Strike Dog (33 page)

“The woman now lives with her daughter just up the road in Sturgis, Michigan,” Service continued. “Her name is Greenleaf, Essie Greenleaf. I talked to her and she's batty, but she also let me know in a strange and roundabout way that she had a thing with Frankie Pey. She said Pey died in Mexico. When I asked her what he was doing down there, she told me, ‘Completing his life's work.' She also confirmed there was a boy with them, but said he was neither his son—nor hers. She said the kid's name was Marcel. He was about fifteen or sixteen at the time. It can't be a coincidence that she used the same words the border agent used. Big Ben Pey gave me a photo. He says it's Frankie just before he left for college, which made him eighteen or nineteen in 1932. I think I can see some similarity to the photo I got from the
federales,
but you people have specialists and software to take this and age it and see if there's a potential match, right?”

The FBI agent said, “Jesus . . . This is unbelievable.”

“I know,” he said. “Where is your asshole consultant? We need to talk to him.”

He heard her scratching on paper. “Eighteen or nineteen in 1932; that makes this guy in his mid fifties by 1970.”

“Is that significant?”

“Ballpark age for a lot of serial murderers.”

There was a long pause before she spoke again. “It can't be this easy,” she lamented.

“It's not, but it's beginning to look like we've got some meat to grab, and we need to move on it. Are you awake?”

“Okay, okay,” was all she could say. “I'll get dressed and head out to your shack.”

“I want to talk to your analyst.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice rising.

“I want to find out how he picked up on this whole deal, what his thinking was, how he got one plus one to equal a shitpot more. I'm also wondering why the hell this second batch begins with a variety of MOs and suddenly shifts to the blood eagle? Does this signify some sort of psychological shift? Or do we have a different killer?”

Tatie Monica said, “Why in hell is somebody with your ability wasting himself in the backwoods?”

Service said, “When do I meet your analyst?”

“You won't,” she said.

He waited for an explanation.

Finally, in exasperation, she said, “I can't find him, and he won't respond to my messages.”

Service could hardly contain his rage. “You have got to be
shitting
me! You'd better get your people dogging his sorry ass, and I mean
right now
. Maybe this is nothing, but I don't like this guy pointing us at all this and then taking a sudden hike into Neverland.”

“I've already got people on it,” she said. “I'll be there with Larry and Bobbi in an hour. I take it you're not off the case.”

“Let me put something else on the table: Ficorelli's mother and Spargo's sister died in car wrecks within a month of their killings. My girlfriend and son died in the same way not long ago, dry pavement, no apparent reason. I talked to a guy up here who found something that suggests my girlfriend got run off the road, and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. The state police ruled it an accident, despite evidence to the contrary. She was a great pilot. There had to be a reason for the wreck. You ever hear of prey-­induced panic?”

“No,” she said.

“I'll explain it when you get here. Also, Frankie Pey was a trapper as a kid, and the year he left for college his mother was found murdered, with her throat cut. The case was never solved. I'm in this sonuvabitch to the end,” he said.

“I'm running out the door now,” Monica said.

Service lay on his footlocker bed and tried to sleep. The case was no longer in his mind. He had exorcised that. Now all he could think about was what the hell he should do with eighty million dollars that he had no right to. Couldn't he somehow trade it all back for Nantz and Walter?

PART III

GREEN BEAR ISLAND

Omnes una manet nox
The same night awaits us all.
—Horace

43

SLIPPERY CREEK, MICHIGAN
JULY 28, 2004

While he waited for Tatie Monica, Service made fresh coffee and started making more notes, mostly questions. If the killer had access to Main's customer list, how had he gotten it, and when? Was it possible that Charley the Turd and/or his father were involved? Had the list been used for both groups of killings? Pey died in 1974 in prison in Mexico. Where did Marcel go? Was Marcel a killer?
The
killer?

“Too many holes,” he said out loud, crumpling the notes and bouncing them off the wall.

He awoke on the floor to find Tatie Monica standing over him. She had the crumpled notes in hand and was trying to read them. “How long since you've slept?” she asked.

“Not sure.”

“An exhausted investigator fucks up. Go to bed.”

“I don't have a bed,” he said.

She gave him a quizzical look and he pointed to the footlockers. “Sweet Jesus,” she said. “Give me all your notes and I'll take them back to Marquette with us. You sleep. That's an order.”

“I don't report to you.”

“Think of me as your mother.”

“She died in childbirth.”

“Probably lucky for her.” Special Agent Monica stormed out the door and Service lay down to try and sleep.

His mind refused to shut off. He got up and grabbed his handheld and called Officer Denninger. “I need your help again.”

“Whatever you need,” she said.

“If the Mains aren't computerized, how could somebody get their list? Did they ever report a theft? Talk to the county and the state, and then talk to the old man alone. Charley the Turd will just try to stonewall you again.”

“I'll get back to you.”

Service called Eddie Waco. “Anything on the men in Kansas and Illinois?”

“I'm in Illinois now. The officer's name here was Retucci. He was a fly-fishing nut and he had booger flies. I'm headed to Kansas next. I'd call ahead to the family, but it's better to show up in person. Gives it more weight.”

“I agree. Thanks.”

“I'll be back to you'n quick as I can. You gettin' close?”

“Maybe.”

“Count me in for the finish.”

“Your supervision will approve that?”

“You let me worry about that, Michigan Man. You'n call, I'll haul. Heck, I might even get to see me a bear.”

Grady Service liked Eddie Waco. But were they really beginning to get close to something? He wasn't sure. This was like hunting blind. He dozed off thinking about hunting and bears, and he slept through the rest of the day and night.

44

MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN
JULY 29, 2004

Most of the regional HQ was dark when Service parked in the lot south of the building, but there was a light on in the captain's office. The fog this morning had been thick, the driving slow.

The captain had already made coffee. Service poured a cup for himself and made his way to Grant's office.

“You look perplexed.”

Service took him through the case, omitting nothing and emphasizing the accidents of Ficorelli's and Spargo's relatives. As was his way, the captain listened and made notes before asking questions.

“The analyst aspect is disturbing,” the captain said.

“It's a major loose end,” Service said.

“You know the preferred tactic for weathering a shit storm?”

Service looked up. His captain never used such language.

“You sit under a good strong roof until it's done falling,” Grant said.

“Are you telling me you're going to chain me to my desk?”

“You know better than that. If Nantz and Walter were killed intentionally, the killer is trying to rattle you. I'm going to insist that the state lab people go over the wreck again. What you do is keep pushing and prodding.”

“Eventually there's going to be a collision,” Service said.

“I have no doubt,” the captain said, “but when it happens, let it be you who determines the location and rules of engagement.”

“I've already had that thought.”

“I was certain you had,” Captain Grant said with a nod.

When Service got back to his cubicle, there was tapping on his outside window. He looked out to see Limpy Allerdyce standing there. Service knew Allerdyce would not come into the building. He got a cup of coffee for the old poacher and went outside to meet him.

“Proud of you,” Service joked. “You actually touched the building.”

Allerdyce squinted. “Youse tink more about youse's gal?”

Service suddenly picked up on the old man's rage, which he was struggling to contain. He pointed a finger at Allerdyce. “I don't need your help, thank you very much.”

“Up here we take care of each udder, sonny.”

“What're you gonna do, take my back?”

The old man grinned and said nothing.

“You get caught with anything that even faintly can be construed as a weapon and you'll be in violation of your parole, and you will go back inside. You want to ruin your image with your girlfriend?”

Allerdyce drank his coffee, scowled, and looked out toward Lake Superior, which was beginning to lighten in the rising sun. “My day,” he said, “I never t'ought twice 'bout shootin' dogs, runnin' deers an' such. Dere's some t'ings a man don't turn 'is cheek to.”

“Stay out of it, Allerdyce. Go blow more smoke up your professor's behind.”

The old poacher cackled. “Not a joke, sonny. I changed, and my people, they changin' too. How it was ain't how it gonna be. Go ahead, youse make fun of me, but youse'll see.”

“Stay out of my business,” Service said emphatically, splashing his coffee on the grass as he went back inside. Being around the old man always gave him the creeps, and right now he didn't need any more distractions. Limpy was capable of just about anything. What had the professor said—to check with the RAP people? Where was that goddamn list she'd given him? He found it in a folder and picked up his phone.

“Station Twenty, Twenty Five Fourteen. I've got a list of times alleged RAP tips from informants came in to the RAP line. Can you verify receipt and disposal?” He read off the dates and times.

The RAP dispatcher in Lansing came back on the radio after ten minutes. “They all check out, Twenty Five Fourteen. There were sixteen calls, and all of them resulted in citations. All callers were anonymous.”

“Twenty Five Fourteen clear.” Jesus Christ, what was going on? There was no way Limpy could change. The only possible explanation was that he was up to something.

Fern LeBlanc passed his cubicle, looked in, and said, “Nice to see you could grace us with your presence.” She came back five minutes later with a handful of pink callback slips. “Your adoring public,” she said, dropping them on his desk.

He had just started looking through the notes when LeBlanc came back and said, “I'm going to transfer a call to you.” This usually meant there was someone or something she didn't want to handle, because she was experienced and talented enough to deal with just about anything that came through the door or over the phone.

He saw the line light blink and picked up the phone. “Detective Service.”

“I ast for DNR, not reg'lar cops,” a male voice complained.

“This is the DNR,” Service reassured him. In the minds of Yoopers, game wardens were not cops.

“When youse get deteckatives?”

“It's been awhile,” Service said. He hated calls like this.

“No kiddin' . . . Well, I got me a dead calf out here. Wolf come in and kilt 'im. Somebody gonna come out and take a look? I wanta file me one of dem claims.”

Service rocked back in his chair. An alleged wolf depredation call was one of the most contentious complaints to deal with.

“You're sure it was a wolf?”

“Yeah, sure, and I coulda shot da bot' a' dem, but I figgered youse guys would get yore skivvies all in a yank, so's I din't shoot, and now I'm callin' youse. Youse comin' or not?”

“Give me your address,” Service said and wrote it down.

McFarland was about forty miles south, and there was no direct route. “I'll be there in thirty, forty minutes.”

“What I do, them bloody wolfs come skulkin' back?”

“Secure the carcass and don't shoot them.”

“Damn tings all over da place nowadays,” the man said, and hung up. Service had not even gotten his name.

He told LeBlanc where he was headed and drove south on US 41.