Chasing a Blond Moon(130)

She helped him jam the original bags and contents into the new ones. They pulled the bags onto the canvas tarp and used duct tape to reattach the handle, looping twisted tape through a couple of metal grommets.

“Side by side?” McCants asked.

“I’ll drag, you push,” he said. “You’ll probably have to straddle it.”

“Ah, face to face,” she said, “and me on top—my favorite.” She began to laugh.

“Get serious,” he said.

“It’s always serious when I’m on top,” she said, laughing harder, and soon they were both laughing, neither of them sure why, neither of them caring.

They had not moved from where she had found him when his cell phone buzzed. He tried to reach into his coat, but dropped the phone. McCants picked it up from the mud. “McCants,” she said. “He’s right here.” She handed him the phone.

“What the hell is going on?” Nantz asked. “Candi can hardly talk.”

“We’re in the Mosquito.”

“Still?”

“Bear hunters,” he said.

“You’re breathing like—”

“Working,” he said, cutting her short.

“Let me talk to Candi.”

He handed the phone back to McCants.

She said, “He’s tired, Mar,” added, “count on it.”

McCants put the phone in her own pocket. “She said I should keep an eye on you.”

He got to his feet, started pulling on the tarp. “Let’s do it.”

“No foreplay?”

“Shut up, Candi.”

It took close to thirty minutes to drag the remains into the open field beyond the cedar swamp. McCants reached inside her truck and turned on her lights, including the spotlight on the driver’s side. The rain continued to fall, varying in intensity, but never stopping as he knelt in the grass and mud, reached into the plastic bags, and began searching for the second bullet.

McCants filled a cup with coffee for him and held it out. He stopped working, took the cup and sipped.

“Some nights, it’s just not a pretty job,” she said.





32

They drove their trucks to Guilfoyle’s near Cornell, which was across a road from the Escanaba River. Guilfoyle’s was one of those Upper Peninsula taverns that kept its original name and decor while it went through revolving owners. The current proprietor was D. J. Reardon, a retired tool company executive from Wisconsin. He had owned the place going on seven years, and welcomed cops of all flavors.There were fewer vehicles in the gravel parking lot than usual, but it was a weeknight and the rain continued to come down.

Their work done, Service and McCants had checked off duty with Station 20 and gone looking for hot food. It was late, but Reardon played loose with last call, especially for cops coming off patrol.

The juke was low. Two men were watching a TV on a pedestal above the bar. Riordan’s wife, Susie, was holding down the cash register.

The conservation officers sat at a table, stripped down to their soft armor vests. “We reek,” Candi said.

Riordan’s wife came over to the table. “Kitchen’s closed but I can whip up grilled cheese.”

“Thanks, lots of pickles on the side,” Service said.

“There are some Troops in the back room,” Susie said with a smirk. “Poker night with D. J. and open to all badges. But by the look and smell, you two already had way too much fun tonight.”

The sandwiches came within fifteen minutes and they ate in silence. “You ever sleep in your truck?” McCants asked.

“Too many times.”

“Bear hunters,” she said, shaking her head. “I may sleep in my bathtub tonight.”

“You could drown.”

“That would be a bad thing?”

“Only the paperwork afterwards.”

She grinned. “Thanks for being there tonight.”

He flexed his injured hand. “You’d do it for me.”

“Sooner or later, more and more people are going to discover the Mosquito,” she said. “It’s inevitable, Grady.”

He nodded, knowing she was right, but he was not in the frame of mind to talk philosophically tonight.

“We should have gotten a four-wheeler, hauled the animal out and taken it to town for an X ray, then pulled the slug,” she said. “But you didn’t want anybody to see the size of the animal, and know it came out of the Mosquito.”

“I stand moot before the court,” he said.

“It’s mute.”

“It was a pun,” he countered, knowing that a rotting carcass in the Mosquito was not likely to be discovered. If seen in town, word would spread wide and fast.

McCants lifted her arm and sniffed. “Eau de ursus. I may need an acid bath.”