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  Then Broker heard the trouble start behind him.

  Chapter Three

  The driver’s-side door on the Ford tore open too fast, springing on the hinges. Broker spun and heard a burst of unintelligible words, like profanity; a taunting back and forth between the man and woman. He could actually see the spat rise in a cloud of frosted breath over the top of the truck cab. The door slammed. Klumpe stalked around the back of the truck.

  Broker shoved with his right arm, pushing Kit away. “Kit, go stand by the side of the school. Now!”

  “Don’t yell at me.” Kit bristled.

  “Move!”

  Klumpe stepped between the back of the truck and the front of the Crown Vic and came onto the slippery school sidewalk. The cop sitting in the car bowed his head and swung it slowly from side to side. Through the windshield, Broker could read the pained silent grimace that formed on the cop’s lips: Aw goddamn…

  Kit was clear, but Klumpe, in his face now, swung up his right hand, pointing his finger like a no-neck Uncle Sam. I want you.

  “You owe my son an apology,” Klumpe stated.

  Broker took it in fast: the window on the passenger side of the truck zipped down, framing the wife and kid, a glowering gallery. The cop heaved from his car, calling out, “Now, Jimmy, take it easy…”

  Some parts of Broker, the old street parts, were going on automatic; other parts were stunned, treading on new ground, not sure what the rules were. He’d had custody of Kit when she was a toddler; Nina had her in Europe after kindergarten. He had handled a lot of pissed off, drunk, and just plain crazy people in his life. But he’d never dealt with an infuriated parent who was mad at his kid.

  Hopefully the cop coming up behind Klumpe would chill it out. So he smiled, hands extended, palms out, reasonable. “Hey, fella; like the officer says, take it easy…”

  The smile only infuriated Klumpe. The wife yelling—all her makeup curdling to war paint—“Don’t take any shit, Jimmy,” didn’t help.

  “Sneaky little bitch sucker-punched my son, and you owe us an apology,” Klumpe yelled as he set his feet and balled his beefy hands into fists. A puff of angry white breath crossed the short space between their faces. Broker smelled the pancakes and syrup Klumpe had for breakfast. And, more significantly, caught a sour curdle of alcohol over syrup. Felt it actually in an angry spray of his spit. Broker did a fast shuffle between street rules and the new world of parent etiquette.

  Okay, this Klumpe asshole was getting ready to hit him.

  And he’d had just about enough of this “sneaky little bitch” routine.

  Street won.

  Klumpe had forty pounds on Broker, went 220 maybe, but he looked out of shape and puffy. But also a little nuts, like his wife. As he cocked his right fist back to throw the punch and charged, Broker instinctively closed the distance, his left hand drifting up, extending, palm still open to trap the punch before Klumpe could power it forward. Simultaneously, he fended Klumpe’s left hand away with his right hand, clamped down on the wrist, twisted, and levered the arm straight into a come-along hold.

  The effect was to rotate Klumpe a half turn. When the bigger man was off balance, Broker stepped in fast behind him, whipped his right arm around Klumpe’s neck, scissoring the biceps and the forearm on either side of the throat. Now Broker lowered his forehead and pressed Klumpe’s head firmly into the V formed by his arm. His left hand came up and applied crushing pressure to his right hand. Smooth, pure reflex; it took less than two seconds.

  Klumpe struggled briefly, then started to fade as the blood supply to his brain was cut off. The instant he felt the resistance cease, Broker loosened the restraint and stepped back. Klumpe staggered, flailing around. Lost his footing.

  Broker backed away, hands up and fingers spread open. Klumpe fell face forward, unable to get his flailing hands up to break his fall. Red stippled the snow-packed concrete under his dripping nose.

  Big Klumpe and little Klumpe had both caught some nosebleed action this morning.

  As Klumpe went down, he was replaced by the cop, who now stood over him pointing his finger at Broker.

  “You. Move away.”

  “Yes, officer.”

  The cop removed a green bandanna from his jacket pocket and thrust it in Klumpe’s face. “Here, Jimmy; hold this on your nose. Then get up and go sit in the front seat of my car. You hear? I mean it, Jimmy.”

  Klumpe shook his head back and forth, blinked, took the hanky. “Okay. Okay.”

  The wife yelled from the car, “Keith, you gonna let him get away with that!”

  Keith Nygard. Broker read the name tag on the cop’s chest. And the word under it: Sheriff.

  Nygard ignored her, bellying up to Broker. Broker asked, “Am I in trouble here?”

  Nygard looked him over, his eyes doing a fair imitation of two tired ball bearings. “I seen it all. Jimmy was out of line, and I’ll give him a talking to. So, officially, no—” Nygard narrowed his gray eyes. “But—between the lines—watch yourself. This ain’t the ideal way to meet the sheriff. What’s your name?”

  “Phil Broker.”

  “Where do you live, Mr. Broker?”

  “I’m renting Harry Griffin’s place south of town off County Twelve. On the lake.”

  “Uh-huh.” The tension loosened a bit in his face. Maybe Broker detected a faint glimmer of curiosity in the gray eyes. “I know Harry. That’s one of his jackets you’re wearing?”

  Broker nodded. “I work on Griffin’s stone crew.”

  Nygard studied Broker’s clothing; jeans, work boots, and a tan Carhartt jacket smeared with dirt from manhandling the oak. “You work this morning?”

  Broker shook his head. “I work part-time.”

  Nygard’s eyes lingered on Broker’s face for a few more seconds, and then he said, “Okay, collect your daughter and go on home.”

  Broker pointed to the playground. “I got to get her gloves off that shed by the monkey bars.”

  “Fine. Make it quick.”

  Broker motioned to Kit, who was waiting obediently next to the school, keeping her face blank with some effort. As she joined him, Nygard called out, “Broker. This ends here. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Broker said. He took Kit’s hand, and they walked to the playground.

  “Dad, there’s a bunch of teachers and the principal watching from the door,” Kit said under her breath.

  “Don’t stare.”

  “How’d you do that? Knock him down?”

  “Shhhh.”

  “You gonna show me?”

  Broker’s voice stiffened. “I think I showed you too much already. This isn’t funny one bit. You better start thinking about the C word.”

  “Consequences.” Kit lowered her voice, deflated.

  They walked to the toolshed on the playground next to the monkey bars, where Broker spotted one of Kit’s green mittens peeking from the snow on the roof. He lifted her by the knees, and she was able to reclaim her gloves.

  Then they walked back to the truck, got in, and fastened their seat belts. Broker started the Toyota, pulled away from the curb, and checked the rearview. Cassie Bodine and her son stood stolidly in the cold a few feet from the sheriff ’s car, where Jimmy Klumpe sat, head on his chest, in the front seat with the sheriff. Exhaust from the police car and Klumpe’s truck swirled in a gust of wind, cloaking them like smoke over wreckage.

  He turned to his daughter. “We’ll talk to Mom about the fight with that kid. But we won’t mention what happened here, in front of school. You understand? She’s got enough on her mind, okay?”

  Kit blew on her hands, rubbed them together. Then she sucked on her skinned knuckle. “Yes, Dad.”

  Chapter Four

  After Keith Nygard finished up his lecture, Jimmy got back in his truck, still holding the hanky to his nose; he turned the key, put the Ford in gear, and pulled away from the curb. Cassie sat next to him, arms crossed, knees crossed, face working.

  “You got any more smart
ideas?” Jimmy mumbled through the hanky.

  “You let him make fools out of us in front of everybody,” she said back.

  “Some old guy from the cities, you said. Back right down.”

  “Gonna be all over town.”

  “I tripped and fell down on the ice,” Jimmy said.

  “Bullshit. He spun you around and dropped you on your ass and got away with it, just like his fucking kid punched Teddy—”

  “Mom, don’t swear. Dad tripped. Me too.” Teddy spoke up from the rear seat, where he pressed the ice pack the nurse gave him against his nose.

  “No, I’m the one who tripped when I had to marry your dad,” Cassie muttered. And suddenly she had trouble breathing, as if the air they were taking in changed in their lungs and came out poison. She jammed her finger on the door panel controls and opened the windows, flooding the cab with icy air.

  “Mommm,” Teddy protested.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Jimmy said, and he hit his controls. The windows started up. Cassie jammed on hers again and sent the windows down again. An electric whine cycled as they both hit their controls and the windows jumped up, then down, then froze, stuck in their tracks.

  They glared at each other.

  Then Cassie relented, took her finger off the controls, and crossed her arms across her chest again. Jimmy closed the windows. They drove in silence for a while, no sound except the tap of Teddy’s GameBoy in the backseat.

  Cassie spoke first. “So, what you gonna do?”

  “Drive the speed limit home.” He craned his neck to check the rearview mirror, dabbed at his nose with the hanky. “Seeing how I got Keith on my tail.”

  Another glum interval of silence. Then Cassie started in again. “He was a lot older than you, too. I saw some gray in his hair, over his ears.”

  “Not now, Cassie. Please.” He sighed, seeing how no way she was going to back off; she was getting that feral Bodine vendetta fix in her eyes.

  “I heard Keith talking to him,” Cassie said. “His name is Phil Broker. He rents Harry Griffin’s place, the one on Twelve, across the lake from us. Works for Griffin part-time.”

  Jimmy grimaced, inspected the blood on the hanky, put it down, and tested his nose with the fingers of his free hand. The bleeding had stopped. He turned to his wife. “Part-time on the stone crew won’t pay much on that new Tundra he’s driving, or the freight on that house. Not after all the work Griffin put in fixing it up to rent to summer folks.”

  “What’s Griffin pay his laborers?”

  “About ten, fifteen bucks an hour.”

  “Don’t fit, does it?” Cassie said.

  “So? Maybe he’s got some money.”

  “Then what’s he doing working labor part-time for crazy Harry Griffin? See, it doesn’t fit. Plus how he had you so fast. Like he’s used to putting men on the ground. Another thing. The way Keith was talking to him, kinda like two dogs sniffing each other out…”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Dunno, just something,” Cassie said. Then she turned to the backseat. “How you doing, hon?”

  “Okay, I guess.” Teddy was hunched over, preoccupied with the GameBoy in his free hand.

  “No, you’re not okay. You’re in pain. And that’s what you’ll tell Ed Durning at the clinic. We’re gonna get you X-rayed for your neck.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your neck, it hurts, don’t it?”

  “Ah? I don’t—”

  “It hurts, honey. You tell Ed it hurts.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  “She’ll apologize for hitting you. In front of everybody. I insist on it. We’ll make them pay.”

  Jimmy accelerated around a bend and checked the mirror again. “Can you believe this shit? Fuckin’ Keith. He’s gonna follow us all the way home.”

  “Dad, you said the F word. You and Mom both.”

  “Don’t swear around Teddy. You know how I can’t stand that,” Cassie said in a strict voice.

  Jimmy sighed. “Yeah, right. Teddy, I apologize for using bad language. Now, look, Cassie—Keith gave me a warning, says to back off this thing.”

  “‘Keith says,’” Cassie pronounced with mincing sarcasm.

  “He’s the sheriff, for Christ’s sake.”

  “They don’t look after him like they should…”

  “Cassie,” he said patiently, “we don’t need Ed Durning in on this. I want you to start cooling down now before it gets—”

  She cut him with a look. “Gets what? Out of control. Don’t you talk to me about things getting out of control.”

  Jimmy winced and looked away from her seething voice, and they drove in silence for a minute. Then he said, “Just take it easy, okay.”

  “I just worry,” Cassie said.

  “I know you do.” He dropped the subject, fixed his eyes ahead on the road. “I’ll drop you home. I have to get back to the garage.”

  It took Jimmy and Cassie fifteen minutes to drive to the east end of the big lake where they lived in Jimmy’s dad’s house on the ten acres of prime real estate Jimmy had inherited. When they moved in three years ago, the woods had screened them. When Cassie was growing up, it had been the biggest house on the lake. Now there were new log homes dripping balconies and gables a hundred yards off on either side. Cassie stared at the bright new houses, all that glass and stonework. Lodgepole pine—they’d build the houses in Colorado. Take them apart, truck them cross-country, and put them back together. Like the summer people were mocking the older place where Cassie lived, boarded up in tired brown cedar siding…

  The first thing Cassie did after Jimmy dropped them off was wave to Keith as he drove away in his police car. Keith was a sweet man. Her guardian angel.

  But waving to Keith was one thing. Listening to him was another. The morning churned in her chest, dredging up gobs of anger, fear, and self-consciousness. This called for a response. No way she was going to back off on that guy and his snotty little kid.

  Teddy drifted to his room to change out of his shirt and play his computer games. Cassie went for the kitchen phone, tapped in the number for the school office, and got Madge.

  “So who are they, Madge?” she asked by way of hello.

  “Honest, Cassie, I don’t have the slightest idea. New people. They showed up in January,” Madge said in a hushed tone.

  “You gotta know something.”

  “Well, there is one thing. Nobody’s ever seen the mother, just the dad. He registered her, drops her off, and picks her up every day.”

  “That’s a little weird,” Cassie said, pausing slightly to furrow her brow. “Thanks, Madge.” She ended the call abruptly.

  No-show mom—that didn’t fit either. The thing was taking a suspicious shape in her mind. She went to the living room, where they kept a tripod telescope to look out over the lake. Slowly she focused the lens and searched the west shore. Griffin’s was the narrow green house with the wraparound deck, cedar siding, a rusted tin roof, and a newer kitchen addition thrusting toward the shore.

  She found it, between the Nagel place and Chris Johnson’s. She squinted, straining her eyes. She had never been in the house and could only guess at how the rooms were laid out. Some people liked their kitchens facing the water; others, herself included, liked the living room on the lakeside.

  “Mom?”

  Cassie turned and saw Teddy standing behind her. He’d washed his face and changed into a fresh T-shirt. She brushed a dark curl of hair from her eyes and studied him. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Ah, no…”

  “Don’t worry about that snotty little girl, honey. We’ll fix her.”

  Teddy shrugged. “Only reason she knocked me down is I slipped on the snow.”

  “I know. They pick on you…”

  “Mom,” he said with a slight edge of irritation in his voice, “I want some lunch.”

  After lunch she let him ride the ATV around the backyard to take advantage of this last snowfall. She was tidying up the kitc
hen when she noticed the crumbs from Teddy’s tuna-melt sandwich on the linoleum under his chair. Must have missed them when she cleared his plate and loaded it into the dishwasher. She immediately stooped, plucked up the crumbs, and then wiped down the area with a dish rag and lemon-scented 409. When she was finished, she took the soiled dishrag and some towels into the laundry room. That’s when she saw Teddy’s shirt on the floor under the laundry chute.

  With the blood on it.

  The sensation that she was being watched came slowly as she methodically took the shirt to the sink, poured Shout on the stain, and worked it into the material. The red stain foamed up and covered her fingers. Got under her nails. Grimacing, she flung the shirt into the washer, put the dial on hot/hot, added Tide, and turned it on. When the rush of steaming water poured into the washer drum, she thrust her hands into it, blasting away the scum of foam.

  But a tiny residue resisted the scalding water and still clung under her fingernails, and the sensation was coming stronger now, almost a glow in the walls. When it got bad like this, she actually believed that a presence inhabited the house. She could even smell it sometimes, no matter how hard she cleaned. A smell like old Tommy Klumpe’s lingering pipe tobacco smoke that permeated the walls.

  The presence shifted around in her mind. Sometimes it was old Tommy himself, sitting at the kitchen table, telling Jimmy straight out, right in front of her, like she didn’t count.

  “Nothing good will ever come of marrying a fucking Bodine.”

  Other times it got weirder. And she felt she was under scrutiny by a vague judgmental figure who demanded to be pleased. Sometimes she pictured this presence as a bizarre nexus between Martha Stewart and Jesus Christ.

  One night this watchful presence had chosen to speak through her husband. Jimmy didn’t even know he was the vessel of an angry house god; he was just being Jimmy, half loaded, making one of his nasty passive-aggressive cuts. But his spiteful voice had echoed like thunder in Cass’s ears: “Since you’re not working anymore, the least you can do is keep this fucking house clean!”