Strike Dog (25 page)

“She's gone,” Allerdyce said, his eyes gleaming.

“Gone?” Service asked.

“Moved on; won't never be back.”

“You saw her?”

Allerdyce said, “Tell me dis, sonny. How a woman who can fly an airplane crack up a pickup down below Palmer on dry road, eh?”

“The state ruled it an accident.”

Allerdyce shook his head.

Service left Limpy and turned back to Pillars. “Tell him the things I pointed out.”

Service was certain the poacher would always be out for himself. You could paint a skunk red and call it a fox, but it was still a skunk under the paint job, and he did not like Limpy's tone when he said Honeypat was never coming back, or his question abut Nantz's death.

30

NEGAUNEE, MICHIGAN
JUNE 9, 2004

Back at his car, Service turned his attention to his own concerns. He read the accident report. Then he drove to the regional state police post in Negaunee and talked to a sergeant named Chastain. He had known Chastain casually for many years, but had never worked with the man, who had the reputation of a laid-back straight shooter. “Hey, Chas,” Service greeted him after he showed his credentials and was admitted to the operations area.

“Geez, Grady, everybody feels really bad.”

“Thanks.” Service placed the accident report on the sergeant's desk. “The Troop who handled this, his name is Villemure?”

“Yeah, Fritz. He grew up in Herman.”

“He on road patrol today?”

Chastain stood up and looked down into another cubicle. “Hey, Tonia, is Villemure on?”

A female voice said, “Yeah; we show him out by Diorite.”

Chastain looked down at Service. “You heard?”

“I'd like to talk to him. Can you ask him to meet me at the Circle in Humboldt?”

“What's your call sign?”

“Twenty Five Fourteen. Say, thirty minutes, if that works for him.”

“Tonia, ask Villemure to meet DNR Twenty Five Fourteen at the Circle in Humboldt in thirty minutes.”

The Circle was a local stop-and-rob that sold live bait, snacks, deli sandwiches, ammunition, and camping gear. The state police cruiser was already parked in the lot when Service pulled up and went inside.

“Villemure?”

“Twenty Five Fourteen?”

“Grady Service.” The two men shook hands. Service bought two coffees from the owner's twenty-something daughter.

“Service,” Villemure said. “Geez, that wreck was terrible. I'm sorry.”

“Thanks. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Is there a problem?”

No defensiveness. The kid was straight and all-business, and Service liked him immediately. “Nope; curiosity, mostly. You were first on the scene.”

“Yeah. A passerby called the station and Dispatch sent me. I was ten minutes away.”

“A passerby; did he stop at the wreck?”

“No. All he said was that a vehicle might be in the ditch.”

“It was a man?”

“Yeah.”

“Did Dispatch get a tape?”

“I think they tape everything, but I don't know how long they keep the stuff. You'd have to ask. What's up?”

“What was your first impression when you pulled up?”

“It looked bad, and I took my handheld and called for help as I went down the embankment to the truck—is that what you mean?”

“I'm not sure. At some point did you just stand and take in the scene and try to picture what happened in your mind?”

“Yeah, later, after the EMS come.”

“And?”

“I don't know.”

“This isn't a test, Officer.”

“Call me Fritz. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I looked, and I thought, How the heck did she lose control there? The road was dry and it's banked and it's been resurfaced and it's smooth. I mean, it's not a place generally where people might lose control.”

“Did you take that impression and go with it?”

The young Troop looked perplexed. “No witnesses, no survivors; where could I take it?”

“Did you ask about the call-in?”

“Yeah—anonymous, no name.”

“Who took the call?”

“Tonia Tonte. She's on Dispatch right now, the one who called me to meet you.”

“Thanks, Fritz.”

“Is there a problem?”

Most young Troops worried about mistakes and the repercussions of ­follow-ups.

“No, no problem. Thanks for indulging me.”

 

Service looked over the counter at Tonia Tonte. She had ebony hair with streaks of gray, wore little makeup and small dangling earrings that sparkled in the artificial lighting of the control center. “I'm Service,” he said. “About a month back you dispatched Officer Villemure to a wreck down by Palmer. You got a call from a passerby.”

“I'm on break in ten minutes,” she said. “It's kind of crazy right now. Meet in the break room?”

He agreed, and passed the time by talking to a couple of Troops he knew in the back room, one of them a female undercover from the integrated county drug team.

Tonia Tonte came into the room and poured a cup of coffee from the urn. “You smoke?” she asked. “I can't seem to quit, and by the time breaks roll around, I'm climbing the walls.”

They stepped outside. She opened her small purse and took out a pack of Salems. He lit her cigarette for her.

“That night,” she began, “I never said the caller was a passerby, and he never said it, but you know how things get started.”

“You have caller ID?”

“Right; the ID showed Colorado, which means it was probably a prepaid telephone card.”

“It was a man?”

“Yeah, definitely a guy.”

“Anything special about the voice?”

“Young; you know, the dude type. He said, ‘Hey dude. I think there's a red pickup truck in the ditch.'”

“He said dude and red pickup?”

“Yes. Most people don't notice details like that.”

“Do you still have the tape?”

“No. Case closed, tape gets erased. But I kept a transcript. I always keep transcripts of anonymous call-ins—just in case.”

“How long have you been on the job?”

“Six years. My husband died of leukemia seven years ago, and I had to go back to work. I moved here from the Soo to live with my sister and I got this job. Lucky for me. You want a copy of the transcript?”

“Is it more extensive than what you told me?”

“No. It was short and to the point.” She looked at him. “Service? It was your girlfriend and son in the truck that night, right?”

He nodded.

“That's rough,” she said. “I've been there.”

31

MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN
JULY 13, 2004

There had been an off-and-on rain all morning under a fuliginous sky. “Goya on acid,” a college girl standing near Grady Service said as she looked up. She had long hair, purple and electric green, and wore a white T-shirt with a solid black triangle on it, and the words
the only bush i trust is my own
.

Grady Service was amused and tried not to smile. He was in uniform outside the Yooperdome in Marquette, waiting for President Bush to arrive; around him were dozens of demonstrators, each with a personal ax to grind. Three beer-guts in frayed camo hats wore new red T-shirts that pronounced
laborers for kerry
. A man wore a blue T-shirt that read
illinois is a war zone
. What the hell? Two men in camos and old jungle boots carried identical signs:
hot damn vietnam—deja vu
. Another of them carried a huge sign that said
dubya ducked: others got fucked
.

As he observed, he mulled over Nantz's accident. The cop Villemure couldn't understand how it had happened. The dispatcher, Tonia Tonte, had had an anonymous caller, a male. Did that rule out Honeypat? Was he confusing two things? Not an accident. That was all he knew for sure.
Let the captain do his job and you do yours,
he told himself.
Whatever the fuck it is
. Why am I here at this circus?

The parade of signs was endless:
keep da u.p. wild, eh!
was followed by a bearded man carrying one that read
native americans' rights are way to the left
. Another wore a T-shirt that proclaimed
u.p. dubya digit unemployment
. A dumpy woman in earth shoes and an ankle-length dress carried a sign:
jump your bones for food (or dope)
. Service recognized her as an undercover from Escanaba.

Decades of causes, hurts, and policy non sequiturs were bubbling out, but for the most part, the demonstrators were quiet and nearly lethargic in humidity dense enough to slice like cudighi. A skinny woman in short-shorts wore a shirt that said
my body is not public property
. Service knew her, and if her body wasn't exactly public, it was frequently and freely shared at closing times in several local watering holes.

A college girl in a sweatshirt (representing Wildcat Women for Kerry) was telling a group of friends how she had dutifully waited in line three hours for a ticket to get inside the Yooperdome, only to be refused because she was a registered Democrat. “They're, like,
totally
fascist?” the girl said. “Too bad some of the young dudes are so hot, eh?”

“You can get a tax deduction for fucking Republicans,” a girl in her entourage said. “But you can't dance with them, eh.”

“Shuuut up . . .” the first girl said, giggling.

Historically the U.P. had voted Democrat and pro union, and though this was changing, it still tended toward its historical inclinations, and the Bush people were doing their best to pack the hall with vetted true believers. With Democrat Lori Timms as the state's new governor, Michigan was being viewed as a swing state, and Bush's minders were determined not to cede to the Democrats a single electoral vote. Thus, Republican legions had descended upon Marquette and a lot of locals, while honored by the leader of the land being there, were equally pissed off at the costs being imposed by the presidential visit.

It was a fine circus, and Service was there with several other officers from various agencies, all in uniform with no particular role to play other than to stand around and look official. Captain Grant had been in several meetings with the Secret Service, but in the end, DNR law enforcement personnel were deployed primarily along the twenty-mile motorcade route from Sawyer to Marquette. Service told himself he would have been happy standing out in the boonies watching the presidential vehicles fly by at seventy-five miles per hour, but the captain had asked him to join him in Marquette, so here he was among the other outsiders. He had been in Vietnam during the antiwar demonstrations in the U.S., and he figured this was about as close to such displays as he would ever get. More than a few of the protesters were of his generation, graying peace-bangers desperately fishing for another cause.

The people headed into the Yooperdome were well dressed, slicked down, and orderly, carrying red, white, and blue balloons, and wearing patriotic party hats. There were even a few signs:
jugulate a terrorist for jesus
and
ammo special for bin laden: dubya-ought buck!
The town's year-round population was about 20,000, but the crowd at the dome was expected to be more than half of that, the vast majority from places other than Marquette, buses coming in from all over the U.P., Wisconsin, and from below the bridge to pack the house with conservative pedigrees and cheering voices for George Bush.

The captain caught Service's attention and motioned for him to follow him.

They went to a parking lot away from the protesters. “‘Buckshot' is going to arrive here,” the captain said as a Secret Service agent in a black suit approached them. The agent wasn't tall, but he was built like an iron-pumper, and wore dark shades despite the total absence of sun.

The captain shook hands with the man. “This is Detective Service.”

The agent gave him the once-over and said, “Follow me, please.”

Grady Service looked at his captain's impassive face.
Now what the hell was this?
He followed the agent to a loading dock and stopped when the man put out his arm like a railway crossing. “We'll wait here.”

“For what?”

No explanation was offered.

Soon he heard sirens and saw a shiny black Cadillac limo come racing into the lot toward the dock. It was followed by several black SUVs, which stopped and unloaded Secret Service agents before anyone opened the limo doors.

The president got out and lifted his chin to stretch his neck.

Several people were talking to him and he was nodding, but appeared not to be paying a whole lot of attention to any of the voices. After a few moments, the president of the United States started walking toward the loading dock entrance. He was wearing a black suit that looked like it had cost a fortune, shiny black oxfords, a blue button-down shirt, and a pale blue tie that gave off a sort of lavender sheen in the low light.

As the president neared, the Secret Service agent stepped out and George Bush stopped, looked at Service, and as if prompted, reached out his hand. “This is Michigan Department of Natural Resources Detective Service,” the Secret Service agent announced.

The president's hair was mussed some and it was much grayer than Service had expected. He was tall, maybe six feet.

“Gordy, I been hearin' good things about you,” the president said with a one-sided smile that looked like a smirk.

Service blinked.
What the hell?
Before he knew it, he was saying, “It's Grady, Mr. President, not Gordy.”

Flashlights were popping and Bush laughed. “Heh-heh, I meet a lot of folks, and names sort of run off on me like untamed colts, big guy. From what I hear, you got the big
cojones,
son. Your country needs men a' your caliber, so keep up the good work, and maybe there'll be a role for you in Homeland Security. Ya gotta unnerstand, that's important work, big fella.”

Service looked into the president's eyes, but they were dancing around, searching for other visual stimulation. “Sir, I don't think our shaking hands out here in public is such a good idea.”

Bush looked confused and giggled again. “You ain't one-a them Dem'crats, are ya, big guy?”

“Sir, have you been briefed that somebody is gunning for me, and that at this moment you could be in extreme danger?” Service couldn't help himself.

George Bush's hand dropped and he said, “Uh, heh-heh, uh . . .” and looked around with the wide eyes of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler. “Uh, well, ah gotta git on inside and dew mah speech, son. Kin I count on yore vote come November?” And then he was gone inside with Service's escort and an entourage of stern-faced men.

Minutes later Service rejoined the captain. “Sir,
what
is going on?”

“Don't know for sure,” Captain Ware Grant said with a grin. “The request came directly from the director of the FBI.”

Service was at a loss for words.

“What was the point?”

“He likes being photographed with law enforcement and first-responder types. His handlers think it makes him look like a man of the people.”

“Seeing him shaking hands with a game warden won't win him a lot of votes up here,” Service said.

“Maybe that's why the chief agreed to the FBI's request,” the captain said, breaking a rare smile.

Service watched a woman walk by with a sign:
how do you confuse a texas politician? put three shovels against a wall and ask him to take his pick
.

He went downtown to Snowbound Books after the rally, looking for something to read. He saw a woman with a sweatshirt that said
mother earth prays for you
. He was about to turn back to a bookshelf when he recognized the woman in the sweatshirt as one of Tatie Monica's agents.

“Bobbi?” he said, stepping toward her.

The woman tried to twist away, but he caught her sleeve. “Tell Special Agent Monica I don't need a bunch of amateur babysitters.” The woman fled the store.

He was pissed beyond words, threw up his hands, and walked out of the store.

Service found the captain in his office at the regional office. “There's Feeb surveillance all over me,” he griped.

The captain looked at him, saying only, “A good game warden knows how to throw people off his trail.”