Running Dark (25 page)

39

SLIPPERY CREEK, MAY 9–10, 1976

“You're a lout, Service!”

On the way back from the jail, Service stopped at the district office. Connie Leppo gave him a look. “Len said you're s'pposed ta be off for a few days.”

“I'm working on it,” he said on his way to the evidence locker, where he had left the two slugs recovered from the deer parts at the pond. It took thirty minutes to find the plastic bag with the slugs, and he cursed himself for not having a better memory.

On the drive home he found the afternoon light almost blinding; he put on his sunglasses, which helped, but his eyes continued to tear up and he felt a headache starting.

He had just walked into the Airstream when the trailer door burst open behind him.

“There you are, you scoundrel!”

Brigid Mehegen's diminutive grandfather stood in the doorway, his face flushed, brandishing a shotgun. He wore a pith helmet with a Civil Defense logo on the front. “You broke my grandbaby's heart!”

Service slapped the barrel of the shotgun aside and wrenched it away from the man. “Get out of my house.” The ache in his head was sharper.

“This ain't no house. I gotta hurt you bad. It's the code.”

Mehegen came in behind her grandfather, spun him around, and got in his face. “The same code says I fight my own fights,” she growled.

“I'm upholding your honor,” her grandfather said. “Not that you got all that much left.”

Mehegen turned him around and ushered him out the door, slamming it behind him.

She looked at the cut on Service's head.

“Are you two a traveling tag team?” he asked.

“That's right: Make funny, Mr. Macho. Every cop in the U.P. is talking about your swim—
Otter.
” She sat down at the table. “Don't mind that old man. The fact is, neither of you understand the concept of a fuck-buddy.” She paused to let her words sink in. “There can't be any sex when the fuck-buddy disappears for a mysterious
and
undefined family emergency, and doesn't bother to call when he gets back to town. You're a lout, Service!”

Lout . . . scoundrel? He was being skewered with nineteenth-century vocabulary.

“I came here tonight to officially dissolve our fuck-buddyship,” Mehegen said. “Do you care to offer a defense?”

“I forgot?” he said. His head was pounding now; he was cold again, and beginning to feel nauseous.

“That's it! You
forgot?
That does wonders for my ego!”

He waved his hand at her, felt the gorge rising in his throat.

“You're . . .
dismissing
me?”

“Unless you want—” He vomited on the floor and her boots and grabbed the edge of the table to maintain his balance.

“I'm getting help!” Mehegen said, her eyes wide.

He grabbed her wrist. “No.”

She peeled his hand away and went outside. Moments later her grandfather came through the door. “He's a doctor,” Mehegen announced.

“What kind?” Service mumbled.

“It matters, you puking all over?” the grandfather replied. “I was an OB/GYN before I retired.”

Service vomited again and started to fall. His guests caught him and helped him back to the toilet.

He awoke in bed, his head still hurting, but the pain somewhat diminished. Mehegen's grandfather was standing by the bed.

“Feeling better?”

“I think I'm done throwing up.”

“You got nothing left to expel but organs,” the old man said. “You really let loose.”

“You're actually a doctor?”

“Until liability and malpractice insurance got so bad it drove me out.”

“High?”

“Probably more than you'll ever make in a year, but it wasn't just the money. I got tired of being sued, and my insurance company kept wanting to settle; and of course, my premiums kept going up,” he explained. “I wasn't a bad doctor, or a perfect one. My problem was that I was the only OB/GYN for sixty miles, and I was outnumbered by lawyers. One day I just said to hell with it and moved up here. You've had a pretty good concussion. Did a neurologist look at you?”

“There wasn't one.”

“That's the U.P. for you. When did you get the whacks on the head?”

“Two nights ago, more or less.”

The retired doctor nodded ponderously. “Symptoms coming on this late aren't good. You need to get back to your doctor. He tell you it could take weeks for the symptoms to clear?”

Service tried to shake his head, but couldn't. “No.” Actually, he had ignored what the doctor, Vince Vilardo, had told him. Ignored or forgotten. The way he had felt, either was possible.

Mehegen came into the room, kissed her grandfather's cheek, and after he was gone, sat on the end of the bed. “Cops are making a joke out of what you went through,” she said. “I don't see the humor in it, and I'm spending the night right here.”

Service started to protest but she held up her hand. “Tonight we'll focus on the buddy part. People with concussions are supposed to be watched,” she said. “Why'd they let you out anyway?”

“Work,” he said.

She rolled her eyes, growled “
Cops,
” and went to the front of the trailer, leaving him alone, but he followed her. “That night when you babysat Ivan Rhino, did he say anything when you were alone with him?”

She looked at him. “Not really.”

“Nothing at all?”

“I can't believe you want to talk about
that!
He said two words: ‘Right on.'”

“When was this?”

“You were inside with the deputies.”

“Right on?”

“I thought his synapses were misfiring.”

Maybe not, Service thought.

40

LITTLE LAKE, MAY 11, 1976

“He can smell a fart in a tornado.”

Service stopped at the Escanaba district office, and Leppo immediately began to yip, “Outta here! Youse're s'pposed to be resting.”

He opened the evidence locker and started searching for the slugs he had stored there. He gave up after an hour. He knew he'd put them there. Hadn't he?

Connie Leppo said, “I thought youse got what you needed from the evidence locker the other day?”

He had been here? Leppo held up an evidence custody form. It listed two rifle slugs, caliber unknown. He had signed for them May 9.
Shit,
he thought.

“Okay to use the phone?” he asked. Connie Leppo rolled her eyes and left her desk. He called the Marquette County sheriff's office and got the names of the two deputies who had responded to his call that night at STP. He left before Leppo could come back and scold him for being there. He sat in his Plymouth trying to recall picking up the evidence. He couldn't.

The deputies were Harry Wayne and Maurice Shelby. He called Wayne from a pay phone and asked if they could meet. Wayne agreed, and said he'd call Shelby.

It was fifty-three degrees, the snowpack melting quickly, leaving the side roads slippery with mud and slush on top and a substrate of holdover ice that had been packed down by vehicles over the long winter. He knew the warm-up wouldn't last. It would take heavy spring rains to really take the snow, and even then turquoise-blue ice patches would persist in the dark nooks of cedar roots until well into July. Fifties today, it could be below twenty tomorrow, but spring and summer were coming on.

The two deputies were waiting at Harry Wayne's small log house on Little Lake. There were patches of snow and ice stacked up on the south shore, opposite the cabin. The two men were in their late twenties, and both had been on the job for three years.

Wayne invited him in and offered him coffee. “She got a little wet down to the bay, eh?”

Service nodded. The deputy's comment was a way of acknowledging that a brother cop had gone over the edge and inexplicably come back. It wouldn't be mentioned again in his presence unless he brought it up, a subtle recognition that each officer who survived a close call needed to work out the aftermath in his own time and in his own way.

He got right to the point. “You guys up for a visit to STP?”

“Why?” Shelby asked immediately. “Any DNR violations were secondary to the felonies.”

“I'm not questioning that,” he said, “and I'm not trying to butt in. I just want to take a walk-through for a little peace of mind. It got pretty confusing that night.”

The men looked at each other, and Wayne said, “What the hell.”

“How's Eugene?” Service asked.

“They moved him from the hospital to lockup. They have him segregated.”

“Because of a threat?”

“Because he's as simple as a brick. Even his lawyer's having a hard time understanding him.”

“Did Hegstrom take him on?”

“Nope, just the girl. Chomsky and Rhino have their own court-appointeds. Rhino refused to share.”

Service expected the camp road to be drifted over with snow and was surprised to see it freshly plowed.

There was a black New Yorker parked next to the camp building where the stabbing took place. Service pulled in behind the Chrysler and waited for the deputies to arrive. The Chrysler was sparkling by U.P. spring standards, almost no salt scabs or sand buildups on the bumpers.

The deputies picked their way through the mud to his patrol car. “When did the county release this place as a crime site?”

“Mid-April?” Shelby asked Wayne, who nodded in agreement. “Would have been earlier, but Hegstrom wanted to keep it roped off.”

Why would Hegstrom want that? Service wondered.

Service knocked on the door and, after a long delay, an elderly man opened the door a crack and peered out. “I thought the police were done with this place.”

“Mr. Agosti?” Service said.

“Who else would it be, more hoodlums?”

“I'm Conservation Officer Service,” he said, turning to the other men. “Deputies Wayne and Shelby. We're sorry if we've interrupted you.”

The man said, “What is it this time?”

“I beg your pardon,” Service said. The old man was unexpectedly gruff.

“I wanted to come up in January before Angie and I left for Florida, but the detective said no. So I asked him to call me when the place was released and we headed on down to Florida. You think he'd have the courtesy to call? Not a chance. I had to call long-distance to find out. Angie and I worked hard for what we've got. We saved. We don't throw money around.”

Talk about a non sequitur soliloquy, Service thought. No money to throw around? The man owned two camps on a nice piece of property, drove a nearly new automobile, and he and the wife spent at least part of the winter in Florida. “Did you build these places?” Service asked. There had been no camps in the area years ago when he'd been here.

“With my own two hands,” the old man said.

“Can we come in?” Service asked.

“Why?” Agosti challenged. “So you can trash the camp again?”

Service glanced at Wayne, who arched an eyebrow. “Is this a bad time? Did we catch you on the way out?” Service asked.

“Just don't have time is all,” Agosti said. “Come back tomorrow. I got things to do, and Angie's still in Florida.”

“Did you drive up from Florida?” Deputy Wayne asked.

“Four days,” the old man said, holding up three fingers. “Rain all the way.”

Service looked back and saw Shelby peering into the vehicle and trying a door handle.

“What's all the stuff in the car?” Shelby yelled out as he walked toward the cabin.

“Stuff the wife wants,” the old man said.

“For Florida?” Shelby asked.

“That's right, for Florida,” the man said.

“Cross-country skis for Florida?” Shelby asked.

“'Course not; those I got to drop to my granddaughter in Chicago.”

Deputy Shelby said, “Can you show us some ID, Mr. Agosti?”

“You guys come trash my camps and now I'm the criminal?”

The old man's reactions from the start had not been normal, Service told himself.

“Your car's locked,” Shelby said.

“What, I'm supposed to leave it open? A body can't be too careful.”

“Identification, sir?”

The old man opened the door slightly and patted at his trousers. “Guess I left it in the other room,” he said and started to close the door, but Harry Wayne stuck his boot in to block it. Service heard the old man go scuttling away, moving with amazing alacrity.

They pushed the door open and went inside. “Some look-see this is,” Shelby said. “Mr. Agosti?” he called out.

No answer.

Service wandered into the kitchen. It had not been cleaned up. As soon as it warmed up, the dried blood would attract flies and other insects. What was the old man doing here?

Shelby called out again. “Mr. Agosti?”

Wayne looked at Service. “He's gone.”

“No way,” Service said.

“Beam me up, Scotty?” Shelby said with a grin.

“He's here,” Service said. “He was out of sight ten seconds max. He's not Houdini.”

“Neither was Houdini,” Shelby said.

“What?”

“Houdini's real name was Erik Weisz.”

“Get serious,” Service said, rolling his eyes.

“I am serious, that was his name,” Shelby insisted.

“Let's open the Chrysler,” Wayne said.

“You got a key?” Service wanted to know.

The deputies laughed.

“Illegal search,” Service said.

Wayne said, “He couldn't or wouldn't identify himself. He's got to be a hundred and forty years old, and he's got cross-country skis and an uncased rifle in the backseat of his vehicle. Leave this to us, woods cop.”

“You never said anything about a rifle,” Service said.

“Up here everybody has a rifle.”

“Uncased?”

“That too.”

Service looked at Harry Wayne for support, but got none.

“There's a
Milwaukee Journal
on the front seat,” Shelby said.

“You can buy them at Benny's in Gladstone,” Service said. “Daily. Sometimes I even buy one.”

“Game wardens can read?” Shelby asked.

“No jokes, guys. Something stinks here.”

“We should call Sniffer,” Harry Wayne said to Shelby.

“Who?” Service wanted to know.

Harry Wayne said, “Kharlamov. He's our new guy. He moved up from Pontiac. He was a tunnel rat in Vietnam. He can smell a fart in a tornado.”

“He claims,” Shelby added.

“We'll give him a test,” Wayne said.

The banter of the two deputies was beginning to annoy him. “Call him,” Service said, sitting down at the dining room table and rubbing his head. It was beginning to ache again.
Where the hell had the old man disappeared to?

He was dozing when he sensed someone nearby, and awoke to find a craggy-faced man with a shaved head. “You're Service?” the stranger whispered. “Marines, right?”

Service nodded.

The man said, “I heard. I'm Alex Kharlamov, Highlands, K-nine and tunnels.”

Kharlamov was short with powerful shoulders and a thick neck. “Where're the guys?”

“I told them to stay outside. They talk too much. Laurel and Hardy told me what happened,” Kharlamov said. “There's got to be a hidey-hole.”

Service was impressed with the new man's presence. He spoke so softly, his words barely above a whisper. “Did you search?” the new deputy asked.

“Not really.”

“Good,” the man said. “Ten seconds was the lag time?”

“About.”

Kharlamov sat down Indian-style on the floor. “You fish for trout?”

“When I get the chance.” Which had not been often enough.

Kharlamov smiled. “I came up here for the trout. Fewer, smaller fish mean fewer people. I like to fish alone.”

“You've come to the right place,” Service said.

“Could afford it, I'd be a hermit,” the man said. “You fish hatches or attractors?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Me, I'm a hatch man. It's like surveillance. Sometimes conditions seem right and the bugs don't show. The key is to be in the right place at the right time, and to wait. Most people aren't patient enough.” Kharlamov looked over at Service. “We're gonna have a hatch here.”

“You get that from tea leaves or chicken guts?” Service asked.

Kharlamov smiled. “There's a vent grate in the roof overhang. Is there a basement?”

“Not that we could see. Foundation's poured, but it looks like a slab. The furnace is in a closet off the kitchen.”

“Crawl space in the ceiling,” Kharlamov said, “too shallow for an attic, and the grate's too large for the overhang. When you're sight-fishing, what do you look for?”

“Shadows first, parts of a fish next—never the whole thing.”

The deputy grunted softly, slid a metal flask out of his jacket pocket, and held it out to Service. “Pepper vodka?”

Service took the flask. It was inscribed with the words standard bet in an ornate script. He took a drink and handed it back. “Special meaning?”

“Not anymore,” Kharlamov said. “You're the one took the swim in the big water?”

“Yeah.”

Service got up and watched Wayne and Shelby start their vehicles and drive away. He had no idea where Kharlamov had parked. Only the Chrysler remained by the cabin.

No more words were spoken for more than two hours. Kharlamov sat with his hand flat against the drywall, his eyes staring into a void.

Just over two hours after the other deputies drove away, Kharlamov raised his hand and showed one finger, then two, nodding to make sure Service had seen.

Service was behind the deputy, who had edged to the door of the bedroom where the stabbing had taken place. Service saw the barrel of a revolver poke into view and just as quickly, Kharlamov had the weapon in hand and the old man pinned by the throat against the wall, his face turning red and eyes bulging.

Another figure came darting into the room, not looking left or right. Service shouted, “Police—
freeze!
” but the figure kept going through the front door. He followed to find Deputy Shelby on top of a struggling figure in the snow and mud. The deputies had dumped the vehicle and come back on foot to wait outside.

They checked the two for identification. The old man had no wallet. The other prisoner was a young girl, twelve or thirteen, and she stared at them with hatred, refusing to talk. Shelby read them their rights, cuffed them, and put them in the back of Kharlamov's patrol car, which Harry Wayne brought up to the cabin.

Wayne stayed in the vehicle with the prisoners and radioed his sergeant.