Chasing a Blond Moon(112)

It began to drizzle.

“Did you shoot at the swan?” she asked, looking up at the man.

“I didn’t hit it,” he said.

“Shut the fuck up,” the second man said.

“You,” she said to the second man. “Did you shoot the swan?”

“No,” he said, his voice faltering.

She shook her head and breathed in deeply. “You are in deep trouble, sir. God is about to punish you.”

The man’s face turned red and he started to stand.

Service stood up, trying to fight back a laugh.

Both men were startled by his sudden appearance. The second man screamed, “I did it, I did it!”

Service got up and walked forward. The first man looked up at him.

“Roll on your backs and take off your jackets,” McCants said.

“It’s raining,” the first man whined.

Both men did as they were told. The second man was wearing a shoulder holster with a Colt 45.

“Hands out like you are on a cross,” McCants said.

The men did as they were told. Service cautiously removed the .45 and pointed it toward the hill. “Safety’s off.” He pulled the clip, checked the chamber. “One in the boiler.” He emptied the clip into his hand and put the rounds in his pocket. He removed the round from the chamber and put it with the other bullets.

“Shoot a lot of ducks with this?” he asked the second man. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and pulled him up. “Licenses. You get them both.” Service went with him into the blind, was gone three or four minutes, and emerged with two shotguns, two wallets, and a wood duck decoy. “No plugs. There’re fifty rounds of lead shot in there, two expended.” He flipped wallets to McCants, who looked through them and shook her head. “No hunting licenses, no waterfowl stamps.”

Neither man spoke.

“A whole bag of these decoys inside,” Service said. He turned over the one he was carrying and asked, “Which one of you is Bruce Mosley?”

“Neither,” McCants said, holding the wallets.

“And the boat?” Service asked.

“Mine,” one of the men said. “The decoys belong to a friend of ours.”

“That’s good,” Service said. “There’s no registration on the boat.”

“Okay,” the first man said, “I shot the swan. It was gonna fuck up our duck huntin’.”

“No, it wasn’t,” McCants said. “This area’s closed to duck hunting this year.”

She walked over by the blind, took her 800 MHz off her belt, and called the driver’s licenses in to Lansing. She gave Station 20 the name and phone number of the decoy owner and the driver’s license numbers of the two men. It took ten minutes to get answers.

The first man was Dray Boekeloo, forty-one, of Thompson. He had two outstanding Schoolcraft County warrants, for possession of meth and contributing to the delinquency of minors. The second man was Jordie Rockcrusher, thirty-six, who was wanted for felonious assault in St. Ignace. The owner of the decoys had reported them stolen two weeks before. He’d never heard of Boekeloo or Rockcrusher.

“You guys hit the jackpot,” McCants said. “Possession of stolen goods, killing a swan, lead shot, no plugs in your guns, a loaded, concealed weapon without a CCW permit, the unregistered boat, no waterfowl stamps or hunting licenses, and hunting in a closed area. I warned you not to lie over the bones. Where’s your vehicle?”

Both men pointed north.

They cuffed the men and took the guns and decoys and started marching out of the swamp up the hill. It was easier going out than the way they had come in.

Up on the hill McCants called Delta County and asked for deputies to meet them out on the Rapid River Truck Trail to transport the prisoners. There was no way for a patrol car to get back to them. Service laughed thinking about this. Until a few years back all COs had were sedans, and they took them into places the manufacturers would never believe. Got them hung up and trapped a lot too. The trucks weren’t perfect, but size and four-wheel drive had opened a lot of new territory to officers.

They took one man in each truck, made the handoff, and went back across the creek and along the hills until they found the men’s truck. Service dropped McCants, who walked back to the beaver pond and started north in the boat. Service was waiting for her when she bumped the nose of the boat against the grassy bank. It was a struggle to pull the boat up to the truck, but they got it done, securing it with bungee cords. McCants drove it out to the main road to meet the wrecker driver, who hooked it up and hauled it away. Service took McCants back to her truck and called the captain at home. “I’m with McCants. Do you still want me to come by?”