Chasing a Blond Moon(118)

“Glad to be of assistance, Sarn’t. You need any more help, you call.”

“Yessir.”

His mind drifted back to Cal Shall at the academy. The first day in investigations class Shall had given each student what he called a paint-by-number canvas. There were squiggles and geometric shapes all over it, but no numbers.

“What are you looking at? Please write your answer on the back of the board and pass it forward.” Service still remembered what he saw. It was a message that said, “The obvious is only as clear as you allow it to be.”

A second board was passed out. This showed the same black squiggles as the first one but this one had numbers in the shapes. “What are you seeing?” Shall asked. “Answers on the back, pass ’em forward.”

A third board was the same as the second. Cadets were given blue and black crayons and told to use them to try to bring out a picture, write their answers on the back, pass them forward.

The fourth board was passed out, same as the last three, and an entire box of Crayolas was given to each cadet. “Color them in, write your answer on the back, pass it forward. You have ten minutes,” the instructor said.

Not everybody finished their coloring, but Shall collected the boards and sent the cadets out for a break. “Back in fifteen minutes,” he told them.

There was some laughing, but not much discussion of the exercise. Service thought it a foolish waste of time.

When they filed back into the classroom, they saw that Cal Shall had written on the blackboard:

• LEVEL ONE: 1 of 30

• LEVEL TWO: 2 of 30

• LEVEL THREE: 5 of 30

• LEVEL FOUR: 24 of 30



“Allow me to summarize,” the instructor began. “Only one of you correctly visualized the unnumbered scenario. Only two decoded level two. Five got the two-color work-up, which is excellent. Only three quarters of you got the full picture in color, though this particular result is related to individual working speeds. If you’d had enough time, you would all have gotten it,” he said.

“Gentlemen, the first board is actually the second stage of most investigations. The initial situation consists of a crime and a few facts. Investigative techniques allow you to create level one, and from there you begin to ascertain how things relate and you assign them numbers, which equate to colors in level two. At this point you begin to try to relate the clusters, and often you do not have the full palette of evidence available, so your picture lacks full color and you are in level three. It is only at level four that full color enables you to easily decipher your situation. And it is from level four that the prosecutor will assemble the case for court.” Shall looked at the clock on the wall. “Dismissed.”

The instructor found Service outside and pulled him aside. “You were the one who got level one. Level one minds are rare; you’d better take care of and nurture your instincts and intuition.”

“This is only an exercise.”

“This exercise has predictive power. Looking back at scores of my students, I can see which ones were destined to become successful investigators.”

“It’s not realistic,” Service said. “There are times when there are no shapes and the board is totally blank.”

“You’re mistaken, Cadet. There is always a starting point: a body, a theft, an accident, and so on. With each criminal event there is always the fact of the crime, and this becomes your point of embarkation. Even if you have nothing but suspicion—for example, in the case of a missing person—you have the person and the facts of their life. Do you understand?”

All of which brought him back to the present, staring at the seventy-five-foot-high Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad ore dock, where each week a couple of huge ships were filled with taconite pellets from the Tilden Mine.

He was back in his office at ten. A quick look at the fax from Teddy Gates confirmed that the Ollie Toogood he knew as Trapper Jet was indeed the officer being sworn in—and the released POW. What the hell was the story with the yearbook photo?

Wisconsin Warden Les Reynolds called while he was puzzling over the photograph.

“Thought you’d want to know, Mary Ellen Fahrenheit was killed in a vehicle accident last night.”

“Really?”

“Thought you’d want to know because it happened up your way.”

“It did?”

“M-35 at the Cedar River Bridge. She was southbound, lost control, went over the guardrail and into the river. A trucker behind her saw it happen, tried to pull her out, but failed. They had to call in a dive team. They recovered the body two, three hours after the accident.”

Southbound? She had been a long way from home. “What time was this?”