Buckular Dystrophy

by Joseph Heywood

  “You see any horns?” he asked his partner.

  “Too quick, but I seen ’em paw da snow. Want bet dere some bait under dere?”

  “No bet, but that light wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood.” It had been large and intense.

  “Go see da man now?”

  Too dark and too little to go on at this point. “No; we’ll wait for daylight so we can be thorough.”

  The light came on only the one time, and only for that instant. They sat for another thirty minutes as the snow pellets began to show some fast accumulation. Service was about to start the engine when something touched his shoulder. Utterly surprised, he lurched and recoiled violently and hit his head on the truck roof, the response totally out of proportion to the stimulus. This sort of reaction was normal when you were trailing night-hunters. Even when you knew a shot was imminent, the suddenness of it would cause you to pop upward and hit your head on the roof. To prevent this, you held the bottom of the steering wheel or something else when you expected a shot to be coming soon. This he was totally unprepared for.

  “Service,” a husky voice whispered from his open window.

  He looked left, found himself face to face with a Cyclops, a single eye, which his brain quickly sorted out and registered as night-vision goggles, military issue. His voice was gone, and he had no choice but to wait until it came back.

  “Sorry about that, guys,” the voice said. “I’m Special Agent Neutre, ATF. I believe your chief told you I’d be in touch?”

  Service chuckled. “He didn’t say literally, or with such a dramatic entrance.”

  “Like I said, sorry. You mind if I jump in back and catch a ride out of here? This snow’s looking serious. My truck is over in a lower ski hill parking lot.”

  “You walked from there to here?”

  “It’s not that far,” she said.

  It had to be three or four miles and almost all of it vertical. A hike from where she was parked to here was a major deal, even without snow and ice and wind.

  The woman started for the back of the truck and Service said, “Jump in up front. My partner will fit fine in the backseat.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Allerdyce already had the back door open, had squeezed behind the passenger seat, and was stacking their gear and supplies into a single mound behind the driver’s seat.

  The ATF agent slid into the passenger seat after she chucked something heavy in the truck bed. “My trash and surveillance gear,” she explained as she groped under the front of the seat for the mechanism to adjust the space. She removed her goggles. She had a military haircut Service knew only as high and tight. She found the seat handle and pushed back with a solid thump. She was dressed all in white, some sort of coverall made of silent material.

  Service drove out of the area, maintaining dark until they got out on the Intimidation Lake Trail and almost to County Road HJ. The woman said, “Stop here please.”

  He did as she asked. The woman in all white was out of the truck in less than two minutes. She came back wearing faded blue jeans and a heavily cabled white sweater, her feet in fashionable Italian Chamonix fur boots the color of new honey. He’d proposed such boots to Friday once and she had scoffed at him. “At four hundred bucks? I’ve bought used cars for less.”

  Friday had no way of knowing that money meant very little to him, that fate and inheritance from his lover Maridly Nantz had left him way beyond well off. The ATF agent’s boots were a reminder that he needed to have a serious talk with his . . . what? Girlfriend?

  How lame is that, Service? Girlfriend’s so high school.

  Allerdyce passed a thermos cup of coffee to the agent from behind.

  “Ah,” Neutre said. “Warm again.”

  Service guessed she was six-four, perhaps taller, solidly built, blond hair, ruddy face. “I suppose you fellas have questions.”

  “Just the usual stuff,” Service said, “no brain-busters. Let’s start with what the hell were you doing out there, and how the hell did you identify me?”

  “I’ve been on a stakeout for seventy-two hours, and Eddie Waco sent me your photo. This new snow gives me a great opportunity to bail and leave no traces behind.”

  “Seventy-two hours in this crap?”

  “No problem. I have a thermal pop-up shelter and a state-of-the-art, lighter-than-a-fart solar heater. The one good thing about working for the Feds is they give us great toys.”

  “What exactly are you staking out?”

  “The domicile of one Parmenter Cair and Kerny Pascal-Veyron.”

  “Cair I’ve met.”

  “Kerny’s his main squeeze of the moment, his almost-significant other. He has a wife, of course, but she is of the stay-at-home bling-less flavor, living frugally in a 900-square-foot Monkey Ward bungalow in Brentwood, a burb of St. Louis. Parmenter is a true entrepreneurial phenom, self-made, wealthy as Midas, ruthless as Machiavelli. He started as a small plumbing contractor and parleyed himself into the third or fourth largest privately held construction company in the world. Name a place and you can bet he’s built something there. His outfit’s made billions off DOD contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and related locations.

  “He still runs his company?”

  “He’s now chairman emeritus, still on the board but not involved in any day-to-day stuff.”

  “What’s ATF’s interest in him?”

  “The thing about Parm is that he can’t sit still. Asperger’s probably. All he can think about is making money. His middle name should be Busy.”

  “Your name popped up from Eddie when we found contraband ciggies at Cair’s grandson’s apartment.”

  “Right. To Parmenter, ciggies and other stuff are like a hobby. He has one minivan a week run from Rolla, Missouri, to Detroit, and he nets a quarter million from sweet, low risk, no-deep-thought cash.”

  “The smokes we found at the apartment.”

  “Our guess is that grandpap gave the boy those to use as a little cash cow for his pals and gals, and himself of course. Parm always takes good care of Parm. But we’re also of a mind that grandpa may be teaching the kid the biz and young Cair is making some actual runs to Missouri and back. We don’t know this for sure yet, but we’ve got some pretty good camera systems in place in St. Louis, with some amazing state-of-the-art facial recognition software. We’ve ID’d the kid three times, always in the same van, which belongs to grandpa and is, as we talk, parked in his garage back there on the hill.

  “The chief thought you could help us with our case.”

  “Yes. We have been running a little sting at the behest of the Iowa and Illinois DNRs, and young Cair has gotten snared in our net. He’s taken a contract to shoot deer with large racks for three grand per, no questions asked.”

  “When was this?”

  “Early fall. He’s not been back to talk to our guy, so we figured he hasn’t scored yet. Our UC has upped the ante by promising five grand per, for any racks of 140-plus. You fellas know what that means, other than big?”

  “Total inches based on a certain measuring scheme. What do you have on grandpa?”

  “Smoke-wise, nothing yet. But I heard shots from the house and down in those nearby draws.”

  “How many shots?”

  “Between two and four a day, all emanating from near the house. But there were also some other shots coming from the apple orchard downhill and east of him and two more from uphill to the west. If you drop me at my vehicle, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  She must have made a major recon of the man’s property and everything around it. Impressive. “How long are you here?”

  “Until I nail Cair or decide I can’t.”

  “Can you tell us exactly what you’re looking for?”

  “The van he owns, full of Show Me State smokes, with the grandson driving the internal combustion mule.”

  “Got a plan?”

  “The venerable stakeout: Sit till you shit.”

  Service said, “The weather in
these parts is about to turn real owly, and you can assume it will stay that way until early May. You’d do better to pull out and wait for spring breakup.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “I truly loathe the phrase ‘pull out’ and all that it might imply.”

  “Is Cair some kind of special case, something personal in this for you?”

  “Eddie Waco said you’ve got a sixth sense about people. The English author Henry More once wrote of ‘men of shallow minds, and lickersome bodies, cleaving to the pleasures of the flesh.’ The stay-at-home flavor of wife living frugally in Brentwood? She’s my mom. Parmenter left her high and dry, and I intend to nail him to the wall of shame.”

  “You’re Cair’s daughter?”

  “Indeed, the product of a single one-night stand many years after he left dear old mom. He stopped back one time for another dip in the pool, and here I am.”

  “What’s that make Josh to you?” Service asked.

  “Half-something, I suppose; but tell truth, we’re not sure whose loins dropped Josh.”

  This was not someone to be toyed with. “We’ll eventually be going back to Cair’s. Maybe we can join forces and piggyback. You have my number?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “Let’s check in once a day.”

  “Goody,” she said. “We can sext and talk dirty. Stakeouts always put me in the mood.”

  He did not have to ask what mood. They dropped her at her vehicle, and Allerdyce hopped out and helped her brush off snow.

  “Geez, oh Pete,” the old man said when it was just them in the truck again. “Dat one’s da real Hammerzon, wah!”

  CHAPTER 43

  South of Greenwood, Marquette County

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27

  Linsenman called to let him know that Marquette County’s Lt. Jack Tax was taking the Buckshow case. This reminded him that he needed to talk to Sally Palovar before he interviewed husband Jesper and before Buckshow got sprung from jail. The whole line of befores made him think of the Bible and begats.

  Jack Tax was a bit of a mystery—a grossly obese man who could hardly breathe, was almost pathologically introverted, and virtually impossible to converse with on any subject. But he had made countless good cases for the county and was respected by drug cops across the U.P.

  The lifelong bachelor lived with his mother, Tavi, who was a pathological extrovert, never shutting up. It was put forward by cop-house wags that her continuous yap had squeezed Jack into silence. The only point of this knowledge was for colleagues: If you wanted to talk to Jack Tax, do it by telephone. He got tongue-tied in face-to-face meetings. Further, if you wanted to talk to him on the phone, make sure to do it when he was not within Mama Tavi’s earshot. The detective’s mother tried to wear his badge every chance she got.

  Service had reached him this morning. “Uh huh,” Tax said when he answered the phone. “Grady Service; you caught the Buckshow case, eh?”

  “Yep.”

  Tax said, “I’ve got it from our side of things.”

  “Heard that.”

  Tax wanted to know, “Is Buckshow’s wife involved, other than being married to the guy?”

  Hard one to answer. “Not so far,” Service said. “I assume you’re looking at her for possible involvement in the drugs case.”

  “We are.”

  Service said, “I need to talk to her about our case, but I don’t want to step on anything you’re going at. We know she loaned a license on several occasions, but I’m thinking this is a technicality, that she was coerced. I want to use her to strengthen our case, but not at the expense of yours.”

  “Okay.”

  Service thought, Okay what? Jesus.

  “Wife’s not on the radar,” Jack Tax said eventually. “Do whachu gotta do. One thing. You talk to her, let me know whachu get, eh.”

  “Glad to. I think we should work as close together as our supervision will allow us.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Be back at you.”

  “Okay.”

  What a pain in the ass to talk to.

  Talking to Sally Palovar, it turned out, was problematic. Service called her boss, Kennard Dentso. “Grady Service here, Ken. I’m looking to talk to Sally. I know she’s not at home. Have you got a personal cell for her?”

  The magistrate gave him two numbers, Palovar’s personal cell and the cell of her sister, Pokey Brownmill, who taught some sort of freshman ecology class at Northern called Sticks and Stones. It was a hugely popular course at the school, and Brownmill was well known across the U.P. as a mentoring teacher and hyperactive activist in numerous environmental causes. Service knew about her because Lisette McKower had mentioned her from time to time.

  “Do you know anything about Sally’s home situation?” Service asked the magistrate.

  “Obviously not. Met the husband of course. Creeped me out, my wife even more, but Sally’s no complainer or whiner. She’s damn smart.”

  “You think one of those numbers will reach her?”

  “Should. She called me last night, and she’s taking some time off. I told her that might be a good idea, but not to make it too long. I need her here.”

  “She talk about what’s going on?”

  “Only that Tavolacci’s taking the case for Jesper.”

  “Did you advise her to get a lawyer for herself?”

  “I did. Why?”

  Service said, “Because she was loaning her tags to hubby.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I doubt she’ll be charged in the case, but I’d sure appreciate her help in sorting out some details.”

  “She doesn’t have to do that, you know.”

  “I’m hoping she’ll want to, and I suspect she will. Has she lawyered up yet?”

  “Not that I know of, but she did mention something to Mary Helen about Kenya Maki, and I also advised her to get representation.”

  “She and Mary Helen are tight?” Mary Helen Huaanpaa was the sheriff’s secretary.

  “Pals at work, but after hours I got no idea.”

  He toyed momentarily with telling Palovar’s boss his theory that Sally had ruthlessly and efficiently set up the scenario by stealing a hunting blind and relocating it where police couldn’t ignore it. But a theory was only a theory, and he might be wrong. Better not to talk about it.

  No answer on her personal cell, but he left a message and texted her.

  Her sister, Pokey Brownmill, had not talked to Sally in a week and had heard nothing about her brother-in-law; Service decided to let it stay that way. So far the media knew nothing about the case, but it being deer season, they were always on the hunt for relevant stories. He hoped the bust would stay unreported for a while longer. Deep down, he knew it probably wouldn’t. Why it wasn’t already moving around like wildfire was beyond him.

  He then called Mary Helen Huaanpaa. She didn’t know where her friend was and made it clear they did not socialize outside work because neither her boss nor her husband could tolerate Palovar’s husband, even at holiday parties and such. Yes, she had talked to Sally about defense attorney Kenya Maki, a hard-nosed Finn who hailed from Champion, had practiced in Lansing for ten years, and moved back to Marquette County.

  The fact that Maki answered her own phone impressed him. He explained who he was and his reason for calling.

  The lawyer said, “She’s my client as of last night, and I’m advising her not to talk to anyone but me for the time being.”

  “How about if I talked to both of you and you can run interference?”

  “Are we talking with some sort of notion of leniency in play?”

  “The truth is,” Service said, “I think she set up this whole deal.”

  Maki said nothing for several seconds. “Do you know where Four Moose Bend is?”

  He did. “South of Greenwood off 452 near the old Greenwood Mine.”

  Maki gave him a fire number, which he wrote down. Fire numbers were posted at every remote camp to guide E
MS and fire personnel in the event of emergencies. “There’s a driveway just before Larson Creek. There’s a small log cabin at the end, right at the pond, about one mile back. The road is terrible. We’ll meet you out there. Noon work?”

  “It does.”

  She said, “I don’t like weekend work, especially during deer season, but this time I’ll make an exception if you’re coming in peace.”

  “Definitely.” He didn’t bother to point out that today was only Friday and not quite the weekend.

  She said, “You know Tavolacci’s representing her husband?”

  “I heard. He called me and tried to game me.”

  “Idiot,” Maki said. “You two have a history?”

  “Sort of,” he said and broke the connection.

  • • •

  He wanted to know what was waiting for them, so he dropped Allerdyce out on the county road and waited. They then met near the entrance to the driveway.

  “Two womans outside cabins takin’ pitchers of big old bull moose and ’is cowgirl.”

  “Just the two of them?”

  “Two womans, an’ two moosies is all I seen.”

  “How close to the cabin did you get?”

  “Close enough see panty lines in dere pants.”

  Service shook his head. “They see you?”

  “I don’t want get seed, I don’t get seed, Sonny. Like youse.”

  No doubt. The man was a magician in some ways.

  “Dere somepin’ else did see, Sonny,” the old man said with uncustomary reluctance. Usually he spit out what he was thinking, had no filters to pass things through. “Dese two, dey like hold hands?”

  Hold hands, what the hell does that mean? “And?”

  “Jest dat dey hold hands and grin a lot.”

  The old man demonstrated, and the effect was startling and scary. “Let’s stick to words,” Service said.

  “Wah,” Allerdyce chirped softly.

  As soon as got to the cabin, Maki came out to the patrol truck and introduced herself, looking past him. “Is that Limpy Allerdyce?”