Red Jacket (25 page)

Hepting shook his head.

Carbolt said, “Jurors will be called to convene at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Survivors and family members will be called to provide postmortem identification.”

“What about the scene of the crime?” Hepting asked.

“A police matter,” the justice said.

“Why do you need formal identification?” Bapcat asked. “Dr. Scanlan already said they're well-known union sympathizers, so he must know who they are.”

“Who might
you
be?” Carbolt asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Bapcat, game warden.”

“Human death is of no concern to a game warden, sir.”

“Shunk told us he'd show us where the men were shot, but he skedaddled.”

“I've talked to the captain. He mentioned no such thing,” Cruse said.

Bapcat took a step toward Cruse, but Hepting blocked him with a leg, steered him away, and took both game wardens with him, saying little until they reconvened at Bumbletown Hill.

“It's a setup,” Hepting announced. “They want Lammie and Nayback tied to the deer, and they wanted you to see that before the jurisdictional divide took them away.”

Bapcat looked at the sheriff and winked. “I've got jurisdiction in
both counties
, Jimmy.”

“Only for fish and game.”

“In chess this might be termed a preemptive strike,” Zakov said.

“I'm a checkers man,” the Keweenaw sheriff retorted. “You take one of mine, I take one of yours, and on we go till just one of us is left standing. Why do they want Lammie and Nayback blamed for the deer? I don't get that at all.”

“Maybe to back me off my case?” Bapcat ventured.

“Why is your case so damned important to them?” Hepting countered. “But maybe you're right, and they're hoping you'll walk away.”

Bapcat rubbed his eyes. “Hope won't do them any good.”

67

Laurium

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1913

Harju and Sandheim straggled in well after midnight, in the early hours of the morning. They stowed their gear, made coffee, and rooted around for food. Bapcat and Zakov joined them.

“Saw a dozen gut piles today,” Harju announced. “Word's getting around.”

Sandheim complained, “I want to be glad about it, but I'm not. We're not just allowing violations, we're encouraging them.”

“Values change in wartime,” Zakov said.

“We ain't in no war,” Sandheim said.

“We may not be, but the people around here seem to be,” Zakov countered.

Bapcat told the other two about their day. Harju just shook his head, stared into the distance, and looked weary.

•••

It was 5 a.m., and Bapcat was knocking on Judge O'Brien's back door. Zakov had dropped him off and had driven to another location to wait.

O'Brien answered in a tattered blue robe and leather slippers. “Do you
ever
work regular daylight hours?” the judge asked.

“We need to talk,” Bapcat said.

The judge let him in, rustled up coffee, and listened attentively as they sat at a small table in the jurist's study.

“Sounds like Cruse didn't think through the jurisdictional issues,” the judge said after he had heard the tale.

“But I'm only empowered for fish and game,” Bapcat said.

“True, but there were dead bodies among the deer, and that makes the bodies prima facie evidence in
your
investigation. Doesn't matter what laws you're empowered to enforce.”

“Can I have the bodies quarantined—not release them yet for burial?”

“On what grounds?”

“I'm asking you, Your Honor.”

“Think out loud, Deputy.”

“To investigate bullet calibers in the bodies so they can be compared to the deer wounds, to determine if the same weapons were used, or if there is other evidence bearing on the deer case.”

O'Brien smiled. “I'd grant an injunction on those grounds.” The judge dug in his desk and produced some forms that he handed to the game warden. “Make damn sure you write precisely what you want.”

“When I took this job, I never imagined anything like this,” Bapcat confessed.

“You think it's any rosier or less surprising for a judge?”

Bapcat struggled to complete the forms, breaking into a sweat. When they were finally filled out, Judge O'Brien read them over and signed them and then Bapcat signed them. The bodies were to be held by the coroner until Bapcat had adequate opportunity—on his schedule, which would be binding for the coroner—to examine the bodies and extract evidence.

“You'll probably want this, too,” O'Brien said, handing Bapcat a handwritten letter.

“What is it?”

“Your ticket to observe and participate in the autopsies and inquest. They're gonna scream bloody murder,” the judge said with a hearty laugh. “Put the injunction in Carbolt's hands before proceedings begin.”

“Thanks, Your Honor. Can I ask why you're doing this?”

“You can ask, but all I have to say is good luck. We'll all need it with that lot.”

68

Red Jacket

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1913

The autopsies and inquest were conducted at the Calumet and Hecla Hospital. Justice of the Peace Carbolt read the injunction from Judge O'Brien, cursed softly, and handed it to Sheriff Cruse, who said to Bapcat, “You've got some nerve. When do you want to examine the bodies, Game Warden?”

“The injunction says it will be on my schedule, and this is between Dr. Scanlan and me, not you. Go ahead with the inquest. I'll observe.”

Carbolt said, “Dr. Scanlan and I decide who other than our jury will participate and observe.”

Bapcat handed the judge's letter to the justice of the peace.

Carbolt read it and said, “Disgusting.” He handed the letter to Scanlan, who said nothing.

Bapcat stood with the jury to examine the bodies while the coroner took them through what he observed in the autopsy, concluding that each man had been shot once in the back, probably with a rifle. The inquest seemed concerned only with physical facts. The so-called jury, with heavy direction from Scanlan, agreed only that the gunshots were of unknown origin or caliber, and there appeared to be justifiable evidence for a verdict of foul play.

“Family?” Bapcat asked Sheriff Cruse. “I thought you were bringing family survivors here.”

“Lammie, none. Same for Nayback. When you get around to finishing your hocus-pocus malarkey, we'll give these men a decent burial at the county's expense.”

“Why isn't Shunk here?” Bapcat inquired.

“Don't see the need.”

“I'll want to talk to him, as well.”

“He a suspect in your so-called case?” the sheriff asked.

“Shunk reported it to Sheriff Hepting, and the animals and bodies were on his mine's property, and in his possession.”

“You'll probably have to go through his lawyer.”

“Just let me know,” Bapcat said. “If I don't hear from you in a reasonable amount of time, I'll be back to
discuss
it with you.”

“Is that a threat, Deputy?”

“Take it as a promise, Sheriff.”

Bapcat cornered the coroner after the jurors were gone. “You can say for sure the wounds in the men came from a rifle, and not a revolver?”

“Can't say anything until I look for and find what's left of the projectiles.”

“Let me know right away when you have something concrete.”

Scanlan studied him, asked, “
Why
are you doing this?”

“It's my job, Doctor.”

“These men were just foreign troublemakers.”

“And that makes murder acceptable?”

“Nobody here has used that word,” the doctor said.

“Maybe they should,” Bapcat said, striding out of the morgue in the basement of the hospital. He stopped at the door. “Pretty unusual for the company to authorize the autopsies to be held here, isn't it? Neither of the dead men was an employee.”

“It was approved is all I can tell you, young man.”

69

Bumbletown Hill

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1913

John Hepting was slumped in a chair, wearily rolling a cigarette. “Shunk, Lukevich, and Pinnochi have all disappeared. None of them's been seen since Tuesday morning.”

“You're still investigating?” Bapcat asked.

“Goddamn right. I don't suffer blindness based on potential political gain.”

“The jurors at the inquest would agree only to probable foul play.”

“Dammit, Lute, we know better. Each victim was shot in the damn back by a rifle. There wasn't no gunplay with special dicks wielding piddly-ass revolvers.”

“It more than smells,” Bapcat agreed.
Shunk lit out, Cruse dismissed the other two, and now all of them were missing. What the hell were they trying to accomplish?
“The jurors at least agreed that the fatal wounds came from a rifle, though no caliber has been specified.”

Hepting grinned. “How the hell did
you
get into that inquest?”

“O'Brien,” Bapcat said.

Hepting raised an eyebrow. “Our local Robin Hood in a robe. You're learning the unwritten rules pretty quick.”

“We need to talk to Lukevich and Pinnochi. They were carrying company-issued revolvers. Did they even own rifles? Do the bullets in the deer match the bullets in the dead men? Hell, I just hope the coroner will preserve the evidence for me.”

“Don't bet on it with Scanlan. He's a boyhood chum of MacNaughton's.”

“I had the sense Scanlan will do whatever Cruse commands. Where do the two men live? Do we know yet?”

“Pinnochi lives in Raymbaultown in a boardinghouse, and Lukevich, on East Amygdaloid Street in Centennial. Captain Shunk's house is in west Wolverine.”

Bapcat scribbled some notes to himself. He had begun this practice not long after the whole thing had begun, and now his notes were accumulating; he needed to find a way to organize them, another aspect of being a game warden he'd not thought about, even after his training with Harju.

Sandheim came in sweating and out of breath. “Horri says come quick.”

“Where to?” Bapcat asked.

“To talk to the leper,” Sandheim said.

The word sent a chill through Bapcat. He had seen lepers in Cuba, sloughing skin, noses, fingers, toes. It had been horrendous. Zakov showed no emotional response as he got behind the wheel of the Ford and Bapcat spun the crank.

The house was like hundreds of others constructed by mine operators: stick-built, two stories, just inside the Houghton County line, a mile and a half north of Centennial Heights. One among many identical places, except that this one sat alone, far from any neighbors.

Harju was sitting on the front steps with a man who had numerous small patches of light-colored skin on his face, and no apparent disfigurement.

“Meet Marelius Jensen,” Harju said. “There's a pot of coffee inside, and don't worry about catching leprosy from touching stuff. It don't work like that.”

“You live here alone, Mr. Jensen?” Sheriff Hepting asked.

“Wife and daughters live in town. MacNaughton arranged houses for us, got her a job. Kids still can't go to school, though,” the man said bitterly. “Given the fate God put on us, things could be worse. If you believe in God, which I don't.”

Anger barely contained just below the surface,
Bapcat noted.

“Tell them what you seen,” Harju said to the man.

“Lepers don't get no goddamn company,” Jensen said morosely. “I hunt and fish, wander the woods. Don't see my family 'cept on some Sundays, so most nights, ain't no reason to come home. I sleep in the woods rather than come here. If I die out in woods some night, who the hell will care?”

“About what you saw,” Harju prompted gently.

“Monday night I was up on Kearsarge land. Word's out it's okay to take deer now, so I was out looking. Wife will can the meat, so ain't nothing gets wasted by us, and if I can get real meat, we don't got to depend on the damn poorhouse for food. Anyways, there's a big stand of oaks in this one place, and the acorns pull deer in like magnets this time of year.”

“Monday night?” Bapcat asked.

“I don't own a watch. Doctor said it could make my skin fall off, so yeah, Monday, though it might've been after midnight, which would make it Tuesday, you want to fuss over details. Anyways, there was a real good shooter's moon and I had me a good seat right next to the edge of an open field.”

“Go ahead,” Harju said, encouraging the man.

“Out of nowhere I hear these voices, two men, and they sound unhappy. One of them asks the other, ‘How come we're here?' and t'other one says, ‘I don't got no idea.'

“Then the first man, he says, ‘Well, I got school to teach, and it's a long way home.' Soon as he says that, a light comes on and a new voice says, ‘Okay, lads, I brought lights, so we can see what we're about.' ”

Teach?
Bapcat thought.
Is the man talking about Nayback?

“Anyways, number three, there, he tells them fellers, ‘Let's jest get these things loaded so we can run 'em out to the hole.' ”

“He said
hole?
” Bapcat asked.

“I heard
hole,
so I guess that's what he said. My ears ain't sloughed off yet. I listened to them loading stuff, and after a while number three, he says, ‘Okay, you two,' and then I hear two shots,
pow pow!
Nearly made me jump right outta my skin. There was jest one light on, and I heard the wagon move away and horses snorting, and that's exactly what I heard that night.”

“Did you see the men?” Hepting asked.

“You deaf? Just heard, was like I jest tell you.”

“Recognize their voices?” Harju asked.

“For sure? Can't say yes for sure.”

“Tell them,” Harju said.

“Okay, mebbe that number three, he sound an awful lot like Cousin Jack captain called Shunk.”

“Shunk, of the Quincy mine?” Bapcat asked.

The leper cackled. “Only know one Shunk, and that be the North Kearsarge Shunk, and one's plenty enough, I reckon.”

Harju said, “Marelius has volunteered to show us where this happened.”

“When?” Bapcat wanted to know.

“Whenever you fellas want. Ain't like I got me a schedule to keep,” the Norwegian said.

“Tonight? Now?” Bapcat asked.

“Long walk,” the man said.

“We'll all be driving, not walking,” Zakov volunteered.

“People don't let me in cars. I ain't never been in one.”

“Nonsense,” Zakov said. “Tonight's your night to ride in style.”

Harju said, “Let's go.”

Bapcat leaned in close to Zakov. “Is this safe?”

“It depends on one's irrationalities. Is it safe to be attacked by Italian bird-eaters in one's own domicile? Bullets are real, the spread of leprosy, also real, but rare and far less understood than high-velocity lead poisoning. You tell me the greater risk.”

Would the Russian ever answer a question simply?

“Sit next to me, Jensen,” Harju said.

“I'll hang on the back,” Sandheim said. “No offense meant.”

“Nor taken,” the leper said. “You're just like most men.”

Bapcat rode with Hepting. “Could we get as lucky as this?”

“Being that Shunk's disappeared, where exactly do you see this so-called luck?”

“If this is the place, there will be evidence.”

“Four days old,” the sheriff reminded him, looking up. “At least we have a clear sky.

They drove both vehicles into the fields where the events had taken place, but the sky suddenly clouded, the air thickened, the clouds opened, and hard rain pounded them with heavy, loud drops. “Case killer,” Hepting said.

Zakov came over to them. “Russians say, Luck and bad luck drive the same sledge.”

So much for evidence,
Bapcat thought, but Jensen had said something interesting—that MacNaughton had arranged housing and a job for his wife. Why would he do this?

Bapcat approached the man, who had moved from the truck to the cover of a tree. “Did MacNaughton talk to you directly?” Bapcat asked.

“Never. Everything was through his people, not from His Highness Himself.”

“More than one person?”

Jensen said, “Mainly one, and this ain't for public knowledge. His name's Lark, and I ain't s'posed to talk about him. I do, we lose everything, and we'd be put out on our own.”

“Lark?”

“Loosemore Lark. He's a small-fry lawyer for the Calumet and Hecla legal office in Red Jacket.”

“He made all the arrangements—house, job, poorhouse connections, everything?”

“He insisted MacNaughton personally dictated everything, but I never believed that. Hilarious now that with the strike, MacNaughton is sneaking around like a rat at night.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don't know? MacNaughton sent his family away, and he never sleeps in the same house for two nights running. He keeps moving around so no one can find him.”

Bapcat looked over at Hepting. “Did you know that, John?”

“Nope.”

“Did Lark come into your house?” Bapcat asked.

“No, we always talked outside.”

“He afraid of the leprosy?”

“Real scared, I'd guess, but more scared to not do his job for MacNaughton.”

“How long since you've talked to Lark?”

“Been at least a year ago.”

“What's he like?” Bapcat asked.

Hepting said, “An eel.”

“You know him?”

“We've had some dealings,” Hepting said. “He once got a court order directing me to physically remove a man from one of the mines. The man had been fired and refused to leave.”

“Did you move him?”

“Court ordered it. We don't make the laws, or even have to like them.”

“Could we use him to get to MacNaughton?”

“Could try, but why?”

Zakov stepped up. “If you are at war, it behooves one to know the opposing commander.”

Bapcat said, “If MacNaughton's calling all the shots here, I want to get a feel for him.”

“Takes care of himself, his family, and his company, in that order—period,” Hepting said.

“Man takes care of himself first might be prone to a weakness or two,” Bapcat said, and despite questions from Hepting and Zakov, would say no more about his thinking.