Force of Blood Page 9

“Don’t presume answers on my behalf. Winter brought up the burial bundle, not my digging.”

  “There was a bundle?”

  “I believe I just clearly stated that.”

  “Describe it, please.”

  “I don’t remember. It was years ago.”

  “I’m not trying to twist your thong,” Service said. Then, at the phone: “Did that qualify as racist?”

  “Could be a bit sexist, but definitely not racist. How you know she wearing a thong? If she commando, you’d be inaccurate. Sister, listen to me: Cops, we don’t buy into convenient memory lapses.”

  “You heard him,” Service said. “About that bundle?”

  “It was wrapped in birch bark—the remains were enclosed in what appeared to be bark.”

  “Is that significant—professionally speaking?”

  “Na-do-we-se.”

  “Iroquois, right?”

  “Yes, correct,” Wingel said with a slight nod.

  “You didn’t think that worthy of follow-up?”

  “The season uncovered it and it needed to be put back.”

  “Where’d you rebury it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Tree?”

  “Before she gets on the racism or sexism horse, your professor there needs to tell truth, hear?”

  She took the pen and made another tentative mark—across from the filled-in harbor where the bundle had been found.

  “Why rebury it there instead of closer to where you’d found it?”

  She shrugged, stared at the wall.

  “You did rebury it, yes? I mean, if we get search warrants, we’re not going to find bones in your house, or your office at school?”

  “I reburied it,” she said coolly.

  “Immediately?”

  “I think I want to call my lawyer.”

  “So you didn’t bury it right away.”

  “Of course not. I examined it before putting it back.”

  “But you didn’t put it back where you found it? Technically that’s not putting it back, is it?”

  “How long must I endure this?” she asked.

  “Answer him, sister,” Tree commanded from the phone.

  “Where did you dig the first time?”

  “There was only one time,” she said again. She tapped her finger on the north side of the sandy bowl, which was close to where Katsu had been.

  “You find much?”

  “Quite a lot.”

  “All Ojibwa?”

  “No. Of course, there were certain items that came from trading with other tribes.”

  “Where’s that stuff now?”

  “It was turned over to the State of Michigan, which is what the laws require.”

  “I see. Describe the remains.”

  “I did—in my report.”

  “Sister,” Tree chimed in.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Bones, a skull—what?”

  “Most of an entire skeleton.”

  “Skull too?”

  “No!”

  “The skull wasn’t with the bones?”

  “A few feet away.”

  “In what condition?”

  “It had been interred underground for a long, long time.”

  Service looked her in the eye. “You’re trained to observe. So am I.”

  “The skull appeared to be fractured,” she said cautiously.

  “In what way?”

  “Broken.”

  “By what?”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “Guess.”

  “A projectile.”

  “Pointed or round, large or small?”

  “Round, small.”

  “Like a musketball?”

  “That would not be an unreasonable conclusion.”

  “You think this is where the 1662 fight took place?”

  “That could not possibly be determined without further excavation.”

  “By you?”

  “My days in the field are long done,” she said.

  Dr. Wingel’s companion Marldeane Youvonne Brannigan came staggering back to the table with another fresh drink in hand, put a card under his hand-drawn map, and loudly blew back the strands of hair hanging in her face.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Wingel. Tree, we’re done.”

  “Cool,” Treebone said, and hung up.

  “I hope our next meeting isn’t in a courtroom,” Service said. “If it is, I won’t be nearly so polite.”

  “You poor-white racist trash,” she said with a snarl.

  “Later, ladies.” He got up and walked outside. He looked at Brannigan’s card, on which she had scribbled “I’m discreet—are you? Have a nice day!” She had written a cell-phone number under the name and added a smiley face.

  I hate smiley faces. He dropped the card in a curbside trash bin.

  14

  Newberry, Luce County

  FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2007

  Sedge wanted to meet at nine. Service decided to drop by the district office. Sergeant Jeffey Bryan met him at the unstaffed reception desk. There was no room in state budgets for such positions anymore.

  “S’up?” the six-foot-six officer asked.

  “Dunno. Just drove in from Wisconsin.”

  “You hear we have a new chief? Just announced yesterday. And Teeny’s gone.”

  “Huh,” Service said noncommittally. “Your el-tee in?”

  “She’s with the new chief. For a while they were yelling at each other.”

  “You think they need a ref?”

  Bryan grinned. “El-Tee can take care of herself.”

  Service headed for McKower’s cubicle and got there as Eddie Waco stood up, shook McKower’s hand, and departed, looking tired. He nodded to Service as he passed.

  “You,” McKower greeted him. Her tone was menacing, and the blood drained out of her face as he stepped into the office.

  “Me what?”

  “You know damn well what.”

  “I heard there was some kind of ruckus back here.”

  “Ruckus my ass. This is your doing.”

  “Lis what are you talking about?”

  “I saw you two exchange the secret boys’ club nods just now. This was your idea. You two are in cahoots!”

  “You need to calm down.”

  “He just asked me to be assistant chief.”

  “Who asked?”

  “Chief Waco.”

  Service looked behind him. “Was that him?”

  McKower pounded her table with a fist. “You know damn well who he is. You two are pals.”

  Service held up his hands. “Did the man tell you that?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “Well, there ya go.”

  “You numbskull. I read all the case reports from Missouri, his and yours, remember?”

  Damn her memory. “One case, way back, does not constitute friendship.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Grady. I talked to Lorne. He told me you met the chief in Lansing on the thirtieth.”

  Time to clam up. “Old business. You accept?”

  “What do you think, Geppetto?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, you’ll do it.”

  “Which you knew.”

  “All I know is that everyone in the department thinks you’re destined to be chief one day, and here it begins.”

  “My kids will hate Lansing!”

  “Live outside the city. Assistant chiefs can choose.”

  “What I should do is kick your ass,” she said.

  “But?”

  “The chief and I have a better idea.”

  Don’t like this. Don’t like this one bit. “Which is?”

  “You’ll see. By the way, Sedge briefed me on the artifact case.”

  “Good officer,” he said.

  “And eccentric,” McKower added.

  “True that. Got any advice?”

  She smiled. “I briefed the chief. Know what he said?”

>   “You’re gonna tell me?”

  “He said let Grady run with it.”

  “He did not say that. It’s Sedge’s case.”

  “You’ll never know, will you?”

  “Geez, rank going to your head already?”

  She seemed amused.

  “So what did you and the chief argue about?”

  “We had a discussion, not an argument.”

  “About?”

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “Time will tell.”

  Service stood. “I’ve taken enough abuse, thank you.” He turned to leave but spun back and held out his hand. “Semper fi.”

  “That’s not our outfit,” she said.

  “It’s you and me, Lis. Always will be.”

  “Stay where you are, Detective.”

  She moved some papers on her desktop, revealing two sets of chevrons, each with six stripes, one of them with a diamond in the middle. She held that set out to him.

  “I believe these are yours, State Chief Master Sergeant Service.”

  “Not a chance,” he said, taking a step back. “No way.”

  She smiled. “You knew I’d take my job, and I know you’ll take this one. Besides, it’s an order, you big jerk. Your first job is to select the state master sergeant.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Coasting time’s done, big boy. Time’s come for you to step up and lead.”

  “Master sergeant. Who?”

  “That’s your choice.” She glared at him triumphantly. “You can’t help doing the right thing. Usually.”

  “Grinda gets the detective opening,” he said.

  “Talk to Milo—persuade him.”

  He held up his hands. “I will not waste time in meetings in Lansing.”

  She smiled, clearly enjoying herself. “Your job is to move around the state, work with everyone. Figure out which officers should be groomed for sergeant, which sergeants for el-tee. Weed out the bullshitters, lightweights, and politicians. Chief Waco and I both want only the best officers moving up.”

  He hesitated for a long time. You have to say something, asshole.

  “But no meetings. I mean it.”

  She wiggled the chevrons. “Fine, no more plainclothes stuff. Wear your uniform.”

  “Hey, you want me to do this damn job, I’m going to do it my way. What about Sedge’s case?”

  “You always finish what you start, Grady. I can’t see you changing now.”

  “Bite me,” he said, snapped a salute, turned, and fumed out of the office.

  15

  Coast of Death, Chippewa County

  FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2007

  They parked on Lake Superior State University property and hiked west down the beach from Vermilion, three sandy miles to the dig site.

  “Could make better time on four-wheelers,” Service groused. He had called her from Wisconsin and briefed her on the Wingel meeting.

  “If you don’t care about destroying orchids or piping plover nesting colonies,” Jingo Sedge pointed out.

  Service looked at the peregrinations of four-wheeler tracks crisscrossing the terrain. “Doesn’t look like much of a priority for some people,” he said.

  “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: Four-wheelers aren’t people,” Sedge mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  They sat side by side on a fallen cedar at the northeast extreme of the amoeba.

  “Wengel said this was once a harbor,” Service said.

  “Toliver said the same thing. Musketball in the brainpan?”

  “Claims Wingel.”

  “But found across from where we’re sitting.” Service nodded.

  “Why not bury it where you find it?” Sedge asked.

  “Panic, cunning, stupidity—take your pick.”

  “Cunning?”

  “Assume it happened the way she says it did, and winter regurgitated the remains. But having found the corpse, she clearly and quickly recognized its importance historically. That being so, you just might put it somewhere else to mislead people in case it showed up again.”

  “Based on wind patterns, there’s a good chance that if it did surface here, it would end up where she found it, over there,” Sedge pointed out.

  “By that logic, the bulk of the Iroquois burials are beneath our butts,” he said.

  “That’s sort of creepy.”

  “She knew the bundle was Iroquois,” Service said. “She understands the significance, and you have to wonder if she happened to mention that to the state archaeologist. Did you see her written report?”

  “No. Only the brief summary.”

  “What do the regs require?”

  “What regs?”

  “Surely there are regs. We have regs for everything in this damn state.” She shook her head. “The state archaeologist is like God.”

  “I wouldn’t waste my time praying to the bastard,” Service said, adding, “Wingel knows the truth about this site.”

  “You’re jumping the gun, dude. She may have lied to you about the bundle.”

  “Doesn’t matter. My gut says she did more than rebury remains. By her own admission, I’m guessing there are photos, diagrams. She may even have some of the bones.”

  “Too big a risk.”

  “I’ve looked in her eyes.”

  “Do you think she might have continued digging here for all these years?”

  “We don’t know if anyone has been digging here,” he said.

  “Katsu says—”

  “His motivation is not yet clear.”

  “But you know his old man.”

  “His old man’s totally batshit, but a man of honor. Nobody knows Santinaw.”

  “Katsu doesn’t seem to think much of him.”

  “The old man thinks enough of the kid to send me here,” Service said. “It’s not easy to parse father-son relationships.” His own son Walter and he had not had time to establish a pattern in their relationship before his murder.

  “Well, here we are. What do we do? Check the cameras?”

  “No, leave them for now. Let’s play in the sandbox, see what we can find—record our findings, make our own chart, mark everything. They teach you about this kind of work at the academy?”

  She guffawed.

  Over the next six hours they found seventy artifacts (mostly small bits and pieces), but there also was a most impressive small copper ring that had oxidized a powdery blue-green. Each item was marked, sketched, and put back with a marker using Katsu’s scheme.

  “Is it possible we’ll catch a thief this easily?” Sedge asked.

  “Possible, but not probable. Complex cases sometimes break on small things that initially seem entirely unrelated.”

  “But all this is worth the effort?” she asked.

  “You bet. We already have a better understanding of the site and the surrounding terrain.”

  “Sit on it tonight?”

  “No, let’s leave it, come back in a few days. I want to do some more walking around.”

  “I’d love to stay,” she said, “but I need to get over to the Blind Sucker river mouth west of Deer Park. Four-wheelers are cutting new trails over there between the mouth and the campground. Addicted four-wheeling types are such major assholes. I write one, and he says, ‘Got ticketed for the same thing down home, so I come up here.’ I said, ‘Hey buttwipe, it’s also illegal up here—duh!’ ”

  Service laughed and she asked, “You good here?”

  “I’m addicted to what the French call dériver,” he said. “It means to wander aimlessly.”

  “Really?” she countered.

  “I like to wander.”

  “I doubt that.”

  It was late afternoon before he had cleaned the site of all signs of their presence, and he was meandering south quite a distance before he turned east toward Vermilion and his truck. At first he thought he was imagining the sound, a thin voice crying Help! W
hen he heard it again he knew it was real, though the source was not apparent.

  Ahead and right, maybe? Lower than me, slightly muffled. “I hear you!” Grady Service said. “Say something louder if you can.”

  “Help me!”

  Not louder, but two words instead of one. Sometimes progress comes in small steps. “One more time, please.”

  “Help me, dammit!”

  “Okay,” Service said. “Gotcha.”

  The voice was floating up from chest-high ferns, unusually lush and high this early in the year. It was like a leprechaun or some silly thing deep in the green, and when he found himself looking down at a frail, naked elfin man, he had to fight back a laugh. The man had matchstick, unsteady, bandy legs.

  “You hurt?”

  “Weak, undernourished—nothing I haven’t anticipated.”

  “Want water?”

  “Is it pure and unadulterated?”

  “Is anything?”

  “Point conceded,” the man said, holding out his hand, which seemed to glow in the low light in contrast to the darkening air.

  Service handed a water bottle to the man and listened to him slurp and cough.

  No point telling thirsty people to drink slowly. They never listen.

  When the man tried to return the bottle, Service said, “Keep it. I carry several. I’m Service, DNR.”

  “Godfroi Delongshamp. People call me God, which is meant to be a joke, but turns out to be not so funny. You or I could have created an equally failed world. So much for perfection and other exalted claims for Him. Why not either one of us as God, eh?”

  “I don’t want the job.”

  “You pass judgments like God. It’s the nature of a cop’s work.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Which only increases the mystery. The religious thugs love the mysterious. The more bizarre and utterly unbelievable, the better.”

  “Are you with the religious community?”

  “That’s difficult to answer. Are rejects technically part of a group? Or castaways?”

  “Does either condition pertain to you?”

  “More like I’m just a lousy joiner.”

  “Like that community believes in wearing clothes and you don’t?”

  The man cackled. “I like you. You can assume part one is true, but part two isn’t. I had clothes, but the fools who pranked me left me like this.”

  Pranked? Strange man.

  “How’d you get out here?”

  “I have a camp.”