Ice Hunter

by Joseph Heywood

  What game was he playing? He had expected Parker to gloat, cajole, or threaten.

  “The renters are from Mackinaw City. By coincidence I got the man and the woman last night on an OUIL. They’re married, but not to each other. This has been their little love nest. They told the landlord they were moving out. He claims they have a lease and owe him. They insist there’s no lease and they’re paid up. The landlord said he smelled this and called us. I responded. I just got back from talking to the renters. The driver will be arraigned tonight. I think the landlord is trying to extort money. He wants revenge because they’re moving out.”

  “Is that conclusion based on a hunch or on evidence?”

  “Hunch so far.”

  “Proceed,” Parker said haughtily.

  Service knocked on a door at the end of the building and a woman answered. She had a baby in her arms. “DNR: I’m Officer Service and this is Sergeant Parker. Did you know the neighbors at the other end of the building, a Mister Bowin?”

  “They was just shacking up,” she said. “They didn’t mix much.”

  “Have you smelled anything from their apartment.”

  “About noon today I did.”

  “Not before this?”

  “No sir.”

  “Do you have a lease with Mister Alping?”

  She laughed cynically. “In these dumps? People come and go. We pay ahead, and Alping is a cheap bastard. I got three kids and no old man and he’s always claiming my kids broke this or that and demanding I pay.”

  “Did he ever mention a lease?”

  “All the time. He says it’s a verbal lease, but that’s crap. He says if I don’t have the money, I can work it off in trade.”

  “Doing what?”

  “You figure it out,” she said.

  Service was irritated, but kept it under control. He and the sergeant went back to the house.

  Alping was in the yard, pacing.

  “Did Bowin have a lease?” Service asked.

  “No. Did that bastard tell you that?”

  “Did you tell the woman at the other end of your building that she has a verbal lease?”

  “No, she’s a slut. Don’t believe no cunt like that. She’s got three brats by three different men.”

  Alping was red in the face.

  “What do you trap?”

  The landlord exploded. “This is bullshit,” he yelled at Parker. “I’m the fucking victim here.”

  Service said, “You bought a fur harvesting license last fall.”

  Alping grew quiet. “Yeah? What of it?”

  “It’s in our computer.”

  “I follow the law.”

  “Did you trap those coons?”

  No answer. Alping was weighing his positions.

  “Look,” Grady Service said, “your apartment dealings are none of our business. You called us because of the coons. I can see you had trouble with tenants. That’s not my concern. Maybe you put the coons in there because you were mad, but you have a license to trap and shoot coons. There are no bag limits on how many you take and they’re pests, right?”

  “I shot ’em all legal,” Alping said. “They did a lotta damage to my gardens and they keep trying to move into my garage. Law says I can shoot ’em and that’s what I did.”

  “That’s right,” Service said. “That’s the law. Where are the pelts?”

  “Out in my shop.”

  “Can we see them?”

  “Why?”

  “Just closing things up.”

  Alping led them back to his shed. The building stank of tanning chemicals. There were coonskins tacked to all the walls. Service stood silently, taking it all in.

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “What about my money?” Alping asked. He was starting to get confident again.

  “That’s for a civil suit. Get a lawyer.”

  Alping said, “I sure as hell will.” Walking back toward the house, Service said, “You need to be a good shot to knock down a coon at night.”

  “I do okay,” the man said.

  “Harder this time of year, with all the foliage.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You like night shooting?”

  “It’s the best time to pop coons.”

  Service said, “Even in this heat?”

  “Heat don’t bother me,” the man said.

  Service stopped walking and pivoted to face the man.

  “Mister Alping, do you know that it’s against the law to shoot problem coons or coyotes at night up here until July 15?”

  Alping stumbled. “Say what?”

  “Sir, where did you shoot these animals?”

  “On my property,” he said.

  “Show us, please. We want to see the damage to your garden too.”

  “Fuck you, you backstabbing bastards.”

  Service took out his ticket pad and wrote the man up. “I have to do this,” he said. “If Sergeant Parker and I do any more looking, there might be more.”

  Alping shut up.

  Parker walked to the truck with him.

  “We really nailed him,” the sergeant said.

  We? “We’re not done yet,” Service said. “You want to stay?”

  “Sure.” Parker looked and sounded pleased.

  They drove their trucks away from Ladoga, parked, and walked crosscountry to the fields and woods behind the apartments. “He’ll bag the carcasses and dump them somewhere. We’ll get him again.”

  Parker smiled. “You don’t miss any tricks.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Alping made several trips through the field into the woods behind the fourplex, dumping carcasses a third of a mile behind the apartment building. On state land.

  On the blowhard’s fourth trip, Service made his move.

  “Mister Alping?”

  The man was sweating and puffing, his eyes bulging, too tired to move.

  “Sir, you’re dumping illegally on state land. It’s littering.”

  “Cocksucker!” Alping roared. He clumsily swung the bag but Service ducked, sidestepped, grabbed the man’s arm, pushed his hip out, flipped the man, and immediately rolled him over on his face, jamming it into the bag with the dead animals.

  “Night hunting out of season,” Service said. “Illegal dumping. Obstructing a police officer and assault. That’s a hat trick for sure.”

  Service read the man his rights and called the county. He grinned when Deputy Avery showed up. Avery looked at him funny and, when Parker wasn’t close said, “Did they fucking clone you, or what? Man, you are like . . . everywhere.”

  Parker stood beside Service while he called central dispatch in Lansing and reported the bust. He ended the call-in with “TOT, Marquette County Sheriff.” Meaning he had transferred custody of Alping to another jurisdiction.

  The sergeant said, “We make a pretty good team.”

  Service hoped that Parker had not taken or passed the LT’s exam. What the hell was he buttering him up for? Then it came to him. Parker was thinking McKower was going to get Rollie’s job, and he was trying to cover his ass and erase the past.

  “Thanks for your help, Sarge.”

  “Maybe I’ve been wrong about you,” Parker said. “I have a feeling things between us are going to be different. You’re going to see your doctor, right?”

  Service stifled a laugh. Things sure as hell would be different if McKower got the job. She loathed Parker.

  He stopped at a grocery store and bought some staples for the next day.

  He showered when he got home. Kira was late. By the time she got there, he was in deep sleep.

  16

  As soon as Service’s eyes opened in the morning he saw
Kira, propped on an elbow, hovering over him. He thought she would reach for him, but she only stared. Neither of them spoke.

  Professor Lemich’s headlights flashed in the yard.

  “My God!” she said in exasperation.

  “It’s a professor from Tech. We’re going into the Tract today. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

  She sat up, dropped her feet to the floor, and grabbed her robe, snapping the cloth as she put it on.

  “You’re either not here or if you’re here you leave and then you’re not here again! The state can’t expect people to live like this. I don’t like this.”

  “They don’t expect me to live like this.”

  “Then why do you?”

  He didn’t have an answer she’d understand. “We can talk later.”

  “When?” she asked. “Now? Can’t. Tonight? You’ll be gone again. Tomorrow? It’ll be something else. I need order, Grady. A modicum of predictability.”

  “Not now, Kira.”

  She stalked behind the bathroom screen.

  It was their first fight and he had neither the desire nor the time to indulge her.

  Lemich sat in his Eagle, but Service went out and invited him in for coffee.

  When Kira was dressed she came out and was polite, but not especially friendly. She was not the Kira he knew.

  She did not hug Service when he left and didn’t stand in the doorway and wave.

  When Service saw Maridly Nantz’s truck parked at the trailhead, he did a double take. What the hell was she doing here?

  She grinned and waved as he rolled to a stop.

  “Why’re you here?” he asked when he got out.

  “Your face is hamburger!” she said. When she reached out, he recoiled. “I needed to talk to you,” she said.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Intuition.”

  Was she serious?

  “Who’s this?” she asked, eyeing Lemich.

  “Rocky,” the professor said, sticking out his big hand.

  “Maridly Nantz,” she said. “I didn’t catch your last name.”

  Service growled, “Nantz.”

  She said, “I called your house, Grady.” She added, “But you were gone.”

  He looked at her.

  “Who’s the woman?” Nantz asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “Wife?”

  “No.”

  “Fiancée?”

  “No.”

  “Cohabiting?”

  “Give it a rest, Nantz.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said dismissively. “I brought my gear.”

  “You’re not invited.”

  “Why’re you being so secretive?”

  “I’m not.”

  “I want to know what’s up, Service. I know my way around the Tract as well as you.”

  “I doubt that,” he said. She could be a pain in the ass. He’d been watching over the Mosquito for nearly twenty years and she had spent a little more than a summer here. She was as arrogant as she was relentless and maybe too damn smart for her own good.

  “Don’t be so . . . male,” she said. “Face facts, Service. Six eyes beat four.”

  Lemich watched the exchange with a puzzled but amused look.

  “Give it up, Banger. You’ve met your match.”

  “I’ll get my stuff,” Nantz said enthusiastically, opening the door of her truck. As they hiked toward the river, she moved close to Service and lowered her voice so Lemich couldn’t hear.

  “Banger?”

  “Leave it be,” he said, trudging forward. They started work at the Geezer Hole.

  Lemich scooped up some of the unusually colored gravel with a trowel and put it in a fiber specimen bag. Mostly he stood and surveyed the area, making faces.

  “Is the granite near here?” The gregarious professor seemed distracted.

  Nantz showed him the formations. “There’s more upriver.”

  Lemich took some samples and the trio hiked at a fast clip up to the log slide, breaking into a heavy sweat as they clambered over the second burn.

  As before, Lemich stood motionless studying his surroundings. After a while he began to collect samples from the granite outcroppings, the gray ground stone between them, and more from the gravel in the river. He worked steadily and silently.

  Nantz prowled around, burning nervous energy.

  Service sat, thinking a nap would be nice. Why didn’t Nantz park herself? She had ants in her pants. She had spoken to Kira? Would’ve liked to have heard that exchange. No, you wouldn’t, he corrected himself.

  It was late afternoon when they hiked farther up the Mosquito River to the site with the single column of granite. Once again Lemich collected samples and studied the area with intense concentration.

  While Lemich worked, Service and Nantz made a camp on the west bank of the river. Nantz built a fire. Service took two slices of venison tenderloin out of the cold pack in his ruck and braced a small grate over two logs with the fire in between. He hadn’t counted on three for dinner. Nantz disappeared for more than an hour and returned with wild strawberries stuffed into a two pint-sized Baggies.

  They worked, side by side, saying nothing, each seeming to know what the other was going to do before they did it.

  As it neared dark Nantz said, “You want me to fetch Rocky?”

  “He’ll be along when he’s ready.”

  Nantz sat down and poked the fire with the toe of her boot. “Level with me, Grady. What’re we doing here?”

  “Remember the glass Newf found?”

  Her eyes said she remembered.

  “They were several garnets—and a diamond.”

  “Right,” she said as she grinned and poked the fire again.

  “I’m serious,” he said. Her eyes narrowed.

  Lemich came into camp with his sample bags bulging. His face was flushed and he looked dusty and tired. He dropped the bags unceremoniously, sat down, and slumped back on the ground.

  The fire crackled. Service watched tendrils of campfire smoke rise and drift.

  Lemich sat up and looked at the CO. His voice was stern yet assertive. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Service exhaled. “Because a man was murdered on the river over where the fire was. Things are going on here that we don’t understand and I think the rocks are somehow connected.”

  “I think there’s kimberlite here,” Lemich said, sucking in a deep breath. “It shouldn’t be here, but it is kimberlite. I’ll need to do chemical assays and such, but it’s kimberlite. One pipe for sure, maybe a pair. And if we can see two, you can bet there are more around here. These things always occur in clusters.”

  “Like genital warts,” Nantz said.

  Lemich chuckled. “That’s a good one.”

  “Kimberlite?” Service said.

  “Don’t play the goofball with me,” the professor said.

  “A chopper was seen here, possibly carrying a magnetometer, flying a pattern just across the river. A while before that, I ran into a stranger with a hammer like yours and as soon as I met him, he got nervous and bugged out. Two fires have been set around here since then. Two parcels of land in the Tract are leased by a man named Knipe. He’s originally from Pelkie.”

  “Pelkie?” Lemich had a sly grin.

  “What?” Service asked.

  “Back in the eighties the US Geological Survey published a paper by a couple of geologists who believed there might be cryptovolcanic structures in the Pelkie area. This was based on their finding Paleozoic rocks that are often found covering kimberlites.”

  “Were these pipe things found near Pelkie?”

  “Not that I know of, but that paper n
o doubt got the corporate and wildcat diamond hunters’ attention. They started looking at geologic formations and ended up moving their focus southwest toward the Wisconsin border.”

  “Dow Chemical?” Service said.

  “They were just one among several companies,” Lemich said, nodding.

  “Exactly how they were involved is not at all clear.”

  Service said, “Dow Chemical moved into Crystal Falls to look for diamonds in the eighties. Knipe moved down there about the same time, and now he owns a lot of land in the area where pipes have been found.”

  “The word is out that the mining companies haven’t found gemstones and are cutting their losses,” Lemich said, “though it’s always hard to figure out exactly what these outfits are up to.”

  “Knipe hasn’t left,” Service said. “Diamonds scare me, Rocky. All it takes is a rumor to start a run of prospectors. If that happens here in the Tract, it will be a disaster for this place. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Lemich grunted and lowered his voice. “Who said anything about diamonds here? We’re talking about kimberlites, and this is pure speculation on my part. We have a pipe here, maybe two. Or none. Over by Crystal Falls they have a heap of pipes and reportedly found microdiamonds in more than half of them. Let me tell you, that defies the hell out of geologic odds. Usually one in ten kimberlite pipes has micros, but maybe one in a hundred has real gems. Of three thousand diamond mines in the world, maybe twenty are paying off. Diamond hunting is a humongous gamble. The odds just plain suck. Even if you find gems in a rich pipe, you have to dig and move fifty thousand tons of rock to get five thousand carats. On the other hand, if you actually find gem-quality stones, you can forget the odds.”

  “What makes you think there’s kimberlite here, and what exactly are these pipes you keep talking about?”

  “The technical term for pipe is diatreme. It’s a volcanic eruption. Lava shoots up a hundred miles or so from the earth’s core and explodes on the surface. Understand, this happened during the Paleozoic period. We’re not talking hot news and we’re talking about small structures, not major volcanoes. And this usually happened in hours, which is the geologic equivalent of the speed of light, eh? I’m talking fast. After the Paleozoic, glaciers came down from Canada, then retreated, leaving the bedrock and pipes under hundreds of feet of debris. Kimberlite is dark green, but exposure to weather and erosion turns it reddish brown. When the lava rises it brings all sorts of smaller rocks, which mix into the kimberlite. By the time it gets spit out on the surface, it’s like a funny-looking purple clay. I’ve seen some evidence of this stuff at all three sites today. The amazing thing is that these formations are nowhere near Crystal Falls or Pelkie. Not even close. Probably it’s all connected underground, but this is the first time I’ve seen evidence that maybe we can correlate aboveground connections of this kind up here.”