Running Dark by Joseph Heywood Read Free Book Online Page A

leg is like half a glass of water. Am I half empty or half full?”
    â€œWhat can I do for you?” he asked, cursing himself for fixating on the one leg. Dope, he told himself.
    She sipped the strong coffee and showed no reaction. “Your Captain Attalienti said I could talk to you, so the real question is what can I do for you people—not vice versa. I’m Cecilia Lasurm,” she said with a formal air. She had a low, gravelly voice, jet-black hair cut short, a long neck poking out of a thick black turtleneck, no makeup or jewelry. Her eyes were huge and engaging, a faded blue color with green streaks.
    â€œI teach in the Garden,” she said. “Born there, went to school up to Northern, and came back to live and teach.”
    â€œGarden or Fairport?” Service asked.
    â€œThis shows how little you people know,” she said. “I live in between,” she said, “but the only school is north of Garden and it’s called Big Bay de Noc. The Garden, Cooks, and Nahma school districts consolidated years ago.”
    â€œI’m sure the officers who are down there regularly know this,” he said.
    â€œGranted,” she said, “but there are a number of obvious things they don’t see or understand. I’m not a particularly subtle woman,” his guest announced. “The Garden is controlled by a bunch of thugs and punks. Most people there don’t want it that way, but if you go against them, your barn burns, your tires get cut, and windows start breaking.”
    Service understood. The lawless had always harassed the law-abiding into deaf- and dumbness in some reaches of the U.P.
    â€œI’ve spent nearly a year trying to find the right man, asking around, talking to people, trying to find the most competent game warden I could. Word is you’re new and cut no slack for scofflaws. I don’t need a knuckle-dragger. I want a thinker,” she added.
    â€œThere are a lot more experienced people than me,” he said. “The Garden isn’t my turf.”
    â€œI want you, and Attalienti says you’re my contact. I also know that the DNR brings men in from all over the U.P. to handle jobs in the Garden. Right now your officers are not there as often as they used to be, and the local jerks think they’ve driven you out. I came to trade.”
    Service leaned forward.
    Lasurm continued. “There’s only one main road in and out, and the outlaws have lookouts and a CB-radio and telephone system for passing the word when the law comes down Garden Road. They probably have the back way covered too, but that road’s narrow and too easy to cut off and trap a lawman, so you’re forced to use the western route to go south, or come in by water; either way, you can’t exactly sneak in. What you people lack is information—a scorecard, who does what to whom. I can give you that.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI teach at the elementary school, and I am also the district’s so-called visiting teacher—which means I go to houses to take lessons to shut-in kids. I have the kids and relatives of all the troublemakers in my classroom, and have for the past few years. Some of those kids are in high school or just out. When you have a job like mine, you hear and see things others don’t. For example, I can tell when the fish runs start and the rats go to work because their kids help unload fish, and the spines of the walleyes and perch puncture their hands. I see it every year. It’s like being a priest.”
    â€œA priest can’t break the confidence of the confessional.”
    â€œDon’t be literal. I said like a priest.” She frowned. “If somebody doesn’t start talking and teaching you people what in blazes is going on, we’re going to be at war for a long time, and sooner or later one of those potshots is going to hit somebody and all hell will break loose.”
    Interesting, Service