The engines began to unwind. Nodnol said over the interphone, “You’re five hundred clicks north of your target—closest spot I could find in this light. At least it’s on this side of the river. I’ll sit here and await orders.”
“Dismount!” Tree yelled.
Service and the others stepped down to the metal skid, then to the ground. Service reached in for packs and equipment bags and jerked them out. They put on packs and head lamps. The EMT’s name was Sironi. “Your search,” Service said.
“They call me Late Night,” she said. “You see the panels?”
“Affirmative.”
“How high?”
“Above river level . . . twenty feet?”
“Two teams,” she said. “Two of you up the shoreline, three of us cross forty feet up. We should catch the panels between us. No wreckage, right?”
“None seen,” Service said.
“We’ll assume rescue, until evidence dictates recovery,” Sironi said, opening a bag and handing each man a survival radio. “PRC One-Twelves,” she said. “I doubt cells or your 800s will be worth shit down here.” She pronounced PRC, “Prick.”
They moved out as dark was settling, hiking slowly north for more than an hour, all of them sweating profusely and adjusting clothing layers to compensate as they went. They also had to work hard to not slip on the ice and rocks. Noonan and Treebone worked low, along the riverside; Sironi, Service, and Allerdyce walked the high route.
Limpy spotted the signal panels and immediately slid down to them on his behind, Sironi right behind him, yelling, “We’ve got a body under the panels—” and then a split second later, “Shit! She’s still breathing.”
Service joined them and looked. Jesus, it was Anne Campau! How the hell did she get all the way over here? Her uniform was torn and bloody. Sironi asked for help to pull Campau into the clear and wrap her in two extra large space blankets.
Noonan and Treebone saw the congregation of lights and clambered up. “Our path here was dicey,” Service told them. “Yours?”
“Flat enough if you don’t count ice.”
Service toggled his PRC 112, called Nodnol. “Ranse, we’ve got one survivor, female, alive. We’re coming south along the river with the litter. Call for emergency medical support at the airport.”
Sironi assembled a foldable litter and knelt by Campau, examining her as quickly as she could. “No bleeding or obvious external injury I can see,” she told the men. “Arm fracture, cheekbone, probably concussion; vitals are there, but real weak. She’s hurting. I’ll immobilize her head with a cervical collar,” she said, ripping the foam brace out of plastic packaging. “Unconscious, breathing labored, skin cold, blood pressure low. We need to move quickly, boys, quickly but carefully. Our girl’s on the edge. Do everything together. Steady trumps fast today.”
Service nodded in the dark, sensing Sironi’s competence and confidence. “You call all,” Tree said.
“Lift on my lift,” she said, “Two, one, lift.”
Nodnol radioed, “I won’t start engines until all pax secure.”
It did not go as quickly as they would have liked, but the transfer got made, and Campau and Sironi got strapped in back. “You coming?” the EMT asked Service as the turbines screeched up rpms.
“No. Send food and coffee. Good luck, great job; thanks.”
Sironi and Service bumped fists.
They all lay down behind cover as the lifting chopper pounded them with snow and ice chunks.
Treebone said, “Less than fifty-fifty.” The chopper was quickly out of the gorge and beyond earshot, though Service could still feel some vibration in his bones. He had always felt helicopters long before and after others.
Sironi seemed to know her business. People up here valued space and privacy, but if you needed help, you could count on Yoopers to act without urging. This was the sort of rare place where people who had moved away fifty years ago still warranted a full-column obituary in the local weekly newspaper. Once a Yooper, always a Yooper.
He felt himself surging with powerful emotions. Gratitude, pride, a sense of being connected to others, the weight of duty and resolve—the kind of shit that made you glad for what you and others like you did for others.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go see if we can find out what the hell this is all about.”
He forced himself to put Anne Campau out of his mind. Nothing you can do for her at this point. Your part’s done; it’s up to others now.
40
Friday, December 19
BEWILDER CREEK CUT
Ranse Nodnol returned five hours later with Sheriff Sulla Kakabeeke, CO Dani Denninger, a large camp tent, and enough soup and sandwiches to feed a small regiment. The sheriff jumped out and all of them unloaded before sending Nodnol back to Baraga to stand by.
“Ranse took Campau on to Marquette,” Kakabeeke told them when the chopper was gone. “She was still alive when they unloaded her there.”
“Why’s Sironi called Late Night?” Service asked.
The sheriff said, “She was a medic in Iraq, got her sleep all screwed up. Almost all ops there were after dark, so she worked nights and slept days, her world inverted: Night is day and day is night. The name stuck. What do we have here?”
“No idea yet,” he said. “We never saw any aircraft debris from above. My recommendation is that we get the tent up, eat and sleep, and hit this thing hard in the morning when we can see.” Campau had been missing for more than two weeks. How the hell had she stayed alive down here? Had she been somewhere else most of that time?
“Makes sense to me,” Kakabeeke said. “We’re sixty miles crowfly from where she was last seen. Somebody want to enlighten me on how the hell she got all the way over here from WoJu?”
Service said, “Or survived for eighteen days?”
Silence all around. Service said, “Let’s get the tent up, eat, sleep.”
•••
The next morning at dawn was spent carefully examining the area for evidence, a wasted effort. Nothing was found. Service and Denninger focused their attention on how Campau might have gotten into the gorge to end up where she had been found. Her being alive seemed to buck all odds.
“Maybe somebody thought she was dead and dumped her over,” Denninger suggested. “Even if she wasn’t dead, she should have died pretty fast from exposure.”
“We need to climb up and see,” Service said. They were under the north rim. “How the hell did she get in from the north?” he asked.
“Same way we would,” Denninger said. “Four-wheeler.”
“You know this country?”
“Some. You can get fairly close to here on the old rail bed.”
“The Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad is still active?”
“Not really, but the infrastructure’s still there. Rumor has it that ownership will make a formal abandonment request so the line can become a state recreation trail.” Railroads all around the U.P. were dying, and it was good the old rail beds still found some purpose.
“Who climbs first?” he asked, staring up the iced rock wall.
“Hey, I can see you catching me, but not vice versa. If you climb first, we’ll both end up crippled or dead. I’ll take the lead on this, big guy.”
She ascended with no further comment.
Two hours later she called him on the PRC 112. “I’ve got an abandoned Honda up here, very old model.”
“Traceable?”
“We can try,” she said. “But I’m gonna have to find an easier way down. The climb up got sort of freaky.”
“Was the ORV hidden or just abandoned?” Service asked over the radio.
“Hidden pretty well. I smelled gas, which is the only reason I found it. I’m guessing it’s stolen.”
“Which means Campau was brought in on it with a one-wa
y, the machine hidden, and the perp hiked out. Where to? You get the VIN?”
“I did, but this is an ancient sucker. I’m guessing it hasn’t been registered in a very long time, and was probably reserved for private land use only.”
Meaning it very well might never have been registered with the state.
“Do what you can,” he told Denninger as they waited for Nodnol to arrive, to fly them back to the Baraga airfield.
Sulla Kakabeeke looked at Service. “This is the fricking black hole of Calcutta down here.”
41
Saturday, December 20
MARQUETTE
Friday met Service at the trauma center. Willie Celt met Denninger at the Baraga airport, and the two of them headed back into Houghton County to return to the Cut from the north rim. Weather was quiet, no fresh snow falling. Let it hold, Service thought.
“Campau?” he asked.
Friday grimaced. “ICU—critical but stable, still unconscious.”
“Touch and go?” he asked.
“The doc says way short of fifty-fifty, unless she starts showing some improvement soon. I went to an administrator for Lecair’s school system, an HR man named Jalinga. He confirmed she had been an employee, but he won’t surrender records without a court order. The usual fimble-famble legal mumbo jumbo. He’s afraid if we get her records, they’ll soon have a suit for privacy violation flying in their direction. Hell, I begged for a peek, but he wouldn’t buy it. Said, ‘The way I see it, we are both obligated to uphold the law.’ He said, ‘You bring a subpoena, you’ll get everything we have. Until then, my hands are tied.’ I told him we just want to know where Lecair’s kids were born.”
“Now what?”
“Get the subpoena. How the hell did Campau end up in south Houghton County? I don’t get how or why, or why she’s still alive for that matter.”
“We think she was hauled in and dumped. Denninger found a stashed four-wheeler.”
“What the hell is happening up here?” she asked.
Grady Service was too tired to think. “Go home, Tuesday, and sleep. You look wasted.”
“Ditto,” she said wearily. “The hospital will call when she comes back to us.”
Service liked her optimism, didn’t necessarily share it; he had learned early in life to not confuse hope with optimism. “Right.”
•••
Allerdyce rode out to Slippery Creek with him. “Where’s Krelle?” Service asked.
“Big boy took her out his place.”
Pilkington. “She been back out to Ketchkan?”
“Dunno. She wun’t too happy when we pull out, tell youse dat.”
“You want to go back up there?”
“Sonny, I t’ink dem wolfies et on moose, but di’n’t kill ’em.”
Service looked at the old poacher. “Spit it out.”
“Found ’nother moose. Been shot, hey.”
“Hunter tracks?”
“Nope, an’ wolfies was just startin’ on dat carcass.”
“Were the other moose shot?” Wouldn’t we have seen evidence of shooting? Maybe not. They’d been so shocked by the wolf tracks.
“I t’ink moose shot, but I go look, be sure.”
“Moose shot and left, nothing taken by the shooter?”
The old man’s head tilted. “Mebbe not shot for pipple grub.”
Service rolled this around in his mind. “Shot for the wolves, to feed them—is that what you’re thinking?”
Allerdyce opened his hands. “Just say what I seen.”
Someone shooting moose to feed wolves? Who? Why?
“Any people signs?”
“I look long enough, I find,” Allerdyce said confidently.
“Got any notions about who or why?”
Limpy Allerdyce wagged a forefinger. “Not yet, sonny.”
42
Monday, December 22
SLIPPERY CREEK CAMP
Midmorning, a Michigan State Bell 430 helicopter powered its way into the open area in front of his house. Governor Lorelei Timms stepped gingerly from the flop-down steps and plowed though the snow toward the cabin where Allerdyce held the door open for her.
Timms peeled off black leather gloves and a forest-green toque, looked at Service, Allerdyce, Treebone, and Noonan, and asked, “Can we have the room alone for a few?”
Service said, “This is your team, Lori, all four of us.”
Timms glared, but sat. “All right. What’s the investigation’s status?”
“Well, there’s no more talk about a dogman,” Service said. “That’s what you wanted. That rumor’s dead.”
“Really?” The governor said. “What about the Michigan Tech professor on the radio today saying a thing called a windigo is on a killing spree up here. A fricking cannibal, for God’s sake!”
Service closed his eyes. Lupo. “There’s no such thing as a windigo, Governor.”
“You said the same thing about a dogman.”
“I’m right on both counts.”
“You think this is about being right?” Governor Timms asked angrily. “Have you talked to the FBI, their behavioral analysis unit?”
“No, and I haven’t called Ghostbusters, either.”
Allerdyce reached for a cup of coffee. “Who is that?” Timms asked.
“Allerdyce.”
“The one who shot you?”
Service said, “He’s pulling his weight as a consultant. What do you want, Governor?”
“Consultant, are you out of your mind?”
“The BAU interviews convicted serial killers and relies on their information to catch others like them,” Service growled at her. “This isn’t about purity; it’s about getting something done.”
“People are still dying, citizens of our state, and I want it stopped. I order it stopped.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Service said.
Lorelei Timms glared at the small, gaunt figure of the old poacher and then at Service, who opened his mouth and closed it.
“I’m deeply disappointed in you, Grady.”
Service said, “That sword’s got two edges.”
The governor stormed out of the house, and the chopper departed in a cloud of snow.
“I might could have been a bit more judicious in my word choices,” Service told the group.
“You sure couldn’t have done much worse, man,” Treebone said.
Friday called. “You got your TV on? Turn to Channel 6 WLUC-TV Marquette for the noon news.”
“The governor just left here. She’s pissed.”
“Watch TV,” Friday said.
They watched a clip of Lupo’s press conference, and after it was done, Service called Friday back. “You want us to go grab Lupo, find out what he’s up to?”
“Was the governor really pissed?”
“ ‘Disappointed,’ ” he said. “ ‘Deeply so.’ ”
“Different emotions,” Friday said.
“They sound a lot alike to me,” Service said.
“You’re such a guy, Grady.”
“That your opinion?”
“Raw fact,” she said. “Sadly.”
•••
Service went outside and placed a call to Special Agent Busby Adair, the FBI’s latest Upper Peninsula resident agent. The U.P. was neither a plum assignment nor one of Dante’s numbered rings of Hell but fell somewhere between those extremes. He and Adair had become friends after he’d helped the agent find a hunting camp to buy in south Marquette County. Adair had pledged to run interference with the Bureau’s bureaucracy anytime Service needed it. Time to find out if he’d meant it.
Adair answered his telephone and Service said, “Help.”
The agent didn’t hesitate. “Say what, pal.”
“Privat
e talk with someone I can trust from your BAU outfit.”
“Easy. Her name is Senior Special Agent JoJo Pincock, a real rock. When?”
“Sooner beats better.”
“Back atcha,” Adair said.
•••
At dinnertime Lupo was on television in a longer segment than the one at noon. He looked more striking on TV than he did in real life, which seemed pretty remarkable.
Lupo said, “I was consulted sometime back by local police authorities.” His delivery was confident, smooth, authoritative. The camera loved him.
“You’re not normally a police consultant, right, Professor?” the reporter asked.
“That’s true, but I deal with the dead,” he said. “My subject is just a little older than what police normally deal with.” He was smiling when he made the statement.
What’s his angle? Service wondered.
“Why did they call you?” the reporter asked.
Had he scripted the reporter—controlled and set up the whole thing?
“Police in Marquette and Baraga Counties have been finding badly mutilated bodies, and the same kind of killings sometimes occur in rare frequencies among indigenous aboriginal populations.”
“You mean Native Americans?” the reporter asked.
“Exactly,” Lupo said.
“I don’t think our viewers will understand the link. And I’m not sure I do, either.”
Unexpected admission of twitdom, Service thought. Candor could be refreshing even from a fool.
“Think of it as an extreme form of psychosocial disease,” Lupo explained. “If you will, a form of environmentally induced psychosis. For any number of reasons and complex factors, an individual may come to think they’re possessed by evil sprits, which in turn convinces them they need to consume human flesh.”
The reporter smiled. “Wouldn’t that call for an exorcist—you know, like a medicine man?”
“Possession leads the stricken person to kill. He mutilates and often consumes his victims. Usually this begins with close relatives before he expands into his local community.”
Killing a Cold One Page 23
