“Who’s got the homicide?”
“Houghton detective named Pyykkonen.”
“The one boffing the new sheriff?”
Service stared at his friend. “Is there some sort of central repository for Yooper gossip?”
She laughed and said in a conspiratorial tone, “There aren’t that many women up here. We operate like the Borg,” she said, “all part of one hive.”
He shook his head. “What do you know about the outfit in Wisconsin?”
“Jung.”
“Right, jung.”
“I heard there was one between Milwaukee and Madison. The town’s called Jefferson, I think.”
“Are these jungs organized like clubs?”
“More like religions, and they all report back to Korea. This is deadly serious stuff. For the ninth don you have to score 39 of 39 at one hundred and forty meters.”
Service looked at the photo and quickly converted the distance to almost four hundred and fifty yards. “With that toy bow?”
“Don’t let the size fool you, Grady. That bow pulls more than fifty pounds and good shooters regularly plug targets with small bamboo arrows. The bow may look like something out of The Lord of the Rings, but it’s lethal as hell.”
“How do I get in touch with the Wisconsin outfit?”
“Why don’t you let me call them? Speaking Korean will probably make things go faster.”
“I want to know if Pung was a member, or if he was a member in one of the outfits anywhere in the country.”
“Or Korea?”
“Okay, right,” Service said with a nod. “I need to know more about him.”
“I’ll give it a try,” she said, dipping a piece of concrete toast into her coffee.
Andy Ecles came over to the table as they were getting ready to leave. “Howdy, officers. You two looking for bad guys?”
“Always,” McCants said.
“You didn’t hear this from me,” Ecles said, “but if you want a bad guy, give a visit to Bryce Verse.”
“Verse?” McCants asked.
“He’s from over to Manistique, but he’s got a camper-trailer parked out on the back side of the Pavola farm.”
McCants said, “Why does Mr. Verse qualify as a bad guy?”
“I hear he just got out of Kinross,” Ecles said. Kinross was a Level II state correctional facility in Chippewa County in the eastern Upper Peninsula. “He was in here with a couple of young girls a couple of days ago. He was packing and the girls were bragging how they’d been shooting deer.”
“You saw a weapon?”
“The three of them were high and rowdy, but I saw enough to know what I saw.”
When they got outside, McCants slid her 800 MHz radio out of its holster, and set Channel 20. “Station Twenty, this is Four One Twenty Three. Can you run a file?”
“Go ahead, Four One Twenty Three.”
“Last name is Verse: Victor, Echo, Romeo, Sierra, Echo. First name Bryce: Bravo, Romeo, Yankee, Charlie, Echo. No middle name known. Allegedly just out of Kinross. Run the name, see what we come up with.”
“Bryce Verse,” the dispatcher in Lansing said. “Right back at you.”
“You can go,” McCants said.
“Think I’ll hang for a while,” Service said.
“You missing this part of the job?” she asked.
He nodded. “Sometimes.”
Station Twenty called back, “Four One Twenty Three, Bryce Verse just finished three years at Kinross, paroled three weeks ago. You want his PO’s name?”
“Go ahead.”
“PO is Jenna Traffic, out of Manistique. You want her numbers?”
McCants wrote down home, office, and cell phone numbers, switched to her own cell phone, and tapped in a number. “Jenna Traffic? This is Candi McCants, DNR. You got a problem child named Bryce Verse?”
Service watched his colleague making notes on a small pad. “Okay, Jenna. We heard today that he’s got a camper set up near Trenary. He was seen in town a couple of days ago in the company of two minor females, allegedly high and packing.” McCants listened, then smiled. “I hear ya. Think I’ll head out to his camp and have a chat with your boy.”
She flipped the phone shut and looked at Service. “Supposed to check in with his PO within forty-eight hours, but she hasn’t heard a word from him. She says he’s a genetic dirtbag. He went up for aggravated assault, two OUILs, and statutory rape. Moody also busted him several times over in the Manistique area for fish and game before he got sent away. Apparently Moody was also the arresting officer on the aggravated assault beef.” Eddie Moody, a CO for part of Schoolcraft County, was also known as Gutpile because of his spectacular ability to find the remains of poached white-tail deer.