Blue Wolf In Green Fire (29 page)

“Welcome to the shadow world. Time I run. I'll be in touch.”

“Call if you change locations.”

“Aye, wouldn't do otherwise, bucko.”

With those words, Carmody hung up and Service stared at his cell phone.

It was a pain in the ass to work cases at opposite ends of the U.P. and he decided he would return home and sleep in his own bed—or rather, Maridly's bed. The concept of a bed made him laugh out loud. A far cry from his old setup on footlockers. Your life's changing, he told himself as he made a tight U-turn to return to Gladstone.

The snow was steady. As he passed the old Narenta railroad crossing on US 2 near Hyde, his headlights caught a flash of something large and dark soaring low over the truck toward the Highland Golf Club course on the south side of the highway. Service instinctively put on his brakes and squinted to see what it was, but the snow was heavy and there was nothing to see but gossamer curtains. It damn sure wasn't a bird, he told himself.

He knew the Delta County Airport lay six or seven miles directly to the east. If what he had seen had been an aircraft, it was precariously low and ominously silent. He parked his truck on the shoulder, turned on his flashers, grabbed his emergency pack and compass, pulled on his Gore-Tex coat, pulled the hood over his baseball cap, and started walking in the direction the shape had seemed to travel.

The golf course was flat with only a hint of rises. After ten minutes he was ready to give up and return to his truck, but there was a tree line ahead and he decided to walk that far before turning back. The snow turned to rain again as he approached the tree line, and with his flashlight he saw a couple of large white pine branches lying in the rough near the fairway. He shone his light into the treetops and saw that something had sheered off the tops of some trees. He immediately keyed the microphone of his eight-hundred-megahertz handheld radio, called the Delta County dispatcher, identified himself and his location, and asked for assistance. “Possible aircraft down,” he said as he shuffled on, returning the radio to its carrying case and plunging into the trees.

There was no fire ahead of him, but one hundred yards into the forest his light picked up a glint of metal.

He hurried toward the reflection and saw a small plane nose-down, one wing lying on the ground close to the wreck and the other wing torn, but caught in a tree and propping up the aircraft at an awkward angle. He pulled out his radio again and confirmed his location and the facts that an aircraft was indeed down and he was at the wreckage.

He eased toward the wreckage through twisted strips of aluminum and aimed his light into the cockpit. The pilot was slumped against his yoke, held in place by his shoulder harness. Service had to stand on tiptoes to see. He could smell fumes.

Service used his flashlight to search the ground for something to stand on and finally located a substantial piece of deadwood in the shape of a Y. He dragged it to the aircraft and propped it up. Using the wood as a foot stand, he pulled himself up to the cockpit window. It was closed. He tapped on the window, but got no response from the pilot. He tried to slide the window open, but it was jammed. There were fumes in the air. He heard sirens in the distance and deliberated waiting but he was here now. He knew that moving a severely injured person could sometimes make injuries worse, but the fumes were definitely intensifying, and he was still smarting from the two deaths at Seney. Probably a leak from the tank. Would the rain and snow evaporate the fuel? He didn't know and he wasn't going to wait to find out.

Operating in total darkness, he took off his hat, pulled his sidearm from its holster, and wrapped it in the hat to avoid making sparks. It took a half dozen sharp whacks to crack the window, but when it went, it shattered into pellets. He felt his perch wobbling and grabbed the window frame to brace himself, reached inside, and felt the pilot's neck for a pulse. Still alive. He stretched his arm inside and found the door latch and released it. The door didn't open.

The sirens were closer now, but he hurried to get the pilot out. There was nothing worse than to get close to a save only to have fate jerk it away from you at the last moment. He pulled and pulled on the door, but it refused to give. No choice, he told himself, his mind racing. The pilot looked pretty small. It would be a tight fit but he would have to pull him through the window. He reached in and tried to release the safety harness, but the mechanism refused to budge. Shit. He found the parachute cord knife he had carried since Vietnam, opened the hooked blade, and slashed his way through the nylon webbing with one hand while bracing himself against the fuselage with his leg and holding the pilot's collar with his other hand.

When the harness was cut away, the pilot's weight sagged forward and to the side. Service dropped his knife onto the ground behind him, got both arms around the man, and began to pull. Something on the man's jacket caught on the window, but Service kept tugging. His perch was slipping and with a final surge, he pulled the man through, and clutched him as they tumbled face-to-face.

They hit cold muddy ground hard. Service fought to regain his breath, eased the pilot onto the ground beside him, and rolled him over to take a look. His big flashlight was gone, but he carried a small one attached to the zipper of his jacket. He illuminated the man's face and found himself staring at the wizened features of Joe Flap.

“Jesus Christ, Pranger!”

Joe Flap was an old-time CO, a horseblanket who, until retiring a few years back, had been one of the few contemporaries of his father still on the force. Until this past fall Joe still flew occasional missions for the DNR, but he had been grounded in October, and Service couldn't imagine what he would be doing up on a night like this. Or flying at all.

“Jesus, Joe.” Flap had crashed so many times and had so many close calls that other pilots and COs called him Pranger.
Prang
was pilot slang for a crash.

Service felt for a pulse. The little man was unconscious, but his pulse was steady.

People were yelling from the edge of the woods and Service answered them, guiding them to him. He saw lights slashing through the woods from the fairway to the north of him.

A fireman was first on the scene, followed closely by two EMTs from Escanaba Ramparts.

The fireman flashed his light around and grunted. “Fumes. Let's move him outta here.”

Service helped the men carry Joe Flap to the edge of the golf course as more help arrived.

They put the injured pilot down on the fairway while an ambulance fishtailed across the golf course toward them. Service stood back while the EMTs worked on Joe and followed the gurney as it was rolled over to the waiting ambulance. Just before loading him, a female EMT said, “He's back.” Service stepped forward and looked at his old friend. “Pranger?”

“Jeezo-peto, Grady, I gone and done 'er again.”

“You're gonna be okay, Joe.”

“Yah, I know da drill,” Pranger said weakly. He grasped Service's sleeve. “How close was I?”

“I don't know,” Service said. “Five, six miles from the runway.”

“Goddamn shoulda made 'er. I had da tailwind. I shoulda made 'er,” the old man said with a groan that was part anger, part anguish.

Service watched as the ambulance sped away with its lights flashing. A fire truck rambled across the golf course toward the crash site. Service followed along to fetch his pack, flashlight, and parachute knife.

There was growing activity at the wreck site.

“You first on the scene?” a fireman asked.

“Yah.”

“You see it go down?”

“I saw something cross over the road and thought I'd better take a look.”

“There's no fuel in the tanks. She's bone-fucking dry,” the fireman said, shaking his head.

When Service got to Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis Hospital, Joe Flap was in surgery. Vince Vilardo was in the hallway just outside the emergency waiting room. “I was up checking on a patient when I heard they brought Joe in and that you were first on the scene.”

Service wasn't surprised. Information moved on the Yooper grapevine faster than on the Internet, and was often more accurate.

“How is he?” Service asked.

Vince said, “Per Wahl's working on him.”

Service didn't know a doctor named Wahl. “He just started in September,” Vilardo said. “Per knows what he's doing. How 'bout I grab us some coffee.”

Service found a seat and slumped into it. Too much time in hospitals lately. First Maridly, now Pranger.

Vince brought coffee in paper cups. “I put sugar in it, eh? Three lumps. You look like you could use the jolt.”

Service took the coffee and drank, not tasting it.

Just over an hour later a doctor in blood-streaked green scrubs came out and Vince stood up. “Per,” he said.

Service glanced up at the doctor, who looked even younger than the one who had tended Maridly in Lansing. Suddenly everybody was looking too young.

“I'm Service.”

The doctor looked tired. “I thought he'd make it,” he said. “He was busted up pretty bad and there was internal bleeding, but we got in there with clamps and started getting it under control. Then his heart gave out. Nothing we could do,” the young surgeon apologized. “We tried everything. I'm sorry.”

Sorry? Joe Flap had been the last Korean War veteran in the force and now he was on the verge of becoming the last man from Vietnam. Was this his fate too?

“I can't believe a man his age was still flying,” the doctor said to Vince Vilardo.

“He wasn't supposed to be flying,” Vince said. “He was grounded in October. He didn't pass the FAA physical.”

Service stared up at his old friend. “What the hell was he doing up there at all?”

Vince shook his head. “You know how he was, Grady. The government could take away his papers, but he still had that bloody plane.”

Vilardo put his hand on Service's neck and rubbed. “Let's get out of here. Come to the house. Rose and I will get you something to eat and open a bottle of red.”

Grady Service felt numb, but followed his friend out to his house on the shore of Lake Michigan. A small stream ran by the house; every fall it was filled with spawning coho salmon, and in the spring the steelhead came in for their ritual. He'd met Vince when he and Rose had once offered the DNR use of their house to catch poachers. That had been too many years back to think about.

Rose Vilardo hugged Service when he entered the house. As usual they all made straight for the kitchen, which was the command post for all action in the Vilardo household. Vince broke open a bottle of Amarone and poured healthy portions. Rose sat with Service while Vince grabbed his apron and started shuttling around the kitchen. Soon the air filled with the smell of garlic and basil as sauce makings sautéed. When the pasta was done, Vince dumped it all into a strainer and from there into a big bowl, mixed in olive oil, and plopped the bowl on the table with a fresh loaf of Italian bread.

“Joe was just over to dinner last week,” Rose said.

“I grounded him,” Vince said. “I had no choice. I passed word to the department, but you know Joe, he wasn't one to hold grudges. Still, he seemed pretty lost without flying. I saw him up a couple of times this fall, but the weather was good then. But tonight, I can't understand it,” he said sadly, shaking his head.

Service didn't understand it either, but he had an idea. “Once you get really good at something, it's hard to give it up,” he said simply.

Vince stared at him and nodded slowly.

Grady Service called Maridly at two in the morning. Fae O'Driscoll grumbled in her gentle way as she took the phone to Nantz.

“Grady?” He heard concern in her voice.

“I'm okay,” he said. “Joe Flap crashed tonight. He didn't make it.”

“Oh my God,” Nantz said, quickly adding, “Are you afraid of me flying today?”

His mind was on Flap and himself. “He shouldn't have been up there,” Service said, feeling tears beginning to leak out. He had known Joe was grounded, and he should have been looking in on him, but his new job took up all his time. In his old job this wouldn't have happened, he told himself. “I could have prevented this,” he said, breaking down.

“It's not your fault, honey.”

He could sense Nantz's gentle and soothing tone, but not her exact words as he wept not just for his friend Joe Flap but for all horseblankets who did their duty anonymously and slid into oblivion.

26

It took only one glass of wine for the strain of too little sleep and the emotions of recent events to overwhelm him. Service conked out sitting in a chair in Vince's living room, and awoke the next morning with one of Rose's afghans over him and only a vague recollection of the details of last night's conversation with Maridly. The main memory that lingered was the unwavering beam of emotional support of her voice coming through the earpiece. It was one thing to want a particular woman and another thing entirely to need her. He had never before needed anyone, and to his surprise he wasn't uncomfortable with it.

Vince and Rose offered breakfast, but Service settled for coffee and one piece of dry rye toast from Carmello's Fantastico Panemporium in Gladstone.

Vince said, “I meant to tell you last night that I talked to a Doctor Caple at Sparrow and he shared Maridly's situation with me. It sounds like she'll come out of this all right. It will do her good to be home.”

Service nodded. Nantz would be in competent hands with Vince, but his mind was torn between anticipating her return and the loss of Joe Flap. Pranger had no surviving relatives; the DNR had been his family. Service had called the captain and McKower last night on his way to the hospital to let them know about the crash, and he knew that the word would be moving out through the DNR with lightning speed. He guessed Joe's burial would be soon and a small affair, with a memorial service to follow later, when deer season was over and officers could get away to attend.

“Theoretically she can get back into this session of the academy, but the chief wants me to convince her to skip this one and start new in the fall when she's fully recovered,” Service said.

“Maridly will listen to you,” Rose Vilardo said.

Joe Flap might have listened to him too—if he had made time for him. The thought brought bile into his throat.

“Are you feeling all right?” Vince Vilardo asked. “You sort of dropped off last night.”

“Just thinking about Joe.”

“He shouldn't have been up there.”

Service had thought about this all night. “Maybe, but I can't imagine a better way for an old pilot to go.” Joe had been close too many times to count, but this time was his time and there it was. He also recognized that maybe he was rationalizing his own failure.

Vince got up to pour more coffee and said over his shoulder, “Grady, how many years have you got in?”

Service looked up at his friend. “Why?”

“Just asking. Rose and I are talking about packing it in.”

“To become a couple of snowbirds playing bocce in Florida in winter?”

Rose laughed. “Heavens, no. We'd die without snow!”

Vince signaled for Rose to hush. “You need to plan these things, Grady. We've been talking about retiring for a while now. You have to think ahead.”

Service did the mental math. Four years in the marines and two with the state police counted, plus his twenty with DNR law enforcement. “I've got twenty-six years.”

Vince raised a bushy eyebrow. “You could go now. You know what they say in the department about people who stay longer than twenty-five.”

He knew. Pensions were frozen in value at twenty-five years and didn't grow after that. Those who stayed were said to be addicted to the work or on power trips. He put himself in the addict category. Service grinned. “I'm still having fun.”

Vince gave him a questioning look, but the Vilardos said no more about it. Service went out to his truck, called in to let Lansing know he was on duty, and called Candace McCants to ask her to meet him on the north perimeter of the Mosquito Wilderness. He caught McCants on her way out to patrol. She said she had plenty of coffee to share. Proud officers crowed that they bled green, but Service knew that most of what coursed through them was coffee.

McCants was sitting in her truck at the rendezvous point, poring over a topographical map, when he parked beside her and got inside her truck, taking his coffee mug with him. He helped himself to her thermos. “You hear about Joe?” He held out his cigarettes and she took one. They both lit up.

“Got a call last night,” she said, folding the map. “You found him?”

“He fluttered over me and into the trees. At first I thought I was hallucinating, but figured I'd better check. I didn't know it was Joe until I had him out of the bird.”

McCants gave a sympathetic cluck. “You think we'll do a memorial at the howl?”

Howls were end-of-deer-season parties where large numbers of active and retired COs came together to relive the just-past season, drink, eat venison, and hang out.

“Dunno,” Service said. “Maybe.” The Lansing hierarchy didn't approve of howls and had sent down orders for years that such gatherings should end. Despite orders, COs still got together surreptitiously, only in smaller groups. Joe's memory deserved a statewide howl; Service wondered if that was even possible and decided it wasn't. Lansing would never leave the field uncovered, even for a day.

“You know about Vermillion?” he asked her.

“I've heard some things,” she said. “Two homicides.”

“Yah, and one of their wolves is still loose. We got four of five back, but the last one is a blue wolf and he's traveling.”

McCants listened attentively.

“I ran into Limpy Allerdyce last night before the crash and he said the blue's been seen out here.”

“A blue?” his colleague said. “I think they're pretty rare. How's Limpy?”

“Don't ask,” he said, remembering the three dead deer in the bed of the old poacher's truck. “A wolf's a tasty target for hunters, endangered or not.”

McCants nodded. “I haven't seen any sign of wolves here, Grady—blue or otherwise—but I keep thinking they'll push in here sooner or later. They'd have plenty to eat.”

“Keep an eye out,” he said.

“Do you miss this?” she asked.

“I spend all my time sitting on my ass in the vehicle and making phone calls. I miss the feel of dirt under my boots.”

“Anytime you need to get out in the dirt, c'mon down and join me,” McCants said with a grin.

“You like it?” he asked.

“I'm still trying to learn my away around. It's a
huge
chunk of territory—and it's intimidating to follow your act.”

“You can handle it,” he said. Service understood her awe for the area. He had been in and around the Mosquito most of his life, and just last summer had learned some things about it he had not previously known. The Mosquito was one of those places that was always surprising you. “If you hear anything about the blue, or any wolf in here, call me.”

McCants was smart and flashed a wry grin. “Have you got something going down?”

“Could be,” he said.

“I'll call,” she said.

After McCants drove away, he called Sheriff Lee.

“I was just gonna call you,” the sheriff said. “That asshole Shamper bollixed up the tape job. I thought he could handle it, but now I'm wondering. He keeps pissing and moaning about his equipment.”

Service thought about his meeting with the captain. The FBI had some of the best photo technology in the country, but he couldn't bring himself to turn over the tape to Peterson and Nevelev. It occurred to him there was another way. “Freddy, can you make another copy of the tape?”

“Sure, what for?”

“I'll call you later and explain.”

Their conversation done, Service grabbed Shamekia Cilyopus-Woofswshecom's business card out of the folder where he stored cards and called her office.

A woman answered, “Fogner, Qualls, Grismer and Pillis, Shamekia's office.”

Service smiled. Even her secretary couldn't pronounce her last name. “This is Detective Service. Is she in?”

“One moment, Detective.”

“Grady?” the former FBI agent said when she picked up.

“I was afraid you'd have a four-day weekend. I have a favor to ask.”

“Managing partners don't get four-day weekends,” she said.

“I've got a tape that needs to be technically enhanced, stills, clarity, the whole thing. It's a copy, not the original. I figured you might know somebody who can handle this on a very confidential basis.”

“Indeed I do,” she said. “What's on the tape?”

“Look at it when you get it. The key moment is 10:02 p.m. You'll understand.”

“I'll take care of it. What do you want me to do when the work is done?”

“Fax the photos to Sheriff Fred Lee in Chippewa County. His card will be with the package.”

“When will the tape get here?”

“I'm going to have it couriered to you today.” He asked for directions and wrote them down. “Thanks, Shamekia.”

“Look,” she said. “On that other matter?”

“Yes?”

“I can't verify this yet, but I am beginning to get a very strong sense that the Bureau may have been involved in Minnis's sudden disappearance from England.”

Service hesitated. “Gave him a new home, brought him in from the cold maybe?”

“That's a very real possibility.”

Mouse Minnis had been Genova's boyfriend, and the Feebs had to know she had never been part of the Animal Freedom League. Yet they were trying to put her away for murders she didn't commit. The tape seemed to show this. What had his captain said, that perhaps Genova was tangential? It was an interesting notion.

“The Bureau's obsession with Genova continues to bug me.”

“I hope to know more about that by Monday,” Shamekia said.

“The tape will be there tonight,” Service said.

“I'll stay in my office until it's in hand.”

“Thanks, Shamekia. Say hi to Tree.”

The woman laughed huskily. “I'm havin' brunch with Tree and Kalina tomorrow. You ever notice how subdued the big man is in his wife's presence?”

Service laughed out loud. The five-foot-tall Kalina ruled her six-five husband with absolute authority.

His next call went to Freddy Bear Lee. “Can you send somebody to Detroit with the new copy? I've got someone down there who can get it cleaned for us.”

“I'll send Altina Lodner,” said Lee.

Service gave him Shamekia's name, address, and phone number. “Put a business card with the tape. She'll wait at her office until it arrives and she'll fax stills when they're ready.”

Lodner was a good choice. She was all business and wouldn't need to be told how important the delivery was. Less experienced deputies might see the trip to Detroit as a lark.

“Thanks, Freddy.” He didn't tell the sheriff about Minnis and the FBI. Maybe the captain was right; sometimes you kept information to yourself that might be shared because your gut told you to hold it close. Maybe it was holier-than-thou thinking, but he had a hunch the FBI's actions were something more than simple prudence.

When he called Yogi Zambonet, the biologist seemed distracted and irritated.

“This is Service. The Vermillion blue is still loose. Is there a way to trap it and put a collar on him?”

“You might want to get over here,” Zambonet said, ignoring Service's question. “We've got a real green fire ready to break out.” There was palpable concern in the biologist's voice.

“Your office?”

“Yah, like posthaste.”

Service checked his watch. It was just after 10 a.m. and Maridly said she would be home by dinner. He guessed he had enough time to get to Crystal Falls and back, but the idea of making the drive was a pain in the ass. Nantz would be arriving in Escanaba this evening and he wanted to be there when she came in. What the hell did the biologist mean by a green fire? More agitation by environmentalists?

Service walked into the District 3 office through the front entrance. Margie, the district's dispatcher-secretary-receptionist, was in a hushed debate with two men in flannel shirts about property lines. She waved at him and smiled as he passed.

The biologist sat on a stool in his cubicle, staring at a poster of two wolves barely visible in a snowstorm. Zambonet's office was cluttered with wolf posters and photographs, black radio collars, and several stainless-steel leghold traps.

“Where's the fire?” Service asked. Zambonet swiveled slowly around on his stool. He groaned as he got to his feet, took Service by the arm, and led him quickly past several small cubicles to where they could see the small waiting area on the Division of Environmental Quality's side of the building.

A woman in a black business suit and black pumps was talking quietly to a man in a faded brown corduroy suit. The woman's back was to them. Both had black hair. Indians, he guessed, dressed for business.

“
That's
the fire,” Zambonet said. “Or the accelerant,” he added.

Service watched the two visitors and when the woman turned around, he sucked in a breath.

“They're here to talk about the blue wolf,” Zambonet said. “They want to know what plan we have to protect it.”