Blue Wolf In Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

  “She leads a terrorist group,” Nevelev said.

  “We saw the terrorists,” Service said. “College kids and aging hippies.”

  “Don’t underestimate their capacity for violence.”

  “Nor will I overestimate it,” Service said. “Again, what was her motive?”

  “Not hers alone,” Nevelev said. “The Animal Freedom League’s.”

  “Based on what?”

  “I have no idea how such people justify their agendas.”

  “A lot of that going around,” Freddy Bear Lee said, chiming in.

  Service kept pressing. “You said earlier that Genova has been under continuous surveillance.”

  “Yes,” Nevelev said. “That’s correct.”

  “Explain to the team why her surveillance tail didn’t intervene when she allegedly entered the Vermillion facility and shot two people? Or at least why she wasn’t detained after the explosion? Or that she was even seen at Vermillion?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss surveillance procedures.”

  “There’s not a lot of liberty for anyone to discuss anything,” the sheriff said.

  Service continued, “How do your forensics people account for the odd pattern of wiping on the murder weapon? Prints only on the barrel and clip. Why would she wipe down only half of it?”

  “I cannot account for the inconsistency of human criminal behavior,” Nevelev said sharply.

  Service kept going. In a fight you rarely knocked out an opponent with a single punch. The trick was to hammer home lots of punches to get the brain reeling. Knockouts were gotten by the accumulation of sharp, well-aimed blows.

  “The night of the explosion I talked briefly to Doctor Brule, and he said something about the security system and landlines. I assume this means the cameras were hardwired to a central facility and that there are tapes. Will the team get to see them?”

  “The tapes are under review and analysis,” the FBI’s Phillips said haughtily.

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Bullshit, Service thought. “We haven’t seen them,” he said. “And we have had no description of the security system there. Why does the system blend hardwiring and cassettes? We can’t participate unless we have a full picture.”

  Nevelev and Phillips traded glances. “There are national security issues here and these make it necessary for us to walk a fine line.”

  “A fine line or a bloody plank?” Sheriff Lee said.

  Service watched Barry Davey and saw that he was doing his best to look inconspicuous.

  The meeting was over in less than twenty-five minutes. When Nevelev had left the room, Ivanhoe walked over to Sheriff Lee, dropped an envelope on the table, nodded, and left the room without a word.

  The envelope contained a list of names and addresses of employees of the Vermillion lab.

  Lee slid it over to Service and said, “Now we can start to dig. Use my office?”

  At the sheriff’s office downtown, Service got a phone call from DaWayne Kota.

  “You find anything interesting lately?” the tribal CO asked.

  “Yep. Did you?”

  “The blue wolf has been spotted.”

  “Where?”

  “South of Munising.”

  “By whom?”

  “A trapper from Covington saw the animal last Friday.”

  “You’re sure it’s the same one?”

  “Our people wouldn’t mistake a blue wolf for anything else. A wolf can make fifty miles a day easy. So the animal hasn’t gone that far, given the time he’s had.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  The call made no sense to Service. Was Kota trying to tell him something?

  Shortly after the Kota call, Barry Davey called Service and asked him to meet for coffee. They went to a shop called the Cemetery Cafe, which was just down the hill from Lake Superior State’s campus.

  “Has Carmody concluded his mission yet?” Davey asked.

  “No. Why?”

  Davey swallowed loudly. “I may have to pull him out. Something else has arisen.”

  “You told me I could have him until this thing’s concluded.”

  “Shit happens,” Davey said.

  “If you pull him out now, I may have to start all over.”

  “It can’t be helped.”

  “It’s set so that I can’t call him. He has to call me.”

  “I know the contact protocol for undercovers. Next time he calls, tell him to get in touch with me.”

  “Do I get to be part of that discussion?”

  “When it’s time,” Davey said. “I’ll try to arrange a replacement for you.”

  Service got stiffed with the bill for two coffees and cranberry scones and bristled at the inflated prices.

  He called McKower from Lee’s office. “I found something,” he said. “It shows the shooter.”

  A long silence ensued. “What’s the next step?”

  “Freddy Bear Lee has seen it. We’ve duped the tape and we’re getting a copy enhanced. We can’t see the shooter’s face in the original, but maybe a photo whiz can clarify it.”

  “Do I want to see this?”

  “It shows the two vicks going at it before they’re shot.”

  “I see,” she said. “Before the explosion?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m here when you need me. Do you want me to call the captain?”

  “No, I’ll take care of it. Thanks, Lis.”

  Service looked at the sheriff. “Let’s look at the tape again.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to pinpoint the time of the explosion.”

  It didn’t take long to learn that the shooting took place at 2202 and the explosion at 2205:30. The shootings took place three and a half minutes before the bomb went off, so what was the purpose of the bomb and how had it been detonated? An attempt to cover the shootings, or to release the wolves?

  Freddy stared at the VCR. “The shooter’s either the luckiest bastard in the world, or he triggered the bomb from a safe distance.”

  If true, Service thought, the bomb had nothing to do with releasing wolves.

  That afternoon, Service and Sheriff Lee drove to Paradise to meet with Jacki Laval. There were thirty names on the Vermillion employee list. “Why are we starting with her?” he asked Sheriff Lee.

  “Grapevine,” the sheriff said, not bothering to amplify.

  Laval lived in a prefab house on a small land parcel about a mile from Water Tank Lake and the entrance to Tahquamenon State Park. There was a relatively new Dodge mini van parked by the trailer and two snowmobiles on a trailer near a small metal pole barn.

  Sheriff Lee banged on the door. After a while a tall, thin woman with a horsey face opened the door and stared warily at them. It was afternoon, but she looked like she had been asleep. “Jacki Laval?”

  She nodded.

  “You work at Vermillion?”

  “Worked. I guess that’s done now. At least, that’s what we’re all hearing. Nobody’s bothered to talk to us directly.”

  “You haven’t been interviewed by the FBI?”

  She shook her head.

  “Can we come in?” Lee asked.

  The woman pulled the door open. “You fellas want some coffee? Won’t take but a minute to make with my Krups.” She pointed proudly to a new coffeemaker.

  Lee accepted and the woman showed them to a round table, where they sat down. Service looked around the room. Only a leather recliner looked new. There were some photographs on the walls, including a couple of Laval in a uniform Service recognized.

  “You worked at Kincheloe?” The air force b
ase had been decommissioned by the feds and converted by the state into a series of minimum- and maximum-security prison units.

  “Until I got the job at Vermillion. Pay’s about the same, but the conditions are a lot better. In prison it’s one hassle after another.”

  When the coffee was ready, she filled three cups and brought them to the table.

  “Do you work security at Vermillion?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, I was a day maintenance supervisor. Been there about a year.”

  “Surprised you’re not in security.”

  “Too much competition. I took the maintenance job to get my foot in the door. Like I said, I spent enough time in prisons.”

  “Did maintenance include working with the animals?” Grady Service asked.

  “No,” the woman said. “The biologists and their techs insisted on doing anything that got close to the animals. I guess the wolves get kind of goofy around people.”

  “Did you do maintenance on the security cameras?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, security took care of that. My people cleaned the lab and the outbuildings.”

  “Did you have much contact with Doctor Brule or his researchers?” the sheriff asked.

  “Not really. They had their own thing. People with educations like that tend to stick to their own kind.”

  Service noticed the woman rubbing her hands together.

  Freddy Bear took a long swig of coffee and smacked his lips. “It’s been said you had some contact with Doctor Singleton.”

  The woman tried to hide her surprise. “I knew him,” she said softly.

  “It’s been said that maybe you knew him pretty good. This is official business, Ms. Laval.”

  Service thought Freddy Bear was bluffing, but the woman flushed and began to tear up. “Maybe,” she said.

  The sheriff’s voice softened. “We’re not here to hassle you, Jacki. We’re just doing our jobs. We aren’t making a value judgment, eh? We’re just looking for facts to help us find out who did this.”

  Jacki Laval took a deep breath. “Yes, I knew the bastard in the way you mean.”

  “Intimately?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Long time?”

  Laval shook her head. “More of a fling, eh? We were together a few times over two or three weeks. My friends all told me to stay away from him, but I wouldn’t listen. Stupid me.”

  “You broke it off?”

  Her mouth formed a leer. “More like he got what he wanted and moved on to get it somewhere else.”

  “That honk you off?”

  The woman looked alarmed. “You don’t think . . .”

  “Just answer the questions, Jacki. You aren’t a suspect, but we’d like to know more about Singleton. Was he mixed up with other women at the lab?”

  “Maybe all of them,” she said bitterly.

  “He come here with you?”

  “No way,” she said sharply. “My old man would kill me. We met at his place.”

  Service wondered if the husband would kill Singleton.

  “In Paradise?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, not there. Too many snoopy eyes in town. He rents a camp over to Bearpen Creek.”

  “Do a lot of people know about it?”

  She shrugged.

  “And the FBI never talked to you about this?”

  “Nobody talked to any of us about anything. My husband won’t find out about this, right?”

  “No, it’s just between us, and thanks,” the sheriff said. “You want to show us on a map where that camp is?”

  “You didn’t pick Laval by accident,” Service said when they got in the sheriff’s vehicle.

  “You must be a detective,” his friend said with a grin. “Doncha wonder what we’re gonna find?” he asked Service as they drove south to look for the researcher’s rented camp. It was late afternoon, overcast and darkening quickly.

  The road down to the camp was two muddy gravel tracks with a grassy high center and cedar and tamarack swamp closing in on both sides, not the place to encounter a vehicle coming the other direction. Because it was hunting season, there were plenty of tracks on the road—ATVs, SUVs, and trucks.

  According to Laval, they were looking for a single-story, cedar-shingle bungalow, set on the north side of the road, across from Bearpen Creek. Laval had no idea how far the camp was, only that the road was rough and that sometimes it seemed like it took forever to get to it.

  The distance turned out to be just a shade less than five miles, and set back as it was, they nearly missed it. Only the faint outlines of a driveway told them there was a cabin set back from the road. It was dark under the trees. Lee pulled the Jeep up the track and parked with his headlights illuminating the front porch of the cabin.

  “Your regular love nest in the swamp,” Freddy Bear Lee said.

  The two of them were cautious entering. In a hard plastic holder beside the front door, a card listed the owner’s name and telephone number in Rudyard. The sheriff used his cell phone to call the owner and ask permission to enter. The owner wasn’t there, but his wife was and she said, “Go for it.”

  As with many camps in the U.P., the doors weren’t locked. Service went in first, shining his flashlight around until he found a light switch.

  The sudden light made them squint as they tugged on latex gloves and looked around without moving. Service saw nothing particularly interesting.

  Lee moved back toward the two bedrooms and Service walked around the living room. It was a cozy but basic place, a little fancier than most hunting camps, but still rustic. The floor had a few thin carpets on top of a wooden floor that looked like it had been cut from a gymnasium. There was a combination TV–video player and a stereo that would take disks and tapes.

  The Chippewa County sheriff emerged from the first bedroom holding a videotape between his thumb and forefinger. “Whole box of ’em in a closet. No labels.” He turned on the video player and inserted the tape. “Too bad we don’t have popcorn,” he quipped.

  The first tape showed Larola Brule dancing with her clothes off. “Not too subtle,” the sheriff said.

  Farther into the tape, Brule and Singleton were engaged in the same contortions they had seen on the security tape. “Enthusiastic gal,” the sheriff remarked.

  They watched two more tapes and found Singleton engaged with a different woman on each of them. One of them was Jacki Laval.

  “Talk about enthusiasm,” Lee said. “I guess we ought to look at the rest of them,” he added. “Old Singleton was quite the pike, eh?”

  “Now what?” Service asked.

  “We gotta look at ’em all, get an ID on the women, find out if they’re married or whatever, get photos of their men, run backgrounds, and try to match them to your video.”

  “How many tapes?” Service asked.

  “Thirteen and a couple of shoe boxes filled with Polaroids.”

  Service had no interest in watching videos of Singleton screwing various women. More important, he doubted the killer was related to any of the other women. Larola Brule had been killed first, and it had looked like a professional hit. Still, in police work you had to fill in all the blanks, go through the motions, leave nothing undone. “I’ll leave the tapes and IDs to you.”

  “Okay, I’ll put them in the Jeep.”

  They spent another two hours methodically going through the place, but finding nothing extraordinary other than a glass bowl filled with condoms. “Hey, at least Singleton practiced safe sex,” Sheriff Lee said.

  On the way back to the Soo, Service called East Lansing from Lee’s cell phone and got Fae O’Driscoll. “Can I talk to Maridly? How’s she doing?”

  “She’s doing fine, Grady. I’ll take the cordless to her.”

&nb
sp; Service heard the chief grumbling about something in the background. Then there were clunking sounds and Maridly’s sleepy voice asking, “Wha?”

  “It’s Grady,” Fae announced.

  “Honey?” Maridly said.

  “Sorry to wake you,” he said, not meaning it.

  “I’m glad you called.” He could hear longing in her voice.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sore and kinda dopey. I told Fae and Lorne I don’t think I should stay here. I have to see the doctor early next week and then I want to come home. You think you could come fetch your woman?”

  Service’s heart raced. “You just say when.”

  “I heard what Tree did to the asshole who did this to me,” she said. “I’m gonna give him a big kiss when I see him.”

  Service thought about denying Treebone had done anything, but decided against it.

  “Where are you?” Nantz asked.

  “Watching fuck-flicks with a sheriff.”

  She giggled. “Get real.”

  There was nothing he wanted more. “Seriously,” he said.

  “Good ones?”

  “Strictly amateur.”

  “You sound tired,” she said.

  “That time of year,” he said. “I’d better let you get back to sleep.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Grady?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I love you.”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied.

  “God, I love your eloquence,” she said with a soft giggle. “You’re not alone?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’d talk dirty to you, but it would hurt too much. Be careful, honey.”

  “Looks to me like you got it bad,” Freddy Bear Lee said.

  “Got what?”

  The sheriff laughed out loud.

  Service fetched his truck from the sheriff’s house and called Lisette McKower.

  “McKower,” she answered sleepily.

  “Larola Brule wasn’t the only female the male vick was duking.”

  “You think there’s a jealous husband?”

  “Freddy will look into that.”

  “Your voice says you think it’s something else.”

  “I don’t know, Lis,” he said. Whatever it was, it was unlike any case he’d ever handled before. Or wanted to handle again.