Chasing a Blond Moon(134)

“Said Kitella was cutting in on his territory and needed to be taught a lesson. Charley got the cable and I give it to the man and I swear that’s all we done, man.”

Outside the jail Les Reynolds asked, “Do you know who he’s talking about?”

“Possibly,” Service said. Skunk Kelo was a sometime enforcer in the Allerdyce clan, and he had a prominent patch of white in his hair.

“You’re not talking,” Reynolds said.

“Can you pull Mary Ellen’s driving record? Let’s see if she had priors.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Trying to connect some dots and fill up a canvas,” Service said.

“Is that standard procedure over there in Michigan?” Les Reynolds asked.





33

Colliver was right about Mary Ellen Fahrenheit. Wisconsin records showed she had been stopped twice, the first time in 1992 when she blew .095, and in 1994 when it was .08. She had been clean since.

“I’d say she got her act together,” Les Reynolds said.

Some people managed to do just that, Service knew, but stress sometimes made them to do stupid things, including fall off wagons. Had this been stress or pure bad luck?

He was back in Escanaba by mid-afternoon, and stopped to see the undersheriff. “You see the prosecutor?”

Cambridge nodded. “Phone records in forty-eight hours and then we can put this thing to bed.”

Service stopped to give Newf water and let her run, put her in the house and headed north, trying to sort out what he knew about Skunk Kelo. The man had done a stretch downstate for aggravated assault and had returned to the Allerdyce clan a month or so after Limpy was released from Jackson Prison two years ago.

Retired CO Steve “Ironhead” Southard had once patrolled southwest Marquette County, where the clan’s compound was located. Southard had busted Kelo several times on snagging cases and had sent Kelo to prison after he had beaten Southard senseless with a three-pound priest made of ironwood. Southard had gotten his nickname as a result of the attack, but had retired a year later. He lived in Palmer, south of Negaunee, and was self-conscious about his nickname.

Ironhead had a dense, curly black beard that was beginning to salt and smiled when he opened the door and saw Service. “Must be business,” the retired officer said. “Neither you nor your old man were much on social calls.”

“Skunk Kelo,” Service said.

“What’s that cretin done now?” Southard asked.

“I’m just looking for information. Have you seen him since he got out?”

“No, and I don’t want to,” Southard said. “I did hear he went after She-Guy Zuiderveen over to Champion. Talk about your basic lapse in judgment. Zuiderveen gave him a helluva going-over.”

“When was this?”

“Sometime last winter. Kelo was in the bar yappin’ about bear guides and She-Guy took offense.”

“You busted Kelo several times.”

“One time too many,” Southard said. “That last time, he was the one doing the busting. The bastard tried to kill me, but the prosecutor went for a plea bargain because he didn’t like the looks of the jury. One of us gets killed they’ll plead it down to verbal abuse or something.”

The man’s bitterness was palpable and justified. Over the years a lot of officers had been injured making arrests, but few perps ever got the full fist of the law.

“What’s Kelo like?”

“Limpy’s muscle, cold as a lamprey on ice. Limpy gives an order, it gets done, no questions asked.”

“Blood kin?”

“Good as. He took up with one of the clan’s women and made his bones with the old man.”

“Took up with which woman?”

Southard grinned. “Hell, all of ’em is my guess. You know how that bunch is down there in the Sinai. That’s what I used to call it. Fuckin’ desert with trees.”

This stop had been a waste of time. “I did hear one thing,” Southard said, “but I’m not sure if it’s important. Kelo and Limpy had some sort of falling out.”

“Over what?”

Southard held up his hands. “You just heard all I know. I heard this late last winter.”

“Before or after She-Guy and Kelo had their scrap?”

“’Bout the same time, now that I think on it,” Southard said.

“This from a source or bar talk?”

“I gotta be retired a lot longer before I can go into bars around here,” Southard said. “I heard it from a source—a reliable one. When I retired, he retired. I promised he’d never get bugged by the department.”

“Your word’s your word,” Service said. “Any chance you could talk to him, find out what the beef was about?”