“How old?”
“Don’t be no numbers asked when ain’t no clothes, man.”
He has a point. “They over sixteen?”
Clayton Tree shrugged. “It matter, dey all got da good stuff, sayin’.” Probably under age. “They drive?”
“No, bra. They be dropped.”
“Where exactly is this apartment?”
“Can show you place, Bra. But I don’t know no number. S’upstairs, dude. I don’t know no more. Only been there few times.”
“Where?”
“Tammy Ridge Parmens.”
“Off M-35, close to Little Lake?”
“Atsit, Bra. Nice place when they move in. Man, you got keep me outten dis shit. I got job, skoo. I getting tired all their shit, and dat bear put me over top, sayin’.”
“No promises, Clay. You play straight with me and I’ll do my best for you. Lie to me and I’ll cut off your fucking head.”
“Hear dat, Bra. No lie, unh-unh. I wunt there for bear, but I seen, dude. They got vids, Bra. Got all da deer, da bear; got one of a coon dey make inna hamburger wit’ fuckin’ baseball bats! Girls like get it on to dat shit, all dat blood goin’ ever’where. Sick shit, dude, sick. What up wit dat, wanna fuck when see blood and pain?”
“They have pictures?”
“Dude, they vid ever’t’ing they do, even when dey scrompin’ with da fo ho thirsties.”
Good grief, sex videos. “Phone cams?”
“Phones, reg’lar cams, all those toys Cair got from his gran’pa, bra.
How does Shintner fit in?”
“Like always, Bra. He shit for brains, follower; do what they tell him do is all. Loser, Bra.”
“Are you on camera?”
“Not doing none a dat shit I ain’t,” the boy said. “Mebbe toking, could be, but not dat other shit. Dose fo hos allas want me hit dat baby fluff fo vid, but I tell ’em NFW, dude.”
Underage sex is a separate issue in this. Stay focused. “You were with
Vaunt and Basquell when deer were shot?”
“Six. Not dem las’ two.”
“What was your job?”
“No job, man, just dere, along, man, hangin’. They say, let’s go party, but they, like, go shoot instead. I can’t get out. All I can do is watch dat shit go down.”
“You saw them take antlers?”
“Use cool saw till they lost it. Then they try an ax. I seen viduv dat one. Dat shit look so nasty.”
“What’s Cair’s role?”
“His crash, his cash, his smokes, and his dope, Bra. Sugar daddy. Sometime he help cut horns.”
“But not you.”
“No, Bra. I smoke-toke some, eh. Dat’s all.”
“Dope comes from Cair?”
“Yah, always got stash, dude. Good shit. Get them girls naked and waxed and howling like beagles after rabbits.”
“But you used dope and rode along.”
“I tole you dat. I ain’t gone lie, Bra.”
“You did tell me. You know if we don’t get them all, they’ll just keep on.
I know, bra. Why I caw you, sayin’.”
“The red truck in your name?”
“My ma, she cosign, but yah, and I make payments, not her or my stepdad. What you do now?”
“I recorded what you’ve just told me. Now I’ll get it transcribed and typed. You can read it and change it to make it absolutely accurate from your view; then you’ll sign it and then I’ll take it from there.”
“My name stays out?”
“Right, you are Confidential Informant Number Nine.” Service gave a false number to hide the fact that he had only two informants. The less exclusive they thought they were, the more informants tended to spill.
“Shit, you got eight dudes talk you? Shit, bra. I need me a lawyer?
That’s your legal right and your call.”
“Bra, there be stories, sayin’? Service, street dudes dey say, he tough but fair motherfucker, word good, don’t never break ’is word. Keep me out, rye?”
He nodded at the young man. Two witnesses now, both confidential. The information was usable only if they could verify everything directly or through a third source. This kid seemed to be a fuckup with a good heart, and his own heart said to trust him.
“Rye.”
• • •
It was well after dark when the other COs returned and he laid out what they had for a case.
Simon del Olmo said, “The search warrant is critical.”
“First we nail down the exact location and address of the apartment.”
Spear chuckled. “You start a deer season with a case like this, Grady, and you’ll be shit out of luck the rest of the way. Eight bucks and a bear? No way you can top that. This is the case of a career. You might as well take off the rest of the season.”
He knew that these were essentially baby violets. Full-grown ones, those with long years of experience in such matters, were doing as much or more damage and doing it with more planning and smarts. You couldn’t hunt violets from your living room. More importantly, this case was not a slam dunk, not yet, and not by a long shot. Weird, unpredictable things sometimes happened in courthouses. Magistrates, prosecutors, judges, juries, defense attorneys—everyone could fuck things up.
CHAPTER 6
Little Lake, Marquette County
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
Weasel Linsenman was in civvies—black sweats and Nikes, light satin jacket with a faded Packer’s emblem. He stared down at the beer can Service held out to him. “It’s empty, a prop.”
“Prop for what?” Linsenman asked.
“A morality play.”
“Man, I get stage fright. Have you been drinking?”
“No but we’ll both need to act like we have.”
“Why?” Linsenman asked nervously. “Grady, I hate doing stuff with you. It always turns weird, man.”
“Not always.”
“More than it doesn’t. What’s this about?”
“Partly it’s the case your two deputies blew.”
“Mach and Cellini?”
Service said. “She has potential, but I think he just takes up space.
He’s young. Not everyone was born old and wise like you.”
Service looked at his friend. He liked how he came to the fuckups’ defense.
“You’re right, the kid needs seasoning. Get him here in civvies. I’ll take him instead of you.” Service took back the empty beer can.
• • •
Tristan Mach looked sixteen in uniform and younger in civvies. “S’up, Sarge,” the deputy greeted Linsenman.
The sergeant nodded at Service. “You’re on loan to him.
Chance to redeem yourself,” Service told the young dep.
“I look like a frickin’ coupon?” Mach shot back.
Perfect. “Hold the ’tude, dude. You’ll need it.”
“Did he just call me dude?” Mach asked his sergeant.
“Go with the flow,” Linsenman told his man. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
Mach asked, “What will be over?”
Grady Service stuck the prop in the deputy’s hand.
“This is the cheap shit,” Mach said scornfully.
“Pretend it’s full of chocolate milk or whatever shit you drink.”
“My union does not call for me to work involuntarily for other agencies. I have a contract.”
“You have bupkes,” Linsenman said. “Do what you’re told, and do it well.”
“I’ll file a grievance.”
Grady Service pushed the man toward his personal truck. “Shut up. I don’t need a snot-nosed cub cop. I need Brandname in all his fucking obnoxious glory.”
The deputy lit up and grinned. “Say when, dude.”
• • •
The parking lot at the apartment complex was surrounded by tamarack swamps, all the trees yellowing to the color of bananas. By December the needles would drop and the trees would look skeletal.
“We’re looking for an apartment,” Service explained en route.
“Do I get to ask why?”
“No.”
Surprisingly, the kid said, “Okay,” and remained silent the rest of the way.
They pulled into the lot and parked. Service lit a cigarette and handed it to Mach.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Today you do.”
The deputy drew down a deep hit, held it, and exhaled a thin spout of smoke that curled like a snake.
Service expected a coughing fit, but none came.
Mach said, “I don’t smoke now don’t mean I di’n’t used to, dude. I used to smoke all the time. This shit tastes good.”
They were there ten minutes when Service saw a man in the lot. He went to a white Silverado, got something out, and started to walk away.
The two cops went after him. “Dude,” Service yelled, “where the fuck is Sasha?”
The young man stopped and turned. He was frowning. Service immediately recognized Josh Cair from his operator’s license. They had gotten photos of all involved from the secretary of state. It was Cair for sure—six-three, long blond hair, blue eyes, orange chook, faded jeans, fawn-colored Uggs. “Dude, like where that bitch Sasha?”
Cair squinted warily.
Service said, “Sasha say, ‘Come over anytime, hang out, scromp, hit it hard, dude.’ Whish apar’men she in, dude?”
Cair allowed the hint of a smile. “Sorry old-timer; ain’t no Sasha here. Maybe you got played, dudes.”
Old-timer? Service felt his temper spike, but his young partner stepped up in front of him. “I knew that be-otch be given us bullshit name. Sasha, who the fuck got name of some Russian cunt. We buy, bitch drinks, she lies; we’ll kill ’at cunt we get our hands on it, eh, bra! You sure no Sasha ’ere? Mebbe you hittin’ at shit ’n’ try keep it to yoseff? She be like five two, big tits, hair color of a fire engine, bra.”
Cair said, “There’s nobody named Sasha here, dude, and nobody that looks like that. I been seein’ ’at shit, I’d have to hit it myseff, sayin’?”
Mach turned to Service. “We fucked, partner. Gimme nuther stick; we got make us a thing on dis.”
Service handed his cigarette pack to the young officer.
The suspect walked away. “Follow him,” Service told the young officer. “We need the building and the apartment number. Verify it, but be careful, and don’t blow our cover.”
“Sasha’s too?” Mach quipped, smart-assing.
“Do the job, rook.”
Mach was back in seven minutes and held up his left hand. He had used a ballpoint to write on its heel, B-4, A-8. “Building Four, Apartment Eight, upstairs on the right.”
“You certain?”
“Watched him into the door, went up, looked at number on door and plastic title on mail box for Apartment Eight. The tag says ‘Cair.’”
“That was Cair you followed.”
“Gimme ’nother butt, dude.”
“Your mother’s gonna curse me,” Service said.
“Join the club. It has big numbers.”
Service handed him the pack and told him to keep it. The kid had jumped right into the role and never wavered, a natural for undercover work. “Where you from, Mach?”
“East Grand Rapids, EGR.”
“No cop work down that way?”
“Graduated Northern. I prefer the air up here; hunt, fish, you know. We do something good today?”
“We did, and you did. Now give me one of my smokes.”
“This have anything to do with that night I fucked up the chase and prints?”
“Affirmative.”
“You built a case?”
“Getting close.”
“Cool,” Mach said. “Is this what they call bonding?
A cigarette’s just a cigarette.”
“There a real Sasha?”
“Gotta be one somewhere.”
“You were about to pound a head.”
“Till you stepped in. Thanks.”
“That like an attaboy?”
CHAPTER 7
Little Lake
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
They’d met at the old bare-boned DNR field office in Gwinn and gone over the plan to serve the search warrant, which had been obtained after an allnight session writing a detailed affidavit, which the judge used to make his warrant decision. Service would lead a soft entry. Knock on the door. But if there was no response in fifteen seconds, del Olmo would break it open and the entry would turn hard. They had a tactical plan for every eventuality, including one of them or the suspects being injured. COs John Spear, Sander Torvay, and Jop Volstaad, a newly minted CO, would follow the entry team and begin by guarding the back way out, meaning he would be below the balcony in case some fool tried to flee that way. They would interview suspects but arrest only Vaunt tonight on his warrants unless there was some sort of violent reaction from others. The mission was to serve the search warrant and look for the things the judge had approved. After the take was evaluated and analyzed, the business of bringing charges in a formal complaint would begin. The complaint would go to the prosecutor, who would decide which charges to pursue and seek arrest warrants based on that. All in all, Grady Service was sure they had planned for just about every eventuality.
And then came the naked underage girl greeting them at the door with the single word, “Dudes,” and holding out the business end of a joint.
It was immediately clear that the apartment was trashed. This was a new complex, not three years old, but this particular unit looked like it had been lived in by camels and tramps. Dozens of old pizza boxes and petrified pizza slices looking like desiccated flesh. There was a large “lump” target against a wall and a dozen arrows in it. But there were also arrows in the wall, hanging down at peculiar angles, and all around them dozens of holes and slashes in the drywall, as if the wall had fallen victim to terminal woodpecker disease.
Decayed food scraps strewn everywhere. Sinks and counters overflowed, dishes and pots stacked catawampus like cartoon piles, empty beer cans all over the place; several five-buck chuck empties were in the debris, and there was an overflowing cat pan, redolent of ammonia.
There was a small pile of used tampons in a corner and used condoms everywhere, including one inexplicably stuck to the fridge. Service saw the officers exchanging “looks” as they moved through the rooms.
Loose ammo and spent cartridges lay everywhere on the carpets. There were pockets of McDonald’s bags smeared with ketchup aged brown, and petrified french fries. Pop cans overflowed a black plastic bag. There were cases of beer along the wall on the balcony outside, maybe ten cases, and in a bedroom, forty cartons of cigarettes bearing Missouri tax stickers—ciggies there selling for less than a fifth of the Michigan cost. What the hell was this?
A flat-screen TV took up an entire wall.
There were four young men, as expected. Only the owner, Josh Cair, protested, and that was mild and short-lived, nothing more than a show. Otherwise, Shintner, Basquell, and Vaunt were silent and distant. They had found Basquell in bed with a girl, with no indication that it was anything but by mutual agreement. Like the other three girls, she protested being interrupted and when asked her name tried to bargain, “Like I’ll trade, man—.”
Deal refused.
The boy, Shintner, eventually broke the wall of silence and gave them all the girls’ names. Marquette Deputy Bettina Cellini called their parents to pick up their little treasures.
Service thought none of the parents seemed especially surprised to find their daughters in compromising circumstances. Was the world changing that much?
Only Vaunt was under arrest, but Service interviewed each of them, carefully separating his subjects. Deputy Mach sat with the others and showed a face that gave even Service a chill.
The harvest yielded a Marlin 895G Guide Gun in .45-70 caliber and a .30-06 Remington 700. There was ammo for each and for other weapons not on the premise
s, several compound bows, and two crossbows. Basquell claimed the two rifles and said proudly, “I’m the only shooter, dudes.” They seized six sets of antlers and a bear skull from the fridge.
None of them claimed the other weapons.
The remainder of the haul included the illicit ciggies, sixteen cell phones, six digital cameras, two expensive video cameras, a dozen CDs, a box of forty thumb drives, and a box filled with photos on print paper—pictures mostly of dead animals but a few of the girls and boys engaged in sex, or posing. It was hard to tell.
There was a wooden box of old tools in a back bedroom, and Service had Mach take a look. The deputy said, “Antiques, worth a bundle.” Several of the tools were saws, which they seized, along with a half-ax with deer hair and dried blood on the blade.
An older gentleman showed up after the girls and their parents were gone. Service figured one of the girls’ parents had made the call.
“I am Parmenter Cair and this is my property,” the man asserted.
Service said, “Do you live here, Mr. Cair?”
“My grandson lives here.”
“Then you can’t come in. Let’s take a walk.”
“I am the owner of record. I demand to know what’s going on. I have a constitutional right to know.”
“No, you don’t,” Service said and guided the man down the stairs and walked him toward a new Range Rover HSE. “Your grandson is in trouble.”
The man had a stone face. “My lawyer will handle it.”
“Your kid’s being used, and so are you.”
“You cannot talk to me that way.”
“You mean straight, with no bullshit?”
“What is this about?” the man asked, obviously trying to soften his tone.
“Poaching, drugs, sex with minors. Contraband cigarettes. That’s just for starters.”
“Is Josh under arrest?”
“No, sir, not yet.”
“I’ll take him with me.”
“After we’re done.”
“When will that be?”
“When we’re done.”
“You’d better make sure all your ducks are lined up and armored for a fight,” he warned in a menacing voice.
“Thank you; we’ll certainly keep that in mind.”
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