Chasing a Blond Moon (9 page)

Scaffidi sat at a fancy lawn table and sipped espresso.

The brookie charged all over the place. It took ten minutes to bring it to the edge of the pond, extract the yarn egg, and release the fish with the gaudy orange belly and green vermiculations on its back. It was a wild fish, better than two pounds, not the sort that you often found anymore in U.P. waters.

Fish released, Service sat down and rubbed lemon peel around the rim of his small cup and tasted the bitter coffee.

“Nice?” Scaffidi asked.

“Terrific. Italian?”

The old man's eyes twinkled. “I met a gentleman from El Salvador. He does this especially for me, which costs, but it's worth it, right? What brings you over on such a beautiful September morning?”

“I heard that the global poaching of animal parts is second only to drugs in profitability. You know anything about that?”

Scaffidi made a face. “Scumbags makin' a profit off endangered animals. You know that two of the world's eight bear species are damned near extinct, with another on the brink? What's that about? For money!”

“It's true?”

The old man shrugged and slowly shook his head. “The Asian mobs are run by psychos. The families here, they don't get involved.”

“But Asians don't exactly blend into the Upper Peninsula.”

Scaffidi laughed. “They hire people who blend. This isn't the business of the families' personnel, you understand, but something done by punks and losers. The Asians got it organized down to the dime. Hunters acquire, sell to a middleman who, in turn, collects from several hunters and sells to a distributor on the coast. With bear populations dropping in Asia, the gangs have moved to North America. Most of them are in Canada and Alaska, but they work the other states too, if they can find the right deal.”

“What's the right deal?”

Scaffidi smiled. “How about that brookie?”

“Beautiful fish.”

“Right. The fish are spawning, which makes them easy to get to. That's the right deal, see. It always reduces to supply and demand. With all that September 11 crap, you got tougher gigs at the borders nowadays, am I right?”

Service nodded.

“Which means security is focused outward, not inward to the woods. They're running around looking for Islamic terrorists. What better time to crank up business than when the opposition is looking elsewhere? I mean, you aren't trying to ship nukes, am I right? We're talking little stuff—galls, paws, teeth, claws. They don't weigh anything and they don't take up much space. Is this an academic tutorial or are you here on a specific case?”

“No case,” Service said. Yet, he thought.

“Anything I can do, you only have to ask.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Okay, let's see if you can get a bigger trout out of that herd.”

“I have to get on, but thanks for everything.”

The old man walked him back to the truck. “Word is that congratulations are in order.”

Service didn't ask Scaffidi where he got his information. He was better connected than anybody he knew.

“A son,” Scaffidi said. “That's a blessing for a man. Nothing against girls, but a son . . . ” His voice trailed off. “You bring him over, let him have a go at the brookies.”

“He's enrolled at Tech. Maybe we can come by in the spring.”

“It's an open-ended invitation.” Scaffidi leaned against the truck with a furrowed brow. “These bear guys, they're elusive as hell. They hit a place and move on. They don't homestead. If you think there's a crew working here, take my advice and get expert help.”

“You have someone in mind?”

The old man pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I thought you said you don't have a case?”

Service weighed his answer. Scaffidi was officially clean and a self-proclaimed conservationist who gave generously to various causes and programs, but there was always an air around him that made Service want to be cautious. “Maybe the start of something.”

“Such as the figs in the Houghton homicide?” Scaffidi said.

“That's not public knowledge,” Service said, recoiling.

“Things don't have to be in the public domain to be known, Detective. Word travels through a lot of circles and some of them overlap. I'm hearing cyanide.”

“No comment,” Grady Service said.

Scaffidi smiled and squeezed Service's elbow. “A no comment
is
a comment, my friend. We are in the days of spin, which means you want to cover your tracks, you gotta use words, not silence. Plead the Fifth, you're guilty by inference. I might have somebody knows something about this business we've been discussing. Maybe he'll talk to you, maybe not. Worst he can say is no. You want me to make the call?”

“Thanks,” Service said. As usual Scaffidi suddenly looked and talked like something more than his official record suggested, and Service did not feel comfortable about it. Frontier Alaska had once attracted society's extremes; he wondered if this applied to the Upper Peninsula as well.

“Probably take a little time to make the arrangements,” Scaffidi said. “You'll probably have to go to him—this okay by you?”

Service nodded. “Thanks again.”

Scaffidi smiled. “My pleasure to do my duty as a law-abiding citizen.”

4

It was mid-afternoon and Service and Gus Turnage were in the late professor's office at Michigan Tech. Steve Adams sat with them at a small table, looking glum. Homicide detective Limey Pyykkonen stood in the doorway. Service was impatient, wanted to get the interview going. He had driven almost two hundred and fifty miles today and would log more than a hundred more on the way home.

Service found it interesting that Pyykkonen chose to stand at the door. This was definitely an interview set up to put some pressure on Adams, but he wasn't sure why. With her in the door, almost at the man's back, he would be forced to keep looking back and forth from the homicide detective to the conservation officers who were seated with him. It was not an arrangement designed to make an interviewee comfortable, and as far as Service knew there was no reason to suspect Adams of anything. Is this what Lansing homicide cops were taught?

“Dean Adams,” Service said.

“Acting department head,” Adams said, correcting him. “Leave it at Steve.”

“Okay, Steve,” Pyykkonen said from behind the man, forcing him to turn to see her.

“I can't believe someone murdered Harry Pung,” Adams declared.

“Are you aware of anyone who might have had bad feelings for Pung?” she asked.

“No.”

Pyykkonen smiled benignly.

“When we met you at Professor Pung's house, you told us he was a hunter and fisherman,” Service said. “But there are no guns, no rods, no gear of any kind at his place.”

“So he must've kept the stuff elsewhere.”

“Are you aware of another place he might have kept his equipment?”

“Like I told you before, he was a loner. Maybe he had a camp. Everybody up here seems to have one out in the bush. If there's other property, I assume it would be in his will, or with his attorney.”

“We will be talking to his attorney,” Pyykkonen said, “but he lives downstate in Ann Arbor and we thought Professor Pung's associates might help us get some answers quicker.”

“Sorry,” Adams said, with body language that told Service he wanted the interview ended.

“Thank you for your help,” Pyykkonen said. “If you think of anything that might help us, even if it seems remote, you can call me at home or at the office.” She walked over and put her card on the table and Adams palmed it without looking at it.

“You might ask around about a camp,” Service said. “We need the help.”

Adams nodded, got up and left without further comment.

“We kinda chucked him in the pit,” Gus Turnage said when the three were alone.

“I just wanted to let him know that we're serious here—without threatening him,” Pyykkonen said. “Subtle pressures often pay the biggest dividends. These academic types seem to think local cops are a bunch of Barney Fifes.”

“The scat sample is definitely ursine,” Service said, “as were the hairs, but our lab sent the stuff on to USF&WS Forensics in Oregon for more detailed testing. It's gonna take some time to get answers.”

“Six years in Lansing and I never had a case like this,” Pyykkonen said.

“None of us have,” Grady Service added.

Gus opened the dead man's desk drawer and slid his hands inside, pawing around.

“What're you doing?” Service asked.

“Poking.”

“We gave the whole office and the house a pretty good going over,” Pyykkonnen said.

Gus grunted and pulled out a photograph, carefully holding it by the edges. “Hand me a plastic bag.” He slid the photo into the protective envelope. “It was stuck to the top, inside the drawer,” he said, staring at it with a curious look.

“Taped?” Service asked.

“Nah, she was just stuck. Maybe humidity. Stuff always gets stuck in desks.” He handed the snapshot to Service.

Harry Pung was dressed in a black robe. A small black hat was perched jauntily on top of his head, but tilted to one side. The hat was secured in placed by a chin-tie. He wore a red sash above his waist. Attached to it was a bow quiver. He held a bow at the draw, an arrow nocked. The bow was severely recurved.

“Not your standard compound bow and cammie-jammies,” Service remarked. “So he owned a bow. Again, where the hell is it?”

Pyykkonen shook her head. “We haven't found anything.”

“Hunters always keep their weapons close at hand,” Service said, studying the snapshot more closely. “There're some sort of Chinese characters in the background of the photo.” He passed it to the homicide detective.

“How do you know they're Chinese?” she asked

“I don't, but don't all written languages in that part of the world derive from Chinese?”

“So you're guessing?” she asked with a smile.

“Basically.”

“We can try to find somebody from the college to translate,” Pyykkonen said.

“We could, but I have another idea.” Service looked at Gus. “McCants.”

Turnage nodded. “She reads Chinese?”

“No, but she speaks and reads Korean, and if this is Korean then she can help. If not, we go to plan B.” Candace McCants had been born in Korea and was adopted by Americans. She was a CO now and had responsibility for the Mosquito Wilderness Area, which had been Service's until his promotion, and his father's before him.

“I'll give Candi a yell and get back to you both,” Service said.

Service lived in Gladstone, McCants a bit north of there, but closer to him than to Houghton.

“Okay,” Pyykkonen said. “Time I got my butt down to the station.”

“I'll give you a bump soon as I hear something,” Service said.

The two men called Betty Very and arranged to meet her on a primitive two-track off Victoria Road west of Rockland, which was fifty miles southwest of Houghton. A sign where they entered the track said
seasonal road
, meaning it wasn't plowed in winter. They took two vehicles so that Service could head for home when they were done. It was hilly, rocky country, with slag left from the mining days. Small orange butterflies gathered in flocks in the remainders of puddles in the ruts of the road. His trip counter now read nearly three hundred and fifty miles for the day and he was feeling weary. By the time he got home tonight he would have logged close to five hundred miles.

The barrel trap was a hundred yards up the two-track. The dark green steel canister was eight feet long and three and a half feet in diameter. Bearclaw had set it up on the lip of a small ridge leading down to a creek bottom in a thick cedar swamp, classic bear habitat.

Betty was sitting on a log by the trap, smoking and looking thoughtful.

“What was She-Guy doing with you?” Service asked.

“He rides along sometimes. He knows the animals and he's a big help.”

“He says somebody let an animal loose.”

“That's his conclusion. I'm not so sure.”

“Are you sure you set the trap right?”

“I thought I had.”

“Have you ever had one get loose before?”

“Once, ten years ago. A huge sow managed to bend the metal grates. The weld was bad. That's the only one.”

“Any sign that this one tried to break out?”

“No,” she said.

“Are you sure an animal was inside?”

“Absolutely. I clean the traps thoroughly after every use. There was scat in the cage and some hairs. The bait was gone.”

“Has anybody else had a similar problem?”

“I heard a rumor that Griff Stinson had one get out on him. He borrowed a trap from Joe and Kathy Ketchum.” The Ketchums were married COs who lived in Newberry. Joe handled the north end of Luce County and Kathy handled the south. Stinson was a bear guide and outfitter.

“Did you talk to them?”

“Haven't had a chance.”

“Last fall Griff found a bear taken for its gallbladder just north of McMillan,” Service said. “I went over to take a look and I thought it might be the start of something, but nothing more came along.”

“Until now,” Gus said.

“
Maybe,
” Very cautioned. She was an excellent officer, but not one to jump too hastily to conclusions. As a result, the cases she made usually stuck.

The three officers examined the trap. Service even crawled in to see if he could find a flaw from inside. Bears were not just strong, but extremely intelligent animals who could solve a wide range of challenges. After a half hour the three of them had no answers. Something had been in the trap, but that something was long gone.
How
was the issue.

“What kind of tracks around the can?” Service asked.

“All rock up here,” Very said.

“The recovered hair sample look normal?”

“Plain old
Ursus americanus,
” Bearclaw said. “Black as a crow's behind.”

“Scat?”

“The usual for this time of year, chokecherries and some crab apple fragments. Nothing remarkable. He or she was just working the usual chow line for winter.”

Back at Service's truck, Bearclaw said, “I haven't heard anything, but you might give Elza Grinda a call. She gets her fair share of nuisance bears, but you know how she is talking about what she's doing.”

Service grunted acknowledgment. He had worked with Grinda the previous fall. She had shot and killed a female assassin only seconds before the woman could shoot Service, and he felt deep gratitude to the young officer. He had also learned later that Grinda had been up for the detective job he had gotten and disappointment might have explained her initial reluctance to work with him. But Grinda had come through when it counted and that's what mattered most to other officers.

“Maybe I'll give her a call.”

Betty Very said, “You'll be in a long line of gentlemen callers.”

“I'm offended by sexist innuendo,” Service declared.

“I'm not,” Gus said.

The three agreed to stay in touch and to talk to other officers to see if anyone had encountered a similar problem. Service doubted routine inquiries would yield anything. Whatever they were dealing with was complex and very, very well planned. And Betty Very's trap escapee might not have a damn thing to do with anything other than bum luck.

On his way back to the office in Marquette, Service called Simon del Olmo on his cell phone. “Any word on Trapper Jet?”

“Arson says it was definitely an arranged deal, not an accident. They have the point of origin, but not the exact cause yet.”

“Jet been around?”

“Nobody's seen him. I checked his other camp and no sign of him there either. Should we be concerned?”

“Not officially,” Service said.

“Gotcha,” the younger officer replied. “I'll let the county and Troops know to keep an eye out for him.”

Service had just gotten home when Ralph Scaffidi called. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I just pulled in.” Nantz was standing at the bottom of the stairs, waggling a finger for him to follow her upstairs.

“I got a guy might know something about the business you and I were discussing today. You got a pen?”

“Let me have it.”

“Name is Vaughn Sager.”

“He in the business?”

“You'll have to ask him. He tries to hit you for grease, you remind him who called him.”

“Where do I meet him, and when?”

“Tomorrow at two o'clock at the Sons of Italy Club in Soo, Ontario. That work for you?”

“Why Canada?”

“I don't know the details and I don't wanta.”

“Thanks, Ralph.”

“Remember what I said, the little schemer tries to shake you down.”

“Two o'clock.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

Service wrote down the man's name and thought about Scaffidi's voice. He had obviously put some pressure on this Sager guy. Pretty impressive for a retired CPA.

He bounded up the stairs, shedding clothes as he went.

“Good,” Nantz said from the darkened room. “I almost started without you.”