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  Call the sheriff ’s office and say what? Speculate that Klumpe knifed his tire and tried to poison a dog Broker didn’t own? How would that sound to a rural sheriff? Like some wimpy overreaction.

  He turned away from the phone and walked into the living room. This was the kind of community where a certain amount of solving one’s own problems was the norm.

  Which brought him in front of a red-and-black-patterned Hmong quilt hung on a portion of the wall. Nina had picked up the quilt in a Hanoi street market, back in ’96. Broker tacked the hems to dowels top and bottom and rigged a cord-and-pulley system so the quilt could be raised.

  The purpose was functional, not decorative. He raised it now, tied it off on the hook on the wall, and stared at two stout oak cabinet doors three feet long. Griffin had crafted this locker with stout hasps that Broker kept fastened with a thick Yale lock. He carried the key to the lock on a leather thong around his neck.

  The lock and hasps were untouched.

  But he withdrew the key and opened the lock, slipped it from the hasps, and opened the sturdy doors. A faint scent of solvent and gun oil seeped from the cabinet.

  The interior was taller than the dimensions of the doors suggested and held a built-in gun rack and some shelves, two drawers across the bottom. The rack held a .12-gauge pump shotgun, the heavy-barreled .257 Roberts that Broker favored for whitetail hunting, and an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle. A green canvas case lay on a shelf and contained Nina’s Colt model 1911 .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Four cleaning kits, one for each weapon, were stacked on the shelves. The drawers held empty magazines for the assault rifle, clips for the pistol, and several boxes of ammunition.

  His hand briefly touched the black plastic stock of the assault rifle. He selected the shotgun and a box of .00 buck. Then he closed the cabinet, replaced the lock, snapped it shut. Lowered the hanging. Then he set the shotgun against the wall and paused at the foot of the stairs, listening to Nina’s voice, reading to Kit.

  The bunny would turn up. Always did. Christ, man, settle down. The bowl could have been on the back deck, and the tire could be a slow leak. A defect. The antifreeze in the bowl was real enough. A thrown elbow. Petty payback for his morning. Okay. He could play that game if it came to that.

  But he had to find the cat. Kit was right; there were things in the woods that would scarf her up.

  So he climbed the stairs, entered the bedroom, and kissed his daughter good night, Nina on the cheek. He reassured Kit that cats always land on their feet. It really wasn’t that cold. The kitty would come home to eat. And Old Bun would turn up, like she always did.

  After he had helped deliver the necessary clichés, he left them curled up with an American Girl Doll book. He came back down the stairs, put a bowl of cat food on the back deck, rattled it a few times, went inside. As he retrieved the shotgun, he stopped and solidly faced the fact he hadn’t kissed his wife on the lips for months. Nor had she offered those lips to be kissed.

  Broker pulled on his boots, coat, a felt hat, and gloves. He stepped into the garage and pushed four shells into the shotgun, racked the slide, and set the safe. His gut told him that the door didn’t open by itself. The snow had stopped. Four fresh inches made a clean slate of the back deck. Switching on his flashlight, he walked out into the yard. Looking up, he saw that the lights in Kit’s bedroom had been turned off. A fitful northwest wind grumbled across the lake. Iron waves muttered on the shore.

  Okay. So walk the property. Shotgun slung over his shoulder, flashlight in one hand, he shook the stainless-steel bowl of cat food. The rattle disappeared on divots of wind. As did his voice, mouthing words he never thought he’d ever be saying:

  “Here, kitty, kitty…”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gator went and got what he needed and then found himself making the drive across the Barrens for the fifth time that day. Getting dark now, night creeping down like a black garage door.

  He felt lucky; if he’d lived a different kind of life, he might say blessed. This Broker guy, the cop, had fallen into his hand like a gift, he thought as he watched the familiar jack pine and muskeg filling in with ink. He could afford to be magnanimous with Jimmy and Cassie. And besides, giving Cassie her piece of cheese to nibble on would bolster her incentive to keep Jimmy on task. He was shaky, but he’d hang in. Just had to keep them focused on the money…

  Coming up on the crossroads. Hmmmm?

  What’s that? Alert behind the wheel, squinting in the twilight. Headlights knifed about a mile through the gloom. On the right side off the road…looked like they were over near the old Tindall place.

  Gator shut off his headlights and turned off on Z going west, in the direction of the lights. There was just enough reflection off the snow to drive by. Soon he determined that the lights had indeed turned in at the Tindall place. About three hundred yards from the house, he pulled to the shoulder and turned off the engine. Several flashlights dipped and swung, outlining the windows of the old house.

  Gator slouched back behind the wheel, reached for his smokes; decided to wait and watch. File it away for future reference.

  There were five deserted farmhouses on Z alone. Another dozen sprinkled through the Barrens. Several times a week he would do a drive-by. Sometimes kids from town partied in the houses. And sometimes outsiders slipped in for less convivial reasons. Gator made a point to run them off. He kept the Barrens free of intruders. It was his buffer zone.

  Sometimes outsiders coming in could be tough-guy wannabes, so Gator took more than a flashlight along on these nocturnal forays. Technically, as a felon, he had lost his right to own firearms. But Keith had sat down with Gator’s parole officer and the game warden and worked out an accommodation. As long as Gator continued to sniff out meth operations in the remote north end of the county, where Keith didn’t have the manpower to patrol, he could carry a gun north of Z to hunt in the big woods.

  Tonight, he’d left his pistol back at the shop. Hell, being in such a good mood, Gator didn’t feel like stomping in and wrecking somebody’s party.

  He started the truck, made a U-turn, headed back to 12. Half an hour later he was coming down Lakeside Road on the west side of the lake, thinking as he drove how he could spin this playground tiff with Teddy into something useful. Seeing’s how Keith had already been on the scene…

  He was good at plans. Hell, he figured out most movie plots in the first half hour.

  Plus he could give Jimmy some responsibility. Jack him up.

  Jimmy Klumpe. Gator shook his head, leaned back in his seat, and ran through Jimmy’s story. Like the regulars at Skeet’s Bar observed after a few beers: Jimmy Klumpe had won the Moose Lottery.

  Jimmy’s money dilemma started when his mom and dad were driving home from the little casino near Thief River Falls, three years ago January. Icy roads and a ground fog were a contributing factor, Keith Nygard wrote in his report. They rounded a turn, possibly too fast. Old Tom was known to have a heavy foot and also was an authority on everything, including how fast to drive on slick back roads. What it turned out he wasn’t so smart about was the bull moose that trotted right through a barbed-wire fence and into the path of his old Bonneville. They died instantly, Ed Durning, the medical examiner, said. In an explosion of air bags, trailing barbed wire, entrails, and moose shit, Keith Nygard said. Took two hours with the jaws of life for the Fire and Rescue boys from Thief River Falls to free the antlers that had pinned the bodies in the front seat.

  Jimmy, an only child, turned out to be the beneficiary on their life insurance policies, and found himself in possession of a million bucks. Up till then, Jimmy’s life had been all downhill since he was homecoming king to Cassie’s queen senior year. He always drank a little too much and stayed tangled in family apron strings, marking time as a driver at his dad’s garbage company. Now he had inherited his dad’s house on the lake and Klumpe Sanitation, which consisted of three trucks, a garage, the dump, and the county contract.

  Ni
ne years ago Cassie had married Jimmy. Which Gator thought was a dumb idea, knocked up or not. Marrying a garbage truck driver who likely as not ended Friday night facedown on Skeet’s bar. Five months later Teddy was born. Gator did admit that Cassie had cleaned up her act and was working as a receptionist at True North Realty in town. She was positioned to watch the lakefront boom start to take off.

  They made their fresh start about the time Gator started his bit in Stillwater. They sold their rambler in town and moved into the vacant Klumpe family house on Big Glacier. After an initial spending spree—a new bathroom, a Jeep Cherokee, a snowmobile, a sixteen-foot Lund—Cassie settled on a plan. The lakefront on Big Glacier was sewn up, but Little Glacier, to the north, was still open.

  Gator, hearing of the insurance windfall, suddenly transformed himself into an attentive letter writer and devoted brother—“Really, Cassie, you owe me something for that thing I did on your behalf a certain October in high school.” Cassie coughed up a modest investment so Gator could turn the garage on the old farm into a tractor restoration shop when he got out of prison.

  Jimmy and Cassie got ahead of the real estate market and spent their windfall on three thousand feet of lakefront on Little Glacier, planning to divide it into ten lots. They hired an architect, settled on a set of plans, and went to the bank for a construction loan. They secured the loan and broke ground on a model lake home. Once the first house sold, they’d roll over the profit and build another until they had built on all ten lots.

  Gator, the model prisoner, did his time and returned to Glacier County with a business plan to rehabilitate his criminal ass. He had a supportive parole officer, a new set of tools, an air compressor, and sixteen hot antique tractors sitting in the junkyard behind his shop.

  Then came the fatal day that Cassie agreed to watch the neighbor’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Marci. Except she had an appointment at the spa in Bemidji to get a body wrap and her legs waxed. So she called their freaky cousin, Sandy, to watch Marci while she drove to Bemidji to soak in seaweed…

  Dumb.

  But the way Gator had worked it out was…well…nothing short of fucking brilliant.

  For him, at least.

  Gator wheeled up the drive of the dark house hooded with gables where old Tom Klumpe never used to give the kids candy on Halloween; where, in fact, Gator and Keith, twelve years old, had set a bag of cow pies on fire on Tom’s doormat one Halloween and rung the bell.

  He parked the truck and trudged up the porch steps, heard the loud beat of voice-over aerobic music. Anticipating the bittersweet headache he’d have by the time he left, he rang the bell.

  The music stopped, and a moment later Cassie opened the door. She still looked great on the outside, but her eyes gave away the inside; two empty blue holes screaming to be filled. She was barefoot, wearing these little red gym shorts that rode up, revealing the start of her rear end. Her white tube top was damp and clingy with sweat. She had her hair heaped in a wild pony spray, fastening by a silver headband. Seeing the tallowy perspiration on her throat and arms still could halt his breath.

  “You must have the heat turned way up,” he said.

  “What?” she said.

  “That outfit.”

  “I was doing an exercise tape. C’mon in,” she said, staring at his left hand. The way his fingers curled, holding something. Noting her attention, he withdrew the hand, put it behind his back. “Hey, don’t tease me, now,” she pouted, moving into his path, grabbing for his hand. They bumped torsos, then the sibling roughhouse got stuck hot at the hips. She reached around, trying to catch his hand.

  “Hey, not so needy,” Gator danced to the side, grinning, leaning back, loving the unbridled covetousness surging in her eyes. “You’re starting to like this stuff way too much, probably should taper you off…”

  “Gimme,” Cassie demanded, flinging both arms around him, grasping.

  “Said you just wanted to lose some weight. Looks to me like you lost it,” Gator now held his hand straight in the air, making her go up on tiptoes. “Okay, you can have it if you promise me you’ll stop—”

  “Christsake, Gator, stop playing games.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Okay, I promise,” she said, heaving her eyes.

  Gator let the folded square of Reynold’s Wrap drop from his palm. It glittered between them and landed on the floor. She immediately stooped and snatched it up, and as she started back up, he placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, holding her face level with his belt buckle.

  Then he removed his hand and stepped back. Serious now. “Don’t go smoking this stuff, you understand,” he said.

  “Not me,” she said, making the packet disappear in the waistband of her shorts.

  “So how’s Teddy doing?” Gator said, staring at her throat, feeling his temples start to throb.

  “He’s okay, upstairs finishing his homework.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “In the basement, watching an old Vikes-Packer game on Teevo.”

  “Get him,” Gator said with muted authority, not taking off his coat. “You both should hear this.”

  Cassie padded off across the barnlike living room with the old brown leather chairs and couch she hated and called down the stairwell, “Jimmy, Gator’s here.” Then she hurried toward the kitchen, where Gator heard the door to the downstairs bathroom close.

  While he waited, Gator looked over the living room, then the dining room with its lace curtains, framed duck stamps, and clubfooted oak table. No wonder she was half nuts, living in this museum with Jimmy, doing her Buns of Steel tapes.

  She kept it clean, though. Wasn’t at all like Mom in that regard, except that she married a drunk.

  Jimmy came up the stairs with a tall water glass of Jack Daniel’s. His eyes were a medium blur at 8:00 P.M. Little dots of crumbly yellow junk food were smeared on his T-shirt. Popcorn maybe. When Cassie walked back into the dining room, she was much improved.

  “Sit down,” Gator said, indicating the dining room table with a toss of his right hand.

  They sat.

  “I had a look at your Broker guy,” Gator said.

  “And?” Cassie said. “Was I right?”

  “You got no idea how right,” Gator said, grinning, unable to suppress his pleasure.

  Jimmy and Cassie exchanged looks. “So, what?” Cassie said.

  “I got in his house and looked around. Saw some stuff. I think he was a cop down in the cities,” Gator said.

  “Jesus,” Jimmy muttered and stared glumly into his glass. “You think he knows?”

  “Not sure what he’d doing here. But I got an idea how to find out,” Gator said. “The thing with Teddy, where you want that to go?”

  “We want an apology, right,” Jimmy said, glancing at Cassie, who nodded her agreement. “But a cop, jeez, I dunno…”

  “Okay, here’s the deal. I got a job for you.” Gator leveled his eyes on Jimmy like he was a trusted lieutenant. “Jimmy, I need you to mess with him a little, just kid stuff.”

  “Like what kind of stuff?” Jimmy said, sitting up straighter. Cassie, her color up, her eyes now full and steamy, watched the play between the two men. Real curious.

  “In the morning your guys pick up on Twelve, right?” Gator said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, you take the route, get there early when he’s taking the kid to school, and do that trick with the mechanical claw so you tip over his garbage, fling it along the ditch. So he sees you. Do it so it looks like he put it out wrong.”

  “I can do that,” Jimmy said.

  “Just some little crap to drive the guy nuts, but not so he can prove anything. If he comes at you again, it’ll give Keith something to do. You know how he loves to play Mr. In-Between.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Shoulda been a Lutheran minister, like his dad.”

  “Yeah,” Gator said. “Plus, Keith’s having a bad winter, since he had to put out that ordinance keeping trucks and sleds off the lake �
�cause it didn’t completely freeze over.”

  “Might cost him the election,” Jimmy nodded.

  “Yeah,” Gator said, “needs something to do, so maybe if it gets going back and forth between you and Broker, Keith’ll check him out, and it’ll get back to us who he is. Worth a try.”

  “Uh-huh. So just little stuff,” Jimmy said, more confident now.

  “Yeah, but he’ll be pissed. He might come at you. Hell, we want him to. Can you handle that?”

  “Sure, Gator.” Jimmy squared his thick shoulders. “Woulda nailed his ass today except I slipped on the ice.”

  “I hear you. So, tomorrow morning,” Gator said.

  “Piece of cake. People always leave the containers out back-asswards so they flip off the claw,” Jimmy said.

  “Good.” Gator smiled, pleased with the way he set it in motion, giving orders sort of low-key. Like a good boss should. To underscore the point, he slapped Jimmy on the shoulder, comradelike. “Can’t really tell you all of it, but I got a feeling we’re getting close, huh.”

  “I’m for that,” Jimmy said.

  “Okay. I gotta go,” Gator said. Cassie walked him to the door.

  “You know what you’re doing,” she said happily. Not a question, eyes merry with the meth she’d eaten. This raspberry flush spreading up from the top of her tube top, creeping up to her collarbones, the smooth shoulders…

  “Just don’t smoke it, go easy,” he cautioned, pulling his eyes away. Going out the door.

  He sat in the truck waiting on the heater for a few minutes, watching the lights in the house. Maybe they wouldn’t bicker about money tonight. Maybe Cassie would take his big ass to bed, shut her eyes, and pretend he was somebody else. Satisfied, he put the truck in gear and started down the drive. Musing.

  Some crew he had. His desperate cash-strapped lush of a brother-in-law and his not quite reformed nympho meth-addled sister. Plus Sheryl, his biker groupie turned waitress.

  Thing was, his plan was so good, not even this bunch of screw-ups could mess it up.