Vapor Trail Read Online Free PDF Page A

to tickle the bottom of his mind.
    “St. Nicholas the Wonder-worker. Seven fifty on the Internet,” John said.
    Broker sat quietly while an icy shiver wiggled through his chest. As they turned into Milt’s driveway, Broker peered into the dark stand of oaks on either side of the road. Shadows still ruled the dawn, but they were already hot, exhausted shadows. The shadow that flickered through his heart went way past cold into layers of doubt, remorse, and something Broker didn’t readily admit to feeling.
    An old fear, long dormant, had raised its head.
    “I got a dead priest. A dead fucking priest in Stillwater with that stuffed in his mouth, with all the hooha that’s going on in the Church,” John said, jabbing his finger at the evidence bag.
    “The Saint,” Broker said. But what he thought was what cops in the St. Croix River valley usually thought when the subject of the Saint came up: This was about Harry Cantrell.
    John parked next to Broker’s black Ford Ranger in back of Milt’s house and settled in to gave Broker a few moments to digest the information. Broker got out of the Bronco, walked down to the shore, kicked off his shoes and socks, went out on the dock, and dived into the St. Croix to quench his sweat.
    He had learned to carefully keep his worst memories confined in compartments so they didn’t bleed into his life. Now, surfacing in the tepid river water, he suspected that John wanted him to visit one of them.
    John was waiting on the stairs leading up to the deck when Broker walked back to the house. As they climbed the steps, Broker pointed to the evidence bag in John’s hand and asked the obvious question: “You think Harry is involved?”
    John pursed his lips and shrugged. “I always thought Harry knew who the Saint was. Now it’s time he came clean.”
    Broker motioned John into the kitchen. Quickly he put a filter into the Chemex beaker, ground the mocha java beans, dumped them in the brown inverted paper cone, and poured in boiling water from the kettle on the stove. While the coffee dripped, he ducked into the bathroom, stripped off his wet shorts, and rubbed down with a towel. He pulled on dry shorts and a T-shirt and returned to the kitchen.
    John had taken over adding water to the coffeemaker. Brokerpoured two cups, and they went back out on the deck and sat facing each other on wooden chairs. John placed the evidence bag containing the medallion on the patio table between them.
    “So lay it out,” Broker said,
    “You know St. Martin’s, the little church on the North End in Stillwater?” John said.
    “Sure. I thought it was closed up.”
    “Pretty much, but they stuck a new priest in there part-time just to keep it open. What they call a mission church. Father Moros was like a caretaker. Besides the janitor, the only other person there is a volunteer secretary. She’s the one who went back to the church last night looking for her misplaced checkbook. She found him a little after seven,” John said.
    “Yeah?”
    “He’d been shot sitting in the confessional. Twice through the screen in the booth. Then the shooter came around for a coup de grâce. Total of three rounds in the head and throat, something on the small side: .32 or .22, close range. The ME thinks just after six P.M. ”
    “How’d you nail down the time?” Broker said.
    “Okay—a guy who lives next door to the church is sitting on his porch. He sees a woman go into the church at six. Or—check this—he says, It could have been a guy dressed like a woman. But he didn’t see her come out.”
    “He hear anything?”
    “The Crime Lab guys found this green residue in the wounds, like the plastic in pop bottles. Remember The Anarchist Cookbook ?” John said.
    “Homemade silencer. Great. And they put the medallion in the mouth just like the Saint did in the Dolman case?” Broker said.
    “There it is. The implication being another child molester gets his just deserts. And not just any pervert; this