Hard Ground (17 page)

Last Night as a Secret Squirrel

All Buck Dudek could think about was the crew of thugs he had to meet tomorrow. They were bear houndsmen out of Kentucky, and he had worked them for two years and eased his way into their confidence, a sickening job because they were lower than pond scum. Unlike most violators, who saw poaching as a sort of game, the Kentuckians were out-and-out lawbreakers, raping everything; anything that threatened their bottom line was “handled rat quick,” their leader once confided.

The Kentuckians guided licensed hunters, mostly from Michigan, but took gall bladders and paws from their “sports” kills, and from what Dudek could tell, unlicensed hunters in the group also had taken six to ten more animals each year for paws and galls to be sold to Korean middlemen in Mishawaka, Indiana.

Dudek knew this would be a major take-down and subsequent case. Or, if it went awry, he would be dead. There were no other outcomes between the two extremes, not with this crowd, and he was amped already.

Naturally, this would be another day Karna felt the need to do jumping jacks on his psychological trampoline.

“Good God, Buck, that damn ponytail makes you look like a fool. How long does this charade have to go on?”

Ten years in uniform, the last four as an undercover detective, and Dudek had made it a point to keep his wife as far in the dark as possible, which was a difficult balancing act because she was smart, curious, nosy, and downright assertive about what she wanted. Truth: She was too emotional and too impulsive to entrust with even small tidbits about his undercover work. His only choice: Lie and dissemble, which made him sick.

His ponytail, of course, told her something about what he might be up to, but he never revealed precisely what, with whom, or where. All Karna knew was that he was a detective and not required to wear a uniform.

“I swear,” she said, “most wives in my situation would pack up and move the hell on. Out all hours—for days sometimes—comin' home stinking of cigarettes, cheap whiskey, dope, perfume . . . How am I supposed to know you're not fooling around on me, Dudek? Tell me that.”

“Because I'm not,” he answered, calmly eyeing his body armor. No way he could hide a Kevlar vest around the Kentuckians, but without it he felt naked and exposed. The hammerless Taurus .38 snubby in his calf holster didn't help his confidence, either. A gun was a matter of last choice, desperation. Having to reach for the weapon would mean he had failed, that the case was in the shitcan, and he'd be damn lucky to get out with his life and body intact.

There were times when he wished Karna could be calm and serene, and listen, but this just wasn't her way. She was a born drama queen in all things, large and small, and a legendary gossip. Actually, her being so gossipy helped his cover. If anyone came poking around, they'd look at Karna and think no way that woman's husband is an undercover cop.

“When are you leaving this time?” she demanded.

“Half hour. You know where the will and paperwork are, right?” He knew this would set her off, but it was part of their ritual, and he had no desire to change ways after they had helped keep him alive for ten years.

“Goddammit, yes. You say the same thing every time you leave, and it still just about floors me. It really,
really
creeps me out, Buck, this talk of wills and that damn silly ponytail.”

“I said the same thing before every patrol when I was in uniform,” he reminded her.

“It's different since you became a damn secret squirrel.”

Dudek looked over at his wife. “Where'd you hear
that
term?”

Karna rolled her eyes. “I talk to the other wives, duh? They seem to know more about your work than I do, and that makes me wonder what you're really up to.”

“What do they say?”

“They say they'd divorce their spouses if they took such a job.”

“Is that what you want?”

Karna pushed his chest with the heels of her hands. “No, you big jerk. I just want a normal life, watching you getting into your patrol truck, listening to you bitch about your sergeant and Lansing, finding all the stinky evidence you left in our fridge and freezer, yelling at the kids for leaving toys in your boots, you know, a normal uniformed game warden's life.”

“I doubt many would call that normal.”

“They're not game warden families.”

“And we
are
, you included?”

“Dudek,” she said, “I'm the pilot of this mother ship, keeping us all on course while you battle the forces of evil.”

Dudek made a sniffing sound toward her. She was a foot shorter, skinny. “You been hittin' on the bottle?”

She slammed his chest again and waved her hand at the back door. “Go on and get yourself shot, or have sex with some diseased swamp angel.”

“Do I get to pick?” he shot back.

“Hell no, that's my job! Pushed to a wall, I'd prefer you do the flatbed tango with skanks than take bullets in your brainpan.”

“I'll try to remember that.”

“Git,” she said. “When will we see you again?”

“Day after tomorrow, probably. Sometime.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“And when do you leave again?”

“Saturday.”

“Well, at least you'll be home for a few days.”

“Saturday you and I will be driving over to Crystal Falls to look for a house.”

Karna Dudek stared at her husband, her mouth open, frozen between words.

“Promoted,” he said. “Lieutenant for the district.”

His wife whispered, “Ohmygod.”

“You like?” he asked.

No words, but she nodded enthusiastically. “Can't you stay home tonight so we can, well, you know. Geez, Buck, can't they find another officer this one time? I mean,
good God
, Buck!”

“No can do, hon. You know better than that. You need to start thinking like a lieutenant's wife. There will be twenty families for us to worry about.”

“You mean no gossip?” she said.

“That would be a fine start.”

“Soap-on-a-rope, Buck, I don't know. Maybe you should have talked to me before you accepted.”

“I can still turn it down, stay with what we have.”

“No more gossip,” Karna said, making a zipping motion across her mouth. “We got time to fool around?”

“I can't do you
and
a swamp angel in the same night. Don't have that kind of stamina anymore.”

She leered. “You had it last Tuesday morning.”

“The exception that proves the rule,” he said, pulling her to him. “You know where the paperwork is, right?”

She pulled away and wagged her finger. “Tell you what, Dudek, you make that the last time you ask that, and I'll never gossip again, quid pro quo. Deal?”

“Deal,” he said, pulled her close, and they had a lingering, tender kiss.

Out in the truck he called his lieutenant. “All set?”

The plan called for him to hook up with the Kentuckians. His truck was equipped with an electronic tracker and a disguised automatic vehicle locator panic button, hooked to his key fob. When an unlicensed hunter took an animal, he would sound the silent alarm, which would shoot a signal up to satellites and back down to his backups, who would come in hard and fast and make the arrests, including him. The bad guys wouldn't know he'd set them up until it got to a jury, if it got that far. Meanwhile, Kentucky officers would serve warrants at the homes of the suspects in the group, and several Michigan officers would converge on the Kentuckians' camp off Coast Guard Road, where they kept a freezer filled with illegally taken meat and animal parts.

•••

Driving to the rendezvous with the hunters, his hands kept shaking, and he stopped and bought a pack of unfiltered Camels and lit up. One more time, he told himself. Keep it together. Deep down he knew Karna was right. No one could endure the life of a secret squirrel for years on end.

“Last night as a secret squirrel,” he said out loud. “Keep your eye on the damn ball, Dudek.”

Sisyphus Redux

At more than two score years, the callipygous, auburn-haired Gayfryd Davilla Fairlane Flood had the tight-packed figure of a woman half her age, an IQ in the I-shit-you-not-o-sphere, the temperament of Virginia Woolf, the insatiable sexual appetite of Cleopatra, and the moral compass of a snake.

Ten years on the bench in the Upper Peninsula, and District Judge Flood had built a fearsome reputation as a punitive jurist, an avenging angel some called “G-Bomb.” She didn't just throw the book at her docket dogs, she used the book to pound them so deep into the system that they'd never get loose.

The severe sentencing practices of Gayfryd deeply disturbed Conservation Officer Ernie Fortier, though he could never admit it publicly. How could he? For going on eight years Ernie had compiled a remarkable and enviable record of never having lost a case that went to a jury, not once. This made him the envy of Upper Peninsula law enforcement personnel, a sort of demigod of hardrock copwork.

Admiration aside, Ernie wore his record like an albatross as he watched every arrest he made get the maximum sentence with no ameliorating or mitigating circumstances, the result being that Ernie The Ticket Machine rarely wrote tickets anymore because he couldn't stand to see the punishment meted out by his paramour, Gayfryd Flood. His lieutenant in Marquette and department higher-ups in Lansing looked at the fall-off in citations and figured it was because he had literally pacified his area, the goal of all peace officers, rarely achieved.

Ernie's relationship with Gayfryd began when she called him into her chambers before a contested illegal deer case. It was Fortier's second time before Her Honor, the first case having involved a tribal member with 800 pounds of walleyes, all the fish netted outside the area allowed by treaty.

That time, a tribal attorney had vehemently argued that the tribal court was the proper venue for the case, not a US or state court, but Gayfryd Flood had given the lawyer the evil eye, ruled for the state, and waved the attorney out of her courtroom. The steel and certainty in the judge's voice that time had given Ernie Fortier the chills. Thus, standing in her private chambers was akin to being naked in the lion's den.

“I see you've got fine big feet,” she greeted him. “But stamina? No way to judge stamina, Officer Fortier. Do you have stamina to match those beautiful big boots, and what size are they, anyhow?”

“They're 16D,” he said meekly.

“Lord have mercy,” the judge said. “And stamina?”

“Stamina with regard to what, Your Honor?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you a naïf?”

“I don't think I know that word, Your Honor, so I can't really say.”

“Only one way to find out,” she said with a smile. “Drop your gear and let's get to this trial.”

Trial?
“Your Honor?”

Judge Flood yanked her robe over her head, tossed it upward to flutter down over her chair, stepped from behind her desk stark naked, helped strip him quickly, pushed him over to an oversize leather couch the color of aged red wine, and commenced what she would thereafter call the Mother of All Stamina Tests, after which she dressed without talking, put her hair back in place with an obviously shaking hand, pulled on her robe, and dismissed Ernie Fortier with a wave of her hand. “See you in court, Ernest. Now, shoo!”

Only when he was back in the hallway waiting for the case to be called did he realize she'd been naked under her robe before he arrived, which meant she'd planned the whole thing, and he wasn't sure in the least what exactly that meant, or how he felt about it, but
schtupping
a judge couldn't be good. Could it?

The defendant's lawyer was nervous, Judge Flood told him to keep quiet, and after less than five minutes Dento Salminen admitted to not just the deer Ernie Fortier caught him with, but to seven more, and Judge Flood sentenced him to a year in jail, $7,000 in fines, and another $1,000 in expenses, including the officer's time away from his job. When Salminen's attorney protested the jail term, Flood held up a hand. “The statute says one year mandatory,” she barked. “If you have a problem with said statute, counsellor, I suggest you lobby legislators to change the law.”

“But in our culture, it's customary,” the lawyer protested.

“You are in
my
court, sir.
State
rules, no customs, no tailoring, by the book in every case, every time. Your client doesn't approve? Advise him not to break the bloody law. With eight illegal deer, he's stealing from every citizen of this great and currently impoverished state, and I will not have it, sir. Do you hear me, sir? I will not have it!” Her gavel came down like the report of a .44 Magnum.

Judge Flood then waggled a finger for Officer Fortier to approach the bench, and there in front of others she slid a card to him. It had a camp address and her private home and cell phone numbers, written in flowery script.

•••

Ernie Fortier never became comfortable with how Gayfryd Flood's ways affected his attitude toward his job, and he was in a terrible quandary about what to do. He was afraid if he tried to break it off with her she'd retaliate with vengeance. And truth be told, the judge was a lot of fun in some ways, especially with her clothes off and a few liquid libations down the hatch.

Recently, it seemed, Ernie spent more time trying to figure a way to free himself from the judge than thinking about fish and game miscreants. He was working at bare minimum, and in an unhealthy situation.

Over breakfast one Wednesday morning at her camp, Gayfryd Flood said, “Ernest, you seem unhappy. Want to talk about it?”

It was the classic can't-win scenario. If he tried to talk, she'd bury him with cold logic and vocabulary far beyond him, and, in doing so, bring about the end she'd already decided. On the other hand, if he denied a problem, she'd smile, take his hand, lead him to the bed, and robustly celebrate by exercising his stamina. Decision time, he told himself, feeling sweat bead. He furrowed his brow and meekly gave her his hand.

•••

Days of shame turned into weeks and months of worry, and one day Lieutenant Binky Muhlendorf called Ernie to the district office for a chat, about what, Ernie had no idea. Muhlendorf was a rising star in the state, from CO to El-Tee in eight years, and deserving of it. Some fast risers were political, but not Binky, who had been a great CO and sergeant, and had fairly earned the brown bars on his collars.

“Have a seat,” his lieutenant greeted him. “Grab a coffee.”

There was a thermos and two cups on the table, and Fortier helped himself.

“I'll cut right to the chase,” Muhlendorf said. “No officer in the state has ever achieved the record you have for clean cases. The management team wants to promote you and send you around the state to train other officers in the proper way to write and substantiate violations. You'll also audit officers whose cases tend to get tossed or downgraded and see if you can analyze what went wrong. If there's a trend, what does it portend, and what as a department can we do, if anything? How does that sound to you, Ernie?”

“Like something I'm not qualified to do.”

The lieutenant smiled. “You're kidding, right?”

“No sir,” Fortier said, “I'm serious. This ticket thing of mine is just a fluke, and that's all.”

His El-Tee shook his head in disbelief. “Eight years cannot possibly be a fluke, Officer Fortier.”

“I'm sorry, sir, but it is, and that job you talked about. I'd hate it because it sounds like internal affairs or something, and you know how that goes down in the ranks.”

Muhlendorf rubbed his face, perhaps an indication that he'd not expected the meeting to take this tack. “I'd like for you to think about it, Ernie. Take a week, and understand, this was the chief's idea. He thinks you walk on water.”

“Okay, I'll think on it, sir. I can do at least that much.”

“Good, good, you do that. The promotion would be to sergeant, and you can live anywhere in the state because you'll cover the whole state. The chief thinks you should plan on 75 percent road time, give or take.”

“For how long?”

The lieutenant shrugged. “Open-ended. Permanent is my guess—if the audit supports the mission's assumptions.”

“How do I do my do job when I'm going to be here only 25 percent of the time?”

Muhlendorf grinned benignly. “Given what you've accomplished here, you could probably do both, but the idea is for you to leave the field.”

“You'd put somebody else in my place?”

“Yes, at some point,” Muhlendorf said.

“Would I have a say in who replaces me?”

“That's not how we do things, Ernie, but I understand your commitment and attachment.”

“This is a new job, so it ought to include some new procedures.”

“I can't argue that logic, but what do you care?”

“It took me years to get this place into a delicate balance, and I'd hate to see that disrupted by a new officer who doesn't understand the rhythms here.”

“I'll run that by the chief,” the lieutenant said, “but I'm pretty sure that dog won't hunt.”

“Yessir. Thank you, sir.” Fortier quickly gathered his hat in a cloud of adrenalized hope. If he could swap a new man for himself, he could be clear of Gayfryd Flood and her controlling ways and get back to being just another lawman.

Who might replace him, of course, was an entirely separate and paramount issue, and he was quite clueless how to proceed except that he had a hunch the judge needed to first get accustomed to the idea of his leaving before he broached the issue of a replacement.

•••

There was no reaction whatsoever from her when they met at her place three days later. Her total verbal response was “Oh.” He waited for more, but nothing emerged. He did, however, think she rutted with increased gusto and energy that night, leaving him exhausted and her snoring softly on his sweaty shoulder. Not at all the way he thought it would go, and he went to sleep feeling encouraged.

At breakfast—after alarm-clock sex—Fortier's knees still rubbery, Gayfryd took a sip of coffee and asked him, “So what exactly is all this promotion nonsense about?”

He tried to explain that in part it was her support of him that paved the way.

“Pshaw,” she said. “Weren't but two of those cases that were even close to a judgment call. High likelihood any jurist would have found same as I did.”

“I guess Lansing sees it differently.”

She took another hit on the coffee. “Won't fucking do, Ernest my boy, won't do a'tall. Took all these years to find what I want in one man, and I do not intend to willingly let go. Turn down the job, Ernest,” she said, adding, “Are you taking this aboard, my sweet ? Tell them no way, Jose.”

“I'm not sure I can do that,” he said. “I'm guessing they think something's wrong here, and they want a new body in place to test their hypothesis.”

Gayfryd Flood stared at her man. “You think they want you
out
?”

“It sort of occurred to me,” he said. In fact, he'd just had the idea and gone desperately to it without giving it much thought. Still, it seemed a promising argument.

The judge kept her eyeglasses on a golden chain around her neck and now lifted the tiny specs into place like shiny binoculars. “You're a fine woods cop, Ernest, but you're no lawyer, so don't float some stupid-ass argument with hope as cheap fuel.”

“I'm not arguing. It's just a hunch,” he came back.

“I'll eat a brunch, officer, but not a hunch. But for civilized argument's sake, say they move you out. Where to?”

“Lansing.”

“Thought you said the job serves all districts,” she countered.

“The staff support is in the Mason Building.”

“Nonsense. This is the epoch of the electronic office, work from home, all that new age computer happy talk bullshit.” She paused and took a deep breath. “So there you are in Lansing. What do I do, diddle myself with an electroshock wand?”

“No, ma'am,” he said. “You'd probably wear that out.”

She frowned. “I wear you out, is that what this is all about?”

“My El-Tee called me in and laid this whole thing on me. That's what it's about, Gayfryd. We're talking reality here.”

“As a jurist, it is I who will decide what the hell reality is, Ernest. Me, in my court, in my bed, up there on the bench, everywhere, me, not you, not them, me.”

“Just saying,” Fortier mumbled.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You're having a little moral dilemma vis-à-vis us and your perfect professional results, and you feel the fix is in and your reputation isn't warranted, and that this leaves you feeling sullied, perhaps a little tawdry. Am I on the right track here, Ernest? Please enlighten me.”

Ernie Fortier weighed options and shook his head.