Force of Blood

by Joseph Heywood

  “Michigan Man,” the unshaven man with pale gray eyes said from behind O’Driscoll’s desk. “Yew done yew any dandy floods lately?”

  “Eddie Waco?”

  “Some dogs cain’t ’splain how they get from there to here.”

  “You’re the new chief?”

  “Vex you some, does hit?” Waco asked, smirking.

  “Not sure,” Service said. He had worked with the Missouri conservation agent in the wake of the murders of his girlfriend Maridly Nantz and son Walter.

  “How’s Cake?”

  Cake Culkin was Waco’s shadow agent, his ersatz partner, the unofficial Missouri version of Michigan’s now-defunct Volunteer Conservation Officers, a program missed by just about every uniformed officer.

  “Jes’ fine las’ time I seen ’im. You wonderin’ why I’m sittin’ here, do ya?”

  “My head’s not clear enough yet to question anything,” Service said.

  “Ain’t gonna blow smoke up your backside, Grady. I didn’t come lookin’ for this job. Hit come lookin’ for me, and I said yes, on the condition I call all the law shots—and I do mean all.”

  “Who came after you?”

  “Natural Resources Commission.”

  This was the body of political appointees who directed conservation policy in Michigan. “Not their call,” Service said.

  “They’re about to name a new director.”

  “Eino Teeny’s leaving?”

  “Already done cleared out his kit, I hear.”

  This was all major, long-expected news. Teeny had been a toady of past governor Sam “Clearcut” Bozian. Teeny and Bozian had been equally loathed at all levels of the DNR. Once Bozian was term-limited out of the gubernatorial job and headed for the nation’s capital, everyone expected Teeny to follow, posthaste. But he had hung on, which suggested how bad his reputation was. Nobody wanted him, not even Sam Bozian.

  “Who replaces Teeny?”

  “Betwixt us boys, Mizz Doctor Belphoebe Cheke.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “They’re bringin’ her in from Wyoming—wildlife management type.”

  “Cheney country.”

  “Word’s out the Veep’s mucho pissed, but the woman can’t stand him.”

  “Well, that’s a big point in her favor,” Service said.

  Waco smiled. “You and me once made a good pack.”

  “True,” Service said.

  “I’ll be blunt. I’m askin’ you to take a step up the organizational ladder.”

  Service shook his head. “Up isn’t the direction I’m interested in, Eddie. I’m thinking more about sliding gracefully out—into retirement.”

  Waco shook his head. “Retirement would bore the britches off’n the likes of you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’d like you beside me as captain and assistant chief. You might want to think on this some, before you say no. You could do a lot of good for the department and for me. I’m the new guy and I get a honeymoon. You know where all the bodies are buried. Together we can do good things.”

  “Eddie, if I spent any more time in Lansing than I already have, you’d probably end up arresting me for homicide. You need someone smart you can really count on.”

  Waco pursed his lips and paused. “Got a name?”

  “Lieutenant Lisette McKower.”

  “No reservations?”

  “None. She’s the best we have.”

  “Okay, then. I ain’t one for twistin’ arms. Okay if I call you and check in with you from time to time?”

  “Hell, come ride with me—but if you call me, it’s on your own dime.”

  “Wouldn’t think of spendin’ guv’mint money,” Chief Eddie Waco said. “You can count on seeing me again real soon.”

  “Congratulations,” Service said, and added, “I think. Why did you take this job?”

  “I got jumped to second captain back home and finished my PhD. First captain’s a good man. Didn’t want to compete against him. This looked like an innerestin’ job, and I figured with you here, we might just make us a difference. This state’s got the longest history of all when it comes to salaried professional game wardens—a long, proud history.”

  “I hope your future analyses are better than that one,” Service said. “This state’s in financial freefall and the whole place is going under.”

  “Never figgered you for such an optimist,” Eddie Waco said.

  The two men laughed together and shook hands.

  O’Driscoll was waiting outside. “You approve?”

  “Probably.”

  “You turn him down?”

  “Yep.”

  “And then you recommended McKower?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Think she’ll take it?”

  “If the chief has any say in it, she will. He was a helluva officer down in Missouri.”

  “He says you’re the best he ever worked with.”

  “He’s chief, not God.”

  2

  Rock River Headwaters, Alger County

  TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2007

  Grady Service was passing Vanderbilt when his cell phone rang. “This here’s Kinkaid,” the man’s gravelly voice croaked into the cell phone. “Santinaw says he needs to see you right away, like most ricky-tick, eh?”

  Grady Service’s first response was an uncommunicative sigh. Santinaw was Huronicus St. Andrew, a Munising Ojibwa, who had served in the Pacific in World War II and returned home in late 1946 after spending some time in Japan. As a boy, St. Andrew had pronounced his name Santinaw, which had stuck ever since. He lived mostly alone, never married, and occasionally worked as a hunting and fishing guide.

  Grady Service’s old man, a once-famous Michigan conservation officer, had known the Indian well, but Service hadn’t talked to Santinaw since a bizarre bear-poaching case some years back. The old man had to be pushing ninety, and the message to come see him “right away” left the Department of Natural Resources detective scratching his head. No phone, of course. St. Andrew lived in another century; pinpointing the exact one was impossible. Kinkaid, the messenger, ran a small general store in Eben.

  Service finally spoke. “Right away as in today, or as soon as I can reasonably get there?”

  Kinkaid sighed. “You know the old sonuvagun’s never that specific. He wants his groceries fetched out to him.”

  Service closed the cell phone. Vintage Santinaw—always killing multiple birds with the same shot, and never a please uttered on the front side: Just do it. Santinaw, a revered, powerful tribal elder and holy man, was not one for vacuous social graces or empty gestures.

  Grady Service called Tuesday Friday from St. Ignace and told her about the meeting with the new chief. Friday—more than a girlfriend, less than a wife—was a homicide detective with the Michigan State Police in Negaunee, divorced, with a young son. Probably their relationship could be more precisely defined, but for now they were both comfortable with the arrangement as it stood. Both had hyperkinetic cop schedules and they got together when they could. Shigun, her son, often stayed with him when she was working.

  “You know the new chief?”

  “Worked together once.”

  “Life sure can be odd,” she said. She had been expecting him for dinner that night, but he told her he had to stop in Alger County and would be later, and not to hold dinner for him. He thought about trying to explain Kinkaid’s call about Santinaw, but it was impossible to accurately define the old Ojibwa, so he told her he’d talk more when he saw her again.

  “Give Shigun five for me,” he said just before hanging up, and she laughed.

  “When I see you again, I’ll be giving you a lot more than five,” Friday purred seductively.

  • • •

  As he drove toward Eben, Grady Service reflected on the fact that work in recent years had taken some distinctly dark and unexpected turns. It seemed that his ability to control outcomes, or even to ensure justice, was diminishing. The nagging questio
n in his mind: Was this despite him or because of him?

  Not having the answer didn’t keep him from wondering how after nearly three decades, law enforcement seemed to be getting both richer and more complex, with more and more people counting on him, which meant having answers for them. Right? He hated this aspect.

  Kinkaid was a short, slightly stooped, gnomelike man with a thin, florid face, and crooked teeth stained by tobacco. He had a carton of Basic cigarettes on his counter ready to add to a canvas pack. “Santinaw’s groceries—and his smokes.”

  A young woman stepped up and hooked the pack with her arm. “I’m Lacey Lucey,” the woman said. “Santinaw’s woman. I’ll carry the load if I can catch a ride.”

  Service looked at Kinkaid, who shrugged.

  “Who pays for the old man?” Service asked the grocer.

  “Running tab.”

  “Cleared recently?”

  “Not in a couple of years.”

  “What’s it up to?”

  Kinkaid told him. Service shook his head and wrote a check to the man. Even with the recent stock market debacle he still had more money than he would ever be able to spend. The amount the Indian owed on account didn’t seem like that much for more than two years, and Service suspected that the old bastard did a lot of “natural harvesting” near his cabin, meaning illegal hunting and fishing. How somebody that old could still get around in winter woods was beyond him, but he admired the old man for sticking to his own lifestyle and not bending to the demands of others.

  Lacey Lucey said nothing during the drive from Eben, and when they got out of the truck, she grabbed the pack again and looked at him. “You want me to lead?”

  He nodded. Last time here CO Jake Mecosta had led the way, and both of them had gotten turned around. Mecosta was retired now. All the old-timers were hanging up their boots. Why not you? he asked himself.

  “Known Santinaw long?” he asked the woman.

  “Long enough,” she said, ducking into the trees at a brisk clip.

  Two miles of tortuous verticality and poor footing took a lot of effort, and when they finally reached the old man’s cabin on a rocky promontory, Service was sweating and felt slightly winded. The woman showed no effects. She stopped at the door and knocked loudly.

  “Santinaw, it’s Lacey,” she called out.

  The Indian said. “Go away. I ain’t got no time for the funny business.”

  “You’re my man,” she said. “There’s more than the funny business in a relationship. We’ve got your groceries.”

  “What about my smokes?”

  “Them too,” she said.

  St. Andrew opened the door and squinted. He nodded and grunted when he saw Service. “Bojo … come in,” he said, and when the woman hung back, the old man shook his head, held up his right index finger, and said, “You can come in, but this here’s gonna be some serious man-talk you ain’t part of.”

  “I won’t interfere,” the woman said, proffering the carton of cigarettes.

  The cabin had not changed since Service had last seen it. There was a woodstove, ricks of logs piled in an orderly fashion outside the cabin walls, the overall effect that of a whole, well-maintained operation. There were cured furs on the walls, an oiled crosscut saw, a shelf filled with old crocks and bottles, and a rack of bamboo fly rods turned orange by age and use. The floor was shiny from decades of boots, and there wasn’t a visible speck of dust.

  There was a bed in one corner, and a small table with four simple wooden chairs painted basic red.

  Santinaw cracked opened the carton with his thumb, ripped open a pack of Basics, removed one, and lit up before offering the pack to Service, but not to the woman.

  “You come along pretty quick.”

  “Your message said right away. What’s up?”

  Huronicus St.Andrew said solemnly, “Our ancestors are being defiled.”

  “Our ancestors, as in yours, and/or mine?”

  Santinaw grinned. “I always liked wabish sense of humor. My people think of you as almost one of us, so I guess that makes this about our ancestors. Back when our people fought the Lakota, war parties would appoint one of their bravest to be a runner, who would return to the tribe afterward and tell them what happened. Even if everyone survived, the runner always spoke first because he stayed at a distance, didn’t get involved like the others, and could see the big picture. You’re like a runner. And you’re known to be fair—for a paleface.”

  Service stifled a laugh. It had been years since he’d heard that word.

  Santinaw had always been an odd and mysterious figure, and Service understood him no better now than when he had been a boy and come to visit with his father. “What is it I’m supposed to be watching?”

  “Bleedin’ sand,” Huronicus St. Andrew said. “The sand is bleedin’, and only you can stanch it.”

  “Are there going to be more details?”

  “My son, Four Hawks, and my people need you, Service.”

  “You have a son?”

  “Even Santinaw can’t defy odds all the time. Whiteman’s weinerboots ain’t a hundred percent, eh? His name is Four Hawks, but in your world he is called Duncan Katsu, his mother’s name.”

  Service smirked and took a drag on his cigarette: Santinaw’s exploits with much younger women was legendary in the central U.P., and probably throughout the entire Ojibwa populace of the United States and central Canada.

  “Where is this son of yours?”

  “I seen him up there on that Coast of Death.”

  “You were up there?”

  Santinaw tapped his head. “I got the gift.”

  Death’s Coast. It had been years since he’d heard the term. White men called the south shore of Lake Superior the Shipwreck Coast, and the Chippewa called it Coast of Death because of a bloody battle fought with marauding Iroquois centuries back, which may have happened or could very well be bullshit. With the tribes you never knew for sure what was real and what was a figment of group imagination and the inaccuracy of oral history.

  Technically, the area stretched from Munising to White Fish Point, but the main Shipwreck Coast ran east from Grand Marais to Whitefish, a largely uninhabited coastline rarely visited except by a few tourists and agate hunters.

  “He lives way out there?”

  “Between Crisp and Vermilion,” Santinaw mumbled, “near the halfway house.”

  “You visited him?”

  “I seen the whole thing.”

  Service inhaled deeply. Stay calm; he’s an old man, and he’s seen—and believes—things you don’t know about.

  Service tried to recall what he thought he knew. In the old days there had been a string of U.S. Life-Saving Service stations stretched around the coastlines of the Great Lakes and down the Eastern Seaboard, and every day surfmen had walked the beaches, looking for flotsam and jetsam from wrecks. The surfmen were very tough hombres. One man would walk halfway to the next station and the next station would send a man the other way, and the two would make contact in the middle, compare notes, spend the night, and walk their return routes the next morning. Crisp Point was about as isolated a place as one could find in the U.P.

  “He have a camp up that way?”

  “Ain’t none of us own land ’cept in wabish thinking. He treats the land with respect and it takes care of him. The boy lives the old way and practices the traditional ways. He’s headstrong, but a good boy. He went off to try the wabish way, but he came back. We always come back.”

  The traditional way? Bleeding sand? What the hell is he talking about?

  “Am I supposed to go see him?”

  “A man is free to choose,” St. Andrew said.

  Bullshit. Santinaw was putting the bite on him, leaving him no choice. “Think you could cough up a bit more detail for me to go on?”

  “Look into your heart,” the old man said, turning and gently patting the younger woman’s firm left buttock. She responded with a lascivious laugh.

  “I take
it you won’t be hiking out with me?” he said to Lacey Lucey.

  She raised an eyebrow and said, “My old man and me, we got important things ta take care of.”

  Service nodded and smiled. It had been a week since he’d last seen Friday and he could empathize.

  By the time he got to his truck he was winded. Need to step up your workouts, he told himself. His sinuses had been plugged for more than a month, which sometimes left him feeling like he was living inside a gelatinous atmosphere. If this kept on, he’d call Vince Vilardo and try to get the sinuses cleared.

  The internist and retired medical examiner for Delta County was an old friend and collaborator, and despite retirement, still seeing a few patients. He’d probably bug him to get a full physical, but he’d been avoiding this for years and saw no reason to give in now. You take your truck to the dealer and it comes out with more problems than it went in with. Same thing happens when you go see a damn doctor. It can’t be coincidence.

  3

  Newberry, Luce County

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2007

  Grady Service called District Two’s Lieutenant Lisette McKower during his drive east. His former partner and sergeant, one-time lover, and now district lieutenant, remained a close friend.

  “Lis, Grady. You hearing any rumbles about tribal problems up on the south shore?”

  “Should I have?”

  “Not sure. I got summoned to Santinaw’s, and he wants me to go visit his son. He says the boy lives the old way up on the Coast of Death.”

  “Huh,” she said. “That’s Jingo Sedge’s area.”

  “Sedge?”

  “Two academy classes back. Good kid, and really serious, so go easy. The young officers in this department believe you walk on water. Shows you how poorly we recruit for judgment.”

  “Liquid shit can easily be mistaken for water,” he said.

  “Grady, you can’t duck leadership responsibilities your whole career. You’re the best at this job. Think how much you could help our young people.”

  “There are lots of ways to do this job and make cases,” he said defensively. He wasn’t in the mood for one of her lectures, no matter how well-intentioned.