CHAPTER 12
La Branche, Menominee County
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Herk Rice brought a huge thermos of black coffee to Service’s truck and got into the passenger seat. Service showed his colleague a digital photo of the fourteen-point buck.
“No way,” Rice said, shaking his head. “That came from here?”
“Allegedly. It’s in back of my truck. You said you heard rumors of a big one?”
“There are always rumors in this county this time of year—you know, the old mystical swamp buck and all that crap—but nothing of this magnitude. This is something out of one of those expensive whitetail wet dream rags. It’s off our charts of the possible.”
“Nature still sometimes manages to surprise us,” Service said. “But you heard a big one was bagged up here.”
“Not details, just a murmur here and there. Like I said, we hear this crap every year, and it rarely pans out. I’m thinking you should confront the Ingalls woman alone,” Rice said.
“Yah?”
“She’s seen me, which makes me local and familiar. Better she is confronted by a total stranger. Then you call me in; when she sees me, she’ll think I’ll be her ally, but I’ll jump her too.”
“Bad cop, worse cop.”
“Along that line.”
“What do you know about the woman and her boyfriend?”
“Not much. Heard they’re big into something called Keep Our Pets Alive. It’s an advertising and fund-raising campaign. The money it collects goes to a snazzy pet rescue operation in Menominee.”
“Legitimate?”
“Far as I know. A lot of prominent locals are involved, and I’ve never heard of any shady business.”
“I like the irony,” Service said. “Keep Our Pets Alive backed by deer violators.”
“It is the U.P.,” Rice said. “I called Sergeant Wooten. I think I might’ve interrupted him and his wife.”
“Never have sex during deer season,” Grady Service said. “You think a young buck would have learned that. I guess he’s too green.”
“That an official Department directive, or Grady Service Rule for the Road?”
“Sage advice, grasshopper. We need to keep our wits during deer season, not spill our wits out the south end.”
“That’s how you handle it, two weeks of celibacy?”
“It’s a goal, but we are all imperfect,” Service said. Rice laughed out loud and chugged his coffee.
Grady Service used his computer to pull up information on Penn Pymn and his girlfriend. She had been buying licenses for years, but his first ever was this year, and there was no record that he had ever taken hunter safety training, which was required for people of a certain age. She had a combo license and he had a combo ticket, with which the deer had been tagged, even though it was not yet firearm season. This wasn’t technically illegal, but the purchase timing was highly suspicious.
Rice continued to stare at the deer head photo. “Unbelievable,” he whispered.
Service wished he could talk to Allerdyce. For all his shady past, Limpy had near-supernatural knowledge of the U.P. and its people, geography, nature, history, everything. But he lived in a remote compound in southwest Marquette County with no landline or cellular phone and was basically unreachable by normal humans.
“Big into the pets op. What does that mean they’re into it?” Service asked Rice.
“They raise money for the operation.”
“How?”
“They make and sell pies.”
“Good ones?”
“Like there’s a pie that isn’t good? They call their business Pies for Pets.”
“They have an actual business selling pies?”
“That’s how they bill it.”
Service blinked, trying to hold back sleep, and took another long pull of coffee.
• • •
The house was a tri-level with attached two-car garage. There was a gigantic pole barn behind the garage, not attached. The nearest neighbor was about a half mile east down a gravel road that dead-ended in front of a farmhouse. The driveway here was paved. Service looked at his watch. Just past midnight, lights on in the house. Two trucks in the driveway. Sweeping, sculpted lawn, at least two acres. Considerable investment in landscaping. Clearly someone here had no apparent money problems.
Service turned on the tape recorder in his shirt pocket and knocked on the door. He expected a sleepy, surprised woman and instead found himself greeted by a smiling perky female, almost giddy, flashing a mouthful of horsey, shiny white choppers.
“Conservation officer.”
“Been expectin’ click youth,” the woman said. “Click c’mon in, dude. Got click pithess in the click ovens, and we have click peths depending on our click sales. Click life and click death, ya click see what I’m click thayin’?”
Grady Service nodded, trying to make a quick assessment. She was all over the place, physically and verbally. “Did you hunt this year?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Any luck?”
“Nope.”
“See any?”
“None I wanted.”
Miss Communication had suddenly become Miss Minimal Syllables. “I guess I’m confused,” he said. “I understand you got a giant fourteen-point buck.”
She looked at him and frowned. “My boyfriend click got it, not click me.”
“When did he get it?”
“Click ask him.”
“Where is he?”
“Smoking in the click ’arage. You don’t think I’d click allow toxic smoke to poison click our pies?”
“No, ma’am, I guess not.”
“Well, I wouldn’t. You guess; that’s click all you’ve got?”
“Yes, ma’am. Where’s the garage?”
She pointed at a door, walked ahead of him, and opened it.
The man was seated in a tall director’s chair. A huge headless deer carcass hung from a metal hanger and chain rigged from a ceiling rafter. There was a cigarette in the man’s mouth and a Bud Lite in the chair’s cup holder. The man had long blond locks that flipped up at the base of his neck. A tattoo of an apple and a skull showed on his neck.
“DNR,” Service said. “Arletta said you were out here.”
“Banished from Pieland by her majesty, dude,” the man said, exhaling blue smoke.
“Your deer?” Service asked.
The man nodded disinterestedly.
“Buck or doe?” the CO asked.
Only then did the man take a serious look at him. “Are you blind or what?”
“There’s no head, and it’s been gutted.”
“Dude, I forgot. It’s a buck.”
“Where’s the head?”
“Taxidermist. Her majesty wants a shoulder mount.”
“What do you want?”
“Dude, ya can’t eat horns.”
“Penn Pymn, right?”
“That would be me.”
“Which taxidermist?”
“No idea,” the man said. “She took it somewheres, said she wants it done right, and she’s paying for it. Not my business, man.”
“But you shot it?”
“Yessir, you betcha.”
“Where’d you hit it?”
“Right where you’re supposed to,” Pymn said.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Knock yourself out,” the man said.
The massive deer had dark fur, almost black. Service turned it and saw no evidence of a wound. “Don’t see anything,” the CO said.
“Neck,” Pymn said.
Service countered, “Risky shot.”
Pymn: “Only if you miss, and I never do.”
“You’ve shot a lot of deer?”
“Bunches.”
Service keyed his microphone. “One, One Twenty-Nine, you want to run the RSS history on Mr. Penn Pymn?”
Pymn looked over at Service. “Who’s that?”
“A colleague.”
“Where’s he at?”
“Around, you know?”
Service didn’t wait for an answer because he had already run the search. “The license you bought this year is your first, and you’ve not had hunter safety training. Exactly how many are there in bunches?”
“Ten, twelve, like that. There must be some mistake. I been deer-huntin’ all my life.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty and one.”
“Maybe you had hunter safety when you were a kid and they lost your record?”
“Yah, that’s probably it.”
“Where’d you take this animal?”
“Took it right here,” the man said. “Can’t you see?”
“Sorry. Where did you shoot it?”
“Out in the cornfields, ya know?”
“You have some hunting property?”
“I don’t. Her majesty does.”
“Where is it?”
“Right here.”
“How much property?”
“Ten acres? I ain’t sure.”
“Amazing to come across a monster buck on such a small parcel. What’re the odds, eh?”
“I always been lucky,” the man said, taking another hard draw on his cigarette.
Suddenly Arletta Ingalls was in the garage, standing between the carcass and Grady Service. “It wasn’t shot on this property,” she said.
Service guessed the garage was wired. “No?”
“Pie’s ready in the house,” she said. “C’mon back in the house, boys.”
“I have to get some photos first,” Service said, taking out his digital camera.
“There ain’t no head,” she said. “Why you want pitchers of a headless deer?” The clicking was gone from her voice. Had she removed the stud? Why?
Service said, “Penn said he shot it where you’re supposed to shoot a deer, but I don’t see any evidence of a wound on the body, lethal or otherwise.”
“Was in the neck is why,” the woman said, tapping a forefinger behind and below her ear. “Now come get pie,” she ordered. “I got it out for you and everything, and all the good fixin’s that go with it.”
The woman stepped inside the door; the garage door raised and Penn Pymn ducked out of the garage while Service made photographs and keyed his mic. “Male subject is out of the house,” he said. “Come on in, One Twenty-Nine.”
“Rolling,” Rice reported.
The woman said, “Did you say something?”
“I mumble sometimes,” he said.
“God,” she said. “Me too. What’s that all about?”
The scent of fresh pie enveloped him as he stepped inside. “Wow,” he said. “That smells good.”
“Not good,” she corrected him. “Fantastico!”
Service nodded as he heard the lock to the door into the garage pop closed. The whole place seemed to be wired.
“Describe the worst sex you ever had,” Arletta Ingalls said, stepping close to him.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“I do. The worst sex I ever had was fantastic, and I like to think my pies are better than the worst sex. I wanted to brand my pies Hot Pussy Pie, but my lawyer didn’t like it, said it would offend some folks, that the word pussy puts people off; but half the people in the world have one, so what exactly puts them off? I don’t get it.”
Krip was right. A lulu indeed.
The woman stood by the island in her kitchen, her right hand between her legs, her fingers kneading the fabric of her apron. “What flavor pie you want, officer? I got Dutch apple, tart cherry, and Arletta’s special hot pussy pie, which don’t get served too often, even to Penn.”
“Uh, no pie,” Service said. “But thanks.”
Her hand stayed where it was. “Ooh,” she said with a little squeal. “Such a fiery pie!”
“I’m on a diet,” Service said.
“Pussy ain’t banned from no diets I know of,” the woman said. “Specially my pussy.”
“Is from mine.”
Her hand finally moved. “Do we have a problem here?” Her voice had an edge.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do we?”
Service heard a buzzer somewhere in the house and the woman said, “Another visitor at this hour! What the hell is going on here?”
Motion detectors on the driveway? If so, she had known when I drove up and she was ready for me. Curious: She acts the halfwit, but there’s cunning here. A lot of it. The buzzer was reporting Rice’s arrival. “You took a deer to a taxidermist in New Swanzy,” he said. “This afternoon?”
“Where the heck is New . . . whatever you said?”
“Gwinn.”
“Oh, yah, I did. So what?”
“You took in your boyfriend’s deer?”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“Some things are not adding up,” he told her.
“Like what things?”
“Like there’s no wound on the deer.”
“Penn and I both told you it’s in the neck.”
Obviously the garage was wired for sound. “Well, that’s the thing. I examined the deer and I found nothing.”
“You . . . have . . . to . . . look . . . at . . . the . . . head and neck,” she said, spacing out her words. “Not what’s hanging in the garage. It was real high in the neck, see?”
She was pointing under her jaw again, below her ear, and she was obviously exasperated.
“I saw the head,” Service said. “Tonight.”
“Huh,” she said. “Well I know it was there. A crossbow bolt, not an arrow. You musta had bad light or something.”
“The light was fine.”
“What is this bullshit?” she snapped, her voice sharpening.
“We’re just trying to establish facts and clarify what happened,” he explained.
“We, there’s more than one of you?”
“Yes, ma’am, and if we don’t’ get some cooperation here, there will be even more of us.”
“It’s after midnight,” she said. “What’re you really here for?”
“We’re following up on your deer.”
“Did that asshole processor call you and tell you some story? You know, that asshole hit on me.”
“I found your deer during a no-notice inspection.”
“Penn’s deer, not mine!” she yelped. “You gotta pay attention!”
“I am, but I’m confused,” Service said. “You told the taxidermist it was your deer.”
“He’s a fucking liar!”
“I have a video.”
“It’s against the law to record someone without their permission,” she said.
“Not in Michigan.”
“You get that son of a bitch on the phone, and I’ll straighten out his dick.”
“I have a tape. We don’t need to call him.”
Penn Pymn came back into the house, with Herk Rice close behind. “There is a ton of bait around this place,” Service’s colleague reported.
“Storage,” the woman said. “It ain’t put out, so it ain’t bait.”
“You feed deer here?”
Ingalls looked past him, as if she was waiting for his words to compute. “All the neighbors around here feed deer. Every last one of them; look for yourselves. They even name them, treat them like they’re pets.”
“You two included?”
“We don’t give no damn animals human names,” she said.
“But you do feed them.”
“I just told you everybody around here feeds them.”
“But we don’t feed them during gun season like them others do,” Penn contributed.
“When’s firearm season?” Grady Service asked.
The man looked confused. “Like now?”
“Not until Sunday,” Grady Service said.
“I didn’t miss by that much,” the man said with a stupid grin.
“Why would you think it’s gun season now?” Service pressed.
The man shrugged and turned away.
/> “Look,” the woman offered. “We’ll just go over to the taxidermist tomorrow and I’ll show you fellas and we’ll straighten all this out. It’s just a mix-up. It’s late, and we’re all tired.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Grady Service said.
“You’ll take her word?” Penn Pymn asked.
Her word. Why does he put it that way? “Not exactly. Let’s go outside.”
“For what?” The woman asked. “It’s cold tonight. The snow’s been spitting, and I’ve got the thin blood.”
“Put on a coat and boots,” Grady Service said.
Ingalls grimaced. “I feel like I am being harassed.”
“You do?” Herk Rice asked.
“I offered my personal pie to the big fella there and he turned it down. Can you imagine a man turning down my pie?” She reached toward Rice. “You want some of my pie?”
“Uh, ah, no ma’am,” Rice said, stepping back.
“You need to come outside with us,” Service said.
“Not until I take care of my pies,” she said. “My ovens are filled. Can’t this just wait until tomorrow?”
“No, ma’am, it can’t. We’ll wait outside. It’s kinda warm in here,” Service said.
The woman pinched his forearm hard, “You got no idea how hot it can get, dude.”
• • •
It was more than thirty minutes before she ventured out, and despite her complaint about thin blood, she wore no boots or heavy outer clothing. Service led her to his truck. He had lowered the tailgate, and when he lit the deer with his flashlight, she let loose a piercing shriek that set waves of coyotes to howling and yapping in three directions. “You’ve ruined my beautiful buck, goddamn you, goddamn you you, you, you . . . fucker!”
“It’s not ruined. You need to settle down,” Service said sternly.
The woman shrieked again, and the coyotes went again.
Service touched her sleeve and she pulled away. “Don’t touch me, you sonuvabitch. That train’s done left the station. I’m gonna sue your asses!”
“You just told us you registered it as Mr. Pymn’s deer, not yours.”
She stopped. Hyperventilation to dead calm in an instant. “Okay,” she said. “I ain’t gonna lie to you boys.” For an experienced police officer, this statement was tantamount to admitting all that came before had been prevarication. “Good,” Service said. “We just want the truth, the facts.”
Buckular Dystrophy Page 8
