Ice Hunter

by Joseph Heywood

  She puffed her cheeks. “Not that I know of. A bird beneath a helicopter? That’s weird. Was the old guy sober?”

  “He’s just old, which sometimes is a lot like being drunk.”

  “You think the chopper is connected to this?”

  “I don’t want rule out anything yet.”

  “Roger that,” Nantz said.

  Eventually the body was recovered and carried out. The stiff was in a black body bag, strapped to the litter.

  The medical examiner was Vincent Vilardo, an internist from Escanaba appointed ME by the county board of supervisors.

  “Hi, Vince. We know who it is?”

  “Not yet. No wallet, but he’s still got fingers and teeth. I expect we’ll find out quick enough.”

  “Can I take a look?”

  Vilardo unzipped the bag.

  Service found himself staring into the charred face of Jerry Allerdyce, the husband of Honeypat. Limpy’s son. This thing was getting more and more complicated and confused.

  “You see a ghost?” Vilardo asked.

  “It’s Jerry Allerdyce, Vince.”

  “One of Limpy’s mutts?” Everybody in the U.P. law enforcement community knew about the Allerdyces.

  Service nodded. “Do me a favor and run prints to be sure, but we need to hold off on a public ID for a while.”

  Vilardo shrugged. “Just make sure you clear this with the county and your chain of command, eh?” he said. “We can say we aren’t releasing the name until we notify the next of kin. Arson will go along with us.”

  “I appreciate this,” the conservation officer said.

  “There’s something else you should see,” Vilardo said. He unzipped the body bag farther.

  The body reeked and its chest was charred to a shiny black sheen, but Service could see a huge hole over the heart area. No fire caused this.

  “Just a preliminary,” Vilardo said, “but I’d say subsonic, explosive-tip bullet. Shot in the back. The entry hole is teensy, but the bullet played havoc when it came out the front.”

  A homicide? “Time of death?”

  “You’ll have to wait. Seems to me somebody doused this poor bastard with gas and lit him.”

  “Are you telling me the body was the POO?”

  “Peterson says no, that this was in addition to the starting point.”

  “Thanks, Vince.”

  “Grady, you should drop by for dinner sometime, we’ll have some potato gnocchi with sweet pepper sauce. It’ll melt in your mouth. You stop, okay? Rose would love to see you.” Rose was his wife. Vince was the chef.

  Nantz hiked out beside him, her shorter legs keeping pace. “What next?”

  “We get those aerial shots and you get some sleep.”

  “I’ll get on it,” she said. “If you need help, call me. You need anything, call me,” she added with a raised eyebrow.

  “I will,” he said, trying to avoid her eyes as he got into his truck. He immediately got on the radio. “Delta County, this is Marquette DNR 421.” This was standard department commo. There were two sergeants in his area and one lieutenant. The LT was DNR 400. The sergeants were Charlie Parker, 402, and McKower, who was 403. The people who reported to Parker were 421, 422, and so on. Service reported to Parker, a fact which didn’t set well with either of them. McKower’s people were 431 and up. In the DNR, people had numbers, but county sheriffs and state cops went by the numbers of their vehicles. Communications tended to be pretty confusing to rookies in any uniform, and to everyone during a crisis.

  “Go ahead, 421.”

  “Patch me through to Joe Flap, in Gladstone.” He gave her the number.

  Flap was an old-time CO, a true horseblanket who until retiring several years ago had been one of the few contemporaries of his father’s still on the force. Flap was an experienced pilot who still flew an occasional mission for the DNR and always pitched in during deer season. Flap had flown combat in Korea and for the USFS in the West after that. He had also flown supplies to bush outposts in Alaska and Canada. He had crashed so many times and had so many close calls that other pilots called him Pranger.

  The patch went through quickly.

  “Joe, this is Grady Service. I need your help.”

  “Air or ground?”

  “Information.”

  “Cost you a six-pack of Old Milwaukee.”

  “I want to ID a chopper. Navy or dark blue Huey, no markings. It was seen two days ago over the Mosquito.”

  “You think it’s down?”

  “No, we just want to know who was flying it and who owns it.”

  “Never seen it.”

  “Could air traffic control paint it?” Service asked.

  “That depends. Talk to Lonnie Green in Escanaba. He works the tower at Delta County; he’s the local ATC feed. Good man. I think they keep radar tapes nowadays.”

  “Thanks. You’ll get that beer.”

  “I’d better, and soon. I’m sixty-seven and getting older by the minute. I die, just plunk that six-pack in my coffin, okay?”

  Service laughed and got a patch to Lonnie Green. He explained what he wanted and arranged to meet him. They met on US 41, just north of Rapid River. Green was a short, trim man with pale eyes, shiny pink skin, and a head of thick, unkempt white hair. Service spread a map on the hood of this truck.

  “Two days ago there was a chopper up here for an hour or two. This was in the early morning. Is there any way to track it?”

  “Do you know the altitude?”

  “Low, right down on the deck.”

  “Well, that’s a bitch. Below twenty-five hundred feet we have a hard time, unless it’s way out over the lake.”

  “It was well inland. But you do have tapes?”

  “Voice and radar. We keep the tapes for fifteen days and if nothing comes up, we tape over them. Thing is, if this guy is VMC—”

  “VMC, you mean VFR?”

  “Same-same. New term, visual meteorological conditions. If he’s VMC, there’s probably no way to find him. FAA reg fourteen CFR allows for all sorts of jobs to be done without filing flight plans, especially if they’re local. That fourteen CFR covers all sorts of stuff.”

  “Pilots can just go up and do their thing?”

  “As long as the weather cooperates. Most of your shoe clerks don’t care to fly when the soup is in.”

  “Shoe clerks?”

  “Amateurs, blue-sky flyboys. People file flight plans or they don’t. Or they file false flight plans. Sometimes they use real call signs, sometimes not. Sometimes they use their transponders, sometimes not. Sometimes we get a body paint, sometimes we don’t. We also paint flocks of birds and even the occasional Amtrak if it’s up on a hill. And if the weather’s bad, forget painting aircraft; all we paint is rain or snow.”

  “It’s dark blue, a Huey with no other markings.”

  “Radar doesn’t see markings and unless a bird skates by the tower, we can’t see either.”

  “Sounds like there’s not a hell of a lot of control,” Service said.

  “Puts a choke-hold on your sphincter, doesn’t it?”

  “You mean somebody can just take off and do what they want?”

  “Well technically, if they’re VMC. Reg 19 CFR 122.32/33 requires them to land back where they started, even if they don’t file a flight plan. The reg is mostly a formality and gets treated as such.”

  “Meaning locals ignore it.”

  “Bingo. I’ll see what we have and get back to you, but no promises. Is this urgent?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’re investigating a fire.”

  “I’ll do it quick as I can. Do you have a time for the sighting?”

  “We have a report that it was just after sunrise.” Service gave Green
his card and reminded himself how COs were more and more being asked to act like a bunch of junior executives, handing out calling cards.

  Service tried to remember if Jerry Allerdyce had been at his father’s compound the night they had arrested Limpy. He hadn’t been among the detainees.

  Honeypat’s trailer looked abandoned, but Service drove up the long two-track and parked nearby. The woman emerged from the door as soon as he stopped. She was shoeless, wearing black pantyhose and no blouse. A faded green bay packers championship cap was tilted backward on her head.

  “It’s you,” she said disgustedly. He noticed that her front teeth were shorter than her incisors, which hung down like fangs. “I got company coming and it won’t do for a fish cop to be hanging around.”

  “Get dressed, Honeypat. We need to talk.”

  She didn’t argue and he followed her inside. She put on a diaphanous silk robe, which hid nothing, sat on a bowed couch, crossed her legs, and lit a Camel.

  “So talk,” she said.

  “Is Jerry the company you’re expecting?”

  She sneered. “No way.”

  “Where is Jerry?”

  “How would I know?” she said. “My s’posed to keep track?”

  “Was he here last night?”

  “He ain’t here any night. We’re whaddyacallit . . . separated.”

  “How long?”

  She frowned. “Since he knocked up some teenybop twat over to Iron Mountain. He done her doggy on the back of his Skidoo last New Year’s Eve.”

  She was clearly peeved, which made no sense. While her husband was making it with some teenager, she was sleeping with his father. He wondered if this was a cause-and-effect thing, then put the thought out of mind. It was what it was.

  “Have you filed for divorce?”

  She tapped a teetering ash into a beer can. The only ashtray in sight was already overflowing with butts. It said soo antlers. “Haven’t gotten around to that yet.”

  Which technically made her next of kin. “Honeypat, Jerry’s dead.”

  Her eyes flashed momentarily, but her face remained impassive. “Yah?”

  “I expect you and Limpy will want to make funeral arrangements when the body is released.”

  “Pitch him in the dump for all I care.”

  It was curious that she asked no questions. “I’m sorry to have to bring you the bad news.”

  “I guess I won’t be needing to pay no lawyer now.”

  So much for that, Service thought. He wondered how his ex would react if she heard of his death.

  “Can I call anybody for you?”

  “Just split,” she said. “I got company coming.”

  “Could be your husband was murdered.”

  The woman fumbled her cigarette.

  “Did Jerry have a problem with anyone?”

  “Besides me? The asshole had problems with everyone.”

  Service put a business card on her grimy kitchen counter. “Call me. I need to know who he hung out with.”

  She laughed strangely. “He hung with any chick would drop her gear,” she said through clenched teeth, her first sign of real emotion.

  The pot calling the kettle black? “They’ll hold his body a while and they won’t announce his identity until the preliminary investigation’s completed. There will be an autopsy. You got the name of that girl in Iron Mountain?”

  She mashed her lips together.

  Meaning, Get lost. “Call me if you change your mind,” Service said.

  He passed a red truck on his way out. He recognized the driver as a barber from Marquette. Married.

  Limpy was tight-jawed when Service met him. Honeypat apparently had called ahead and given him the news about his son.

  “You hear about Jerry?”

  “Hear what?” Allerdyce asked.

  Lying through his teeth. “He’s dead.”

  Allerdyce wouldn’t look at him.

  “He was shot in the back.”

  No response, no questions.

  “He was in the Mosquito, Limpy. After he was shot, somebody set him on fire. Could be they knocked him out and torched him while he was still alive. We don’t know all the details yet.”

  “That’s all?” Allerdyce said, still not looking at him.

  “The county isn’t going to release the body for a while.”

  “I gotta go,” Limpy said, getting to his feet.

  Service stepped outside the jail and had a cigarette. The bank clock said 5 p.m. He called Kira from a pay phone.

  “Are you okay?” she asked through a deep sniffle. “What happened with the fire?”

  “It’s out, but we found a body in the fire. It looks like he was shot.”

  “My God,” she said. “I never thought about COs handling that kind of stuff.”

  Most people didn’t. “I’m not handling it. But he was on state land, which makes it my business. One more stop and I’m headed for home. Do you feel any better?”

  “Still shaky, but recovering, and of course you’re immune.”

  “Yep,” he said. “Be there soon.”

  On the drive back to Honeypat’s, he radioed Nantz. “How’s Bravo?”

  “Shook up. It’s her first like that.”

  “Happens to all of us,” Service said. He had noticed that Nantz hadn’t shied away from the corpse, and he again wondered what sort of experience she had.

  “Even you?”

  “Plenty of times.”

  “Macho with feelings,” she said. “I like that. The aerials will be shot tomorrow if the weather cooperates.”

  “Make sure they go upriver from the log slide too,” Service said. “One to two miles.”

  “What’s up there?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s where Voydanov said the chopper was.”

  “How do we pinpoint a spot?”

  “Good point,” he said. “I’ll head down there in the morning.”

  “I’ll join you,” she said.

  He wasn’t going to argue. “Park where we were today, five a.m.? Tell the pilot we’ll be in place to guide him at ten a.m. See you there.”

  “Count on it,” she said.

  Honeypat was sitting on the stoop of her trailer, drinking from a can of Colt .45.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I just got off twice,” she said. “That helps.”

  She was incredibly blunt. “I really want to talk to that pregnant girl.”

  Honeypat shrugged. “You’ll find her at Limpy’s camp. Her people kicked the slut’s ass out after the bunny bit it.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Honeypat’s eyes went glassy. “Saila Kalinen.”

  “I appreciate this.”

  She nodded curtly.

  “Who’d Jerry hang out with?”

  “He was a loner, except for pussy. Like Limpy.”

  “Did Jerry work?”

  “Not regular. Tended a little bar, sold some venison, logged some pulp.”

  “What bar?”

  “I don’t remember. He never lasted long. He’d work, ball one of the waitresses or the boss’s wife or daughter or mother, get himself canned. Ask around, they’ll all know him.”

  “Who’d he log with?”

  “Some guy named Ralph. An old pal of Limpy’s. He lives over to Christmas, I think. There were others too, but I never knew their names.”

  “Was Jerry a good logger?”

  She stared off at the forest. “One of two things he was good at. He could work like a dog when he set his mind to it.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I always am,” she said.

  Kira waved through the
window and opened the door. A huge black thing bounded out and Service instinctively turned away and braced himself against the fender of his truck.

  “Bear!” he shouted.

  “It’s a Canary Island mastiff,” she said. “Her name is Newf.”

  “Tell it to get back.”

  “She likes you. Her owners are moving down to Midland and can’t keep her. They dropped her off today. I told them I’d find a good home for her. Tell her to sit. She’s very well behaved.”

  “Sit,” Service said tentatively.

  Newf flopped down and panted.

  “Get her away.”

  “She won’t bother you.”

  Service slid cautiously along the side of the truck, jumped onto the porch, rammed through the door, and slammed it behind him. The dog continued to sit.

  Kira kissed him on the cheek and hugged him. He looked out the door again. The dog was still there.

  “You can let her in,” she said.

  “Like hell.”

  Halfway through his soup, Service went to the door and opened it. “Come on,” he said.

  The 130-pound animal walked through the door, her tail wagging, went to Kira and looked at her.

  Service said, “Sit.” The dog did as instructed.

  When he finished his pasta, Service said tentatively, “We can’t keep her.”

  “I know,” Kira said.

  “I mean it,” he said.

  “Of course you do,” she said, patting his hand.

  12

  The dog shadowed Service around the cabin in the early morning, staying close and watching, but not interfering.

  “Take her along with you today,” Kira said sleepily from the bed. “She’ll be good company.”

  “I can’t. It’s against regs.”

  “Don’t be so contrary. Just tell her what you want. She’s better trained than you.”

  His legs felt rubbery. His fear of dogs was entirely irrational, but it had always been there; he had tried several times to conquer it, to no avail. “Okay,” he said, pushing open the front door. The mastiff followed him out. When he opened the passenger door, the dog jumped up and sat down. It was embarrassing to be a conservation officer afraid of dogs.