Chasing a Blond Moon

by Joseph Heywood

  “If you’re the general’s friend, why don’t you have his phone number? Oh yes, you men who have come home alive are lucky, but you need to be more attentive to your comrades and their loved ones. Lieutenant Gisseler, my daddy’s wingman, doesn’t call or write any more.”

  Service thought: Korea ended nearly fifty years ago. Presumably the man was dead. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve moved around some and I can’t seem to find my book with the general’s address. You know how that can happen.”

  “Oh yes—no, I don’t know. I’ve lived my entire life in Clyde. I never wanted to live anywhere else. And oh yes, I never lose things. You really must be more careful,” she said, chiding him. “Naval aviators are trained to be careful—all those dials and switches. But daddy said it was easy, a matter of simple logic and practice. Mother and I were to join him in San Diego when he got back. Mother was afraid to go so far from Clyde, but Daddy said he would come and fetch us. He never came back, did I tell you that? Oh yes, he was to leave Korea in a month but he didn’t come back. . . .”

  Ms. Rivitz was a few cards short of a full deck, but he couldn’t blame her. “Is your husband there?”

  “Please, you must listen better. I am a graduate of a class for active listening and the teacher said it is important to signal that we are listening, oh yes. I am Ms. Rivitz. I used to be Miss, but Ms. sounds more modern and I believe in growing with the times.”

  This was going nowhere. “My father was MIA in Korea,” Service lied. “I read your testimony, where you said that ‘the living must bear the pain of not knowing until they die.’”

  “Oh yes, I assure you I do not plan to die until Daddy comes home,” she said. “Was your daddy a naval aviator?”

  “No, ma’am. We were both marines.”

  “Oh my, the darn government let you both go to war? Your mother must have been devastated.”

  “My mother passed away when I was young. My dad raised me.” Was it a sin to mislead the unbalanced?

  “Oh yes, you poor boy. Mother didn’t really love Daddy. She promised to wait, but she died before he could come back. I’ll never forgive Mother.”

  “Ma’am, General Gates knows something about my father.” This was not a prevarication. Specifically, Teddy knew he had been a marine in the Second World War and a conservation officer after that. Service and Gates had talked about families in Vietnam.

  “Oh yes, your waiting might be over?”

  “I don’t know, Ms. Rivitz. It’s been a long wait.” Especially since he had gotten on the phone with her. “I really would appreciate the general’s phone number.”

  “Oh yes, I have all the phone numbers right here in my kitchen. My Daddy said an aviator must always be organized. He calls me his little aviator. Just a moment, please.”

  He heard the phone clunk, listened to her opening and closing drawers, papers rustling, other drawers being rattled, and finally she was back on the line. “Oh, yes, here it is. Right in its place. Daddy will be so proud.”

  “I really appreciate this, Ms. Rivitz. It’s a good thing for people to help each other.”

  “Oh yes, I agree,” she said, “But what are you doing to help me?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll ask the general to give you a call.”

  “You would do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, absolutely.”

  She gave him the number and address, which was in Tidewater, Virginia. “You’re certain the general will call me?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you can count on it.”

  “Oh yes, I waited on Truman, Ike, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush, Clinton, and now another Bush. Do you know that Clinton did nasty things with girls in the Oval Office? And he never served our country in uniform.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Rivitz.” He hung up before she could ramble on to whatever stop her train was rolling to next. Why in the hell had the Senate invited her to testify?

  He dialed the number but got a recording telling him the area code was changing and to make a note of it. He was about to call the new area code when Fern LeBlanc popped into his cubicle, her eyes wide, her hands shaking like she had broken wrists.

  “Come!” she said in a high, shrill voice. “Hurry!”

  Captain Grant was on the floor of his office, his chair on its side. Service felt for a pulse and the captain’s eyes fluttered open. “Not a stroke,” he muttered. “Chair tipped over.”

  “I’m calling 911,” Fern LeBlanc said, heading for her phone.

  “Stop her,” Grant said, but it was too late.

  She was on her phone, tears welling. “This has happened twice before and he insists I not call help,” she said, “but I’m telling you he’s not well, Detective. This time I called.”

  It was the first time Service had seen anything other than professionalism or anger in her eyes. “You did the right thing,” he said, but she was already on the phone again.

  “Doctor Beaudoin, this is Fern LeBlanc. It’s happened again.” She nodded curtly and said, “Thank you, they’re on the way.”

  She looked at Service. “His physician will be here soon.”

  The captain had his chair back up and was sitting in it when Service walked into his office. Grant’s eyes were glazed and distant.

  “Not a stroke,” the captain said. “I was tipping in my chair, dozed off, and down I went.” He rubbed his head. “Got a knot.”

  “She called 911, Captain.” Grant looked dazed, a little disoriented, and clearly unhappy.

  “She thinks I’m made of eggshells,” the captain complained.

  “Probably a good idea to get your head checked out,” Service said.

  “She called your doctor too.”

  “Blast that woman!” the captain said.

  Dr. Pope Beaudoin was six-four and close to three hundred pounds, with shaggy silver hair and rimless glasses. He arrived before EMS, went directly into the captain’s office, and closed the door.

  When they came out the doctor supported one of the captain’s arms.Ware Grant was dragging his left foot and looking pale. Service walked out with them.

  EMS met them at the front door. The captain and doctor got into the ambulance. “I’ll be back,” Captain Ware Grant said. “Don’t get shot down, Detective.” The doors closed, the siren came on, and the ambulance raced away toward the hospital.

  LeBlanc came outside jingling her keys. “I’m going to the hospital,” she said. “Will you cover the phones?”

  When he finally got around to making the call to Teddy Gates, he got an answering machine recording, which said, “I’m not here and if that’s not obvious, don’t leave a message.” Classic Teddy Gates, blunt as a fist hatchet, whatever that was. From tenth grade world history Service had retained two terms, fist hatchet and Hammurabi’s Code, both of which no longer had a context, but popped into his mind at odd times.

  “This is Grady Service, calling the general.” He paused before leaving his own numbers when a live voice intervened. “Sarn’t Service, you asshole!”

  “Captain?”

  “Best damn job I ever had. Where the hell is that barbarian Sarn’t Treebone?”

  “Detroit Metropolitan Police, vice lieutenant.”

  “No wonder Detroit’s so fucked up,” the general said with a laugh.

  “You a cop?”

  “Detective, Department of Natural Resources.”

  “Woods cop. I had a feeling. Just like your old man. What the hell do you want after all these years?”

  “This may seem a little off the wall.”

  “That keeps it in character.”

  “I’ve got a strange old bird up here. He claims to have been a POW in Korea.”

  “Do I detect skepticism?”

  “I got some of his records and used them to find his high school. The picture we found there, well—I know people age and c
hange, but this can’t be a photo of the man.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first counterfeit POW,” Gates said. “You want, I can poke around and see if anybody has anything. I’ve got writing utensil in hand, Sarn’t. Fire for effect.”

  Service related Oliver Toogood’s record. “The thing is, I can’t find a place where he’d be getting a disability check.”

  “Maybe he’s not. There have been a few men who turned them down. Or maybe your man’s checks go to a bank somewhere else to accumulate and he draws against it. Money’s like clay nowadays, you can knead it into just about any shape that suits you.”

  Service hadn’t considered this. How did he get bank information? “There’s one other thing. I got your number from a woman named Augusta Rivitz.”

  “Poor thing is totally bonkers.”

  “How did she get invited to testify?”

  “Her organization sent her. They figured that the august senators should get a firsthand look at the personal cost to POW/MIA families, but politicians are reptiles. The only time they’re warm, they’ve got their pampered fat asses plopped on hot rocks beside a donor volcano erupting cash.”

  “Her testimony seemed coherent.” It had been the phone call that was at odds with what he had read on the Senate Select Committee’s site.

  “No doubt you saw her written testimony. The actual transcript is too fucked up to publish. You can’t even dig it out of the Web site. Anybody wants it, they have to go the FOIA route, and you know how long that shit takes.”

  “Was her father a POW?”

  “Technically, yes. Did she tell you about her father’s wingman?”

  “She told me.”

  “I checked it out at some length. The wingman saw Rivitz in his chute, but reported Rivitz wasn’t moving or showing any signs of life, and when he hit the ground, he just lay there sprawled out. The Pentagon had no choice but to declare Rivitz MIA. In all likelihood, the enemy found him dead right where he hit the ground.”

  “She knows this?”

  “Her mother was informed, and later Augusta was told on more than one occasion. She just can’t seem to wrap her head around it. Can’t or won’t. That’s a fine line.”

  “She said you send her a Christmas card every year.”

  “I do, and every one of them says the same thing: ‘Happy Holidays. I am sorry for your terrible loss. Here’s the name of a psychiatrist who can help you.’ She’s what the Pentagoonies call IUDCD—invisible unintended domestic collateral damage.”

  There was no love lost between Gates and the military. “When did you hang it up?”

  “Ninety-two, the month after I testified. I’d already submitted my papers and I figured I went off the reservation a bit too far. They weren’t sorry to see me go and I didn’t let the door hit me in the ass on the way out.”

  “Rivitz said you lost a brother in Korea.”

  “She’s dotty. What I said was that all the men and women dead and missing in Korea and Vietnam were my brothers and sisters. Did she tell you about her active listening training? Oh yes, Ms. Rivitz hears only what she wants to hear, which makes her like the rest of us who haven’t been trained.”

  They both laughed.

  “I do feel bad for her,” Gates said, “but the living have to keep on keeping on. I’ll get what I can for you on Toogood. If he’s a fake, we’ll nail his sorry ass. If he’s getting a check, I’ll find that out, too.”

  “Thanks, general.”

  “To you and that big black smiling sonuvabitch you call a pal, it’s Teddy. Give that big bastard a kiss for me and watch your back, Sarn’t Service.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Semper Fi, Sarn’t. If I’d had a division of Services and Treebones we could have hiked up there to Hanoi and shot Uncle Ho and the rest of those red motherfuckers.”

  “You had a unit in the Gulf War.”

  “Not with the likes of you two. I’ll get back at you.”

  It had been good to hear Teddy’s voice.

  He was ready to follow his second lead when Simon del Olmo called.

  “Get this,” del Olmo said. “That cable we found at Kitella’s—it’s a perfect match to the cable Elza found. In fact, it’s off the same spool.”

  “What’s Kitella say?”

  “He don’t know nuttin’ from nuttin’. Insists it’s a setup.”

  “Any chance you guys can source the stuff?”

  “Better. We have and you aren’t going to believe this. It’s aviation cable.”

  “Aviation cable?”

  “To be precise, cable used in choppers, including the Enstrom 480B light turbine helicopter. A guy who flies told her it looked like aviation cable. The only aviation manufacturer in the U.P. is Enstrom down in Menominee. Elza drove down there and the company told her that the cable was indeed from a helicopter, and, in fact, is used in their 480B and another model. Further, they announced that a spool of cable had been stolen from the factory in July. They reported it and somehow the report made its way to the FBI, who got on the case and narrowed it down to an employee named Fahrenheit—spelled just like the temperature. Charley Fahrenheit. He’s a former army chopper mechanic who served in Somalia and left the army honorably with the rank of staff sergeant. He joined Enstrom right out of the military and has always been a pretty solid employee, but there were a half-dozen thefts of various things over the past year and Fahrenheit was always the one with opportunity when stuff fell off the truck.”

  “Was he charged?” What the hell was this Elza stuff? Nobody called Grinda anything but Sheena.

  “The FBI said all their evidence is circumstantial, and weak circumstances at that—opportunity and some motive, which amounts to smoke but no gun. The company canned Fahrenheit for poor attendance. The Feebs say he has a bottle problem and some financial troubles too, but there’s no evidence of a sudden influx of cash to get him out of his situation. If he was ganking, either he’s not moving the goods, or he has the money stashed.”

  Who fenced industrial goods? Service wondered. “In other words, that’s the end of it.”

  “Not exactly. Enstrom has been served with a wrongful dismissal civil suit and MESC is involved.” MESC, the Michigan Employment Securities Commission, takes care of labor problems in the state. “What’s interesting is that Fahrenheit hired a big-ticket specialist from Midland. Even if he wins the case, he’s not going to win big, so why would a lawyer of that caliber take an if-come job with marginal payback potential? What’s even more intriguing is that the suit lists the name of an old friend of ours, Sandy Tavolacci. He’s the attorney of record.”

  “Really,” Service said. Labor law was way outside Sandy’s usual browse. “Fahrenheit like the temperature, right?”

  “You got it.”

  “Where’s Fahrenheit live?”

  “Marinette County, Wisconsin, a burg called Harmony. It’s one of those places where the sign going into town lists the population number as ‘sometimes.’”

  “Sounds like home,” Service said.

  “There’s no way for us to get into this one,” del Olmo said.

  “There’s always a road in, Simon.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Thanks.”

  “De nada.”

  Newf nudged his leg. He’d forgotten to bring food for her. He gathered his notes, drove to Donovan’s Forest, bought two six-inch Italian meatball subs, and headed over to Harvey to the public boat launch on the Chocolay River to see if the salmon were in for the annual spawn yet. They were. Newf inhaled her sandwich and immediately splashed into the water chasing fish, whose minds were solely on sex, and easily avoided her clumsy lunges.

  “You aren’t a bear,” he told her as she paddled around snapping at the fish and now and then looking up at him with water cascading off her snout.

  While the dog splashed
and barked, he ate and read the printouts he had downloaded at the office.

  He had found a Web site called Legends and Species.Com. He had almost ignored the site, but was determined to dig until the lead went nowhere. Here he found a report by Tara Ferma, Ph.D., associate professor of cultural anthropology at Montana State University in Bozeman. The report dealt with parasites in Selenarctos thibetanus, the Asiatic black bear. The professor had written, “The incidence of parasites in Cambodian golden bears remains unknown, but given that the animal is a color phase of S. thibetanus, similar infestations seem predictable.”

  Service thought: Cambodian golden bear, same as blond moon bear. The information leaped out at him, but in truth it had been the professor’s name that caught his attention. He liked unusual and nonsensical names. His favorite was Venus Dyke, a cop downstate somewhere, but Tara Ferma was right up there. His infatuation had paid off. He knew this find should have boosted his confidence in the Net as an investigational tool, but absent his interest in names he would never have gotten the lead. Serendipity was a piss-poor fuel for research, he told himself.

  He opened his cell phone as he sat by the river. The professor’s telephone number and e-mail address were listed at the bottom of the article, and after being transferred a couple of times he learned that Professor Ferma had left in August for a yearlong sabbatical in Cambodia and Vietnam. The departmental secretary advised him to try the professor’s e-mail because she would be checking it daily, using a satellite phone to an uplink even when she was in the bush. She used her computer to upload research data and observations.

  Service didn’t want to wait for e-mail. “Does she have an assistant?”

  “Cameron Gill is taking her classes this semester. Would you like to talk to her?”

  He would.

  “Ms. Gill,” she said when she came on line.

  “Professor?”

  “It’s Cameron or Cam. I’m a lowly instructor here.” She sounded like a twelve-year-old unhappy with her lot in life.

  “I’m a detective in the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Protection Unit. I’m looking for information about blond moon bears.”