Hard Ground

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Hard Ground Page 16

by Joseph Heywood


  Sharleton tried to step away, but Elray blocked him. “Answer him.”

  “God wants me to take care of His suffering creatures,” the reverend said.

  “Take the skunks down to the pond and drown them,” Elray said. “Leave the others where they are.”

  They watched the man struggle and gag with the two cages, the cloud of skunk stench around him almost visible.

  “Nasty shit,” Skell said. “He charges people with a problem whatever he thinks they’ll pay and takes the pelts, too. The old double dip.”

  “God as entrepreneurial muse,” Elray said.

  “We won’t argue that,” Skell replied. “We’ll get a warrant for his house and his camp. He admitted that he’s stockpiled furs.”

  “Now?” Elray wanted to know.

  “No, we’ll let him walk now and get after him later.”

  “He’ll dump the evidence.”

  “Look at him,” Elray said. “He’s a cheat, greedy, and a nutcase. He’ll hold onto them. God’s on his side.”

  “But Gawddd is not on his side, nosireebob,” Professor Emerson Charles announced, popping out of his trance. He ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair, blinked repeatedly, started to walk away, stopped, and looked back at the officers. “I just visited God. He wishes to inform us that the reverend is a fake and not one of his true appointed agents on earth.”

  “Like you?” Skell said.

  Professor Charles grinned demonically. “Don’t fun me, son. God and me are tight. We get each other.”

  Skell and Elray looked at each other.

  “Make a note, gentlemen,” said the professor. “I am a licensed fisher of the state of Michigan. You can check your RSS.” With that, he followed his wife up to the house.

  Sharleton came back up from the pond, his flesh red and flushed. “I left the cages in the water,” he chuffed.

  “We’ll help you with the others,” Elray said.

  “Furs?”

  “You can leave the animals for now, come back later.”

  “The traps are my legal property and these pelts will spoil fast in this heat.”

  “You’ve caused enough trouble here, friend. Leave the traps,” Elray said.

  “And my bill?”

  “Civil court if you want to push it. We can’t settle that. But, Reverend, to be frank, I doubt any judge or jury will buy a sales agreement being changed by God.”

  “Huh,” Sharleton said. “Unbelievers in a country led by men intent on removing God from our nation. I guess this is a hard and costly lesson for me. Must be part of God’s design and His plan to lift me up.”

  “No doubt,” Skell said, having no idea what the man was referring to, nor particularly giving a damn.

  •••

  The final animal count was thirty-three. The reverend departed in his panel truck, without pay. The conservation officers found the complainants on their screened back porch making blueberry martinis, which they called Bluetinis.

  Skell looked at his partner as they got back into the truck. “Remind me again why we can’t just dispose of some people.”

  “Against the law, partner,” Elray said.

  “Too bad,” Skell said.

  Life in Grays

  After a decade married to Juney, Conservation Officer Colfax Mingo still had a difficult time deciphering her, the irony being that as an investigator he could interview people and extract information few other civilians or fellow lawmen could get. This skill set held for virtually anyone in almost any set of circumstances, just not at home, where his Methodist preacher wife kept him in a near-permanent state of kerflummoxation. What the heck was missing? Kids were great, sex life astounding, friends as loyal as your best dog, finances solid.

  But understanding his wife? Not so much, despite her claims to the contrary. She was always telling him not to worry.

  “Hey, Flat Line,” a voice said, interrupting Mingo’s personal ruminations. Flat Line was his nickname among the officers, given for his ability to show no emotion, even under a falling sky. “Your boy wants a parley.”

  Mingo had been called to the Newberry state police post at oh dark thirty. A troop named Brenda Joyntlet had picked off “Stonehand” Valiant, going 95 in a 55 mph zone, and by the time she got him pulled over and stopped, she saw blood and hair around the trunk lid and back bumper of the well-known violator’s ’88 Camaro. Mingo had no idea how many times he and other cops had arrested Valiant, but even with the man’s vast rap sheet, courts had so far refused to brand the man a habitual offender and send him away for a long stay.

  Harry Valiant’s handle came from his youth, when his natural and only instinct in the face of authority or arrest had been to fight. Back then, he’d been pretty good at it, too, usually giving as good as he got. But now the man was old and presumably wiser.

  The game warden stepped into the small blue interview room, and Valiant grinned. “They get youse out of bed, you old fart?”

  “Yah, I was busy putting it to your old lady,” the CO said.

  Valiant guffawed. “Might as well be youse. She sure don’t give me none of that no more.”

  Colfax Mingo had looked inside the Camaro trunk and found a sow bear and three cubs, each shot with slugs, probably a .20 gauge. “Your old lady don’t give you none, so what, you developed a hankering for bear stew?”

  “Don’t know what youse’re talking about,” Valiant said. “My son Chuckles been using my Camaro. Just picked it up from him tonight. Go ask the little shithead.”

  Mingo held out a pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. Valiant took it and tapped it on the table. Mingo slid over a lighter, and the man lit up and inhaled deeply. “C’mon, Harry, you and me go way back.”

  Valiant nodded like a bobblehead. “Even porkin’ same ginch, yah.”

  “The thing is, Harry, no matter what you say, no matter what dingleberry lawyer you hire, we have you cold and sealed for delivery on this one.”

  “Can’t bullshit no bullshitter, Mingo,” Valiant said, grinning, puffing his cigarette, making small blue rings.

  “Seriously, Harry. Every murderer leaves a minimum of twenty-seven forensic clues behind.”

  “What kind of clues?” Valiant asked, stabbing with his cigarette.

  “You know, scientific clues, forensic evidence, measurable, verifiable stuff.” Mingo picked up Valiant’s cigarette butt, put it into an evidence bag, said, “Excuse me, Harry,” and stepped out of the interview room.

  Brenda Joyntlet was sitting in front of the two-way glass. “You really porkin’ his old lady?” she asked.

  “Brenda, it’s an interview, a pose for God’s sake. Just chill and watch me roll.”

  “Hey, I know that, Cole, but you being married to a drop-dead gorgeous preacher-lady, I figured you’re all about the path of righteousness, the old straight and narrow. But, dude, if you’re, like, into some occasional strange, where’s the sign-up sheet?”

  “Dadgummit, Brenda.”

  The Michigan State Police Officer gave him a wink and vamped, pursing her lips and making an obscene gesture with her hand. Mingo said, “Give me ten minutes, step into the room, and tell me the test came back positive.”

  Mingo went back in with Valiant. “Well, it’s been taken to the hospital lab. Won’t be long now.”

  “What?”

  “The cigarette butt with your DNA.”

  “Hey, you can’t take my DNA without my permission,” Valiant complained.

  “You’re a suspect in a killing.”

  “Not no people, I ain’t.”

  “I guess we’ll see what we’ll see,” Mingo said quietly and let his words stand.

  “Seriously, a killing? Jesus, Mingo!” Valiant said, tapping his fingers on the table top, blinking furi
ously.

  “Did you kill someone, Harry?”

  “Fuck no, I din’t!”

  Mingo held out his hands the way Juney did when she wanted him to accept one of her assertions. “Hey, I have to ask, Harry. Nothing personal. Maybe it was an accident. You know, shit happens?”

  “Listen, asshole . . . er, sir, I . . . did . . . not . . . kill . . . nobody!”

  “Good to know, Harry. Outstanding. You didn’t kill anyone, I can dig that, but you killed some things, right?”

  Valiant tilted his head slightly. “I ain’t talking about nothing till we get this killed-somebody shit straightened out and off the fuckin’ table.”

  “Understood, Harry. We’re working in that direction, we truly are. Like I said, twenty-seven forensic clues left at the average murder scene.”

  Valiant slammed his right fist against the table, his eyes wide and wild. “There ain’t . . . no . . . fucking . . . murder . . . site, dude!”

  “Yet there is a forensic evidence chain, and it will tell us the story, no matter what you contend.”

  “I don’t contend shit.”

  “Contend, Harry. It means claim.”

  “Claim, shit. I ain’t capped nobody, swear to God on my mama’s sweet memory.”

  “You hated your mother, Harry. You used to beat the tar out of her.”

  “Just one time, man, and it weren’t as bad as it looked. One time I missed pulling back one shot, caught her forehead, and she bled like a fucking pig is all, an accident, not my fault.”

  The conservation officer sighed. “Your fist, your fault.”

  “Old news,” Harry Valiant said.

  Brenda Joyntlet stepped into the room and said, “The test came back positive.”

  Colfax Mingo said, “They’re certain?”

  “Had them do the PCR twice,” she said. “To be sure.”

  “What the hell’s a PCR?” Valiant asked, looking panicky.

  Joyntlet smiled at the prisoner, closed the door, and left the men alone.

  “Okay, Harry, the test results prove you handled the bears in the Camaro’s trunk.”

  “Big whoop. So what about all that murder shit?”

  “We’ll get to that.”

  “Jesus Christ, this is a nightmare, sir.”

  “DNA tells us you killed the animals and perhaps someone else. Powder from your shotgun gets on bear hair and into the animal’s DNA. Then from hair to your skin.”

  “You ain’t took no skin.”

  “Skin absorbs DNA from your bloodstream, Harry.”

  “You ain’t took no blood neither.”

  “DNA goes all over inside your body, even into your spit.” Mingo let the man contemplate this and connect dots for himself. “Spit or saliva gets on a cigarette. You know that, right?”

  Valiant put his hands over his face and mumbled, “Faaa-uck,” pushing the word into an elongated double syllable.

  “DNA can tell us exactly when and where you did your killing,” Mingo said.

  Valiant was missing a couple of front teeth but showed the ones that remained. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Don’t believe me?”

  “No way.”

  “Make a bet?”

  “What sort of bet?”

  “You write on a piece of paper when, where, and what you killed. I’ll write what evidence says on another piece of paper. We’ll trade notes. If they don’t match, you can go, and we’ll drop the murder investigation.”

  “I ain’t heard no actual charges, have I?”

  “Bet or no bet?” Mingo asked, pushing a pad of notepaper and a pencil across the table. Harry Valiant was eyeing him with deep suspicion. “What do you have to lose, Harry? If you haven’t killed anyone, you’re good to go.”

  Valiant said suddenly, “Hell, yes I’ll take that bet,” grabbed a pencil, and scribbled away as he gnawed his bottom lip.

  The two men traded papers. Valiant wrote only that he had shot the bears, where, when, and with his shotgun, an off-book .20 gauge he kept at his girlfriend’s house trailer.

  Valiant looked at the paper Colfax Mingo gave him. “Hey, there ain’t nothing wrote on here.”

  “You win, Harry; there will be no charges for murdering anyone, but those bears, we can’t let you walk on that, hear what I’m saying? I mean, four bears beats hell out of a murder rap, yes?”

  “I guess,” Valiant said, chewing his bottom lip.

  Mingo gave the man a larger pad of paper. “You know the drill, Harry; write us the story of the four bears, every detail, every moment.”

  “Do I get me a lawyer?”

  “For what, murder charges?”

  “I didn’t murder nobody, and I just proved her, eh?”

  “That’s right, you did indeed, and I believe what you say, but do you really need a lawyer for some measly bears? I mean, we’ll call one if you want, but do you really want to go to trial, have it in the paper how Harry Valiant killed three cute little bear cubs and their mama?”

  “Who the fuck are you, Walt Disney’s butt buddy?”

  “Do you?” Mingo repeated.

  Valiant shrugged and began writing.

  Colfax Mingo stepped out of the room and rubbed his buzz cut. “You’re a woman, right?” he said to Brenda Joyntlet.

  “Is that, like, a trick question?” she answered. “You want me to show you undeniable proof?” she joked, reaching for a blouse button.

  “No, no, I just want a female’s point of view. My wife claims I sometimes don’t know black from white, that my whole life is lived in gray. What’s up with that?”

  The state trooper grinned and pointed at the mirror. “You just lied to and faked that dumb bastard into a confession. And maybe violated his constitutional rights.”

  “That’s my job,” he said.

  “I think that’s what your wife’s saying,” the troop said.

  “Huh,” Colfax Mingo said. “Sort of a Mars−Venus thing?”

  Brenda Joyntlet shook her head, patted his shoulder, and walked away.

  Damn Near Russian

  Manbear Faks studied his crew as they gathered around the fire at Cornbeef Junction. Manbear, twenty-eight, had served two weeks in the Marines before blowing out a knee and being dropped so he could rehabilitate and return. But the recruit had chosen to not go back, and, hey, what was the big deal, once a Marine, always a Marine, right? Faks had lasted long enough to prove to himself that he had what it took. The rest of boot camp was just a detail. It was a matter of principle, right?

  Manbear, despite his Marine Corps training and leadership abilities, knew his posse was less than impressive. None of them would have lasted two weeks in Boot the way he had, and all of them were skittish as girls when it came to possible confrontations with DNR officers like Loco Joe Traynor, who worked the south end of Chippewa County and treated the Gem of the Huron like his own damn personal crown jewel.

  The only way forward here was to disabuse the little pricks of their fear. “You dudes afraid of Traynor?” he asked, spitting into the fire.

  “Hell, yes,” Clegg Pokryfyke said. “Two weeks ago Skateboard was practicing over to the Raber Bay boat launch, and Loco Joe come by and told him get the hell out, or else!”

  Skateboard was Lance Ross, a small-time meth dealer who consumed more of his own product than he sold. He’d once been bigger than life. No more. Too many dead brain cells. “Or else what?” Faks challenged.

  The man shrugged. “You know. Fucking Russians don’t gotta tell you nothing specific. They just, like, grin, come back to your house at night, kick your ass, haul you off, and nobody ever sees your sorry ass again.”

  “Where do you get that shit?” Faks shot back.

  Pokryfyke puffed up defensively. “Every
body knows, dude.”

  “I don’t know any such shit,” Faks said. “Fuckers come around my place after dark, I’m gonna shoot first, talk later, aim above the chest and below the waist. That’ll stop that fuckin’ Traynor right in his damn tracks.”

  “And what if the game warden’s got on leg armor, you know, like a robo-cop man or something?” Holo Balum asked. Holo was short for Holomite, a takeoff on dolomite, the high-grade limestone that comprised the island’s base. Dolomite eroded and became holey under weather, like Balum’s brain, which had seen a few too many meth moments over his thirty-six worthless years.

  “A fucking robo-cop man? Where do you come up with this shit?”

  “Seen it in a movie,” Balum said defiantly. “Like Iron Man, dude, in that one movie. That fucker had leg armor for sure.”

  “He was, like, a billionaire, man,” Faks said. “Don’t be such an asshole. We’re talking serious shit here tonight. When we do our deal, the fucking Russian Commies in green ain’t gonna touch us.”

  “How come if they’re real Commies, they wear green?” Pokryfyke asked. “Commies is red, ain’t they? Waddup widdat green shit?”

  “Uncle Joe Stalin wore green,” Faks said, “And he was the baddest Commie motherfucker of all.”

  “Your uncle Joe?” Balum asked.

  “I ain’t got no Uncle Joe,” Faks said disgustedly. “Jesus, I’m talking frickin’ history here, rock brain. Stalin was, like, governor-king-in-chief or some shit of all the Russian Commies. He killed thousands to get himself a job paid only one dollar a year.”

  “If he was Russian, how come they paid him American money?” Pokryfyke asked. “Don’t they got their own money?”

  “Too fucking dumb to figure out their own money, so they just steal ours—like the state does down to Lansing. They steal our fucking taxes and hire goddamn Russian Commie cops to hassle our asses.”

  “Lansing pays them Russian cops same as our American cops, you know, like state troopers?” Balum asked.

  “More,” Faks said.

  “Well, that sure don’t seem fair to me,” Balum lamented, “Russian pigs getting paid more than American pigs. What’s wrong with this damn country?”

 

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