Killing a Cold One (29 page)

“Ever do a case with Indians?” Service asked.

“Not yet.”

“Any race tendencies in this new class of killers?” Noonan asked.

She nodded. “White; all odds say whites. You want cites?”

“Your word's good,” Noonan said.

“Meaning a white man killing Indians for a perceived higher purpose,” Service asked. “Higher for whom?”

“
Men,
” she said, shaking her head. “I need a short nap and breakfast, and I'll take charge of food if you guys don't mind.”

None of them did.

Service left the hotel for a cigarette. It was snowing. Cold. The FBI agent had turned out to be a lot different than his initial impression. As the night wore on, he had felt her loosen up. He found a pay phone and called Friday, who was with Anne Campau.

“How's she doing?”

“Better. She's starting to hurt. You want to talk to her when you can get here?”

“Badly.”

“Where are you?”

“Green Bay,” he said.

She laughed. “Shacked up with some voluptuous bimbo?”

“Foursome,” he said.

“That was meant as a joke.”

“We'll be back this afternoon, tonight latest,” he told her.

“File a report?”

Meaning visit her. “Your place?”

“Yes, that's a reasonable plan.”

“I'll have a smile on my face,” he said.

“I will look forward to that.”

Weird call, oddly exciting, yet less than satisfying.
Why didn't you tell her about the FBI?

50

Tuesday, December 30

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN

Back upstairs, early morning, JoJo Pincock with wet hair, food on a counter, all of them grabbing at plates of French toast and bacon slices. They ate near the counter.

“Cat got your tongue?” she asked Service.

“Vampires,” he said, feeling like a fool. Champ's Funeral Home break-in was bugging him.

The agent smiled. “Don't be so quick to laugh or dismiss. Who's to say what's real? Some dickhead thinks he's a vampire and drinks blood. Who are we to say he isn't?”

“Psychotic.”

“To be sure, but so what? The behavior's real as hell. Mythic physiology doesn't fit actual physiology? So it goes. Famous case: Guy thought he was being poisoned, his blood being turned into powder. He began killing pets to replace the imagined blood loss. Later he raised rabbits and injected their blood. But things got out of hand as he began going up the evolutionary food chain, snatching people. First he'd just draw blood and inject it later, but eventually he tapped into arteries and drank straight until the vicks died. Good for his health, not so much for theirs. Didn't take a wooden stake or a silver bullet to kill him. This guy was in the Tampa area. Some young cop caught him snatching a sixteen-year-old girl and wasted him with double-ought buckshot from a Remington eleven hundred. Was the guy a vampire or not? I've got no idea. Cuckoo? Bet your ass.”

“Not a spree,” Noonan said.

She tilted her head. “In some ways. He didn't really
stalk
his victims, just took what came along.”

“Serial?”

She shook her head. “Outlier case, no category yet. I never really thought about them before so-called blood-drinker cases. You guys know about eusociality and the science debates over the role of altruism in evolution?”

They all shook their heads.

“Think about vampire bats. Voracious appetites, and if they don't eat enough, they die fast. But successful feeders have blood on their wings and let unsuccessful bats feed off that surplus to keep their overall numbers high. Technically this isn't precisely eusociality, but the point is that individuals cooperate to keep the group alive. Is that altruism, or selfishness? Science can't answer that question yet.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I'm not sure saving one's life at the expense of others qualifies as a higher purpose, but you may have something. I'm going to have to think about this.”

They broke up after noon. Service walked her to her rental. She told him, “Serials and sprees are almost all under thirty-five. Men start to lose testosterone fast after that. Sex crimes: Are they about sex or violence and domination? No definitive answer. But our sequence types tend to be over forty-five, and there's definitely a lot less testosterone fueling the engine by then, serious depletion well under way. A sixty-year-old man and a nine-year-old boy have relatively equal levels of testosterone. This is an important fact. Mr. Sequence, I believe, uses the appearance of sex for his higher purpose. He's older, calmer, focused differently than most younger men.”

“Our take-home is white, pillar of the community?” Service said.

She nodded and handed him a business card. “Bottom number is secure. Call and let me know your progress, or if you need support. Between us,” the agent said, “books, movies, and TV shows aside, what we do in our outfit is as much necromancy as science. Look at the vicks, the methods, locations, timing, and how all of it relates. Or does it? We look for patterns. Figure fifteen thousand murders a year in the US since 2001. Estimates are twenty serials in that fifteen thousand, accounting for maybe two hundred kills a year. Hard to pinpoint two hundred out of fifteen thousand.

“Last year we had about a million law enforcement personnel, and twenty percent fewer this year. Numbers have dropped since 9/11, but Homeland Security and others have taken priority over all other law enforcement priorities. Since three thousand people died that day, we've had about a hundred and twenty thousand murders, but where does the focus go? On the three thousand. We're in a mess. We've got a lot of dedicated, effective officers, but there's no cavalry and no hierarchy of priorities.”

She looked around and lowered her voice. “Last February there was a survey that showed fewer than half the students in this country could tell you when the Civil War was fought, and one in four thinks Columbus came here after 1750. Twenty years from now Americans won't know about Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and we'll still have a massive, ineffective, resource-eating security structure in place. Once we ramp up these things, they endure outside their original purpose.”

Pincock got into her vehicle and put down the driver's window. “Want some advice?”

Grady Service nodded.

“Shoot if the chance presents. It makes the whole thing a lot easier to clean up.”

“Bureau policy?”

“JoJo Pincock's Rule of the Road, learned the hard way.”

Noonan came up to stand beside Service. “Government: She rents a car to drive a few miles from the airport?”

 

•••

 

Allerdyce called as they were passing north through Crystal Falls.

“Sonny, I been up Ketchkan; t'ink youse and dose boys be good meet me dere, eh.”

“Ketchkan?”

“Start dere.”

“For where?”

“Slate River country.”

“We can drive closer,” Service said.

“Not to see what I got,” Allerdyce said, and hung up, cackling.

51

Tuesday, December 30

HURON MOUNTAINS, BARAGA COUNTY

It was well after dark, and Allerdyce was waiting for them on the Huron River Road.

“Where's your truck?” Service asked.

“Stashed,” the old man said. “Don't like no pipples see where I go.”

Shared values.
“Where we heading?”

“Up cross't Arvon Mountain, past old Black Bear Camp up top Slate River.”

Service thought about the destination. “We could drive it a lot easier and faster.”

“Bin t'ru dat. Wun't see nuttin' if go youse's way.”

“How far?”

The old man made a chattery sound. “Unh, 'speck six mile, t'ink. Cut nor-wess up Arvon, down wess at Curwood, nor-wess over t'ord Slate.”

This would be a tough slog in the snow. Service knew he should have rested them all for a full day. Everyone was dragging—all except Allerdyce, who had boundless feral energy. “Tent still up?”

“Stashed 'er,” Limpy said.

“How'd Krelle act when you pulled her out of the field?”

“Weren't none too happy, eh. I told her I bring 'er back.”

“She still with Pilkington?”

“She gone back Whoreygon. New Year's wit' her gran'kittles.”

New Year's?
Service looked at his watch. He'd not even thought of it.

Allerdyce walked beside him. “Followed wolfies all t'ru dis turf.”

“Grays or the others?”

“See bot'.”

“With Krelle?”

“Wit' and wit'out.”

“More than the three on the camera?”

“Still jus' t'ree, but Donte say dere was five one time.”

“Donte DeJean?”

“Dat little rascal up 'ere shootin' moose, feed dem big wolfies.”

Service stopped walking.
Did I hear that right?
“He told you that?”

“Yep, he say dese new wolfies don't like hunt. Too slow. Dey follow grays, chase 'em off dere kills. Grays fast, get away easy, don't want fight new guys. Too strong, too tough close up.”

“Does Krelle know this?”

“Nope.”

“You're saying the DeJean kid is killing moose to feed the new wolves.”

“I tole 'im, no more moose, shoot jus' deers.”

“Are you crazy? You
told
the kid to violate?”

“Kid already vi-late. I jus' tell 'im what. Dere nuff deers 'ere for wolfies.”

Jesus.
“You expect me to ignore this?”

“Ast self, want new wolfies or no? Youse choose. Limpy don't give no nevermind dey 'ere, not 'ere.”

“These are not gray wolves?”

Allerdyce shook his head. “ 'Speck somepin' new, so I got close, got good look.”

“Photos?”

“Onny what youse seen. Didn't want do more 'til talk youse.”

“Except to tell Donte to shoot deer.”

“Apples and cat food. Ain't same t'ings.”

Allerdyce and discretion seemed an alien partnership. “The wolves are all around up here?”

“Dey run little offal terr-tree from old Arvon quarry downriver, back up where we camp. Dere turf cross two timberwolf packs eeder end.”

“When Donte shoots a moose or deer, don't the grays grab for the carcasses?”

“Nope. Once dose new galoots grab onta somepin', dey don't give 'er up.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind Service had been wrestling with the faint improbability of all the mutilated people being part of a scheme to cover up the presence of the new wolves. “We'll deal with this later,” Service told the poacher. “What's on the slate you want us to see?”

“Youse need payshits, sonny,” Allerdyce said, chuckling happily.

“You fucking people are ate-up, bag-drag, shit-pounding around out here in this damn snow shit,” Noonan carped loudly.

Treebone hiked in silence, as he always did, be it in a jungle or a blizzard.

“We gonna make camp?” Service asked Allerdyce as they trudged along. Dark was closing in fast, days this time of year short.

“No talk, walk slow, listen,” the old poacher commanded.

They took their lead from the old man, who slowly worked his way across the slate beds beside the river. Service heard voices below them and closed his eyes, trying to identify them.

Service wished Denninger were with them. This was her turf. He could see the glimmer of small fires below them and through the trees, and he could smell meat cooking. He fished in his pocket for his SureFire as they stood invisible in the dark tree line. Allerdyce whispered, “Dey out dere,” and gave Service a gentle push.

He walked purposefully toward the nearest fire, saw people starting to take note of him and turn toward him. One person stood by the fire.

“Conservation Officer, DNR—what brings you folks out here?” He turned on his flashlight, aimed at faces. Saw one of them, felt his heart twitch: Kelly Johnstone.

“You're not easy to find,” he said, recovering quickly.

“That was the whole idea,” the woman said.