Running Dark

RUNNING DARK

ALSO BY JOSEPH
HEYWOOD

Fiction

Taxi Dancer (1985)

The Berkut (1987)

The Domino Conspiracy (1992)

The Snowfly (2000)

Woods Cop Mysteries

Ice Hunter (2001)

Blue Wolf in Green Fire (2002)

Chasing a Blond Moon (2003)

Strike Dog (2007)

Death Roe (2009)

Nonfiction

Covered Waters: Tempests of a Nomadic Trouter (2003)

RUNNING DARK

JOSEPH
HEYWOOD

THE LYONS PRESS

GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT

AN IMPRINT OF THE GLOBE PEQUOT PRESS

Copyright © 2005 by Joseph Heywood

First Lyons Press paperback edition, 2006

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to The Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

The Lyons Press is an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press.

Text design by Georgiana Goodwin

ISBN 978-1-59921-363-7

The Library of Congress has previously cataloged an earlier edition as follows:

Heywood, Joseph.

Running dark : a woods cop mystery / Joseph Heywood.

p. cm.

E-ISBN: 978-0-7627-9555-0

1. Game wardens—Fiction. 2. Upper Peninsula (Mich.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3558.E92R86 2005

813'.54—dc22

2005006035

To the late Rick Asher, Chief of Law Enforcement, Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

As Shakespeare wrote,

“For courage mounteth with occasion.”

RUNNING
DARK

PART I

THE UPPER PECULIAR

1

NEWBERRY, NOVEMBER 11, 1974

“Dey're dirtier den dirt.”

Eldon “Shuck” Gorley was in the Newberry DNR office for the last official time—to turn in his badge and state-owned equipment. Grady Service, within three days of going out on his own as a conservation officer, was guzzling black coffee and studying a report from Lansing while he waited for a meeting with the district law supervisor. Gorley, carrying a severely dented thermos, sat down across from Service and poked through a box of donuts that someone had left on the table. “Be da first deer season I ha'n't worked in twenty-seven years,” the retiring officer said in his raspy voice. He was unshaven, had wavy white hair, leathery skin, and bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows.

“Your first in da Upper Peculiar,” he added, looking at Service.

Service chuckled. The Upper Peninsula surely was peculiar, especially for conservation officers. Gorley was not a gregarious man and had just spoken more words than Service had heard from him since he'd arrived from training downstate. Gorley's nickname came from his ability to “out-stupid stupids” with a well-honed and effective “aw shucks” routine.

“Treat each season like a gift, eh,” Gorley said. “We only get so many.”

“I will,” Service said, not sure what the older man wanted. Gorley rarely talked or showed emotion, but was respected as an aggressive and thoughtful officer.

“You get da chance,” Gorley continued, “youse might wanta be sittin' up on da Gutpile Ridge Grade Road night 'fore da opener. Dose Ketola brothers, dey like ta slow-roll da clear-cuts out dat way. I dogged 'em da past twenty years and always come up empty, but dey're dirtier den dirt, and dey'll be out dere, bet on dat. Dey buy old twenty-twos, use 'em once, and chuck 'em. You get 'em, trow da book at 'em for me, eh?”

“The Ketola brothers,” Service said.

Gorley nodded and grinned. “Dirtier 'n dirt, an' I made sure da whole town knows I'm retirin' 'fore da opener and a green-butt rookie's takin' my place. Good huntin'.”

Service shook the man's hand. He had a powerful grip and clear blue eyes. Gorley placed his thermos in front of Service. “Little beat-up, like me, but I won't be needin' 'er anymore.” The name
shuck
was etched crudely on the metal thermos. Gorley paused and added, “I knew yer old man. He was a warden's warden, and if he hadn't loved his hooch . . . ”

Gorley didn't finish the sentence. Grady Service's father had served in World War II in the Marine Corps and had joined the DNR when he returned. He had been drunk when he'd stepped in front of a truck at night and was killed. Service had been sixteen years old, and though father and son had never been close, the loss hit the boy hard, causing him to withdraw into himself and trust few people. Service likewise had served as a marine—in Vietnam—and now he was in the U.P. as a conservation officer, history repeating itself. He had sworn he would not be like his father, but so far he was following the old man step for step and he found it unsettling. At six foot four and two hundred and twenty pounds, he didn't look much like his old man—and he certainly didn't want to be like him—yet this was the only job he had ever wanted.

“We all got stren'ts an' weaknesses,” Gorley said. “Back when your old man and me got dese jobs, dey wanted toughs. Chances of gettin' convictions in da courts was so low, was our job ta rough up da poachers and put da fear of da DNR inta dem. Back den we used our saps first, talked later. But now da law's changed and we have ta use our brains a lot more den our fists, and dis is how she ought to be. You can't enforce da law by out-gooning da jerks. I heard you got stone dukes just like your old man, but you been ta college. Use dat noggin. Dat's all I gotta say.”

They nodded at each other as Gorley left the room, one finishing a long, difficult career, the other just starting out.

There had been a hardness and an edge to Shuck Gorley's voice that reminded him of his father and all the men who had served with him, the old-timers now known as horseblankets because of the knee-length heavy wool coats they had worn back then. He had inherited his old man's stained and frayed coat. His father had always worn outer clothes two or three sizes too large to allow him to pack layers underneath in cold weather. It had always hung on his father like a loose sack, but it fit Grady Service almost perfectly, and he liked wearing it, though he wasn't sure why.
Stop thinking about the old man,
he cautioned himself.
This is your career, your future.
When he finished his cup of coffee he said aloud, “Ketola brothers,” and shifted his attention to his first solo patrol.

Service was rooting through file cabinets when Sergeant “Sugar Sam” Surrey, the area law supervisor, came looking for him.

Surrey had so far proven to be a helpful and supportive supervisor. Service was to ride two more days with him and then be on his own.

“Little early in the career to be trollin' files,” Surrey said, grinning.

“I was looking at the file on the Ketola brothers.”

Surrey chuckled. “Shuck never could get those boys and it's stuck in his craw his whole career. Think a green-butt rookie like you can do what he couldn't?”

“Just getting to know the territory,” Service answered, putting the folder back in the cabinet drawer. There had not been much to learn. The file was filled with reports and notes from Gorley, mostly speculative and accusatory; the reality was that he had never been able to catch the brothers doing anything illegal. Service wrote down their address and made a note to check his county plat book later.

2

GUTPILE RIDGE, NOVEMBER 14–15, 1974

“Shouldn't youse be oot in da woods?”

It was the night before rifle season for whitetail, and Grady Service's first solo patrol as a conservation officer. He sat in his Plymouth Fury 444, engine off so he could hear. All the lights were off, inside and outside. He got out and stood beside the vehicle, smoking and cupping the butt in his hand to hide the glowing ember, half listening, parked beside a massive jack pine blowdown at the edge of a clear-cut adjacent to the Gutpile Ridge Grade Road. The area had been logged over two years before and now bristled with new growth and sprouts of plants, rough grasses, and trees. In some ways it reminded Service of areas that had been carpet-bombed in Vietnam. At night deer would drift into the area from adjacent cedar and tamarack swamps, and poachers would slow-roll the logging roads and rutted two-tracks looking for animals to freeze with their spotlights so they could shoot them.

Many COs insisted poachers seldom worked after 1 a.m. or so, especially the night before the state's firearms opener, but Service had tried to put himself in a poacher's mindset and decided the best time to be out would be only a few hours before the season officially opened at first light—a time when most hunters, and presumably lawmen, would be fast asleep. Service knew that at night the animals would be deep into their feeding routine and presumably more interested in food than danger as they got ready to drift back to their day cover.

It had been colder for the last ten days, in the low teens at night, with daytime highs barely above freezing, and tonight, finally, it was snowing. Feeling the small icy flakes on his face, he was glad he had gotten the Fury tucked away before the snow started. His tracks would soon be hidden from anyone cruising the logging road.

Just after 3:30 a.m. he heard a vehicle trying to negotiate the frozen two-track. He could hear it sliding and bumping around on frozen grooves so deep and solid they could rip steering out of the driver's control.

There were not a lot of deer near his position. The real concentration was a half-mile south, farther into the clear-cut. He knew that poachers would look for large herds and pick off animals closest to their vehicles. Typically they would use their headlights or a handheld spotlight to mesmerize an animal and knock it down with a single shot. Some would gut the animal and haul it out immediately; others would gut it and leave it where it fell, coming back later to pick it up. With this snow and cold, Service figured they would leave this one. In summer and early fall, the weather was too warm and would quickly cause the meat to spoil, but it was well below freezing tonight and spoilage would not be an issue.

It was a poacher's dream: black night, no moon, no stars, just soft waves of wet snowflakes fluttering gently in the darkness. Snow cover would mute sound and make tracking easier.

When the vehicle appeared, only its parking lights were lit, and they seemed to have been half taped to further reduce light.

Even with poor visibility he could see that it was a pickup, and as soon as it passed, he got into the Fury, started his engine, and pulled out to follow, closing steadily until he was seventy-five feet behind it. Some officers would run without lights only if they had a sneak light to help them see the way. Such devices were cannibalized from military-surplus jeeps and jury-rigged to DNR patrol units. Service preferred to run with no light of any kind. Even as a boy he had been comfortable in complete darkness, and now he was driving in darkness so intense it might be the devil's belly. But darkness was not his foe; it was his ally and his edge. As a boy his old man had never let him use a flashlight. At night he was expected to get comfortable with the black and use his eyes. The old man's bizarre rules had always pissed him off and frustrated him, but when he got to Vietnam, his ability to deal with darkness had not only made him a better marine than most who were with him—it had probably saved his life. Now on his first patrol, he felt in total harmony with the blackness that surrounded him.

As the truck moved into the area where there were herds of deer milling around, Service maintained his interval and kept his window down so he could hear. Snow swirled through the window onto his sleeve and neck, but he felt no cold—only anticipation for what the people ahead of him might do. Training done, he was finally alone, hunting poachers.

After fifteen minutes the truck stopped. Service did the same, immediately turning off his motor. A light flashed over the roof of the truck into the field to the east, and Service got a glimpse of a deer in the light, followed by a tiny muzzle flash and the snap of a small-caliber rifle. The light then went out and it was dark again.
Driver's the shooter,
Service told himself,
passenger the spotter.

Service watched the men get out of the truck and ease their doors shut without latching them. He got out when the men disappeared into the stump-filled field and quickly moved over to the pickup, carefully staying in the truck's tracks to obscure his boot prints. He saw a rifle on the front seat and backed away, using his hat to brush away any sign of his boots, memorized the license plate number, and returned to the Fury, wishing he had parked farther back in case they decided to check behind them with flashlights.

A few minutes later, the men got into the truck without checking their rear and pulled away. Service started his engine and followed. When the pickup got out to Broken Heart Road, the driver of the vehicle switched on his headlights and aimed west on the hardtop. Service followed, his Fury still dark, hanging back more than he'd done on the two-track in case another vehicle came along from either direction to light him up.

No vehicle came and the truck made its way steadily, never exceeding the speed limit. The vehicle left the hardtop several times to take short jaunts down snow-covered dirt roads and once pulled over to the shoulder, turned off its lights, and sat for more than four minutes before moving on. Service made a mental note of a couple of visual landmarks and the mileage on his odometer, and continued to follow.

Eventually they turned down an improved gravel road and from that, cut up a short two-track driveway, where they stopped at a large pole barn. Service watched one of the men get out and open the door. The vehicle disappeared inside, the door closed, and it was dark again.

It took less than ten minutes to find a rifle where the men had briefly parked to discard it. Service checked the weapon to make sure it was unloaded and smelled the barrel. It had been fired. He assumed it had been wiped clean, but made sure to handle it with his gloves just in case.

Rifle in possession, he returned to the clear-cut, parked a quarter-mile from the area where he had seen them shoot the deer, and trudged a half-mile through fresh wet snow, weaving his way around stumps and debris until he found faint footprints with his penlight. The tracks led to a deer, still warm. A steaming pile of viscera lay nearby.

Service knelt beside the carcass, where he made two tiny incisions in the deer's hide to conceal his markers, and carved a small mark on the hoof of the right foreleg. It was an eight-point buck, not a monster by any measure, but a nice deer with a tight basket rack, probably a two-year-old animal.

When he got back to the Fury he used his penlight to check his plat book. The truck he had followed had turned into a forty-acre parcel owned by Stanley and Leo Ketola. Gorley had called this one, he thought, then corrected himself. No, the old CO had set it up—for him. He could have made the arrest when the men shot at the deer, but something held him back—his first patrol, maybe—or something else he couldn't quite peg. Maybe it was the desire to have his first arrest be unassailable in court. In training he had heard over and over that officers needed to think through what they were doing or risk spending a lot of time in court in front of juries that often sided more with the scumbags than a sense of justice. When you were tied up in court, you couldn't cover your territory. He had decided early on to do his best to make his cases ironclad.

Having located the kill and the rifle, he returned to the house where the truck had disappeared into the pole barn, made his way through an aspen stand to a woodpile that had obviously not seen recent use, and tucked the rifle between some logs in the stack.

He spent the rest of the early morning patrolling back roads, noting where tent camps were located and where tracks led down entry roads to hunting camps. Just before first light he was in Brown's Hotel in Newberry ordering scrambled eggs and Swedish pancakes, the waitress giving him a questioning look.

“Shouldn't youse be oot in da woods?”

“Plenty of time,” he said, nursing his coffee. He assumed the poachers would get to the carcass barely after first light, tag it to make it look legal, and keep hunting until later. If they were as good as Shuck Gorley claimed, he assumed they would find the quarters he had inserted in the belly incisions, and the external hoof marking.

“Youse're da new game warden,” the waitress said, bringing his breakfast.

“Grady Service,” he said.

“Nikki-Jo Jokola,” she said. “Youse want coffee for da t'ermos?”

“Thanks,” he said, handing it to her.

When he tried to pay for the coffee, she refused and held up her hands. “Shuck, he found my twins when dey got lost one time. Dose two scamps wandered down to da river and were gone all night, but Shuck, he found 'em, made sure dey was safe, and chewed dere butts out.” She smiled at the memory. “You take care of folks da way he did and we'll call 'er even, eh.”

After his leisurely breakfast, Service drove over to the Luce County sheriff's office and made arrangements for backup. He had a handheld radio in his Fury, the sort COs called “brick” radios. He would call the deputies when and if he needed them, presumably later in the morning.

Shuck Gorley looked befuddled when he stepped out onto the porch of his house in his green long johns. “What're you doing here?” the retired officer asked Grady Service.

“Using my head. You want to take a ride with me?”

Gorley considered the invitation. “I'm sure not goin' hunting openin' day wit' so many downstate sound-shooters skulkin' around out dere,” he said.

“Okay with your wife?”

“She give up on me an' life a long time ago,” Gorley said matter-of-factly. “Let me get some duds on.”

At 8
a.m.
Service dropped the retired officer a half-mile short of the Ketola property, and drove past the entrance to the driveway, hiding his truck in some trees farther down the gravel road that passed in front of the property.

As it often did when the sun began to rise, the air temperature seemed to drop. Service took his thermos and cut through gnarled jack pines to the house, found a scrub oak tree to lean against and began his wait, shifting from one foot to the other to keep the cold from creeping up his legs. He was less than thirty feet from the pole barn.

The pickup truck pulled in just before ten. Two men got out, each with an open beer in hand. They looked to be in their late sixties or early seventies.

“I guess we had da luck,” the passenger said.

“No talkin',” the driver shot back.

The exchange suggested the driver took the lead in things, and that the man knew his business. Professional poachers never talked in public about what they did. Keeping their mouths shut was what made them successful. His old man used to say that big egos were what got lawbreakers caught. The ideal poacher would be a tongueless mute.

Service waited for them to go to the back of the truck to pull the deer out of the bed before he made his move. The passenger had a hold on the back legs of the animal. Service grabbed the man's arm, making him spin and stagger backward.

“DNR!” Service said. “Conservation officer.” When he stepped toward the pole barn door, the driver bumped him with his shoulder, but Service deftly kicked the heel of the man's support foot and he collapsed. Service grabbed the deer by the antlers, wrenched it away from them, and said, “On your knees.
Now!
”

“
Holy Je-Moley!
What's da bloody deal!” the driver shouted with alarm. Service looked at the tag affixed to the antler. The animal was legally tagged.

Service glanced in the truck, saw two rifle cases, took them out, unzipped the cases, and made sure they were unloaded. One was a Model 94 Winchester .30–30, the other a pump-action Remington with a short barrel, probably a .30–06. Both were empty; only the .30–30 smelled like it had been fired recently.

Service saw right away that the mark on the right forehoof had been shaved away. The two men knelt impassively in the snow as the conservation officer poked around until he found the first of the two slits he had made in the deer's skin earlier that morning. He inserted his finger. The first quarter he'd put inside was gone; same with the second quarter in the second incision.