“Consumes . . . you mean, he eats the people?” Her face was rubbery and pliable.
Lupo nodded solemnly.
“There’s a cannibal here. The police told you that? Why doesn’t the public know?”
“You’ll have to ask the authorities,” Lupo said, “but I felt it my duty to come forward and share what I know.” Lupo clearly loved the drama of his own voice.
“You’re telling us two different county sheriffs and the State Police think a cannibal is on the loose around here?”
“I believe so, but as I just said, you’ll have to ask the authorities to explain their thinking. I wouldn’t presume to speak for them.”
“But you just did, asshole,” Noonan yelled at the TV.
Lupo added, “Considerable physical evidence supports my observation, but I would caution that there are other possibilities; so far, the authorities seem reluctant to confront any of the realities their own evidence suggests.”
“You’ve seen such evidence?” the reporter asked breathlessly.
“I’ve seen some bodies.”
“Can you describe them?”
“No. Talk to the State Police.”
“Why haven’t we heard anything about this?” the reporter asked the camera with an angry mask.
Lupo sighed. “I really don’t know.”
The wide-eyed reporter tasted blood. “There you have it, from one of the country’s foremost experts. A cannibal is killing and eating Upper Peninsula Native Americans, and the police are ignoring it. This is Bonnie Balat with Professor Grant Lupo.”
“If it bleeds, it leads,” Service said disgustedly. Foremost expert on what? The shit’s in the fan now.
Service called Friday at home. “We just saw the whole thing. Now what?”
“Office tomorrow,” she said, and hung up.
43
Tuesday, December 23
NEGAUNEE, MARQUETTE COUNTY
Some days were long and some just hard; this one looked like it would be a rasher of both—and then some. Reports and call-backs covered Friday’s desk, and she sat quietly, obviously still trying to do a mind-sort on everything. In Service’s world he could always duck into the woods to clear his mind. She couldn’t.
One note said five shots had been fired before sunrise. A man who lived near the county road commission garage had seen an individual climb over the fence and had fired at him. But it was only the day-shift supervisor who had forgotten his keys and didn’t want his wife to drive all the way out from Gwinn with the spare. No injuries. Thank God for buck fever. It made people miss.
A farmer from McFarland had seen a car with Wisconsin plates creep slowly down a private road. He’d confronted the driver, a large man who took umbrage, and a fight ensued, both men now hospitalized. Turned out the Wisconsin man was a mute, and lost.
By 11 a.m., a deputy called in to report that as of this morning, ammo sales at Gander Mountain were up 40 percent against all of last month. He’d checked three other shops and found similar situations. People were stocking up for war. Friday looked over at Service. “I don’t like the implications. Deer season’s pretty much done. Sales should be down, or flat.”
A pulpie near Michigamme claimed to have found a blood-stained machete in the woods and called Channel 6. The station interrupted scheduled programming, and the same reporter who did the Lupo interview gave a breathless account of the bloody weapon, speculating that it could be essential to the investigation into the recent murders. The logger said he had additionally contacted a nationally syndicated TV crime program called Blood Trails, a show that featured unsolved murders, the bloodier the better. The logger claimed he would soon be telling his story nationally for pay.
To the highest bidder, no doubt, Service thought.
Several calls came from other reporters after the news report, and more than fifty “concerned” citizens called to demand to be told what was going on; Tuesday dealt with each person patiently, professionally, courteously, and succinctly, informing every caller there were no cases, cleared or uncleared, involving a machete, known, suspected, or otherwise.
Naturally the Channel Six reporter eventually called, asking “Isn’t it your duty to examine the machete?” Friday stuck to her statement no matter what question got asked or how the questioner tried to come at her. The media wanted a voice and a face; they rarely cared what the voice actually said, as long as it filled time and space. The public was equally undiscerning.
“Could’ve been a machete,” Service reminded her at one point.
“I know that, goddammit!” she snapped at him. “But until Tork tells me so, it isn’t. Capisce? I already had someone visit that asshole logger to give us the weapon, but he refuses to surrender it until we get a warrant to force the issue, or until he’s done using it on TV and with reporters.”
He nodded like a chastised schoolboy.
A pair of cross-country skiers reported seeing someone acting suspiciously on the Ice Train Plains, the area where Lamb Jones’s body had been found. Friday took this call herself. The suspicious character turned out to be a sickly moose calf stumbling around a jack-pine plantation. Nobody asked how a moose might be mistaken for a human. Once the media dove into a story, the wheels of reality tended to come off fast. People saw what they wanted to see, or were afraid of; same thing. And some unscrupulous or clueless wannabe reporters and editors alike tended to opt for the spectacular over accuracy.
Celia Daugherty called to report Terry got to drinking and had beaten hell out of her, but she didn’t want to press charges. Friday sent Trooper Sal Nechamkus to find Daugherty and get him under control, and not long after that Daugherty was in jail. Life’s just too much for some people.
Linsenman found a deputy named Fordell in the locker room of the county cop house using a Swiss Army knife to score the top of .40 caliber Smith & Wesson rounds, creating dumdums, which on impact would cause the lead to fly apart in several directions and create massive wounds. Such ammunition was against international law. The man was suspended without pay pending investigation and sure to get some unpaid time off. He was also told he would catch all the shit jobs when and if he came back on duty. Naturally the Fraternal Order of Police came running to their brother officer’s aid, but not too strongly; mostly they went through the motions to keep members appeased.
Grady Service just shook his head. Some cops acted like the whole world was out to get them, when their own lack of judgment or stupidity was almost always what brought on trouble. He had no sympathy for Deputy Fordell.
The final straw came when Billye Fyke came in to report to Friday that all the secretaries and clerks in the office had uncased, loaded shotguns in their personal vehicles.
Service went out and took the weapons and delivered a tongue-lashing in the process. He decided enough was enough. “We’re going back to camp,” he told Friday.
Noonan had been with him the whole time, never said a word as the phones rang and rang. It was barely noon when they left, silent and disgusted with some of the stupid ways the public behaved.
44
Tuesday, December 23
HUMBOLDT JUNCTION, MARQUETTE COUNTY
Linsenman called as Service was leaving Friday’s office just after noon. “I was so fucking pissed at that numbskull Fordell, I forgot to tell you there’s a four-eighty out by Humboldt Junction. Whoever schmucked the poor bastard really give him a thump. A pulpie spotted the body twenty-five feet off the road, other side of plowed snowbanks.”
COs rarely employed police codes, and Service had to search his memory. Four-eighty . . . felony hit-and-run?
“You call the Troops?”
“Yep, here anytime. There are tire tracks out into the snow. The victim was walking way off the road. The driver was either drunk or deliberately went after him.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve seen too many to know this one ain’t normal,” Linsenman said.
“You’re there now?”
“Yeah, with Deputy Kline. He’s up at the intersection looking for potential witnesses. Some sort of delay with the ME, so I’m waiting.”
“Why call me on a four-eighty?”
“Did I tell you the vick’s Indian, and he’s got one of them little bags on him?”
Shit. “Rolling,” Service said. He stepped back inside long enough to tell Friday and earn an explosive “Fuck!” and then he and Noonan raced west on US 41 / M-28 to where M-95 cut south to Crystal Falls.
Service placed a call to Houghton detective Limey Pykkonnen, his friend Shark Wetelainen’s wife.
“There’s a prof up at Tech, name of Grant Lupo. Can you go grab him and haul him in as a person of interest in multiple homicides?”
“For real?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Let the asshole stew some.”
“You should talk to Shark,” the detective said.
The Shark, otherwise known as Yalmer, was his longtime pal. “Why?”
“Just talk to him, okay?”
ME Kristy Tork had still not arrived when Service got to Linsenman and the scene. The body had been covered but lay where it had landed in the snow. The blood spatter was large, indicative of high-impact speed and a solid hit. The deceased appeared elderly, no identification, deformed left hand. The windigo charm bag was on a string around his neck. The man had been struck so hard his viscera were strewn ten feet.
When Tork arrived the three of them checked the site and verified death. Jen Maki was en route with the evidence team.
Felton Kline came back and waved at his sergeant, who held a hand up to tell his dep to stand by. Kline was an average cop, neither good nor bad. He did what he was paid to do, and not much more, but he always backed up other cops, which was enough to ask of some people. “Anybody see anything?” Service asked him.
“Nope, just old-fart coffee klatches, eh? Half-blind, half-deaf old codgers; they got to yell across the table to hear each other’s bullshit. Restaurant owner and gas station manager said nobody special had been through last night or this morning. But the Indian did have coffee at the restaurant.”
“When?”
“Six, when they opened.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Didn’t ask that.”
“Do,” Linsenman said, joining the conversation.
Friday arrived, talked to the ME, and came over to them. “Rigor’s not max, which suggests under six hours. The doctor did a rectal temp, got same result.” Friday looked at her watch. “Call it one, now less six hours, we’re talking ballpark of zero seven hundred on this deal. There should have been just enough light to see.”
“Snow showers here,” Service said. “On the body, and he was dressed almost all in black, hard to see. Snow then would have made it more dark than light.”
Friday looked at him. “Somebody had to be looking for him to even see him off the road like this.”
The other two nodded agreement. Friday looked at Service. “Tribal, but at least he has all his body parts, and we’ll have a shot at prints.”
She took the pouch from around the man’s neck and put it in a clear evidence bag.
Noonan grumbled, “Sherlock Holmes never had to deal with such horseshit. Cult, voodoo, hoodoo, weirdoo, Santeria, apocalyptoids—we got all that shit down in Detwat. But them folks don’t go ’round killing people like this. Their fare is goats, chickens, snakes—other stinky, crawly shit.”
The retired Detroit cop leaned close to Service. “You think about bending some FBI ears? They ain’t all assholes.”
He had. The rest of the cop world had assets and toys galore, and lots of people. Not his outfit. Friday hated the Feebs.
“Saturday in Green Bay,” Service whispered to Noonan, who nodded.
45
Tuesday, December 23
HOUGHTON/CHASSELL
It was late afternoon when Service parked on East Houghton at the county jail, and found Shark Wetelainen waiting for him. “Limey said you seemed kinda amped, might forget to call me. I seen that Lupo guy on the tube, all that BS about windigos.”
Wetelainen was an outdoor freak and secretive about his spots, even with his closest pals. He managed a small motel to finance his hunting and fishing.
“You got something for me?” Service said.
“Dunno, maybe. My grandpa used ta skid logs cut by Kraut POWs down to Sidnaw and Pori. Sidnaw mostly had Afrika Korps guys, but at some point a few Waffen-SS guys moved in; these were the hard cases you had to watch real close. Sidnaw opened winter of ’44. Don’t know where the Kraut POWs were before that, but the army was concerned about the SS boys, and early on some of them refused to work and began various sabotage campaigns. One day the guards hiked a bunch of them back twelve miles in a snowstorm, just to remind them who was in charge. After that they worked okay.”
His friend loved to tell stories. “And?”
“Well, the army boys figured winter would stop a lot of escape attempts, but those SS guys were tough fellas. One day the guards hauled a big old dead bear back to camp in the back of a truck, let prisoners get a good look. Big old boar, she’d go close to five hundred pound, eh. Had come out of a den, and some loggers had shot ’er out where POWs were working. This gave the guards an idea to put fear in the Krauts. Army boys tore up the carcass real bad, let the POWs see that, told them the area was filled with big bears, which ruled the forest, but this big fella, he run into a windigo.” Shark paused. “Friend of my gramps come up with the story of the windigo, Finndian, told them Krauts about evil spirits and shit, cannibals, windigos kill and eat people, deer, bears, everything. Not one attempt at escape till spring, but those two guys got caught over by Kenton. Kraut prisoners talked about windigos all the time, didn’t want any part of the damn things—and it was all made up,” Wetelainen concluded with a laugh.
Service stared at his friend. “Did the locals believe the windigo story?”
“Don’t think so, eh. Was just bamboozle-line to keep POWs inside the fences.”
“Thanks,” Service said, suppressing a smile.
“That Lupo,” Shark added. “What’s his problem?”
“Not sure,” Service said.
Detective Pykkonen joined them, and Service asked her, “How’d Lupo handle being detained?”
“No problems; he’s poised and way too slick. Argued a little bit, but said, ‘Okay,’ and that was it.”
Lupo was in jeans and a jean jacket, what Yoopers called a Canadian tuxedo, unlaced logging boots, and an old Montreal Canadiens ball cap. “Ah,” the professor greeted Service. “Had a feeling you might be involved in this charade.”
“Charade?”
“As in my bogus incarceration.”
“You have a big mouth,” Service said pointedly.
“Just doing my job and exercising my civic responsibilities the way I see fit.”
“Like trying to stir up and scare the shit out of the public?”
“No, you’re doing that by hiding the truth from the public.”
“You held back information when you saw the bodies in Marquette.”
“Did I?”
Service said nothing.
“I invited you and the other detective to Canada to see for yourselves.”
“A bit more detail and information might have gotten us on a plane.”
“You have a closed mind,” Lupo said.
“Is that your professional opinion?”
Lupo shrugged.
“What exactly did you want us to see in Canada?”
“Remains of a windigo, its burial site.”
“From when?”
“Two years ago.”
“Can’t say I
remember any news coverage.”
“There wasn’t any. The Nelson River Cree handled it quietly, and in their own way.”
“Handled?”
“Man was too far gone. They had to kill him.”
“Two years ago,” Service said, “out in the bush. That’s all you have?”
Lupo reeled off seven or eight more cases, all older.
“That’s Canada,” Service said. “Not here.”
“But all the cases are documented in various scientific literature.”
“Why did you go to the media?” Service asked.
“I want to help. You didn’t accept my invitation to come see firsthand evidence.”
“How can you help?”
“I can lead the hunt.”
“Is that a fact?”
“I did it in Nelson River. You would have learned this if you’d come up to the reserve.”
“You led the hunt to murder a man?”
“Windigo—no longer a man.”
“And the Mounties thought this was all right?”
“They were not informed. It was reserve business, not the provincial government’s, or Ottawa’s.”
“Like I said,” Service told him, “that was Canada.”
“We broke no laws. Windigos are common in Ojibwe-Cree beliefs,” Lupo said.
“Say we agree to your help in some role . . . what then?”
“I get exclusive publishing rights to the case at its conclusion.”
“Even if you fail?”
“I won’t fail. Experienced windigo hunters are few and far between.”
“Publishing rights . . . you’re going to write a book?”
“I already have. It will come out next year. I’ll add this to the case histories, perhaps feature this hunt, shape some of the book narrative around it.”
“You get the rights and we get your expertise in return. That’s the deal?”
“We can arrange a modest consulting honorarium, and per diem.”
“How much?”
“Nothing outrageous.”
“Got a number in mind?”
Killing a Cold One Page 24
