Force of Blood Read Online Free

her lectures, no matter how well-intentioned.
    She sighed dramatically. “There’re a lot of young officers who could use your guidance in teaching them to do things your way … the old way … the right way.”
    He immediately changed the subject. “Where’s Sedge live?”
    “Right on M-123, about four miles west of Tahq State Park, just east of CR 500. The place is an old service station, a cinder-block hovel with a Mobil Oil sign. The other officers call it the Bomb Shelter. Nobody can believe theDepartment of Environmental Quality or the EPA haven’t condemned it. Sedge likes to run solo. None of us has ever been inside.”
    “What’s Sedge’s call?”
    “Two One Thirty.”
    “What’s Sedge like?”
    “Same as you when you began—storm trooper, takes no prisoners.”
    I was like that? Always hard to tell if McKower is jabbing for fun or for real
. “You in the Newberry office today?”
    “I promised Sergeant Bryan I’d work with him and one of his new officers between Trout Lake and Fibre.”
    Six-foot-six Sergeant Jeffey Bryan, Service recalled, had been a cub CO when the two of them had gotten into the middle of a strange shooting incident between Amish and Mennonite hunting parties some years back.
    “Later.”
    “Bear in mind that what you say to young officers gets passed around like gospel.”
    “Just fucking great,” he said, and hung up. Would Eddie Waco promote her to Lansing? He was an idiot if he didn’t. As for him and Lis, she’d find ways to keep track of him. She always had.

4
Halfway House, Chippewa County
THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007
    Grady Service spent the night in the Newberry office, studying the area topographical maps he’d spread all around the conference room.
    He had been to Vermilion Point where the feds once had a top-secret wolf-training operation, but never anywhere near Crisp Point or between the two sites. He considered giving Jingo Sedge a bump, but ruled it out. Santinaw had come to him for a reason. Until he had a better feel for what he was going into, if anything, it would be better to not complicate matters.
    He tried to find a plat book for Chippewa County, but the back of his truck was trashed beyond description.
Probably left the damn thing at home. You’ve got to clean out your truck
, he lectured himself. He looked at a topo instead. Five-Pack Creek seemed to parallel Lake Superior, north of what was listed on one of his maps as the Vermilion Rod and Gun Club property. It had been there when he worked in the district, but he had no idea if the club was still in operation.
    Halfway House—he learned from a clerk who worked at Pickelman’s General Store south of Newberry on M-28—was the site of a shack, of which there might or might not be anything left. There was no way to know because the place was rarely visited by anyone the man knew of, and every winter seemed to eat more of the shore and embankments out that way.
    Service made his way north on Old Maple Block Trail, where it angled north off the East Town Truck Trail. It was just after 4 p.m. when he stashed his truck a mile or so south of the old Rod and Gun Club property, hoisted his ruck, secured the truck, and headed north on foot through the sandy soil, jack pines, and scrub oaks. He figured the hike to be about three miles, maybe a smidge more. No way to tell where Duncan Katsu’s camp was, but there couldn’t be many places up this way, and somewhere ahead he expected there would be a county fire number or a camp sign.
    Within an estimated quarter-mile of Lake Superior, and easing through a heavily wooded area of scrub oak on a steep barrier dune, he caught the faint sound of voices and stopped to try and pinpoint the source.
Damn sinus condition made hearing unreliable. Gotta go see Vince, get this ear shit taken care of
.
    Voices ahead, somewhere to the left, not close. Wind’s out of the north.
Hearing was a key sense in the woods, and a lot more difficult to use accurately than your eyes,