“Curry was the driver, but the governor’s people were aware of it and saw a couple of drafts.”
“Why not write it as law?” he asked.
“Too slow. If the legislature gets involved, it becomes a political football, and U.P. legislators have purchase in both houses. Yoopers elect their people over and over; they understand the principles of paleopolitics, and how seniority leads to rewards. An administrative order avoids the morass so that the department can get something into play immediately, and others can start getting used to the idea. It’s expedient.”
“But the order gets shifted into law later.”
“Sometimes, but not always. It’s not a given.”
“Curry wants to boost sportfishing,” he said.
She smiled. “He actually has sympathy for commercial operators, but the state budget is under fire, and the DNR budget is always among the first things attacked. Sportfishing will bring in a lot of revenue and he can’t ignore that. He didn’t come all the way from Alaska to fail. Are you sympathetic to people in the Garden?”
Two more aquavits were delivered and consumed after another chorus of “Skoal.”
“I just want to understand what we’re dealing with,” he said.
“Curry fancies himself an intellectual, a steward of state treasures. He barely tolerates law enforcement.”
“We enforce the law. We don’t look for the director’s approval.”
“He allows questions and input from a select few pets, and he has a wet finger up in the air continuously.”
“Order Seventeen is a process. It carries no penalties.”
“Licenses can be revoked,” she said defensively.
“It’s a lugubrious process that requires multiple infractions. I don’t understand why we don’t subpoena the offenders’ financial records,” he said.
“People and companies are guaranteed privacy, remember? Due process?”
“It makes our work difficult.”
Another round of drinks came and went. Service felt hot and rolled up his sleeves.
“Laws and administrative orders are not written to facilitate ease of enforcement,” she said.
“Officers are being shot at,” he pointed out.
“I’ve heard,” she said. “You?”
He nodded, and she asked, “What are you people doing about it?”
“About Order Seventeen or being shot at?”
“Do you think I’m the enemy?”
“No comment,” he said.
“It was Jumping Bill’s idea that I ‘bump’ into you. Do you think he’s the enemy?”
“No,” but he also understood that Fahey had not survived so long without being a trader and compromiser. “The LeBlanc case is a shadow over everything,” he said.
She licked her lips. “You bet. The state has to play this right or the sportfishing plan could get shredded. The feds have deep pockets; we don’t. What we really need is a Republican in the White House to tell the states that it’s our right and responsibility to manage our own environmental concerns and resources.”
“Jerry Ford is a Michigan Man.”
“He’s been caretaking and cleaning up since Nixon waved bye-bye. It’s not clear Jerry can win if he runs on his own. Seriously,” she added, “how are you handling the Garden?”
“Following the letter of the law and practicing ducking.”
She laughed out loud and touched his forearm, the warmth of her fingers searing him.
“You cops are all missing the gene for trust,” she said. “Is that part of your selection process?”
“No more than for lawyers,” he shot back.
“Touché,” she said.
“I like to deal with what I can see.” What had Lasurm said—that he wanted a world in black and white? She wasn’t far off.
“Rocks and trees and guns,” she said. “This thing down here is just as real. We even get shot at.”
“Words don’t splatter brains,” he said.
She paused and looked at him, patted his hand. “You’re right. It’s not the same, and I wasn’t trying to demean the risks you guys run. But this world has multiple realities, each with its own rules. Some of them are not nice.”
Her apology took him by surprise. “I didn’t mean that as a put-down,” he said.
“I deserved it,” she said. “I get criticized for being shrill when I think I’m just being direct and passionate. The Pill and the sixties have begun to liberate us in the bedroom, but it’s not the same when we have our clothes on. Curry’s being pushed to hire women in law enforcement,” she said. “The state police are considering it, and the Natural Resources Commission doesn’t want the DNR to be second to the Troops. How does that grab you?”
“I don’t have a problem with it.”
“Will your wife feel the same way?”
“Divorced,” he said.
She ordered two more drinks, doubles this time, which they drank down. Service felt the napalm cooking his brain.
“Women don’t threaten your view of the world order?”
“No.”
“How do you separate long legs and sex appeal from professional competence?”
“Ask her politely.”
Da Leigh poked him in the arm, threw her head back, and laughed out loud. “We’re getting drunk.”
“Getting?”
“You don’t like to think?”
“I think about things I can do something about,” he said.
“Trees and rocks and guns,” she said.
“Sometimes long legs,” he added.
She tucked her chin down and looked at him. “How long since the divorce?”
“A while.”
“You seeing someone?”
The napalm had coated his brain, its heat making the tissue swell. “A fuck buddy,” he said.
She blinked and giggled. “That’s a new one,” she said.
“Was for me too,” he admitted.
“It sounds liberated.”
“Or two losers looking for justification.”
She shrugged, grinned and held up her shot glass. “Linie: The Swedes make it and send it on a ship around the world before they sell it. Can you imagine going around the world like that?” she asked with a leer.
“We confiscate their gear,” he said, trying to get the conversation back to business, “and ask the courts for condemnation proceedings.”
She studied him and grinned. “That takes a lot of time, and the courts don’t make it easy or automatic.”
“But while the court decides, they don’t have their gear. No gear, no poaching.”
“That’s outside the spirit of Order Seventeen.”
“It’s expedient,” he said, playing back her own logic.
“No wonder they’re using guns.”
“They were using guns before we started this.”
“You think this is the right thing to do?”
“Doing something is more important than being pushed around right now.” Even with the aquavit in him, it was clear after today that conservation officers were risking their lives as part of a larger political strategy: The powers in Lansing did not give a damn whether they stopped the poaching or not.
They each had one more aquavit and when the drinks were gone, da Leigh looked at her watch. “My house is ten minutes from here.” She rested her hand on his arm and insisted on paying the bill. “Expense account,” she explained. “Don’t worry, your name won’t appear.”
On the sidewalk she threw her arms around him and kissed him for a long time. “You’re not a Boy Scout in all things, are you?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Thank God,” she said.
She kiss
ed him at the front door in the morning. “Jumping Bill’s finagling to get you down here the way he did has put you in a tough position,” she said.
“He arranged it knowing that,” he said.
“Bill doesn’t do anything without purpose. Your being here was his game and his decision, but you be careful, Boy Scout. Don’t go get yourself shot by one of those goddamn Gardenians.”
21
NEWBERRY, FEBRUARY 11, 1976
“Sometimes the flaw’s so visible it’s invisible.”
On the way out of Lansing he swung by the Capital City Airport and spent an hour with a meteorologist from the National Weather Service.
Nikki-Jo Jokola smiled and winked when Service sat down in a booth in the bar of Brown’s Hotel. “Youse’re a bit late for breakfast today,” she said. “And we had a nice meat loaf for lunch.”
“No thanks.” He gave her a piece of paper with information for the next newspaper ad. “For the thirteenth,” he said.
“I’ll drive down to Manistique tomorrow morning,” she said. “Shuck’s sick.”
“With what?”
“The out-of-da-action blues. If you have time, stop by an’ see him.”
It took a long time for the retired officer to come to the door, but his hangdog face lit up when he saw Service. “Your replacement’s thicker’n lead,” Shuck Gorley said. “Name’s Parker. He transferred up from Ingham County to ‘get inta da action.’”
“I didn’t pick him,” Service said. He didn’t even know him.
“Roars like a lion, brains of a spruce grouse,” Gorley said.
Service laughed. The spruce grouse was so low on avian intelligence that it was in danger of consignment to Darwin’s dustbin. “This Parker stop in to pick your brains?”
“Dat one couldn’t pick a hot dog wit’ a fork. He don’t need ta talk to me. He knows it all.”
“Nikki-Jo’s worried about you,” Service said.
“Dat woman worries if she don’t got worries,” Gorley said disgustedly.
“She cares about you.”
“Dere ain’t a problem. Just dis Parker yayhoo. How’s da Garden?”
“Pretty damn confusing.”
“Dat mess, it don’t never change,” Gorley said. “Get inside, youse’re lettin’ my heat out. I got coffee on.”
Service followed the man into his kitchen. The house was clean and orderly. “I lost your thermos.”
“Your thermos,” Gorley corrected him, “not mine. How’d you lose ’er?”
“The Garden,” he said, and then he related his Garden patrols, everything he’d seen and experienced and had been thinking. Gorley listened attentively until he was finished.
“Dean told me he might use youse down dere.”
“Based on what you told him,” Service said.
“We need good officers dere. Da Garden’s always been lawless, eh. We always had trouble gettin’ guys to serve down dere. An’ dat crow line dey got now, dat ain’t new, but back when I done patrols down dere, da line wasn’t dere first line a’ defense.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Nope. Dey had inside dope, always seemed ta know when we were comin’ down dere. We never figured out why or how, but da old captain, Cortney Denu, he made da officers handwrite all dere reports and send ’em direct to him, an’ he personally sent ’em on to Lansing. Only he opened ’em—same wit’ plans. And when an op was bein’ put together, we never met in Escanaba. We met somewhere outside Delta County. Once we started dis, we managed to get in on dem and make a few pinches.”
“But now everything is running out of Escanaba again.”
“Dat was Cosmo’s doin’. Da people down to da Escanaba office whined, said dey was insulted by Cap’n Denu, said it hurt dere feelings; so Cosmo, he put tings back da way dey were when dey weren’t workin’.”
Service didn’t know what to say. A probable security leak had been identified, and now it was being ignored? Did Attalienti know about this?
“We had security problems here too,” Gorley went on. “Some years back we had a poacher named Jepson, tall, baby-faced sonuvagun, and we worked like hell tryin’ ta nab ’im, but he was always one step ahead. I had west Chippewa County back den, and George Zuchow had eastern Luce, where dis Jepson character lived, and George and I tried like da dickens to nail ’im. After close to a year, I said ta hell wit’ it—all da bloody time I spent on dat case was lettin’ other stuff go. You can’t get ’em all.”
Service understood.
“Den I got in a wreck and busted my leg and dey put me on restricted duty. I had to go inta da office every day and help do dispatch and run errands for da lieutenant and junk like dat. Seemed like Zuchow come in every day ta bitch and moan about Jepson and how he’d eluded him again and what he was gonna try next. I mean, every day. ’Course, da whole office started following da war between dose two. And every day about da same time, George showed up, da bakery guy come to da canteen and brought new donuts and took da old stuff away, and I watched him and noticed he sorta hung around, not doin’ anyting couldn’t be done in one minute. So I went to da LT and I asked who da bakery jamoke was, and he said talk ta da secretaries. Da secretaries said dey t’ought da LT was havin’ it brought in for everybody. Next day da bakery guy comes in jabbering with George, and I put my hand on ’is chest and I tell ’im to show me some ID, and he rabbits, but I grab ’im and put ’is nose on da floor and we got out ’is wallet. Da jerk’s name is Jepson! He’s da brudder of da bloody poacher. Nobody ordered no fresh bakery. Dis guy’s been bringing it in on ’is own and listenin’ ta what’s going on and passing da word on. Dey bot’ went to jail.”
“Sometimes the flaw’s so visible it’s invisible,” Service said.
“Routine can be as good as pokin’ your eyes out,” Gorley said.
22
MARQUETTE-HARVEY-TRENARY, FEBRUARY 11, 1976
“Even your old man wasn’t dis crazy.”
Attalienti leaned back in his chair and listened to what Service had to say about security in the Escanaba office.
“That happened years ago; it was thoroughly investigated, and written off to coincidence,” the acting captain said. “What was the Lansing thing about?”
Service guessed Attalienti suffered the same paranoia that existed downstate, local supervision being an extension of Lansing. He considered telling him everything, but held back. “I don’t know. I showed up for the meeting and Fahey said the audit was postponed, and he apologized for making me drive all that way.”
“You talked to the director and Cosmo?”
“I told them exactly what I told you.”
“Why did Fahey ask for you?”
“He was a friend of my father’s.”
“I don’t think I buy that,” Attalienti said.
“We had a lunch in honor of my old man and talked.”
“Cosmo’s in a twitter. He’s called me three times and says Curry’s all over him. Both of them are certain there’s more to the meeting with Fahey than your just being the son of his friend.”
Service had to take a deep breath so that he could say quietly, “I had lunch. The audit’s postponed. Fahey gave me a memo for Curry and I delivered the memo to the director. I met with Metrovich—end of story.”
“Careers can get destroyed by people who dabble in politics,” Attalienti said.
“I’m not dabbling in anything,” Service said forcefully to the acting captain. “You sent me down there,” he added.
Attalienti stared at him. “Okay, sorry. They’re just rattling my cage and I had to rattle yours. Don’t sweat it.”
“There’s nothing to sweat,” Service said. “I’m going into the Garden the night of the fourteenth,” he added.
“Why then?”
“The weather window
’s what I want.”
Attalienti looked at him like he was unbalanced. “They’re predicting a blizzard.”
“Exactly,” Service said.
“I don’t like this at all,” the acting captain said, frowning.
“You said it was my call.”
“But in a blizzard?”
He called Brigid Mehegen at home and asked if he could drop by.
There was no sign of Perry. “Got Valentine plans for us?” she asked coyly.
“I’m not going to be around,” he said.
“What does that mean, ‘not around’?” she asked.
“Family emergency.”
“Where?” she said, her voice demanding and suspicious.
“Far away,” he said.
She gave him an annoyed look. “I arranged that meeting you wanted. My guy said reluctantly he’d talk to the ‘whuffo.’”
“Whuffo?” Service said.
“Jumper talk for straight-legs,” she said. “You know: Whuffo you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?”
“Thanks,” he said, “but I thought about what you said. Borrowing wasn’t the smartest idea.”
He could see her weighing his words, measuring him. “Is there anything I can do to help with your family emergency?” she asked.
“Thanks, but it’s something I have to take care of on my own,” he said.
“I was hoping we could get some time together,” she said.
“Rain check?” he said.
“It’s snowing, in case you haven’t noticed. Have you heard the weather forecast?”
“Been too busy,” he lied. “Where’s your grandfather?”
“Snowshoe hunting with a couple of his pals,” she said disgustedly. “What is it about old men and hunting?” she asked. “Do you want something to eat?”
“I had a big lunch,” he said.
“The bedroom’s available,” she said, “or did you have a big one of those too?”
He laughed, but didn’t answer.
She hugged him politely before he left, and gave him a searing look that let him know she knew he was bullshitting her.
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