Chasing a Blond Moon (15 page)

“Good. She was cooperative.”

“I told you a long time ago she's good people. You just have to earn her trust.”

“Somebody snared a bear with steel cable down in the Tamarack River country.”

“A first?”

“For us. Apparently it happens in Alaska.”

“Says who?”

“Joe Emmarpus's granddaughter.”

“The one who took over his practice?”

“Am I that far out of touch?” Service asked.

“If I lived with Maridly, I'd be out of touch too,” Gus said. Service knew his friend still missed his late wife, Pracie. He had occasionally dated other women since her death, but had not connected for any length of time with anyone. He spent most of his time with his sons when they were home, or with Shark Wettelainen.

Gus checked his watch. “Any minute now.” Looking up, he said, “There he is.”

Service turned and saw his son in the outer bar. He was accompanied by Karylanne Pengelly, whom he'd met at Walter's dorm. As then she wore a loose T-shirt, no bra or makeup, and frayed denim cutoffs. They had another girl in tow. She was dressed in a black blouse and capris and had a bright pink sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Karylanne was talking animatedly to the other girl and Walter was looking around.

Gus waved and Walter Commando nodded and guided the girls into the back room.

“This is—,” Walter began.

“Karylanne Pengelly,” Service said. “We met at the dorm.” He took pleasure in the surprise on his son's face.

“This is Enrica,” Walter continued, introducing the other girl. She had long hair tinted with blonde streaks and a thin, lopsided face that made her look both vulnerable and sexy. “Grady Service and Gus Turnage—both out of uniform,” he added as they slid into the booth.

The two officers slid over to make space.

“I talked to Maridly,” Walter said. Service assumed this was the boy's way of preempting him, by letting him know that he knew his father was unhappy about his actions. Having signaled that he knew, Walter launched into the purpose of the meeting.

“Gus told me about Professor Pung and his son, Terry. We did some asking around and Karylanne found Enrica.” He nodded at the girl, who looked nervous.

It was cool in the tavern, but Service saw that the girl was perspiring.

She spoke haltingly. “Last year I was, like dating this football player from Wisconsin. His uncle has a place up on Lac La Belle, near Mt. Bohemia?” the girl began. It irked Service how some young people turned declarative statements into questions.

“Go on,” Karylanne said.

“Okay, but like, do I have to get into, you know, like the
details?
”

“Just tell them what happened,” Karylanne gently urged.

“Okay, like last spring this guy, he took me up to his uncle's place, and we like, you know?”

“What's the uncle's name?” Gus asked.

“Masonetsky. I think he lives in Iron Mountain.”

Karylanne squeezed the girl's hand.

“We like, ate some stuff and got a little drunk and smoked a little weed, ya know, and the next thing I knew it was morning, and like, I didn't feel so good?”

“Hangover?” Gus asked.

“Well, yah,” she said, “that, but I like, felt like stuff happened during the night I couldn't much remember and I thought it was like a really bad dream, but like, I was really sore . . .
down there,
ya know?” She glanced at her lap.

Her face was red, and she wouldn't make eye contact. “So I said to the guy, the football player, did we like . . . ? And he said, ‘Yeah, three times.' I was upset and I told him I'd never done it before and he said, ‘It didn't seem that way last night.' I was like, really bummed, but it was done and hey, ya know you're gonna do it sooner or later, right?” She raised an eyebrow at Karylanne and implored support with her hands. “Anyhow, he made us breakfast and I tried to go along with it, ya know? But the next thing I know, I'm feeling dizzy again and I'm back in bed and this guy is on top of me and I told him to get the hell off me, and I started hitting him. I made him take me back to campus. I yanked all day and all night and I still felt bad on Monday for classes.”

“Did you tell anybody about this?” Gus asked.

“Just Karylanne.”

“What's this got to do with Terry Pung?” Service asked, interrupting.

He felt bad for the girl, but the whole story seemed pointless. It wasn't DNR business.

“When we got up to the cabin he went a couple of doors down and brought back this guy and he said his name was Terry Pung. This Terry, he sold us some weed, and my date, he said the guy's father was a prof at Tech, and I told my date that I had a kid named Terry Pung in one of my classes, but this Terry didn't look like the same dude, ya know?”

“What's the football player's name?” Gus asked.

“Rafe Masonetsky,” she said. “He played in back of the line or something; I don't know football.”

“Where's Rafe now?” Gus asked.

“He dropped out, said he was tired of school. He wasn't on scholarship or anything. I guess he went home to Wisconsin.”

“Where in Wisconsin?” Gus asked.

“Some town near Madison, I think. I told him that this Pung dude didn't look like the Pung in my classes and Rafe laughed. He said Pung was cool—he brought some kid over from Korea and enrolled him in school under his name so that he didn't have to go to class. Terry likes to hunt, I guess.”

Walter suddenly spoke up.

“Tell them what you ate at Rafe's uncle's place.”

“We had some fruit and he grilled some veggie burgers? In the morning we had fruit and yogurt. I'm like a vegan; I don't eat living flesh?”

“What kind of fruit?” Karylanne said.

“Berries, grapes, orange slices, peaches, bananas, ya know?”

“And?” Karylanne prompted.

“You mean the figs and prunes?” she asked, seeking guidance.

Gus snapped to attention. “Figs?”

“Rafe said Terry brought them to us as a gift. I think they were in the fridge? I never looked. Even though they were chocolate-covered, I didn't like how they tasted, but I wanted to be polite, ya know?”

“Is the Pung boy in school now?” Service asked.

“No, I heard he transferred to U of M.” This checked out with what Service had heard from Pung's boss.

“You haven't seen Rafe since then?”

“No, he kept calling and I told him if he didn't stop I was going to tell the school what had happened.”

“Did you?”

“No,” she said, looking down at the table. “I figured it was my fault. I never shoulda gone out there with the dude. Can I go now? I've got a lot of studying to do.”

Gus said, “How can we reach you?”

“I don't want to be involved?” the girl said. “I've got like, this humongous load this semester and I need to stay on schedule. I made a mistake—can we just leave it at that?”

Service was glad that Gus didn't push any harder. If they needed to talk to her, they could find her easily enough.

Walter and the two girls got up and started to leave. Service followed and caught his son's arm. “Are you going to have dinner with us?”

“No, Karylanne and I have to study. Next time, okay?”

Service wanted to chew out his son for poking his nose where it didn't belong, but the information was promising and he was too much a detective to niggle.

“I guess Maridly's gonna be gone a lot?” Walter asked.

“Flying for Senator Timms.”

“So you let her go?”

“I don't
let
her do anything. She makes her own decisions.”

“That's cool,” his son said, heading for the door. “See you soon?”

“Absolutely,” Service said, not wanting to fail the test and thinking he needed to get the boy wheels, if the university would allow it.

Back at the table, Gus asked where Walter was. “He went with Karylanne,” Service said.

Gus smiled. “Don't blame him a bit.”

“Chocolate-covered figs,” Service said. “Too damned much coincidence here to not follow up.”

“Pyykkonen talked to Pung's lawyer. There isn't any camp or other house and he's worth about four hundred grand, mostly in the house and stocks, all of which goes to his ex.”

“What about the son?”

Gus shrugged. “No mention of a son.”

“We'd better take a look at that cabin on Lac La Belle,” Service said, wondering what the deal was with Terry Pung.

They left Gus's vehicle at his house, loaded some of his gear into Service's Yukon, and headed across the bridge through Hancock.

“You figure the figs were laced?” Gus asked as Service drove up US 41.

Service said, “Maybe GHB or whatever it's called. I think our boy Pung is a wannabe chemist.”

“GHB or whatever,” Gus said. “Listen to us. We don't know shit. Let's give Pyykkonen a bump. She worked school liaison. She'll know.”

Service didn't argue.

Lac La Belle was way out on the Keeweenaw Peninsula in Keeweenaw County. On the way there, Gus hauled out his county plat books and found a property registered to a George Masonetsky. There were several cabins on the east side of Mount Bohemia. None of them were directly on the lake, but were high enough to have a spectacular view. The mountain was more than eight hundred feet tall, steep and pocked with boulders. Some of the local X-sports types tried to ski it from time to time—usually with disastrous results.

They waited on the county road for Pyykkonen.

“Hi, guys,” she said as she unfolded from her vehicle.

Gus told her about the girl and what they had heard, and she listened without interrupting. He ended by telling her that Service thought the girl might have been slipped GHB.

“Possibly,” she said, “but roofies would be better.”

“Roofies?” Gus asked.

“Rohypnol. It's a sleeping pill. Take the stuff, crush it, put the powder in a liquid. You won't smell it or taste it. It kicks in within a half hour, even faster if you're drinking. It sticks in the blood for thirty-six hours if you've mixed it with booze.”

“Could you load it in figs?”

“Sure, like I said, dissolve it in water, inject the fig, and you're on your way. Simple and effective.”

Service shook his head. Yesterday it had been a meth lab, now ­something called roofies. Things might take time to migrate to the U.P., but they always got there.

“The girl said Pung's cabin was a couple of doors down,” Service said.

“We can't go in without a warrant,” Pyykkonen said. “We'll have to call in the K-County sheriff. This is outside my jurisdiction.”

“She's right,” Gus said, glancing at Service.

“But it's not outside ours,” Service said. “Don't worry, we'll keep everything nice and clean,” he added, knowing you could always enter a private dwelling if you thought there was a problem or an emergency. You couldn't search around and root through things that weren't visible, but if you saw something in plain sight suggesting a crime, you could get a warrant on that. Up here it was easier to get warrants than in some downstate jurisdictions, where judges stuck to process to avoid the ever-present eyes of the ACLU and other watchdog groups.

They split up, Gus volunteering to go with the Houghton detective, leaving Service to do what he needed to do.

The house they were looking for was not a couple of doors away, but four cabins down. Using his flashlight Service could see all weapons safes inside. An arrow was in a vise on a table by the window and for a moment it looked like someone might be there working, but his probing light got no response and he went to fetch the others.

Back at the cabin he showed them a broken window. “Looks like somebody tried to break in,” he said.

“I wonder who,” Pyykkonen said, her voice thick with skepticism.

“You two can cut the bullshit tag team act. I'm a big girl.”

“Door's locked,” Gus said. “But maybe somebody banged against it and weakened the lock.”

“No goddamned way,” Limey Pyykkonen said. “This is as far as it goes. Let's get the County out here.”

The two conservation officers did not protest. Service wondered if her insistence on adhering to protocol got her tossed in Lansing.

Gus whispered, “Did you have to bust the window?”

“Hey, I found it that way,” Service said. He didn't add that it had been cracked and only partially broken and that it had collapsed when he tested it. It had been an accident, but he could have been gentler.

It took thirty minutes for Keeweenaw County to send a deputy. His name was Dupuis, a weary man who looked to be in his sixties.

The deputy looked at the broken window and cursed. “Bloody kids are always breakin' into cabins out this way.”

“We ought to look inside,” Pyykkonen said.

“Wait,” Service said, feeling an unexpected surge of caution. “Let's see if we can get the owner out here.” If they were into an evidence stream he didn't want to lose the case on a procedural technicality. Now he was being cautious and the realization made him smile.

Dupuis gave him a look that said he wanted to get back to what he had been doing and that this was an unneeded distraction, but he agreed after some initial stalling.

The name on Gus's plat book said
r. brown
. “You know the owner?” Gus asked the deputy.

“Met 'im coupla times. Lives ta Houghton, works ta college.”

“Let's get him out here,” Pyykkonen said.

“Tonight?”

“Soon as he can get here,” she said.

“I'm t'only uniform on duty in da county tonight,” Dupuis whined as he shuffled off to his patrol car to make the call.

“This may be nothing,” Pyykkonen said.

“Maybe,” Service said, but two incidents involving laced chocolate-covered figs and both involving the same family name made him think they'd caught a break.