Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

“Did you know the uncle? What was his name?” Service looked at O’Halloran.

  She said, “Wilby Staffoneski.”

  “Don’t really know ’im dat name. He allas go by name Wally Staff. We know dat not ’is real name, but peoples can be funny wit’ da names, hey.”

  “Did your Wally Staff ever go by Stafinski?”

  “Mightamebbe, but not when I knowed ’im.”

  “How well did you know him?”

  “Know pert good. He he’p teach me build stuff. We drink hootch he make, hey.”

  O’Halloran said, “Mr. Allerdyce, this is important. How well did you know Mr. Staff?”

  Allerdyce rolled his eyes, hemmed, hawed, looked away. “Mebbe we done some business.”

  “Would you care to elucidate?”

  Allerdyce, obviously befuddled, looked at Service. “Loosed date, hey?”

  “She means explain,” Service told him.

  Allerdyce grinned. “Could say mebbe I was in supply business.”

  “Supplying what?” the attorney asked.

  “Dis, dat, youse know.”

  She has penetrating eyes, Service thought. He heard her say coldly, “Actually I do not know and would appreciate you enlightening me.”

  “Umm,” Allerdyce said and looked to Service for intervention. Service wasn’t quite sure and then it dawned on him. “Mr. Allerdyce was a violator, full-service, market hunter, dirty guide, out of season. You needed it, whatever it was, he’d bag it for a price or set you up to do it at an even higher price.”

  Allerdyce added, “I kep da prices down real good, lower den udder guys.”

  “You had competition?” O’Halloran asked.

  Allerdyce looked at Service again. “She claim she grow up ’ancock and she dunno?”

  Service said, “Not everyone who grows up here knows about all of that stuff.”

  “Wah, all kinds competition back in old days,” Allerldyce said.

  Service suddenly thought of a question, given that Allerdyce and his father had allegedly spent so much time together. “Did my old man know Wally Staff?”

  “I t’ink did, sure, you betcha.”

  “You think he did or you know he did? If you were the old man’s partner, you’d know.”

  “Me an’ youse’s old man come later, Sonny. I t’ink youse’s old man he make da pinch Wally, two, t’ree time. Wally he never make no stink, no fight, not run, just go JP, plead guilty, pay fine, no hard feeling, hey. Cost of doing business, pay da fine, shake youse’s old man’s hand, man to man, each man doing his job. Dey liked each udder, dose two. Respect I t’ink.”

  “Ten seconds ago you couldn’t be sure if they even knew each other,” Service pointed out.

  “I ’member now is all. Day okay wit’ each udder, youse’s old man, Wally Staff.”

  Service pondered all this. My father knew Wally Staff and they “liked” each other? How much stuff do I not know about my own father? How much more does Limpy know that he’s never mentioned? Is he intentionally holding back from me?

  “Did Mr. Staff own property?” the lawyer asked.

  Allerdyce thought for a few seconds. “Wah, he own land all over U.P. hey. Buy, sell, trade, he din’t even care what kind land, just want land, say God he don’t make no more, so year from now, ten years, hunnert years, land she be wort’ a lot more. One time him and me drinkin’ an he tell me his peoples back in Polackland don’t got no land, dat all dat over dere belong uppity mucks and he not let that happen him in ’merica, whole reason his daddy come here.”

  Service studied the old man’s face. “Did Wally Staff own land in the Mosquito?”

  “Weren’t call’t dat when he own it,” Allerdyce said. “Jus’ mile ’n mile green nasty-nasty, swampety swamps.”

  “The plat books use the name W. Stafinski,” lawyer O’Halloran reminded them.

  “Dat Wally Staff. We call name Staff, but he like squirrel an’ hide nuts all over, Wally use all kinds names business.”

  “Logging?” O’Halloran asked.

  Allerdyce nodded. “Dat, build, buy, trade land, do anyt’ing can make bucks dose days. Same like today, hey.”

  “And he employed aliases?” she asked.

  Allerdyce cackled. “No, Wally don’t hire no helper pipples. He work alone most of time.”

  “And you’re saying he poached and violated too?” she continued.

  “Like said, dat don’t make man special up ’ere. Ever’body violate little bit. Game is good cheap food. Wally Staff, he honest man. He tell me one time, ‘Beef is for making money and venison is free.’”

  “Who happened to be a violator,” O’Halloran said.

  “Just tole youse dis don’t make a man unhonest he violate a little. Dat not ’is job,” Allerdyce said forcefully. “Build stuff was Wally’s job.”

  “My old man pinched Wally Staff?” Service asked, to break the verbal contest.

  “Two, t’ree, mebbe could be four time?”

  “Over here?”

  “No, Wally he allas get him wit’ swells from Shitcagotown. Come up, want shoot big bucks, couldn’t shoot selfs in foots, want catch big trouts, all dat man-stuff dey call it, pay Wally good money an’ he show dem where and how.”

  The attorney said, “So, not just a little violating. This is not the business of an honest man.”

  “Was all legal, guide dose city pipples,” Allerdyce insisted.

  “Legal doesn’t get one arrested,” O’Halloran pointed out.

  “Guide is legal, but sometimes da swells say dey got big bucks for big bucks, so he take ’em where big bucks was at.”

  “Mosquito River country,” Service said, remembering how it had been when he was a kid. There were still some big bucks in there, but not as many, and you had to hunt even harder and smarter to even get a chance at them.

  “Sometimes,” Allerdyce said.

  “Were you assisting Mr. Staff’s . . . endeavors?” O’Halloran asked.

  Allerdyce looked at Service, “How tall dose statues of reservations?”

  “You’re clean,” Service told him, fighting a smirk.

  “Okay, den, mebbe I he’p Wally Staff sometimes, but never dose times he got busted.”

  Service had another thought, said, “Seems like the old man was pretty lucky nabbing Staff all those times, and him presumably being so good in the woods.”

  Allerdyce didn’t blink. “Was damn good game warden, youse’s old man. Good ones got have luck too, jus’ like good hunter.”

  “Sometimes game wardens get a little extra help, which helps them to be lucky,” he told the old man.

  Allerdyce shrugged.

  Service turned direct. “Did you drop a dime on Wally Staff?”

  “Not me, cross my harp, hey. But somebody mighta, coulda.”

  Service knew from the old man’s tone that he had indeed informed on Staff—and he understood. All rules short of mayhem were permissible when the situation concerned a competitor, and it didn’t matter the activity. His old man had all kinds of informers working for him and all for the cost of a shot or two.

  “Wally Staff ever get pissed at you?” Service asked.

  “No reason be, I never done nothin’ to ’im.”

  “Staff held no grudge against the old man?”

  “Not I ever seen or heard.”

  “What else?” O’Halloran asked.

  “What else youse want?” Allerdyce answered, question for a question, a standard U.P. conversational technique that usually appeared anytime there was a faint hint of trouble.

  “You’re sure about all this, would swear to it in a court of law?”

  “Remember where we live, hey.”

  Tree sat up from a slump and declared, “Damn lot of words said here. Where the hell are we? Staff sold land and owned it all ov
er the place and some of what he owned, according to Limpy, now comprises part of the Mosquito Wilderness.” He turned to Allerdyce. “Do you know who Staff sold the land to?”

  O’Halloran intervened but focused on Allerdyce. “I almost bought your tale until you told me Staff had no family when we know there was the uncle and there is also evidence of a wife and son, Elder, and a daughter Etta. How could you not know that?”

  O’Halloran turned to Service. “Governor Timms and I have been talking a lot. Bozian wants your scalp. Could be something to do with his son, or something entirely different, we don’t know, we may never know, and it doesn’t matter.”

  Service and Treebone glanced at each other, but the message was clear. His longtime friend was telling him to stow it and withdraw. He’d seen the look a million times in many different situations.

  Service said, “Okay, thanks for all this. You have my number and I have yours. Let’s stay in touch.”

  “I’m not finished,” she said. “Bozian is also talking openly of proof of mineral rights, and both men are making noises about the land having been purchased from W. Staffoneski.”

  “Bullshit what all dat is,” Allerdyce said. “Da uncle never own shit for land, and Wally Staff don’t sell nothing to nobody he don’t know and like.”

  “This was a long time ago, and land frequently changes ownership over time,” O’Halloran pointed out.

  “No,” Limpy said emphatically. “Wally Staff don’t do stuff like dat. Dis guy what make claim is lie t’rough ass, wah.”

  The lawyer said, “Did you not just tell us he did business under several names?”

  Allerdyce looked at Service, frustration on his face and in his eyes. “Thanks,” Service told the attorney.

  The three men went out to the truck. Tree said, “Bozian’s after you because of your old man, not you. I don’t know how, but the link smells like it’s way back there and not up here.”

  “Explain?”

  “I can’t. It’s just a feeling.”

  Neither could Service, but he had similar feelings, the kind of hunches that formed out of the ether for detectives and investigators in the middle of some important moment.

  Tree said, “There’s got to be something else bearing on this business. The evidence, whatever it is, has had to be in their hands for a while and only last fall did it dawn on him that you could be a big-ass fly in his poached egg.”

  “Evidence?” Service asked, his head beginning to throb. “There’s no way I can do anything to Bozian. He’s way bigger than me.”

  “Keep your eye on the ball, friend. He thinks you can, which means we need to figure out why and what and how. Sometimes they’re not even in shouting distance. In this case it seems you look like the insurmountable obstacle.”

  “That’s all speculative, Tree. Worse, it’s fantasy.”

  “Listen to me. I was a long damn time in vice. I’ve seen this behavior from three-card monte up to mayoral politics and big-time Black-Bottom Ponzi. There’s a scam alarm sounding in my gut.”

  “We need more than your gut to make a case.”

  “In vice work, first you need to feel something working. Then you find out what and how, and then you kick their asses.”

  Chapter 24

  Houghton

  Houghton County

  When you got right down to it, Karrylanne Pengally told him no more about her job than general bureaucratic boilerplate, and the air of secrecy in and of itself suggested she was on contract with a Department of Defense project, or more likely Defense’s super-secret research and development arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA. If this was how it was, it would be many years, if ever, before any information from the work ever saw public light. Not that he cared about government black ops. What mattered most was that Karrylanne and Maridly were still only a couple of hours away. The alternatives were too awful to consider.

  Service crossed the bridge to the Houghton side, made his way south to Green Acres Road, and pulled into a long, paved driveway that ended in a one-car garage. It once had been a small barn. Karrylanne had tried to buy the property on her own, but lacked the resources, and her former to-be father-in-law had bought it with her, leaving it to her to figure out how to wrestle with all the updating the place needed.

  A silver pickup was tucked in by the side of the house, and for a moment he thought it was a Drazel truck. When he realized it wasn’t, he parked at an angle at the garage and saw his five-year-old granddaughter standing on the side stoop of the house with a huge smile. “Bampy!” she squealed as she charged him. He held his arms wide and she leaped like a cat and wrapped him up, and when he passed her to her “uncles,” she drowned them in messy kisses and giggles. When she was back in her grandfather’s arms, she waved her arm like a wand and shouted gleefully, “We live on top the whole world!”

  The eighty-acre parcel sat on the edge of a steep hill into the Pilgrim River Valley; on a clear fall day you could see thirty miles south. He loved her enthusiasm. “Where’s your mum?” he asked her.

  “Upstairs, having one off,” the girl said happily.

  The three men made eye contact but said nothing until Service asked, “Do you think we should go in?”

  “Sure!” she said, opened the door, and yelled up the stairs “Bampy’s here in our new house!”

  Karrylanne yelled down the stairs, “I’ll be right down, honey. Show them the coffee.”

  This was only Service’s second time here and the place still felt somewhat strange to him. The girl pounded a cabinet and growled, “Cups!” Service got out three.

  “I drink coffee,” Maridly announced.

  “Not with me you don’t,” Service told her.

  Limpy said, “I give her sippa mine.”

  Service glared at him and Allerdyce just grinned.

  “Karrylanne lets me,” Maridly said.

  “You mean your mother,” Service said.

  “Mum is Karrylanne, Bampy,” the girl said seriously. “She says if I’m to be a big girl I ought to talk big girl talk.”

  He strongly disagreed with this approach, but said only, “Okay.”

  “You call her Karrylanne,” the girl pointed out.

  “Got you there,” Treebone said.

  Service bowed his head. “You’re right, kiddo. But you’re not me.”

  “You’re part of me,” she said.

  He exhaled and said, “Absolutely.”

  Karrylanne came downstairs tucking a blouse into her shorts. Her hair was disheveled. “You guys headed somewhere?”

  “Had an early meeting across the canal,” Service told her.

  “I’ve got the day free,” Karrylanne said, “to work on the house.”

  A man clomped down the stairs behind her. He had a pencil stuck behind his ear. He had a head filled with thick white hair, and his skin was shiny pink with sweat.

  “Dante,” Karrylanne said. “Our contractor. Dante, meet Grady Service, Luticious Treebone, and Limpy Allerdyce.”

  “Allerdyce?” Dante asked, staring at the old poacher with bulging eyes.

  Limpy said, “Dis guy and me, went over Gorear same time to zap Gooks.”

  Service gave his partner the evil eye and Allerdyce modified the statement to, “Go Nort’ Gorear, kill Nort’ Gorean Gook guys.”

  “He’s right,” Dante said. “Damn lucky we got out. A whole lot of city boys were not so fortunate.”

  “Dose guys dey needed dere mamas wit’ dem,” Allerdyce added sarcastically, nodding his bobblehead.

  “Bampy and Uncle Tree went Feet Nam,” Maridly said. “And they didn’t got killed. I’m glad they came home!”

  Service looked at Karrylanne. “Your daughter told us you were upstairs having one off,” he whispered, and the woman immediately turned red and her jaw dropped and eventua
lly she snorted with real delight. “I told her we were going to pull off the old cabinets in the bedroom.” She looked down at her daughter. “Scamp!”

  The girl rolled her eyes, causing Service to wonder if she knew exactly what she had done. It wouldn’t surprise him, and this possibility disturbed him even more.

  The girl’s mother asked, “Are you back on duty, then?”

  “Not yet, this trip is personal business.”

  “Have you given serious consideration to retiring?” she asked.

  “Why is everyone trying to run my life? I think about everything, keep it all on the table.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I think you should fight these assholes, no matter what. They’re screwing you over. If you retire, they win.”

  No wonder his son, Walter, had loved her. She was feisty and smart. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  No doubt she’s been talking to Tuesday.

  She poked his ribs. “You want to see what Dante thinks we should do to this place?”

  “Long as it’s not on my dime,” he said.

  She laughed. “All mine.”

  Dante and Karrylanne led the way up the stairs.

  Service got to the top of the stairs, then asked his late son’s girlfriend, “How’s your job going?”

  “Too soon to tell,” she said. “But they aren’t stingy with time off.”

  Feds, Service thought. Law enforcement, despite 9/11, remained a Balkanized creature, each out for his own. The narrow views pissed him off, but there was nothing he could do other than personally do it differently. His own outfit had its own issues, and organizations tended to reflect the weaknesses and prejudices of their sponsors and mentors.

  He paid scant attention to Dante’s house plans, interior decoration ranking just behind lawn care and decorative gardening in his priorities. Any lawn that looked slightly green was good to go. But he tried to act like he was listening and from time to time tossed out some active-listening cop talk, “Really.” “No way.” “Amazing.” “Sounds good.” “OK.”

  Karrylanne gave him a long hard hug as they got ready to leave. “Tell Tuesday hi,” she whispered.