Broker drove back to babyland and spent a quiet night cooking, cleaning, bathing and putting Kit to bed. A rising wind woke him before dawn. He was up, refreshed, focused.
Barefoot, he padded the plank floors of his living room, chewing on a cigar. Coffee water heated. A soft plague of gray snow blotted out the dawn. He couldn’t talk to James.
But maybe he could talk to Keith.
“Dada Dah Da
“Dada Dah Da…”
Kit announced herself upon the morning with authority, hurling “Cucaracha Dog” out of her crib. Broker’s day began; remove diaper, take shower, dress her. As he spooned oatmeal, he started a list of “things to do for Christmas”: Buy a tree.
Buy Kit a sled.
Get Nina a present.
He’d considered writing her a letter explaining Caren’s death and Keith’s arrest. But he figured she’d be in transit, working through echelons between Bosnia and the States.
She’d call when she got situated. He’d tell her then. And she’d be home in less than a week.
The dishes hummed in the dishwasher. The clothes were folded. The weekly menu posted on the refrigerator had Tuesday and Wednesday marked off. Today, Thursday, was cabbage soup. When Kit was down for her nap, he walked through the trickling snow, up to the road, to get the mail.
He opened his mailbox, scooped the letters and walked back, sifting through the junk, put the propane bill from Eagle Mountain Energy under his arm. Inspected a beat-up envelope.
No return address. The address caught his attention-printed, cut out and pasted on the envelope-was imprecise: General Delivery, Devil’s Rock. The mail sorter in Grand Marais had penned in his route number.
Postmarked four days ago. From St. Paul. Lost in the Christmas rush. He tore the flap. At first, he thought it was a homemade Christmas card. Desktop format, in stanzas, like a poem. Words like fishhooks ripped his eyes: What does Daddy fear the most
Crib death right off
sneaks into daddy’s head at least once every day tiny nostrils plugged. A faceful of blanket.
Cats they say can steal baby’s breath
half a handful of air to stop the tiny pink lungs.
so put crib death up there on the top of the list.
And Kitty Cat
There’s choking. All those things that lay about can find their way into baby’s mouth. Pennies and buttons and pins and pills.
germs
poisons
cellophane bags
the fall down the stairs.
the lake is never far away.
cars jump the curb
Hey, daddy; who watches baby when you sleep?
A hard shuffle stirred in his chest, a stamping, like impatient hooves. Broker had always had a reverse nervous system. He descended now into that cool practical chamber where he kept the men he’d killed. Very calmly, he harnessed the surge of anger and continued to read:
is he can he will he be
strong enough to protect baby
every second of every minute of every day from bad men lurking and dogs who foam and bite from black widow under the pillow and invisible visitors in the night
poor baby
doesn’t even know she is alive
she doesn’t even know how easily she can die soft and fragile tiny breaths
tiny ears that don’t understand
bump bump bump in the night
which tree is Wile E. Coyote behind today do crosshairs tickle copper ringlets
how hungry is the cold lake water
how cruel and hard the rocks
or the fire that burns
or the glittering eyes of five hungry rats needle teeth and beady eyes and greasy whiskers chew chew chew
through the tender flesh, the soft red muscle and tendon and ligament until they seize on a shiny clip of bone snap it and gobble marrow that’s soft butter yellow daddy daddy, I don’t even know what is destroying me I don’t even know that this is pain
daddy daddy
Be seein’ you
Broker took a deep breath to center himself. He looked around. Sky, water, trees, house. All clean and smoothed by the new snow. Familiar, reassuring. His safe place.
His eyes settled back on the sheet of paper.
Not somebody from the past he’d put in jail. Most of those guys couldn’t write a complete sentence. He’d been up here for five months. The reference to choking. Cold water. Rocks.
And how did the writer know Kit had copper ringlets?
Because he had seen them. Even touched them. Because he had held her in his arms.
Like with the hundred dollars in the rental Subaru, Broker’s intuition was immediate: James, dropping crumbs of money behind him all the way into the maze of the Federal Witness Protection Program. Now this.
Giving him the finger again.
Slowly, Broker walked a circuit of his home. The house occupied a finger of granite with sloping boulders on two sides and a cobble beach descending in front, facing the lake.
The approach from the highway was screened in old red and white pine, smaller evergreens, brush.
The summer cabins were shuttered, locked. Cheryl and Don Tromley, the closest neighbors, were half a mile away.
The only visible habitation was a new log cabin, set on another point, a hundred yards to the south. A doctor from Chicago had built it. A rental. A black Audi had parked there, with skis on the roof, for three days. He’d glimpsed a young couple coming and going in cross country ski togs. Saw their lights at night. Smelled their wood smoke.
He had sited his house for maximum appreciation of the lakefront. Defending it against attack had not been a consideration. Distance, geography, weather-they were supposed to provide that margin.
Should have a dog. His folks had a hell of a dog. But a guy named Bevode Fret had killed it almost two years ago.
Then.
He stopped himself. If it was James, and he was processing into WITSEC, he was far away, under heavy security. There was no immediate threat.
By overreacting, he was doing what the “writer” wanted him to do. Getting angry, on the verge of calling the FBI, demanding to talk to Agent Garrison and accusing him of harboring a dangerous nut. And he had nothing but intuition to go on.
In which case Broker would sound like a talk radio con-spirator. And that’s how he would be remembered if he contacted them again. No. He had to cultivate a good relationship with Agent Garrison, or someone like him. Because they had the forensics to check this letter and envelope against every printer that Tom James had been near while in their safekeeping.
But first, there was something he had to try. He went in the house and called the Washington County sheriff, John Eisenhower, in Stillwater. John’s gatekeeper, Elaine, answered.
“Broker, how are you? Just terrible about Caren Angland, just terrible. And we have the bastard who did it in our jail.”
“Pretty ugly. Is John available?”
“No, he’s at this state gang task force planning session in St. Paul. What’s up?”
“Ask John if he can get word to Keith Angland, see if Keith will put me on his visitors list.”
“Oough, sounds nasty; what are you, working again?”
“Thinking about it.”
He hung up and carefully slid the letter and envelope into a Ziploc bag and slipped them into his desk drawer.
He’d used up the early afternoon. Soon Kit would be awake, and he hadn’t started supper. He resorted to the freezer and the microwave. When Kit woke up and was changed, he opened frozen packages and zapped them while she stumped back and forth in front of the fireplace.