Chasing a Blond Moon

by Joseph Heywood

“Be careful.”

  “Count on it. See you later tonight. Tell Gutpile I’ll give him a call, and say hi to Vince for me.”

  “I almost forgot,” she said. “You also had a call from Sheena Grinda.”

  “What’s with her?”

  “Said she found a bear with cable wrapped around its neck. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Dead?”

  “No, alive, but she sounds uptight. Tell Candi no poaching my man.”

  Elza “Sheena” Grinda was an extremely self-contained officer. It was unusual for her to call anyone and he had not gotten around to contacting her. A bear with cable around its neck?

  “How’s Nantz?” McCants asked as he eased back beside her.

  “She says no poaching her man,” Service said.

  “I rest my case,” the younger officer said. “Married in her mind. Got her claim all staked out.”

  Service waited calmly. If Bryce Verse came out of the trailer, they would be ready for him. Experience had taught him to respect fear and wear it like an outer skin attuned to threats and acting like an early warning system. Just about everything he’d done in his life entailed various degrees of ­physical risk—hockey, the USMC, state police, DNR—but physical risk alone rarely activated his early warning system. Physical risk was more a matter of applying a skill to the challenge. If any fear persisted for him, it was the fear of not acting, rather than trepidation over results. In this way, it was like regret—which for him grew only out of things not done.

  McCants slid over to him. “We’ve already got the stolen veek,” she said. “If we want to get Verse with weapons in possession, we need to take him inside. He could claim he didn’t know they were there. I wish I could look in his truck.”

  “Still too light,” Service said.

  McCants got to her knees. “I’m going to look around, see if there are other two-tracks out this way. If there’s only the one road and he’s not spooked, he’ll come out the way he came in.”

  It didn’t matter how many roads there were, Service told himself. They were not going to let Verse get to the blue truck. Service watched her move away in a low crawl. The first time he’d worked with her they had stopped three snaggers. One of them had swung his rod at her and buried a one-ounce lead silver spider deep in her cheek. She had not hesitated or backed off, but tackled the man and took him down with blood running down her face. She still had a small scar.

  While McCants scouted, he sat so he could keep an eye on the trailer and thought about recent events, starting with Walter. Why had Bathsheba not told him about their son? He told himself if he had made an attempt to maintain even a superficial relationship with his ex-wife, he might have found out about him sooner. Something not done: regret.

  He cautioned himself to keep his mind on the trailer and what might be inside, but his mind kept wandering back to other things.

  Ralph Scaffidi was perplexing: wholly harmless on a superficial level, but there was always something deeper and more sinister just below the surface. Still, he felt attracted to the man. Was Magic Wan part of something real, a lead worth following? This whole bear thing was a lot of nothing so far. Hairs in a car, galls mixed with poisoned figs, some game-playing among guides, a couple of empty traps, old Trapper Jet up to something . . . None of it amounted to anything he could really work with, which was not unusual, but lack of hard evidence and direction always irritated him. And now there was possibly a bear-napper with access to drugs, meaning a link to a vet? And Grinda had a bear with a steel cable around its neck. Were any of these things connected? Was the peculiar informer right—were these symptoms of an international bear parts ring moving in?

  McCants returned right at last light. “We’ve got a good one,” she said, her voice tight, words clipped. “Windows blacked out, crawled under the trailer, coffee filters stained red, dozens of empty boxes of Nyquil, evidence of dry ice, a cylinder of liquid ammonia, and a box of empty twenty-pound propane tanks. Behind the trailer, empty case of lithium batteries,” she said, finally stopping to catch her breath. “You know what this means?” she asked him.

  “Drugs,” he said.

  “Meth lab,” she said, “Your basic Beavis and Butthead operation. The lithium batteries tell me they’re making Nazi meth.”

  “How do you know?”

  “In-service last summer while you were on suspension. Didn’t you read the lit? It was put in your mailbox. We pretty much shut down Cat up here; now crank is moving in.” Cat was methcathinone, a homebrewed amphetamine-like drug made from battery acid, Drano, and nonprescription asthma meds. It had emerged in the U.P. in 1990 and five years later had spread to ten states, as far west as Colorado.

  Service had been so caught up in life with Maridly Nantz that he had barely glanced at the information that had accumulated during his suspension.

  “We need backup,” McCants said.

  “Shouldn’t we look inside first?” he asked.

  “That would be nice, but Grady, the shit laying around here can add up to only one conclusion.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Call help.” He immediately regretted saying anything because it sounded like he was her superior, approving her actions and giving orders, which was not the way it was.

  “I’m going to bring them in quiet and dark,” McCants said. “A lot of these meth cooks are also users. What we don’t need is a tweaker. After a while users go paranoid and don’t react well to anything they might misinterpret.”

  While McCants withdrew to use radio, Service decided to take a closer look at the trailer.

  Slithering on his belly, the first thing he noticed was the stench—like there were a thousand pissing cats living in the trailer. The debris was as Candi had described it, but there was also a pile of deer viscera and a rancid skin crumpled against the side of the trailer skirt.

  He got carefully to his feet and checked the windows of the camper. Blackened, as she said, but the paint was on the outside of the glass, not the interior. Why? He used his fingernail to peel a tiny hole in the paint and look inside. The paint had not been on the glass long. A naked man was standing beside a table filled with clear mason jars. A naked teenage girl stood beside him, wearing a small revolver in a holster. A jam box was blasting. The man had long hair down to middle of his back. Blurred tattoos covered his right shoulder and upper arm. Another blurred tat was on his right buttock. It looked like a name, but he couldn’t make it out. When the girl turned to stare at the window, he dropped to the ground and crawled away from the trailer.

  McCants was there when he slid back into their hidey hole. “Help’s rolling,” she said. “ETA, twenty minutes. They’re bringing the drug and hazmat teams—and Grady, they want us to wait.”

  “Not a problem,” Service said, the words bringing a grin to his face.

  “What’s so funny?” McCants asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Should one of us go greet the posse?”

  “No. The Troops will give us a bump on the eight hundred.”

  “Looked to me like they’re making something in there right now,” Service told her. “You smell cat piss?”

  “That’s the ammonia,” she said. “I hope they’re not using while they’re cooking,” she added somberly.

  “Is there a plate on the trailer?” he asked.

  McCants scowled. “I didn’t notice.”

  Service was adding charges in his head. The more they had, the better to stick Verse with and hold him against bail. Failure to report to his PO within forty-eight hours, stolen vehicle, paroled felon in possession of firearms, adult with and giving intoxicants to minor girls, maybe a drug lab, an illegal deer—the charges were stacking up. By the looks of Verse, he’d not surrender easily. Too much to lose.

  Time passed slowly. The trailer continued to shake under the barrage of music, the bass thumping like the h
eart of a giant beast.

  “Five minutes,” Service said, checking his watch.

  “The sooner the better,” McCants whispered.

  There was a sharp crack and the tinkling of glass. Both COs tensed. “Shot,” McCants said. “Move!”

  Service was on his feet and advancing before he could think through the situation. McCants had been a good officer since he’d first met her, always charging into trouble, never pausing to cogitate.

  “Only one door,” she said as they jogged forward. “Both of us on the front side, one to an end,” she said.

  When they reached the trailer she took one end and he took the other. Two more shots cracked and the music stopped. Silence overwhelmed the scene.

  The front door flew open, slapping sharply against the side of the trailer.

  “You crazy fucking bitch!” a male voice keened angrily. “What is your fucking problem, man!”

  “You said you’d do me first,” a female voice answered. “Me. But you did her first!”

  “Dude, you were cooking,” the man said, his voice part defiance, part pleading.

  “You promised,” the girl said resolutely. “You do me, then you do her. That was the deal, man!”

  “You shot the bitch,” the man said.

  Another gunshot sounded and the man toppled out the door and hit the ground hard on his back. The girl appeared in the opening, a revolver in both hands. The man tried to crawl away, but collapsed face down and stopped moving.

  The girl raised the pistol over her head. “I shot the fucking monster, the monster is fucking dead!” she screamed.

  The girl was naked, and no more than a kid. Lethal force was called for, but Service hesitated at drawing his weapon. He looked toward McCants but it was dark and he couldn’t see her. He tried to listen in the direction of the farmhouse and barn, but heard nothing. Still no posse, goddamn them.

  “I’m gonna cut the fucking monster’s head off!” the girl said. Service recognized the tone: pure fear, driven by adrenaline and anger. He had heard this too many times in Vietnam to forget it.

  “Oh shit!” another female voice said. Then, “Oh, just fuck!”

  The girl in the door turned back to the inside.

  “You supposed to be dead,” the shooter said, her tone almost one of curiosity.

  “You shot my tit, man!” the other girl said loudly.

  “You did my man,” the shooter said calmly.

  “You watched,” the other one said in her own defense. “What’s the deal, man? We both been doing him, ya know?”

  “Me first,” the shooter said. “You went out of turn. We had a deal,” she argued.

  Service didn’t dare move. Too far to go with the light shining out of the trailer. He hoped Candi was closer.

  Another shot cracked and there was a scream, but the shooter suddenly came windmilling and flailing out of the trailer. McCants had the girl by a leg and was wrestling with her. Service jumped on the pile.

  Candi was trying to pin the girl, but she was fighting and wild.

  Service felt something hard strike him in the upper left arm, but got hold of one of the girl’s hands and twisted it behind her. Candi had the other arm and cuffed the wrists. The two of them lay still for a second, breathing hard, not talking. The girl cursed, her words muffled because her face was pushed into the grass.

  A flash of light burst from the open door of the trailer and one of the front windows, followed almost simultaneously by the thump of an explosion, the sound a sibilant boompf rather than a bang. The trailer erupted with white light and fire and was followed by a loud secondary explosion. Bits of glass, pieces of metal, plywood, and other debris rained down them, some of it burning and igniting fires in the nearby grass.

  Service covered his head.

  Someone hurtled out the door opening and hit the ground, screaming, her head on fire.

  “I’ve got her,” Service said. “I’ve got her.”

  He took off his coat, put it over the girl’s head, and rolled her to put out the fire.

  He heard McCants on the radio, calmly calling for help.

  The girl inside his jacket was whimpering and moaning.

  Lights jounced across the field toward the trailer.

  McCants left the first girl and went to the man, who had not moved.

  Service watched her check his pulse as the approaching vehicles illuminated the area.

  “Fuck,” Candi said.

  Service carefully removed the coat from the second girl’s head and looked at her with his MAG-LITE. Her face was black, burned severely. She still had hair, but only in patches. He turned away without making a further assessment.

  “Candi?”

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  When she walked over to him he saw that her head was covered in blood. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  “You too, kemo sabe.”

  He looked down at his left arm, saw blood dripping down. “Verse?” he asked.

  Candi McCants shook her head. “Let’s get these two away from the fire.”

  The drug team came in, dressed in black, weapons at the ready.

  EMTs took the burned girl. Cops began batting at fires with some sort of bags.

  One of the drug team members checked Bryce Verse. A call went out to the Alger County medical examiner. He was attending a medical meeting in Wisconsin. Delta County’s M.E. was covering for him. Service listened to the call to Vince Vilardo. Poor Vince. Getting close to retirement and still catching the shit.

  “Let’s take a look at that arm,” a Troop said.

  Service didn’t resist as the man rolled up his sleeve, then asked an EMT for scissors. The EMT came over and cut the sleeve to expose the wound. “You’re gonna need some stitches,” the EMT said.

  “Just clean it and tape it up for now,” Service said. If Vince was coming, he could do the real repairs.

  “Not a good idea,” the Troop said.

  “Just do it,” Service said, holding out his arm and watching the blood pooling.

  Before Vince Vilardo arrived, the drug team commander called a quick meeting. He was a sergeant who had just moved up from a downstate post, tall and businesslike.

  “You two were supposed to wait,” he said.

  “Bite me,” McCants said. She had cut her head in the scuffle, and had a bandage wrapped around her forehead.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” the commander said, holding up his hands.

  “Fuck off,” McCants repeated. Service squeezed her arm gently and calmly explained. “We waited, but we heard a shot and had to move to it. The guy appeared in the doorway, the girl we cuffed shot him, then she turned and popped the other girl. Then the trailer went up and the second girl came flying out on fire.”

  “You saw the girl shoot the man?”

  “No,” Service said. “We saw him in the door, heard the shot, saw him fall out. Then she appeared in the door brandishing her gun. She said she’d ‘shot the monster.’”

  “Why were you two here?”

  “We had a tip that Verse, the dead guy, was just out on parole, in town with two minor females, that they were high and he was armed and bragging about shooting deer.”

  “Why didn’t you call for help?”

  “Call who and for what? There’s one county car and one state car on duty at night,” McCants said with obvious irritation. “As soon as we realized it was a meth lab, we called you guys.”

  “I just wish it had gone down differently,” the team commander said.

  “It went down the way it went down,” Service said. “The burned girl?”

  “Not good,” the commander said. “GSW to right chest and third-degree burns to the head and shoulders.”

  “Man,” McCants said.

  “The truck over there
is stolen,” Service said. “We called it in.”

  “Okay,” the team commander said. “Let’s all stand down, let hazmat get to work on the site, not that there’s a hell of a lot left.”

  Service watched three people in special suits move into the ruins. They looked like spacemen.

  “That’s our fault?” McCants snapped.

  Service squeezed her arm again.

  “I didn’t say that,” the commander said. “Did either of you draw or discharge a weapon?”

  “No,” Service said.

  “No,” McCants said.

  Service was relieved that neither of them had drawn.

  “Relax,” the commander said, offering a pack of cigarettes. Service took one and let the man light it for him. “Rough?”

  “Rougher to be dead,” Service said. “Everything was quiet and then the shit hit the fan.”

  “Welcome to the drug war,” the cop said.

  When Vince Vilardo arrived he took one look at Grady Service and his jaw dropped.

  “Grady?”

  “Present and still accounted for.”

  Vince’s normally steady hand was shaking as he looked at the wound. “You want to go back to the hospital so I can do this right?”

  “Can you do it here?”

  “You’re going back to the hospital,” his friend said in his doctorly voice.

  Service didn’t argue.

  One of the team members brought over a hunting knife. There was blood on the blade.

  “It was where you had the scuffle,” she reported.

  Service thought back. The girl had said she was going to cut off the monster’s head. He should have picked up on that. The presence of a gun often blocked out the presence of other threats. Rule one of cop work: Pay attention to everything you see and hear.

  McCants sat sullenly next to Service. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Headache,” she said. “Did we fuck up?” she whispered.

  “No way,” he said. “It just went down and we did what we could.”

  “Still,” she said. “One dead, maybe two.”

  “Forget it, Candi. Move on.”

  They both rode behind the ambulance in Vilardo’s Suburban. Verse’s body and the injured girl were in the ambulance. The other girl was in a squad headed for Munising to be booked. Members of the drug team said they would follow with the officers’ vehicles.