“You two were an item?” Service asked.
“We kind of hung out for a couple weeks is all. It wasn’t nothing serious, Grady. We were both just looking for some fun. Pure slam-bam short-time, that’s all. Celia don’t know,” he added. Celia was his wife, mother of their four kids.
“Okay, you admit you were with her. Good. Just keep telling us the truth. You said she was all right when you left her. Tell me about that. At her car . . . at the Ice Train?”
Here Daugherty averted his eyes. “We were still out there. She got out to cool off, said somebody had been watching us and it creeped her out big-time. I got out to investigate, got my riot gun and followed tracks cross-country into some pines, but it was cold, I was pretty underdressed, and I was starting to freeze, so I backtracked to the cruiser. When I got there she was gone. Tire tracks, but no footprints. Looked like they had been swept clean right by the cruiser, mine included. There were vehicle tracks, so I figured she’d called somebody and split. You know how hinky-dink she could be. She was just like that, up and do whatever the hell she wanted.” Daugherty looked at Service. “I would never hurt her, Grady. I couldn’t.”
“What did you follow into the woods?” Service asked.
“Tracks she’d pointed me to. I figured they belonged to whoever had been watching.”
“Were those tracks still there when you returned?”
“I don’t remember. I was so damn pissed she was gone, I wasn’t seeing all that clearly.”
“How long were you gone from your patrol?”
Daugherty shook his head. “Twenty minutes, thirty—I don’t know.”
She had called someone and been picked up in twenty or thirty minutes. Not likely, even if she could get cell service way out there.
“Did you go back to her car or her home, to see if she was all right?”
“I meant to, honestly, I did, but when I got into the patrol car, I got a call from Central. There was an eighteen-wheeler wrapped around another truck out on US 41, and the Troops were screaming for county help, so I rolled. By the time I was clear of that, my shift was almost done. I checked out and went home. Celia don’t like me being late.”
Service guessed Celia wouldn’t much like him screwing a coworker, either.
Nonetheless, it seemed unlikely that Terry was a killer, and the mutilation of Lamb Jones aside, it seemed impossible that he had killed the other victims. “Did you guys have an argument?” Service asked.
“No,” Daugherty said. “We just, like, did the deed, and we were getting ready to leave. She said she wanted to cool off and went outside. Everything went downhill from there. I figured she went squirrel and into one of her snits, and bugged out. Geez oh Pete, everybody knows how flighty she is.”
Flighty enough to take off in the snow naked? Service wondered.
“Terry, you want to take a ride out there with us and walk us through what happened?”
“I keep thinking maybe I ought to get a lawyer,” the deputy said.
“You know your rights, Terry. If you want one, just say so. But remember—I’m trying to help you. Maybe you should let this work first, then decide. I’ll read you your rights officially and you can keep them in mind as we go through this. What do you think?”
“Okay; I know you’re a stand-up guy.”
Friday came back into the interview room. “For what it’s worth, Terry, I also don’t think you killed her, but you know the drill. You need to understand that we’re going to pull all the evidence we can and let that talk. Even if you didn’t kill her, you’ve got yourself in a bad jam. I can’t believe a man of your experience would be so stupid as to knock off a piece in uniform in a patrol vehicle while you’re on duty. It’s ludicrous at best.”
“I don’t want to go to prison,” the deputy said disconsolately. “Or lose my job, or my pension. I have a family.”
Service sympathized, but figured the job and the pension—hell, maybe even the family—would soon be history, no matter how the murder investigation went. Some mistakes weren’t fixable.
31
Monday, November 24
MARQUETTE
The sun was up but hidden by clouds when Daugherty told Service to pull over. “This is about the place,” the deputy said, looking around.
“It, or about it?” Service asked.
“I’m pretty sure it was here.”
“Show us what happened,” Friday said. “Walk us through it.”
“Everything?” Daugherty asked, his voice breaking.
Service asked, “How long was she out of the vehicle in the snow, Terry?”
“Couple, three minutes, max,” the man answered.
“And from the time you got out of the cruiser and came back?” Friday asked.
“Twenty minutes, max.” Earlier it had been twenty or thirty, Service noted.
Daugherty led Service into the jack pines, heaped with snow. The storm had covered whatever tracks had been in the open areas. Service thought he saw remains of some tracks inside the jacks, but they were faint, and not worth much.
“How did you know where you were going?” Service asked his guide.
“It gets a lot thicker up ahead,” Daugherty said over his shoulder. “Some of the old guys in my dad’s crowd used ta hunt snowshoes in the brambles ahead. I got into the pines and, knowing what was ahead, turned around. I mean, what was the point? That crap is damn near impenetrable even in daylight, so I turned around. I was really shook up thinking somebody might have seen us—you know, in the cruiser. I wanted to run him down and appeal to his . . . hell, I didn’t want us to get caught. Is that so hard to understand?”
In some ways it wasn’t.
“You did her on duty time in a county vehicle,” Service said.
Daugherty hung his head. Service looked at his watch. When they got back to Friday’s vehicle, it had been twenty minutes, exactly.
•••
There were four or five reporters at Friday’s office when they got back, none with the intensity or skills of some downstate journos, but the young and aspiring ones up here could be overly aggressive when they thought they might have a story that could propel them to bigger jobs and far better pay in more lucrative markets. The word was that Noreen Seiche from the Marquette television station was one such ambitious specimen, so much so that the others called her “Sledgehammer” for her confrontational style.
Seiche was immediately on Friday. “What’s the latest on the Jones murder? We hear you have a suspect in custody.”
“Nobody’s been charged,” Friday said calmly.
“Does that mean someone is about to be charged?” Seiche pressed.
“It means exactly what it means. English is your first language, right, Noreen?”
“Some people in town are saying you don’t really know what you’re doing, and that your record with recent murders demonstrates continuing incompetence. Do you have a comment?”
Calmly again, Friday said, “Just that I heard the same thing about you, Noreen. I guess uninformed opinion is the last frontier of all free men.”
“Bitch,” Sledgehammer muttered to her camera operator, who looked to be about twelve.
Friday and Service went back to the offices that were off limits to civilians, and Service looked at a large county map on the wall. Friday tapped a spot. “Found her body right there.”
“Other side of the swamp from where he allegedly stopped chasing the alleged peeper,” he said.
“Almost three-quarters of a mile,” she agreed.
“What have you got from the lab?”
“Semen in her privates, stomach, and on the seat. Jen Maki ran a quick protein analysis, confirming the fluids are Daugherty’s. We’re getting DNA, too, but that takes a while.”
Service said. “He doesn’t deny being with her. DNA won’t tell us he killed her.”
“I never said he killed her,” Friday said, rolling her chair across the floor to her desk. “I’m tempted to recommend we kick him loose. The sheriff is going to suspend him with pay, pending the outcome of the department’s investigation.”
“Some people will be underwhelmed by that.”
“I know,” she said. “But I just can’t believe he killed her. The evidence is circumstantial.”
“Cases get made on circumstantial evidence all the time,” Service reminded her. “Her undies, his semen, and he admits to what they did. A lot of cases get made on a lot less than what you have.”
“Why would he kill her?” she asked.
“Maybe she’d had enough of his company and he took exception.”
“Grady,” she said.
“Look, Tuesday, you’re still relatively new up here. Lamb was . . .” He looked around before finishing. “Lamb knew a lot of men.”
“As in, knew them biblically?” she said.
“And then some,” Service said. “I’ve always heard she’d go hot and heavy with someone for a couple weeks and cut it off, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “No warning.”
Friday stared at him. “You would know this how?”
“Yooper telegraph, ” he said.
“Firsthand knowledge,” she said. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“No way, and hey, we’re not talking an exclusive club here. She had a lot of partners, and she was also the best dispatcher the county’s ever had. I liked her, but away from Dispatch she talked about little else except men.”
“You’re suggesting maybe Terry couldn’t handle it.”
“I don’t know; Terry did a lot of fishing, but I suspect he didn’t get many bites. Then suddenly Lamb takes the bait. Personality like that and facing rejection, you never know.”
“There was no sign of anger or a fight, Grady, on her or him. I really don’t think he did this. And since Lamb’s not Native American, it makes this case different than the others. So, what the hell?”
Service said nothing and went back to see Daugherty, who had already written a statement. Service asked him to do it again, starting from the beginning. When he finally finished writing, the deputy handed Service a pile of notebook paper.
Service read silently, “Lamb Jones had me suck her nipples.” He winced and skipped down a couple of paragaphs. The report continued,
Lamb said, How come I got to take off all my clothes and you don’t? And I told her, what if we got an emergency call and we had to roll? I’d be dressed and she could start dressing on the way. If we were both naked, where would that put us?
Service felt disgust. How demeaning is this? He kept reading:
She leaned her back against the mesh between front and back and laughed, said, I’d figured all the angles. She was in a good mood. I told her that was my job.
Lamb said, Somebody catches me bouncing on your manroot in the backseat of the cruiser, neither of us will have jobs anymore.
I asked her if she wanted me to take her back to her brother-in-law’s place. She said, Hell no, this deal really turns me on! Lamb really liked being on the edge. What, the risk? I asked her, and she said, All of it, everything. It’s like a fuck-me-Santa moment.
I asked her to tell me more and she got huffy. I like doing it, not talking about it, she said.
Me: But talking’s half the fun.
Her: Not for me, but then I never been married.
I told her she talked a blue streak at the office.
She told me, I got clothes on at the office. I just don’t like to talk with my clothes on the floor. Can we just do it again? Then she almost broke my zipper.
I don’t know how long we were at it. The windows got all fogged and my clothes were all stuck to me. Lamb was collapsed half on me and half in the corner of the backseat, breathing like she’d just run a mile, said she was burning up.
I offered to open a window.
She said, No, I need outside. I got leg cramps.
It was no wonder. I looked at my watch. We’d been at it steady for forty-eight minutes, a personal record.
Lamb got out, and I told her she’d get icycles on her boobs, and she said that might feel real good. I told her she was beautiful and she told me I had always said that just to get her clothes off, and I reminded her she came to me, not the other way around, and the next thing I know I hear her yell, Jesus H, Terry. Somebody’s out here!
I got out, opened the front door, grabbed my belt and weapon, made her get back in the front seat. It was real close, right over there, she said, and I could see tracks where she was pointing. I started the engine, turned on the spots, and spun them around, but couldn’t see anyone moving.
I asked her how far away he was, and she said, It, not he.
I said, What the hell do you mean by it?
You see it, you’ll know, she said.
I got my flashlight and went and looked around. There were footprints not ten feet from the front of the squad. From there they would have seen a lot and heard everything.
Service stopped reading. It was a classic witness report—poorly written, largely unpunctuated, just a bolus of words and feelings expelled onto paper. She says she saw something; he sees prints and starts backtracking. Service went back to reading.
I was shook up. Jesus, she was standing outside, sauna-naked, and what if somebody saw us. We should have used her brother-in-law’s place. Or something. The tracks took me to where I showed you. Jesus, the nearest houses to where we were had to be like seven, eight miles.
What kind of tracks? Service asked himself, made a note, and kept reading:
Terry, let’s just go, that’s what she told me. I’m scared. But I told her it would be just fine, I’d just follow the tracks and deal with the peeper and everything would be fine, and when I came back, she was gone. I nearly had a heart attack!!
I got way into the pines, no parka, no pack, my sweat freezing, I had to turn back, and I figured if some asshole came forward and accused us, we’d just deny it, two against one. We could do damage control. So I expected the cruiser’s engine to still be running, but it was off. I yelled her name, Lamb! And she didn’t answer, and I got scared and went back to work. I figured she was a big girl and could take care of herself.
Service called over to the jail and asked for Daugherty. It took several minutes to get the detainee to a phone.
“It’s Grady, Terry. What kind of tracks? Boots?”
Daugherty broke into inconsolable sobs.
Service stayed with his questions. “Pull yourself together, Terry. Boots?”
Daugherty said in a soft voice, “Unh-uh. Big animal.”
Fuck.
•••
A statement in the case file was from the high school kid named Collins whose dog had found the body. The way the kid explained it, his dog was way out in front and when he found her, she was chewing on the body, which he described as blue, with frozen white hair, like Cruella De Vil.
Service drove over to Friday’s place. “You read the Collins boy’s report?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Including that he found his dog feeding on the body?”
“There will be another DNA this time,” she said. “Why?”
“About what you said earlier today . . .”
“I said a lot of things.”
“About Lamb not being tribal? She was Sault tribe—I think.”
“Well, shit,” Friday said. “We didn’t need that.”
“Sorry,” he said. “And who the hell is Cruella De Vil?”
She smiled. “Disney character, One Hundred and One Dalmatians.”
He shrugged. “What is that?”
“Do you pay attention to anything but work?”
Grady Service smiled. “You.
”
Friday smiled and shook her head, whispered, “Hopeless.”
32
Tuesday, November 25
SLIPPERY CREEK CAMP
Two days before Thanksgiving, and Service had not found time to think about the holiday. Cale Pilkington had called the night before to announce that paleobiologist/anthropologist Nancy Krelle was coming from the lab in Oregon to examine the site where the wolf tooth had been found.
Service had called the Ottawa National Forest office in Ironwood and talked to USFS Special Agent Darcella Dacilente, who often partnered with Denninger and prowled the McCormick Wilderness Tract when she had time off, even in winter.
“Service,” she greeted him. “You hear about Dani’s massive deer bust?”
“She did great,” he said.
Dacilente hailed from Anadarko, Oklahoma. “Hawn,” the special agent drawled,“Dani told me all ya’ll done handed her ’at case.”
“Whatever,” he grumped. “It got handed to me, and I just passed it on.”
“Wassup?” Dacilente asked. Because of her initials she was known around Upper Peninsula law enforcement circles as Double D.
“How’re snow conditions up in the McCormick, Ketchkan Lake country?” Service asked.
“I know a guy lives on Lake Arfelin off the Peshekee Grade. Talked at ’im yesterday. Got in mind to camp over ’at way at the end of the month. Old boy says there’s a foot a white crap on the ground, and more was falling yesterday. I’m guessin’ they p’obably got a little more up higher by Ketchkan,” she said. “Off-piste should be no problem. All y’all headed up ’at way?”
Off-piste was ski jargon for “off-trail.” “Maybe; not sure. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“How long?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Let me know if you stay and we’ll hook up.”
“D, how much time do you spend up in that country?”
“Probably close to a month a year between vacation and patrols. Why?”
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