Vapor Trail by Chuck Logan Read Free Book Online

was locked, so he went around the back and kicked through the kitchen door and foundHarry in the living room beating the dentist’s head against the marble fireplace.
    They talked it over:
    Harry said, Go away and come back in five minutes.
    Broker said, I can’t let you do this.
    Harry said, He’s going to resist arrest. He’s going to attack me with that fireplace poker right there. He didn’t leave me any choice.
    Broker said, I’m going to cuff him and put him in the car. Step away.
    Harry said, Make me.
    So they faced each other across six feet of space, with a semiconscious man between them, dripping blood on the Persian carpet. They both carried .38-caliber revolvers; their right hands were poised at hip level above their pistol butts.
    Harry’s eyes were too bright, eager for it. He said, I always wondered what this would be like.
    Broker said, Maybe you could have got away with doing him, but you’ll never be able to explain both of us.
    The opposite of Harry, Broker had centered in a deadly calm, working the problem. He knew that he had to keep Harry talking.
    Harry said, I know what this guy’s like. He’ll keep coming back on her until somebody stops him permanently.
    Broker said, We’ll lock him up.
    Harry said, What do you mean? She has a black eye; he’ll be out in a week. I’m telling you, he’s going to kill her.
    Broker said, No he isn’t; he’s going to jail.
    And then it was sirens forever as the black-and-whites swarmed the house like metal hornets with blue flashers.
    And Harry said, You fucker. This is your call, and it’s on your head.
    Fine, Broker had agreed.
    They put the cuffs on the man and took him into the station and booked him for assault.
    The next day they were handing out traffic tickets on University Avenue when the call came in. Diane was back in Ramsey ER in a coma. That morning a judge who suffered from haughty extremes of robes disease and who tended to be lenient about domestic abuse and who was impressed with Summit Avenue addresses had let the dentist out on bail. He had gone directly back to Harry’s house and beat Diane with a claw hammer he’d found on the back porch. Harry had been using the hammer to repair a loose rain gutter. By the time they got to the hospital, she was dead.
    This time a different judge refused bail for the unrepentant dentist.
    Six months after Diane Cantrell was married, she was back in the Lutheran chapel; this time she didn’t see the light filtering through the stained glass. She didn’t smell the pyres of flowers.
    And Harry met Broker at the church door and said, I don’t want you here.
    It changed Broker’s life. His dad had always figured he’d go to law school after tiring of the police. His mother wished for something more whimsical, something to develop the intuitive talents she saw in her son.
    Broker remained a cop. But a detached and then a remote kind of cop. He told himself he’d sought out the deep undercover work to anticipate crimes before they happened. Then his current wife, Nina, came into his life. She looked at his undercover routine and said, What are you hiding from, anyway?
    Broker and Harry tried but failed to put the friendship back together. They both left the St. Paul department. Broker went to the BCA; Harry to Washington County. Broker departed on his undercover pilgrimage. Harry found refuge in excesses of hard work and binges of drinking and gambling.
    And every time they met it was instant time machine—they were back in that living room on Summit Avenue. Their voices were civil and professional, but their eyes were locked as if their hands were poised three inches away from their holstered pistols and each was waiting for the other to make the first move.
    So the story passed by word of mouth, and it wasn’t written down or reported, and some people said that Harry had put it all behind him. Others were convinced that Harry had never recovered from the events surrounding Diane’s murder and it