Blue Wolf In Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

  Wolf tracks located, his job was done for the moment. He’d found sign of two of the animals, and there was no sense stumbling around in the dark all night. If two were out, all were probably out. They sure as hell wouldn’t sit tight with so many people around. He didn’t know much about wolves, but he did know that the smell of humans sent them running. Had the bomb been meant to free the wolves, or was their release a side effect? For that determination, they would have to wait for the technicians to complete their work.

  Service walked the mile out to the gatehouse, nodded to the deputies at the roadblock, and studied the small cinder-block building for security cameras. There was one camera.

  “Anybody know what the camera caught?”

  “The Feebs took the cassette,” one of the deputies said. “The state and feds are crawling all over the place. We don’t even know why the hell we’re here.”

  The usual jurisdictional squabbling, Service thought. “Where’s Sheriff Lee?”

  “On his way back from a meeting in Green Bay. He’s gonna go ballistic when he sees all these feds.”

  Service knew the Chippewa County sheriff well, and the deputy was correct in his assessment. Sheriff Lee thought of the county as his personal domain.

  Just as he decided to return to Rector, it dawned on him that he’d seen no tracks during his circuit around the perimeter. How had Kota approached the fence? Where had he come in from, and why not through the gate like everybody else? And why hadn’t Kota shown up at the lab with the rest of the cops?

  Service backtracked to the lab and sought out Barry Davey.

  “You know DaWayne Kota?”

  “The Bay Mills warden?”

  Service nodded.

  “I’ve met him.”

  “Have you seen him tonight?”

  Davey looked irritated. “Why would he be here?”

  Service had the same question, but said nothing about seeing Kota.

  Pouring more coffee for him, Wink Rector said, “One of the vicks is the director’s wife.”

  “I heard,” Service said, accepting the cup of coffee. “Have there been any problems out here before?”

  Rector said, “Not that I know of. The place is like Bumfuck, Nowhere. There’s no publicity and no signs to indicate to the public that it’s here, much less what it is.”

  Somebody knew, Service thought. “I need to talk to Brule.”

  “Now? He’s in pretty rough shape.”

  “Best time to get info is right now.”

  “I’ll have to ask permish,” the resident agent said, not hiding the fact that he didn’t like being reduced to lackeydom. Service didn’t blame him. Wink was one of the good guys who worked a thankless job in the U.P. without complaint.

  When he returned from talking to the other FBI men Rector said, “Five minutes is all you get, and I have to stick to you like Velcro.” Rector looked unhappy about it. “That’s a verfuckingbatim quote.”

  They approached the open door of the state police cruiser and handed the lab director a cup of steaming coffee. His eyes were puffy and red, his jowls sagging even more than Service remembered. The man looked devastated.

  “Doctor Brule, I’m Grady Service.”

  “I remember you,” the director said in a shaky voice.

  “Doctor, did the wolves run loose in the compound or was there an internal holding pen?”

  “Loose,” Brule said. “So we could monitor behaviors.”

  Human or animal? Service wondered. “I don’t remember how many animals were here.”

  “Five,” the scientist said.

  “Including a blue wolf?”

  Brule answered immediately. “He was brought to us from Saskatchewan late last month. Not a pack animal, but we wanted to see how his introduction would affect the pack hierarchy.”

  “How did it?”

  Brule stared at Service. “Is this necessary? My wife is dead.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but somebody blew the fence. That could mean they were trying to release the animals.” It could also mean that the bomber wanted a body count. “The thing that puzzles me is, why would they blow the fence at the building? Why not simply cut the fence where it can’t be seen?”

  “We have adequate camera coverage,” Brule said.

  “Around the entire perimeter?” Service asked.

  “Yes,” Brule said.

  “Is there a central security facility?” Service asked.

  “Landlines,” Brule said, suddenly slumping forward in his seat and beginning to sob.

  Rector pulled Service back from the vehicle.

  Landlines. What did that mean? Were all the cameras hardwired into a central control room? If so, why had the camera at the gate held a cassette? Dial it down, he told himself. The feds were big believers in system redundancy and had the money to afford it.

  “Is there a central control room, Wink?”

  “Dunno,” Rector said. “My first time out here.”

  “Wink, if you wanted to let the animals out, you could do it a lot quieter and smarter than this. Why use the Queen Mary when a tugboat will do the job?”

  Rector whispered, “You are one suspicious sonuvabitch.”

  Peterson, the number two man in the Detroit office, walked over to them. “Get what you needed?”

  “I’ve still got a lot of questions,” Service said.

  “Save them for morning,” Peterson said. “A team is being formed, and you’re to be part of it. We’ll meet in the Soo at the state police post. Oh eight hundred.”

  “See you there,” Service said to Wink Rector.

  “Special Agent Rector will not be part of the team,” Peterson said coolly. “He has other priorities.”

  Service said nothing. Why was Wink being left off the team? The U.P. was his territory, and he was connected and trusted everywhere. Hell, Wink was leading the bomb investigation at Tech when to his way of thinking that should have fallen to BATF. Maybe his superiors thought his plate was already full. Or maybe they were playing their usual turf games, despite claims to the contrary by the country’s new attorney general.

  “See you there,” he told Peterson.

  He grabbed Rector by the arm after Peterson went away. “What’s the deal? This is your turf.”

  “I’ve already got Houghton and this one’s above my pay grade.”

  “I don’t understand,” Service said.

  “You will,” Rector said, leaving him to walk back to the gate and his truck alone.

  On his way back through Paradise, Service called Captain Grant and got him out of bed. It was just before 4 a.m.

  He told the captain, “Two dead, both scientists, and one of them is the lab director’s wife. Somebody blew the fence. There doesn’t appear to be any wolves left in the compound, only why the hell blow it when you could just cut the fence quietly? This makes no sense to me. This place is covered by video, so maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “You heard this isn’t an isolated act?” Grant asked.

  “Yes, but no injuries or fatalities in the other incidents, right?”

  “That’s my understanding,” his captain said.

  “I heard a mink farm was hit. Did they blow fences there?”

  “No, they cut the wire cages and spray-painted the buildings.”

  “A bomb was used here but not elsewhere, a lousy choice on location and two dead. And no spray-painting here that I saw. That makes it an outlier, wouldn’t you agree, Captain?”

  Before his supervisor could answer, Service added, “The number two guy out of the Detroit Feeb office is here with a counterintelligence man from Washington, a team is being formed, and Wink Rector isn’t going to be part of it. They asked me to sit in. First meeting is in the Soo at the Troop post at
oh eight hundred. Do you want me on the team?”

  Captain Grant was silent for a while. “Just keep me informed.”

  “Sir, Barry Davey is also here.”

  There was another pregnant pause. “Call me after your meeting in the morning.”

  “Yessir.”

  “What do you smell, Detective Service?”

  “I don’t know yet, sir.”

  “Well, keep that sniffer of yours working.”

  Service checked the clock on his dashboard. He was sixty miles from the Soo and he had a meeting in four hours. But he also wanted to see DaWayne Kota and he needed a short nap. As usual, more things to do than time to do them.

  10

  The heavy fog was lifting slowly as Grady Service drove into the Bay Mills Indian Community. DaWayne Kota’s behavior grated.

  It was nearly 4:30 a.m. when he walked into the Tribal Police Station and asked for Kota’s address. The female night dispatcher looked at him quizzically, but his badge gave him currency and produced the information he wanted.

  Kota lived in a relatively new modular home not far from Monocle Lake. There was no vehicle in the driveway and no dry spot to indicate one might have been there recently. Service parked on the street and approached the house. Dogs began to bark from nearby dwellings. It took a long time for a response, but eventually a porch light came on. A woman came to the door and peeked out through a chain lock.

  “I’m Grady Service, DNR,” he said. “I’m sorry to wake you. Is DaWayne Kota here?”

  “No, is there a problem?”

  “I’m on my way to the Soo for a meeting and I wanted to talk to him. When will he be back?”

  The woman was young and petite, a little plump, her hair twisted by pillows. Maybe she was Kota’s daughter. She looked too young to be his wife. But you never knew. Maybe people said the same thing about Nantz and him.

  “He got a call and had to leave. I don’t know when he’ll get back.”

  Had Kota gotten a call about Vermillion? He’d said he’d heard it on the police band radio. Had he lied? If so, why?

  “Sorry to wake you.”

  “I don’t mind,” the woman said. “I’m used to it. Is there a message?”

  Service gave her a business card. “Ask DaWayne to call me.”

  The woman studied the card. “The DNR has detectives?”

  “It’s a new job,” he explained. “Again, I’m sorry.”

  The woman looked over his shoulder at the lingering mist. “Would you like me to make coffee?”

  “Thanks, but I have to get to the Soo.”

  After the stops at Bay Mills, he drove to the house of Denny Ozman near Dafter and pulled into the long driveway, parking by the barn of the onetime hay farm. Ozman was a recently retired CO who now guided salmon fishermen on the St. Mary’s River.

  It was 5:45 a.m. and Service stretched out as best he could, hoping to catch a nap, but an insistent tapping on the window awakened him. He found Denny rubbing fog off the window with the back of his hand and peering in.

  Service got out and stretched, feeling stiffness in the shoulder he had separated last summer. “Sorry, I needed a place for a quick nap.”

  “Youse coulda knocked on the friggin’ door, eh? Sleepin’ out here like some sort of bloody appleknocker. Geez. Jenny will be pissed.”

  An appleknocker was anybody not from the U.P., and Jenny was his wife. “No point waking you guys. I’ve got a meeting in the Soo at eight.”

  Denny grinned. “Let’s get some coffee inta youse.”

  Service followed Ozman into the house.

  The last time he’d visited, the old farmhouse had been a wreck inside. Now it looked like something out of a magazine.

  As he looked around Ozman said proudly, “Jenny’s da one with da taste, eh?”

  Ozman made coffee and got out the cinnamon rolls. “I heard they made you a detective. How’s she going?”

  “Finding my way,” Service said.

  “Must be a bitch to have to work with others all the time.”

  Service nodded. “Den, do you know DaWayne Kota?”

  Ozman brought the coffeepot and cups to the table. “Sure.”

  “Good warden?”

  Ozman stretched. “I wun’t want his job, I’ll tell ya. Lotta young kids out there to Bay Mills and some old bucks used to doin’ what they want. Tough to police that bunch, eh? All sorts of agitators telling them they can fish and hunt when they want, where they want. How’re they supposed to know what they can legally do?” The retired CO slurped his coffee and looked across the table at Service. “Trouble with da Bay Mills crowd?”

  “No, I just wondered about Kota.”

  “Good at his job, I think, but I retired before he was hired so I dunno firsthand. He seems to get it done and he don’t take shit off nobody. Respects Indian ways, but he backs da law all da way.”

  Service changed the subject. “How’s retirement?”

  “Well, the money ain’t grand, but it’s okay. The guidin’ business is growing, and the salmon runs are predictable so far. I can’t complain. Even with da September shitstorm I was booked up all fall. Took a while for Jenny to get used to me being around so much, but now we got it worked out.”

  A female voice chimed in. “You betcha. I give him lists of stuff to do and he stays outten my hair.” Jenny Ozman was short and wide with ruddy skin and a friendly smile that dominated her face. She looked half asleep as she poured coffee. “Did youse give ’im da good bakery or da junk you boughten on special?” she asked her husband. Service liked how the couple blended English and Yooperese. Like most lifelong Yoopers they spoke so fast that they were sometimes difficult to follow. When he’d first returned to the U.P. after Vietnam and his Troop job downstate it had taken months to get his ear retuned.

  “What’s wrong with mine?” he asked.

  “Not enough sugar.”

  “My job to be your sweet,” he said and Jenny rolled her eyes and laughed out loud. Denny and Jenny made the sort of couple who had always seemed to belong with each other. Service wondered if Nantz and he would grow old together. The thought surprised him. Getting sentimental in his old age. Hell, he was already getting up there and he had nearly a twenty-year lead on Nantz.

  At 7:30 a.m. Service pulled into the parking lot of the Cow Barn Bakery and saw a steady stream of truckers and people on their way to their jobs. There were hunters in pickups, in place before the opener to scout. They were dressed in jeans and plaid shirts. Most of them wore cromer hats with the flaps sticking out like wings. They had on orange or red hunting coats that bulked them up. Some wore old-fashioned hunting tag holders pinned to the backs of their jackets.

  A thirtyish woman pulled up in a pale blue Jeep with the rear left rocker panel caved in and giving way to pits of rust. A broken side window was held together with veins of gray duct tape. She had six young kids inside. He watched her lock them in, shake her finger at them, fluff up her hair, and run into the Barn. She came back quickly, balancing a tray with a hot drink and doughnuts. She was probably a regular with a standing order, on her way to drop the kids at day care. He could hear the kids shouting as she got in and began passing around the goodies. More kids than seat belts, but he decided not to bother her. She had enough to keep her busy, and up here rules like the seat belt laws sometimes didn’t make sense.

  The Soo state police post was a nondescript one-story building made of cinder blocks painted tan. He was ushered into a small conference room fifteen minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin. Davey was already seated, as were Peterson, the FBI counterterrorism man, and Phillips, Detroit’s assistant special agent in charge. Service took a seat at the end of the table nearest the door. A state police lieutenant in a crisp blue uniform came in and sat to his left. Service didn’t rec
ognize him. His metal name tag said ivanhoe. Nobody spoke.

  A man in a dark suit entered and took the chair next to the head of the table. Carson Vengstrom was the federal magistrate judge in Marquette, part of the federal Western District Court out of Grand Rapids. Vengstrom had held his position nearly fifteen years and was a nonentity. What was a federal judge doing here?

  Freddy Bear Lee slid into the room behind the judge and looked around. Lee was the longtime sheriff of Chippewa County, an avid fly fisherman, president of the Chippewa County Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and a genetic Yooper. Lee had once been attacked by a black bear while he was fishing the Pine River. He had gotten a tree between him and the aggressive sow and driven the bear off by stabbing it in the nose dozens of times with his pocketknife. He had become Freddy Bear after that. He was not tall, but he was fit with short gray hair and a neatly trimmed brush mustache.

  “Hey Grady,” the sheriff said brightly, touching two fingers to the brim of a faded green Trout Unlimited baseball cap emblazoned with the words no kill.

  The next person to arrive was Chick Reardon, Chippewa County’s assistant prosecuting attorney, and right behind him came a short woman with highlighted hair and the tightest business suit Service had ever seen. She cruised confidently to the head of the table and sat down. Two more men in suits came into the room and took chairs against the wall behind Service. The two looked like Feebs and, if so, where was BATF in this thing? For Christ’s sake, it had been a bomb.

  The woman spoke, “Good morning, gentlemen. I’m Cassie Nevelev, assistant prosecuting attorney for the U.S. district court in Grand Rapids. After early-morning discussions with senior people in your organizations, this team has been assembled to oversee the investigation of the events at Vermillion and elsewhere.”

  Why was a federal prosecutor leading the team? Everybody knew that the FBI wouldn’t be part of an interagency team unless it led the effort.

  “I’m not a cop,” Nevelev said, “but this case seems to offer the potential for jurisdictional confusion. It will be my job to help sort out who should be doing what.”

  Wink Rector was heading the investigation at Tech, not BATF, and now Justice was heading this fandango? Service knew too well that interagency cases could be problematic, but this was a double killing on federal property, which meant it belonged to the feds. Why did they need a referee? he wondered, looking at Peterson, who was rubbing his brown-and-gray beard. This thing was getting more twisted by the minute, and all the time he was spending here took away from time on his poaching case.