Shadow of the Wolf Tree (34 page)

54

Abbaye Peninsula, Baraga County

SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 2006

It was mid-morning, and Grady Service found Judge Taava Kallioninen sitting on her front deck with her feet up and a book open in her lap. She was asleep, mouth open, drool pooled in her left dimple.

“Judge?”

The woman inhaled and snorted loudly, looked up at him, and wiped drool off her lips. “This must be a pretty picture, eh? How'd the search go?”

“It got cut short. Pinky showed up to tell me I'd been in there long enough.”

“You had a day. That usually means a full twenty-four hours.”

“It wasn't specified,” he said.

The judge rolled her eyes. “Hardball chickenshit time, eh? You get anything?”

He told her about the shadow episode and being jumped and talking with the woman he was pretty sure was Penny Provo, including his theory that she was a government plant.

“Sounds like she wanted you out of there pretty bad.”

“She was pretty blunt.”

“Why not do what she asks?”

“I don't know that she is who she says she is, or even who
I think
she is. She assaulted me. That's grounds for a new warrant,” he said.

The judge looked up at his face. “Nice lip,” she said. “Detective, I'd like to help you, but if there's a buncha federal stuff going on, I'd hate for us to blunder in and kick over the apple cart. Let me make some calls and get back to you, okay?”

“Is this a kiss-off?”

“Nope. This is what I call a matter of jurisdictional prudence. Are you and your people done looking around the perimeter?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Okay, then. You're good to go on that, and I'll work on clearing a path to get you back inside; agreed?”

No choice.
“Yes, Your Honor.”

55

Allerdyce Compound, Southwest Marquette County

SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 2006

Limpy looked shocked to see him. “Youse shoulda calt ahead,” the old poacher said. “Woulda strapped on da feedbag.”

Service reached out, grabbed the old man's collar, and pulled him onto the porch. “You
lied
to me. That made me really, really happy. I was almost buying the reformed man routine, but you lied.”

“I din't lie about nuttin' to youse,” the old man complained, trying to twist away.

“Penny Provo.”

“What about her?'

“You never sold her any traps.”

“Like hell. Met her in Gwinn, did the in-out, sold her traps.”

“I talked to her. She called you ‘an old pervert.' Said she talked to you on the phone was all.”

“Ain't no way,” the old man said. “I sent dat girlie away wid big smile onner kisser.”

Service stared at the old man, felt sick to his stomach.
Jesus. Why is my gut telling me to believe Limpy Allerdyce? God!

He took out the army photo of Provo and held it out to Limpy, who looked at it.

“My s'pose to know dis girly?”

“That's Penny Provo.”

Allerdyce cackled. “Not da one I plugged.”

“You talked to her on the phone and then you met her?”

“Never talked on phone. She sent message.”

“How?”

“Envelope left on tree out by park-spot.”

“You still have it?”

“Nah, burned it.”

“Shit,” Service said, the word slipping out before he could contain it, and he felt Limpy's hand patting his back.

“S'okay, sonny. Ain't none of us perfect, even on our best day.”

The Provo in the photo was not the Provo Allerdyce had met, and not the woman who'd given traps to William. So who was she?

He thought back to his strange meeting with Penny Provo and how she had rabbited when he told her about the shadow, and the bottom of his stomach began to fall away and his thoughts began to turn dark.

“You doing anything today?” he asked the old poacher.

“Why?”

“Want to take a ride?”

“Where to?”

“Could use another set of eyes in the woods.”

“Let me get my pack,” the old man said. He did not gloat, did not make an issue out of being invited, and Service wondered what this behavior portended.

“Back tonight?” Allerdyce asked.

“Not sure,” Service said. “Why?”

Allerdyce came out of his cabin with a pack on this back and a bedroll curled over the top and lashed into place.

“No firearms,” Service said.

“Felon,” Limpy Allerdyce said. “Can't have 'em.”

I must be insane. Desperation as the mother of insanity. Have to bounce this off Tuesday, see what she thinks.

56

Perch River, Baraga County

SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 2006

Late in the morning, Service stashed his truck a mile from the river, on the edge of a swamp not that far from Frodo the Finn's place, and he and Allerdyce made their way through the dense cedar swamp to the river.

The wind was out of the southwest when they got to the Perch River. “There's a feeder stream that runs out of Art Lake over a dam. I want to wade up the stream, look around,” Service explained to the old man.
I can't believe I asked Limpy to come with me!

Allerdyce said nothing and followed along. As they reached the opening to the feeder just to the south of where they had intersected the river, the old man whispered, “We got a stinker somewhere close.”

“Stinker?”

“Somebody done crossed over the Sticks, like in them Geek mitts. Underground now, but it ain't planted too deep.”

Service shook his head, trying to clear his mind. There was no way to predict anything Allerdyce might say, or to clearly translate it. “You mean a dead body?”

“Jes said dat, din't I, sonny.”

“You can smell it?”

“You
can't
? Your old man woulda.”

Great—now I get comparisons to my old man.

“Let's find the dam.”

“You go ahead,” Limpy said.

An hour later Grady Service reached up to grasp the grate across the culvert in the Art Lake Dam and found that it was hinged, but with encouragement could be swung up. It was rusted pretty badly, but the hinges were there, with no sign of recent use. Something old. He was just about to take some rope and try to dislodge it when Allerdyce appeared out of the shadows. “Better come see, sonny.”

The body was in a black plastic bag, buried two feet down and covered with loose dirt and rotted logs. “Pewtered,” Allerdyce said. “Early on, not advanced. Dis jes been planted, I'm tinkin'.”

Service dug cautiously, got to the plastic, used his knife to split it, spilling out even more noxious fumes, which caused him to gag, but he kept looking, worked his way up to the head, uncovered the face: Penny Provo! There were sparkling specks on her face, and he used forceps from his pack to lift specimens of the material, which he put in a plastic evidence bag in his pack. The smell was beyond description, and he would have loaded his nose with Vicks if Allerdyce hadn't been with him.

• • •

The remainder of the night was a classic goat rodeo. Service called the L'Anse state police post for their local foreniscs technician, but Pinky Barbeaux intervened and insisted that the Baraga County medical examiner officiate on the scene. Then the U.P.'s senior Troop commander out of Negaunee called Barbeaux and they got into a shouting match, and all the while Limpy Allerdyce and Service babysat the rotting body, awaiting backup and technical support.

Service asked Barbeaux to ask Art Lake if the ME and EMS could come in through Art Lake property to make the body recovery easier, but Art Lake refused permission.

It was not until just before official sunrise that others arrived at the body site and immediately began to track over the place like a herd of clowns in a third-rate circus. Service finally lost his cool and ordered them all to “sit on their fucking asses and not move unless and until the ME told them to.”

“You'd think somebody'd at least have brung us coffee,” Allerdyce complained.

“You'd think,” Service said, agreeing with his companion.

“You know the stiff?”

“Penny Provo,” Service said.

“Ah,” Allerdyce said. “Yer pitcher don't do her no justice.”

“Death does?”

Allerdyce chuckled, breaking loose mucous and causing himself to cough violently until he hocked and launched a major loogie onto a beaver stump.

Within an hour of sunrise the humidity was rocketing upward.

“Gone cook us out here today,” Limpy said.

Service still couldn't understand how the old man had smelled the body from the river, but Allerdyce was a phenomenon in many ways, and not easy to explain in any context.

“Who you think pop her?” Allerdyce asked.

“No idea. Let's wait for forensics.”

“You smell the ice cream?”

Ice cream? Now what was he talking about?
Service opened his hands, inviting the old man to finish his thought. “You smelled ice cream? Was this before you found the body or afterwards?”

“When you dug 'er loose.”

The Baraga County ME was an elderly man who moved slowly and looked exhausted in the humid morning air. He begged a cigarette and Service gave him one. “Female, twenty-five to thirty-five, GSW to the back of the head, one round, small caliber; thirty-two maybe, but could be as small as a twenty-two caliber. Time of death looks like maybe twenty-four to thirty hours ago. Got to get her back to the lab to nail that down.”

“Signs of a struggle?” Service asked.

“Nope, back of the head. Doubt she knew it was coming.”

“Foo-foo juice?” Limpy Allerdyce interjected.

Service poked at the old man to make him shut up.

The doctor nodded and smiled. “Yah, faint traces of something sweet and familiar, not sure what. The old sniffer ain't what she used to be. We'll look at everything during the autopsy. Anything else interest you fellas?”

“She killed here, or elsewhere?” Service asked.

“Let the techs finish their work to be sure, but I'm thinking elsewhere, and buried here.”

Pinky Barbeaux approached Service almost timidly. “Sorry about the other morning.”

“Fuck off, Pinky.”

“Hey, no need to cop an attitude.”

“Had my way, I'd kick your ass right here.”

“I'm not talking to you until you cool down.”

“Don't bother talking to me at all, asshole.”

“You taking this
personally
?”

“I take
everything
about
my
job personally, Sheriff.”

“You maybe should give Judge Kallioninen a call this morning.”

Service turned away from the sheriff.

“Dat da one usta be one of youse guys in green, eh?” Allerdyce said.

“Don't remind me.”

“Dis what you brung me along for?”

He wasn't sure why he'd brought Allerdyce. Fate was as good an answer as he could come up with. “Get your stuff,” he told the old man. “We're gonna take another hike.”

Limpy grinned. “I like walking.”

They were almost to the southern limit of the Art Lake fence when the voice of Alyssa Mears broke their silence. “Stay clear of the fence, Detective. And keep away from our creek outflow.”

Allerdyce craned to see the woman, but the fence hid her. “You know dat one?”

“Yeah,” Service said.

“You got pitcher?”

“Of her? No. Why?”

“Voice sounds real f'miliar.”

No time to sort out the old poacher's fantasies and musings. “C'mon, we've still got a way to go,” Service said.

• • •

They found Rigel Tahti's body on the dirt floor of his grandfather's cabin, which was filled with flies.

Service peeked in, saw the body, went inside to be sure Tahti was dead, and that determination made, withdrew outside, where he gagged for air and used his 800 to report the death and ask for yet more assistance.

“You think they took a long time this morning,” Service told his companion, “watch how long this will take. We're about as far from anywhere as we can get.”

“Me,” Allerdyce said, “I'd just shoot up da old Deer Clip Trail. Cuts Forest Service road just below Baraga County line, in Iron County.”

“A mapped road?”

“No, jes old two-track now, but good hard ground, easy to get across if you got good spares. It don't get much traffic anymore. Called Deer Clip Trail in da ole days. Loggers usta use 'er.”

“Except for you.”

“Guess I been down 'er some. I like ole roads.”

Service called Barbeaux and gave him instructions, and Barbeaux's undersheriff, a man called Boveneck, called back moments later to confirm the directions, saying he was a lifelong resident of the area and he had “never heard of any goddamn Deer Clip Trail,” and when Service said it had been Limpy Allerdyce who'd provided the instructions, the undersheriff had said, “Oh,” and hung up.

Allerdyce was off in the bush and came back with a handful of roots and put them in water and made a fire and boiled the roots. “Sassafras,” the old man said when the tea was done. “Cleans your blood and makes your manpart stand at attention—not dat Limpy needs dat kinda help, eh.”

Service couldn't help laughing. He was too tired for anything else, and when Tuesday Friday called, he was still laughing.

“We're hearing about all kinds of bodies up where you are. One of them isn't yours, is it?” she asked.

“Limpy Allerdyce just gave me sassafras tea,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

He started laughing uncontrollably again.

Limpy took the cell phone away from him and said, “Da dickteckerative's kinda bushed. He'll call youse back,” and closed the phone.

Service looked at the old man. “She isn't going to like that.”

Allerdyce shrugged and poured more tea for himself.