Chasing a Blond Moon (44 page)

38

Jackson was eight hours south of Gladstone, thirty degrees warmer, and as different as a Traverse City cherry and a durian. Service sat in his truck outside the general aviation building and talked to Treebone on the cell phone. Eight shiny corporate jets were parked on the apron, and a sign on the fence said,
god is busy. attention pilots: eyes up for deer on taxiways.

“You understand what I want?” Service said.

“Got the what, not the why,” Luticious Treebone said.

“Need to know, man.”

“How it is, dawg.”

“Your best man, right?”

“Sterling's our own Motown strike dog. Can follow a fart off a motorcycle seat with a five-day head start.”

“He's so good, how I'm getting him?”

“The man is in the drawer, you know, Idi Amin shit. He shows you his stuff, maybe you can bring him over.”

Idi Amin was Treebonese for IA or Internal Affairs. “Must be some most serious shit.”

“No, man. He breathed some on the wrong brother, lipped his script.”

“English, asshole.”

“He's a hunter, Grady, got his ass in somebody else's patch, changed his story couple of times when he was talked at. His time here could be short. You like what you see, you might want to put a gray shirt on him.”

“He's a brother?”

“Yo, he's a flyboy brat, grew up near the Soo.”

“So you're asking me to audition a man when I need your best.”

“He is the best. He does the job and then we talk.'”

“Your Grand Rapids P.I. hasn't delivered,” Service said. “Is your man carrying a cell?”

“That's not like Eugenie,” Tree said. “I'd better check on her. My man carries two cells.” Treebone gave him the numbers.

Service explained what he wanted, said, “We tight?”

“Semper Fi, bro.”

Service needed help and his friend was talking up his man, but Tree wasn't past a little scamming to get what he wanted for his people.

The plane came in from the northeast, nose into a light wind, touched down without a smoke puff on the five-thousand-foot runway, and taxied in. Lorelei Timms got off the twin-engine aircraft looking tired, a wrinkled trench coat slung over her shoulder. She was followed by a burly silver-haired man with a beaming smile. Timms walked toward Service and nodded. The silver-haired man followed with two bulging suitcases and a battered leather garment bag. The senator said, “Grady Service, this is my husband, Whit.”

Whit Timms set the bags down and shook Service's hand. “Mostly I'm her pack animal,” he said.

The couple walked toward a waiting tan minivan and driver. A State Police SUV was behind the van. Two young women and a young man got off the plane carrying cardboard boxes and headed toward a second van.

Nantz stepped into the hatch opening, looked down at Service and smiled. “Permission to come aboard,” she said. “I'll show you around my office.” She wore black trousers, a white short-sleeved shirt with epaulets, a thin black tie, a black wheel cap with wings.

There was not enough headroom for him and he had to stoop.

“There's no security here,” he said.

Nantz stopped and pointed out a window at the threesome loading boxes in a second van. “The guy is Troop Sergeant Toby Robinette and there are three more in the detail in civvies. It's covered, Service.”

“Sergeant? He looks fourteen,” Service said.

“Everybody looks fourteen to you,” she said with a laugh. “He works older than he looks.”

She squeezed past him, pumped the hatch closed with a hydraulic arm, and latched the door.

They went back through the bird to a bench seat on the starboard side.

“What happened to my tour?” he said.

“It's about to begin,” she said, tossing her tie over her left shoulder, unsnapping her trousers, letting them fall and stepping out of them. She pushed him onto the bench, put her hands on his shoulders, squatted over him.

Someone began banging on the hatch.

“Somebody wants in,” Service told her.

“Only one person's getting in right now,” Nantz whispered.

The outside noise continued.

The sound on the door blended with her movement and faded. When she came she collapsed on him, her arms tightly around his neck. “God,” she said, her hips and thighs spasming with diminishing aftershocks.

There was no one near the plane when she opened the hatch.

He carried her bags to his Yukon. She sat beside him with her hand on his hip. “That just blunted my edge,” she said. “Why am I so horny?”

“Why is air invisible?” he said.

She shrugged. “You're supposed to say something earthy and carnal,” she said.

“My brain's not working.”

She smiled. “Well, at least one part of you is. I need a nap this afternoon.”

They drove twelve miles south to the Indian Road B&B on Devil's Lake. It had a gray brick facade, with neatly mown lawns and fingers of peony beds down to the lake.

Nantz hung up her evening gown, got out her shoes for the dinner, took off her clothes, and collapsed on the bed.

Service took a tux out of a plastic bag and hung it up. He had not worn a tux since his wedding. He tried to imagine himself in it and groaned, remembering he had forgotten to get black shoes.

He went down to the Yukon and dug out his Danner boots. At least they had once been black.

A woman named Hazel Slack owned the B&B. She was dressed in tight slacks and a red cowl-necked sweater.

“Got a shoeshine box I can use?” Service asked her.

“Sure,” she said, scampering away.

The voice of Lorelei Timms said, “Out here, Detective.” Service stepped onto a glassed-in porch holding his boots. She had a cup of coffee, a cigarette in an ashtray.

“You have your woman all to yourself in a beautiful room and you're going to shine your work boots?”

Service didn't respond.

“She's missed you,” the senator said. “Have you been following the campaign?”

“Not really.”

“You don't care who wins?”

“I care, but I'm just one vote.”

“Do you think I have a chance?”

“I usually don't follow politics,” he said.

She smiled. “You're priceless. Did Maridly give you her special tour of the plane?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

Hazel Slack intervened with a shoeshine kit in a wooden box. “This is all we have.”

Service went outside and did the best he could to bring the leather back to life, using old military spit-shine tricks, and carried the polished boots up to the room.

“You forgot black shoes,” Nantz said groggily from the bed.

He shook his head. “I told you my brain isn't working and you said the boots are fine.”

“They are,” she said. “C'mon, we have an hour to rest and I want to spoon.”

She patted his hip and sighed. “Don't let us oversleep, hon.”

After the nap and a long bath, she dressed slowly, finally dropping a gold georgette gown over her head and adjusting the spaghetti straps. The dress dragged on the floor until she put on her shoes. “New,” she said, holding up pointy-toed shoes by their tiny straps. “This is one of my weaknesses.”

She added two strands of pearls and pearl drop earrings.

He dressed beside her and when he sat down to put on his boots, she rolled her eyes and smiled. “Are you going to tuck them or wear the pants over them?”

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Over,” she said. “Unless you want to look like G.I. Joe.”

Out in the Yukon she said, “Turn on the overhead light.”

“We're gonna be late,” Service said.

He watched her apply lipstick and examine her work.

“I can do what I gotta do while you drive,” she said. “Thin lips,” she added. “Collagen can fix them.”

“Your lips don't need fixing.” He couldn't understand why when she looked in the mirror she didn't see what everybody else saw.

“We're not going to be late,” she said. “Stop worrying.”

“Late's not an option for fifteen hundred a plate,” he said. “Thank God we're not paying guests.”

She looked over at him. “That's not exactly accurate.”

He looked back at her.

“I made a little donation?” she said hesitatingly.

“How little?”

“Twenty K to Lori's campaign, and fifteen hundred each for us tonight.”

“Good God, Mar, you can't be doing things like this! You're going to be a CO and we're not political.”

“When I'm a CO I promise not to make any more political donations,” she said. “Cross my heart.”

She had money, but he had no idea how much and rarely thought about it. She was not ostentatious. She owned a nice home and a private plane and spent generously on food and wine, but she rarely bought clothes or jewelry, and she never talked about money. Yet, she had coughed up twenty-three thousand for the senator and her dinner, and done it with as much thought as he would in leaving a tip for a bartender. “You didn't make the sign,” he said.

She made a sour face, halfheartedly waved her hand over the center of her chest, said, “Okiiy?”

“It better be a great meal,” he griped.

She laughed and shook her head. “Just go with the flow, baby.”

Betty Very called when they were stopped in the line of vehicles at the security checkpoint, a half-mile from the Stagecoach Lodge. The area was lit by portable floodlights and blocked by a zigzag maze of Troop cruisers and trucks.

“The bank president looked at the photo,” Bearclaw said. “It's Kelo.”

“Did he talk to Toogood when he made the request for the withdrawal?”

“For better than an hour. He tried to talk him out of it, but the old man wouldn't hear of it. His mind was made up and he insisted on a cashier's check to be picked up by somebody else and he left a photo of the pickup man.”

“Kelo.”

“Yes, the president said the photo that Toogood left with him matched the man, but he wasn't about to give it away without some security. They had quite an argument and, in the end, Kelo grudgingly agreed to a fingerprint as a receipt.”

“Did he use his name?”

“No. He said the photo was enough and he refused to give a name.”

“You have the fingerprint?”

“And the photo. The fingerprints have been transmitted to AFIS already.”

“Great job,” Service said. “Thanks, Betty.”

“I'm sorry about your friend,” she said.

Service turned to Nantz and told her about Trapper Jet and Kelo and all that he had learned and gone through. “I think Kelo's a dead man,” he concluded. He didn't know for sure, but almost everyone in this case was turning up dead.

“Why would he agree to give a fingerprint?” Nantz asked.

“The bank president boxed him in. He probably figured he was there to get the check and there was no way to run a single print through the system and, in any event, the bank president didn't have his name. Kelo's never been known as a bright bulb.”

Two state troopers stood on either side of the vehicle. Nantz showed her ID and invitation; Service flashed his badge. They got the nod to move on.

The Stagecoach Lodge was a low, sprawling, red brick building that looked like it had undergone a lot of additions. The parking lot was in front of the building and full of expensive vehicles. Service parked along the driveway and locked the Yukon.

They walked under a canopied portico to the main entrance, presented their invitations and IDs, and gave up their coats. Nantz wrapped a gold and scarlet georgette wrap around her bare shoulders. The main area was filled with women in shimmering gowns and pointy high heels.

A young woman in a short black skirt and white blouse offered a tray of champagne flutes. Nantz took one; Service refused.

“What's with you?” she asked.

“Later,” he said.

She took a swig and grinned. “That's a ten-four, big boy. I might get a little drunk tonight.”

There was a reception line leading down a corridor to the dining room. It moved too slowly for Service, who said “Baah,” just under his breath and got a poke from Nantz. They moved through, shaking hands with various politicians Service didn't recognize until they got to Lorelei and Whit.

The senator looked down at his boots, but her expression remained even. “Siquin, these are my friends, Grady Service and Maridly Nantz.”

Whit Timms leaned toward Service. “Great kicks, man.”

They had not had a chance to talk at any length, but Service instinctively liked the senator's husband.

“Yes,” Soong said. “Detective.” She held out her hand, gripped his momentarily, and used it to guide him to face an old man standing with the assistance of two metal canes hooked to his wrists by metal bands. “My husband, Buzz Gishron.”

Soong looked barely forty, her husband at least twice that and not likely to last much longer.