Keith sagged and reached in the pocket of his over-coat.
He pulled out an empty plastic pharmacy bottle and placed it on the table with a decisive click. “I found it in the bathroom this morning. Empty. Couple of pills were in the toilet bowl.”
Broker reached over and read the prescription aloud:
“BuSpar.”
“Read the rest of it,” said Keith.
“Caution: Do not stop taking this medication abruptly without consulting your physician.” Broker and Jeff exchanged glances.
Keith reached in his other pocket and brought out a mangled photograph. He tossed it on the table.
There was a slight, but tribal, tightening of jaws all around.
Quietly, with distaste in his voice, Broker said, “Who is he?”
“Tom James. Reporter for the St. Paul paper.” Keith expelled a lungful of air.
“And…,” said Broker.
“And”-Keith strained his breath between clenched teeth-“Caren has a borderline personality disorder. She’s been seeing a shrink for a year…”
Two vertical worry marks deepened above the center of Broker’s thick eyebrows.
“She’s anxious, depressed,” explained Keith.
Broker looked away. “Caren and I didn’t agree on a lot of things, but she was always resilient.”
“The strain got to her,” said Keith, looking him straight in the eyes.
“The strain, huh?” queried Broker. Time slipped, missed a beat. It seemed they’d had this conversation before.
Keith exhaled. “Yeah. Of living with me.” He nodded at the empty pill container. “She quit taking the medicine four, five days ago and went totally snake shit.”
“What about the reporter?”
Keith muttered under his breath. His eyes swung, trapped.
“The little creep is witch-hunting me. I’m real quotable these days.”
“We heard,” said Jeff.
“Well, it must have been a slow news day because he came out to dig some dirt. And the shape she’s in…” He shook his head. “I just lost it. Went after both of them. This time it’s my job. The press’ll blow this thing way out of proportion.”
Caren said she might be bringing someone. Broker took a breath. Hit an air pocket. Why bring a reporter? Great.
Caren would show up. His kitchen table would be an autopsy slab for dissecting a failed marriage and Keith’s dead career.
“Who took the picture?” he asked.
Keith looked away. “I followed them, I wanted something, to get in her face.”
“Besides a fist?” asked Broker.
Leather hitched. Jeff shifted from boot to boot.
“What happens if you stop taking the pills suddenly?”
asked Broker.
Keith enunciated in a weary voice. “Overreaction to stress.
Violent mood swings.” Then, with elaborate precision, he quoted, “A propensity to misperceive reality.”
19
The ex-husband’s resort was just minutes up the road. Tom really wished Caren Angland would just disappear in a puff of smoke. Presto. Go back for the suitcase, cross the border into Canada. No more Ida Rain sending him to school board meetings. No more child support payments.
But the fantasy was full of holes.
Caren faced away, her forehead leaning against the window. He touched the money packet next to his chest-saw himself walking into a casino in Vegas with that wad in his pocket.
“Turn in up there,” she said suddenly. A bridge, a sign: BRULE RIVER. The trees opened. Another sign. NANIBOUJOU LODGE AND RESTAURANT. The structure had the obtuse shape of an ornate barn roof rising out of the ground.
Tom turned down the driveway. Wooden lawn chairs froze on a stark band of cobble beach; under a slag sky, six-foot Superior breakers auditioned for North Atlantic surf.
“I’ll stay here, you’ll go ahead to talk to Phil,” she directed.
“I will?” But the fact was, he liked the way it gave him some control, keeping her separate from the ex-husband.
Letting him lead the play. He drove on, turned and parked the car; they got out, and Caren laughed as they walked to the office.
“What? he asked.
“Personal joke. I’ll tell you sometime,” she said.
“Tell me now.”
“Okay. This lodge is where Keith and I started, I guess you could call it. Later, he brought me back up here, to propose to me.”
Tom stopped and cocked his head. “He drove all the way up here to propose?”
Caren shook her head. “There’s a waterfall up there in the park.” She pointed to the ridge across the road. “That’s where.” She yanked at her wedding ring. The knuckle was really swollen, agitated by her constant worrying at it. The ring would not come off.
“Try some soap,” he suggested.
They entered and she asked the man behind the counter if she could get something to eat. The clerk stared at her bruised face; the sunglasses and scarf, given the time of year, were a gruesome costume. He told them the kitchen was closed until supper time. But she could get a cup of coffee.
Caren said that would be fine.
The dining room dwarfed them-towering stone fireplace, soaring walls and ceiling. Flamboyant reds, oranges, yellows, greens swirled around Tom; the batik, cutwork and quilting of an immense pagan fun house.
Wild, like his thoughts.
“North Woods baroque,” quipped Caren, joining him. “It’s Cree, the designs.” Then in a more serious voice: “Let’s go outside. I want to use your cell phone to call Phil,” her voice accelerated. Breathy.
Like a teenaged girl, thought Tom.
Outside, they stood in the lee of the wind. She tapped the numbers and all of her tension drained out in a loud hopeful,
“Phil?”
Keith Angland slapped a US West printout on the table. Not a regular billed account. A copy a cop could get pulled in a hurry. He pointed an accusing finger at an underlined number. Acid voice, “C’mon Broker-she called you this morning. What’d she tell you?”
“That you hit her, Keith. So I told her to get clear.”
“Clear up here, huh?” Keith pushed the sheet of paper in Broker’s face. Broker swatted the accusing hand aside. The phone sheet fell to the floor.
Jeff stood close, striving for an impartial expression, with his heavy hands on his hips and his weight poised on the balls of his feet.
When the phone rang, Keith and Broker were speaking at once and pointing fingers. Broker stepped over to the wall phone under the bulletin board next to the kitchen cabinets, picked up the receiver and barked, “What?” Then he sagged.
“Aw, Jesus.”
“What you got going on behind my back, asshole!” Keith seethed, suspicious. He lurched up, banged the table and crossed the room in long strides. Broker sagged, exhaled. It was going to hell. Keith grabbed at the phone. Broker sidestepped, still holding the receiver to his ear.
Caren’s voice, in the handset, said, “I need you to look at something.”
“Not now,” said Broker tensely.
“Caren, goddammit, where are you?” yelled Keith.
Behind a closed door, the baby cried.
“Oh my God, he’s there. Did you tell him I was coming?”
Caren’s tiny voice whined inside the plastic.
“No. Wait,” Broker addressed them both. Caren on the phone and Keith, who was dancing in front of him. Jeff shadowed them, his large square hands held up, signaling for calm. In the bedroom, Kit began to cry in long rolling sobs.
“Keep him away from me,” shouted the tiny voice. “He’ll kill me.” A male voice came on the line. He was shouting, too.
To quell the riot breaking out in his house Broker slammed the phone down on the hook and turned to face Keith.
Four miles away, Caren blurted: “He’s there, Keith is.” She pressed the telephone to her chest.
Tom took a deep breath, grabbed the phone and yelled,
“This is Tom James. I won’t let her near that guy, is that clear?” The line went dead.