Killing a Cold One (6 page)

10

Thursday, October 23

GRAND RAPIDS

It has been a long day and now it was night. Carnelian Bird, the man who claimed to have bought the sniper rifles and subsequently had them stolen, lived in a rambling old house across from the John Ball Park Zoo. His yard needed mowing and contained numerous signs:
gunowers hass rites. no commies or solikicitors! trespassiders will be shot on side.
The signage made Service shake his head. He ran into illiterates a half-dozen times a year, mostly older folks, sixty and up. It always jarred him.

He had called Bird's phone number, the one he'd gotten from Gunny Prince, gotten an answering machine, which said only: “Leave message.” Service had done so, knowing it was probably a waste of time to try to see the man, but being this close, he hated to lose the chance, however remote.

“You think he's here?” Friday asked.

“Not until I saw all the signs. I'm guessing this is his fortress, and he doesn't evacuate the ramparts too often.”

“Or go anywhere unarmed?” she said.

“Never unarmed,” Service agreed.

The door opened even before Service could knock, and a cadaverous face stared out the cracked door at him. “You that cop what called?” the face asked.

Service nodded.

“Got ID?”

Service dug out his ID and badge and held them up.

“What's
your
name?” Service asked.
Two could play this game.

“Bird.”

“Carnelian Bird?”

The man nodded cautiously.

“Let me see your ID,” Service commanded, reversing circumstances, and momentum.

“I don't carry it around.”

“Go get it. We'll wait.”

The man looked sickly and had a tremoloish, irritating voice, but shuffled back with a state ID card.

“What about your operator's license?”

“This is all I got. It's legal, right?”

People showing state ID cards often had had their driving privileges and licenses suspended, or had other legal problems. Service nodded. “You want to step outside with us?”

“Gon' stay right where I am, sir.”

“Why not step out where we can talk?”

“See that place acrosst road?” Bird asked.

Service nodded.

“They let them wild animals out at night, and they prowl all over the neighborhood. All them cougars that folks talk about on the Internet? Believe you me: That right over there's your source.”

Service thought about taking exception but looked into the man's eyes and saw that he wasn't all there. “Have you had problems with the animals?”

“Not so far, but then they know I know they be out there. I hear them roaring all night.”

“Have they hurt anyone?”

“Nobody talks about it. It's a government conspiracy. You ask questions, the IRS will rain all over your parade.”

“Have you had legal problems, Mr. Bird?” Service asked.

“Never,” the man said. “Never never never, 'cause I ain't stupid, see? You piss off cops here, they haul your ass away at night.” He made a slitting motion with his thumb across his neck.

Whackadoodledandy.
“You have evidence of that?”

The man tapped his head. “I know what I know.”

Service looked over at Friday, who remained remarkably expressionless.

“Mr. Bird, you bought two M40 rifles from a Mr. Truffle Dog, is that so?”

“Never heard of nobody named Dog.”

“He claims he sold you two rifles,” Service lied.

“Whoever he is, he's a damn liar.”

“Mr. Bird, we're going to run a background check on you. If there's anything you need to tell me, now would be the time to step up.”

“Step up ta what?”

“Like, if you're a paroled felon and possess firearms in violation of the terms of your parole.”

“Din't I just tell you I ain't bought no guns from Dog?”

“You say that like you know the man.”

The man blinked fiercely. “Hey, it's a common name, ain't it, like Smith! Check the dictionary,
Webster's New Codge,
an' like that.”

“But you just said you never heard of anyone named Dog.”

“Everydamnbody's
heard
of dogs, so I guess they've all heard the goddamned name. You paying attention? I just don't know no individual goes by that pa'tic'lar name. What's the problem here?”

“I'm trying to find the owner of those rifles.”

“Why's that?”

“Well, they were recovered under suspicious circumstances.”

The man looked surprised. “You saying they was found?”

“They seemed to be in the possession of two individuals, who were found dead.”

“I don't know them girls,” Bird said.

“I never said anything about girls.”

“Young women, girls, same thing. Why this hassle?”

Uh-oh. Time to tighten the clamps.
“Mr. Bird, if your attitude doesn't change pretty damn quick, we're going to call the Grand Rapids police and haul you downtown for a formal interview relative to two homicides.”

“
Homo-sites?
” the man said, his jaw sagging.

“Brutal murders,” Tuesday Friday added.

Bird stepped outside, both legs in metal braces.
Polio at some point?
Service guessed.
Something like that.
The man was stooped, used two wrist canes.

“You want to sit down?” Friday asked.

He rattled a cane. “These don't make me no damn invalid.”

“I didn't mean to suggest that.”

“Sure you did. They all do.”

The eponymous
They.

Service said. “Let me see your ID again.”

The man handed it to him. Fifty-one years old, and the description fit, but he looked a lot older than his age. Service handed the ID card to Friday, who headed for her vehicle to run Carnelian Bird through her computer.

“Hey, you, gimme my ID back.”

“You'll get it,” Service said.

“I didn't know them girls,” Bird said.

“No?”

“They was Dog's,” the man answered, his voice reduced to a raspy whisper, his breath coming in bursts. The man was afraid. Service's instincts told him Friday was going to come back with some sort of shit on Bird, and he was turning cooperative in the hopes of softening the blow. “Okay if I call you Carnelian?”

“Carnie,” the man corrected him.

“
What
two girls, Carnie?” Service asked.

“Sluts, I just tol' you: Dog's sluts. I don't drive no more. Can't work pedals, and I can't afford no fancy electronic gizmos and such. I'm on a fixed income. Besides, OWG has got tracking devices in all the cars of the handicapped, so they can keep track of them for the day.”

What day?
“Fixed income, as in Social Security?”

“And military.”

“You were military?”

“Gunner on a Huey in Desert Storm, Eye-rack.” He tapped one of his braces. “Them's what I got out of the war—hamburgered my motherfuckin' legs, and three friggin' Purple Hearts is all they give me, which ain't worth shit-all.”

“You never heard the girls' names?”

“No.”

“Can you describe them for me?”

“Whores, small, short black hair. Painted themseffs with the makeup of fallen doves.”

Friday came back and Service leaned over. “There's an ‘Officer Caution' on him,” she whispered. “Felon: Exercise extreme caution. He did a major stretch for aggravated assault on a cop.”

Service turned back to the man. “You armed, Carnie?”

“Jes' a lil' ole scattergun inside the door is all.”

Which he wasn't allowed to have.
“No handguns?”

“Not on me. I ain't licensed to carry.”

“Have you tried to get a license?”

“Wouldn't do me no damn good.”

“Why's that?”

“Army retired me on account o' my legs, and said my brain was totally fucking Mixmastered permanent, but that ain't true. They just wanted me out so I wouldn't tell the truth about the war. OWG, man: Those fuckers are behind
everything.
”

OWG meant One World Government, a favorite conspiracy theory of the extreme political right lunatic fringe. It included government men in black helicopters and a plan for the United Nations to take over the world. Service had some international-relations thoughts of his own and wanted to point out to Bird that China already pretty much owned the US through debt, but he avoided the tangent.

“Did Dog know the girls before the gun show?”

“Hafta ast him,” Bird said.

“These girls . . . they have any birthmarks, tattoos, anything special?” Service asked.

“Not that I seen. Ast Dog. I think he seen all of 'em, if you know what I mean.”

“What did you drive to Kalamazoo?”

“Dodge truck with a camper in the bed.”

“You stayed all night?”

The man nodded.

“The girls too?”

“I went to dinner with some of them showpeople, and the sluts stayed with Dog. Never saw them when I got back, nor the next day neither.”

“You bought guns from him?”

“I guess, mebbe.”

“M40s?”

“Damn right, with night scopes. For them damned beasts over'n to zoo. Man got right to po-tackshun.”

“But the rifles were stolen?”

“Girls weren't there when I come back from dinner, Dog was drunk, and them guns was gone. I never even got 'em home.”

The man named Dog had been drunk?
“How much did you pay?”

“A grand each, cash, but Dog threw in beaucoup ammo.”

“You've got a receipt?”

Carnelian Bird laughed. “Ain't no receipts for cash deals at gun swaps.”

“Dog give you an explanation for the guns being gone?”

“I ax him, but he beat on me so bad, I just shut up. He said cunts done runned off with them, but I'm thinkin' he give them rifles to them to pay for they pussies.”

“And you didn't call the cops?”

“They'd just pinch me. They all out to get me.”

“I'm not,” Service said.

“We done only just met,” the man countered glumly.

Service looked at Friday, who shrugged.

“You know you can't possess firearms with your record.”

“Don't got more. They got stole,
'member?
”

“You have a shotgun inside the doorway.”

“Since when is a shotgun a firearm?” the man shot back.

Service poked Friday, and they backed off the porch and headed for their vehicle; then he turned around and went back to the house momentarily, came out to the car, and got in.

Friday drove down the block and parked. “Boy,” she said. “We probably ought to take a look around for Mr. Truffle Dog. Why'd you go back?”

“Had one more question; I asked him again about the tattoos—if either of the girls had a tattoo that looked like a dog or bear. He said one of them did. On her ankle.”

Friday looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Can this actually be working in our favor?”

 

•••

 

Dog's house turned out to be a trailer southwest of Wayland, on pancake farmland in a sea of plowed cornfields. There were half a dozen chained, barking dogs near the house, and no signs of two-legged life.

Friday called the Wayland Troop post on her cell and talked to someone. Service didn't catch the name and could hear only her side of the conversation, which was short on information. Minutes later a Blue Goose slid up beside them. A female Troop got out. She had a long, splashy, bright red ponytail and extraordinarily long fingernails that glowed.

“Name's Delay,” she said, introducing herself. “Lindsay.”

“Friday, CO Service. You know Truffle Dog?”

“Prince of slimeballs. We know that fool, call him T.D., Total Dickhead.”

“Got a history, does he?”

“Long as a giraffe's dick. Violent SOB, loves his guns. Funny how often those two marry up.”

“Wife, family?”

“Nah. Was a time he had two little girls around here, but just for a year or two—his sister's spawn, I think. She was off serving a year plus for meth manufacture, and the kids landed with him.”

“Arranged and approved by Social Services?”

Lindsay Delay laughed out loud. “Truffle Dog's an Indian, Detective. He doesn't willingly cooperate with or even recognize white government agencies.”

“We are to tribals what OWG is to some whites,” Service offered.

Delay nodded. “I hear that.”

“Indian from where?” Friday asked.

The Troop shrugged. “Wherever he wants. Tends to move around.”

“Somebody got names on the two girls, photos, anything? Details on him, what he drives, anything?”