Death Roe (3 page)

The company was mixing eggs fit only for bait with those cleared for human consumption? New York's eggs were contaminated. Service was pretty sure Michigan's salmon were also filled with crud, but they had not yet been banned by the FDA or EPA for food. Was this possible? Was it possible that such a case could fall into his lap so easily?

“You have my number. You hear anything more, you call.”

“There is reward for this?”

“Your reward will be in heaven.”

“I am atheist. God is dead.”

“Your ticket will be erased—that's reward enough. Tell me honestly, how much can you make selling eggs?”

“Last fall, seven thousand dollars.”

Service did a quick mental calculation. He had no doubt the money was undeclared and therefore tax-free. “That's about three and a half tons of roe.”

“Of course, I move from river to river and it costs much to keep this American pig on road.”

“Typical business type,” Service said. “Always complaining about operating costs and the bite into profit.” Service had more questions. “Piscova's the only one who buys eggs?”

“Now,” the Ukrainian said. “Years ago, I hear many paid for eggs and meat, mom-and-pop, you understand? But these Piscova guys, they convince them to find other business.”

“Convinced them how?”

“You be careful,” Baranov said as Service opened the door.

“How's that?”

“Benny hears Piscova has powerful friends in Lansing.”

“You've heard that?”

“Many times.”

“Names?”

“No names, just fact.”

4

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

NEWBERRY, LUCE COUNTY

Lieutenant Lisette McKower's Tahoe was in the parking lot of the Newberry district DNR building. Grady Service found her in her cubicle, hunched over a computer, scowling.

“Ain't being an el-tee just grand?” he quipped as he plopped down in a chair.

She lobbed a pencil end over end at him. McKower had been his sergeant before her promotion to lieutenant. At one time they had both been COs and had worked closely together. Too closely: There had been a brief affair, the only time he had ever gotten involved with a married woman. After a period of sore feelings, they remained close friends, and he suspected she had played a role in his promotion to detective, something she adamantly denied.

“How are you doing?” she asked. Out of respect for his privacy most officers no longer asked about the loss of his girlfriend and son, which had happened April 28—one hundred and sixty-eight days ago today. That he knew the precise number of days disturbed him, but he was not sure why.

“Good days and bad,” he said. “I keep turning around to tell her something, only she's not there to hear me.”

“I think she hears you, Grady.”

He had never married Maridly Nantz and had loved her in a way he never thought himself capable of. Now she was gone, murdered in her pickup truck, and his son with her. The memory choked him.

“It will get better over time,” McKower said.

“Sounds like herpes,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “You are hopeless.”

“Put it on my headstone.”

“What did you put on Maridly's?”

This was a sore point that continued to irritate some of his friends and colleagues. He had delayed a memorial for Nantz and Walter. After the memorial he and Luticious Treebone, his best friend of more than twenty years, had taken the ashes to a camp in west Chippewa County and dumped some of them in a creek filled with spawning brook trout. He and Maridly had talked only once about death and she had made him promise to dump her ashes in the most beautiful place he saw. He decided to put some of their ashes in each beautiful or meaningful place he encountered and now carried them in the truck at all times. Only Treebone knew what he had done. “I didn't come here for a goddamn lecture,” he said sharply.

“Point taken. Why
are
you here?”

“I need a landline.”

“Help yourself,” she said. “I'm the only one home today.”

“What do you know about Miars?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow, sat back in her chair. “Milo? Solid, quiet, thorough—a good guy, but a little cautious. Be glad Zins hung it up.”

Until retiring at the first of the month, Zins had been the lieutenant in charge of Wildlife Resource Protection.

“What about Zins?”

“He's a self-serving prick with the common sense of a slab of slate. He only spent two years in the field as a CO and two as a sergeant before his first lieutenant's job. Very smart, very glib, very political. Wouldn't take a shit if he thought it was a bad political move. You and Miars get off on the wrong foot?”

“Just curious,” he said. He was weighing whether to tell Miars about Piscova, and what he had learned. Was Baranov bullshitting about the company having powerful friends in Lansing? He knew Piscova had a longtime contract with the DNR to harvest eggs for brood stock in hatcheries and for research purposes, and this required friendly intermediaries. The almost throwaway comment from the Ukrainian had set him on edge.

“Put your teeth in before you get on the phone,” McKower said.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You never had a mom. You hatched from a dinosaur egg.”

He smiled at the word
egg
and left her to her computer.

His first call was to Miars. “This is Service. Can we meet?”

“Why?”

“I have something I'd rather not talk about over the telephone.”

“I'm heading to the RAM Center to meet the chief and your captain.”

The Ralph A. McMullen Conference Center, or RAM, was used by the DNR for meetings. The site had once housed a Civilian Conservation Corps unit but had been taken over by the DNR around the time of Pearl Harbor. It was located on Higgins Lake, about ninety minutes south of the Mackinac Bridge.

“When's the meeting?”

“Tomorrow, zero eight hundred.”

“I'll drive down.”

“
You're
not invited.”

“I'm inviting myself.”

“Cowboy,” Miars muttered. “The subject of the meeting
is
you.”

“Good,” Service shot back. “All the more reason for me to be there.”
A meeting about him?
He felt a knot in his stomach. He hated political shit. And despite having some successes as a detective, he still preferred being a conservation officer with his own territory. He was born to be outside, not sitting in damn offices developing cases and plans and filing goddamn reports.

“I don't like this,” his sergeant said.

“Piscova,” Service said.

“What was that?”

“You heard me.”

“What
about
them?”

“Something I heard,” Service said. “I don't want to talk about it on the phone.”

“Whatever it is, stay away from them. Piscova is out of bounds for you.”

“We'll see about that,” Service said, and hung up.

What had Baranov said about the company having powerful friends in Lansing? Did that include the DNR, and, if so, was Miars included? Zins? The chief? The director? This case had started on a hunch and had seemed full of promise. Was it about to turn to shit already? Or was there no case at all?
Be cool and keep it together,
he cautioned himself.

Service walked down the hall to the office of the irascible fish biologist, Harvey Ghent, who had been with the department forever and was nearing retirement. “Hey, Harv, you ever work with Piscova?”

“Back when I was handling salmon. Now I'm a warm-water maven. Why?”

“You know the name Vandeal?”

Ghent smiled. “Sure. Willem Vandeal's the plant manager for the company down in Elk Rapids. Why?”

“Just one of those somebody-knows-somebody-who-knows-somebody deals.”

“Gotcha,” the biologist said and went back to scribbling on a yellow legal pad.

Service asked, “Is the company private?”

Ghent looked up at him. “Yeah. Guy named Quintan Fagan owns it.”

“Okay, thanks. I won't bother you anymore.”

Vandeal was indeed a big cheese. Had Baranov known how big and played it cagey with him? Impossible to tell.

He called CO Candace McCants. “It's me,” he began, “checking in.” Recently she had been taking care of his dog and cat when he was away.

“They're fine, Grady. They like attention.”

“I don't know how long I'll be gone this time.”

“Not to worry. They're fine. Really.”

It bothered him that his animals would be happy with someone else, but he had enough to worry about and tried to put it out of his mind. “Okay. I'll call when I get back.”

“Be careful. You're not Superman.”

“Right,” he said. Why the hell had she said
that
?

RAM Center tomorrow; tonight he needed to think and prepare. Why was Piscova off limits to him? He would grab something to eat at Brown's Hotel, and hole up for the night in the district office conference room. Newberry was an hour from the bridge and the RAM Center ninety minutes below the bridge. Michigan conservation officers rarely thought in terms of miles, and always measured distances by time.

5

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

RALPH A. MCMULLEN CONFERENCE CENTER, NORTH HIGGINS LAKE, ROSCOMMON COUNTY

The RAM Center was one of those places you could drive by and not think much about. The buildings were set back under a canopy of leaning cedars and fragrant pines, and the whole complex didn't look like much to casual passersby, but more DNR business got done at the so-called Campus-in-the-Woods than in Lansing, and senior DNR officials yo-yoed back and forth from Lansing so often that some of them swore they'd worn permanent tire tracks into the interstate.

It had been here years ago that former longtime Republican governor Sam Bozian, aka Clearcut, had angrily confronted him. Service had been working as the governor's son's field training officer and had seen the boy fall apart in a semi-tense situation with a biker group. It had not been the boy's fault; he had simply been unsuited for law enforcement work and cripping him along only would have increased risk for the boy and the officers he would have to work with. Recognizing his own shortcomings, the boy had made the decision to withdraw from training. Bozian had taken it as a personal affront and become Grady Service's enemy. Bozian was now gone from the state, out of politics, and working in the private sector at some fat-cat Washington job. The state was still paying for the damage Bozian had done as governor.

Service parked his truck, locked it, and strolled through the packed parking lot toward the administration building, which had a stone facade against dark wood; a faded official seal of the state hung over the entrance. No money in the state budget to even spruce up their signs and symbols.

A woman was standing outside and smiled when she saw him. “Grady Service, ghost of the north woods,” she greeted him. “Make your skin crawl to be in this place?”

“I just think of it as a cedar swamp,” he said.

Angie Lemieux was in her mid-seventies, and had worked in the center's kitchen for at least thirty years. “It can be a swamp all right,” she said.

“Have you seen the chief, Angie?”

“He was at breakfast with Captain Grant. They've got the Whitetail Room for the morning.”

The Whitetail Room was small, with a fireplace and a conference table. Usually the chief worked in a larger space with larger groups.

Service got to the building and looked through the frosted window. Chief Lorne O'Driscoll and Captain Grant were sitting on one side of the conference table, and Sergeant Milo Miars and Lieutenant Zins were sitting opposite them. Zins was in civvies, the others in uniform. What the fuck was Zins doing here? He'd retired two weeks ago. Service immediately regretted not having a change of clothes or a uniform with him. At least he had his teeth in. He had gotten injured last Easter, had all his teeth pulled, and was still not used to his dentures.

He tapped his knuckles on the window and the chief waved him in. “Sorry to intrude,” he greeted the chief.

“Is it important?”

“Possibly.”

“Take a seat. There's coffee.”

Service poured a cup and sat down, wishing he could smoke. The other four men stared at him and said nothing.

Service looked at Miars. “You tell them this was about Piscova?”

The sergeant nodded. Zins immediately glared.

Service asked, “Does the company pay the DNR to run the weirs and collect eggs?”

Chief O'Driscoll said, “They provide all the services our hatchery people and biologists need, and they pay for the eggs they collect to use for themselves. Why?”

Service walked them through what had happened, including witnessing Vandeal collecting and paying the Ukrainian immigrant for his eggs.

“Why didn't you confront Vandeal right there?” Zins asked imperiously.

“I think there's something bigger going on,” Grady Service said. “How many eggs does the Fisheries division need? It seems to me that the company's collecting a helluva lot more than we need, so what're they doing with the surplus? The eggs belong to the people of the state, right?”

“How big a harvest?” the chief asked.

“I don't know yet, but if my informant is correct, they're collecting all over the state every year. My guy's been doing it for at least three years. Sergeant Miars said Piscova was off limits to me,” he added.

Zins glared at Service. “Loose cannon. Piscova pays the state for the eggs and meat it sells.”

Service glanced at the retired lieutenant. He was tall and distinguished-looking, too damn slick for a game warden. He thought about pushing some buttons to see how Zins would react, but the chief said, “Could you use a smoke?”

Service nodded.

“Let's step outside.”

The two men walked onto the wet grass. Dead leaves were already stacked up and crisping, turning the lawn to gold and red. The chief said, “The Wildlife Resource Protection Unit has been quietly investigating Piscova. There are rumors that perhaps some Fisheries employees are a little too
cozy
with them. It's strictly an internal matter. We're not aware of any law or contract violations, only potential ethical concerns.”

“Meaning I should leave this alone?”

“No,” the chief said. “Every investigator can choose to take a case in any number of different directions. Miars and Zins chose to look internally. What do you propose to do with what you've got?”

“I thought I'd call New York, see what they know, if anything, and decide the next step from there.”

“All right—but no action beyond inquiries with New York unless I give you the green light.”

“What about Miars?”

“He has his own work. With Zins gone, he's running the unit now.”

“Did he and Zins get anywhere with their investigtion?”

“Not really.”

“How long were they at it?”

“Eighteen months.”

“What if my work leads me back inside?”

“We'll cross that bridge if you get to it.”

“I report to Miars. Do I tell him what's going on in my case?”

“Not for the moment. Let's keep it between us.”

“Miars isn't going to like it.”

“Nobody likes being kept in the dark,” the chief said, “but sometimes it's necessary. You want to sit in on the rest of meeting?”

“Miars said it's about me.”

The chief smirked. “It's not. Zins is just handing over the reins. It's a good opportunity for Ware and me to get up to speed on details of the special investigations unit.” Ware was Captain Ware Grant, his previous boss.

Which meant he had the investigation all to himself, and he had a pretty good idea what that meant. “I'm expendable,” he told the chief, who answered with raised eyebrows.

Why had Miars told him the meeting was about him? To threaten him and keep him away? “I think I'll get back to work.”

“Suit yourself,” the chief said, and went back inside. Before parting the chief stopped and looked at him. “We're
all
expendable in this profession, Grady. The key is to know what's important and what's not.”

Service wandered over to the garage area to find Billy “Fuzz” Fazzari, who had worked at the center for at least forty years as a maintenance mechanic. From time to time Fazzari had driven up to the Mosquito Wilderness to fish with him. Service considered him a friend.

Fazzari was puttering with a leaf blower and smoking a cigar that reeked enough to gag a vulture.

“How they hanging, Fuzz?”

Fazzari was short, a little overweight, and balding. “Geez, the Great Grady Service. You lost?”

“Had a meeting.”

“I remember the time you and Clearcut went nose to nose out in the parking lot. Boy, you pissed him off. What can I do you for?”

“You ever hear of a company called Piscova?”

“Sure. Their head guy Fagan is here all the time with Fisheries people.”

“What's he like?”

“Glad-hander to all who can help him, a dickhead to those who can't. He can't do enough for them Fisheries folks.”

“Enough what?”

Fazzari shrugged. “I don't know. I just hear talk. You know, maybe trips to Florida and to his hunting camps, lots of free booze, maybe some broads from time to time. I figure it's just talk, eh.”

“Anyone from Law Enforcement ever ask you about him?”

“Nobody asks a grease monkey shit.”

“Thanks, Fuzz.”

“Sorry to hear about your lady and your son, Grady. I met Nantz when she was up here for some kind of training. She was a pistol. We all liked her.”

Maridly Nantz, a former fire officer, had started at the DNR law enforcement academy in Lansing a couple of years ago, but had been attacked by a dirtbag, seriously injured, and forced to drop out before graduation. Nantz had spent some of her recuperation time living with Chief O'Driscoll and his wife in East Lansing. She was scheduled to begin the academy again this fall, but that wasn't going to happen now. The thought made his stomach flip.

“Thanks, Billy.” He did not want to think about Nantz and Walter right now, but the more he pushed thoughts of them away, the more they seemed to intrude.

Cripes, even the RAM Center's mechanic had an opinion about Fagan and Piscova. Why had Zins and Miars gotten no place in eighteen months?
Rhetorical question,
he told himself. The answer was politics, which meant a minefield for which few people had an accurate map.