Chasing a Blond Moon (4 page)

“Your name?” Service said. “Limey. That's a new one.”

“Finn all the way, eh? I grew up near Jacobsville where the limestone was quarried. That's where the Limey come from.”

“I thought they quarried red sandstone there.”

“The limestone operation wasn't as well known.”

Service grunted acknowledgment. A local girl who had been a cop in Lansing, now back in the U.P. Service made the observation, didn't pursue it.

The medical examiner arrived in a muddy black Suburban. He looked harried. A vehicle with three technicians followed close behind him.

“What we got?” The doctor was young, short, and plump, with a slicked-back mullet. A tiny snowflake of toilet paper clung to a razor cut on his left jawline.

“Oriental male, forty-five to fifty-five, five-six or -seven. Been dead at least twenty-four hours, judging by the smell,” Pyykkonen reported.

The doctor packed Vicks just below his nostrils, pulled on latex gloves with a snapping sound, and carefully opened the door. “Ripe,” he said without emotion. It struck Service that people who handled human remains handled them with the same detachment that conservation officers handled animals, proof that death leveled all living things. The doctor's deliberate, efficient movements told Service he was experienced.

“We need the air temp and humidity both inside and outside the vehicle,” the M.E. said to one of his techs, sniffing. “You smell that?”

Service had no idea what the man was talking about. The gasses from the body made it impossible for him to smell anything else except the pervading stench of dead fish. “Just the body,” the tech said.

“I thought I caught a whiff of ammonia,” Pyykkonen interjected. “But I could have been mistaken. This is starting to be a real stinker.”

“Bitter almonds,” the examiner said.

“Cyanide?” Pyykkonen said, perking up.

The doctor leaned into the Saturn and used a Popsicle stick to open the dead man's mouth, illuminating it with a penlight clamped between his teeth. “I'm guessing HCN or KCN,” the doctor muttered over his shoulder. “Want to take a look here?” he added.

Pyykkonen leaned forward.

“Corroded,” the doctor mumbled, holding the mouth open. “See the blistering?”

The detective nodded.

The M.E. stepped back and widened the beam of his flashlight. “Skin's red as cherries,” he said. “Consistent with cyanide and this temperature, but we'll do the slab-and-lab and let science keep us off Wild-Ass-Guess Boulevard.”

Service shined his light on the scat pile in the backseat but made no attempt to collect it until Pyykkonen gave him the go-ahead. The site was hers and his job was subsidiary. Over the last year, he had encountered too many stiffs in the course of duty. His boss, U.P. law boss Captain Ware Grant, was constantly reminding him to stay focused on fish and game law—which was what he wanted, too—but sometimes you ended up far afield.

The homicide detective stood with her hands on her hips, studying the car. “We'll call this a crime scene until we determine otherwise,” she said. “Death under suspicious circumstances. Rigor is present,” she added. “Which probably means death twelve to thirty-six hours ago. And his arms defying gravity suggest he died somewhere else.”

The M.E. grunted.

Service was impressed at the detective's pragmatism and wondered what had gone wrong in Lansing for her to lose her job there.

Pyykkonen fetched her camera from her vehicle and began to take photographs of the scene, starting first at the corners of the area she had taped off with long-range shots, and working her way up to mid-range, then close-up shots. She worked silently and methodically, her camera clicking in the dark, the flash illuminating the surrounding area.

“Don't forget the shit,” Service said over her shoulder.

“It's all shit,” she said back to him.

After the photographs were taken, another deputy arrived and helped her to lift fingerprints. They then began a long, slow inspection of the interior of the Saturn, using tweezers to collect fibers and hairs and anything else they could find that might help in the investigation.

Eventually Pyykkonen cleared Service to collect the animal scat, which he placed in a plastic evidence bag in a cooler in the back of his vehicle. He found several long hairs mixed in the feces and several scrapes on the leather seating. Scratches? He wondered.

“Got a learned opinion?” she asked.

“Bear shit, I'd say. I'm not sure about the hair. Feels and looks like bear, but the colors are wrong. These are blond, almost white.” He added, “Out West black bears range in color from light to dark, but ours are all deep black.”

“Maybe this fella found a polar bear shitting in his backseat and his heart stopped,” she said.

“That would do it for me,” Service said. “If you don't mind, I'll ship the samples off to our lab and Gus can give you a bump when we have results.”

“How long?” she asked.

“Couple of days,” he said, not sure how much work the Rose Lake Lab had these days. “Maybe a week,” he added, amending the estimate.

“No prob,” she said. “The shit's not likely to be crucial here.” Maybe, Service thought, but you didn't often find bear scat inside a vehicle.
On
them sometimes, but not
in
them. The scat might not be critical, but it meant something, his gut told him.

Pyykkonen went through the man's wallet. There's a Tech ID in here,” she said. Michigan Technological University had been founded to produce mining engineers but had since branched out to become one of the country's premier engineering programs.

“Pung Juju Kang,” she said, examining a business card, “Professor, Department of Structural Engineering. Probably we ought to get over to his house, notify his next of kin. You want to come along?”

Nantz would be whipping up a breakfast for Gus and Walter around now. “Sure,” he said with a shrug, cursing himself for letting his curiosity have its head.

The house was made of cedar logs that glowed a flamboyant orange in the rising summer sun; it was more tall than wide and looked relatively new. There was a detached one-car garage. The severely pitched roof of the house had been built to ward off heavy winter snows and was lined with green ceramic tiles. The lawn was trimmed but there were few flowers or shrubs out front.

Pyykkonen knocked on the door several times and rang the bell, but got no response.

Service stood behind her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, bored with the whole thing, wishing he had gone back to Gus's.

“I've got a search warrant coming,” the homicide detective said not more than a minute before a beat-up Jeep Eagle clattered up the driveway. A towering man with white hair got out with a paper clenched in his beefy fist. He had a ruddy face and needed a shave.

“Judge Pavelich. I could have had somebody pick it up, your honor.”

The judge grunted dismissively. “On my way over to the Hurons to annoy some trout,” he said. “This is right on my way. No sense sending somebody else.”

“Judge, this is Grady Service,” Pyykkonen said.

“Otto,” the judge said, extending his hand. “Heard of you, Service. Twinkie Man, right?”

“Guilty,” he said with a nod, trying not to grimace. He had arrested a poacher a couple of years ago who tried to claim that sugar had made him temporarily insane, which then led to his violations. The man had lost in what was becoming a legendary court case that Service saw as just another bout with an asshole violet, his term for a violator.

“You found the guy dead?” the judge asked Pyykkonen.

“In his car down to the fish house in Hancock, eh,” she said. “The M.E. thinks it could be cyanide.”

“Poison,” Pavelich said. “The tool of chickenshits.” The judge ran his hand through his thick hair and rolled his shoulders. “Guess I'll be getting on.”

He left without further comment.

Before Pyykkonen could open the door, a Houghton County patrol car pulled into the driveway.
command
was painted in gold script on the door by the driver's side. A red Jeep Liberty pulled up behind the squad car.

“Sheriff Macofome,” the detective said to the approaching officer, who was short, squat, neckless, and hatless, his hair trimmed in a military whitewall.

“Thought I'd see if I could lend a hand,” Houghton's new sheriff said. He had been appointed a couple of months before, replacing the chief who had held the job for nearly fifteen years before he died suddenly of a heart attack. The way Macofome looked at Pyykkonen made Service wonder if his helpfulness was something more than professional. Not his business, but she clearly had been rescued from school liaison to get the homicide job.

The man behind the sheriff looked antsy. “I'm Adams,” he said. He was of medium height and balding, with a shape that suggested he spent too much time behind a desk.

“Harry Pung works for me. I got a call that I might be needed here. Is something wrong?”

Service thought of correcting the tense, but kept his mouth shut.

“Is it doctor or professor?” Pyykkonen asked, impressing Service with her political savvy.

“This ain't MIT. Call me Steve.”

“Steve,” Pyykkonen said tentatively, “I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but Pung Juju Kang was found dead this morning.” Adams stared disbelieving at the detective. “Is he married?” she asked.

“Was,” Adams said. “The ex lives downstate somewhere—Detroit, I think.”

“You called him Harry Pung,” Service said, confused by the name. “His ID says Kang.”

“Standard Korean naming convention,” Adams said. “The family name is always listed first. He adopted the American name when he moved to this country. What happened to Harry?”

“We're looking into that,” Pyykkonen said, offering nothing specific. “How was his health?”

“Harry? Fine; ya know, like the rest of us. We could all lose a little weight, eat better.”

“History of heart problems, anything like that?”

Adams said, “He hunted and fished and hiked a lot. He was a tad overweight, but he seemed to be in good enough shape.”

“What was his reputation up to the college?” Pyykkonen asked.

Adams contemplated the question. “Harry isn't one to make a good first impression. He's a bit gruff and direct, but when you get to know him, he's fine. First week of classes I had students bitching, but then they settled in and his student evaluations were excellent. He worked the kids hard. In Korea, it was tough to get slots in good schools and Harry thought students here ought to be as serious about their work.”

“His colleagues like him?”

“Harry pretty much sticks to himself. He serves on department committees and does solid work. People think he's a bit eccentric, but hell, that's almost a badge of honor in academia.”

“What did he hunt?” Service asked. Adams was still in present tense, had not processed the reality of Pung's death.

Adams shrugged. “Beats me. Lots of hunters and fishermen on the faculty, but Harry pretty much does his own thing.”

“You said he was divorced?” Pyykkonen asked.

“Before he came here,” Adams said.

“When was that?” Pyykkonen said.

“A year ago this month.”

“From where?”

“Virginia Tech. He was a real catch for us. He has an international reputation in structural materials.”

“Like cement?” Pyykkonen asked.

Adams showed a hint of academic superiority. “He's working on heat-resistant materials to be used for heat-shielding in high-speed aircraft.”

“Government contracts?”

“No, but they're most certainly in the offing. His work is just getting recognized by the Department of Defense. His work to date has been more involved with the chemistry than applications, but he was moving into applications.”

“Sounds like a smart guy,” Pyykkonen said.

“He was,” Adams said after a pause.

“He have kids?”

Adams again pondered the question. “One son I know of: Tunhow. He was a student here last year, but transferred to U of M this fall.”

“The son have problems here?” Pyykkonen asked.

“Not book-wise. The boy made dean's list both semesters. Came in with great credentials.”

“Engineering?”

“Zoology,” Adams said, glancing at his watch.

Service said, “You said no problems book-wise. Were there other kinds of problems?”

“Standard stuff—booze in his dorm room, fake ID—nothing major. The kids here hit the books hard and the competition is tough. Some students play hard to offset the pressure. Is there anything else?”

“No, sir,” Pyykkonen said. “We appreciate your help.”

“You need anything else, you be sure to give a shout, eh?”

“Yooper?” Pyykkonen asked.

Adams looked embarrassed as he turned back to face her. “Slips out, ya know? Yah sure, born and raised over to Rock.”

Pyykkonen's question didn't surprise Service. Yoopers had a tendency to try to identify each other, as if place of birth conferred a certain level of verisimilitude.

When the professor was gone, Pyykkonen and the sheriff exchanged glances. “Not all that broken up,” Pyykkonen said.

“Let's get on inside,” the chief said.

The foyer was standard western, with a closet and a high ceiling. From the foyer they moved into a long room with a rough-hewn wood floor.

Pyykkonen said to nobody in particular, “Should we take off our shoes?”

“Nobody to bitch if we don't,” Chief Macofome said.

The first room was huge, perhaps twenty by forty feet, with a squat black enameled table in the center. The table was surrounded by embroidered black satin pillows. There was a huge digital TV in one corner. No books, no flowers. The ceiling was covered with jade green colored paper. There was a sliding glass door at the end of the room, looking out on a garden that seemed to be a collection of small twisted trees, plots of raked sand, and boulders of various sizes, shapes, and colors. The base of the walls on both sides of the room was lined with low chests of drawers. Some of the chests had pillows on them.