Strike Dog (20 page)

Service told her the date and she began to gasp for air.

“Nothing . . . in . . . news,” she mumbled, her voice cracking.

“There are reasons for that,” Service said, not amplifying. “I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but we need help finding his killer.”

She responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

“You knew him,” Service said, a declarative statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

“When did you see him last?”

“That same day,” she said. “He got here late morning and left to meet Arnie Thorkaldsson to fish.”

“You know the sheriff?”

“For a long time.”

“Did Wayno act different in any way on that day?”

She rolled her eyes and managed a smile. “God, he was the poster boy for different.”

“But that day specifically?”

“He wasn't himself,” she said with resignation. “He was really hurting over his mom's death. He never talked about work. I want work talk, Monte has more than enough.”

“What time did Wayno leave here?”

“Four, maybe a little after. He usually left about the same time. He and Arnie always bet a beer on the most fish, and he liked to get there first. But that day he was reluctant to leave, said he wasn't in the mood, and I told him to go,” she said, stifling a sob.

“This is not your fault,” he said, trying to keep her calm and talking. “Did you see Wayno often?”

“Whenever he came to see Arnie.”

“Three times a year?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, her eyes wide with disbelief, obviously disturbed that he knew the frequency.

“Does Arnie know about you and Wayno?”

“Nobody knows,” she said. “
Knew.
”

“Where'd you two meet?”

“Monte's company sponsors youth outdoor education programs, and sometimes we have Wisconsin wardens come in to talk to the kids. Wayno was a guest speaker at a meeting near Fond du Lac.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Seven years.”

“And you've been seeing him ever since?”

“It was flingy,” she said. “You know, not serious. Wayno had a wild, bad-boy side and Monte has none, and doesn't know anything about having fun unless he's making money.”

“Seven years seems like a long fling,” he said.

“Like I already said, Wayno was Wayno, and what it was, was all it ever was going to be,” she said.

“How'd you arrange your meetings and times?”

“We set them a year ahead,” she said.

“And he never missed?”

“He said he controlled his own schedule,” she said. “Did he suffer?”

“No,” Service said, knowing this was what she wanted to hear. “Did you vary the dates?” he asked.

“No, it was pretty much the same three days every year. You know, because of the fishing, something to do with certain insects.”

“I appreciate your cooperation,” Service said, knowing now that fishing was not Wayno's only reason for coming to Florence County.

“Who told you about us?” she asked.

“That's confidential, and you also need to keep this quiet. We won't be talking to your husband.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like
I'm
going to talk about it?” she said. “I feel stupid and I feel bad about all of this. Wayno was . . .” Tears were welling in her eyes.

“I can let myself out,” Service told her. He turned around at the door. “You said Wayno was really bothered by his mom's death?”

“Devastated. He couldn't understand how it happened.”

When he got to the truck he sat for a while. Wayno's mother, Elray Spargo's sister, Maridly Nantz. Two murdered game wardens and another on the alleged target list, and all with sudden losses of people they were close to. This defied coincidence. He had seen Wayno in action. He had been an aggressive warden. And because of his mother's death Wayno may not have been on his game.

Now he also knew that Wayno wasn't as unpredictable as he should have been. Three times a year, same place, parking in the same spot—these were things a killer could work with, and they probably had cost him his life. What it didn't do was explain why Ficorelli was chosen by the killer, or how. Killer or killers, he reminded himself. The list? Maybe, maybe not.
Keep an open mind,
he cautioned himself, as he drove back down to the river, showed his temporary ID to the security agents on duty. He parked where Wayno's vehicle had been, got out his waders, and walked down the path into the river and up toward the kill site, trying to sort out his thoughts.

The killer had missed Ficorelli's gear. Had he planned to dump the body and come back? Had Thorkdalsson's arrival been too close a call and spooked him? What else had he missed?

24

FLORENCE COUNTY, WISCONSIN
MAY 30, 2004

What would get a fisherman out of the water? Correction: not just a fisherman, but a game warden. If he had been on duty, it might have been to help someone, or to watch or stop something, but Wayno had been off duty, and fishing. Service sat on the log where he had found the rod and the fly box, which had been submerged but open. Had Wayno been changing flies? If so, was it because he wanted a new pattern, or because he'd lost one in the trees or foliage? The greenery was certainly dense enough along the bank to eat flies.

Service tried to read the water. There was a pool with smooth water about thirty yards upstream, and a riffle nearer to him—less a riffle than pocket water. The best run was close to the bank, and that's where the trout were most likely to be—unless a hatch was happening in low light, in which case the trout would be inclined to move more toward the middle to feed, which could have put Ficorelli's backcast in jeopardy. But if the rises had been along the seam by the bank, Wayno would have been in the middle casting toward shore, with little chance of getting hung up high behind him. The old rule was that if you weren't occasionally getting hung in the low wood, you weren't fishing aggressively enough. Rising trout stuck close to cover, which meant casts had to be no more than an inch or two off the target. His attention kept shifting from the coincidental deaths to Wayno's fishing. He needed to focus. He sat down, lit a cigarette, and let his eyes begin to sweep the foliage along the banks. Looking for a fly in a tree was worse than looking for a needle in haystack.

Grady Service was studying the trees when Special Agent Temple showed up.

“Bird-watching?” she joked from above him.

“Something like that.”

What would be hatching now? Not sulfurs at night, and it was too early for hex. Drakes probably, brown or gray. Drakes would mate and spin down over the riffle. Drakes were good-size flies, 10s or 12s. If Ficorelli had lost a fly, was it because he snagged a leaf or a woodpile, or because of a bad knot? Bad knots combined with poor casts took more flies than anything else. He guessed Ficorelli was a pretty good caster, but everyone tied bad knots, either because they were in a hurry, or because the tippet was old or frayed.

“Geez,” he said out loud.

“What?” Temple asked.

“Where's the evidence recovered from the river—the victim's rod and the fly box?”

“Locked up back at camp.”

“Let's go take a look.”

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” she wanted to know.

“Tree fish,” he said, not bothering to expand.

When they got to the evidence locker, he put on latex gloves and got out the rod with the reel still attached. He looked at the tippet, the end-portion of the leader, and saw a telltale curlicue, which suggested a bad knot or weak tippet. The leader was segmented with different diameters of monofilament, hand-tied. The closest knot to the end of the tippet was about four inches up. Obviously some tippet had come off with the fly. “Okay then,” he said.

“Okay what?” the federal agent asked.

“I'm pretty sure it's a tree fish,” he said. He handed her the rod, peeled off the gloves, and started back to the river.

He tried to use the late sun to his advantage. If tippet was still attached to the fly, the monofilament might catch and reflect some light. He eased slowly along the bank, using a long stick to part leaves and branches. It took fifteen minutes to find what he was looking for: about six inches of mono wrapped around a tag alder branch, impossible to reach unless you got onto land and came down the other side of the trees.

The body had been found just above here. If this is when the attack came, he reasoned, Wayno would never have reached the fly, and considering that other evidence had not been picked up by the killer, the fly might still be there.

He considered getting onto land, but studied the mono for several minutes. Years of fishing had taught him that the sorts of angles and tangles that could beset a line would confound all known laws of physics. The key to recovering a fly on a light tippet was to work the line slowly and gently, not to jerk it. There was sunken timber in front of him, just below the broken tippet. He moved over close, bent down, and began to run his hand along the back of a small log behind a larger one. It didn't take long to feel the fly stuck in the wood. He put on another pair of latex gloves, knelt on the larger of the logs, leaned close, and wiggled the fly loose. There was a curlicue of monofilament hanging off the fly. He now thought he understood. A fish had been rising near the wood, and Wayne's cast had gone into the tags and hooked the wood, but when he tried to pull it loose, it had broken. Not being able to see anything but the monofilament, Ficorelli probably had gotten out of the water to see if he could retrieve it from landside.

Why the hell would he retrieve a fly if he had fish rising? Most fishermen would just tie on another fly, cast again, and hope the fish kept coming up. But by getting out and coming in from the land, he would not have had to wade through the run and put down rising trout. This made sense. When you fished for trout, you did everything in your power not to disturb what was happening. It was in your own self-interest.

Okay, he thought. The scenario makes sense. Rising fish, stuck fly, retrieve it, don't disturb the risers. Service stared at the fly. It looked vaguely like a brown drake, but in a dressing and style he had never seen before. As he handled it, the hook itself fell apart and dropped into the water, leaving him with only the upper part of the fly.

He put the evidence in his pocket, sat down, and lit another cigarette. The scene was forming in his mind. Wayno had gotten out of the water to recover a lost fly and was attacked. Was it the only one of that kind that he had? Possibly. He probably never saw the attack coming, which suggested the assailant had been shadowing him along the bank. Because he had a pretty good idea where Ficorelli had gotten into the river and crossed to this side, he had a pretty good idea where the shadowing began. He got out of the river and walked downstream along the bank, keeping the same distance from the water as the attack site had been.

Eventually he came to a downed oak, one that had rotted and probably come down under the weight of winter snow. There was a partial track in between some branches near the ground. The track was treadless. Felt soles? Service guessed that the assailant had stopped here and watched Ficorelli come across the river and begin fishing upstream. Eventually the hung fly offered opportunity.

Service took some tissue paper out of his pocket, broke off a stick, pushed it in the ground, and attached the tissue to it like a small flag. He continued backtracking across a cedar swamp, past an old bear-bait site, and up a gentle slope to a two-track turnaround. The whole area was covered with thigh-deep ferns, but he moved cautiously and used a stick to part the ferns until he saw something near where some vehicles had turned around. Wading boots, shorts, a vest, and a nylon shirt were on the ground beneath the ferns, and from what he could see, there was no obvious blood. He used sticks to mark the spot and tried to estimate how far from the kill site he was. Maybe another half-mile, which meant he was close to a mile and a half from the dump site, and close to two miles from the FBI camp. Had the feds checked the two-track in front of him, and if not,
why
not?

He hiked back through the lengthening shadows of the cedar swamp and started toward the camp, and along the way met Bobbi Temple coming toward him. Service nodded for her to follow, led her to the print and explained his theory, and then took her through the swamp and showed her the clothing.

“Did your people check out this road?”

“Have to ask Tatie,” she said. “I spent most of my time at the dump site.”

She was on the radio as he approached the old bear bait.

He heard Agent Temple's voice behind him, asking, “Where do you think you're going?”

He didn't bother to answer her. The FBI reeked of incompetence. He had no time or desire to slow down and pull the feds along with him.

Sheriff Arnie Thorkaldsson was in his cramped office with his long legs and huge boots propped up on a desk glider. “Monica back too?” the sheriff asked.

“Just me.”

“We ought to be announcing this thing,” the sheriff said. “This delay is outrageous.”

“It's the FBI's case,” Service said.

“You must have your own opinion . . . or have they brainwashed you?”

“I've got one, but it carries the same weight as yours.”

“The feds make us locals feel like tits on a boar.”

“They do the same to state types,” Service said. “Do you mind if we run through the timelines of that night?”

“Be my guest,” Thorkaldsson said. “I can't get it out of my mind.”

“What time were you supposed to meet?”

“Nineish. The hatches don't get started till closer to dark, but I got held up on a traffic deal and I was a little late.”

“How late?”

“Forty-five minutes or so.”

“Were you always late and him always early?”

“No, he was usually the late one.” Service made a mental note.

“Why'd you go to the old bridge ford?”

“We always met there,” Thorkaldsson said. “Like I told you earlier, he always came up from the south and parked across the river. Probably ­superstitious. We always had good luck there, and you know how luck and fishing get joined at the hip.”

No doubt,
Service thought. If Thorkaldsson suspected anything about Ficorelli's dalliances with the Andreesen woman, he wasn't letting on.

“Good a reason to park there as any,” Service said.

“Only reason, ask me. Easier to get to the river from my side, and we could close the gate behind us.” The sheriff stared at Service. “This thing's bigger'n Wayno, isn't it?”

“I can't say,” Service said, feeling guilty. It was wrong to hide information from other police agencies.

“How long are you gonna hang with this boondoggle?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out,” Service said.

“You need anything, just sing out. We don't have much manpower here—and not much need for it—but I swear I'd personally give Madison an enema with a fire hose to help find Wayno's killer.”

“Okay if I tie up one of your phones?”

Thorkaldsson stood up and stretched. “Use mine. Dial eight to get an outside line,” he said from the doorway. “I'm gonna go up the street and grab supper at the Puddin-Et-Pi. My sister-in-law owns the place.”

The phone in a Detroit law office was answered on the first ring. “Grady Service calling. Is Shamekia available?”

“I'll see if she is, sir.”

Shamekia Cilyopus-Woofswshecom was an ex-FBI special agent turned attorney, her last name so strange as to be unpronounceable by earthlings. Why the hell she didn't change it, Service didn't know, but people were kind of strange about their names, and what did it really matter? Most people who knew her didn't attempt her last name, simply calling her Shamekia. His friend Tree had introduced him to her, and she had helped him solve a couple of complex cases.

“Ah, the intrepid woods cop,” she greeted him. “How's life in Michissippi, Grady?”

A black Detroit politician had labeled the U.P. this way because of its sparse population and heavy unemployment. “Been better.”

“What have you got going this time?”

He took her through the case, ending with the possibility of some sort of trial-run killings.

“Lord Almighty,” the attorney said. “VICAP didn't spit out anything?”

VICAP was the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. All police agencies were supposed to enter their local violent-crime data so all the information could be searched by any police officer anywhere. He wondered if the DNR filed its data in the system, and if so, who handled it.

“I don't know, and I don't know exactly what they did or how or when; I'm just wondering if there's something that was missed.”

“You know,” she said, “some cops call it VICRAP for a reason.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it's a monster, and it's easy to miss something; or are you coming at this from a different angle than the Bureau?”

“Case myopia,” he said.

She clucked. “Uh-huh. Linkage blindness happens to all of us at one time or another. You let yourself get going on certain leads or angles and you can't let loose even when it's obvious you're not getting anywhere.”

“Something like that,” he said.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“If I knew exactly, this wouldn't be so hard. Several questions come to mind: Has this blood eagle thing been used anywhere at any time? Or have there been killings with edged weapons that are sort of bizarre and ritualistic? And not just game warden victims, any cases.”