Force of Blood

by Joseph Heywood

  Bryan sniffed the air. “Eau de skunk. You’re probably right about a trapper.”

  Skunk was a base ingredient in just about all liquid attractants. Service could smell skunk, but wasn’t yet ready to conclude anything. He searched along the water and found a pipe driven deep into the bank. The end of the pipe was capped, with a small steel ring welded to it. The ring was wrapped in rubber to keep it quiet. “For a boat,” he told the sergeant. “Where the hell would you put in a canoe?”

  “Carlson Creek or off 405, but way upstream. We’re almost down in the main Tahq here.”

  “What’s this place remind you of?” Service asked the other officer.

  Bryan shrugged.

  “Something you built when you were a kid.”

  “A fort … a hideout?”

  “Yeah, a hideout. This isn’t the sort of place you stumble onto. Even if you come down in a canoe, you’d have to know it was here.”

  A hideout was what Bolf needed.

  “Let’s put out a BOL,” he told the sergeant. “We might as well get the rest of law enforcement worked up over this.”

  “Be On Lookout by name?”

  “Hell, by shoe size, IQ—whatever it takes.”

  Bryan made the radio call to McKower. “She’s fine. We need a BOL for Peewee Bolf.” He gave her the specifics and heard her immediately get on her radio and call the Luce County and Troops dispatcher, who covered several counties.

  They found Sedge almost where they had left her, but she was smiling. A broken crossbow lay at her feet in the weeds. “One of my rounds broke it and he dropped it.” She was wearing garish blue latex gloves.

  Service saw the laser sight mounted atop the weapon and sucked in a deep breath. Rumors were flying that it wouldn’t be long until the Natural Resources Commission liberalized the use of crossbows for hunting in the state. As it was now, it required special permitting.

  “Barnett Wildcat C5 crossbow with a Pro-40 Multi-Dot scope, carbon bolts.”

  “You know about crossbows?” Service asked her.

  “Yeah, and I’m betting this ain’t your plain brown-envelope Barnett. The feet-per-second power on this sucker has got to be out of sight.”

  “Be nice to get prints,” Service said.

  “Like that’s gonna happen,” she quipped, and he agreed.

  “Still gotta go through the steps,” he reminded her. “You never know.”

  “I think I’ll fix the weapon, and when we catch this asshole, I want to put a pea on his dick and tell him I’m going to shoot it off.”

  Let her blow off steam, he thought. But keep an eye on her. She’s got quite a temper.

  She tapped his hand and looked into his eyes. “No bull, Service; the perp even looked like Kermit, and I’m neither crazy nor hallucinating.

  Sedge was too set on this to argue with her. Let it ride for now.

  25

  DNR District Office, Newberry

  THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007

  Custody of evidence from the camp on the Teaspoon was formally transferred to CO Afton Radaskovich, who was headed to Ishpeming for a National Guard weekend. The Michigan State Police forensics lab in Marquette would try for prints and other micro-evidence.

  McKower, Service, Bryan, and Sedge were crowded into the new assistant chief’s office cubicle. The air was stale. A BOL had been issued on Peewee Bolf, and it turned out after checking that Peewee wasn’t the man’s nickname.

  McKower was trying to rehash various phases of the case, and asking Sedge a lot of questions. Service found himself tuning out, preferring to contemplate other things. During the hike out with her he’d sensed he was missing something obvious, but the harder he tried to bring it into focus, the dimmer it got. He was hungry and tired and his clothing reeked of creek water and black muck; he just wanted to take a shower and eat a good meal and forget all this nonsense.

  “You headed back to Marquette?” McKower asked, breaking his reverie.

  “Not sure yet.”

  “I agree that you and Sedge ought to check the site again, see if there’s been any activity.”

  When had this plan been put forth? Pay attention, you jerk. “Okay,” he answered.

  Out in the parking lot he asked Sedge, “Why Kermit the frog and not some other frog? You saw a face?”

  “Sort of; maybe. I’m not sure. Whatever it was, Kermit’s what my mind connected to.”

  Service left her and walked back into the office to find McKower pouring herself another cup of coffee. “That shit will stunt your growth,” he said.

  “It already has. I thought you two had left.”

  “You up for something off the wall?”

  “From you? That won’t exactly plow new ground.”

  “We put Peewee Bolf’s description out with the BOL, but we didn’t have a photo.”

  “Standard,” she said, sipping the coffee and making a face.

  “Can we add a picture of Kermit the frog to the alert?”

  She spit coffee and guffawed, but then stopped and stared, wiping her chin. “Jesus, you’re serious!”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  “I call it ridiculous,” Assistant Chief McKower said.

  “Have my hunches paid off in the past?”

  She rolled her eyes. “We will be the joke among law enforcement everywhere.”

  “And the public,” he said. “Don’t forget the public. The media will jump all over this.”

  “Oh God,” she moaned. “I hate working with the media.”

  “Are you turning me down?” he asked.

  McKower stared at her subordinate for the longest time before sighing deeply and theatrically. “I hesitate to ask this, but do you have a picture?”

  “That’s what the Internet is for,” he said.

  “Get out of my office,” McKower said, launching a pencil at his back.

  Sedge was waiting outside. “Where were you?”

  “Frogging around,” he said.

  26

  Halfway House, Chippewa County

  FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2007

  The sun was beginning to rise from the direction of Vermilion Point. It had been a long night, the air filled with biting, stinging, chewing insects.

  After the meeting at the district office, Service and Sedge had driven to the Bomb Shelter where he had taken a long shower. Sedge loaded her four-wheeler into the bed of her truck, he hitched his trailer with his RZR, and they had headed north, leaving their trucks and his trailer hidden in a birch forest at the end of Maple Block Road.

  They had come most of the rest of the way to Katsu’s site on their four-wheelers, but had dumped them a mile south of the location and hiked the rest of the way, taking up positions above the site. It was dark by the time they had gotten into position, the June night air warm and humid. The insects were bad, but Sedge seemed to ignore them just as he did. He liked seeing this quality in her. Good wardens ignored the weather and all biting insects. They neither saw nor heard any activity down where the artifacts were, and had taken turns sleeping during the night.

  With first light coming Service made a small fire and got tea makings out of his ruck. He never went into the woods without tea, a little sugar, and a small tin of Pet milk. Never milk in tea or coffee at home, but always in the bush. Old habits die hard. Thank you, Vietnam.

  Sedge woke up as he started his small stove. “You did good at the Teaspoon,” he told her.

  “I don’t need your approval,” she said with a growl.

  “Are you always this social in the morning?”

  “Depends on how good last night’s sex was,” she said with a grin.

  After tea they moved into the sandy area. Sedge stood with her hands on her hips, clearly irritated. “The damn markers haven’t been touched.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Let’s put new disks in the cameras.”

  “You got some?”

  “In my truck. You have a video disk player at your place?”

  “Doesn’t
everyone?”

  “Not me.”

  She grinned and shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “I have a nice Victrola, though.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Record player?”

  “What’s a record?”

  “Never mind,” he said, glumly. He wondered suddenly if she could tell time on a nondigital watch. Most youngsters no longer could.

  After collecting the old disks and putting in new ones, Service said, “Let’s take our time, search the whole area.” He walked toward the sandy expanse that looked from some angles like a bowl or sanded-in harbor. He made a point of moving sluggishly, but as at the other site, saw nothing protruding from the sand. At the site they’d investigated earlier, he and Sedge had found all sorts of things. Was it possible that the wind and weather were responsible for uncovering artifacts? Could it be that Wingel was telling the truth about the burial bundle she’d found?

  Sedge eventually drifted over to him.

  “You trust Katsu?” he asked her.

  “Like I said before, I want to.”

  “How about we ask him to come out here and we put him with Professor Shotwiff?”

  “For what?”

  “Let them do the male dog butt-sniff on each other, watch the chemistry, see what happens.”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “Every case has its doldrums,” he told her.

  “Doldrums? Yesterday some asshole was trying to kill me, and this morning I’m crawling around in a big fucking sandbox.”

  “You sure he was trying to kill you?”

  She knocked sand off her pant leg. “Are you kidding?”

  “Think about it.” He had.

  She looked at him for a long time. “The laser dot,” she said. “I was standing still.”

  “That’s what you said.”

  “At twenty yards that should be an easy kill.” She pushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Warning shots?”

  “Can you rule it out?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “There you go,” he said.

  “But why?”

  “If we knew that …”

  “Let’s put Katsu with your professor,” she said decisively.

  “Let me check Shotwiff’s availability. We’ll try for Wednesday or Thursday. Shark can bring him to us.”

  “Who’s Shark?”

  “A very peculiar individual.”

  “Like you?” she said.

  “I’m not the one painting hunki close-ups,” he countered.

  “Hunkuses. If you’re gonna take shots, get it right.”

  “Hunkuses,” he said, enunciating and grinning.

  “Feels good in your mouth, don’t it.”

  “How did you get this job?”

  “Ya know,” she said, “I ask myself that same question all the time.”

  27

  Slippery Creek Camp

  FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2007

  The billboard east of Marquette near the Chocolay River was prominent, with bright red lettering on a pale green background: FELLOW VIOLATORS—POACH AWAY. MICHIGAN’S GAME WARDENS DON’T HAVE THE $$ TO CHASE YOU.

  Grady Service smiled as he turned his civilian radio to WFXD, a commercial station in Marquette that carried country music and news.

  “Get this,” an excited radio jock yelled into his mic. “I’m not kidding! The cops in Luce County are, as we speak, hunting for Kermit da Frock! Details after this!”

  A thirty-second ad for a Wildcat Pizza special followed.

  The jock came back. “You heard right, boils and goils. The po-lice from Luce County over in the eastern U.P. put out a BOL today, asking all us Yoopers to be on da lookout for Kermit da Frock. The authorities are not providing any details, other than saying the frog is a person of interest. Person? Kermit is a person? I guess we all sorta assumed that a long time ago.

  “I’ve got Captain Ware Grant from DNR law enforcement in Marquette on the line. According to him, ‘Facial characteristics—even unusual ones, no matter how far-fetched—can help citizens identify the people we want to talk to.’ So, Captain Grant, you’re not actually looking for Kermit—just some human being who might look like the Muppet character?”

  “Yes,” the captain responded. “Resembles the character.”

  “Thank you, Captain, and good luck with your search.”

  Service heard a click, and then the radio jock added, “Ribbit, folks—ribbit. Sometimes weird fact trumps way-out fiction. Hey, we’re in da Yoop!”

  Service’s cell phone buzzed. “Grady, where are you now?” It was Friday.

  “Marquette.”

  “Have you heard about the billboards?”

  “I just saw one about the DNR,” he said. “That what you’re referring to?”

  “Can you believe that? Your department will be a laughing stock.”

  “We already are. DNR stands for Do Not Respect. Where are you?”

  “My office.”

  “Check BOLs.”

  She hung up and called right back, laughing. “What the hell is that about?”

  “Sedge saw a guy who looked to her like Kermit.”

  “So?”

  “Just as he fired three crossbow bolts at her.”

  “Good God! Is she all right?”

  “Fine; mostly pissed off.”

  “The world is flipping out,” she said. “I’ll be at camp about seven.”

  “Wine will await thee,” he said.

  “To start,” she said with a leontine growl.

  • • •

  Allerdyce’s truck was parked at his camp again. Newf sat beside the old violator, wagging her tail. No sign of Cat.

  “Word is da spick was impressed, youse Georged right in dere like dat.”

  “What do you want, Allerdyce?”

  The old man opened his hand and a small leopard frog sprang to the ground and hopped away. “Dat da guy youse guys want, or you want bigger?”

  “Kiss my ass, old man.”

  Limpy laughed so hard it sounded like he was choking.

  “Go away before I douse you with Oust.”

  “Lighten up, sonnyboy. It true youse guys got no money?”

  “We have money—just not enough, and not in the right places.”

  “Lotta dat shit dese days, eh.”

  “Why did you send me to Hectorio?”

  “See if youse is serious, mebbe.”

  “About what?”

  “Assholes rob da dead, dat shit.”

  “You disapprove?”

  “Ain’t right bodder dead mens.”

  “What dead mens do you mean?”

  “Out dere, Coast of Deads, you bet dere’s heapsa dead mens in da sand, eh.”

  “And you, of course, know the locations.”

  “Mebbe Limpy know somebody knows more den a few, eh.”

  “Your chum from Raco?”

  “What’s it wort’ he shows you da place?”

  “What’s he think it’s worth?”

  “I check wit’ ’im.”

  The old man seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “I saw Honeypet in Lansing.”

  Allerdyce’s head rolled like a Bobblehead. “Holy wah! She pull dat twin sister shit on youse? Ain’t no Honeypet, just ole Honeypat.” Allerdyce wiggled his finger at his temple. “She’s batshit, dat one, give you good girl, bad girl, twoferone, you pork her, got dat double twat personality shit goin’ on.”

  “Did she call you?” Service asked.

  “What dat bitch an’ me got talk about?”

  “Ask your pal how much he wants for information and what kind of guarantee we’d get.”

  Limpy got up and shuffled toward his truck. “How much cash you take for dat big mutt yers?”

  “She’s not for sale. You can have her if she’ll go with you.”

  Limpy chuckled and clucked at her as he opened the truck door and she charged down from the porch, set her front legs, snarled, an
d began barking wildly, spraying drool strings all over him. This time the old man didn’t respond in kind.

  “Guess not,” Service said.

  • • •

  In the hours after midnight, Friday lay beside him, rubbing his shoulder. “Really, Grady. Kermit the frog?”

  “You’ve never seen suspects who look like animals or famous people?”

  “I suppose,” she granted. “But this borders on an awful joke.”

  “If it gets results, who cares?”

  “You always think for yourself,” she said.

  “I don’t like trails that are already there,” he said. “Know why?” He didn’t let her answer. “Because people who stay on the trails shit on the trails, and I don’t like wading through other people’s shit.”

  “A mental picture and metaphor I’d rather not dwell on,” Friday said. “How long do we have this time?”

  “If I was to say just tonight?”

  “I’d say, let’s get to it again. Like right now.”

  “And if I’m here till Monday morning?”

  “I’d say the same thing,” she said. “I got a ton of unexpressed energy, and I really don’t care if I spend the whole damn weekend in Jello-O mode.”

  Unexpressed energy?

  He kissed her tenderly and she responded in kind. He felt whole when he was with her and Shigun.

  28

  Bomb Shelter, M-123, Luce County

  SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2007

  Sedge gave him a contorted look when she opened her door.

  “Trouble?” he asked, stepping inside.

  She led him to a widescreen TV hooked to a disk player. “Lemme kill the lights,” she said.

  Service stared at the screen and a grid seemed to materialize, coming in from one side, fading to the other, sort of sagging, blurry, hard to see, but the pattern of squares, whatever it was, seemed pretty evident.

  “Any theories?” Sedge asked from beside him.

  The camera had been set to snap stills when triggered by motion. What the hell kinda motion produced this? “Not really. You?”

  “Volleyball net?” she offered, adding, “It is a beach … sort of.”

  No idea what I’m looking at. Hell, it might be a volleyball net for all I know. “What’s the other stuff show?”