“Fighters or resisters?”
Novello laughed. “Fight? Hell no. Coupla fat-ass blobs.” He shook his head vigorously.
“The vehicle description on the bear shooter—Chern’s truck, or an old green Willys?”
The old game warden grinned slyly. “Now youse mention it, mebbe was Willys.”
“Chern doesn’t drive a Willys. That rules him out.”
“Speck, but worth a try to hammer him with everything you got open. That’s the way it was done in the day.”
“We aren’t in the day, Mario. That time’s gone. We do things by the book.”
“Glad I ain’t part of it no more,” the retired CO said.
“One other thing, Mario. If I hear you bad-mouthing Simon and Sheena one more time, I’m going to drive over here and give you an attitude adjustment.”
“I don’t like ’em, and I don’t like no women in our uniforms.”
Service pushed his partner out the door, and they got into the truck. Novello might provide some good cases, but he was a jerk, and maybe it was time to ignore and avoid him.
“Too much time alone, dat one,” Allerdyce said when they got back into the truck. “I’m hungry; could eat shit rolled in cracker crumbs.”
“There are crackers in the food bag in back,” Service said. “You’re on your own for the other ingredient.”
“Crackers ain’t food. Pop Tarts is food.”
“We’ve got one more stop.”
Allerdyce made a point of checking his watch. “We been out twelve plus already, push fifteen, sixteen by time we get back camp. Youse’s days allas dis long?”
“In the old days, when we had lots of overtime to cover us.”
“You don’t got no overtimes?”
“Nope, we’re working for free.”
“Dat don’t seem right.”
“Job’s got to get done.”
“Me, I’d go home, leave shit hang.”
“Our people don’t think that way.” Actually some did, a very few. But most just donated time and finagled their records to make everything fit. “The job has to get done.”
“Dat’s legal, be cop and not get paid, arrest pipples when not on da clock?”
This topic was not going any further. “That’s just how it is. Think of it as a fluid situation.”
“Like da squirts from dying rear,” Allerdyce chirped.
As apt a summary as any.
CHAPTER 26
Randville, Dickinson County
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17
“Twenty, Twenty-Five Fourteen on Rap Two, RSS check.”
“Ready to copy, Fourteen.”
“Noble Chern. Florence, Wisconsin, address. RSS on bear, past five years.”
An almost immediate response. “Nothing, past five.”
“All right. How about two Randville residents, Dickinson County. Henry R. Hill, YOB 1922, and Henry R. Hill Jr., YOB 1943?”
“The elder Hill had a tag in 2007, Menominee Unit. Junior had deer for same year, no bear.”
“Great job, Twenty. When did Junior buy his deer license?”
“Third day of the season, Fourteen.”
“What time?”
“1800 hours. Twenty clear.”
“Kind of late go knock on doors in Yoop, Sonny.”
“That’s kinda the whole point.”
“Just like darn game warden, pop up anywheres, even at front door. Wah, where hell youse come fumm?” Allerdyce was chuckling.
Surprise was the whole idea in some cases, to show up not just where you weren’t expected but when. Some officers tried to carefully plan such events, but this case was more a matter of serendipity and fate, and he decided the timing ought to stay in that realm.
Mario Novello was right about the house trailer. It sat on an angle, sort of tipped up at one end, and every tree around it sported long chains of white LED lights. “Kinda like Heaven,” Allerdyce said. “Or white Criscomassed. I never seen so bloody many lights.”
Who could interpret such nonsense? Outdoor decorations in the U.P. lay somewhere in the valley between eclectic and certifiably bizarre, with no obvious message inherent in most such displays. There was a small Toyota truck parked by the trailer. Light snow was falling in small round pellets.
“She gone get slickery tonight,” Allerdyce said. “You want me stay truck while youse inside?”
“Come with me, but say nothing. Just look mean.”
“Okay, Sonny.”
Service banged on the door for almost five minutes. Curtains closed, the place smelling of ammonia, lights on inside, sound from a TV or something, no answer to the door. The sound had a thumping, heart-jarring bass.
“Smell dat?” Allerdyce whispered from beside him.“Yut.”
“T’ink dat’s pussy cats?”
Cloying as that might be, it was better than a meth lab. He banged harder on the door and decided to keep hammering until someone answered.
When the door suddenly flew open, Service found himself staring at a massively wide male, obese, five-eight tall and wide; his red face a collection of circles and lumps; shirtless, rolls of fat piled on one another, some of them red, some white, some yellowish, scabs everywhere; and a shaved head, cleared not to a shiny dome but to a fuzzy nicked thing. The smell wafting from the interior made him gag and he willed his nose closed, an old trick he’d learned after a firefight in Vietnam, when heat began to accelerate the rot in the dead bodies sprawled around the camp. This guy was right off a sideshow freak stage.
“You the DNR?” the man asked, blinking, like the darkness behind Service was hurting his eyes.
“Conservation Officer Service. Who’re you?”
“Henny Hill.”
“Junior?”
“Ya-huh.”
“Your dad here?”
“Inside, but he don’t hear for shit.”
“We’ll talk first, and maybe we won’t have to disturb your father.”
The man stepped back, his heels pushing McDonald’s bags and cups and wrappings, detritus spread on the floor to create a crinkling six-inch-deep carpet of decay. Service could see channels in the debris where the man’s feet had waded through. The ammonia smell was sharp and overwhelming, but no cats were in sight. He heard Allerdyce cough behind him.
“You got cats?” he asked the younger Hill.
“Not as pets. Senior gets me litter of bitty kitties and we keep ’em couple months, then toss ’em out to feed yotes. Senior likes watch yotes eat cats. He don’t like no cats. Me, I kinda like them kitties. You think this illegal or somepin’?”
Feeding kittens to coyotes? What the hell is wrong with people?! The interior was disgusting, stinking, cluttered, disorganized, countertops piled with dirty pans and food leavings. Baby toys and pacifiers lay on the floor beside petrified food remnants.
“You got kids in here?” Service asked.
“Girlfriend had three, but she moved out two years back.”
No surprise in that news, though Hill’s having a girlfriend was deeply disturbing on several levels.
“What’s this about, sir?”
Hill was puffing like he’d just run up Heartbreak Hill in the Boston Marathon. “Your dad had a bear tag for oh seven?” Novello’s half-ass allegation pissed him off, but RSS did show that Hill had a bear tag in the same time frame, and he decided to use this fact to open the discussion.
Blank stare, no answer, heavy, labored breathing. “He’s on oxygen since oh five. You mind I sit down, sir?”
Some hunters still managed to get out with portable oxygen, but Service doubted either Hill fit this small group.
“Go ahead.”
The man wedged behind a kind of kitchen nook table.“How’s your dad hunt if he’s on oxygen?”
“Dey got portable units, hey.”
Hill Jr. picked up a roll of paper towels, ripped off a foot of paper, and began blotting at his face and upper arms.
“Can your dad come in here and talk to us?”
>
“Invalid, can’t move. Got him sittin’ on toilet all time. I even got wipe his ass sometimes.” This was said without intonation or consternation.
“How was he going to hunt?”
“Got around a bit better back then. We had him a permit, hunt from vehicle.”
“Had?”
“It got losted.” The man looked around and grinned sheepishly. “We’re pretty sure it’s here somewheres; we just don’t know where. Happens a lot.”
“’Magine ’at,” Allerdyce muttered behind Service.
He sensed passive aggressive in the younger Hill—faint, but definitely there. “Let’s get your dad in here so we can talk. All we need is information.”
“That ain’t happening,” Hill Jr. said.“Why’s that?”
“I think youse know why. Been expectin’ youse fellas, I guess.”
“You were? Because your father drew a tag for a bear two years ago, or drew it for another person?”
“Look, sir. No bear got shot, so ain’t no biggie, right?”
“Who was using the tag?”
“Me, I guess. I din’t shoot nuttin’, din’t see nuttin’, and bait cost too damn much, so I ain’t done it since. I give up on damn bears.”
“You were actually using the tag?”
“Yah, was me, jes me on dat. But not no more, hey.”
“You know anybody drives a puke-green Willys?”
Hill stared at the ceiling. “Bear guide name of Milk, Malk, Falk, somepin’ like dat.”
Okay, he had admitted borrowing his dad’s bear tag but had shot nothing, which put the bear clearly out of the picture for these birds. Now it was on to the main event. “And deer?”
“Never give up on hunt deers. Too good to eat and healthy too. Hey, no fat!”
“Our records show you had a deer license the same year as your dad’s bear tag, but no deer tags before or since. Why’s that if deer’s so good for you?”
“Din’t need one, I guess.”
“But you use the meat?”
“Yah, sure. Love them venisons, but we got friends bring us meat. No need we got spend money on license, gas, ammo, all that junk.”
“Did you get a deer in oh seven?”
“Zat last year?”
“Two deer seasons ago.”
“I ain’t sure, sir. Just minute, okay?” Hill Jr. picked up a roll of Life Savers, broke it like an egg on the corner of the table, poured several into his cavernous mouth, and took a long pull on a quart-size plastic bottle of Mountain Dew. “I got two kinds of the diabetes sweet blood; the one needs insulation, and the other one gets pills and sugar. One and two, man. God put His black-ass curse on me, and I don’t know why. My blood sugar’s a yo-yo. Goes so low I get dizzy and pass out, got take sugar, like right-quickfuckin’-now, and then it goes way the fuck up and I am so screwed.”
“Type I takes insulin,” Service said.
“I run outten insulation last month; ain’t been able get out, get more.”
The guy was no doubt going to end up in a diabetic coma, soon to be followed by death. “You said you were expecting us, so you already know what this is all about, right?”
“Well, can’t say I know nothin’ for sure.”
“Just tell us the truth, Mr. Hill, and we’ll treat you fair.”
“I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. You can call me Henny. Why that old fart stare me down like dat? Tell ’im don’t be lookin’ at me like dat.”
Allerdyce’s presence was having the desired effect. “Why were you expecting us, Henny?”
“Wait,” the man said. He poured more candies into his mouth and commenced to crunch them loudly. “It’s Noble, ain’t it?”
“What’s Noble?” Service asked.“Noble Chern.”
“Who is that?”
“Guy I know. Sometimes brings dad and me deer meat.”
“Friend?”
“Nah, just know each other see what I’m saying?”
Hate that phrase. “Mr. Chern brings you venison?”
“He’s a war hero, fought in Eye-Rack war. Army Ranger.”
“Yeah, hero for doing what?”
“He ain’t never sackly said, but he’s got da limp, so must been war hero, hey?”
“You ever serve?”
Hill smiled sheepishly. “Where they find scale weigh the likes of me—at motor pool?” This set the man to giggling, then coughing, then clutching at his throat, followed by another long pull of Mountain Dew and a face wipe with a large swatch of paper towels.
“How’d you meet Chern?”
The man made a face. He was perspiring heavily. “Don’t ’member.”
“You guys hunt together?”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
Junior’s hoping I don’t know the facts, trying to tiptoe around reality. “So you hunted together. Want to tell me about it?”
“Unh,” the man said. “I just kinda helped him out, ya know?”
“You had a license to hunt, right?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said with a decisive nod.“Did Chern have a Michigan license too?”
Hill’s head went from side to side, twice, emphatically.
Service said, “Yet he tagged a huge buck with a Michigan license. I’ve got the photo. Want to see it?”
The man nodded, said nothing.
Service showed him the photo. “See the color of the tag on the antler? That’s a Michigan tag, not Wisconsin. Chern had no Michigan tag. We know you bought your license at 6 p.m. on the third day of the 2007 season, and here’s what we know happened. You never hunted at all, but your friend showed up and asked you to go buy a license he could use on the buck he’d already shot and had no tag for.”
“He drove me down to Red Owl,” Hill Jr. said. “He paid the money, and I filled it all out.”
“Your friend then tagged his buck with your license.” Statement, not question.
No reaction other than labored breathing.
“Yes or no, Henny? It’s late and we’re all tired, and we already know the facts.”
“Yah.”
“You understand that you can’t loan a license. It’s issued to you only.”
“But it was twelve-point buck,” the man said.
As if rack size erased all rules. “You want to tell me in your own words what happened?”
“Do I got to?”
“Well, no, but I have to decide if I write a ticket for loaning a license or if you’re conspiring to illegally take an animal that belongs to the people of Michigan.”
“Like me and him was equal partners?” Hill Jr. asked.
“Yep, equal partners, equal guilt.”
“Bullshit. I ain’t got half that big rack. He got that and all the meat. He shoots deer, then comes, says he wants help, drives me over to store, gives me money. I go in and buy license, give tag to him, and never see ’im again. That seem equal?”
“You got no meat at all?”
“Said he was gonna, but never did.”
“You bought the license after he killed the buck, right?”
“Yah. I buy tag, help war hero.”
“He ever tell you how he hurt his leg?”
“Chopper hairsalt.”
“Details?”
“No. You gone charge me wit’ illegal deer?”
“No, just loaning your tag, but you have to tell me the whole truth of what happened. Your dad loaned his bear tag to Chern too, didn’t he?”
“No, honest. The bear was just wounded and run off, so he never used it.”
“Witnesses saw him shoot a large bear in a cornfield. They chased him away.”
Hill made a face of disapproval. “’At was dat bear guy Iron River. Word all over place. Not Chern.” The man began chewing on his lower lip and eventually sighed and said, “That sonuvabitch. See, one night he come ast old man for his bear tag and he had bear claw on rawhide around his neck. I ast ’im where he got the claw, and he said it was from his girlfriend’s father.”
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br /> “A bear claw’s not in and of itself illegal, Henny.”
“He don’t got no damn girlfriend, dat guy. When he got money, he spend all to hunt, buy heads for walls, fish an’ horns ’n stuff, an’ all shit an’ like dat.”
“Are you saying he didn’t shoot the mounts in his house? You’ve been to his house?”
“Mebbe was dere just once long time back. He bought all ’at crap, stuff nobody picked up from taxidermists and they was gonna toss in trash.”
“Which taxidermist?”
“Don’t know, just heard name. Jumbo, somewhere over Spread Eagle.”
“Wisconsin?”
“We got one Michigan?”
A hoarse voice yelled from another room. “I’m hungry now, fat ass. Where’s my supper!”
Hill Jr. said, “Got go, take care my dad.”
“In a minute.” Service wrote a ticket, explained how to take care of it by phone. “I’m not writing your dad for loaning his bear tag. Not now. That’s a break for him. I wrote something on the tag about the illegal deer. It’s not a charge, but if Chern fights this and you have to testify and you change your story or fail to show up, I’ll activate the charge. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I ain’t no cheat. I’ll pay fine and be dere, you need me.” Junior flapped the ticket in the air. “My dad been real good dad.”
Voice from the other room, “Hey fat fuck, get the lead out. I’m starving in here!”
Service said, “The bear tag. Chern asked to borrow it?”
“Not for him. Said he had bud over Iron River.”
“The bear guide?”
“Never said da name, but wunt s’prise me none.”
“One final thing here, Hill. Don’t talk to Chern about any of this,” Service warned.
“He ain’t got no phone.”
“Now or ever?”
“Now.”
“How’d you know the DNR might come?”
“Noble stop by one night, say so; said don’t say shit ta youse guys, just zip up and be quiet.” Hill had lied about not seeing Chern, but it was not a major issue yet.
“You did the right thing.”
“He din’t give us no meat.”
So much for the rationale for doing right. Service felt like rolling in snow to get the smells off him. Allerdyce was already in the truck, engine running.
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