Shadow of the Wolf Tree

by Joseph Heywood

  Doctor?

  “Thanks for calling back,” Takala said as soon as she picked up. “We’ve not met,” she began. “I’m a forensic anthropologist, and I have a contract with the MSP. Whenever they find skeletons in the U.P., they call me. One of my colleagues at MSU in East Lansing handles skeletons below the bridge.”

  “Is this about the skeletons in Iron County?”

  “You betcha. It’s taken a while, but the ME and I agree: These were not accidental deaths. He’s ruling homicides. One man’s spine was severed between the third and fourth atlas with a cutting tool.”

  “Atlas?”

  “Sorry—also called the cervical. We’re talking up high, just below the neck. The second vick also had a severed spine, but was literally chopped up. All sorts of cut marks on the ribs and other bones. Both vicks had multiple fractures, but only one victim was chopped. Whoever did that one seems to have had a real woody for vick number two.”

  Real woody? It sounded like she spent more time with cops than academics. “Homicide makes it a state police case.”

  “Of course. Most people who find old bones don’t think much about them. You were right to treat it as a crime site. You did a great job.”

  “Standard procedure,” he said.

  “Trust me,” she said. “There are some young Troops up here who don’t know standard procedure from Standard Oil.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  “I’m not done,” she said sharply. “Vick number one is Native American; vick two is African American. Vick one was roughly forty years old, vick two younger, twenty-five to thirty. We’ve narrowed time of death down to somewhere between 1925 and 1930.”

  “I really appreciate the call,” he said.

  “Will you just please let me finish? You’re wondering why I’m calling you, right? It’s not a courtesy call. The bones of both vicks show evidence of color.”

  An Indian and a black man. Of course, they were both men of color.

  “You know about color?” she asked.

  “Tell me,” he said, not wanting to say something stupid.

  “Color means gold, and in this case, it’s flour gold—specks to be sure, but gold for certain, mixed in with the bones. There’s also magnetite—that’s magnetic oxide of iron with some traces of hematite. You understand what this means?”

  “I’m about to learn . . .”

  She ignored the sarcasm and continued. “Magnetite is an indicator of placer gold. We’ve had an assay done on the flour gold, and this is primo stuff.”

  “I don’t think I’m getting this,” he said, having great difficulty putting the woman’s information into any sort of useful context.

  “The vicks are dripping gold dust, Detective Service. Gold is a natural resource. We can’t say that the gold has anything to do with why the two men were murdered, but you can’t rule it out. Gold has been the cause of a lot of trouble since the dawn of mankind. The gold angle means that the Troops are probably going to want you to at least assist in their investigation.”

  Service did some quick arithmetic: 1925 to 1930 was close to eighty years ago. How the hell did you investigate eighty-year-old murders? “I haven’t heard anything from the Troops.”

  “You will,” Beulah Takala said. “I just gave them my report yesterday, and sent a copy to your office in Marquette. I learned you’re working in Iron County; that’s why I called.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I guess.”

  She laughed. “I feel your pain.”

  He found Friday watching him when he closed his cell phone. “Problem?” she asked.

  “Not sure,” he said. If not a problem, it surely was going to at least be a complication. He didn’t buy into the old saw about every problem being an opportunity. A problem was a problem, and not all puzzles got solved.

  He got up from his desk and stretched. “What are you working on?”

  “The wire companies. I’m not getting anywhere, but one of them out of Cleveland told me he thought there were some smaller companies around, not tied to government contracts. He didn’t have their names, but gave me the name of a man at Purdue who might know.”

  “Purdue?”

  “Some sort of metallurgy expert. What are you working on? Get anything from the felon?”

  “Not much, but I thought I’d take a ride. Want to take a break?”

  “Works for me. Can’t lose weight with my butt glued to a chair.”

  She was wearing low heels today, and a skirt. “You got boots?”

  “In my vehicle.”

  “Grab them and let’s burn some state gas.”

  • • •

  Service drove down the Rec Trail from Forest Highway 16 and parked near where he and Tree had camped that night. He’d talked to his friend yesterday, and the big man was still at Slippery Creek, enjoying the fishing out the back door. Friday had kicked off her heels and put on socks and boots while they drove.

  He led her to the outcrop where the skeletons had been excavated. If he’d been Sherlock Holmes, he would have had a magnifying glass, but he wasn’t Sherlock, and even if he were, he wouldn’t know what to look for.

  “What’s here?”

  “It’s what used to be here. Two skeletons.”

  “Yuck.”

  “My dog found them while I was camped by the river, first night of trout season.”

  “Bummer,” she said.

  “It looked like the vicks had been trapped in a cave-in, but that call I got in the office today was from a forensic anthropologist from Northern who works for your outfit. She says she and the ME have ruled both deaths homicides.”

  She rubbed her nose. “Dr. Beulah Takala—I’ve met her. How old are the skeletons?”

  “Eighty-plus years.”

  “Geez. How do you investigate homicides that old?”

  “Dunno,” he said. “I’m a woods cop. Your outfit is going to catch the case.”

  “It is? Does this have anything to do with what we’re doing?”

  “What do you think?”

  “If it does, I don’t see it.”

  “Me either.”

  “Why did we drive out here?”

  “Sometimes I find it useful to look at a site several times, see if it will talk to me.”

  “Is the earth talking to you today?”

  “Not even whispering . . . but I still want to look around.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  After an hour he still didn’t have a clue, and the site remained silent.

  He called Denninger on the cell phone. “You got a plat book for your county?” he asked.

  “Riding shotgun, right beside me.”

  “Look at the property where we met Frodo the Finn. Who owns it?”

  It took a couple of minutes. “Taide Jarvi,” she said.

  “That male or female?”

  “You guess first,” she joked.

  “Check around, see what you can find.”

  “You bet.”

  10

  Redlight Creek, Ontonagon County

  SATURDAY, MAY 20, 2006

  Detective Mike Millitor called on the cell phone as they were driving south on U.S. Forest Highway 16. “There’s an old coot in south Ontonagon County you may want to meet.”

  “Friday said you had something in Watersmeet.”

  “Cleaning up an old case. Meet me at the ONF Visitor Center and we’ll take one vehicle.” The parking lot for the Ottawa National Forest’s Visitor Center sat on a hill above US 2 and M-45, and wasn’t visible from either highway. Officers often met in the lot, or dumped vehicles there to ride with others.

  “Friday’s with me.”

  “Goo
d—she’ll find it interesting too. See you at the VC.”

  Millitor was leaning against the door of his unmarked. He got into the backseat of Service’s Tahoe. The Iron County detective put an unlit cigar stump in his mouth and started talking. “M-45 north to Paulding, west on Sleepy Hollow Road, north on Choate Road. Couple miles northwest, Choate cuts a hard ninety west and back to the north. There’s a two-track running straight west off this curve. Jump on the two-track, drive down about a mile. There’s a driveway running south. That’s where we wanna be. Got it?” Millitor asked.

  Service nodded, drove out of the visitor center onto M-45, and then drove north through Watersmeet past the Lac Vieux Desert Casino and golf course. Millitor talked while Service drove.

  “Twenty years back a guy named Rankin Box was selling conversion kits for AK-47s. He assembled the kits and sold them cheap, strictly word-of-mouth biz through the local scum line and gun show circuit. BATF sent me in undercover. I bought some kits from Box and three semiauto Kalashnikovs from his brother-in-law. Box rolled on the in-law, got fined, and did no time. The B-I-L did three years, until one of his fellow residents cut his throat over a cigarette beef. The B-I-L’s death set off a family war. Box sold his place in Marenisco and moved to his hunting camp on Redlight Creek. He’s pushing one hundred now, lives on social security, and isn’t in the best of health. For some reason the old bird took a liking to me, and we’ve been chums ever since.”

  “One of your snitches?” Service said.

  “Never cared for that term. He’s an eccentric bugger to be sure, but I’ve never met anyone who knows guns like him. From time to time I drop off venison and groceries for him. Last night his daughter called and said he wants to talk to me about the old days. That’s code for he’s got information for me,” Millitor said.

  “His information usually solid?”

  “Dead-on so far.”

  “Our case?”

  “I doubt that, but if he’s in a talking mood, we can pick his brain. He looks like the walking dead, but his mind is steel-trap.”

  Service said, “If he’s your informant, maybe you should go alone. “Ordinarily I’d agree, but Box likes to be the center of attention. Three of us will inflate his ego more than me alone.”

  Millitor, Service decided, was an old pro, and typical of a lot of good U.P. cops who could have moved away and had big-time careers, but stayed home for the quality of life.

  The camp was at the end of a short two-track driveway through tag alders, the building one story with a steep roof. The undergrowth around the cabin had been cleared. Ricks of cut wood were neatly stacked in rows all around the cabin.

  “The windows don’t even have cobwebs,” Friday observed. “My God, I can’t even keep them out of the inside of my place.”

  Millitor said, “He’s got his own support system, run by his daughter. They make his wood, clean the place, plow his snow, bring him groceries and prescriptions. Usually he cooks for himself, but that’s about it,” Millitor said.

  The detective walked into the cabin without knocking. “Mr. Box?”

  Service looked around. Rifles were mounted on the wall, intricate, ornate wood carvings all over the place, the furniture circa 1970s, and a big-screen TV. Red-and-black-check woolen hunting coats were draped on wooden pegs on one of the walls.

  The old man was sitting in a rocking chair, looking out the back window, where there was a salt block and a dozen deer milling around, still in their gray winter coats.

  The salt block was supposed to be broken up and spread around to reduce disease transmission through nose-to-nose contact, but Service kept quiet. No matter what the regs called for, it was the rare Yooper who ever broke up a salt block.

  Millitor grabbed a chair and placed it in front of the old man, whose head bobbed. “Youse finally come, eh?” Box said.

  “Keeping busy?”

  Box pawed at his head with a finger deformed by arthritis. “Up dere.”

  “Your daughter called me last night.”

  “What can I do for youse?”

  “You wanted to see me.”

  “I did?”

  “You had your daughter call me.”

  “Oh, dat’s right.”

  “So?”

  “Who’s dose pipples youse got wit’ youse?”

  Millitor introduced Service and Friday. Box stared at the DNR officer. “Game warden, eh? You got a problem wit’ salt block out back?”

  “I’d be a lot happier if it was broken up.”

  The man smiled. “Youse mebbe had kin was game warden?”

  “My father.”

  “T’ought so. Beat bejezus out of me over Gwinn one time. Shot me a red. Musta had a tip, ’cause dat bugger was right dere waitin’, an’ when I went ta gut ’er, he went ta town on me. Busted hell outta my noggin. Din’t write no ticket. Said ta me, ‘You need dat deer?’ I did. He told me, ‘Den take it. Don’t never come back Gwinn.’ Never did. Game wardens dose days din’t give no breaks. Youse’re like your daddy, eh?”

  “I think we can skip the beating,” Service said. The old man guffawed with such energy that he began to drool. The last thing Service wanted was to be like his father.

  Box wiped spittle off his chin and looked up at Millitor. “Heard dere’s a young buck over Kenton got fifty cal, been shootin’ up woods some. Word out, piece’s for sale. Full auto, not no one-shot sniper rig.”

  “The young buck have a name?”

  “Christian Stempi, bout t’irty, hothead, lives out Peterson Road on da Jumbo.”

  Jumbo was the diminutive Jumbo River, barely a river in size.

  Millitor said, “There were Stempis who ran a chop shop south of Trout Creek. This kid one of those Stempis?”

  “Chop shop, dat’s his ole man’s, but da hull family’s allas up ta shenanigans.”

  “Other weapons?”

  “Wun’t s’prise me none, eh.”

  “I’ll talk to the ATF,” Millitor said. Then, “Back in your day, you make any spring or dump guns?”

  “No need. Use lighter load in cartridge, get less noise, no need for t’rowaway gun, eh? An’ dose bloody spring guns too dangerous. Mighta could wing da old lady or somepin’.”

  “Anybody making a business out of spring guns nowadays?”

  The old man shrugged. “Reckon pipples up here can make dere own easy enough.”

  Detective Friday interrupted. “Mr. Box, you’ve got some beautiful wood carvings here. Who’s the artist?”

  The man held up his crooked hands. “Was me before dese tings become claws. Go barn out back. Chuck-full of ’em.”

  “I’m not an expert,” Friday said, “but I think these could be worth something if you wanted to sell them.”

  Box fixed his eyes on her. “How much, you tink?”

  Friday pointed to a porcupine clinging to a ceiling beam. “Several hundred for that, I would think. Maybe more.”

  Box’s eyes became slits. “Dat so . . . ?”

  “I’ve got a girlfriend who owns a wildlife art gallery in Marquette. I could ask her to drive over and do an appraisal, give you a better estimate of their value. If she likes them, and you want to, she might sell them for you.”

  “She buy for cash and resell with markup?”

  An unexpectedly precise and focused question for Box to ask, Service thought.

  Friday said, “Consignment, I’d think, but I really don’t know the details.”

  “Umm,” Box said. “Youse bring ’er, give ’er da look.”

  “You’re okay with that?”

  “Youse want, go out back, look in da barn.”

  The detective excused herself, leaving the men to themselves.

  “Dat girlie done just spit out a kid,” Box said.

 
How had he seen that? Service wondered.

  Box looked at Millitor. “Was Paulding girlie come here once, want me teach her make spring guns.”

  “You help her?”

  “Too old, da hands no good. I sent her to old chum.”

  “The chum have a name?”

  “Allerdyce.”

  Service lurched at the name. “Limpy Allerdyce?”

  “Dat’s him.”

  “When was this?”

  “ ’Ninety-seven, ’98, mebbe ’round dat time.”

  “Allerdyce was in prison then.”

  “Din’t say he wasn’t. Sent ’er Allerdyce’s way. His crew kep’ workin’ while old man was inside, eh?”

  “Did the woman meet with them?”

  “Never heard. Somebody tell me later she join up.”

  “Join up?”

  “Army,” Box said. “I know somepin’ else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dat Vernors soda pop dey make down Detroit is made from nigger piss,” the centenarian said.

  Millitor made a puffing sound and looked at Service. “What was the woman’s name?” he asked the old man.

  “Lemme tink . . . ,” Box said. And after a moment, “Penny . . . Penny Provo.”

  “From Paulding?”

  “Furt’er nort’. Youse know Pecker Lake?”

  “No.”

  “Humanka Hill. Youse go down bottom, take two-track sout’. Few miles down dat way.”

  “You just met Provo that once?”

  “Come, make wood, ast me ’boot guns, gone.”

  • • •

  Back in the Tahoe, Tuesday Friday said, “You can’t believe what’s in that barn. There’s a full-size bear carved out of bird’s-eye maple. Must be two hundred carvings. The workmanship is astounding, the best I’ve ever seen. My friend is going to flip out.”

  “Valuable?”

  “Like I told him, I’m not an expert, but I think they’re worth a lot in the right hands. If he’s just living on social security, those days could be over.”

  “You know Pecker Lake?” Millitor asked Service.

  “Nope, but we’ll find out.” He used his cell phone to call Lars Hjalmquist, retired Gogebic County CO. “Lars, Grady. You know Pecker Lake?”