Force of Blood

by Joseph Heywood

  “That’s what I’m trying to determine.”

  “Well, son, the thing about Texas is that if there’s a way to make yourself some money, legally or otherwise, you can bet some would-be cowboy will be doing it.”

  “What about cattle rustling, horse theft, and your local whitetail deer population?”

  “Hold on, Sergeant Service. We got deer, but not like other counties. As for cattle rustling, that happens too. Anything else before I try to stitch together some answers?”

  “That’s it, so far.”

  “You mind I get back to you on this stuff?”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  “Call me Jackie Jay.”

  “Grady here.”

  “Glad to meet you, Grady. I’ll be back at you soon as I can.”

  • • •

  Sedge called. “I just talked to Toliver. He is overjoyed at the permission coming through, and ready to commit significant violence on my body over Katsu.”

  “Think we need to let Special Agent Jane Rain know the score?”

  “I’m headed out to see her now. I’m sure Toliver will tell her, but I want her to hear directly what I have to say.”

  “I think I’ll head over your way midweek,” he said.

  “That would be good.”

  52

  Newberry, Luce County

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2007

  CO Bill Curry’s voice sounded like it had been cured in pickle brine and coated with ground glass. “I gotta call you Sarge now, or Big Shot? Sedge asked me to give you a bump.”

  “Service works fine.”

  “You ain’t heard of Imago Neil Held?”

  “Just heard that name for the first time the other day”

  “Republicommie, you know to each according to his need, from each according to his ability—as long as each is a fatcat rich motherfucker who would just as soon wipe his Eye-tye loafers on John Q. Public as give him one red cent of government assistance. Mr. Held owns a big hunt club in Hillsdale County, two full sections of land. You should talk to Milo Miars about him. He was inside-the-wire undercover there. Held claims the club is members only, but the buy-in seems awfully steep. Once you get inside you can sit in an overstuffed chair and shoot you a big-ass old buck.”

  “All raised right there on the property.”

  “That’s the claim.”

  “Evidence otherwise?”

  “Common sense is all. No evidence, and no reason to get a warrant to seize something. They butcher, cure skins, and do trophy mounting right there on the property. Held was one of Clearcut’s asshole buddies. Reporters dubbed him the attack-ad king of America. And he’s big with the gun rights people and the NRA.”

  “He owns a Mercedes.”

  “That a question or a comment? Sumbitch prolly owns a fleet.”

  “He into antiquities?”

  “You mean like antiques, curios, gizmos of old?”

  “Indian stuff.”

  “Never heard that, but wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “You know anyone who has been into his home?”

  “Not really.”

  “How about the name Malcolm Fallkrome?”

  Long pause. “Well, that’s one asshole surely been inside Held’s pad.”

  “They’re connected?”

  “Fallkrome is Held’s top copywriter, asshole buddy, you know, all that I-love-you-man-group-hug-modern-pussy-man bullshit.”

  “Hunt club member?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. Hey, I answered all this for Sedge already. What the hell is going on?”

  “How did Sedge explain it?”

  “Tight Lips? She wouldn’t say shit. Keeps her cases close.”

  “But she asked you to call me.”

  “She did indeed.”

  “And you made the Fallkrome–Held connection for her.”

  “Sure did.”

  “What did she say when she heard that?”

  “She said, ‘Ain’t that some shit.’ Verbatim. It’s nice to chat with you, Service, but am I supposed to do something more here?”

  “Maybe. Held or Fallkrome know you?”

  “I’ve met both, but I doubt either took note.”

  “You got a smooth-talking officer in your district?”

  “Jerron Alwine.”

  “New?”

  “From Nantz’s class,” Curry said.

  Nantz, his late girlfriend, had attended the academy until injuries from an assailant had forced her to drop out.

  “Too young. Someone with ten years, scar tissue.”

  “Lyydi Enojarvi.”

  “Yooper-born, right—Calumet?” Enojarvi had a solid reputation and was known to be fearless and clever.

  “That’s her.”

  “She never struck me as a gold-tongue.”

  “Guess you got to work with her to see it. She’s smooth, smart, listens, and never panics. Not ever.”

  “Think she could handle Held’s club?”

  “Don’t see why not. Looks alone will open most doors for her.”

  “Talk to her and mention Milo, or I will talk to her about a possible UC job.”

  “I can do that. We done now?”

  “Yep.”

  Held allegedly runs a pay-per-kill operation, but calls it a club. The lawyers will have to look at the charter, see how it’s set up. Or I can take a shortcut.

  Grady Service called Zhenya Leukonovich of the IRS, got her answering machine, and left a message for her to call him.

  He called Chief Jackie Jay Emerson in Sweet Cedar, Texas, and dead-ended to another machine. After the beep, he said, “Grady Service here. Joseph Paul Brannigan. Add that to the mix of subjects.”

  Marquette County sheriff Sergeant Weasel Linsenman took a long time to answer his cell phone, eventually uttering a tentative “Yes?”

  “I need a little favor.”

  “I heard they gave you stripes,” Linsenman said. “Congrats and condolences. All your favors scare the shit out of normal folk like me.”

  “Cops aren’t afraid of anything.”

  Linsenman chuckled. “This one is afraid of everything, man. What do you want?”

  “Thought you’d never ask. Limpy Allerdyce.”

  “Stand by one,” Linsenman said and set the phone down hard. Service could hear him rustling around in the background and then he was back on the line. “Okay, I took my Zantac. That name alone turns on my heartburn like a faucet.”

  “I need for you to drive out to his compound and ask him to call me.”

  “If he’s got a phone to call you, why can’t you call him?”

  “Weasel.”

  “I know, I know. It’s Allerdyce. Regular rules and logic never apply. Man, that cannibal camp creeps me out.”

  “It’s not like the old days,” Service said.

  “Maybe not for you. The rest of us aren’t on a first-name basis with the asshole.”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “Shit. But you owe me.”

  Linsenman had once saved Service’s life and this left a debt Service doubted he’d ever be able to repay.

  “Call you on your cell, eh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Youse around here?”

  “Newberry.”

  “Okay, man. I’ll head down there tomorrow, first thing. Needs to be daylight before I go near that place.”

  53

  Paradise, Chippewa County

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2007

  Delmure Arcton Toliver had rented four small, rickety tourist cabins on Whitefish Bay. They were south of Paradise and north of the remains of the old lumber town of Emerson. The cabins were made of logs and painted pink. Toliver had been on Sedge’s case since she’d told him about Katsu’s status with the dig.

  Jane Rain pottered in a small kitchen while Service and Toliver sat in a narrow sitting room. “The man has no credentials, no experience, no education, and no role in this,” Toliver insisted.

  “He has roots at the site.
You don’t.”

  “That is not relevant and you know it.”

  “Professor Ozzien Shotwiff thinks differently,” Service said.

  “Is that psychotic windbag still alive?”

  “Not just alive, he’s examined the site.”

  Toliver’s color drained. “He’ll be there too?”

  “To visit.”

  “It’s my dig.”

  “Yes, it is, but it’s also state land, and the professor’s presence is not your call. You are there at the pleasure of the people of the State of Michigan, and Katsu will be with you, and Shotwiff and any number of other individuals may be there as well—as the State decides. Officer Sedge has a job that encompasses a lot more than you and your narrow interests. You keep giving her a hard time and I’ll tell her she can stop being polite.”

  “You call her attitude polite?”

  “See her in a temper flare and then you can tell me.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t have to like it. You have your dig. Be happy with that. How long to break ground?”

  “We started moving equipment into place yesterday. It will be done by Friday. The rest of my team comes in Sunday. If I have the permits in my hand Friday, we’ll start digging Monday.”

  “See you out there,” Service said.

  “You’ll be there too?”

  “Just for grins.”

  • • •

  Zhenya Leukonovich called and Service stepped outside the pink cabin to talk to her. “What is his desire?” she asked.

  “I’m on my cell phone.”

  “Is this to be a sensitive conversation?” the IRS agent asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get to your computer?”

  He was driving his personal truck, not his state vehicle. He had the laptop, but no way to connect. He needed to get back to the district office.

  “It will be more secure over the computer,” Leukonovich said. “Zhenya will talk more after she is made aware of what is wanted.”

  She was a beaut. There was a time when the sexual tension between them was right to the edge, but that seemed to have dissipated. Because of me, or her? More likely it was Friday.

  Sedge’s truck pulled into the cabin driveway and she rolled down her window. “You talk to Toliver?”

  Service nodded. “I told him to shut his yap.”

  “If he doesn’t?”

  “Wait until he gets some holes dug, then kick his ass off the dig and appoint one of his people to run the show. We need to know what the hell is in the ground out there.”

  “I have that authority?”

  “You do now. And while you’re at it, ask Katsu to please tread lightly. There’s no need to put fresh sparks to dry tinder.”

  “This whole thing’s sort of exciting,” she said. “Three hundred and forty-five years after the fact and maybe we’re about to learn the truth of what happened.”

  He was less enamored than interested—if it linked to DNR business. If not, well, he didn’t want to think about other implications. He kept this bottled inside. No need for her to hear.

  “Dinner at my place tonight? Six?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I talked to Sheena. She’s rolling in tomorrow afternoon and will bunk at the Bomb Shelter. You guys going to brief me on the museum deal?”

  “In time. Toliver said he’s already started moving equipment out to the coast. Where are they coming in from?”

  “Near where you and I parked that first time.”

  “Less cumbersome to use a boat around the point.”

  “I suggested that, but Toliver doesn’t like boats.”

  “Each to his own.”

  • • •

  Cedar Falls Chief Emerson reached him as he was passing the entrance to the upper falls of Taquamenon. He pulled to the side of M-123 and answered.

  “Joseph Paul Brannigan,” Emerson said excitedly. “Boy, that name sure got my attention. Mostly we deal with kids and trailer-park half-life yahoos from tightly packed gene pools, but old J. P., now, that boy is pure royalty among scumbags. You ever seen a pitcher of him?”

  “I met him.”

  “No shit?”

  “He was using the name Godfroi Delongshamp.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Service explained the circumstances, including the Kermit BOL, and the sheriff laughed so hard he ended up in a coughing fit. “I gotta get that one for our bulletin board,” he said. “That BOL was thinkin’ way outside the box!”

  “How do you know Brannigan?”

  “Back around Y2000 that sumbitch stole cars, trucks, cattle, sheep, dogs, horses, and more damn wives than I could count. How does a man who looks like a frog have that sort of effect on womenfolk?”

  “Chemistry?” Service offered.

  “Okay, he’s the devil. You say he’s been using the name Delongshamp?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the name of a fancy restaurant up to Plano,” the chief said.

  “We don’t know how long he used it, or where. Do you have a sheet on Brannigan?”

  “Yessir, and it’s long. You want it?”

  “Please.”

  “What’s he up to way up there?”

  Service said, “We’re not exactly sure,” then took the chief through the litany of events and possibilities.

  “Now I think I see how all your questions tie together. Far as I know, old J. P. never messed with deer down this way.”

  “You said he stole cars and trucks?”

  “He surely did.”

  “Can I get descriptions?”

  “Want them now?”

  “With his sheet will be fine.”

  “Let me have your e-mail and your fax number. We’ll get it off to you.”

  “I’ll be at the office in thirty minutes or so.”

  “What’s the weather like up your way?” Emerson asked.

  “Hot, still.”

  “We got us some hot, but you could float your inner tube on the humidity here. You catch that ugly little sumbitch and I will personally fly up there and fetch his sorry butt back down here. Course, that depends on what you folks get him for. Way I see it, we should agree he should belong to the State, which will give him the biggest boot up his behind.”

  Service smiled. He liked Emerson. “I agree, but I assume your local prosecutor, my department lawyers, and our attorney general people will weigh in pretty heavily on that decision.”

  “Was a lot easier and cheaper when we just found a big old tree and strung ’em up.”

  Service didn’t doubt it. “Thanks, Chief.”

  “You are most welcome, son.”

  • • •

  He called Milo Miars from downtown Newberry. “Curry told me you did plainclothes at Imago Held’s hunt club in Hillsdale County.”

  “Never could get the inquiry to go anywhere.”

  “You couldn’t pass the bank-book test?”

  “Not sure. Held was polite and superficially gracious, but it just sort of fizzled. I spent two nights at their clubhouse.”

  “You see any artifacts?”

  “Such as?”

  “Indian stuff.”

  “There were some items, but I wasn’t really paying close attention. You looking for something specific?”

  “Not yet. How would you feel about sending in Lyydi Enojarvi?”

  “It’s an old boys’ club,” Miars countered.

  “What I hear is that it’s a money club, and money doesn’t have a gender, Milo.”

  “Are you trying to do my job?”

  “I was, you think we’d be talking on the damn phone, Milo?”

  “I’ll organize it and run her,” Miars said.

  “That’s your call, but I’ll make sure she can pass the bank-book test.”

  “How will you do that?”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head.” Territorialism. It pissed him off.

  • • •
>
  Captain Elise McKower was standing at Reception when he walked into the district office. “We found a place to live,” she announced. “Two miles from Chief Waco. The girls love the house.”

  Service didn’t ask about her husband, whom he considered a slug at best and a leech at worst.

  “I hear you’re around here a lot. Work with Sedge going all right?”

  “You were right. She’s good.” And weird, but he kept this to himself. “I need to get online.”

  “Use the machine in my old office. Are you ever going to put on a uniform, Senior Sergeant?”

  “When it seems appropriate, Captain.”

  McKower rolled her yes, winked, and smiled at him, shaking her head.

  • • •

  Service typed an e-mail to Leukonovich and sent it.

  Sergeant Bryan ambled into the cubicle and lowered his long frame into a chair. “You meet that Toliver dude?” he asked.

  Service nodded.

  “Creeps me out,” Bryan said. “You seen his girlfriend, Jane?”

  Service nodded again.

  “Him and her, what’s that all about? I hope this damn gig doesn’t go Moby.”

  Service stared at the young NCO. “Moby?”

  “Large, immense, complex—like the white whale, Super Sarge.”

  “It won’t. Obsessive-compulsives digging holes. What could complicate that? Go away, Jeffey, I’ve got work here.”

  The towering sergeant drifted into the aisle outside the cubicle and immediately engaged a fish technician in lively conversation.

  A note popped up from Leukonovich:

  Platinum Rack Hunt Club, LLC, a 503(c) organization, organized as a nonprofit in 1978 with 40 shareholders. The club runs as a camp for disadvantaged youth from southeast Michigan. INH has been a person of interest this office for some time. Past efforts have gone Heisenbug. What is the senior sergeant’s precise interest in INH?

  How did she know about his new job?

  Service could still hear Bryan and stepped into the aisle. “Jeffey, what the hell does Heisenbug mean?”

  “Scope-dope term for a bug that disappears or changes tactics as soon as you try to probe it.”

  “Like a moving target?”

  “Smarter, and more elusive.”

  Service returned to the computer to wait for Chief Emerson’s information, but nothing came through, so he typed a note back to Leukonovich: