Chasing a Blond Moon(142)

Service and Linsenman stepped onto the porch and the door slammed behind them. They heard a bolt click.

“What . . . the . . . fuck . . . was . . . that?” Linsenman whispered.

Service ignored him. The spots were no longer lit; the dog on the rope was pulling and growling low like he had a bee trapped in his throat.

“Side by side this time,” Service said. The dog was surging, straining to go.

When they stepped down from the porch the area erupted in snarls and barks and growls, and dark forms pranced around herky-jerky. Service’s hand was shaking, his heart pounding.

“Give me the leash,” Linsenman said calmly.

For the first twenty yards the dogs charged in to snarl at them and retreat, snapping their jaws.

As soon as they were in the trees they could hear the animals crashing en masse through the underbrush on either side of them.

From time to time, the dog on the rope would snarl and lash out, or freeze suddenly until whatever captured his attention moved away.

The last hundred yards they heard nothing, and the dog on the rope settled into an easy walk until it saw the Yukon and balked.

“You can let him go,” Service said.

“So that old asshole back there can kill him? You don’t want him, I’ll take him.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Service said.

The dog snarled when Linsenman opened his door, but the deputy talked softly to the animal, reached down, and hoisted it into the truck.

“I think I’ll call him NATO,” Linsenman said. “You see how those other dogs danced at him, but none of them had the balls to take him on. I think Limpy is dumping him because he couldn’t handle him.”

NATO lay his head on Linsenman’s knee.

“You get what you want?” the deputy asked.

“Maybe,” Service said. “Understanding Limpy is like trying to read hieroglyphics.”

“That’s good,” Linsenman said. “That stew was great, but I’m never ever going on another night hike with your woods cop ass.”

The deputy rubbed between the dog’s ears, said, “If this man ever comes to our house, you can bite his balls off.”

Service was happy to see that the dog didn’t respond.

At least one of Allerdyce’s messages was clear: Animals that refused to run with the pack and pull their weight were out of the pack, and Limpy was the alpha male. Did this refer to Kelo, Honeypat, or Aldo? The subtext wasn’t clear at all. What really rubbed at him was Allerdyce’s curious qualification about a family acting the way it’s supposed to—all for one and one for all.

Ten minutes after Linsenman departed with his new pet, Service realized that while his decision to go to the compound had been an impulse, his reception there was not, and such a reception meant that Allerdyce had been expecting him, which made the message even clearer. Or was the message one of misdirection? Limpy’s mind was unconventional and anything was possible. Superficially, a reasonable person would assume that Honeypat and Kelo had been thrown out because they wouldn’t abide, but Service knew that it had been Honeypat who chose to walk. The circulating story made it seem like she had hooked up with Kelo and been thrown out. That didn’t fit facts or history as he understood it.

More importantly, the man he had met the last two times was not the man he had known and battled for so many years. If Allerdyce was sick, it wasn’t a passing bug.





35

Cambridge was patiently watching him go through the phone calls in and out of Ranta’s house. Cambridge had thoughtfully hand-printed a name beside each number, but there was no Kelo, Colliver, Fahrenheit, or Honeypat—no nothing.

Cal Shall had always preached to his students: “There’s always something in every case that’s not clear or obvious until it’s over. Sometimes that something is nothing.”

“Satisfied?” the undersheriff asked.

“Can I get a copy?”

“Keep that one.”

“What about her business calls?”

The undersheriff rolled his eyes. “It just goes on and on with you.”

“James, we’re trying to get to the bottom of this.”

“No, Detective,” Cambridge said with a snarl. “This is my jurisdiction, my case, and I am trying to get to the bottom, but you keep trying to dig the basement deeper.”

The undersheriff did not say he would seek the business phone records.

Les Reynolds called at 10 a.m. while Service was driving north toward Marquette.

“Colliver says that photo is the guy he dealt with. You got a name?”

“Jukka Kelo, but most people call him Skunk.”

“I think we’re going to BOLO the man, all agencies, detain for questioning in connection with a felony investigation.”