“Call your insurance company right away,” Rubadue said. “We’ll make out an accident report.”
“You can do that . . . like real police?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rubadue said. “Just like real police, we get fully certified from a book-learnin’ school and all.”
“How unexpectedly fascinating,” the woman said and climbed into the cab of the wrecker.
Report done and wrecker gone, the officers got back into the patrol truck, and Blossom shrugged and said, “Laws of physics.”
“Or fruits and nuts,” Rubadue said. “Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate.”
Informant
Paul Rajala liked working with his sergeant even when Sergeant Delain Max whined all day about the poor condition of the county roads or Rajala’s driving (“Stop! Back up! You missed a rock!”). Max also asked a million weird theoretical questions about his subordinate’s decision making; it was almost as if the sergeant wanted to create as much tension as possible to see how he’d handle it. So far, he had done fine, but today was another day, and his supervisor was uncharacteristically quiet as he picked him up at the Michigan State Police Office in Stephenson.
“We have us a plan today, Officer Rajala?” the sergeant asked even before he was belted into the truck. And when he spoke again he said, “We have to make a quick stop at a house down by the dam.”
Rajala glanced at his sergeant, who remained mute until they rolled over the bridge below the dam. “Keep going,” Max said, “it’s the purple house on the left.”
Rajala had seen the house before, wondered what sort of weirdo would choose to live in a purple house. “Pull into the driveway?”
“No. Go down one block to the first road and turn left. Right away on the left again, there’s a grassy lane behind the house where we can park the truck.”
Rajala did as he was instructed, parked in a grove of red maples, and looked at his sergeant. “This okay?”
“Turn off the engine, go up to the back door, and knock. This place belongs to Telford Kinlaw, our informant. I’ve made countless cases with his help, not to mention those I passed to Wild Life Resources Protection. They made three humdingers with info old Telford laid on us.”
“He’s your informant. Why would he talk to me?”
“He talks to the badge, not the man.”
Rajala got out of the truck, and his sergeant said, “Piece of advice. We get hired in great part for our ability to talk and listen to anyone.”
“What’s your point?”
“He don’t bite. See youse when you’re done.”
He don’t bite? Delain Max was pretty damn odd in his own right.
The person who came to the door was tall, at least six-four, skinny as an Ethiopian vegan. His hair was golden blond with long curly tresses. He wore a shimmery purple kimono and gold three-inch satin mules. His fingernails were long and black and if they had been clipped somewhat differently would qualify as illegal double-edged knives.
“I’m Officer Rajala. Sergeant Max told me you wanted to talk to one of us.”
“Kinlaw,” the man said, extending a hand and commencing to crush Rajala’s with a viselike grip that made him want to pull away and shake off the pain.
“Sorry,” the man said. “Whenever I meet a new officer, I find it useful to establish some testosteronal credentials at the outset. And with it comes a speech, which goes like this: I’m not queer, not in the slightest, never have been, never will be. I just like to dress this way and always have, all the way back to high school. You have a problem with that, Officer Rajala?”
“No problem, no sir,” Rajala said, thinking, BIG problem; this guy’s fucking bonkers. Is this one of Sarge’s sick jokes, or what?
“Good,” Kinlaw said. “We have the basics of an understanding, and now we can proceed like any normal couple, right, sweetie?”
Couple? Sweetie? Did he just say that? Sweet Jesus, what the hell has Sarge gotten me into? Rajala simply nodded.
Kinlaw led him through a frilly, flowery house cluttered with bric-a-brac and gaudy and astonishingly realistic needlepoint animal pictures on the walls. That and one of two half-human, half-horses mouth kissing. At least there was a gun rack, filled with an array of weapons and two black gun safes. “You hunt?” Rajala ventured.
“Just shoot,” the man said, walking him into a kitchen walled in the most beautiful pine Rajala had ever seen. “No heart for killing. Alabama pine,” the man added. “I think those old boys down in those parts think it’s junk wood, but the color about makes me swoon. You agree, hon?”
Hon? Swoon? Was this shit never going to end? “What about the door jambs?”
“Those are striped maple. Grows up by Lake Superior. Virtually unknown these days, but it’s hard wood. I like hard wood. How about you?”
Oh, shit. “I’m no carpenter,” Rajala said quickly to regain his composure, which was fast slipping away.
Kinlaw did a slow vamp. “You like?”
“Uh, great pine,” Rajala said.
“You big green warrior, are you blushing? I have fresh-baked scones, from-scratch razzie or orange-cranny. What’s your pleasure?” the man asked.
“Neither.”
Kinlaw put his big hands on his hips and glowered. “Listen, mister, nobody comes into this girl’s house and goes away without repast. It’s always been a human custom to feed visitors, you savage, a matter of hospitality, an extension of the Rule of the Good Samaritan.”
“Orange whatchamacallit,” Rajala managed to mutter, trying to ignore the other man’s words and tone.
“Orange-cranberry scones, hon. Take a seat. Caf or decaf?”
“Caf, please.” Or an ejection seat.
“Black or cream?”
“Black,” Rajala said. “No sugar.” His heart was racing, sweat pooling under his arms. He wanted this shit over so he could strangle his goddamn sergeant.
Kinlaw arched an eyebrow. “Okay, sweetie, you need to take a nice deep breath and calm down. I can tell you’re really a sugar-and-cream fella, but types like you come in here, see me, my place, my fine things—and they are fine, are they not?” The man stuck a shaved leg through the split in his robe and wiggled his foot. “You get to thinking . . . and it scares you, and you default to your basic masculine black, no sugar, no milk.”
“Black coffee,” Rajala repeated. “No cream, no sugar.”
His host poured coffee into tiny cups and sat down across from him. “You poor man, so insecure in your own gender and sexuality. Sister, do you ever feel confused and troubled?”
Sister? Rajala’s voice had fled to parts unknown.
“Delain loves my razzie scones. That’s the one on the left. And he also likes his coffee black. Shall we proceed?” Kinlaw picked up a cigarette pack, took one out with a long fingernail, pushed into a long pink holder and slid a golden Zippo across the table. “Light my fire, babe?”
Goddamn that Delain. Rajala fumbled with the lighter, but Kinlaw reached over and steadied his wrist as the flame took hold. “Slow is best in all intimate human interactions, honey.”
Rajala could manage only a sort of nod.
Kinlaw exhaled smoke. “Do you think I’m a joke?”
“No, sir, no joke.” Maniac, maybe; joke, no. Except to Sergeant Asshole Max.
“Of course you do, you prevaricating hunk. Admit it or get out.”
“The concept of joke has not once entered my head, sir.”
“Telford, please.”
Rajala nodded.
Telford Kinlaw smiled. “Good, I’m not a joke.” The man looked to Rajala to be on the verge of tears. “Nobody wants to be a joke. It hurts.”
“Yes, I agree; no sir, not a joke, nobody wants that.”
“Try the coffee.”
It was delicious.
“Your sergeant and I go way back. I thought at first he was the thuggish warrior type, you know, All-American jockstrappado, but it has developed that he’s a thoughtful, lovely, open-minded, and sensitive gentleman, a truly beautiful man.”
Sergeant Delain Max?
“Yes, love, your delicious supervisor.”
Rajala had to press his boots to the floor to keep from running out, but he knew enough to let the informant think he was in control. The sergeant is delicious? Disgusting!
The conservation officer sampled the scone. Wow.
“You approve?” Kinlaw asked.
“Yes, ma . . . sir.”
“Please do call me ma’am. I won’t be at all insulted,” Kinlaw said. “Humor me.”
“Not sure I can do that, sir . . . ma’am.” Did I just call this freak ma’am? Somebody please shoot me, but not until I shoot Delain.
“That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“No . . . uh,” Rajala said, sensing another blush rising.
“Ma’am,” Kinlaw said.
“No, ma’am, it wasn’t so difficult, ma’am.” Kill me now, whoever’s in charge.
“And you are Paul. Delain already told me.”
Already told him? Damn setup. That bastard. “Yes, ma’am, Paul.”
“May I call you Paulie?”
“My name is Paul.”
“Yes, I know, properly biblical and all that silly soup, but Paulie is more personal and informal, more endearing.”
“I guess Paulie’s fine.”
“Um,” Kinlaw purred. “Do you know Chigger Selberg?”
“Drives snowplow for the county? Yeah.”
“That’s our Chigger, love, a naughty boy since our days in high school, and the year of our matriculation I shall not specify, for I find it quite depressing.”
“What about Chigger?”
“Married a female whose papa owns a sheep farm off the grade down near the Brule. I have it from an unimpeachable source that Papa-in-law has our dear Chigger over for wolf shooting in a friendly competition, with substantial wagers.”
“They bury the carcasses?”
“Burn them once a month and settle the tally on the spot. Can you imagine their audacity, Paulie, killing our gorgeous and deliciously glamorous wolves for mere lucre?”
“No, ma’am, I mean, yes, ma’am.” What the hell is lucre? “You and I both know how some people can be.”
Telford Kinlaw giggled. “Indeed we do, sweetie.”
“What’s the father-in-law’s name?”
Kinlaw told him and added, “I believe you fellas have had previous business with the ape.”
“We know him,” Rajala said. The wolf thing was right down the man’s crooked line. “You wouldn’t happen to know the burn date?”
Kinlaw raised an eyebrow.
“Ma’am?” the officer said.
“I’m led to believe it happens always at 7:00 p.m. on the last Friday night of the month, which gives Chigger time to get home from the far reaches of the county, if that’s where he’s been working.”
“On his father-in-law’s property?”
“Yes, love, on the northernmost corner of his northernmost forty. A lovely friend of mine owns the adjacent eighty and would without doubt grant permission for you girls to enter.”
Rajala tried to keep his hand from shaking as he wrapped the sarge’s scones in a pink napkin. Permission for you girls to enter? Jesus, God.
Kinlaw escorted him to the back door. “Don’t be a stranger, Paulie love, and tell dear, sweet Delain this one’s a freebie. I am most pleased to have met you, Paulie. Please drop in anytime so I can show you more of my wood.”
Rajala stalked angrily to the truck, jerked open his door, and threw the wrapped scones at his sergeant, bouncing the package off his stomach.
“Whoa, Officer Rajala, whoa!” Sergeant Max shouted, holding up his arms to defend himself.
“You fucker!”
“Calm down; you get something?”
“Other than totally fucking creeped out and embarrassed? Yes, and he says it’s a freebie, whatever the fuck that means dear . . . sweet . . . Delain.”
“Good,” the sergeant said. “Every time I recommend an informant for RAP money, it seems to take forever for a check to come through.” RAP stood for Report All Poaching, a state-sponsored, statewide toll-free phone line manned around the clock. Some callers got rewards, usually at the discretion of the officers they had worked with.
Rajala laid out the information and concluded, “But this one sounds too good to be true, and too damn easy.”
“Telford only gives us sure things,” said Sergeant Max. “It’s a matter of pride about his reputation, his trademark, you might say.”
Rajala said incredulously, “What reputation? That he swishes around like some wannabe Lady Gaga?”
Delain Max said only, “Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is fine. Relax, girlie. Time will come when you’ll be glad for coffee with Telford, just you girls jabbering your foolish little heads off.”
“Who the hell is Stefani Joanne whatever?”
“Lady Gaga. Don’t you pay attention to current events?”
“I hate all that showbiz shit.”
“Keep that to yourself. It would break Telford’s vulnerable heart and cause the department to lose the state’s most productive longtime snitch.”
“The state’s?”
“Multiple agencies. You jealous?”
Rajala could only stare.
“Can you imagine the headlines that will come from this wolf case?”
“Our bust?”
“Hell no, don’t be so shortsighted and selfish. We give this to Unit Twenty-five’s secret squirrels, let them do the honors, and we’ll assist.”
Rajala sat behind his steering wheel. “You set me up, eh?”
“Nonsense, sweetie,” the sergeant said. “Want a pinch of my scone?” he asked.
Bite me, Rajala started to say, but thought twice and instead said, “No, thank you, Sergeant.”
“See?” Delain Max said with a mouthful. “Old Telford’s already had a fine effect on you. Man, these scones are scrumptious!”
Paul Rajala cringed.
Checkmate
Penny Lositch called Wintermute at home last night. “Edwy,” she said in her needy-reedy voice, and right to the point, “Old Man Cramp is supposed to see me weekly, and it’s been more than five months since I’ve heard from that damn reprobate.”
Lositch was a parole officer not known for efficiency, effectiveness, or compassion, a floater who sucked the state tit and performed a nominal job at a barely tolerable level and should have been canned years before. People in the cop community called her Penny the Loafer.
“You could check on him,” Conservation Officer Edwy Wintermute suggested.
“Don’t think I haven’t tried. Phone messages go unreturned, e-mails kick back, snail mail is undeliverable, his house stands empty, I’m told, and none of his crooked relatives claim to know where he is.”
“Maybe he moved out of state.”
“Maybe pigs will fly. Listen, Edwy, we have him on another warrant, sex with a minor, his granddaughter. He won’t be getting out this time around.”
“Charges alleged or filed?”
“We’re on the same side, Edwy; don’t go weasel talk on me. You’ve arrested him more than anyone.”
“I’ll try to take a look tomorrow. You want me to bring him in?”
“I’d prefer that you shoot that giant drain on my life so I could be done with him once and for all, but use your own judgment,” the PO said, ending the conversation. Translation: The man is in violation of his parole, and the rest of you h
ave to figure out what to do and leave me alone.
Wintermute had spent ten years as a game warden, the whole time in Mackinac County, living in Gould City. The man in question, Jacques Cramp, was a lifelong fish and game violator, and over the years he had been frequently accused of incest and various sex crimes, none of which he’d ever actually been charged with, much less been found guilty of.
It seemed to Edwy Wintermute that in this state, once you were down, there were unseen forces that worked together to keep you there and made it impossible for you to climb back to any level of normalcy, never mind respectability. It was an aspect of the state that Wintermute loathed and lamented. In her experience, a lot of the complaints about Cramp came from his competitors, most notably the wing nuts and jamoke violators over in the Garden Peninsula.
Sure enough, Cramp’s house looked empty. Wintermute called the county sheriff in St. Ignace to find out if new charges had been filed against the old man. Answer: verbal hand thumps to the bureaucratic forehead, followed by lugubrious silence. Translation: Charges had never been made out or had slipped into the proverbial red tape crack. Or it was all bullshit, which was her guess.
Jacques Cramp had bounced around the county for decades (not to mention parts of Chippewa, Schoolcraft, Luce, and Alger), but the one place he seemed to gravitate toward was a remote camp in Hulbert Township in Chippewa County, reachable only on unmarked, vague two-tracks that wound through monster cedar swamps, north toward the Tahquamenon River flood plain, roads that were impassable much of the year because of flooding and snowdrifts, or whatever.
Once she’d seen the roads covered with five inches of pure ice, and she had gotten a hundred yards in before sliding into a ditch. Not a big deal. By midday the ice melted, and she backed out. There were also deep sugar sand sections to contend with. Years ago Wintermute had hiked in on snowshoes from the East West Road, four miles up the railroad grade and southwest through the swamps to intersect a long finger of hard ground, where the old man’s camp sat, built into the side of the ridge, isolated and largely hidden, like a small wilderness keep. Today Wintermute decided to chance the drive and got to the cable gate with minimal trouble (only two blowdowns and one boulder to be evaded).
Hard Ground Page 5
