Chasing a Blond Moon (19 page)

13

Service's home office was still a work in progress and consisted mostly of an old oak door across two sawhorses, a rickety desk chair, a battered metal file cabinet, and two huge wall maps. Nantz was constantly threatening to bring in a builder to construct a proper office, but he preferred the basement as it was and asked her to leave it alone. So far she had. One map was of the Mosquito Wilderness, the other of the Upper Peninsula. Since putting up the U.P. map the previous summer, it had hung untouched. By contrast, he was constantly making new notations on the Mosquito chart. For Service the Mosquito remained alive in all ways, though his notations had tapered off since Candi McCants had taken responsibility for the area.

He got out a box of red pushpins, lit a cigarette, and stood in front of the U.P. map, which was mounted on a floor-to-ceiling cork wall. He started inserting pins, one for each event that could be connected—at least in his mind. The pins stretched from McMillan in the east, to Iron and Gogebic Counties in the west, a distance of almost one hundred and eighty miles. He inserted pins for Griff Stinson, Betty Very and She-Guy Zuiderveen, Sheena Grinda, Trapper Jet, Dowdy Kitella, and finally, a red pin at the location of Pung's body on the Portage Canal. He wrote off the events in Trenary with Bryce Verse and the girls as separate and unrelated.

He balanced an unlit cigarette in his mouth, put his feet up, and studied the pattern. Griff lost a bear—confirmed. Bearclaw probably lost a bear. Sheena found a bear caught in steel cable. There was ursine hair in Pung's Saturn and more hair resembling it in the Brown camp at Lac La Belle in the Keeweenaw. Trapper Jet's presence on Betty Very's turf remained unexplained, and his grousing about Kitella probably was no more than a gripe. There was no pattern to be seen. The only pattern he had to work with was ursine hair in the car in Hancock and hair and a steel cage at Pung's rented camp at Lac La Belle. Had a bear been kept at the camp and moved to a boat in Hancock? This was the only way to read it at this point, and the main thing he wanted to focus on.

“Hon?” Nantz said from the stairs.

He looked over at her. “Captain Grant is here,” she said. “You okay?”

No, he was frustrated.

The captain came down the stairs stiffly, his uniform freshly pressed. Service gave him the only chair and stood by the wall. The captain sat stiffly with a manila folder in his lap, looking more uncomfortable than normal as he surveyed the Mosquito wall map.

“Hard to let go?” the captain said.

“Any word from the federal lab?” Service asked, changing the subject.

“Not as yet. You will take more than a couple of days off,” his boss added in a tone that told Service it was not a request.

“I'm fine,” Service said. He didn't want people fussing over him. He had been hurt many times and he had always eventually healed.

“Grady,” the captain said, looking directly into his eyes. The use of his given name jolted him. “At our age we can't be involving ourselves in physical confrontations. Over time we have to learn to use our brains instead of our muscles.”

What was this about? Service wondered. A reprimand?

“By every measure of performance, you should be a captain now, or at least a lieutenant, but until last year you were still a working warden.”

Was he looking for an explanation? “I always liked my job, Captain.” Which was the truth. It was hard enough to look after himself and the Mosquito without having to worry about a bunch of officers.

“That has been self-evident,” Grant said. “It is equally clear to me that you have taken creative steps to ensure that you would never be considered for promotion.”

What the hell did the captain want?

“You have over the course of your career gone out of your way to annoy Lansing and to isolate yourself from the center.”

“Not intentionally,” Service said, beginning to feel defensive. “They didn't like me. I didn't like them. It was balanced.”

“Rationalize it any way you like,” the captain said, “but your past behaviors ensured that the overall mission of the department was compromised.”

“Sir?”

“For an organization to function at maximum efficiency and to discharge its mission, it needs to have the right people in the right jobs. You haven't been in the right job for a long time and despite your denials, I believe that this was a matter of choice. Your selfishness, Grady, affected all of us.”

The rebuke stung. He admired and respected the captain, and was confused by the captain's disappointment in him. “Sir, why are you telling me this?”

“I am going to retire, Grady. I have recovered most of what was lost from the stroke, but frankly I don't have the endurance I once had, and I can't concentrate the way I once could. It's time for me to step aside and make room for someone who can fully perform.”

Grady Service didn't know what to say.

“If I were a betting man,” the captain went on, “I would wager on Senator Timms capturing the gubernatorial helm. After she takes office, I will step down.”

“What if she doesn't win?”

The captain smiled. “She will, Detective. But here is my concern: She is extremely smitten by you and I fear that she will move to appoint you to a position that you do not deserve. You have been a polarizing personality throughout your career.”

“Sir, I haven't done anything to encourage her attention.”

“I understand that, but I am telling you that while I think you could perform any job in the department, you have not earned it and I expect that when the time comes, you will reject her patronage.”

“Captain, I don't want another job. You have my word on that.”

Grant nodded crisply. “Good.” He held out the folder. “This is the information on Mr. Toogood.”

“Anything interesting in it?”

“I haven't looked. I have no idea why you wanted it, or where your mind is these days. You asked for the record and I have now delivered it. I do not want you back on duty until you can assure me that you are feeling closer to normal.”

Service was tempted to object, but said simply, “Yessir.”

He walked upstairs with the captain, who made small talk with Nantz and Walter, and then escorted him to his vehicle. “Our conversation today is a matter of honor,” the captain said. “Just the two of us, man to man. I trust you and depend on you and I know you will never let me down.”

Service found himself staring at the driveway long after the captain was gone.

Nantz prepared a lunch of ravioli with rosemary walnut sauce and brought two bowls down to Service in his basement office. He opened a bottle of 1999 Cima Merlot Montervo and splashed some in two glasses. The wine was new to them, the color rich and red.

“I didn't have Kasseri,” Nantz said apologetically. “I used Asiago and I didn't have time to pick up fresh
pane.
”

“This is great,” Service said with his mouth full. It hurt to try to eat.

She sipped the wine. “Nice.”

Walter came downstairs sniffing. “I'm hungry.”

“Pasta in the kitchen,” Nantz said.

“Do I get wine?” he asked. “Sheba always let me have a glass of wine.”

“No,” Service said.

“I figured you'd say that,” Walter mumbled, going back upstairs.

“He's always pushing,” Service said.

“You didn't when you were that age?”

“If I had, I'd have looked like I do now.”

“I pushed my parents all the time, especially my dad,” Nantz confessed.

“Look how you turned out,” Service said.

She smiled. “Not too shabby, hey?”

He nodded and pushed his bowl aside. Half the ravioli was still there.

“You're hurting,” she said. “It always shows in your appetite.”

“The swelling makes it hard to chew.”

She put her hand on his leg. “It will go away.”

She shook her head with worry and took a swig of wine. “What did the captain want?”

“He brought me some stuff I asked for.”

“He was here quite a while.”

He had made a promise to the captain and, given what his boss had confided and Nantz's closeness to Senator Timms, he couldn't tell her. “It was just work stuff, and he thinks I should take a few more days off.”

“Will you?”

“I can't sit round on my keester all day, babe.”

“You're holding back on what you and the captain talked about.”

“He said it was just between us.”

“So if Lori says something is just between her and me, I shouldn't tell you?”

“A promise is a promise,” he said, wondering what the senator had told her.

“I thought we were always going to tell each other everything.”

“Mar.”

“I know, I know, but I'm dying to tell you something and I can't.”

“Maybe there'll be times when we have to accept a delay in telling each other things,” he said.

Nantz laughed. “God,” she said. “Lori is right. You have the instincts of a politician and don't even recognize it.”

“She doesn't know me.”

“I think she knows you better than you realize. Don't be fooled by her appearance, Grady. She's sharp and she thinks, quote, Grady is underutilized, end quote.”

He leaned over and kissed her. The captain might be right about Timms, he decided.

“Is that a dismissal?”

“I really have to work.”

“You're supposed to be resting.”

“I am resting.”

“Okay, spoilsport.” She collected the wine bottle, bowls, forks, and glasses and went upstairs.

Newf padded down the stairs, came over to the table and lay down underneath.

“What're you?” he asked the dog. “Second shift guard?”

The dog wagged her tail.

14

Service heard the telephone ring and ignored it.

“I need to get back to school tomorrow,” Walter told his father.

“My truck's in Crystal Falls,” Service said. “Nantz can drop us there in the morning and I'll run you up to Houghton.”

“How come you call her Nantz?” Walter asked.

Service had never thought about it. “Habit, I guess.”

Walter nodded and paused. It seemed to Service that he had more on his mind, but the boy went upstairs and Service heard the TV come on.

He put his feet up and tried to think. Violets who committed crimes always left trails and wakes; sooner or later you picked up a strand, and if you were lucky, it let you make the case. All cases had this in common—threads. But habitual criminals were generally more careful than the impulsives. The trick was to find the threads you needed and stick with them. In the Pung case, he still felt blind. He liked Pyykkonen, though her behavior with Wayno Ficorelli had taken him by surprise and made him wonder if she was also impulsive on the job. If so, she'd be jumping from this to that without making progress, letting velocity substitute for direction. Again he wondered about her dismissal from Lansing.

“You look unhappy,” Nantz said from the stairs. “That was Lori on the phone.”

“Just thinking,” he said. The homicide was Pyykkonen's and the shit belonged to Gus and him. But if she didn't get off her ass and start picking up some of her threads, neither case was going anywhere. He hated being dependent on others, but as a detective this was becoming the rule rather than the exception. Did the captain understand
that?
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he got. “What did the senator want?”

“She wants me back downstate tomorrow. She's going to introduce a bill, hold a quick press conference, and get back on the campaign trail.”

Service's mind was elsewhere.

“This bill,” Nantz said, “will provide a mandatory ten-year sentence in any case where a police officer is injured.”

“There are plenty of laws on the books now,” he said.

“She feels strongly about this.”

“In any case—misdemeanor or felony?”

“That's what she says.”

“As it stands now most people plead out on misdemeanors, because the time and money aren't all that much. But you slap ten years on stuff and they are gonna fight like hell in court, and that's a disaster for us.” Most conservation officers spent little time in court, in large part because they made good cases, which defendants and their lawyers couldn't fight effectively. He had spent less time in court than other officers, but if a law like this went on the books, all officers would be spending a lot more time in court than in the woods. With staffing already low, that would put even fewer people out where they should be.

“Lousy idea,” he added. He explained the unintended effects that might accrue.

Nantz listened attentively and when he had finished talking, she asked, “Do you mind if I share this with Lori?”

“Your choice,” he said, quickly adding, “but let it be your response, not mine.”

“Why? Lori respects you.”

“I don't like politicians leaning on me.”

“You might consider it a sign of respect; and in any event, I brought this up, not her.”

“She's playing you.”

“You're underestimating me, Service.” And her face made it clear that she didn't like it.

“A politician trying to get elected uses everybody and everything they can to get what they want.”

“Like a detective?” she shot at him.

“I guess,” he said. “The boy needs to get back to school tomorrow. Can you drop us at Simon's? I'll drive him from there.”

“Simon's?”

“I left the Yukon there when Pyykkonen and I went down to Wisconsin.”

“I can just fly him up to Houghton.”

“No, I can drive him.”

“You know what he'd really like? To fish with us.”

“We don't have time,” he said. “Neither of us.”

“You're supposed to be relaxing, and I can
make
time,” she said with a tone of voice that told him he was going to be fishing tonight. “I'll fly you guys to Crystal in the morning and then head for TC. Let's run up to Slippery Creek. Fresh trout on the grill sounds good,” she said. “All we need is bacon, a little brown sugar, some salt, pepper, and fresh lemons. I'll run Walter into town to get him a license and then we can get this show on the road.”

Service knew better than to argue. Once she got a plan fixed in her mind, that was the end of discussion.

She bounded up the stairs, yelling Walter's name.

He called Pyykkonen at home and she took a long time answering.

“You alone?” he asked.

“Not that it's any of your business,” she said, “but your friend Shark just left. He made breakfast for us.”

Shark? Breakfast? In all the time he'd known Wetelainen, he'd never known him to go on dates. He might pick up a woman at a bar and bring her home, but no dates. He was too cheap and focused on other things to tolerate the time demands of romance.

“He's a good guy,” she said.

Shark Wetelainen, Chief Macofome, Warden Wayno Ficorelli, he thought. Pyykkonen was a woman who got around. “What's going on with Pung's lawyer?”

“Near as we can tell, he doesn't have one. He has a firm in Southfield and I never get the same lawyer twice.”

This information took Service aback. “What about finances?”

“Told you earlier . . . the house, stocks, but no domestic bank accounts, savings or checking, and no credit cards. He got paid once a month and took it to a local bank to be cashed. We were able to determine that. This guy was the original greenback man.”

“How much did he make at Tech?”

“Right at ninety thou.”

“You find out who he rented his house from?”

“A woman from Painesdale named Maggie Soper. He paid cash, one grand a month.”

Painesdale was six miles south of Houghton, along the iron range of old mining villages. “One thou for the camp, another K for the house—that's thirty percent of his monthly income.”

“Twenty-seven percent,” she said. “But he stopped paying rent in August and bought the house for one fifty K, all cash.”

“Jesus. What did he make at Virginia Tech?”

“One fifteen.”

“Meaning he took a twenty-percent cut to move here?”

“Eighteen percent,” she corrected him.

“Doesn't that strike you as odd in this day and age?”

“From what we know, the late Harry Pung was a very odd man.”

“Somebody who lives a life of cash is about money,” he said. “Where the hell did he get a hundred and fifty grand for the house if he doesn't have bank accounts? Did he keep cash in the house?”

“We sure didn't find any in the house or on his person,” she said.

“Which means robbery could be a motive here.” The words immediately gave him a sinking feeling.

“What about insurance beneficiaries?”

“He had a policy from the university for a hundred thousand. His ex-wife is the sole beneficiary. Are you trying to tell me how to do my job, Service?”

“No way.”

“Well, it feels like it.”

In fact, he was not happy that she hadn't shared some of this information before now. “I'll be in Houghton tomorrow around noon. You want to grab some lunch, see where we are?”

“I'll be at the station,” she said abruptly.

“Tomorrow,” he said, hanging up.

He immediately called Simon. “Nantz is flying us to Crystal tomorrow. We'll plan to land about eight. Can you pick us up? I need to grab the Yukon.”

“No problem. I'm not on duty until five tomorrow. We can talk then.”

“You got something?”

“No, Toogood seems to have disappeared.”

“See you at nine.”

Service immediately pulled the files on Ollie Toogood and began to read.

The records were old, frail and yellowed, copies made on some sort of ancient mimeograph. They were smeared and dark, hard to read. Obviously nobody had looked at them in a long time. There was a space for Toogood's photograph on the service record. The space was empty.

Oliver Franklin Toogood was born in Lansing, Michigan, on 4 March 1930, and graduated from Lansing High School in June 1947. He spent two years at Purdue University and in 1949 was accepted into the Air Force Aviation Cadet Program. He was assigned to the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing in Korea at Base K-14, on 3 December 1951. Or was it K-13? The printing was blurred and dark. Shot down on 12 February 1952 and captured near Hoengsong. This was about six weeks after he arrived.

His medals and decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Air Medals, and the Purple Heart. He was credited with shooting down four MiG-15s, one short of ace. For only being in combat for six weeks, Trapper Jet had made quite a record for himself. Maybe his youth had made him aggressive.

Lt. Toogood was repatriated at Freedom Village, Panmunjom. Was he among the first to be released, or among the later groups? Service wondered.

The second sheet listed citations from his medals. The one for the Distinguished Service Medal was the most informative.

Lt. Toogood was a prisoner first of the North Koreans and later of the Chinese Communists from 12 February 1952 to 21 January 1954. During his 23 months of captivity, Lt. Toogood was held in solitary confinement for 20 of his 23 months. He was tortured throughout captivity and lost a leg as a result of injuries suffered during captivity.

So the injury was from the camps, not from his shoot-down. He was lucky to be alive, given what Service knew of the conditions of camps in those days.

Lt. Toogood devised a communications system for prisoners and as he was moved from camp to camp, he taught the system until most prisoners in Korea were using it. Despite unrelenting torture and privation, Lt. Toogood was cited numerous times by fellow prisoners as setting an example of resistance that others adopted. For intrepid behavior and courage, Lt. Oliver Toogood is awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

A hard-ass, even then. That fit the Trapper Jet he knew. The signature on the citation was that of General Curtis LeMay. To earn the DSM required genuine heroism—or insanity: sometimes they were too close to distinguish between in combat. In Korea, the next honor after the DSM was the Congressional Medal of Honor—usually awarded posthumously. That's how it had been in Vietnam too. He had not known about Toogood's DSM.

Service flipped to the next page. Trapper Jet had been in a hospital in Japan, and then in VA hospitals in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas until May 1956. Twenty-nine months was a long convalescence, a clue as to how severe Toogood's injuries had been. There was no mention of a medical disability or a mailing address. Were those bits in a separate file? With the military you never knew.

Sometimes investigations were easy. This one wouldn't be, but there was a thread: Lansing. If he got desperate, he would try to wend his way into the Department of Defense system, but only as a last resort. If Toogood was from Lansing, why had he come to the U.P. and remained here? Were there relatives in Lansing? Had he had contact with them after his release? So many questions and no good answers.

He was studying the map again when Nantz returned.

“Gear's loaded,” she said, hardly able to contain her excitement.

“Do me a favor in Lansing?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He handed her the folder. “Oliver Toogood, Trapper Jet. He graduated from Lansing High School in 1947. There ought to be an old yearbook with a photo.”

“If they haven't cleaned the attic,” she said. “I'll give it a try.”

She nuzzled his neck. “Let's move it, big boy! We're burning daylight!”

Walter looked at the unpainted cabin as they put on waders and asked, “What's this?”

“Where your father lived before I dragged him back to civilization,” Nantz said. “The term ‘lived' is figurative,” she added with a wink.

“Looks like a hermit's place,” Walter said.

Service shot a dirty look at his son, but saw that the boy was smiling.

“Chill, it's a joke,” the boy said.

Nantz said, “Some joke. It looks even more pathetic inside.”

Slippery Creek was difficult to fish with a fly rod. It was overgrown with wild grapevines and tag alders, but there was a promising riffle about two hundred yards downstream. Service led them to it through several groves of white birch, letting Walter lug the portable grill and cooler.

Nantz took rods out of their tubes and put them together while Service checked the grill to make sure they had gas. “I checked it at home,” Nantz said. “Let's fish.”

She handed two rods to Service, both of them eight-foot 4-weights.