Death Roe
Page 28
“What’s wrong?”
“I just put Karylanne in the hospital. Bad cramps and some bleeding. The doctor thinks the baby may be coming early.”
“But she’s okay, right?”
“They’re pretty closemouthed. You need to get here as quick as you can.”
“I’m in Dayton, headed for GR. I’ll get there as fast as I can, Gus.”
“Shark, Limey, and I are right here with her.”
Service wanted to grab the pilot and tell him to leave late-boarding passengers, but forced himself to calm down. He called Anniejo Couch in Lansing. “I’m on a commercial flight in Dayton. I need to charter a plane from Grand Rapids to Houghton as fast as I can. Got any suggestions?”
“No-Hassle Charters,” she said immediately. “This on the federal dime?”
“No.”
She gave him an office number and he punched it in.
“NHC,” a man answered.
“I need to charter a flight from Grand Rapids to Houghton.”
“How many passengers?”
“Just me.”
“One-way or round trip?”
He had no idea how long he would be there. “If I need to catch a plane back, can I get another one?”
“The price will be round-trip for that.”
“Just book me one way,” Service said.
“Purpose of flight?”
“To get there fast.”
The man said, “Please hold for a minute.” When he came back on the line, he said, “We’ve got a Cessna four-twenty-one available now. Flight time will be one forty-five at two hundred and thirty knots, wind permitting.”
“I’ll take it.”
“When do you want it?”
“I’m in Dayton now, will be in GR in three hours or less. Will the bird hold for me?”
“You’ll be the only passenger. Call from the terminal and we’ll send a vehicle to bring you over to General Aviation. How will you pay for this?”
“Credit card work?”
“Which one?”
“American Express.”
“That will work.”
“How’s the weather look?” Service asked.
“Manageable.”
What the hell did that mean? Now he could stew over it until he got to Grand Rapids and could talk to the pilot. He had gotten so used to flying with Nantz, he wasn’t sure he could adjust to a stranger, but there wasn’t any other choice. It also occurred to him that had Nantz not left him her money, he couldn’t afford to do this, and maybe this was all meant to happen—a thought he quickly banished from his mind. He did not believe in fate.
55
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
HOUGHTON, HOUGHTON COUNTY
There was a storm along the entire north-south coast of Lake Michigan, and another near Houghton coming in off Lake Superior; the chartered flight could not land until after midnight. Gus Turnage was waiting for Service at the Houghton County Memorial Airport, which was actually in Hancock. They ran out to Gus’s truck and headed for the hospital, on the same street as the ice rink at Michigan Tech. Gus drove with a set jaw and said nothing during the drive.
They got to the Family Birthing Center and went through the blond double doors to find Limey Pyykkonen and Shark Wetelainen standing outside one of the birthing rooms.
“Dr. Priva will be here in a minute,” Limey said.
“Is she okay?” Service demanded.
“Calm down,” Pyykkonen said. “You getting all jacked up isn’t going to help anyone.”
Service felt his heart sink. What the fuck was wrong?
The doctor arrived in a smock decorated with clowns, a pale blue mask over his nose. Service thought he looked like a deer that couldn’t catch its breath.
“You the father?” the doctor asked, tugging his mask down to his neck.
“Grandfather. The father’s deceased.”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “Karylanne is doing fine in post-op, and your granddaughter is strong. She just decided to come a little early.”
“Premature?”
“Early, not premature. Technically she’s considered full-term.”
“Post-op?” Granddaughter? His mind was not connecting things.
“Karylanne had a hemorrhage and we had to do a C-section. They’ll both be fine, but there may be a problem with Karylanne having another child. Testing will tell us more over time.”
Service looked at his friends, saw them watching for his reaction, willed himself to calm down. “Can I see Karylanne?”
“Give her a half-hour . . . but you can see your granddaughter.”
They went into the nursery. The baby was in a glass container that looked like an aquarium. She wore a pink hat. A card said baby pengelly.
“A little small, five pounds eight, but that’s not a problem,” the doctor said.
She was red and shriveled and had a head full of black hair that looked like Cat’s when he had rescued the kitten from Slippery Creek many years before. “She’s beautiful,” the doctor said.
Was the man blind? The baby looked more like a rat dipped in Mercurochrome than a human.
Service went outside to smoke a cigarette until he could see Karylanne. Gus and Shark went with him. “She is so ugly,” Service said.
“They all are,” Gus said. “Every one of mine looked like a waterlogged possum. You’ll get used to it.”
“They talk to you about Karylanne?”
“Privacy laws wouldn’t allow it. You’re the only one on her form. The doctor said it was an emergency is all.”
Shark said, “The kid’s got great hands. She’ll be able to tie great flies.”
“She’s shorter than a big brown,” Service said.
“She’ll grow soon enough,” Gus said.
Service felt a combination of shock and relief and was trying to sort it all out when he finally got in to see Karylanne, who was in a bed with oxygen tubes clipped to her nose, an IV in her wrist. He put his hand on her arm and her eyes half-opened. “I made a mess of it,” she said.
“There’s no mess,” Service said. “Everything’s fine. The baby is beautiful.”
“You really think so?”
“Not really,” he said, and she managed a half chuckle. “No bullshit; that was our deal. But she’ll be beautiful if she grows up to look like her mother or her father.”
“Listen to you,” Karylanne said. “Such sensitivity. I promise not to tell.”
She went to sleep without saying any more. She slept with a smile on her face and Service found himself grinning. He went back to look at the baby.
“She tell you the name?” Limey asked.
“Baby Pengelly.”
“Doofus,” Pyykkonen said. “It’s going to be Maridly, if you agree.”
The tears came out before he could stop them, and his friends stood next to him, patting his arms, and the baby started screaming and turned bright red.
“She’s hungry,” Pyykkonen said.
“Maridly fits,” Service said, suddenly sobbing, trying unsuccessfully to emotionally balance the staggering gains and losses of his life.
“The first motherfucker that tries to date her better have sisu,” Shark said seriously.
“Yalmer, your language,” Limey said.
“Well, it’s true, and it ain’t a dirty four-letter word.”
Sisu was a Finnish term that translated roughly to willpower, a resolute will to see things through to the finish.
“Sisu,” Service said out loud. He could use a healthy dose of it as well.
56
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
HOUGHTON, HOUGHTON COUNTY
Denninger call
ed before 6 a.m. Service was stretched out on a couch in Gus Turnage’s den and fumbled with his cell phone. “What?”
“Where are you?”
“Houghton. My . . .” He couldn’t think of the right term, and said, “My daughter-in-law had some problems having her baby.”
Long pause on the phone. “You’re a grandfather?”
“Scary, huh?”
Denninger laughed. “I don’t know who to be most sorry for—you or the kid.”
“I’ll be here for a few days,” he said, “to make sure everything’s all right. You okay?”
“I’m back at the resort. Back home I had a call from Captain Black who wanted to know if you and I have been sleeping together.”
Asshole, Service thought. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him first, we report to the U.S. Attorney’s office, and second, and more important, it’s none of his damn business who I sleep with.”
“He probably didn’t like that.”
“He called me a cunt.”
Service sat up. “He what?”
“Called me a cheap, spoiled cunt and said my career’s going into the crapper with yours.”
“You’re sure he said that?”
“You want to hear? Since I started with you, I automatically record everything.”
She turned on the recorder and Service listened to what Black had said.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Put that tape in a safe place and don’t worry about it.”
“I’m afraid,” she said.
“Don’t be.” Black had gone over the line this time. “Have you seen Leukonovich?”
“She had to go to Detroit. Supposed to be back tomorrow. You want her number?”
“You have her itinerary and her phone number?”
“She gave it to me. For a long time I was your ‘girl’—now she’s making nice. I don’t get it.”
“Don’t try,” Service said, writing down the number. Leukonovich was inscrutable.
“Girl or boy?” Denninger asked.
“Girl. Her name’s Maridly.”
“That is so cool!” Denninger said, her voice breaking.
Service made coffee and found a note from Gus, who was on patrol in the Lake Linden area east of Hancock. He poured a cup and punched in Leukonovich’s number.
She answered on the second ring and sounded half-asleep. “Yes?”
“It’s Grady. Someone gave me information that I think is supposed to link to Fagan. Costa Rica. Does that ring any bells?”
“Zhenya call you back when her mind is clearer,” she said, hanging up.
An hour later they were on the phone again and he told her about the meeting with Krapahkin and the cigarette pack with “Costa Rica” written on it, and she said nothing until he had finished.
“Krapahkin’s morality aside, he is a man to be admired for his organizational skills. His seeking you out is significant, as is the questioning about the dead woman. I believe he is telling you something to make amends for the woman’s death,” said Leukonovich.
“But what?”
“Zhenya will find out,” the woman said. “Perhaps Fagan has hidden accounts there. Whatever it is, I will find it. Where are you?”
He told her about the baby, the crazed race to get back, everything.
She said, “I offer my congratulations and thank fate for making Zhenya incapable of procreating. She thinks there is too much emotion over such a pedestrian thing.”
“If it was your granddaughter you’d be feeling differently,” he said.
“Zhenya will not argue with you, and she will be in touch.”
The next call went to Chief O’Driscoll, and when he finished telling Denninger’s story the chief asked, “She has this on tape?”
“Yessir. I heard it.”
“Black was pushing the audit of your affairs and I told him to stop. He was not happy. I think this was his attempt to press his career forward in another way.”
“It’s a shitty thing, Chief.”
“It’s my responsibility to take care of it.”
“Denninger and I have not slept together,” Service said.
“I didn’t ask if you had. What happened in New York?”
Service told him, and O’Driscoll said, “You should heed the warning.”
“Krapahkin doesn’t want a piece of me, Captain. He met with me to help me get Fagan.”
“The Ukrainians are known as much for their duplicity as for their brutality.”
“I can’t worry about that now, Captain.”
“Langford Horn has announced that he’s leaving state government to take a position with Bozian in New York.”
“When?”
“Today. It’s not public yet, but I expect it might make the late news cycle.”
“Any reason given?”
“He finds it—and I quote from his letter—‘uncomfortable to work in a disorganized, fiscally incompetent, liberal democratic administration that puts ideology ahead of its citizens.’ End quote.”
“What about the audit of WRPU undercover programs?”
“Up to his successor, I would think.”
“Endicott’s not going to take any of this to the grand jury here, but the New York U.S. Attorney in Syracuse is chomping at the bit to push it.”
“You have a problem with this?”
“It’s our case, Chief.”
“Try thinking in terms of justice being done, not the hand administering it.”
“What about our rats?”
“I think your threats have driven them out.”
“Meaning they get to retire with their reputations intact?”
“Few solutions are perfect,” O’Driscoll said.
57
Sunday, December 12, 2004
SARANAC, IONIA COUNTY
Service had been back at the resort for less than six hours. He had made a stopover to see McCants, who was elated about the baby and not so elated about seeing him. Newf and Cat seemed to side with her.
Leukonovich was with him when Beaker Salant called.
“I talked to Teeny in Key West. He says he’s going to sue for defamation of character.”
“You can’t sue for what you never had.”
“What do you think about Langford Horn?”
“Good riddance.”
“I mean the reason why.”
“No idea.”
“How about one of his direct reports refused to do an audit he ordered and announced she was going to the governor to recommend Horn’s records be audited? You getting close to filing charges?”
“More or less.” Who’s the direct report, he wondered. He did not mention the Friday-night incursion into Horn’s office and had the feeling that when Horn found out his files had been copied, it would push him out.
“I get the exclusive, on the record.”
“That’s what I promised,” Service said, knowing that the story would be out of his hands and in Syracuse or Albany, not Grand Rapids.
“I hear there’s been some resignations from the DNR.”
“A certain amount of turnover is fairly normal.”
“You make it hard to work with you,” Salant said.
Leukonovich sat quietly at the table, and after he’d hung up, said, “I am hearing a state representative sold a house in Costa Rica to Fagan.”
“Confirmed?”
“I have an appointment today. Your company would be welcome.”
“On a Sunday?”
“It is informal—what I am calling a pre-audit meeting.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“For today at least.”
“A lot of people still left.”
“Just stay with it.”
“Who are we seeing?” Service asked when they started east on I-96.
“L. Bradley Angledenny.”
“You told him what this is about?”
She tilted her head. “More or less.”
“Does he have a past with the IRS?”
Leukonovich answered with a smile.
They met Angledenny at Bravura, a steak house on Washington Avenue, not far from the state office complex. He had arrived ahead of them and was perspiring heavily. Leukonovich took her time setting up her laptop, letting the anticipation build.
“I prefer not to waste your time, or mine,” she began. “If you will agree to plead guilty, I will see what I can do for you.”
Angledenny almost clutched at his heart. “Plead guilty! What the hell are you talking about?”
“Is old IRS joke,”she said, “no doubt in questionable taste. The special agent apologizes.”
Angledenny tried to smile but failed.
“There is a certain condominium in Costa Rica.”
“I sold it this year and took a small profit, maybe twenty-five K.”
“Sale price one-million, one twenty-five,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Purchased by whom, and at what price?” She let the question hang.
“One-point-one. Why are we talking about this? I haven’t even filed the return yet. It’s not due for five months.”
She ignored his question. “Sold it to whom?”
“A broker.”
“Brokers acquire real estate?”
“They invest like the rest of us, do a little speculation. Costa Rica’s been pretty hot.”
“Yet you took a very small profit.”
“A cash-flow issue for me. I couldn’t wait, and I don’t mind paying the taxes.”
“This broker’s name.”
“I’d have to look that up.”
“Please,” she said, crossing her hands in her lap.
“I’ll have to call my accountant,” Angledenny said.
“Thank you,” she said.