Chasing a Blond Moon (40 page)

Warden Les Reynolds said, “The deer put him inside, counselor, but it's the bears and other stuff keeping him here.”

“We're just trying to have a friendly chat with your client,” Service said.

Colliver had crossed his arms, his hands clenched into fists under his arms.

Uptight, pissed, defensive, Service thought. “I asked you a question, Mr. Colliver.”

“I don't know no Kitella.”

Service said, “He beat the shit out of you and Charley.”

“Don't usually get no name from some asshole when you're in a fight.”

Service sat down to bring himself to Colliver's level, a calculated move to even the ground and go eye to eye. “Your payback sort of backfired.”

“What payback?” Colliver asked, looking over Service's shoulder.

“There's all kinds of payback,” Service said. “Charley's told us a lot, said he's had too much on his chest, like how you balled his old lady.”

Colliver couldn't hide his surprise. “She threw it on me.”

“And then she told Charley.”

“Why'd she do that?” Colliver asked.

“This interview is concluded,” Tavolacci shouted. “This is over—
finito!
”

“She wanted to hurt him. Payback, right?”

Colliver looked sullen.

“How do you think we got to you? Mary Ellen gave up her old man and Charley gave us you, how you set him up with Hannah and the old man to get Kitella.”

Colliver sneered. “Charley never met the man,” he said.

“I'm telling youse to remain silent,” Tavolacci said, grabbing Colliver's arm.

Colliver jerked free and flashed a nasty look at his attorney.

“Charley can't testify to what he don't know,” Colliver said.

“Are you saying he lied?”

“Damn straight.”

“Okay,” Service said, leaning back to break tension. He looked up at Reynolds. “Let's scratch that off. Charley never met an old man.” Service bent forward suddenly. “Who is he?”

“Fuck off,” Colliver said, looking away.

“This just gets deeper,” Service said. “Poaching, assault against Kitella, theft, homicide.”

“Nobody got killed,” Tavolacci said, his voice turning shrill.

“Mary Ellen Fahrenheit,” Service said. “And Outi Ranta.”

“Car wreck. Mary Ellen was a lush, eh?” Colliver said. “Been busted for it. I don't know no Ranta.”

“A car wreck after she shot Outi Ranta,” Les Reynolds said, looking down on Colliver and sounding like the voice of God.

Colliver looked confused.

Service said, “She drove up to Michigan and shot Ranta. Outi Ranta was Hannah, the woman who worked with the old man, and you worked with the old man. We're looking at conspiracy here at the least.”

Colliver smirked. “Who's she gonna tell now?” His voice was icy.

“The old man's free,” Service said. “You and Charley are in lockup and it looks to me like it's all gonna land on the two of you. And I can tell you right now, Charley wants company.”

Tavolacci sprang to his feet. “Shut up!”

Service asked, “Did the old man have one leg?”

He saw in Colliver's eyes that he had no idea what Service meant, so he pressed on. “The theory is that the old man set up Mary Ellen. Ranta's dead, Mary Ellen's dead, you two are inside, and the old man's out there laughing at you both. What's his name, Mr. Colliver?”

“Wasn't no old man,” Colliver said. “I just told Charley that shit. Man was my age and he never give no name. He had a streak of white hair right here.” He reached to show them. “Like a skunk or something.”

“You gave the cable to him?”

“Said Kitella was cutting in on his territory and needed to be taught a lesson. Charley got the cable and I give it to the man and I swear that's all we done, man.”

Outside the jail Les Reynolds asked, “Do you know who he's talking about?”

“Possibly,” Service said. Skunk Kelo was a sometime enforcer in the Allerdyce clan, and he had a prominent patch of white in his hair.

“You're not talking,” Reynolds said.

“Can you pull Mary Ellen's driving record? Let's see if she had priors.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Trying to connect some dots and fill up a canvas,” Service said.

“Is that standard procedure over there in Michigan?” Les Reynolds asked.

33

Colliver was right about Mary Ellen Fahrenheit. Wisconsin records showed she had been stopped twice, the first time in 1992 when she blew .095, and in 1994 when it was .08. She had been clean since.

“I'd say she got her act together,” Les Reynolds said.

Some people managed to do just that, Service knew, but stress sometimes made them to do stupid things, including fall off wagons. Had this been stress or pure bad luck?

He was back in Escanaba by mid-afternoon, and stopped to see the undersheriff. “You see the prosecutor?”

Cambridge nodded. “Phone records in forty-eight hours and then we can put this thing to bed.”

Service stopped to give Newf water and let her run, put her in the house and headed north, trying to sort out what he knew about Skunk Kelo. The man had done a stretch downstate for aggravated assault and had returned to the Allerdyce clan a month or so after Limpy was released from Jackson Prison two years ago.

Retired CO Steve “Ironhead” Southard had once patrolled southwest Marquette County, where the clan's compound was located. Southard had busted Kelo several times on snagging cases and had sent Kelo to prison after he had beaten Southard senseless with a three-pound priest made of ironwood. Southard had gotten his nickname as a result of the attack, but had retired a year later. He lived in Palmer, south of Negaunee, and was self-conscious about his nickname.

Ironhead had a dense, curly black beard that was beginning to salt and smiled when he opened the door and saw Service. “Must be business,” the retired officer said. “Neither you nor your old man were much on social calls.”

“Skunk Kelo,” Service said.

“What's that cretin done now?” Southard asked.

“I'm just looking for information. Have you seen him since he got out?”

“No, and I don't want to,” Southard said. “I did hear he went after She-Guy Zuiderveen over to Champion. Talk about your basic lapse in judgment. Zuiderveen gave him a helluva going-over.”

“When was this?”

“Sometime last winter. Kelo was in the bar yappin' about bear guides and She-Guy took offense.”

“You busted Kelo several times.”

“One time too many,” Southard said. “That last time, he was the one doing the busting. The bastard tried to kill me, but the prosecutor went for a plea bargain because he didn't like the looks of the jury. One of us gets killed they'll plead it down to verbal abuse or something.”

The man's bitterness was palpable and justified. Over the years a lot of officers had been injured making arrests, but few perps ever got the full fist of the law.

“What's Kelo like?”

“Limpy's muscle, cold as a lamprey on ice. Limpy gives an order, it gets done, no questions asked.”

“Blood kin?”

“Good as. He took up with one of the clan's women and made his bones with the old man.”

“Took up with which woman?”

Southard grinned. “Hell, all of 'em is my guess. You know how that bunch is down there in the Sinai. That's what I used to call it. Fuckin' desert with trees.”

This stop had been a waste of time. “I did hear one thing,” Southard said, “but I'm not sure if it's important. Kelo and Limpy had some sort of falling out.”

“Over what?”

Southard held up his hands. “You just heard all I know. I heard this late last winter.”

“Before or after She-Guy and Kelo had their scrap?”

“'Bout the same time, now that I think on it,” Southard said.

“This from a source or bar talk?”

“I gotta be retired a lot longer before I can go into bars around here,” Southard said. “I heard it from a source—a reliable one. When I retired, he retired. I promised he'd never get bugged by the department.”

“Your word's your word,” Service said. “Any chance you could talk to him, find out what the beef was about?”

“Sorry, Grady. I'm outta that shit now and happy to be out. Not fair to ask me that. Cecilia's happy I'm out and she wouldn't like me crawling back in.”

Cecilia was his wife, a beautiful redhead who was a fine singer. She had never been a big supporter of his CO work.

“You into something heavy?” Southard asked.

“Just trying to help a Wisconsin warden close a case.” Heavy was a relative concept with too many interpretations.

“Huh,” Ironhead said. “Most of the cheesies were a good lot in my day. I guess I could maybe have a chat with my man. What's the harm, eh? It's all in the past now.”

“Thanks, Steve.”

“Hey, it true you've got a son?”

“Looks that way.” He gave Southard one of his cards.

Southard studied it and shook his head. “Cell phones, e-mail—you got more bloody numbers than a banker. Technology,” he added with obvious distaste. “I'll call you soon.”

“Give my best to Cecilia,” Service said.

“She's at the church tonight—choir practice.”

He called Pyykkonen from Palmer and got an immediate pick-up.

“Uncanny timing,” she said. “I think we've got the blue boat.”

“No shit?”

“A couple of wading salmon guys found it hung up off Laughing Fish Point,” she said. “Looks like she was scuttled further out, but broke loose, drifted in, got hung on a boulder fifty feet off the beach in six feet of water. Ten feet north and it would have drifted east into the big lake. Fate, I guess, hitting that rock. I guess the guys who found it didn't think much about it, you know, with Superior spitting stuff up every now and then. Locals take what they can use, leave the rest to rot. Turns out one of the men has a son who's coast guard in the Soo. He came home for a day of fishing with his dad, saw the boat out on the point, and remembered the bulletin. I got the call yesterday, asked the Alger County marine safety officer to pull it out and put it in the vehicle impoundment in town, but Alger kicked the job over to Marquette. I got a call an hour ago. It's in Marquette now. No registration number. Maybe somebody obliterated it to make sure it couldn't be identified.”

“I'm near Negaunee. I can get over there and take a look.”

“I was gonna drive over in the morning,” she said.

“Let me take a look and give you a shout.”

“I'll be at Shark's tonight,” she said. “He's a hoot, you know.”

Hoot wasn't the word he'd select to describe his friend.

The Marquette County marine safety officer was Guy Bartoletti. He had been a longtime road patrol officer and a sergeant who retained his stripes when he was shifted into the current job in preparation for his retirement. Service had known him a long time, as had his father before him.

The vehicle impoundment was nearly in the middle of downtown Marquette, inside a double chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

Bartoletti said, “This should be Alger's, but their sheriff called in a favor from my boss, so here we are.”

The wooden craft had a blue hull and a gaping hole in the bottom.

“Looks like it hit something,” Service said.

“More likely an insurance job,” Bartoletti said with a smile. He started to reach for the hull, but Service blocked his arm, gave him rubber gloves.

“You're a hotshot detective now, eh?” He put on the gloves and grabbed the broken edge. “See, when you hit something, most of the damage goes inward. Not all of it, 'cause the boat rocks and so forth, but mostly, see? This one's all outward. I'm guessing a sledge. Somebody wanted this thing on the bottom.”

Service looked at the damage, saw the marks, agreed with the assessment.

“Twenty-six-foot Miltey Commander,” Bartoletti said. “Built in 1995. Not many of them around.”

“Miltey Boat Company,” Service said. “Chassell.”

“That's it.”

“There's no registration.”

“Don't matter,” Bartoletti said. “You need a sign on a whitetail's ass says it's a deer?”

Bartoletti stepped into the hole in the hull and flicked on his flashlight. “See there? Joe Miltey burns the serial number into the hull in six or eight places so nobody can mistake his work. New, this rig went for nearly twentyfive thou. Twin Chrysler inboards, wide beam, high gunwales—she'd plane good on the lake and go like a scalded dog in a pretty good sea.”

Service wrote down the serial number, checking two of them to be sure they were the same. “I want to get inside,” he added.

Bartoletti got a ladder and they climbed up into the boat. The aft deck was small, but below decks was deep and there was plenty of room for a four-by-six cage. There were four holes in the floor. Bartoletti saw him looking at the holes and said, “U-bolt holes. The bolts probably got lost.”

Service called Pyykkonen as he drove west. “The boat's not registered, but there are serial numbers. Maybe the owner didn't know about them. The boat's a 1995 Miltey Commander.”

“Blue?”

“As a pretty girl's eyes,” Service said.

“Miltey Boat Company?” she said. “So we've circled back to where we started, eh? Joe Miltey's daughter was the one who found Harry Pung. You want me to visit him?”

“Let's both go. I'm going to see my kid tonight. We'll go over there in the morning. Pick you up at Shark's at eight.”

“Works for me,” she said.

He called Walter's dorm room and Karylanne Pengelly answered. “Is the hockey player there?” he asked.

“At the rink,” she said. “He's
always
at the rink.”

“Seems late for practice.”

“Not hockey. He goes over there every night with that fly rod.”

Service laughed inwardly. His old man had given him his first rod, just as his old man had gotten his first one from his grandfather. “This is his father,” Service said. “I'm going to be there in seventy minutes. Thought I'd pick him up, see if he wants a late-night snack. Would you like to join us, Karylanne?”

She laughed. “I never pass up food. My mom always tells me to eat now while I've still got my metabolism.”

“I'll pick you up in front of the dorm and we'll go fetch him,” he said.

The girl had an infectious laugh and a soft voice, gentle but strong. Probably Walter and the girl would not last as a couple, but at least he had picked a good one for now. Or she had picked him. In his own day, his picks had been anything but stellar. “There in sixty-seven minutes,” he said.

Later he passed the Shrine of the Snowshoe Priest. Father Frederick Baraga had been a Slovenian member of the powerful Hapsburgs, who had sworn off wealth and power for a life of the cloth—and in the bush. Baraga had come to the U.P. in the nineteenth century as a priest for an Austrian missionary society and had founded missions as far south as Grand Rapids and west to the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. Baraga was known as a priest who would always be where he was needed, and there were plenty of stories of him snowshoeing a hundred miles in snowstorms. What Service liked about the priest, who eventually became the U.P.'s first bishop, was his total dedication to his work. In recent years a movement for his canonization had been organized to find and document two miracles in the priest's past. News reports said the group was having a hard time—that while the priest's life had been filled with good works, miracles were still in question. It was a classic case of seeing trees and missing the forest. Baraga had traipsed the entire U.P. and into Wisconsin, almost always on foot and alone, and he was a great model for the horseblankets, the old COs who had blazed the trail for him. As he drove under the monument, he flipped a salute, said “Father Fred,” and smiled.

The L'Anse-Baraga area south of Chassell had seen a lot of history—Indians battling Indians, priests, fur traders, loggers, Lake Superior fishermen. Much of the area had been settled by Finns who had married Native Americans, their offspring called Finndians—as resolute a cultural blend as he had encountered.

On the way into Chassell he saw a new house being built. Floodlights from the driveway lit it up to show the Finnish roofing style called
walmdach,
which featured a distinct and different angle in every quarter, helping to spread the weight of the snow pack and shed snow as it melted.

Come Christmas he could take Walter up to Pequamming where Norwegians lived, surrounded by Finns, Swedes, and French Canadians, and treat the boy to sweet rye bread and
lutefisk.
Nantz would have a week off from the academy, and the three of them could use some of the time to see and do—if he could get her out of bed. The thought made him laugh out loud.

Karylanne was waiting on the sidewalk and waved as he pulled up.

“He was supposed to be back by now,” she said.

“Is he late a lot?”

“He just gets interested in things and loses track.”

In the bloodline, Service thought.

McInnes Arena was still open. Intramural teams played all night, while classes, the varsity, and the public used it at more convenient hours.