Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  “Looking for Allerdyce.”

  “That’d make a snappy book title,” she quipped. “I thought he was attached to your hip these days.”

  “Right tense,” he told her. “I think he may be in the cave.”

  “The cave?”

  “Think so.”

  “Now that’s a surprise,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t you see his eyes when we were out here earlier?”

  Service tried to think back.

  She continued, “Every time he got near the cave opening, his eyes bulged like Ping-Pong balls and he started to hyperventilate. Every time he even looked at the cave opening, it looked like he was staring into a wolf’s maw.”

  He had not noticed any of this. Some hesitancy, even malingering, but what she was saying, no. “You think he’s afraid?”

  Wildingfelz said, “I think he’s scared shitless. I’m guessing he’s claustrophobic, which is a four-syllable word. Any time a four-syllable word gets into your system, you’ve got deep trouble.”

  “Yah,” he said, “Just like Sunshine syndrome.”

  “Shut up,” she said and poked his arm. “Why would he be here?”

  “I’m not sure,” Service said and pinched the ember off his cigarette.

  “Want me to lead?” she said. “Be easier for me to turn around if we get into a tight spot.”

  “Yah, good idea. How many lights did you bring?”

  “Headlamp with red-white alternates, three SureFires, one red-filter penlight, one green-filter penlight, two boxes of new nine volt batts, AA and AAA batts, and two extra SureFire bulbs. You?”

  “Same for all, but only one box of batts.”

  “Light’s not going to be our problem,” she said. “I’m going to strip off a layer and leave my overcoat outside the entrance. Have you got a full-size space blanket in your gear?”

  “In my pack.”

  “Good, two is good; let’s get this deal done.”

  He could feel her excitement and enthusiasm and, even more, her confidence.

  *****

  One hour later they halted at the main chamber. There had been boot marks in the dust up top, just inside the entrance where it dropped down to the rock path. Service recognized the pattern and showed his partner. “It’s him.”

  She aimed a red-filtered light onto the track for several seconds. “I’ve got him.”

  They spent five minutes at the main chamber for a quick bite of an energy bar, shared from her supply. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.

  The down-slope seemed worse than the first time he’d been down here, the angle and tight squeeze more extreme, but this was normal psychology. The second and third reps you always saw more. How does someone with claustrophobia even do this? If I feel it confining, Allerdyce must be near out of his mind. Why in the world is he down here, crazy old coot?

  Another forty minutes and Wildingfelz said, “Probable nadir. I hear water. This is where that steep drop is. I almost took a flier here last time down.”

  “We still have a track?” he asked.

  “Yeah, he came down here for sure, on his hands and knees in some places. You want me to keep pushing downward?”

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure he’s here, it’s just a matter of catching up to him.” He wanted to add alive, but didn’t dare say it out loud.

  “How long of a lead does he have?” Wildingfelz asked.

  “Hours, many hours.”

  “Are we in a foot pursuit?” she asked.

  “No . . . maybe . . . I don’t know. Let’s find him first and then we’ll figure out what to call this.”

  “Well, the damn cave can go only so far, right?”

  “Theoretically.”

  “Caution at this next descent. Let me find a safe way down for us.”

  He sat and waited in total darkness, but could hear her shuffling and moving around ahead and below him. After a minute or so she said, “Grady, crawl directly to my voice.”

  He did as she asked and felt a tap on the top of his head. “That’s good. Hold here.”

  He could feel a light cooler air current, presumably from below. She had her red light turned on; he could see the beam dancing and make out her silhouette in front of him.

  “Okay, here we go,” Wildingfelz said softly. “Crawl forward and keep your right shoulder against the rock wall. When you get to the end, you can feel it with your hands. There’s a ledge, maybe three feet wide, but it’s down from where you are maybe five or six inches. Keep your right shoulder along the wall and crawl toward me. I’ll be at the next steep spot. Once you’re ninety degrees right, use the wall to stand. The chute will be right in front of us, off our left eyes. I’ll go first.”

  Her red light bobbed again, and fifteen seconds later she said, “This is a piece of cake, partner. Just don’t crawl straight off because it’s a helluva long drop to the bottom. There’s heaps of space ahead, okay?”

  “Yeah, good.”

  “Okay, do it.”

  It was precisely as she had described. When he got to his feet she snapped on her red light. “Keep going,” he said, feeling a need to rush cautiously.

  They made their way down the steep trail and heard a wobbly voice say, “What took youses so bloody long?”

  Allerdyce. Service was so startled he banged his head on a rocky outcrop. He tried to figure out where the voice had come from, but Wildingfelz was already on it.

  “So there you are,” she said calmly. Her red light lit the old man.

  Service saw blood on his hands and face, his right leg twisted in an unnatural direction, his right arm too, nauseating angles. “Fall down on my ass,” Allerdyce cackled.

  Service turned on his red headlamp. His partner was kneeling beside Allerdyce, quietly assessing injuries, calmly asking him questions and cracking jokes. Her voice was as relaxed as a mother would be with a baby. “Are you feeling lightheaded, Mr. Allerdyce?” she asked him.

  “Wah, onny when youse touch me, girlie. Okay youse call me Limpy.”

  “He’s fine,” Service said. “Allerdyce, the officer’s name is Wildingfelz, not girlie. Show some damn respect. She crawled all the way down here to help your sorry ass.” The old snake. Only way to kill him is chop off his ugly little head.

  Wildingfelz stood and leaned over him. “Pupils enlarged but not bad, his skin isn’t cool to the touch, he’s not light-headed. Double bone fracture in the lower right arm, single bone in the right leg, no compound stuff, no poke-throughs, the head stuff is superficial, but it’s gonna be a long-ass haul out of here and I want him splinted before we even begin. I think there’s some light shock. I’ll have to pop back to the top. He’s in no immediate danger.”

  Allerdyce had the pain threshold of a reptile. Service said, “Might as well bring Tree when you go back to your truck. He’ll be waiting there for you. We can use his muscle and bulk down here.”

  “We’ll get your friend warm in space blankets and get some liquid into him. You guys can make tea on your jet burner while I’m up top. I’ve got a tump-line and a pull strap in my JoBox. With Tree above and you and me below, this should be a straightforward deal.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Positive thinking; you should try it.”

  “Like Custer,” he said, and she stuck him with an elbow.

  “Wait,” Allerdyce said. “Over my head put to wall da light, yah?”

  Service shone a beam where the old man directed. “Something shiny?”

  “Yah, dat’s what I come get, but forget dat stupid right turn up dere.”

  “What happened to your claustrophobia?” Service asked.

  “Fall knock dat shit right outten me. Own damn fault fall. Afeared of dark? Tell self I ain’t no kittle no more.”

  “Any drops between me and
the shiny object?” Service asked.

  “Clear as new whore’s heart,” Allerdyce mumbled.

  “You have a gift for words,” Wildingfelz told him. “You’re just like Shakespeare.”

  “I know dat,” Allerdyce said, “but t’anks, Officer Wildingfelz.”

  Service came back with a dust-encrusted small metal box and rubbed the dust off a metal plate on top of the box riveted under a metal handle. It read: SERVICE, G. Next to it, the old man’s badge number, the same badge number he’d worn before being suspended.

  “Open ’er up, ain’t got no lock,” Allerdyce said.

  “How do you know?” Service asked.

  “Cause I put ’er der, din’t I.”

  Jesus. “When?”

  “Be nineteen and fiffy-seben, I’d say. Open ’er up Sonny.”

  “I’m out of here,” Wildingfelz said. “Leaving my extra water. Will do this as fast as I can.”

  “Not yet,” Allerdyce said to her. “Got take look-see, you, be witness.”

  Service guessed the box was fourteen inches by nine by five, the top shaped sort of like an old Dutch barn. An old iron miner’s lunch box? There was an unsealed envelope inside. He pulled it apart and took out two folded documents, folded so long they seemed pressed together. The top one was in his father’s chicken-scrawl: “For G. Service, My Son and Heir.” It was signed “G. Service.” The second document robbed him of words. He handed it to Wildingfelz.

  “I think this says you own some land, right?” his young partner said.

  “Not some,” Allerdyce corrected her. “Dis land ’ere we in. Now Sonny’s she is, ever’t’ing under da ground ’ere is ’is.”

  Where the hell to begin? “Harmony, boogey. Go get Tree. The sooner you get back the sooner we can get him out of here.”

  After she departed and was climbing back toward the surface, Service exploded at the old man. “You son of a bitch, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” Service said sharply to Allerdyce. “You assaulted and hog-tied a woman.”

  “Did not. Look my nose. She head-butt me when she open door. What I gonna do? Den I worry she do bad to Miss Molly so I head-butt ’er back and use da ducks tape to shut ’er big mout’ up. I din’t do nottin’ but defend seff.”

  “And,” Service said, banging the metal lunch pail.

  “Nuttin’ funny dere. Molly Staff she buy land to keep from Elder. Youse’s old man, he say, ‘Sell me mineral rights?’ Old Wally, he real sick den, ask, ‘What youse gonna do with that useless crap?’ Your daddy said, ‘Let the land sleep, like it ought. No good somebody own top and bottom unless it be da state.’ Old Wally Staff he bray like da mule got lucky, said, ‘I’d be insane to turn down an offer like that,’ stuck out hand, say, ‘Youse got deal, Gibby.’”

  “What’s Molly Staff’s connection?”

  “She marry jamoke called Cloud. I know her when she little girl. Pretty red hair like strawberry.”

  “Molly Staff is Molly Stafinski,” Service said. He’d already heard this from Marthesdottir.

  “No,” Allerdyce said. “Her name is Ellie Stafinski, but she like dat name Molly more better.”

  Service felt his heart jump. E. Stafinski, Ellie Stafinski. Wally Staff’s heir. Holy shit.

  “What was my old man thinking?”

  “Youse know what near ’ere, yah?”

  “The old man knew about the diamonds?”

  “Back since he was kid, and kep mout’ shut.”

  “But he showed you.”

  “Yah, partners don’t hide nuttin fum each udder.”

  “So you tell your partner, but hide it from your son?”

  “He’d a told youse when old enough. Too young kittle don’t know when to keep da mouts shut.”

  Speechless. “Why’s the lunch box down here?”

  “Youse old man, he tell me take box bank up Gwinn, and I want do dat but had udder stuff do down ’ere and so I put ’ere, tell seff come back later, take to bank.”

  “Yet here it remains.”

  “Couldn’t make seff climb back down. When youse’s old man die, too sad come down ’ere widout him. I t’ink, if it down ’ere, dat good enough as bank an’ I tell youse when time get right, hey.”

  “What if you had kicked the bucket before you told me?”

  Allerdyce said, “Youse bring eats? Limpy hungry.”

  “But what if you’d been hit by lightning, a jealous husband, or a truck?”

  Allerdyce said softly, “Weren’t none a dat stuff, was I? See if all stuff unnerground is youses and dis down ’ere safe, ain’t no way udder jamoke can say ’is deres, hey? Dis place down ’ere good as safety report box.”

  “Did you think about what would happen if somebody forged fake papers?”

  One word response. “Wah.”

  “You have broken bones, don’t they hurt?”

  “Not if I get foods. Youse bring lunch?”

  Wah, Grady Service thought.

  Chapter 41

  Houghton

  Houghton County

  The offices of White, Kobera, Moody, Moody, and O’Halloran were located in the upper warrens of the Douglass House, the longtime hotel reborn in the late eighties as a commercial building on Shelden Street in downtown Houghton.

  Allerdyce was in the hospital in Marquette in fair condition, which was just short of a miracle. One of the doctors had remarked, “At his age he should be en route to eternal dust.” Instead of dead or dying, he was undergoing tests to assess other damage due to the cave fall. On a closer look, they estimated he fell just more than thirty feet. Service, Wildingfelz, and Treebone all kept the location and details of the fall site to themselves, and when they left the old poacher at the hospital, he was wide awake and making lewd comments to nursing staff.

  He’d talked to Frosty O’Halloran as they were racing toward Marquette with their victim. They dared not call EMS for fear of disclosing the deep cave. Wildingfelz had given Allerdyce a thorough on-site assessment once they had him out, and she had been confident they could get him to the hospital without killing him or aggravating his injuries.

  O’Halloran had not been happy to be awakened, but she rallied quickly and assured him she would clear a two-hour block for discussion. “Can you be here at ten? Bring all the paperwork you have on this case, including the metal box.”

  With what remained of the night, he, Tree, and Wildingfelz crashed at Friday’s house where he immediately realized that Tuesday and Harmony had met before.

  Service packed notes and other material in a cardboard box before he turned in for the night, and had it all done when he noticed the rough diagram that Dotz had drawn of the overflight tracks. He looked at the thing for nearly a minute. His gut searched for an answer in the scribbles. But it didn’t or wouldn’t come, and he went to bed and crawled in beside Friday, who grumbled, “Don’t steal the covers.”

  “Hey,” he said. “You and my new partner, have you been talking?”

  “Gawd,” she said, and rolled over, giving him her back.

  So they had, which explained some of Wildingfelz’s aggression. She’d been well coached.

  *****

  A twenty-something woman with pixied purple, green, red, and white hair and multiple piercings showed them into a conference room. The girl’s scrawny arms were replete with ornate tattoos. He wondered if the tattoo needles had struck bone. If she loses her job here, she’ll be a shoe-in for a carnival sideshow. He dumped the contents of the investigation out of the briefcase and looked at the clues, which at this point amounted to an unfinished puzzle. Tree carried the metal lunch box and its precious contents. Service stared at all the items on the table, and it seemed something was missing. He groped in his trouser pocket and found Dotz’s crumpled drawing. He dropped it on the table just as he heard an aircraft’s jet turbines howl overhead
. It was rare to hear aircraft this close to the city. He asked the tattooed girl, “What’s with the jet?”

  “Wind’s like different today or something, and they have to like land on like a different runway?” The wind, he’d noted walking from the truck to the Douglass House, was brisk out of the northeast, or close to it. Aircraft land into the wind. They can fly with the wind, or against it, but to land, the pilot has to put the nose into the wind. He found himself remembering Dotz’s drawing. Damn thing is telling me something, but I’m too stupid to hear it.

  Treebone took the materials out of the foot-long metal box and set them on the conference room table. He took the envelope out of the metal box and set that in front of a place they prepared for their attorney.

  Miss Tattoo wheeled a video monitor over to the table and set down a laptop computer. “It’s all set up. Do you guys know how to manage a Skype connection?” She looked skeptical.

  Treebone said, “I got this. My Kalina and me talk this way all the time.” He sat down to make the link.

  Connection made, they saw Wildingfelz with Allerdyce in his hospital room. “Can you guys see all right?” the tattooed girl asked. “Volume all right?”

  Tree said, “We’re good to go, just waiting for the lawyer.”

  “You guys want me out of the room?” the girl asked.

  “Hold tight for now,” Service told her.

  Frosty O’Halloran strode in, said nothing to anyone, sat down, looked first at the pile of various notes and papers, then to the envelope in front of where she sat. She opened the envelope, took out the two papers and opened them, and read. Her jaw seemed to sink as she read. She put on her glasses. “Gibson . . . Service?”

  “My father,” Service said.

  “This is rich,” she said with a snort. “Your father bought the mineral rights in question? How ironic, how fortunate, how absolutely downright handy. Do I look like I just fell off a turnip truck?”

  Service understood her frustration. He’d already been down this lane. He said only, “It’s real.”

  Frosty O’Halloran rolled her eyes. “And how long have said papers been in your possession?”