Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  TREEBONE: Yes, ma’am.

  Here Service can hear the women talking and can sense separation from Treebone, and then the first woman is talking again.

  FEMALE VOICE 1: This isn’t everything, but it will give you a good idea of our capabilities.

  TREEBONE: Shit, this look like tool shed for Indiana Jones. Who do actual survey work for you little ladies?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: That would be us, the little ladies. (low laugh)

  TREEBONE: Where you be learning survey business from?

  FEMALE VOICE 1: College.

  TREEBONE: You go codge be surveyor?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

  FEMALE VOICE 1: Professor Emerson Jay. His course of study is very demanding.

  TREEBONE: I can imagine college be demanding. You got be trained by a professor to be a surveyor?

  FEMALE VOICE 1: Doctor Jay is the gateway to the future.

  TREEBONE: You go codge and start business?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: Not right out of college. We worked for a Lansing company for a few years and then we decided to go into business for ourselves up here.

  TREEBONE: That take some big cajones these days.

  FEMALE VOICE 1: No risk, no reward.

  TREEBONE: Not for me. I got some maps somewhere. I come back, we talk details.

  FEMALE VOICE 1: How large a survey are you contemplating, the entire section?

  TREEBONE: Not whole thing. Can’t say widdout my map. You got the limits on what you do?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: Our only limits are time.

  TREEBONE: How’s that?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: We’re on another very large job right now, and it is devouring our time.

  TREEBONE: Dee-vouah. You learn that word up codge from that Dr. Jay? How soon other job be done?

  Laughter here, and Service guessed Mr. Charming was making goo-goo eyes and entertaining the women.

  FEMALE VOICE 2: How soon are you thinking you’d want us to get to your job?

  TREEBONE: Sooner be better than later, am I right? Like this spring?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: If we win this other contract, it could be fall or later.

  TREEBONE: That must be some client all y’all got.

  FEMALE VOICE 2: It’s a considerable challenge but a real rewarding one. Which of our clients did you talk to?

  TREEBONE: Which you think give you the big thumbs up?

  FEMALE VOICE 1: All of them, we hope—and expect.

  FEMALE VOICE 2: Client satisfaction is among our very top corporate value statements.

  TREEBONE: That what I hear, you ladies go extra mile, that give you hint who client be? Any way you can get to my job before fall?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: We don’t even know the dimensions of your job yet, and like we said, fall would be the earliest. To be honest it would be nearly impossible to get a plan in place and start work before next year.

  Service heard Treebone whistle, then jack up his shine mode.

  TREEBONE: You ladies seem to sure be sittin’ pretty.

  FEMALE VOICE 1: We hope we earn it.

  TREEBONE: Understand won’t be this year, okay, any way to rough-spec, help me do my own budget?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: I think we could manage that.

  TREEBONE: Today?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: Day after tomorrow?

  TREEBONE: Best you ladies can do?

  FEMALE VOICE 2: Sorry.

  Another pause here.

  TREEBONE: Day after tomorrow, here good? Say noon? I’ll bring some real folk soul food. You ladies like pasties?

  FEMALE VOICE 1: Noon is fine, but pasties are Cornish—English.

  TREEBONE: Bullshit, don’t be believing those lying Cousin Jacks. Pasties were invented by Africans, how you think soul food come this country? Come over on slave ships.

  Service heard a shift in ambient sound and then the recorder went off.

  TREEBONE: I’m recording again, out in my truck now. Their equipment looks to me to be state of the art and they seem technically competent and superficially legitimate. I called their Dr. Jay to confirm their story, but he’s never heard of them. I also called the state to see if the Drazel women are licensed. Ain’t nobody by that name got a license to survey in the state of Michigan. We got some shit here, my friend. What be said and what be—ain’t jibing. I’m about twenty miles out now. Talk tonight over food. Wait till you hear how they homed right in on caves, and no prompt from me to move it that way.

  Here Treebone turned off the machine and looked at Service, who was thinking, my friend, the great black god of charm.

  Treebone said, “I talked to Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. That’s the LARA on the recorder. Just over a thousand licensed professional surveyors in the state and there’s nobody named Drazel in those ranks. LARA told me all the profesionals have a four-year degree, an internship, and have passed a slew of state tests in order to be certified. It’s damn hard to get that. There’s one other thing. I also talked to MSPS in Lansing. They’ve got an office not far from the Capitol, other side of the Grand River.”

  “Spare me the initial soup.”

  “Michigan Society of Professional Surveyors.”

  “We planning a visit?” Service asked.

  “Man, you wanted detail, Tree brings home the detail. The folks at MSPS, they never heard of no Drazels, not as members, not as a company. Far as they’re concerned, Drazels don’t exist. I find that real interesting.”

  “You intend to keep your meeting with them day after tomorrow?” Service asked Treebone.

  “I don’t know. It’s your case, and your call. One of the ladies gave me a handout as I was leaving. Says I have to bring some paper—deed, title insurance policy—something with a legal description of my property. Thing is, if I do that, they can check back through the Registrar of Deeds, could learn you owned North of Nowhere before I did. This being true, our ship seems to be headed for the beach.”

  “Maybe not. I think my accountant had that land in another name, so it may not easily link to me. We’ll have to call Marschke and talk to him.”

  “You want me to gather my paperwork? I got it in a box in the bank in St. Ignace.”

  “Go ahead and get it, just in case, but we’ll hold on the next meeting until we see where we are and how this thing is developing.”

  “Partner,” Service said to Allerdyce, “how about you call Dotz and ask if he can meet us and hike back out to where the Drazels were working.”

  “Already done that,” Allerdyce said, grinning, “Sonny.”

  “I want you to do it again.”

  He thought the old man might challenge this, but he didn’t. I’m still missing something out there, and the only key we have is Dotz.

  Allerdyce went bobblehead. “Okay den.”

  Service to Treebone. “Bottom line impressions?”

  Tree said, “They talk a really good game. That equipment room? It blew my mind: GPS, laser scanner, something called robotic something or other—I just got a glance, and no time to memorize everything. I did manage to sneak a couple of phone photos. Want a look?”

  Service shook his head. “Later on for the photos. But let’s make sure Dotz gets a look at them. Appearances aside, Drazels aren’t licensed or registered and their business doesn’t show up among other surveying outfits.”

  “That’s true, but I asked the gent at MSPS if somebody has to be licensed to do surveys. He told me they have to be licensed to sign off on legal work, but unlicensed people can and do work for a licensed surveyor; all he’s got to do is supervise their daily work. Maybe there a head hen or rooster hiding in that chicken coop?”

  More digging to do, Service told himself. The key to successful investigations was to have all relevant questions answered before you asked them for the r
ecord.

  “You think it’s weird how the one lady dove straight to questions about caves?” Treebone asked.

  “It’s odd, maybe, no way to know yet.”

  “You want I keep ‘axe’ around?”

  Both men exploded in laughter, and Allerdyce chirped, “What funny, what funny?”

  Chapter 30

  Mosquito Wilderness Tract

  Even for a college boy, he looked seriously undernourished. “Dotz, you look like you just came off the Bataan Death March,” Service greeted him when the boy walked up onto the cabin porch.

  “The what?”

  Jesus, what are schools teaching nowadays? “You’re so skinny you could sleep between Venetian blinds. That girlfriend of yours, she needs to add carbs to your diet. This is white dirt country, Dotz. The skinny bones die first. To survive up here a man needs extra insulation.”

  “Ballou is my roommate, not my girlfriend.”

  Allerdyce came outside and intervened. “You wingy-dingy dat girlie’s t’ingey?”

  Dotz took a step back from the old violator. “Ya, sometimes, I guess?”

  Allerdyce poked the college boy in the chest. “Den she youse’s girlfriend, chuck-knuck. You college kittles can’t speak no normal Hinglitch, wah.”

  Dotz said to Service. “What is his problem?”

  “The unanswerable question,” Service said. “In fact, I find it to be entirely imponderable.”

  “Ballou is not my girlfriend,” the boy insisted.

  Service said, “Knock it off and show him the photos.”

  Treebone showed Dotz some of the photos he’d shot with his phone during yesterday’s visit to Ford River. The photos showed the Drazel women and their equipment in the equipment room. Service said, “Those women look familiar?”

  Dotz said, “I guess?”

  Treebone went right at the answer. “You know or you guess, they aren’t the same thing. This is binary, Dotz, yes-no, and like that.”

  “I think I saw some of that stuff, maybe . . . yeah . . . yes . . . I’ve seen it.”

  “Where and when?” Service asked.

  “Mosquito,” Dotz said, “Out there where we went.”

  “You saw the women in these photos using the equipment shown in these photos?”

  Dotz asked, “Is this important?”

  Service nodded and said, “It is.”

  “I seen, man.”

  “These women using the equipment in the photos?” Service repeated.

  Dotz looked confused. “No, not these women. I saw the women I’ve been seeing using equipment that looks like that.”

  Service and Treebone exchanged glances.

  Dotz said, “The equipment they were using, this stuff coulda been the same, but it’s just an impression. Truth is I’m just not sure.”

  Service asked, “What did you think the women were doing our there?”

  Dotz said, “Surveying?” After a pause, “It was surveying, right?”

  “We want to go back out to where they were, and go through everything again.”

  “We already did that, man.”

  “Cops keep doing stuff until they get it set in their heads,” Treebone said. “We ain’t as quick on pickup as college boys.” Treebone leered at the smaller man. “What your ACT score was?”

  “My ACT? Uh, 27, I think.”

  “Mine was 32, hear what I’m saying?”

  Dotz looked confused. “Can somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Dotz asked.

  Service said, “We’re investigating.”

  Dotz furrowed his brow. “How can you do that—legally? You’re not a cop right now, right?”

  Service flashed his deputy marshal badge. “Is that real?” the boy asked.

  “You think I bought it at the Dollar Store?” Service said.

  Dotz pulled a reporter’s notebook from his back pocket and clicked a ballpoint. “Okay if I write that down?”

  Treebone said menacingly, “You’re a reporter, that’s what you do. You think a source won’t like you making notes and might shut up, then you find a minute, moment, whatever, step aside, and make notes. You don’t ask if it’s okay for you to write down something. Learn to do your job, Dotz.”

  “That seems unfair,” Dotz said. “Or something. You know, like sneaky?”

  “You need to lose those feelings,” Service told the boy. “Journalists and cops have the same job up to a certain point: cops to discover the facts and see if the facts tell a story that tells us we need to develop charges. You need to determine if the facts and that story hold together and if your audience ought to know what you know. We take our facts to the court and you take yours to the public.”

  “But if you’re investigating someone, they ought to be aware of that, right?” Dotz said.

  “Was it ethical the way you were sneaking around following me?” Service asked.

  Dotz hung his head.

  “Get your head up, Dotz,” Treebone said. “Put some damn oil in your feathers. Anybody wants to run down the real facts on anything needs to maintain a mean streak and keep some ice in the blood. Remember, we’re looking at somebody because we think they’re dirty or done something bad, and if they’ve done something bad we don’t owe that somebody a damn thing, except to find the facts. You got to lie to a source or suspect to get what you want and need, lie to his ass.”

  “I should lie to my subjects and sources?”

  “Whatever it takes to get the truth.”

  “You guys lie?” Dotz asked.

  “To suspects and shitbags,” Grady Service said, “damn right we do.”

  The retired Detroit detective said, “You don’t lie and spin a tale, you won’t be finding shit.”

  Dotz said, “That makes me feel dirty.”

  Treebone shrugged. “You see an asshole indicted and later convicted because of what you done, you’ll feel plenty clean, b’lee me.”

  “The ends justify the means?” Dotz said.

  “In investigations of serious wrongdoing,” Service said, “absolutely.”

  “Burnin’ daylight,” Allerdyce announced, sniffing the damp morning air and spreading dawn.

  “You eager to get out in the woods?” Service asked the old man.

  Allerdyce shook his head. “Don’t want go at all, me.”

  “Then why bother?”

  “Youse said we go, an’ partners stick together, no matter what, hey?”

  “This isn’t critical do or die,” Service said. “We’re just gonna take a walk, talk, and look around.”

  “Youse crawl back down dat hole out dere?” Allerdyce asked.

  “Don’t know yet,” Service said. “Why?”

  Allerdyce shook his head.

  They all got into Service’s truck and drove to the jump-off point.

  Out at the site, they immediately headed into the woods. Allerdyce trailed alongside Dotz, and Service listened to them.

  “Dat girlie youse got,” Allerdyce said. “What name is?”

  “Ballou,” Dotz said.

  “Balloons,” the old man said in his marble-mouth way. “She sure got her da nice ones, her. How many times youse bone dat girlie every night?”

  Dotz said loudly, “Do I have to listen to this shit?”

  Tree said loudly “Learn how to go deaf and shut out everything but the stuff you need to hear.”

  Dotz looked at Allerdyce. “Not your business, old man.”

  Treebone laughed. “Best learn this fast, Dotz. This skill of selective hearing could be useful with your boss and your old lady.”

  “You mean spouse?” Dotz said.

  Treebone said, “Walk, Dotz, I’m done showering wisdom on your scrawny white ass.”

  *****

  By day’s end Service concluded tha
t Dotz was a typical observer, seeing only the most obvious things and missing even some of those. But in one particular area his observations had been excellent and potentially significant.

  Once they were out on the high ground, Service walked Dotz through his days with the Drazels, step by step, and Dotz answered quietly and confidently, sometimes closing his eyes and pausing before answering.

  He would say things like, “She had the device pointed that direction.”

  “What was the position of her legs?” Service would counter.

  “Her legs?”

  “Legs, the things our feet are connected to. Right leg, left leg, was one forward and if so, which one. Were they close together or spread out. Make the picture in your mind. It’s there. You just got to pull it up out of the server.”

  In this way he began to educate the boy on how to anticipate what information they were after, and Dotz responded nicely. The boy’s patience in being the focus of so many questions was remarkable. Service doubted he would have been as patient, given a reversal in roles.

  Up on the higher land Dotz showed them where the one woman had set up “the one with the viewfinder thingey.”

  “A transit?”

  “No idea, man. Could have been a telescope or a camera from where I stood.”

  “One woman with the device is there, and where’s her partner?”

  Dotz pointed. “Around that hump.”

  They were, according to the young man, standing where the woman with the device had been standing. “She wouldn’t be able to hear her partner from here,” Service said. “What about her legs and body position relative to the device?”

  “The one with the big thingey had her left leg forward and right leg back, I think, but then they were looking up again,” Dotz said. “And I don’t really remember anything except that.”

  Service squinted and rubbed his eye. “You said she was looking up . . . again.”

  “Right,” Dotz said.

  “Again, that means this was not the first time.”

  “Right, it wasn’t.”

  “Why is it we haven’t heard about a first time before the again?”

  “I didn’t tell you they were looking up?”

  “You didn’t. So when was the first time?” Service asked.