Force of Blood (25 page)

Service bunked at the Bomb Shelter and drove into town first thing in the morning while Sedge stayed behind, intending to start her day’s patrol later so she could make contact with trout fishermen at dusk. Service’s cell phone rang as he was passing The Old Bank building in downtown Newberry.

“Sonnyboy.”

“Linsenman must have been out early.”

“I speck I mebbe make dat boy stain ’is ’wears, eh. Speck the dep din’t speck nobody walk my trails first light. Called me bunch nasty names, he did.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard them all before.”

Allerdyce chortled. “I ain’t no cherry when comes get bad-mouthed,” he admitted. “Weasel say you want me call. Here I am.”

“You set us up with Clatchety at the museum.”

“Not me, my chum.”

“Okay, your chum.”
Games
. “If we were to ask him about Clatchety and the so-called museum, what do you think he’d tell us?”

“Dat guy don’t talk so much.”

“Is Clatchety a hired gun or the main man?”

“Depends. Where you at?”

“Newberry.”

“DNR office?”

“Right, north of M-28.”

“Good time, mebbe you me talk,” Allerdyce said. “I’m over datway. See youse dere.”

Why not? He’ll fit right in with Toliver and Katsu.
“Call me when you get to town.”

Grinda showed up around noon. “Sedge wants to meet for lunch at the Falls.”

“The park or the hotel?”

She grinned. “Hotel, smart-ass.”

He cared little for U.P. restaurant/bar food, most of it tending toward fat and grease. “What time?”

Grinda checked her watch. “Half-hour. Want to ride with me?”

“Sure.”

“You bring other clothes?” she asked, appraising him.

“You got a problem with my ensemble?”

“I just thought we might want to make this guy think we have means.”

He grunted. “I’ll think about it.”

His plan was to bring heavy pressure on Allerdyce to find out everything he could about Clatchety and his museum. As they headed down the hill into town a name popped into his head.
Honeypat
. If Imago Held’s the big shot in Lansing everyone claims, might she know him? Or at least
of
him?
Worth following up
.

Sedge came in and the three of them sat in a booth in back of the bar. Service ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with sliced pickled jalapenos on the side. The women talked and his mind wandered. Sedge was going on about something called Howling Diablos and shaboogie trash can blues. The sandwich floated in grease. His phone burred.

“Sonnyboy?”

“You here already?”

“Whin we talk, eh?”

“Falls Hotel, downtown,” Service said. “Pick me up?”

“Ten minute. I look you out front or come in?”

“I’ll be outside.”

“Don’t like our company?” Sedge asked as he got up and went to pay his share of the bill.

“Allerdyce is picking me up,” he said.

The female officers sat with open mouths. He paid his bill and went outside into the sun and a blinding blue sky. Allerdyce was the enemy. That he was being fetched by the old poacher caught them all by surprise and made him smile inwardly.

A shiny green Hummer pulled up to the curb, Allerdyce behind the wheel. Service got up into the wide vehicle, asking, “Where’s your old Ford?”

“She good in woods, but long trip, dis better.”

Service looked around. The vehicle looked and smelled new. “A little ostentatious for your line of work.”

Allerdyce made a snorting sound.

“Head north out of town,” Service said. “We can talk while we drive.”

“Your head plugged?” Allerdyce asked as they cruised over the railroad tracks. “Most time I tink you sharp as Finn knife.”

“What?”

“Youse call me ’bout errorheads, dat right?”

“I didn’t call you. You showed up at my camp.”

“What I tell youse?”

“You asked me a question.”

“No, I axe youse’s got plugged-up head.”

It was a headache to talk to the old man, a delicate, frustrating dance, or feigned moronics, and Service knew when to surrender and just listen. “Okay, you said arrowheads are all over the place and not worth shit. And I asked if you knew that from experience, and you said maybe you just heard it in the woods.”

“See,” Allerdyce said, “dere’s problem. Youse ’member everyting words got said, but youse don’t tink ’bout what was I tole youse.”

“You told me about Hectorio.”

Allerdyce mashed the braked suddenly, throwing the Hummer into a violent stop, causing vehicles behind him to veer left and right, honking horns, making obscene and threatening gestures. He ignored all of them with a frown on his face.

Allerdyce tapped his temple. He said, “Use dat bloody noggin’, sonnyboy,” and accelerated as other vehicles skidded behind him. Service tried to ignore the outside world’s chaos, and think. “The stuff is all over the place. You told me that.”

“Holy wah.”

“But they shouldn’t be all over the place up here?”

“Youse tell me, Mr. Dickteckative. Four Mile Corner here, which way I go?”

“Left, toward Deer Park.”

“Okay we stop Bear Ranch?” Allerdyce asked.

“Sure, why not,” Service said. The more he thought about things, the more cluttered his mind seemed to get.

After a few miles they turned down the driveway of Oswald’s Bear Ranch. Allerdyce paid the entry fee, parked, and was out of the Hummer before Service could even undo his seat belt. He found the old man standing in front of a ten-foot-high chain-link fence with a sign that said
MALES
.

Allerdyce stood with his arms crossed, staring at a huge animal with dirty fur. Beyond this one, Service saw eight more bears of varying size. The ranch had been in operation for years, and sometimes had as many as four dozen animals in residence.

“See dat?” Allerdyce asked. “Plain as dose bears got noses.”

Stuff all over the place. Not worth shit. Plain as a bear’s nose. Bingo: Bears were solitary creatures, and all these together in pens made for an artificial situation, one created and arranged by man for profit. But it wasn’t artificiality exactly that Limpy means. Maybe it’s quantity. In the wild you’d never see this many bears together.

“There were never many Indians up here on Superior south shore,” he told the old poacher. “Soo, Bay Mills, Tahq, Grand Island, Keweenaw, Ontonagon.”

“Why you tink dat?”

“Fish in Superior, lake trout and whities and perch, they spawn in close. Some furs in the swamps, but not much big game way up here because there’s not enough food for them. Without fish and fur bearers up here, there’s no reason to be here.”

Allerdyce nodded. “So how come dere’s all dem bloody errorheads?”

“Well, we know they made a lot of stuff for trade purposes.”

“Did dey?”

“Yes, of course.”

Allerdyce grunted. “Youse might want check dat, like where dat flint come from, eh?”

“We have flint.”

“Mostly crap chert is what we got, not much flint ’cept down Burn Bluff, an’ mosta dat’s ten feet down in lake water. Indians dive for flint, you tink?”

Service looked at the old man, who was a lot smarter than most people suspected. “Locals traded for the flint. They traded for everything.”

“You still blind.”

“They traded for stuff, then made things from the flint.”

“Not so many red niggers, ’member. If not many, how come so much stuff? Why dey need all dat shit?”

“Are you telling me people are manufacturing artifacts?”

Allerdyce shrugged. “Some say dat how it is.”

“The museum’s a scam?”

Allerdyce shrugged again. “Not all. You run scam, youse got have some stuff legit, eh?”

“I hear you,” Service said.

“Din’t say nuttin’, sonny.”

“Clatchety the main man or a hired gun?”

“Hear both. Hear neither. You pick.”

“You know Imago Held?”

“I ’posed to?”

They bunked with Sedge at the Bomb Shelter, and when Service saw how Elza Grinda was dressed for their meeting with Clatchety, he felt like a slug. She wore a flowery sundress and paper-thin sandals, her hair in a neat French braid, nails done, makeup, and all he could say was “Uh-huh.”

“You look good, too,” she quipped.

“
Not,
” Sedge intervened. “The least you can do is shave.”

“These are informal times,” he countered weakly, but both women were pointing at the bathroom.

He started to say something and his companions said, “Don’t even,” in one voice. Knowing he was beaten, he grudgingly shaved, but suspected Clatchety would be so dazzled by Grinda he would barely glance his way.

He had called Honeypat Allerdyce in Lansing the night before.

“Youse,” she greeted him. “Figured I’d be getting dis call.”

He didn’t want to plumb her reasoning. “Imago Held,” he said.

“What about ’im?”

“Client of yours?”

She laughed out loud. “Dere’s privacy laws,” she said.

“Not for illegal activities.”

“Everybody knows Held.”

“Power broker, right?”

“Bozian’s old asshole pal,” she said.

“I’m trying to find someone who’s been in his house, or his hunt club down in Hillsdale.”

“Dat could be arranged,” she said.

“How much?”

“How bad youse need it?”

The price she wanted was one he wouldn’t pay. “Don’t go there, Honeypat.”

“Youse’re one called me.”

“Probably a mistake,” he said.

“We all make ’em,” she said. “Dere’s worse things. You and Hectorio got something working?”

“Aitch tell you that?”

“Not in so many words, but he’s got that peso-glow thing working.”

“Peso-glow?”

“Dude lights up when he thinks bonus money is coming his way.”

“Bonus, in contrast to non-bonus?”

“You know, his regular gig. That sort of income we all come to expect, but the stuff that comes in above and beyond, that’s bonus.”

“What about Held?”

“Slick as swamp water, poisonous as Massasauga. Youse know da type.”

“Be specific.”

“Got a squeeze, real easy glove, hear what I’m sayin’?”

Easy glove? She is a piece of work.
“Yes. This glove got a name?”

“Skyler Verst.”

“Who is?”

“Off the table, Mabel, quarter’s for the beer. Was married state senator from East Grand Rapids who term-limited out. Her ex old man runs company, Opinion Twenty-Four Seven.”

“Political polls?”

“Politics, opinions, marketing—youse name it, he does it.”

“Elephant or donkey?” he asked.

“Big elephant, but he gave money to Timms.”

“And his wife ran off with Held?”

“Weird world, eh? Wasn’t no run-off. She just pushed Verst out the door. And she runs to Held whenever he wants, but he ain’t exclusive.”

“Verst a grudge-holder?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“How do I get in touch with this woman?”

“When I said she ain’t exclusive with Held, I didn’t mean, like, she’s available to walk-in traffic.”

“I really need to know about Held’s house.”

“That could be arranged.”

“Not at your price.”

“How can you possibly know my price?” she countered sternly, and Service heard the change in inflection. Honeypat had become Honeypet. A chill swept over him.

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“I assume youse got a case.”

She had him in a quandary. “Let’s leave it at that. I would really appreciate talking to someone who has been into Held’s place.”

“All right,” she said. “What would you like to know?”

“
You’ve
been in there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Recently?”

“Is time frame important?”

“Depends on when you visited. It could be.”

“St. Patrick’s Day, this year. He has the Great Green Gala every year, calls it the Three Gee Ball.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You’re not an insider.”

He didn’t ask how she ranked. “Obviously.”
And thankfully
.
Something different here, her voice, tone, something.

“You know where Held’s money came from?” she asked.

“No.”

“Coins.”

“Like, rare coins?”

“Old, rare, whatever. He tells the world he attended Central Michigan University and sold his coin collection while he was there, and made so much money he was forced to drop out and manage his investments. He gives major donations to politicians, and to all major universities in the state.”

“Luck sometimes comes into play,” he said.

“Nonsense. In Held’s time in Mount Pleasant, which amounted to only four weeks, a man in Nashville, Tennessee, had his coin collection stolen.”

“Are you calling Held a thief?”

“I’m saying the FBI investigated him, but never indicted.”

“Investigated at the time of the robbery?”

“No, years later, after the statute of limitations had closed.”

“And no indictment.”

“Feds initially judged it was a political allegation by one of his many foes, but more importantly, someone intervened with the FBI.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “Sam Bozian.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“I’m guessing he was Bozian’s pollster. Sam didn’t shit without polls.”

“I find your language both rude and insulting.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “About the house,” he added.

“
What
about it?”

“Antiques, original art, artifacts, that sort of thing?”

“All over the home. Artifacts in display cases.”

“What sort of artifacts?”

“Civil War, Native American, that sort of thing.”

“This was as of this just-past St. Paddy’s Day?”

“Yes, March seventeenth.”

“Photographs on the walls?”

“More stuffed-animal heads than anything. You know, man-cave wall of death.”

“You find such things objectionable?”

“Hey, I don’t have all night ta shoot shit wit’ youse, Service. Youse want ta know ’boot Held’s place, youse know da price. Anyting else I can do?”

Service stared at the telephone.
What the hell just happened? Is she for real, or is this some sort of put-on?
“No, that’s it. Thanks,” he said.

“One last ting, free,” Honeypat said. “Hectorio ain’t one you want to play wit’, hear me? He don’t give but one warning,” she said, and hung up.

Driving to Trout Lake the conversation with Honeypat/Honeypet was troubling him. Stolen coins, Indian relics, stuffed animal heads.
What the hell are we into—if anything?

• • •

Clatchety was tall and thin and walked with a slight limp. The man had cloudy gray eyes and a heavy five o’clock shadow. Grinda introduced him as Andrew but Clatchety ignored him.

“You mentioned something special,” Grinda said.

His smile was thin.
Nerves?
He handed her an eight-by-ten color photograph that he tapped out of a manila envelope.

Grinda passed the photograph to Service, who felt his stomach churn.
This is the same cane Hectorio showed me. Jesus! What gives?
“What about it?” Service asked the man, passing the photograph back to him.

“Make an offer,” the man said. “Availability of this item is extremely limited.”

“We’re in the market for something more … local. The item in this photo is Iroquois, specifically Mohawk.”

The man’s eyes went buggy.

“Are you
serious?
”

“We collect what appeals to us,” Service countered.

The man stared at him, said, “Local? Wait here.” And he left them.

Ten minutes later he was sliding the top off a wooden box two feet long and ten inches wide. Top off, the man set the box on a table.

Breakhead.
“Is that handle bone?” Service asked.

“The striking head is pure agate, very hard, the handle’s made from the leg of a bear.”

The bone was chalky yellow, the agate head pink and pale green. Service pretended to study the weapon, but he saw soil particles in the box and these interested him even more. “Local?”

“Iroquois,” Clatchety said. “But discovered locally.”

“Provenance?”

“These are one-of-a-kind items, picked up on private land and passed down through generations of families.”

“A Mohawk war chief’s cane isn’t local, and, more to the point, it’s not unique. I’ve seen others. I may, in fact, have seen this very one.”

Clatchety was blinking wildly, fighting to control his emotions.

“It is unique.”

“No, the symbols show eighteenth century, and this time period is common.”

Clatchety said, “I think you are mistaken about the symbols. This clearly is seventeenth century. May I ask where you saw it?”

“Passed down through families,” Service said. “You understand.”

“I see.”

Service tapped the wooden box. “How much?”

“Twenty.”

“Eight,” Service countered.

The man eyed him with a slight grin. “Twenty, hard.”

“Ten. Last chance or we’re out the door,” Service came back.

The man exhaled. “I’ll be back. Please wait.”

“Hired gun,” Service whispered. He checked his watch, told her the time. “Help me remember this.”

“Ten
thousand
dollars?” Grinda said.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, honey,” he said.

She rolled her eyes in disbelief.

The man came back somber-faced. “Ten, but only for cash.”

“Deal,” Service said, opened his wallet, pulled out and counted off twenty crisp McKinleys.

The man stared at the money. “You want the box wrapped?” he asked.

“Nah, the wooden box is fine, “Service said. “Receipt?”

“You want a paper trail?” the man asked.

“Suit yourself.”

“What about the staff?”

“Not interested,” Service said.

“Thirty, special deal just for you.”

Aitch has asked for twenty-five plus fifteen handling fee. The owner isn’t Hectorio. Is this guy one of Hectorio’s competitors?
“That include your handling fee?” Service challenged.

“It’s customary,” the man said. “The offer is thirty, this day only.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Service tapped the box. “This is sweet.”

Out in the truck Service said to Grinda, “Take the box to Forensics in Marquette on your way home, ask them to analyze the soil for content, and ask about carbon dating.” They double-checked the time the man had left them, presumably to use a phone.

“Subpoena phone records?” she asked.

“If it comes to that.”

“You were almost drooling over the war club.”

“I think it’s very rare, the same one the USFS described to Sedge and me.”

“The feds are involved in this?”

He nodded.

She stared at him. “Grady, where did all that money come from?”

“I got it legally. That’s all that matters.”

“Do we have a plan here?” she asked.

“Put bad guys in jail,” he said. He saw she was not smiling. “I’m hoping the soil in that box will match our site. I’ve seen this before,” he said. “So has Sedge. Katsu had it at one time. It came from the site, he said, and I want to confirm that. And if they can carbon-date, that might tell us something more.”

“I didn’t even notice the dirt,” she admitted. “This is another strange case you’ve latched onto.”

“I think this one came looking for me,” he said.

“Any notion why?”

Wish I did
. “No, ma’am.”