Buckular Dystrophy

by Joseph Heywood

  “Our own, sure; other crap, no way,” the man said.

  “Have you ever killed anything, Doctor?”

  “Only the occasional patient,” the man said with a smirk. “On accident, my grandkids would say.”

  The rifle was a Blaser RB Jaeger in .308 caliber—a rare, expensive weapon, a serious hunter’s tool, four or five grand a pop. “This is a beautiful rifle, but the trigger’s set for 1.5 pounds per pull.”

  “Is that a little or a lot?”

  “Ever hear the term ‘hair trigger’?”

  “Sure, everybody’s heard it. From the movies.”

  “This has one.”

  “Geez, no wonder it went off so easy. My ears still hurt.”

  Damn fool. “Why is your blind set here?”

  “To shoot a deer.”

  “This is a less-than-ideal location. You need to be farther from your truck and the road.”

  “Nobody told us.”

  It was common sense, but he held this back. Service leaned over and looked into the blind, saw a DeLorme: Michigan Atlas & Gazetteer on the floor. “Grab your map book, Doctor.”

  Even the book was new. The old edition had this spot on page 101. Now it was on page 43. Some bright nerd probably got promoted over the change. “This is a pretty good area, Doctor, but you need to move your blind deeper down to the edge of the swamp.” He pointed. “Find a small ridge and set up there. Go a quarter mile or so in.”

  “Huh,” the doctor said quietly. “I think I like it better right here. That damn rifle goes off again, I just may shit my pants.”

  “This was your wife’s idea?”

  “Mostly.”

  “How many days are you and your brother-in-law going to be here?”

  “A week, which I realize may now feel like a month.”

  The guy’s seventy-five. How old is his wife, and what’s her motive? “Your truck’s new too?”

  “Everything is new, my first pickup truck ever. Makes my testosterone rise just looking at it. You think the effect will last a week?”

  “You’re the doctor.”

  “Not out here I’m not.”

  He felt sorry for the guy. Money out the wazoo and no clue. “Move your blind that way,” he told the man. “For everyone’s safety.”

  “Okay, I can do that. I’m really sorry.”

  “How far is your brother-in-law?”

  “Half mile? I’ve never been good at measuring large distances. You can see his blind if you squint.”

  The man was pointing, and sure enough there was an identical blind not two hundred yards away. God. “Would you like us to help you to move your blind?”

  “Thanks, but I have some self-respect left. I can do it myself. Sorry about the safety glitch.”

  “Unload your rifle, and reload it after you get the blind set up in the new location.”

  “I think I can manage that,” the doctor said.

  Service pulled the bolt to eject the spent round, popped the clip, emptied the weapon, and handed everything to the man.

  “Don’t mate any of that stuff until you’re in your blind and ready to rock and roll.”

  “I guess. I never really experienced rock and roll,” the man confessed. “Went to school most of my life.”

  Service returned to the Silverado, and Allerdyce was standing by the gold truck. “Got bullet hole in driver door. Nice deer, eh?” he said with his crooked grin. “It got horn in it. That make ’er a buck?”

  The brother-in-law insisted he had read all the new product material, knew about the safety, and didn’t balk when they told him to move his blind as well. He also never asked about the shot, which surely he had heard. Clueless, his life apparently having shut off some pathways still operating in other folks.

  “What so funny?” Limpy asked.

  “Life,” Grady Service said.

  “I hear dat loud and clear,” the old violator said. “Dose two back dere goofy in heads.”

  Service thought, Thus continues the 2009 deer season; poachers, poachers everywhere and damn fool green horns shoed in between them. Geez.

  They drove west, intending to loop south and east across northeastern Menominee County; but plans of game wardens, like plans of soldiers in war, tended to melt under the first shot fired with intent.

  What asshole burned Friday’s garage? It was one thing to have a hardon for a game warden, but you knew to leave his family alone. That was the unwritten rule in the stupid game.“Youse know Coppish?” Allerdyce asked.“Knew him. He died, right?”

  “Nah, he still suckin’ air. Got camp south fum Arnold.”

  “Think we should give him a visit?”

  “Wunt hurt.”

  Teddy Coppish had been a serial arsonist, targeting forests rather than people and their homes. He was the scourge of Delta and Menominee Counties for almost ten years. A nice enough guy, even normal, until the urge to make fire overcame him. “You can find his camp?”

  “Wah,” Allerdyce said.

  Service took this to be a yes. What the hell am I doing with Limpy Allerdyce? The unanswerable Zen koans posed by philosophers and the like. “You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together,” the master said. “Now show me the sound of one hand. Or, what is the sound of one hand clapping?” He found himself grinning, looked over, and saw Limpy grinning. The mirror image gave him the chills.

  CHAPTER 22

  South of Arnold, Marquette County

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16

  The camp gate was wide open and a narrow lane cut through mature white cedars, the roadbed solid, the drive in to it almost a half mile long. Not cheap to install, even if you did most of the work yourself. The camp building was made of stripped logs and real chinking, not the plastic crap. There was bright green moss and a lot of it on ancient roof shingles. Service guessed this place had begun as a trapper’s shack and had grown over time into something more substantial.

  Teddy Coppish was outside and seemed to be waiting for them. Electronic motion detectors at the gate? Seems like trail cameras and other electronic devices were ubiquitous these days, and a lot of camp owners fortified their places like they were Fort Knox.

  There was neither hand-shaking nor venom in the greeting from the arsonist. “Got coffee, boys. Want anything stronger, you’ll have to go elsewhere.” There was nothing personal in this invitation. It was merely an unwritten camp law to offer hospitality to visitors, even your enemies.

  “No thanks. We had plenty this morning.”

  “Hear mebbe youse had fire dog recent-like,” the man said, catching Service off-guard. How did he find out so quickly?

  “Last night. Where’d you hear that?”

  “Linsenman, he stop by, tell me story.”

  Weasel Linsenman?

  Coppish added. “He don’t live too far up road, stops by make sure I take my pills and meds.”

  “Dey got pills for fireomaniacs?” Allerdyce asked.

  “Got pills for all kinds nutcases,” Teddy Coppish said. “Prob’ly got pills help da likes of you too, old man.”

  “Me? I speck I don’t need no pills.”

  “Service keeping you close like ’is pet Chihuahua, makin’ sure you don’t nip nobody’s ankle?”

  Allerdyce smiled.

  It was like two old gunfighters working themselves toward a confrontation, or boxers trash-talking at the official weigh-in. “Linsenman told you about the fire?”

  “Yah, just garage,” he said. “Din’t catch to house.”

  “Does that suggest anything to you, Teddy?”

  The man ran a leathery hand through long white hair. “I ain’t no coracle.”

  Allerdyce piped up. “Coracle is boat, you old firebug. You mean oracle, like da one out Phillydelp.”

  Oh, God. “Teddy, how do you read what happened?”

  “Got nuttin’ do wit’ da likes of me, Service. It youse got da problem, I’d say.”

  “You think it’s a warn-off?”

  “Yah
, prolly,” Coppish said, nodding slightly.

  “What else could it be?”

  Coppish shrugged dramatically.

  “How come youse not in youse’s blind?” Allerdyce asked. “Season on, eh.”

  “Already got my buck.”

  “Mind if we take a look?” Service asked. This was standard operating procedure.

  “Youse wunt be in here, gate not up.”

  “But it was and is up, and we just come in to say howdy, and here we are. Where’s your buck?”

  “I hung it. Got friend coming over, help me cut up.”

  “Lead the way.”

  The buck pole was fifty yards from the camp building, tucked back down a lane where it couldn’t be seen unless you walked up to it. This was typical of old camps, whose owners were extremely secretive and many of them long-time violators. As they walked, Service saw what he knew was faded whitewash on trees back in the swamp, the whitewash up nearly six feet to provide a light background for a shooting silhouette at night. It was an old night violator’s trick. It looked old, not of recent vintage.

  Teddy Coppish stood mute.

  Service checked the buck, a nice little seven-point rack, the tag on a string tied to an antler. There was a ladder against a nearby tree. Service looked at blood spots on the ground. There wasn’t much. He put the ladder against the buck pole, climbed up, and looked at the tag. “When did you shoot it, Teddy?”

  “First light, eh.”

  “Which day?”

  “Opener.”

  “Tag’s not validated, nothing’s notched. You wouldn’t be thinking of using the tag again.”

  “Tag’s on the animal,” the man came back.

  “But it’s not validated. That’s a violation.”

  “I didn’t break no law.”

  Service looked down. “Teddy, this animal’s eyes are clear. You know the eyes film over in twenty-four hours and stay that way. This animal was killed today. Where’s your blind?”

  “Which one? I got ten out here.”

  “The one where this buck was shot.”

  Coppish waved his hand. “Back dere, eh, way da hull out by crick.”

  “Which crick?”

  “Ellie.”

  “Let’s go take us a look.”

  “She’s long hike back dere.”

  “I like hiking. Humor me.”

  “I ain’t got to. You hasslin’ me.”

  “I’m just doing my job, and besides, what’re you doing hunting? You’re a felon and can’t have firearms.”

  “I ain’t hunting.”

  “There’s no name on this tag.”

  “Did I say was my deer? Sorry dat. Mistake okay? Not mine, eh. Belongs friend. Shot it dis morning wit ’is crossbow.”

  “You told us you got a buck.”

  “I buy licenses, help state out is all. I don’t actual hunt.”

  Service climbed down and activated his radio. “Twenty on RAP Two, Twenty-Five Fourteen. I’m at a camp south of Arnold. Run RSS for me?”

  “Twenty ready to copy.”

  Service rattled off the numbers and watched the old arsonist nervously shifting his weight from boot to boot.

  “Twenty-Five Fourteen, that number comes back to a male, Penfold Pymn. You want the spelling?”

  “Negative; thanks Twenty. Twenty-Five Fourteen clear.” Pymn again? Geez.

  “What all dat jabber?” Coppish asked.

  “It’s not your license.”

  “But I got one.”

  “Not the one on the buck, you don’t. You shot that animal for someone else.”

  “Nuh-uh; I jest go fetch for pal shot it.”

  “Penn Pymn.”

  “Don’t know nobody by dat name.”

  “Who’s the friend you dragged the deer for?”

  “Jess somebody I let hunt proppity.”

  “Name of that somebody?”

  “Never ast.”

  “You let somebody whose name you don’t know hunt your land?”

  “Not illegal do dat.”

  “Why didn’t the hunter validate the tag when he shot the animal?”

  “Was tagged. You seen antler.”

  This was going nowhere, the usual lies and dissimulation of hunters in the wrong. They’d wiggle like snakes with lie upon lie, hoping you’d miss something or get too tired to go on.

  Service’s radio activated with a burst of low sound. “Sonny, dis youse’s partner on radio. Got gal in truck jes pull into camp.”

  “Does she see our truck?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good, don’t let her leave; I’m on the way.”

  The CO sprinted back to camp, leaving Coppish far behind him. He turned the corner and came face to face with Arletta Ingalls.

  “Hope you don’t have that stud in your tongue, because we need to talk plain.”

  “You,” she said. “Again. This is harassment, clear and simple.”

  Service held up the tag that had been on the deer. “This comes back to Pymn. It’s hanging on an illegal buck.”

  “That so?”

  “You want to see?”

  “No sweat off my back what Pymn does. He’s a grown man. Grown, yet not the brightest bulb.”

  Service held out the tag. “Pymn’s, his second of the season, not validated.”

  “Men,” she said, holding open her hands. “Can’t never tell what a man will do in hunting season. Something in the genes and gender.”

  “That’s how you’re going to play this game?”

  “It’s Pymn’s problem, not mine.”

  “Might’ve been you who was here.”

  “Not me. I ain’t seen Pymn in days.”

  Interesting: Throwing her boyfriend under the wheels of the law truck. She is one nasty piece of work.

  “When you see Pymn, tell him we’ll be dropping by.”

  “Tell him yourself. I kicked his ass out. I need classy men in my life.”

  “Like Teddy?”

  Service was pretty sure she had shot the deer, but not the how and why. And seeing her with Coppish told him she might well have been the one to set the fire at Friday’s.

  “Hey, girlie,” Allerdyce cooed at her.

  “Sick puppy,” she said with a hiss.

  “Reglar wildcat,” Limpy said. “I like dis girlie.”

  “Fuck you, old man.”

  “Wah!” Allerdyce said. “I gone soap-out dat dirt-mout’ youse betcha.”

  Service grasped the old man’s shoulder to steady him. “Tell Pymn we’re looking for him,” Service told the woman as she walked to her truck, got in, and drove away. But she lifted both hands and flashed two birds as she raced back down the driveway.

  “Dat one look like fun,” Allerdyce said.

  The arsonist reluctantly led them to the hunting blind, a ten-foot ladder onto a platform over some deer runs in the swamp. It took Service only five minutes to find boot prints matching Arletta Ingalls’s size. No larger prints, just the small ones. They were at the base of the ladder.

  “Where’d the deer go down?” he asked Coppish.

  “Out dat way,” the man said, pointing.

  “Show me.” There was a gut pile and hair. The prints fit Coppish’s boots, not the woman’s. He took more photos.

  To Coppish, “She shot the buck, not Pymn. She killed it, and you fetched it. What did she give you so she could hunt here?”

  “I got nothing to say.”

  “You like pie, Teddy?” Service asked with a straight face. “You might want to remember that sometimes the fucking you get ain’t worth the fucking you get, savvy?”

  Why did Allerdyce bring me here? He has to have a reason. The old man does nothing by chance.

  Service looked at the firebug. “If I find out you’re teachin’ that woman how to torch, you’re going back inside.”

  “I’m calling my lawyer.”

  “Do that.”

  Back in the truck and out on a county road, Service said, “What was that all
about?”

  “Heard on the drums Teddy datin’ wild woman wit’ mean streak. Jes wanted see her.”

  Service wondered if this was all of it, but there was no way Limpy could have known about the big buck and all of that. Was there?

  CHAPTER 23

  North of Helps, Menominee County

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16

  Harry Pattinson’s camp was north of Helps, off an unnamed, unnumbered road. Allerdyce was clearly enjoying himself. Maybe too much. “Kinda blind luck we were with Teddy when we were.”

  “Guess so. Want coffee?”

  “Sure. You and Coppish don’t seem too fond of each other.”

  “All firebugs are shit bags, but not all shit bags are firebugs. Firebug shit bags, dey a mean lot dey are.”

  “Why’d you point me there?”

  “Want catch one firefly, got talk ’nother firefly.”

  Solid logic. “We never really got to that point of discussion.”

  “Said he hear ’bout fire from da Weasel.”

  “Your point?”

  “He heard from da Weasel, doubt he talk udder firebug.”

  “That’s your carefully considered professional opinion?”

  “Wah.” Allerdyce said, grinned, and stared forward.

  They were passing a house with a yard with no snow. Three blue jays were dancing on the grass fighting over some tiny morsel. “Dose guys, dey winter ’ere, dey dead,” Allerdyce offered. “Nature, she a hard bitch. Stupid birds outten’ve gone south.”

  “Why Coppish?”

  “I just tole youse, din’t I?”

  “I’m not buying your smoke.”

  “Really, Sonny. Dose firebugs all know each udder, watch each udder’s work. Sick fucks.”

  Change directions. “The fire marshal didn’t find anything special in the remains.”

  “Uh,” Allerdyce said, and changed direction. “Youse know dat Arletta gal?”

  “Took a big buck from her on the thirteenth. There all night. That’s the same morning you found me. You know her?”

  “Doggy queen, give a lot of money to one of them rescue outfits down Menominee.”

  “You know about that?” Typical Allerdyce, wired into everything. How and why were separate issues.

  “I hear some t’ings mebbe.”