Death Roe

by Joseph Heywood

  What the hell is wrong with you?

  45

  Wednesday, November 24, 2004

  SARANAC, IONIA COUNTY

  What the hell was going on with the women around him? Honeypat was the only one he thought he understood; she had always been unstable and off the wall. But McCants? She had definitely made vague overtures, and as he thought back, it had been going on for a long time. But last night a man had answered her phone. Geez.

  Leukonovich was a complete puzzle, and his instincts told him to avoid her at all costs. Denninger, on the other hand, had him in a frazzle, and as long as they were working and living so closely, he decided they needed to set clear rules—ironclad ones.

  He had only once ever had an affair with a colleague and that had been with Lisette McKower; he was determined not to repeat that screwup. She had not only been a colleague, but also married. The memory of his own stupidity still made him cringe. It might make sense to send Denninger home, but she was now at risk because she had been with him the night of the seizure, and they were both now linked to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He didn’t have the authority to send her home, and he didn’t want to risk getting her into a mess that could potentially hurt her career. He liked the fact that she showed good instincts as an officer, and he trusted her. He just had to have a talk with her and hope for the best.

  His worries about women aside, he spent most of the night thinking about Eino Teeny. If Fagan had not gotten women for him, what connection had led Fagan to underwrite an academic chair for Teeny? There had to be something. And now Teeny was vacationing in Key West after resigning as director. What were the chances he was at Fagan’s place down there? Fagan had loosed his lawyers on the department, all because he, Service, was investigating Piscova.

  The DNR’s lawyers believed they had lost the egg seizure hearing because of the story Service had planted with Salant. Chief O’Driscoll seemed equally unhappy about the articles, but so far seemed supportive—at least in a don’t-ask, don’t-tell frame of mind. Should he plant more—put things out in the public light and see how people reacted? This was risky business, and the thought of playing it this way made him nervous in ways he had never quite felt before. In the past he had preferred to keep everything close and inside the department where it belonged. But now . . .

  He also needed to sit down with Julia Gates, the BAO woman who wrote the letter to the director announcing an audit of undercover operations. Also risky to talk to her, but he felt he had to in order to gauge what prompted the move.

  Most of all, he needed to talk to Miars and see what was happening with him. Miars had pretty much disappeared from the Piscova investigation ostensibly because of more pressing work, but had he done anything more about the internal stuff?

  The faster this case seemed to move, the more it seemed to bog down and become more complex. Most of all, he needed focus and there wasn’t anyone to provide it.

  He also needed to talk to Karylanne more, and he decided to set a schedule so that they had regular contact.

  A secretary answered for Julia Gates, and after some contentious-but-polite door-guard questioning, put his call through to her boss.

  “Grady Service,” he said when Gates answered. “We haven’t met.”

  “I know your name,” she countered, not offering any further information.

  “I’ve been told that you’re about to commence an audit of all DNR undercover operations and investigations.”

  “If we were, what business would that be of yours?” she asked sharply.

  “It’s my unit.”

  “As far as I know, you’re not in a supervisory position.”

  “That’s true. Do you work for Langford Horn?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then neither of us is supervisory.”

  “You have no idea what my position is,” she said. “I suggest you get what you need to know through your supervision.”

  The woman had a voice as sharp as cracked ice and was clearly nervous. He sensed her wanting to duck any direct questions. Why?

  “Look,” he said, “I’m not trying to interfere, and I don’t know what motivated the audit, but I need to tell you that it would behoove you to bear in mind that your boss figures prominently in this investigation. I’m not saying he’s done anything wrong, but I am telling you as clearly as I can that there’s a lot of smoke that needs to dissipate before we can know what we have. All I’m requesting is that you ask yourself when you got the order to initiate your audit, and what else was happening at that time.”

  “This conversation is inappropriate and therefore concluded,” she said.

  “Your call, but do yourself a favor and think about what I just said.”

  She hung up without further comment and Service exhaled loudly. Either she’d think about it or she would come after him, full claw.

  Denninger came down to the kitchen looking half asleep. “You run yet?”

  “Have some coffee, then we’ll run.”

  “I’m all about that,” she said.

  He poured coffee for her and sat down across the table. “You and I need to get something straight between us.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” she said.

  She was a lot like Nantz, but much younger. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. All this innuendo has got to stop. It’s fun and it’s flattering, but nothing’s going to happen.”

  She winked. “I can think of a great way to end it.”

  He glared at her. “It’s not going to happen, Dani. I’m not saying I’m not attracted to you, but given my personal situation, I’m just not ready to tackle a personal relationship right now. I had Nantz and she died. I still think about her all the time. My job has always come first in my life. You have the makings of a great officer, and you need to get your job in perspective right now. Relationships between officers can work, but they’re risky for all parties. Comments?”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Absolutely. Living like this puts a helluva strain on both of us, and I think we need to resolve it to avoid any entanglements.”

  “Forever?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know,” he said. “But definitely for now. You’re worried about your career. You should be. My dragging you into this has put you in a difficult spot. If we don’t bring this case home we’re probably going to be under a microscope, and if the relationship is more than professional, that will come out.”

  She had a serious face. “I hear you,” she said. “I won’t lie: I’m attracted, but to be completely honest, I don’t know if it’s proximity, or what Nantz used to say about you, or if it’s your status in the department. I mean, you are a star.”

  “I’m old enough to be your father—or grandfather.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” she said.

  “Are we going to fix this, or are we going to wait until it all explodes in our faces?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Keeping it totally professional, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “I can do that,” she said.

  “Good. Ready to run?”

  After a forty-minute run around the area, they returned to the resort, showered, and dressed. His leg was aching again, so he took another 800 milligrams of ibuprofen with a piece of bread. Denninger made breakfast and they talked while they ate.

  “I want you to go to Lansing and see Jeff Choate from Fisheries. Inform him that he’s a person of interest in an ongoing investigation and that he should consider sitting down with us and talking informally,” said Service.

  “Can we do that?”

  “Legally? I don’t know. But if we can get him talking about Piscova, he may shed more light on what we’re dealing with.”

  “He’s supposed to be a real asshole.�
��

  “Just deliver the message forcefully. Be polite, but don’t take any shit from him.”

  “What’re you going to be doing?” Dani asked.

  He was still in a quandary about how much to reveal about his own activities. She didn’t formally report to him, but he felt responsible for her, and if she knew about some of the things he was doing, like planting stories in the media, she could also be held liable.

  “I’m going to go see Miars and bring him up to speed.”

  “Meet back here tonight?”

  “That’s the plan. If Leukonovich is here when you get back, see if she’s got a list of Piscova contracts for us yet. If Jornstadt and Zarobsky show up, ignore them.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “I don’t think they’re digging all that hard in this case. I think it’s just an excuse for them to get a room.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Backpackers?”

  He had no idea what she was talking about and his face must’ve shown it. “You know, scromping, getting it on . . . ?”

  He nodded dumbly. She spoke a different language.

  He called Salant on his way north to find Miars.

  “Yo,” Salant said, “Po-po, how it be?”

  Po-po? What the fuck was he talking about? Stay calm. “Might have an interesting little angle for you. Word is out that Fagan underwrote an academic chair for Teeny at a college near Seattle.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know, but it does make one wonder. Teeny’s on vacation in Key West, and Fagan owns a place down there.”

  “You sayin’ he’s at Fagan’s place? This info cold, or what?”

  Service closed his eyes, tried to assume he was getting through. “I’m stating two facts. How they connect, I don’t know; I just thought you might be interested.”

  “I am, man. This story is crunk. Same ground rules?”

  “Has to be.”

  “That’s cool, but at some point you gotta crawl up into the light.”

  “At some point,” Service said, with no intention of ever going on the record in the media.

  It had been a long day, and it was 5 p.m. by the time he found Milo Miars at the Gaylord district office. “Have you eaten yet?”

  “Can’t remember my last regular meal. My wife thinks I’ve moved out.”

  “How’s the elk case?”

  “We’ve finally got a lead that looks promising. Let’s take a ride.”

  Service got into his sergeant’s unmarked truck and they drove east through town, eventually pulling up to a purple house with a green roof and white trim. “Big Bear Deli,” Miars said. “Prices aren’t bad and the food’s pretty good.”

  There were only two people in line ahead of them, and Service wondered why there were so few customers if the food was so good. The two officers remained silent as Service studied the menu, and discovered the place was smoke-free. “Let’s get it to go,” Service said. “First Traverse City, now Gaylord; this smoke-free bullshit is spreading faster than bacterial kidney disease in salmon.”

  Miars grinned.

  Both men ordered albacore tuna on rye bread, no mayo, and large Diet Pepsis. They took their food outside, drove down a side street, and parked.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” Miars said.

  “Thanksgiving?”

  “Actually, it’s tomorrow, but we’ll probably both be working.”

  Good God, I’m missing everything, Service thought. It had never even occurred to him that he should be in the U.P. with Karylanne for Thanksgiving.

  After a pause, Miars asked, “Are you behind the articles?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Miars shook his head. “Not really. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  “The chief call you?”

  “The BAO investigation? We talked.”

  “What’s your take?”

  “You’re stirring the pot pretty hard,” said Miars.

  “You think it will happen?”

  “The interim director is a straight arrow. I think it will happen.”

  “Anything I need to know about?”

  “Things were pretty quiet before you popped up.”

  “Sorry about that. Have you done any more work on the case?”

  “Too busy with elk, and it looks to me like you’ve got a head of steam.”

  “Not as much as people might think,” Service said, and talked his sergeant through what he had found so far.

  “This escort service madam will testify?”

  “I think she’ll give us a statement, but actually getting her to a trial might be tough. My guess is that she’d disappear.”

  “It’s going to get rough,” Miars said. “Zins and I met internal resistance like you wouldn’t believe when this thing got going eighteen months ago.”

  “Enough resistance to make you back off?”

  “Zins, not me; but alone, I had to scale back and take it easy. I hounded that bastard. Fagan paid for the operation of three weirs on the Platte and Manistee rivers and Van Etten Creek. He built them, paid the power bills, repairs, everything. He was supposed to reimburse the state for eggs. At one point we had a count of two million fish coming through those weirs. We had probable cause for a misdemeanor search warrant—not accurately reporting fish numbers, and so forth. We got the warrant and served it at the Elk Rapids plant. We even got BAO to do a three-year contract audit, and they found Piscova owed seventy to eighty thousand to the state for year one, and one-twenty to one-thirty for year two, and in year three, which was two years ago, even more—all this based on Piscova take records.

  “We went to the Fisheries division. Choate was the contract coordinator. In his office we found records of Florida trips and so forth. We took all this to Teeny, who told us to relax, but I wouldn’t. I went back to Elk Rapids, and all the records were gone and Piscova had suddenly been granted a ten-year contract. There was a big party at the plant and Teeny was there, and Choate and the assistant governor and all sorts of state legislators. After that Zins threw up his hands, decided it was as futile as pushing a rope, and that was that. He didn’t terminate the investigation; he just let it go dormant.”

  “And you?” Service asked.

  “Not much I could to, but I kept snooping. I found that Fagan had two partners: a fish guy named Amonte out of Milwaukee and another one named Jingles Steinmetz.”

  Miars said Steinmetz’s name like Service should be familiar with it, but Service only shrugged.

  “Steinmetz is out of Detroit, king of the fish business, mobbed up, brains, and muscle. As I looked at the transactions I found evidence that Piscova was underreporting and underpaying. Fagan would make five sales in a day, but report only two. He was shorting the state and his partners, but I couldn’t prove it without more resources.”

  “Did you talk to his partners?”

  “Couldn’t. Steinmetz would have him whacked and the state would have gotten nothing.”

  “So you backed off.”

  “Then you came along with your egg thing and I could see the case was getting legs again”

  “But you didn’t jump back in with your angles.”

  “Been there, done that. No point to hopeless causes. Thought it better to see what you turned up and then jump in if there was room.”

  “Is this what we signed on for?” Service asked, taking a bite of sandwich, holding his napkin at his chin to keep from dribbling. “Only going after sure things?”

  “The job and environment are so different now, it’s sometimes hard to remember what we signed on for.”

  Miars was clearly having second thoughts and Service couldn’t blame him. “Eventually Fish and Wildlife will raid Crimea. You want in?”

&n
bsp; “No.”

  “You want me to keep you tuned in to what we’re doing?”

  “From time to time. How’s Denninger doing?”

  “Good officer.” Service related her visit to the realtor in Traverse City.

  “Where did the money for the clothes come from?” Miars asked, snapping to attention in his seat.

  “My wallet.”

  “Jesus, I couldn’t afford anything like that. You’ll never get it back from the state, or the feds.”

  “I know,” Service said.

  Service was headed south to Saranac by 8:30 p.m. Beaker Salant called him when he was passing St. Louis. “Too cool, dude. I talked to Teeny, and he is indeed staying at Fagan’s place in Key West, and he went, like, total crunk. I asked him if he’d stayed there before and he actually said, ‘No comment.’ Can you believe that? I also asked him about the chair endowment and he said he had no knowledge of Fagan paying the way, but if it was true, he was grateful.”

  “You buy it?”

  “Not a chance. I talked to the vice president of development at the college and he confirms that Fagan’s the primary contributor, though there are others as well. That’s all he had to say, and when I gave him chapter and verse on Teeny’s nonperformance here, all he would say is that Teeny had a wide range of experience that will be invaluable to their students. I think he wanted me to split. I asked him to confirm the contributors to the Teeny chair by snail mail, and he said he would, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”

  “Thanks, Beaker.”

  “You have any more brainstorms, call.”

  “That door swings both ways,” Service said, not at all sure that it did. There was no guidebook for leaking information to the media.

  It was just past midnight and Leukonovich’s staff car was parked out front. No sign of Denninger’s truck, but it was probably in the barn. Service found the IRS agent reading newspaper clippings. Denninger was sitting at the table, looking morose.