Shadow of the Wolf Tree Page 9

  Paint River homicide: wire source, spring guns, woman who went to Box for help and was sent on to Allerdyce; Hjalmquist’s records?

  Skull case: Bernalli’s widow. Black immigrants. Who were they, what did family lore tell (if anything) about their aborted adventure in the U.P.? Can descendants be found? How? Not in papers at the time, or just not found? Records somewhere? Catholic priest O’Neil—real or fake, and does it matter? Flour gold in remains? Germane?

  Denninger and the wolf tree case: Who set the traps, and why there? Were there others? What about Art Lake, what’s the deal there? Who pays their taxes? He underlined taxes several times.

  Kragie and Sergeant Celt were still out at the Art Lake property.

  He called Kragie’s cell phone. “Service. Anything?”

  “Found a couple more sites where there might have been wolf trees, chain marks on bark, that sort of thing; nothing definite, but possible,” Kragie said. “There’s no crossing we can find through the fence to Art Lake, and no beaten-down trails, but not that far from Denninger’s spot, there’s a path cut along the fence and another coming from the north. Looks like both get traveled a lot. We can see a couple of surveillance cameras in trees inside the fence. Pretty well hidden, no doubt professionally installed.

  “One path may be for internal perimeter security,” Kragie continued. “No footprints outside other than Denninger’s and ours, but we pretty well trampled the ground getting her out, and if there were prints, they’re history. On the other hand, good trappers don’t leave tracks or scents, and it seems to me that only an experienced trapper could put down a wolf tree. The Troops took the traps to dust for fingerprints. We should be clear of here noonish.”

  “Anyone from Art Lake come down to see what all the lights and ruckus were about?”

  “Didn’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t watching.”

  Service updated the wolf tree case list: Private security at Art Lake? Bodies—primarily passive technology, or a mix? If bodies, who and how many?

  Passing a large facility on the left on US 2, a mile west of the DNR district office in Crystal Falls, Service saw a sign that said Victorian Heights. He swung the Tahoe into the parking lot and called Friday. “Petersson said the Bernalli woman is in a nursing home in Crystal Falls. Call him and get the name of the place and let me know, okay? I’ll wait.”

  Half a cigarette later, she called him back. “Said he misspoke. The woman is in assisted living, not a nursing home. The place is called Victorian Heights.”

  Assisted living, nursing home. What the hell is the distinction? “I’m there now. I’ll pop in and try to see her.”

  “Push back our meeting again?”

  “Nope, we should be okay.”

  “You going to have time for lunch?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Mike and I are picking up some stuff from Angelli’s deli. We’ll have something for you. Any preferences?”

  “Calories.”

  Friday sighed. “Me too.”

  Friday and Millitor were easy to work with.

  Service walked into the lobby and showed his badge at Reception. “I need to talk to Mrs. Bernalli.”

  “Let me call her.”

  A minute later the receptionist pointed down a hall. “Room 140, on the right.”

  The woman said “Come in” when he knocked, but didn’t get up to greet him.

  He found her in a small apartment decorated with fabric flowers, with a stove, fridge, and microwave, and no dust anywhere. She was seated on a small love seat with a red-white-and-blue-plaid afghan draped over her legs. He sat in the only other chair, maple wood, a frilly cushion with Italian flags needlepointed into the fabric.

  “I’m Detective Service with the DNR,” he introduced himself. He took out a business card and held it out, but when she ignored it, he put it on a small table by the love seat. Maybe she was arthritic. “I’m sorry about your husband,” he began.

  “It’s been five years,” she countered.

  High titers of prickly, and absolutely no trace of an accent. “I believe Theo Petersson talked to you about your late husband’s father.”

  “He talked,” she said through tight lips.

  Why the attitude? “We’ve got a difficult case,” he said.

  “The skulls near Elmwood, or the man shot the second day of trout season?”

  “Elmwood,” he said. The woman might be elderly, but she was mentally sharp and obviously keeping track of area goings-on.

  “Can’t help you,” she said. “My family brought me to America in 1941. I never lived in Elmwood. Mr. Bernalli and I lived only in Iron Mountain.”

  “I thought you might have heard some things about black families who lived in Elmwood in the 1920s.”

  “Ancient history,” the woman said. “You move to a new place and you either adapt or perish. It’s the same everywhere.”

  “Which means you did hear things.”

  She glowered. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you knew they had moved here, and that wasn’t in the papers.”

  The woman glared at him, the corners of her mouth drooping, and he knew the interview had ended. Like Petersson, he had gotten nothing.

  He touched the business card on the table, nodded, thanked her for her time, and stepped into the hall. A bent woman with hair like coarse blue straw was standing in a walker outside the room. “Real social, ain’t she?” the woman said. “I’m Helmi Koski. Heard youse’re DNR.”

  He hadn’t been in the building ten minutes; word here traveled more quickly than on the normal Yooper word-of-mouth grapevine, which rivaled fiber-optic cables in speed. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “Nobody talks to the old biddy. Thinks she’s better’n everybody. To live here people gotta cooperate and help each other. That one. . . .” She shook her head and didn’t finish. “Something I can do to help youse? I’m the nose-tube crew’s social director.” She put two fingers to her nostrils and made heavy breathing sounds.

  Nose-tube crew? He had to swallow a laugh. “I doubt it. How long have you lived in the county?”

  “Born right here Crystal Falls, 1917. I’m eighty-nine years young next month!”

  “So you would have been ten in 1927?”

  The woman laughed. “That some sort of arithmetic question for senior citizens?”

  “No, ma’am. Just wondering.”

  “Ten in 1927, that’s right.”

  “Do you recall hearing about a group of black families who moved to Elmwood in the west county in 1926, to grow potatoes?”

  The woman scratched her chin and rolled her head. “We never heard they was there. But we heard there was some trouble, and that the sheriff went and brung them to town. I went down to the station when the sheriff brought them in. He took them up to the poor farm for medical care and food. Believe it or not, the poor farm was right here where this building is now. They looked terrible, poor things. I run home and got some of our old coats and boots and took them to the poor farm for a couple of girls our age.

  “Thing I remember is that bad as things were for those folks, they looked proud, looked you right in the eye. They stayed three days. I got to know a girl named Rillamae Garden. Same age as me, almost to the day. We got to be good friends, Rillamae and me. We both cried when she had to leave. We promised to write each other every day for the rest of our lives.”

  “Did you?”

  She puffed up her chest. “Helmi Koski don’t make promises she don’t keep. We still exchange Christmas cards. Both got bad backs and eyes now, but we always get out our cards. We both lived hard lives.”

  “She’s alive?”

  “Still kicking last Christmas.”

  “Do you have an address or a phone number for her?�
�

  “Follow me,” the woman said. She started off down the hall in her walker at a pace slower than a snail’s. Fifteen minutes later Grady Service had an envelope in his hand, the address on an AARP sticker. A shakily written phone number was scribbled diagonally on the face of the envelope, the writing so erratic he could hardly read it.

  As he started through the lobby, he spied Mrs. Bernalli, who frowned and made an obscene gesture with bunched fingers. Okay, then. No arthritis in that hand.

  • • •

  Back at the office, he dropped the envelope on the table in front of Friday and said, “Some days it pays to be nice to old ladies.”

  “Bernalli’s widow?”

  “With her attitude she could have been Mussolini’s mistress.”

  Millitor picked up the envelope. “Mrs. Rillamae Thigpen?”

  “Married name. She was Rillamae Garden when she was in Elmwood. She was still alive last Christmas. There’s a woman in the assisted living home named Helmi Koski. She met Rillamae Garden when they were both ten. They’ve been writing to each other ever since.”

  Millitor began to smile. “Holy cow. Only in the Yoop, eh?”

  Tuesday Friday pushed a bowl of cottage cheese toward him. “I guess the legend’s got substance,” she said.

  “Elmwood?”

  “No, you.” Friday then announced that she had gotten the name of a small wire manufacturer in Eagle River, Wisconsin. Service took a spoonful of cottage cheese. “Maybe there’s more than one legend in this room.”

  “I just want to get the scum who did this,” Friday said.

  “That’s exactly what fuels legends,” Service said.

  Mike Millitor took out a cigar stump, stuck it in the corner of his mouth, and grinned. “Haven’t had this much fun in years, and I ain’t done doodly-duck yet.”

  “Lunch first, then let’s make us a list of things we have to get done, and start really pounding this case,” Service said.

  14

  Allerdyce Compound, Southwest Marquette County

  TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2006

  Friday was en route to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for an early morning meeting with the senior sales VP for Eagle Specialty Steel and Wire Fabrications. Millitor had driven down to Iron Mountain for the annual Retired Upper Peninsula Law Enforcement Officers Association spring benefit golf scramble, whatever the hell that was. Grinda was working a designated trout lake in northwest Iron County, and Simon del Olmo had been dispatched to the south county to investigate a wolf depredation allegation.

  Grady Service sat on the porch smoking a cigarette when Lars Hjalmquist called. “I found my daybook. Penny Provo taught elementary school in Trout Creek. She had two DUIs and was invited to resign. She was also in the 1776th Military Police Company out of Kingsford. When the blowup came in Trout Creek in ’02, she was on some sort of deployment in Colorado, went over the fence, and hasn’t been seen since—except for an unsubstantiated report from somewhere in the Colorado area two years ago.”

  “You had all that written in your book?”

  “No, I had my own stuff, but after that, I pulled a clipping from the Ironwood Daily Globe about her resignation from Trout Creek. I remembered the name, stuck it in my book, just in case.”

  “She was an MP?”

  “Yeah, a sister cop,” said Hjalmquist.

  “You said, ‘Just in case.’ ”

  “I had contact with her for alleged hunter harassment south of Bessemer in November ’98. It was alleged that she threatened two hunters with a shotgun. When I found her, she denied it, and when I interviewed the hunters they were both blotto, and didn’t want it getting out that a woman had scared them out of their hunting blinds.”

  “You remember the contact?” Service asked.

  “Especially after I read my notes. She was pretty, petite, and polite, look-you-straight-in-the-eye, nossir, yessir, very formal, very correct, the whole drill. She denied the allegations, said the men had been drinking and the whole thing was a mistake, that she didn’t own any personal firearms, and didn’t hunt. I checked the Retail Sales System and found she’d never bought a license. She insisted she was walking where she always walked, and that the two men got abusive when she showed up. Since the men didn’t want to press charges, I gave all of them a warning and cut them all loose.”

  There was something in the old game warden’s voice, a hitch maybe. “But?”

  “Couldn’t peg it. She looked good superficially, but there was something off about her. My last note was, ‘Full deck?’ ”

  “Huh,” Service said. “You and Joanie finish your shopping?”

  Joan was his wife and constant companion. Hjalmquist grunted and said, “Shopping is never done, pal. It’s only suspended for lack of cash or tapped-out credit cards.”

  “You warned Provo in ’98 in Bessemer. Was she living over there then?”

  “Nope. She said she’d only been in state four months, was living down in Kingsford, and looking for a teaching job. She had a valid Colorado driver’s license, no wants or warrants. She was clean as a whistle.”

  “In ’98? How long did she teach in Trout Creek?”

  “Don’t know for sure, man. Until ’01, I guess. Wish I could have been more help, buddy.”

  “You ever encounter a wolf tree, Lars?”

  “Never even heard of one until after I retired.”

  How did she end up in the Michigan National Guard only four months in state? Had she transferred? “Did you see her military ID?” Service asked.

  “Didn’t need it. Her license was okay.”

  “How’d you know her outfit number?”

  “It was in the newspaper article about her resigning to ‘pursue other career opportunities.’ ”

  “Did the article talk about her desertion?”

  “No, that musta happened after the Trout Creek deal.”

  “Thanks, Lars.”

  “Anytime, pal.”

  Service lit another cigarette. If the woman was living in Kingsford in 1998, why had she said she walked regularly near Bessemer, which was 150 miles west of where she lived—in deer season? He thought he understood what had happened. The woman denied the charges, the men didn’t want to prosecute, and Lars was ass-deep in deer season with too many other pressing things to do. Deer season was the craziest time of the year for almost all officers, and his friend had not listened carefully enough to what the woman was telling him and maybe he had missed something. It would have helped if he’d asked for her military ID. His gut said the hunters were telling the truth.

  A lot of things didn’t add up. Box claimed Provo came to him in 1997 to “learn guns,” and that he’d heard later she had “joined up.” Yet, according to Lars, she’d been living in Michigan for only four months in the fall of 1998. Millitor said Box had always been credible as an informant. When had she joined the National Guard? Something tells me Penny Provo’s what other cops call a “person of interest.”

  The mere idea of talking to Limpy Allerdyce made his stomach roll. Allerdyce, the allegedly reformed poacher, had played a key role in helping conclude a lethal case two summers ago. Allerdyce, his extended family, and their hangers-on lived in a compound in the distant reaches of southwest Marquette County, a place you had to know about in order to find it.

  He’d already made one questionable phone call today, and so far no callback on that one. This would be his second of the day, and after dialing it and letting it ring and ring, he hung up. No surprise: Allerdyce and his low-life crew moved around the U.P. like fog. Here and gone, invisible blood trails in their wakes.

  Willie Celt called from L’Anse. “Thought you’d want to know they’re moving Denninger to Marquette tonight.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “The reality of modern health ca
re: They need her bed. But the doctor here also thinks it would be a good idea for specialists in Marquette to check her leg. He says the bones should heal fine, but he’s a little worried about permanent nerve damage.”

  “Moving her tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll stop and see her tomorrow morning.”

  “Long drive for you.”

  “I’ve got business in southwest Marquette County tonight, and I need to check on my animals and stop at my office.”

  “Southwest Marquette County . . . Allerdyce?”

  “Bingo.” COs tended to know who all the worst poachers in the U.P. were, and Allerdyce was the worst, his crew oozing all over the peninsula.

  “You want Kragie and me to visit Art Lake, knock on the gate, say we’re just out meeting folks?”

  “No, leave them be for now. We’ve got some things working to figure out a more direct way in.”

  “Okay. Later.”

  Why a wolf tree, and why that particular spot?

  • • •

  Service pulled into the parking area a half-mile from Allerdyce’s camp just after dark, locked his truck, and made his way through the dense mature basswood, hemlock, and white cedar forest to the compound. There was no marked trail, and you had to know the way, otherwise you’d find yourself lost in some of the nastiest, wildest swamp in the central Upper Peninsula.

  Service knew he was being watched as he walked into the dark camp and went directly to Limpy’s cabin. All the buildings in the compound had burned three years ago, but they had since been rebuilt. He knocked on the door and Allerdyce himself answered.

  “Youse run outta gas and lose your state get-gas-free card or somepin’, sonny?” the old poacher asked with the grating cackle that invariably made hair stand up on Service’s arms.