Blue Wolf In Green Fire (33 page)

Small ice pellets were spitting halfheartedly as he pulled up the long driveway to the house. Muted lights were on inside. Service opened the unlocked front door and expected Newf to be all over him, but she did not come. He made his way down the hall to the kitchen. There were candles in the kitchen and fresh flowers in a vase. Another bouquet in green tissue was on the counter. There were snipped stem tips in the sink. Nantz's bags were on the floor in the kitchen, abandoned there. A bottle of champagne was in an ice bucket on the counter. He used a towel to pop the cork, filled two flutes, and walked into the living room. The red power light was illuminated on the stereo, but there was no music. Nantz always had her tunes on.

He saw her curled up on the couch in the den, a blanket half on her. Newf was at the end of the couch and looked up at him, her heavy tail thumping twice. Cat was perched on Maridly's hip, sound asleep.

He fumbled with the sound and smiled when he heard the voice of Peggy Lee singing “Waiting for the Train to Come In.”

Nantz stirred on the couch, smacking her lips with sleep.

He sat on the floor and massaged her neck.

“I'm sorry, honey,” she whispered. “I ran out of gas. What time is it?”

His answer was a kiss. When she tried to loop an arm around his neck her cast whacked him in the side of the head.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

He carried her upstairs, pulled back the covers, gently lowered her to the bed, and covered her.

He showered, dried himself quickly, and slid under the covers beside her.

She was snoring lightly. He pressed his body against hers and her hand came back to his hip and squeezed lovingly. He kissed her on the neck and settled his head on the pillow to sleep, feeling whole for the first time in a long time.

The phone rang at 4 a.m. It was Yogi Zambonet. Not wanting to disturb Maridly, Service took the phone downstairs.

“We've got a signal,” the biologist said.

“Fish Creek Section?”

“How the hell did you know
that?
” the surprised biologist asked.

“It's my job. How's the weather?”

“Turning sucky and the forecasts aren't good. We may not have air cover if the storm settles in.”

“Let's get everybody out to the area, meet at noon.”

“We're bringing shelters,” Zambonet said. “We may be out there for a while.”

“See you there.” Service went out to the garage, got his minus-twenty mummy bag, camp pack, and showshoes, and packed everything in the backseat of his truck. It took thirty minutes to load his four-wheeler into the bed of the truck and get his snowmobile trailer hooked up. The snow was still only in the spit phase, but farther north it would be heavier. Probably the four-wheeler would handle it, but if the storm turned serious, he would need the sled.

When he got back into the kitchen he found a groggy Nantz with her eyes half closed.

She took his hand and led him to the couch. He tried to hold back and be gentle, but she kept urging him on. When they were done she grinned and said, “See, I won't break. I've got aches, but that won't stop our loving. Understand, Detective?”

He made Basque omelets and enough coffee to fill two large thermoses.

“What were you doing in the garage?” Nantz asked.

“We're going to try to collar a wolf,” he said. He told her the story of the blue wolf, the three dead wolves and the fifty, the suspicious behaviors of the feds, the meeting with Namegoss and LiBourne, his two meetings with Limpy, what the collaring entailed and why it was necessary. When he told her about the undercover operation, he omitted Carmody's name, but she shuddered visibly. He didn't plan to tell her about his past with Natalie Namegoss but the phrase
selective disclosure
popped into his mind and he thought, not with Nantz.

He said, “Natalie Namegoss?” Nantz looked at him. “We had a thing a long time ago.”

“A thing?”

He nodded.

“As good as us?”

“No.”

Nantz hugged his arm and grinned. “Thank you for telling me, but your past is yours, Grady. There's no need for secrets. Whatever we did before helped make us into who we are now. I don't freak out over that stuff, okay?”

Which made her the first woman he'd ever known to adopt such an attitude.

“Even Kira?”

She flashed a mock frown. “That's different. We overlapped and she still has designs on you.” She broke into a smile to let him know she was kidding. “I want to go with you,” she added.

“Go?”

“To help trap the blue wolf.”

“I don't think that's a good idea. You're on medical leave.”

“I'm going,” she said firmly. “You guys take ride-alongs all the time, and you have VCOs. I can do that. Hell, I've
done
it.”

“You didn't have a broken arm and a pin in your collarbone last summer.” He was tempted to talk about her return to the academy, but decided this was the wrong time.

Out of the blue she said, “I had a long talk with the chief. He wants me back in the academy, but in the fall class. The pin in my arm might not come out for six weeks, maybe longer. The collarbone pin comes out in two weeks. I didn't like what the chief proposed, but he talked straight to me, Grady, and I said okay. I didn't want to, but he was making sense. That means you're stuck with me until fall!”

“Great,” he said, in part because the chief had talked to her. “But you can't come with me. You've got a cast, pins, bruises.”

“I can do this, Grady.” Her tone told him she had made up her mind and once set, she was not likely to back off. The snow was getting heavy, and her cast was a problem, but if she was game, he thought he could help her manage it.

“Let's get you packed.” Like him, she had all the necessary gear and kept it organized.

She threw her good arm around his neck and kissed him hard. He wasn't sure if it was her cast banging his head earlier or this particular kiss that left him seeing little specks of colored light.

Service and Nantz reached the meeting site before the others and drank coffee while they waited. There was already three inches of fresh snow on the ground and more falling in large wet flakes. “Good thing we have the sled,” she said.

“You won't be doing much riding on the sled in your condition. After a few years of winter patrols most of us have bad backs.”

He noticed that she didn't argue with him.

Zambonet arrived just before noon. Shark Wetelainen and DaWayne Kota were in a second truck with Gus Turnage. Bobber Canot drove a third truck. All three vehicles pulled snowmobiles and four-wheelers on trailers.

There was no sign of Limpy Allerdyce.

They met by the trucks, their breath forming clouds as they talked. The temperature was right at freezing. Zambonet shook hands with Nantz. Kota nodded. Shark and Gus hugged her and Service saw that she didn't cringe or pull away. Shark's hug was that of a bear and it had to hurt, but she betrayed no pain.

They all got cups of coffee and Zambonet took out his charts. They were sheathed in acetate and backed with stiff cardboard.

“Jesse put the wolf here late yesterday,” he said, tapping the map with his grease pencil.

Service studied the map. Fulsik's position put the animal on the south edge of the Fish Creek Section, about a mile from where they were parked. Service kept glancing down the road, wondering where Allerdyce was.

“We takin' da sleds?” Shark asked.

“No,” the biologist said. “We'll drive the trucks in as close as we can get and make camp. If we tranq the blue, we'll want to be close.”

“The animal could have moved on by now,” Service said, scanning the area for Allerdyce again.

“She'll be around here,” Zambonet said. “This snow will help the wolves hunt.”

“But if she's moved?”

“Jesse's gonna be upstairs in an hour or so,” Zambonet said. “If he can get off the ground. Houghton's gettin' pounded by heavy lake-effect snow.”

“And if he can't take off?”

“We still could get lucky,”

“If she hasn't moved,” Service said.

“Right.”

Nantz spoke up. “If your pilot can get out of Houghton he can land in Escanaba and operate from there. The snow down there is always lighter. There's a better chance of Delta County staying open than Houghton.”

The biologist seemed to ponder what she said. “That makes sense. We have a second bird down there equipped for the mission. If Jesse has mechanical problems, he'll have a backup there. Swede Pahlberg's our contract pilot in Escanaba. I'd call him, but he took his family to Tennessee for Thanksgiving. He won't be back until Tuesday night.”

Nantz nudged Service. “What about Tucker Gates?”

“I don't know him.”

“He flew me back from Lansing,” she said. “He's a great stick. He used to fly fires for me. I'm sure he'd do it.” Her face flushed as she talked.

Zambonet studied her. “There's no time to train a new pilot.”

She said, “Train me and I'll fly with him. It's just ADF and GPS, right? Direction and sound?”

“Basically,” the biologist said.

“We can do that,” she said brightly. “I'll call him.”

Service followed her to the truck and lit a cigarette while she used the cell phone. As the number rang she held out her hand and mouthed, “Smoke.” He fumbled as he handed her a cigarette and tried to light it for her. He'd never seen her smoke, so what was this about? She exhaled a ragged cloud of smoke. Obviously she had not been smoking regularly.

“Tuck? Maridly. The DNR needs a pilot to fly a wolf. How's the weather over there?” She laughed and said, “Cool. They'll walk me through procedures and I'll meet you at the airport. Let's shoot for a fifteen-thirty takeoff.” She nodded several times. “I'll be there soon as.” She looked at Service, holding the phone against her chest. “Can you ask Zambonet where the bird is and if he can get it serviced?”

Service left her and asked the biologist where the plane was, and who would prep it. He also told him that Nantz and Gates were looking at a 3:30 p.m. takeoff. Zambonet said the bird was at Markham's Air Service and he'd make sure it was ready, adding, “No way I can train them for a takeoff today. Besides, they fly
only
if Jesse can't get out of Houghton.”

Walking back to his truck Service saw Limpy and another figure on the edge of some cedars fifty yards away. They were dressed in white camo, standing there like ghosts. Even at fifty yards Service recognized the camo suits as Pinclidotis, top-of-the-line gear from the Italian sporting goods manufacturer. It was difficult to lock on to the notion of Yooper poachers buying thousand-dollar hunting suits, but Allerdyce was not the average poacher, and he knew Limpy's army never went wanting for reliable equipment and tools. The clan might live and act like savages, but their gear was second to none. Which made him wonder who among the clan was responsible for researching such things. He made a mental note to think more about poachers and technology later.

Pushing his curiosity aside, he relayed to Nantz what Zambonet said, and she passed the word to Gates, said, “See ya, 'bye,” and abruptly snapped the cell phone shut.

“Yogi says he can't train you for a takeoff today. There's not enough time.”

“Baloney,” she said. “I have to drive back to Escanaba. He can talk to me on the cell phone while I drive. It will save time. We're gonna be on the radio when we fly, so we can get used to talking to each other. I can do this, Grady.”

He didn't want to argue with her. “
Only
if Fulsik can't get out of Houghton. If Jesse gets out, he flies and you and your friend support, okay?”

“Yes dear,” she said, rolling her eyes like a kid.

Service left her in the truck and walked toward Allerdyce. The boy with him was under twenty, a little over six feet, cadaverous, his face ruddy from the cold. “This here's Aldo,” Limpy said. Allerdyce looked at the boy. “Tell 'im.”

“The she-wolf's joined up with the blue,” he said. “They're about two miles off, where Fish Creek flows into the Mosquito.” The boy spoke distinctly with no hint of his clan's idiosyncratic approach to language.

“How close can we get our vehicles?” Service asked.

“Close if you're cautious,” the boy said. “There are a couple of old tote roads back that way. It's pretty uneven, but you can get through. There's no water over the road.”

Could this boy really be related to Limpy?

“Got da squaw along?” Limpy asked the boy.

The boy nodded toward the cedar forest to the south of them. “She's with the wolves.”

“Youse hump 'er in da woods do ya?” Limpy cackled.

“Grampa,” the boy said with obvious discomfort.

There might be hope for the kid, Service thought. “Let's go meet the team.”

Limpy said, “Aldo will go on ahead.”

The boy faded into the trees and was gone. Limpy watched him go. “'Fraid that boy won't make it with us,” he said. “Got too many pineapples. How do youse tink dat happened eh?”

Service blinked. Pineapples?

“Mebbe some stranger got into Corona back den. Dat one, he went to da high school Republic and did good. Now he's talkin' college.” The old man cackled. “An Allerdyce at da college.” He shook his head in disbelief.

Zambonet was already briefing Nantz. The wolf collar had a preset frequency and the plane had an antenna mounted on each wing. The idea was to keep flying the signal until it got louder, then went silent, which would mean the collared wolf was below. Something about turning off one antenna at a time and sometimes both and Service couldn't follow the biologist, but Nantz nodded attentively, asking questions. When they hit silence, she was to toggle the GPS and relay the coordinates to the ground team. There were more details, but Nantz wanted to get going, and she and the biologist arranged to talk by cell phone during her drive.