Blue Wolf In Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

  “You won’t believe it man, but Shamekia and I were once an item back in our college days. She went on to law school. Smart lady.”

  The woman smiled and nudged Treebone with an elbow. “Luticious has an overdeveloped fantasy life and a terrible memory. He and Kalina have been an item since way back. I ought to know. I tried to move in, but Kalina . . . that sister’s baaad when it comes to her property, know what I’m saying?” she said, her eyes flashing.

  Kalina was Treebone’s wife of almost twenty-five years. Service had been their best man. “Kalina’s prayin’ for Nantz,” Treebone added. “I want to see her.”

  Shamekia Cilyopus-Woofswshecom said, “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. I’ll be in the cafeteria.”

  “It’s in the basement,” Service said.

  “Naturally,” the woman said as she glided away.

  “Who is she?” Service asked as they walked the halls.

  “The brightest lawyer I’ve ever met. She was with the FBI, special agent in the Office of Liaison and International Affairs. She had three years in the London Legat before she got retired.”

  “Got?”

  “Yo,” his old friend said. “You listen good for a white-boy woods cop. She sued the Bureau for discrimination, so they pulled her bodacious bootie out of Washington and put her in London. S’posed to be a prize assignment. Hoped they’d buy her off, but it didn’t work. Shamekia gets outraged, only way to settle it is to make it right, dig? They settled big. She’s back in Detroit six months, partner in Fogner, Qualls, Grismer and Pillis. Tight-ass old Wasp firm. They brought her in because the woman is connected, see? You want dope on Brits, she can bring it on most quick. You want to throw shovels of dirt on the Feebs, she’ll be even quicker.”

  Treebone stared at Nantz in the bed and shook his head. “Motherfuckers,” was all he said. On their way to the cafeteria Service explained what had happened, including the whole Task Force 2001 business and Bozian’s unexpected appearance at the hospital.

  Treebone stopped Service and looked at him. “I know you and the governor got bad blood, but Bozian’s no fool, Grady. This can’t be the Man’s work. Our governor-man wants to be You-Ass-of-A’s main man and he ain’t dumpin’ that for no pissant woods cop.”

  “I know,” Service said. After his initial anger, he had reasoned his way to the same conclusion. Besides, he was pretty sure that Nantz, despite her vehement opposition to the governor’s political views, had a soft spot for him.

  The two men got coffee and joined the former FBI agent at a table.

  “Call me Shamekia,” she said with a smile that showed perfect teeth. “No one can pronounce the rest of it. Do you mind if I take notes? I don’t trust tape recorders. Too long with the Bureau, I guess. They’re only now moving to online reports.”

  Service nodded and began. “There’s a woman named Summer Rose Genova. She’s a veterinarian who runs the Vegan Animal Rescue and Reclamation Service in Brevort. That’s just west of St. Ignace. She’s been there about eight years. You’ve probably seen media reports about animal activist stunts in the U.P.?”

  “I saw,” the woman said grimly. “Green fire. Two dead, which is odd in the United States. Animal rights activists rarely kill people here.”

  Green fire. That term again. “Right, but I have my doubts about animal activists at Vermillion. The rest, I don’t know about. They’re not my business. The FBI moved in on Vermillion almost before the dust cleared. They took over the wolf research lab where the deaths occurred and started dismantling it. The vicks were shot rather than killed in the explosion. The Feebs moved in with a federal prosecutor and judge and they have a state police lieutenant in their pocket. The federal prosecutor is heading the investigation.”

  “Not the Bureau?” she asked.

  “No. First thing they did was seal off the site and create a team. The resident agent from Marquette isn’t even on the team. I’m part of it, only it’s not a real team. We’re spoon-fed what they want us to have, which so far isn’t much,” he said, stopping to let her catch up with her notes.

  “Right out of the gate they announced that Genova was a prime suspect in the Vermillion incident and they cited her history in England, which was where she was before she returned to the States. They claim she was a member and the spokesperson for an animal rights group that killed people. Early this morning she was arrested at an antihunting demonstration in Trout Lake. She denies the allegations about the U.K., but freely admits to organizing and leading the demonstration. She’s proud of it.”

  Service paused. “This morning I learned that the victims at Vermillion were shot with a .380. The Feebs got a warrant and found the same caliber weapon at Genova’s place. They’re now doing ballistics. SuRo thinks they’re stacking things against her.”

  “What do you think?”

  “The jury’s still out,” he said. “I want to believe her. What bothers me is how quickly they fixed on her as a suspect. They claim she’s been under continuous surveillance since she returned to the States.”

  “Surveillance for eight years? As in twenty-four seven?” the lawyer asked skeptically.

  “That’s what they claim.”

  “What do you want to know?” the former agent asked.

  “Everything about SuRo, starting with what actually happened in England. Have the Feebs really had her under surveillance since she returned to the States and if so, why? If she’s guilty, fine. If not, I don’t want to be pushed where evidence doesn’t lead.”

  “Please excuse this question, but why is a woods cop worried about this?”

  “The man has an overdeveloped sense of justice,” Treebone chimed in. “Nearly got our asses shot off more than once.”

  “My concern is the wolves.”

  “What will you say if the ballistics match?” Shamekia asked.

  “That would bother me, but that alone won’t mean she was the shooter. She’s obnoxious and opinionated, but I just don’t buy what the Feebs are trying to sell. It feels to me like they landed with a case already made, and that gives me the willies.”

  “Where is the BATF in all this?” the former agent asked.

  “Basically MIA,” he said. “I saw an agent at the crime site the night of the explosions, but there’s no BATF rep on the team.”

  “And the Bureau’s resident agent is out of the loop?”

  “Way out, but he’s running the investigation of the bomb incident at Tech, so maybe I’m reading more into this than I should. When I asked him why he wasn’t part of the Vermillion team he said it was ‘above his pay grade.’”

  “Did he? Above his pay grade,” the lawyer said, pushing her chair back. “There are some very nasty people in the animal rights movement,” she added. “You should see the psychos in Europe.”

  “SuRo may be a zealot, but she’s not a psycho.”

  “The Bureau’s swooping in like Mighty Mouse to take control and put together an investigative team, that’s standard operating procedure. But a federal prosecutor leading the investigative team—that’s not standard.”

  Her voice told Service she had doubts. “And?”

  “Let’s just say I wouldn’t accept what they’re dishing out at face value. As you know, Hoover took the Bureau into a lot of places it didn’t belong and despite the best efforts by some leaders since, the organization has a way of backsliding to old habits, especially in times of stress,” she said. “Tearing down the facility with such haste is unusual—to say the least.”

  “Can you work through the Bureau?”

  The lawyer laughed. “The only way I talk to them is with a judge as referee. No, I know people in the U.K. and they will be considerably more forthcoming than my former colleagues. I would think you’re pressed for time.”

  “Definitely,” he said.

  “I’m
sorry about your friend,” she said.

  Service nodded.

  “Now, I’m going to leave you gentlemen and get on back to Detroit and do what I do best.”

  Service didn’t understand. “I thought you rode with Tree.”

  “I did so we could talk, but my car and driver were right behind us,” she said. “She’ll be waiting.”

  The two men stood as she excused herself and departed.

  “Is she for real?” Service said.

  “Ain’t no act, brother,” Treebone replied. “When that woman mosey down the Cass, pit bulls be looking to hide in their masters’ assholes.”

  Nantz awoke twenty hours after surgery. Service saw her eyes flicker as fear and confusion flooded into them. He immediately punched the call button for a nurse and one came barreling in, followed soon thereafter by Dr. Caple. Service stepped outside while they examined Maridly. He found Treebone in a subdued conference with a short, muscular man in a double-breasted black blazer over a purple shirt and gray sharkskin slacks.

  Treebone turned to his friend. “S’up?”

  “She’s awake.”

  “I like it when God pays attention to Kalina’s prayers,” Treebone said, turning to the man in the blazer. “Detective Johnelvis McMann, meet Detective Grady Service.”

  McMann stuck out his hand. “Your lady okay?”

  “She’s awake.”

  “I just told Lieutenant Treebone we’ve got her assailant.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here. He was brought in a couple of hours ago. He’s been incapacitated by pain, vomiting, in and out of consciousness, the whole deal. His old lady panicked and called nine-one-one. He’s being prepped for surgery.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Detective McMann nodded and motioned for them to follow him.

  There was a uniform guarding the door to a private room off the surgical pre-op area. McMann pushed open the door and motioned Service and Treebone inside. The man in the bed had long, deep cuts and scratches all over his face. “We’ll do a DNA workup,” McMann said, “but this looks like our man. He works for the cleaning service that takes care of the office where Ms. Nantz works. He apparently met her there and decided he’d like to see if she was friendly. He told one of his asshole buddies at work about it. Obviously your lady didn’t take to his advances. He has a crushed testicle and he is one sick puppy.”

  Service stared at the man, torn between anger and relief, ashamed of his paranoia. The attack had nothing to do with the governor.

  “Get on back up to your woman,” Treebone said, pushing him toward the door.

  He found her alone, propped up in bed, awake, but not entirely alert, looking small and drained of her spark.

  “Grady?” she said with a raspy voice. “I hurt, honey.”

  He sat down on the bed and held her hand tenderly. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Her eyes welled with tears, but she fought them back. “I really hurt,” she said.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he repeated, patting her hand.

  “Why?” she asked. It was not a question he could answer.

  Minutes later Service heard shouting in the hallway and left her to ask for quiet. Treebone was being angrily dressed down by the Lansing detective, who was a head shorter than his friend, but pressed against his chest like an attack dog.

  “It was you, goddammit!” McMann said angrily.

  Tree held up his huge hands and shook his head. “I don’t know nothin’, man.”

  “Sonuvabitch,” McMann said.

  “Keep it down,” Service said.

  “Your pal here assaulted the assailant.”

  “Motherfucker’s gone woo tang,” Treebone said, holding up his hands again.

  Service waited for an explanation.

  McMann supplied it. “We left right after you, but your pal said he forgot something in the room. I let him go back in alone. Then, when we get back here, my uniform calls and says the nurses found the perp writhing in pain and they rushed him into surgery. His other nut’s crushed. Jesus.”

  Service looked at Treebone, who tried to look innocent, but he knew his friend and he had no doubt that McMann was right. Tree liked to make out that Service was the one who believed in justice, but Treebone was the devout hard-liner when it came to paybacks.

  The Lansing detective started to shake his finger at Treebone, stopped, shook his head in disgust, and stalked away.

  “Tree?”

  “Fuckwad don’t deserve even one nut, man. I’d a lopped off his johnson and stuck it in his mouth if there’d been time.”

  Service saw a vicious grin begin to form on his friend’s face. “We’re supposed to enforce the law, Tree.”

  “I did, man. Eye for an eye, an’ like that. Don’t go preachin’ righteous on me, Grady. It don’t mean nothin’.”

  Service shook his head, walked back into Nantz’s room, sat on the edge of the bed, and rested his hand on the pillow beside her battered and swollen face.

  “Grady,” she said in a whisper.

  “What, hon?” he asked.

  “I heard what you said.”

  “What I said?”

  “You know,” she said, tugging feebly at his fingers.

  He shook his head. What was she talking about?

  “I’ve heard everything,” she said. “I just couldn’t talk.”

  He stared at her as a tiny smile formed. Then he understood.

  “The answer is yes,” she said. “But not today, okay honey? The honeymoon would really suck.” Her eyes flickered and closed and Service sat ­staring at her, fighting back the urge to shout. Out of trepidation or happiness, he wasn’t quite sure.

  Chief O’Driscoll came to the hospital with his wife, Fae, after lunch, his normal cop-in-charge attitude back. “I talked to Doctor Caple,” he announced to Service. “They’re going to do tests tomorrow and release her forty-eight hours after that. The doctor says to anticipate a recovery of sixty to one hundred and twenty days.”

  She’ll lose her place at the academy, Service immediately thought.

  Fae O’Driscoll chimed in, “We’ve made up the spare room for her. Everything will be fine.”

  Service’s genetic default did not lean toward optimism—or toward accepting help, especially from the top woods cop in the state.

  Later his cell phone rang. It was Freddy Bear Lee.

  “The ballistics match. Genova’s Walther is the murder weapon,” the Chippewa County sheriff said. “She’s been arrested on an open murder charge and is being housed here. The feds want to transfer and arraign her in federal court in Grand Rapids. Homicide on federal property is a capital offense. I think the feds are going to push for the death penalty. Her lawyer will plead her not guilty. He’s fighting the move to GR. He can probably delay it for a few days, but when the feds want something, they usually get it. Nevelev is pushing to deny bail. The feds want to take custody.”

  Service rubbed his eyes. Death penalty? Freddy Bear didn’t understand Wiggy’s tenacity or skill. If Wiggins was fighting the move to GR, she probably wouldn’t be going. How could he have been wrong about SuRo? Death penalty? Why were the feds so obsessed with her?

  “Word’s out on your girlfriend,” Lee added. “Is she okay?”

  “She will be,” Service said, hoping the doctor was right, but knowing that saying something over and over had no influence on fate.

  “I’m heading back soon,” Service said.

  “When?”

  “Soon,” Service said. “You can have my vote on the team.”

  “Yah,” his friend said. “Thanks heaps, chum.”

  21

  Service remained in Lansing until Nantz was released on Tuesday. He had gotten a couple
of pages from Carmody but had no timely way to get back to him, and the pages had gone unanswered. He thought about looking at Kota’s tape, but left it alone. Better to be ignorant than to discover something he would have to deal with. Right now his sole focus was Maridly’s welfare.

  Chief O’Driscoll came to the hospital every day to eat lunch with him in the cafeteria and check on Nantz. On Monday the chief said, “Nantz’s assignment to Task Force 2001 is over. She can return to the academy as soon as she gets the medical green light.” The chief looked across the table at him. “Given the medical prognosis I think we should slide her to the next class.”

  “That’s not until next fall,” Service said.

  “She needs time to heal, Detective. There are pins in her collarbone and arm, and concerns about bone density.”

  The chief’s logic was unassailable, but Service did not want to make Maridly’s decisions for her. “Nantz will decide,” he said.

  “Counsel her,” the chief said. “She’s going to be a good one and we want her to have the full academy experience.”

  Who was “we”? Service wondered. “I’ll talk to her,” he said.

  The chief nodded and left to return to his office in the Mason Building.

  Throughout Nantz’s stay in the hospital, Service slept in a chair beside her bed, ate his meals in the room on trays from the cafeteria, and left her side only to smoke.

  Monday morning he had called Captain Grant.

  “I’m missing meetings and my contacts with my undercover,” he confessed.

  “Your priorities are in order,” the captain said.

  He’d also called McKower, who’d said much the same thing. “You, running to your lady’s side. God, if this may not be the real thing, Service.”

  “Shut up, Lis.”

  That afternoon Sheriff Lee called to let him know that Genova had tried to incite a riot at the jail. “Are you sure she’s sane?” Freddy Bear asked.

  “What’s her beef?”

  Freddy Bear laughed. “Exactly. No vegetarian meals. She’s threatening a hunger strike.”