Shadow of the Wolf Tree (10 page)

14

Allerdyce Compound, Southwest Marquette County

TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2006

Friday was en route to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for an early morning meeting with the senior sales VP for Eagle Specialty Steel and Wire Fabrications. Millitor had driven down to Iron Mountain for the annual Retired Upper Peninsula Law Enforcement Officers Association spring benefit golf scramble, whatever the hell that was. Grinda was working a designated trout lake in northwest Iron County, and Simon del Olmo had been dispatched to the south county to investigate a wolf depredation allegation.

Grady Service sat on the porch smoking a cigarette when Lars Hjalmquist called. “I found my daybook. Penny Provo taught elementary school in Trout Creek. She had two DUIs and was invited to resign. She was also in the 1776th Military Police Company out of Kingsford. When the blowup came in Trout Creek in '02, she was on some sort of deployment in Colorado, went over the fence, and hasn't been seen since—except for an unsubstantiated report from somewhere in the Colorado area two years ago.”

“You had all that written in your book?”

“No, I had my own stuff, but after that, I pulled a clipping from the Ironwood
Daily Globe
about her resignation from Trout Creek. I remembered the name, stuck it in my book, just in case.”

“She was an MP?”

“Yeah, a sister cop,” said Hjalmquist.

“You said, ‘Just in case.' ”

“I had contact with her for alleged hunter harassment south of Bessemer in November '98. It was alleged that she threatened two hunters with a shotgun. When I found her, she denied it, and when I interviewed the hunters they were both blotto, and didn't want it getting out that a woman had scared them out of their hunting blinds.”

“You remember the contact?” Service asked.

“Especially after I read my notes. She was pretty, petite, and polite, look-you-straight-in-the-eye, nossir, yessir, very formal, very correct, the whole drill. She denied the allegations, said the men had been drinking and the whole thing was a mistake, that she didn't own any personal firearms, and didn't hunt. I checked the Retail Sales System and found she'd never bought a license. She insisted she was walking where she always walked, and that the two men got abusive when she showed up. Since the men didn't want to press charges, I gave all of them a warning and cut them all loose.”

There was something in the old game warden's voice, a hitch maybe. “But?”

“Couldn't peg it. She looked good superficially, but there was something off about her. My last note was, ‘Full deck?' ”

“Huh,” Service said. “You and Joanie finish your shopping?”

Joan was his wife and constant companion. Hjalmquist grunted and said, “Shopping is never
done,
pal. It's only suspended for lack of cash or tapped-out credit cards.”

“You warned Provo in '98 in Bessemer. Was she living over there then?”

“Nope. She said she'd only been in state four months, was living down in Kingsford, and looking for a teaching job. She had a valid Colorado driver's license, no wants or warrants. She was clean as a whistle.”

“In '98? How long did she teach in Trout Creek?”

“Don't know for sure, man. Until '01, I guess. Wish I could have been more help, buddy.”

“You ever encounter a wolf tree, Lars?”

“Never even heard of one until after I retired.”

How did she end up in the Michigan National Guard only four months in state? Had she transferred
? “Did you see her military ID?” Service asked.

“Didn't need it. Her license was okay.”

“How'd you know her outfit number?”

“It was in the newspaper article about her resigning to ‘pursue other career opportunities.' ”

“Did the article talk about her desertion?”

“No, that musta happened after the Trout Creek deal.”

“Thanks, Lars.”

“Anytime, pal.”

Service lit another cigarette. If the woman was living in Kingsford in 1998, why had she said she walked regularly near Bessemer, which was 150 miles west of where she lived—in deer season? He thought he understood what had happened. The woman denied the charges, the men didn't want to prosecute, and Lars was ass-deep in deer season with too many other pressing things to do. Deer season was the craziest time of the year for almost all officers, and his friend had not listened carefully enough to what the woman was telling him and maybe he had missed something. It would have helped if he'd asked for her military ID. His gut said the hunters were telling the truth.

A lot of things didn't add up. Box claimed Provo came to him in 1997 to “learn guns,” and that he'd heard later she had “joined up.” Yet, according to Lars, she'd been living in Michigan for only four months in the fall of 1998. Millitor said Box had always been credible as an informant. When had she joined the National Guard? Something tells me Penny Provo's what other cops call a “person of interest.”

The mere idea of talking to Limpy Allerdyce made his stomach roll. Allerdyce, the allegedly reformed poacher, had played a key role in helping conclude a lethal case two summers ago. Allerdyce, his extended family, and their hangers-on lived in a compound in the distant reaches of southwest Marquette County, a place you had to know about in order to find it.

He'd already made one questionable phone call today, and so far no callback on that one. This would be his second of the day, and after dialing it and letting it ring and ring, he hung up. No surprise: Allerdyce and his low-life crew moved around the U.P. like fog. Here and gone, invisible blood trails in their wakes.

Willie Celt called from L'Anse. “Thought you'd want to know they're moving Denninger to Marquette tonight.”

“Something wrong?”

“The reality of modern health care: They need her bed. But the doctor here also thinks it would be a good idea for specialists in Marquette to check her leg. He says the bones should heal fine, but he's a little worried about permanent nerve damage.”

“Moving her tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll stop and see her tomorrow morning.”

“Long drive for you.”

“I've got business in southwest Marquette County tonight, and I need to check on my animals and stop at my office.”

“Southwest Marquette County . . . Allerdyce?”

“Bingo.” COs tended to know who all the worst poachers in the U.P. were, and Allerdyce was the worst, his crew oozing all over the peninsula.

“You want Kragie and me to visit Art Lake, knock on the gate, say we're just out meeting folks?”

“No, leave them be for now. We've got some things working to figure out a more direct way in.”

“Okay. Later.”

Why a wolf tree, and why that particular spot
?

• • •

Service pulled into the parking area a half-mile from Allerdyce's camp just after dark, locked his truck, and made his way through the dense mature basswood, hemlock, and white cedar forest to the compound. There was no marked trail, and you had to know the way, otherwise you'd find yourself lost in some of the nastiest, wildest swamp in the central Upper Peninsula.

Service knew he was being watched as he walked into the dark camp and went directly to Limpy's cabin. All the buildings in the compound had burned three years ago, but they had since been rebuilt. He knocked on the door and Allerdyce himself answered.

“Youse run outta gas and lose your state get-gas-free card or somepin', sonny?” the old poacher asked with the grating cackle that invariably made hair stand up on Service's arms.

“Penny Provo,” Service said.

Allerdyce stared at him. “What about 'er? You gettin' some of dat, too?”

Allerdyce claimed to have had sex with just about every female he'd ever met, true or not. Ironically, a lot more of his claims were true than most people understood. “We need to talk.”

Allerdyce held open the door and let Service step inside. Two years ago the old man was keeping company with an author-professor from Northern Michigan University. “Where's your
soul mate
?”

“Gone back North Cargoliner. Up here for da year semenatical, write da book.”

The old man's twisted syntax, offbeat vocabulary, and frequent malaprops made him seem a fool, but conservation officers knew him to be smart, his behavior no more than an act honed as sharp as a flensing knife.

“Cuppa mud?”

“If some's made.”

“Always got mud,” Allerdyce said, taking a pot and pouring two cups. “Been a while since I seen youse, sonny.”

Some years back he'd caught Allerdyce, gotten into a scuffle, and accidentally been shot in the leg by the old man, who spent seven years in prison before being paroled. Since then Allerdyce had tried to be his snitch, with mixed results.

“Provo back U.P.?” Allerdyce asked.

“Did I say she'd left?” Service countered. Any conversation with Allerdyce was a joust, each probing the other for weakness and information.

“Was Natural Guard, Kingsford. Was off ta some trainin' ting when she got canned Trout Creek. Heard she trew away uniform, bugged out. Wimmens,” the old man added, as if gender explained everything.

“Rankin Box,” Service said.

Allerdyce lit up. “Howse dat ole coot doin'?”

“You know him?”

“Go back long time.”

“Colleagues?”

Allerdyce chuckled. “Just chums. Box is gun guy, not no real cedar swamp savage like youse or me.”

“He claims he referred Provo to
you
to learn guns.”

“She in the army; why she need me learn her guns?”

Indeed,
Service thought. “Don't bullshit me. I'm not in the mood for your asshole games.”

Allerdyce held out his hands. “Trut', sonny. When was it she was 'posed ta come over dis way?”

“Late nineties.”

Limpy shook his head. “Yeah, sure, I got pass from warden down Jacktown, droved up here jes to meet wit' 'er.”

“She was directed to your camp. I thought maybe she dealt with one of your people.”

“Only one it woulda been back den was Jerry.”

The son, Jerry Allerdyce, a career criminal and philanderer, had been murdered in 2001 by perpetrators of a diamond mining scam.

“Was Jerry, won't never know, him bein' up heaven, or some such,” Limpy said. “You got case in fire?”

“I don't need your help, old man.”
Jerry Allerdyce in heaven
?

Allerdyce had his teeth out and rolled his jaws for a minute. “Lemme guess. Dis about dose booby traps down Sout' Branch Paint, hey.”

“What booby traps?”

“Wasn't in paper, but word gets 'round, eh? Ain't no secrets You-Pee. Spring guns, I heard. Also some cables strunged crosset river.”

As it always was, the accuracy of the old poacher's intelligence network was both astounding and depressing.

“Say dis, sonny: Only shit-balls use spring gun.”

Service was fairly certain that the booby trap information had been effectively buried. He also knew he'd probably heard all he was going to hear from Limpy without applying some real pressure. “Thanks for the help,” he said sarcastically. When he stood up, he added, “So when was it you and Provo mixed bodily fluids?”

“Gen'leman don' 'posed ta say.”

“You're not a gentleman.”

“Could be she heard how good Limpy is.”

Service poked his finger at the poacher. “The question is,
when
?”

“Sonny-boy pissed?”

“See, I'm thinking you saw her
after
she left the army, and I'm just guessing here—that Army CID will want to talk to you.”

“I'm pubic-minted citizen,” Allerdyce said. “But army got no say my life.”

Service looked over at the old man. “What do you know about wolf trees?”

This seemed to catch Allerdyce by surprise. “Know what dey are, 'course.”

“But you've never set one?”

“I
like
wolfies,” Limpy said. “Dey make it easy find deer. Why I catch poor tings in traps?”

Service believed him about the wolves. “If you hear anything about a wolf tree, give me a call.”

Allerdyce broke into a huge grin. “Holy wah—youse're askin' Limpy's help?”

Service hung his head. “Don't gloat.”

“Bin waitin' long time dis day, youse betcha!”Allerdyce said, slapping his hands together. “Youse finally 'cep Limpy changed.”

“Not for a Mackinac minute,” Service said, getting up. Allerdyce would never change. He couldn't. “When your memory improves on Provo, give me a call; otherwise, I'm passing the information on to CID, and you're on your own with the feds after that. Call by five today, or adios, motherfucker.”

Limpy's mouth hung open.