Ice Hunter (33 page)

“Is the bullet the same as what you got out of Jerry Allerdyce?”

“The ballistics lab will make that call officially, but I'd say yes,” Vilardo said.

The caliber, 5.56-millimeter, fit the M-16 A1 Armalite rifle, a weapon that was entirely black and matched what Nantz had seen.

“Thanks, Vince.”

“Anytime.”

More facts established. The dead man was Kerr, and he and Jerry Allerdyce had probably been killed by the same-caliber bullet; Service guessed ballistics would show it was the same weapon. If they could get Fox's weapon when they got him, they might get a ballistics match.

McKower radioed him late that afternoon while he was checking the license of a man fishing Silver Creek.

“There are permits for Crystal Falls only,” McKower said. “They were issued at the behest of a member of the NRC and the superintendent of the Mosquito.”

“What?”

“You heard me: Doke Hathoot lent his support. Now we go by the book, right?”

“I hear you,” he said. She had done a lot more than verify permits. That she had managed to get such inside information so fast told him she had real connections downstate. He was both impressed and surprised. McKower had always been more than she seemed.

Hathoot and somebody from the Natural Resources Commision running interference for Knipe? Bastards. The NRC was supposed to provide oversight for the DNR and DEQ, not act as a damn lobbyist.

When he confronted Hathoot at the Tract headquarters building, Doke wore a stupid grin but wasn't the least evasive or apologetic. “Sure I went to bat for Knipe. Why not? I got a call from Ron Novotny from the commission. He said the governor wants to make certain Michigan gets its fair share of the diamond business. Dow sold fifty-one percent of its interests to the subsidiary of some Australian company. The governor believes we ought to be taking care of Michigan companies first. What's wrong with that?”

“You don't even know Knipe, and all the other companies have abandoned the diamond search.”

“I never said I knew Knipe. Big fucking deal, Service. I did a favor for Novotny, a quid pro quo. You think my wife wants to live here forever? You think I do? I'm just scratching a back. That's politics. Look, Service, I know the difference between politics and principles, and if somebody tries to fuck with the Tract, I'll be on them before you. But this has nothing to do with the Mosquito, so why are you so bent out of shape?”

Hathoot was slick but not that slick, and he had met plenty of liars you couldn't detect without a lot of effort. He didn't like what Hathoot had done, but the man's explanation sounded plausible, which didn't guarantee that it was.

“What do you expect from Novotny?”

“He said he'd push for the NRC to have its planning retreat here. If we do a bang-up job and impress them, he whispers in the governor's ear and he whispers to the DNR brass and maybe the wife and I can transfer south.”

“Novotny's close to the governor?”

“He's a major contributor. When Bozian's family vacations at the mansion on Mackinac Island, Novotny and his wife are usually with them. He's a key adviser in Bozian's kitchen cabinet, a real behind-the-scenes power broker.”

Another thread: Knipe to Novotny to Bozian. Service was glad he came to see Hathoot. Knipe was pressing forward near Crystal Falls, but he wouldn't have had two people killed in the Tract if he didn't have his eye in that direction too.

The telephone connection was lousy. “Knipe has approved permits for his Crystal Falls operation,” Service told del Olmo. “Can you get one of your DEQ pals to take you out there for an inspection?”

“What inspection?”

“Hell, I don't care. Tell Wildcat it's routine and that permits require photos of facilities for the records.”

“You're bent,” del Olmo said.

There was admiration in the younger CO's voice. “Yeah, you too.”

“What about Fox?”

“Not yet.”

When he got back to Nantz's that evening she was gone. There was a note: “I have Newf and we will be ‘out of pocket' for a while.” He headed for his place to check on Cat, who was happy to have her food replenished but otherwise ignored Service's presence. He wondered where Nantz was, but expected she would call when she could.

He spent the next day on routine activities. Time dragged by. Service tried repeatedly to contact Nantz through her office, but she wasn't there and the office would say only that she was “unavailable,” the standard bureaucratic kiss-off. Where she was was none of his business.

Del Olmo called him and asked him to drive over to Iron Mountain tonight.

What the hell was Nantz doing? And why did she have to be so damn independent? With all that money, the older she got, the more independent she'd be, he guessed.

He met del Olmo at Ruggers in Iron Mountain. The two men ordered fries with malt vinegar, grilled whitefish, and coffee. There were photographs of Steve Mariucci and Tommy Izzo on the wall, local boys who now coached the San Francisco Forty-Niners and Michigan State's national champion, basketball team. Del Olmo had brought photographs, glossy eight-by-tens in black and white.

There was a photograph of Fox and another man he had seen once before—the stranger from the Tract!

“Our Fox finally left his den,” Service said.

Del Olmo smiled. “God's hand. That's what my mom always said about coincidences. He moved the same time I went with the DEQ people, and when we got out to Knipe's property, there he was. It was sweet.”

“Where did you get this?”

“At the Wildcat compound.”

Service tapped a finger on a photograph. “Who's Fox with?”

“Ike Knipe. Fox met him at the compound.”

Finally! It was Ike he had met in the Mesquito that night. Ike Knipe and Fox. Seton Knipe's son and his hired gun. “Did they have a problem with you being there?”

“They weren't real happy to see any of us, but the DEQ guys were cool and said it was just routine and not to get their bowels in an uproar. They let us poke around and that was that.”

“Anything they didn't let you see?”

“Nope, they gave us free run of the grounds.”

Meaning there was nothing there to hide? If so, why the fence and extraordinary security? Something didn't jibe. Sometimes the truth lay buried between people's actions and words.

“Any evidence of drilling?”

“Didn't see any. Just lots of equipment.”

“Any excavation, digging?”

“
Nada
.”

A woman in a very short red skirt and gold sandals approached their table. She had one wrist loaded down with gold bracelets and gaudy rings on all her fingers, even her thumbs.

“How come they let fish cops wear guns?” she asked, challenging. Her voice was a raspy and guttural.

She was middle aged, well preserved, proud of her legs, and more than a little tipsy. A spiderweb of blue booze veins showed through the skin of her cheeks.

“You never heard of shooting fish in a barrel?” del Olmo said.

The woman looked confused.

“Sometimes the fish have water guns, lady.”

She stared daggers at del Olmo. “You a greaser?”

“No ma'am, spick-American.” He gave her one of his white-toothed smiles.

Her lips curled down nastily. “You're not
real
cops,” she said disgustedly, coasting away on her twisty course.

Service looked over at del Olmo, who was still smiling.

“Gee, and somebody told me once that COs never have fans,” del Olmo said.

“Doesn't anything get you down?”

“No,
jeffe
. This is America, not Cuba. You think that lady would run us off if she had a problem and we were first on the scene?”

Service laughed.

“Is it time for the poor hens to take down the Fox?”

“Soon,” Service said. He needed to see Rocky Lemich in Houghton before he moved against Fox and Knipe.

Lemich wasn't in his office. The secretary who answered the phone said he was “out—eating biscuits.”

“Ma'am?”

“It's
his
juvenile language. He's at the rink playing hockey.”

“In summer?”

“Year-round,” she said disparagingly.

Service watched Lemich finish up. Age took reflexes, but added smarts based on experience. Lemich played the angles, and didn't have to do much work, easily smothering three shots from the point. When the teams were banging into each other in the neutral zone and other end he busied himself sweeping snow out of his goal crease with his big paddle.

Lemich came off the ice smiling and flushed. The scoreboard read 4–0.

“Who had the four?”

“Not us,” the professor said. “Screened on one, and three rebounds.”

Goalie talk for not his fault. Service grinned. “Tests done?”

Lemich waddled over to a skaters' bench in his unwieldy equipment and plopped down heavily, his back against the yellow cinder-block wall. “It's kimberlite,” he said. “Heavy olivine, clasts showing chrome pyrope, pridot, ilmenite.”

Clasts and olive oil? “Is there an English translation?”

“Looks diamondiferous, eh? It could hold diamonds.”

“Does the formation have to be the source of the stones we found?”

“No, it could be that your stones rode down from Canada with glaciers. Diamonds have even been found in Indiana, and no doubt how those got there, eh? Theoretically, your stones coulda hitched a ride down this way, but I'd hafta say this is unlikely. Sorry.”

Service got out the photographs of Knipe's compound.

“Anything in these stand out?”

Lemich shuffled through the photos like they were playing cards. “What's the question?”

“Are they drilling?”

“Based on these?”

Service nodded.

“Looks to me like they're stockpiling equipment, but haven't gotten down to the dirty work yet. Who is this?”

“That's not important. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem, bucko. Remember what you promised me in return for amnesia.”

Kids, Service remembered. “I keep my word.”

“Knew you would,” Lemich said. “Banger.”

Service drove past the cemetery across the street from the rink. He saw pure white statues of the Holy Family with their backs to the rink. Maybe they didn't like hockey.

On his way out of Houghton Service got a call from Gus Turnage. “Where are you?” his friend asked.

“Headed out of Houghton on US 41, aiming south.”

“Great timing. Grab a coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Drake's Cafe´.” The restaurant was nondescript, with standard deepfried Yooper fare.

“I'm almost there.”

After getting coffee Turnage said, “I don't know if this fits, but I thought you should know Fox bought and sold a lot of property down in the Pelkie area. The university's lawyers finally decided to tell the feds about Fox's grant fraud and now they're digging into his assets, trying to freeze them.”

Service let his friend continue.

“What's interesting is that he bought the land way below assessed value from Wildcat, Inc., and sold it all off over a five-month period. Even with capital gains, he made a very nice profit.”

“When?”

“Last year. He took the money he made and parked it in Cayman Island banks. The feds say it will be tough to get at. Does any of this compute?”

“Not yet.”

They ate a quick lunch. Service went out to his truck and called Wink Rector at his office in Marquette.

“FBI, Special Agent Rector speaking.”

“It's Grady. Are you involved in an investigation of a man named Fox at Tech?”

“Why?” the agent asked suspiciously.

“Other agencies may have their own interests in him.”

“For what?”

“A number of things. I'll fill you in later. Right now I'm curious about his land dealings in Pelkie. He bought land on the cheap and sold at a considerable profit.”

“Who the hell have you been talking to?”

“Is it true?”

“Yah.”

“How much land was involved?”

“A thousand acres, give or take.”

“Sold in pieces, not as a chunk.”

“Right.”

“How did he do it?”

The FBI man said, “Scam. People in Pelkie got the cockamamy idea that the land might contain diamonds. Can you believe that?”

“Where did the people get the idea?”

“From Fox, using an alias. Will or Willie Chamont.”

WC. Things were starting to close.

“You're sure it was Fox?”

“We had a complaint and we were following up. Since he was making noises about diamonds, we wondered if there was some sort of connection to Tech.”

“And when you got there, you found more problems?”

“Who is your source, Grady?”

“The guy scammed money off grants at the university and off the land deals in Pelkie. How come this didn't hit the news?”

“We've only recently gotten into this. People down there talked to some lawyers about suing Fox, but the land deals were legally binding and there was nothing on paper about diamonds. The people were had and didn't want others to know.”

“But somebody came to you guys.”

“Yes, an infuriated young woman. Her father lost a bundle, and she wanted to help him. Her call started the ball rolling.”

Service inhaled and shook his head, remembering the young woman he had met in Pelkie.

“Fox has a long record of scams. He's been inside twice, once in California, once in Missouri. How he got hired at Tech is beyond me. Damn universities don't check backgrounds for shit.” Neither did federal grantors, Service thought.

“Does Fox have a degree?”

“Two engineering degrees from the Colorado School of Mines. Now it's your turn to answer some questions.”