Frozen Assets Read online

  I learned to end sentences with "Eh?" and even picked up a little of the Finnish-influenced way the genuine Yoopers talk, sort of a combination of Lawrence Welk and Red Green. I learned to pronounce the many Finnish and other ethnic names - Heikkinen, Olilla, Saarinen, Warminen, Kivamaki, Luhtanan, Kekke, Eckola, Paananen, Pelonpaa, Paupore, Skrzyniarz, Brzoznowski. Lots of Ks and Ns and Ls. I learned jokes about Toivo and Hoolie and listened to raunchy tapes by Da Yoopers, a group whose humor is of the bathroom variety, as well as beer camp – oops, deer camp – and such.

  I draw the line, however, at saying "youse" and "Illinoise."

  I felt right at home. Molly Meagher - pronounced "maHAR" - Yooper wanna-be.

  3

  After a couple of hours of flashing red and blue lights, lightning bolts of brilliance from the cameras, and the chatter from half a dozen investigators while they poked and prodded, bagged and tagged, the medical examiner finally released the body and the mortuary van came and took away Mr. Used-to-be-Alive. The cops wrapped up their crime scene, and I promised to stop by the Sheriff’s office in the afternoon to make a formal statement.

  I finished plowing, carried a day’s worth of stove wood into the house, cooked some oatmeal, and sat down for breakfast. Jeezo Petes, my Russian Blue cat, named after a common Yooper expletive, squatted on the table as I ate and waited for me to push the bowl toward him for his share. We have our routine - he inches his nose closer and closer to whatever I’m eating, and I push him back. Eventually, he gets his way, but not until after I’ve eaten my fill.

  Holy Wah, my Irish Wolfhound, lay in a huge, hairy lump on the rug by the woodstove, soaking up the warmth. H.W. loves to "go truck" - she leaps into the passenger seat and stares through the windshield as we wend our way out to Book Road, then County Road 424. In warm weather she likes to put her nose to the window and inhale the potpourri of scents. H.W. is very mellow and doesn’t get upset easily, but her sheer size can be intimidating. I’m not good at picking names for animals – I refuse to give them human names - so when the man who stopped to help me tend to the dog after I hit her with my motor home took one look and said "Holy wah! Dat’s one big dog!" Holy Wah she became forevermore.

  I find her presence very comforting. Sometimes living way out in the woods can get a bit scary. Someone would think three or four times before trying to burgle a place with a hundred-pound, thirty-two-inch high dog who sounds like a bear when she growls.

  Besides, I figure if I ever run out of firewood, she’ll be a source of warmth. In the city, you never leave home without your Amex card. In the UP you never leave home without your dog.

  Once all the emergency vehicles had gone, it became so quiet I could hear the cat breathing that squeaky little sigh he makes when he’s snoozing. I could hear a few optimistic birds singing their little hearts out, maybe hoping it would hurry the advent of spring. Out one window I could see a couple of deer pawing through the snow hoping to find lunch. Later that afternoon I’d go out to the shed and haul out a bag of corn and put it out for them. I don’t "bait" for deer, a practice I find cowardly, but toward the end of winter the deer get pretty skinny, and there’s not a lot left for them to eat, so I figure what the hell, it makes me feel good. Even if all I’m doing is keeping the deer alive so some Nimble Nimrod can kill them the next fall.

  A little after noon, I appeared at the Sheriff’s office and was buzzed in. The dispatcher behind the bulletproof shield waved me down the hall to the Sheriff’s tiny office. As usual, his desk was piled high with paperwork. He was leaning perilously back in his chair, and his feet were on his desk. He was talking to someone on the phone and waved me to a seat. While I waited, I looked at the display of uniform patches on one wall. There were patches from all over the country, and a few from Australia, Europe and Japan. You can tell the agencies with money, because their patches are ornate, with several colors and graphics. The Utah Highway Patrol’s is a yellow beehive on a brown background. The Denver Sheriff’s Office has snowcapped mountains as a background. Florida departments tend to palm trees and sea views. Iron County’s is a plain brown and yellow.

  Sheriff Pace dropped his feet to the floor, put the phone on its cradle and snorted derisively. "Here we got a murder to figure out, and I have to deal with old ladies complaining about the neighbor’s cat. If I didn’t have to suck up to the voters...." He shook his head, reached over and picked up a manila file folder. "Got an ID on the guy. Rufus McKittrick, from the reservation at Watersmeet. Known CAT dealer. "

  CAT is methcathenone, a particularly nasty version of methamphetamine, easily cooked up out in the woods where there are no neighbors to get a whiff of the foul odors as the mixture of acetone, ephedrine, acetic acid, and God-knows-what-all cooks. Word is, a student at University of Michigan "discovered" the recipe, which had been developed in a University lab as a weight-loss drug, but was discarded when it was discovered to be extremely addictive, ranked up there with heroin and crack. Another version of the story has it coming out of Russia.

  Either way, it is deadly stuff, and its users exhibit the same signs as regular meth users - paranoia, irritability, skin sores, darting eyes, dramatic weight loss. For a couple of years it kept the Feds busy, as well as the locals, rooting out and rounding up all the people who thought they’d make a killing by making and selling the stuff. It wasn’t around long enough for the various mafias to get in on it; it was strictly a local phenomenon, and most of the dealers ended up cooking for personal use. By the time it spread to other states, the U. P. had pretty much stamped it out, and over 100 people were serving CAT-related sentences in Federal prison.

  But like all the other illicit drugs, you can never completely eradicate it. Every so often a new "cooker" pops up and the stuff starts making the rounds again. There’s something wrong with a society where people are willing to risk death for a momentary rush of well-being.

  Yooper drug dealers are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, and most of the time when one is nabbed by the locals, they’re more than happy to name names in exchange for a plea to a charge which will get them local jail time rather than prisons. Did I mention that the U. P. is Prison Heaven? The State of Michigan has forty-seven "correctional facilities," seven of which are in the Upper Peninsula. The Department of Corrections ships hundreds of inmates up across the bridge to serve their sentences in Upper Peninsula prisons. I guess the thinking is that it makes it harder for prisoners to plot an escape in an area with long, severe winters and short summers. It also makes it difficult for their families to visit them, and the DOC restricts even spouses and children to a few visits per month. Several de-commissioned air bases have been converted into prison compounds, with clusters of pole buildings surrounded by chainlink and razor wire. Iron County has its own prison camp where low security prisoners can serve the final ninety days of their sentences. The prison system is one of the largest employers in the area, so I guess it’s a good thing that crime is a growth industry.

  Anyway, if the local constabulary could nab a "Catter," he or she would probably sing like the proverbial canary, potentially leading us to the reason why a nobody from the reservation ended up dead in a snowbank. MY snowbank.

  I said "Hmmm, I don’t think I know this guy. He’s not somebody I’ve ever represented, and I don’t think I’ve ever met him. Any ideas about why he was dumped on my road?"

  Pace shook his head. "We found some packages apparently ready for sale and a wad of cash in his jacket, so I kinda think he was doing some dealing. Maybe ran afoul of someone who didn’t like his prices."

  I frowned. "Yeah, but why didn’t they take the CAT and the cash before they dumped him? If your knickers are in a twist because somebody’s charging you too much, you kill him and take his money and dope, you don’t just kill him and toss him into a snowbank, money, dope and all. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?"

  "Nope," said Pace, leaning so far back in his chair I was afraid he’d fall over backward.
‘We’re trying to trace his movements for the past few days to see if we can get any leads. Watersmeet court says he was due to enter a plea on Wednesday in their tribal court, and that he had given them some names of people he bought from, as well as his customers. " He pinched his lower lip between thumb and finger, a sign he was thinking hard. "I’m inclined toward the theory that somebody was making a statement by killing him."

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe so, but why dump him in my back yard? As far as I know, nobody has a grudge against me, I’m not connected to either CAT manufacture or law enforcement, and the only criminal law I do is the occasional court appointment. I can’t see where anybody has a reason to make my life complicated. Watersmeet is forty-five miles from here. Lots of places to dump him between there and here. I can’t figure it out. "

  Pace raised both beefy hands palm up and shrugged. "Me neither. Unless maybe it’s because your place is so hard to find from the road and somebody could do the deed without worrying about being seen. But for now, just tell me what happened. Start with when you left your house." He turned on a tape recorder and angled the microphone toward me.

  I spent the next ten minutes recounting for posterity my activities of the morning, ending with when the body was loaded into the mortuary van. I would stop in the next day and sign the transcribed statement. Iron County hasn’t money for support staff, and the sheriff does his own typing. He’s definitely not a speed typist.

  Pace walked me down the hall to the door and pushed it open for me. "You just be careful. Until we know for sure this has nothing to do with you, watch your back. I don’t want to have to find you in a snowbank somewhere."

  I laughed as I walked through the door. "Works for me, Sheriff. " The door clicked closed behind me.

  4

  I stopped in at the Jubilee grocery store to stock up on dog food. I think I spend more money on dog food than I do on people food. I sort of resent the fact that Holy Wah can eat twice as much as I do, and not gain weight, while I’m still packing candy bars I ate ten years ago around my middle. All she does is lie around and sleep. It’s not fair.

  I picked up a couple of hot pasties, almost drooling at the savory aroma wafting from the white paper wrapping. The Cornish pasty - rhymes with nasty, not the other pronunciation, which is a prop for an adult entertainer- is the original comfort food. A savory meat, onion and potato concoction wrapped in pastry, sometimes with carrots and rutabaga thrown in for good measure, the pasty was introduced in the United States by Cornish miners who immigrated in the 1800's, and customized by the various ethnic groups. The shape and construction of the pasty made it not only portable, but if it should get cold, it is relatively easy to warm up. In the mines, this was often done by putting the pasty on a shovel and holding it over a head-lamp candle, way back before battery cap lamps were invented. In the workplace, a pasty wasn't eaten with a fork; it was eaten end to end, held upright to keep the juices in. The Upper Peninsula pasty differs from the Cornish pasty in that the vegetables are usually diced rather than sliced, there are more vegetables, and a thinner crust.

  Pasties are a very popular item for both residents and tourists, and anywhere you go in the U.P. you’ll find signs advertising pasties for sale. Crystal Falls even has a company which makes pasties and ships them worldwide. Apparently a lot of people need a regular pasty fix.

  I love pasties and so does my dog. I bought a dozen - two hot, and ten frozen.

  I managed to remember a few more items I needed, and was trying to ignore the ice cream display when a voice hailed me.

  I turned to find Cal Heikkinen grinning at me. Cal was my - I don’t know how to describe our relationship. Friend with benefits comes closest. We got together occasionally for some really great sex. We shared a meal now and then. Cal tended to act like a goofy teenager when we ran into each other. Which is really dumb, considering we’re both sixtyish, and sometimes the great sex took a prescription to get going. For him, not me. Just in case you were wondering.

  "Hey, Molly, how ya doin’? Pretty cold, eh? I heard you had some excitement out at your place this morning." He had an expectant look on his broad, weathered face. A lock of his silver hair was stuck to his forehead by his green and yellow Green Bay Packers ball cap. We’re big Packer fans up here, and people who have been lucky enough to purchase season tickets actually bequeath them in their wills. Last I heard, there was a waiting list for season tickets of over four hundred people.

  "Oh, hi, Cal. Yup, it’s cold all right, and yes, things got a little interesting. I suppose you know more about it by now than I do." I angled away from the ice cream and headed for checkout. He followed along, still talking.

  "Oh, yah, it’s all over town, you know. Wonder what the guy was doing all the way over here? Must have had something going on for him to drive all the way over here from Watersmeet, eh?"

  I got in the shortest checkout line. "Could be. There was no vehicle anywhere around where he was found, so maybe somebody gave him a ride." We exchanged comments on the weather, the snowpack, and the weather forecast as my groceries were scanned and bagged, and after I had dutifully swiped my debit card Cal followed me like a puppy out the door to my truck. Over my protests he loaded my purchases into the truck, and then held the driver’s door open for me.

  "Hey, Mol, you had lunch yet? O’Riley’s is open and I’ll buy." He looked so hopeful I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. Cal isn’t nearly as comfortable with being alone as I am.

  "Sure. I’ll meet you there."

  I parked in the alley behind the bar, which, in my humble opinion, has the best burgers in two counties. And fries with the skins on, perfectly fried. And it’s one of only two places I’ve found within a reasonable driving distance that has Guinness on tap. Cal and I ordered lunch and greeted the people we knew. O’Riley’s is a typical Upper Peninsula pub, with a couple of deer heads on the wall, a couple of trophy fish on plaques over the bar, and a stuffed leprechaun head, the owner’s idea of a gag. The owner goes by "Mick", and from time to time adopts a thick Irish brogue you could trip over. Give him a couple of pints of Guinness, and he breaks into "Danny Boy" or "Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and talks about the "auld sod" as if he’d actually been there. His real name is Gordy Toivunen, he’s Finnish, and except for the occasional trip to Green Bay or Milwaukee, he has never left the U.P.

  O’Riley’s is a good place for a relatively quiet meal; the big TV is always kept at a decent volume, and the regulars are well-behaved. Mostly. You can shoot some pool or play Club Keno, but otherwise, it’s just a sort of homey place you can go when you need to be around other humans, but don’t want intimacy of any kind.

  Cal is a retired Chicago cop who came to the area five years ago, about the same time I did. It took him the better part of a year to realize that Watersmeet was not pronounced "water smeet," but "Waters meet."He even looks like a retired cop - six three, built like a brick woodshed, military bearing, keen gray eyes that don’t miss a trick. His face has started to resemble that of an aging farmer, with deep craggy lines which, in my opinion, are pretty sexy. His pewter colored hair is a bit long for a military type, his concession to living in the Frozen North. He’s intelligent, well-read, handsome, and kind. He keeps a tidy home, is a great cook, and has a wry sense of humor. In other words, everything I could ever want in a man.

  Cal would have liked nothing better than for us to become "an item" but my jury was still out on that one. I didn’t mind getting together occasionally for a meal or a movie, or even a little hide-the-bratwurst, but I shied away from anything more permanent. I freely admit I have poor judgment where men are concerned, and every relationship I have ever had, even with the fathers of my children, has ended badly. There is a tiny part of me that wondered what was wrong with Cal, since he so obviously wanted ME. Plus, I didn’t want to end up old and feeble and have someone who needs to be taken care of. So I chose to stay solo. At least with the cat, if he gets to be too large a pain in the ass, I can t
hrow him outside.

  Mick came over to our table to get our beer glasses for a refill. "Everything all right?" His accent this time was pure Finn, without a trace of Eire.

  Cal and I nodded. We had both cleaned our plates thoroughly. Our mamas would be proud. Cal eats more slowly and deliberately than I do. I have a tendency to Hoover my meals and no matter what tricks I employ to try and slow down - putting the fork down between bites, chewing each bite thoroughly and swallowing before picking the fork up again, all the little diet tricks you see in the checkout aisle magazines - I still just wade through a meal like I was afraid somebody’s going to yank it away from me. I spent some shrink time addressing the issue, but determined it wasn’t worth paying money to a psychologist just to find out that I learned as a child to suck it up fast to escape a dinner table which was the nightly scene of way too much drama.

  We lingered awhile over our post-meal beer, talking about whatever came to mind, nothing important. Finally, we left our table and headed out the back door toward where we both had parked. At my truck, we exchanged a long hug and a short kiss and went our separate ways.

  5

  The next morning as I sat on the deck, soaking up the morning sun and watching my breath form clouds, I was puzzling over the whole corpse thing. We don’t really get many serious crimes in this neck of the woods, much less murders. Our crimes are more breaking into someone’s camp to steal their booze (teenagers), domestic violence (especially after the bars close for the night) and shoplifting (kids and half-senile seniors). The last murder was six or seven years ago, and it was a jealous ex-boyfriend who shot his rival. He claimed he had just wanted to scare him, but the jury figured that a perfect kill shot to the heart was a bit much to accept as a bad shot.