Killing a Cold One

by Joseph Heywood

  “Not saying an animal attacked, but it might have fed off the meat available,” he said. Animals might have fed here, but no wolf did this—at least not one that fit his predator/scavenger profile or experience.

  “Look around for animal evidence?” she said over her shoulder.

  He stepped outside and began looking around, careful to stand in one place and let his eyes move, rather than risk ruining evidence.

  “You call your homicide people?” Friday asked Linsenman as she backed out of the tent.

  “I did, and I told them I was calling you, too, because it was my guess you’d prolly end up catching the case. They said to call them if you need their help, but it’s your call from here on, far as they’re concerned. I thought it best to keep this as straightforward and uncomplicated as possible.”

  Service’s friend Linsenman was a great cop, the kind of man you could always depend on, even when he didn’t relish being depended on.

  “Thanks for that,” Friday said. “Dani found them?”

  “Yeah.”

  Service went looking for the young CO, found her sitting with her back against a mossy stump, clumsily smoking a cigarette, coughing.

  “They tell you about crap like this at the academy?” Service asked.

  “I’m not in the mood for half-baked philosophy. There’s nothing funny about this sicko shit,” she said.

  “Sorry. Friday’s here. She wants to talk at you.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll be right there,” Denninger said.

  Service watched Friday and Linsenman use a roll of yellow plastic tape to cordon off the crime area.

  “Call the ME?” Friday asked Linsenman.

  “She’s en route, I expect.”

  “She?” Friday asked. “What happened to Myslewski?”

  “Today’s the deputy ME’s first day. Myslewski announced that he’ll retire in September, and she’s gonna work with him until he leaves. None of this has been announced to the public.”

  “Her name?”

  “Dr. Kristy Tork.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Hired out of Mount Clemens or some McMansionless scum pit between Flintucky and Detwat. Word is she works great with cops, and she’s swum through a bunch of hi-viz cases downstate.”

  Service could see cop-think asserting itself and Friday immersing herself in professional mode. Her duty hat was snugged down tight: Preserve the site, get the medical examiner to the scene, summon the State Police crime scene team to collect forensic evidence. At this stage, you had to block out the horrifics and run your crime scene checklist. This was still early in the what-how-and-when stage. Motive wouldn’t become an issue for a while—not until other essential questions were settled. He knew the missing heads and hands were problematic to the case, but Friday said nothing about them. As a good cop, she would focus on what she had, not what she didn’t have. Amend that: Not just a good cop, a great cop.

  Service had seen more than his share of dead people, but murder wasn’t a DNR concern, much less his job. Thank God. Even so, he and other conservation officers encountered enough baffling and strange human behavior and corpses to understand that almost any and all things were possible. Nothing was too extreme or unimaginable.

  The possibilities spanned human diversity. Satan whispered “Why don’tcha?” to an imaginary dog who, in turn, whispered the same thing to a nutcase, and kabang, psychic shit overflowed from an inner cesspool with severely negative karma for fuel. There were lots of folks in the world and woods, oddly bent and hearing voices, most just trying to hang on, but a few inevitably losing their grip. Friday was good at her job—logical, orderly, unflappable, and even-tempered. Hell, she was good even in her postcoital Jell-O mode, which was a wholly altered state of being (and which, he reminded himself, there’d not been much of recently). She’d been gone for a long week to a seminar in Lansing.

  “Hey,” Linsenman said. “Loan me a ciggie.”

  “Loan? You don’t smoke.”

  “Until tonight. You know why most rural homicides aren’t solved?”

  “Enlighten me,” Service said.

  “No dental records, and all the DNA’s identical.”

  Service felt himself smiling. “Is that profiling? If it is, I remind you it is against the current laws of the land, Sergeant. And it’s downright sick.”

  “Hey, it’s also nearly universally true. Where’s that cig?”

  Service handed him the pack, and Linsenman lit up. Friday walked over to them.

  “We’ll wait for the ME,” Friday told the two men. “When I told my mother I wanted to be a cop, she screamed ‘Why?!’ I told her I liked the notion of helping people. Then, she yelled ‘People?! Most creatures you meet won’t want your help, and most of them are incapable of being helped.’ This was the central precept of my mother’s family—that there are two distinct classes of people in the world: those few who might reasonably be defined as human, and the greater part by far who were born hopeless, and not worth thinking or caring about.”

  “You’re not like your mother,” Service said.

  “Sometimes I wonder if she’s the one who understood reality, and it’s me who doesn’t get it.”

  “Relax,” he whispered.

  “This doesn’t turn your stomach?”

  “I’ve seen a lot that has turned my stomach, and this is as bad as it gets. Everyone dies; only the timing and method are up for grabs. At least there aren’t any little kids.”

  She nodded solemnly. “What about guilt?” she asked.

  Weasel Linsenman said, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. Weird dude named Shakespeare wrote that shit, like, five hundred years ago.”

  Service grinned. Weasel’s depth sometimes astonished him.

  Friday said, “When my mom and stepdad died, it occurred to me that somehow I was responsible—that my words, said in anger years before, had drawn death to them, like a bad-luck magnet. It’s taken a long time to understand and accept that I bore no responsibility. They were killed by a Northwest L-1011 that had been improperly deiced. It lumbered off the runway from Detroit Metro into a thick, freezing mist and promptly crashed on I-94, killing everyone on board and eleven more luckless people on the ground, including my schizoid mother Eve and her latest husband, Luke. They were in her new red Mercedes.

  “ ‘Drinking’ Eve used to ask other drunks how they would characterize a tornado picking up an eighteen-wheeler filled with pigs and dropping it on a synagogue; when no answer came, ‘Anti-semitic’ Eve would cackle and say, ‘Intelligent design.’ I asked her once, what if God was last in his drafting class? That cost me a four-week grounding one summer, but it was worth it. I still wonder if it was God’s intelligent design to drop an L-1011 on all those poor folks. It seems to me that God and Mother Nature together kill a helluva lot of innocent people in ice-cold blood.”

  Service was almost relieved when Denninger joined them.

  “When did you find them?” Friday asked.

  Denninger looked at her watch. “Three hours ago.”

  “You looked inside the tent?”

  “The smell told me I had to.”

  “What brought you out here?”

  “There’s a little brook trout stream near here. It’s a magnet for both visiting and local assholes. This time of year the water never gets above forty-eight degrees. I’m not sure where the trout migrate from.”

  Service smiled. They were a long way from anywhere, but it was no surprise that Denninger would be out, about, and poking around, searching for miscreants in remote locations.

  The Upper Peninsula was as much a state of mind as a piece of geography. Usually you knew the troublemakers in your area, or the people you regularly contacted in the line of duty. Or at least you’d heard of them. Below the Bridge, or BTB, as the
y say, everyone was a stranger, even your neighbors, and every encounter was potentially lethal. If your mind wandered, you could be quick-dead. In some ways, that was less true up here.

  Outsiders thought of Yoopers as antisocial loners, but they weren’t. They could be gloriously gregarious when the mood or need struck. Mostly they were private people; they didn’t want to be alone, they wanted to be left alone, a fine line between the two. Collectively they had no use for rules and laws written by gasbag political flatlanders five hundred miles away in Lansing. Service understood the draw of the lifestyle, and his job. Unlike others, this work wasn’t a stopover en route to something bigger and more lucrative. This was what he wanted, all he had ever wanted, and he was glad to have it back.

  The bodies were removed by 10 a.m., overseen by new Marquette County medical examiner, Dr. Kristy Tork, six feet tall, with the build of a ballerina, the voice of a truck driver, and the vocabulary of a sailor on Hong Kong liberty.

  “Fricking gorks, even up here,” Tork said, shaking her head. “Who knew?”

  Jen Maki, the lead forensics technician for the Michigan State Police, was with the doctor, blotting perspiration from her forehead with a yellow Cub Scout bandanna.

  Tork said, “Lopped off their heads and hands, dug out their hearts. I’m guessing we’ll find semen in their cisterns.”

  “This wasn’t about sex,” Friday asserted.

  The doctor responded calmly and in a measured voice. “I don’t mean to imply it was, Detective. But when men get to doing this sort of shit to women, it seems their dickie-doos are invariably involved in some way. Standard operating procedure to look for pecker tracks. Obviously the perp doesn’t want the remains easily identified, yet I’m asking myself—if I’m trying to prevent identification, why would I take heads and hands and leave a leg with a tattoo? What’s that all about? I mean, Jesus-on-a-Popsicle-stick. My guess is that our Jane Does are Native Americans, and the perp may be a major candidate for the rubber-room short bus.” She banged the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Forgot the tat! Duh!”

  “Evidence for Native Americans?” Friday asked.

  “Skin tone, hunch—can’t say for sure. I might could be wrong, but blood will tell. Tattoo on the one might eventually help. Stylized bear or a dog, not sure which, but I guess prolly a bear. Has a back hump.”

  “How often are you wrong?” Friday asked.

  “Me? Lots of times, but mitochondrial DNA sequencing is never wrong. It doesn’t lie or get confused the way we animated carbon units do.”

  Service didn’t really understand the science or its nuances, but he’d noticed more and more young officers using animal DNA as a tool in making various cases. He told himself repeatedly that he needed to get up to speed with younger officers, especially in his detective role, but there had never seemed to be time, and now his detective days were over and he could immerse himself in the Mosquito Wilderness. You were smart to turn down the top sergeant job. You aren’t qualified.

  “Native Americans are problematic,” Service announced to Tork.

  “Meaning?”

  “They live in a closed society and move around a lot. There are more Indians in Detroit than in the rest of the state combined. They’re hard to trace, and they’re basically uncooperative with white cops. A daughter visits her mother in Bay Mills or Hannahville for six months, then one night she books it to Detroit or the Dakotas, Southern Ontario, or the planet Neptune for a year or two without a damn word, and nobody even inquires, because that’s just how it is. It’s noble to be so free and to move around on whims, but for cops with cases, it’s a pain in the ass. No offense, but I hope you’re wrong on this,” Service concluded.

  “Ditto,” Jen Maki added.

  “I’m just the messenger,” Dr. Tork said, noisily peeling off her gloves.

  Service looked at Denninger. “Is there a vehicle?”

  “Not that we’ve found.”

  “Somebody drop them?”

  “Or whacked them and ganked their wheels,” the young CO suggested.

  4

  Thursday, August 7

  MARQUETTE, MARQUETTE COUNTY

  The morgue and medical examiner’s office were in the Marquette Regional Medical Center’s emergency department complex, between College and Magnetic Avenues. Service said good-bye to Denninger and followed Friday only as far as the complex. He knew she wanted to attend the autopsy, as did Linsenman.

  “How was your seminar?” he asked Friday before they entered the morgue.

  “You coming in for the autopsy?” she asked, dismissing his question.

  “Not a chance,” he said. “See you at your place later?”

  “Yep,” she said distractedly. Her head’s buried in the case already.

  Service drove to Friday’s place, relieved her sister of kid-care duties, and checked to make sure Friday’s son, Shigun, was asleep.

  When Friday got home, Service handed her a glass of white wine. They sat on the bed, undressing, and performing nightly rituals.

  “Feebs think they have all the answers,” she said with a derisive snort. “They don’t even have all the damn questions yet. I picked up some good tidbits on DNA, though. The feds want to set up a national DNA bank similar to AFIS.”

  “Must be nice to be able to print money,” Service said with a snort. The State of Michigan was broke and sucking fiscal carbon monoxide. AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, had been pioneered by the FBI; major city cop houses had adapted the system to create local crime data banks, which helped to catch some criminals, but missed most, and cost taxpayers a bundle to maintain. The cost of a national DNA bank, he guessed, would make the AFIS look like chump change.

  “So damn young,” Friday said suddenly. “Eighteen and twenty. Jesus! Messy work on their necks, done in a hurry, machete or a hatchet. Hacked off heads and hands. The heart deal is really weird. I mean, what’s that all about? I think he knew what he wanted, but I don’t see any finesse at work. We may have us a power boy, a real grank-and-crank. I’m thinking we should do a statement for the media, the usual drill. Found two bodies of unidentified young women, approximately eighteen to thirty years of age, discovered yesterday in a remote location in Marquette County. Cause of death not yet determined, but foul play is suspected, and the investigation is under way, yada yada. Do I mention animals might have gotten at the remains?”

  Service considered the critter what-if and rejected it. No real evidence. Wolves or coyotes were possible, but not likely. He could tell that her mind was absorbed in the case. Granks were killers who tore apart victims. “Leave out the animal part. No proof.”

  “I’m keeping everything on the table with me for the moment.”

  “No task force?”

  “Not unless forced,” she said. “It’s a sad world when people begin to verbigate nouns,” she added.

  What the hell was she talking about?

  “Linsenman checked between toes, and what was left of the arms. No tracks.”

  “They could be play-for-pay girls,” Service offered.

  “A possibility lacking evidence.”

  “The lab will mine all the cavities.”

  “Meaning vaginas, not teeth?” she challenged, clearly not pleased with his word choice.

  “I hope Forensics can match the hatch,” Service said. “Unsubs complicate everybody’s life.”

  “Ya think?” Friday yowped at him with a half-growl.

  “We’re not going to fool around tonight, right?” Service said.

  She tilted her head and looked over at him with blank eyes. “What did you say?”

  5

  Friday, August 8

  TWENTY POINT POND

  Denninger called on his personal cell phone at 0400. “Can you get loose?” she asked.

  “Shouldn’t you be back in you
r own house by now,” he said, “getting—what’s it called—oh yeah, sleep?”

  “I found something you should see.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Now,” she said. “Please?”

  He heard the pleading in the young CO’s voice, pushed down the covers, said, “Soon as I can get there,” got out of bed, and began to dress.

  “Who was that?” Friday asked.

  “Denninger.”

  “This case?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  He kissed the top of Friday’s head and went out to his Tahoe, wishing he’d gotten real sleep. Two 0400 wake-ups in a row was a decidedly crappy trend. He’d once challenged Friday on how obsessed she became by her cases, and she had looked him in the eye and said, “Pretty much like looking in a mirror, ain’t it?” Right now was a case in point.

  Denninger was parked in the lot with the trail that led north to Twenty Point Pond. She was standing behind her truck, tailgate down, a coffeepot on a small burner.

  “You can’t work twenty-four, seven,” he said.

  “Sure I can, and do, same as you. They just don’t pay us for it.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Coffee first, then we’ll take a walk.”

  Walk, to a conservation officer, could amount to anything from a few hundred yards to several miles.

  “South, I bet,” Service said.

  “You know your geography.”

  “Fields to the south, good grasses to attract bait.”

  Bait was a CO term for deer feeding in a field, where they served as magnets for violators. “Been lots of busts up here,” Service added.

  After coffee, they hiked to the crime scene and Denninger led him beyond the camp, taking him in a giant loop back to the south. She shone her flashlight in the dirt, showed him three huge canid tracks.

  “Seen anything like that before?” she asked.

  Service knelt, measured with his hand. The tracks were a good seven inches long, five wide. “If that’s a wolf, it’s the biggest sonuvabitch I’ve ever heard of,” he told her.