Running Dark (29 page)

“The tribal courts don't cooperate?”

“Some do and some don't. Some of the magistrates think their brothers are entitled to all the fish in the lake in payment for injustices done two centuries ago. Some magistrates also believe that tribal members have a right to do whatever they want to do outdoors, and the state has no say in it.”

He stopped talking and drank some coffee.

Nantz said, “Did Moe Lapalme come after you?”

“Moe spent four years inside, got paroled, broke parole his first week, and disappeared. He got killed in a fight with a commercial fisherman in Cordova, Alaska, in 1990.”

“What about the rat leaders?”

“A couple of them branched out into growing dope—Garden Green—and went to prison in the eighties. There's still dope down there, but we have drug teams on top of it most of the time. A couple of the rat leaders moved out of state and got into trouble in other states. A couple are still down there, acting like exalted senior citizens.”

“Cecilia Lasurm,” Nantz said. “You knew I was going to ask about her.”

“She died in 1977,” Service said.

“Cancer?”

“Car wreck,” he said.

“You didn't say accident.”

“She was in a world of hurt and refusing pain meds, and I think she didn't want to go on.”

“Where did she die?”

“She obliterated a telephone pole at the bottom of the M-Twenty-Eight hill south of Munising.”

Nantz said, “And?”

“The Troops calculated her speed at over a hundred.”

“Were there skid marks?”

He nodded. “Enough to allow them to conclude she had tried to stop.”

“You don't think she did.”

“I think she wanted her daughter to get her insurance. The brake marks were there to prove she didn't want to die.” He didn't tell Nantz that Cecilia had talked to him about this a month before she died. She had sworn him to secrecy forever.

“She was decisive to the end,” Nantz said.

“The insurance company fought it, but in the end they paid.”

“Her daughter got the money?”

Service nodded. “She was sentenced to time in a rehab center and they cleaned her up, but it didn't take. She moved to Minneapolis, blew through the money, overdosed in St. Paul, and died.”

“Did you love Cecilia?” Nantz asked quietly.

He didn't answer right away. “No,” he said finally. “I admired her courage.”

“Do you really think it takes courage to kill yourself?”

“It takes a kind of courage to make the decision. The act is simple once you're committed. It comes down to facing what's best for you and the people you care about.”

“That's bullshit,” she said. “Suicide is the ultimate selfish act. What happened to Brigid Mehegen?”

“She's a Troop lieutenant now, in Berrien Springs or somewhere down in the southwest corner of the state. Are you jealous?” he asked.

“Are you jealous of all the men I slept with before you?”

“Not until you put it that way,” he said.

She smiled with self-satisfaction. “Can we go back to Eugene?”

“Criminal charges were dropped. He's mentally retarded.”

“He burned animals alive,” Nantz countered.

“Put a ten-year-old's emotions with Ivan Rhino and that's what you can get. Eugene's actually very kind and, in the right company, he does fine. Attalienti hired him to do odd jobs out of the regional office and paid for it out of his own pocket. When Captain Grant came in, he put Eugene on the payroll so he'd have health benefits, and he found a place for him to live near his place on the Dead River.”

“When Kmart came to town, Eugene applied for and got the greeter's job all on his own, full-time, with benefits.”

“What was that deal with the vest?” she asked.

“When he first started at Kmart, he spotted a shoplifter, flashed the badge we'd given him, challenged him, and ended up throwing the guy through a plate-glass window. He takes his job seriously. The guy was a Cat dealer, high as a hawk in a thermal. The cops came, found a portable lab in the guy's car, and busted him. The guy tried to sue the store from prison, but the case got thrown out. Eugene got to keep his job, but he has to wear his badge inside the vest and show it only to law officers.”

“I'm surprised the corporation didn't fire him.”

“Every cop in the county went to bat for him. The store manager got the message.”

“About that fuck-buddy of yours,” she said, but he covered her mouth and hugged her close, and she settled in and let it go.

“She married a Troop lieutenant. They've got two kids,” he whispered.

48

WILSEY BAY CREEK, APRIL 23, 2004

“ . . . Far out, dude.”

He and Nantz had exercised before sunrise, and then had breakfast. She was talking about this and that, but he wasn't paying close attention. His mind was on the day's work.

Ice-out had been late again this spring, but northerns were moving up the streams to marshy areas to spawn, and walleyes had been congregated in the mouths of rivers and creeks for more than a week. They would soon surge upstream looking for spawning gravel where they would remain for several days. While congregated for spawning, the fish were extremely vulnerable to poaching.

This afternoon he had scouted the upper Tacoosh and found walleyes collected in some rapids. He drove from the Tacoosh to the Whitefish, hid his truck in some trees, and hiked a third of a mile west to the river. There were even more fish here than in the Tacoosh, but the Whitefish's cedar floodplain was still pocked with runoff, and he had to island-hop his way in and out. Scouting finished, he climbed up a small rise on all fours and sat down in the grass to have a cigarette. The team wouldn't meet until four. He had lots of time to sit and enjoy the solace and the sounds of the swollen river below him.

A doe wandered into the open from some aspens to his right. He made a whoosh sound to see her react. Her head snapped toward him, ears alert, but immediately looked back the other way. Something over there interested her more than him. She finally turned and bolted away, her flag high.

He leaned over to lower his profile in the grass and watched. After a few minutes he saw the silhouettes of two men moving through the cedars. Now and then one of them splashed in one of the pools. He took out his binoculars and zeroed in on the movement. Too dark to make out real detail, but one of the men had a stick on his right side. Spear? In the middle of the afternoon? This would be too easy! He crawled a little closer to the lip of the hill. Poachers didn't linger long when they were spearing and netting in rivers. They'd get in, get their fish, and get out.

Fifteen minutes later he heard the men coming back. A game trail led along the bottom of the hill, following the contour. He let them reach the trail, stood up, and slid down. “DNR!”

The men froze. A small brown-and-white mongrel with floppy ears lowered its head and began barking.

“Quiet, Oliver,” one of the men told the dog.

“How's it going, guys?” Service asked.

“Lookin' for steelhead,” one of the men said. Both men were carrying unassembled spinning rods. One man had a net over his shoulder. It was too small for steelhead.

“No steelies here,” Service said. “You've got to go upriver about a mile. There's good spawning gravel up that way.”

“We drove down from Marquette,” the man said. “Runs up there are lousy so far this spring.”

“Our first time for steelhead,” the other man said. “There's all kinds of big bass in the river down there.” The man looked over his shoulder.

They were walleyes, not bass, but he didn't correct them. “You guys weren't in there long.”

“No steelhead. You saw us?”

He did not tell them he'd mistaken their rods for spears.

“How far upstream did you say?” the man asked again. “For the steelies?”

Service told them how to drive up to it. “Too far to hike.”

The little dog kept jumping against his leg and licking him, his tail wagging.

He poured coffee when he got back to the truck. Fishing rods as spears? This was not the way to start a patrol, and he wondered if he was starting to lose his edge.

He knew both rivers would provide good hunting for the next few nights, but when he got to the team meeting at the new Escanaba district office near the Mead Plant, Eddie “Gutpile” Moody and Grant Ebony reported to the others that they had pinched three tribal spearing crews at Wilsey Bay Creek last night at the bottom of the Stonington Peninsula. Tonight Moody and Ebony were headed south of Escanaba to Chigger Creek and the Cedar River, but they thought someone should hit Wilsey again, certain that poachers would not expect the DNR two nights in a row in the same location.

“You can make book the word's out today that we were there last night,” Ebony concluded. “They won't be expecting more company.”

Candace McCants was down from the Mosquito, which was her turf now. Another six officers had come in from the western counties where there were no fish runs.

“I'll take Wilsey,” McCants said. “Grady, you want to partner up?”

He agreed, and they sat with Moody and Ebony getting briefed on Wilsey Bay. Service wasn't paying attention, knowing the Korean-born McCants would absorb what they needed. He was feeling some anxiety about going to the Stonington instead of the Garden, but duty was duty, and there was always tomorrow night. He had not thought much about Cecilia Lasurm in years, or even the Garden, for that matter, but last night's talk with Nantz had conjured a flood of memories—of how pensive some of the officers were before patrols, of Homes cowboying across the ice, his swim and rescue, Garwood's swim and the Wisconsin poachers, rocks pounding the sides of their vehicles during land runs, the wild ride with Stone in his truck, the lifting shed being crunched by the rat truck—all of it. Stone, Homes, and Garwood were retired now, Homes just three years ago, and like Stone, still living in the U.P. Garwood had moved to the hills of Tennessee, just as he'd said he would.

Attalienti had been a good captain, but when Cosmo Metrovich finished his run as acting chief, Metrovich had retired, and Attalienti had been sent south to be captain of the southern law zone. Another captain had been assigned in his place, and when he retired, was replaced by Captain Ware Grant. Only during the past couple of years had he gotten close to Captain Grant, who for the past two years had faced some health issues. Sooner or later Grant had to retire, and Service knew eventually he would also have to face the same decision. He had put in way more time than he needed to retire with full benefits right now, but he had recently been promoted to detective—and though the promotion initially had been unwanted and unsettling, he was getting accustomed to the job and finding it a challenge. Even his paranoia about giving up the Mosquito Wilderness had abated. McCants had taken it over from him, and he had total confidence in her ability.

A horseblanket named Surdy had once told him to keep doing the job as long as he was physically able and it was still interesting and fun, which meant he didn't have to think too hard about retiring anytime soon.

“You're creeping me out tonight,” McCants said as they walked out to her truck through the rain.

“Just tonight?”

She jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow.

It had rained all day and was supposed to last another twenty-four hours. There were flood warnings for the western counties. He checked the digital thermometer in her truck: thirty-eight. The water wouldn't be much better, and he was glad he was dressed for it: nylon-wool underwear, a second layer of wool, wool socks and uniform pants, wool shirt, bulletproof vest, parka, insulated rain bibs, 400 mg Thinsulate boots. He'd be wet, but he wouldn't freeze. When he first began his career, he had barely noticed the cold. Now he fretted continuously about dressing properly. Age, he thought grimly.

“They'll be out tonight,” McCants said as they pulled into the Shell station in Gladstone. She began filling their tank on a state credit card. “The weather sucks. Why do the assholes think we don't work in crappy weather or off the beaten path?”

He left her and went inside and bought a half-dozen candy bars, two large bags of Fritos, and filled their thermoses with hot coffee. They'd need caffeine, carbs, and sugar in this weather.

“You know Wilsey?” she asked as they passed through Rapid River.

“Not really,” he said. “You?”

“Never been there before. Did you hear what Grant and Gutpile said about the culvert?”

He had not paid attention. “A
culvert?
” He hated culverts because they pinched down streams, and when the melt was on, pushed the waters up. “We could have used a daytime recon down there,” he complained. “I checked the upper Tacoosh and Whitefish this afternoon. There were herds of eyes in both.”

“You want to hit one of them instead?” she asked.

“No, they're expecting us to cover Wilsey.”

She said, “Five Thirteen south to K-Twenty-four and east till we cross the creek.” She grinned. “It sounds like the route to the Emerald City.”

“Yeah—follow the yellow mud road.”

“Grant said they hid their truck west of the creek. He said there were some northerns up, but not a lot. With this weather they might be in or they might not. Let's cross the creek and see if they're in. If not, we can double back to Squaw Creek.”

Squaw Creek was eight miles north of Wilsey Bay, and they would cross it on their way south.

“Pike come up the Squaw?” he asked.

“Mostly eyes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

“I've got a thermal imager,” she said. “You bring your generation-three?”

“We have a thermal imager now?”

“I borrowed it from a Troop. It's a video unit, but it'll do the job for us—especially in this soup.”

The department issued a certain number of infrared binoculars to each district, but they were second-generation and depended on ambient light. Service had bought a set of generation-threes from the Cabela's catalog. His featured an internal light source, which made them effective in total darkness.

“Aren't we the techies,” McCants said with a laugh. “There's a small issue down here. Tribals can spear below the annual average waterline, but not above it.”

Service looked at her. “What brain surgeon came up with that?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Hell yes, it matters. We've got heavy runoff. How the hell do we determine the average annual waterline or floodplain in these conditions?”

“Don't get bent out of shape. Grant said they checked it out yesterday afternoon. The line's about fifty yards below the culvert. He stuck a six-foot pole in the bank to mark the limit.”

“How big's the culvert?”

“Five- or six-foot diameter,” she said.

“Average annual waterline,” he complained. “This is bullshit.”

McCants chuckled. “You'd hate it if this job was cut and dried.”

“I must be a happy man.”

“You are; just cranky.”

When they turned east on K-24, McCants turned off all their lights to run dark. The culvert ran under a steep earthen berm and the road crossed over the top. McCants stopped on the berm and Service flashed the external spotlight down into the water.

“It's cooking like Niagara,” he said, “and all stirred up. I can't see shit down there.”

“I'll find a place to turn around. We'll stash the truck west of the creek and walk down to take a closer look.”

They drove east nearly a half-mile before McCants found a driveway into a camp built back in a ragged line of cedar trees. As she turned left into the driveway, Service glanced back down the road over her shoulder. “Lights on the road behind us,” he said.

“Damn,” McCants said, cutting the truck past the cabin and nosing it close to the building's north wall.

Service quickly walked to the southeast corner of the building, looked west, and saw that the lights were still coming. “They stopped for a sec and then came on,” he said. “At the crick, maybe.”

“They use a light?” she asked as they went back to the north side of the building and stood between the wall and her truck.

“Couldn't tell,” he said. Visibility was terrible.

The lights turned into the camp driveway thirty feet from where they stood, stopped, backed up, and went back to the west.

“Did they see our tire tracks?” she asked as they jogged out into the road to watch what the vehicle did.

The vehicle's brake lights blinked, a couple of small spotlights came on, and then the vehicle moved on.

“They're definitely looking,” McCants said. “Let's saddle up. We might as well work from here.”

They fetched their packs, flashlights, thermoses, and equipment, and began to jog down the south side of the muddy road, Service following behind her. “I can't believe they didn't see our tracks,” McCants said over her shoulder.

He answered, “Like the boys said, they aren't expecting the DNR two nights in a row.”

“I don't see the lights anymore,” McCants reported.

The rain was suddenly heavier, and it was so dark that Service could barely see her even though she was no more than six feet ahead.

“Grant said there are some boulders and hummocks of hard ground in the marsh grass south of the road,” she said.

“You get the tickets tonight,” he said as they picked their way along through the rocks in knee-deep water. The marsh grass came up to his thighs, and several times he barked his leg against rocks he didn't see.