Running Dark by Joseph Heywood Page A

and write up his report. They discussed charges and decided they would start with stolen property, illegal deer, and the raccoons. Once they got more on the stabbing, that would become primary.
    Not thirty minutes later another deputy, a sergeant, came up to him. “The boat and motorcycle in the woods match the descriptions of stuff stolen from some lake camps this summer. We’ve had camp break-ins since last June, more than thirty of them, and probably a bunch not yet reported because the owners are down below and don’t know. Just last week an old guy over in Carlshend got the shit beaten out of him and ended up in the hospital—broken arm, jaw, lost some teeth, broken rib. The descriptions he gave us were pretty discombobulated, but we’ll put together a lineup and see what he says. You should have waited for backup,” the sergeant added.
    Service grunted and shrugged. The man was right, but it had been his call to go in alone, and you did what you thought you had to.
    He went back into the building with evidence bags and began bagging animal parts. Mehegen worked alongside him. The sergeant and his deputy concentrated on the bedroom where the stabbing had taken place. Service examined each piece of meat and saw that one of them had a hole near the shoulder joint. He took out his pocketknife, dug around in the hole, and, using gentle leverage, pried out a slug.
    Mehegen said, “What’s that?”
    â€œSlug. Let’s check all the meat again.”
    They eventually located a second slug about the same size as the first one. Service slid both into plastic envelopes and they hauled all the evidence, including the crossbow and bolts, out to the Plymouth. Service also bagged the raccoon carcasses from behind the cabin.
    The sergeant and his men were still working when Service and Mehegen began an external search.
    Two hours later they were still traipsing around the woods and swamps that abutted the pond and camps. “What the hell are we supposed to be doing?” Mehegen demanded to know.
    â€œLooking for their truck,” he said.
    â€œShouldn’t we be looking near a road?”
    â€œMy God!” he said, bumping his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I never thought of that.”
    â€œDial down the sarcasm,” she said.
    â€œThe tip I got told me about a truck. The camp was filled with contraband, and they didn’t exactly go to great lengths to hide any of it, so where is their ride?”
    â€œAre you always so suspicious?”
    â€œIt’s in my wiring.”
    â€œMy feet hurt,” she said. “Can we like . . . you know?”
    â€œNot yet,” he said. “I have to get up to Marquette to do the paperwork, and drop evidence at the district office in Escanaba. You want me to drop you back at the Airstream? This will be a rest-of-the-night deal.”
    â€œNot a chance,” she said. “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”
    â€œWhat exactly does that mean?” he asked.
    She shrugged and grinned. “It’s a cliché. When I’m tired, clichés pop out. Aren’t you tired?”
    â€œSure,” he said.
    â€œThen show it,” she said. “It will make me feel better to know I’m not the only one dragging.”
    Mehegen remained in the patrol car while he put the evidence in the district office locker, and she slept on the drive to Marquette and while he went into the county building, wrote his report, checked on Eugene Chomsky’s condition, and talked to deputies. Chomsky had already undergone a transfusion and almost two hours of surgery. The knife had not touched vital organs, but there had been heavy internal bleeding and he had gone into shock. He was listed as critical but stable.
    Service asked that Ivan Rhino be brought into an interrogation room. Rhino looked even more cadaverous and disheveled than he had looked at the camp, his eyes sunk in his head, his skin yellow. Service