Shadow of the Wolf Tree (19 page)

27

South Branch, Paint River, Iron County

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2006

Vibrations somewhere, genesis of sound, movement, something—muted and mechanical, not that close, but out there for sure.
Grady Service awoke and opened his eyes. First light, heavier dew than he had expected, sleeping bag damp. He touched Friday's shoulder gently, saw her eyes open, trying to shed sleep, whispered close to her ear, “Something east-northeast of us . . . can't judge distance.”

She fluttered her eyes, nodded.

“Slide out of your bag,” he whispered. “It's wet.”

He handed her a bottle of water, watched her pour some in her hand, splash her face, take a sip. She held it out for him, but he shook his head. “Leave everything,” he said quietly, touching forked fingers to his eyes, raising his eyebrows to see if she was taking on board what he was saying. He got a nod, saw her breathing evenly, not jacked.
Good.

They rose as one, left the flat place under the trees, and moved slightly downslope. The flag of a large deer waggled ahead of them, 180 pounds of animal moving without sound. Service's eyes took in everything: To the left a swale, last year's deer grass, some spruce and small white pines, skinny cedars. Bedding area, game trails in the high brown grass flattened and radiating outward like tentacles.

Nearing the next crest, lower than where they had spent the night, he heard sound. Not just heard it, but felt it, something moving slowly right to left. Below them, a motor gunned, twice, and again.
Four-wheeler: Fuel
-line problem?
Fighting the urge to charge on an intercept angle.
Cool it.
Nodded Friday to the left of him, watched her, watched the ground, tried to track the motor sound but it was gone.
Gone.
He pointed down, north, touched his eyes, saw her nodding, touching her ear.
She had heard it too.
They stepped in unison, watching everything for anything. Saw Friday halt, look down, scrinch her face, give him a questioning look.

He made his way over to her, picking his way.

“There,” she whispered, pointing.
Something green, small, size of a biscuit, dull green, but with a sheen. Plastic?
He got down on his knees, looked at it.
Definitely plastic.
He looked left and right, saw more, scattered irregularly in a ragged line, perhaps three feet deep, both left and right of them. Six feet downhill he could see nothing. Barrier, he told himself.
Blocking the route up or blocking the way down? Moot for the moment.
The Ojibwas and Menominees in the U.P. used to build miles-long fences of stumps and debris to funnel animals, position their best hunters at the openings, and pick them off as they came through.
Were they being funneled? If so, by whom? And why?

“What?” Friday asked in a barely audible voice.

“Can't tell. Something man-made. Good eyes. They're left and right and below, clear behind, if we didn't inadvertently already step past some.”

He moved left, maybe twenty yards, could still see green lumps below him. Paralleled the line, was startled when a deer bounded up from its bed and raced downhill in a panic, followed immediately by a wake of pops and flashes. He instinctively lifted his arm to shield his eyes, saw the deer, running through a small opening, fire coming off its back hooves, like afterburners.

He made his way back to Friday.

“Did you
see
that?” she asked with disbelief.

He used his knife to trim off a green stick four feet long, a half-inch in diameter, sharpened one end, touched the point to the nearest package, added pressure, saw the point break through. Nothing. Let out his breath, rubbed his eyes. Heard sounds to the right. Pops and flashes and pops, like a light wave mixed with sound, and a familiar smell—garlic.
Vietnam. Willie Pete! Fuck!

“Run!” he hissed, grabbing Friday and pushing her up the hill. “
Move, move, move!
”

He careered against a log, rolled over it onto the crest, dropped to his knees, and pushed her forward. Looking back, he saw a carpet of billowing white smoke and sparks that had moved right to left.
Same track the sound had followed,
his mind noted. Flames were licking some of the undergrowth. He unholstered his radio, called the Iron County dispatcher, reported the fire, asked for DNR fire suppression, gave directions.
No way county equipment can get back here,
he told himself.

They stayed on fire watch until help arrived, a DNR man in a yellow Nomex shirt, first on the scene, his face all business. “Rocco Solenetti,” the man said. “You the one called it in?”

“Grady Service, yeah. Willie Pete.”

Solenetti looked skeptical. “You
sure
?”

“Guessing, but I've seen it before. Bad on the skin.”

“Got that right. Later,” Solenetti said, moving to join the others grinding relentlessly through the woods in a gigantic red tanker truck.

He sat on a log with Friday, not speaking.

“I like morning fireworks,” she said. “But not like this.”

Grinda came through the woods and joined them. “What set it off?”

“A deer.”

“Only in the U.P.,” she said.

None of this is about fish,
Service thought. “We're dealing with someone who knows how cops think, how we run toward trouble, only this time we didn't take the bait. They gunned an engine, like a bugle calling hounds to a bear.”

“Willie Pete?” Grinda asked.

“Need techs to tell us for sure.” He knew white phosphorus burned upon contact with air, but not water. On skin it often kept burning until it went all the way through, or until the moisture in blood dampened it. He didn't like to think about the damage it left, if you lived through it.
How did you pack Willie Pete in a vacuum in plastic? Not from a damn Internet formula, that's for sure. And why?

28

South Branch, Paint River, Iron County

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2006

Tuesday Friday looked exhausted as they got to his truck and stashed their gear in back. Service used the cell phone to call Millitor. “We're gonna start canvassing camps along the river. We'll start at F.S. 3270 and work downstream. You want to start downstream at the 3470 bridge and move up? We'll meet somewhere in the middle.”

“Rolling your way,” Millitor said. “Heard you had some trouble out there this morning.”

“Minor fireworks,” Service said. When he looked over at Friday, she was asleep. He looked at his AVL and a plat book and mapped out a rough route in his mind.

Nobody home at the first camp they went to, and no sign anyone had been there in months.

Friday blinked as he got back in the truck. “Where are we?”

“Checking camps.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Okay, I'm back. You can count on me.”

The fourth camp they went to was not far from the ford where he and Treebone had encountered the booby trap. A sign out front said
nordkalotten.

“Any idea what that means?” he asked Friday.

“You're the native,” she said, shaking her head.

The cabin was bit larger than normal, 1,500 square feet, he guessed. Well maintained, the wooden walkway freshly swept, windows sparkling and clean.

They went to the door and knocked. A woman eventually answered. She wore a bright blue tunic, had white hair pulled back and braided. Her skin was a strange hue of pink, almost orange, and her eyes were blue and alert. The rest of her looked ancient.

“Yes?” she greeted them, a thin smile on her face, her hands behind her.

Service held out his badge. “I'm Detective Service.”

The woman squinted, said nothing.

“We're asking people on the river if they saw anything unusual around here in the days before or leading up to April 29, the trout-opener.”

The woman smiled and nodded. “In the old days they burned the women.”

Service glanced at Friday. “Beg your pardon, ma'am.”

“You know—men always kill what they don't understand.”

“Ma'am, do you live here alone?”

“I have
this,
” the woman said, and suddenly Service found himself looking down the gaping barrel of a large-bore revolver.

“Ma'am, is that weapon loaded?”

“Would be no point to having it for protection if it weren't,” she said.

“I'm Tuesday,” Detective Friday said to the woman.

Service knew she was trying to distract the old woman, but the gun remained pointed at him, and both of the woman's hands were shaking.

“My son said to shoot first. Will it make as much noise as last time?” the woman asked Friday.

Last time?
Service thought.

Tuesday said, “It will be pretty loud, but we're both wearing armored vests that will stop the bullets, so there's no point pulling the trigger.”

The woman looked sadly at Friday and Service gently wrested the revolver from her. It was indeed loaded.

“Ma'am, who
are
you?” Friday asked.

“You don't understand. I saw
Stoorjunkare,
” the woman said. “All in black, but I wasn't afraid. When it saw my gun, it ran away.”

“Ma'am, can we come in?” Friday asked.

“I have no fear of death,” the woman said. “If I let you in, can I have my gun back?”

“Is it your weapon?”

“My son's.”

“Where is your son?”

“Where he always is—whoring around town.”

Service's cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he stepped away from the women to answer it.

“This is Mike,” Detective Millitor said. “I shoulda told youse before. As you work your way downriver, youse're gonna get to a camp with a sign that says
Nordkalotten.”

“We're there now.”

“Geez, oh boy. It means ‘northern skullcap,' the way we'd say “up north,” only it refers to the northern reaches of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula—which all comprise Lapland, home of the Sami people. The old woman's name is Jusakka Noli. Her name means ‘goddess,' as she will no doubt let you know. She believes that her late husband rescued her from evil spirits and brought her to the U.P., but the spirits have been able to read her brain waves and track her. She thinks there are miniature ‘locators' in snowflakes, which she calls white bees. She greet you at the door with a hog leg?”

“She did. Sounds like you've had a lot of contact with her.”

“Not me—our deps, and it runs in streaks. If she takes her meds she seems to do okay, but she doesn't always do what the doctor wants. She looks harmless, but be damn careful. She's shot at people before, at least two. She should be in a facility, but her son can't control her. She not only carries that pistol, but she's usually got two or three knives stashed on her. Few years back she winged a trout fisherman in the leg, claimed he was a demon. She got off scot-free on that one. Sorry I didn't tell you about this before you got out there. There's a standing officer safety caution on her.”

“It's okay. Is her son in Iron River?”

“He owns Sam's Organic Nursery.”

“Let him know we're here and want him to speak to his mother. We need help.”

“Will do. Good luck.”

Service shut off the phone and turned back to the women. “Mrs. Noli,” he said, and the old woman took a step backward.

“We haven't been introduced. Who told you my name?”

“It's on your camp sign.”

The woman looked confused. “It is?”

“Yes,” Service lied.

“I don't remember that.”

“I called your son. He's on his way out here now.”

“I don't want
that one's
help,” she said. “My gun's enough. Can I have it back now?”

She walked over to a small table in her kitchen area, sat down in a white wooden chair, began slapping the tabletop with her hand and making a sound somewhere between a chant and yodel, mostly comprised of single syllables that sounded to Service like gibberish. “
Na-we-na-we-en-le-na-WE-na-we-EN-le-na . . .
”

Service looked over at his partner, who raised an eyebrow.

“Mrs. Noli?” he said.

The woman continued making her bizarre sound, and suddenly she seemed to levitate from the chair. Service saw a flash and instinctively threw up his arm to block, and as the woman came forward, he stopped her arm, gripped, twisted firmly against her wrist, and eased her to the floor as the big knife went skittering across the tiles.

“Jesus,” Friday said.

“You need to frisk her,” Service said. “That was Mike on the phone trying to warn us. He said she may carry as many as three blades in addition to the pistol.”

Friday cuffed the woman and carefully frisked her, the search producing two more knives and an autoloader for the revolver.

They took the old woman into a small living room and helped her onto a chair.

“No one believes me about the
Stoorjunkare,
” the old woman keened.

“Tell us,” Friday said encouragingly.

“
Stoorjunkare
hide things from women,” the old lady said.

“Such as?” Friday asked.

“They think I don't know, but I do. I've always known. I've watched them up there with their false idols, out there in sin, the hull buncha them.”

She's totally bat-shit,
Service thought. Tuesday was patient and encouraging.

“You've seen them?”

“My son is one of them.”

“And you saw one today.”

“By the river.” The woman pointed toward the front of the camp.

Friday made eye contact with Service, who went outside and walked toward the river, looking around. Close to the water's edge he spied fresh bear tracks in some soft earth. It had taken down a bird feeder, and scattered seeds across the yard. Not unusual for hungry bears this time of year.
Most likely a young male.

He went back inside. “Bear tracks,” he said. “A bear hit your birdseed.”

“Not a bear,” the woman said. “
Stoorjunkare.
All animals derive from them, and they can come in any form.”

“This was a bear,” Service said. “Not a large one.”

The woman let out a hiss and turned her head away.

Her son, Tikka Noli, arrived twenty minutes later, white as a sheet.

Service and Friday introduced themselves and explained why they had dropped by and what had happened. Noli was immediately apologetic. “She can't help herself,” he said.

The man's mother stared at him, made a face, and waggled a finger. “I told them about what you and them other sinners do.”

Noli said, “She's talking about the Audubon Society. There's an eagle's nest up on the hill, and we have a great observation place on my property. People come out here to take photographs and observe the nest.”

“Jarvi, the sinner,” the old woman said, her voice high and nearing a shriek.

“She's not rational,” the son said.

Service recognized the last name and had a first name to go with it: “
Taide
Jarvi?”

The intensity of the old woman's shriek was such that even Service took a step back.

“Don't listen to her,” Noli said. “She's not well.”

“Then
you
explain: What about Taide Jarvi, eh?”

“What about it.”

“
It?
”

“Taide Jarvi is Finnish. It means Art Lake.”

“The artist colony?”

“Taide Jarvi is the name of their real estate operation. They want to purchase property down this way.”

“Where the eagles live!” the old woman said with a laugh. “Where the eagles live!”

Service exchanged glances with Friday.

“Mr. Noli, I think we need to step outside and talk.”

“I haven't done nothing wrong,” he said.

“I haven't accused you of anything.” Service pointed at the door.

“What is all this nonsense?” Service asked when they were outside.

“She doesn't want me to sell the land. She wants me to give it in her name to the Iron County Wildlands Conservancy, but it's my land too, and I've got a right to make a profit from it.”

Service knew immediately that the business between the old woman and the son was off his playing field. “Tell me about Taide Jarvi.”

“It's a nonprofit company. All of its land becomes part of Art Lake, which means no future development. It's the same thing my mother wants, only they'll pay us.”

“Have you sold the land to them?” Service asked.

“We're still negotiating, and I don't think they're too happy.”

“Who exactly are you in negotiations with?”

“A woman named Chelios.”

“Out of Chicago?”

“Milwaukee.”

Back inside, they found Tuesday Friday and the woman talking calmly and sharing bread and jelly. “Wild U.P. cranberry,” Friday said, her mouth full. “Puts the jellies up herself. Her name, Jusakka, means goddess-warrior. Isn't that interesting, Grady?”

The old woman suddenly scrambled to the sink, tore open the cabinet beneath, turned abruptly, and slid a green object across the floor like a curling stone toward her son. The object skidded to a stop and Service looked at it. “That yours, Mr. Noli?”

“I got no idea what you're talking about,” the man said, barely squeezing out the words.

Grady Service went to a closet, found a wire clothes hanger, and began to straighten it. When he had a long wire he held the tip close to the green package.

Noli sighed. “Don't break it!”

“Read him his rights,” Service said to Friday.

He had no idea how any of this connected, but sensed strongly that it did—somehow.
Frodo the Finn claims he had no contact with Art Lake, but gets his house courtesy of Taide Jarvi. Frodo has some explaining to do.

“Why the pyrotechnics?” Service asked Noli as they walked him out to the truck in cuffs.

“I want my lawyer.”

“I hope he's a good one.”

“The best there is,” Noli said.

“Let me guess: Sandy Tavolacci?”

“You know Sandy?”

Tavolacci had built a practice defending the biggest scumbags in the U.P.

Service intertwined his fingers. “We're like
that,
Sandy and me.”