Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  Service stopped the truck and looked over at the man. “When?”

  “Like I told youse, long time back, but ain’t onny one down dere. Seen, like . . . bunches . . . Wah.”

  Service had explored the cave as a boy and as an adult. “It’s a small cave and I’ve seen all of it, and there were no bones or remains.”

  “Dere’s heap more youse ain’t seen, Sonny. Youse’s old man seen to dat. Down deep dere’s some wall-pitchers, real old, mebbe old Indi’n bury-bone ground youse’s old man t’ought.”

  In Wolf Cave? Pictures? Does he mean petroglyphs, pictographs, what? Geez. “Are you saying he hid it to protect it?”

  Allerdyce nodded. “More like he din’t want have to mess wit’ it. If word go out dere’s old cave, you got all kinds yayhoos and cave-snakes and potlickers and pot hunters from all over place, hey. Better for Skeeto dis stuff stay dark and lost.”

  If this was true, the cave paintings were not the only things hidden out there. He wondered if Allerdyce knew that a rocky outcrop along the river contained diamonds. “My old man’s idea to hide it?”

  He got a one-nod response.

  “But you saw it all.”

  “Yah sure, youse betcha. Da part youse seen Sonny, is onny da f’ont top room. Goes back, den way down to underground crick, can ’ear crick down dere somewhere under. We follow ’er mebbe quart’ mile an’ stop. Keeps going, hey. Big!”

  “Are you talking about The Seam from Wolf Cave?”

  “Don’t know ’at word, but yah, t’ink.”

  The Seam was an icy feeder creek that disappeared underground and popped up after a mile or so before emptying into the Mosquito River. He had always wondered where the thing went when it dove into the earth. “Pretty fair distance from Wolf Cave to where it pops back up.”

  “Wah. Down dere in dark we hear her dance ’round like she Missusstitty River. Sound scary big in couple places, but we only hear, never seen. Youse’s old man say, dere was prob’bly shitload more stuff down dere, but dat was nuff for us.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Two, t’ree places, mebbe more. An’ some old black crap from old campfires or somepin.”

  Shit, he thought. Underground pictographs meant aboriginal relics and maybe remains, too. How long until the state suits and pointy heads with government research grants would swoop in, and after them, hordes of amateurs trying to beat the academics to the take?

  His cell phone rang, and he heard a woman’s voice. “Fellow here. The plate on that Subaru comes back to an NMU student, one Tyrus R. Dotz. He’s a senior and current environmental features editor for the school paper, as well as a blogger and a columnist.”

  She continued, “That’s just the first turn of the shovel, but the name Dotz is not unknown in Lansing. His old man and his grandfather were state senators. His old man got term-limited out of office. My sources tell me the boy’s father was having difficulties adjusting to a life-without-Lansing portfolio. He died two weeks ago.”

  Service felt his ears prickling. “Accident? Suicide?”

  “Not known,” she said. “Yet. Possible but not ruled so.”

  “From where?”

  “T.C. area, south, a town called Grawn. The town’s chamber of commerce worshipped his ass, and the local greens burned him in effigy.”

  “What was he doing when he was off the government tit?”

  “Billed himself as a land consultant.”

  “Tyrus R. Dotz. Thanks for the lead. We’ll look forward to more,” Service said, and hung up.

  “Youse said we,” Allerdyce said in his gleeful chirp. “I like sounda dat, hey.”

  “Wah,” Grady Service said without enthusiasm. “I must be crazy.”

  “Dat one dose wretchicktorieal t’ings, or youse want me say somepin ’ere?”

  “Rhetorical,” Grady Service corrected the man, thinking, How sad is it that I can sometimes actually understand this crazy old bastard’s slaughtered syntax.

  Limpy said, “Dat kid Dotz he might could hep us sniff Lansing, hey.” He held up his middle finger and waggled it animatedly. “Now listen me, Sonny. Youse got too much respect for dose clowns down below. Dey lie all time, dis white when it black, black when it white, whatever work best he’p dem. Dose fools care onny seffs, got no bloody idea nottin’ down dere real. Dey all white-shoe, flag-waver clean fingernail slick-talk selfish pieces shit and never wore no uniform for country nor put asses on da real line, where win-lose counts bodies and parts, not bloody votes.”

  He went on, “You invite jamokes like dis to demolition derby, dey come wit’ steam-roader, don’t want just win, want bloody crush anybody not wit’ dem and under dere middle finger. Wah.” He waved the specified finger for punctuation.

  It was the longest largely coherent speech he had ever heard from Limpy Allerdyce. He complimented the old man, “Outstanding soliloquy. You been reading Shakespeare?”

  “What bloody hull is squirrelickwee?” Allerdyce asked.

  Chapter 5

  Marquette

  Marquette County

  Since it seemed they were going to bunk out at his camp, Service needed new reading material, and the bookstore owner was the most knowledgeable person he knew on the subjects of books, entertainment, and social crap. Her store had a lot of student customers. Spring was preening outside, but inside Snowbound Books on North Third Street it was perpetual summer. Because he wasn’t working, Service figured he might as well read, the one good habit picked up from his old man, maybe the only good thing from him ever. And not detective stories or true crime baloney. Get enough of all that crap at work. Travel books, road stories, biographies, good writing, thoughtful stuff, but nothing too weighty. Reading books about Teddy Roosevelt, a leader who didn’t sit on his ass all day and wring his hands over opinion polls. Speak softly, carry a honking big stick. Fuck ’em if they don’t like the job I’m doing. Elected to do things, and not to sit with pedicured feet on the desk. Yes, Teddy Roosevelt for sure. Talk about tough and determined.

  But picking books was never easy. Part of it was that he had already read so many books that he had to look carefully and think about each one he picked up. But even in the thrall of books in the confines of the store, he quickly realized that he had seen a bookstore customer with the same face he’d now seen three times in three different locations. Here it had just sashayed past him, but he had seen the face in his peripheral vision. It had been watching him and trying to disguise interest by turning a shoulder and hip. What had Marthesdottir said, a Justin Timberlake look-alike? He stepped back to the cash register to talk to owner Dynamo Dana. “Do you have a customer who looks like Justin Timberlake?”

  She always had a smile. “Yah, several; one’s in here now. What about him?”

  “You got any photos of this Timberlake guy?”

  She smiled. “No, why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  Dynamo said with mocking eyes, “Grady, you don’t know what Justin Timberlake looks like, do you? Are you serious?”

  He shrugged and went back to browsing and calculating. He’d seen the guy by Tuesday’s place, and had gotten another quick glimpse near Slippery Creek. This was the third time. Three meant not a coincidence. Confront the guy now or wait for a better time? He decided quickly: wait.

  He went back to Dynamo. “Got anything good on ballet?”

  “For Tuesday or your granddaughter?”

  “For me. Exercises. Ballerinas have great legs. Mine look and feel like crap.”

  Dana guffawed loudly, quickly covered her mouth, and said through tight lips. “I’m so sorry. You know, men do ballet too.”

  “Just Russian creepoids,” he said. “Tantsovshchik,” he said, his Russian vocabulary worse than rusty and pitted by time and lack of use. “Twinkletoeskies.”

  He could see her fighting a smirk and ignored her
.

  “Sorry, nothing I can think of, Grady.”

  Allerdyce was in the truck up in the Peter White Library parking lot, watching a rust-pocked Jeep with a plow knock back some petrified snow piles. He was eating an ice cream, noxious green in color, like pea soup, the sight of which made Service gag.

  “Mint?”

  “Pissdashheeho.”

  Allerdyce and language. God. “Good?”

  “Better’n a poke in the eyeball wit’ sharp stick.”

  It was an illogical view of life that steered Limpy, and yet, it somehow made sense, at least to him.

  “Where we go’ now?” the ice cream eater asked.

  “Tuesday’s.”

  “Don’t t’ink she like me so much, dat girlie.”

  “That’s okay, the kid, the dog, and the cat do. Three of four is good.”

  Allerdyce stopped licking and looked over at him. “Dere’s vive wit’ youse in count.”

  “I’m still in the undecided column with Tuesday.”

  Recent verbal scuffles with Friday flashed through his mind in their full fury. Allerdyce said, “Sucks to be youse.” This suspension had severely screwed up his routine, such as it was. As a detective herself, Tuesday Friday understood his job, but she did not like the suspension, or how he was coping with it. He knew she would carp and complain, but when it counted, she always had his back. Was that love? Who knows. More to the point, he wondered, What did I do to deserve her?

  The reformed poacher sighed loudly. “Womens. What I got do make ’er like me?”

  “You’re still along. Take heart in what you have, not what you don’t.”

  “You buckin for priest?”

  Might as well be, he thought, sex and intimacy recently seeming like ancient history.

  “Easier work wit’ youse’s old man,” Allerdyce offered.

  “That right?”

  “He allas Mr. Happy when he tie one on. Youse don’t never.”

  “My father drank enough for the two of us. I like a clear head. The kid Fellow told us about, I think he was in the bookstore just now.”

  “What youse t’ink he up to?”

  “No idea. Time comes, we’ll find out.” Last night Marthesdottir had sent a two-page email entitled “BG—TRD et al.” It was almost astonishing in depth but didn’t really answer what the Dotz kid was after. A P.S. on the email read, “Tell your partner it’s time again to stop by.”

  Chapter 6

  Mosquito Wilderness Tract

  Some days later, and strictly by chance, Service caught a glimpse of the rusted green Subaru. He told Allerdyce to jump in back and stay down. The old man slid between the seats into the back. Service got behind the Subaru and followed it at a distance, eventually accelerating, passing him, running hard until he was out of sight and far ahead.He pulled over, jumped out, and jogged into the woods. His last words to Allerdyce were, “Stay here, and follow him at a distance until I make contact.” Service got into the woods and left himself just enough of a view to watch the boy park. Service loped through the snow so that the kid could see him and follow his trail, making sure to leave plenty of obvious tracks.

  The slow-motion stalk went on for a full two hours—until Service had stretched the boy’s woodcraft to its limits. The boy stood in a small clearing, frantically searching the paths. Service knew the boy had totally lost the trail. Marthesdottir had called last night and given him more information about the college kid.

  “Tyrus Redpath Dotz Jr.,” Grady Service snarled at the startled boy, who lurched, stumbled, took an awkward step back, and caught himself before he fell on his ass. Service was impressed that he managed to get his feet under him, remain standing, steady himself, and look up at the large man in civilian clothes as if they had just met somewhere in town instead of miles from the nearest road. The boy’s pencil neck was ringed in tattoos, his hair long on top and spiked up and out like a blond mop of wild greens growing out of a young carrot.

  Service challenged him directly, “Why the hell are you trying to follow me?”

  Dotz said, “I’m not following you—or anybody. I’m just out hiking.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, kid. You took photos of my truck in Marquette, I’ve seen you snooping around my house and trespassing on my land. You were in the bookstore with me, and you took the photos three weeks ago. And I’ve seen you trying to tail me in your piece-of-shit Subaru. You’ve also been seen out here in the woods a dozen times. I have my own photos of you, and all with electronic time markings.” He was exaggerating, with intent.

  “You’re, like paranoid, dude,” the boy said with surprising calm.

  “Don’t dude me. I hate the word dude. Your old man is State Senator Harry Redpath Dotz, once the number three man in seniority in the state and one of Sam Bozian’s dearest old pals.” Samuel Adams Bozian was the former state governor who had more or less destroyed the state economically and shouldered most of the state electorate outside Detroit far to the political right. After twelve years in office, he moved on to greener pastures as a lobbyist in the nation’s capital. He and Sam Bozian had been open, full-on enemies, Service having once been the governor’s son’s field training officer when the boy buckled in a situation with a biker crowd in a campground. The boy had quickly confessed on the spot that he didn’t have what it took to be a peace officer and CO, and that it was his father’s idea, not his. The boy had dropped out of training, and the governor had gone after Service every chance he got. Service usually called him “Clearcut.”

  The nickname grew from the governor’s penchant for supporting development over any environmental concerns, to side always with the developer and never with conservationists. Some said Bozian would cover the state in concrete if he got his way.

  Dotz Junior’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that?”

  “Day of connections, dude. I checked you out, ran your plate, and it was a piece of cake from there.”

  “You’re suspended by the state, not on duty, you can’t do stuff like that . . . can you, like legally?”

  Junior knows I’m suspended? Confirm nothing, keep pushing him. “You’re an environmental communications major at Northern, and you work as a reporter-columnist for the North Wind.”

  “You’re creeping me out, Bro.”

  “You are not my Bro, Dotz. Feel a little weird, does it, somebody dropping This is Your Life on you out in the woods? Now you know how it feels to be creeped, Junior.”

  The boy nodded, but did not stare at the ground or look away. Dotz was standing his ground, and Service liked that. So many boys this age were spineless yappers squalling for Helicopter Mommy. Service added, “You need to leave me the fuck alone, kid. Trust me, I’m a terrible playmate.”

  “You’re news.”

  Service flinched. What? “Bullshit.”

  “You’re on suspension for using a convicted felon as a partner during deer season. They’re probably going to fire you if they can build their case.”

  They? “You don’t have enough real professor-student crap to deal with on campus?”

  “This isn’t for the North Wind—it’s for the Detroit News.”

  The Detroit papers are using students to bird-dog their stories? “Since when?” Service asked. Detroit had two papers, both swirling in the financial crapper, the News, which leaned right, and the Free Press, which leaned left.

  “Since I started working for them after high school. They’re paying for my college up here.”

  “The News? I’m not buying that line, Junior. Both Detroit papers are on the fun slide to the financial graveyard. Their unions would kill them if they knew the bosses were throwing money at a kid.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you don’t buy it,” Dotz said. “You aren’t giving me my assignments, or paying me.”

  “Does the North Wind know you’re working for a com
petitor?”

  This seemed to bring the boy up short. Service added, “It comes to light, you might have an ethical issue to sort out.”

  “Is that your problem?” the boy came back, changing the focus and shifting back to offense. “A little ethical problem?”

  Impressive. The kid’s not folding his tent and backpedaling. “My only problem, Dotz, is you shadowing me. If I see you again, I’m gonna get a court order against you.”

  “How do you think that will look?”

  Grady Service grinned. “Junior, if you had done your homework, right now you’d know I don’t much give a shit how things look.”

  “Yah, I heard that first thing,” the young man said. “That attitude’s probably what’s got your ass in a sling in the first place.”

  Service couldn’t help laughing out loud. He dug a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and held it out to the boy. “Word is you smoke dope. How about a real smoke?”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  The kid’s father was dead, possibly a suicide. Marthesdottir had not gotten back to him on this point yet, but his gut said high probability of suicide. He’d not even seen any coverage of the former politician’s death, although this was not all that surprising. The U.P. media sources were often deaf and blind when it came to covering Below-the-Bridge news and goings-on. The U.P. was all about the U.P., even had sports champions they crowned as Upper Peninsula State Champions.And there was a U.P. state fair. A lot of the inhabitants were as blinkered as racehorses, their views restricted to what seemed to be right in front of their eyes.

  “I know your old man’s dead, and maybe he thought you were a flying fuckup. Maybe he hated your notions about journalism because he saw reporters as lower in the social order than state employees and cesspool divers, which means lower than having a sister as the top earner in a Detroit whorehouse. I know you were a shitty high school student, but your college work is surprisingly good. I know that others your age have their heads up their asses, but yours seems to be on almost straight. I know you like to hunt, fish, and hike, and I know you’ve got pretty damn good woodcraft skills because I’ve watched you, even though I did catch you.”