Blue Wolf In Green Fire (12 page)

“Special Agent Rector will not be part of the team,” Peterson said coolly. “He has other priorities.”

Service said nothing. Why was Wink being left off the team? The U.P. was
his
territory, and he was connected and trusted everywhere. Hell, Wink was leading the bomb investigation at Tech when to his way of thinking that should have fallen to BATF. Maybe his superiors thought his plate was already full. Or maybe they were playing their usual turf games, despite claims to the contrary by the country's new attorney general.

“See you there,” he told Peterson.

He grabbed Rector by the arm after Peterson went away. “What's the deal? This is your turf.”

“I've already got Houghton and this one's above my pay grade.”

“I don't understand,” Service said.

“You will,” Rector said, leaving him to walk back to the gate and his truck alone.

On his way back through Paradise, Service called Captain Grant and got him out of bed. It was just before 4 a.m.

He told the captain, “Two dead, both scientists, and one of them is the lab director's wife. Somebody blew the fence. There doesn't appear to be any wolves left in the compound, only why the hell blow it when you could just cut the fence quietly? This makes no sense to me. This place is covered by video, so maybe we'll get lucky.”

“You heard this isn't an isolated act?” Grant asked.

“Yes, but no injuries or fatalities in the other incidents, right?”

“That's my understanding,” his captain said.

“I heard a mink farm was hit. Did they blow fences there?”

“No, they cut the wire cages and spray-painted the buildings.”

“A bomb was used here but not elsewhere, a lousy choice on location and two dead. And no spray-painting here that I saw. That makes it an outlier, wouldn't you agree, Captain?”

Before his supervisor could answer, Service added, “The number two guy out of the Detroit Feeb office is here with a counterintelligence man from Washington, a team is being formed, and Wink Rector isn't going to be part of it. They asked me to sit in. First meeting is in the Soo at the Troop post at oh eight hundred. Do you want me on the team?”

Captain Grant was silent for a while. “Just keep me informed.”

“Sir, Barry Davey is also here.”

There was another pregnant pause. “Call me after your meeting in the morning.”

“Yessir.”

“What do you smell, Detective Service?”

“I don't know yet, sir.”

“Well, keep that sniffer of yours working.”

Service checked the clock on his dashboard. He was sixty miles from the Soo and he had a meeting in four hours. But he also wanted to see DaWayne Kota and he needed a short nap. As usual, more things to do than time to do them.

10

The heavy fog was lifting slowly as Grady Service drove into the Bay Mills Indian Community. DaWayne Kota's behavior grated.

It was nearly 4:30 a.m. when he walked into the Tribal Police Station and asked for Kota's address. The female night dispatcher looked at him quizzically, but his badge gave him currency and produced the information he wanted.

Kota lived in a relatively new modular home not far from Monocle Lake. There was no vehicle in the driveway and no dry spot to indicate one might have been there recently. Service parked on the street and approached the house. Dogs began to bark from nearby dwellings. It took a long time for a response, but eventually a porch light came on. A woman came to the door and peeked out through a chain lock.

“I'm Grady Service, DNR,” he said. “I'm sorry to wake you. Is DaWayne Kota here?”

“No, is there a problem?”

“I'm on my way to the Soo for a meeting and I wanted to talk to him. When will he be back?”

The woman was young and petite, a little plump, her hair twisted by pillows. Maybe she was Kota's daughter. She looked too young to be his wife. But you never knew. Maybe people said the same thing about Nantz and him.

“He got a call and had to leave. I don't know when he'll get back.”

Had Kota gotten a call about Vermillion? He'd said he'd heard it on the police band radio. Had he lied? If so, why?

“Sorry to wake you.”

“I don't mind,” the woman said. “I'm used to it. Is there a message?”

Service gave her a business card. “Ask DaWayne to call me.”

The woman studied the card. “The DNR has detectives?”

“It's a new job,” he explained. “Again, I'm sorry.”

The woman looked over his shoulder at the lingering mist. “Would you like me to make coffee?”

“Thanks, but I have to get to the Soo.”

After the stops at Bay Mills, he drove to the house of Denny Ozman near Dafter and pulled into the long driveway, parking by the barn of the onetime hay farm. Ozman was a recently retired CO who now guided salmon fishermen on the St. Mary's River.

It was 5:45 a.m. and Service stretched out as best he could, hoping to catch a nap, but an insistent tapping on the window awakened him. He found Denny rubbing fog off the window with the back of his hand and peering in.

Service got out and stretched, feeling stiffness in the shoulder he had separated last summer. “Sorry, I needed a place for a quick nap.”

“Youse coulda knocked on the friggin' door, eh? Sleepin' out here like some sort of bloody appleknocker. Geez. Jenny will be pissed.”

An appleknocker was anybody not from the U.P., and Jenny was his wife. “No point waking you guys. I've got a meeting in the Soo at eight.”

Denny grinned. “Let's get some coffee inta youse.”

Service followed Ozman into the house.

The last time he'd visited, the old farmhouse had been a wreck inside. Now it looked like something out of a magazine.

As he looked around Ozman said proudly, “Jenny's da one with da taste, eh?”

Ozman made coffee and got out the cinnamon rolls. “I heard they made you a detective. How's she going?”

“Finding my way,” Service said.

“Must be a bitch to have to work with others all the time.”

Service nodded. “Den, do you know DaWayne Kota?”

Ozman brought the coffeepot and cups to the table. “Sure.”

“Good warden?”

Ozman stretched. “I wun't want his job, I'll tell ya. Lotta young kids out there to Bay Mills and some old bucks used to doin' what they want. Tough to police that bunch, eh? All sorts of agitators telling them they can fish and hunt when they want, where they want. How're they supposed to know what they can legally do?” The retired CO slurped his coffee and looked across the table at Service. “Trouble with da Bay Mills crowd?”

“No, I just wondered about Kota.”

“Good at his job, I think, but I retired before he was hired so I dunno firsthand. He seems to get it done and he don't take shit off nobody. Respects Indian ways, but he backs da law all da way.”

Service changed the subject. “How's retirement?”

“Well, the money ain't grand, but it's okay. The guidin' business is growing, and the salmon runs are predictable so far. I can't complain. Even with da September shitstorm I was booked up all fall. Took a while for Jenny to get used to me being around so much, but now we got it worked out.”

A female voice chimed in. “You betcha. I give him lists of stuff to do and he stays outten my hair.” Jenny Ozman was short and wide with ruddy skin and a friendly smile that dominated her face. She looked half asleep as she poured coffee. “Did youse give 'im da good bakery or da junk you boughten on special?” she asked her husband. Service liked how the couple blended English and Yooperese. Like most lifelong Yoopers they spoke so fast that they were sometimes difficult to follow. When he'd first returned to the U.P. after Vietnam and his Troop job downstate it had taken months to get his ear retuned.

“What's wrong with mine?” he asked.

“Not enough sugar.”

“My job to be your sweet,” he said and Jenny rolled her eyes and laughed out loud. Denny and Jenny made the sort of couple who had always seemed to belong with each other. Service wondered if Nantz and he would grow old together. The thought surprised him. Getting sentimental in his old age. Hell, he was already getting up there and he had nearly a twenty-year lead on Nantz.

At 7:30 a.m. Service pulled into the parking lot of the Cow Barn Bakery and saw a steady stream of truckers and people on their way to their jobs. There were hunters in pickups, in place before the opener to scout. They were dressed in jeans and plaid shirts. Most of them wore cromer hats with the flaps sticking out like wings. They had on orange or red hunting coats that bulked them up. Some wore old-fashioned hunting tag holders pinned to the backs of their jackets.

A thirtyish woman pulled up in a pale blue Jeep with the rear left rocker panel caved in and giving way to pits of rust. A broken side window was held together with veins of gray duct tape. She had six young kids inside. He watched her lock them in, shake her finger at them, fluff up her hair, and run into the Barn. She came back quickly, balancing a tray with a hot drink and doughnuts. She was probably a regular with a standing order, on her way to drop the kids at day care. He could hear the kids shouting as she got in and began passing around the goodies. More kids than seat belts, but he decided not to bother her. She had enough to keep her busy, and up here rules like the seat belt laws sometimes didn't make sense.

The Soo state police post was a nondescript one-story building made of cinder blocks painted tan. He was ushered into a small conference room fifteen minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin. Davey was already seated, as were Peterson, the FBI counterterrorism man, and Phillips, Detroit's assistant special agent in charge. Service took a seat at the end of the table nearest the door. A state police lieutenant in a crisp blue uniform came in and sat to his left. Service didn't recognize him. His metal name tag said
ivanhoe
. Nobody spoke.

A man in a dark suit entered and took the chair next to the head of the table. Carson Vengstrom was the federal magistrate judge in Marquette, part of the federal Western District Court out of Grand Rapids. Vengstrom had held his position nearly fifteen years and was a nonentity. What was a federal judge doing here?

Freddy Bear Lee slid into the room behind the judge and looked around. Lee was the longtime sheriff of Chippewa County, an avid fly fisherman, president of the Chippewa County Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and a genetic Yooper. Lee had once been attacked by a black bear while he was fishing the Pine River. He had gotten a tree between him and the aggressive sow and driven the bear off by stabbing it in the nose dozens of times with his pocketknife. He had become Freddy Bear after that. He was not tall, but he was fit with short gray hair and a neatly trimmed brush mustache.

“Hey Grady,” the sheriff said brightly, touching two fingers to the brim of a faded green Trout Unlimited baseball cap emblazoned with the words
no kill.

The next person to arrive was Chick Reardon, Chippewa County's assistant prosecuting attorney, and right behind him came a short woman with highlighted hair and the tightest business suit Service had ever seen. She cruised confidently to the head of the table and sat down. Two more men in suits came into the room and took chairs against the wall behind Service. The two looked like Feebs and, if so, where was BATF in this thing? For Christ's sake, it
had
been a bomb.

The woman spoke, “Good morning, gentlemen. I'm Cassie Nevelev, assistant prosecuting attorney for the U.S. district court in Grand Rapids. After early-morning discussions with senior people in your organizations, this team has been assembled to oversee the investigation of the events at Vermillion and elsewhere.”

Why was a federal prosecutor leading the team? Everybody knew that the FBI wouldn't be part of an interagency team unless it led the effort.

“I'm not a cop,” Nevelev said, “but this case seems to offer the potential for jurisdictional confusion. It will be my job to help sort out who should be doing what.”

Wink Rector was heading the investigation at Tech, not BATF, and now Justice was heading this fandango? Service knew too well that interagency cases could be problematic, but this was a double killing on federal property, which meant it belonged to the feds. Why did they need a referee? he wondered, looking at Peterson, who was rubbing his brown-and-gray beard. This thing was getting more twisted by the minute, and all the time he was spending here took away from time on his poaching case.

“Lieutenant Ivanhoe?” Nevelev said.

The state police lieutenant opened a large notebook and began to talk. He was tall with longish black hair, a handsome man with an oversized head and little hands. His hair looked too dark to be natural, and with the thought of Ivanhoe dyeing his hair, Service fought back a smile.

“The investigation indicates a high-yield nonincendiary explosive device. The arson people believe it's unlikely that a problem in the gas lines or anything of that sort caused the blast. ATF investigators, of course, are doing additional work.”

On what evidence? And where was the BATF rep? Service wondered why Ivanhoe was making the report. It had been the FBI's crime scene techs at Vermillion, not the Troops. Service expected Freddy Bear Lee to interject something, but the sheriff sat quietly studying his fingernails and the table in front of him.

“Special Agent Peterson, will you please bring us up to date?”

Peterson got to his feet. “Peterson, FBI counterterrorism. There were six attacks in the eastern and central Upper Peninsula last night and this morning. A McDonald's restaurant in St. Ignace and another in Marquette were struck. Nets on a fishing trawler were cut in Naubinway, breeding animals were released from a mink farm near Curtis, a veal processing plant was vandalized near Rudyard, and, of course, there was Vermillion, the only federal facility in the group and likely primary target of the attacks.” Peterson paused to let the information sink in.

“Were there fatalities at the other sites?” Lee asked.

“There are no other known injuries.”

“Were explosive devices used at any of the other venues?” the sheriff asked.

“If you'll bear with me and let me finish I think I can pull all this together.”

Freddy Bear Lee nodded, folded his hands, and sat back.

“Evidence points to a coordinated terrorist attack by a group known as the Animal Freedom League. This is a shadowy, amorphous group held together by a shared political philosophy rather than a formal organization. The group has been active for many years in England, but has long been expected to strike targets in this country. That time seems to have arrived. This seems to be the year for terrorism,” he added with a solemnity that Service found gratuitous.

Freddy Bear Lee spoke up again. “Why do you assume these events are all linked?”

Peterson looked unaccustomed to being challenged and seemed to bristle. “The AFL has traditionally struck multiple targets simultaneously, trying to overload emergency forces, but one target is always the primary. That's Vermillion in this case.”

“But there was no painting, no slogans at Vermillion,” Service said, unable to stay out of it.

“There's no need for paint when your signature is a bomb,” Peterson said smugly.

Service argued back, “The bomb is a signature only if it's of a similar design with similar components to past bombs, right? Do we know this yet? Is the Vermillion device the same as those found at Tech or previous incidents attributed to the group? If they wanted publicity, they'd have gotten a helluva lot more if they blew their bombs at the college instead of at an isolated federal lab.”