Killing a Cold One

by Joseph Heywood

  “That’s to be expected,” the woman said, “even commended, but it is totally inflexible.”

  “How it has to be,” he said.

  Allerdyce intervened. “Want me track scat, hair?”

  Service nodded, looked at the woman. “Where’s Cale?”

  “Home. He’s not well suited to tent life in the snow.”

  Service liked Pilkington, thought he was a good man and did a good job with the moose herd. “We all work differently,” he said in the biologist’s defense, knowing full well that over recent years experienced state biologists had been forced out of the field and into their offices by too-small budgets.

  “You don’t have to live out here,” Service said. “There are places you can stay and come and go up here.”

  “Mr. Allerdyce already kindly offered the same, but no thanks; I prefer to remain right where we are.”

  Service looked at Allerdyce. “No firearms.”

  Allerdyce cackled happily. “Don’t need gun for dem wolfies. Dey won’t bodder no pipples.”

  “I’ll spend the night, head out in the morning,” Service said. “Call if you get lucky,” he added, immediately regretting his choice of words, especially when Krelle’s face turned scarlet and Allerdyce’s eyes twinkled. Good God, it’s already happened!

  38

  Wednesday, December 17

  ISHPEMING, MARQUETTE COUNTY

  Champ’s Funeral Home was just south of the infamous Yooper Tourist Trap on US 41 / M-28. It was a brick building, darkened by soot and smoke, and close to some ancient iron-mine structures.

  Joan Champ had called just as Service was getting into his Tahoe that morning. There was also a text message that Allerdyce and Krelle had hiked north to High Creek just before first light. Tree and Noonan were at Friday’s office and heading to Baraga County to check birth records at the hospital, and at local church birth registries. They were still trying to find information on Martine Lecair’s twins. Service suggested they might have been born elsewhere, maybe in another state, and Friday said she was working that angle through various online databases.

  Service waved as Noonan and Tree sped west past him. He pulled into Champ’s parking lot and punched in Val Houston’s phone number. Val had been a classmate of his at Northern long, long ago. Back when they were both students, she had also bartended at the Holiday Inn. She had gone on to New York City to Columbia Unversity and gotten her master’s degree in social work. A Potawatomi, she had married an Ojibwe lawyer and moved to the Walpole Island Ojibwe Reserve in Ontario. Houston had once explained the Council of Three Fires to him, the confederation of Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi tribes. The Ojibwe were the faith keepers, the Ottawa, the trade keepers, and the Potawatomi, the fire keepers, or “cheek blowers.”

  “Val, this is Grady.”

  “Let me guess—you miss me?” she said.

  “You miss me?” he countered.

  “Not so much after the first fifteen years,” she said, and laughed out loud.

  “You know me and communcations,” he said sheepishly.

  “Meaning no commo, at all. I don’t suppose you’re somewhere near Walpole?”

  “Parking lot of a funeral home in Ishpeming.”

  “Not family, I hope.”

  “A case,” he said.

  “When did animals start being handled by funeral homes?” she asked. “Things that bad up there economically?”

  “They are,” he said, “but that’s not why I’m calling.”

  Val Houston was a social worker at the reserve. When Service was a Troop, he’d once driven over to Walpole to see Val and her husband Briscoe. The island was almost all swamp, with mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds. She and Briscoe would talk about nothing but reparations from the United States and Canada to aboriginals. Service had lasted one day and departed. He had little interest in the past, his or theirs, or the issues that lay in the way-back-when. Yesterday was gone. You had today and tomorrow, especially today. Still, Val was a smart cookie, a straight talker, and a master at navigating government red tape. If anyone could find certain Native Americans, it would be Val. Why he’d not thought of her until now was beyond him.

  “I assume you’re looking for someone,” Houston said.

  “I am.”

  “Let me guess: female?”

  “Yes, but it’s business, not personal. One of your people.”

  “Walpolean?”

  “No, Ojibwe, from up here. Teacher. She had twins, now five or six years old.”

  “Hold up, big guy: You do know Walpole’s in Canada?”

  “I know some tribal folks don’t pay a helluva lot of attention to US or Canadian borders.”

  “Any chance the twins are Canadian-born?”

  This had never entered his mind as a possibility. “Nothing pointing that way,” he said.

  “You said the teacher had twins. Meaning?”

  “Suicide, offed herself. One of her kids was murdered, identity confirmed by DNA. The other kid is missing. We don’t have positive ID on the missing kid; no name, nothing really. The woman’s name was Martine Lecair. Don’t know where she was born either, but we assume up this way somewhere.” The mental picure of Lecair dead on a floor in Bodison persisted, along with the lipstick figure on the bathroom wall. He told Houston the story, about all the killings and bodies.

  “Good god,” she said. “It sounds like a bloodbath up there. How come it’s not major news?”

  “All tribals so far,” he said. “Maybe they lack news value.”

  “And maybe you people sat on a lot of it, to keep the investigation close?”

  “Could be a factor,” he admitted. “You know anything about windigos?”

  “Good god, Grady! Listen, I hope you’re not buying into that windigo psychosis crap.”

  “A psychosis is real, right?”

  “Listen to me, Grady Service. Here’s the truth about the windigo psychosis: It was white anthropologists’ attempt to rationalize murder by groups and individuals in situations where survival was threatened and food was short, too much snow to get out and hunt, and not enough summer and fall preparation . . . Hear what I’m saying?”

  “Donner Party, Andes crash survivors?” Both situations had spawned so-called survival cannibalism.

  “There you have it,” Val Houston said. “Same behavior, different label; problem of white-skinned academics being blinded to the dynamic and wanting to give it a forgiving, dismissive new set of clothes. Tell me what you’ve seen.”

  He did, sparing no detail.

  “Seriously, not a windigo, Grady. Windigo is about starving people desperate for food. Seems to me you’ve got a nutcase either trying to make a statement to the world, or hiding something else he’s up to.”

  “He?”

  She laughed. “Near hunnert percent, big guy.”

  “Social workers deal with this sort of thing?”

  “Do you know how difficult it is to find missing Indian children?”

  “No.”

  “Massive dislocation, drugs, violence, mental illness, poverty, kids ending up with grandfathers, uncles, aunties, cousins, distant friends, unofficial foster families. Many are sent away and keep moving. Finding Indian kids can be next to impossible, depending on the situation.”

  “People don’t care?”

  “Some do; many don’t. Many can barely care for themselves, and this isn’t some recent phenomenon. It’s been like this for close to a century. This is Canada, Grady. Just like where you are, we get paid little and are expected to do everything. Give me some call-back numbers.”

  Service did, closing with “Do what you can.” He put away his cell phone and went into Champ’s funeral home.

  A vaguely familiar shape stepped over to him in the reception area. “Speedoboy,” Service said.

/>   “Fish cop,” the man said with a mouthful of gleaming white teeth.

  “You’re a long way from your doghouse,” Service said.

  “Where that motherfucker, Noonan?”

  “On a mission. You two have a history?”

  “Gangsta, that one. I come to help.”

  “Help with what?”

  “You talk to Father Bill Eyes?”

  “We did. I also talked to Val Houston.”

  “Cheek-blower social worker over to Walpole?”

  “She told me the windigo thing is a bunch of hot air.”

  “She wrong, Service. Windigo is serious shit.”

  “No doubt. What do you want here?”

  “Payback.”

  “Don’t we all. For what?”

  “Kelly Johnstone.”

  “What about her?”

  “My ma. Heard she offed herself.”

  Speedoboy is Dwayne Johnstone?

  “Heard there’s a reward,” the man added.

  “For a suicide?”

  “I hear she got whacked.”

  “Your mother gets whacked and you want a reward to find out who did it?”

  “A man gotta live,” Dwayne said.

  “I think our definitions of living differ significantly,” Service said. “What do you think you can do to help?”

  “You lookin’ for bitch called Lecair, coupla brats?”

  Grady Service stared at the hulking form. “What if we were?”

  “One of them is over to the Soo, man. Some cops you are . . . can’t find a body one town over.”

  “You need a geography refresher, Dwyane. The Soo’s a hundred and eighty miles east. You need to chill.”

  “Don’t dis me, man. She had old man named Bernard. Way I hear it, she got tired of her old man and no money.”

  “So she took her kids to the Soo?”

  “No, man, she split like a spirit. Her old man run to Soo, live out Sugar Island. So how much is this shit worth?”

  “Bambi Sorrowhorse said you’re a good man.”

  “Even good men need money,” Johnstone said.

  “I got nothing for you, Chief.”

  “Don’t call me Chief.”

  “Got nothing for you, Geronimo.”

  Johnstone sputtered. “I be ’round. When you ready, we be ready.”

  “That’s comforting, I’m sure.”

  The man tossed a small deerskin bag to Service. “They talking about that shit everywhere, man. I come see. Medicine bags up on the Gorge, out on the rez, too. Keeps windigo off,” he added with a grin. “You don’t gotta fuckin’ clue what goin’ down, do you, man?”

  Grady Service said, “It’s been real instructive, Dwayne. But your mother’s not dead.”

  The man stared, blinking fast. “Say what?”

  “You heard me: She’s not dead. She’s missing, intentionally, and we don’t know where she is, or why she staged her own suicide.”

  “ ’Member, time come, we all be there,” the man said.

  “I’d be more impressed if you’d have been here before this shit started. Your mother’s not dead.”

  “That ain’t the word on the drums,” he said, turning and walking out the front door.

  Service called out for Joan Champ and she answered faintly, “Back here.”

  He found her in some kind of lab. There was a naked old man on the stainless-steel table in front of her.

  “Artist at work?” he asked. The room smelled of chemicals and sanitizers, an unpleasant combination.

  “That trooper you run with—you hauling her ashes?” Champ asked.

  “Not your business.”

  “You see the fat boy out front?” she asked.

  “I did. I’ll wait outside if you want to talk.”

  “Five minutes, max,” she said.

  The next time he saw her, she was in a sleeveless black cocktail dress so tight he was sure she’d been poured into it. She had a cashmere overcoat on her arm and held it out to him.

  “Be a gentleman?”

  Service helped her into her coat and she looked up at him, winked, and said, “You a player?”

  “Not hardly.”

  Joan Champ smiled. “Hey, I’m an unwilling mortician in the U.P. What’s not crazy about that combo?”

  “You called me.”

  “For the fat boy. We went to school together, long time ago.”

  “That’s all you got?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  Service walked out ahead of her, got into his truck, and watched as her Cadillac fishtailed into the street.

  39

  Thursday, December 18

  BEWILDER CREEK CUT, HOUGHTON COUNTY

  Friday said over the telephone, “A pilot spotted emergency-signal panels in Bewilder Creek Cut. Any idea where that is?”

  “Houghton County, somewhere east of Pori.”

  “Bad terrain?”

  “If you like things populated, or flat.”

  “The Baraga County sheriff called Ranse Nodnol. He’ll scarf you up at the Baraga airport to be his spotter. Denninger and Celt are already in the area with Grinda, Simon del Olmo, and Junco Kragie.”

  “Why so many DNR?”

  “Too many old-timers on the Houghton County rescue outfit, and Sulla Kakabeeke and your game wardens are closer and know the terrain better.”

  Service didn’t know Nodnol. “Fixed-wing or chopper?”

  “Chopper—Huey. USFS leases it for fires.”

  “Get to Allerdyce on the 800 channel, tell him to dump Krelle at the Baraga office and get over to the airport to join Tree and Noonan. They’re already over that way somewhere. Any radio traffic indicating an aircraft down?”

  “Not yet. The FAA is involved and working their checklists and systems.”

  “You sure the pilot saw emergency-signal panels?”

  “VS-17s is what I was told.”

  “What about signal mirrors, strobes, lasers, GPS beacons—anything else?”

  “Just two panels made into an X.”

  Translation: Medical assistance required.

  “Is there wreckage?”

  “No. Grady, get to the airport and help out.”

  •••

  Jesus, it was cold.

  Ranse Nodnol was sixtyish, gray, and handled the bird with confidence. “Get lower?” Service asked.

  The pilot nursed the cyclical, easing the Huey downward. “Get in back on the interphone and strap into the safety harness. I’m gonna sweep starboard, lift us, spin her one-eighty, and come down the other side. Hang on back there.”

  The gorge pines were above them. “We got enough altitude?” Service asked the pilot.

  “Keep your eyes on the ground and let me worry about the sky,” Nodnol said.

  “The sighting was just above Greasy Grass Falls, and we’re just beyond that.”

  “I caught a flash of color,” the pilot said calmly. “Circling.”

  Service hung on to a strap as the rising machine pressed him downward. He stared out the open hatch. How does somebody crash in this terrain and survive?

  Nodnol gave the rudder a tap and Service felt the machine drop into the steep ravine, where it immediately got darker. They stopped descending a hundred feet or so above the river, and Service looked out and saw the color. Fuchsia, in an X. “Got the signal. No doubt,” he told the pilot. “Can clearly see the panels. Where’s the wreckage?”

  “We’re too low to hover and play,” Nodnol radioed. “I’ll climb up so we can make several passes to see what we can identify.”

  They made six low runs, and Service marked the areas with his handheld GPS while the pilot did the same. They compared coordinates and they matched. Service took digital photo
graphs before climbing back up beside the pilot. “This a USFS chopper?”

  “Belongs to a Vietnam vet named Magnusson. Summers he leases it to the USFS for fire suppression. Winters he takes whatever work comes along. Sheriff Kakabeeke got the initital report and called me. I called Magnusson, and here we are.”

  Baraga County Sheriff Sulla Kakabeeke was a retired Trooper who had replaced the previous sheriff after a very messy situation. She was solid. “Bet she didn’t even ask how much?”

  “Nope, all she said was go fly.”

  “You related to Magnusson?”

  “Brother-in-law. We crewed together in ’Nam, ’70 to ’72.”

  Grady Service understood such bonds.

  They were back on the ground in fifteen minutes. Allerdyce was waiting with Treebone and Noonan, and an EMT from the Baraga County SAR team. The group had bags of equipment. Treebone handed him a list of weights of people and bags and Service handed it to the pilot.

  “Our weight good to go?”

  Nodnol quickly calculated, said, “Saddle up,” and tapped gauges with a gloved fingertip.

  They wore extreme cold-weather gear now, and the pilot went right down into the canyon, descending so low and close that Service felt like he could reach out and pluck fresh needles off the white pine and hemlock trees. Not the best feeling.

  “Tallyho,” Nodnol said tersely. “Ten o’clock, east side. Check LZ cold.”

  Service said, “We’re not in Vietnam, Ranse.”

  “Roger, LZ cold,” the pilot said. “For a change. Saw me a flat spot back there to put down this erector set, but I need eyes.”

  Treebone leaned out the cargo door. “Five, six feet right, eight to ten vertical.”

  The Huey slid right. Snow formed a cloud around the fuselage and filled the crew compartment with swirling angry snowflakes.

  “Everybody hang tight,” the pilot said with a clipped voice over interphone. The ship hit with a solid but not hard thump. The rotors continued to turn, the turbines screaming. Service and Treebone knew to wait until the pilot cleared them to move. First, he’d let the engines cool. Noonan and Allerdyce looked not just calm, but disinterested. The EMT looked ready to rocket into action. The good ones always did.