Chasing a Blond Moon (37 page)

“Like the DNR has budget to buy air time,” Midge Private shot back sarcastically.

“Not the DNR,” Service said. “Outside donors.”

Egon Spurse had finished his bit and turned to join them. “Hey, Service,” Spurse said. “Thought your office was over ta Newberry.”

“I moved.”

“At citizen expense, no doubt,” Midge Private said.

Spurse saw the tray, grabbed a handful of cookies and stuffed his mouth.

“What can we help you with?” Service asked Midge, who immediately thrust her microphone at him. “I have a source inside the DNR who has shown me a memorandum directing gray shirts to make life miserable for bear- and deer-baiters this fall.”

Service smiled. “The baiting rules are designed to protect the herd,” he explained. “When the animals congregate, they can pass bovine TB, and I'm sure you and your listeners are just as concerned about the threat of Chronic Wasting Disease coming across the state line from Wisconsin.”

Romy stepped forward, her camera up.

“Get that outta my face!” Midge snapped.

“Camera off,” Romy said. “I'm sorry, Ms. Private.” Service saw a green light still illuminated on the side of the camera. “You've got something on your blouse,” Romy said.

Midge stared down and began brushing herself. “Keep that camera off.”

“Since the camera's off,” Service said, “You and Igor ought to take a ride over to the Rock River. Our officers have come across some extremely ­interesting situations over there—you know, people who've gotten themselves into unusual positions.”

Midge glared at him. “You egotistical asshole.”

Egon Spurse said, “It's Egon,
not
Igor,” and took more cookies.

“In fact,” Service said, “you should talk to Lt. McKower about Rock River. She's got a great story to tell. Pictures, too.”

“What about baiting?” Midge Private asked, trying to regain control, but the mention of pictures had clearly put her off balance.

“I believe in baiting,” Service said. “As long as the rules are followed.” He looked down at her. “By the way, are you carrying? You know the new CCW law requires you to declare yourself when you encounter a police officer.”

“Do I look like I'm carrying?”

“I'm just following the rules,” Service said.

“That's harassment,” Private said. Her color was red and it was showing through the layers of pancake.

“Are you carrying?”

“You gonna strip-search me?”

“If we do that and discover you're carrying, you'll have a problem.”

Midge Private grabbed Spurse's thick arm. “Let's go,” she said. “
Nazi,
” she said over her shoulder.

Spurse grabbed the rest of the cookies and stuffed them into his mouth as he waddled to catch up with her.

“She's a little touchy,” Romy said as the van pulled away. “Does Lis really have pictures of them?”

“My lips are sealed. Your camera was on, right?”

“The whole time.”

Romy handed the tape to him as they walked inside. Service went into the office kitchen, washed the cookie dish and set it aside to drain, threw away the paper cups, put the milk and sugar away, and set the plastic coffee urn on the break table.

The captain came in and dug through the Pecan Sandies bag on the counter. “What's their angle this time?”

“Baiting rules. She claims to have a Lansing directive.”

“Undoubtedly she does,” the captain said. “Is she going to blast us?”

“Not with what she got today,” Service said.

Vince called a few minutes after five. “Paraffin was positive for nitrates, prelim tox results tomorrow,” he said.

“Was a weapon recovered from the vehicle?”

“I don't know the answer to that.”

“Tell your M.E. friend that Delta County will be in touch, and tell her thanks.”

“Delta?”

“This is more than a simple accident.”

Simon called a few minutes later. “I just pulled out of Kitella's. He was home all day yesterday. He's on Vicodin and can hardly move.”

“Witnesses?”

“His girlfriend and his daughter say they were with him the whole time. What's up?”

“Outi Ranta was shot last night in her home. Mary Ellen Fahrenheit was killed in a vehicle accident at Cedar River last night. I was at Ranta's. It first looked like a suicide, but it wasn't. There was a revolver and the paraffin was negative on both her hands. I just talked to Vince. The M.E. in Menominee got a paraffin positive on Fahrenheit.”

“Geez,” del Olmo said. “What more can I do to help?”

“Not sure yet. I'll call when I know something.”

Service called undersheriff James Cambridge at the office. “James, it's Grady Service.”

“Yes?”

“There was a fatal vehicle accident in Menominee County last night. The vick's name is Mary Ellen Fahrenheit. The M.E. down there is Dr. Blaize Jenner.” He spelled the name for him. “Outi Ranta was involved with Fahrenheit's husband. The doctor did a paraffin test on Fahrenheit and it was positive. I don't know if there was a weapon in the vehicle.

“What's the DNR doing in County business?” the undersheriff challenged.

“We're not in your business,” Service insisted. “I assisted a Wisconsin warden in arresting the vick's husband and his friend for illegally taking bears in Iron County. We interviewed the wife during the investigation and the warden called me to tell me about the accident. I asked Vince to ask the M.E. down there to do the tests—just in case. Outi Ranta admitted she was fooling around with Fahrenheit's husband.”

“Paraffin doesn't confirm anything, and why the bloody hell didn't you tell me this before?”

“Do what you want with it, James. I'm just sharing what I know.”

“Jenner, right?”

“The body's at Bay Med.”

“Okay then,” Cambridge said, hanging up without further comment.

“Okay then,” Service said, putting the phone down. Cambridge was a crab and still bitter over having lost the most recent election for sheriff, but he was close to the end of his career and would be all over this in order to close the case and go out with a feather in his cap. Tonight he would get a photo from Menominee and deputies would be checking around Escanaba and Gladstone to see if anybody had seen Mary Ellen Fahrenheit or her vehicle. Chances were good the answer would be yes.

Why the hell hadn't the private detective from Grand Rapids called? He dialed her number, got her answering service, and asked for a callback as soon as possible, even if she had no results.

Having left the message his attention went back to the photo of Ollie Toogood. What was the deal with the yearbook?

31

Nantz called when he was on his way home, but McCants came up on the 800 MHz at the same time. “Twenty-Five Fourteen, Forty-One Twenty-Eight.”

Service said, “Stand by one, Mar,” to Nantz, set the cell phone on the other seat, and picked up the mike for the 800. “Twenty-Five Fourteen.”

“You remember that place where you and your friend had a picnic before she went off to Lansing last fall?” With so many police scanners in the public, officers were careful to disguise locations and destinations. They tended to use a code that referred to places only the other officer would know.

“I remember.”

“I've got a situation,” she said.

She was in the Mosquito and he felt an immediate surge of adrenaline. “Rolling,” he said. Then to Nantz on the cell. “Did you catch that?”

“Your end,” she said. “I'll call you tonight around midnight. Be careful, hon.”

Service drove faster than the speed limit allowed, stopping briefly at a country store to refill two thermoses with coffee. Candi wouldn't have called unless she had something serious, and she was in the Mosquito,
his
Mosquito. And it was already dark.

Her truck was parked exactly where he and Nantz had found it last fall when they walked back from their afternoon visit to the Mosquito River.

McCants was sitting in her truck, smoking. He handed her a thermos.

“There is a God,” she said with a smile as she took off the top of the thermos and filled it with coffee. “I've got a wounded bear and a dead hound. I found a couple of dirty baits two days ago and I was moving in to sit on them tonight. Two shots,” she said, her words clipped. “I heard the dog, the shots, and then the bear came flying by me and veered south into the swamp.” She pointed.

Service knew the swamp intimately. It was nearly twelve miles across to the next road and he had hiked it all over the years.

“The dog's in back,” McCants said.

He went to look at it, cringed, and came back. “Beagle-Redbone mix?” Even dead the animal left him feeling uneasy.

She nodded, took a sip of coffee. “Grady, I got a good look at the bear. His lower jaw was gone. He left a big blood trail.”

“Size?” he asked.

“Big,” she said.

Shit, Service thought. A big wounded bear was not something officers liked to deal with.

“Just like you said, the action started to pick up over here. There's been five veeks in the area over the past three days, three North Carolina plates, one Tennessee, one Kentucky. Station 20 ran all the plates. No warrants.”

Which didn't mean much. Some elements of the bear-hunting crowd were rough, competitive, and lawless, and those who came up from the South were among the worst. “Who has the baits?”

“Kentucky truck,” she said. “It's owned by Lefton Valda, out of Bailey's Switch.”

“Kennel?” Most of the hunters from the South were dog men.

“No. Classic dirty baits, hanging anise and some hummingbird juice, ground piles of gummy bears, waffle cones, stale donuts, chocolate-covered raisins.”

“Spare no expense in the hunt for glory,” Service said.

McCants patted his arm. “We don't want to leave a wounded animal out here.”

Service agreed. “Did the shooters start tracking?”

“I don't know. They're east of us in the swamp. I just heard the shots. Their truck's parked just to the north of here. The blood trails are pretty easy to follow. The dog must've run some distance before it bled out.”

“Somebody's gonna be pissed,” Service said. Most serious bear hunters treated their best dogs better than people. “How do you want to play it?” he asked.

“I don't want to do any tracking with shooters still in the swamp.”

“They should be out of the woods by now.”

“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” she said, getting out of the truck.

There was a blood trail about a hundred yards below their trucks. Service looked at the blood and tracks, followed it to the edge of the cedars and went several paces inside, using his light. “Steady flow. Big animal, eh?”

“Biggest I've seen in a long time.”

This was bad news. Big bears rarely climbed trees when pursued by dogs, preferring a running fight on the ground. “No dogs pushing it,” he said. “It may lay down.”

She said, “Let's deal with the shooters before we go looking.”

They took her truck and circled around to where she had seen the Kentucky truck parked.

It wasn't unusual for hunters to drive up from the Appalachians to hunt Michigan bears. The laws in many of the southern mountain states forbade baits, and their often-mountainous terrain was imposing, with few roads. Here in the U.P. it was relatively flat with numerous dirt roads. The usual dog-hunting procedure was for hunters to drag dirt roads clean at night, then go back in the morning to check for crossing tracks. They would drive around with their best dog, the strike dog, sitting in a basket welded to the front bumper or grill and a kennel with another four or five dogs in the truck bed.

When the strike dog caught a scent, it would make a ruckus. The hunter would dismount, release the strike dog and the pack, and follow them on foot. Other hunters in the group would chase around on nearby roads guessing where the bear would cross and hoping for an intercept. Ultimately they'd try to get the dogs to tree the animal, then kill it at their leisure. In some ways it was like a small military operation, with trucks fishtailing and bouncing all over the back roads, the hunters all jacked up on adrenaline and sometimes on alcohol or more, and all of them with primitive eyes beamed in on the kill to come. The hunters communicated by CB or FRS radios and talked like a bunch of infantry wannabes.

He had encountered a few bear hunters in the Mosquito from time to time, but not many. The terrain harbored a sizeable population of animals, but it was wild and almost totally roadless, which made doghunting demanding. Owners valued their dogs too much to risk losing them in bad country. Mostly he had found baiters in the wilderness area.

The Kentucky truck was dark, its hood cold, no sign of the hunters.

“They should've been out thirty minutes ago,” McCants said.

“Doubt they'll sit in there all night,” Service said. Bear hunters were an odd breed, a blend of fearlessness and superstitions, coupled with some shining examples of pure stupidity.

“Their trail's clear as a highway,” she said.

They walked up the trail in the dark, moving slowly and listening. When they got to a small rise that faded gently down to a cedar swamp, they stopped and squatted. Service heard his knees creak but ignored the sound. The weather was cooling, damp. There were pieces of bait along the trail and four beer cans, one of which McCants toed with her boot. “Wingnuts,” she said, adding the can to others she had picked up.

“The river's about three hundred yards,” he said, remembering the terrain like it was his own skin. Bears nearly always traveled in heavy cover and preferred creek- and riverbeds near swamps with access to hardwoods and mast crops.

Service wanted a cigarette but didn't light up. Smoke traveled in the forest and the ember could be seen in such darkness. The first skill of officers was the ability to remain invisible until they chose to appear magically.

“Good place to wait,” McCants said.

He agreed and stretched, feeling achy. Stopping hunters at night always entailed risk, more if alcohol was involved. McCants showed good judgment in calling for help. If the department had the people they needed, somebody else would be here. Maybe this was a preview of the year ahead, he thought. With Nantz at the academy, how was he supposed to look after Walter? This was worrisome.

“Need more beer,” a voice growled below them.

“Less be more,” a second voice said. “You missed that sumbitch.”

“Hell I did,” the first man said.

Service could hear the sloshing of slush, probably in an ice chest. One of the men crumpled something, threw it in the grass, where it struck a rock or stick and pinged with a metallic sound.

When they were within ten yards, McCants stood up and said, “DNR, Conservation Officer, you fellas have any luck?” She didn't turn on her light.

The walkers stopped. One of them grumbled, “Law.”

McCants turned on her light. “Any luck, guys?”

“Bejayzus,” one of the men said.

Service stood and illuminated his own MAG-LITE. “You heard Officer McCants. Any luck?”

“Sheeit,” one of the men said. “Me and Dermid heared you-un. Gut nuthin'. Fust tahm, come all ta way up here. Got more bars back ta home, I'd say.”

“I'd like to see your licenses,” McCants said.

The men grumbled, shuffled around. “Musta left 'em in ta rig.”

“Mr. Valda?”

One of the men said, “How you-un be a-knowin' ma name?”

“Are you Mr. Valda, Mr. Lefton Valda?”

“I be.”

“And you?” McCants said, swinging her light to the other man, who squinted and held his arm up to block the light. “Dermid Atbal. Gittin' thet light outten my face, womarn.”

Service saw that the men wore jackets over full camo jumpsuits, no hunter orange. They each had hold of the end of a large ice chest. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders, barrels down.

“Handguns?” Service asked.

“Huntin' bar, fool,” the one called Atbal said. “Cain't a-swing a longgun own a bar in ta blind, kinya now?” The man lifted his arm and Service saw a shoulder holster.

The other man said, “Under ta coat.”

“Handguns loaded?” McCants asked.

“Not much good they ain't,” the one called Atbal said.

“Rifles loaded?” McCants asked.

“Same ting,” the man said. “You-uns walk aroun' with unloaded pieces?”

Service said, “Put the ice chest down,” and stepped forward, keeping his light on Atbal. Both men had jumpy voices, the kind of nerves on the surface that he'd learned over the years to treat with extreme caution.

McCants moved up at the same time, keeping her light on the other man.

“Okay, gentlemen,” Service said, “Unsling your rifles and place them on the ground. Then take a step back and remove your coats.”

“I speck we kin unload 'em,” Valda said.

“On the ground,” McCants said firmly, reinforcing Service.

Service picked up Valda's rifle, kept his light on the two men while McCants shone her light at the rifle in his hands. The safety was off, clip in. He clicked the safety on, popped the clip, checked the chamber. There was a round in it, which he extracted carefully, letting the bullet fall to the ground.

He set the rifle down and repeated the process with the second weapon, same result.

“Okay,” he said with a steady voice. “I'm going to unholster your handguns.”

Both men carried .44 Mag revolvers with six-inch barrels. Both weapons were loaded and had a round in the chamber. He popped the cylinders and dumped the bullets, quickly scraping them up and putting the ammo in his pocket. He collected all four weapons and flashed his light around until he found the can they had thrown away. He told Atbal to fetch it and carry it out.

McCants said, “Okay, guys, grab the ice chest and let's go back to your truck and talk about things.”

“What about our guns?” Valda asked. “We paid cash money. Ain't cheap.”

“We'll talk about that,” McCants said.

The men moved slowly, water and the crumpled cans sloshing in the cooler, both of them complaining about the other man's gait.

From the trail that ran between large sumac clusters, Service saw that more trucks had pulled into the area. He saw trucks, no people. There was no moon, no stars. Clouds had moved in, threatening rain, and he could feel the humidity.

A voice called out, “Which of yas shot ma Winston.”

“I'm Officer McCants, DNR,” Candi said. “Who is Winston?”

“Winston be my strahck dawg what's a-stretched out day-id in ta back thet rig,” the voice said. It sounded to Service like the man was emotionally between grief and blowing up. Service heard clothes rustling. Something scraped the side of a truck. . .

“No good, shot ma strahck dawg,” the voice said. “Somebody gone pay, thet's fact.”

McCants said, “Everybody out where we can see you,” she said, pointing her light ahead.

“She Injun?” a voice asked.

“Cain't you be a-seein', she's gook?” another voice challenged.

“You got weapons?” Service asked. The situation was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

“We plan to far 'em we halfta, donchu know,” the original voice said.

McCants said, “We'll find out what happened to your dog. Everybody just
chill.
”

Service counted five men, ponytails, full beards, camo shirts and muddy pants, faded orange vests and hats.

They all had slung rifles.