Chasing a Blond Moon(42)
“Did you tell anybody about this?” Gus asked.
“Just Karylanne.”
“What’s this got to do with Terry Pung?” Service asked, interrupting.
He felt bad for the girl, but the whole story seemed pointless. It wasn’t DNR business.
“When we got up to the cabin he went a couple of doors down and brought back this guy and he said his name was Terry Pung. This Terry, he sold us some weed, and my date, he said the guy’s father was a prof at Tech, and I told my date that I had a kid named Terry Pung in one of my classes, but this Terry didn’t look like the same dude, ya know?”
“What’s the football player’s name?” Gus asked.
“Rafe Masonetsky,” she said. “He played in back of the line or something; I don’t know football.”
“Where’s Rafe now?” Gus asked.
“He dropped out, said he was tired of school. He wasn’t on scholarship or anything. I guess he went home to Wisconsin.”
“Where in Wisconsin?” Gus asked.
“Some town near Madison, I think. I told him that this Pung dude didn’t look like the Pung in my classes and Rafe laughed. He said Pung was cool—he brought some kid over from Korea and enrolled him in school under his name so that he didn’t have to go to class. Terry likes to hunt, I guess.”
Walter suddenly spoke up.
“Tell them what you ate at Rafe’s uncle’s place.”
“We had some fruit and he grilled some veggie burgers? In the morning we had fruit and yogurt. I’m like a vegan; I don’t eat living flesh?”
“What kind of fruit?” Karylanne said.
“Berries, grapes, orange slices, peaches, bananas, ya know?”
“And?” Karylanne prompted.
“You mean the figs and prunes?” she asked, seeking guidance.
Gus snapped to attention. “Figs?”
“Rafe said Terry brought them to us as a gift. I think they were in the fridge? I never looked. Even though they were chocolate-covered, I didn’t like how they tasted, but I wanted to be polite, ya know?”
“Is the Pung boy in school now?” Service asked.
“No, I heard he transferred to U of M.” This checked out with what Service had heard from Pung’s boss.
“You haven’t seen Rafe since then?”
“No, he kept calling and I told him if he didn’t stop I was going to tell the school what had happened.”
“Did you?”
“No,” she said, looking down at the table. “I figured it was my fault. I never shoulda gone out there with the dude. Can I go now? I’ve got a lot of studying to do.”
Gus said, “How can we reach you?”
“I don’t want to be involved?” the girl said. “I’ve got like, this humongous load this semester and I need to stay on schedule. I made a mistake—can we just leave it at that?”
Service was glad that Gus didn’t push any harder. If they needed to talk to her, they could find her easily enough.
Walter and the two girls got up and started to leave. Service followed and caught his son’s arm. “Are you going to have dinner with us?”
“No, Karylanne and I have to study. Next time, okay?”
Service wanted to chew out his son for poking his nose where it didn’t belong, but the information was promising and he was too much a detective to niggle.
“I guess Maridly’s gonna be gone a lot?” Walter asked.
“Flying for Senator Timms.”
“So you let her go?”
“I don’t let her do anything. She makes her own decisions.”
“That’s cool,” his son said, heading for the door. “See you soon?”
“Absolutely,” Service said, not wanting to fail the test and thinking he needed to get the boy wheels, if the university would allow it.
Back at the table, Gus asked where Walter was. “He went with Karylanne,” Service said.
Gus smiled. “Don’t blame him a bit.”
“Chocolate-covered figs,” Service said. “Too damned much coincidence here to not follow up.”
“Pyykkonen talked to Pung’s lawyer. There isn’t any camp or other house and he’s worth about four hundred grand, mostly in the house and stocks, all of which goes to his ex.”
“What about the son?”
Gus shrugged. “No mention of a son.”
“We’d better take a look at that cabin on Lac La Belle,” Service said, wondering what the deal was with Terry Pung.
They left Gus’s vehicle at his house, loaded some of his gear into Service’s Yukon, and headed across the bridge through Hancock.
“You figure the figs were laced?” Gus asked as Service drove up US 41.