Force of Blood (23 page)

“Call me if you need me,” Ozzien Shotwiff said as he headed west with Shark Wetelainen.

“And then there were two,” Friday said, grinning.

“If we don’t count Shigun.”

“Work with me on this, Service. It’s just us today,” she beamed.

“You don’t work?”

“Nope, and neither are you—at least not for the State.”

“You working tomorrow?” he asked.

“Depends on how today goes,” she said.

“I hate tests.”

“Deal with it.”

• • •

Shigun was down for his early afternoon nap when Service’s cell phone buzzed. He looked for a nod from Friday before picking up. “Service.”

“
Hola,
this Aitch, man. I tell you neswick, it neswick now.”

“Barely,” Grady Service said.

“My guy, he ain’t so sure one twinnyfie cut id.”

“The offer’s on the table. There ain’t gonna be any more, Aitch.”

“This ting it priceless, like Dorothy’s fuck-me ruby slippers,
comprende?
”

“I understand, but the bargaining is done.”

“Mebbe my guy, he say I should find another buyer.”

“Yeah, he might. Meanwhile, I sic the IRS and DEA and BIA on you, and tell them all what you have, and we’ll see where it all shakes out when the dust clears. If it clears. That IRS shit hangs around like dinosaur farts.”

“I tole you Aitch ain’t got nothin’, man. Like all them letters and such make me sick.”

“Talk to your guy. You’re a businessman; help him see the deal as a safe way to unload.”

“He gotta stay behind his wall—you know that, right?”

“Aitch, what’s with all the whining? I thought you were the man.”

“I am the man,” Hectorio said unconvincingly.

“Then act like it,” Service said, cutting the line.

“Problem?” Friday asked.

“Nope.” Something clearly was spooking Hectorio. What or who could do that?

Friday stood by the sliding back screen. “Have you noticed how dry it is?” She turned, grinned, and pointed at the backyard. “Out there, not in here.”

A training-class slot unexpectedly opened for Sedge at the Ram Center on Higgins Lake, and she had taken off downstate for a full week of special man-tracking training. When she returned, the initial summer invasion of four-wheelers had begun. Outlaw gearheads were tearing apart Luce County and kept her running around, writing tickets at the rate of nearly a book a day, which was a lot.

Grinda had called the museum man as arranged, but he’d given her a new number, telling her to stand by for a call from him. And not a word from Hectorio since their last brief conversation. Everything felt like it was grinding to a halt, except for life with Friday and Shigun; the three of them had lived together for almost an entire month in what he guessed was close to a normal daily life.

He liked it a lot. He had even managed to get all his Wildlife Resource Protection Unit files mailed down to Milo Miars.

During this period, he had talked several times with Master Sergeant Bearnard Quinn, and they had come up with an approach to evaluating personnel. Quinn would write up his evaluations and send them as e-mail attachments.

It had been a plodding, enjoyable time, but he sensed a change this morning when Sheena called as he was pouring coffee for Friday. “Clatchety called me from Trout Lake. Our museum guy?”

“I remember.” Actually, he
had
forgotten the man’s name, but it was somewhere in his notes … he hoped. “What’s he want?”
Is it normal to be so forgetful?
He was having more and more trouble juggling lots of facts and details.

“Says he has a quote ‘special viewing opportunity,’ end quote, of a one-of-a-kind piece.”

“Description?”

“You heard the whole thing. One-of-a-kind.”

“When?”

“Friday, July twenty-seventh.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I agreed, but told him I wanted my hubby with me.”

“Simon?”

“No,
you
.”

“He agreed?”

“Remember how I described him as tentative the first time I met him?”

He did.

“There’s been a sea change. Whatever this thing is that he’s got, he’s spewing major geek sweat for a sale. He didn’t say so much, but I could sense it.”

“You write your report yet?”

She laughed at him. “God, you
sound
like a sergeant. No, I haven’t had time. When we need it, then I’ll put it together; okay by you?”

“Fine.” Good time management on her part. “What time’s our meeting?”

“Thirteen hundred hours. One truck or two?”

“Let’s hook up at the district office at eleven hundred. I’ll drive my personal truck and we can use that.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.

“You run the Mercedes license plate?” he asked, suddenly remembering her visit to the museum.

“Steel-trap mind,” she said. “Okemos address.”

Hmmm.
He wrote
Okemos
in his notebook. “Name?”

“Imago Neil Held. I called Bill Curry, asked him to talk to Ingham County, see what he can find out about Mr. Held.”

“And?”

“No word back yet from Bill.” Curry was a longtime CO in Lansing who somehow managed to keep his nose out of office intrigue and do his field job right in the city and local area.

“Keep me posted.”

“See you Friday.”

Service called Jingo Sedge. “That boat and trailer you found?”

“What about them?”

“Owner’s name?”

“Let me check my notes.” After a few moments she said, “Malcolm Fallkrome.” She spelled it for him.

“Okemos, right?”

“Good memory!”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I did. He reported the trailer stolen last year.”

“What about boat registration? Was that current?”

“Wasn’t a number on the boat. Looks like one got sanded off. Mr. Fallkrome says the boat isn’t his. He inherited the trailer from an uncle. He’s never owned a boat.”

“You check out those claims?”

“Should I?”

“Every detail, remember?”

“Okay.”

“Do me a favor; call Bill Curry in Ingham. Sheena has him checking a name linked to the museum gig. Play your name by him, ask if he can look for connections.”

“What connections?”

“If we knew that we wouldn’t be asking for help. I’m not exactly sure. Linkage?”

“Are we in teensy-tiny straw-grope mode here?”

“Getting close, I think.”

“Okay, I’m on it, Sarge. You there this week, or here?”

“Not sure yet. Let’s hear what Curry comes up with.”

Service dressed Shigun and dropped him with his daycare sitter. As he headed for his office at The Roof, Chief Waco called. He waited until he was parked in the office lot before calling back.

“Everything is signed and sealed for the dig,” the chief said. “The assistant SA signed on Friday, and DEQ will sign this morning. You want to let your people know?”

“Yes, thanks. Your wife find a house yet?”

“An old place on the Grand River near Dimondale. Got some outbuildings, and forty acres on both sides.”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Chief.”

“You talked with Sergeant Quinn?”

“Several times. We’ve worked out a rough plan. We’ll send it to you for comment.”

“I look forward to reading it.”

“You’re going to announce what we’re doing, right?”

“Yessir, after we finalize the plan. We move forward together, always together, Michigan man.”

“Roger that,” Service said. Eddie Waco had all the earmarks of a real leader.

Service hit the speed-dial number for Sedge.

“You lonesome this morning, or what?” she asked sarcastically.

“The dig permit papers have been signed. You want to let Toliver and Katsu know?”

“DEQ signed off?”

“DEQ signs this morning. The chief just called me. I think he has personally walked this stuff through the gauntlet. The OSA signed on Friday.”

“I’ll let Toliver know. He and his crew are already here gathering supplies and equipment, but he won’t move out to the site until he has paper in hand.”

“Does he know Katsu will be with him?”

“He will in a few minutes.”

“And it’s not negotiable,” Service said.

“I hear you,” she said.

“How long for Toliver to roll once he has paper?”

“Two days to move equipment into place and organize the site. Three days to break ground, he insists. He’s acting really finicky and cautious.”

“He’ll have paper this week—Friday at the latest—which translates to July twenty-seventh, yes?”

“Sounds about right to me, but I’ll verify when I talk to him today. I’m going to alter my patrol plans to stay close to the dig site,” she said. “Sergeant Bryan will pitch in to help.”

“Good thinking. I’ll call when I know how my week is shaping up. Sheena and I have a meet at the museum on Friday.”

“Both of you?”

“I’ll be her husband.”

Sedge laughed. “That’s a concept to defy all logic.”

Everybody has to be a comic
. He hung up, looked at his notes, and called her again.

“
Now
what?” she challenged.

“Horses.”

“What about them?”

“You follow that anywhere?”

“Sheena and I sent samples down to the lab at MSU. No word back yet.”

“Got a name down there?”

“Arthur Causey, DVM. Why?”

“My mind keeps coming back to the damn horses. You care if I run with this one?”

“Knock yourself out. Before we end this conversation, is there anything else I can help you with, Sergeant Service?”

“Nope, that should do it.”

“I hope so,” she said, and hung up.

• • •

Dr. Arthur Causey was quiet and sturdy, deliberate. “You got the horse tissue samples?”

“We did,” the vet said.

“Run tox yet?”

“Yes, but not the standard panel.”

What standard panel?
“I don’t understand.”

“It’s along the lines of a hunch,” the forensics man said.

“
What’s
along the lines of a hunch?”

“The direction I took.”

“Enlighten me.”

“When I was a boy my father worked at a small college in northern California. My dad was a doctor, one of the pioneer transplant surgeons, and he was looking for drugs to stop or minimize organ and tissue rejection.”

Causey would not be rushed. He had a story to tell. “Was he successful?”

“Not exactly, but he stumbled onto an approach, and when one of his collaborators left, he took the work with him. The result was that a large
company got involved and commercialized the process and sought FDA approval.”

“For the idea?”

“For ATG.”

Patience.
“Which is?”

“Antithymocyte gamma globulin.”

“And this relates to our samples
how?
”

“Technically it is called horse antithymocyte gamma globulin. Horses are injected with various agonists to stimulate antibody production in their blood. Then blood is extracted from the horse and the antigens are separated and purified.”

“So the horse is a kind of factory? The pure stuff is called ATG?”

“Yes.”

“I think I’m with you so far, Doctor. What about our case made you think about your dad and his work?”

“Well, I might not have if Officer Sedge had not included photographs of the site. When I saw the disposition of the carcasses, a lightbulb illuminated in my head.”

“Because?”

“My dad used to take me to see his horses. He and his team took great care of them, but when you use a large animal in this way, with constant blood agonist challenges and blood removal, a lot of scar tissue forms over time.”

“Scar tissue?”

“Ugly scar tissue. Think Frankenhorse.”

A joke?
“And?”

“The animals weren’t in pain, but they looked extremely bad, and when the project was completed the decision was made to humanely euthanize the animals and quietly and secretly dispose of their remains. There was great fear of antagonizing the antivivisectionists and creating a furor. So the disposal was done in the dark of night. The animals were slaughtered, and the remains were highly reminiscent of those your people discovered.”

“What are you telling me, Doctor?”

“I ran a toxicology panel on your samples. The blood from those horses shows significant antigenic quantities.”

“That ATG thing?”

“Highly possible.”

“That’s still being done?”

“The process has been commercialized and patents granted, but if you are a researcher on a limited budget in an academic setting, you might be concerned about even more venomous antivivisection extremists these days. The movement is virulent, and there are many ways to manufacture small quantities of ATG.”

“How long ago did your father do his work?”

“Into the 1980s.”

“Do your results show where our samples came from?”

“Science and toxicology do not yet provide such data on faunal samples.”

“So ATG is all we know?”

“Well, there is another element in the panel results.”

“Which is?”

“Somehow there were non-Michigan soil traces mixed in.”

“You can tell this?”

“I identified nonindigenous microflora, so I called my wife in for a consultation. She’s a soil scientist at the university. It took her less than two hours to give us an answer. The soil in the equine samples is green gumbo cleche clay, found mainly in Cedar Falls, Texas. Apparently that’s in south Dallas County.”

“Your wife is sure?”

“She knows soil like some people know sports statistics—it’s her passion and her profession.”

My wife, the dirt queen
. “Meaning our horses came from there?”

“Of course not. It’s not possible to determine point of origin, unless we have faunal reference samples, which we could then use to compare RNA. Absent faunal samples, we’re left with what we have. The animals indirectly or directly picked up green gumbo cleche clay.”

“Indirectly?”

“Off a shoe sole, or a truck bed,” Dr. Causey said. “Or should I say boots in this instance?”

“Will there be a report?”

“Yes, but not with any great dispatch. We’re barely staying afloat here with the state’s budget crunch.”

I feel your pain, pal
. “Thanks, this is helpful,” Service said, and hung up.
Close to something here, real close
.
It’s in my gut.
He called Information to get the phone number of the Cedar Falls Texas Police Department. He dialed the number, and after a couple of intermediate stops, ended up with Chief Jackie Jay Emerson on the other end.

“Chief Emerson?”

“Yessir,” the man said.

“Grady Service, chief master sergeant, Michigan Department of Natural Resources. I’ve got a sort of left-field question for you. It relates to a case we’re investigating.”

“Let ’er run,” Chief Emerson said.

“Have you had horse theft problems down your way?”

Emerson chuckled. “Back when we hung horse thieves on the spot we didn’t have too much of a problem, but we done went and got civilized, and there ain’t no more capital punishment for horse thieves. We still get us the odd case now and then. Citizens still git all worked up over it, but we don’t string ’em up no more.”

“Are there drug companies or college labs near you?”

“Them questions related?” the chief asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”

“Well, son, the thing about Texas is that if there’s a way to make yourself some money, legally or otherwise, you can bet some would-be cowboy will be doing it.”

“What about cattle rustling, horse theft, and your local whitetail deer population?”

“Hold on, Sergeant Service. We got deer, but not like other counties. As for cattle rustling, that happens too. Anything else before I try to stitch together some answers?”

“That’s it, so far.”

“You mind I get back to you on this stuff?”

“Thanks, Chief.”

“Call me Jackie Jay.”

“Grady here.”

“Glad to meet you, Grady. I’ll be back at you soon as I can.”

• • •

Sedge called. “I just talked to Toliver. He is overjoyed at the permission coming through, and ready to commit significant violence on my body over Katsu.”