Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  “Every time the plane buzzed them.”

  Service felt almost flustered. “There was a plane?”

  “It kept like, buzzing over, you know?”

  “How many times?” Treebone asked.

  Dotz puffed up his cheeks. “Eight, ten, twelve times, I didn’t count, you know? I didn’t write it down or nothing.”

  “You didn’t think the plane flying over was relevant?” Service asked.

  “Is it?” the boy asked.

  Treebone said calmly, “Everything you see, including things you didn’t expect to see, is relevant until you evaluate it and determine how it fits.”

  “But it was in the air and we were on the ground,” Dotz said, his voice quavering.

  Service thought, a typical response for witnesses, who rarely could think beyond a single item, observation as horizon. Go easy on the boy.

  Service said, “Take a deep breath, Ty. Are you sure they looked up at the plane?”

  Dotz said, “Yes, for sure.”

  “Each time?” Service asked. “Each time it flew by?”

  “Yes,” Dotz answered.

  Service pressed on. “Where did this plane come from and where did it go?”

  “I don’t know where it went, because we were down here and it was up there, you know, like in the air?”

  “Right, can you show me the directions it came from and went away toward. Pretend your hand is the airplane,” Service said.

  The boy crooked his hand like a bird’s head and looked at Service for approval.

  “That’s good, now show me the first pass, if you remember it.”

  “Remember just fine. It scared the shit out of me.” The boy reached up and zoomed his hand from one direction to what appeared to be its antipodal point—the exact opposite side of where it first appeared.

  “Thanks, good job. How long did these passes take place?”

  “Roughly an hour? Yeah, an hour. Seemed like a long time. I kept thinking, what’s this guy want?”

  “Can you describe the aircraft?”

  “White,” the boy said decisively. “Two engines, and the engines, they like made a high-pitched whine, you know, like some sort of phase shifter for a guitar that goes too far? Man, the plane, it was really fast. And, oh yeah, it was skinny?”

  “Are you asking me if it was skinny or describing the plane?” Service said.

  “No?” Dotz said. “It was really skinny from the cockpit back?”

  Talking to young people was like listening to staggering serial doubt. Every damn sentence ended in a limp-wristed question mark, like they weren’t sure of shit.

  “All right, one vertical stabilizer or two?”

  Dotz tilted his head like a curious dog.

  Service amended his question, “One tail or two?”

  “One,” the boy said.

  “Doing good,” Service said. “Two engines, whining sound, really fast, and the skinny aircraft is white with a single vertical stabilizer. What were its other markings?”

  “I didn’t see any?”

  “Nothing?”

  Dotz shook his head. “Maybe it was moving too fast? You couldn’t hear the damn thing coming until it flashed over you.”

  Treebone said, “So they look up, the two women do, at every pass. They do anything else?”

  “Not until the last pass, and then the woman standing here looked up and waved, like this.” Dotz showed them. “It was like magic, man. I couldn’t hear the thing, but she did.”

  “What do you think the wave meant?” Service asked. All of this information today had not been mentioned before, or even hinted at. He wondered how much more the kid had buried in his head.

  “Goodbye?” Dotz offered weakly. “I mean, I guess she was waving goodbye.”

  “After how many flyovers?”

  “Like I said. Ten or twelve, I’d guess.”

  Treebone said, “She waved goodbye, why you think she did that?”

  “I don’t know,” Dotz said.

  “Tyrus,” Treebone said quietly. “What were the ladies wearing for headgear?”

  The boy puffed his cheeks and shrugged. “Like hats, you know?”

  “What was your headgear?” Service asked.

  “My blue Tigers ball cap.”

  “Were the women wearing ball caps?”

  “I’m trying to remember.”

  “You’re doing great,” Treebone said.

  “Well, they had bills like ball caps, but they also looked like mad bomber hats, except the flaps were like, you know, rounded?”

  Service used his boot to clear a patch in the dirt and handed a stick to the boy. “Draw one of their hats.”

  The resulting diagram was crude and shaky and sort of looked like a mad bomber hat, but something was off, and Service had to study it for a while, until he realized what was bothering him. There was a horizontal line across the bottom of the face. “What’s that line, Ty?” Service pointed.

  “I don’t know,” Dotz said.

  “How close did you get to the woman who was standing here?” Treebone asked.

  “Sixty yards, maybe fifty? I was over there.” Dotz pointed at a thick grove of straight paper birch trees.

  “That’s close for recon,” Treebone said. “You usin’ binos?”

  Dotz tapped his backpack. “Yah, but they’re not so good?”

  Service ignored the comment. “Did you have binos on the women when the plane came over?”

  “Not the first time, or the second. Shook me up too much. After that, yah, on some of the passes?”

  “Binos on the women when the plane wasn’t around?”

  “Sometimes?”

  “Did anything catch your attention?” Service asked him.

  “With which one? Crazy Lady or the other one?”

  Service asked, “Crazy Lady?”

  “She kept talking to herself?” Dotz said.

  She did. “How’d you know?”

  “I saw her when I had the binos on her.”

  Treebone said, “Okay, take five and smoke ’em if you got ’em.”

  “I don’t smoke,” Dotz said.

  “Figure of speech,” Treebone said. “Course you don’t. Suck a handful of wheat germ instead . . . and don’t be so damn self-righteous.”

  “I have chocolate chip Clif bars, not wheat germ.”

  “Good for you, chocolate chips’ll make you fat and plug your arteries. On second thought, eat two. You need the calories, and you’re too damn young to worry about plugged arteries.”

  Service looked around and found Allerdyce sitting Indian style on the lip of the entrance to the lower cave with a grave look on his face.

  “Planning a spelunking expedition?”

  “No way,” Allerdyce said, then unfolded and popped to his feet with the agility of a ten-year-old.

  “We’re saddling up. Walk with Dotz and try not to creep him out. He’s been a big help.”

  “I don’t creep out nobody.”

  Service laughed softly and walked beside Treebone on the way out. Halfway along he had a thought and stopped. “Ty?”

  The boy turned back to him and Service pulled out a pad and a pencil. He drew a small x and gave him the pad and pencil. “That little x is you,” he said. “Draw lines to show us the angle of each flyover, put an arrow point on each line for directions.”

  “I don’t remember all of them.”

  “Do your best.”

  The boy made seven lines. Service said, “You think there were ten or twelve passes?”

  “I think so, but the lines there are pretty much the tracks they followed, I think.”

  No question mark this time. Service took the pad and returned it to his pocket.

  “That what you wanted?” Dotz ask
ed.

  “Perfect.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “Won’t know until I look later. It might mean nothing.”

  They resumed the hike. Service said to Treebone, “Radios between aircraft and ground, you think?”

  “Sounds likely. And with each other.”

  “My thought too.”

  Tree said, “Unmarked aircraft is the outlier here. What’re the chances of that?”

  “Not likely, but we can’t rule out that under some circumstances it might be copacetic. We’ll have to check it out. But whatever happens, we’ve got to get an ID on make and model.”

  “Could take a lot of time.” Treebone said.

  “Time is all we have—for the moment,” Service told his friend, but his mind was on the Drazel women asking Treebone about limestone formations at his camp, and caves. Do they know there are two caves here, or just the upper one? Surely some people know about that one. Just doesn’t seem possible they could know about the lower cave system, so this is most likely about diamonds, not artifacts. If true, the questions the women asked Tree about caves and sinkholes on his property were not significant.

  Service recalled the last time he had dealt with diamonds in the U.P.; a Huey had been used to haul around a spheroid magnometer to take readings that computers could interpret as various natural resources. But there was no ball hanging under this fast-moving aircraft. Something’s different here.

  Treebone said, “Good thing your brain’s not fried from old age. You smelling some deep shit in all this?”

  Service nodded. “Maybe.”

  Back at the Slippery Creek Camp, Service told Dotz, “Do us all a favor and forget any of this happened. If a story develops, you will get the exclusive, only you.”

  “No problem,” Dotz said, grinning. “And thanks, guys.”

  What the . . . ? “Okay Ty, thanks. If you think of anything else, no matter how trivial, call me.”

  Dotz walked ten feet away, stopped and turned, said, “How could I forget, jousting!”

  “Jousting?” Service repeated the word.

  “Yah, knights of old and lances and shit like that?”

  “You’ve lost me Ty.”

  Dotz looked burdened. “Wait, wait: hummingbirds.”

  “Hummingbirds and jousting?”

  “The airplane, man. The bird, that thingey on its nose. Dotz picked up a stick, walked to the side of the driveway where there was dirt, and drew a crude picture.

  “Twin-engine hummingbird,” Service said. “Unique.”

  “Yessir, sorry I forgot that part.”

  “The aircraft had a long proboscis like your drawing?”

  “Like a big hummingbird but with a thingey on the end.”

  “A thingey on the end?”

  “Like a ball or a bulb or something, ya know?”

  “Draw it,” Service said, and the boy did, but neither he nor Treebone could work out what the boy was trying to tell them. How do you tell a kid that every fact could be critical and you can’t ever predict which fact will unlock the rest.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Sure,” Service said. “Thanks, we’ll be in touch.”

  “Wish I could have done more.”

  “This is a start, and you’ll get your chance for more. Investigations take time.”

  Allerdyce cackled at the boy. “Now don’t go wear seff out wit’ dat Balloons gal youse got.”

  “You are a sick and disgusting old man,” Dotz said, stomping away.

  Allerdyce looked at his companions. “What I say?”

  Service shook his head. “I’m hungry.”

  Allerdyce walked over to the side of the driveway. “Who draw dat pitcher in dirt?”

  “Dotz,” Treebone said.

  “Mine-diggy compys use da plane like dat pitcher with long nose,” Aller-dyce said.

  “Mine-diggy compys?” Service said. “Mining companies?”

  “Yah, dose make da mines deep down in da grounds.”

  “You know this how?”

  “I seen fly up, down Menominee.”

  “The county or the river?”

  “River.”

  “And you determined this thing was from a mine-diggy company?”

  “Ast my first cousin So-So. He work down airport Menominee. He say dere guys down dere, looking glow-rocks and got plane dere.”

  Treebone said, “Glow-rocks, as in uranium?”

  Allerdyce laughed and wagged a finger. “Yah, Uranus, glow-rock.”

  Part III: Beyond Boundaries

  Chapter 31

  Slippery Creek Camp

  Early in the morning, Treebone had run over to St. Ignace to fetch his camp ownership documents, in case they had to meet with the Drazel Sisters. He returned mid-afternoon spitting and frustrated.

  Treebone said, “Hey old man, come look at these photos.” He showed the old poacher the photos from his phone.

  Allerdyce looked, held up his chin, said, “Seen dem girlies down Skeeto when all dis crap start, hey.”

  Treebone said, “But Dotz says he saw different women, not the ones you guys saw, or the ones I met in Ford River, so what the hell is going on?”

  Service said, “We’re missing something.”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” Treebone said.

  Service said, “The women will be identified as we move on. Right now we need to verify Limpy’s claim on the aircraft.” He looked at Allerdyce. “Can you talk to your cousin in Menominee, get more information? If there’s a mine exploration company over there, what’s its name and does it have a plane hangered somewhere near there, or across the river in Wisconsin?”

  “Got no wheels,” Allerdyce said. At some point the old man’s truck had ended up back at his camp compound in southwestern Marquette County and he had been riding with Service since then.

  “Use the telephone,” Tree said.

  “Can’t see man’s eyes on phone.”

  “Use Skype,” Treebone said.

  “Dere ain’t no eyes up in sky,” Allerdyce said. “What wrong wit’ youses?”

  “You expecting your kin to lie if you can’t look him in the eye?” Treebone asked, continuing to press.

  “Eve’body lie sometime, cover ass, whatever.”

  Treebone flipped his truck keys to the old violator. “Bring it back in the same shape you drive it away.”

  Allerdyce chuckled and was gone.

  Tree watched the truck leave the camp, said, “At least he didn’t spin my skins.”

  “It’s a long road to Menominee,” Service teased his friend.

  “Don’t remind me. I ever scratch that truck, Kalina will skin me.”

  “I thought it was your truck?”

  “On paper, on paper. Kalina assumes moral ownership over all in the domain.”

  Service poured coffee for them. “Let’s call Dotz and tell him we want to see him here.”

  Service checked his watch. Friday would still be in the office if she was not out on a case or wrapped up in some paper jungle.

  She answered right away and greeted him with “Has your cell phone been dead?”

  “No, why?”

  “Coulda fooled me. Where are the Three Musketeers now?”

  “Tree and I are at camp and Limpy left a little while ago for Menominee.”

  “Fun aside, my dear,” she said. “There’s a lot of scuttlebutt on the float. Bozian, you, Lori, DNR management changes, nothing specific, but the one constant in whatever comes in is you and Lori’s increasing involvement.”

  “How’s our kid?”

  “Shitstorm hovering in the sky and you want to talk about Shigun?”

  “Can’t do anything about the weather. But then neither can paid weather forecasters.”

 
She laughed. “Rumor mill suggests that you alone are the human equivalent of political climate change.”

  “Not me. What climate change?”

  “People believe what they want, come down with the conspiracy virus, think they’re all Nostradamus, and they tend to follow whoever they think is going along the path they want to be on.”

  “I lead no one,” he said.

  She tsk-tsked him. “Word is out you have a shiny new badge,” she said.

  “Law enforcement is a sieve with secrets,” he told her.

  “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “It’s not you I worry about,” he said, “but the US Attorney’s office, I’ve got to say I have doubts.”

  “Think how they must feel having badged you. By the way, Shigun misses his big guy.”

  “He said that?”

  “No, but I know he’s thinking it.”

  “You can’t know.”

  “Sure I can. Mothers know everything about their kids. This mama also knows you need to find some time for a home visit,” she said.

  “Conjugally speaking?”

  “You’re such a romantic, Service. We’re not married. Remember?”

  “I forgot.”

  Friday laughed. “Liar, liar, yah conjugal, connubial, call it what you want.”

  “Probably overdue,” he said.

  “Seriously, how much longer is this dance gonna go on?”

  “No clue yet. I wish I knew.”

  “Me too,” she said. “My best to the boys.”

  “We’re hardly that,” Service said.

  “Do you well to keep that in mind before you guys try to act like eighteen-year-olds, Big Guy. I’ll hug Shigun for you.”

  “Keep your ear to the ground for more drums.”

  “Clear, Kemo Sabe.”

  Treebone said, “If cops needed wives, the agencies ought to be the ones issuing them.”

  “She’s not my wife,” Service said.

  “Why not?”

  He had no answer, had asked himself the same question many times.

  *****

  Dotz rolled in just in time for dinner: sweet citrus-marinated tofu on a bed of lettuce, peas and corn on the side, with pure black wild rice.

  “Come in and grab a seat, kid,” Treebone greeted the boy. “Them shiny things ’longside the plate are called eating utensils. Do not use yours like shovels. It will detract from your image and damage your chances of winning fair lady.”