Force of Blood (31 page)

They left the remains in the water and Sedge stayed at the lake to await the medical examiner’s people. Service was surprised that she had enough bars to call Katsu on her cell phone. After a brief discussion she looked at Service. “Toliver, his diggers, and Jane Rain are still with him at the cabins in Paradise,” she told him before he left.

Service wasn’t sure how he was going to cull Rain from the others, but when he pulled up in his Tahoe he saw her sitting on a bench by the shore of Whitefish Bay, smoking a cigarette. He stood beside the bench. “Seat taken?”

She didn’t even look up at him. “Help yourself,” she said. “You smell like fire.”

“Ya think? Listen, it’s just us government drones here, so let’s not play ring-around-the-bullshit-pole.”

Rain’s face remained impressively impassive.
Has control of herself
.

“Ghizi told Sedge and me about Toliver and some war clubs and a Milwaukee dealer and all that stuff, and how Toliver sanctimoniously told the government his college didn’t want tainted artifacts, which subsequently disappeared, making the point moot. But guess what? An agate breakhead with a bear-bone handle surfaced in Trout Lake of all places. How many clubs like that could there be? And no two agates are identical.”

Rain looked him in the eye. “Clatchety’s ersatz museum?”

Good, we can collaborate without games
. “I bought the weapon for ten grand.”

“It’s worth more,” she said, “a whole lot more to some collectors, not necessarily residents or citizens of the US of A.”

“Cash is sometimes king in the land of fencing,” he said. “Clatchety tried to sell me an Iroquois chief’s cane. Mohawk.”

She grunted. “We’re familiar with that item.”

“Me too. A guy in Lansing tried to sell me the same piece.”

“It’s not authentic,” special agent Jane Rain said, “but it fools almost everyone.”

“Manufactured?”

“A nineteenth-century con job, not contemporary.”

“Let me guess: Your people had it and put it into circulation.”

“Some pumps require more priming than others.”

“Is the bear-leg club part of the priming work?”

“Nope, that’s for real, and it’s also out of left field. We lost track of it in 2006.”

“Clatchety was speechless when I passed on the cane.”

“Why are we having this talk?” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife special agent asked.

“Delongshamp turned up at the fire.”

No acknowledgment of any kind.

“Skyler Verst offed herself.”

Jane Rain shuddered.

“Ate a shotgun,” he added. “I watched it happen.”

Rain stifled a gasp.

“You
know
her?” he asked.

“Her ex, who is technically not her ex, narked on her little relic biz with Imago Held. She scouts, he finances, others do the selling, marketing, and risk-taking.”

“Others, like Clatchety?”

“And Hectorio. The two of them are partners, but their business relationship as of late has been shaky, we hear, and we’ve suspected a permanent schism in the works. Hectorio doesn’t like—or leave—messes.”

Messes. The same word the Verst woman used
. “Held’s network?”

“Presumably. A real scum-line. We know six or eight names, real lulus, but meticulous lulus. Held knows how to play with bad boys, big and small.”

“Has the IRS got their nose into Held?”

“You know the IRS. They like to Lone Ranger it.”

“How close are you to moving against Held?”

She shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“Is Toliver part of Held’s field force?”

“We’re not sure. If he is, we haven’t found the angle yet. Where’s the agate-head club?”

“At Michigan State Police forensics lab in Marquette.”

“Are they checking for prints?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Could you?”

“Sure. You don’t know Delongshamp, aka Kermit, aka Brannigan?”

“No. Should I?”

He believed her. “What about Peewee Bolf?”

“Who’s that?”

“Our frog’s partner. How does Katsu fit into this?”

“You are a very odd man, Chief Master Sergeant,” Jane Rain said. “Katsu is more of a bystander than anything else. Maybe.”

“That’s not what Ghizi told us,” Service came back.

“That was then, this is now. Things change,” she said.

“Why are you shadowing Toliver?”

“I don’t think I can talk about that.”

“Look,” he said. “We’re either partners and collaborators, or we’re not. It’s as simple as that.”

He sensed her weighing a decision. “Ghizi’s afraid you’ll break the case and leave us with nothing. Our management is pretty insistent that we spend money only on cases where big results will be forthcoming.”

“As far as we’re concerned, you can have the case, the bust, all of the credit. I’m not even sure our state AG would have a clue how to prosecute something like this.”

Sedge’s experience with Elvis Shields, the former assistant attorney general, seemed to support his assumption.

“To some extent you and I are engaging in bar talk without the booze,” Rain said. “There’s a maze of federal law pertaining, but there are not many prosecutors at state levels who have much experience in these things. A hell of a lot of work and expense goes into enforcing what amounts to very low visibility laws, and you know prosecutors at all levels of government prefer high-profile cases with positive publicity when they unholster their guns.”

“Are you telling me this is a waste of our resources?”

“I’m not saying that. And I’m also not denying it could end up just that way. Look, you can go after these people on the buy or sell sides. Most states have some sort of legal sanctions and prohibitions, generally on the premise that anyone with a relic ought to know where it came from, and if it’s stolen,
they ought to know that too. You can get after auction houses and dealers, but like gun dealers, it’s damn hard to control or even monitor what goes on at their so-called legal swap meets. The bottom line is that the public doesn’t know shit about this stuff, but it’s a big global business, ranking behind narcotics, illegal animal parts, money laundering, and arms trafficking. Federal investigators like me have to think and act like lawyers and noodle out the pathways in a case that can be successfully prosecuted. It’s not enough to find the crime and bust a bad guy. Those days are long gone.”

“Are
you
a lawyer?” he asked.

“I am, with a PhD in anthropology to go along with it. I was an academician for a while, but it was too much like counting angels on the heads of pins. I worked for two years with the Department of Justice in Miami, and then Fish and Wildlife recruited me from DJ. I like this work a lot, but that doesn’t make it less frustrating or restricting in how we move. Sometimes I feel like a snail carrying a boulder.”

“You said maybe Katsu’s a bystander. Explain?”

“He’s got a sheet, he’s leading a national recognition effort for a very obscure band, and a brouhaha over relics might get his group the kind of publicity they need to get the government’s attention. The government loathes any publicity that seems to cast it in the asshole role.”

“Professor Shotwiff says his band is historically valid. Are you going after this with NAGPRA?”

“Justice will decide, but NAGPRA’s got a lot of political baggage, and there are some serious exemptions that complicate things, such as all the stuff the Smithsonian has is under a separate statute, and NAGPRA doesn’t cover anything found on state land after 1990, or any private collections before 1990, or anything found on private land. NAGPRA’s about Indian and federal land. The better instrument is NSPA, the National Stolen Properties Act, but like I said, Justice will make the call, not us,” she said.

“All I can do is look at the case from the viewpoint of both laws and see what we can do to pull in evidence to build a case down either road. The problem, in part, is that NSPA has not been used much federally, and not at all by states. Bottom line: Antiquity theft doesn’t meet the priorities of pressing public policy or public safety with this administration. To be fair, it’s not just this one—it’s any modern administration. It takes a lot of money to make one of these cases. If someone had the
Mona Lisa
you might be able to
stimulate strong political support. But Indian trinkets—they just don’t make the cut most of the time.”

“But you
are
on a case,” Service said.

“Because of Ghizi, not me. He’s crude but persuasive. Ganking artifacts is like stealing evidence from a criminal case: When the evidence goes, the case goes with it. A lot of politicians are lawyers. They understand this logic and Ghizi uses this to build support, but it’s a delicate balance, with tentative support at best.”

He did not envy her position. “What about RICO?”

She gave him an extended puzzled look and lit another cigarette. “You want to explain?”

“I’m not a lawyer,” he said.
Thank God
. “But I read and pay attention to some stuff.”
Not as much as I should, like e-mail
. “RICO’s been used to get organized crime, white-collar insider traders and scambams, terrorists, antiabortion demonstrators, even local cops. One size fits all with RICO, right? Have I missed some?”

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, was passed by Congress in 1970. Since then it seemed like the feds were using it for all sorts of cases that didn’t have anything to do with the Mafia.

“There are others, but that was a pretty good list,” she said. “Maybe the powers that be have thought about the RICO route, but I haven’t. You’re a game warden, so you might have heard of the Waltham Black Act of 1722?”

“Vaguely. That’s the one where it became illegal to poach with black-face—or in a disguise.”

“Not just illegal. It carried the death penalty, which seems pretty damn extreme for poaching. The Black Act is a classic example of legal mission creep. It started out with the death penalty for poaching in disguise, but eventually came to cover fifty or sixty infractions, all of which carried the death penalty, the majority of which didn’t warrant such severity. RICO’s grown the same way the Black Act grew, with similar results. Eventually the rights crusaders will force limitations, and that probably will be a good thing.”

“Are you telling me that even if arrests are made the perps may walk?”

“I’m not saying the
suspects
won’t walk,” she said.

“This whole thing pisses me off,” Service said, not bothering to mask his feelings.

“You are in good company,” Rain assured him.

“I’m going to talk to Toliver,” he said.

“Why?”

Because I can
, he thought. “I want to hear the breakhead story.”

• • •

He found Toliver sitting knee-to-knee with a young woman who was looking at him with worshipful doe eyes. “Got a minute?” he asked Toliver.

It was clear from the professor’s look that he preferred the young woman’s company.

“Fire out?” Toliver asked.

“Control first, then comes the out part. We’re about fifty percent there. How come your people bailed out of the dig?”

“Panic,” Toliver said. “As simple and complex as that—fight or flight. What do you want? Our not being on the dig site does not mean we are without tasks.”

Yeah, I can see your tasks with the girl, asshole
. “I want to talk to you about a situation involving some stolen war clubs.”

Toliver didn’t blink. “I got taken in, end of story.”

“Isn’t that sort of a professional black eye?”

“Patently unfair,” the professor said, “but accurate.”

“Like life. Tell me the story.”

“I’m sure there are transcripts.”

“I prefer a live voice.”

“Which part?”

“There are parts? How about you tell me all of it?”

“I don’t know all of it, only the things I was involved in.”

“That’ll do. Talk.”

Toliver sighed. “In the summer of 2005 I bought five breakheads of Iroquois origin. I bought them for the museum at my institution.”

“Just war clubs?”

“There was a stone knife as well, elkhorn handle, ornately carved, stone blade. It was exquisite.”

“What month that summer?”

“August, I think.”

“Bought from whom?”

“A dealer.”

Service was tempted to say
late
dealer, but refrained. He wanted the man to talk, and silence was sometimes a better catalyst than questions.

“You probably want his name,” Toliver said after a long pause. “William Wildhorse, and yes, presumably a Native; I never knew which tribe, or if he was legitimately Native.”

Service let silence hang in the air like an impending storm.

“He had a gallery in Kraut Town in Milwaukee. Pure chance I stopped in one day and we talked, and so it went from there.”

“Other galleries in that area?”

“I really can’t say. This was a long time ago.”

Two years long ago to an archaeologist? Bullshit.
“Go on.”

“The artifacts were stolen and Wildhorse was arrested by the FBI.”

“Charges?”

“Interstate commerce violations or some such thing. It didn’t really matter to me, and the FBI would never tell me how they knew the artifacts were stolen, or from whom or from where, or when. I still don’t know.”

“What happened to Wildhorse?”

“They had to let him go. Not enough evidence.”

But they were sure the artifacts were stolen. This doesn’t track
. “And the relics?”

“Returned them to Wildhorse, the apparent rightful owner.”

“But
you
had bought them.”

“I had indeed, but I never took possession, and after all this happened I told the FBI my institution did not want them without proven provenance. The FBI gave them back to Wildhorse.”

“Are there photographs?”

“Ask the FBI. I don’t possess any.”

“Did you have the weapons?”

“Nossir, I did not. Never. I just saw them in the photographs Wildhorse shared.”

“And you bought based on photos?”

“Technically, yes and no; this is fairly common. The deal was contingent upon my approval once I saw them in person. If I didn’t want them then, the deal would be terminated.”