Running Dark

by Joseph Heywood

  Service nodded. The deputy’s comment was a way of acknowledging that a brother cop had gone over the edge and inexplicably come back. It wouldn’t be mentioned again in his presence unless he brought it up, a subtle recognition that each officer who survived a close call needed to work out the aftermath in his own time and in his own way.

  He got right to the point. “You guys up for a visit to STP?”

  “Why?” Shelby asked immediately. “Any DNR violations were secondary to the felonies.”

  “I’m not questioning that,” he said, “and I’m not trying to butt in. I just want to take a walk-through for a little peace of mind. It got pretty confusing that night.”

  The men looked at each other, and Wayne said, “What the hell.”

  “How’s Eugene?” Service asked.

  “They moved him from the hospital to lockup. They have him segregated.”

  “Because of a threat?”

  “Because he’s as simple as a brick. Even his lawyer’s having a hard time understanding him.”

  “Did Hegstrom take him on?”

  “Nope, just the girl. Chomsky and Rhino have their own court-appointeds. Rhino refused to share.”

  Service expected the camp road to be drifted over with snow and was surprised to see it freshly plowed.

  There was a black New Yorker parked next to the camp building where the stabbing took place. Service pulled in behind the Chrysler and waited for the deputies to arrive. The Chrysler was sparkling by U.P. spring standards, almost no salt scabs or sand buildups on the bumpers.

  The deputies picked their way through the mud to his patrol car. “When did the county release this place as a crime site?”

  “Mid-April?” Shelby asked Wayne, who nodded in agreement. “Would have been earlier, but Hegstrom wanted to keep it roped off.”

  Why would Hegstrom want that? Service wondered.

  Service knocked on the door and, after a long delay, an elderly man opened the door a crack and peered out. “I thought the police were done with this place.”

  “Mr. Agosti?” Service said.

  “Who else would it be, more hoodlums?”

  “I’m Conservation Officer Service,” he said, turning to the other men. “Deputies Wayne and Shelby. We’re sorry if we’ve interrupted you.”

  The man said, “What is it this time?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Service said. The old man was unexpectedly gruff.

  “I wanted to come up in January before Angie and I left for Florida, but the detective said no. So I asked him to call me when the place was released and we headed on down to Florida. You think he’d have the courtesy to call? Not a chance. I had to call long-distance to find out. Angie and I worked hard for what we’ve got. We saved. We don’t throw money around.”

  Talk about a non sequitur soliloquy, Service thought. No money to throw around? The man owned two camps on a nice piece of property, drove a nearly new automobile, and he and the wife spent at least part of the winter in Florida. “Did you build these places?” Service asked. There had been no camps in the area years ago when he’d been here.

  “With my own two hands,” the old man said.

  “Can we come in?” Service asked.

  “Why?” Agosti challenged. “So you can trash the camp again?”

  Service glanced at Wayne, who arched an eyebrow. “Is this a bad time? Did we catch you on the way out?” Service asked.

  “Just don’t have time is all,” Agosti said. “Come back tomorrow. I got things to do, and Angie’s still in Florida.”

  “Did you drive up from Florida?” Deputy Wayne asked.

  “Four days,” the old man said, holding up three fingers. “Rain all the way.”

  Service looked back and saw Shelby peering into the vehicle and trying a door handle.

  “What’s all the stuff in the car?” Shelby yelled out as he walked toward the cabin.

  “Stuff the wife wants,” the old man said.

  “For Florida?” Shelby asked.

  “That’s right, for Florida,” the man said.

  “Cross-country skis for Florida?” Shelby asked.

  “’Course not; those I got to drop to my granddaughter in Chicago.”

  Deputy Shelby said, “Can you show us some ID, Mr. Agosti?”

  “You guys come trash my camps and now I’m the criminal?”

  The old man’s reactions from the start had not been normal, Service told himself.

  “Your car’s locked,” Shelby said.

  “What, I’m supposed to leave it open? A body can’t be too careful.”

  “Identification, sir?”

  The old man opened the door slightly and patted at his trousers. “Guess I left it in the other room,” he said and started to close the door, but Harry Wayne stuck his boot in to block it. Service heard the old man go scuttling away, moving with amazing alacrity.

  They pushed the door open and went inside. “Some look-see this is,” Shelby said. “Mr. Agosti?” he called out.

  No answer.

  Service wandered into the kitchen. It had not been cleaned up. As soon as it warmed up, the dried blood would attract flies and other insects. What was the old man doing here?

  Shelby called out again. “Mr. Agosti?”

  Wayne looked at Service. “He’s gone.”

  “No way,” Service said.

  “Beam me up, Scotty?” Shelby said with a grin.

  “He’s here,” Service said. “He was out of sight ten seconds max. He’s not Houdini.”

  “Neither was Houdini,” Shelby said.

  “What?”

  “Houdini’s real name was Erik Weisz.”

  “Get serious,” Service said, rolling his eyes.

  “I am serious, that was his name,” Shelby insisted.

  “Let’s open the Chrysler,” Wayne said.

  “You got a key?” Service wanted to know.

  The deputies laughed.

  “Illegal search,” Service said.

  Wayne said, “He couldn’t or wouldn’t identify himself. He’s got to be a hundred and forty years old, and he’s got cross-country skis and an uncased rifle in the backseat of his vehicle. Leave this to us, woods cop.”

  “You never said anything about a rifle,” Service said.

  “Up here everybody has a rifle.”

  “Uncased?”

  “That too.”

  Service looked at Harry Wayne for support, but got none.

  “There’s a Milwaukee Journal on the front seat,” Shelby said.

  “You can buy them at Benny’s in Gladstone,” Service said. “Daily. Sometimes I even buy one.”

  “Game wardens can read?” Shelby asked.

  “No jokes, guys. Something stinks here.”

  “We should call Sniffer,” Harry Wayne said to Shelby.

  “Who?” Service wanted to know.

  Harry Wayne said, “Kharlamov. He’s our new guy. He moved up from Pontiac. He was a tunnel rat in Vietnam. He can smell a fart in a tornado.”

  “He claims,” Shelby added.

  “We’ll give him a test,” Wayne said.

  The banter of the two deputies was beginning to annoy him. “Call him,” Service said, sitting down at the dining room table and rubbing his head. It was beginning to ache again. Where the hell had the old man disappeared to?

  He was dozing when he sensed someone nearby, and awoke to find a craggy-faced man with a shaved head. “You’re Service?” the stranger whispered. “Marines, right?”

  Service nodded.

  The man said, “I heard. I’m Alex Kharlamov, Highlands, K-nine and tunnels.”

  Kharlamov was short with powerful shoulders and a thick neck. “Where’re
the guys?”

  “I told them to stay outside. They talk too much. Laurel and Hardy told me what happened,” Kharlamov said. “There’s got to be a hidey-hole.”

  Service was impressed with the new man’s presence. He spoke so softly, his words barely above a whisper. “Did you search?” the new deputy asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Good,” the man said. “Ten seconds was the lag time?”

  “About.”

  Kharlamov sat down Indian-style on the floor. “You fish for trout?”

  “When I get the chance.” Which had not been often enough.

  Kharlamov smiled. “I came up here for the trout. Fewer, smaller fish mean fewer people. I like to fish alone.”

  “You’ve come to the right place,” Service said.

  “Could afford it, I’d be a hermit,” the man said. “You fish hatches or attractors?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “Me, I’m a hatch man. It’s like surveillance. Sometimes conditions seem right and the bugs don’t show. The key is to be in the right place at the right time, and to wait. Most people aren’t patient enough.” Kharlamov looked over at Service. “We’re gonna have a hatch here.”

  “You get that from tea leaves or chicken guts?” Service asked.

  Kharlamov smiled. “There’s a vent grate in the roof overhang. Is there a basement?”

  “Not that we could see. Foundation’s poured, but it looks like a slab. The furnace is in a closet off the kitchen.”

  “Crawl space in the ceiling,” Kharlamov said, “too shallow for an attic, and the grate’s too large for the overhang. When you’re sight-fishing, what do you look for?”

  “Shadows first, parts of a fish next—never the whole thing.”

  The deputy grunted softly, slid a metal flask out of his jacket pocket, and held it out to Service. “Pepper vodka?”

  Service took the flask. It was inscribed with the words standard bet in an ornate script. He took a drink and handed it back. “Special meaning?”

  “Not anymore,” Kharlamov said. “You’re the one took the swim in the big water?”

  “Yeah.”

  Service got up and watched Wayne and Shelby start their vehicles and drive away. He had no idea where Kharlamov had parked. Only the Chrysler remained by the cabin.

  No more words were spoken for more than two hours. Kharlamov sat with his hand flat against the drywall, his eyes staring into a void.

  Just over two hours after the other deputies drove away, Kharlamov raised his hand and showed one finger, then two, nodding to make sure Service had seen.

  Service was behind the deputy, who had edged to the door of the bedroom where the stabbing had taken place. Service saw the barrel of a revolver poke into view and just as quickly, Kharlamov had the weapon in hand and the old man pinned by the throat against the wall, his face turning red and eyes bulging.

  Another figure came darting into the room, not looking left or right. Service shouted, “Police—freeze!” but the figure kept going through the front door. He followed to find Deputy Shelby on top of a struggling figure in the snow and mud. The deputies had dumped the vehicle and come back on foot to wait outside.

  They checked the two for identification. The old man had no wallet. The other prisoner was a young girl, twelve or thirteen, and she stared at them with hatred, refusing to talk. Shelby read them their rights, cuffed them, and put them in the back of Kharlamov’s patrol car, which Harry Wayne brought up to the cabin.

  Wayne stayed in the vehicle with the prisoners and radioed his sergeant.

  Service went back into the cabin and found Kharlamov in the bedroom the two had bolted from. The floor in the closet was propped open. The deputy handed him a flashlight and motioned for him to climb down.

  There was a sturdy ladder down to a landing and another ladder going straight up. Three wooden steps led down into a cellar, which was cold. Service shone the light around, saw rifles and clothes and chain saws and tools. “Looks like Laurel and Hardy missed the jackpot last time they were here,” Kharlamov said, a simple statement, no sarcasm.

  Service found it difficult to focus his thoughts, and when he finally managed to corral them, they were not on the mysterious goods, but on the trapdoor into the bedroom, Hegstrom’s questions, and Gumby’s blathering about “him-her.”

  41

  MARQUETTE, MAY 13, 1976

  “If not the girl, who?”

  Joe Flap agreed to let Service have his place in Trenary for the night, and a quick telephone call to Nikki-Jo Jokola secured her agreement to place another ad in the Manistique paper. He promised Nikki-Jo this would be the last one.

  Acting captain Dean Attalienti looked frazzled as Service stood in his doorway, waiting to be waved in. “You are supposed to be recuperating,” Attalienti said.

  “I am.”

  “We had another incident last night—three shots fired at the PB-4 off Garden. One of the rounds went through the cabin and missed Len by a couple of feet. He got out of rifle range, and two of our patrol units went through the village and came up empty-handed. This thing just keeps going on and on,” the acting captain lamented. “What do you want?”

  “The rifle from Middle Bluff.”

  “For what?”

  “Ballistic tests.” If he could find the missing slugs.

  Attalienti looked exasperated. “It was never fired at us.”

  That day. “Different case, sir.”

  The regional law boss said, “Don’t patronize me. It’s in the evidence locker. Sign a chain-of-custody form and leave it with Fern. You’re resting, right?”

  “Yessir.”

  He still had not located the slugs, but he delivered the rifle to the state police lab in Negaunee. The intake tech stared at him. “What’re we supposed to compare?”

  “I’m working on that,” Service said, feeling like a fool.

  Service got to the Marquette County Jail around 12:30 p.m.

  Eugene Chomsky’s lawyer had a new briefcase and a stiffness that suggested she was either new on the job, or not happy about this assignment. She didn’t smile when Marquette County Detective Kobera and Service walked into the interview room.

  “Emily Linton,” Kobera said. “Grady Service, DNR.”

  Service looked at a grinning Eugene Chomsky. “Hey, Grady!”

  “Hey, Gumby.”

  “Hey, Grady,” the boy repeated.

  “My client has nothing to say,” Linton said officiously.

  “Relax, Counselor. This won’t hurt your client,” Service said.

  “Sidebar outside the room,” Linton said.

  “We’re not in a courtroom,” Kobera told her. “Chill out, Emily.”

  Chomsky stared at Service. “Where badge?”

  “On my uniform,” Service said.

  “Like badge,” Chomsky said.

  Service glanced at Kobera. “Do you think we could get a badge for Gumby?”

  “You bet,” the detective said, leaving the room.

  “How are you feeling, Gumby?”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you seen Ivan?”

  “Got my own place,” the boy said proudly.

  “This is ludicrous,” Emily Linton said. “The boy can’t comprehend any of this.”

  “Grady,” Chomsky told her, pointing at Service. “Grady nice.”

  Service ignored her. “Can you help me with something, Gumby?”

  “Okay.”

  “Stand up.”

  “Eugene, remain where you are,” Linton ordered. To Service: “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Not Eugene,” the boy said. “Gumby.” He stood up. His lawyer looked at the ceiling in exasperation.

  Kob
era came back into the room and stood next to Linton.

  Service positioned the boy near the end of the table on the side opposite the door into the room. “You like to play pretend, Gumby?”

  The boy grinned. “Uh-huh.”

  “Can we pretend the table is a bed and you’re at the door of the bedroom? You remember that night, right? Remember, you stepped inside to turn on the lights?”

  “No,” the boy said with a tight jaw.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Door there,” the boy said, pointing at the other side of the room.

  Service smiled. “Right you are.” The boy remembered. He looked at Kobera as he walked the boy to the other end of the room. “The table’s the pretend bed, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You went into the bedroom to turn on the light.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, this is just pretend. I want you to step into the room like you did that night, okay?”

  The boy sucked in a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, stepping forward and turning to the right.

  “Where’s the light switch, Gumby?”

  The boy put his arm out. “Pretend?”

  “Right, pretend. Show me where it is.”

  “There,” the boy said, pointing to his right.

  “Good,” Service said. “That’s good. Now I want you to pretend to turn on the light and say ‘ouch’ when you get pretend-stabbed.”

  “I won’t stand for this,” Linton said, trying to rise.

  Kobera kept her pinned in her seat with his hand on her shoulder.

  “Pretend, right?” the boy asked Service, concern on his face.

  “Pretend. Nobody will hurt you. Turn on the light.”

  The boy took a half-step right, reached out with his right hand, made a small downward motion, turned to his left and said, “Ouch.” There was no emotion in his voice.

  Service sat on the table and asked Kobera to stand to the boy’s right. Service pushed himself back on the table. “This is about where she was,” he said. “Kneel,” he told the detective.

  Kobera nodded, got down on his knees, and made a couple of swipes with his arm, like he was stabbing at someone.

  “Good,” Service said. “Let’s do it again, and let Jimmy pretend too.”