Killing a Cold One

by Joseph Heywood

  “One thou a day, plus expenses with a cap, and a modest bonus when I take the beast.”

  “What kind of bonus?”

  “I’m thinking ten.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Face facts: You’re between a rock and a hard place. Without me, the windigo will keep killing.”

  “A windigo is a human being possessed by an evil spirit?”

  “Simplified, yes.”

  Grady Service glared at the man. “You know who is doing this?”

  “I may have some notions,” Lupo said.

  Serviced exhaled. “That’s not good enough. Give me something concrete.”

  “Jill and Dorie Moulton.”

  “Who are?”

  “Your first two bodies. They’re Rose Monroe’s nieces, from Nelson River; they’ve been coming down here for years. They came last spring to see Martine Lecair.”

  “How can you be sure?” Service asked.

  “Dorie’s tattoo. And I knew them both.”

  “Both born in Nelson River.”

  “Yes.”

  “Records there?”

  “The tribe has them. Probably copies at the First Nations office in Winnipeg as well.”

  “You knew this and never said a word.”

  “I needed time to think about it.”

  Service paused. “I can’t get it out of my mind that Canada’s Canada. Apples, oranges, like that?”

  “You have a windigo here now. And it’s not the first one.”

  “Bullshit,” Service said.

  Lupo smiled. “Sidnaw, 1944.”

  “Documented?”

  “I’m certain your army will have records. They handled the problem.”

  “Your source on this?” Thank God for Shark.

  “There are many.”

  I bet there are, asshole. “Did your sources smile when they gave you the information about the Sidnaw case?” Service asked, and stood up. “Thanks for the names. We’ll check them out, but no go on the consultant deal.”

  “You’ll regret this,” Lupo said.

  Service looked the man in the eye and started to leave the room, heard Lupo ask behind him, “Can I go now?”

  “That’s up to Detective Pykkonen,” Service said over his shoulder and closed the door to the room. Limey was waiting and said, “I can make the calls on those names for you.”

  “Check around, see what Lupo’s financial situation is. He seems a little eager for cash.”

  “Posthaste?”

  “Definitely. Tell him he can’t leave town unless he clears it with you. Tell him we’re weighing the consultant deal versus charges for conspiracy to interfere with an investigation by withholding evidence. And tell Shark thanks.”

  “Every now and then the old hubby coughs up a gem,” she said. “You think Lupo’s involved in this thing?”

  “Hard to judge, but let’s try to keep close tabs on him for a while.”

  Shark was outside, contentedly puffing on his pipe.

  “Tell me again how the windigo thing came to be in the POW camp,” Service said.

  “Old game warden down there, Hans Kohler, his grandpa come over from Germany in 1920, hated the Kaiser. He was the one brung the idea to his nephew Fritz, guard at the camp. Hans got the bear from the loggers, knew army was concerned about escapes; knew if anybody ran, he’d get called in to search, and that didn’t interest him. Talked to his nephew, gave him the story of the windigo, brought the bear to camp, and it all grew from that.”

  “Your grandpa was in on it?”

  “No, Hans told him later. Fishing chums, eh.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Fritz, his nephew, the guard.”

  “Who else did Fritz tell?”

  “Just me, old fishing chum. Used ta fish together, but artritis got ’im real good now. I still take game and trout to ’im. He knew all the great brookie spots.”

  “What do you mean, you still take game to him. He’s alive?”

  “Yeah sure, lives in downtown Chassell, ninety now; still in pretty good shape, you don’t count arthritis. Got all his hair and choppers.”

  “The guard Fritz is alive.”

  “Just said that. You want to talk to him?”

  Service looked at his watch.

  Wetelainen interpreted. “Old Fritz is a night owl—listens to books on tape, watches satellite TV stuff, sleeps late mornings. Follow me on down, I introduce the two of youse. He lives right off 41.”

  •••

  Fritz Kohler had white whisker stubble, white hair, and looked twenty years younger than he was. Shark told the man, “Grady here wants to know ’bout Krauts and windigo. He’s a CO, like your uncle Hans.”

  “You a nitprick, too?” the old man asked. “We used ta shoot deer now and den, for change of grub at camp, yeah? But Unc, he said dis wass wrong, ordered us stop. Dem boys find deer in yards, use Thompsons, kill whole bunch. Even I didn’t like dat much greed. Told Unc. He followed ’em, caught ’em red-handed, arrested ’em, and JP t’rew case out on account dey army, an’ it wartime. Unc tell ’em, catch ’em again, wun’t be no trip to JP, he just beat tar outten ’em on da spot.”

  I’d do the same, Service told himself. “Who knows the real story of the windigo?”

  “Yalmer, youse, couple chums gone ta see God.”

  “Were the camp officers in on the scam?”

  “Just me. Unc tell me how tell story good, convince ’em all it real. Guards and POWs all t’ought it real enough, I guess.”

  “Anyone ever ask you about this? Maybe a man named Lupo?”

  Kohler grinned. “Ast ’bout what? Old man like me don’t ’member nuttin’. I seen dat Lupo bird on da TV. Loopy, ask me.”

  “You’re all right with Yalmer telling me?”

  “S’okay. He call me, ast okay first. I said sure, go ’head, happen long time back, eh.”

  “How did you end up at Camp Sidnaw?” Service asked the old man.

  “Was twenty, army found out I speak real good German, send me Sidnaw. Most guards speak ’er pret’ good, POWS didn’t know dat. Helped us keep track of dose monkeys.”

  “What did you do after the war?”

  “Move to Marquette in ’46, went Nort’ern, got teacher degree, taught Houghton High ’50 t’ru ’85. History, social studies. Since den, substitute some, fish, hunt, hang out wit’ da boys and have some chuckles. But dey all dying, eh? Me, too, someday.”

  Grady Service started home, amazed at the unimaginable history old people walked around with in their heads. What a waste. Then he thought about Fritz Kohler spinning his yarn and began laughing out loud. This place, these people. My place, my people!

  46

  Friday, December 26

  NEGAUNEE

  Christmas had been an abbreviated moment, hardly marked, just him and Shigun and Tuesday. Service and his team were gathered in the State Police post’s conference room, ready to hear what Friday had learned.

  Kristy Tork had sent prints earlier that week and results were back from the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS).

  “The hit-and-run victim is Wendell John Bellator, seventy-eight, of Nett Lake, Minnesota,” said Friday. “He was a member of the Bois Forte Chippewa tribe, retired sergeant with the Nett Lake Police Department.” Friday looked at the men. “Korean vet, Purple Heart, Silver Star, Combat Infantryman Badge. The Nett Lake chief told me Bellator was very low-key, but an extremely efficient cop.”

  “This Bellator lived on a rez?” Tree asked.

  “The chief didn’t say. No relatives. He’s the last in his line. I got the feeling our colleague was telling me just enough to get me to go away.”

  “Surprise,” Service said.

  “The chief said the man�
��s Indian name is Na-bo-win-i-ke, and that he was in Michigan on a hunting trip. I told the chief the regular deer season ended eighteen days ago, and he said, ‘I heard that, too.’ ”

  “The red wall,” Service said. Meaning silence. Indians often had little use for white cops and their courts.

  Friday looked at the men. “Anne Campau woke up this morning. She has no idea how she ended up where she did. The post CO talked to her. She said she got Chet Saville’s call, went out to meet him, and sent Chet to get Jack Igo and his tracking dogs. Then she thinks she saw something under the tree where the body was hanging, so she moved over to it, and the next thing she knew, she was at the bottom of the canyon and there was a rotted pack with the signal panels at an old camp site. She rallied long enough to make a fire and set up the signal.”

  “Does she have any idea who grabbed her, or why?

  “No, only that she thinks he came down out of the trees and knocked her cold. She thinks he drugged her, but tox panel shows nothing. Once she got dumped, her body metabolized whatever he used. There was some evidence of ketazamine, which suggests she got stuck with the trank, but it’s just not possible to know.” Friday looked worn out and frustrated.

  “How’d she end up in the canyon?” Treebone asked.

  “She said she was strapped to the back of the four-wheeler and came to and managed to throw herself off the thing, and then she scrambled like hell and went over the lip and fell into the gorge. There was a small bag of energy bars on the vehicle and she managed to get hold of those and take them with her. Stuffed them in her shirt. God must have been looking out for her. She could have been killed. Whoever grabbed her must have assumed she was dead and went on. She found the refuge where you found her, and prayed.”

  Doesn’t exactly advance our cause,” Service said. “What did she see under the trees?

  Friday exhaled and shook her head. “That’s all she remembers. Next item, the body out there that day is not Sarah Root. She took her kids downstate and she’s still there. Campau confirms it wasn’t Root because she knew the woman and had written two OUILs on her. The body is someone else.”

  Friday paused. “Next item, the ME says massive trauma is the cause of death on Mr. Bellator; time of death is zero seven hundredish, catastrophic damage on the victim’s entire left side. He must have pivoted at the last second before impact. Walking along, his back to traffic, he might have sensed or heard something, turned, and bam. His left hand deformity is congenital. Also, he’s got major scarring on his face, very old damage. Dr. Tork thinks the scar coloration indicates an old wound, but there are also some very large, nasty scars down the man’s chest, and they don’t look as old as the facial stuff. Tork told me the chest scars looked like they came from claws, or talons. I think she was joking.” She looked around. “No comments?”

  Service said, “Somebody needs to get out to Minnesota to gather information face-to-face from the dead man’s tribal chairman.”

  “You volunteering?” Friday asked Service.

  “At some point,” he said. “I don’t exactly feel it pulling at me.”

  “Next item: Jen Maki got paint flecks off the vick’s clothes.”

  “Chrome?” Treebone asked.

  “Blue paint.”

  “Miracle in the day of plastic cars,” Noonan griped.

  “She ought to have a solid shot at a manufacturer match,” Friday said, adding, “She’s working on it now. Last item: I’m going to release Lamb Jones’s body for burial. Her mom and sister are coming up from Niles. Figure a week, maybe ten days from now, early January.”

  “Cremation and memorial?” Service asked.

  “Don’t know yet. She was Catholic, and her mom will have to find a place. Whenever it happens, we ought to be there to see who shows up,” Friday said, and added, “I know Terry beat up on his wife, but I just don’t see him as the killer.”

  Service agreed.

  47

  Saturday, December 27

  SLIPPERY CREEK CAMP

  There was a black Cadillac hearse parked against the snowbank along the road just beyond Service’s cabin when he returned Saturday night. It was an older model with prominent fins and a bulging hump-like trunk. champ’s funeral home was printed on a square magnetic sign affixed to the side door. Lights were on in the house. Allerdyce, he expected.

  Instead, he found Joan Champ sitting on a chair in the kitchen, her arms and legs crossed, frown on her face, body language Service interpreted as the fortress: No entry, me here, you there, keep it so. There was a small-caliber nickel-plated snub-nosed revolver on the table in front of her.

  “I had to get inside,” she said. “Your door was unlocked.”

  He doubted her story. “That piece loaded?” Service asked.

  “Wouldn’t be worth much without bullets,” she shot back. “You’d think a cop would know that.”

  Service got his hand on the pistol and eased it aside. “What’s going on?” he asked, sitting down. She was skinny, baby-faced, sensual in a way that was more than the sum of her parts. He looked around the house, saw nothing unusual.

  “I could use that drink now,” she said.

  He hadn’t offered. “Preference?”

  “Strong hootch, poured stiff, if you don’t mind.”

  He fetched a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, found a glass, put it in front of her, and poured a couple of fingers.

  She gulped it down and set the glass in front of her. She drank without coughing, flushing, or sweating. Down the hatch with no effect seen.

  “Hit me again.”

  “Limit of one in this joint,” he announced.

  “That might be a mistake,” she countered.

  He had no idea what she meant. Why is she here? He was in no mood for company. “The whiskey?”

  “Me coming here,” she said, “considering your reputation with women. People tell me you’re peculiar, the legendary rugged individualist, and you have a way with women—that they’re drawn to you. Although as I look at you, I simply cannot imagine why. I thought I’d see you in an official capacity tomorrow . . . one might say that was my intention . . . but I happened to see your camp, you know, and it seemed like a safe harbor. I felt compromised. Do you mind my saying that?”

  She’s scared shitless. “I don’t mind,” he said. First the fortress body language, now this, whatever this was, a half-baked come-on. Very serious crossed wires here, mixed signals, meaning extreme complications. “You’re safe here,” he said.

  “I spent the afternoon at work with my father,” she said. “People think my sister and I don’t know what’s going on, but we do, we surely do. He’ll never get better. I’ve always taken pride in my ability to deal with reality, the world as it is, not as I might wish it to be—you understand?”

  Which reality is hers? “Better tell me about it,” he said.

  “Never mind that I’ve never known how I really wanted to be,” she said, turning toward him. “I’ve been very, very naughty at times, I can assure you. The point is that when I got home tonight, the door was wide open. My sister is in Minneapolis, diddling her latest beau. I locked the doors before I left earlier today. Do you know the difference between a doctor and an undertaker?”

  New page from a new songbook. He decided to say nothing.

  “If you’re dead, who cares?” she said, and let loose a sort of scared, yelping laugh. “I’ve never killed a customer; how about you?”

  Shock for sure. He left her sitting there for a moment, eased over to the phone, and dialed Treebone, who had stopped at the Happy Hour Bar for a drink with Noonan. “You guys hit the point of no return yet?” he asked Tree. Noonan was with him.

  “Both of us are having trouble gettin’ off the ground,” his friend reported gloomily.

  “Call a county road cop and get over to Champ’s Funeral Home in Ishpeming. Do it fa
st and quietly. Tell the deps no lights or woo-woos. There may be a B and E, and it may be in progress. I’ll meet you there.”

  “On it,” Treebone said, and hung up.

  “Ms. Champ,” Service said.

  “Technically it’s Mrs. Dragadis, but I prefer just Joan, like I Married Joan on TV, or that d’Arc tootsie of history, though I am certain my pain tolerance is considerably less than either namesake.” She looked into his eyes. “I can assure you I’m no saint, and only technically a wife, legally speaking. My husband is a major in the US Army, currently in Iraq with his gun. We’ve never gotten around to filing the papers and so forth.”

  Rambling—volume of words as a shield, blocking out reality. “We have to go back to your place,” he said.

  “I’m not liking this insistence on the collective pronoun and must confess I lean toward never going there again. Like for-fucking-never. Can I please have one more snort?”

  He poured her another shot of Jack. “We have to go check it out.”

  “May I offer another alternative,” she said, starting to unbutton her blouse.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, tossing her coat at her.

  48

  Sunday, December 27

  ISHPEMING

  It was closing in on midnight on Saturday as they waited in the hearse while Noonan, Treebone, and a deputy named Berghuis went through the funeral home. The portable 800 crackled with static on the seat between them. Joan Champ stared straight ahead, showing no interest or emotion. Service wondered where her mind had gone.

  “Grady, Suit. You might want to bop on in. We’re in the basement.”

  “What’s in the cellar?” Service asked Champ.

  “Embalming. My dad calls it the beauty parlor. His business is everything to him. He was like an artist, really. Now hear this: I am not sitting out here alone while you go inside.”

  Still loopy.

  Together they entered the basement, painted white with a white tile floor and intensely bright overhead lights. It was sterile, overwhelming. There was a small laboratory off the main work area. A sign on the door said autopsy samples. A stainless-steel refrigerator was on its side, the door broken off its hinges and flung across the room, broken glass scattered everywhere, twinkling in the bright light. Stainless-steel containers were scattered about like discarded toys. No need to ask what was in the fridge. Every morgue and funeral home had one or more just like it, but Grady Service sensed he was missing something obvious.