Chasing a Blond Moon

by Joseph Heywood

  “Not a problem,” the boy said, glanced at the girl and added, “Yeah.”

  “Hug,” Nantz said, reaching out her arms.

  Service watched them embrace. “We’ll come get you Friday night.”

  “Cool by me,” Walter said.

  Nantz poked Service in the back. He held out his hand. Walter shook it, his grip like a limp fish.

  “He’s gonna be okay,” Nantz said on their way down the stairs.

  “No problem,” Service said. “What kind of fucking English is that?”

  “Nouveau cool,” Nantz said. “That girl is gorgeous. They’re together. Did you pick up on that?”

  Service didn’t want to think about it. His first girlfriend in college had been Paige Quatrine, from St. Paul, Minnesota. In those days the university had separate dorms for male and female students. He copped a rink key from an equipment manager and early Sunday mornings used to take Paige to the equipment room, which had a bed and a shower, both of which they used regularly for nearly six months. The relationship never grew. It was strictly about sex and eventually Paige had drifted off with a senior mining student, married him after her freshman year, and moved to Alaska.

  “Wouldn’t it be something if we just met Walter’s future wife?” Nantz said.

  “Rein it in,” Service said.

  That night in their bed Nantz lay with her arms wrapped around his neck, snuggling close. “You did pretty good today,” she said.

  “He was pissed at me.”

  “It’s just a bump in the road. He’s glad you made the decision.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “I just could, and eventually you will too.”

  “He had already delayed our getting to Betty’s. Was I supposed to take him to lunch while we talked?”

  “Remember, his mother felt left out by your focus on the job. She probably told him about it, so he’s trying to find out where he fits into your priorities.”

  “At the top,” he said.

  “Just keep remembering that,” she said, giving him a lingering wet kiss and sliding out from under the covers.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To pull my cork,” she said. “I started my period last night.”

  When she got back under the covers she said, “Now, where were we?”

  After making love she went back into the bathroom, brought out a warm washcloth and handed it to him. “It freaked me out, that old man smelling my period.”

  “He was just playing with your mind.”

  “I don’t think he plays, Grady. He gave me the creeps.”

  He knew better than to argue with her feelings.

  “You want to go again?” she asked.

  “No problem,” he said, running his hand up her leg.

  “You,” she said, pressing against him, adding, “I’m not kidding about Trapper Jet, Grady. I don’t trust him at all.”

  3

  Walter had been at the college three days and had not called home, which bugged Grady Service. He had gone into Gladstone to gas up his truck at the Happy Rock Shell station, and when he pulled into the driveway he saw Maridly Nantz and Nathaniel “She-Guy” Zuiderveen sitting on the back steps, talking animatedly. Their dog, Newf, was pushed up close to the man, demanding noogies. The dog was a female Canary Island mastiff, a breed developed in Spain to protect cattle and known there as Presa Canario. She was one hundred thirty pounds and all muscle, but she looked like a lap dog against the man petting her. Zuiderveen was a retired state trooper and three-year offensive tackle for the Miami Dolphins. He was dressed in his signature costume: form-fitting black jumpsuit, above-the-knee black leather boots with three-inch heels (which made him six-foot-nine), gaudy leather Dolphins jacket, and a sequined baseball cap proclaiming proud to be a sissy.

  “You hitting on my woman, Nathaniel?” Service greeted the man.

  Zuiderveen grinned. “I’ve got enough people wanting to kick my ass.”

  “With those boots, they’d need a stepladder,” Service said. “Is this social or business? I expected you’d be gearing up for the season.” Zuiderveen had retired from the state police, begun dressing like a woman, and had become a bear outfitter. People were unsure of his sexuality and called him “She-Guy,” but always behind his back. At six-foot-six and two-fifty, he was an imposing figure with a legendary temper and strength to match. Despite his eccentricities he was considered one of the top guides in the Upper Peninsula, booked two years in advance. Grady Service had known him for ten years.

  “How’s the season shaping up?” Service asked.

  Zuiderveen shrugged and moved his hand away from Newf, who immediately poked his hand with her massive snout, demanding continued attention. “Probably be okay,” the bear guide said.

  Nantz went inside and came back with two beers. “You boys want to move inside?”

  “Outside’s fine,” Zuiderveen said.

  “Too chilly for me,” Nantz countered.

  “Mind over matter,” Zuiderveen said. “And warm duds.”

  The retired Troop took a long pull on his beer and belched quietly. He was usually ebullient, the center of any gathering, but today he seemed pensive.

  “Everything okay?” Service asked.

  “If you don’t count the fact they don’t make pantyhose in my size and that some scum-fuck is stealing bears, things are just peachy.”

  “I don’t care about your pantyhose problems. What about the bears?”

  “You didn’t hear about Bearclaw?”

  “We saw her last weekend. What about her?”

  “She had a culvert trap out for a troublemaker over by Victoria and found it empty.”

  “Traps are empty more than filled,” Service said.

  “There had been a bear in this one, only it was open and gone when Betty got to it.”

  “When was this?”

  “Monday night. An old boar has been marauding camps. She wanted to trap and move him.”

  “She didn’t report it.”

  “I was with her,” Zuiderveen said. “She thinks it just got out.”

  “But you think differently.”

  “No evidence,” the big man said, tapping his nose. “Just this.”

  “You know how smart bears are. Some of them just can’t be trapped. Why tell me?”

  “You’re the guy-in-a-tie, and you know damn well that no bear is smart enough to get out of a culvert set once it’s inside.” Guys-in-ties was the sometime term for detectives.

  “I don’t hear anything to detect.” Bearclaw was the best when it came to trapping black bears.

  “This isn’t the first culvert trap to be sprung,” Zuiderveen said.

  “Yeah?”

  “No shit, yeah.”

  “What about others?”

  Zuiderveen grunted and chugged the remainder of his beer. “I’ve said my piece.”

  Service understood. Bear guides were highly competitive and some—like She-Guy and Griff Stinson out of McMillan—were fanatics about following the rules. Other guides were not, especially once the season began for running bears with dogs. But even Zuiderveen and Stinson wouldn’t rat on other guides. It was part of the strange code of the often zany outfitters. “Griff have similar suspicions?”

  “Could be,” She-Guy said.

  “What about Dowdy Kitella?”

  “Fuck that little psychotic piece of shit,” Zuiderveen said, spitting out the name like it was poison. “He ever touches my baits, he’ll end up as bait.”

  It was not a threat Service took seriously. For all his reputation, She-Guy was essentially a gentle giant who loved to hunt bears. “Thanks for dropping by,” Service said. “I’ll give Bearclaw a call, see what she has to say.”

  “Push ’er a bit,” Zuiderveen said. “She doesn’t thin
k it’s a big deal.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Service said, watching the giant amble to his truck and back out of the driveway.

  Early the next morning Service and Nantz were in the garage doing their morning weight regimen. “Do you think Nathaniel is on to something?” she asked as he spotted for her.

  “Maybe. He had to be pretty worked up to come all the way over here from Baraga.”

  “If a bear gets into a trap and it’s faulty, it can get out, right?”

  “Sure, if it was faulty, but Betty doesn’t use faulty traps. She’s the best at using culverts and she’s got a whole range of baits. She wanted to, she could go into business making them. If an animal was in her trap it’s not likely it got out because the trap failed.”

  Service left her doing push-ups and sit-ups and went up to the bathroom to shower. When he came back down she was still at it.

  Nantz followed him out to the truck and gave him a kiss.

  She kissed him again. “See you tonight, babe.”

  “Count on it.”

  The office was fifty miles north of Gladstone, just outside Marquette, and Service found Captain Ware Grant staring north out at Lake Superior when he knocked on the doorjamb and stepped into his boss’s office. Grant was the senior law enforcement officer for the Department of Natural Resources in the Upper Peninsula. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Service pulled out a chair at the captain’s small round conference table and sat.

  “That body of the Tech professor?” The captain began.

  Service nodded. Why was the captain bringing this up?

  “The preliminary shows evidence of a large dose of cyanide in the victim’s blood. The medical examiner has ruled it a homicide, but they are not releasing this to the media yet.”

  Service knew that homicides were not the responsibility of DNR law enforcement. He also knew better than to try to guess where the captain’s peculiar mind was taking him.

  “You saw a package of chocolate-covered figs in the refrigerator at the victim’s home? Some of them were laced with cyanide.”

  “Figs,” Service said. “Not your usual murder weapon.”

  “It’s more complex than that. What interests us is that the package containing the figs also contained two freeze-dried bear galls.”

  “What about the hair samples from the scat?”

  “Rose Lake sent them on to Fish and Wildlife Forensics in Oregon.”

  Fish and Wildlife was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency charged with overseeing the nation’s fish and game interests. Their forensics laboratory in Oregon was top-notch, but slow in responding to most state requests.

  “Why?” Service asked.

  “Rose Lake couldn’t identify the samples other than to confirm they are ursine.”

  “This could be a tough one,” Service said. There had been bear poachers off and on in the U.P. for years, but they were difficult to nail. “I don’t like bringing Fish and Wildlife into this so early.”

  “We’re not. Rose Lake told them the hairs were gathered during a vacation and they wanted ID as a favor. Right now the whole thing is scientist to scientist.”

  “That will take forever,” Service said.

  “Once we have more evidence, we can change the nature of the request.”

  As usual, Captain Grant was thinking ahead.

  The captain added, “Officer Turnage asked if you might be available to assist him. The two gallbladders are enough for me to make this your case, but you two can decide how you want to handle it.”

  “Figs,” Service said, shaking his head.

  “You understand what the freeze-dried gallbladders signify.”

  “Yes.” It meant poachers. The main markets for bear parts were in Asia. The dead man was Korean and Korea was one of the largest markets. Service wondered if the professor’s work gave him access to cyanide.

  The captain said, “We’re in agreement. If we make a solid case in this arena, it will go a long way toward discouraging similar incursions.”

  Service understood. Some watchdog groups claimed that global trafficking in animal parts was second only to narcotics in profitability, a fact that seemed to escape the attention of the media or maybe they were as dubious as he was. It was hard to believe that such a market was real and global in nature. “I’ll let Gus know I’m on my way.”

  At the doorway, Service stopped. “The homicide belongs to the police. We’re only concerned with the gallbladders.” Service had been involved in four murders and a fatal police shooting in less than a year and the captain had reminded him more than once that homicide was outside their brief.

  The captain smiled. “Bravo, Detective. Let me know what you fellows find.”

  Service said, “Cap’n, I heard yesterday that Betty Very thinks somebody released a bear from one of her traps.”

  “She is studying it,” the captain said. “No conclusion has been drawn.”

  “Have there been other trap incidents?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “I think I’ll give Bearclaw a call.”

  “Suit yourself,” the captain said, snatching a sheaf of reports from his in-basket.

  Grady Service fully intended to call on Gus in Houghton and to make contact with Betty Very in Ontonagon, but instead found himself drawn east to the small community of Ridge near Munising, which was forty miles east and out of his way. It was early September with soothing sunny days now and cooling nights. It wouldn’t be long before autumn snapped into place and the air took on a bite.

  He stopped at the long driveway up to the massive house, took a deep breath, and drove up the half-mile-long paved driveway lined with maple trees. At the end of the driveway there was a loop and a large new house made of cedar logs. The lawn around the house was carefully manicured and cut.

  Ralph Scaffidi was in his seventies. He was short and slightly built with silver hair, a deep tan, and alert brown eyes. Before Service could get out of the truck the man was down the steps of the house and grinning.

  “Your timing is impeccable,” Scaffidi said. “The brookies are in full spawning colors. I was just going out back to the pond to give them a little aerobic exercise. We’ll have our espresso down there.”

  Service didn’t object and followed Scaffidi through the cavernous house. The man’s background was murky. A year ago Service had met him while he was investigating a case and the old man had taken to him. Rumor had it that he was a retired mobster—perhaps banished to the U.P.—but Tree had done some checking on the man and learned that he was a CPA who had done work for the mob, but was not a made man. At one time Scaffidi had been linked to Jimmy Hoffa’s legendary disappearance, but the FBI had never been able to find any evidence and eventually decided that the Mafia family in New Jersey had floated Scaffidi’s name as a red herring. The FBI told Tree that Scaffidi had gotten fed up after the New Jersey mob’s little game, closed his business and moved to the Upper Peninsula. Still, the old man always had three or four muscular young men around him, presumably his bodyguards.

  The word was that Ralph Scaffidi could have been a world-class diplomat. He had a steel-trap mind and the demeanor of Mister Rogers.

  Having reached the pond Service saw that Scaffidi had done more work on it, adding a sluice on both ends. Service could see a gravel bottom between the two sluices. There were large, dark shapes darting and jockeying for position on the gravel. The water level in the pond was usually seven or eight feet deep, but the level was down to three feet now.

  Scaffidi handed Service a rod. “Five-weight. Try not to pick off the females,” he warned.

  Service watched the fish. The females could be seen cleaning gravel, their sides flashing in the mid-morning light. The males were lined up behind them like cars in a freigh
t train. Service saw that his host had tied a small orange yarn egg on the tippet, and added a couple of split shot to get the egg down.

  Ralph Scaffidi bowed and smiled. “After you, Detective.”

  His first cast was close, but the males darted out of the way of the egg bouncing along the bottom. His second cast was better and a male brookie swung over a foot and took the egg; Service lifted the rod and gave it a sharp snap to set the hook and the fish started to fight.

  Scaffidi sat at a fancy lawn table and sipped espresso.

  The brookie charged all over the place. It took ten minutes to bring it to the edge of the pond, extract the yarn egg, and release the fish with the gaudy orange belly and green vermiculations on its back. It was a wild fish, better than two pounds, not the sort that you often found anymore in U.P. waters.

  Fish released, Service sat down and rubbed lemon peel around the rim of his small cup and tasted the bitter coffee.

  “Nice?” Scaffidi asked.

  “Terrific. Italian?”

  The old man’s eyes twinkled. “I met a gentleman from El Salvador. He does this especially for me, which costs, but it’s worth it, right? What brings you over on such a beautiful September morning?”

  “I heard that the global poaching of animal parts is second only to drugs in profitability. You know anything about that?”

  Scaffidi made a face. “Scumbags makin’ a profit off endangered animals. You know that two of the world’s eight bear species are damned near extinct, with another on the brink? What’s that about? For money!”

  “It’s true?”

  The old man shrugged and slowly shook his head. “The Asian mobs are run by psychos. The families here, they don’t get involved.”

  “But Asians don’t exactly blend into the Upper Peninsula.”

  Scaffidi laughed. “They hire people who blend. This isn’t the business of the families’ personnel, you understand, but something done by punks and losers. The Asians got it organized down to the dime. Hunters acquire, sell to a middleman who, in turn, collects from several hunters and sells to a distributor on the coast. With bear populations dropping in Asia, the gangs have moved to North America. Most of them are in Canada and Alaska, but they work the other states too, if they can find the right deal.”