“How’re the beasts?”
“Moody, practicing peaceful coexistence.”
“Did Karylanne call you about the animals?” he asked.
“Was that your bright idea?”
“Hers,” he said.
“I talked her out of it, reminded her she needs to focus on school and getting her rest. She doesn’t need two animals to complicate her life right now.”
“I agree.”
“Then why didn’t you tell her that?”
“Didn’t think fast enough.”
“Bullshit. All this makes me wonder sometimes if you think at all. How’s your assignment?”
“Plodding along.”
“The animals will be glad when you get home.”
“All this what makes you wonder?”
“You are thick,” McCants said, adding, “hopeless and thick.” And slammed the phone down.
Service remembered what Chewy had told him and moaned out loud. All these women! God!
44
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
LANSING, INGHAM COUNTY
Retired Lansing detective Backtrack Robuck called Monday night. It had taken him four days to find Patricia Allard.
“Guess I’m out of practice,” Robuck confessed. “I always thought it would be like riding a bike, but it’s not, and Allard is one slippery tootsie—more wary and careful than she needs to be, which suggests a heavy dose of professional paranoia.”
“You found her?”
“I’m tryin’ to tell you. She doesn’t turn tricks and she doesn’t suck profits up her nose through straws. She drinks and eats in moderation, and very few people ever meet her face-to-face. She keeps three very modest places around the city and never spends more than two consecutive nights in any one of them—like those assholes Castro and Saddam Hussein.”
“How do I find her?”
“She shows up at the North Lansing Country Club every night at eleven, goes upstairs, and stays exactly one hour. Sentio Agular, El Fontanero, screens all potential clients and handles all negotiations after she looks them over and gives the green light.”
“Meaning she must’ve seen me that night.”
“For sure. Customers never see her, only her girls. I’m thinking she saw you and recognized you because she’s altered her whole routine, and is taking a vacation from doing business on Comfort Street.”
“A vacation from all business?”
“She’s still working, my sources say, just out of a different place.”
“Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. I know where she’s sleeping tonight.”
“Spit it out, Robuck.”
“White Thunder Estates on the Grand River, just west of Grand Ledge. She’s working now out of a bar called Walpole’s in Mason. She’ll leave there at midnight and be at the house by twelve-thirty. It’s a gated community with live security; you could badge your way in, but then every asshole would know you’re there. You can get past security by boat. The house sits right on the river.”
Service wrote down the address and passed it to Denninger. “Goaler Lane,” she whispered, thumbing through her notes. “Sweet! It’s Fagan’s place,” she said, beaming a smile.
“No shit?” Service said.
“I worked hard to get that information,” Robuck said on the phone.
“Sorry about that. I was talking to another officer,” Service said. “Thanks for the help,” he added, and hung up. Service looked at Denninger’s note, and at her.
“A little luck finds its way home now and then,” she said.
“We’ll need a boat. Who’s the CO there?” he asked.
She opened her laptop and pulled up a state roster. “G. Laramie.”
“Grundoon Laramie.”
“That’s his nickname?”
“His given name. He comes from a big family. His folks named all their kids after Pogo characters.”
“Pogo?” she said. “Oh, that geeky lizard cartoony thing?”
“Alligator,” he said, feeling old.
“You know Laramie?”
“We were LED teammates at the Michigan All-Cop Shootout one year.”
“You were on our pistol team?’
“Just that one year. I don’t like guns.”
“I like guns,” she said.
“Good for you. It’s your constitutional right. Give it a few years, and a few hundred assholes packing illegally, and let’s see how you feel then.”
She ignored him. “Who won?”
“Not the paper targets,” he said.
CO Grundoon Laramie met them at Island Park, a block off the main drag in the center of Grand Ledge.
“How far?” Service asked.
“A couple of miles, give or take.”
Service and Denninger helped Laramie carry the canoe down to a shoreside eddy on the top of the island. The air was at 27 degrees. There was ice along the shoreline and some rafts of skiff ice floating in the water. “I hate canoes,” Service announced.
“Thought you Yoopers were born to them.”
“You don’t have to like them to use them. This ice gonna be a problem for us?”
“Nah,” Laramie said. “Might hear it scrape the sides, but it isn’t cold enough yet.”
“What’s the place like?” Service asked.
“No one in the DNR gets called here very often unless the rezzies got deer eating their precious gardens. I’ll take stern; Denninger, bow. Service, park your big ass in the middle like a living god and don’t be wiggling around.”
Service said, climbing in, “Don’t tip us over.”
The house looked dark. It was set on a limestone bluff one hundred feet above the river. Wooden steps switchbacked their way up the bluff. Laramie remained with the canoe while Service and Denninger made their way to the top. The steps made Service’s leg ache to the point where he began limping, cold air burning his lungs. The house was immense, two stories, turrets, showy; it looked old, a modern-day knockoff of something historical. A circular drive swung up to the house, which included a built-in garage underneath the main structure. The lawn was huge and extensively landscaped with shaped hedges and trees.
“Midnight in ten,” Denninger said.
“Get out to the street, and bump me on the 800 when the car comes in. Stay there and bump me again if a second vehicle arrives.”
“Are we expecting more than one?”
“I worship at the altar of what-if,” he said.
“Laramie told me you shot a perfect score,” she said.
“So did he; paper doesn’t shoot back.”
Denninger headed along the shadows of hedges. Light snow was beginning to fall but there was virtually no wind. Service positioned himself beside a tree to the side of the garage and stomped his feet to keep circulation going. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, or what conditions he faced; it seemed to him that he was always wearing the wrong boots. His calf muscle was sore from the canoe and the stair climb. When he retired, he told himself he would not miss night work—cold feet, achy muscles, chest congestion, snot-cicles hanging from his nostrils, windburn, frostbite, hypothermia—all the things civilians rarely faced and COs accepted as normal. He wished he had coffee and settled for a cigarette, which he cupped in his hand to hide the ember.
Damn you, Denninger, he told himself. You’re too young, too tempting, too damn willing. She and Nantz had been competitors before Nantz had been forced to drop out of the academy. He shuddered to think how Nantz would react to his even working with her.
“Vehicle turning into the driveway,” Denninger’s voice said softly over the radio. “Honda, I think.”
“Souls?”
“Just one.”
It was a small import, moving right along, the only sound its tires on the slushy driveway. The garage door began to rise, triggered electronically. He hadn’t counted on this. The vehicle drove inside and the door began to come down. He made a quick decision, rolled through the opening, and smacked his elbow on concrete, sending a sharp pain up his arm.
The lights came on in the garage, also remote-controlled. Interesting. He got to his knees and moved over to the rear of the Honda. The door opened, the driver got out, and it struck him that he had no legal reason to be inside. If she told him to leave, he would have no choice but to comply. There were no wants or warrants on her, and no probable cause for entering the premises.
When she shut the car door he stood up and walked around the rear of the vehicle toward her. “DNR, Conservation Officer.”
The woman turned and stared at him.
The face left him speechless. Honeypat Allerdyce was Patricia Allard!
Honeypat was the daughter-in-law of the U.P.’s most notorious poacher, and after her husband’s death, his sometime squeeze. A tangle with clan leader Limpy Allerdyce years ago had resulted in a gunshot wound for Service’s leg and a seven-year stint in Jackson Prison for the old poacher.
Honeypat had run things in his absence, and when Limpy got out, she resented his taking control again. There had been an alleged family war. Honeypat had tried to starve her father-in-law to death, and an Allerdyce enforcer named Jukka “Skunk” Kelo had sided with her and later disappeared without a trace. Kelo had once been described as a lamprey on ice. There was circumstantial evidence that Honeypat might have killed Kelo, but nothing solid.
Honeypat was a fine-looking woman, and a chameleon: She could look like trailer trash one minute and high-class the next. She was smart, cold-blooded, and a sexual predator, trying more than once to seduce Service. She had once told him they were a lot alike.
Honeypat had disappeared in the fall of 2002 at about the time Lorelei Timms was elected to replace Sam Bozian as governor. Honeypat had been seen in the U.P. only once in the two years since then—last summer at the Ojibwa casino in Baraga.
“Been a while,” Service said, turning on his tape recorder.
“Shoulda known youse’d keep on plowin’ ahead,” Honeypat said.
“I just wanted to talk to Patricia Allard. I had no idea it was you.”
She looked him up and down. “Youse’re here, might as well come in and I’ll make us some coffee. Stupid ta stand out here in grudge and yak.”
She led him through the house into a kitchen half the size of the entire ground floor of his cabin, made coffee with her winter coat and boots still on, and left him alone. She came back minutes later with fresh makeup, in a black dress and high heels. She looked like she fit the house.
“There’re warrants out on you,” he said as she poured coffee.
She sat down across the table from him. “Don’t bullshit me,” she countered with a grin. “Technically I’m a person of interest, but dere’s no warrants. I know how ta keep track of such tings.”
“Jukka Kelo disappeared,” he said.
“Youse tryin’ ta say somepin’?”
There was no evidence Kelo was dead, and little doubt she had tried to kill Limpy, but the old poacher would never admit to it or press charges. “Let’s talk about Fagan,” he said.
“Youse gonna read me my rights?”
“I’m talking to Patricia Allard, not Honeypat Allerdyce.”
“Your mind always drove Limpy batshit,” she said with a grin. “What aboot Fagan?”
“You provide services for him.”
“I don’t know what youse’re talkin’ about.”
“Mama Cold,” he said.
“Who’s dat? I read in da papers Quint might have his ass in some hot water. Dat true?”
“This is Fagan’s house,” Service said.
“Really? A friend arranged for me ta stay here. I didn’t know Quint had a place near Lansing.”
“The shit Fagan is up to is hurting people,” Service said. “We’re investigating, and when the charges come out, it will be messy as hell and your name will get dragged in, and from what I hear, your business operates best under the radar.”
She paused and studied him. “I’m not sayin’ I know anyting, but I mighta heard some stuff.”
“Fagan uses escorts for business contacts.”
She smiled. “I tink I heard dat.”
“You hear names?”
“Try me.”
“Langford Horn?”
“Could be.”
“Eino Teeny?”
“Not him.”
“Clay Flinders.”
“Never heard of ’im.”
“Jeff Choates.”
“Yeah.”
“Horn and Choates. Fagan got women for them?”
“I tink I heard dat,” she said, feigning like it was news.
“You want to confirm those names under oath?”
“What would I get out of it?”
“Peace of mind.”
“I got plenty of dat already.”
“I could talk to cops in the Yoop, tell them you say you know nothing about Kelo.”
“Dat ain’t no guarantee.”
“Best I can do.”
“Guess we got nuttin’ more ta talk about, you and me.”
“I can get a subpoena.”
“How’d youse find me?” she asked.
“It’s what I do.”
She nodded. “Yeah. How ’bout we go jump in bed and talk aboot dis, eh?”
“Word is you don’t turn tricks, or snort coke, and you drink and eat in moderation.”
“Not talking business here,” she said. “You and me in bed is personal ting, been long time waitin’ ta happen.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Someday youse’ll find out what youse’re missin’,” she said.
“I’ll have to live with the loss,” he said, and toggled his radio.
“All quiet out there?” he radioed Denninger.
“Very,” Denninger said.
“Join me at the house.”
“Shoulda known youse’d have reinforcements.”
“Nature of the work,” he said.
“Your recorder ting on?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Okay. I procured escorts for Quintan Fagan. The two you mentioned were among ’em, Horn and Choates. Dere wass a coupla udders in the DNR, but you’ll have ta find dem names on your own.”
“Why’d you decide to cooperate?”
“Guess I got a ting for Boy Scouts. I done you a favor. Now you owe me one.”
“I don’t think so.”
She smiled and lowered her eyes. “It’s gonna happen, hey.”
He let Denninger in a few minutes later, and Honeypat looked her up and down. “You poundin’ dat?” she asked.
Denninger snarled silently.
“Got fire, big tits under dat ugly cop coat; I bet she’s a good one. Honey, you ever get tired a playin’ out in da snow wid woods cops, youse let me know. I’ll get youse nice warm work and good money.”
“Who are you?” Denninger snapped.
“Da big Boy Scout over dere’s an old fuck buddy,” Honeypat said.
“Let’s go,” Service said, grabbing Denninger’s arm and pushing her through the door, which closed quietly behind them.
“That was Allard?”
“Yep.”
“You know her?”
“Knew her way back.”
“Knew her, biblically speaking?”
“None of your business.”
“Working with you is a trip,” she s
aid.
They met Laramie at the river’s edge and got within five feet of the landing at Island Park when the canoe rolled over, dumping them all in three feet of icy water. They got the canoe out and helped Laramie put it in the back of his truck, thanked him for the help, got into their truck, got out the thermos of coffee, and started drinking it. Service turned the heater and blower to high, but even with the coffee in him, felt cold all the way back to Saranac.
No sign of Leukonovich. He let Denninger use the shower first. After ten minutes he poked his head in the door. “You’re using all the hot water.”
“Plenty of room in here for two,” she said.
“No.”
“Too bad,” she said, and moments later came out wrapped in a towel, her hair still wet. He stripped and got into the shower. The hot water did its work, and he felt all his aches start to fade. Honeypat was Patricia Allard, and he had her on tape confirming Horn and Choate as clients, paid for by Fagan. The question was, how could he best use this information to push the case forward? First he needed to talk to Miars and tell him what he had learned.
When he came out of the bathroom Denninger was at the table in sweats, drinking coffee.
“That was Allard, for real?”
“Yes, but that’s not her real name.”
“You used to scromp with her?”
“I told you, that’s none of your business.”
“She’s older, but definitely hot,” Denninger said.
“She’s a black widow,” Service said. “She’ll have her way with you and cut your throat in the afterglow.”
“Every woman feels like that after bad sex,” Denninger said. Service looked at her and knew she wasn’t kidding.
“Not just bad sex, any sex,” he said.
“You get her to talk?”
“She confirms Fagan used her to get escorts for Horn and Choate.” He handed her the recorder and she took out the tape.
“Leave out the irrelevant stuff,” he told her.
She raised an eyebrow.
Denninger’s teasing was driving him crazy. So was Leukonovich. And suddenly he remembered a couple of comments McCants had made. Years back, after he’d gotten together with Nantz, his relationship with Candi had changed subtly. She had been good friends with Nantz, but there had been an edge after Nantz came into his life. Had Candi been jealous? Holy shit. He dialed McCants’s cell and got her voice mail. He then dialed her home phone. A male voice said, “Candi’s Sweet Shop.” He hung up.
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