Strike Dog

by Joseph Heywood

  “You see what I’ve been living with for three years,” she said. “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. I don’t remember who said that.”

  “From where I stand you look like the vector of inconsistency.”

  “I said I’ve made mistakes. You haven’t?”

  “I try to fix mine.”

  “Must be nice to have a job that lets you,” she countered.

  “Where did the list come from?”

  “I had our field agents talk to game wardens.”

  “That’s not exactly a scientific sample.”

  “Fuck science,” she said. “It’s vastly overrated.”

  “Did you even try to approach state agencies?”

  “A few, but they stonewalled me.”

  “So you gathered the names based on gossip.”

  “Don’t give me any shit,” she said. “How many of you in Michigan?”

  “One eighty or so in the field, two forty overall.”

  “In an operation that size, everybody knows who the go-to guy is. All cops keep track; you know that: who’s good, who’s a liability. Walk into a New York or Detroit police precinct and every officer can tell you who their top cop is, so don’t preach to me about science. The point is that the killer has validated the list by his actions. He’s hitting only the top people.”

  “Except in Missouri.”

  “Spargo was the control. The conclusion stands.”

  “You let a man die.”

  “Your long-term ‘violets’ don’t know how to use the system against you? This guy sure seems to know ours. He crosses jurisdictions and uses time and geography to his advantage. The fact that we even found the first group is close to a miracle. The biggest problem we have sometimes is getting local agencies to cooperate with us. They want to hold on to their cases, can’t see beyond what they’ve got. I suppose you’ve never held things back from other agencies?”

  “It’s a two-lane road. You’re not telling them more, so they go with what they know.”

  “Bullshit. The real problem is elected law enforcement personnel. They all want merit badges for their next election.”

  He agreed, but this was off the point. He needed for her to focus. “How did you find the pattern in the first group?”

  “VICAP,” she said.

  “You mean VICRAP?” he countered. “I’m told it’s not particularly useful in cases before 1985, and the older the case, the greater the crapshoot.”

  Monica paused before responding. “That’s partially true,” she said. “But rural areas are pretty good about loading their cases. It’s mostly the cities that seem to lag, and where have our killings taken place? Not in cities. VICAP has its weaknesses and its critics, but it did the job this time.”

  “Who actually found the first group?”

  She took a sip of coffee before answering. “Micah Yoder.”

  “A Milwaukee buddy?”

  “Why are you asking this? You going to redo all of our work, check on us twice, like Santy Claus?”

  “Your idea for me to ask questions.”

  “Micah’s not just a computer geek, he’s an analyst, and VICAP was only one source. There are half a dozen other national databases. Do you think I made this up?” Her voice was rising.

  “I’m trying to focus and get up to speed. You brought me in blind and the light hasn’t been fast in coming.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me back up. Micah is a computer nerd, but he’s also more than that . . . a lot more. I’ve known him for ten years, and he can always find what I can’t.”

  “Like tying your Houston killer to LA?”

  “Know how we learned he was in LA?”

  Service didn’t answer.

  “The Houston killer took credit cards but never used them. We assumed he threw them away. But a Houston vick’s card popped up in LA, and Micah was the only one who caught it. We checked all the suspects for the date and all but one had an alibi, and that one couldn’t be found in Houston anymore. He’d blown town. I took the suspect’s photo to the store that processed the card, the clerk made a positive ID, and the LAPD helped us take it from there.”

  “Quite a story,” Service said. He didn’t point out that if Houston agents had been keeping close tabs on all their serious suspects, they would have known the man was gone. Still, it was pretty good police work.

  “In our business, networking supports luck,” she said. “You find good people and maintain relationships. They help you, you help them.”

  “Any chance I can talk to Yoder?”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I can use him for my network,” he said sarcastically.

  “You really can be an asshole when you set your mind to it.”

  “I haven’t even tried yet,” he said. “I just want to understand how he did this.”

  “Micah’s pretty hard to see.”

  “He works, right?”

  “Not regular hours.”

  “The FBI allows this for its staff people?”

  “I never said he worked for the Bureau. I said he’s an analyst and he’s out of Detroit.”

  “Has Yoder worked with Bonaparte?”

  “Micah works alone.”

  “You mean he freelances for you. The Bureau allows agents to use outside analysts?”

  “You’re suddenly an expert on Bureau culture and procedures?”

  “The woman your boys talked to about being with the guy on the four-wheeler by the river that night?”

  “What about her?”

  “She and Ficorelli had a thing.”

  “A thing?”

  “A seven-year thing.”

  “Jesus,” she said, “how did you learn that?”

  “I talked to her, showed her Ficorelli’s photo.”

  “And she just spit it out?”

  “More or less. Your people talked to her, but it was just about seeing strangers on the road or in the area. Ficorelli wasn’t a stranger. He left her place at 4 p.m. the day he was killed. She didn’t want to talk, but I convinced her, and I told her that her husband didn’t need to know.”

  “How did you suspect?”

  “You said it the night I got here—that Ficorelli was a pathological ass-man with a penchant for married women. He’s been coming here for years, same time every year, parking in the same spot. There was a chance there was more to it than fishing. The real question is why you didn’t think of the possible connection and see to it that your people showed the woman his photograph.”

  “That’s damn impressive investigative work,” she said.

  “Martin Grolosch,” he said.

  Tatie Monica looked at him and blinked. “What did you say?”

  “Martin Grolosch and Rhinelander.”

  “What about him?”

  “You tell me.”

  She drained her coffee, obviously trying to collect her thoughts. “Grolosch was from Rhinelander. My grandfather went off to the war in 1941. My grandmother hung herself while he was gone. He didn’t know until after the war because he was a POW. When he came back and found out, he hung himself in the same tree.”

  “Sad story,” Service said. “Why did your grandmother kill herself?”

  “Martin Grolosch was her son by her first husband. She and my grandfather never believed Martin was a killer. But Grandmother started to do some renovations in their house and discovered a cache of papers—things Martin had written about what he had done. He killed fourteen women before he got caught. Grandmother couldn’t live with what her son had done.”

  “Your interest in Grolosch is personal.”

  “Personal and professional,” she said quickly. “My brother Lance hung himself at fifteen, and afterward my parents discovered he had been torturing small animals. This is a typical f
inding in the background of a serial. It was really sick, and I started wondering if there’s a genetic component to serial murder; you know, if it runs in families.”

  “You wondered if your brother would have become a monster.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  This cinched it for him: Tatie Monica was damaged goods and had no business running the team. “I’ve done about everything I can do here,” Service said. “I’m heading home.”

  “There’s a target on your back,” she said as he started to get up.

  He turned and looked down at her. “No, I’m the strike dog,” he said.

  “Who’s the pack backing you?” she asked.

  “I wonder the same thing,” he said. “But don’t bother coming to the U.P. to protect me.”

  “There are forty-nine dead game wardens,” she said, “some of them the best in their state, and they couldn’t avoid it. What makes you different?”

  “I know the asshole’s out there,” he said. “And if some of those dead men had known, this might have put an end to this shit a long time ago.”

  He walked out. He was done listening to her. He had a high quotient for bullshit, but some of what she said was right. Networking was key, and he had his own to tap into.

  It was time to go home, sort things out there, and get ready. Tatie Monica was chasing personal demons. He was going to hunt a killer who did not yet know he was the prey.

  25

  FOSTER CITY, MICHIGAN

  MAY 31, 2004

  For one of the few times in his life Grady Service found himself at a loss for exactly what to do—both professionally and personally. How many times had he reached for the cell phone to talk to Nantz, only to remember she was no longer there? Where was home, and what was it? Him, a giant dog, and a surly cat?

  He pulled into the lot of the Mill Town Inn. He needed caffeine and time to think. The inn was a converted house about forty-five miles west of Escanaba. Swedish pancakes were the specialty, the atmosphere quiet, and it was run by an ex-marine and retired Saginaw homicide detective named Barratt, who was called Toe Tag by most of his cop friends.

  Gaudy white and yellow flowers bloomed in beds below the front porch; others climbed vines on a green trellis. The scents of lilac and Russian olive perfumed the small yard.

  There were two narrow dining rooms in the old house, single white flowers in small red bud vases, and the work of local landscape painters framed on the walls. Barratt Adams saw him and immediately brought coffee. “Haven’t seen much of you recently.”

  “I’ve been here and there,” Service said.

  “Got a big brown last night at dusk on a brown drake. You gonna ask where?”

  “A man needs to keep some secrets,” Service said.

  “Semper Fi. Yell when you’re ready for chow.”

  Service was staring at his cup when he felt someone watching and looked up to see a small, wiry man in a blue blazer, white shirt, and narrow red tie. He stared at the man for a moment before it dawned on him. “Allerdyce?”

  “I seen youse sittin’ dere makin’ eye-holes in dat coffee. Youse got tea leaves or chicken guts in dere, sonny?”

  Limpy eased his scrawny frame into a chair and grinned.

  Service had never seen him with teeth before. “Suit, teeth, clean-shaven, no ponytail. Very spiffy.”

  The old poacher cackled. “Hunt turkey, youse gotta wear camo, am I right, sonny?”

  Allerdyce was prone to strange pronouncements that seemed like bizarre non sequiturs, but the old man rarely spoke without intending to convey a message. His crude ways made him seem stupid and ignorant to a lot of people, but Service knew better.

  Allerdyce nodded toward the cash register. Service saw an attractive woman, fortyish, in shorts, platform sandals, and a turquoise tank top. “I’m poppin’ dat,” the old poacher croaked, making a fist.

  She looked well groomed and light years away from Limpy’s class. “Is she blind?” Service asked, making the old man scowl. Limpy’s prodigious sexual appetite and reputation were legendary, but this woman? Not possible.

  “I got what she wants,” Allerdyce said. “Youse an’ me got no more bullshit between us, eh.”

  “Where are you living?”

  “Where I always been,” the man said.

  The woman came over to the table and stood beside the poacher with her hand on his shoulder. “Introductions, Andrew?”

  “Dis here’s DNR Detective Service.”

  Andrew? Service stifled a grin. Even the man’s rap sheet listed him as Limpy.

  The woman extended her hand. “You’re the one. I’m Joan Pillars.” She had a soft voice and a firm handshake. “Andrew has told me a lot about you.”

  “She’s a schoolteacher up da college,” Limpy added.

  “Visiting professor from North Carolina–Wilmington,” she said by way of amplification. “I’ve been at Northern since the first of May. It’s a one-year appointment.” Her accent was from the Northeast, maybe Maine, Service thought.

  “Writin’ her a book,” Limpy said with a toothy grin that unnerved Service.

  “About over-the-hill poachers or broke-down paroled felons?” Service said.

  Limpy protested. “I’m retired, not over no bloody hill.”

  “But still a paroled felon,” Service said.

  “Actually, the subject is rural crime and the public’s widespread lack of recognition,” the woman interjected. “Perhaps you would have some time to talk to me,” she added. She slid a business card onto the table, took out a ballpoint pen, and wrote something on the back.

  Service ignored it. “I’m kind of busy,” he said.

  “Told youse,” Allerdyce said. “Da boy ain’t much on makin’ social da way ’is ole man was.”

  The woman started for the door and Limpy got up and leaned over. “She’s a screamer, dat one. Be seein’ youse, sonny.”

  “Whatever you say, Andrew. You hear Honeypat’s back in the U.P.?” Gus had not yet confirmed this for him, but Service wanted to see the old man’s reaction.

  Allerdyce stared at him. “Where?”

  Service shrugged. “Just a rumor. If I confirm it, I’ll get in touch.”

  Allerdyce frowned as he followed the woman out the door, turned around, and came back. “I’m real sorry about your gal.”

  Barratt came over to the table. “You decided?”

  “Stack of Swedes. Keweenaw lingonberry jam?”

  “You bet, but Dottie put back some chokecherry jelly last fall.”

  “Make it Dottie’s,” Service said. Dottie was Toe Tag’s wife, a local girl, the chef for the restaurant, and manager of the two-room guesthouse. Toe Tag provided the capital and did odd jobs for her between fishing trips.

  “I’ll tell ’er.”

  “Grab a cup and join me.”

  The retired cop came back with a cup and two giant apple fritters. “Some habits don’t break easy,” he said sheepishly, offering the plate to Service, who held up a hand.

  “Who’s the woman with Limpy?”

  “Professor of some kind. They’ve been in a couple of times. He tell you he’s getting that?”

  “He says that about every woman,” Service said.

  “I don’t buy it with this one. Gotta say, though, she sure cleaned him up good.” Allerdyce was well known for his less than enthusiastic or consistent personal hygiene.

  “He says he’s living back at the compound.”

  “Maybe he rebuilt,” Barratt said. “His bunch isn’t exactly the sort to broadcast their news.”

  “The clan scattered after the compound burned.”

  “Not that far, I’d think. That old man’s got an eerie hold on them, like a black hole always pulling the rest of his universe toward him.”

  “His hold on Honeypat didn’t seem too
firm,” Service said. Honeypat was the daughter-in-law who had tried to take over the clan.

  Barratt grinned. “Exceptions to every rule. The hell of it is, I kind of like old Limpy. I imagine you might have a different take.”

  Service didn’t reply. The truth was that with all of Allerdyce’s disgusting ways, he sometimes got a perverse kick out of the old man. He just didn’t ­understand or trust him. “How long were you in homicide?”

  “Fourteen years,” Barratt said. “It took about fifteen minutes to adjust to retirement. I saw enough dead bodies for several people, let alone one worn-out old cop.”

  “Did your department use VICAP?”

  “Ate from it more than we fed it. The entry process wasn’t that easy, and we never had enough people or money to spend the time.”

  “But a good tool?”

  “Better now than then. They’ve simplified data entry over the years. Nowadays if you have a hot case, they have the staff at NCAVC jump on it quick. It will get better, but it works now.”

  “Did you ever catch any serial murder cases?”

  Barratt smirked. “Hey, we had druggies whacking homeboy competitors like they were cockroaches on their mama’s birthday cake, but these weren’t the sort of serials the Feebs got off on. Most of our body count was domestic or drug-related. Our dealers were small fish on the fantail of the Chicago-­Detroit-Flint supply ship. Why the interest?”

  “We’re never too old to learn.”

  Barratt laughed. “You and Allerdyce: Neither of you ask questions without purpose. You hear the president’s coming?”

  “Which one?”

  “Dubya,” the retired cop said. “Marquette, next month. He’ll be the first sitting president in the U.P. since Taft in 1911.”

  The president coming to Marquette? So what? It wouldn’t have any effect on him.

  After breakfast he dropped the woman’s card in the trash by the register but found another one under his windshield wiper. The woman had scribbled, “I’m very persistent!” She had added a smiley face. He loathed smiley faces.

  He looked at the card. It read: Joan Pillars, PhD, Professor of Criminology, University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He stuck the card under the sun visor, opened his cell phone, and called the Marquette office.