Chasing a Blond Moon (47 page)

He was about to take his first peek when he heard voices, men shouting happily, boisterously. He froze against the rock, waited. Heard some crashing not far in front of him, wanted to look, needed to. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, started to push up again.

A flash lit the tunnel, sent him down hard, banging his elbow, causing the arm to go numb. Jesus! In front of him there was crackling, popping, and smoke began to roll in across the blocking rock. Fuck, a fire.

He lay with his feet away from the grotto, moving his arm, trying to unfreeze it, get feeling back into his hand. The smoke was rolling in, but sliding over his head in a visible line, like a layer of gauze. It reminded him of mosquito netting in a barely detectable breeze.

When something touched his leg, he kicked instinctively, but his leg was caught and he looked back.

“I remembered it comes through,” Santinaw said. The old man patted his leg affectionately before releasing it. The old man tapped him again and Service looked back. He handed a cloth to Service and took one for himself and poured water on it and tied it over his nose and mouth. Service understood. Makeshift filtering for their lungs.

Service followed suit, told himself he had to look, had to do something.

Santinaw crawled up beside him.

There were voices in on the other side of the rock, two, three; no, he couldn't differentiate. Not speaking English, heard movement, things being dropped. Wood crashing on a fire—logs being added. The clanging of metal, something heavy being wrestled around. A voice was singing some sort of high-pitched thing, no tune, just sounds that grated at him.

Santinaw said, “Death song.”

“That's not Ojibwa,” Service said.

“Death song,” Santinaw repeated.

“Where's Jake?”

“It was boring with him. I like to look around.”

Jesus Christ. Metal grated metal, made a screech. Above. Then another sound, a new one, high to low, anguish, fear. Also above.

He looked up at the flow of smoke, knew he couldn't break the stream or it would cascade down and choke them. Right now the smoke was moving smoothly through the tunnel and up the back shaft like a chimney. They needed to keep it that way.

Santinaw tugged on his jacket. “
Makwa,
” he said.

Mak-wa,
Ojibwa for bear.

“
Pa-gid-ji,
” the old man added, pointing upward.

Bear above. Bear above?

“The picture,” Santinaw whispered.

The picture, bear in a hanging cage. No fire in the picture. Fire here, bear above.

Shit, he thought.

“Its
man-i-to
is afraid,” Santinaw whispered.

So is mine, Service thought. He studied the smoke, had to get up there to take a look.

“
Be-ka,
” the old man said.

Slowly, don't disrupt the smoke.

More chain sounds, sharp, pained squeals.

He got up, turned his head sideways, looked under the smoke, saw several men dressed in saffron robes, like
bonzes,
the Buddhist monks who burned themselves in Vietnam to protest the war.

Chain sounds again, overhead but closer. He looked again, slightly downward, saw a huge stainless steel vat. What the hell?

Then it hit him: Christ! What had Tara Ferma written in her e-mail, that bears would be lowered into boiling oil? Shit shit shit.

Now the animal screamed a long, angry cry and banged the cage. As the chains rattled, Service understood that he had run out of time.

He looked again. Now he could see the animal, blond, almost pale pink in the glow of the flames. It was shaking the cage, its eyes wide, as it began to scream and bash its head against the steel bars.

Eight feet off the ground and descending. Protect the animal, he told himself. He took out his 800, hissed, “Go now!” and slithered over the rock, falling four or five feet to a stone floor, got up, saw the huge fire under the vat, huge boulders around the whole thing to render it a cauldron, heard McCants screaming, “DNR! Police!” Saw the cage descending, ran forward, sprang off a boulder to wrap the cage with his arms, driving it sideways, momentarily weightless, almost flying, then crashed on something hard, his feet in the fire. He jerked them out, stomping his feet to dump embers and something struck him hard on the left shoulder and he felt warmth on his arm. He rolled to his belly and got up, a cacophony of voices surrounding him, English, another language, none of it making sense, men with their hands up and shouting, the beams of flashlights knifing around, the sound of cuffs being fastened. Gary Ebony was holding a guy by the collar, yelling “Stop kicking me, asshole!”

Santinaw pushing him aside, grinning. “It's a beautiful animal. Your pants are on fire.”

Service slapped at his trousers, watched Santinaw kneel beside the cage, begin speaking to the bear in a quiet voice.

His shoulder was burning, something not right. He went outside, breathed in the fresh air, saw the snow was still falling. Gutpile suddenly beside him, holding him up. “Steady, partner.”

“How many?” he yelled at McCants.

“Nine,” she said.

“There should be ten.”

He grabbed for his 800, but he had lost it somewhere, and yelled at McCants, “Call Jake, tell him we're at least one short here!” Moody helped him sit, offered him water.

“The whole lot of these buggers are swacked on something,” Moody said. “Girl scouts coulda took the whole lot of 'em.”

Santinaw sat down beside Service, held his hand. “
Mak-wa
was frightened. His spirit decided to leave.”

Service looked back at the unmoving animal.

“It was a beautiful animal,” Santinaw said. “Someday I will have to leave, but not until I see the woman in Eben again. It's hard to leave when you have a good woman.”

Service took another swig of water. “What's Jake say?”

McCants said, “He's on the way to the cabin.”

Santinaw patted Service's hand. “It was brave what you did. I think this animal's spirit will honor you.”

Service shook his head, offered the bottle of water to the old man.

“
Mig-netch!
” Santinaw said. “You're a lot nicer man than your father was.”

They were standing in the cabin with Mecosta and the captain. Alger County deputies were moving prisoners to Munising. Someone had placed a call to the regional agent for U.S. Fish and Game. He lived in Grand Rapids and tried to cover the U.P. from there, which was a joke.

The body on the floor was face-down in a pool of blood. Service put on latex gloves, reached down. The head was blown off, leaving nothing.

“Shotgun,” Jake Mecosta said. “Close range.”

“Preserve the site,” the captain reminded him.

Fuck the site.

Jake said, “I found him this way.”

Service lit a cigarette and walked outside with Mecosta. “Jake, do you still have the anonymous voice mail message?”

“Sure.” Mecosta opened his phone, punched in the numbers for his mailbox, held it up for Service to listen.

“Familiar?” Jake asked.

It was, but not the voice he expected.

41

The apartment was a duplex in the student shopping district on Third Street. Next door was DuPendre's Café. The sign on the glass had weathered, lost some letters, read,
dupe d café.
The irony wasn't lost on him as he rapped on the door of the apartment.

“Daysi,” Service said when Aldo's Ojibwa girlfriend opened the door. He had met the girl a year ago and she had been pretty, but plump.

Now she was thinner, older looking, with huge eyes, long black hair.

“You called Jake Mecosta,” he said.

“Who?”

“No bullshit, Daysi. I'm not in the mood.” His left shoulder ached from the fall. His right shoulder burned where it had been stitched. The bear had clawed him during his grab of the cage, a reminder of the un-Disney-like reality of nature.

She looked him in the eye, her shyness gone. “I made the call for Aldo. He just gave me words to say. I didn't know what it meant.”

Service said, “Where is he?”

“At the hospital with his grandfather.”

She pointed toward College Street and Marquette General Hospital, the regional medical center.

42

Aldo was alone in the hall outside ICU. He looked at Service with red eyes and pointed to a door. “He's dying.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know. He was just getting sicker and sicker. I brought him in the night before last. The compound is gone. Burned.”

“Where's the family?”

“Scattered.”

Service pushed open the door, saw Allerdyce in the bed. Monitors on the wall flashed vital signs. He had a clear plastic mask over his face, two I.V.s, one in each arm. He looked small in the bed, his skin yellow.

Service felt the old man's eyes track him as he moved around the room.

He leaned over the bed. “When you went to prison, you left Honeypat in charge. When you came out, she wouldn't give it up and the family wouldn't back you. She let you play the role, but she ran the show.”

Allerdyce's eyes hardened.

Les Reynolds had called last night. The preliminary read on Ollie Toogood's autopsy showed that he had been starved and his heart had given out. Allerdyce looked the same as the photos of Toogood that Les had faxed to him.

“It was going along fine until you made the move on Daysi. People thought Honeypat left in a snit, but she never left, did she?”

Allerdyce blinked, said nothing. “She was trying to crush all the competition and she wouldn't give you anything unless you went along with her. That day you came to see me I saw you squirrel away your food, barely eat, grope in the trash. You were hoarding, afraid you'd never eat again, fighting back the only way you could.”

Service continued, “It was Honeypat's idea to get Aldo into the department. She sent Aldo to us and she sent you to make it look like you didn't want him with us, but that's what Honeypat wanted. She came to see me, said you were lying. If she canceled your lie, Aldo gets in, her idea all the way, her plan.”

He had the old man's attention. “I think she started out to drive out all her competition, but she got a couple of surprises. First, she recruited Ollie Toogood to help her take down Dowdy Kitella, but then she found out about Ollie Toogood's money and figured out a way to get it: starved him, just the way she starved you. She wanted to create the impression of a war up here over bears and somehow she learned about outsiders coming in and she figured a way to make something from that, too. You were good in your day,” Service said, “but you're not in her class. You ruled by fear. She kills and leaves no witnesses.”

Allerdyce glared, struggled to pull down his mask.

Service helped him. “She burned your camp, scattered your people. They were afraid of her. You were nothing compared to her.”

Allerdyce cackled, coughed. “Look at youse, son of da boozehound, hey? Dey used ta call Jake Jacobetti King of da U.P. Dat's bullshit. I'm da king. I own it. I get out of here, I hunt da bitch down, sonny.” Jacobetti, the longtime politician from Negaunee, had made sure a lot of pork flowed into the Upper Peninsula through the state legislature.

“You and who else?” Service said. “You're alone and Honeypat's free, and she's got cash to do what she wants.” He put the mask back in place and walked into the hallway.

Aldo stood up. “Your grandfather and Honeypat tried to get you into the department. They figured they could use you inside. I know Honeypat was running things. I'm still not sure what your role is in all this, but in time I will.”

Aldo straightened his back. “I'm an Allerdyce.”

Service nodded at the room across the hall. “That's how Allerdyces end up—if they're lucky.

EPILOGUE:
LIGHT AT THE START OF THE TUNNEL

The atmosphere in the Marquette office was partylike, DNR and DEQ personnel alike walking around with insipid smiles and lingering in the break room. It was election day and Senator Lorelei Timms was the favorite. By and large, DNR law enforcement personnel were geeked. Fern LeBlanc had shown up for work in a slinky dress that had all the men gawking. She was hosting an election open house tonight and inviting everyone.

It was unsettling for Service to see so many giddy people in a government office, many of them carrying on like it was a holiday; but this was finally the end of Sam Bozian's reign and the methodical destruction of the department over more than a decade. The people deserved to celebrate, he knew, if only for a day. Meanwhile, he kept fretting: Had he taken the rabbits out of the freezer yesterday for tonight's dinner? Damn memory.

While Grady Service found himself surrounded by happy people in the office, there remained legions of pissed-off parties in the wake of the case just finished. U.S. Fish and Wildlife was livid for not being brought into the bear case. FBI and Immigration had lodged formal protests for his failure to inform them of potential illegal aliens.

DNR Director Eino Tenni had reprimanded him for attending a political fund-raiser and promised “further discussions.” Lorelei Timms could not dump Tenni because the DNR director was the hire of the Natural Resources Commission, and he had about a year to run on his contract.

Justice and the DEA had gone ballistic because he had interfered in a long investigation into drug trafficking and smuggling by Siquin Soong's White Moon Trading Company. It didn't matter that breaking the bear case had also brought White Moon Trading crashing down; DEA wasn't getting the credit and in government circles, credit was what mattered most. ­Predictably, Soong had hired a high-profile defense lawyer out of Los Angeles and was denying all allegations.

Professor Tara Ferma had written him a scathing e-mail accusing him of gross incompetence in the rare bear's death, and his reply that the carcass would be turned over to her had not mollified her.

The identity of the dead man remained a mystery that was likely to stay that way. Fingerprints and DNA had been sent to the government of South Korea, but the South Koreans were pissed at the Bush administration, and cooperation, while promised, was unlikely to materialize soon, if ever.

As near as they could make out from the men arrested in the grotto, the bear was to be lowered into boiling oil and then eaten—its fear supposedly magnifying the therapeutic effects of its flesh. The men had paid fifty thousand each to partake in the so-called bear feast. None of them were U.S. citizens. One of them had begun to talk in the grotto, but now had a lawyer and had recanted. All had been charged by the feds and eventually would be deported. The money had not been recovered and Service was pretty sure that Honeypat had it. The Regional Fish and Wildlife man told him such bear cases were almost always open-ended and untidy.

The captain had informed him that a freeze on replacements was in place until further notice, and this news made Treebone unhappy. There was no way for his man Sterling to move over to the DNR right now.

Service had spent hours with Dulin, Marquette's prosecuting attorney, trying to pry loose warrants for the arrest of Honeypat Allerdyce, but Dulin “respectfully declined.” The case was too circumstantial and Service had no real evidence against her. He didn't blame Dulin, and he admired Honeypat, not for what she was, but for her total dominance of events. She had started out trying to manipulate the clan's competition, but she had gotten greedy. Her lack of discipline suggested that she would always be driven by greed, which according to Cal Shall was a lethal weakness. There was a federal BOLO for Honeypat, but in this day and age of terrorists, it was not likely to get much attention. In the long run, though, she would fall.

Wayno Ficorelli had been calling him every day to see if he could get a job in Michigan and Service had put him off, explaining the freeze, but Wayno was a bulldog in his own self-interest.

Maridly had flown to Traverse City last night to be with Lorelei and Whit Timms for the election results. She had wanted him along, but he had begged off, telling her he needed to vote. She had already cast her ballot by absentee and she had left last night in a huff. This alone made his mood dark. He and Nantz had never let a parting end this way before.

Yesterday the captain had put out a directive for all sergeants and detectives to pick up slack in coverage due to retirements from Bozian's early-out program. Service had talked to the captain about it and would be taking Kate Nordquist's turf in western Schoolcraft and eastern Delta Counties. The Garden Peninsula was part of the Delta duty and he was looking forward to renewing acquaintances with some of the violets he had busted during the Garden Wars in the seventies and eighties. His boots were going back into the snow, mud, and dirt, and nothing could make him happier.

He drove to his polling place in Gladstone by mid-afternoon, stood in line for twenty minutes to vote, and then headed for the grocery store. Walter and Karylanne were coming over from Houghton for the night and he was looking forward to seeing them.

It felt like he hadn't cooked a good meal in a long while, and he was ready for it, tempered by the fact that Maridly would not be with him.

The sun was out and the temperature in the mid-fifties with only a slight wind, a perfect fall day. Newf and Walter and Karylanne were roughhousing on the lawn when he returned.

He carried the groceries into the kitchen and began to organize his thoughts. Walter and Karylanne came in. “Either of you know diddly about cooking?”

“Some,” Karylanne said.

“Sheba didn't cook,” Walter said.

“Time you learned,” Service said. He opened a '95 Amarone, poured a glass, and quickly made assignments. Soon the three of them were bumping into each other and laughing as the kitchen swelled with the aromas of good food: infarinata, cornmeal soup; rabbit in sweet and sour sauce; sautéed dried morels in parsley and garlic; a dessert of rice custard cake with cherry compote. Karylanne turned on her boom box, put in a disc, Tom Petty's
Learning to Fly.

Captain Grant called at 5 p.m.

“I talked to Allerdyce's doctor,” the captain said. “They've taken him off the critical list. He's still extremely ill, but it looks like he will pull through.”

He wondered how Limpy would handle seeing the burned-out compound, and how Honeypat would take the news that Limpy would live. He'd been tough on Aldo, but he was in no mood to revisit the case tonight.

A few minutes after the captain called, Moody arrived with Kate Nordquist, who was on crutches. Moody was carrying a cooler. “Venison tenderloins,” he said. “Where's the grill?”

Service looked at them incredulously. “What're you two doin' here?”

“Party,” Moody said.

Gary Ebony and McCants arrived next. Then del Olmo and Grinda, Rose and Vince Vilardo, and soon the house was filled with the sound of beer bottles being uncapped and people shouting and laughing and looking for things to eat.

Service tried to keep a nice face, but he just wanted to sit with Walter and Karylanne, eat and watch the election returns. That wasn't going to happen.

Linsenman came in lugging a case of nonalcoholic beer. He was followed by his new dog, which in the light was the ugliest thing Service had ever seen. Naturally Newf welcomed the animal like a family member.

Service was closing the door when he saw Fern LeBlanc and Captain Grant coming up the walk arm in arm. He was dumbfounded.

“Open house at your place,” Service said to Fern.

“We changed the venue,” she said.

We?

By 11 p.m. pollsters were calling the election a Timms victory.

At 11:18 the news programs broke from their regular reports to go live at a hotel in Traverse City. Lorelei Timms, her husband, and three kids walked onto a floodlit stage, smiling and squinting amidst thunderous cheers. Service shouted, “Everybody shut up!”

Gutpile Moody said, “I don't think the people in TC can hear you, partner.”

Timms looked directly at the camera with her disarming smile and said, “I've been waiting for ninety minutes to make this announcement,” she said. The people in the hotel erupted and she held up her hands to get them to settle down. “We are a great state, filled with wonderful people,” she said. “We don't all think the same, but we all nurture dreams. The election is over and now it's time for the state to pull together, all of us, not just some of us, to use our differences to strive for our mutual goals. These are difficult times and we are going to need the thoughts, prayers, and interest of all citizens, from Gladstone to Temperance.”

The crowd cheered again. “It is my fervent hope that we will accomplish a lot of things over the next six years. I am sure there will be disappointments ahead, but on this first night, I can sure as heck get at least one small thing right. People who love each other should be together at important moments,” she said looking directly into the camera.

“What the hell is she talking about?” Service said disgustedly.

Walter Commando said, “Dad, look behind you.”

Dad?

A hand touched the small of his back and he turned to look down into the intense blue eyes of Maridly Nantz. “No way I'm in Traverse City alone and my family's way up here,” she said, flinging her arms around his neck.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

But she put her hand over his mouth, wouldn't let him speak as Lorelei Timms talked on.

The kids excused themselves at midnight and got up to leave. “We have to leave early to get back for classes,” Walter said.

“Separate bedrooms,” Service told his son.

“Not a problem, Dad,” Walter said with a grin.

The rest of the crowd trickled out and Linsenman had to carry NATO out to his truck because he had played so hard with Newf they were both worn out.

Much later when they were alone, Service and Nantz sat on the couch, sipping wine and reflecting. The state had a new governor. Nobody had any idea what Clearcut would do with the rest of his life and Service didn't care. In January Bozian would be gone, a burden lifted.

Nantz said, “God, I adore you, Service.”

Service said, “I love you, Mar.”

They sat close for several minutes, saying nothing.

“You never said who you voted for,
Dad,
” she said.

He had written in the name of Zoltan Ferency, the perennial candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, a former state Democratic chairman who resigned in opposition to LBJ's war policies—the only politician in Service's life who had quit over principles. Ferency had been dead nine years.

“I'll never tell,” he said.