Blue Wolf In Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

  “Is the case still open?”

  “Fuck should I know?” Zambonet said, snapping at him. “Grinda says she has a lead, you know—like somebody she thinks is the one—but didn’t go nowhere. No evidence. Think you can do better? Huh?”

  Service had a feeling about Grinda. He guessed her noncooperation was not because she wanted all the credit for herself, but because she didn’t trust others to do the job as well as she could do it. He could sympathize.

  “Good night, Yogi. I’m really sorry about the animal.”

  “Fuckin’ fuckers!” Zambonet said as he dropped the phone.

  Service immediately called the Baraga County Sheriff’s office and got Grinda’s home number, but was informed she was on duty. He got a radio patch through to her and arranged to meet her at 4 a.m. She told him how to find a place on Williams Road south of Haskins. He scribbled down the directions and tried to remember familiar landmarks in the area, but couldn’t. She was on duty four nights before deer season began. He had no doubt she was out hunting for early shooters and jacklighters—which, he reminded himself as he settled down on the couch to sleep, is just what he used to be doing—and he missed it.

  He toyed momentarily with leaving a message with Nevelev to let her know he was going to miss another meeting in the Soo, but decided to hell with her. Under Bozian, DNR law enforcement was down to 160 officers in the field, and they couldn’t do their jobs and sit on their asses with interagency teams.

  13

  Simon was up early with Service, the two of them stumbling around the kitchen like walking dead, making sandwiches and filling thermoses with pungent Colombian coffee. Neither of them had much to say. The firearm deer season would open at first light in three days and for two weeks after that there would be more work than the state’s COs could handle. In some ways, the next few days could be the worst of all for violations and problems.

  Driving north, Service saw trucks, vans, and cars tucked off the road. Most hunters would already be carping about the lack of tracking snow as they did their final scouting, spruced up their blinds, and replenished bait. A few of them would be poaching. And if any of them had brought their weapons along, either in their vehicles or carrying them, they could be ticketed for violation of the five-day quiet period that preceded the season. The law said firearms could be transported to camps, but had to remain there until the season opened. Otherwise, carrying a weapon would be construed as hunting out of season. There was no snow and none forecast until next Monday. The lack of snow meant that starting tomorrow, too many wounded animals would crawl off to die, a waste. It was disturbing how many hunters were lousy shots.

  Service found a DNR truck where Grinda said it would be and snugged his own vehicle in behind it. No immediate sign of her. He got out, checked his watch, lit a cigarette, and stood against his truck, waiting.

  A few moments after 4 a.m., a flashlight beam began to slash through the blackness of the woods. Service watched it drawing closer and heard an unhappy male voice. The voice was puffing, obviously straining and complaining vociferously.

  “If I have to pay the fine and give up my rifle, why shouldn’t I have the goddamn meat?” the man was demanding. “I’m sure as fuck gonna pay for it.”

  There was no answer.

  The man didn’t relent. “You think you can arrest everybody who shoots a little early? This is so much bullshit!”

  “Yes,” a woman’s voice said. “Three days before the season is not a little early and you’re right, it is bullshit.”

  Service grinned.

  When the light beam emerged from the tree line, Service saw a man pulling a dead buck, a rope wound through substantial antlers. Elza Grinda walked behind the man, carrying a scoped hunting rifle and her Mag-Lite.

  Ignoring Service, she opened her truck, picked up her radio, and called Station 20 in Lansing with a request to check the man’s driver’s license and Social Security number against the Law Enforcement Information Network computer for any outstanding warrants. Apparently he was clean on the LEIN. She used her dash lights to write a ticket, and supervised as the man huffed and strained to dump the dead animal in the bed of her truck. She put his unloaded rifle and clip in her cab and locked the door.

  “You’ll receive a summons,” Grinda said, handing the citation to the man.

  “I thought I just had to pay a ticket.”

  Grinda said, “You were hunting before the season and using an artificial light. I’m asking that your weapon be condemned and destroyed. A judge will decide.”

  “Destroy my gun? Are you fucking crazy, lady?”

  For a moment, Service thought the man was going to unhinge, and he was ready to step in, but he sensed Grinda didn’t need help. She looked like a beauty queen who belonged on a tropical beach with a drink with a colorful little umbrella in it instead of in a uniform in forty-degree weather in the north woods. Grinda simply held out the ticket until the man snatched it out of her hand and scowled.

  “Do you need assistance finding your way back to your camp, sir?” she asked.

  Ouch, Service thought, fighting a smile.

  “Fuck you, Dickless Tracy! I was hunting these woods before some jerk shot his wad between your old lady’s legs.”

  Grinda remained impassive but Service could sense her evaluating the man’s state of mind.

  The hunter was dressed in an orange camo snowmobile suit with new knee-high leather-top L.L. Bean boots. His face was flushed by emotion and physical strain, and he was perspiring heavily.

  The man began to whine some more, thought better of it, looked at Service and shrugged. Before leaving, he stepped close to Service and said, “I wouldn’t fuck that bitch with your dick.” He stomped angrily down the shoulder of the road, kicking at anything that got in his way.

  Service held out his thermos. Grinda took it and poured a cup. Despite the hour and having been on duty all night, she looked fresh.

  “Early bird,” Service said.

  The conservation officer smiled grimly. “It’s a beautiful nine-point. I don’t condone it, but I understand his temptation. He had the animal staked out and baited with molasses, cabbage, corn, and salt. Said he hunted it all through bow season and he was afraid it would spook and run away before the opener and somebody else would get to it first. He was afraid to wait.”

  Service also understood. The best chance of killing a deer was the first morning of the first day of the gun season, when thousands of hunters were in the woods and moving around, shooting and pushing the animals. It was also the best time for a deer that a hunter had staked out to spook and get taken by another hunter. So it went: This was the luck part of the sport.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” he said.

  She shrugged and locked her penetrating gray-green eyes on him.

  “We had a wolf kill near Porier and Cable Lakes,” he said. “A single fifty-cal round. The animal was beheaded and gutted, left spiked to a tree. Wolf Daddy says you had a similar case.”

  “When was this?” Grinda asked.

  “We found it yesterday. Zambonet is sending it down to Rose Lake for a full workup, but we guesstimate it was shot the night before last.”

  “Close in?”

  “No, it was a long shot—just under a half mile. We recovered brass, one round, left on a stick at the shooter’s perch.”

  “Mine was similar,” the woman said reluctantly. “High perch for the shooter, one round, fifty-cal, same mutilations. No brass, though. Think you’ll get prints off yours?”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Service said, adding, “I never saw your wolfkill in the reports.” Each district filed a weekly report detailing the actions of its officers. Service had always carefully read the reports, knowing that things could tie together in unusual ways and that he could learn from other officers and their actions—
both what to do and what not to do.

  “It wasn’t in there,” she said. “Why advertise?” She folded her gloveless hands tightly around her thermos cup. In the dim lights of the truck Service saw that she had short, perfectly manicured fingernails. She added, “The reports are public domain, and they get reproduced by the media. Why give the perp coverage?”

  “How about because it might have put some of the rest of us on alert?”

  “It would also alert the shooter. It’s my case, my judgment. My sergeant and lieutenant concurred.”

  “Yogi says you have a suspect.”

  “But no evidence.”

  “Maybe we can help each other.”

  “I haven’t asked for help.”

  “I’m the one asking for help,” he said, trying to read her. Was there room to negotiate? Her eyes betrayed nothing. He could try sugar or something more acidic and confrontational and decided on the latter.

  “You have the rep of a good cop, but not a team player.”

  She bristled immediately. “Is this for real? Grady Service lecturing me on team play?”

  “Especially me,” he said. “I’ve been there.”

  “And now that you’re a detective, you need help.”

  “I always needed help, Grinda. You do too, even if you don’t recognize it.”

  The woman stood with clenched teeth.

  “If you had this nailed, your suspect already would be in custody. Obviously you can’t get this done alone, and now we have another dead wolf. I’m not trying to steal your case, Grinda. But you share and I share and let’s see what we can get. Before the wolf, I had a bear taken with a fifty-cal near McMillan. We don’t see many fifties outside of black powder season. It makes an impression. When I heard you had one too, I wished I had known, that’s all. I know your case is your case, but if we have the same shooter, you can take the lead and the credit.”

  “It’s already mine.”

  “Yeah, and you’re sitting on your ass at the end of an evidentiary ­cul-de-sac.”

  The woman began to laugh, a deep, wracking cackle of demonic amusement.

  Service let her laugh it out, standing silently, knowing she was laughing at him and not sure how to react.

  “Jesus, Service. Is this what you call salesmanship?”

  “I call it straight talk.”

  “Right, you get a new job and now you want the rest of us to bail you out.”

  Service sighed. Was her problem with the chain of command or with him?

  “C’mon, what have you got, Grinda?”

  The woman chugged the rest of her coffee. “I heard there was a single-shot fifty-cal being used by someone at the South Superior Rod and Gun Club. I looked into it. It was in the possession of a woman who claimed it was owned by her boyfriend who owns a gun shop and that she was just testing it, that it had been sold and would soon be gone.”

  “Wealthy Johns and Skelton Gitter,” Service said, guessing and hoping.

  Grinda looked startled. “How did you know?”

  “I can’t say.”

  She curled her lips in disgust. “One-way cooperation. I figured as much.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not that way.”

  Grinda shook her head.

  Service said, “Johns and Gitter are under the microscope. I’m tracking a cash-for-trophies operation and developing evidence suggests their involvement.”

  The conservation officer stared at him. “You’ve got somebody inside?” She suddenly looked interested.

  “Let me answer that question with a question. If you were undercover, would you want me revealing I had someone on the inside?”

  Her eyes blazed hot. “No.”

  “Johns and Gitter, right?”

  She nodded and said, “I know a guy who works there. He’s always asking me out, so I took him up on it and as a favor I had him pull the paperwork on the fifty-cal. Gitter said he bought it from Harris Gunworks, but it was sold.”

  “To whom?” Service asked.

  “A man named Mayhall in Mongo, Indiana. I had it checked out. I know an Indiana CO who owed me a favor. Mayhall actually lives and owns a business in Fort Wayne. He never bought the fifty, or any rifle. He doesn’t hunt, doesn’t fish, and doesn’t do the outdoors. In fact, he has a heart condition. Somebody used his name. He owns a cottage on the Pigeon River near Mongo, which is on the state border. He also has a place in the southern Porkies. He bought both places as investments, but never uses either of them. That weapon could be anywhere.” Grinda’s face was grim. “Why the hell are you involved in this, Service?”

  “I thought I explained that. I had the bear case and I was with Zambonet when we found the animal yesterday. I told him I’d help. He told me about your case and now there’s a potential link to another case I’m working.” He didn’t give her Nurmanski’s name or any of the details and he did not tell her about Kaylin Joquist.

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Stay away from Gitter and Johns for now. Talk to Yogi, look at the evidence he gathered. Maybe you’ll see something we missed.”

  “While you disappear into the mist?”

  He gritted his teeth. “I’ll get back to you. If we get enough for a bust, it’ll be yours.”

  The woman stared at him, said, “I bet.”

  Service departed thinking she was pretty insecure, not nearly as confident as her performance suggested.

  He wanted desperately to talk to Carmody, but under their agreement, Carmody was the only one who could ask for a meeting. He would have to wait. He opted instead to call Captain Grant.

  As usual, no pleasantries were exchanged. The captain was all business.

  Service began with a confession: “I missed the last two meetings in the Soo.” When the captain didn’t say anything, he said, “I asked Joe Ketchum to check the Vermillion compound. Four of the wolves were recovered yesterday. Three of them were still inside.”

  “Where were they when you were there?”

  Service cringed. In other words, had he fucked up and not examined the premises as thoroughly as he should have? “I found the tracks of two animals outside the enclosure area, but the ground was pretty badly torn up. I should have gone inside, Cap’n, but with so many people around, I couldn’t believe the animals would still be there.” More to the point, the presence of so many agencies had broken his focus, but he kept this to himself. He hadn’t done his job properly, and excuses wouldn’t change this fact.

  The captain paused before speaking. “I talked to Ms. Nevelev last night and she did not mention this, but she made a point of informing me of your absences.” Was the captain perturbed? Grant was a proponent of sharing among officers and law enforcement agencies. Information was the lifeblood of the investigational process; unshared, it coagulated, dried up, and turned to dust. But why hadn’t the captain made sure the force knew about Grinda’s wolf? The man was impossible to read.

  “Cap’n, if I have to be at every meeting, I can’t do my job. Most of the people on the team are management types or from units where others can cover for them. I’m a working warden.”

  “I am not criticizing you, Detective. I am simply relating the conversation with Ms. Nevelev. I told you I trust your judgment, so let’s not waste time on this. When I have a criticism, you can be assured you will be the first to know.”

  Service felt burned and duly chastised. He was thinking about himself and the captain was focused on the case.

  “Nevelev has to be aware of the situation,” Service said. “Joe called in a vet from Newberry to tranq one of the animals and afterward the Feebs moved in and took control of all the wolves. The Feebs told Joe it’s not our jurisdiction. What the hell is going on, Captain?”

  “Where were the animals found?” Grant asked
, ignoring his detective’s question.

  “Three were still in the compound and one was nearby. I spent yesterday with Yogi Zambonet and he said releasing animals from captivity is a screwy business. He said the explosion might have sent them hauling or it might’ve hunkered them down; there’s no way to predict wolf behavior. I asked Joe to see if I had missed something. I had.”

  “I see,” Grant said. “The wolves stayed and Officer Ketchum found them, but the FBI took them. Why didn’t the FBI find them if this is all theirs?”

  Service kept quiet.

  “I cannot understand why Ms. Nevelev didn’t acknowledge this,” the captain said. “Have you followed up with Warden Kota?”

  The captain’s formality grated at him. “Not yet, but he’s on my list.” For nearly twenty years he had done his job without having to keep an actual list, but maybe he needed to start keeping one, a thought he found irritating, though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact source of his uneasiness. “Captain Grant, maybe there’s a lot more going on here than we realize.” This was a statement born not of knowledge but of intuition, and often Service contemplated how the gift of intuition could also be a curse. It was a gift you were born with and presumably had under your control, but once intuition took hold, it could overpower all logic. When this happened all you could do is hope that it held up.

  If the captain heard, he kept his own counsel. Service decided enough had been said, enough fuel dumped on the captain’s simmering fire.

  “Yesterday Yogi and I found a wolf that had been shot. It turns out that this is the second one, both of them beheaded and mutilated and killed with a fifty-caliber. Brass was recovered with both bodies. All of this is a sicko message, probably to us. I just left Elza Grinda. She had the first kill and believes the weapon belongs to Skelton Gitter. It was placed at one time in the hands of his girlfriend.”

  “I see,” the captain said, giving no indication he knew about Grinda’s wolf or the decision to keep it out of the weekly report. “Officer Hjalmquist’s grouse case pointed you to Mister Gitter and Ms. Johns, and Nurmanski pointed you into the same area, and now Grinda is focused there as well. Have you heard from your undercover?”