Death Roe

by Joseph Heywood

  Denninger was young and he had already seen a slight negative streak in her. She didn’t need his baggage.

  51

  Friday, December 3, 2004

  SARANAC, IONIA COUNTY

  It is a Rowlandsonian scene of domestic bliss: morning run complete, showers and breakfast done, Zhenya in a sheer leotard on her meditation mat. Service and Denninger were at a table, pecking at their laptops.

  Emma Jornstadt came through the door without knocking, letting in a wave of cold air. Her partner, Aldo Zarobsky, nosed in behind Jornstadt, looked down at Leukonovich, her breasts suspended over her feet like blood oranges defying gravity, begging helping hands. Jornstadt glared at her shadow, who continued to lag and stare.

  “Time for an update,” Jornstadt announced, plopping an obese briefcase on the table. No thin reed of a portfolio announcing its owner as too important to carry more than only the most significant and important papers; this was a real bruiser of a briefcase announcing its sherpa as a woman who faced quantity and quality and relished bearing the whole load. The briefcase’s spine swayed like an overworked nag. “Right, Al?”

  Al, transfixed by Zhenya’s various angles, did not take the prompt as adroitly as usual.

  “Aldo,” Jornstadt said again, no question this, no prompt, an order in one word.

  “Right,” he chirped, momentarily fighting off the considerable distraction.

  “We have met with Anniejo, who has in turn met with U.S. Attorney Endicott, who has minimal knowledge of the case, and even less enthusiasm for seeing it go forward. Fagan’s wallet opens to Republicans, a not-insignificant fact for U.S. Attorneys appointed by Bushies and expected to stay in step with the tribal drums. Am I telling this accurately, Al?”

  “Same page of the songbook, same steps on the dance floor,” Zarobsky said.

  “Bottom line?” Service asked.

  “As always, money is politics. The golden rule—him who controls the gold, rules—and Light Brigade charges, militarily or politically, although noble and undeniably romantic in retrospect, are no longer in vogue. A good Bushie fights only the fights Big Bushie directs.”

  “You agree with this?”

  “Not my call. Facts are subject to interpretation. I find facts, others interpret and reassemble. Accurate job description, Al?”

  “Spot on,” Al said. “Never been a fight when everybody didn’t get bloodied somewhat. The US of A isn’t interested, why waste the state’s treasure? Time to cut and run: It’s unassailable practical logic.”

  Leukonovich laughed out loud, something between a pack animal’s bray and the feral snarl of a hyena. “Zhenya does not run. The IRS relishes fights, blood, tissue rotting in the sun.”

  Service noticed Denninger’s mouth hanging open.

  Aldo chipped in on his own, pointed a finger at Service. “Word’s out your neck’s on the line—maybe more to the point, your anatomy further south.”

  “That has nothing to do with the case,” Service said.

  Special Agent Jornstadt declared, “Damaged goods cannot deliver an airtight, hermetically sealed case. Endicott finds fault with toilet tissue not properly installed in the federal building.”

  “Gotta roll off the front, not the back,” Zarobsky chimed in. “Like Brobdingnagian arguments over bread and which side to butter. Endicott won’t shit if the paper’s not unrolling properly.”

  Service refused to wilt. “This case isn’t finished. We haven’t pulled it all together yet.”

  “Input streams through endless apertures like light rays into an abandoned homestead,” Jornstadt pontificated. “Damaged goods, damaged case against staunch supporter of the Grand Old Party, and that means this party is over. I’d offer condolences, but we are professionals and team players. We do not take such things personally.”

  Service was steaming, fighting to hold back his temper, without success. “She need a new view, Al, a change of scenery? She starting to notice the ceiling needs repainting or cobwebs in a corner while you’re giving her your probe? She need to recharge the old you-know-what?”

  Zarobsky turned burnt umber, swelled his chest, and took one step forward, but Jornstadt was on her feet, readjusting her eyeglasses. “Boys, boys,” she said. To Leukonovich, “Put on some clothes, seek professional help.” She started toward the door, not looking back and barking, “Al!” He seemed transfixed, torn between his exiting sure-thing partner and the near-naked possibilities of Zhenya Leukonovich. He eventually broke off his stare and shifted his eyes to Service. “Yours is coming, smart guy.”

  “Yours is leaving,” Service countered.

  Denninger was stunned, speechless, Leukonovich almost giddy—for her.

  As if orchestrated by a demented creator, Service’s cell phone rang.

  It was Anniejo Couch. “Before you hear about it via the drumline, I want you to know that there is resistance to this case above my pay grade. It will not be going to the grand jury. I don’t support this, but team is team.”

  “Can’t be a team unless they get on the field and play.”

  “I can imagine your disappointment.”

  She was wrong. There was no disappointment, only rage—an old friend, and one that had always served him well, stepping up in the darkest moments of life to bring hope. He hung up without further comment, knowing instinctively that the calls were not finished, that the legendary and perhaps mythical Three Sisters of Lake Superior had come to him, each wave successively larger and potentially more demoralizing than the last.

  But what he expected as the next and final call was not that at all. It was Roy Rogers.

  “Sunday afternoon, noon. Crimea. Fly into JFK. Get a cab to the Hotel Garibaldi. Crimea’s in Brooklyn. We’ll meet beforehand, get our act together.”

  “It’ll just be me.”

  “Bring a vest,” Rogers says. “We are going into Indian country, where they talk with Slavic accents.”

  Leukonovich remained on her mat, raising her thin arms high above her head, a pose far to the east. Denninger had not moved, was barely breathing.

  Proactive, preemptive, forward-looking, whatever, Grady Service speed-dialed his chief’s cell phone. “We go to Crimea Sunday,” he said, and hung up, leaving loose ends hanging limp like battle pennants in the Sargasso Sea. The chief was a team player, wed to the chain of command. Service thought of casinos, rolling stones, the click of dice muffled by thick felt, war declared as silently as a nun’s prayers. He thought: Me or them, to the finish, all the way, no quarter.

  He told Denninger, “I’m going to bite a chunk out of the Big Apple’s ass.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Head for home, water your cat, shovel your snow—do whatever you do on your own time. It’s time to count your blessings.”

  “Am I out?”

  “Not until the chief brings us both back to the DNR.”

  Zhenya looked up at him, nodded ever so slightly, a smile that was not quite a smile; it was something else, a look of recognition, one warrior to another. Her looked seemed to say she had been blooded in this kind of thing, and not only understood it, but was cheering him forward without words.

  Service thought: New York on Sunday. Motion, not progress. Sometimes it was all you had.

  As if the phone had taken on a life of its own, acting director Cecil Hopkins called. “Detective Service, I have an assignment for you. You and Denninger will be in my office tonight at twenty-one hundred hours, fifth floor, Mason Building; understood?”

  “Understood, Director.”

  He turned to Denninger. “Hopkins wants us at his office at nine p.m. tonight.”

  “Is that, like, a bad thing?”

  “We’ll find out,” he said. His gut gave him no reading on it, but after hours on a Friday night? It was at th
e least very unusual.

  PART III

  ANIMATO

  Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward.

  —Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”

  52

  Friday, December 3, 2004

  LANSING, INGHAM COUNTY

  The parking lots surrounding the Mason Building were mostly empty. Service and Denninger went to Security on the ground floor and were greeted by three people—a uniformed woman handling night security, and two straight-backed men dressed in tactical black. The taller of the men stuck out his hand and said gruffly, “Detective Service? Sergeant Votruba, CPD.” CPD was the Capitol Police Division of the Michigan State Police. The sergeant didn’t bother to introduce his partner. Service introduced Denninger.

  “We’re to accompany you to Director Hopkins’s office,” Votruba said. Denninger raised an eyebrow but said nothing. They rode the elevator in silence.

  When the door opened, Hopkins was standing there, waiting for them. He nodded for them to follow and led them into a conference room. There were two black tactical canvas bags on the floor, shotguns on top. “Seats,” the director ordered.

  There was a pot of coffee on the table, five cups.

  “You look puzzled,” Hopkins began. “Any idea what’s about to happen?”

  “Either you’re about to give us bad news and you’re expecting an extreme reaction, or we’re going to invade a small country.”

  Hopkins laughed. The CPD men showed no emotion.

  “The sergeants, you, and your partner are going to BAO director Horn’s office on the seventh floor. There you will examine Horn’s files for evidence relating to your case.”

  “We don’t have a warrant,” Service said.

  Hopkins said, “We are public servants. These buildings and all within them belong to the public. As representatives of the public, we can enter and investigate where we wish.”

  “Somebody has to approve it,” Service insisted.

  “Governor Timms has approved it,” Hopkins said. “Anything that relates in any way to your case or our division may be removed and copied. We have legal personnel standing by on the fifth floor. Documents you want are to be brought to them to be copied and logged. They will see that the documents are returned when copies are in our files. Questions?”

  Service glanced at the tactical bags and shotguns. “With all due respect, is all that necessary?”

  “Our colleagues are responsible for the entire Capitol complex. Like us, they have procedures to follow. They are along to assist, not hinder. Once you are into the office, you are in charge.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Service asked.

  “I have closely followed everything you’ve done, Detective. I’ve read the media coverage and noted reactions within the division and the legislature. I see no actual flames, but there seems to be considerable smoke everywhere I look. I’m old-fashioned, started my career as a fire officer. When I smell this much smoke and can’t find the source, it makes me professionally and personally uneasy. I don’t like those feelings. If we can’t see the flames, it’s time to get out the shovels and Pulaskis and dig down to see if it’s in the roots. Take your team to Horn’s office and do what has to be done.”

  At 10 p.m. they were in the hallway outside Horn’s office. The two sergeants were in tac vests and headsets, and carried shotguns and sidearms. “You gonna blow the door?” Service asked Sergeant Votruba.

  “No need.” The sergeant held up a key. “Stand aside, please, and wait for us to clear the room.”

  Clear the room? Of what—dust motes? Sergeant Votruba was all business and Service hooked Denninger’s arm and pulled her to the side. The sergeant’s partner stepped to the right side of the door and quietly racked a round into the chamber of his shotgun. Votruba turned the key, the lock made a click, and he shouldered open the door. Both men charged inside, hunched over, ready to rock and roll.

  Denninger whispered, “I don’t know whether to wet my pants or laugh out loud.”

  “Shut up, Dani.”

  Votruba came out of the office and said, “The space is clear, sir,” and waved them in.

  They were in a suite that contained the desk of a receptionist, a large office, a small office lined with file cabinets, a conference room, and a safe. “Geez,” Denninger said. “Where do we start, and what do we look for?”

  “DNR files, Piscova, Fagan, contracts. You take the office with the file cabinets. I’ll start in Horn’s office.”

  Service looked at Votruba. “How much time do we have?”

  “We’ll hold it as long as you need it.”

  “At least unchamber the rounds.”

  “Procedure, Detective. You do your job, we’ll do ours.”

  Denninger went into the smaller office, Service into Horn’s. Votruba stepped in with a key and flipped it to him. “This opens desks, files, everything.”

  Service hit the jackpot in the third drawer. The file was marked dnr: salmon contracts. It was six inches thick. Service spread the documents on Horn’s desk and began to read. Halfway into the pile he found correspondence from Fagan talking about the ten-year contract and clauses that should be included. Further down there was boilerplate for the contract itself, amended in handwriting, the exact changes Fagan wanted. Near the bottom were three letters from Fagan suggesting certain investment opportunities, with a prospectus attached to each letter.

  Denninger came in. “There’s a file on the Wildlife Resource Protection Unit, a document from Horn directing a unit-wide audit. What do we do with the stuff we want to copy?”

  “Make a note of where you found it and start a pile.”

  Denninger stuck her head through the door before she left. “Boxes are coming up from the fifth floor.”

  Service finished going through Horn’s files. There was also a folder in the man’s in-basket marked personal, but he couldn’t bring himself to open it; people had to have some privacy. There was a photograph of Horn holding a salmon in front of a boat. Service added it to the pile.

  Denninger came back at midnight. “Been through everything, and there’s nothing in the conference room. You need help here?”

  “I’m about done.”

  At 1 a.m. they were back in the office of Cecil Hopkins. “Two copies of everything will be made,” the acting DNR director said. “One for here, one for your investigation. Your set will be delivered tomorrow. The originals will be returned to Hopkins tonight, left in boxes with a memo instructing Horn to call me when he comes in on Monday. Did you get what you needed?”

  “We won’t know until we have time to read and digest everything, but it looks promising,” Service said.

  The two sergeants and Hopkins accompanied them back to the lobby of the Mason Building. Service looked at Cecil Hopkins, but didn’t know what to say. After years of Teeny’s political toadying, the eighty-year-old acting director had stepped up. The DNR in the old days had been one of the best fish and game operations in the United States, and the department had always had strong leaders. A final look at Hopkins gave Service a surge of hope he had not felt in a long time.

  Votruba said, “Great mission—our pleasure. You two want to grab a brew?”

  “Thanks, but we’ve got a ways to drive.”

  “Understood.”

  In the truck Denninger said, “Did that really happen?”

  “Apparently,” Service said.

  “I’ll start on the documents as soon as they arrive tomorrow.”

  “We’ll start.”

  “You’re leaving town,” she reminded him.

  He had forgotten.

  53

  Saturday, December 4, 2004

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

 
There was no sun, and the temperature was hovering just above freezing at Detroit Metro Airport. It had rained and sleeted all night, and airline maintenance crews were working feverishly at de-icing aircraft, one at a time, causing flight delays. Service’s flight was affected, and he and his fellow passengers milled aimlessly around the velvet rope gate like cattle piled up in front of a wooden chute.

  Service’s cell phone rang. He expected it to be Dani, but it was Tassos Andriaitis, who said in a voice barely qualifying as a whisper, “Roxy’s dead.”

  Service tried to process the information, and felt immediately conflicted, part of him wanting to scream at Fagan, the other part almost smiling because Roxy’s demise changed everything and might actually make the case easier. The unexpected mix of anger and shame left him speechless. “How?” he managed, an insipid question at best.

  “Last night—her heart,” Andriaitis said. “The cocksuckers killed her.” Andriaitis hung up.

  It was 3 p.m. before the Northwest flight touched down at LaGuardia. The airport terminal and baggage-claim areas were a madhouse, an international smorgasbord of mankind in motion: bearded Sikhs in bright turbans, Muslim women in black chadors, purple and latte-skinned blacks in dashikis and kaftans, Manhattanites in Armani, soldiers and sailors in uniform, duffels on their shoulders, a fat man with a cat in a red plastic crate, both of them crying. The smells of sweat, body odor, curry, garlic, and perfume blended in nauseating ratios. Wet shoe leather and stinking feet grabbed at his nostrils. The only thing that really registered for Grady Service was the military personnel in uniforms—a far cry from Vietnam, when returning warriors were cursed and spit on and men took off their uniforms and medals and threw everything away so they wouldn’t be harassed.