Strike Dog

by Joseph Heywood

  “Stay out of it, Allerdyce. Go blow more smoke up your professor’s behind.”

  The old poacher cackled. “Not a joke, sonny. I changed, and my people, they changin’ too. How it was ain’t how it gonna be. Go ahead, youse make fun of me, but youse’ll see.”

  “Stay out of my business,” Service said emphatically, splashing his coffee on the grass as he went back inside. Being around the old man always gave him the creeps, and right now he didn’t need any more distractions. Limpy was capable of just about anything. What had the professor said—to check with the RAP people? Where was that goddamn list she’d given him? He found it in a folder and picked up his phone.

  “Station Twenty, Twenty Five Fourteen. I’ve got a list of times alleged RAP tips from informants came in to the RAP line. Can you verify receipt and disposal?” He read off the dates and times.

  The RAP dispatcher in Lansing came back on the radio after ten minutes. “They all check out, Twenty Five Fourteen. There were sixteen calls, and all of them resulted in citations. All callers were anonymous.”

  “Twenty Five Fourteen clear.” Jesus Christ, what was going on? There was no way Limpy could change. The only possible explanation was that he was up to something.

  Fern LeBlanc passed his cubicle, looked in, and said, “Nice to see you could grace us with your presence.” She came back five minutes later with a handful of pink callback slips. “Your adoring public,” she said, dropping them on his desk.

  He had just started looking through the notes when LeBlanc came back and said, “I’m going to transfer a call to you.” This usually meant there was someone or something she didn’t want to handle, because she was experienced and talented enough to deal with just about anything that came through the door or over the phone.

  He saw the line light blink and picked up the phone. “Detective Service.”

  “I ast for DNR, not reg’lar cops,” a male voice complained.

  “This is the DNR,” Service reassured him. In the minds of Yoopers, game wardens were not cops.

  “When youse get deteckatives?”

  “It’s been awhile,” Service said. He hated calls like this.

  “No kiddin’ . . . Well, I got me a dead calf out here. Wolf come in and kilt ’im. Somebody gonna come out and take a look? I wanta file me one of dem claims.”

  Service rocked back in his chair. An alleged wolf depredation call was one of the most contentious complaints to deal with.

  “You’re sure it was a wolf?”

  “Yeah, sure, and I coulda shot da bot’ a’ dem, but I figgered youse guys would get yore skivvies all in a yank, so’s I din’t shoot, and now I’m callin’ youse. Youse comin’ or not?”

  “Give me your address,” Service said and wrote it down.

  McFarland was about forty miles south, and there was no direct route. “I’ll be there in thirty, forty minutes.”

  “What I do, them bloody wolfs come skulkin’ back?”

  “Secure the carcass and don’t shoot them.”

  “Damn tings all over da place nowadays,” the man said, and hung up. Service had not even gotten his name.

  He told LeBlanc where he was headed and drove south on US 41.

  45

  MCFARLAND, MICHIGAN

  JULY 29, 2004

  The farm was typical of many that lay on the plateau south of Marquette, toward Rapid River: several ancient apple trees, a few acres of potatoes, a small field of stunted corn, some multicolored chickens running loose to provide free-range snacks for local coyotes, three sway-back dairy cows, a half-dozen beefs, and a small flock of dusty sheep; all in all, a virtual walk-up cafe for wolves and other predators. The house was low with multiple roofs to help reduce winter snow loads, the fences hadn’t been painted since soldiers wore brown boots, and there were two rusted-out tractors in a rock-strewn field serving as hotels for various birds and rodents.

  The farmer was sixtyish, gaunt, dressed in all his agrestic glory: a flannel shirt with missing buttons, unlaced muddy, green, high-top Converse All Stars, a Budweiser can in hand.

  “Took youse long enough,” the man greeted him.

  Service looked at his watch: thirty-two minutes had elapsed since he’d left the regional office lot. When you were part of the DNR in the U.P., there were myriad ways to disappoint locals, and few ways to make them happy. This was not going to be a happy interaction. Many Yoopers welcomed the return of wolves to the area, but there were few farmers in the pro-wolf forces, and Service was fairly certain that more than a few wolves were being quietly shot and disposed of. The state had a reparations program for animals lost to wolves, but in most instances the predation was done by wild dogs or coyotes, not wolves. No matter; some farmers blamed wolves for virtually all the ills of the northern part of the state, including seasonal cycles in deer populations.

  The man led him to a ramshackle shed tilted precariously to the east, and showed him the dead calf. Service looked at two sets of footprints in the mud and dust in the area around the building. They were too small for wolves: coyotes or wild dogs, he guessed. He could see where they had approached, not in single file like wolves, but apart.

  “Not wolves,” Service told the man.

  “Youse telling me I don’t know a bloody wolf when it come sniffing around?”

  “I’m just telling you that these tracks and signs indicate coyotes or dogs, not wolves.”

  “You buckos always got answers,” the man complained. “Tink the rest of us a buncha emptyheads?”

  There was no point arguing. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “Da she-wolf, she was up to da side a’ da shed over dere, and she looked back, and a smaller one come up behind her.”

  “You saw them go inside?”

  “Seen ’em on da doorstep. Din’t see no coyotes.”

  “But you didn’t actually see wolves on the kill?”

  “Din’t have to.”

  Service looked at the carcass. “How do you know it was a female wolf?” he asked.

  “Big one and a little one.”

  “Twenty pounds—fifty, eighty?”

  “I din’t weigh ’em, eh.”

  “What position was the tail?”

  The man looked confused. “I wasn’t watchin’ no damn tails!”

  Service asked the man to look at the carcass. He explained, “Wolves have a fairly regular pattern of eating. They start by stripping the rump and organs. They don’t hit the legs and other musculature until the bigger portions are consumed. This calf’s legs have barely been chewed. Two wolves would have done a lot more damage.”

  “I don’t know why ’n hell dey tell us ta call da state when all youse do is stonewall us.”

  “If you call the biologist from Marquette, he’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you.”

  “Bloody DNR, da whole worthless bunchayas.”

  “I’ll call for you.” Service gave the man one of his business cards and wrote down the name of a biologist in the Marquette regional office. “His name is Herndon. I’ll try to get him out here today.”

  “I see dem critters again, I’m gonna shoot first,” the farmer said.

  “I wouldn’t advise that,” Service said, trying to retain his composure and be polite. There were so many crank calls about wolves and other things that it was easy to write callers off, but his job was to find out what happened, not discourage citizens.

  As far as he knew, confirmed U.P.-wide wolf predation over the past two years had amounted to a dozen dogs, eighteen cows, a dozen chickens, and a few sheep. Since the 1990s the state had paid less than $20,000 in reparations to farmers, who claimed the DNR was purposely misidentifying predators in order to not pay them for their losses.

  Leaving the farm, he had no interest in going back to the office. He called Paulie Herndon, told him what to expect, and headed s
outh into northern Delta County to look around and think. Parking near the Escanaba River, he called Buster Beal. The visit to the farmer had started some unformed notions rolling around in his head.

  “Chewy, Grady. You know much about wolf behavior?”

  “Some. When you manage deer, you learn about wolves. Deer herd is like Mickey D’s to a wolf pack.”

  “The adults in the packs bring food to the pups, right?”

  “While they’re in the denning area. When the pups get to about twenty pounds, the pack moves to a rendezvous area for the summer and remains fairly stationary as the pack teaches the young ones to hunt. By September pups are thirty to forty pounds and strong enough to get in on the chase, but in summer the wolves are more likely to be eating beaver than deer. They’d rather wait until deep snow in winter for their venison. Kills come a lot easier then.”

  “The mothers teach the pups to hunt?”

  “Roles aren’t that clearly delineated. Adult males and females all take part in the hunt, and the pups follow along and mimic what they see the other pack members doing. Hey, it’s not a lot different than the men in the family taking a kid out to deer camp and his dad, grandpa, uncles, and older brothers all teaching him how it’s done.”

  “Do wolves ever kill individually?”

  “Beaver sometimes, but not larger ungulates. Too risky. With wolves, eating and killing are group activities.”

  “Single wolf and a pup kill a calf?”

  “Could,” the biologist said, “but usually it’s only the adults doing the killing and the pups just jumping in for their share of the grub.”

  “Thanks, Chewy.”

  “That help you?”

  “Maybe,” Service said. The wolf incident got him thinking about Frankie Pey, Essie Greenleaf, and the boy called Marcel. He wasn’t sure why. The border patrol agent said that the prisoner Ney had called the boy his creation.

  He was beginning to formulate a thought, but it remained vague and he couldn’t quite pull it together. Not yet.

  46

  SLIPPERY CREEK, MICHIGAN

  JULY 29, 2004

  It was dark when Grady Service got home. McCants still had Newf and Cat and he thought about fetching them, but decided to wait until the next day.

  Two Crown Vics were parked at the cabin. It looked like Gasparino beside one of the vehicles. Tatie Monica was on the porch. He invited her in and made a fresh pot of coffee. Her face was splotched with something that looked like hives, and there was a vein sticking out of her temple. She wore a black business pantsuit, black pumps with low heels, her hair in a bun, her face masked with heavy makeup. She looked like she was dressed for a vampire’s coming-out party.

  “What’s the deal?

  “I’ve been summoned to the Bureau to eat a shit sandwich,” she said.

  “Ketchup or mustard?”

  “It’s not a joke! I may soon be off the case, in which case they’ll send a yessiroid to replace me.”

  She looked and sounded broken, but he couldn’t summon much sympathy.

  “I’m ex officio, not part of the team,” he reminded her.

  “If they pull me out, you’re probably not going to have a choice, and you’ve gotten to places alone that we never got to.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I can make sure they pull you in and sit on you.”

  “Control to the end,” he said.

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” she said.

  “And you do?”

  Tatie Monica held up her hands. “I’m not here to fight or threaten,” she said quietly. “My analyst was not authorized by the Bureau. My career was in the incognito Batwoman mode, like going nowhere, and Check Six popped up and set the case on my platter. I hadn’t heard anything from him since LA, and he was righteous that time. What would you have done?”

  “Check Six?”

  “Shut up and listen. You need to understand the context. The Bureau has been trying for years to claw its way out of the interregnum of Hoover and bring computers into the main culture. Freeh started a project called Trilogy, which was supposed to provide us with online connectivity and shareware built around something called the Virtual Case File. But Freeh retired after the debacle in New York. Pickard came in as interim director, and then Mueller was named to be Freeh’s permanent replacement. Mueller has balls: He served in Vietnam with distinction, but now he’s caught dodging political hacky sacks filled with C4. With the creation of Homeland Security, he’s been dealt out of the top power loop. The bottom line is that Trilogy doesn’t work and it’s not going to work. The Bureau’s spent close to six hundred mil and we have bupkiss. I’m guessing that within a year you’ll hear that the custom-designed program will be junked for off-the-shelf technology. Meanwhile, those of us who need to share and search information haven’t had shit to work with. This guy came to me and I jumped on it.”

  “Which your bosses didn’t approve.”

  “Right. Do you know any computer geeks?” She didn’t wait for a response. “This guy is your classic prototypical hactivist, believes the Bureau’s inker mindset threatens national security. How he got into our records, I have no idea, but he did, and he found this and I took it and away we went.”

  “And bodies kept piling up.”

  She nodded almost imperceptibly. “I don’t even know his real name. I lied to you about that. Check Six is one of his handles. Another is Rud Hud, and our relationship is what geeks in Electronland call h4xxOr, which means illegal. He’s not supposed to be in the data he’s in, and I’m not supposed to employ anyone who hasn’t been vetted through Bureau security.”

  There was a tone in her voice that suggested an undecipherable smugness. “My out is that I haven’t actually employed him in the sense of paying for his services. Officially he’s like an unpaid informant, a patriotic citizen willing to help.”

  “You think your bosses will buy that?” asked Service.

  “You don’t understand how they can circle the wagons to protect the Bureau’s rep. I’ve seen some major fuckups and messes swept quietly away because the Bureau decided the guilty ones didn’t intend to do anything technically illegal or immoral, and were simply trying to work their cases. The Bureau likes initiative. If I can give them a reason to let me keep going, I’m hoping they’ll take it. With all the criticisms after 9/11, they don’t want more, especially in the area of domestic law enforcement. The meta-logic is: Okay, we kinda, sorta, maybe fucked up a skosh on 9/11, but we’re still the country’s top cops, and since the seventies the crown jewel in the agency’s reputation has been our record with serial murderers. Never mind that most of them were caught by accident, by local agencies, or in the backwash of their own fuckups; the Bureau has used serial murder and profiling as a sexy publicity engine for showing the public how great we are. They’ve milked it in ways you cannot even begin to imagine,” said Monica.

  “What does this have to do with me?”

  “You remember the shit with Hanssen?”

  “The agent who sold information to the Russians?”

  “He was like a total head case. What most people don’t understand is just how badly the agency screwed the pooch. They had been tipped about him by another agent four years before Hanssen was arrested, and it was only after the fact that they learned he was mucking around in databases where he ­didn’t belong, asking questions he wasn’t authorized to ask, not to mention leading a private life with more red flags than a Chinese picnic. Nobody had bothered to look at his electronic trail, or his personal life. You think any of us in the trenches were surprised by the 9/11 meltdown? You can’t ever acknowledge a potential personal mistake or weakness because it could point upward. Hell, we are all selected for the Bureau. If we fail, the Bureau fails, and the Bureau won’t allow that. That’s the culture Hoover nurtured,” she said. “What I’m telling you is
that your sources may be able to quietly take a look and see if they can find a trail for Rud Hud. I don’t begin to understand the minutiae of the cyberworld, but the truth is, I can’t find him, and the only possible way is through his tracks in our files.”

  “This is way outside my expertise,” he said. “Are you thinking this guy is more than a public-minded bird dog?”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking, but you want to talk to him, and I want to talk to him, and I can’t find him, and I know you have some sort of back door into the Bureau. I’ve seen the results.”

  “Your people will stay off my ass?”

  “That’s our deal, but if they replace me, that deal is off.”

  “How much contact did you have with this Check Six, Rud Hud?”

  She reached into a portfolio and pulled out a neat stack of papers under a clip. “I printed this for you. I’m gonna be incomputerado for awhile.”

  When she drove away from the cabin, Gasparino came to the porch, begged a cigarette, and lit it clumsily. “She’s freaking out, am I right?” the young agent asked.

  “She thinks she’s gonna be pulled off the case,” Service said. “She’s headed back to Washington.”

  “Oh shit. Professional Instant Death Syndrome.”

  Whatever that was. More and more he was finding that people around him were using vocabularies that eluded him.

  “Fuck,” Gasparino said. “If she goes down, that could mean East Jesus for me.”

  “East Jesus?”

  “Yeah, sixty miles past Bumfuck. Nobody comes back from East Jesus, hear what I’m sayin’?”

  Service invited the young agent inside for coffee. It was disconcerting how important careers were to federal officers.

  “For real, you think she’s out?” Gasparino said.

  “She said it’s possible.”

  “Squared shit.”

  “Does it matter?” Service asked.

  “Hey, she’s got tunnel vision and she pisses off a lot of people, but she’s a pretty good leader, ya know? I trust her with my six,” the young agent said.