Chasing a Blond Moon(36)

“He didn’t need to know,” Service grumbled.

“You can be such a jerk,” Nantz said, “but a funny one.” She was smiling.

The second message was from Gus Turnage. “Hey, Walt called and said you’d hit some shit. Give me a bump. Walt has some ideas we both ought to hear. He’s a great kid, Grady.”

“Walt?” Service said to Nantz.

“Your son, fool.”

“It’s not his place to call Gus,” he grumbled.

“Stop being an asshole.”

Service started for the stairs but saw lights flash in the long driveway.

Nantz looked out the window. “It’s Lorelei,” she said.

“Aren’t we lucky,” Service said. “Shouldn’t she be out kissing asses and babies?”

“Grady,” Nantz said with a warning growl.

State senator and gubernatorial candidate Lorelei Timms stepped into the foyer. She was tall and a little heavy, with intense eyes and medium-length hair streaked silver. She wore a dark dress and high heels that made her even taller.

“I heard about today,” the senator said.

Service wondered how she’d learned so quickly, but as a senator gunning for the top spot in state government, she was a full-blooded member of the Lansing tribe, which had its own drums and ways of passing information. He responded with a nod.

“You look like shit,” she said, “if you don’t mind my word choice. You, on the other hand,” she said, turning to Nantz, “look like someone just off a Milan fashion runway.”

“Too short,” Nantz said. The women smiled at each other.

Timms turned back to Service. “I don’t like police officers getting injured in the line of duty.”

“Get used to it,” Service said.

“I know the reality, but I don’t have to like it.” Service expected her to spout some kind of campaign slogan, but she turned to Nantz again. “Whit and I got a sitter for the kids so we could have a night alone. It’s going to be campaigning every day and night from here on. But when I heard about what went on up here, we decided we could take our night at the House of Ludington.” The House of Ludington was an Escanaba landmark, a Queen Anne–style resort hotel that had been built before the turn of the twentieth century—at a time when Great Lakes steamships brought tourists from Chicago and Milwaukee. The hotel still had one of the best kitchens in the Midwest.

“You’ve pulled even in the polls,” Nantz said.

“Crossing the finish line first is what matters,” the senator said. “Whit and I brought Jill Yonikan with us. She’s an old friend and an orthopedic surgeon in Traverse City. She was at Henry Ford for ages. She’s going to help your friend Kate.”

Nantz smiled.

“Kate will be in good hands,” Senator Timms said.

“Our doctors aren’t good enough?” Service said testily.

Timms turned and stared hard at him. “In a word, no. You have some good people up here, but not nearly enough, and not enough specialists to make a difference.”

“You’re going to change that?”

“I’m going to try. I’m at least going to give this area some of the attention and respect it deserves. You heard what Kwami called the U.P.?”

Kwami Kilpatrick was Detroit’s current mayor. He had been quoted as calling the U.P. “Michigan’s Mississippi.” The remark had riled a lot of people, not just in the Yoop, but the mayor had not apologized.

“He’s in your party.”

“Yes, he is, and he has a right to say what he thinks; but if he keeps kicking parts of the state that aren’t Detroit, it’s Detroit that’s going to suffer. We have to get people thinking together—as one state—not Detroit, et cetera.”

Good luck, Service thought. He had never heard Lori Timms speak with such conviction. Before this he had thought of her as a naive, middle-aged do-gooder from old money, but there was a hardness in her voice that suggested she was more capable of real convictions and command than he had ever imagined. But she’d have to win before anyone would know if she had what it took.

“You belong in bed,” the senator said. “And Maridly and I need to talk.”

Service shrugged, went up to the bedroom and called Gus Turnage. “It’s Grady. I got your message.”

“You okay?”

“NBD, some stitches and some wrestling.”

“Fourteen-year-old tweaker, I heard. How’s Nordquist?”

“They’re worried about her leg.”

“Man,” Gus said. “Any leads on who did it?”

Gus wasn’t as well informed as he was making out. “They got him.” He didn’t volunteer any details. These would come out soon enough. “You talked to the boy.”