Ice Hunter (25 page)

“But she's perfect for the job, yes?”

He nodded. It was true.

They ordered gravy with pasties. Service drank three cups of black coffee and smoked several cigarettes. The pasties were too dry, but filling. Brought to the U.P. by Cornish miners in the previous century, they were the area's dish of choice. In essence potpies filled with pork, rutabagas, and onions, the pies folded over to form a half moon, a shape that let miners heat them in the mines on their shovel blades over fires and torches. Service ate only a few bites of the pasty and lit another cigarette.

“You need to cut down on the smokes,” McCants said.

“Are you my mother?”

“You never had a mother,” she said, putting out her hand. “You were born of wild animals in the woods. Can I have one?” she asked meekly.

Lemich would meet him tomorrow morning. How much should he tell the man? Without the hockey-crazy professor's knowledge, he wasn't likely to learn much. He thought momentarily about inviting Nantz but decided against it.

He stopped at Silver Creek on the way south and checked the licenses of three men using Mepps spinners for brown trout. They had two seventeen-inch dandies. Their fishing licenses were fine and they were respectful. They were up from Mount Pleasant for a few days and happy to be fishing instead of working.

Service was glad it was summer. In late spring and into June warm-water species spawned and made people crazy. In fall cold-water fish moved up the streams and hunters started in. More craziness. Summer had its share of nuts, but the weather was better.

His thoughts about weather told him he was getting punchy on too little sleep and too much caffeine.

Central dispatch in Lansing called him on the radio when he was on US 41 and told him a man in Ladoga wanted to see a CO right away.

“About what?”

The dispatcher wasn't sure, which was typical. Lansing wanted control, but didn't have a clue about what COs needed in the real world where they operated. He got the name and address and headed for Ladoga.

The village, such as it was, was east of US 41, south of Gwinn. The call came from a two-story house across from a fourplex that looked like a cheap motel that had been modified. When K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base had been active the locals had built apartments, hoping to harvest some easy military cash. Now the Air Force was gone, the base decommissioned, and most of the apartments vacant.

The man at the house was named Alping. He owned the fourplex.

“Something I want you to see,” the man said. He was short and obese and badly needed a haircut. He wheezed and puffed as he walked.

There was a terrible stink coming from an end apartment. “Have you been inside yet?” Service asked.

“No way.”

The smell was organic, rotting, but not human. In his experience, dead people had a unique scent.

“Open it.”

“You gonna take out your gun?”

“No.” When people looked at a uniform they tended to see only the badge and sidearm. TV made it seem as though cops shot people every day. Unlike cities, up here everybody was armed. There were fewer burglaries than in cities because northern property owners knew how to shoot and would. The downside was that there were more accidental shootings too.

The smell that rolled out the open door was nauseating. Definitely not human, but
definitely
something dead and decomposing.

The owner remained outside.

The smell was strongest from the cellar door. Service flipped on the cellar light and crept gingerly down the wooden steps. The floor was littered with the carcasses and viscera of skinned raccoons. Service counted up to twenty and stopped. Skinned and dumped. He trudged back up the stairs and looked at the carpet runner, looking for blood. None was in evidence, meaning they had been brought downstairs and skinned. Where were the pelts? None of this added up.

“Who's the tenant?” Service asked Alping.

“An asshole four-flusher named Bowin, behind in payments. I told him he had till the end of the week or he'd be evicted. Then he run off and didn't pay.”

“How do I contact Mr. Bowin?”

“You tell him I'm keeping the damage deposit and I'm gonna sue his ass.”

“Sir?”

“I don't got a number.”

“How long has Bowin been your tenant?”

“They come last fall.”

They? “Does he work around here?”

“Don't know. He and his whore were in and out at all hours. I'd see 'em one day, then not for several days. One time I never seen 'em for a month or more.”

“Is the woman his wife?”

“I don't know and he never said. You want my opinion?”

“Did he have a vehicle?”

“Yah, a brown van with a lot of Bondo. Piece of shit was falling apart.”

Service closed his eyes. Could it be?

“What is Bowin's first name?”

“Roy,” the man said. “Or so he claims.”

“Did Bowin have a lease?”

“Nah, he paid cash, three months in advance, but now he's been here for six more and he owes me.”

“You never saw his driver's license?”

“Didn't need it. It was cash up front and at first he seemed decent enough. A few years back I'd never have taken him, but those assholes in Washington closed the base and a body has to recoup investment, right? What's the state gonna do for me? That's what I want to know. You can kill only so many raccoons, right?”

“There's no limit on coons.”

“That don't sound right to me.”

Service was not going to dig out his regs. “That's the law. Please don't move the carcasses until I get back to you.”

“You just gonna let them stink up my place?”

Service said, “We'll take care of them later. Right now they're evidence.”

Alping was still boiling when Service left and drove to the county jail. Alping had given him the name Roy Bowin and described a brown van. At the jail he had a Roy Boven and a brown van. These were not likely to be coincidences.

The couple from the previous night were still in jail. They were not going to be arraigned until this evening. Service arranged to talk to them separately.

The man looked sick, his skin pallid gray-green; he had the sweats. “You remember me, Mister Boven?”

The man half looked up, muttered, “I'm so sorry about this.”

“You have no previous OUILs. Why this time?”

No answer.

“Is the van yours?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you hunt or fish? Trap?”

“No, never.”

“You live in Mackinaw City, right?”

Boven nodded unenthusiastically. A bandage stretched across his forehead where the cut had been repaired.

“Ms. Daviros too?”

Another nod. He was obviously hurting.

“Are you married, Mister Boven?”

Boven looked up with panic in his eyes. “Did you call my wife?”

“No. Ms. Daviros isn't your wife?”

The only answer was a hangdog look.

“Do you like raccoons?”

Deep sigh, no answer, no response.

Service met the woman next. She was charged with drinking in a vehicle and could have been released last night, but refused, saying she wanted to remain with Boven. Not an unusual request. The deputies had housed her in the jail. She was mid-thirties, a little plump, looking better than Boven, but she had a nasty blue-and-violet knot on her head.

“How long do we have to stay here?” she asked.

Time to push. “Not much longer. I had a call today from a man named Alping. You and Boven have been using different names. He claims you owe him rent for an apartment in Ladoga. He's filed a complaint and can come in and identify both of you, if that's what you want.”

She looked past him, looking weary. “You don't have to do that. It was us.”

“He says you left without paying back rent.”

“That's a damn lie,” she said, her head snapping up. “Roy paid him ahead in cash. We have receipts. He's a total jerk, that guy. When we weren't there, he turned off our heat and electricity. Once last winter the pipes froze and he tried to stick Roy with the bill. We told him we were moving out. Yesterday was our last day.”

“What about the coons?”

The woman had a blank look. “What coons?”

“Never mind.” She didn't know anything about them. Neither did Boven. “You two aren't married.”

“We're married . . . just not to each other.”

“You drove a long way.”

“We wanted to be careful.”

“But you told Alping you were moving out?”

She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We've both told our spouses we want divorces. There's no sense driving all this way anymore.”

“How'd Alping react when you told him you were moving out?”

“He flipped out. The man has a temper and he's a bully. He said we had a one-year lease and he was going to sue. But there was no lease, I swear. He's trying to hold us up. He said he was going to get us and make big trouble for us. We're in trouble,” she added.

Service tried to reassure her. “This is Boven's first OUIL. He's going to get hit hard, but it's worse for repeat offenders.”

“I'm not talking about that trouble,” she said. “I'm pregnant.”

Service blinked several times.

She said, “Not by Roy or my husband. By
another
guy,” she said with a catch in her voice. “God, I can't believe this has happened.”

Service had heard enough. “Roy used the name Bowin to rent the apartment?”

She nodded.

Service left her and made some telephone calls. He found out that Alping had a fur harvester's license from the previous autumn.

When Service got to Alping's yard, the man came out quickly. “I called your superior,” he said. “Now we'll see who does what.”

Sergeant Parker pulled in moments after Service. He looked smug. Parker wouldn't leave his office unless he thought he could get something on Service.

Alping ranted about his no-good tenants and the conservation officer. Service kept quiet. Parker listened politely, then the sergeant asked for the key. When Alping said he would come along, Parker told him to stay where he was.

Service wondered what was up.

Parker looked at the rotting carcasses with an impassive face. “What's your read?” he asked his subordinate.

What game was he playing? He had expected Parker to gloat, cajole, or threaten.

“The renters are from Mackinaw City. By coincidence I got the man and the woman last night on an OUIL. They're married, but not to each other. This has been their little love nest. They told the landlord they were moving out. He claims they have a lease and owe him. They insist there's no lease and they're paid up. The landlord said he smelled this and called us. I responded. I just got back from talking to the renters. The driver will be arraigned tonight. I think the landlord is trying to extort money. He wants revenge because they're moving out.”

“Is that conclusion based on a hunch or on evidence?”

“Hunch so far.”

“Proceed,” Parker said haughtily.

Service knocked on a door at the end of the building and a woman answered. She had a baby in her arms. “DNR: I'm Officer Service and this is Sergeant Parker. Did you know the neighbors at the other end of the building, a Mister Bowin?”

“They was just shacking up,” she said. “They didn't mix much.”

“Have you smelled anything from their apartment.”

“About noon today I did.”

“Not before this?”

“No sir.”

“Do you have a lease with Mister Alping?”

She laughed cynically. “In these dumps? People come and go. We pay ahead, and Alping is a cheap bastard. I got three kids and no old man and he's always claiming my kids broke this or that and demanding I pay.”

“Did he ever mention a lease?”

“All the time. He says it's a verbal lease, but that's crap. He says if I don't have the money, I can work it off in trade.”

“Doing what?”

“You figure it out,” she said.

Service was irritated, but kept it under control. He and the sergeant went back to the house.

Alping was in the yard, pacing.

“Did Bowin have a lease?” Service asked.

“No. Did that bastard tell you that?”

“Did you tell the woman at the other end of your building that she has a verbal lease?”

“No, she's a slut. Don't believe no cunt like that. She's got three brats by three different men.”

Alping was red in the face.

“What do you trap?”

The landlord exploded. “This is bullshit,” he yelled at Parker. “I'm the fucking victim here.”

Service said, “You bought a fur harvesting license last fall.”

Alping grew quiet. “Yeah? What of it?”

“It's in our computer.”

“I follow the law.”

“Did you trap those coons?”

No answer. Alping was weighing his positions.

“Look,” Grady Service said, “your apartment dealings are none of our business. You called us because of the coons. I can see you had trouble with tenants. That's not my concern. Maybe you put the coons in there because you were mad, but you have a license to trap and shoot coons. There are no bag limits on how many you take and they're pests, right?”

“I shot 'em all legal,” Alping said. “They did a lotta damage to my gardens and they keep trying to move into my garage. Law says I can shoot 'em and that's what I did.”

“That's right,” Service said. “That's the law. Where are the pelts?”

“Out in my shop.”

“Can we see them?”

“Why?”

“Just closing things up.”

Alping led them back to his shed. The building stank of tanning chemicals. There were coonskins tacked to all the walls. Service stood silently, taking it all in.