Running Dark

by Joseph Heywood

  Fahey handed him an envelope. “This is a memo from me to your director. It apologizes for any inconvenience and explains that the audit is postponed until a later date. ’Course, I don’t suggest when, because it’s good to keep others on edge. State bureaucrats hate unscheduled audits, so he’ll be relieved when he gets this—at least for a while. How about a drink?”

  “Just coffee,” Service said. “I’m on duty.”

  “Geez oh Pete, not a chip off the old block—but hey, it’s the smart thing to do. You remember that trout breakfast you made for the old man and me?”

  Service remembered. He said, “Do you know Acting Chief Metrovich?”

  When Fahey transitioned from small talk to business, his fool’s mask evaporated. “Acting’s all he’ll ever be. Cosmo’s all shine, no metal. Wouldn’t say it’s raining until somebody above him says it’s so. When Cosmo’s six months are up, he’ll retire and a man named Grant will get the captain’s job. He’s new to the DNR, but he’s a man with depth. He came to Lansing from the federal government in Washington, D.C. The U.P. needs a captain with the kind of pluck you fellas have.”

  “The men never talk about Metrovich,” Service said.

  “People don’t talk about air, either. It’s just there. Cosmo isn’t heavy enough to leave footprints if he walked across a swimming pool filled with Jell-O. Attalienti may make a good captain down the road, but not in the U.P. They’re taking a good look at him now. He might do well in one of the southern law zones. Deano’s a good man.” Fahey didn’t say who “they” was.

  Fahey had surprisingly incisive insight into the law enforcement division, and Service decided to test it. “Len Stone?”

  “Yooper-tough and right out of the old school. He’ll get the permanent lieutenant’s job and, if he wanted to, he could move downstate for a captain’s job—but they’ll never get Len out of the U.P. Besides, he can retire in eight or nine years.”

  A waiter brought their lunches and they tried to eat while three different men “popped in” to pay homage to Fahey. They all had jokes for him, and Fahey had a quick comeback for each of them. The well-spoken and thoughtful man of minutes before immediately backslid to ridge-running bumbler when people came into the room. Their last visitor was a long-legged woman with black hair and green eyes who talked to Fahey but stared the whole while at Service. Fahey introduced her as “Shay-the-Lay,” and she laughed and corrected him. “It’s Shay da Leigh.”

  “Never was good wit’ names,” Fahey said with a chuckle.

  “Except when you want to be,” she said, excusing herself for interrupting.

  “Good girl,” Fahey said when she was gone. “And a crack lawyer in the Legislative Services Branch. You’re a senator or a rep and you want to draft a bill, you call in LS and they help you to write it and put it in the appropriate capitolese. Shay’s the best they’ve got, great brain and an even greater wild streak. She was raised over to Bessemer. You can trust her.”

  They finished eating in privacy and Fahey had two more vodka tonics. “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?” his father’s pal finally asked.

  “The Garden.”

  Fahey nodded solemnly. “Those boys sure didn’t take to Order Seventeen. Still taking potshots at you fellas, I hear.”

  “Somebody’s going to get killed,” Service said.

  Fahey pondered this as he took a drink. “Smart boys down there. They see the handwriting on the wall.”

  “Such as the end of commercial fishing in Lake Michigan?”

  Fahey raised an eyebrow and cracked a grin. “Just like your old man. I don’t know how, but that sonuvagun always knew what was going on,” he said. “The fur trappers came first, then the mining companies and the loggers, and now the oil companies are coming in. The fact is that commercial fishermen aren’t important enough to have the power to get what they want. See, in Lansing, clout and power count. Companies have pretty much always gotten what they wanted as long as the state got a good cut. Money speaks, eh?”

  “There’s more money in sportfishing than commercial fishing,” Service said.

  “Geez oh Pete, this salmon thing’s bigger than anybody dreamed, even Curry. The commercial net boys keep at it, they’ll kill the salmon. You know what brought down our fish stocks more than any other factor?”

  “Lampreys.”

  “Nylon,” Fahey said. “With nylon fishermen no longer had to make their own nets out of linen or know how to repair them, which they did all the time. Nylon’s lighter, cheaper, stronger, and requires a lot less upkeep. Capital and costs down, profits up. Nylon changed Great Lakes commercial fishing.”

  Service decided to push a little. “I heard the Indians might get to keep their nets.”

  Fahey straightened his shoulders and took another drink. “Well, all that’s in the federal court system and there’s no way to predict those buggers, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet the Indians will come out of this winners.”

  “And white commercial fishermen will get bought out?”

  “You’ve got good sources,” Fahey said, raising his glass in salute. “The few who’ve been able to hang on to their licenses would get bought out.”

  “Do you know Odd Hegstrom?” Service asked.

  “Since the old days. Smart fella—and cagey as they come.”

  “He created U.P. Legal Services.”

  “Not with a lot of support from the state bar or Lansing. People think Odd’s addicted to fighting windmills, but that’s malarkey. He just doesn’t like to see people pushed around, and when he goes into a fight, he likes to win. Usually he does.”

  “Political ambition?”

  “What does a man need political office for if he’s already got power? Odd’s not all pro bono. He’s got one helluva law practice, and though he’s got the tribes pro bono now, I’d expect that down the road they’ll become real billable hours and a cash cow. Why the interest in all this?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out the Garden.”

  Fahey laughed. “When you do, let me know. I’ve never figured those buggers out. The situation there’s not all that complicated, eh. People up there know the end’s in sight and they’re gonna milk it all the way.”

  “Lansing knows this?”

  “Some do, some don’t. Most who know don’t really give a bloody hoot. The Garden is a skirmish in a small war to get the state to where it wants to be economically. The Garden ain’t Gettysburg. Hell, it ain’t even the Toledo War!” Michigan and Ohio had taken up arms because both wanted the strip of land that contained Toledo. The compromise gave Toledo to Ohio and the Upper Peninsula to Michigan, and hard feelings still lingered above the bridge. The U.P. had been incorporated into the state’s territory without having a say in it, and then its resources had been taken away by mining and logging companies, all with Lansing’s blessing.

  “And if the Garden gets bloody?”

  “Some might like that. Be a good excuse for the governor to call in the National Guard the way it happened during the Detroit riots. The Garden boys know this, so they have to walk a fine line between fighting the inevitable and keeping doing what they want to do to make their dough. They can’t let it get out of hand or they’ve got no chance, eh.”

  “They’ve got no chance anyway,” Service said.

  “They don’t know that.”

  Service was impressed not only with Fahey’s knowledge, but also with his crisp and simple explanations of history and political realities.

  A waiter brought them a six-inch-square cinnamon roll and put it between them as he poured coffee.

  “Coffee’s boiled,” Fahey said. “Bakery’s from L’Anse. Lou has it delivered daily just for Yoopers working in Lansing. You going back this afternoon?”

  “If I can.”

  “Hard to predict those
guys, but Curry and Metrovich will be suspicious of why I asked for you. They’ll be trying to figure out what the heck I’m up to, and how you fit in. When they ask why, just tell ’em the truth. Your old man and me were pals.”

  Which meant he should tell a half-truth. If he hadn’t asked for information from Fahey, he would not be in this position.

  “Anything else?” Fahey asked.

  “I always wondered how you got your name.”

  Fahey laughed with a mouth full of cinnamon roll. “Never mattered to me I was the size of a popcorn fart. I been a competitive little shit my whole life. I played baseball at Michigan Agricultural College—that was State before it got renamed. I wasn’t the most talented player on the team, not even close, but I love baseball. It’s the only game that stops after every play and gives every player the chance to think through all the possibilities for the next play. Baseball’s a thinking man’s game, and I always managed to stay several jumps ahead of the other guys.”

  And still did, Service knew. Fahey’s unimpressive physical appearance would make him easy to underestimate. “How’d you get your job?”

  “The college got me a summer job in properties, and after I graduated I went off to law school.”

  “Where?”

  “Harvard,” Fahey said with a little grin, watching for Service’s reaction. “I finished law school at age twenty. Pearl Harbor came along and I volunteered for the U.S. Marines and they sent me out to the Pacific. I got discharged in ’forty-five as a sergeant, and came back to Lansing and got into properties part-time while I studied for the state bar. When I passed the bar, they offered me the manager’s job and I took it. I don’t mind Lansing, and it isn’t all that far from home, especially with the bridge. They gave me a bigger title since then.”

  The Mackinac Bridge had opened in 1957. Before that travelers were forced to cross the straits by ferry, and at certain times the delay could be hours for one of the five boats, and sometimes weather prevented any crossings at all. The bridge had opened a flow of tourists and newcomers that some Yoopers still resented. Like Brigid Mehegen’s grandfather, for one.

  Service did a quick calculation. Fahey was fifty-seven or fifty-eight now. He looked a lot older. Harvard?

  Service drove to downtown Lansing, parked in a public lot, and walked over to the Mason Building. He signed in at the central registration desk on the ground floor and sat down to have a smoke while the uniformed receptionist called upstairs. Did they think he stole the green uniform and badge? The message was clear: Stay out unless you belong here.

  Jungle Jack himself came down on the elevator to fetch him and escorted him up several floors to his office. He’d seen Curry at graduation but had never talked to him. The director was a tall, gaunt man with long, graying red hair. He wore a houndstooth sport coat instead of a suit and had a smear of blue ink on his left hand.

  The director had a corner office that lacked fancy appointments. There were three framed sheepskins on the wall: a PhD and an MS from the University of Minnesota, and a BS from Montana State. There was also a color photograph of Curry, an equally tall, thin woman, and two ectomorphic boys, probably the wife and sons. None of them were smiling. A stuffed gray wolf was on a pedestal in the corner, and on the wall behind the director’s cluttered desk, a stuffed four-foot-long Chinook salmon, at least a fifty-pounder by the looks of it.

  Curry walked behind his desk and Service stood in front of it, handed him the envelope from Fahey, and watched him rip it open and read.

  “Postponed until when?” the director asked, looking up from the memorandum.

  “Mr. Fahey didn’t say.”

  “And why a postponement?” Curry pressed.

  “He didn’t give a reason.”

  Curry did not invite him to sit. “He asked for you by name.”

  “He was a friend of my father’s,” Service explained.

  “And a friend of yours? I’m told you Yoopers all stick together.”

  “First time I’ve seen him since I graduated from training,” Service said.

  “But he asked for you. Did you talk about the audit?”

  “Nossir, we just made small talk, and he apologized for me having to drive down here for nothing. We had lunch and I came here as directed.”

  “Bureaucrats,” Curry groused. “I’m sorry you had to waste your time,” he said, a statement made out of convention, not conviction.

  “You’ve got the Mosquito,” the director said.

  Not a question. “My father had it too.”

  Curry ignored the reference to his father. “Fahey was the big mover in getting the wilderness designation.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not many people down here have actually seen it, but those who have swear it’s one of the state’s natural jewels.”

  “It is.”

  “Might be worth my time to take a tour.” This was also convention absent conviction.

  “Any time, sir.”

  The director let the memo flutter to his desktop. “Postponed,” he said. “I’d like to know what Jumping Bill is up to. He’s a slippery one.”

  Curry led him down a corridor to Metrovich’s office and walked away without another word.

  Metrovich waved him in. “Take a seat,” the acting chief said. “How’d the meeting go?”

  “The audit’s been postponed. I delivered a memo to the director from Mr. Fahey.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “Nossir. The director told me what was in it.”

  “I see,” Metrovich said. “You’re sure you didn’t read it?”

  “I saw it was a single page, typewritten.”

  “Okay then,” Metrovich said. “I guess that’s it.”

  Service wasn’t sure he’d been dismissed because the acting chief was staring past him. “Shall I go, sir?”

  The acting chief did not respond, and Service walked alone out to the elevator. When the door opened, he found himself alone with Shay da Leigh, her hand poised next to the buttons. “Sporting goods or housewares?”

  “Lobby,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  The door shushed closed.

  “Fahey’s one of a kind,” she said.

  “I’m learning that,” he said.

  “You know, of course, that a junior conservation officer meeting alone with one of the state’s most powerful people has triggered a wave of paranoia in the department.”

  He smelled flowers and citrus wafting off her. Her skirt swished when she shifted her weight. It had been a long time since he’d heard a woman’s skirt make such a sound. “I got that feeling,” he said.

  “People here fight for face time,” she said. “It’s an unspoken currency.”

  He nodded. Why was she talking to him? “You have business with the DNR?” he asked.

  “One of my clients,” she said.

  “You write legislation for the department?”

  “Not exactly. The director insists on writing first drafts. I get called in to clean them up. Mostly I edit for clarity and style. Have you seen the ink on Curry’s hand?”

  Service nodded.

  “I doubt he ever washes it,” she said. “The ink is his way of showing the department he’s a working director, not a paper-pushing figurehead. He’s angling for bigger things. I give him a year until he moves on.”

  The elevator bounced when it stopped. “Let a girl buy you a drink?” she asked. Her skirt whispered when she asked him.

  “I have to head north.”

  “A drink and a talk about the Garden?” she pressed, one eyebrow raised.

  “I guess I have time.”

  “Jumping Bill thought you might,” she said. “This meeting isn’t serendipity.”

  20
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br />   HASLETT, FEBRUARY 10, 1976

  “You cops are all missing the gene for trust.”

  On the way out of the Mason Building, da Leigh suggested they meet in Haslett at a bar called Pagan’s Place, “across from the amusement park.”

  He parked across the street under a row of leafless elms and changed from his uniform to jeans and a sweater. A sign above him said lake lansing amusement park: closed until summer. He glanced at the sign and went inside and saw her on a stool at the bar. Despite the time he’d spent in Lansing as a state cop, he had never gotten familiar with the fastest routes; he’d never cared to, knowing his time in the capital was temporary. By contrast, Bathsheba loved the city, knew the shops and restaurants, and never tired of going out and feeling the whirl and smug superiority of government employees.

  Da Leigh sat so that her legs stretched out in front of her.

  “I like the way you walk,” she said when he sat down. “Self-confident, not quite cocky. Most men can’t pull that off.”

  He ordered a draft beer from the barmaid, but da Leigh amended the request. “Two aquavits,” she said. “Linie.”

  He protested mildly. “I have a long drive tonight.”

  “It’s true,” she said. “You people really are Boy Scouts.”

  “It’s common sense,” he said, “not moral high ground.”

  She laughed and clucked appreciatively. “So,” she said. “The Garden.”

  He waited for her to take the lead. The aquavits were delivered in tall shot glasses. The woman lifted hers, held it out to him, and clicked his glass, saying “Skoal.” She swallowed hers in one gulp, set the glass down, and ordered two more.

  He drank as she drank, felt the aquavit explode in his belly like a plume of rolling napalm.

  “I write a lot of administrative rules,” she said. “And believe it or not, it’s an art.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “My hand was on Order Seventeen,” she said. “Start to finish.”

  “For whom?”