Strike Dog

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by Joseph Heywood


  Westy Karkowski looked like he’d have a hard time getting off a couch, much less charging forward in his job, but he was interested, and had a quick mind. He wore the dark green short-sleeved shirt and dark green pants of an Indiana game warden, the shirt covered with gaudy state patches. The three trucks were snugged into a turnoff, next to the Pigeon River, just west of the village of Mongo.

  “Indeed, there’s a heap of Peys in the county, and I’ve had contact with more than a few of them, but the guy who knows ’em best is Arlo Danielson. He spent forty years as the warden here, and retired after I took over. Getting on now, but he’s still sharp and in pretty good shape. He lives about five miles east of here on the river and spends most of his time fishing.”

  It seemed to Service that being a detective was more about patience and stamina than anything else. He seemed to spend all of his time trying to find somebody who knew somebody, who had heard something about somebody, and sometimes persistence paid off. It could also be a waste of time, but he knew that every lead not followed could be the one that would have paid off. As an old hockey player, he knew the essence of that game was to keep your feet moving, finish your checks, push the puck up to the guy in a better position, take every shot chance you got, and always, always follow the puck until there was a whistle. Being a detective was similar.

  They found Danielson sitting on a patio, under a striped awning on a wooden deck, overlooking the river. He was a small man with a flat face and scars near his left ear that left a gap in his hair.

  Karkowski made the introductions and the retired game warden said, “So many badges in one place, I thought mebbe you all thought I was pinching state fish.”

  Service asked about the Pey family, and Danielson made a sour face. “Pips, that bunch. Worst was Big Ben. He’s ninety-two now and still got his hair, his hearing, and his eyesight. I arrested him so many times that even when he was behaving, which he did from time to time, he’d drop by and tell me about some other family member who was running afoul of the law. ­Wasn’t that Ben got a shot of righteousness from doing it; he just didn’t like the others out on the harvest when he couldn’t be.”

  Grady Service wasn’t sure how much to reveal, but it seemed to him there was a whole lot of history on hand here, and if he failed to take advantage, he might be sorry later. He laid out the killings of the game wardens, the Mexican incident, booger flies, the whole thing.

  “The man arrested in Mexico had a woman and a boy with him. The local police cut them loose and they disappeared. The man gave his name as Ney, but the FBI couldn’t find any Neys in Pigeon River, or even in Indiana.”

  “Big Ben might could know something,” Danielson said. “Let’s walk over and talk to him.”

  “He lives nearby?”

  “Right smack across the river. We got to be friends and our kids built us a footbridge so we could visit back and forth. He’s bit as hard for trout as me, and he isn’t the wild thing he once was.” Danielson chuckled and added, “None of us are.”

  Big Ben Pey was no more than five feet tall, with a full head of only slightly gray hair, mottled skin, and black moles all over his hands. He was wearing overalls, no shirt, and workboots that looked to be as old as him.

  Danielson said, “Ben, this is Grady Service. He’s a game warden up in the Upper Peninsula, down here trying to get some information.”

  The old man stared at Service. “Used ta hunt up that way with my boys some, but game wardens up there didn’t seem too partial to outsiders. Had an old chum up there, name of Allerdyce.”

  “Limpy,” Service said. It figured. The big poachers all seemed to know each other.

  I heard he took bad-sick a while back.”

  “He recovered.” The thought of the Indiana poacher and retired warden being buddy-buddy stuck in his craw. It would not happen with Limpy and him.

  “Never met a man knew the woods like Allerdyce,” Big Ben Pey said.

  “Or game wardens,” Service added.

  Pey laughed. “Sure enough. He used ta tell me only one of you boys ever got the best of him, but he died a long time ago.”

  Service was sure that this had been his father, but said nothing.

  “So what’s this question you’re burnin’ ta ask?” the old man said.

  He told the story again and concluded, “I just learned that Pigeon River is Mongo, and that there are a lot of your kin around here. Did you know a Frankie Ney or Pey?”

  “Prob’ly Francois Ney Pey. His people come down from Québec a long time back, and they was always hung up over that French stuff. Name was François, but he went by Frankie.”

  “He had a son?”

  “Not that I heard. Unlike the rest of the family, Frankie went off to college, got him a dandy job. Lived in Detroit a spell, I think, but he was all over tarnation and made good dough.”

  “He come back here often?”

  “Used to be sweet on a woman named Greenleaf, lived on the river in town. Folks used to say he slipped back in to town from time to time to slip it to her, if you know what I mean, but I never seen him. I don’t think he cared much for his kin.”

  “This woman still around?”

  “Name’s Esther, but ev’body called her Essie. She was peculiar, that’s for sure. She lives with her daughter up in Sturgis now, in one of them Polack neighborhoods. She’s got to be in her seventies now, maybe even eighty. My mind ain’t so good anymore.”

  “What’s her daughter’s name?”

  The old man thought for a minute. “Let me call my son.” He went back into the house and came back five minutes later. “Daughter’s name is Ruth Zalinske, with an “e,” not an “i.” Zalinskes claim to be Ukrainians, but Ukes’re just another flavor of Polack.”

  Service asked, “Do you remember who Frankie worked for?”

  Big Ben lifted his eyes toward the sky. “I think it was Sears Roebuck, or maybe Monkey Ward, one a’ them big outfits. His job was to go into stores and check their bookkeeping or some such numbers thing. Frankie was real smart.”

  “What did Frankie look like?”

  “I think I got a pitcher somewhere in the house. You want me to look?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Exercise do me good.” Big Ben looked over at Danielson. “Got two dandy trout after you went in last night.”

  “I hope they were legal,” the retired game warden said.

  The old man laughed and disappeared into the house again. He came out carrying a faded photograph in small square format, like something from an old Brownie Hawkeye. There were marks on the corner of the photo where it had obviously been affixed to an album.

  Service studied the photo. There was a vague resemblance to the Mexican photo, but he couldn’t be sure if it was real or wishful thinking. “How old was he in this?”

  “Oh, he woulda been eighteen or nineteen, just before he went off ta college.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Up your way in Marquette.”

  Northern? “When?”

  “I’d say 1932. Moved to Detroit after college and signed up for the navy after Pearl Harbor, spent the war out in the Pacific somewheres, and never come back to Pigeon River.”

  Eighteen or nineteen in 1932 would have made Pey thirty-eight years older when the Mexicans arrested him. Service made a mental note.

  “What kind of a boy was he?”

  “Just a boy, I guess, ’cept he liked school, which most Peys didn’t. Hunted and fished a lot, and he run a trapline in winter. Sold furs to buy him a Chevy. That boy liked to move around.”

  “Liked to move around?”

  “Used to drive over to Montreal every summer. Relatives there, I guess.”

  “What relation to you is he?”

  Big Ben stared at the ceiling. “They all sort of run together. I guess I’d be a ne
phew. His mother was Pauline, who was my half sister.”

  “Is Pauline still alive?”

  “Died the year Frankie went off to college.”

  “Died how?”

  “Got murdered.”

  “Did they catch the killer?”

  “Nossir. Somebody cut her throat. She was married, but she and her husband, Jacques, both run around on each other. Some say it was one of her boyfriends did her in, but it never got solved.”

  “Can I borrow this photo?” Service asked.

  “If it’ll help, sure,” said Big Ben.

  Service thanked the man and was silent as he followed Shanahan back to Sturgis. Frankie Pey was a trapper and a hunter, which meant he knew how to skin animals. And his mother had been found with her throat cut, the murder never solved. He went to college and never came back. Up in Marquette? Was this possible? This was beginning to have the feel of something almost solid, but there remained plenty of holes and gaps.

  41

  STURGIS, MICHIGAN

  JULY 27, 2004

  By late afternoon they were in Sturgis in a neighborhood of small houses well past their prime and only marginally kept up. Someone had put a hand-painted sign in a yard that read polish acres. Service knocked on the door and a woman answered. “I’m looking for Esther Greenleaf.”

  “I’m her daughter,” the woman said.

  Service explained who he was and showed his badge. “Is she here?”

  “She’s not well,” the woman said.

  “It’s important that we talk,” Service said.

  “Can you keep it brief?” the woman asked. She opened the door tentatively and let him in.

  The old woman was watching television. “I always watch Jeopardy,” she announced. “This one’s a rerun, but tonight the reg’lar show’s on.”

  The daughter said, “Mom, this police officer would like to talk to you.”

  “There’s no category for police on Jeopardy,” the woman said. “There was, I’d know. I seen every show ever made.”

  Service sat down on a couch beside the recliner where the old woman sat. The daughter stood beside her mother. “Mrs. Greenleaf, I’d like to ask you some questions about Frankie Pey.”

  The old woman looked up at her daughter and dismissed her with a wave of the hand. “Ruthie, you just scoot on out of here now.”

  The daughter obeyed without protest.

  “I don’t want to bring up any bad things from your past,” Service began. “But you knew Frankie Pey.”

  The woman looked at him for the first time and scowled. “What is the definition of ‘knew’?”

  Service said, “You know—a friend or something like that?”

  “No, it’s the game! You must put it in question form, ‘What was the name of the man who used to be sweet on Essie Greenleaf?’”

  Oh boy, Service thought. The circuits in the old lady’s brain were a ­little frayed and she was seeing the world through the prism of Jeopardy. “What was the name of the man who used to be sweet on Essie Greenleaf?”

  “Who is Frankie Pey?” the old woman said, pressing her hands together.

  Service had only taken a cursory glance at Jeopardy over the years, in fact, rarely watched television, and had to rack his brain for the right words.

  “Okay,” he said. “The category is Frankie Pey.”

  “I never seen that on the show,” she said.

  “It’s coming up on a future one,” he said.

  “Oh good, I’ll be ready.”

  “First answer,” Service said. “Mexico.”

  “What is Frankie’s final resting place?”

  “Right,” Service said. “Essie.”

  “What is his last lover’s name?” the woman said.

  “Their son’s name?” Service asked.

  The woman looked agitated. “Can’t answer no trick question. They ­didn’t have no son.”

  “The name of the boy who traveled with them?”

  “Who is Marcel?” she said.

  “Where is Marcel now?” he asked.

  The woman lurched in her chair. “Improper question. I have to confer with the judges.” She looked at the wall, whispered animatedly, and turned back to him.

  “What Frankie was doing in Mexico when he was arrested?” Service said.

  “What is completing his life’s work?” she said, clapping her hands together. “Did I get the Daily Double?”

  What the fuck was a daily double? “Sure,” he said.

  “No,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “You’re not Alex and this isn’t Jeopardy. You don’t even know the rules. I won’t play with nobody who don’t know the rules. It ruins everything. Ruthie!” she screamed. “Ruthie! Ruthie!”

  The daughter rushed into the room.

  “He’s a fake. I need my medicine. I don’t play with no fakes.”

  The daughter walked outside with Service, her lips quivering.

  “Look,” he said. “I had no intention of upsetting your mother. She’s difficult to talk to, but it’s clear that she may possess some information that will be important to the authorities. I’m leaving, but you can expect the FBI to come to see her.”

  “Oh my God. The FBI! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” the daughter said. “She’s trapped inside the television.”

  “Maybe so,” Service said, but he suspected she wasn’t in there alone.

  42

  SLIPPERY CREEK, MICHIGAN

  JULY 28, 2004

  Service checked his e-mail and phone messages as he drove north. His in-box was empty except for routine notices from division HQ in Lansing. It was getting late.

  Captain Grant had called, wondering where he was, and, as usual, the captain’s voice was controlled, neutral, and impossible to read.

  Special Agent Monica left a one-word voice-mail message: “Asshole.”

  Service stopped at the Windmill truck stop south of Lansing, ordered coffee, got out a pad of paper, and tried to make notes about the case. It wasn’t long before his mind was consumed and he paid no attention to anything going on around him.

  1)First batch of killings: 1950–1970 [27 dead]. Killer inactive, 1970–1982. Second batch: 1982–present (2004) [22 dead]. Ney murdered in prison just before Xmas, 1974. Never confessed.

  2)Suspect in Mexico gave name as Ney; FBI had failed to identify Pigeon River as Mongo, unable to find any Neys anywhere in state of Indiana. Per Big Ben, Pey; François Pey, aka Frankie Ney. Was this the Mexico Ney? Former girlfriend Essie Greenleaf says he is/was.

  3)Boy involved, named Marcel, relationship and last name unknown. Estimated age 15–16 in 1970, which would make him approx. 48–49 now.

  4)A New Mexico game warden killed two weeks after Ney arrested in Mexico. The killer’s work, someone else, coincidence? Definitely not Ney. (Pey?)

  5)Ney cut Mexican victims along the spine. Precursor of blood eagle? Frankie Pey was trapper as a kid—has skinning knowledge, comfortable with a cutting edge. Also liked to move around. Montreal, relatives?

  6)Ficorelli and Spargo both used booger flies mail-ordered from Booger Baits in Curran. What about the other victims? [Waco checking Illinois, Kansas] The list has to be carefully analyzed. FACT: List only goes back seven years; no apparent way to connect flies to the first batch of killings. If Mains use no computers, how could killer access list? Need F/U by Denninger? C. Main III nervous about government oversight. Why? All of this seems to point to ­something, but what?

  7)Give photo from Big Ben Pey to FBI to compare with the Mexican photo.

  8)Per Big Ben: Frankie Pey may have gone to college “up in Marquette”; from same source, Frankie served in the navy in the Pacific during World War II. Did he graduate? Are there college and/or navy records on the man? Check NMU, DOD.

 
9)Pey might have worked for Sears or Monkey Ward. [FBI F/U] According to Big Ben: Frankie Pey a sort of roving bookkeeper or auditor. [NOTE: Seems to fit the kind of job and freedom Monica theorizes for the serial murderer.] Way to track his movements over the years and coordinate those with killings? Expense, trip, or sales reports? Anything? How long do companies keep such records, if at all?

  10)Frankie’s mother murdered the year he went to college, estim. 1932. Throat cut. Speculation: probably a boyfriend. No arrests. Frankie comfortable with cutting edges. Who investigated the case? Were there suspects? Was Frankie ever one of them? [FBI F/U]

  11)When will Monica have notes of deceased agent in Toledo? If so, any new leads, information in the dead agent’s files and notes?

  12)Where is Monica’s analyst? Why so difficult to arrange a meeting? What’s her reluctance? Is she holding back, and if so, why?

  13)Can forensic pathologist/medical examiner look at wounds in Mexico vicks, and those in the blood eagle killings, see a connection or a progression? Something?

  14)Initial victims in the second group = no blood eagle. Why the sudden shift in MO. Why change? Something different in killer’s state of mind?

  15)Nantz, Mama Ficorelli, Spargo’s sister: all killed in freak auto accidents: Coincidence, or what? How do these fit, if at all? Ptacek from U.P. Autobody says paint flecks on bumper lining should not be there, indicative of PIT? Need second opinion on evidence. [NOTE: Nantz not an accident. Others misread in WI, MO?]

  16)FACT: I’m not on Booger Baits list. Never used the flies, never even heard of them until now. If killer finds victims via fly orders, how would he use list to find me? As of last night, no MI COs on Booger Baits lists—only Shark. Denninger will type Michigan list, double-check.

  Most predators in the animal kingdom, he knew, were born efficient, and tended to single out a specific victim, either because it was outside the group or perceived to be weaker than the others. Then it slow-hunted, narrowing the victim’s options until it was either trapped or panicked. Prey panic? The phrase stuck in his mind. Were human predators different?

 

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