“Will till the day she packs it in,” Griff said. “That gal’s got her a big dose of dedication and an ironclad notion of right and wrong. She liked sex, you know that? Loved it, but not with the lights on. Lights on was wrong, but anything went with the lights out. How does a person get to thinking like that?” Griff looked up and seemed to ponder his own question.
“No idea,” Service said.
“Vernelia, she don’t ever want the lights out.”
Strange day, Service thought. “You had a bear get loose on you?” Service asked, trying to steer Griff back to the point of their meeting.
“Don’t believe it got loose. I’m thinkin’ maybe somebody give it some help.”
“Evidence?”
“Lock pin was scraped and bent.”
“Bear’s work?”
“What bear’s strong enough to bend three-quarter-inch steel? What happened was I had this big old boar over to Gimlet Creek and he tore up couple of my satellite camps. First time I put it down to fate and lousy hinges on my window shutters. Second time I figured he’d keep on tearing stuff up less I moved him, so I put out a barrel.”
“And you got him.”
“Sat right there in a tree stand and heard him go in and the gate come down. I climbed down, checked the cage, and come home to have dinner and sweets with Vernelia. Next morning the animal was gone, the trap busted.”
“You’re figuring tampering?”
“Wasn’t an animal did that to steel. Somebody took that animal.”
“Took it?”
“I found the trail. Had Cootie with me and she followed the trail to a tote, where it disappeared. Way I read it, somebody dragged the animal out to a truck and drove away.”
“When?” Service asked. It would take a tranq gun and drugs to do this, and neither was readily available. He decided to add this fact to his list.
“August 22.”
“How big an animal?”
“Dandy size, four hundred, I’d say. Four hundred easy.”
“First time this has happened to you?”
“Won’t happen again,” Griff Stinson said with a determined nod. “I gotta trap another one, I’ll move it at night and be done with it. Vernelia will just have to wait.”
Another passing truck sounded its horn with three long, loud hoots and Griff grinned. “That’s six. You best be movin’ along, Grady.”
“Why would somebody steal a bear from a trap?” Service asked.
“Griff, honey, I got some sweets waitin’ for you inside,” Vernelia called from the side of the cabin.
“Got some for Service?” the bear guide yelled back.
“Sorry, hon. Just enough for one today.”
Stinson grinned at Service and winked. “Who knows why somebody’d steal an animal? Not like they can make ’im a house pet. Some mysteries ain’t to be figured out, like why somebody steals a bear, or a woman like Vernelia gets wet between the legs from the horns of logging trucks. Is what it is, eh?”
Service watched Stinson duck to get through the low door of the cabin, got into his truck, and headed west.
Treebone called in on the cell phone as Service stopped in McMillan, getting ready to drive west on M-28. “There’s a woman in Grand Rapids—Kentwood. She’s an ex-Chicago cop, a real pro.”
“She expensive?” Service asked.
“Dawg, don’t you people have budget for anything?”
“Only for smoke and mirrors.”
“Shit. I’ll have her give you a bump.”
“You got all my numbers?” Service asked his friend.
“Cell, office, and home, dawg. Later.”
7
He tried to call the Ketchums again, but they were still unfindable. East of Munising he called Candace McCants on her cell phone. “You on something right now?” he asked.
“If that’s a professional question, the answer’s no. If it’s personal, the answer’s, I wish,” she said.
“Meet me in Trenary, forty minutes at SBT?”
“See you there,” she said.
Andy Ecles, a retired businessman from downstate South Haven, had moved to Trenary the previous summer, bought an old cafe, spiffed it up, and renamed it the Star & Bucks Toastatorium—which locals called SBT. The village was famous for Trenary toast, which had the consistency of hardtack and was edible only when dipped in hot liquid, preferably hot black coffee.
McCants was already seated when Service arrived.
She waved a cigarette at him and smiled. “How’s wifey?”
“We’re not married,” Service said.
“On paper,” McCants said. The Korean-born officer was in her fifth year of duty, five-six and one hundred sixty pounds of muscle. She wasn’t afraid of anything and had an inordinate amount of common sense. She had been adopted by a family in Detroit when she was twelve and joined the DNR after finishing a police academy at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.