“Just in time for breakfast, babe,” Maridly Nantz said when Service walked into the kitchen. Shark had a leaning tower of flapjacks on a plate and a stack of toast in front of him. Gus was sitting at the table looking pale, but grinning. Walter was at the counter, manning the toaster. He did not acknowledge his father’s arrival.
“Big night?” Nantz asked, giving Service a lingering hug.
“Found some shit,” Service said.
“Normal night,” Gus said, grinning.
“Bear shit in a Saturn,” Service said.
“In the car?” Shark asked.
“Backseat.”
“There’s a story begging to get told,” Gus said wryly.
“You get to tell it,” Service said sarcastically, putting the plastic bag with the bear scat in the refrigerator. “I’ll send the bag to Rose Lake for you. When the report comes back, it’s all yours.”
“The work of a game warden,” Gus said. “Pracie would’ve hit the roof if I dumped shit in the fridge.”
“She’d have had a right to,” Nantz said.
“You sleep all right?” Service asked his friend.
“Your woman was at my bedside all night,” Gus said with a mock frown.
“Easy boys,” Nantz said, setting down a cup of black coffee for Service.
“Lorelei called early this morning,” she said.
State Senator Lorelei Timms was running for governor against Sam Bozian’s handpicked toady and surprising everyone by suddenly jumping up in the polls to pull even with the three-term governor’s anointee. “She got a problem?”
“Of sorts. She wants me to fly for her,” Nantz said.
“Not sure that’s a good idea,” Service said.
“Me either, but I’ll make a good decision.” She kneaded the small of his back.
“Sounds cool to me,” Walter said, placing a dish stacked with toast on the table and sitting down.
“Thanks for the support,” Nantz said.
“This isn’t your business,” Service said, immediately sorry that the words had slipped out.
Walter rolled his eyes, took a piece of toast, and grabbed for the butter.
Nantz shot a surreptitious scowl at Grady.
Service had met the aspiring governor last fall during a particularly nasty sequence of events in which two men and a bear died on a highway near Seney. Lorelei Timms had been taken by his actions at the accident scene and had been singing his praises publicly every since, a situation that made him grind his teeth every time another CO teased him about it. She had also become a constant phone pal, calling to ask him about the minutiae of fish and game management and trying to get him to act as her inside informer in the DNR. So far he had refused to help her, but this hadn’t stopped her from calling, or dropping by every time she was in the U.P. on her way to her place at the exclusive Huron Mountain Club north of Marquette. He didn’t dislike the senator. In fact, he liked her, but he didn’t have time to hold her hand and get himself sucked into a political vortex. He had experienced two run-ins with Sam Bozian, both of which had nearly cost him his job and career. In fact, just before his unexpected and unwanted promotion to detective last summer, he had been suspended without pay for two months—on direct orders from Governor Bozian. As far as he was concerned, he never wanted to be close to anyone whose job rested on the gullibility of a bunch of uninformed fools.
“Lorne called and said he thought it might be a good idea,” Nantz said.
Lorne O’Driscoll was the DNR’s chief of law enforcement, the state’s top woods cop. Last fall Nantz had begun training as a conservation officer and was at the top of her class when she was pulled out and thrown into a post-September 11 task force in Lansing that never materialized. While living at a motel she had been viciously attacked by a man, and the chief and his wife had taken her into their home to help her convalesce. She was scheduled to restart the DNR academy again in November, and since healing from her injuries had been a part-time contract pilot for the department in the Upper Peninsula.
“You mean the chief called,” Service said. O’Driscoll had backed him up in some important ways over the past two years and had proven to be the best chief in Service’s twenty years, but like most COs he didn’t care for Lansing and felt the further away he stayed, the better it was for everyone. Nantz loved to call the chief by his first name, knowing that Service found it grating.
“Lorne said to say hi. He thinks it won’t hurt to have one of us with the senator.”
“That’s political espionage.”
Nantz laughed. “Don’t be paranoid. It’s not healthy.”