Shadow of the Wolf Tree (15 page)

“He was never interested in farming. He was always gone into the deep woods.”

“Hunting and fishing?”

“Yes, to sustain himself, but that wasn't his passion either.” She held out a fist and opened it to reveal a small white rock.

Friday accepted the rock, looked at it, and passed it to Service.

“It's quartz, with a paper-thin seam of gold,” Professor Thigpen said.

“Are you telling us that Lincoln discovered gold?” Service asked.

“Indeed I am. My father followed him once and brought back several small rocks and nuggets. Naturally, my mother wanted to know where he'd gotten them, but he refused to say. He insisted gold was the source of all evil, and that the true value of land was in the life it nurtured,” she said wistfully. “My father was unschooled, but a true romantic.”

“Can we borrow this?” Service asked, the stone in his hand.

“If you wish.”

“We'll bring it back. Why did Lincoln need others to come north with him if gold was what he sought?” Friday asked.

“I can only speculate. After we returned, my father refused to talk about it, but I believe that Lincoln and Denu were convinced that by having a group of black families among all those white folk, mostly foreigners, we would be left alone, which would enable Lincoln to have the privacy to do what he went there to do. One black man would stand out, but not a group.”

“You said earlier that Van Dalen—Father O'Neil—came north to keep an eye on things. Was he aware of the gold?”

“I don't know the answer to that, but I don't think so. It was Denu and Lincoln. I believe Van Dalen was looking to us to farm the land, fulfill our contracts, and settle in permanently. If this happened he would promote other places. America's cities were filled with the uprooted and immigrants in those days. But our experiment failed, the stock market crashed, the Great Depression set in, and I suppose Van Dalen lost his passion for such plans.”

Tuesday Friday smiled, leaned across and patted the old woman's hand. “You're the author,” Friday said.

Thigpen smiled shyly. “An author—one point in my life—but it was long ago.”

“
The Two of Us Are One,
” Friday said. “The story of the friendship of a white girl and a black girl in Minnesota during the Great Depression, written by R. G. Thigpen.”

“In those days the publishing community was not keen on female novelists; thus the initials.”

“Rillamae Garden Thigpen,” Friday said. “Garden was your maiden name.”

“Yes.”

“You wrote three books about the same characters. Helmi Koski is the model for the white girl.”

Thigpen's eyes showed her pleasure at being recognized as an author. “I couldn't write about Iron County, but it was the basis of the books, and certainly they were based on Helmi and me. Of course, we knew each other not quite three days, but became friends for life, and it was wonderful to use my imagination to write what the friendship might have been like had we lived in and grown up together in the same town.”

“Father O'Neil disappeared after he accompanied your group to Chicago,” Service said. “So, too, did Sheriff Petersson.”

Thigpen looked concerned. “I don't remember the priest being with us on the train,” she said.

“What about Lincoln and the man, Denu?” Service asked.

“We never saw either of them after the sheriff rescued us from Elmwood.”

“There's no record of what happened to them,” Friday said.

“Not with us, but I know for certain that Van Dalen eventually came back to Chicago,” Thigpen said. “He became a successful and prominent businessman in Chicago, and amassed a fortune in real estate. I used to read articles about him in the
Tribune,
and when he died, there was a long obituary with a photograph of him as a young man.”

“Did you happen to keep a copy?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. My packrat ways used to make Charles
crazy
!”

She excused herself again, returning twenty minutes later with a yellowed clipping in a nine-by-eleven envelope. Service pulled out the clip and looked at the photo.

“This is Father O'Neil?”

“Yes. Charles agreed that this was him. I wish I knew the fate of Lincoln and Denu.”

“Photos?”

“We were too poor for photographs in those days, but Lincoln had only one arm.” She made a line just below her left elbow. “Gone from there, supposedly from the war in France—which, as I said earlier, was patently untrue. And Denu, he was impossible to mistake for anyone else.”

“How was that?”

“He was a giant, nearly seven feet tall, and to us children he looked even taller.”

Thigpen and Friday chatted on about writing and books, and Service tuned them out. He had sat long enough. On their way to the truck he said, “Do we have the autopsy reports from the two skeletons?”

“Back in the office.”

“Did they mention a missing arm, or a giant?”

“I don't remember. Are you thinking . . . ?”

“I'm not sure what's rolling around in there, but we're in Chicago, maybe we should look into Van Dalen. The obituary called him a philanthropist of the first order, whatever that means. Most fortunes get fortified by lawyers so that they continue to flourish long after their makers are gone.”

“Works for me, as long as I get lunch and maybe a little undivided attention.”

“Up north I know some good eating places. Down here in the cement woods, I'm clueless.” Undivided attention?

“I'm sure we'll manage,” she said.

What kind of cretin had Friday married
? he wondered. The sparks she emitted made him sweat. No, he told himself.
Absolutely not
!

Friday insisted on plump Chicago hot dogs from a street vendor. They took them to a park that overlooked Lake Michigan and sat on a stone bench as people roller-skated and jogged past them.

“How old do you think I am?” Friday asked.

“A wise man knows what questions to never answer.”

She laughed. “I've been a Troop eleven years—one at the Academy, three in Paw Paw, three in Jackson, three in Wayland, and the last one up here. My marriage lasted all of fourteen months; that is, until he discovered I was with child. Below the bridge there's lots of action for Troops. Road patrol in the U.P. is boring. Down below you're too tired and busy for bullshit. In the U.P., Troops feed on rumors and backbiting. I heard all sorts of horror stories about you,” Friday said. “Great cop, loose cannon, unh-unh king, glory seeker, loner, yada yada, all bull,” she said. “You're a terrific partner, Grady.”

“We aren't partners,” he countered. “We're a temporary woods cop, Yoop-Troop mixed marriage.”

“I've had partners, in marriage and at work,” she said. “And I know the real thing. You work well with women and men. I just thought you ought to know that.”

Where was this going
? “I've only been a detective for a little more than three years, and I haven't had all that many cases,” he told her.

“I didn't say you're a great detective,” she said, “just a good partner.”

He caught her laughing and laughed with her. “Seriously,” she said, “you seem born to it. Me, not so much.”

“No one's born to this, and a lot of my cases seem to end up in never-never land,” he said.

“But there's the rush of gratification in closing a case,” she said.

“I wish. Maybe one case in three gets tied up. The rest seem to leave wads of loose ends and doubt.”

“How do you deal with those?”

“I move on to the next case and try not to look backwards.”

“So you run away from any feelings that put you outside your comfort zone?”

“Pretty much,” he admitted.

“In my opinion, you don't really care what others think of you.”

“I can't control what others think, or feel.”

“You let me take the lead with the professor. Why?”

“Did I?”

“You didn't jump in and you didn't push her, or me. You let me deal with the timing and pressure. She was so slow I wanted to scream, but you sat back and let it happen naturally.”

“The point of an interview is to get information. You were good with her.”

“You really think so?”

What's going on here
? he asked himself. “Yeah, really,” he said.

“Are we spending the night in Chicago?” she asked.

That had been the plan, until he began to get vibrations that made him uncomfortable. “No offense, but not in your friend's apartment.”

“Wasn't very comfortable, was it?”

“Not with demon dog in my face all night. It's Saturday. We can probably get into the library and get a computer at one of the cop shops, but tomorrow's Sunday, and everything will be shut down. Better we head home and work the phones from there, get Mike involved. We can come back to Chicago if we need to.”

“Picnic sky,” she said, looking up.

He held up the hot dog. “This
is
our picnic.”

“Why did I
know
you'd say that?”

“Thigpen wrote books?”

“Very popular ones, for young adults. I read them when I was a kid—even collected them.”

“I'm wondering how she knew about Lincoln's military history, and why?”

Friday shrugged.

“She said she couldn't write about Iron County. How come?”

“Do you absorb everything you hear?” she asked.

“I'm sure I miss a lot more than I capture.”

Friday finished the last of her hot dog and wiped her lips with a paper napkin. “You're thinking I should reread her books, look for parallels?”

“Yes. You know where your copies are?”

“In a box. There's still a lot to be unpacked at my place.”

“A good reason for you to go home tomorrow,” he said. “Unpack and see your kid while you're at it.”

“And you?”

“I'll start looking at Van Dalen.”

“Another night here wouldn't hurt,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

“I'm good to go,” he said. “You're fed, the truck's gassed, and it's not
that
long of a drive. There's no good reason to waste state money here.”

“Maybe you don't listen as well as I thought,” she said.

“Postpartum blues, swimming in the jetsam and flotsam of divorce,” he said. “Back in my playing days, my hockey coaches told us to always settle a bouncing puck before trying to do something creative with it.”

“
Bouncing puck
?” she said, her eyes flaring.

“Monday's Memorial Day. Stay home, enjoy your kid.”

She refused to look at him.

21

Iron River, Iron County

SUNDAY, MAY 28, 2006

His idea of hell: All day in a cramped office, staring at a computer screen, sorting through arcane bureaucratic bullshit and self-serving trash, and talking on the damn telephone to clueless people. Sometimes the Internet had its uses, but this didn't seem to be one of them. Unless you had passwords to pay-for-use databases, the bulk of what was available for so-called serious research was crap.

He reread Van Dalen's obituary several times. There was no mention of the Iron County venture, if indeed it was his. On that point: No evidence either way. One woman's word—maybe good, maybe bad. If it had been his show, why wouldn't there be a mention? Van Dalen was about success, not failure, big into charities, a “philanthropist of the highest order.” Jesus. Lots of labels, but no clue when or why the man's generosity began. Obituaries never told the real story of the deceased, only those parts someone wanted remembered. The Van Dalen Foundation was one of the five largest in the country, and the obituary writer noted that Van Dalen had “pioneered the use of trusts for social issues.”
Whatever that means.
He scribbled notes in his notebook.

Mike Millitor came in. “Saw the Tahoe. How'd it go in Chicago?”

“Thigpen's alive and claims she was here, backing up what Helmi Koski told us. You think Sheriff Petersson would see us again?”

Millitor checked his watch. “Mass for shut-ins is done. I'll give him a call.”

“Friday said the autopsy reports are here somewhere.”

“I'll get them,” the Iron County detective said. “Where's our third musketeer?”

“Went home to see her kid.”

“You hear about her divorce?”

“No details.”

“Her ex got her and two other women pregnant at the same time. He beat hell out of all of them. Friday could defend herself, the others couldn't. One of them died. The ex pleaded to manslaughter and is inside now.”

She'd given no indication of any of this. “Who's the ex?”

“Defense lawyer in Grand Rapids, big shot in the Republican party, lots of dough.” Millitor handed him the file with the ME's preliminary reports.

“You read them?” Service asked.

“Bones, not much meat.”

“Anything about the height of the vicks?”

Millitor shook his head. “I recall that the skeletons are sixty and eighty percent complete. How many bones
in
a human body?”

Service thought for a moment. “A lot?” Then corrected himself. “Two hundred or so, something like that, which means more than a hundred and forty missing in vick one and more than one-sixty in vick two.”

“You game wardens need all the bones to get a story from an animal's bones?”

“Not all . . . just the right ones.”

“Do we have a problem?”

“Maybe. Let's go talk to Petersson.”

During the drive Millitor said, “Keep an eye on Friday. A sergeant stopped to see her during her maternity leave. She claimed he hit on her and she went ballistic, called the cops: alleged rape, sexual harassment, the whole deal.”

“You saw a police report to this effect?”
Not the Friday I know, he thought. Correction: Think I know.

“No,” Millitor said.

“That sound like our musketeer?”

“Just saying what I heard.”

Service had learned in recent years that female law officers were often the subject of vicious gossip. He didn't understand why. Female COs had it especially rough. “Let me guess: You heard it from a Troop not at her post.”

“Yeah.”

“Find a police report, and then we'll believe it.” What the hell was wrong with Millitor? He was too seasoned to listen to such crap.

Petersson seemed glad to see them, took them into his den/trophy room, and listened raptly as Service recounted the interview with Thigpen in Chicago. “You ever run across anything about Denu's height in your research?” he asked the retired sheriff.

“No, but tall fellas weren't uncommon among the Ojibs in the old days; lots of chiefs six-six and taller. The autopsies say something?”

“No. The bones aren't all there.”

“You going to talk to our ME?”

“Thought Mike and I would drive out to the site first, see what we can see. Last time I was out there I wasn't all that focused.”

“We?” Millitor said.

“You got something better to do?”

The Iron County detective grinned. “Heck no. The old lady wants me to fuss with the yard. That's too much like real work.”

“Good. We'll need a shovel, a sledge, and a pick.”

“Maybe that yard work doesn't sound so bad . . .” Millitor whined.