Running Dark (27 page)

43

MOSQUITO WILDERNESS, MAY 17, 1976

“Aren't we a little young for brain farts?”

It was cold again, in the mid-forties and raining, and Service spent the day looking for trout fishermen, but few were out. Most native trout-chasers preferred live bait or spinners, and wouldn't get serious about their fishing until after July 4 when the rivers would be down and clear again.

John Voelker, the former state supreme court judge turned writer, was a legend in the fly-fishing community, but locals thought of him as eccentric and still clung to their old ways. Too bad for them. Just after noon there was a two-hour hatch of dark Hendricksons over a riffle in the Mosquito, and just downstream in a long run the surface was alive with feeding fish catching emergers and cripples. On the walk back to his vehicle he saw a sow bear and three cubs. She woofed and sent them up a tree before loping away. He knew she would be close and watching him, but it just proved that not every mother bear turned psycho when people came near her cubs.

He was still taking heavy doses of ibuprofen, and the headaches were finally more or less under control. The bug hatch had gotten him in the mood to fish, but the fly rod he usually kept in the trunk of the Plymouth Fury wasn't there. His memory was just not working. This morning he could not find his boots, and was forced to wear the old pair that pinched his feet. He already felt a blister building on one of his heels, and told himself it was his own damn fault.

There were two worm-dunkers working Lilah Creek just north of the wilderness. Service watched them while Hendricksons came off, the men oblivious to the hatch and rising fish. Once people got locked into a method, they were blind to other possibilities. Everyone had blind spots. He wondered how many he had.

Service knocked off at five. The fishermen could have the rivers tonight. His feet hurt, and the missing slugs were still eating at him.

Mehegen's truck was parked by the Airstream and she was sitting on his stoop. She wore boots, tight jeans, a hooded gray sweatshirt, and a faded Detroit Tigers ball cap.

“Hey sailor, buy a girl a beer?” Her grin disappeared as he approached. “You don't look well at all.”

“I'm better,” he said.

“Than what?”

He opened the door and let her in. “Couple of beers in the fridge,” he told her. He sat down and took off his old boots and peeled down one sock. There was a puffy redness the size of a dime on his heel, a blister for sure.

“Grady?” Mehegen said. She was holding the fridge door open, looking inside. “What's this all about?”

She pulled out his boots and held them up. She was smiling.

“Is there also an evidence bag in there?” he asked, joking.

She leaned over, looked around, and pulled out a plastic bag. It dangled from her hand. “Aren't we a little young for brain farts?”

44

BOAT-EATER SHOALS, MAY 19, 1976

“You ready ta get your feet wet again?”

Sergeant Blake Garwood was silent as he steered the twenty-foot
Fat Rat
out of Gladstone, across from Squaw Point marine navigation light, and headed south toward Little Bay de Noc. Grady Service adjusted the straps on his life preserver and grimaced in the icy mist. Yesterday he had taken the slugs up to the state police lab in Negaunee, and met with Detective Kobera to share his thinking—that Moe Lapalme had been in the room with Anise Aucoin and was the one who stabbed Gumby. If the slugs from the poached deer in the cabin matched Lapalme's rifle, they had a good shot at tying Moe to Aucoin and Ivan Rhino, and the prosecutor could use this information to work a deal with Rhino—in return for evidence against Lapalme. He was headed out onto the big lake again for another marine patrol, but his mind was behind him, on land, when Garwood interrupted his thinking. “Coast Guard reports a trawler on Boat-Eater Shoals,” the sergeant said.

“Long way from the Garden,” Service said. “For rats.” From what he had seen, the rats tended to cling to the waters off the Garden Peninsula. The Boat-Eater Shoals were a few miles off the Stonington Peninsula and just northeast of Minneapolis Shoals. As usual, Stone had called the night before and asked him to go with Garwood.

“You ready ta get your feet wet again?” Stone had asked.

“Not literally,” Service told his LT.

“Blake's solid,” Stone added.

“Good,” Service told the man. He was still having headaches, but they were lessening in their severity, and work was work. You couldn't do the work only when you felt okay.

He had thought it would be a routine patrol until the Coasties called in to give them a heads-up. The icy drizzle and a growing wind didn't help.

“Doubt it's rats,” Garwood said. “We've had some reports of unlicensed Wisconsin boats working our waters. They probably figure we're so busy over to the Garden that they can slip in and pick up a couple of bonus loads. Should be easier than a rat patrol,” he added. “You okay with this?”

Service nodded.

Garwood throttled back to idle a couple of miles from the shoals and let the boat drift, pushed by a steady north wind. “We won't be able to turn a trawler if we have to chase,” the sergeant said. “And they won't be able to out-fast us if we catch them pulling nets, so we're just gonna take 'er easy, work our way in slowly, and look for their lights.”

“Then what?” Service asked, thinking about the botched assault on Moe Lapalme's boat.

“Depends on what we see,” Garwood said with a shrug.

Why was this stuff so unplanned, so off-the-cuff? The department needed more people for marine patrols, and more and better boats to do the job. At least tonight they had the rat boat to give them some speed. What hurt most was a strong sense that Lansing didn't really care: In time, commercial fishermen would be bought out, and only tribals and sportfishermen would remain. All this effort and risk was for nothing but principle. But at least he had found the slugs. That was a definite plus for today.

“Lights to port,” Garwood said. It was a few minutes before midnight, and the drizzle had turned into a blustery rain with variable winds going from soft breezes to powerful gusts.

Garwood had his binoculars up. “Barely moving, but their stern is lit. I think we got lucky. They're lifting nets. We can board her.”

Service cringed at the words, asked, “Numbers?”

“Boat that size, three, maybe four total crew. We'll try to come in quiet, run dark and silent, tie up to them, and go aboard.”

This sounded better than a high-speed chase and the Errol Flynn approach. “What's the layout?”

“Forty-footer. They bring nets up along the transom and over the starboard gunwale. Power and controls are forward. I'll angle us in and slide over. You go first and make straight for the helmsman forward. I'll take the crew aft.”

“And if they cut their nets and run?”

“Not likely—nets cost too much. Remember, they're all about the money.”

Service had his doubts, but Garwood was in charge, and not all keyed up like Colt Homes had been the other time.

As they drifted in, their sounds were masked by the sound of winches in the trawler, which was shaped like a double-decker baguette. When their nose rubbed the wooden planks of the larger boat, Service went over the gunwale into the opening. Two men on the opposite side were peeling fish from green nylon netting. Two other men were standing forward at the controls.

The eyes of the two men ahead of him widened and one of them shouted, “Oh shit!” Before Service could announce himself, Blake Garwood came vaulting across, bumped him, and stumbled forward into the two men working the net. Service watched as Blake suddenly lifted up and went sprawling over the gunwale of the other side—and was gone. The two men with the nets stood up and looked at him and at the men up front, and nobody seemed to know what had happened or what to do.

“Drop nets!” bellowed one of the men up front as he slammed the twin throttles forward and the boat surged. The two aft crewmen started doing something to the nets.

“Michigan Department of Natural Resources!” Service screamed. “DNR! Stop the fucking boat!”

“Don't stop, boys!” the man at the throttles shouted over the roaring engines.

Service went forward, pulled out his revolver, and ordered, “Stop!” He fired two rounds through the roof. The captain immediately pulled the throttles back and the boat lurched as it lost momentum and gave way to the waves coming onto the bow.

Jesus,
Service thought,
Where was Blake?
They had to get him. Fast. The men stared at him and he stared back. No sound. Shit—the jerk had cut the engines off completely. “Start her up again,” Service ordered, the revolver still in hand. “You'd better hope my sergeant is all right, or you are in deep fucking shit.”

“We never touched him,” one of the men in back said.

“You got spotlights?” Service asked.

“Somewhere,” the captain said. He was small with a ratty white beard tinged red in the low cabin light. “Find them and get this thing turned around. Take her slow and easy.” He could picture the stinking tub running over Garwood.

Ten minutes later a green flare shot up into the night sky and fizzled.

Service saw the origin and had the captain steer toward it. Since firing the shots, the crew had been cooperative. They soon spotted Blake Garwood and hauled him in, placing a blanket over his shoulders.

“Nobody touched me,” the sergeant said sheepishly. “I slipped on something, caught my foot, and went over the side. I heard shots.”

“I needed to get their attention,” Service said.

“You two scared the bejeezus outta us,” the captain said. “We come for fish, not to hurt nobody.”

“Why'd you run?” Service asked.

“Reflex,” the captain said, avoiding eye contact.

Garwood had managed to secure the
Fat Rat
to the trawler before making his dramatic entrance—and exit. Now they headed north to Escanaba, towing the smaller boat. The captain was not happy, but resigned himself to having his trawler impounded until he could post a bond and get a lawyer to work out the return. He made coffee for Garwood, and Service sat smoking and studying the layout. There was a door in the center of the deck. “What's that?”

“We call it the kiddie hole,” the captain said. “Guy owned the boat before me used to take his kids out and pull up on shallow shoals and open that door and let his kids dip smelt with nets.”

As they approached Escanaba, Service said to his sergeant, “You had marine flares.”

“No shit,” Garwood said. “I had nightmares since you took your swim, and figured I'd add a little insurance. I bought 'em myself. I got two years until retirement,” he added. “Then I'm moving to the mountains in Tennessee and I don't ever want to see another bloody boat.”

45

ESCANABA, MAY 26, 1976

“You're dead when I get out.”

Serverino “Sandy” Tavolacci was standing outside the Delta County Jail chewing a cigar stump. He was short and wide and built like a wrestler. It was fifty degrees and overcast, but he wore dark sunglasses and a black trench coat with the collar turned up. His hair was brushed straight back and glistened. Tavolacci, Service had learned, was becoming the mouthpiece of choice for major poachers in the central and western Upper Peninsula.

Gar Murray, Delta County's prosecuting attorney, was standing with the defense lawyer. Last year Murray had written a controversial letter to Lansing, declaring that the Garden situation was on the verge of being out of control, and if Director Curry didn't improve support for DNR officers charged with patrolling the peninsula, Murray would publicly disclaim any responsibility for the death or injury to an officer on patrol in the Garden. Further, he would ask the state attorney general to release him from the obligation of enforcing commercial fish laws in any prosecution stemming from a death or injury to DNR personnel. Murray's letter had created a minor furor in Lansing, with lesser lights calling it an act of cowardice; but Len Stone told Service that Murray had written the letter as a friend and supporter of law enforcement. Murray had been trying to force Lansing to do a better job of supporting the same people they were putting at risk. Good goal, lousy tactic.

Service had never met either man.

Murray had hair the color of a female cardinal and eyes that made him look like a predator on a constant lookout for food. Service introduced himself to both men, but Tavolacci immediately turned away and went inside. Service noticed he walked with mincing steps, like something was jammed up his behind.

“Gar Murray,” the red-haired man said, shaking Service's hand. “Don't mind Sandy. He's just an asshole.”

“By birth or training?” Service shot back.

Murray laughed. “That's pretty good. You feel that way about all lawyers?”

“Only the ones not on my side.”

“A true professional,” Murray said, clapping him on the back and holding the door open for him. “Shall we?”

Tavolacci was already in the interview room with Moe Lapalme. Both of them looked agitated. “What da deuce is goin' on, eh?” The lawyer asked when Service and Murray walked into the room.

Murray put his briefcase on the table. “Save the Finnglish today, Sandy.”

“Let's expedite. I've got other meetings on my docket,” the defense attorney said, no trace of Yooperese in his language or pronunciation.

Detective Kobera was twenty minutes late. Lapalme and Tavolacci carried on an extended hushed conversation while they waited, and Service and Murray stepped outside the room.

Kobera arrived, breathing hard, and handed a large envelope to Murray. “Sorry I'm late,” he said.

Service looked at the detective. “We get a match?”

“Damn straight,” Kobera said. “You want to do the honors?”

“I'm just a game warden.”

Murray looked like his mind was elsewhere, but he said, “Sandy's gonna scream for the evidence. Fuck him,” Murray added. “I'll mail it to him.”

“I'm gonna read Lapalme the charges and his rights,” Kobera said.

“We'll arraign in two hours,” Murray said. “I've already talked to the judge.”

The three men filed into the room. Lapalme looked cocky. Tavolacci looked wary.

Kobera charged Lapalme with attempted murder, grand theft, breaking and entering, conspiracy to commit theft, and fifty-eight other counts involving stolen goods.

Tavolacci said nothing.

Formalities done, the three men got up and walked to the door, where Service stopped and made eye contact with Lapalme. “Nice seein' you, Cap'n.”

Lapalme tried to come up out of his chair, but Tavolacci held him down.

“You're dead when I get out,” Lapalme said with a low growl.

Kobera looked at Murray. “Threatening an officer of the law?”

“I'll add it,” the prosecuting attorney said.

Service said to Lapalme, “I'll be waiting for you.”