“Believe her,” Service said. “Can you arrange something?”
“It’s already taken care of, pal, but she’s still pissed.”
On Tuesday morning he walked beside an orderly who took Nantz to the lobby in a wheelchair and helped her into his truck. They followed Chief O’Driscoll to his house on Northlawn in East Lansing. Fae O’Driscoll greeted them at the door and quickly pointed out that a late neighbor had been one of the scriptwriters of Top Gun and that Duffy Daugherty, the legendary MSU coach, had also lived nearby. “Biggie Munn, too,” she added. “This used to be the center of the university community, but now all the coaches are building palaces elsewhere.” Fae seemed less than pleased about the geocultural shift.
O’Driscoll’s house looked small from the outside but turned out to be spacious. Service supported Nantz as she walked through the back door and helped her onto a blue couch. There were potted plants everywhere. The spare room was built off the back of the ground floor. It had lavender walls and purple accents.
“Chicken soup for lunch?” Fae asked, leaving without waiting for an answer.
After lunch, Service helped Maridly to her bed and hovered. Finally she said, “Grady, I’m going to be fine. You have to get back to work, darlin’.”
He didn’t want to go. “You’ll call me when the test results come back?”
She smiled.
He turned to leave, but couldn’t.
“It’s good this happened,” she said.
“This is good?”
“I have a confession to make, Grady. When I went to the academy, I didn’t know if I could hurt another person. I mean I had real doubts about being able to use a gun. But if I’d had one at the hotel, I would have shot that bastard without hesitation,” she said. “Now I know I can handle the job.”
“I never had any doubts,” he said. She would learn that in reality the use of a weapon was never an easy decision.
“You would have if you’d been inside my brain. Now go on, honey.”
He bent down and kissed her gently on the lips. As he stood in the doorway to the bedroom, Nantz smiled and whispered, “When I get better, I want you inside more than my brain.” She winked and raised an eyebrow.
He dragged his feet leaving. The chief told him repeatedly not to worry and eventually he surrendered, got into his truck, called central dispatch to let them know he was back on the air, and headed north on US 127.
Driving north he wondered what Carmody was doing. He called Mc-Kower to update her on Nantz’s status, and called Treebone and thanked him for being with him. He tried to reach Shamekia Cilyopus-Woofswshecom, but was told she was not available. He left a message for a call-back in her voice mail and continued north.
By the time he got to Mount Pleasant, an hour north of Lansing, he was obsessing and fretting about Nantz and called O’Driscoll’s house. Fae told him Maridly was asleep and he decided it wouldn’t be right to wake her. Get it together, he chided himself.
He switched to an AM radio station out of Grayling and shook his head at what he heard. A reporter was talking about “incontrovertible evidence” from some foundation that there were mountain lions on both peninsulas of the state. An unidentified DNR spokesman was said to have responded by saying that the department believed that there were undoubtedly cougars and that they were being seen, but that all of them were former illegal pets either escaped from or turned loose by their owners. The spokesman insisted that there was no incontrovertible evidence of breeding pairs. If and when evidence showed breeding pairs, he said, the DNR would put together a plan to manage and protect the animals.
A plan that would require COs to do all the dirty work of enforcement, Service reflected. The state didn’t need another rare and endangered animal to worry about. Wolves were enough.
At some point, he reminded himself, he needed to look at the security tape from Vermillion and find out where Carmody was, but first he wanted to stop at the Chippewa County Jail to talk to SuRo Genova.
Mountain lions? “Gimme a break,” he said out loud.
22
Genova’s scrapes had scabbed over and her bruises were fading to purple and green with yellow auras, but her eyes looked as clear and uncompromising as ever. There was a scowl on her face.
She was escorted into an interrogation room and sat down without acknowledging him.
“I don’t like being played with,” Service said.
Genova stared daggers at him.
“Your Walther is the murder weapon. What the hell is going on?”
“I didn’t shoot anybody,” she said.
“Your gun did.”
“To quote the NRA: Guns don’t kill. People do. I repeat: I . . . did . . . not . . . kill . . . anybody. Was that slow enough for you to follow?”
“I hope Wiggins is up to this.”
“Don’t you worry about Wiggy,” she said coolly.
“Federal charges, SuRo. Homicide on federal property is a capital crime.”
Genova crossed her arms and sat defiantly.
One of the jailers stepped into the room behind Service. “You’ve got a call.”
Service left Genova in the interrogation room and went out to an office where a phone was lying on a soiled blotter filled with doodles of breasts and curvaceous women with featureless faces.
“Service,” he said, picking up the receiver.
“This is Shamekia. I’m sorry this has taken so long.”
“I’ve got Genova in the interrogation room right now.”
“I’m not sure where to begin,” the former FBI agent said.
“Start with what makes sense to you.”
“Mrs. Genova was apparently a very controversial figure. Her maiden name was Billows. My contacts across the pond say that for quite some time they were pretty sure she was part of the Animal Freedom League. She claimed to have no connection to them other than to share their views on vivisection and meat eating.”
“How long is ‘quite some time’?”
“Years. Eventually they arrested a senior official in the AFL and he traded testimony for leniency. He swore the group used Genova simply to point them away from others. Genova was so eloquent and outspoken that the authorities were misled for a long time.”
“But she wasn’t part of the group?”
“Only as a sympathizer and unwitting victim in her own right. She was involved in various demonstrations, but not as a member of the AFL or another violent group.”
“She claims she prevented people from being killed.”
“She’s telling the truth. She was religious about calling the authorities whenever she got a communiqué from the AFL. When the Brits determined she wasn’t an insider, they tried to convince her to help them, allowing phone taps and putting a tracer into her computer, but she refused.”
“Was she forced out of the country?”
“Not in the way you mean. I think she got fed up with badgering from the government. She married an American physician and a year later they relocated to the United States.”
“If the Brits are certain she wasn’t part of the AFL, why is the FBI so convinced that she is?”
“That’s not at all clear to me,” the former agent said. “Apparently Ge-nova had a longtime boyfriend who was part of the AFL. Maybe she knew, maybe not. The Brits don’t think so. But the boyfriend was a very, very bad boy. The Brits say he was also a longtime member of CARP—that’s Catholics Against Religious Persecution, a small group of extremists loosely affiliated with the IRA. The Brits call it a contract unit for wet work.”
“Assassinations?”
“Right. The boyfriend was one of their deadliest operators, but the RUC learned his identity and he had to split. He ended up in England and got involved with the AFL.”
“F
rom Irish rights to animal rights?”
“His only interest was killing Englishmen or those who sided with them. It took them a while, but the Brits connected him to several operations that targeted English companies with subsidiaries in Northern Ireland. There was no hard evidence of a strategy or an end game, but there was a clear trend and it made sense that this guy was involved.”
“So he kept fighting the war under the banner of animal rights. What happened to him?”
“He faded away. Rumors have put him in Libya or Angola, but nobody knows. Interpol has issued bulletins on him, but he’s basically been off the radar for eight years,” she said. “I suggested to my contacts that he must’ve had some sort of official government assistance in order to drop out of sight the way he did. My contacts concede that this theory has some merit, but they also say that they have thoroughly infiltrated virtually all the major warring factions in Northern Ireland and little happens up there that they don’t get a whiff of sooner or later.”
“Do they have a name or a photo?”
“No photo, but his name is Mouse Minnis.”
“Mouse?”
“Right, and that’s not a nickname. There’s no photograph, not even a sketch. The man has little background and no face.”
Service took out his notebook and had her spell the name as he wrote it down. “Minnis was Genova’s boyfriend?”
“According to my sources.”
“Before she married?”
“And afterward,” Shamekia said. “She married Howard Genova and continued to see Minnis until she left the next year.”
Interesting, Service thought, immediately wondering if the attraction was such that he might have followed her to the United States. Which was not uncharacteristic of how his mind worked.
“How do these people know about the boyfriend?”
“A woman named Bridget Galway came over from one of the Catholic groups—not CARP. She claimed that the group had put a price on her head and she wanted out before they killed her.”
“The Brits accommodated her?”
“They debriefed her and gave her a new identity. She told them about Minnis.”
“But not his identity?”
“Only his name and that he had used the AFL as a cover while remaining active in CARP, taking special assignments outside Northern Ireland. This led them to see that he had been hitting people with links to the North. Do you want me to go further with this?”
“Where else is there to go?”
“You pointed out that the Bureau seemed dead set on getting to Genova, and that makes me wonder why. They rarely do anything without a reason.”
“Genova’s pistol was the one used in the killings here.”
“That doesn’t mean she used it,” the former agent said.
“I know.” This was exactly what SuRo had said.
“Let me get back to you,” Shamekia Cilyopus-Woofswshecom said. “Not everybody in the Bureau is an asshole.”
When Service rejoined Genova he tossed a pack of cigarettes on the table. She pounced on it. “SuRo, let’s assume for a minute that I buy what you’re telling me.”
“It’s your money,” she said. “Spend it how you like.”
“I’m trying to help.”
She sneered. “Didn’t sound that way a while ago.”
“I was pissed.”
“Okay,” Genova said. “I’ll play along.”
“We’re not playing, SuRo.”
“Life is a game, rockhead.”
“I checked your version of events in England.”
“And?”
“British sources side with you.”
“You talked to them?”
He ignored her question. “I’d like to know about your boyfriend.”
Summer Rose Genova nearly dropped her cigarette and looked on the verge of panic, but quickly regained control. Service read the reaction clearly.
“I knew a lot of men in England. Biblically, if that’s your meaning.”
“This one was with the AFL and before that an outfit called CARP. His name was Mouse Minnis. He’s no longer in England. A woman came over to the Brits and fingered him. Minnis disappeared. You were seeing him after you were married to Howard. Did you ever see him again?”
Genova sat very still and mashed out her cigarette. “Wiggy doesn’t want me talking to cops,” she said, abruptly standing up.
“I can’t help you if you don’t help me,” Service said.
“Help yourself, rockhead. That should be a big enough challenge for you.”
“Who else had access to your weapon?” he asked.
“Nobody. I keep it locked up,” she said over her shoulder, heading for the door.
Service lit another cigarette after she was gone. Sometimes when you were talking to suspects your mind arced across a gap. There was no logic, just a sudden spark of intuition or something that left you looking at everything from a new perspective. He was certain SuRo had seen Minnis since leaving the U.K. The question was when and where and who he was now. And did it matter?
After a moment, he decided there was no point in letting his imagination run wild.
As he walked out to his truck, Freddy Bear Lee joined him. “She say anything?”
“She insists she didn’t do it.”
“They all say that,” the sheriff said.
“Sometimes they’re telling the truth.”
“How’s Maridly?”
Service looked over at the sheriff. He had never met Nantz. How did he know her name? “Hurting, but she’ll heal.” Soon, he hoped. She would not like losing most of the year waiting for the next academy class.
“There’s a team meeting tomorrow,” Lee said. “Why don’t you bunk at my place tonight?”
Freddy Bear lived with his eldest daughter, Velma, who taught French at Soo High. She was short and plump and seemed destined for spinsterhood. Grady was too tired to argue, and he didn’t want to impose on the Ozmans again.
Velma was out with friends. The two men whipped up a dinner of eggs scrambled with Italian peppers and onions from a jar. They ate a half pound of bacon with the eggs and half a loaf of rye bread toasted dark.
Dishes stacked in the dishwasher, they went into the sheriff’s study. Freddy Bear opened a bottle of cheap Spanish cream sherry and offered a Dominican cigar to Grady, who declined. Freddy Bear lit one for himself.
“The Genova woman isn’t stupid,” Lee said. “If she used her Walther to pop those folks, I’d think she’d be smart enough to get rid of it.”
Service nodded agreement and let the sherry curl warmly down his throat. “But if somebody else used it . . .” he said, not finishing the sentence.
“Then that somebody put it back where it could be found to set her up,” Lee said, finishing the thought. “You believe her?”
“I want to,” Service said. “When did the ballistics come back?”
“I called you as soon as I heard. Nevelev announced results at the team meeting and passed around the test photos. No question it was the weapon.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Just Genova’s,” the sheriff said after a pause.
“But?”
Lee puckered like he was thinking. “Well, there were no prints on the grip or the trigger or its guard. Just on the barrel and clip.”
“So she tried to wipe it down.”
“Why wipe it down? Wouldn’t dumping it be better? Besides, she’s a veterinarian, and if she wanted to wipe it clean, she’d do that.”
Grady Service took a sip of his sherry and nodded. “Maybe she was shook up.”
“Does she strike you as the sort to get flummoxed?”
Service shook his head. For a hothead, SuRo was as cool
as you were likely to encounter.
“So how come you wipe down half a gun?”
Either to set up someone or to make it look like you were framed, Service thought. Was SuRo this devious? She had been an activist in the U.K. and was still one.
“Do you know her husband?” Freddy Bear asked.
“I met him once.”
“What sort of a fella is he?”
“Surgeon. Sort of quiet, dignified.”
“The kind to have a jealous streak?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“If Genova didn’t pull the trigger, who did? I’m looking for motives. She’s married and lives alone. Is she the kind to step out on him?”
Service didn’t tell his friend about SuRo’s carnal escapades in England, or his suspicions about the United States. “Maybe.”
“Huh,” the sheriff said.
“Freddy, where the hell are you going with this?”
“I don’t exactly know. I overheard one of the Feebs say something to Nevelev about Genova having a gentleman visitor.”
“At her compound?”
“Location wasn’t specified. All that was said was that she had a pretty high libido for her age.”
Service felt weary. “The Feebs would know if they have her under continuous surveillance.”
Service felt the sherry blooming in his stomach. Continuous surveillance, he thought, and sat bolt upright in his chair.
“Has Nevelev mentioned surveillance or security tapes?” he asked, suddenly remembering that he had one from Vermillion that he had not yet looked at.
“No mention of tapes, but the word is they were on her around the clock so wherever she goes, they must go.”
Service looked at his friend. “If she drove up to Vermillion and shot those people, her tail would be a witness, or at least know she was there, right?”
“I suppose.”
Grady Service went out to his truck and retrieved the tape from the paper bag Kota had left it in. When he came back into Freddy Bear’s office, he said, “You got a VCR?”
Lee looked at the tape and said, “It ain’t a DVD. You want me to fire it up?”
Service shoved the tape into the VCR, queued it up, and turned around to look at the sheriff. “I’m not sure you want to see this, Freddy.”
Blue Wolf In Green Fire Page 23
