Buckular Dystrophy

by Joseph Heywood

  “Right,” the sergeant said.

  Service continued. “Simon, Sheena, Superman, and let’s call Magic in from Dickinson and Rice up from Menominee. Here’s my thinking: Sheena as recorder. She’s thorough, never misses anything. Simon as touch-man on evidence. I’ll do the actual evidence logging. Superman on camera. We’ll want to record the whole deal, start to finish, stills and video. Magic and Rice, Volstaad and Paul handle outside security. Wait, move Volstaad to the inside crew. I want him to fill out evidence tags.”

  “That old man out in your truck can’t be part of this,” Wooten said. “I’m not even sure he can be in your truck legally.”

  Wooten knew that the officer who broke a case was in charge, and this pushing in now showed his immaturity in leadership. Service said gently, “That’s my concern, not yours. He won’t be part of this. I’m going to have him scout the property, report findings to the external team.”

  “I don’t like it,” Wooten said.

  “Drop it, Sarge. Allerdyce has forgotten more than we’ll ever know. You need to get on the horn and get the team moving this way. We don’t have a lot of time. Have I missed anything?”

  “My job in this?” Wooten asked.

  “Overall site security, no visitors, liaison with other agencies.”

  “You said something about a dog?”

  Shit, forgot about the dog. “Right. I heard it when I was there but never saw it.” The thought made him shudder.

  “Let’s take Animal Control with us, let them handle the dog,” Wooten said.

  “Good idea.”

  “What time do I tell Animal Control to meet us? And where?”

  “You’re jumping too far ahead of us. Get a name and phone, and after we get our plan and timing down, you can let that person know.”

  “No idea of timing?”

  “Rough. I’d like to make entry at 1700 today and be clear of the place by midnight, but I don’t know if that’s realistic.”

  “In seven hours we could clean out a museum,” Wooten said.

  The sergeant had no idea what lay ahead of them. “That’s pretty much what we’ll be doing,” Service said.

  Captain McKower wandered in. She and Service had been friends for a long time, more than that for a short period of shared wildness. She had moved from CO to sergeant to lieutenant, and Chief Eddie Waco had promoted her to captain when he arrived, putting her back in Marquette, where there had been no captain for some years. Lisette McKower was a veteran and one hell of an officer and still so good looking she was what Allerdyce called a turn-head.

  “I talked to the county,” McKower said. “How do you find so much crap?”

  “I was called on this, didn’t do anything but answer my phone.” He could tell she was pleased and proud of him, had always been, and would always be candid and direct with people, especially him. “Serendipity,” he said.

  She smiled her amused smile. “Lot’s of syllables for the likes of you. I heard Allerdyce has been riding around with you?”

  Wooten, no doubt. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Interesting choice. Is he actually helping?”

  “Heaps.”

  “That’s high praise from you.”

  “Seriously, Lis, riding with him is like having a living encyclopedia next to you. He knows shit about almost everything in the U.P.”

  “Did your Limpopedia know about Buckshow?”

  “Nope. This one caught him short.”

  “Then he doesn’t know everything, does he?”

  “C’mon Lis.”

  “Don’t go first name on me when we start hauling around a felon like he’s a legit VCO—an agency program, I should remind you, that our lawyers deep-sixed years ago.”

  “That was a stupid mistake on their part,” he argued back. VCOs were partial game wardens with minimal law training. Some of them had helped make some major cases over the years.

  “Never mind that. I only said that Allerdyce is an interesting choice. I didn’t say I endorse it.”

  “Chief Waco will back me on this. Back in Missouri he had a guy he called a shadow wolf, his words for what we called a VCO, and his guy was far from an angel.”

  She gave him her steely eye. “Don’t you dare name-drop on me. I will back you too, but that doesn’t mean we don’t talk about it, you big lummox. Was his shadow wolf a felon?”

  “I think so.” But he wasn’t that certain and couldn’t remember all the details of what turned out to be a deadly and bloody case. “You want me to call the chief and get details?”

  She smiled. “I know you and how you think. You’re not telling me everything. You’re trying to fake your way though this shit, right?”

  “Yep.”

  The smile turned to a smirk. “I always hated playing poker with you.”

  “The way I remember it, we never cared who won the game.”

  She blushed and said, “Yaah,” drawing out the word. “I remember that too. Okay on Allerdyce, but for the record, I don’t like it. He once shot you, and now you’re treating him like he’s one of us.”

  “The shooting was ‘on accident.’ He’s also saved my life, more than once.”

  The captain sighed dramatically, rolled her eyes, wheeled sharply, and was gone.

  The team would be arriving over the next hour or so, and he planned to use the time to think out the organization of the group and outline what lay ahead. First thing he needed to do was list everything that could conceivably, even remotely, impinge on the case and serving the search warrant. He pulled out a notepad and began to write: all buildings, all rooms in all buildings, houses, sheds, outbuildings, any structure anywhere on the property. All storage areas, bins, compartments, closets. All vehicles and their contents, visible and not visible.

  He stopped making notes and called Linsenman. “Did you get prints off the blind?”

  “Yah, our techs got some stuff, but none of it comes back to Buckshow.”

  No prints came back to Buckshow?

  Linsenman said, “With two hundred plants we don’t give a shit about the blind. You can throw that into your overall case of other stuff if you want. That’s why I left the blind there for you.”

  Service told his friend, “Do me a favor, and have your people keep looking at possible print matches.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me, Grady?”

  “No; I’m just trying to cover all of my bases.”

  “Cool. I’ll give you a bump if we get a match.”

  Back to his notes and planning. If nobody’s home—i.e., Sally Palovar, the wife—they would have to force entry. Animal Control will come directly behind the team with me leading. First task, get dog under control and safely secured. Step two, move all equipment inside. He quickly sketched a rough floor plan. We’ll work in the upper level first, and work room by room and floor by floor, basement next to last and the garage the last place. Simon will touch items and give verbal description. Sheena will write down that information, and I will give the item an evidence number and declare either take or leave. Volstaad will be beside me and make actual evidence tags and affix them, reading data to Sheena to make sure A equals A and so forth. We’ll have to keep moving steadily, no goofing off. Five-minute breaks in place between rooms. We’ll order some sandwiches made up and some drinks and collect them as we head south.

  He called Allerdyce, who was out in the truck. “Come inside, partner.”

  “T’ink I like ’er better out here.”

  “I need help, partner.”

  “Youse better if youse make me go inside. Youse know I hate dat place.”

  Allerdyce came inside and walked like he was barefoot on snakes. Service met him in the lobby and took him back to the conference room. He explained about the sandwiches and pointed at a phone with an outside line.

  “What flavors youses want?”

  “Don’t care. It’s just fuel. Just don’t get fancy.”

  “I like cudighi.”

  �
��I don’t.”

  “Youse ain’t ever’body.”

  “No cudighi. It tastes like spiced spoiled roadkill and makes big gas.” Cudighi was a kind of Italian sausage, an obscure local delicacy of widely varying quality and flavors, all homemade. Service loathed the stuff, which left him farty and lay in him for days like lingering poison gas in the trenches of Flanders.

  He stared at his partner. “No goddamned cudighi. The stuff came here from Italy, and now you can’t find it over there because it’s so damn nasty.”

  “Youse don’t trust youse’s partner?”

  “In some things, no.”

  Food handled, back to the plan. He had seen three shooting rooms for sure and suddenly felt the need for nicotine. “Want a smoke?” he asked his partner.

  “Youse betcha.”

  Service got his cigarettes out of the truck, and they stood near the tailgate. He was staring off when the color blue got his attention again. All the trash in the truck needed dumping. He picked up the cigarette pack and turned it over in his hand. There was a Missouri tax stamp on the bottom. He’d been pushing after Ingalls for the fires, but they had found contraband Missouri smokes in the kids’ apartment in the 8-1 case. The kids all denied any knowledge, as had the apartment owner’s pushy grandfather. Jesus!

  “You ever feel stupid?” he asked Allerdyce.

  “Nope,” the old man said. “Leave dat to udders.”

  The two men finished smoking. Service felt like a leper, hiding from public view, waiting for food to be thrown over the wall.

  “Been t’inkin,” Allerdyce said. “I look some of youse’s plat books in truck. All dose bucks, all dose years, Torky and dose guys. I call guy handles da deets for county, he tell me dis Buckshow jamoke buy dat house ten years back, eh. Was ’pose to become subdecision, but enveloper guy onny sold da one place. Buckshow bought all da enveloper proppity later, now got seven, eight acres dere.”

  “Does that show in the plat book?”

  “No ’cause was zone small parcel, eh. Jus not big nuff make da plat, deet guy tole me.”

  Service smelled a rat and called Linsenman again, this time finding him at home and off-duty. “Now what?”

  “Country registrar of deeds, what’s the skinny on him?”

  “Balfour? Nice old gent, kinda slow, there but not there? Got a gal, Shelley Jaaskelainin. She runs the show, and word is she’s partial to favors.”

  “What kind of favors?”

  “Kind that fits in your wallet and can’t be traced.”

  “Cash.”

  “Give that game warden his Kewpie doll. That’s even the name people call her behind her back, Cash Jaaskelainin. She knows they refer to her that way and thinks it’s cute.”

  “If this is true, why doesn’t the county clean house?”

  “Because in these times it’s not that important in the big picture. She runs the outfit pretty damn well, and she keeps them on budget. That’s the Holy Grail at all levels of government these days.”

  Governments, Service thought. Why did idiots get elected and then choose more idiots? Like damn zombies comfortable only with their own kind.

  Somewhere down the line he’d visit Ms. Cash, have a heart-to-heart and find out if Buckshow paid her to misrepresent his property in the plat book. At this point, Buckshow’s property doesn’t even exist in the plat book. He was invisible, and what if he had paid Jaaskelainin to keep him that way? And, more to the point, why?

  The answers and reasons might very well be on Buckshow’s walls. All he owned was a house the wolf haters were unlikely to even notice, not when they collectively owned more than three full sections between them. Buckshow was a speck and less. He looked at Allerdyce. “Show me.”

  The old man got the book, turned to the page, and pointed. The property of all the others turned into an hourglass, with Buckshow right in the middle, meaning almost all animal traffic had to cross through his land. How the hell had this guy stayed invisible all this time?

  Service’s radio crackled. “Twenty-Five Fourteen, Station Twenty on D-One. We have a message asking you to call Sally Palovar at her office. She said this number’s not on the county register.” The Lansing RAP room dispatcher read the telephone number to him, and he wrote it in his notebook. It was the same number she’d given him when he’d seen her recently.

  He punched in the numbers and she answered immediately. “You never called,” she said. “I heard you were at that house.”

  Not my house or our house, but that house. Strange. “True.”

  “You know my husband has been arrested and won’t be home tonight?”

  What’s she trying to tell me? “Okay?”

  “I thought you ought to know the house will be empty—if for some reason you need to go back.”

  “Thanks, but I guess I don’t understand.”

  “Think hard. Maybe it will come to you.”

  Why this strange little dance? “Can I ask you something personal?”

  “No law against it, just as there’s no law that compels me to answer.”

  Fair enough. “What’s your relationship with your husband?”

  “Conjugally or biblically speaking?”

  “Er, overall?”

  “Dead in all ways. For a very long time.”

  “But you’re still there.”

  “Obviously spoken by someone who’s never been on the receiving end.”

  What was she driving at? “That’s a bit vague for me.”

  “Listen carefully. The last thing I want to be is specific with law enforcement and then have my husband come back.”

  Now it was pretty clear. She was afraid. “There was a neighbor’s hunting blind found in your yard. Four-wheeler tracks led right to it.”

  “Imagine that,” she said.

  “It seems to have been placed so it can’t be easily detected from inside the house.”

  “And yet,” she said, “easily seen from the road?”

  “It was and is,” he said. “Makes one wonder.”

  “No doubt you have to solve a lot of small mysteries in your work.”

  “The county is running prints.”

  This brought a delay in answering. “You’d think someone devious enough to leave that thing where passing cars can see it but residents of the house can’t, you’d think that sort of person would be smart enough to wear gloves, wouldn’t you?”

  “One might think that,” he said. He knew it was her; this was a deliberate setup of hubby.

  “I don’t think you should trouble yourself with trifles and theoreticals,” she said. “He’ll probably be out on bail late tomorrow.”

  “Theoretically?”

  “I see no great divide between real and theoretical in this instance.” “Will you be home tomorrow?”

  “I have no home,” she said.

  “Whoever gets there tomorrow will no doubt find the furnishings and decorations somewhat reduced.”

  “Gut the whole thing,” she said with a sharp voice.

  “All those mementos?”

  “They’re not mine.”

  “Your name is on some of the tags.”

  “Not mine,” she repeated. “My licenses and my tags, yes. My bullets, bolts, arrows, and my hands, no way. Not once, not ever.”

  “You loaned your tags.”

  “There are no loans with that man. You do as you’re told, or else. With him, other people are just so much fodder.”

  “You know I’ll have to pursue this.”

  “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Done is done. I don’t fear truth.”

  “Unless you’re physically close to him.”

  “You have drilled into the heartwood of my conundrum.”

  “You could have told someone in law enforcement, Sally.”

  “I tried to tell you, but you are apparently too dense when it comes to understanding women.”

  He thought he was good at reading people, men and women. How had he missed this? Troubling in so many ways.
Decision time. “Your spouse will not be home tomorrow or the next day.”

  “No.”

  “You have time to get what you need and want out of there.”

  “It’s mostly clothes, but I don’t want to spoil your investigation.”

  “You can assume if something’s still in the house after we’re gone, it’s not of interest to us.”

  “I wish I could believe you.”

  “You can call the court or the jail tomorrow; they’ll tell you Jesper’s release timing. Two days, all yours.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you for calling me back,” she said, “and don’t feel you have to break down the door. There’s a geranium plant on the porch and a key underneath the pot,” she said and hung up.

  He immediately called Linsenman. “Buckshow’s a wife-beater.”

  “Says who?”

  “The beatee.”

  “Will she press charges?”

  “I don’t know. She’s just coming to grips with bailing out.”

  “Are you telling me she needs more time to get it together?”

  “Couple of days, at least.”

  “The sheriff will talk to the prosecutor. We’ll keep the crime scene in place until we’re done, and this being deer season, everything gets bumped back at least a week. What about your investigation?”

  “We’re shooting for being done tonight.”

  “You people move fast.”

  “This is our fast season.”

  Linsenman laughed and hung up.

  Service found Allerdyce staring at him. “What?”

  “Youse know how good youse are at all dis crap?”

  “There better not be cudighi,” he told his partner.

  The search warrant was all that mattered right now. But when this was over, he was going to pay a little visit to Mr. Parmenter Cair and talk about cigarettes and fires and whatever else might pop up. Maybe Cair didn’t set the fires himself, but he might well know who did, and Service had a hunch that it would turn out that he gave the order. He wasn’t quite clear on a motive yet, but his gut was now fixed on the older gent.

  CHAPTER 39

  South Marquette County

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24

  It was not quite 1700 hours when they were assembled one mile from the house, down an old tote road, out of their vehicles, and gathered around Service. Most of them were giving Allerdyce something between light razzing and the cold shoulder or some form of the evil eye, depending on each person’s confidence in dealing with the legendary violator. Allerdyce stood back to back with Service and showed no emotions of any kind.