Shadow of the Wolf Tree

by Joseph Heywood

  “Such a thing is impossible. Zhenya has analyzed exhaustively.”

  “From your office.”

  She raised an eyebrow in protest.

  “Boots in the dirt,” Grady Service said. “In my world, that’s what counts most.”

  When Leukonovich finally left them alone, Service got into the shower and Friday went down to the lobby and fetched coffee.

  “I’ve never seen such a strange woman. She didn’t even look at me.” Friday said when he came out of the shower. “Her eyes say she’ll devour you. Is there like…history between you two?”

  “Business and professional history only,” he said. Did one describe prior sexual tension and sparks as history? “She is, I’m told, the top agent in the IRS. She helped me break a big case last year.”

  “Have you really found a back door, whatever that is?”

  “Could be,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “but I need the lab to finish some things for us before we take the next step.” Declaration complete, he lay back, folded his arms across his chest, and was asleep.

  64

  Iron River, Iron County

  THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2006

  When Grady Service awoke alone, it was nearly noon. He went into the bathroom to take a leak and saw writing on the mirror, in lipstick: office, babe!

  Babe. It sounded right, but he had no idea what it meant, or implied.

  He called Karylanne and she picked up immediately. “It’s Grady,” he said.

  “It’s your Bampy,” Karylanne said, obviously to Maridly. He was too groggy to protest.

  “We had you MIA,” the mother of his grandchild said.

  “Just out and about. What day is this?”

  “Things are that bad? It’s Thursday.”

  “I’m in a fairly complex case. Couple of weeks should sort it out. You want to bring Mar to Slippery Creek, or me to come up there?”

  “No classes right now,” Karylanne said. “We’ll drive down to your place.”

  “I’ll call as soon as I can nail down some pass days. Put the kid on.”

  He heard cooing and slobbery sounds on the phone receiver. “You know who this is, Maridly?”

  “My Bampy!” the little girl shrieked into the phone.

  Her Bampy? “Yeah, close enough,” he said, a lump in his throat. “I’ll drive up to you guys after this breaks,” he told Karylanne.

  • • •

  Friday and Mike Millitor were in the office at the post.

  “She tell you what’s going on?” Service asked the Iron County homicide detective.

  “Something about back doors. She wasn’t so precise, eh.”

  Service changed directions, looking at Friday. “Where are the maps from the drug team?”

  She bent down to open a box, took them out, and began unfolding them.

  Service walked over, leaned over, and began looking. After a while, he smiled at her.

  “Your outcrops?” Friday asked.

  “Sure looks like. Who had the maps?”

  “Gogebic County found them at Box’s place. They also found a name on a slip of paper.”

  “Name?”

  “Tikka Noli.”

  “Mr. Willie Pete himself.”

  “Turns out Noli allied himself with green groups to hide his dope operations. There were substantial plant colonies near where the burning deer appeared.”

  “Who marked the outcrops on these maps, and why?”

  “We don’t know,” Friday said.

  “Where’s Noli?”

  “Still lodged at the county jail,” Millitor said.

  “He lawyer up with Sandy Tavolacci?”

  “No, his lawyer is out of Oak Park, Illinois.”

  “That’s Chicago, right?”

  Friday nodded. “Western suburb.”

  Not Sandy? Huh. “Name?”

  “Rosemary Slick.”

  “Solo wolf or pack lawyer?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Find out, okay?”

  “I’m all over it,” she said, turning to her phone.

  The maps, gold dust and ore, Provo, Box, Mears, Czuk, Art Lake, Gorsline, Van Dalen—his gut told him that all the pieces fit, but he couldn’t see how yet. The only real outliers were the two old bodies unearthed by Newf at Elmwood.

  “Beloit, Singe, and Merriman,” Friday said, closing her phone. “Guess who one of their clients is.”

  Service grinned. “Van Dalen Foundation.”

  “We’re on a roll,” she said.

  “Does the Slick woman handle Van Dalen?”

  “Not that I can discern,” Friday said. “But you can ask her yourself. She’s in Crystal Falls.”

  “I could kiss her,” Service told Millitor.

  “I ain’t stopping youse,” the detective said.

  “I’d have to cut off your lips,” an unsmiling Friday said. “By the way, Noli’s four-wheeler?”

  “What about it?”

  “One of the tires has a missing chunk, and the print matches casts taken from where you heard it that morning.”

  “Does Noli know this yet?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Cut off my lips,” he said. “What would you do if I had no lips?”

  “Make do,” she said.

  65

  Crystal Falls, Iron County

  THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2006

  The lantern-jawed Rosemary Slick carried herself like someone who trolled courtrooms looking for fights with any and all takers.

  “Who’re you?” she asked Service, ignoring all social conventions and pleasantries.

  “Detective Grady Service, Wildlife Resource Protection Unit, Michigan Department of Natural Resources.”

  “I hope like hell they pay you by the number of letters in your bona fides,” she quipped. “What the hell is a game warden doing in my client’s business?”

  No verbal sparring here, Service told himself. She wants to punch it out, go toe to toe right from the bell, see if she can get an edge on me.

  “To begin with, your client tried to kill me.”

  “You have an expansive imagination. Perhaps you’ve spent too many hours alone in the forest. My client was protecting his crop.”

  “You mean his dope.”

  “I mean potatoes and rutabagas. My client is not in the dope business.”

  “Won’t argue that,” Service said.

  “Discretion and so forth?” Slick countered.

  “Not at all. I’m not a lawyer. I collect evidence and refer cases to prosecutors.”

  “It’s the same system everywhere,” she said.

  “What I know is that the day my colleague and I were assaulted, there was a four-wheeler nearby. Casts from the tire prints are identical to the tread on the tires of your client’s all-terrain vehicle.”

  Unintimidated, the woman leaned forward. “And you can testify that you saw my client riding said phantom machine? He reported it stolen a month before.”

  “The day I asked him about it, he told me the machine was at his house in Gaastra.” Service laughed. “Welcome to the Upper Peninsula. It’s standard practice up here. You think you’re in trouble, you stash your toy assets—four-wheelers, snowmobiles, motorcycles—report them stolen, and collect the insurance money. Your client screwed up his timing on this one.”

  “You have no proof of that.”

  “We will.”

  “Is there a reason you are taking up my time?” Slick asked, shifting tones.

  He told her about the plat books and maps, and she denied her client had any knowledge of such things or any involvement in the drug business.

  Stonewalling a
ll the way. “You represent Van Dalen Foundation?”

  “My firm does, not me. I’ve never had that honor.”

  “And you probably won’t,” Service said. “Van Dalen’s about to go down in public flames. The IRS is all over them.”

  Slick blinked but remained silent.

  “Call the home office. I’m sure they’ll confirm.”

  “My client has no connection to Van Dalen,” she said, after a long pause to collect her thoughts.

  “Really? Ask him about the X’s marked at certain points on the maps and plat-book pages. When Van Dalen goes down, it will be like the Titanic, sucking down everything close to it, vendors included.”

  “Are you an attorney?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Phone home,” Service said, “for your own good.” He dropped a business card on the table and left.

  66

  Iron River, Iron County

  THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2006

  When Grady Service walked into the post ten minutes after Friday, she handed him a slip of paper, which said, “Gabby at Forensics.”

  He punched in her number. “Service here.”

  “Got it.”

  “First batch?”

  “Everything. I know a prof at Northern with a lab. He did the assays on the last batch, and I’ll send the evidence out to our regular vendor too, but we can trust this quickie alternative.”

  “And?”

  “Gold traces in all the samples you provided. But the last one is purest of all. You want the reports by e-mail or snail?”

  “Both. Can someone drop hard copies at the DNR Regional Office?”

  “Thy will be done,” Gabby said. “Anything else you need yesterday?”

  “Won’t know till tomorrow,” he countered.

  “Tomorrow’s yesterday is today,” she said.

  “Thanks a lot, Gabby. Peace be upon you,’ she said, hanging up.

  Service looked at Friday. “Someone mined those various outcrops for veins of almost pure gold.”

  “Damn,” she said. “Noli?”

  “Not sure.” He took a pad of paper and began sketching a wolf tree.

  “What’s the weekend look like?” Friday asked.

  Thought I’d crash a party. Interested?”

  “Seriously?”

  67

  Skanee Road, Baraga County

  SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 2006

  They met in the parking lot outside the L’Anse post. Sergeant Sulla Kakabeeke in civvies, her shift over, was standing beside her personal Ford 150 truck.

  “Pretty sudden, his retirement decision,” Service said to her.

  “I guess,” Kakabeeke said.

  “License plate numbers?” he said.

  She sighed. “I can smell where this is going, Detective. Pinky’s one of us, and more to the point, one of you. He just wants to retire quietly.”

  “With a big party, while bodies are still on autopsy tables?”

  Kakabeeke looked sad. “You know he couldn’t have had anything to do with any of that Art Lake mess.”

  “Define mess,” Service said. “Personally, I’m having a helluva time with all this.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s not in him to do anything illegal. For crying out loud, he didn’t create the Art Lake deal; he inherited it from his predecessors.”

  “Admirably defended,” Service said. “But Pinky still needs to answer some questions.’

  “He’ll get a lawyer to protect his retirement.”

  “I don’t care if he calls in the pope.”

  “This is really hard for me,” the Troop sergeant said. “I care about Pinky.”

  “You think it’s equally reciprocated?”

  She looked off in the distance and chewed her lip. Her right hand was lightly tapping her hip.

  “The IRS is about to be all over this thing,” Service told her. “Their ability to dig surpasses all of us put together. Money leaves a trail. Why the retirement party at your place and not his?”

  “He prefers to keep his Hermansville place private.”

  “And you’ve never found that odd?”

  She nodded.

  “He give a reason?”

  “Yeah—he’s got things people don’t need to see.”

  “Such as?”

  “He inherited a lot of money,” she said, a catch in her voice, and the hint of a deep frown etching her face.

  “The IRS will sort that out pretty fast. You don’t believe the inheritance story?”

  She shook her head solemnly. “Vegas a couple of times a year, Jamaica every winter; we’ve lived a pretty good life together since we met.”

  “On his inheritance?”

  Kakabeeke opened her hands, begging understanding. “You can’t live in cop mode every second of your life.”

  “He sent out invites for the party.”

  “Did it all himself.”

  “To whom?”

  “All county law enforcement and some downstate cops.”

  “I never got one.”

  Kakabeeke stared at him. “Seriously?”

  “See you out there,” he said, and went to his truck, leaving her to her own thoughts.

  Friday looked at him. “What was that all about?”

  “Tell you later.”

  • • •

  Pinky Barbeaux looked at Grady Service and shook his head. “Didn’t expect to see youse today,” the retiring sheriff said.

  “You want to take a walk, and talk to me?”

  “Think I’d rather get swarmed by pine beetles.”

  “This has to be done,” Service said.

  They walked through a grove of second-growth Norway pines behind Kakabeeke’s house. “You want me to read the Miranda card?” Service asked.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Barbeaux said.

  Grady Service took the laminated card out of his shirt pocket. “I’m becoming a strict constructionist on legal procedures,” Service said. Then he read the retired DNR lieutenant his rights.

  Barbeaux said, “Let me say this about those bodies and all that—I don’t know nothing about any of it. And I want my lawyer.”

  “Alyssa Mears,” Service said.

  “I know her, of course.”

  “Biblically?”

  “You’ve got a filthy mind.”

  “You trade a lot of e-mails with former department pals?”

  “We’re a family and a community. You know that.”

  “Sometimes it’s eyes-only internal stuff.”

  “No comment.”

  “Like the wolf tree drawing.”

  Barbeaux looked away.

  “Computer geeks,” Service said. “They can find stuff in hard drives, who sent what, who got what, like that. No idea how, but they can do it with all sorts of tricks.”

  “I got nothing to hide,” Barbeaux said.

  “That’s good. You think Ginny Czuk can say the same?”

  Intuition had fueled his math. It had been Czuk with the sheriff when Pinky told him his warrant had run his course. Why her and not Mears, if Czuk was just an assistant? No, Czuk was something more, and she was pulling Pinky’s strings. Czuk had to be the one who gave the wolf tree instructions to William Satago, the drawing, which originated with Pinky Barbeaux. There had to be more to this for Pinky than new patrol vehicles and departmental equipment. Did Kakabeeke know, or just suspect he was on the take?

  Barbeaux’s paste-on gregarious facade had begun to crack.

  “Czuk hired a Keweenaw Bay kid to set up the wolf tree. You gave her the drawing.”

  “Why do you assume
it was me?”

  “Plain as a moose in a fridge. You didn’t deny the allegation. You tried to find out what I based it on. Shame on you, Pinky. This is basic Interviewing Suspects 101 stuff. We’ve got two bodies, one of them a federal agent. All federal hell is about to be visited on Baragastan. The IRS is going to peel you and Van Dalen like cheap onions.”

  “Okay, maybe I give da girl da wolf tree thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Was interested.”

  “You banging her?”

  “I want my lawyer.”

  “Kakabeeke seems nice, but I don’t think she’ll ignore this, and when she hears you were banging that young woman, she’ll suddenly recover some of her lost memories and suspicions,” said Service. “Talk to me, Pinky. At this point there may be room for some dealing. Once the feds swoop in, forget it.”

  Barbeaux sighed. “I give her the sketch. But I swear it was just because she’s interested. She hikes a lot and didn’t want to stumble into a trap.”

  How’d she even know about such a thing? The Ontonagon event had never been made public. “Before that memo came out, Station Twenty circulated some photos of a wolf trap found in Ontonagon County.”

  “Yeah, I give her those too.”

  “How much is Gorsline paying you?”

  “Gorsline?” Barbeaux said, and Service suddenly felt light-headed. Gorsline is the center of gravity for this, right? Has to be.

  Kakabeeke joined them and Service said, “Sergeant, let him enjoy his party. Then haul him to the county and book him on three open murder charges. I’ll be in later to talk to the prosecutor and supply details. Between now and then, he gets no phone calls until you book him.”

  “And you?” Kakabeeke asked.

  “Digging,” he said. Literally.

  68

  Baragastan

  MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2006

  It was not yet 5 a.m. on Monday morning.

  “Hoot,” Service greeted Jen Jeske as she crawled out of an unmarked black DNR truck driven by Marquette County CO Alvin “Leadfoot” Leader.

  Jeske looked at Service and held up one of her hands, which was shaking. “I thought the speed of light was a buncha Hollywood Star Trek crap,” she said. “Never been so scared in my life.”