Buckular Dystrophy

by Joseph Heywood

  “Some people too disgustin’ for words,” the old man mumbled. “We go camp now. This ain’t fun no more.”

  Grady Service checked his watch. Five minutes past midnight. It would take an hour to get back to camp, and they’d just have to drive to Florence tomorrow. “We’re getting a room in Iron Mountain,” he told his partner.

  “Okay, but make stop Golden Arches, get cheesyburks, fries, grease.”

  “I’d rather be shot. Did you not see the floor of that trailer? We have lots of food in the truck. We’ll get a big breakfast in the morning.”

  The owner of the no-tell motel called Randy’s Ranche watched Service fill out the registration card.

  “Long day hassling people?” the man asked.

  Service said, “We get the state rate, right?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “If you want hot water.”

  “The state rate doesn’t include hot water?”

  “State rate comes outten my pocket. You people are ’pose to run lean.”

  “Whatever,” Service said, too tired to fuss with trivial matters.

  The man stared open-mouthed past Service, who heard Allerdyce cough behind him.

  “Hey dere, Frankie-boy; youse got fire insurance, you cheap fuck?”

  “Allerdyce,” the man mumbled. “Okay, okay; the state rate it is. I’ll be sure the hot water’s on.” The proprietor put a key on the counter and disappeared through a beaded curtain.

  Service looked at his partner.

  “What?” Allerdyce said.

  CHAPTER 27

  Spread Eagle, Wisconsin

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18

  Wisconsin Warden Kelly de Jardins de Richelieu met them in the parking lot, still looking half asleep. “Jesus, don’t you Michigan people sleep?”

  Service said, “Not during deer season.”

  “Mine doesn’t start for a week,” the Wisconsin warden said.

  Said Service, “No, yours has already started, Kell; you just don’t know it yet.”

  The taxidermist was located on US 2/41, a huge, colorful sign announcing “Finning-Feather Memories Forever.” The place was less than seven miles from the Michigan border. It was a standard commercial critterstuffer’s shop inside—black bear on a pedestal in one corner, several walls with whole fish, mostly walleyes and northerns. And there were birds and deer, half of them European mounts, bare skulls cleansed of flesh by insects. Nice heads, but neither significant nor eye-catching.

  Allerdyce followed the two uniformed men into the shop.

  “Teller here?” Service asked the man at the counter. He had blond hair, a bright red beard, and a crooked smile. He stood all of five-six, counting his unruly mop of hair.

  “That’s me and I’m here, so I guess I’m in. Yo, Kelly. You’re out and about early.”

  “Tell me about it,” the Wisconsin warden mumbled.

  Red beard looked back to Service. “S’up?”

  “You did a mount for a customer by the name of Noble Chern.”

  “We have privacy laws in Wisconsin.”

  Rocket growled. “Goddammit, just tell the man, Jumbo. It’s too damn early for stupid-ass games.”

  “Yup, a twelve-point. Nice buck; scored 177, I think I recall.”

  “Chern’s name on the tag?”

  “Lemme look. My memory ain’t that good no more.” The man pulled a battered blue-gray ledger from under the counter, opened it, and leafed his way through. “No, he just brought it in. Tag goes back to an H. Hill Jr. over in Randville.”

  “That was oh seven?”

  “Yes, but the work din’t get done till last year on account Chern didn’t have sufficient funds. I let him pay it off in installments. He’s only had the mount a couple of months.”

  “You also do a thirteen-point for him last season?”

  “No; he brought that one in, and I had the antlers out back in my shop until last night. He’d only paid me eighty bucks against seven fifty for a full shoulder mount, but he came by last night and took the antlers back, said he was going to make other arrangements.”

  “He mention where he shot the thirteen?”

  “Not exactly, but I got the sense it was close to where he shot the twelve.”

  “A Wisconsin deer?” the Rocket asked.

  “No, I think it was over in Michigan. Like I said.”

  “You see the tag on the thirteen?”

  “Said he lost it dragging it out. You know, his bum leg and all.”

  The Wisconsin warden said, “Jesus, Jumbo, you know the rules.”

  “Course I know the rules, but this guy’s a good customer, and a good guy. He’s a war hero. I don’t shit on our country’s veterans.”

  Service took over. “He buy other stuff from you, stuff customers never picked up?”

  “Has from time to time. That’s not illegal. Was a time when he said he was flush with some sort of insurance payout and he spent like crazy back then. Bought a heap of stuff.”

  “Will your records show that?”

  “Yep. You want a list?”

  “Not now. Later we might.”

  “You say he grabbed the other rack last night?” Service asked.

  “They’re all his now, and I’m out of it. Those horns I green-scored at just under 200, bases big as my fists. So what do you guys want me to do?”

  “Call me if he comes back,” Kelly the Rocket said.

  “Don’t think the guy will be back. I offered him his eighty bucks back and seven hundred more to buy it for myself. I think I could make three grand selling it at a show. Chern told me money was no good. Can you believe that?”

  They went outside. Richelieu said, “Chern’s gonna dump the evidence.”

  Before Service could say anything, Allerdyce said. “Jamokes with horn sickness won’t never dump no two hunnert rack.”

  The Rocket looked at his Michigan counterpart. “I think your partner may be right.”

  Allerdyce nodded his head emphatically. “No worry, boys; I know dis kind.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Florence, Wisconsin

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18

  Life right now was complicated. Technically, Sergeant Wooten was his immediate superior; Wooten, in turn, reported to the district lieutenant. But as acting detective, Service also reported to the new Wildlife Resource Protection Unit lieutenant downstate. Typically the downstate lieutenant knew to let his detectives do their jobs with as little interference as possible. But Wooten, as sometimes happened with ambitious new sergeants, had tried unsuccessfully to insert himself into a situation in which he no doubt smelled glory in the offing. Grady Service told the man to stay away, that he and the Wisconsin wardens had the case under control. He could tell that Wooten was not happy with him, and he didn’t care. He’d be glad when deer season was over and his stint as a detective finished so he could settle back into protecting his Mosquito Wilderness.

  Service found Allerdyce staring at him as he held the cell phone close.

  “Why are you in Wisconsin?” Wooten demanded to know.

  “I have a case here; it’s not like this is some sort of exotic vacation choice.”

  Service knew that although the so-called buck sheet was no longer in official use, there were a lot of sergeants, including Wooten and even some higher officers, who used the tally to keep track of ticket numbers during deer seasons. Woe be to those who wrote few tickets during this time. There was no actual quota, but there was the mythical buck sheet, which was a score sheet for every officer and district in the state. Service hated the thing, which had been a big deal in his old man’s day and early on in his own career as well.

  Back in those days the paper kept track of every citation issued in the state. There were few women then, and all officers were assumed to be male. There had been women COs in the late nineteenth century, but in the wake of two world wars the job had become almost exclusively a male domain. Some district supervisors used the buck sheet
to motivate their officers. Captains, in turn, used it to motivate and evaluate their lieutenants, and the chiefs held the stats over everyone’s head.

  Like every bureaucracy and chain of command evolved by humankind, shit rolled downhill, and woe be to those officers whose deer season citation numbers were seen as lacking. Numbers were interpreted not just as a measure of performance but also as an indicator of officers’ motivation and dedication to the collective mission. All of it was, in his opinion, pure bull.

  The general public had forever seemed to believe that all cops were pushed forward by secret ticket quotas, and the DNR was included in this very wide assumption. Crap like the buck sheet only added fuel to the fires of citizen outrage.

  The damn buck sheet caused some officers to write tickets when they might not have during another time of year, and this sometimes pissed off locals who they would have to deal with in the fifty weeks that weren’t the regular firearm deer season. Even wildlife biologists sometimes clouded it all by using the buck sheet numbers to help them estimate deer populations: More tickets were assumed to translate to more deer in that area. This was the worst sort of nonsense, not to mention crappy biology.

  Retired DNR Capt. Ware Grant had led the charge to obliterate any use, or mention, of a buck sheet in the department. And new chief Eddie Waco had in fact directly addressed this in meetings with officers last summer. He’d held up a sheet of paper. “This is the so-called buck sheet, and here’s what I think of it.” Waco had torn it into pieces and thrown it aloft like confetti. “That’s the end. No more. Copy?”

  Officers smiled, but their senior people simply took it back underground and said nothing to the chief.

  “I’m just checking on your season,” Wooten said, “to see if you need help.”

  “Sergeant, my season is going like every deer season, meaning I have an abundance of assholes and fuckups and not enough hours to take care of everything that needs doing. If we had overtime like in the old days, the overall challenge would be much less, but we don’t, so we’re left to deal with the shit as best we can. If we moved officers from low deer counties to high deer counties, as they did in the good old days, that also might help some officers. But we don’t do that sort of thing anymore because we can’t afford per diem and all that.”

  Service plowed on. “You know that we all know that it’s unspoken policy to misrepresent our hours, especially in deer season, and you also know this puts us into liability limbo. Every officer is faced with not working and facing departmental wrath because of the phantom buck sheet or working the hours and making creative time cards to show less time worked than actual. So here I am in Wisconsin and, thank you, but we do not need any help.”

  There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. Then, almost meekly, Wooten said, “I take your point.”

  Service knew the matter should remain unremarked upon, like a fart in church, but he was tired and feeling less than generous. “I wrote one ticket yesterday and helped some Illinois droolers organize and locate themselves in such a way as to not shoot each other or some other unsuspecting hunter unlucky enough to get too close to them. One ticket; write that on your buck sheet.”

  Wooten said, “There is no buck sheet. You heard the chief last summer.”

  “I heard. Did you?”

  “There’s no such thing,” Wooten said.

  Service laughed into his cell phone. “I can hear you crumpling paper in your hand.”

  “You are not a team player, Officer Service.”

  Service fought to restrain his temper. “Listen to me, Wooten. The first thing any officer has to do, regardless of rank, is to decide which team he or she’s on. I’ve got one ticket. There may be more to follow, but the numbers are irrelevant. I were you, Sarge, I would write the following word on a piece of paper and look at it and meditate on it every hour of every day. Ready to copy? Here’s the word: G-E-O-R-G-E, George, common spelling. Want me to spell that again?”

  Wooten said, “What. Is. That. Supposed. To. Mean?”

  “It’ll come to you,” Service said, “Or it better. And soon.”

  The sergeant broke the connection.

  “Youse ain’t like your daddy, Sonny Boy. He always talk nice to bosses.”

  “He was a lush, continuously seeking grace and forgiveness.”

  “But he always top man on buck list,” Allerdyce said.

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “You say so, Sonny, but we know jamokes down Lansing watch and keep count; and here we are, youse and me, still screwing around wit’ dis Wisconsin jerk. Youse an’ me is missing da deer season.”

  Service said, “Zip it, old man.”

  “Just sayin’.”

  He hated that phrase, the latest slang to grow out of “yada yada.” “That’s chicken-shit talking,” he said with a growl.

  This time Allerdyce let it go.

  Kelly the Rocket’s sergeant called him and wanted to be part of the crew to interview Noble Chern. The plan was to rendezvous at the man’s house, go in, and hash it out, with the Rocket and his sergeant taking the lead this time. Service had already ticketed Henny Hill Jr. and got the man positioned against Chern. At this point, he could write Chern for borrowing a license, seize his weapons, keep the seized head, and let the Wisconsin guys do whatever they had in mind; but he didn’t want to separate yet. Maybe Chern would spill more on his illegal Michigan activities. Service’s gut said the Wisconsin man was a deep, widespread stain that desperately needed cleaning.

  The sergeant’s name was John Smith, an unremarkable name for an equally unremarkable person.

  Most officers didn’t kick over a single giant case in the course of a standard twenty-five-year career, but he’d had so many, especially lately, that he’d lost count and wouldn’t be surprised if he sailed into retirement without any more icebergs—called such because some small things or events seen by an officer could lead him into a deep and complex case, far larger than first appeared. How many big cases is one game warden entitled to? Nothing was written; instinct and decades of experience helped keep you motivated and on your toes. It was fine and dandy and necessary to deal with small-time fuckups, but the serial slime, they were the real quarry, real and damn hard to uncover—and to prosecute.

  Service went inside with his colleagues, leaving Allerdyce outside in the wet snow. The old man had the truck’s backup fob, so he could get in and stay warm, and drink coffee and chow down on bakery with holes they’d picked up at breakfast this morning.

  He fully intended for the Wisconsin guys to take the lead, but Kelly the Rocket started hemming and hawing. Before he could stop himself, Service said, “Listen, Chern, I talked to your pal Henny Hill last night. He says you were supposed to bring him and his dad some deer meat from the buck he tagged for you in oh seven. The meat never got there. He’s not a happy camper.”

  Chern looked up at the ceiling, his eyes reddening and blinking wildly.

  “There ain’t no answers printed on that ceiling!” Service snarled at the man. “We have your photo, the mount, and Hill’s confession. You shot the twelve-point and got Hill to buy a tag for you. That’s hunting without a license, borrowing the tag of another, and taking game without a license, which means it’s illegal. The mount stays with me. If there’s meat, I’ll take that too.”

  “I ate it, sir,” Chern said meekly. The man’s eyes were red and puffy. “You don’t understand,” the man said and began to whimper like a child, pouring out tears, sobs wracking his whole body. Service had never seen anything quite like it. In fact, it looked real and was convincing.

  “Not our job to understand, Chern. The states pay us to enforce statutes. Period.”

  “But it was a twelve-point,” Chern mumbled.

  “Ya, a 177, Jumbo Teller told us.”

  “Damn cheat, that Teller is; ask anybody. Charges way too much.”

  “What’s that make you?” Kelly asked the man, who opened his mouth and sighed.


  “Have you got your operator’s license straightened out?” Service asked.

  “Like I ain’t had time or gas money.”

  “Show us what you’ve got; the military driver’s license will get us started.”

  “It ain’t here,” Chern said.

  Kelly nudged Service. “We’ll bird-dog all that crap. Go on and write your citation and we’ll provide backstory as we get it. We’ll see what our staff in Madison can harvest from databases. You keep the head mount.”

  “We’re also going to keep your rifle, Chern, and we’ll ask the court to condemn it.”

  “What does that mean, sirs?”

  “Your rifle now belongs to the state.”

  “How I’m going to hunt bucks?” the man asked, his face glistening with tears. The man looked dumbfounded and broken, his face purple as a grape. “I hunt to live,” Chern said.

  “That’s your problem, not ours,” Service said.

  “I got no money for food, how I hire lawyer?”

  “There are public defenders. You’ll have to figure it out.”

  “But you don’t understand, that was my grandfather’s gun. It means everything to me.”

  “Why?” Service answered. “Because he was a violator too?”

  “He served in Europe, fought with Patton, got wounded and everything.”

  Kelly the Rocket asked, “What the hell does that have to do with your using his rifle to poach deer? Seems to me you’re taking a crap on your dear old grandpop’s memory.”

  Chern tried to stand up. “You can’t take my gun!” his bad leg failed and he fell hard onto the linoleum floor and started moaning, “Oh God, oh God, I am so sorry, I am so sorry.”

  This brought another download of tears, which culminated in a wild tantrum of air-punching and kicking on the floor.

  Kelly looked at Service and shook his head.

  Service looked at a window and saw Allerdyce holding a massive rack above his head. A shit-eating grin covered his weather-beaten face.

  Service looked back at Chern. “What happened to the thirteen-point you took in Wisconsin last year?”

  Chern rolled on his back and crossed his arms. He was still sobbing, his nose runny.