Killing a Cold One (25 page)

41

Saturday, December 20

MARQUETTE

Friday met Service at the trauma center. Willie Celt met Denninger at the Baraga airport, and the two of them headed back into Houghton County to return to the Cut from the north rim. Weather was quiet, no fresh snow falling.
Let it hold,
Service thought.

“Campau?” he asked.

Friday grimaced. “ICU—critical but stable, still unconscious.”

“Touch and go?” he asked.

“The doc says way short of fifty-fifty, unless she starts showing some improvement soon. I went to an administrator for Lecair's school system, an HR man named Jalinga. He confirmed she had been an employee, but he won't surrender records without a court order. The usual fimble-famble legal mumbo jumbo. He's afraid if we get her records, they'll soon have a suit for privacy violation flying in their direction. Hell, I
begged
for a peek, but he wouldn't buy it. Said, ‘The way I see it, we are both obligated to uphold the law.' He said, ‘You bring a subpoena, you'll get everything we have. Until then, my hands are tied.' I told him we just want to know where Lecair's kids were born.”

“Now what?”

“Get the subpoena. How the hell did Campau end up in south Houghton County? I don't get how or why, or why she's still alive for that matter.”

“We think she was hauled in and dumped. Denninger found a stashed four-wheeler.”

“What the hell is happening up here?” she asked.

Grady Service was too tired to think. “Go home, Tuesday, and sleep. You look wasted.”

“Ditto,” she said wearily. “The hospital will call when she comes back to us.”

Service liked her optimism, didn't necessarily share it; he had learned early in life to not confuse hope with optimism. “Right.”

 

•••

 

Allerdyce rode out to Slippery Creek with him. “Where's Krelle?” Service asked.

“Big boy took her out his place.”

Pilkington.
“She been back out to Ketchkan?”

“Dunno. She wun't too happy when we pull out, tell youse dat.”

“You want to go back up there?”

“Sonny, I t'ink dem wolfies et on moose, but di'n't kill 'em.”

Service looked at the old poacher. “Spit it out.”

“Found 'nother moose. Been shot, hey.”

“Hunter tracks?”

“Nope, an' wolfies was just startin' on dat carcass.”

“Were the other moose shot?”
Wouldn't we have seen evidence of shooting? Maybe not. They'd been so shocked by the wolf tracks.

“I t'ink moose shot, but I go look, be sure.”

“Moose shot and left, nothing taken by the shooter?”

The old man's head tilted. “Mebbe not shot for pipple grub.”

Service rolled this around in his mind. “Shot for the wolves, to feed them—is that what you're thinking?”

Allerdyce opened his hands. “Just say what I seen.”

Someone shooting moose to feed wolves? Who? Why?

“Any people signs?”

“I look long enough, I find,” Allerdyce said confidently.

“Got any notions about who or why?”

Limpy Allerdyce wagged a forefinger. “Not yet, sonny.”

42

Monday, December 22

SLIPPERY CREEK CAMP

Midmorning, a Michigan State Bell 430 helicopter powered its way into the open area in front of his house. Governor Lorelei Timms stepped gingerly from the flop-down steps and plowed though the snow toward the cabin where Allerdyce held the door open for her.

Timms peeled off black leather gloves and a forest-green toque, looked at Service, Allerdyce, Treebone, and Noonan, and asked, “Can we have the room alone for a few?”

Service said, “This is
your
team, Lori, all four of us.”

Timms glared, but sat. “All right. What's the investigation's status?”

“Well, there's no more talk about a dogman,” Service said. “That's what you wanted. That rumor's dead.”

“Really?” The governor said. “What about the Michigan Tech professor on the radio today saying a thing called a windigo is on a killing spree up here. A fricking
cannibal,
for God's sake!”

Service closed his eyes.
Lupo.
“There's no such thing as a windigo, Governor.”

“You said the same thing about a dogman.”

“I'm right on both counts.”

“You think this is about being right?” Governor Timms asked angrily. “Have you talked to the FBI, their behavioral analysis unit?”

“No, and I haven't called Ghostbusters, either.”

Allerdyce reached for a cup of coffee. “Who
is
that?” Timms asked.

“Allerdyce.”

“The one who
shot
you?”

Service said, “He's pulling his weight as a consultant. What do you want, Governor?”

“Consultant, are you out of your mind?”

“The BAU interviews convicted serial killers and relies on their information to catch others like them,” Service growled at her. “This isn't about purity; it's about getting something done.”

“People are still dying, citizens of our state, and I want it stopped. I
order
it stopped.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Service said.

Lorelei Timms glared at the small, gaunt figure of the old poacher and then at Service, who opened his mouth and closed it.

“I'm deeply disappointed in you, Grady.”

Service said, “That sword's got two edges.”

The governor stormed out of the house, and the chopper departed in a cloud of snow.

“I might could have been a bit more judicious in my word choices,” Service told the group.

“You sure couldn't have done much worse, man,” Treebone said.

Friday called. “You got your TV on? Turn to Channel 6 WLUC-TV Marquette for the noon news.”

“The governor just left here. She's pissed.”

“Watch TV,” Friday said.

They watched a clip of Lupo's press conference, and after it was done, Service called Friday back. “You want us to go grab Lupo, find out what he's up to?”

“Was the governor really pissed?”

“ ‘Disappointed,' ” he said. “ ‘Deeply so.' ”

“Different emotions,” Friday said.

“They sound a lot alike to me,” Service said.

“You're such a guy, Grady.”

“That your opinion?”

“Raw fact,” she said. “Sadly.”

 

•••

 

Service went outside and placed a call to Special Agent Busby Adair, the FBI's latest Upper Peninsula resident agent. The U.P. was neither a plum assignment nor one of Dante's numbered rings of Hell but fell somewhere between those extremes. He and Adair had become friends after he'd helped the agent find a hunting camp to buy in south Marquette County. Adair had pledged to run interference with the Bureau's bureaucracy anytime Service needed it.
Time to find out if he'd meant it.

Adair answered his telephone and Service said, “Help.”

The agent didn't hesitate. “Say what, pal.”

“Private talk with someone I can trust from your BAU outfit.”

“Easy. Her name is Senior Special Agent JoJo Pincock, a real rock. When?”

“Sooner beats better.”

“Back atcha,” Adair said.

 

•••

 

At dinnertime Lupo was on television in a longer segment than the one at noon. He looked more striking on TV than he did in real life, which seemed pretty remarkable.

Lupo said, “I was consulted sometime back by local police authorities.” His delivery was confident, smooth, authoritative. The camera loved him.

“You're not normally a police consultant, right, Professor?” the reporter asked.

“That's true, but I deal with the dead,” he said. “My subject is just a little older than what police normally deal with.” He was smiling when he made the statement.

What's his angle?
Service wondered.

“Why did they call you?” the reporter asked.

Had he scripted the reporter—controlled and set up the whole thing?

“Police in Marquette and Baraga Counties have been finding badly mutilated bodies, and the same kind of killings sometimes occur in rare frequencies among indigenous aboriginal populations.”

“You mean Native Americans?” the reporter asked.

“Exactly,” Lupo said.

“I don't think our viewers will understand the link. And I'm not sure I do, either.”

Unexpected admission of twitdom,
Service thought. Candor could be refreshing even from a fool.

“Think of it as an extreme form of psychosocial disease,” Lupo explained. “If you will, a form of environmentally induced psychosis. For any number of reasons and complex factors, an individual may come to think they're possessed by evil sprits, which in turn convinces them they need to consume human flesh.”

The reporter smiled. “Wouldn't that call for an exorcist—you know, like a medicine man?”

“Possession leads the stricken person to kill. He mutilates and often consumes his victims. Usually this begins with close relatives before he expands into his local community.”

“Consumes . . . you mean, he
eats
the people?” Her face was rubbery and pliable.

Lupo nodded solemnly.

“There's a cannibal here. The police
told you that?
Why doesn't the public know?”

“You'll have to ask the authorities,” Lupo said, “but I felt it my duty to come forward and share what I know.” Lupo clearly loved the drama of his own voice.

“You're telling us two different county sheriffs and the State Police think a cannibal is on the loose around here?”

“I believe so, but as I just said, you'll have to ask the authorities to explain their thinking. I wouldn't presume to speak for them.”

“But you just did, asshole,” Noonan yelled at the TV.

Lupo added, “Considerable physical evidence supports my observation, but I would caution that there are other possibilities; so far, the authorities seem reluctant to confront any of the realities their own evidence suggests.”

“You've seen such evidence?” the reporter asked breathlessly.

“I've seen some bodies.”

“Can you describe them?”

“No. Talk to the State Police.”

“Why haven't we heard anything about this?” the reporter asked the camera with an angry mask.

Lupo sighed. “I really don't know.”

The wide-eyed reporter tasted blood. “There you have it, from one of the country's foremost experts. A cannibal is killing and eating Upper Peninsula Native Americans, and the police are ignoring it. This is Bonnie Balat with Professor Grant Lupo.”

“If it bleeds, it leads,” Service said disgustedly.
Foremost expert on what? The shit's in the fan now.

Service called Friday at home. “We just saw the whole thing. Now what?”

“Office tomorrow,” she said, and hung up.

43

Tuesday, December 23

NEGAUNEE, MARQUETTE COUNTY

Some days were long and some just hard; this one looked like it would be a rasher of both—and then some. Reports and call-backs covered Friday's desk, and she sat quietly, obviously still trying to do a mind-sort on everything. In Service's world he could always duck into the woods to clear his mind. She couldn't.

One note said five shots had been fired before sunrise. A man who lived near the county road commission garage had seen an individual climb over the fence and had fired at him. But it was only the day-shift supervisor who had forgotten his keys and didn't want his wife to drive all the way out from Gwinn with the spare. No injuries. Thank God for buck fever. It made people miss.

A farmer from McFarland had seen a car with Wisconsin plates creep slowly down a private road. He'd confronted the driver, a large man who took umbrage, and a fight ensued, both men now hospitalized. Turned out the Wisconsin man was a mute, and lost.

By 11 a.m., a deputy called in to report that as of this morning, ammo sales at Gander Mountain were up 40 percent against all of last month. He'd checked three other shops and found similar situations. People were stocking up for war. Friday looked over at Service. “I don't like the implications. Deer season's pretty much done. Sales should be down, or flat.”

A pulpie near Michigamme claimed to have found a blood-stained machete in the woods and called Channel 6. The station interrupted scheduled programming, and the same reporter who did the Lupo interview gave a breathless account of the bloody weapon, speculating that it could be essential to the investigation into the recent murders. The logger said he had additionally contacted a nationally syndicated TV crime program called
Blood Trails,
a show that featured unsolved murders, the bloodier the better. The logger claimed he would soon be telling his story nationally for pay.

To the highest bidder, no doubt,
Service thought.

Several calls came from other reporters after the news report, and more than fifty “concerned” citizens called to demand to be told what was going on; Tuesday dealt with each person patiently, professionally, courteously, and succinctly, informing every caller there were no cases, cleared or uncleared, involving a machete, known, suspected, or otherwise.

Naturally the Channel Six reporter eventually called, asking “Isn't it your duty to examine the machete?” Friday stuck to her statement no matter what question got asked or how the questioner tried to come at her. The media wanted a voice and a face; they rarely cared what the voice actually said, as long as it filled time and space. The public was equally undiscerning.

“Could've been a machete,” Service reminded her at one point.

“
I know that, goddammit!
” she snapped at him. “But until Tork tells me so, it isn't. Capisce? I already had someone visit that asshole logger to give us the weapon, but he refuses to surrender it until we get a warrant to force the issue, or until he's done using it on TV and with reporters.”

He nodded like a chastised schoolboy.

A pair of cross-country skiers reported seeing someone acting suspiciously on the Ice Train Plains, the area where Lamb Jones's body had been found. Friday took this call herself. The suspicious character turned out to be a sickly moose calf stumbling around a jack-pine plantation. Nobody asked how a moose might be mistaken for a human. Once the media dove into a story, the wheels of reality tended to come off fast. People saw what they wanted to see, or were afraid of; same thing. And some unscrupulous or clueless wannabe reporters and editors alike tended to opt for the spectacular over accuracy.

Celia Daugherty called to report Terry got to drinking and had beaten hell out of her, but she didn't want to press charges. Friday sent Trooper Sal Nechamkus to find Daugherty and get him under control, and not long after that Daugherty was in jail.
Life's just too much for some people.

Linsenman found a deputy named Fordell in the locker room of the county cop house using a Swiss Army knife to score the top of .40 caliber Smith & Wesson rounds, creating dumdums, which on impact would cause the lead to fly apart in several directions and create massive wounds. Such ammunition was against international law. The man was suspended without pay pending investigation and sure to get some unpaid time off. He was also told he would catch all the shit jobs when and if he came back on duty. Naturally the Fraternal Order of Police came running to their brother officer's aid, but not too strongly; mostly they went through the motions to keep members appeased.

Grady Service just shook his head. Some cops acted like the whole world was out to get them, when their own lack of judgment or stupidity was almost always what brought on trouble. He had no sympathy for Deputy Fordell.

The final straw came when Billye Fyke came in to report to Friday that all the secretaries and clerks in the office had uncased, loaded shotguns in their personal vehicles.

Service went out and took the weapons and delivered a tongue-lashing in the process. He decided enough was enough. “We're going back to camp,” he told Friday.

Noonan had been with him the whole time, never said a word as the phones rang and rang. It was barely noon when they left, silent and disgusted with some of the stupid ways the public behaved.