Running Dark by Joseph Heywood

trust your gut, Grady?”
    â€œYessir.”
    â€œGood,” Attalienti said. “All I ask is that you let me know the timing so I can arrange coverage. We’re going to say you are on leave for a family emergency.”
    â€œThank you.” He didn’t bother to point out that he had no family.
    â€œWhen you take out the ad in the Manistique paper, use an intermediary to place it.”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œLet’s not underestimate that Garden crowd. At times it seems like they have our playbook.”
    â€œI didn’t think we had one,” Service said.
    â€œWe don’t, but we’re trying to develop one, and this is the sort of paranoia those assholes can create. The best way to cover a trail is to not have one in the first place,” the acting captain said.

8
    SLIPPERY CREEK, DECEMBER 24, 1975
    Naked Skydivers Go Down Faster.
    Grady Service pulled into the clearing where his Airstream was tucked away and saw a red pickup that was both vaguely familiar and out of place. He used his radio to report out of service, and sat wondering what this was about. He took out his notebook and leafed through the pages.
    On the opening day of deer season Service had found a red Ford pickup parked in the lower Mosquito River area. That night he had monitored the truck until after dark, waiting for the hunter to come out. When it got to be an hour after shooting hours, he began to wonder if the truck had been dropped off and the hunter gone elsewhere with friends. It had snowed steadily since midday, and there were no tracks into the dense line of naked tamaracks that served as a natural windbreak for the massive cedar swamp beyond.
    He had called in the license number for warrants and wants and come up empty. The license number in his notebook matched the plate on the truck now parked near his trailer. His notes showed that the truck was registered to a Brigid Mehegen of Harvey, which was just south of Marquette. She had been born in 1947, which made her twenty-eight. That night he had just about decided to drive on when he saw a flashlight bobbing through the trees. He walked over to the truck, keeping the cab between the approaching light and him, and waited.
    There were audible grunts interspersed with muted curses, and when he stepped out to identify himself, a woman chirped, “You got a broken back?” She had a rifle slung over her shoulder and looked tired.
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œI hauled a damn buck all the way to the tamaracks. Least you could do is offer to help.”
    â€œLet’s go,” he said.
    The deer was just inside the tree line. Service illuminated it with his penlight. It was a huge, black ten-point animal. The tag was correctly affixed to an antler.
    â€œSwamp buck,” he said.
    â€œHere,” she said, working the lever to show him the rifle was unloaded, and handing him a beat-up Winchester 94. She pulled off her hat and ran her hand through medium-length brown hair. “I thought I hit ’im pretty good, but it took me till mid-afternoon to find the sonuvagun. He swam the river and crawled under a blowdown. Funny how wounded deer head for water,” she added. “You think people have the same inclination?”
    Service didn’t know and didn’t care. Mid-afternoon: How far back had she been? The river was more than a mile from where they stood. “What time did you shoot it?”
    â€œA little after nine this morning. I took an hour to drink half my coffee to give the big bugger time to lay down, but when I went after him all I found was some hair and a little blood and I figured it was damn gut-shot. I had a partial trail for about two hundred yards, then nothing. Thank God he went to the river and started bleeding more.”
    â€œYou crossed the river?”
    â€œYeah, twice, but it wasn’t too bad because the old adrenaline was pumping, eh. Now I’m freezing, ” she said, her teeth chattering.
    He