The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-five

A mile and half to the Southeast, as the crow flies, lays the little town of Munising. Wrapped around the end of the bay, the town was hardly more than a smudge of pale color against the forested hills of the Hiawatha National Forest. State Road 28 cut a pathway along the coast from Marquette through the town, running east towards Mackinac and Saute St. Marie. Hundreds of miles of unrelenting wilderness separated the town from those destinations. Twenty-eight ran past the navigator restaurant, a pleasant little diner overlooking the bay and Grand Island beyond.

Molly Karaman and her partner had left Washington during the night, flying into Green Bay on a chartered American Airlines flight. It took the better part of four hours to reach Munising. As they found a table looking out across the bay neither agent took much note of the motor boat bumping and bouncing towards the island.

Molly’s partner was a rookie named Charlie Moon, a full blooded Chippewa native from Duluth. He was an energetic sort, tall and powerfully built, with short black hair and exotic green eyes. Moon had graduated from Annapolis, doing a tour in Iraq in 2002 before joining the FBI. Molly didn’t look upon him as rookie. She knew only too well from her time in the Mideast what he had gone through, and knew he was more experienced, and better prepared for a fight than half the more senior agents in the Bureau. He was competent and bright, and she was happy to have him along.

Molly opened her laptop and turned it as an old waitress limped over with pot of coffee and a pair of menus tucked under one arm. Her white orthopedic shoes squeaked slightly along the tiled floor, in an odd rhythm to her limp. A pen was tucked behind one ear, and half covered behind shoulder length gray hair, which was more akin to a dry tumbleweed than a hairstyle. But she had a warm sincere smile, and Molly was instantly endeared to, as if she was long lost relation.

“Get you kids some coffee?” she asked, already reaching for Charlie’s cup. It was turned upside down on the saucer. She turned it over and filled the cup with the strong steaming brown liquid. As she reached for Molly’s cup the waitress happened to notice the Federal badge on her belt.

“Say, how many of you folks they got up here?”

“Sorry?” said Molly, turning from the computer screen.

“Federal agents and such?” the waitress repeated.

“Why do you ask?” said Moon.

The old waitress shrugged, and laid the menus down on the table. “Half dozen fellas in here yesterday. Said they were up here to fish, but I watched ‘em leave. They were parked over there, just down the hill, with all this military type stuff in the back.”

“Lot’s of militia and survivalists up in these parts,” Charlie observed, while subtly pressing the issue a bit.

“Naw,” she said. “They were talking about that fella from Marquette. I heard some, but they shut up real quick when I came over to take their order.”

“Stood out that much, huh?” Molly asked.

The waitress laughed. “Get a lot of characters come in here, but not many that pay with a corporate credit card. Worst part is, they ate a ton and had me running for this and that, which don’t fly so good with this bad hip. And then, don’t ya know, they didn’t even tip!”

“Maybe you still have a copy of that receipt?” asked Molly.

“Think I just might.”

The waitress returned a minute later with a carbon copy of the receipt. As Molly and Charlie looked it over carefully the waitress explained she didn’t normally run carbon imprints of credit cards like folks used to once upon a time, but she didn’t much like those guys and thought it prudent to be on the safe side, just in case the card came up stolen. Molly held her blackberry over the receipt and snapped a couple of pictures before handing the receipt back. The company name at the top of the receipt was light and hard to read, still Molly could make out the letters well enough. It read: FIRSTTHRUST, INC.

“I was right, wasn’tI” said the waitress. “Something wasn’t right about those guys!”

“Molly smiled sympathetically. “For one, I waited tables in college, and I hate people who don’t tip.