Force of Blood

by Joseph Heywood

  Sedge, clearly exasperated, stared at him. “I think you’d better come inside.”

  “The Bomb Shelter?” he said to her.

  “Intelligent people usually have good reasons for what they do,” she countered, “even if others are too thick to understand them.”

  “No doubt,” he said, as Sedge opened the door to the cinder-block building and flipped on tracklights.

  Service stepped inside and tried to keep his mouth from hanging open. The walls were covered with brightly colored paintings of exceedingly hirsute pudenda. What the hell is this!

  “Cat gotcher tongue?” Sedge asked with a shit-eating grin.

  “Unique,” he managed to mutter. What the …?

  “All self-portraits, studies in light.”

  “Uh, I guess I’m not much of an art aficionado.”

  “Do tell,” she said sarcastically. “The el-tee tell you anything about my background?”

  Service tried to not stare at the paintings, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “My old man’s a tribal cop at Isabella. I grew up in Mount Pleasant, went to college at MSU on an academic scholarship, did a stint in the army, got discharged, and went back to East Lansing where I majored in fine art and went all the way through to my MFA, when it dawned on me that I needed a paying job to support my art, so I took a master’s in law enforcement, applied for the academy, and here I am.”

  “That doesn’t explain everything,” he said, nodding at the paintings.

  “Ah,” she said with a grin. “A big-time gallery in Indianapolis wants them, and so does another in Minneapolis, so I’m going to take some days off and personally deliver the stuff. Meanwhile, I don’t want my colleagues all coming in here to gawk at my pussy.”

  Service was dumbfounded.

  “You ought to know that Katsu and his bunch hate my ass,” she said.

  “It didn’t show.”

  “They aren’t going to let some white badge know there’s a rift, but they resent the hell out of a woman with a white man’s badge walking into their deal and maybe controlling their fate. Behind my back they call me no-jemik bishi-gwadj-ik-we.”

  “Like I said earlier tonight, my Shinob vocabulary isn’t all that current.”

  “Female Beaver Whore,” she said with an ironic grin. “Is that totally sophomoric and lame, or what? Someone broke into my place and saw the paintings. I wasn’t surprised, and I still resent you going at me over my el-tee. But you might as well call me Pocahunkus.”

  Service stepped back, his mind reeling. “I didn’t go at you or over you. Pocahunkus … You mean Pocahontas?”

  “I mean what I say, Service. My mother use to call a woman’s privates her hunkus. That’s the title of my collection: ‘Hunkusland.’ ”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “No, but I can draw a pair if you like. Listen, I may be new by your dinosaur standards, but I know what I’m doing, and I especially know how to deal with my own turf.”

  He couldn’t believe she had once again ignited like a match. How the hell had she gotten through the academy and field training with that temper? “Really,” he said, trying to placate her. “I was just asking obvious questions.”

  “Don’t patronize me with small talk!” she shot back at him. “I say what I mean and mean what I say. You do the same.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah, and I heard you were similar, which is obviously bogus information.”

  He was too hungry to listen and tired of her anger, and it was nearing daylight. “Knock it off, Sedge. If you want to paint pictures of your twat and call it art, that’s okay by me, but I’m done being polite. This thing with Katsu and the artifacts doesn’t have anything to do with your people or my people. It has to do with a dispute between a state agency and Toliver, and Katsu—who I can’t sympathize with—has no official role or rights in any of this.”

  “Figures,” she said.

  “What figures?” Calm down, he told himself.

  “You write a guy off because he’s done time.”

  “Katsu did time?”

  “Vehicular homicide—five years in a state lockup in Minnesota.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Neither did I until recently, and he didn’t tell me. It was a friend who put me on to it, and then I checked. When I confronted Katsu, he went ballistic.”

  Service thought for a moment. “With a felony he’s risking his ass by protesting this thing.”

  “Which might also just suggest how sincere he is?” she countered. “One plus one doesn’t always equal two.”

  Grady Service couldn’t disagree, but he didn’t know Katsu well enough to judge. He turned toward one of the walls and pointed. “I think I like the purple one best,” he said.

  Sedge laughed out loud. “You don’t have a clue about art.”

  “That’s not against the law, is it?”

  “Depends on your intentions.”

  “I think getting the hell out of here as fast as I can is at the top of my list.”

  “Do you find all this disturbing, Detective?”

  “Uh-huh,” he mumbled.

  “Geez, you’re probably gonna hate my next project. Wanna know what it is?”

  “Not a chance,” he said, bolting for the door.

  She followed him out to the Tahoe. “Sorry,” she said. “This isn’t easy for me, but I need help. I know I’ve got something, but I’m not sure what, or where to take it next.”

  “Get in,” Grady Service said. He looked over at the young woman. “We’ve all been where you are.”

  “Even you, the Big Dog?”

  “Especially me. Nobody’s born a big dog.”

  6

  Paradise, Chippewa County

  SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2007

  Early morning twilight in the east. Service allowed Sedge to stew in silence as he drove east on M-123, past the entrance to Tahquamenon Falls to Paradise.

  In town he pulled into the lot of a place called the Bay-O-Wolf Coffee Emporium and ordered plain black coffees, which earned a look of disapprobation from their waitperson.

  “Okay,” he said to Sedge, “tell me succinctly exactly what you think you have.”

  “Were you not paying attention?”

  “I was listening, but humor me.”

  “Removal of historical artifacts from public land and an archaeological site.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “Once taken, what happens to the artifacts?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug.

  “You’ve seen these artifacts being taken?”

  “No, afterwards. I saw where they had been.”

  “But you saw them before they were removed—for whatever reason.”

  She was stumbling a bit. “Some of them. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Did Duncan Katsu come to you with this?”

  “No. Like I told you, I got word that he and his people were causing a goat-rodeo, illegally blocking public land. I went out there, found signs warning people away, and a rudimentary camp. Then I called Katsu and asked to meet him.”

  “Called him? He lives there, right?”

  “No, he lives near Strongs on Indian Trust Land, near where Creek Number Eight flows into the East Branch of the Tahquamenon.”

  Service knew that the feds owned land set aside by treaties for various tribal uses. Why the tribes did not have ownership of such parcels had always eluded him—some arcane point of law, no doubt. “His old man told me he lives on the Coast of Death.”

  “No, Strongs, like I just said.”

  “Have you been to his place?”

  She frowned. “Are you insinuating—”

  “Stop being so damn prickly. I’m asking about his lifestyle, his house, what you saw there.”

  She calmed. “Simple camp, one-story, your basic box in the woods. He drives a ten-year-old minivan.”

  “How did he react when you cal
led?”

  “He was polite. I told him what I had found at the site and that I wanted to know what was going down, that I had drawn no conclusions. He asked me to meet him on the beach and I did. He took me around the site and showed me how to recognize artifacts. They’re everywhere out there, and he’s devised a clever way to mark what’s what. There was even a ten-inch-long copper spear point that was stunning.”

  “Valuable?”

  “I assume, but I don’t know. It disappeared before I could talk to anyone to get it appraised. But I got photos.” She took out her digital camera and showed him.

  “Nice,” he said. “This is at the place he claims is a battle site and burial ground?”

  “Yes, but the copper point wouldn’t be part of that. It’s older.”

  “Site of the old road of skulls story?”

  She nodded. “He claims.”

  “You buy it?”

  “I don’t know enough to accept or reject.”

  “You trust Katsu?”

  “I want to. The day I met him out there I told him he couldn’t block the public, that he’d have to tear down his stuff.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “No, he had his usual entourage of assholes and hangers-on, but they did as I directed, and took everything away.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last fall. I spent all winter trying to get more information on the site.”

  “And?”

  “A retired Michigan State professor provided some help, but nobody is certain where the actual battle took place. Or even if it really happened. My people are prone to hyperbole and intergalactic metaphor.”

  “Okay,” Service said. “Jump to Professor Delmure Arcton Toliver of Hibernian College.”

  “Legit, substantial professional rep; he’s dug all over the Midwest, the Northeast, and Canada, and he has lots of papers to his name, not to mention a CV as long as a tiger muskie.”

  “You think he’s lifting artifacts?”

  “I don’t know. A little voice tells me he is who he claims he is, and it’s all legit—a noted archaeologist wanting to dig and having the permission of the State, and having jumped through all the hoops and red tape resents Katsu’s intervention.”

  “That would be understandable,” Service said.

  Sedge nodded. “For sure.”

  “What about the digging gear on the ATV?”

  “I don’t think it’s what Katsu claims. I think that stuff is part of the professor’s field kit for sinking core samples, which he has approval to take.”

  “But Katsu thinks Toliver’s your guy.”

  “Maybe, but Toliver’s handy, and I’m not sure Katsu really thinks it’s him. It could be that Katsu wants us to make an example of the professor, and that could be enough to back off the real thieves, even if Toliver isn’t part of it.”

  “If there are thieves,” Service said.

  “Oh, there are thieves,” she said resolutely.

  “What about the state archaeologist?”

  “My only contact was in regard to the Whitewater State professor.”

  “The one who uncovered remains and allegedly reburied them God knows where?”

  “That would be her: Dr. Ladania Wingel.”

  “You talked to her?”

  “I mostly listened as she ranted and accused me of being a chauvinist and a racist.”

  “Indian?”

  “African-American,” she said.

  “Over-the-top reaction?”

  “Queen Mary when a jonboat would have done the job.”

  He found himself laughing. Sedge could be funny. “So Katsu takes the law into his own hands and blocks Toliver, who denies there are any remains on the site. Who told you about Wingel?”

  “Katsu. I’m also guessing he has his own archaeologist guiding things from behind the scenes.”

  “His band’s not federally recognized.”

  “But they have filed. I checked.”

  “You’ve confirmed it?”

  She nodded. “I talked to the feds who talked to Katsu. They don’t have the paperwork, but the feds say this is standard—that pulling together the evidence for an application is a huge and exacting job.”

  “Have you asked Katsu if he has his own archaeologist?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay, so you went to the state archaeologist to confirm the business with Dr. Wingel and the State said, ‘No harm, no foul.’ What the hell does that mean?”

  “Got me. I never actually met or talked to the state archaeologist. I sent my letter in December, which was not answered until April—April first, to be precise. He made it clear that law enforcement is persona non grata and not entitled to know the location of archeological sites unless we detect criminal activity, in which case he could confirm a site—if necessary.”

  “Then what?”

  “Spring came, Katsu headed back up to the coast, I got word Toliver was coming, and that’s where you and I ran together in déjà-vu-all-over-again-land.”

  “What do you want to do next?”

  “I asked for your help.”

  Rephrase it dummy, she’s nervous. “What don’t you have?”

  “I don’t have shit.”

  “Sedge.”

  “Evidence of artifact theft,” she said. “I guess.”

  “You checking trout fishermen yet?”

  “Water’s still too high from runoff, and blackflies will hatch any day.”

  “As a department we don’t have all the mileage we want. What do we have?”

  She looked at him and he could see the lightbulb come on. “Time,” she said, “Surveillance time?”

  “Count me in,” he said.

  “What exactly do we surveil?”

  “Katsu showed you around the site, right?”

  “He showed me some of it, but he’s also admitted he’s not really sure where the main site is.”

  “You want me to quote his nitwitship Don Rumsfeld’s silly shit about knowing what we don’t know versus not knowing what we don’t know?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, making both of them laugh.

  “Let’s go take a look, make our plan based on what we find.”

  “Today?”

  “No; I need to get home, pay bills, hug my dog, all that good stuff. Three days from now, sunrise, the Bomb Shelter.”

  “I’ll have coffee waiting.”

  He held up a finger. “Just not inside, please.”

  “Art’s an acquired taste.”

  “Don’t even,” he said, leaving cash for the waitress.

  7

  Harvey, Marquette County

  SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2007

  The wall clock read 11 p.m., straight up, and Tuesday Friday’s leg was draped over his hip. “Boyohboyohboyohboy,” she said breathlessly. They were still slippery with postcoital sweat. “I vote for a frequency greater than weekly,” she whispered playfully. “I like you Grady Service. A heap. How long do we get you?”

  “Tonight and tomorrow night. You want to bring Shigun out to my place?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Where are you headed next?”

  He laid out the story and she listened, and when he finished, she said, “Odetta Trevillyan, Marquette County Historical Society. Grew up in Calumet, educated at Smith, retired distinguished professor of history from Yale, now living at Shot Point.”

  “Indian specialist?”

  “I don’t think so, but she’s a polymath and interested in all things Native American.”

  “Odetta Trevillyan?” he said.

  “Honest-to-God Cornish. Chances are she’ll ask you a lot of questions that will help you refocus your own ideas more clearly. You want to fool around again?”

  “Is that rhetorical?”

  “What do you think?” she asked, kissing him with the sort of ardor that kick-started his heart rate and all that cascaded from there.

  8

  Marquette, Marquette County

  SUN
DAY, MAY 6, 2007

  Service called the historical society’s office and a volunteer gave him Trevillyan’s personal cell number. She would not be working today, but she answered her cell phone. After hearing what he wanted, she suggested he join her for coffee and pastries as soon as he could get there. “Shot Point Road, directly across from Lakenland,” she said.

  He knew Lakenland, a scattering of more than three dozen whimsical and nonsensical statues created from scrap metal by a retired pipefitter. Some of the more conservative elements of local society called the place an eyesore, but Service admired such whimsy, and knew that artist Tom Lakenen didn’t charge admission or try to hawk his creations. He made stuff for people to enjoy purely for his and their pleasure, and Service considered it an almost sacred calling.

  “Less than half an hour?” Service suggested. He was at his office in the regional DNR building called The Roof because of its unique architectural design.

  “I’ll be waiting,” Trevillyan said. She had an alert, pleasant voice.

  The house, which overlooked Lake Superior from a height, was humongo—three stories, giant orange logs (the real deal, not half-logs in facade), windows everywhere, a huge deck looking out on the big lake, which at the moment was rolling lazy soft blue-gray swells onto the rocks below. The house had a three-car garage with only one vehicle, a four-door PT Cruiser, but there were several bicycles nearby.

  The woman who came out through the garage weighed no more than a hundred pounds and moved like air. She had short white hair and wore spandex running shorts and red-and-gold Asics running shoes. She looked muscular and fit enough to run a marathon uphill.

  She introduced herself, insisted he call her Etta, and invited him into the house. “Do you like blackberries?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  She turned and looked at him momentarily, sizing him up. “Always speak your mind?”

  “Not always.”

  “Good. These are Texas blackies, which can’t hold a candle to our Upper Peninsula berries, but in a pinch, eh? Most of the year I have to content myself with less than optimal substitutes—sheer impostors!”