Chasing a Blond Moon(17)
Nantz went inside and came back with two beers. “You boys want to move inside?”
“Outside’s fine,” Zuiderveen said.
“Too chilly for me,” Nantz countered.
“Mind over matter,” Zuiderveen said. “And warm duds.”
The retired Troop took a long pull on his beer and belched quietly. He was usually ebullient, the center of any gathering, but today he seemed pensive.
“Everything okay?” Service asked.
“If you don’t count the fact they don’t make pantyhose in my size and that some scum-fuck is stealing bears, things are just peachy.”
“I don’t care about your pantyhose problems. What about the bears?”
“You didn’t hear about Bearclaw?”
“We saw her last weekend. What about her?”
“She had a culvert trap out for a troublemaker over by Victoria and found it empty.”
“Traps are empty more than filled,” Service said.
“There had been a bear in this one, only it was open and gone when Betty got to it.”
“When was this?”
“Monday night. An old boar has been marauding camps. She wanted to trap and move him.”
“She didn’t report it.”
“I was with her,” Zuiderveen said. “She thinks it just got out.”
“But you think differently.”
“No evidence,” the big man said, tapping his nose. “Just this.”
“You know how smart bears are. Some of them just can’t be trapped. Why tell me?”
“You’re the guy-in-a-tie, and you know damn well that no bear is smart enough to get out of a culvert set once it’s inside.” Guys-in-ties was the sometime term for detectives.
“I don’t hear anything to detect.” Bearclaw was the best when it came to trapping black bears.
“This isn’t the first culvert trap to be sprung,” Zuiderveen said.
“Yeah?”
“No shit, yeah.”
“What about others?”
Zuiderveen grunted and chugged the remainder of his beer. “I’ve said my piece.”
Service understood. Bear guides were highly competitive and some—like She-Guy and Griff Stinson out of McMillan—were fanatics about following the rules. Other guides were not, especially once the season began for running bears with dogs. But even Zuiderveen and Stinson wouldn’t rat on other guides. It was part of the strange code of the often zany outfitters. “Griff have similar suspicions?”
“Could be,” She-Guy said.
“What about Dowdy Kitella?”
“Fuck that little psychotic piece of shit,” Zuiderveen said, spitting out the name like it was poison. “He ever touches my baits, he’ll end up as bait.”
It was not a threat Service took seriously. For all his reputation, She-Guy was essentially a gentle giant who loved to hunt bears. “Thanks for dropping by,” Service said. “I’ll give Bearclaw a call, see what she has to say.”
“Push ’er a bit,” Zuiderveen said. “She doesn’t think it’s a big deal.”
“I’ll remember that,” Service said, watching the giant amble to his truck and back out of the driveway.
Early the next morning Service and Nantz were in the garage doing their morning weight regimen. “Do you think Nathaniel is on to something?” she asked as he spotted for her.
“Maybe. He had to be pretty worked up to come all the way over here from Baraga.”
“If a bear gets into a trap and it’s faulty, it can get out, right?”
“Sure, if it was faulty, but Betty doesn’t use faulty traps. She’s the best at using culverts and she’s got a whole range of baits. She wanted to, she could go into business making them. If an animal was in her trap it’s not likely it got out because the trap failed.”
Service left her doing push-ups and sit-ups and went up to the bathroom to shower. When he came back down she was still at it.
Nantz followed him out to the truck and gave him a kiss.
She kissed him again. “See you tonight, babe.”
“Count on it.”
The office was fifty miles north of Gladstone, just outside Marquette, and Service found Captain Ware Grant staring north out at Lake Superior when he knocked on the doorjamb and stepped into his boss’s office. Grant was the senior law enforcement officer for the Department of Natural Resources in the Upper Peninsula. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Service pulled out a chair at the captain’s small round conference table and sat.
“That body of the Tech professor?” The captain began.
Service nodded. Why was the captain bringing this up?