Shadow of the Wolf Tree (20 page)

29

South Branch, Paint River, Iron County

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2006

Service and Friday lodged Tikka Noli at the Iron County Jail in Crystal Falls, but Noli refused to answer questions until his lawyer joined him. After lodging the prisoner, Service dropped Friday at her motel to get a bath and sleep and headed back to the woods above the Noli camp.
Taide Jarvi is Art Lake, which allegedly is trying to buy Noli's property—for
Audubon access to an eagle's nest? I don't think so!
He laughed out loud.

It was dark when he moved onto the sloping hill where he and Friday had encountered the Willie Pete devices and the deer with burning hooves. The state police bomb squad and DNR Fire Response Team had cleared the area. There was no doubt in his mind that the incendiary devices had been a kind of barrier, but the purpose was impossible to determine without further investigation.

He reached the point where they had fled, hunkered down, and lit a cigarette. He could smell the remains of the small fire in the woods. He cupped his cigarette in his hand.

Service walked slowly southward, along the gently sloping ridge to where it intersected a higher ridge, and as he began to climb higher he heard an eagle's shrill shriek to his east, the animal obviously not appreciating his presence. All raptors tended to make a fuss when people got too close to their nests, or they just flapped away to wait until the coast was clear again.

The four-wheeler he'd heard had come from the southeast, though he saw no discernible trail in the darkness. That was the thing with ATVs and snowmobiles and dirt bikes: They were easy to follow—if you could catch their track.
Tomorrow morning,
he told himself.
First light.
He paused at the edge of a drop-off. His night vision might be superior to others, but it seemed more attuned to living things than inanimate objects. He cleared a space next to a downed tree, took off his pack, and sat down to wait for morning. He surrendered his senses to his ears, but there was nothing human out there.

Nighthawks made their burring sounds, diving for mosquito meals over the river south of him. Coyotes picked up his scent downwind and let loose a cacophony that ended as abruptly as it began. At the end of the log a raccoon appeared, stood on its hind legs, and sniffed at him with consternation.

Eventually he shut out the night and slipped under a veneer of sleep, a thin layer that he could will away instantly. He momentarily thought about his granddaughter but pushed the thought away. Philosophical dreaming had no role on the job or in the woods.

Art Lake, Chicago, National Guard, spring guns, Elmwood, Taide Jarvi, Tikka Noli, Frodo the Finn, gold dust, a wolf tree—so fucking many details and events and factoids, he could hardly maintain a meaningful or complete list, much less organize the whole damn thing so that he could sort it out. He had dealt with eco-terrorists before, and understood that unrestrained ideals could lead to bad decisions. But his intuition told him violence was for only the most extreme activists—the fringe. And at the same time he knew from experience that old-fashioned, unchecked greed drove most of the natural resource crimes he dealt with. Was all of this a matter of ideals gone amok, or was it simple greed? Or was “all this” many things being wrongly lumped together because of serendipitous timing?

A cardinal's song jarred him at first light and he rubbed his eyes, lit a cigarette, and wished he had coffee.

With morning light spreading steadily across the landscape, he found the four-wheeler track, which he followed to a ledge. Judging by the beaten-down grass, he guessed this had been a parking spot. It took several minutes to see that four feet below the rim there was dark dust all over some white rocks.

Easing his way down to the quartz outcrop, he knelt beside it. The white stone ledge was nearly six feet long, close to three feet high, and extended slightly from the hill like a platform. Lots of dirt spackling the crystals.
Don't just look,
he commanded himself.
See.

Two cigarettes later he knew he needn't bother pinpointing the location of Tikka Noli's eagle's nest. This had nothing to do with birds.

30

Fence River Road, Iron County

FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2006

He considered a nap, shower, and fresh clothes, but nixed it all; his mind roiled with too many questions. He called Simon and asked him to meet him on the Fence River Road northeast of Crystal Falls.

They pulled their trucks up, one facing north, the other facing south, and put down their electric windows. “You hear?” he asked del Olmo.

“I talked to Elza.
Willie-fucking-Pete?
” He shook his head in disbelief.

“I can't figure out if it was aimed at us or we just stumbled into it.”

“Professional situational awareness,” del Olmo said.

“You guys use Willie Pete in the Gulf War?” Service asked. Del Olmo had served with the marines in Desert Storm, during the reign of George the First.

“All the time. I
hate
that shit.”

“It was ubiquitous in Vietnam, in mortar shells, arty, grenades, rockets, everywhere. What form did you guys use?”

“Infantry, man—M15 grenades, now obsolete,” said del Olmo. “Eggshell-thin and serrated so they'd come apart, spread the shit. Cup and a half of pure white phosphorus, twenty-meter kill zone, with some fragments reaching beyond.”

“Any way to extract the phosphorus?”

“Why?”

“I'm thinking out loud here. Manufacturers load grenades. What goes in must come out.”

“Manufacturers, sure, but grunts? I don't
think
so. Only a psycho would screw with that stuff,” said del Olmo.

“Point conceded . . . but what would it take?”

“In addition to severe psychosis and a lot of know-how? Nerves of steel, steady hands, some specialized equipment, chemical knowledge, a room with no air—hell, I
don't know.
”

“How about M16 rounds? If you wanted to play a joke, how difficult would it be to switch the gunpowder for sugar, or some other substance?” asked Service.

“Possible and not really dangerous, but what would be the point? The whole idea of a joke is max effect for minimal effort, right?”

“How about a whole case of ammo?”

Simon del Olmo laughed out loud. “Are you shitting me? Eight hundred and forty rounds? How the hell would you get ahold of that much, even in a free-fire zone?”

“For argument's sake, this is just a theoretical.”

“Could be done, but real labor-intensive, and what do you do with all the powder after you make the switch?”

“Average marine could do it?”

“Semper fi—the average marine is better than the top army pud. Does all of this have a point?”

“Maybe. If you and I had a grenade, could we do it?”

“Not me, no way. Like I said, you need to keep air off it.”

“But manufacturers do it.”

“They get paid, have tools, equipment, special buildings, all that good stuff. I had a gunny tell me once about World War Two. The Krauts had arty shells with Willie Pete. Air bursts. This white snow would start falling and the grunts would start running like hell to get out from under the shit.”

Service said, “The stuff we hit was in soft plastic, about the size of biscuits. Punch a hole, air gets in, it ignites. They were sealed to keep air out.”

“Good thing for the sealer. Maybe they were made underwater, but then I don't know how you get the water out without leaving some air. All this is over my head technically. Just be glad you guys didn't step on one,” said del Olmo.

“We found only one intact. I sent a Troop to the lab in Marquette with it.” Service then related the story of the deer with flaming feet.

“Elza told me. That was some weird shit. Somebody is out there with a major fucking personal malfunction. I wish I could be more help.”

“I'm thinking all this stuff is like fishing. Right bait, right time, right presentation, right place. You just gotta keep casting, one throw at a time, until we hook up. And I think we got lucky earlier today.”

“Lucky how?” del Olmo asked. “Is that like a metaphor or an analogy?”

“Ask Elza—she's smarter than both of us.”

Del Olmo laughed. “Got that right. Semper fi,
jeffe.
”

“You ever encounter a guy named Tikka Noli?”

“My God, did you run into his whack-job mother?”

“Gun and all. We found what looks to be Willie Pete packages at their place on the river.”

“No shit,” del Olmo said.

“Noli or his mother active in environmental groups?”

Simon del Olmo laughed. “This is Iron County, not Marquette or Houghton.

Dots-dots-dots,
caught in his mind like a tightly closed loop,
moving like atoms. I can see the orbits,
but not the particles, and absolutely not how they are connected, if at all. Keep casting,
Service told himself.

He found Friday in the office, her eyes sunken with a vacant stare. “Mike gave me a lift,” she said.

“You need sleep.”

“I need a lot of things. You don't?”

“Less than most.”

“Discouraging words on several levels.”

Tired but still playful.
He liked that. “That steel wire company you talked to?”

“Peachtree Enterprises, out of Milwaukee; they make that special model. I've also got a call in to Department of Corrections Purchasing in Lansing to get their take on the vendor. Meanwhile, I'm talking back and forth with a Milwaukee cop, who let me know that Peachtree has reported thefts. He's sending me the written complaints and police reports. Soon as I get the paperwork I'll call Peachtree, tell them I know about their problem and I'm working a capital case; if they don't want to cough up customer lists, we'll bring a warrant.”

He had no idea she'd thought it through so well.
She thinks in logical plans, not tasks, Service thought. She has the natural instincts, and she's going to be a helluva detective. Can't say the same about myself. Pay attention, ya mutt. You can learn from her.

She added. “That's the plan—if I don't get hauled out for overnight campouts or keep reducing the deer population. My vehicle won't be done until next week.” She added, “We're making progress.”

“That's what the Russians told their doggie astronauts.”

“Seriously, there's progress.”

“Such as?”

“I don't have a lot of specifics, but my intuition's strong. That package in Noli's kitchen is the same thing we ran into in the woods,” she said. “I know it.”

“We don't know that until forensics tells us so. It's hard to write intuition into a report.” But he was glad they were on the same beam.

“For the record, that porcupine liver was actually tasty.”

“With more time, the woods would give us a seven-course-meal.”

“I'll dream of that day,” she said, turning back to her computer.

He turned to his, but couldn't deal with it. He picked up his cell phone, walked out to the parking lot, and watched the traffic going up the hill on US 2 out of town, right by a fieldstone Seventh-day Adventist church facing a McDonald's—an odd, yet somehow normal Yooper cultural juxtaposition. It made him laugh as he lit a cigarette and called the Michigan State Police forensics lab in Marquette and asked for the lead bomb squad technician, a man named Pirdue.

“You again,” the man greeted him. “We've got bomb squad guys who don't see in five years the shit you've seen in a month.”

“Wire and fishing hooks aren't bombs.”

“Iceberg, Goldberg,” the man said. “You hear the latest rumor?”

“I doubt I've heard the old ones.”

“If the governor can't bring in the state budget, we may get shut down.”

“Not for long,” Service said. “We've been through this before. The state announces layoffs and shutdowns, the people get pissed, the legislature finds Jesus, and life goes on.”

“I mean they may shut down the Marquette lab. If so, that will mean no forensics support for
any
law enforcement agency in the U.P. The closest lab will be in Grayling.”

He had
not
heard this, and it sounded ludicrous enough to be true.

“Lori's got a real mess to deal with,” Pirdue said. “All agencies are gonna get hit hard even if the budget comes through.”

Governor Lorelei Timms had morphed into Lori for a large number of Michiganders, who liked and respected her, and sympathized with the fiscal crisis she had inherited with little role in its making. Timms, through some odd circumstances, had been close to Nantz, and was also his friend. He rarely called her.

“If we shut down and the systems we support get adjusted to it, we may never see light again,” Pirdue said.

The man had a point. “It's only summer,” Service said. “She's got until October.”

“For this year, but I'm hearing the real budget nut-cutter is coming in '07.”

He needed to get the man on track. “You get the sample I sent over?”

Pirdue laughed. “The Troop who brought it looked like he was ready to piss his pants.”

“I saw that stuff ignite,” Service said. “Don't blame your guy.”

“Someone said something about a deer with fire shooting out its ass.”

“Hooves,” Service said. “I saw that too.”

“Okay, this is a prelim, but whoever designed this device is damn clever. I'm thinking the perp built them in water and found a way to remove the air to leave dry crystals inside.”

“Hard to do this?”

“Damn hard, unless you've got big balls, chemical training, and some high-tech support.”

“If I wanted to get my hands on white phosphorus, could I do it?”

“Hell, with enough cash, you can buy a fresh kidney on the black market.”

“Seriously.”

“White phosphorus isn't a natural substance. It's made from apatite, a form of phosphate rock. China and Russia mine the shit out of phosphates.”

“Mined here?”

“Michigan? No way. The geology's all wrong. Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana—those are our big producers.”

Idaho and Montana.
Proximity to Colorado. He made a mental note. “Mined for what?”

“You name it: rat poison, munitions, fireworks, toothpaste, fertilizer, food additives, pharmaceuticals—it's used in all sorts of stuff. Even coating for steel wire, and I think the steel industry also uses it as a deoxidizing agent.”

Toothpaste?
He was glad he had false choppers.
Coating steel wire? Another hit—
another dot?
“The mines extract the phosphate rock and sell it to chemical manufacturers, who then make white phosphorus that they sell to companies who use it to make different products.”

“You listen pretty good, Detective. I wish other clients did.”

“Is the stuff hard to steal?”

“Like I said, kidneys, but you don't have to steal it, see. If you know what you're doing, you can make it yourself.”

“How?”

“You take red phosphorus—which is more stable, easier to get, and less volatile—and you use heat to turn it into the white stuff. Red's a little safer, but the gases from it will take you into DNM.”

DNM—Dirt Nap Mode, techies' idea of cool talk.
“Conversion's easy?”

“Meth cooks do it sometimes. They call the red stuff Red P. I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill scuzzbagger, using the Nazi recipe, but the talented ones—who could probably make a decent living in the legit chemical industry if only their heads weren't all fucked up and stuck up their butts.”

“Meth labs?”

“I expect you've seen a few of those?”

He had, and they scared hell out of him. “Thanks.”

“I'll have more on device design early next week. Do me a favor: You see another deer with its ass on fire, take a photograph, or better yet, a video, and we'll both get rich.”

“Hooves,” Service said.

“Whatever. But fire shooting out its ass would be worth more.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

He went back inside and waited until Friday got off her phone. “Can you call that wire outfit in Wisconsin and ask them if they use white phosphorus to coat their wires, or if they know any company that does?”

“Are you serious?”

“I just talked to the bomb squad in Marquette.”

“I'll get right on it,” she said. “A lot of the cop shops I'm talking to want written requests for police reports, and they charge a fee.”

“Cheesehead frugality,” he said.

She lowered her eyes. “Really?”

He went outside and found Millitor. “You get a lot of meth in this county?”

“More over in Dickinson.”

“Know any cooks?”

The Iron County detective pointed at McDonald's and chuckled. “They do.”

“Meth.”

“Yeah, there's a pretty good one in the county lockup in Crystal right now, waiting for a transport downstate.”