Ice Hunter (9 page)

9

Cat hissed and swatted at the phone when it rang at 3
a.m.
Service scrambled to answer it before she knocked it off the table.

“Service.”

“This is Maridly Nantz. I'm sorry to wake you, Service, but we have a fire in the Mosquito.” Nantz was district fire officer for the area that included the Tract. This was her first year in the district, and Service had only met her once.

“Where?”

“Ten miles upriver from US 2.”

He tugged on his pants while they talked. “How big is it?”

“I'm not sure yet. I'm just leaving and I thought you'd want to know.”

“On my way.”

“You know the department's policy on fires,” she said. For a moment he was irked to hear what sounded like a warning from a first-year fire marshal.

“I know the policy,” he said grimly. The new USFS policy on fires was to let them burn themselves out and run their course, unless human habitations were threatened. The government had decided that fire was a natural phenomenon, like a bad winter or a tornado. Service understood the policy as it related to other places and other forests, but not to his Mosquito Wilderness Tract.

“But if the opportunity presents, we can do something, right?”

“We'll see when we get there. That's all I'm promising.”

“Thanks for the call, Nantz.”

He had learned long ago that fear was often worse than reality. There was no sense burning yourself out with might-be's. They would deal with what they found. He also thought about Maridly Nantz, trying to picture her. They had met briefly when introduced by Doke Hathoot, the Tract's supervisor. She had medium-length dark hair, a sharp nose, thin lips, an angular jaw. He guessed her to be in her early to mid-thirties. In some ways she looked very girlish, which made him wonder if she had what it took to deal with a crown fire. If she was like too many of the fire officers he'd worked with, though, she'd stay a season or two then move west to where the real fire challenges were, and if she did he couldn't blame her. Michigan didn't have that many major fires, and if fire was your passion, you wanted to be where the action was.

It was not a large fire. Two, maybe three acres. But it was centered right on the Geezer Hole where Service had seen the man, and he was immediately suspicious. By the time he got to the fire, Nantz and a dozen forest service workers had pretty much contained it with pulaskis, a piss pump, and a small bulldozer. “We could've let it burn out, but I thought this would be good practice for my people.”

“Thanks,” he said. She didn't have to contain the fire but she had, and whatever her reason, he appreciated it. “Who reported it?”

“A man by the name of Voydanov. He lives out on County Road 909. He said he was walking his dog and smelled smoke. He called it in on a cellular. How did we live before those things?”

“Where is he now?”

“At home.” She gave him the address.

“Cause?”

“Too early to tell,” she said. “Not lightning, though.” He understood. The vast majority of forest fires were ignited by lightning strikes. “I've alerted forensics.” The state police forensics people were located in Negaunee, a town west of Marquette, and covered the entire U.P.

When Service knocked on Voydanov's front door, a dog with a deep snarling bark started in. Eventually the porch light came on and, when the old man finally opened up, Service was eye to eye with a black Great Dane, its head the size of a Shetland pony's. Voydanov was in his eighties, bent over and slow moving. Service took a step backward when the dog rammed its snout against the door.

“Don't mind Millie,” the old man said. “She's just noise.”

Just Noise had saliva cascading from her cavernous mouth.

“Can we talk about the fire?”

“Sure.”

“Outside?”

“You don't like dogs?” The old man gave him an inquisitive look.

“I don't want to upset her,” Service said.

“She's not upset. She's just curious. Like a kid.”

A 160 pound kid with fangs, Service thought. “Outside, please?”

The old man stepped outside.

“You reported the fire?”

“Yep.”

“Wasn't it a little late to be walking your dog?”

“My wife died last winter and the truth is I can't sleep for beans. If it's bad, me and Millie go out to the Tract and walk around.”

“I'm sorry about your wife.”

“It went fast,” he said. “I guess that was good for her.”

Service sensed the man was about to slip into a melancholy reminiscence. He asked, “What about the fire?” to get them refocused.

“Almost down to the river when I smelled the smoke.”

“Did you see anybody?”

“Nope. Rarely do out there.”

“You're certain?”

“Just Millie and me.”

“Did you drive back to the trailhead?”

“We walked. Good for both our hearts.”

“Did you see any tire tracks?”

“Always tracks on that road. Besides, it was dark, and I don't need a light when I got Millie.”

Service considered asking more questions but decided against it. “I hope you can get back to sleep.”

“Are you kidding? I'm too excited.”

“Maybe warm milk would help.”

The old man chuckled. “Hell with that. I had me some Jack. You want a snort?”

“Thanks, but I'm on duty.”

Voydanov looked skeptical. “I never knew that to stop a game warden. When I was a young man, the wife and I used to bring our kids up here. No house then. We used to camp in tents during deer season. There was a game warden used to stop by and have a swig or two. He was a good man. Helped me haul out a deer one time. Name was . . . Service. He was a great big fella, like you.”

“He was my dad.”

Voydanov cocked an eyebrow. “That so? He still around?”

“No, he died.”

The old man looked sorry. “Too bad. He was a good fella. What killed him?”

“Timing,” Grady Service said. He couldn't bring himself to tell the old man his father was a drunk who'd died because he'd been having a swig or two with his admirers and informers. “And location. The combination.”

“Never heard that one before.”

“Thanks for calling in the fire.” Service started to walk across the yard.

“You want to know about the truck?” the old man called after him.

“What truck?” Service asked, stopping and turning back.

“You know, one of them four-wheel doodads. Big sonuvabitch.”

“I thought you didn't see anyone.”

“Didn't see a person. Saw the truck was all.”

“At the trailhead?”

“Nope, short of there. Saw it when Millie and me walked in.”

“Can you show me where?”

“Sure.”

The old man comforted the dog before they left, then moved slowly out to Service's truck. Voydanov wore gaudy green plaid pajamas and scuffed leather slippers that were too loose and made slapping sounds when he walked. They drove down the access road. Voydanov stopped Service at a spot a quarter mile short of the trailhead, off to the left of the road.

“It was back in there maybe a hundred yards. I seen a glint of metal and me and Millie walked back partway to take us a look.”

“Did you notice the the license number?”

“Even if I'd paid attention I had nothing to write with. I just figured it was a night fisherman. Sometimes they park back there and cut across to the old log slide. You know it?”

Service knew the landmark. It was upriver from the Geezer Hole, a place where a century ago loggers briefly slid their logs down a steep embankment to the water. It was the one area of the wilderness that had been scarred by man and it was still eroded, this despite a substantial investment in bank stabilization all along the stretch.

“But you didn't see anybody?”

“Nope. And whoever it was musta left between when we walked up and came back from over toward the fire. That little fire girl give me and Millie a lift home. You know, the pretty little gal with the big bazooms?”

The old man might be old, but not too old to notice Nantz's bustline. “What color was the truck, sir?”

“Dark.”

“Black, blue?”

“Just dark. I couldn't make out no color.”

Service was pretty sure he'd gotten all he was going to get and reminded himself that when he was dealing with old folks in the future, take his time and ask every question, including the most obvious ones. Elderly people had their own rhythms, did things in their own time, lived in their own inner worlds.

“Okay, thanks. Let's get you home.”

He dropped Voydanov off and watched the old man walk to his house, then drove back to the site and parked so nobody could get back to the spot and ruin any evidence.

Nantz pulled up in her truck around daylight. She was covered with soot and her eyes were red. “You want coffee?” she asked. “I don't do fires without my coffee.” Service wondered how many fires she had fought, and where. He stood by her truck as she poured coffee into a thermos cup. “You run out of gas?” she asked.

“I thought I'd wait here for forensics,” Service said, pointing. “Voydanov saw some kind of vehicle parked back there. He saw it on the way in, but he thought it was gone when you drove him out.”

She studied a set of fresh tire grooves pressed into the ferns. “Well, a ghost didn't leave those.”

“Did you got a read on the fire?”

“Just a preliminary.” She got out of the truck and unashamedly pulled her yellow Nomex shirt over her head, not bothering with the buttons. Her breasts were stuffed into a tiny green athletic bra. She was not a subtle woman, Service thought as she reached into the truck and poured more coffee for them, his into the thermos top, hers into a wrinkled Styrofoam cup. “The POO's in the southwest corner of the site, near the river.” POO, point of origin. “There's evidence of an accelerant.”

“You found something?”

“A pattern, which is enough until the techs take a closer look. Did we get a license number on that vehicle the old man saw?”

He shook his head, noting she had said “we.” Most fire marshals tended to protect their authority and turf. Nantz was different.

“Too bad. Probably end up writing this one off as unsolved.”

“Thanks for putting your people on it.”

She smiled. “It was small and this time I had the bodies. If we go red flag and get us a bad boy, you know how that will go down.” Red flag was the code for the worst possible fire conditions.

He understood and it made him sick. It was true that forests regenerated themselves over time, but it took a century or more to restore a forest to its original state—if it made it at all. Lumber companies and loggers lobbied Lansing for all fires to be fought, and this was one of the rare instances where he agreed with the timber people. Not with their reason, but the result. The timber folks wanted trees to cut, and fires stole these. But the Mosquito was not open to logging and if a fire broke out there, the timber industry would stand silently by and let it burn.

“Let me know how the investigation goes,” Service said.

“Sure. It'll be a few days, earliest. Maybe we could get together over a few beers.”

“Maybe,” he said.

When he backed his truck up, she was putting on a fresh shirt.

“Keep your shiny side up,” she called out.

“You too.”

She gave him a smile as a good-bye.

Their “regular” meeting place was a township cemetery. Its long looping drive passed by a creek with clear water. The cemetery was no longer in use and had a chain and lock across the entrance. He and Lehto had keys. The chain was down when he got there, and he locked it after he drove through. There was a rare grove of majestic red cedars by the water. A large green Hudson's Bay blanket was spread on the ground.

Service plopped down beside her. The sun was unseasonably hot and the sky blue and cloudless.

“You work all night?” she asked, studying him.

“There was a fire in the Mosquito.”

“I can tell,” she said. “Do you have to go back?”

“No, it's out and the investigators are on it.” He took off his shoes and socks. “I didn't have time for a shower.”

“I like you natural.”

He ignored her, finished undressing, walked down to the water, waded in, and sat down gingerly. When he got out he came back to the blanket and lay down on his stomach.

“I called you this morning,” she said.

She settled in beside him and kissed his shoulder.

“What say we unloose the moose and get the edge off?” she said.

“I never met a woman who talked like you.” More to the point, he had never met a woman in such a rush.

“Gets you going, eh?” she said, laughing lasciviously.

He rolled on his side and pulled her to him.