“Sorry,” Adams said, with body language that told Service he wanted the interview ended.
“Thank you for your help,” Pyykkonen said. “If you think of anything that might help us, even if it seems remote, you can call me at home or at the office.” She walked over and put her card on the table and Adams palmed it without looking at it.
“You might ask around about a camp,” Service said. “We need the help.”
Adams nodded, got up and left without further comment.
“We kinda chucked him in the pit,” Gus Turnage said when the three were alone.
“I just wanted to let him know that we’re serious here—without threatening him,” Pyykkonen said. “Subtle pressures often pay the biggest dividends. These academic types seem to think local cops are a bunch of Barney Fifes.”
“The scat sample is definitely ursine,” Service said, “as were the hairs, but our lab sent the stuff on to USF&WS Forensics in Oregon for more detailed testing. It’s gonna take some time to get answers.”
“Six years in Lansing and I never had a case like this,” Pyykkonen said.
“None of us have,” Grady Service added.
Gus opened the dead man’s desk drawer and slid his hands inside, pawing around.
“What’re you doing?” Service asked.
“Poking.”
“We gave the whole office and the house a pretty good going over,” Pyykkonnen said.
Gus grunted and pulled out a photograph, carefully holding it by the edges. “Hand me a plastic bag.” He slid the photo into the protective envelope. “It was stuck to the top, inside the drawer,” he said, staring at it with a curious look.
“Taped?” Service asked.
“Nah, she was just stuck. Maybe humidity. Stuff always gets stuck in desks.” He handed the snapshot to Service.
Harry Pung was dressed in a black robe. A small black hat was perched jauntily on top of his head, but tilted to one side. The hat was secured in placed by a chin-tie. He wore a red sash above his waist. Attached to it was a bow quiver. He held a bow at the draw, an arrow nocked. The bow was severely recurved.
“Not your standard compound bow and cammie-jammies,” Service remarked. “So he owned a bow. Again, where the hell is it?”
Pyykkonen shook her head. “We haven’t found anything.”
“Hunters always keep their weapons close at hand,” Service said, studying the snapshot more closely. “There’re some sort of Chinese characters in the background of the photo.” He passed it to the homicide detective.
“How do you know they’re Chinese?” she asked
“I don’t, but don’t all written languages in that part of the world derive from Chinese?”
“So you’re guessing?” she asked with a smile.
“Basically.”
“We can try to find somebody from the college to translate,” Pyykkonen said.
“We could, but I have another idea.” Service looked at Gus. “McCants.”
Turnage nodded. “She reads Chinese?”
“No, but she speaks and reads Korean, and if this is Korean then she can help. If not, we go to plan B.” Candace McCants had been born in Korea and was adopted by Americans. She was a CO now and had responsibility for the Mosquito Wilderness Area, which had been Service’s until his promotion, and his father’s before him.
“I’ll give Candi a yell and get back to you both,” Service said.
Service lived in Gladstone, McCants a bit north of there, but closer to him than to Houghton.
“Okay,” Pyykkonen said. “Time I got my butt down to the station.”
“I’ll give you a bump soon as I hear something,” Service said.
The two men called Betty Very and arranged to meet her on a primitive two-track off Victoria Road west of Rockland, which was fifty miles southwest of Houghton. A sign where they entered the track said SEASONAL ROAD, meaning it wasn’t plowed in winter. They took two vehicles so that Service could head for home when they were done. It was hilly, rocky country, with slag left from the mining days. Small orange butterflies gathered in flocks in the remainders of puddles in the ruts of the road. His trip counter now read nearly three hundred and fifty miles for the day and he was feeling weary. By the time he got home tonight he would have logged close to five hundred miles.
The barrel trap was a hundred yards up the two-track. The dark green steel canister was eight feet long and three and a half feet in diameter. Bearclaw had set it up on the lip of a small ridge leading down to a creek bottom in a thick cedar swamp, classic bear habitat.
Betty was sitting on a log by the trap, smoking and looking thoughtful.