Death Roe

by Joseph Heywood

  “I’m not on a boat.” Andriaitis was a pain in the ass, but he also seemed pretty sure of what he was alleging. Was it verifiable, or was this just someone with an old grudge, spouting off?

  “I called the IRS because I heard they nailed Fagan’s ass in Florida for some sort of cash problem,” said Andriaitis. “I did a little snooping and found that he’d pled guilty on two counts, and this made me think the feds would love another shot at him. The IRS is the elephant in the room, but an asshole like you from the state, you’ve got shit clout. Your whole department is tainted, and if this ever gets out, that’ll be the end of whatever reputation you people have—which ain’t all that good, in my opinion.”

  “What’s the auditor’s name?”

  Andriaitis took a drink of coffee. “Langford Horn. He was a Bozian appointee and moved up to assistant director of BAO. Now he’s the BAO director, its number-one honcho. His negotiation of the Piscova ten-year contract looked like a great deal for the state in terms of incoming revenue. It hasn’t worked out that way, but he knows everybody in town and everybody knows him. Bozian’s shadow still hangs over Lansing.”

  “What about Teeny’s relationship with Fagan?”

  “That’s a little murky, but I hear Teeny’s trying to get a job teaching at some small college near Seattle, and Fagan’s made a fat donation to endow some sort of chair to sew up Teeny getting the job.”

  “We hear nobody wants Teeny.”

  “Neither does the college, but they want Fagan’s money, which means it’s a done deal, mark my words.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “Working in the fish business is like working in a whorehouse. You get to see everyone at their worst, and most whores would rather gossip than turn tricks.”

  “Do you think Roxy will talk to me?”

  “She’s been waiting for someone to open their eyes. She’ll talk if I tell her it’s okay, but nobody better try to beat up on her. She’s good people . . . just got caught in something she couldn’t handle. She’ll tell you everything, but she won’t testify in court. Hell, she may not live long enough for that to happen. You fuckers are so far behind Fagan, it may take you ten years just to get your boots on the right fucking feet.”

  Service was tired of the man’s bullying. “Well, thanks a lot for talking to me. I’ll talk to Roxy and make sure she gets a fair shake.” He turned off the tape recorder.

  The man looked surprised. “No more questions?”

  “The state gave Fagan a monopoly?”

  “Sealed it up for him. Before that Fagan had a crew that visited mom-and-pop fish houses and bait shops all over the state and convinced them to get out of the business. Hell, everybody was dealing eggs and illegal salmon in those days.”

  Service had heard rumors, but few cases had ever been proven, and after a while, the rumors had simply stopped. Was this why? “Fagan bought them out?”

  “Sometimes some money got exchanged, but more often, he took one of his muscle boys with him to clarify the leave-behind message: Quit the business, or else.”

  “Nobody ever complained?”

  “The cocksuckers were all dealing illegally. Who were they gonna cry to? Technically, Fagan was illegal, too, because of a loophole in state law, but the state senator passed a law outlawing snagging, and then the state attorney general issued a ruling that the state could legally sell salmon eggs and meat, which made the state’s deal with Fagan legit. Those two things and his strong-arm tactics sewed it up for Fagan. What else?”

  “I’m cheechako when it comes to this stuff.”

  Andriaitis tipped his hat back and grinned. “It takes a smart man to admit he don’t know shit. King Kong said you were the real deal, and I guess I’m starting to buy that. When you get back to Michigan, call me anytime. I’m thinking that you’re about to drown in red tape and the paper jungle, and it ain’t gonna be fucking pretty, but call me, and if I can, I’ll help you hack your way through. Roxy’s a fine woman. Kick Fagan’s ass for her, and for me.”

  What was the relationship between Roxy and Andriaitis? He was going to extraordinary lengths if it was mere friendship. He and Candi had the same kind of thing. Would he go this far for her? He couldn’t answer his own question, but it reminded him he owed some people in his life phone calls.

  He used his cell phone to book an afternoon flight home and walked back to the hotel under steady wet snow.

  14

  Monday, October 25, 2004

  SLIPPERY CREEK

  It was 10 p.m. and Miars was waiting for him when he landed at Sawyer International Airport, twenty miles south of Marquette. It was late October, most of the leaves on the ground turning an ugly brown. Miars had driven Service’s truck from Traverse City, and a state parks manager from Lansing had ferried the sergeant’s truck to the Marquette regional DNR office for a conference; the parks man would catch a ride back to Lansing with a colleague.

  Service drove toward his camp, too tired to talk. Miars was not the sort to flap his gums when he had nothing to say.

  Newf nearly knocked him over when he walked into the cabin, and Cat started screeching. Miars stepped back from the bedlam. The dog was a Canary Island mastiff, what the Spanish called a Presa Canario, 165 pounds of muscle, an unappealing mix of brown, gray, and ocher, all slopped together like cheap cake mix in a bowl. He had found the cat years ago in a cloth bag with seven kittens someone had dumped in the creek. Why the one survived was beyond him, but she had turned into a feline misanthrope that he’d never gotten around to naming. Her screeches were like sharp fingernails down a slate board.

  “Now that’s what I call a welcoming committee,” Miars said.

  “They’re both pissed. The way they see it, I was put on earth to take care of them and nothing else.”

  Miars laughed.

  Since moving back to his cabin after Nantz’s death, he’d brought in some army surplus cots for visitors. He slept on a narrow mattress on top of end-to-end footlockers.

  “It ain’t fancy,” he told Miars.

  Service made a pot of coffee and sat at the table, scribbling notes. When the coffee was done he poured a mug for the sergeant, and related some of what he had learned from Andriaitis in Alaska, focusing primarily on the Piscova contract and the BAO’s involvement.

  Miars listened attentively.

  “Langford Horn,” was the sergeant’s only response.

  “Spit it out.”

  “Horn and Teeny have a hunting camp between Pickford and Cedarville. The place used to belong to a millionaire from Chicago who shot himself one hunting season. His widow never wanted to come back, and sold it to Teeny and Horn for peanuts.”

  “They’re pals?”

  “Tight as ticks, and Bozian is one of their golfing cronies.”

  Service looked at his sergeant, flipped open his cell phone, and hit a speed-dial setting.

  “Whit, this is Grady Service. Is Lori available?”

  Governor Lorelei Timms came to the phone. “I don’t know whether to be astonished or petrified,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

  The way he’d met the governor had been a fluke, but Nantz and Lori had become friends, and the governor had become his biggest fan. He hated asking her for anything, but the truth was, he liked her.

  “Langford Horn?” he said.

  “My kids are great, Whit’s great, our sex life could use a jump start, the job is a pain in the butt, and I have a new allergy. Other than that, things are fine,” she said. “We don’t talk for months and of course you’re Mr. Let’s-Get-Down-to-Business. There’s more to life than work, Grady.”

  “Yes, your gubernatorial excellency. What about Langford Horn?”

  “What about him?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Am I going to be sorry you
asked?”

  “It’s highly probable.”

  She sighed. “Horn is the definition of charming and smarmy. He was one of Bozian’s favorites. He’s looking to move elsewhere, and make no mistake, he’ll land on his feet. He knows everyone and he’s good at working deals and angles.”

  “Have you heard Teeny wants to teach at a college out west?”

  “He’d like to teach in-state, but nobody wants him. How’d you hear about the out-West thing?”

  “Sources.”

  He heard her sigh and chuckle. “It’s true. I talked to someone from the college the day before yesterday. They told me that they’ve gotten a sizable donation to underwrite a chair for Eino to teach natural resource issues.”

  “The donation is from a guy named Fagan,” Service said. The day before yesterday? Andriaitis was really connected and wired into everything.

  “Quint Fagan?”

  “You know him?”

  “Of him. His company has a long-term contract with your agency, something to do with salmon eggs.”

  Service was impressed both by her memory and the breadth of her knowledge. “Is he one of your contributors?”

  “I can’t say for sure. Most of these business politicos play both sides to hedge their bets.”

  “He’s dirty, Lori. Really dirty.”

  “I see,” she said. “I assume this is not something to talk about in detail over the phone.”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. I’m sure you’ll pay me a visit when there’s a reason to talk in detail.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And I should verify if Fagan contributed to my campaign.”

  “I would.”

  Service hung up and looked over at his sergeant who was looking back, wide-eyed. “You called the governor? Are you out of your flipping mind! What we think and what we can prove in a court of law are two different things.”

  “The governor is my friend, and I don’t want her caught by surprise.”

  “You’re supposed to be apolitical.”

  “I am, but I also believe in fairness.” Miars shook his head and Service added, “We are going to put Fagan’s ass in jail.”

  “We’re both more likely to get fired and lose our pensions.”

  “We’ll see,” Service said. “Maybe there’s nothing here, but if there is, it’s our duty to do the hard things. That’s what they pay us for.”

  “They don’t pay us to commit professional suicide.”

  “I’m not thinking about politics, or suicide,” Service said. He laid out the situation with Roxanne Lafleur for his sergeant.

  The sergeant’s attitude changed immediately. “Caviar is food. The Food and Drug Administration regulates that. We need to talk to someone at the FDA.”

  “You want to go with me to talk to Lafleur?”

  “If it won’t spook her.”

  “She doesn’t have a phone, so we’ll just have to see.”

  “I can’t believe you just picked up the phone and called the governor,” Miars said, shaking his head with obvious disbelief.

  15

  Tuesday, October 26, 2004

  HURON MOUNTAINS, MARQUETTE COUNTY

  Service and Miars swung by the regional office first thing in the morning to pick up the sergeant’s truck and a county plat book. Service found that Lafleur had 120 acres off County Road 510, near the Little Pup River.

  The property fronted a hilly section of County Road 510 and with most leaves down, Service could see the building a couple of hundred feet above the county road. There was a chain across the grassy two-track driveway, so he continued down 510 to find a place on state land to stash the truck. They walked back to Lafleur’s driveway and found a mud-covered sign on the ground that read caviar queen. A new plywood sign had been crudely painted, but was on the ground beside the pole-barn garage. The new sign said death roe. It had crudely painted skulls and crossbones above and below the letters. Service looked through a door into the garage, and saw a dark green Chrysler minivan inside.

  The narrow two-track went past the pole barn, morphed into a sculpted path, and meandered its way up to the house, which was small and built on the crest of a hard-rock ridge. Service saw steel beams beneath the platform and figured the place wouldn’t get blown off the mountain by high winds. Dogs began raising a ruckus when they were fifty feet from the house, and Service grabbed his sergeant’s arm and thrust him ahead.

  Miars gave him a quizzical look, but went ahead. Three chocolate Labs came bounding out the door and circled the sergeant, tails wagging, tongues hanging out, butts gyrating happily. A woman stood in the doorway and Service walked through the dog pack toward her. He had suffered a lifelong fear of all dogs until Newf came along, and though she was helping him conquer the irrationality, it still overcame him at times.

  “Ms. Lafleur?”

  She didn’t look sick. She had short blond hair, a great figure (if on the thin side), and looked like she could run a marathon at a moment’s notice.

  “Grady? Tas called and said you’d be coming.”

  How had Andriaitis called her? She had no phone. Service introduced Miars, and she invited them inside, telling the dogs, “Stay outside and go potty for Mommy.”

  The interior was warm and homey, with a long window looking westward toward lines of tree-covered ridges and bare rocky outcrops. The house sat on the ridge like the crow’s nest on a ship. “Impressive view,” Service said.

  “Coffee?”

  She went to make a pot and Miars said, “This is something. You’ve got to be a genius or a fool to build up here.”

  Service said, “Sometimes they’re the same thing.” Miars grinned.

  The woman let the dogs in and they immediately lined up and sat in front of Service, staring up at him with expectant yellow eyes.

  “Now, girls,” Lafleur said from the kitchen. “We talked about this.” The dogs wagged their tails in unison. She came back with coffee and said, “Meet Stella, Ella, and Bella—my kids. They’re just five, and very sweet.”

  “You see any wolves up here?” Miars asked.

  “Just tracks,” she said, “but the kids know to stay near the house.”

  Service wanted to get the conversation on track, but decided to let her take the lead for now.

  “Steel beams?” Miars said.

  Lafleur nodded. “We won’t blow away to Oz, Sergeant.”

  “No, ma’am. I just wondered. It’s a terrific place.”

  “I designed it myself,” she said proudly. “My dream house.”

  Service saw an opportunity. “The sign by the garage suggests otherwise.”

  She pursed her lips. “I was devastated when I did that, but I never put it up.”

  “You just finished chemotherapy? You look pretty strong.”

  “It could have been a lot worse,” the woman said. “I’ve had a pretty good life. You have to expect some rough times.”

  “Could you tell us about your job?” Service asked.

  She squinted at Service. “The details are boring. I assume you want to know the real stuff.”

  “If you feel like talking.” Service set the recorder on the table and turned it on. He had decided to record and transcribe every interview in the case in order to have a record, and to help his own porous memory. He had not yet determined how he was going to get the transcription done.

  “You went all the way to Anchorage to see Tas; that tells me it’s important and that you’re serious.”

  “It is, and we are,” Service said.

  Lafleur poured coffee for them, picked up her cup, and sat back. “I started working with Quint when I was in my early twenties, and it was a lot of fun. He was just beginning, and we had lots of people with enthusiasm.”


  “Your relationship grew to be more than work,” Service said.

  She rolled her eyes. “We were wild. We were together all the time and it just happened. We were both kinda randy, if you know what I mean.”

  Service nodded. He knew. He and Nantz had been the same.

  “I guess I was pretty good at whatever he gave me to do, and eventually he promoted me to quality assurance manager for caviar. Everybody called me the Caviar Queen. I oversaw processing and production of the eggs, from selection, to flavor control, to packaging. Of course, we made caviar only during the fall, but when the season was on, it was nonstop.”

  “You went back and forth to New York.”

  “The plant is in Harrytown. I was there several times each egg season.”

  “To do what?”

  “Quint wanted me to decide which eggs were closest in size, flavor, and color to Michigan eggs. Sometimes they were indistinguishable on all parameters, and sometimes they looked like they came from a different species. Once in a while I couldn’t find enough, and we had to ship all Michigan eggs; that made Quint really sore because it cost him.”

  Lafleur shut her eyes. “When we first started mixing the eggs he told me it was simply a matter of ‘attenuating taste’—his term. What he wanted me to believe was that the New York eggs would add some sort of counter-flavor to the Michigan eggs, making them more desirable to consumers—kind of like sweet and sour, or something like that.”

  “You agreed?”

  “Of course not. From the beginning I thought it was all about money, and eventually he admitted it, and I didn’t protest. We were making a lot of money and I was having a really good time. What was there to protest?”

  “You also went to New York City sometimes.”

  “Quint had a deal with the Crimea Group. They’re owned by Semyon Krapahkin, and he’s quite a story. Came to the U.S. from the Ukraine when he was a boy and built a fish business that’s one of the largest in the country. He has ships, processors, farms, retail shops, seafood restaurants—you name it. That’s where I learned about the Brotherhood.”