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“Hey, Harv, you ever work with Piscova?”
    â€œBack when I was handling salmon. Now I’m a warm-water maven. Why?”
    â€œYou know the name Vandeal?”
    Ghent smiled. “Sure. Willem Vandeal’s the plant manager for the company down in Elk Rapids. Why?”
    â€œJust one of those somebody-knows-somebody-who-knows-somebody deals.”
    â€œGotcha,” the biologist said and went back to scribbling on a yellow legal pad.
    Service asked, “Is the company private?”
    Ghent looked up at him. “Yeah. Guy named Quintan Fagan owns it.”
    â€œOkay, thanks. I won’t bother you anymore.”
    Vandeal was indeed a big cheese. Had Baranov known how big and played it cagey with him? Impossible to tell.
    He called CO Candace McCants. “It’s me,” he began, “checking in.” Recently she had been taking care of his dog and cat when he was away.
    â€œThey’re fine, Grady. They like attention.”
    â€œI don’t know how long I’ll be gone this time.”
    â€œNot to worry. They’re fine. Really.”
    It bothered him that his animals would be happy with someone else, but he had enough to worry about and tried to put it out of his mind. “Okay. I’ll call when I get back.”
    â€œBe careful. You’re not Superman.”
    â€œRight,” he said. Why the hell had she said that ?
    RAM Center tomorrow; tonight he needed to think and prepare. Why was Piscova off limits to him? He would grab something to eat at Brown’s Hotel, and hole up for the night in the district office conference room. Newberry was an hour from the bridge and the RAM Center ninety minutes below the bridge. Michigan conservation officers rarely thought in terms of miles, and always measured distances by time.

5
    Wednesday, October 13, 2004
    RALPH A. MCMULLEN CONFERENCE CENTER, NORTH HIGGINS LAKE, ROSCOMMON COUNTY
    The RAM Center was one of those places you could drive by and not think much about. The buildings were set back under a canopy of leaning cedars and fragrant pines, and the whole complex didn’t look like much to casual passersby, but more DNR business got done at the so-called Campus-in-the-Woods than in Lansing, and senior DNR officials yo-yoed back and forth from Lansing so often that some of them swore they’d worn permanent tire tracks into the interstate.
    It had been here years ago that former longtime Republican governor Sam Bozian, aka Clearcut, had angrily confronted him. Service had been working as the governor’s son’s field training officer and had seen the boy fall apart in a semi-tense situation with a biker group. It had not been the boy’s fault; he had simply been unsuited for law enforcement work and cripping him along only would have increased risk for the boy and the officers he would have to work with. Recognizing his own shortcomings, the boy had made the decision to withdraw from training. Bozian had taken it as a personal affront and become Grady Service’s enemy. Bozian was now gone from the state, out of politics, and working in the private sector at some fat-cat Washington job. The state was still paying for the damage Bozian had done as governor.
    Service parked his truck, locked it, and strolled through the packed parking lot toward the administration building, which had a stone facade against dark wood; a faded official seal of the state hung over the entrance. No money in the state budget to even spruce up their signs and symbols.
    A woman was standing outside and smiled when she saw him. “Grady Service, ghost of the north woods,” she greeted him. “Make your skin crawl to be in this place?”
    â€œI just think of it as a cedar swamp,” he said.
    Angie Lemieux was in her mid-seventies, and had worked in the center’s kitchen for at least thirty years. “It can be a swamp all right,” she said.
    â€œHave you seen the chief, Angie?”
    â€œHe