Force of Blood by Joseph Heywood Page B

copper error-heads. You know Hectorio, eh?”
    “Can’t say I do.”
    “Lives Spicklansing, owns tamaletacoteria, nort’side.”
    “You mean Lansing?”
    “I just said.”
    “Never heard of him.”
    “Youse need get out, circle-eight, check ’round more.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind. You ever find any ‘errorheads’?”
    “Pfft. All over bloody place up here, I guess. Not wort’ shit.”
    “This you know from experience?”
    “Just say I mebbe heard it oot in woods.”
    “This Hectorio, he wants copper?”
    Limpy sighed. “I never learned ta think Spick.”
    “You heard this from your friend in Raco?” Raco was near Bay Mills, which was just east of Iroquois Point. Once a Bomarc missile base, it was now an EPA Superfund Site.
    “Dat’s close nuff, but all he tole me was red niggers up da lake, makin’ shit pies.”
    “And your source for Hectorio?”
    Allerdyce stared at the roof. “Somewheres, don’t member ’sackly.”
    “Seriously, you know about such places?”
    “You don’t? Dey’re everywhere, ’specially by big lakes, rivers, eh.”
    “And you never picked up artifacts?”
    “What I want armyfax? Stuff’s ugly, wort’less junk. You pick rotted bloobs?”
    Service shook his head.
    “Den youse unnerstand, sonny,” Allerdyce said, hopping down from the porch snarling and growling at Newf with such realism it pulled Service up short.
    But Service didn’t understand anything except that Limpy was trying to give him information, and obviously the old man knew about Katsu and the fracas with the archaeologist from Hibernian.
    Limpy stood beside his truck. “Dat big red nigger dey call Katsu? He done hard time.”
    “For what?”
    “Ain’t healt’y walk around yard axing why somebody inside, eh. Dat ginch squeeze you got, word is she good gal, fair, not no Dickless Tracy.”
    “We were hoping for your endorsement,” Service said sarcastically.
    “Youse just take a shot at me?”
    Service held out his hands and Allerdyce got into his truck and disappeared.
    Oddly enough, he found himself pleased by Limpy’s visit. The fact that the old poacher knew about Katsu suggested the deal on the coast was, first, a big deal, and second, that big money was in play, or Limpy, reformed or not, would be unlikely to have the slightest interest. Allerdyce knew just about everything that went on in the U.P., and although he’d spent seven years in prison for shooting Service in the leg during a scuffle, the detective couldn’t think of anyone who would make a better governor of the U.P., if there was such a thing.
    • • •
    Back at his office in The Roof he checked his private telephone directory on the computer and called Marge Ciucci.
    “Aunt Marge,” she answered after one ring.
    “Grady Service, Aunt Marge.”
    “Ah!” she exclaimed. “You done it, boy.
Grazie grazie, prego prego, bravo bravo
, Grady.”
    “Am I interrupting anything important?”
    “You interrupt? Not possible.
Never
. Anything you want, you get.”
    “Dr. Ladania Wingel.”
    Long pause. “What you want
that
for?”
    “You know her?”
    Marge Ciucci let loose a long hiss. “
That
one.
Femmina!
”
    “What’s the deal, Aunt Marge?”
    “She sweet-talk her way onto school board, get ’erself appointed to an open term. Then all hell she breaks loose,
si?
Only she knows how schools should be run, and if anyone disagree for any reason, she screams racist!”
    Wingel’s consistent, at least, always leaning on race. If Tree was here now, he’d kick her in the ass.
Luticious Treebone was a black man, his best friend, a fellow Vietnam veteran, and a retired Detroit cop. They had served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam together. “You know the woman personally?”
    “She lives in a condo south of town, only mixes with muckmucks.”
    “Any other Whitewater faculty members in Jefferson?”
    “
Professore
Crispin Franti—he teaches soil science at the college, works the state extension service here in