Running Dark (31 page)

“But you had on your special suit,” she said.

He laughed, but he was also thinking that the poachers had seen him come tumbling out of the culvert, and if he had been in serious trouble, or injured, he would have drowned or died of exposure because they had fled. It was a sobering thought.

49

GLADSTONE, APRIL 24, 2004

“You want me to make some finger Jell-O too?”

He got as far as the living room, his joints aching, dropped his wet clothes in a pile, and curled up on the couch under a fleece blanket. Cat immediately jumped onto his hip and kneaded the blanket to make a nest. Usually her claws dug in and he batted her away, but tonight he was too tired and numb to care, much less feel. He had found the animal years before in a bag of kittens that somebody had drowned. Why this one had survived was beyond him, but it had turned into a feline misanthrope, which made her an animal he could relate to.

Later Newf came down and slobbered in his face. “Leave me alone!” he growled at the 130-pound female Canary Island mastiff. A former girlfriend, a veterinarian, had given the animal to him, and Newf's presence over the past couple of years had finally begun to erode his fear of dogs. He shoved the animal's massive back away, and she plopped on the floor beside the couch and began to snore.

“You reek!” Nantz said, brushing her fingers over his forehead.

Service opened his eyes, felt stiffness and pain.

“Wanna start the day off right?” Nantz asked.

“Oh God,” he said, covering his face with his arm.

She cupped her hand behind her ear. “Grady Service refusing sex? Did I hear right?”

“Help me up,” he said, extending his hand.

“Honey!” she said when the blanket dropped away from him. “Your thighs!”

He stared down at reddish-blue bruises the size of silver dollars.

“Your face,” she added.

“Windburn,” he said, trying his legs.

“It looks like you toweled off with sandpaper.”

He touched his jaw. No feeling. He hobbled on up to the shower and stood a long time, letting the hot water cascade off him. He didn't want to think about last night.

He started to brush his teeth and stopped when he felt the top two teeth move. What the hell? He leaned toward the mirror, opened his mouth, and probed with his fingers. The slightest pressure pushed the teeth back to almost ninety degrees. He jiggled each of them and felt that they were barely connected, that it wasn't so much the teeth as the gums that had given way. “Just fucking great,” he said. His mouth wasn't sore, and there was no mark. When had the teeth come loose?

Nantz was in the kitchen. He got coffee and sat down.

“We need to call Vince,” she said.

“We're not calling anyone,” he spat back at her.

She tilted her head, put small bowls on the table in front of each of their places, and went back to pour orange juice.

He looked down at the bowl, a poached egg atop a slice of Brie, both on a thick slice of sweet onion and tomato. The egg had been peppered, and a dollop of Tabasco sauce lay on the membrane over the yolk. He broke open the egg with the tine of his fork, put some in his mouth, heard the loose teeth click and move, and put down the fork.

“What's wrong?” Nantz asked. “You love this breakfast.”

He sighed, opened his mouth, and wiggled the teeth.

It took a moment for her to understand. “I'm calling Owie,” she said.

Owen Joe was their dentist, but everyone called him Owie.

“No,” he said with such force she didn't try to argue.

He was too sore and stiff to run, ride the stationary bike, or lift weights, but he sat with Nantz while she went through her workout, and felt his tongue involuntarily poking at the loose teeth.

“The Garden last night?” she asked as she dried sweat off her face and shoulders with a towel.

“Stonington,” he said. “With Candi.” He offered no further information.

“You can't work tonight. You can hardly move.”

“Leave it alone, Mar. I'm going.” He had been waiting for this night for a long, long time.

He warmed canned chicken soup for lunch. Neither hot nor cold liquids seemed to affect the loose teeth. At least he could have his coffee.

“
Canned
soup?” Nantz asked disapprovingly. “You want me to make some finger Jell-O too?”

“Can you load it with carbs?” he asked.

“You need a dentist and a shrink,” she said.

He packed his gear bag and ruck after lunch and took a one-hour nap. He got dressed and was ready to leave at 3
p.m.

Nantz walked out to the patrol truck with him and handed him his thermos of coffee. “You're going to the Garden,” she said. It wasn't a question. “Remember, we have dinner with Lori tomorrow night.”

“You had to remind me,” he groused. He put the vehicle into reverse and backed up. He saw Nantz standing by the driveway staring at him, hands on her hips, a sure sign that she was unhappy.

50

GARDEN PATROL, APRIL 24–25, 2004

“Buy us a beer, Pete?”

McCants approached him before the group meeting. “Partners tonight?”

He shook his head, and when it was his turn to talk during the meeting, he said, “Garden Creek,” and eyebrows bobbed all over the room.

Sergeant Phil Callow said, “You know policy. No solos to the Garden.” Callow had been promoted to sergeant in January from the Newberry district. His old friend, Lisette McKower, now the lieutenant in Newberry, told him that Callow was a good man, and would make a good sergeant once he lost some of his anal ways over regulations. She pleaded with Service to give him time.

“I'm not your report,” Service said. “This one is my call.” Could the others hear his teeth clicking when he talked?

McCants frowned across the table at him.

“Garden Creek?” the sergeant said.

“Eyes,” Service said.

“Yeah,” Gutpile Moody, the longtime Schoolcraft County officer chimed in, nodding his head. The other COs all nodded in support.

“I don't like this solo deal,” Callow said, not wanting to give in so easily to what could be interpreted as a one-man mutiny.

“I've got my eight-hundred if I need help,” Service said. U.P. conservation officers had gotten the 800-megahertz radio system less than a year before; game wardens below the bridge had gotten it a year earlier, and state police throughout the state had been on the system for nearly three years. The state police had intended that it remain their dedicated system, but a state congressman from the U.P., his son a CO, had fought to get the DNR on the same system, and had succeeded. The 800 allowed someone on the system to talk to and monitor any other officer in the state.

“Think I'll take a run down to Poodle Pete,” Moody said.

“I don't know that one,” Callow said.

“Poodle Pete Creek,” Moody said. “It's four miles east of Garden.”

“Walleyes?” Callow asked.

“Eyes,” Moody said, nodding.

“Okay,” the sergeant said, finally relenting. “At least somebody will be close to the Lone Ranger.”

Moody stood beside Service after the meeting and Service asked, “Walleyes in Poodle Pete?”

Moody shrugged. “Sounded good to me,” he said. “For all I know it's barren, but if I look tonight, then we'll know, right?”

McCants joined them. “I'll be with Gut tonight. You want to borrow my floaties?”

“Bite me,” Service said.

“Garden Creek—for real?” she asked.

“For real,” he said.

“Eyes?”

“Would I bullshit you?” They were for real. After Lasurm's memorial service, three Garden citizens had contacted him and told him they supported Lasurm. One of them was a teacher. They had been providing information since late 1977, and some of it he passed on to the department. But his special interest was Pete Peletier, and over the years he had discovered that Pete had a weakness. The buildings over Garden Creek had stumped him until the night when he and Blake Garwood caught the Wisconsin trawler and he saw the “kiddie hole.” It had taken some time to confirm his suspicions, but eventually he had.

The informant who had tracked Peletier closest was gone to Green Bay for a few days. She had left her garage unlocked for him. It was two blocks from the village center, and thirty feet from Garden Creek.

Service ran dark more than twelve miles toward town before going off-road three miles north of the village and eventually working his way to the town's edge from the east and into the woman's garage.

Peletier no longer led rat fishermen on the Peninsula. Some of the old rats had lasted to collect state payoffs, and now most of them were gone. But the fish still spawned every April in huge numbers, and there was money yet to be made. The new rats were younger, many of them coming from other areas of the U.P. to poach the Garden's rich spawning grounds. Locals still partook, but not in the numbers they had years before. Peletier had been the rat leader and the smartest of the group, staying out of the limelight, but he had never stopped poaching. Only his tactics had changed.

Service had considered making the grab years before, but by then he was no longer part of the core Garden team, and at the time, the equipment was not up to what he needed. Only in recent years had equipment for COs dramatically improved. Service got his exposure suit out of his bag and slid into it. The suit afforded both insulation and flotation, and was designed for prolonged exposure to extreme cold. Such suits and shorter float coats were now standard wear for lake patrols. The only drawback was color: electric orange. He got around this by wearing black coveralls over the suit. He waited in the garage until midnight before moving stealthily down to Garden Creek, sliding into the water, and letting the current carry him downstream feet first. He had taken 800 milligrams of ibuprofen with some peanut butter crackers an hour before, careful to chew on the sides of his mouth. Though he was still stiff from last night, some of the pain from his body had relented. Like most officers he used a lot of ibuprofen. If ever there was a blue-collar magic drug, this was it.

Years before he had stood in the opening between buildings north of Roadie's and gotten angry over the effigy suspended over Garden Road. The effigy had rotted away over the years, though a fragment of rope still dangled from the overhead wire as a reminder. As the creek carried him beneath the first set of buildings, he put up his gloved hand and used the heel of his hand to retard his speed and progress until he was almost into the gap; from there he propelled himself over to the rocks. It was no more than three feet from the floor above him to the surface of the creek. It was entirely black behind the buildings. Light from the street filtered through openings in the structures, but illuminated nothing underneath.

He moved into the rocks, took off his pack, got out his thermos while he waited, and watched beneath the buildings thirty feet to the north of him. The creek passed under them and then swung southwest under Garden Road. According to his informant, Peletier, having been dropped off by one of his grandchildren, would already be inside. The rat leader had purchased the building in 1990 under the name of one of his children, and had installed a sign in front that indicated it was a cabinet shop. No such work went on inside, and the informant said it was not unusual for Peletier to take a hundred pounds of walleyes each night until the spawning run was complete. He gave away most of the fish to friends, his poaching not intended to feed himself or generate cash, but to simply keep doing what he had always done, and to spit in the eye of the DNR. It was the strangest poaching setup he had ever seen, and typical of Peletier's penchant for secrecy.

Service used his infrareds to scan the black water. The internal beam made dozens of white goggle eyes litter the green scope. The fish were packed into the stream. He checked his watch, stashed his pack and scope deeper in the rocks, and slid back into the water to let the current sweep him down to the next set of ancient wooden buildings. As he slid under the floor he got hold of a joist and stopped. He stabilized himself, squatting on the cobble bottom, felt around for the seams in the floor above him, and pushed back against a greasy black post to wait.

The door opened about thirty minutes after he got into position. There was only the slightest glow of light from above, and unless someone had been looking for it they would never have seen it. A long-handled net splashed into the water and swept around before being pulled upward. Even in the low light Service saw the flash of a fish in the net and heard it flopping on the floor above him.

The netting continued for more than an hour. After each round the fish tended to scatter away from the activity and the trapdoor closed, only to open again and resume when the fish had calmed. Service counted twenty-two fish. He could hear them on the wooden floor above, their muted flopping, the sound of many people brushing the heels of their hands over the tight skin of a kettle drum.

The next time the net came down, Service grabbed it with both hands, drove it upward into the hole, and followed it. Popping through the opening, he heard someone grunt and fall heavily to the floor.

Service emerged through the trapdoor, turned on his flashlight, and lit the man.

“Hey! What da hell!” Peletier shouted.

“I bet you thought I'd forgotten, Pete.”

“Youse!”

“Buy us a beer, Pete?”

“My arm,” the old man said.

“Are you okay?”

“Youse nearly give me a heart attack.”

Service said, “Don't worry, Pete. If your arm doesn't work, I'll grab your wallet for you.”

“Dis is trespass,” Peletier protested.

“Stop whining, Pete,” Service said, holding out his hand to help the man up. “Let's get that beer.”

He cuffed his prisoner, gathered the fish in a burlap bag the poacher had brought, took the man's wallet out of his pocket, led him onto the street, and locked the building for him. “You've got some nice fish here,” Service said, dragging the bag along. He guessed more than a hundred pounds, which at ten dollars a pound meant a fine of court costs plus more than a thousand dollars.

They went between the buildings and Service reached underneath and pulled out his pack before walking toward Roadie's two hundred yards away. He called Moody on the 800. “You guys wanna grab a beer?”

“For real?” Moody radioed back.

“Roadie's.”

“Rolling,” Moody said.

The patrol truck arrived with its blue lights flashing before Service and Peletier reached the tavern.

McCants looked at the bag of fish and said, “That's a real mess.”

“Pete's,” Service said, urging him up the stairs.

The blue lights had brought bar patrons to the front windows, but as the officers walked through the door, they retreated. Service headed directly for the bar where he put the sack of flopping fish on top, pulled out a stool for Peletier, climbed up on one next to him, and unlocked his cuffs.

“Four beers,” Service told the bartender, who had a Rasputinish beard and eyes to match.

“Youse missed last call,” the man said.

“You'll make an exception tonight,” Service said, looking around. There were about a dozen people standing back in the shadows. “In fact, put a round up for everybody in the house.”

The bartender hesitated.

Peletier nodded, “Do it, Al.”

A roly-poly waitress helped the bartender set bottles on the bar top.

Service got out his ticket book, handed Peletier's wallet to him, and said, “Take out your license, please.”

Service began writing and stopped. “You got a fishing license, right, Pete? You know you need a new one after March first.”

Peletier shook his head. When the tickets were finished, Service tore off his copies and put the originals on the bar. “No license, fishing during the closed season, using illegal methods, and taking during the closed season. You don't have to appear at the court, Pete. You can call them and find out how much the fine is and mail it in. You have ten days to contact the court; otherwise, a warrant will be issued for your arrest.”

Service turned to look at the others who were standing back from the bar. “Put a beer in your hand,” he said.

The people moved slowly to the bar and lined up. Service removed Peletier's handcuffs.

Service lifted his bottle. “To the DNR.”

Nobody drank, and Service chuckled. “Yeah, I can see how that would stick in your craws. C'mon boys, drink up and relax. No need to check for sugar in your gas tanks or pinched fuel lines tonight.” Service looked at Peletier. “Long time coming, Pete, and it doesn't begin to make up for all you did, but something is better than nothing.” Service paused. “The state pays me to do this job, but tonight I'd pay the state.”

Peletier shook his head, rolled his eyes, and smiled. “Yeah, youse got me good, eh. But it took a long time.”

Service picked up the bag of fish and headed for the door, flanked by Moody and McCants.

They dropped Service at the garage where his truck was hidden. “Sugar in gas tanks?” McCants asked.

“History,” Service said, feeling as good as he had felt in a long time.

“You are unfuckingbelievable,” McCants said.

Service looked her in the eye and grinned.