Chasing a Blond Moon (16 page)

R. Brown turned out to be Reinhardt Brown, who was assistant head of maintenance for Michigan Tech's Student Development Center. It was close to fifty miles from Houghton to the cabin, all along twisting, ­narrow, and unlit roads, and it took the cabin owner more than an hour to get there. He drove a several-years-old Toyota pickup with bad suspension and an engine that was spewing blue exhaust and sounded ready to cough up a rod.

He pulled up in the trees below the cabin and waddled up the wooden steps. Service saw a wide-bodied small man with a shaved head and long neck, with the overall effect of a lightbulb on steroids.

“Da blazes is dis?” Brown greeted them as he huffed up the stairs. He had a high-pitched, cartoon voice. His face was flushed from the short walk up from his truck.

“Looks like somebody tried ta break into your cabin,” Keeweenaw deputy Dupuis explained. “We need ta get inside and look around, make sure everyting's okay.”

“Dis couldn't wait? You know what's on da tube tonight?”

Service, Turnage, and Pyykkonen introduced themselves.

Brown grunted. “Youse like da fuckin' Untouchables or somepin'?” He took out a key and opened the front door. He stepped inside, turned on the lights, and held the door open for them.

The officers pulled on latex gloves before they went inside.

The first thing Service noticed was that the interior was too dust-free to have been unoccupied long. There were no cobwebs along the windows or in the corners. Pyykkonen went directly to the small kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty.

“That would've been too easy,” she said over her shoulder.

The room he had seen through the window looked like the main living area. Service stood by the table with the vise and looked at the arrow. Graphite, not bamboo. It looked like someone had shaved some of the fletching.

“What's in the gun lockers?” Service asked the owner.

“Don't got a clue,” the man said.

Gus stared at him. “What did you say?”

“Don't got a clue,” the man repeated. “None a dis junk's mine, hey? I leased da place last spring.” He quickly added, “If Deputee Dog woulda gimme half a chance, I woulda tolt 'im on da Bell, hey? But no, he makes me drive all da way out. Youse know how much gas costs?”

“Who leased it?” Service asked.

“Gook prof from da college.”

“Professor Pung?”

“Yah, guy croaked on da canal Hancock, hey?”

“Was there a contract?” Pyykkonen asked.

“We done cash, month at a time,” Brown muttered.

“How much a month?”

“Why I gotta tell youse?”

“We can get a court order,” Pyykkonen pressed. “This is a felony investigation.”

“A thou.”

“One thousand dollars a month? That's way over local prices for a place like this,” Service said. Even with the view the place was old and too modest in size for a thou.

“Now I'm gonna have to pay bloody taxes on it,” Brown complained.

Service stayed out of it. The U.P. had a well-established barter-and-cash economy that existed outside the official economy. Some Yoopers would go to great lengths to avoid paying taxes.

“Did you write receipts for the professor?” Pyykkonen asked.

“Shook on 'er, man to man,” Brown said. “Don't need paper for dat, eh?”

Gus Turnage said, “Play ball with us and maybe your cash business stays yours.”

Brown looked at Gus. “For real?”

“
If
you play ball,” Gus said.

“If you
don't
cooperate,” Limey Pyykkonen chimed in, “I will personally go to the IRS.”

Brown quickly raised his hands in surrender. “I'm in da game, guys.” He made a pained face, said, “TV's shot all ta bloody hell anyhow. I got beer inna truck. You guys want one?”

They said no. Brown and Pyykkonen left the cabin together. Service lit a cigarette while Gus disappeared through a door and down some stairs.

“Come down here,” Gus shouted up at him.

The basement was one room. There was a large low rectangular object in the center, covered with a paint-spattered canvas drop cloth. Whatever was underneath looked to be six feet by four feet.

Gus picked up a corner of the tarp and looked underneath.

“Geez,” he said, carefully peeling off the entire tarp.

The box turned out to be a collapsible cage made of half-inch stainless steel tubing. Gus knelt to click open the release mechanism. He looked around inside, took out tweezers and a plastic evidence bag, and began picking things up.

“Got something?” Service asked.

His friend held up a clump of hair. “Looks like the same you got from the professor's car.”

“I hope the cap'n uses this to light a fire under the fed techies.”

Gus grinned.

About forty minutes after they began, Sheriff Macofome showed up at the cabin and Service immediately wondered who had called him and why. He was dressed in cut-off sweatpants and a tank top in the style most cops called a wife-beater.

Sheriff Macofome carried a leather bag filled with special tools and old keys. He had the first gun cabinet open in ten minutes. The other two took even less time. All of them were empty.

Macofome and the two DNR officers helped Limey Pyykkonen dust the cabin for fingerprints. The local deputy sat outside on the stoop with the owner.

They covered the cabin methodically and it was nearly 3 a.m. before Pyykkonen and Macofome declared they had had enough.

“No point sticking around,” Pyykkonen told them. “We'll clean up and you can all call it a night.”

Brown had finished two six-packs while they worked, and Gus told him he'd drive him back to Houghton. “Bunk at my place?” he asked Service as he and Brown were getting ready to depart.

“See you there.” Service paused before getting into Gus's truck to follow the Toyota.

When they got to Gus's, Shark was there, tying flies on a small table in the kitchen. There were bits of feather and fur all over the floor. Shark barely looked up. “Salmon,” was all he said.

Service peeled off his bulletproof vest and shirt, unlaced his boots, and curled up on the sofa. He did not think about the case. He wondered where Nantz was and hoped she was being careful.

10

A phone was ringing just out of his consciousness. Service rolled over and squinted at the time on Gus's VCR: 7 a.m. He groped for his cell phone, but couldn't find it, heard Shark's voice in the kitchen, then nearer, pushing the phone at him.

“It's Walt,” Shark said.

“Sorry to wake you up, but Karylanne and I were up all night with Enrica. We're at the Sheriff's Department. She's giving a statement to an officer. We promised her that if she told the cops, they'll do something to get this creep.”

“Okay,” Service said, wondering what the hell Walter was thinking, making deals with a witness. Emotion, he reminded himself, got in the way of police work. Still, he was impressed that the boy had not stopped with the meeting last night. He had shown initiative and doggedness. He wasn't happy Walter had gotten involved, but if he hadn't, things might be completely stalled. Because of Walter, they had direction again. It might pan out and it might not, but movement was better than stasis.

His son said. “When she's done here, we're gonna take her back to campus.”

“You did the right thing,” Service said, feeling the words stick as he spoke them. Had his old man ever been happy with anything he'd done?

“Your life really weirds out, doesn't it?”

“Sometimes.”

Service called Pyykkonen at home. She answered on the first ring. “Enrica is at the station right now, giving a statement.”

She hesitated. “I'm Homicide.”

“I know that, but all of this is connected and right now Rafe Masonetsky's our only link to the Pungs.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “I'm headed down there now. I've already talked to Foxy Stevenson,” she added. Stevenson was Michigan Tech's longtime football coach who had earned his nickname by recruiting lesser athletes than his opponents and somehow winning games through unorthodox leadership, flawless preparation, and creative game plans. Coach Stevenson put a premium on players learning to think for themselves and perform under stress.

“What did he have to say?”

“Masonetsky failed his second drug test last spring. Anabolic steroids. Foxy gave him the boot and the boy didn't bother to finish the semester.”

“You get an address?”

“Jefferson, Wisconsin. I guess his old man called Foxy and thundered like hell. He threatened to sue, but never followed through. Foxy said the kid's a loose cannon and we need to exercise caution.”

Jefferson, Service thought. Things were beginning to come together, at least geographically. “You'd better get a move on,” he said.

“I'm walking out the door now. Talk to you later.”

He checked in with McCants. “How're you feeling?”

“Sore. I took yesterday off and called Wisconsin. The
jung
director's name is Randall Gage. He's not Korean and he's not interested in talking to cops. He says
jung
membership is a private matter and if we want names, we'd better bring a subpoena.”

“You tell him we can do just that?”

“No, I figured you'd take care of that.”

He made toast for breakfast and later called Captain Grant in Marquette.

“We've found more of that hair and Gus'll get it off to the fed lab. I think it's time to turn up the burners.”

“Are the samples similar?”

“They look identical: ursine and blond.”

“Get the samples in the mail to the lab and consider the heat to be up.”

“Thanks, Captain.”

“How's your arm?”

“Fine.” It had ached when he had awakened, but he had willed the soreness away and it felt fine now. He took the captain through the circumstances of the investigation, the coincidence of the figs, and the connection to the Pung family.

“Where's the son now?”

“Supposedly enrolled at Michigan, but maybe he's playing the same game he played here.”

“Keep me informed,” the captain said.

Pyykkonen showed up just after he finished eating.

“Want breakfast?” Shark asked, showing a connection to the world for the first time since last night. It wasn't like Wettelainen to react to women he'd not met before, but he certainly was reacting this morning and Service found it amusing.

She smiled as Shark pulled back a chair for her, took an order for eggs over easy and bacon, and started assembling the breakfast.

“Walter promised the girl that the cops will follow through on this,” Service said.

“His name is Walt,” Shark said from the stove.

Limey Pyykkonen said, “I called the prosecutor and Judge Pavelich. They're talking to people in Wisconsin about extradition. I'm going to drive down there and be in on the arrest. The sheriff talked to the university about Pung's son and his surrogate. They don't buy it at all.”

Service wasn't surprised. “You want company in Wisconsin?”

She seemed to hesitate. “Sure.”

“Call me on my cell phone. I'll meet you in Crystal Falls and we'll go from there.”

On his way to Watersmeet he called Jimmy Crosbee, the student who looked after Newf and Cat when he and Nantz had to be away. Jimmy had first worked for them last year, was now a senior at Escanaba High School, and one of the top football players in the Upper Peninsula. The boy didn't hesitate and said he'd take care of the animals after practice, and if Service's absence ran into Friday, his cousin would fill in for him. The team had a Friday night game in Traverse City.

He located Sheena Grinda on the Automatic Vehicle Locator computer, called her on 800 MHz, and arranged to meet her at a coffee shop in Watersmeet.

Grinda arrived after him, dressed in shorts, a halter, and tiny white sandals. It was apparent that her uniform hid a lot and he wondered if this was by design.

“You didn't tell me it was a pass day,” he said. Like most workers, officers got off two days a week, and called them pass days. Weekend was a term that didn't exist for them, and holiday was rarely more than a word in the dictionary.

“It's not. I'm working later tonight. I've got a dork running a trot line in one of the back bays of Beatons Lake.”

This was the Grinda he knew, always working, always pushing. “Any luck on that cable?”

“There are nine places west of Marquette selling it. I've made phone contact with all of them. Now I have to go visit and show them the sample. They tell me there's a way to identify the brand and from that we might get a back-trail. I'm headed down to Menominee as soon as we're finished.”

“Nice outfit,” Service said.

“Bait is bait,” she said, giving him the hint of a smile. “I had lunch with Simon yesterday,” she said.

Simon del Olmo was in adjacent Iron County.

“Still no sign of that trapper you've been looking for, but he says he has a lead on another of his hidey holes. Does that mean anything to you?”

“He had a cabin on Mitigwaki Creek. It burned. But Simon found another place. He wasn't there. The guy gets around pretty well, considering he's blind and on one leg.”

He watched Grinda drive away after a quick coffee and went into Watersmeet's nondescript post office. The postmistress was a tall, gaunt woman. She looked to be around his age, had long straight hair and freckles. He explained who he was and what he was doing.

“I'm not out to violate federal law,” he said, “but I need to know if Oliver Toogood has a mailbox here, and if so, does he get any mail?” He knew that Trapper Jet didn't have a mailbox at his camp. He had looked and never seen one.

“He doesn't have a mailbox here.”

“I guess the other question is moot,” he said. He'd try Iron River next. It was on his way to Crystal Falls.

“He
had
one here,” the woman added, “but I insisted he give it up so I could assign it to somebody else. We only have so many and there's a lot of demand.”

“Reassign it? Because it didn't get used?”

“I think I've said all I can say.”

“Thanks,” he said. If Trapper Jet never got any mail, how was he getting a disability check from the government? Maybe he wasn't? If not, why? His mind began to flood with questions all leading off in uncontrolled and unproductive directions.

“You might check Mailboxes Forever. It's a private business. They opened in June. They've got some boxes, but mostly they mail packages and do packing.”

“Great,” Service said. Mailboxes Forever was in a small gray polebarn near the intersection of US 2 and M-47. Service walked inside and found a man at the counter. He had a dozen yellow perch on a sheet of newspaper comics and was cleaning them. The man didn't look up.

“They biting?” Service asked. There was no size limit on yellow perch, but most people who chased them preferred the fat jumbos, ten inches and longer.

“Were this morning,” the man said. “Hope they will be again tonight.”

Service took out his badge and waved it under the man's nose to get his attention. “You got a customer named Oliver Toogood with a box?”

The man looked up. “Ought to arrest that sonuvabitch,” he said, with a hard voice. “Came in here last year stinking to high heaven, demanded I give him a mailbox. Can you imagine that shit? Give him one! Said the feds didn't have room for him no more.”

“Did you rent him one?”

The man's lips curled up in anger. “I told him to get da hell out. I'm in business here and I don't need some stinking cripple in here ranking out my customers.”

The man's hands were covered with blood and the smell of fish was wafting through the place. “Yeah, it pays to keep a clean business.”

“Right,” the man said, returning his attention to his fish.

A quick stop at the main post office in downtown Iron River got him the same answer. Ollie Toogood did not have a mailbox. If not Watersmeet or Iron River, where? He was forced to conclude there was neither box nor checks, which raised the question of what the man lived on. Was the rumor true, that he was baiting bears for hunters willing to pay big fees? Or was he truly self-sufficient?

Just outside Crystal Falls he pulled into the District 4 office in time to see a small black bear lope through the parking lot, headed north toward the cover of a cedar swamp. It looked over its shoulder at him and accelerated as he pulled into a parking slot.

Margie, the district's dispatcher, waved as he passed by. He stopped into the office to see the district's lieutenant, but he was out. Service asked Margie if he could use a phone and she told him that since Yogi “Wolf Daddy” Zambonet had retired in the spring, his office was temporarily open. Zambonet was the state's wolf expert and had been involved in a case with Service the previous fall. Wolf Daddy opted for the early retirement engineered by Governor Sam Bozian to reduce the state's work force. As with other Bozian initiatives, he had gone for sheer numbers with no thought about institutional memory or expertise needed to provide continuity to state programs. His plan called for the replacement of only one in four who took the early out, but the legislature, led by Lorelei Timms, had risen up and vetoed this. All the early-outers would be replaced, but it would take eighteen months to get the force back up to some semblance of strength. It was one of the few wins against Bozian in his long tenure.

“He come around much?”

“No, he's been fishing and getting ready for bird season.”

Yogi's office was empty, devoid of all the wolf posters, equipment, and gizmos he used in managing the U.P's wolf packs. The place looked sad to Service.

He called the captain again and told him he was going to Wisconsin with Pyykkonen.

“Explain,” the captain said with his customary directness.

“Pung was involved in a Korean archery group. There's a club in Wisconsin, which happens to be where the Masonetsky kid lives. I asked McCants to talk to the archery club, but the director went hard-ass on her. We found a photo of Pung in traditional archery gear. It had to come from someplace, and the Masonetsky kid and the Pung kid are connected, or so I'm thinking.”

“Have the Wisconsin authorities been contacted?”

“By the prosecutor and Judge Pavelich in Houghton.”

“What about Wisconsin Fish and Game?” the captain said.

“Not yet,” Service said. He added, “You've got contacts in Washington?”

“Fewer each year,” the captain said. He didn't seem dismayed by the fact.

“There's a man lives in Iron County. His named is Ollie Toogood. My father introduced me to him when I was a kid. He's a decorated Korean war vet, on full disability, a former POW. When he got out of the VA hospital system, he came up here and has been here ever since.”

“It sounds like you already know everything there is to know about him.”

“I thought I did, but could you use your contacts to pull his service record for us. And, if possible, the address where they're sending his checks?”