“We need to get something on paper we can start working with. So here’s how it looks to me. Somebody had a bear in the cabin at Lac La Belle, brought it down to the canal by the fish house.”
“Harry Pung,” she said.
Service nodded. “As far as Hancock. He loaded the bear in a boat to motor down here.”
“But Harry missed the boat,” she said.
“Right, and then Terry gets in the big boat here and disappears, leaving his stand-in to a nap with the fish.”
“You think it all fits?”
“It never all fits until you have somebody in custody and can work it through,” he said. “I’m too tired to think. My brain is fried.”
“You gonna hang around town?”
“I’ve got to get back to Marquette.”
“I’ll call you as soon as we have something,” she said. “Thanks for the help. Remember, I’ve never lost a killer.”
There’s always a first time, he thought.
16
He was just across the Marquette County line when a Troop came up on the county radio. “Shot fired, in pursuit, officer needs assistance, westbound US Forty One, two miles east of Champion.” It was a female voice, calm, almost detached. In the U.P. cops were few; even so, all officers in the various police jurisdictions had discretion in responding to calls of other agencies, based on location and other factors. But shots fired was one you went to, no matter what you were doing. You went because the day might come when you’d be making the call. He toggled his mike and told the Marquette County dispatcher. “DNR Twenty-Five Fourteen responding.”
“Where are you, Twenty-Five Fourteen?”
“Forty One, eastbound, just passing the county line.”
Another voice chimed in and Service recognized Marquette County Deputy Sheriff Linsenman. Almost a year ago, in the same area, the two of them had responded to a moose–vehicle collision. Linsenman had dispatched the animal, which was at the bottom of a ditch on top of the driver, who had been thrown out of his pickup.
“Suspect in green Ford pickup running eighty-plus,” the female Troop reported, her voice up only slightly. “Westbound on Forty One, approaching Van Riper.”
Van Riper was a state park, six miles ahead in his twelve o’clock position. Suspect in what? It would help to know. His adrenaline began to spike. Shot fired and pursuit. Next to domestic disputes, it was the worst call of all.
“Suspect is turning north on the Pesheke Grade Road,” the Troop radioed. “Following,” she added, her voice beginning to betray the strain of the chase.
There’d be no eighty-miles-per-hour pursuit on that road, Service told himself. It was steep, washboarded, studded with large rocks, narrow and winding as it snaked over the southwestern slabs of the Huron Mountains. At the first summit there was a deep gouge in the road between two huge stone abutments, a precarious squeeze even when you were going slow and had the vehicle under control.
Linsenman reported turning up the grade.
Service began to slow for his turn to the north, searching his memory for a shortcut to an intercept, but there wasn’t one. He’d have to go all the way around by Skanee and come back south and it was at least a hundred miles around, which is why the Pesheke grade was a popular cut-through for locals.
The washboarded road pounded his undercarriage, making the vehicle lurch and fishtail. The vehicles ahead of him were kicking up heavy dust, which hung in the air like a cloud of cocoa powder. He switched on his headlights, but they made no difference, and his blue lights seemed to bounce off the dust and make visibility worse.
The Troop came back on the radio. “Suspect out of vehicle,” she said, her words clipped.
Linsenman radioed, “Vehicles in sight.”
Service kept his eyes on the road, both hands firmly on the steering wheel.
Loose gear in back of the Yukon was flying all over the place, bouncing off the windows and roof. For weeks he’d been telling himself to put things away, tie it all down, but he’d never gotten around to it.
Service bounced out of a severe left turn and saw emergency lights ahead on a long, rising straightaway. Two police vehicles were on the road, their doors open. Dust lingered in the air. He saw Linsenman behind the open driver’s door of his squad, looking ahead. A blue state police cruiser was ahead of Linsenman, but Service couldn’t see the driver. The Pesheke River was on their left, just over the lip of a steep, boulder-strewn berm that looked like it had sprouted teeth. It was good defensive cover for a shooter.
“Shot fired,” the Troop reported on the radio.
Service braked, got out, opened his door, and used it as a shield while he studied the situation. He had heard no gunshot.