Hard Ground

by Joseph Heywood

  Admiration aside, Ernie wore his record like an albatross as he watched every arrest he made get the maximum sentence with no ameliorating or mitigating circumstances, the result being that Ernie The Ticket Machine rarely wrote tickets anymore because he couldn’t stand to see the punishment meted out by his paramour, Gayfryd Flood. His lieutenant in Marquette and department higher-ups in Lansing looked at the fall-off in citations and figured it was because he had literally pacified his area, the goal of all peace officers, rarely achieved.

  Ernie’s relationship with Gayfryd began when she called him into her chambers before a contested illegal deer case. It was Fortier’s second time before Her Honor, the first case having involved a tribal member with 800 pounds of walleyes, all the fish netted outside the area allowed by treaty.

  That time, a tribal attorney had vehemently argued that the tribal court was the proper venue for the case, not a US or state court, but Gayfryd Flood had given the lawyer the evil eye, ruled for the state, and waved the attorney out of her courtroom. The steel and certainty in the judge’s voice that time had given Ernie Fortier the chills. Thus, standing in her private chambers was akin to being naked in the lion’s den.

  “I see you’ve got fine big feet,” she greeted him. “But stamina? No way to judge stamina, Officer Fortier. Do you have stamina to match those beautiful big boots, and what size are they, anyhow?”

  “They’re 16D,” he said meekly.

  “Lord have mercy,” the judge said. “And stamina?”

  “Stamina with regard to what, Your Honor?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you a naïf?”

  “I don’t think I know that word, Your Honor, so I can’t really say.”

  “Only one way to find out,” she said with a smile. “Drop your gear and let’s get to this trial.”

  Trial? “Your Honor?”

  Judge Flood yanked her robe over her head, tossed it upward to flutter down over her chair, stepped from behind her desk stark naked, helped strip him quickly, pushed him over to an oversize leather couch the color of aged red wine, and commenced what she would thereafter call the Mother of All Stamina Tests, after which she dressed without talking, put her hair back in place with an obviously shaking hand, pulled on her robe, and dismissed Ernie Fortier with a wave of her hand. “See you in court, Ernest. Now, shoo!”

  Only when he was back in the hallway waiting for the case to be called did he realize she’d been naked under her robe before he arrived, which meant she’d planned the whole thing, and he wasn’t sure in the least what exactly that meant, or how he felt about it, but schtupping a judge couldn’t be good. Could it?

  The defendant’s lawyer was nervous, Judge Flood told him to keep quiet, and after less than five minutes Dento Salminen admitted to not just the deer Ernie Fortier caught him with, but to seven more, and Judge Flood sentenced him to a year in jail, $7,000 in fines, and another $1,000 in expenses, including the officer’s time away from his job. When Salminen’s attorney protested the jail term, Flood held up a hand. “The statute says one year mandatory,” she barked. “If you have a problem with said statute, counsellor, I suggest you lobby legislators to change the law.”

  “But in our culture, it’s customary,” the lawyer protested.

  “You are in my court, sir. State rules, no customs, no tailoring, by the book in every case, every time. Your client doesn’t approve? Advise him not to break the bloody law. With eight illegal deer, he’s stealing from every citizen of this great and currently impoverished state, and I will not have it, sir. Do you hear me, sir? I will not have it!” Her gavel came down like the report of a .44 Magnum.

  Judge Flood then waggled a finger for Officer Fortier to approach the bench, and there in front of others she slid a card to him. It had a camp address and her private home and cell phone numbers, written in flowery script.

  •••

  Ernie Fortier never became comfortable with how Gayfryd Flood’s ways affected his attitude toward his job, and he was in a terrible quandary about what to do. He was afraid if he tried to break it off with her she’d retaliate with vengeance. And truth be told, the judge was a lot of fun in some ways, especially with her clothes off and a few liquid libations down the hatch.

  Recently, it seemed, Ernie spent more time trying to figure a way to free himself from the judge than thinking about fish and game miscreants. He was working at bare minimum, and in an unhealthy situation.

  Over breakfast one Wednesday morning at her camp, Gayfryd Flood said, “Ernest, you seem unhappy. Want to talk about it?”

  It was the classic can’t-win scenario. If he tried to talk, she’d bury him with cold logic and vocabulary far beyond him, and, in doing so, bring about the end she’d already decided. On the other hand, if he denied a problem, she’d smile, take his hand, lead him to the bed, and robustly celebrate by exercising his stamina. Decision time, he told himself, feeling sweat bead. He furrowed his brow and meekly gave her his hand.

  •••

  Days of shame turned into weeks and months of worry, and one day Lieutenant Binky Muhlendorf called Ernie to the district office for a chat, about what, Ernie had no idea. Muhlendorf was a rising star in the state, from CO to El-Tee in eight years, and deserving of it. Some fast risers were political, but not Binky, who had been a great CO and sergeant, and had fairly earned the brown bars on his collars.

  “Have a seat,” his lieutenant greeted him. “Grab a coffee.”

  There was a thermos and two cups on the table, and Fortier helped himself.

  “I’ll cut right to the chase,” Muhlendorf said. “No officer in the state has ever achieved the record you have for clean cases. The management team wants to promote you and send you around the state to train other officers in the proper way to write and substantiate violations. You’ll also audit officers whose cases tend to get tossed or downgraded and see if you can analyze what went wrong. If there’s a trend, what does it portend, and what as a department can we do, if anything? How does that sound to you, Ernie?”

  “Like something I’m not qualified to do.”

  The lieutenant smiled. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No sir,” Fortier said, “I’m serious. This ticket thing of mine is just a fluke, and that’s all.”

  His El-Tee shook his head in disbelief. “Eight years cannot possibly be a fluke, Officer Fortier.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but it is, and that job you talked about. I’d hate it because it sounds like internal affairs or something, and you know how that goes down in the ranks.”

  Muhlendorf rubbed his face, perhaps an indication that he’d not expected the meeting to take this tack. “I’d like for you to think about it, Ernie. Take a week, and understand, this was the chief’s idea. He thinks you walk on water.”

  “Okay, I’ll think on it, sir. I can do at least that much.”

  “Good, good, you do that. The promotion would be to sergeant, and you can live anywhere in the state because you’ll cover the whole state. The chief thinks you should plan on 75 percent road time, give or take.”

  “For how long?”

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Open-ended. Permanent is my guess—if the audit supports the mission’s assumptions.”

  “How do I do my do job when I’m going to be here only 25 percent of the time?”

  Muhlendorf grinned benignly. “Given what you’ve accomplished here, you could probably do both, but the idea is for you to leave the field.”

  “You’d put somebody else in my place?”

  “Yes, at some point,” Muhlendorf said.

  “Would I have a say in who replaces me?”

  “That’s not how we do things, Ernie, but I understand your commitment and attachment.”

  “This is a new job, so it ought to include some new procedures.”

  �
�I can’t argue that logic, but what do you care?”

  “It took me years to get this place into a delicate balance, and I’d hate to see that disrupted by a new officer who doesn’t understand the rhythms here.”

  “I’ll run that by the chief,” the lieutenant said, “but I’m pretty sure that dog won’t hunt.”

  “Yessir. Thank you, sir.” Fortier quickly gathered his hat in a cloud of adrenalized hope. If he could swap a new man for himself, he could be clear of Gayfryd Flood and her controlling ways and get back to being just another lawman.

  Who might replace him, of course, was an entirely separate and paramount issue, and he was quite clueless how to proceed except that he had a hunch the judge needed to first get accustomed to the idea of his leaving before he broached the issue of a replacement.

  •••

  There was no reaction whatsoever from her when they met at her place three days later. Her total verbal response was “Oh.” He waited for more, but nothing emerged. He did, however, think she rutted with increased gusto and energy that night, leaving him exhausted and her snoring softly on his sweaty shoulder. Not at all the way he thought it would go, and he went to sleep feeling encouraged.

  At breakfast—after alarm-clock sex—Fortier’s knees still rubbery, Gayfryd took a sip of coffee and asked him, “So what exactly is all this promotion nonsense about?”

  He tried to explain that in part it was her support of him that paved the way.

  “Pshaw,” she said. “Weren’t but two of those cases that were even close to a judgment call. High likelihood any jurist would have found same as I did.”

  “I guess Lansing sees it differently.”

  She took another hit on the coffee. “Won’t fucking do, Ernest my boy, won’t do a’tall. Took all these years to find what I want in one man, and I do not intend to willingly let go. Turn down the job, Ernest,” she said, adding, “Are you taking this aboard, my sweet ? Tell them no way, Jose.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” he said. “I’m guessing they think something’s wrong here, and they want a new body in place to test their hypothesis.”

  Gayfryd Flood stared at her man. “You think they want you out?”

  “It sort of occurred to me,” he said. In fact, he’d just had the idea and gone desperately to it without giving it much thought. Still, it seemed a promising argument.

  The judge kept her eyeglasses on a golden chain around her neck and now lifted the tiny specs into place like shiny binoculars. “You’re a fine woods cop, Ernest, but you’re no lawyer, so don’t float some stupid-ass argument with hope as cheap fuel.”

  “I’m not arguing. It’s just a hunch,” he came back.

  “I’ll eat a brunch, officer, but not a hunch. But for civilized argument’s sake, say they move you out. Where to?”

  “Lansing.”

  “Thought you said the job serves all districts,” she countered.

  “The staff support is in the Mason Building.”

  “Nonsense. This is the epoch of the electronic office, work from home, all that new age computer happy talk bullshit.” She paused and took a deep breath. “So there you are in Lansing. What do I do, diddle myself with an electroshock wand?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “You’d probably wear that out.”

  She frowned. “I wear you out, is that what this is all about?”

  “My El-Tee called me in and laid this whole thing on me. That’s what it’s about, Gayfryd. We’re talking reality here.”

  “As a jurist, it is I who will decide what the hell reality is, Ernest. Me, in my court, in my bed, up there on the bench, everywhere, me, not you, not them, me.”

  “Just saying,” Fortier mumbled.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re having a little moral dilemma vis-à-vis us and your perfect professional results, and you feel the fix is in and your reputation isn’t warranted, and that this leaves you feeling sullied, perhaps a little tawdry. Am I on the right track here, Ernest? Please enlighten me.”

  Ernie Fortier weighed options and shook his head.

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Ernest. Judges are, bottom line, primo bullshitters. You arrest shit, but we have to swim in it. So, you move to Lansing, and a new officer gets assigned; is that the plan?”

  “No plan, just thinking out loud,” he said quickly.

  She stared at him with hard eyes. “Would you have a say in said replacement?”

  “It’s not done that way.”

  “Maybe I should call your El-Tee into chambers for a private Come-to-Jesus meeting.”

  “I don’t think so,” Fortier said meekly, his heart pounding, head beginning to thrum.

  “But that’s your idea, if I read you right, to place some other individual betwixt my legs.”

  “I’d never do such a thing,” he said.

  “You’re right on that count, pal. Only one person makes that decision, and that’s ish, you capisce?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  She cut him off. “You mean you didn’t think, Ernest, so here’s my counterproposal. If you take the promotion, I’ll blow up your replacement. The DNR will never get another conviction as long as I’m here. I chose you, Ernest Fortier, though I am somewhat hard-pressed at this very moment to calculate why, other than the obvious carnal connection. So here’s your choice: Take the promotion, and I bomb your operation, or you can stay where you are and continue your record of perfection and live in perfect bliss. It’s a raw, cruel damn world, ain’t it, bub?”

  •••

  Judge Gayfryd Davilla Fairlane Flood owned him, body and soul, and when his week was up, Ernie Fortier knocked on Lieutenant Muhlendorf’s office door and stepped inside. Binky had a small picture of an old man pushing a gigantic boulder up an impossible slope.

  “That new?” Fortier asked.

  “Judge Gayfryd Flood sent it over as a gift. She and my wife are old pals. So, how about the decision on the promotion?”

  “I can’t take the job, Lieutenant Muhlendorf.”

  “But it’s the chief’s idea.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Really.”

  “Do we at least get a reason?”

  Conservation Officer Ernest Fortier had never lost a trial or disputed case and knew he never would. He just pointed at the picture on the lieutenant’s wall and took his leave.

  A Good Little Lie

  Anacota Quirt’s first contact of the day was with Arne Sune Samuelsson, the six-foot-four vegan, card-carrying PETA member, Bible-thumping mental midget who sometimes wore a black satin cape and mask and appeared suddenly at hunters’ blinds at nightfall, driving off game and sportsmen. Luckily, nobody had shot him. Yet.

  Quirt had arrested the man three times already for hunter harassment. Each time, animal rights groups had stepped in with lawyers to represent Arne, whom she privately referred to as Ass, his initials. Quirt had lost six field days to Samuelsson’s legal shit, and despite the maneuvering, he’d been found guilty in all three cases and given moderate sentences.

  Early this morning a hunter called to tell Quirt that he’d seen a caped giant overnight near Beaver Dam Creek, north of Hermansville. Quirt called the Dickinson County jail and learned Ass had been released a week ago. This time she decided to undertake a preemptive strike and drove to his trailer on Waucedah Road in East Vulcan.

  Samuelsson answered the door in camo boxer underwear and blinked into the morning sun.

  “Mind if I come in?” Quirt asked and stepped inside. “’Course you don’t, you having a clean slate and all. How were things over at the jail?”

  “Don’t like it there much,” the man said gloomily. “Guys are bullies, and dey use bad language and da eff word.”

  “Really?” Quirt asked, trying to hide a grin.

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nbsp; “Ya know, fuck this, fuck that, that’s all they say, dose guys in dere.”

  “Shoot the finger at you?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” he said. “How’d you know? You want coffee?”

  Quirt looked around. “Who kept your house while you were away? It looks nice.”

  “My Moster Solvig.”

  His aunt was a hardnosed spinster Lutheran lady who looked after her nephew when he’d allow it.

  “That thing down to jail,” Quirt said, “all those pottymouths?”

  “Yah, what?” the big man said, putting a new filter into the coffee machine.

  “They got the virus,” she said.

  The big man’s eyebrows lifted. “You mean like the AIDS?”

  “No, this virus causes something called DUPC. You notice how some guys shoot the finger at you more than others?”

  Arne pursed his big lip as he thought. “Yah, some of them dudes do it a lot. I don’t like it.”

  “Those are the advanced cases,” she said, “got the old finger flag waggin’ all the time, eh? Where’s that coffee?”

  “Couple minute,” Arne said, looking at the pot like it was an undecipherable device and leaning down to listen for sounds in it.

  The house does look pretty good, Quirt thought. “Is Solvig here?”

  “No, she went back over town her house.”

  “You ever think about moving in with her?”

  “She wunt have it, says I’m big scab on the family name.”

  “Are you?” Quirt asked.

  “I ain’t even sure what she means.”

  “She means your problems with the law affect your family’s reputation.”

  “But I’m doing good, ya know, like God’s work?” the man argued. “He said, ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill.’ ”

  “I think the commandment refers specifically to murder.”