Strike Dog

by Joseph Heywood

  “Are you thinking fifty is the magic number?” he asked, jumping to the obvious conclusion.

  “Have you got a better take on it?”

  He didn’t. “A serial killer whacking game wardens,” he said in disbelief.

  “We prefer the term serial murderer. All the early murders were different, but we’ve learned that the crime sites were always by water, isolated, and probably the kills took place at night. We weren’t sure about the last part until now because we never found a body that would enable forensics to unquestionably pinpoint time of death,” the agent said. “The other constant is that all the vicks were professional hard-chargers, hard cases like your friend. Most were declared homicides, but not one of them in either group has ever been solved. In both sets the killer is highly organized, he’s never communicated with law enforcement, clearly does his homework, understands how you people work, and finally, he seems to understand our weaknesses by changing venues and stringing out his killings over time, making it hard for a pattern to emerge.”

  “Suspects?” he asked.

  “None,” she said. “And getting the number of people we need to ratchet up the investigation has been a bitch since 9/11. Homeland Security and antiterrorism take priority and eat up a lot of resources. Add to this that state and local police units are all in terrible financial shape,” she added. “We’re lucky to be this far.”

  “Why am I here?” he asked. He could understand an unbalanced or pissed-off violet going after a game warden who’d bumped heads with him—but methodically killing game wardens all over the country? Never mind believability; it made no sense.

  “You’re a tracker; you’re good at finding people, and you operate in the environment where all this goes down. The woods are your thing.”

  He shook his head. “I find known missing persons, not unknown, unidentified killers. That’s for you people.” He had inadvertently gotten involved in a number of homicides over the past three years and had been told repeatedly by his supervisers to keep to his own turf.

  “Wisconsin’s attorney general wants his cousin’s killer caught, and he thought you might be able to assist. He called your governor, and here you are.”

  He cringed. Lorelei Timms: He blamed her for being bumped out of the Mosquito Wilderness to a detective job he neither wanted nor sought.

  “I hear your governor’s a big fan,” Special Agent Monica said.

  Service grimaced and wondered how many changes of clothes he had in his truck.

  “It’s not all bad news,” she said.

  “No?”

  “I have to apologize,” she said. “I’m sorry about your colleague, but this is the first body we’ve recovered in the golden window,” she added. “I’m also sorry about your son and girlfriend. It’s difficult to deal with so many losses so close together.”

  He shook his head. He was beginning to distinctly dislike Special Agent Monica. She seemed pretty straightforward, but there was something missing, something not quite right about her or the situation, and it was making him extremely uncomfortable.The golden window, he knew, was cop speak for the first forty-eight hours after death.

  “Ficorelli was off duty and in this area to fish with a man named Thorkaldsson, who happens to be sheriff of Florence County. Thorkaldsson was supposed to meet Ficorelli, but he was late, and when he showed up, he found the body near their meeting place. He immediately secured the crime scene,” she explained.

  “Florence is small,” she continued, “and the department is just Thor­kaldsson and three deputies. The county doesn’t even have its own lockup. They have to farm prisoners out to other counties. The sheriff may run a small-time cop shop, but he did one helluva job here, and we think his arrival was really close to the time of Wayno’s death. Usually we find cold bodies dropped at locations different than the kill sites, so this case potentially gives us a leg up on gathering evidence and leads. We’ve never been able to locate an actual kill site, which means this could be the break we need. The body was still warm. It couldn’t have been moved that far or that long before the sheriff arrived.”

  Service grunted acknowledgment, but he was still trying to process it all, and his gut was churning, never a good sign. “You think this dump site here is also the kill site?”

  “No,” she said, “but this is the soonest we’ve ever gotten to a victim. Want to take a look?”

  11

  FLORENCE COUNTY, WISCONSIN

  MAY 20, 2004

  They got into her Crown Victoria and headed down a slight grade. It took ten minutes to reach a place where a federal crime lab panel truck was parked, and a crime scene ribboned off. The area looked like a vehicle turnaround, and ahead Service saw four large, pale-gray boulders set back in white cedar trees beyond where a berm had been piled up by a dozer. Small yellow evidence pennants were stuck in the ground throughout the area. Service got out and Agent Monica showed him a gray plastic tub filled with green rubber swampers. She also held out a box of latex gloves.

  “Soft ground?” he asked.

  “We’re just making sure that all of us wear a boot with the same tread. Any tracks that are different won’t be from us.”

  They both tugged on boots and blue latex gloves. He noticed that while the old road seemed to end at the berm, a new trail had been created by four-wheeler traffic a few feet east of the boulders.

  The FBI agent saw him looking and said, “There used to be a bridge, but it’s long gone. The river’s shallow here, with a hard bottom. People ride four-wheelers across.”

  She led him along the four-wheeler trail to a steadily moving stream.

  “Pine River,” she said, pointing. “You’d think people could’ve found something more original for a name.”

  A tarp had been constructed over an area along the north bank, and the area taped off. “The sheriff did a bang-up job here,” Monica said. She showed him where to walk and pointed to the boulders, which had been marked to show where the body had been displayed. “There was blood, but not enough,” she added. “Usually there isn’t much at all where a body is found.”

  “Is that significant?” he asked, adding, “That he was laid out on the rocks?” If there wasn’t much blood here, it probably wasn’t the kill site. You didn’t do the things this slimeball did without making a mess.

  She said, “Certain kinds of serial murderers display their kills to send a message.”

  Certain kinds? “The body was right next to the four-wheeler trail, so he wanted it found, right?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “We can talk about that later.”

  Service began a methodical walk-around but saw nothing significant. The pictures of Wayno had left him shaken, but what bothered him more was the fact that the FBI was aware game wardens were being killed, and as far as he knew, the Bureau apparently had made no effort to warn anyone. This realization made it difficult to think clearly.

  An hour later they were back at the command post on the hill.

  “Anything pique your interest back there?” Agent Monica asked.

  “What strikes me is what there isn’t. This site looks like it was pretty well sanitized. Are you thinking the perp got disrupted?”

  “We can’t rule that out. We’re thinking he hadn’t been gone that long when Thorkaldsson arrived. The body was still warm, and that’s a first.”

  “This is work for science types—crime scene techs,” Service said.

  “They’re all over it,” she said.

  “Have you done DNA?”

  “It’s in process,” she said. “The samples are in the lab now. In any case, vick DNA is redundant. Thorkaldsson was the man’s friend, and he identified him.”

  Service was thinking that details counted in every line of police work. It was fine to have an ID, but until you had dentals and DNA, you were not done. “When will you release this to the public?
”

  She rolled her eyes and Service held up his hands. Special Agent Monica appeared to have very thin skin. “I’m not trying to do your job. Wayno lived with his mother,” he added, “not far from Madison.”

  “We know,” she said. “Do me a favor?”

  “If I can.”

  “Someone from NCAVC is coming in tomorrow.”

  “Which is?” He loathed the acronym stew of the federal government.

  “The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.”

  He thought about it for a second. “The people who do the profiles?”

  “Right. Do you know much about the process?”

  “Only what I’ve seen in movies,” he said.

  “Yeah, like that’s real,” she said sarcastically. “Movies are mostly bullshit.”

  “You don’t believe in it?” he countered.

  “Profiling can be a useful tool when it’s done right—not by itself, but coordinated with all the other specialties and tools. It’s definitely not a crystal ball, and done wrong, it can take you down roads that can take you a long way from where you want to be,” she said. “The media and Hollywood have made profiling out to be the magic crime-solving bullet, and in the public’s mind, the greatest serial killer of all is probably Hannibal Lecter. Did you know that Lecter is loosely based on an actual killer named Albert Fish, who killed and ate children back in the twenties and thirties?”

  “No,” he said. He couldn’t care less. He thought about Ficorelli and felt bad for him, maybe worse for his mother. “I don’t think I’ll be much use here,” Service said grimly. “I’m just a woods cop, and fiction or not, this asshole’s methods seem to approach Hannibal’s.”

  “Understood,” Monica said. “But just hang in here with the team for now and let us decide your role. Cool?”

  “I guess,” he said without enthusiasm. Orders were orders.

  There were at least eight agents on site at all times, and sometimes as many as a dozen, plus various technicians and Wisconsin state troopers. No county personnel. The county didn’t have people to share, even on a major case like this. Special Agents Bobbi Temple and Larry Gasparino looked no older than Walter, and seemed too young for this kind of heavy duty. ­Special Agent Monica explained that normally they would set up a command post at the county sheriff’s office in town, but Thorkaldsson’s shop was too small, and they didn’t want news of the Ficorelli killing getting out to the public yet. Until it got announced and they had milked the crime scene, they would remain in the woods. The land was state-owned, the timber concession leased to a paper company, which had installed the gate to prevent interference with their logging operations. Tatie Monica thought the isolated location and gate made this as secure a site as they could wish for. Service didn’t argue, but he knew that the key feature of most isolated locations was the virtual impossibility of effective security, and in the North Country, most secrets didn’t stay that way for long. Did the FBI not understand this? The woods were not a blanket to hide under.

  Several large canvas wall tents were being erected as Service looked at a white bag of McDonald’s burgers and Chicken McNuggets and turned up his nose. He also thought about the sign near the CP, a reminder that thoroughly securing this site was not going to happen.

  “Mickey D’s not up to your standards?” Special Agent Monica asked.

  “Just not hungry,” he lied.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’re what, six-four, two twenty?”

  “Close enough,” he said.

  “Eat,” she said, sounding like a mother. He reluctantly took a piece of chicken and bit into it. It was like rubber, and just as bland.

  “We’ve got sauces,” Agent Temple said.

  “I’m good,” Service said.

  Just before dark, he told the lead agent he wanted to look at the crime scene again.

  Agent Monica looked at him. “Want company?”

  “Alone,” he said. She irked him. She bounced between officious and obsequious and seemed to almost hang on him.

  “I can drive you,” she offered.

  “Rather walk,” he said.

  He took a penlight, stuck it in his shirt pocket, and headed out. He started making a mental list of questions to ask the FBI agent as he walked in the darkness.

  Why did the killer leave bodies where they could be found? It would make more sense to leave them where he killed them. Also, were the missing eyes significant, and had any been recovered? Wasn’t leaving the bodies where they could be found a form of communication—a kind of message? If so, what was the creep trying to say?

  Below, through the trees, he could hear a generator and see the pink-orange glow of klieg lights at the crime scene.

  Where had Wayno parked, and where was his vehicle now? Had he driven down here, or left his truck somewhere in the woods?

  He skirted the crime scene, waded into the river, and moved upstream to look at the banks, moving slowly and turning on his penlight as he needed it. The military had discovered that green light was less disruptive than red to night vision. Many COs in the U.P. now carried the green lights.

  The Pine River had the look and smell of good trout water. It felt cool on his legs, and several hundred yards west a feeder creek dumped in more cold water. The riffles in the main river would be saturated with oxygen in deep summer and serve as collecting points for fish that didn’t flee up colder tributaries. Sweepers along the banks served as fish hotels as hydraulics forced current downward, excavating holes beneath the downed trees. He had taken only a cursory look at the water near the crime scene earlier and decided it was too shallow and not an area where Wayno would have lingered. He was more likely to fish further downstream, or upstream where there might be deeper water and more fish cover. So what had gotten him out of the water? And where? He wasn’t a homicide expert, but he had seen countless animal kill sites and knew the difference between a butcher site, a resting place, and a cache. He had followed such trails thousands of times.

  If Wayno had not been killed here, where did it happen? He assumed the feds had carefully covered the woods for blood and other signs, but did they understand that the river itself was a natural travel and transportation corridor? Europeans had discovered most Indians living along rivers for good reasons. Water could also wash away evidence.

  After a couple of hours he decided it was pointless to continue scouting in the darkness and started back to the camp. Tomorrow at first light he would return and take a more careful look. The FBI had the crime scene covered; he would concentrate on the river and surrounding area. Someone might sanitize a crime scene, but it was unlikely they would be able to entirely eliminate all traces of their approach with the ground still relatively soft from spring rains and winter thaw, which made hiding tracks a lot more difficult. He was increasingly uneasy about the whole situation, especially his role.

  He was deep in thought on the upslope when a voice startled him from the darkness. “Find anything?” It was Special Agent Monica.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “Don’t jump out at people like that.”

  The FBI agent stared at him. “I thought you people were used to being snuck up on.”

  He growled his displeasure, but said nothing more. He was unnerved that he hadn’t heard or sensed her presence. Got to get your edge back, he chastised himself.

  She was immediately on the defensive. “Okay, sorry. What did you see?”

  “I’m thinking he was in the water and something got him out of the water and onto land.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Maybe because he came to fish for trout and had the focus of a pit bull. Where’s his vehicle?” What would have gotten Wayno out of the water?

  “Across the river.”

  “Not on this side?”

  “Nope, south side.”

  “Why?” />
  “We don’t know.”

  “Where was the sheriff supposed to meet him?”

  “About where we found the body,” she said. “I think.”

  “Hmmm,” Service said. Why the hell didn’t she know, and why had the two men come in from different directions? Fishing pals usually rode together in one vehicle. Fewer vehicles left less impact on parking areas and less evidence for the uninitiated that an area was good fishing. Some secretive Yoopers would park a mile away from where they intended to fish or hunt, and walk in the direction opposite of their destination, before doubling back on ground where their trail would be difficult to follow. Why the two men came from different directions was an obvious question, and he started to get on her case but decided from her voice that she was dragging. Her case, not yours, he reminded himself. Reel in before you get too much line out.

  “How long since you slept?” he asked.

  “What year is it?” the agent said wearily.

  “I looked around upstream. If I was going to fish and got here early, I’d go in upstream and fish my way back down to the meeting place—the water up that way looks pretty promising. Or I’d walk down and fish back up. If his partner was late or he was early, he probably wouldn’t wait. He’d fish past and keep returning to the rendezvous point.” That’s what he and his friends would have done. “Get anything off his vehicle?”

  “Not yet. It’s being worked on. We haven’t moved it yet.”

  There were swarms of mosquitoes in the air, and the FBI agent swatted at them continuously. “Are you impervious?” she asked, slapping the side of her face.

  “Oblivious,” he said.

  “I’m glad you could get over here so quickly,” she said.

  “I’m not a homicide detective.”

  “No,” she said, “but you hunt people. You and other woods cops regularly capture perps in the act of breaking laws. Most of us in law enforcement tend to be called in after the fact. Right?”

  “I guess.” He’d never considered his job in this light, but decided Agent Monica had a point, even though the significance of the distinction was not immediately apparent. In fact, nothing in this deal was apparent other than the fact the feds had not told the states what was happening. How many lives had this cost?