlot in that getup," he said quietly.

For the first time in a long time, she sideswiped him with her hip.

"Hey," he muttered, his voice close to faltering at the warm pressure of Nina's flank nudging him.

She lowered her painted eyelids, pursed her painted lips. "Stay on task, Broker. You have to discipline your feral child, remember...punching that kid..."

"Right." With a slight lump in his throat, he continued through the efficient stations of his kitchen kata, kata, cleaning as he went, doling out the noodles and then the thick sauce, sprinkling on the cheese, pouring milk for Kit, water for Nina and himself. Placing the bottle of dressing next to the salad bowl. cleaning as he went, doling out the noodles and then the thick sauce, sprinkling on the cheese, pouring milk for Kit, water for Nina and himself. Placing the bottle of dressing next to the salad bowl.

Then he faced his wife across the table, over the relentless, perfectly executed meal he had prepared.

"Dad?" Kit's voice lanced the moment, needling thin with alarm.

"What?" Broker turned.

"I can't find Bunny." Kit came into the kitchen, her forehead a washboard of wrinkles. "She's not in my bed."

Broker and Nina exchanged glances. The stuffed animal was a fixture at the dinner table. "Maybe she's in the truck," Nina said.

Broker nodded. Sometimes she took the stuffed animal to and from school, left it in the backseat. "Go check the truck. It should be open. And while you're out there, bring Ditech back inside."

Kit's mood immediately rebounded. She darted out the door into the garage and called, "Hey, Ditech, where are you, you naughty kitty-"

Broker turned to Nina and raised his hands in a shrug. In less than a minute Kit was back, face bright with cold, her forehead still creased with concern.

"No Bunny. And Dad, there's something wrong with the truck."

Now Broker's forehead was stamped with wrinkles. What?

"The tire's flat," Kit said. "And I can't find Ditech. She's gone gone." Kit's accusing tone brought Broker to his feet.

"Naw, she's just hiding-"

"No, she isn't. I don't hear her bell. C'mere, look," Kit demanded.

Broker followed Kit into the garage. She extended her arm, finger pointing.

Then he saw what she was pointing at as he felt the blast of cold air. The back door to the garage was open, filled with a sudden frenzy of snow.

"You left the door open," Kit said. "There's critters out there, and she's just a little kitty."

"Get inside, it's cold out here," Broker said.

"Right, Dad." Arms folded, Kit stalked back into the house and began to cry. Dad." Arms folded, Kit stalked back into the house and began to cry.

Broker went through the open door. More alert now, he stood on the cold back deck, letting his eyes adjust to the gathering dark. Then he scanned the edge of the forest that ab.u.t.ted the backyard. His fingers moved to the key on the thong around his neck.

He was absolutely certain the door had been closed.

But not locked.

After confirming the flat, he went back inside and told Nina, "Those tires are practically brand-new." He reached for his coat, flipped on the yard light. As he went through the garage, searching for the cat, he thought back over the day, trying to fix on a road event. At the school, maybe? Distracted, had he run up on the curb? That could bust the seams on a radial.

No cat.

He stood in the drive and stared at the Toyota's swayback posture. The left rear tire mashed flat. Focusing. If he climbed the curb this morning, it would have been the right front...

He s.h.i.+vered in a gust of wind. The s.h.i.+ver moved deeper, under his skin; he was merely annoyed, innate suspicion a deeper s.h.i.+ft and stir. He looked up at the black rumpled clouds, suffused with early moonlight. s.h.i.+vered again. He'd need his gloves.

Back in the kitchen, he took the time to address Kit, who sat glumly picking at her food. "Don't worry, we'll find Old Bun." Then he added one of his mom's lines from his own childhood. "Nothing gets lost in the house."

"What about kitty?" Kit demanded.

"I'll put some food in a bowl on the back deck." To Nina he just threw a workmanlike shrug. "Gotta change a flat. Might as well get it out of the way. You guys go on with dinner. I'll just be a few minutes."

Nina raised her hand as if trying to snag an elusive thought from midair. Then she said, "Take out the garbage, pickup in the morning."

He nodded. "Good catch." A positive sign. She was making ordinary connections. But he had his own connections going. As he went out the door, instinct directed his hand toward the heavy-duty flashlight hanging on a lanyard under the shelf where they kept the gloves and hats.

Because...

He just didn't remember hitting anything that could take out a big honking new snow tire. So before he unloaded the jack and wrenches, he walked carefully around the truck, inspecting the tracks in the mashed snow. He recognized the cleat marks of his Eccos, Kit's Sorels. Nothing out of place there. He removed the full-size spare from the undercarriage.

As he pried off the hubcap and loosened the lugs, it continued working on him. He fiddled in the snowpack, making sure it was secure where he set the jack, levered up the jack handle. As the truck heaved up, the obvious racheted up in his mind. He was staring right at it. Stenciled in white type on the side of the rolling garbage bin next to the garage. Klumpe Sanitation. Klumpe Sanitation.

The only thing he'd hit today, in a manner of speaking, was Klumpe.

Efficiently Broker changed the tire, lowered the truck, stowed his tools, and then minutely inspected the pancaked flat with his flashlight. If there was a puncture, it was out of sight, buried deep between the new tread. He tossed the flat in the truck bed, dusted off his work gloves, turned up his collar. Getting colder, the snow starting to squeak under his boots.

Slowly he wheeled the tall garbage bin down the long drive and positioned it, handles back. He scanned up and down the muzzy white ribbon of road. The ridge of snow the plow had thrown up was undisturbed, no sign of a vehicle having stopped on the shoulder near his house.

Okay. Broker fingered the tinfoil pouch of rough-wrapped cigars from his pocket, removed one of the stogies, took out his lighter, and lit up. Slow walk back up the drive.

The usual cautions. Don't a.s.sume. Probably nothing. Still...Klumpe came across as a rube who might strike out. Nutty wife egging him on.

So take a look around, walk the perimeter. Broker retrieved the flashlight and walked a circuit of the house, keeping an eye out for the cat. A few minutes later the flashlight beam picked up a wet yellow-green glare, out of place against the snow. Next to the unused doghouse behind the garage.

Broker stooped and inspected the frozen gob of meat resting in a pool of unfrozen liquid in a brown bowl. He could see the red residue of tomato soup still clinging to the bowl's rim.

Same bowl he'd served Kit lunch in today. Before they went out skiing...when Nina was sleeping upstairs...

Broker immediately switched off the flashlight, a deeper reserve of energy kicking in. He strained his eyes, tracking the tree line, adjusting to the dark.

Had someone been in the house?

Chapter Eleven.

When he arrived back at his truck, Gator stowed his skis in the back, got in, started it up, and cranked the heater all the way over. He blew on his chilled fingers, stroked the warmth on his right side, where the kitty nestled in his pocket. Lit a Camel. Gator stowed his skis in the back, got in, started it up, and cranked the heater all the way over. He blew on his chilled fingers, stroked the warmth on his right side, where the kitty nestled in his pocket. Lit a Camel.

While he waited for the heater to kick in, curious, he removed the folder from under his jacket. Flipped it open.

Hmmm...

Suddenly he didn't need the heater to warm up.

Gator, who considered himself as an entrepreneur, had done time for transporting cocaine, which he saw as a purely economic gamble. A way to make a lot of money fast to finance his own shop. He'd accepted prison as a penalty for flawed planning. He'd never used c.o.ke or anything stronger than the occasional social beer. He believed that stuff about genetic predispositions; given his old man, he eventually gave up even the beer and drew the line at caffeine and nicotine. So he'd never really felt a drug rush.

Maybe this hot trickle fanning out inside his chest was how it feels coming on...

'Cause, no s.h.i.+t! The folder was full of old search warrants.

Fingers trembling, he squinted to make out a handwritten memo. Right there on the top, stapled to the front page. His lips moved, reading the personalized heading: "From the Desk of Dennis Lurrie, Chief of Narcotics Division, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension ..." ..."

Then, oh boy...

To Special f.u.c.king Agent Phillip Broker.Thanks again for the inside work, Phil. I know you won't get credit, but we couldn't have pulled this off without you. It's an argument against your critics, who think you've been out there too long in the cold.

Gator held his breath. This must be how it feels to be in a spotlight, onstage. He paused to stroke the kitten squirming in his pocket.

Lucky black kitty.

He started to read. The deepening cold was forgotten as he struggled through the clumsy cop legalese.

DISTRICT C COURT.

STATE OF M MINNESOTA, COUNTY OF W WAs.h.i.+NGTONSTATE OF M MINNESOTA ) ))SS.COUNTY OF W WAs.h.i.+NGTON ) )APPLICATION FOR S SEARCH W WARRANT.

AND S SUPPORTING A AFFIDAVIT.

Sergeant Harry Cantrell, being first duly sworn upon oath, hereby makes application to this Court for a warrant to search the premises....

Boring, the way they write this stuff. G.o.d...

Since 1994, law enforcement officers, including BCA investigators, investigators of the Was.h.i.+ngton County Sheriff's Office Narcotics Division and the East Metropolitan Area Narcotics Task Force have been involved in an investigation of alleged large-scale drug dealing by John Joseph Turrie, aka "Jojo," and several other persons...

Holy s.h.i.+t!

JOHN JOSEPH TURRIE, AKA "JOJO!"

The type jumped off the page.

Quivering, his lips moved as he skipped back and forth, rereading the name, the date, the address. February 1995. Little over eight years ago.

Everybody in the joint knew about that bust in Bayport. The night Danny Turrie's kid, Jojo, got shot to little pieces by the cops. Resisting arrest, they said. But, Danny T. Holy s.h.i.+t, man; his biker gang ran all the drugs in the joint. Had a regular empire on the streets...

He went back to the top of the doc.u.ment and read it again in the gloomy light. Speed-reading now. Racing over the printed pages...

...A single-family dwelling located at 18230 Fenwick Avenue, City of Bayport, Was.h.i.+ngton County... Avenue, City of Bayport, Was.h.i.+ngton County...

Pages and pages that detailed buys, repeated mention of an undercover operator...all the meticulous constructed ratf.u.c.kery the narcs gloried in. Gator dropped the Camel b.u.t.t that had burned down and scorched his fingers, lit another. Continued to wade through the tortured blocks of type until he came to the last paragraph: WHEREFORE, Affiant requests a search warrant be issued commanding Sergeant Harry Cantrell and other officers, including an undercover BCA officer under his direction and control peace officers, of the State of Minnesota, to enter without announcement of authority and purpose between the hours of 7:00 A A.M. and 8:00 P P.M. to search the hereinbefore described premises motor vehicle person for the above described property and things and to seize said property and things and keep said property and things in custody until the same can be dealt with according to law.

Gator read the last entries on the page. This Cantrell guy's signature sworn before a judge of the District Court on this 20th day of February, 1995.

Officers under his control and direction...including an undercover officer...

Looked at the memo on the front again.

Fingers shaking, he took out his cell phone. No service. Had to get closer to the town tower. He put the truck in gear and drove a few miles down the road until his phone display picked up extended area. Thumbed the number in St. Paul. Hit send. Watched the display connect...

s.h.i.+t. Wait. Think.

There were rules. Getting ahead of himself, like the dummies in the joint. He ended the call, dropped the cell in his lap, and continued to the north end of town until he came to the Last Chance Amoco station and general store. He pulled up to a pump, started the gas, set the automatic feed clip, and walked to the phone booth at the edge of the parking ap.r.o.n.

Dropped in six quarters and punched in the St. Paul number.

Got the machine. Sheryl Mott's voice, sounding very officious, like she was a high-powered executive secretary in some corporation instead of a waitress at Ciatti's in St. Paul.

"I can't take your call at the moment. Please leave a message."

He pictured Sheryl's apartment off Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Like the cosmetics aisle at Target tipped over. He'd been unable to get it together in her s.p.a.ce. Went in her bathroom one morning and couldn't find the sink, it was so covered with cosmetics and shampoo bottles. But, on the other hand, when she road-tripped...

So, grinning, he left the message: "Hiya, Sheryl, this is Joe at Rapid Oil Change. You're overdue on your three-thousand-mile service. Probably need your fluids checked, too." Then he left a made-up number and ended the call. She'd like the humor. Wouldn't like it if he came off all hyped up.

He went back to his truck, reseated the nozzle in the pump, and went in to pay. Remembering the kitty in his pocket, he grabbed a gallon of whole milk and a sack of Chef 's Blend Cat food. After paying for the gas and items, he walked back out to his truck. A black Ford Ranger had pulled in behind him to gas up, and he nodded at Teedo Dove, the hulking Indian dude who stood watching the numbers tick off on the pump. Teedo gave him back one of those great stone-face barest of nods. Ugly f.u.c.ker looked like one of those Easter Island statues. Worked for Harry Griffin, on his stone crew. Small world.

Then he climbed back in his truck. Heading back up 12 toward his farm, he imagined Sheryl swinging her b.u.t.t between the tables, balancing a tray on her shoulder.

Man, he needed another set of eyes to look over his find, to vet it. And what Sheryl had going for her, among other things, was a steel-trap mind.

Oh, boy.