Strike Dog

by Joseph Heywood

  The body had been found just above here. If this is when the attack came, he reasoned, Wayno would never have reached the fly, and considering that other evidence had not been picked up by the killer, the fly might still be there.

  He considered getting onto land, but studied the mono for several minutes. Years of fishing had taught him that the sorts of angles and tangles that could beset a line would confound all known laws of physics. The key to recovering a fly on a light tippet was to work the line slowly and gently, not to jerk it. There was sunken timber in front of him, just below the broken tippet. He moved over close, bent down, and began to run his hand along the back of a small log behind a larger one. It didn’t take long to feel the fly stuck in the wood. He put on another pair of latex gloves, knelt on the larger of the logs, leaned close, and wiggled the fly loose. There was a curlicue of monofilament hanging off the fly. He now thought he understood. A fish had been rising near the wood, and Wayne’s cast had gone into the tags and hooked the wood, but when he tried to pull it loose, it had broken. Not being able to see anything but the monofilament, Ficorelli probably had gotten out of the water to see if he could retrieve it from landside.

  Why the hell would he retrieve a fly if he had fish rising? Most fishermen would just tie on another fly, cast again, and hope the fish kept coming up. But by getting out and coming in from the land, he would not have had to wade through the run and put down rising trout. This made sense. When you fished for trout, you did everything in your power not to disturb what was happening. It was in your own self-interest.

  Okay, he thought. The scenario makes sense. Rising fish, stuck fly, retrieve it, don’t disturb the risers. Service stared at the fly. It looked vaguely like a brown drake, but in a dressing and style he had never seen before. As he handled it, the hook itself fell apart and dropped into the water, leaving him with only the upper part of the fly.

  He put the evidence in his pocket, sat down, and lit another cigarette. The scene was forming in his mind. Wayno had gotten out of the water to recover a lost fly and was attacked. Was it the only one of that kind that he had? Possibly. He probably never saw the attack coming, which suggested the assailant had been shadowing him along the bank. Because he had a pretty good idea where Ficorelli had gotten into the river and crossed to this side, he had a pretty good idea where the shadowing began. He got out of the river and walked downstream along the bank, keeping the same distance from the water as the attack site had been.

  Eventually he came to a downed oak, one that had rotted and probably come down under the weight of winter snow. There was a partial track in between some branches near the ground. The track was treadless. Felt soles? Service guessed that the assailant had stopped here and watched Ficorelli come across the river and begin fishing upstream. Eventually the hung fly offered opportunity.

  Service took some tissue paper out of his pocket, broke off a stick, pushed it in the ground, and attached the tissue to it like a small flag. He continued backtracking across a cedar swamp, past an old bear-bait site, and up a gentle slope to a two-track turnaround. The whole area was covered with thigh-deep ferns, but he moved cautiously and used a stick to part the ferns until he saw something near where some vehicles had turned around. Wading boots, shorts, a vest, and a nylon shirt were on the ground beneath the ferns, and from what he could see, there was no obvious blood. He used sticks to mark the spot and tried to estimate how far from the kill site he was. Maybe another half-mile, which meant he was close to a mile and a half from the dump site, and close to two miles from the FBI camp. Had the feds checked the two-track in front of him, and if not, why not?

  He hiked back through the lengthening shadows of the cedar swamp and started toward the camp, and along the way met Bobbi Temple coming toward him. Service nodded for her to follow, led her to the print and explained his theory, and then took her through the swamp and showed her the clothing.

  “Did your people check out this road?”

  “Have to ask Tatie,” she said. “I spent most of my time at the dump site.”

  She was on the radio as he approached the old bear bait.

  He heard Agent Temple’s voice behind him, asking, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He didn’t bother to answer her. The FBI reeked of incompetence. He had no time or desire to slow down and pull the feds along with him.

  Sheriff Arnie Thorkaldsson was in his cramped office with his long legs and huge boots propped up on a desk glider. “Monica back too?” the sheriff asked.

  “Just me.”

  “We ought to be announcing this thing,” the sheriff said. “This delay is outrageous.”

  “It’s the FBI’s case,” Service said.

  “You must have your own opinion . . . or have they brainwashed you?”

  “I’ve got one, but it carries the same weight as yours.”

  “The feds make us locals feel like tits on a boar.”

  “They do the same to state types,” Service said. “Do you mind if we run through the timelines of that night?”

  “Be my guest,” Thorkaldsson said. “I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “What time were you supposed to meet?”

  “Nineish. The hatches don’t get started till closer to dark, but I got held up on a traffic deal and I was a little late.”

  “How late?”

  “Forty-five minutes or so.”

  “Were you always late and him always early?”

  “No, he was usually the late one.” Service made a mental note.

  “Why’d you go to the old bridge ford?”

  “We always met there,” Thorkaldsson said. “Like I told you earlier, he always came up from the south and parked across the river. Probably ­superstitious. We always had good luck there, and you know how luck and fishing get joined at the hip.”

  No doubt, Service thought. If Thorkaldsson suspected anything about Ficorelli’s dalliances with the Andreesen woman, he wasn’t letting on.

  “Good a reason to park there as any,” Service said.

  “Only reason, ask me. Easier to get to the river from my side, and we could close the gate behind us.” The sheriff stared at Service. “This thing’s bigger’n Wayno, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t say,” Service said, feeling guilty. It was wrong to hide information from other police agencies.

  “How long are you gonna hang with this boondoggle?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Service said.

  “You need anything, just sing out. We don’t have much manpower here—and not much need for it—but I swear I’d personally give Madison an enema with a fire hose to help find Wayno’s killer.”

  “Okay if I tie up one of your phones?”

  Thorkaldsson stood up and stretched. “Use mine. Dial eight to get an outside line,” he said from the doorway. “I’m gonna go up the street and grab supper at the Puddin-Et-Pi. My sister-in-law owns the place.”

  The phone in a Detroit law office was answered on the first ring. “Grady Service calling. Is Shamekia available?”

  “I’ll see if she is, sir.”

  Shamekia Cilyopus-Woofswshecom was an ex-FBI special agent turned attorney, her last name so strange as to be unpronounceable by earthlings. Why the hell she didn’t change it, Service didn’t know, but people were kind of strange about their names, and what did it really matter? Most people who knew her didn’t attempt her last name, simply calling her Shamekia. His friend Tree had introduced him to her, and she had helped him solve a couple of complex cases.

  “Ah, the intrepid woods cop,” she greeted him. “How’s life in Michissippi, Grady?”

  A black Detroit politician had labeled the U.P. this way because of its sparse population and heavy unemployment. “Been better.”

  “What have you got going this time?”

  He took her through the cas
e, ending with the possibility of some sort of trial-run killings.

  “Lord Almighty,” the attorney said. “VICAP didn’t spit out anything?”

  VICAP was the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. All police agencies were supposed to enter their local violent-crime data so all the information could be searched by any police officer anywhere. He wondered if the DNR filed its data in the system, and if so, who handled it.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t know exactly what they did or how or when; I’m just wondering if there’s something that was missed.”

  “You know,” she said, “some cops call it VICRAP for a reason.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s a monster, and it’s easy to miss something; or are you coming at this from a different angle than the Bureau?”

  “Case myopia,” he said.

  She clucked. “Uh-huh. Linkage blindness happens to all of us at one time or another. You let yourself get going on certain leads or angles and you can’t let loose even when it’s obvious you’re not getting anywhere.”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “What exactly are you looking for?”

  “If I knew exactly, this wouldn’t be so hard. Several questions come to mind: Has this blood eagle thing been used anywhere at any time? Or have there been killings with edged weapons that are sort of bizarre and ritualistic? And not just game warden victims, any cases.”

  “Anywhere in the whole country?”

  “Hell, anywhere in the solar system.”

  “Some sort of geographic starting point, at least; location of the first killing or something along that line?”

  He tried to remember the state where the first murder had taken place, but he couldn’t. “Let me call you back on that.”

  “Never mind,” she said. “There’s enough in the way of unique factors here to get me rolling. I’ll be back at you if I find something. You got your cell phone with you?” She paused and added, “You understand that the system has flaws? Some local agencies, especially in cities, don’t enter all their current cases, and a lot of them don’t have the funding or enough trained people to go back and log the old cases. The program started up in 1985, and most agencies have lagged behind since the beginning. VICAP is a great tool when it works, but win or lose, it’s always a crapshoot.”

  “Thanks, Shamekia.”

  She laughed and said, “Stay safe,” before breaking the connection.

  Service called Chief Lorne O’Driscoll, who answered his own phone.

  “Service.”

  “Are you still in Wisconsin?”

  “Just back from Missouri,” Service said.

  “What the heck is going on?”

  Service described the cases and imagined he could hear the chief’s blood pressure rising.

  “Forty-nine officers?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Grady, I don’t know what crap they’re shoveling at you, but no such list came out of here, certainly not without my knowing. I’m telling you I would never release such a list unless the FBI director himself was standing here in my office holding a gun to my head—and even then the chances would be fifty-fifty.”

  “My name is on the list, Chief.”

  “Dammit!” Lorne O’Driscoll exploded.

  “Sir, I’m thinking we ought to at least alert our people.”

  “You let me worry about that,” the chief said.

  “And sir, it was the FBI who asked the Wisconsin secretary of state to request me from Governor Timms. You want me to stay?”

  “Why did the FBI do this?”

  “Partly to protect me, but beyond that I’m not sure.” There was something else, his gut told him, but so far he couldn’t get a nail into it.

  “Do what you think you have to do, Detective. List, my ass,” O’Driscoll muttered with disgust before hanging up.

  Service walked over to the main drag to join the sheriff at the ­Puddin-Et-Pi.

  Thorkaldsson greeted him as he sat down, “You’ve got the look of a man with fresh dog shit on the soles of his brand-new church shoes.”

  “Did you call the FBI when you found Wayno?”

  “No reason to call the feds out of the gate,” Thorkaldsson said. “I got my people in to secure the site and called the Wispies. We rarely get homicides in this county, but when we do, I call the state first.”

  “You don’t know who contacted the feds?” Service asked.

  “Not me is all I know. I assume it was the state,” said Thorkaldsson.

  “When did the feds come in?”

  “Monica was about an hour behind the Wispies, and her people swooped in an hour after that and took over,” said Thorkaldsson. “The Wispies musta known the FBI was coming because they just stood around and waited with their thumbs up their keesters.”

  Service asked, “Special Agent Monica strike you as competent?”

  The sheriff shook his head slowly and said, “Define competent.”

  Service drove back to the encampment near the crime scene, hoping Shamekia would come up with some answers. Had the feds missed something? This was more than possible, he knew; the Bureau was the same outfit that knew some jerkwads from the Middle East were taking flight lessons with more interest in takeoffs than in landings, and did nothing about it. Shit happened in bureaucracyland; investigators blinded themselves with their own assumptions, and it didn’t hurt to question everything, even with an agency with more assets than God.

  In his experience the FBI and other government agencies tended to reach for an ICBM when a bottle rocket might better do the job. Maybe they had handled this just fine, but he needed to know, and so far what he was seeing was way below his own standards. Back at the camp he walked into a clearing, opened his cell phone, got three bars, and punched in Father O’Brien’s number.

  “OB here,” the priest answered.

  “Service.”

  “I gather you’re okay,” O’Brien said.

  “I guess I deserve that,” Service said. “But I got called out of state on a case and I haven’t been back yet. Call my captain.”

  “I already did,” the priest said. “I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

  “Do you remember a psychology student from your days at Marquette?”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Last name is Monica.”

  “Ah,” the priest said. “The indomitable Tatie. Sure, I knew her.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Pretty good student, hardworking, strictly out for herself, which is normal for students seeking higher degrees. What’s she doing now?”

  “She’s an FBI agent.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” O’Brien said. “She had a strong interest in abnormal psychology and did a couple of insightful papers on serial killers.” There was a pause. “Is this about a serial killer?”

  “I can’t say.”

  O’Brien remembered her. Good student. He felt disappointed, wanted to hear something else, only he wasn’t sure what. “Aren’t most students in PhD programs supposed to be more than pretty good?”

  Long pause. “She was superb at memorizing facts but less strong at analysis.”

  “In what way?”

  “She’d get a notion into her head and not let go, even when her approach was clearly wrong.”

  “Yet she got her doctorate.”

  “She qualified. I was sure she’d never make it in a practice, but in the context of the FBI or a large organization, she’d do okay.”

  “She did papers on serial killers?”

  “Borderline obsession for her.”

  “You remember which ones?”

  “Sorry; it’s been a long time, an
d I had a lot of students. My memory isn’t so good anymore.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about her?”

  “I remember that she had a tendency to rely more on instinct than empirical data, and sometimes she tried to stretch miminal data beyond its inherent value to support her position.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Martin Grolosch,” O’Brien said. “He was a killer in Wisconsin in the 1920s. He got caught by some people up near Hurley and they hung him before the authorities could intervene.”

  “She was interested in Grolosch?”

  “Like I said, it was close to an obsession.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Sorry. Something about a minister in Rhinelander who hung himself.”

  “I don’t get it,” Service said.

  “Me either,” the priest said.

  “So . . . ,” Tatie Monica said from the trees. “The prodigal son.”

  Service stepped toward her. “I talked to my chief. He says there’s never been a Michigan list and he sure as hell didn’t talk to you.”

  “Semantics,” she said. “There are lots of roads to the same destination.”

  “You want me here for something more than protecting me,” he said.

  “We’ll talk about it.”

  “When—after my lungs are pulled out my back?”

  He was not surprised when she didn’t follow him.

  The eastern sky was hinting azure when Service stepped into Tatie Monica’s tent with two cups of coffee from the camp urn. She was asleep, an arm draped over her face, snoring a steady buzz.

  He sat down beside her. “Wake up.”

  She answered with a snort.

  “Coffee,” he said.

  She removed her arm and looked up at him. “I hate this outdoor shit,” she said.

  “You’re not outdoors. You’re in a tent.”

  Tatie Monica winced as she swung her legs off the cot and pushed herself up. She was wearing running shorts and rumpled gray T-shirt. Service held out a cup.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Too many question marks,” he said. “The only constant in this thing has been inconsistency.”