Running Dark (15 page)

“I'm just trying to figure out the Garden.”

Fahey laughed. “When you do, let me know. I've never figured those buggers out. The situation there's not all that complicated, eh. People up there know the end's in sight and they're gonna milk it all the way.”

“Lansing knows this?”

“Some do, some don't. Most who know don't really give a bloody hoot. The Garden is a skirmish in a small war to get the state to where it wants to be economically. The Garden ain't Gettysburg. Hell, it ain't even the Toledo War!” Michigan and Ohio had taken up arms because both wanted the strip of land that contained Toledo. The compromise gave Toledo to Ohio and the Upper Peninsula to Michigan, and hard feelings still lingered above the bridge. The U.P. had been incorporated into the state's territory without having a say in it, and then its resources had been taken away by mining and logging companies, all with Lansing's blessing.

“And if the Garden gets bloody?”

“Some might like that. Be a good excuse for the governor to call in the National Guard the way it happened during the Detroit riots. The Garden boys know this, so they have to walk a fine line between fighting the inevitable and keeping doing what they want to do to make their dough. They can't let it get out of hand or they've got no chance, eh.”

“They've got no chance anyway,” Service said.

“They don't know that.”

Service was impressed not only with Fahey's knowledge, but also with his crisp and simple explanations of history and political realities.

A waiter brought them a six-inch-square cinnamon roll and put it between them as he poured coffee.

“Coffee's boiled,” Fahey said. “Bakery's from L'Anse. Lou has it delivered daily just for Yoopers working in Lansing. You going back this afternoon?”

“If I can.”

“Hard to predict those guys, but Curry and Metrovich will be suspicious of why I asked for you. They'll be trying to figure out what the heck I'm up to, and how you fit in. When they ask why, just tell 'em the truth. Your old man and me were pals.”

Which meant he should tell a half-truth. If he hadn't asked for information from Fahey, he would not be in this position.

“Anything else?” Fahey asked.

“I always wondered how you got your name.”

Fahey laughed with a mouth full of cinnamon roll. “Never mattered to me I was the size of a popcorn fart. I been a competitive little shit my whole life. I played baseball at Michigan Agricultural College—that was State before it got renamed. I wasn't the most talented player on the team, not even close, but I love baseball. It's the only game that stops after every play and gives every player the chance to think through all the possibilities for the next play. Baseball's a thinking man's game, and I always managed to stay several jumps ahead of the other guys.”

And still did, Service knew. Fahey's unimpressive physical appearance would make him easy to underestimate. “How'd you get your job?”

“The college got me a summer job in properties, and after I graduated I went off to law school.”

“Where?”

“Harvard,” Fahey said with a little grin, watching for Service's reaction. “I finished law school at age twenty. Pearl Harbor came along and I volunteered for the U.S. Marines and they sent me out to the Pacific. I got discharged in 'forty-five as a sergeant, and came back to Lansing and got into properties part-time while I studied for the state bar. When I passed the bar, they offered me the manager's job and I took it. I don't mind Lansing, and it isn't all that far from home, especially with the bridge. They gave me a bigger title since then.”

The Mackinac Bridge had opened in 1957. Before that travelers were forced to cross the straits by ferry, and at certain times the delay could be hours for one of the five boats, and sometimes weather prevented any crossings at all. The bridge had opened a flow of tourists and newcomers that some Yoopers still resented. Like Brigid Mehegen's grandfather, for one.

Service did a quick calculation. Fahey was fifty-seven or fifty-eight now. He looked a lot older.
Harvard?

Service drove to downtown Lansing, parked in a public lot, and walked over to the Mason Building. He signed in at the central registration desk on the ground floor and sat down to have a smoke while the uniformed receptionist called upstairs. Did they think he stole the green uniform and badge? The message was clear: Stay out unless you belong here.

Jungle Jack himself came down on the elevator to fetch him and escorted him up several floors to his office. He'd seen Curry at graduation but had never talked to him. The director was a tall, gaunt man with long, graying red hair. He wore a houndstooth sport coat instead of a suit and had a smear of blue ink on his left hand.

The director had a corner office that lacked fancy appointments. There were three framed sheepskins on the wall: a PhD and an MS from the University of Minnesota, and a BS from Montana State. There was also a color photograph of Curry, an equally tall, thin woman, and two ectomorphic boys, probably the wife and sons. None of them were smiling. A stuffed gray wolf was on a pedestal in the corner, and on the wall behind the director's cluttered desk, a stuffed four-foot-long Chinook salmon, at least a fifty-pounder by the looks of it.

Curry walked behind his desk and Service stood in front of it, handed him the envelope from Fahey, and watched him rip it open and read.

“Postponed until when?” the director asked, looking up from the memorandum.

“Mr. Fahey didn't say.”

“And why a postponement?” Curry pressed.

“He didn't give a reason.”

Curry did not invite him to sit. “He asked for you by name.”

“He was a friend of my father's,” Service explained.

“And a friend of yours? I'm told you Yoopers all stick together.”

“First time I've seen him since I graduated from training,” Service said.

“But he asked for you. Did you talk about the audit?”

“Nossir, we just made small talk, and he apologized for me having to drive down here for nothing. We had lunch and I came here as directed.”

“Bureaucrats,” Curry groused. “I'm sorry you had to waste your time,” he said, a statement made out of convention, not conviction.

“You've got the Mosquito,” the director said.

Not a question. “My father had it too.”

Curry ignored the reference to his father. “Fahey was the big mover in getting the wilderness designation.”

“I didn't know that.”

“Not many people down here have actually seen it, but those who have swear it's one of the state's natural jewels.”

“It is.”

“Might be worth my time to take a tour.” This was also convention absent conviction.

“Any time, sir.”

The director let the memo flutter to his desktop. “Postponed,” he said. “I'd like to know what Jumping Bill is up to. He's a slippery one.”

Curry led him down a corridor to Metrovich's office and walked away without another word.

Metrovich waved him in. “Take a seat,” the acting chief said. “How'd the meeting go?”

“The audit's been postponed. I delivered a memo to the director from Mr. Fahey.”

“Did you read it?”

“Nossir. The director told me what was in it.”

“I see,” Metrovich said. “You're sure you didn't read it?”

“I saw it was a single page, typewritten.”

“Okay then,” Metrovich said. “I guess that's it.”

Service wasn't sure he'd been dismissed because the acting chief was staring past him. “Shall I go, sir?”

The acting chief did not respond, and Service walked alone out to the elevator. When the door opened, he found himself alone with Shay da Leigh, her hand poised next to the buttons. “Sporting goods or housewares?”

“Lobby,” he said.

“Me, too.”

The door shushed closed.

“Fahey's one of a kind,” she said.

“I'm learning that,” he said.

“You know, of course, that a junior conservation officer meeting alone with one of the state's most powerful people has triggered a wave of paranoia in the department.”

He smelled flowers and citrus wafting off her. Her skirt swished when she shifted her weight. It had been a long time since he'd heard a woman's skirt make such a sound. “I got that feeling,” he said.

“People here fight for face time,” she said. “It's an unspoken currency.”

He nodded. Why was she talking to him? “You have business with the DNR?” he asked.

“One of my clients,” she said.

“You write legislation for the department?”

“Not exactly. The director insists on writing first drafts. I get called in to clean them up. Mostly I edit for clarity and style. Have you seen the ink on Curry's hand?”

Service nodded.

“I doubt he ever washes it,” she said. “The ink is his way of showing the department he's a working director, not a paper-pushing figurehead. He's angling for bigger things. I give him a year until he moves on.”

The elevator bounced when it stopped. “Let a girl buy you a drink?” she asked. Her skirt whispered when she asked him.

“I have to head north.”

“A drink and a talk about the Garden?” she pressed, one eyebrow raised.

“I guess I have time.”

“Jumping Bill thought you might,” she said. “This meeting isn't serendipity.”

20

HASLETT, FEBRUARY 10, 1976

“You cops are all missing the gene for trust.”

On the way out of the Mason Building, da Leigh suggested they meet in Haslett at a bar called Pagan's Place, “across from the amusement park.”

He parked across the street under a row of leafless elms and changed from his uniform to jeans and a sweater. A sign above him said
lake lansing amusement park: closed until summer.
He glanced at the sign and went inside and saw her on a stool at the bar. Despite the time he'd spent in Lansing as a state cop, he had never gotten familiar with the fastest routes; he'd never cared to, knowing his time in the capital was temporary. By contrast, Bathsheba loved the city, knew the shops and restaurants, and never tired of going out and feeling the whirl and smug superiority of government employees.

Da Leigh sat so that her legs stretched out in front of her.

“I like the way you walk,” she said when he sat down. “Self-confident, not quite cocky. Most men can't pull that off.”

He ordered a draft beer from the barmaid, but da Leigh amended the request. “Two aquavits,” she said. “Linie.”

He protested mildly. “I have a long drive tonight.”

“It's true,” she said. “You people really are Boy Scouts.”

“It's common sense,” he said, “not moral high ground.”

She laughed and clucked appreciatively. “So,” she said. “The Garden.”

He waited for her to take the lead. The aquavits were delivered in tall shot glasses. The woman lifted hers, held it out to him, and clicked his glass, saying “Skoal.” She swallowed hers in one gulp, set the glass down, and ordered two more.

He drank as she drank, felt the aquavit explode in his belly like a plume of rolling napalm.

“I write a lot of administrative rules,” she said. “And believe it or not, it's an art.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“My hand was on Order Seventeen,” she said. “Start to finish.”

“For whom?”

“Curry was the driver, but the governor's people were aware of it and saw a couple of drafts.”

“Why not write it as law?” he asked.

“Too slow. If the legislature gets involved, it becomes a political football, and U.P. legislators have purchase in both houses. Yoopers elect their people over and over; they understand the principles of paleopolitics, and how seniority leads to rewards. An administrative order avoids the morass so that the department can get something into play immediately, and others can start getting used to the idea. It's expedient.”

“But the order gets shifted into law later.”

“Sometimes, but not always. It's not a given.”

“Curry wants to boost sportfishing,” he said.

She smiled. “He actually has sympathy for commercial operators, but the state budget is under fire, and the DNR budget is always among the first things attacked. Sportfishing will bring in a lot of revenue and he can't ignore that. He didn't come all the way from Alaska to fail. Are you sympathetic to people in the Garden?”

Two more aquavits were delivered and consumed after another chorus of “Skoal.”

“I just want to understand what we're dealing with,” he said.

“Curry fancies himself an intellectual, a steward of state treasures. He barely tolerates law enforcement.”

“We enforce the law. We don't look for the director's approval.”

“He allows questions and input from a select few pets, and he has a wet finger up in the air continuously.”

“Order Seventeen is a process. It carries no penalties.”

“Licenses can be revoked,” she said defensively.

“It's a lugubrious process that requires multiple infractions. I don't understand why we don't subpoena the offenders' financial records,” he said.

“People and companies are guaranteed privacy, remember? Due process?”

“It makes our work difficult.”

Another round of drinks came and went. Service felt hot and rolled up his sleeves.

“Laws and administrative orders are not written to facilitate ease of enforcement,” she said.

“Officers are being shot at,” he pointed out.

“I've heard,” she said. “You?”

He nodded, and she asked, “What are you people doing about it?”

“About Order Seventeen or being shot at?”

“Do you think I'm the enemy?”

“No comment,” he said.

“It was Jumping Bill's idea that I ‘bump' into you. Do you think
he's
the enemy?”

“No,” but he also understood that Fahey had not survived so long without being a trader and compromiser. “The LeBlanc case is a shadow over everything,” he said.

She licked her lips. “You bet. The state has to play this right or the sportfishing plan could get shredded. The feds have deep pockets; we don't. What we really need is a Republican in the White House to tell the states that it's our right and responsibility to manage our own environmental concerns and resources.”

“Jerry Ford is a Michigan Man.”

“He's been caretaking and cleaning up since Nixon waved bye-bye. It's not clear Jerry can win if he runs on his own. Seriously,” she added, “how are you handling the Garden?”

“Following the letter of the law and practicing ducking.”

She laughed out loud and touched his forearm, the warmth of her fingers searing him.

“You cops are all missing the gene for trust,” she said. “Is that part of your selection process?”

“No more than for lawyers,” he shot back.

“Touché,” she said.

“I like to deal with what I can see.” What had Lasurm said—that he wanted a world in black and white? She wasn't far off.

“Rocks and trees and guns,” she said. “This thing down here is just as real. We even get shot at.”

“Words don't splatter brains,” he said.

She paused and looked at him, patted his hand. “You're right. It's not the same, and I wasn't trying to demean the risks you guys run. But this world has multiple realities, each with its own rules. Some of them are not nice.”

Her apology took him by surprise. “I didn't mean that as a put-down,” he said.

“I deserved it,” she said. “I get criticized for being shrill when I think I'm just being direct and passionate. The Pill and the sixties have begun to liberate us in the bedroom, but it's not the same when we have our clothes on. Curry's being pushed to hire women in law enforcement,” she said. “The state police are considering it, and the Natural Resources Commission doesn't want the DNR to be second to the Troops. How does that grab you?”

“I don't have a problem with it.”

“Will your wife feel the same way?”

“Divorced,” he said.

She ordered two more drinks, doubles this time, which they drank down. Service felt the napalm cooking his brain.

“Women don't threaten your view of the world order?”

“No.”

“How do you separate long legs and sex appeal from professional competence?”

“Ask her politely.”

Da Leigh poked him in the arm, threw her head back, and laughed out loud. “We're getting drunk.”

“Getting?”

“You don't like to think?”

“I think about things I can do something about,” he said.

“Trees and rocks and guns,” she said.

“Sometimes long legs,” he added.

She tucked her chin down and looked at him. “How long since the divorce?”

“A while.”

“You seeing someone?”

The napalm had coated his brain, its heat making the tissue swell. “A fuck buddy,” he said.

She blinked and giggled. “That's a new one,” she said.

“Was for me too,” he admitted.

“It sounds liberated.”

“Or two losers looking for justification.”

She shrugged, grinned and held up her shot glass. “Linie: The Swedes make it and send it on a ship around the world before they sell it. Can you imagine going around the world like that?” she asked with a leer.

“We confiscate their gear,” he said, trying to get the conversation back to business, “and ask the courts for condemnation proceedings.”

She studied him and grinned. “That takes a lot of time, and the courts don't make it easy or automatic.”

“But while the court decides, they don't have their gear. No gear, no poaching.”

“That's outside the spirit of Order Seventeen.”

“It's expedient,” he said, playing back her own logic.

“No wonder they're using guns.”

“They were using guns
before
we started this.”

“You think this is the right thing to do?”

“Doing something is more important than being pushed around right now.” Even with the aquavit in him, it was clear after today that conservation officers were risking their lives as part of a larger political strategy: The powers in Lansing did not give a damn whether they stopped the poaching or not.

They each had one more aquavit and when the drinks were gone, da Leigh looked at her watch. “My house is ten minutes from here.” She rested her hand on his arm and insisted on paying the bill. “Expense account,” she explained. “Don't worry, your name won't appear.”

On the sidewalk she threw her arms around him and kissed him for a long time. “You're not a Boy Scout in all things, are you?”

“Nope,” he said.

“Thank God,” she said.

She kissed him at the front door in the morning. “Jumping Bill's finagling to get you down here the way he did has put you in a tough position,” she said.

“He arranged it knowing that,” he said.

“Bill doesn't do anything without purpose. Your being here was his game and his decision, but
you
be careful, Boy Scout. Don't go get yourself shot by one of those goddamn Gardenians.”