Ice Hunter (Woods Cop Mystery 1)

by Heywood, Joseph

  “Limpy tell you that?”

  “I’m just asking.” Eddie didn’t need to know he’d gotten the information from Honeypat.

  “Ralph lives near Christmas?”

  “Down to Ridge, but he don’t welcome visitors.”

  It wouldn’t hurt to leave Eddie with a little hope. “Tell your people if they clean up their acts, Limpy may have a chance. You keep on doing what you’ve always done and they won’t send him back to you.”

  Eddie said nothing.

  Ridge was a tiny farming community southeast of the village of Christmas. Like most COs in the U.P., Service knew of most the villages and little clusters of houses that served as population centers, but he had never been to Ridge and radioed CO Jake Mecosta for help. A member of the BaragaL’Anse Ojibwa, Mecosta worked out of Munising and was one of the few Native American COs in the state. Most of the tribes and bands had their own police and CO forces, and few of the Indians moved into the state ranks. Service wasn’t sure why. Mecosta agreed to meet him at the public boat launch on Christmas Beach in Bay Furnace. Christmas was a fine example of Yooper schemes to make money. A Swede from Munising had bought land back before World War II and had built a factory to produce year-round Yule gifts. The business had burned, but the town had kept the name. You could still buy Christmas trinkets in gas stations and restaurants. And you could gamble at the tiny Indian casino called Kewadin, which meant north wind.

  Jake Mecosta was leaning against the front fender of his truck, chewing a toothpick. Nearing fifty, Jake was six-six, with short salt-and-pepper hair and skin the color of cherrywood.

  “You’re a long way from home,” Mecosta said with a grin when Service pulled up beside him. You hunting Twinkies?”

  “Something like that,” Grady Service said.

  “I heard Allerdyce got out and you already put him back in.”

  “For now. I’m trying to get some information about his son Jerry.”

  “Jerry? That one’s dumber than a Sioux tryin’ to ride a bicycle,” Mecosta drawled. The Ojibwa had fought for nearly a century and a half against the Sioux, driving them from Upper Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota onto the Great Plains. Hard feelings persisted on both sides.

  “You know Jerry?”

  “I busted him once for stealing black walnut trees.”

  That sounded like Jerry. “I’ve heard he used to work for a man over this way, a friend of Limpy’s. Named Ralph. He supposedly lives near Ridge.”

  Jake Mecosta spit out his toothpick and grimaced at the mention of the name. “Ralph Scaffidi,” he said.

  “The Ralph Scaffidi?” Scaffidi was a Detroit mobster who suddenly became major news when FBI investigators leaked information to the media that he had knowledge of the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance in 1975. “What’s Scaffidi doing up here?”

  “The official word is that he’s retired,” Mecosta said, “but I talked to Wink Rector and he didn’t say so in so many words, but he left me with the impression that Scaffidi was exiled up here by the mob. He’s got a couple of punks living with him, but if Rector is right, they’re guards, not servants.”

  Wink Rector was the FBI’s resident agent for the Upper Peninsula. He had an office in Marquette and a house on the Chocolay River.

  “Have you met Scaffidi?”

  “No, but a couple of times the wife and I have seen him and his shadows in Foggy’s.” Foggy’s Reindeer Room was a bar in Munising. “Are you actually gonna go see him?”

  “I guess I have to.”

  “Better you than me,” Mecosta said with a sly grin.

  Directions in hand, Service left his colleague at the boat launch and drove south toward Ridge. Scaffidi’s house was half a mile down a tree-lined, hard-top driveway that looped in front of the structure. The new house was huge, made of cedar logs and sited on a small hill overlooking a swamp. The house looked bright orange in the sun. A mown and manicured lawn stretched all around the house. Service expected keep out signs but found none.

  Service had barely parked when an old man with silver hair ambled out the front door. He wore a golf shirt with an emblem that said key biscayne yacht club.

  “Mister Scaffidi?” Service said as he got out.

  “I am he,” the man said. He face was tanned, his hands wrinkled with age. He had pale brown eyes that were alert but betrayed no emotion. Service saw somebody else lurking behind the screened front door.

  “Grady Service, DNR.”

  Scaffidi nodded. “A fish dick,” he said with a teasing grin, “but not local. Mecosta’s our local guy. What brings you out to the sticks?”

  Jake had said he’d never met the man, who anticipated Service’s thoughts. “I’ve never met Officer Mecosta, but I make it a point to keep track of such things. How about a cup of espresso? A warm drink cools the body on a hot day. I’ve got a new machine sent from Milano.”

  Service agreed and followed Scaffidi onto the porch, where they sat at a small round table. An unopened Sunday New York Times lay in the middle of the table.

  The old man sat down and said over his shoulder at the door, “Carlo, two espressos, please, and cut the lemon peel fresh, capisce?”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Scaffidi said, turning back to Service. “I’ve tendered invitations to your colleague Officer Mecosta, but he hasn’t bothered to respond. I have a lot of concern about this brouhaha over feeding deer. A fella’s gotta bait deer, well, that’s like hunting sheep in the barn, am I right? This bovine TB thing is a mess, but until the state puts down its foot and says no more feeding, it’s just going to keep spreading. The government’s got to look out for all the people, am I right? Not just the connected few.”

  Scaffidi was referring to a continuing controversy between farmers, the DNR, State Agricultural Commission, Farm Bureau, other groups, and some wealthy people in the northern Lower Peninsula who had hunt clubs where they fed deer year-round to keep them on their properties. Bovine tuberculosis was carried in the air from cattle to deer. Some scientists believed that putting out huge piles of corn and other feed caused animals to congregate, which helped bovine tuberculosis to spread. The DNR’s director insisted there was no hard evidence of this, but the division’s own wildlife chief had called for a statewide baiting and feeding ban.

  “I’m sorry,” the old man said. “You don’t make the regulations. You just enforce them. Forgive me for running off about this, but I care very much about our natural resources.”

  A muscle-bound young man in running shorts and a Honolulu blue detroit lions football jersey brought two tiny cups of espresso and eyed Service suspiciously.

  “Carlo’s one of my assistants,” Scaffidi said. “He’s a good boy, loves the woods. It’s hard to find young people to come up here and work.” Jake Mecosta said Scaffidi’s helpers were keepers. Carlo certainly looked the part.

  Service watched Scaffidi rub the lip of his cup with lemon peel and followed his lead.

  The espresso was bitter.

  “I had to do it again,” Scaffidi said, “I wouldn’t touch this crap, but I’m an old man and the doctors want to take away all my pleasurable habits. A man’s gotta hang on to what he can, am I right? I get one cup a day. So what can I do for you, Officer Service?”

  “I need to know if a man named Jerry Allerdyce sometimes works for you.”

  “He has, but not recently. Is there a problem?”

  “Jerry is dead.”

  The old man didn’t bat an eye. “That happens to all of us.”

  “He was shot.”

  “Has that been in the news?”

  “No sir, not yet.”

  Scaffidi stared at him. “I’m retired.”

  The statement caught Service by surprise and left him momentarily flustered. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  The old man raised his hands. “I know you didn’t. Jerry was a wild kid. He did some jobs for me, took down pulp, cut firewood, hauled stuff here and there. He’d work hard for a few days then get some beer and dis
appear. I tried to understand, tried to teach him good habits, that work is work and play is play, but he wasn’t the kind to listen. My niece is staying with me. She’s getting a divorce and it’s messy. She and Jerry, well, I don’t have to paint you a picture. I found them back in the woods one day. Like rabbits, they were: I had to cut him loose.” Scaffidi pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “When was this?”

  “Late last month. My niece was here maybe two weeks before I caught them. I thought, okay, she’s been married a long time to a crumb, she’s sowing some wild oats, and what’s the harm, but I don’t like to mix family and help. I’m old school.”

  “That’s the last time you saw Jerry?”

  “Four weeks back, maybe five. I made it clear he’s not welcome here socially or otherwise. I wish I could be more help. I hate this kind of thing coming up here. In Detroit . . .” He threw up his hands. “That’s a different planet, but up here is peaceful, like the Garden of Eden,” he added with a beneficent smile.

  “How did you meet Jerry?”

  “His father told me about him.”

  “How do you know Limpy?”

  “Many years ago my car broke down and he stopped to help me. We did favors for each other from time to time. I was still living in Detroit then, but he went off to prison and I haven’t seen him since. You’re the officer he shot, aren’t you? I thought I recognized your name from the papers back then.”

  Scaffidi was very well informed and though he was superficially friendly and polite, there was more to him, something Service couldn’t quite nail.

  “Limpy was released early, but he’s back in jail.”

  Scaffidi nodded. “Some people, it takes a long time to unlearn things.”

  A reference to himself? Service wondered.

  “I’m sorry about Jerry. He was likable, but unreliable.”

  Service pushed back from the table.

  “More espresso?” Scaffidi asked.

  “I have to move on, but thanks for talking to me.”

  The old man walked down to the truck with him. “You gotta go?”

  Service nodded. “Thanks again.”

  The old man looked into his truck. “I see they haven’t saddled you with one of the Big Brother computers yet.” The coming DNR satellite system was not public knowledge yet. Scaffidi was very well informed.

  “Not yet.”

  The old man grunted. “The Web, satellites, cell phones, digital, the whole world’s going electronic. It’s not for me.” He tapped his temple. “In my day this was the only computer that mattered.”

  And still is, Service thought. Scaffidi might be aging, but his mind was sharp.

  “Do you like trout?” the old man inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “Good, good.” The old man tugged at his arm. “Please, this won’t take a moment. I want to show you something.” Service tried to resist, but Scaffidi was persistent and said finally, “I won’t bite.”

  They walked down the lawn behind the house to a pond with two fountains. “It’s fourteen feet deep and well oxygenated. Doesn’t freeze in winter.” The old mobster spread out his hands. “I got brook trout like this! You get some time off, drive over, and I’ll show you. It’s no-kill, but I have an excellent camera and a friend who does fantastic mounts with fiberglass. We measure the fish, send him the pictures, and back comes a work of art.”

  “I might do that.”

  “Bring Officer Mecosta with you. I have the utmost respect for the work you and your colleagues do.”

  Scaffidi’s attempt to be smooth made Service skeptical.

  “In my pond I got a brookie will go nine pounds,” he said. “This is my life now. Fish, woods, deer, the animals, wildflowers. Winters I’m in Key West.” Service wondered if the old man was trying to posture and, if so, why?

  As they got back to his truck Service saw a Cadillac coming up the driveway. It stopped behind his vehicle, and a dark-haired woman got out. She had long legs and long hair the color of india ink. She wore a red silk sundress and had several strands of beads around her neck. Long earrings dangled from her ears.

  “Good, good,” Scaffidi said. “Judy Pellasi, meet Officer Service.”

  She extended her hand, and shook Service’s firmly. He saw a faint laugh in her eyes. Scaffidi’s niece hurried up the stairs, her high heels clicking on the porch boards, and disappeared inside.

  Scaffidi touched the conservation officer’s sleeve. “All set, Officer?”

  “Thanks for the espresso.”

  “Don’t forget about those brook trout,” Scaffidi said.

  “I’ll call first,” Service said. The old man was obviously lonely, and maybe Mecosta was right about his being in exile.

  Service used his cell phone to call Treebone at his office in the 1st Precinct, near Greektown in the center of Detroit.

  “Vice,” Treebone answered.

  “Grady.”

  “What’s up? You don’t make social calls.”

  “Ralph Scaffidi.”

  “Ralph the Shovel,” Treebone said with a laugh. “Lotta people down this way think he planted Jimmy Hoffa. What about him?”

  “He’s living near Munising. I need a profile.”

  “You in your truck?”

  “Rolling along at double nickel.”

  “This shouldn’t take long. I’ll call you back.”

  Twenty minutes later, as Service approached Trenary, his friend called back.

  “Here’s the scoop. I talked to OCTF.” The Organized Crime Task Force comprised personnel from the FBI, DEA, and Detroit Metropolitan Police. “Scaffidi was so much smoke in the Hoffa deal. He was a CPA, alleged dealings with the bent-noses, but he was never a made man. Strictly a service provider on the periphery. When Jimmy H went MIA, some people in New Jersey floated Scaffidi’s name. The Feebs turned him inside out, but it was no go. He was a sideshow, a red herring.”

  “The media played him up big.”

  “Pencils, man. They gotta scribble about something. Don’t get me wrong. Scaffidi’s no angel, but he’s not in the main line. Laundered some money, did this, did that. Sort of a mob utility man.”

  “Has he been down?”

  “No, man. He’s been bounced plenty, but that’s all. Teflon, see? He’s dirty, just more efficient than his pals. Word is that he’s smart as hell. OCTF said he got disgusted because of the Jersey mob’s little game and closed his biz. You sure it’s him up there?”

  “I talked to him not thirty minutes ago.”

  “The OCTF gang says he’s slick. It’s like dealing with Mister Rogers.”

  This fit. Scaffidi was not the least bit threatening. “He ran a laundry for the mob?”

  “The Feebs think so. They worked with the IRS but never got enough for an indictment. The grand jury looked at him beaucoup times and passed on him. He has the big bucks, but it all looks legit.”

  “Big bucks from accounting?”

  “He speculates, invests, buys, sells—like that.”

  “Speculates on what?”

  “Pork bellies, bull testicle futures, soybeans, gold, who knows?”

  “But he’s retired now.”

  “That’s the word.”

  “Up here people say he’s got mob minders. That he’s not here by choice.”

  “I didn’t get that impression from OCTF. They know he’s there, by the way.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “I’m a giver.”

  “See if you can ferret out more details on his business interests. Has he ever been implicated in a whack?”

  “I’ll dig, but the way it’s told here, he’s superficially clean. I’ll do what I can. Why the interest?”

  “Limpy’s son Jerry turned up dead.”

  “You think Scaffidi is involved?”

  “Just checking things out.” Scaffidi had ordered Jerry away to protect his niece, but knowing Jerry, he might not have kept away.

  “Okay, man. Stay off the trails.”r />
  “Always.”

  Service stopped for coffee at the Trenary Home Bakery, known far and wide in the U.P. as the THB, which was both a bakery and a restaurant, the latter in an old Red Owl grocery store building. The floor was made of red and black tiles. It was like being transported into the fifties. He ordered Trenary toast, the Finnish form of cinamon toast called korpu. The bread had a shelf life of months and could be eaten only if dunked.

  He thought hard about Scaffidi. Jerry Allerdyce had worked for him, but not recently—according to Scaffidi. Jerry had boffed Scaffidi’s niece. Was this enough to cost Jerry his life? Scaffidi was on the periphery of organized crime; no doubt he had the contacts to have such things done. Jerry cut wood for him. Wood had been cut in the Tract around the fire where Jerry’s body had been discovered. Service decided that Ralph Scaffidi deserved further attention. Until he had something solid to grab on to, he needed to keep all options open. After a final bite of toast he decided to pay a visit to Wink Rector, the resident FBI man in the U.P.

  It was late afternoon when Service drove up Wink Rector’s street near the town of Harvey, where the Chocolay River dumped into Lake Superior. The house was in a plat of new homes, two stories with two-car garages and well-watered lawns. Rector was tinkering with his sprinkler system.

  “King Twinkie,” Rector greeted him.

  “I just visited Ralph Scaffidi.”

  Rector looked surprised. “Why?”

  “Jerry Allerdyce was murdered. I had information suggesting he was doing some work for Scaffidi.”

  “Was he?

  “Odd jobs, but Scaffidi canned him back in May.”

  The FBI agent clucked and shook his head.

  “I got the feeling that the people there with him weren’t there by his choice,” Service said.

  “They’re not.”

  “Rumor is that the mob exiled him up here.”

  “Bullshit. He helped us with another investigation and made some people unhappy.” Rector pushed up the end of his nose. “That kind of people. The Bureau didn’t give his name to the news. The New Jersey mob did that to push the investigation back into Detroit and deflect it from them. It didn’t work, but it screwed up Scaffidi’s life big time. He’s alone and he wanted protection. We set him up with a private security firm from Detroit. They send him a couple of guys, they last three or four months and leave and then they send him replacements, but he pays the bills. It’s not like witness protection. Did he show you his pond?”