Tracking the Beast by Henry Kisor

Author:Henry Kisor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Two days later, a week past Labor Day, Lehtinen did. “He’s on the way,” Sergeant Hamilton said on the phone from Green Bay. Alex had asked him to keep an eagle eye on Lehtinen, and he had. “He’ll be in Porcupine City in about four hours, just in time for lunch. He’s driving a green 2010 Ford Escape.”

I was in my office. I stuck my head out the door and told both Gil and Sheila that Operation Circle Tour, as we grandiosely called it, was beginning. Then I called Ginny at the Historical Society building a few blocks away and gave her the heads-up. We had packed two Rollaboards with a week’s clothes and stowed them in the trunk of her Prius, ready to leave on a moment’s notice. Ginny had already arranged her absence, saying mysteriously that she was taking a trip and winking lewdly when asked where. Her corps of volunteers stood ready to mind the store.

I then called the county commissioners’ office, leaving a message on the administrative assistant’s voicemail to the effect that something personal had unexpectedly come up and that I was taking a week’s vacation. I added that Gil would run things in my absence. I was glad the assistant hadn’t answered the phone personally, for she is conscientious, as are so many public servants in Porcupine County who feel lucky to have their jobs, quite unlike officious state and county bureaucrats elsewhere. Even though I’m an elected official and don’t have to account for my time off, she would have pointedly asked why—and passed the reason up to the commissioners, most of whom think I waste the county’s scarce money. I wouldn’t have used it for this trip anyway. It might not pan out and I’d be submitting an expense account for a failed enterprise. In a county as parsimonious as ours, that can get you fired. Or, rather, defeated at the next election.

Next I called Alex. “On my way,” he said. He added that he was bringing one of the Michigan State Police’s latest battery-fed GPS bugs to affix to Lehtinen’s car. On my iPhone he’d place a clever police app that would listen to the transmission from the bug, bounced off a satellite to the iPhone, and show the exact location of the car on Google Maps. Geolocation tracking is hardly cutting-edge technology. For several years trucking companies and delivery services have been using similar devices to follow their vehicles all over the country. They know exactly where a driver is at any time of the day or night. So far as Ginny and I were concerned, we would be able to follow Lehtinen unseen all the way around Lake Superior and know at every moment precisely where he—or, rather, his car—was.

After that I called Judge Rantala’s office. He had presigned the warrant for the bug, leaving the time element open, and all his assistant had to do was ink in the dates the warrant was good: from today for ten days.

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