Death Roe (7 page)

“Man, we invented that shit in Africa. You white boys stole it from us.”

Service slept for a few hours in the conference room and was awakened by a presence. He looked up to see Zins staring at him and looking around the room.

“What?” Service asked.

“Stopped by to see Brett. I'm a little early.”

Bosk and Zins? Odd couple.

“You look busy, so I'll leave you alone,” Zins said, taking a final survey of the room.

Service went into the office area but Zins wasn't there. He found a receptionist in the canteen, making coffee. “You see El-Tee Zins?”

“No,” she said.

“He and Bosk pals?”

“Not that I know of. He shows up about as often as the other lieutenants. Zins just retired, right?”

Service nodded, went into the men's room, and splashed his face with cold water to wake up. Afterwards he called Roy Rogers at his motel. “You coming back here this morning?”

“Our flight isn't till late afternoon.”

“I'm going to lock the room. I gave you a key, right?”

“Yep. You going to be there?”

“Yep, but I'm going to try to get permission to go to Alaska.”

“Okay. See you after I fetch Leukonovich and we grab some breakfast.”

Service called the chief at home and brought him up to speed. “I need to go to Alaska to see a man.”

“Your investigation, your decision.”

“What kind of budget do I have?”

“I'm working on that.” The chief gave him an account number to charge his travel and expenses, adding, “That's probably temporary. I'll talk to you soon about a budget.”

Service was in the conference room going through names when Rogers and Leukonovich appeared. Rogers went right to work, but Leukonovich got a cup of coffee, came over to him, and touched his shoulder. “Can we talk outside?”

“It's colder this morning than last night.”

They stepped outside and she said, “I would beg a cigarette.”

Service handed her the pack. She fumbled trying to light it, took a long pull, and exhaled. “Zhenya wonders why you stay in a low-level government position.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You are a wealthy man. You could use your time more productively.”

It took a moment for what she was saying to register. “You ran a background check on me?”

“Zhenya makes it a point to know the people she is to work with.”

“Is that legal?” He felt angry, but her straightforward approach had put him on his heels.

She shrugged. “Zhenya thinks is odd that a man of such means would be doing this work.”

“I haven't always had ‘such means,' ” he said.

“Yes, but the question remains.”

“I like the work?” he offered.

She dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. “You are an interesting man, Detective. Zhenya finds few men interesting. I sense in you a combination of zealotry and passion that intrigues me.”

Was she hitting on him, and if so, how was he supposed to respond?

He managed a grin. “Kind of cold out here.”

“Zhenya feels no cold in your presence,” she said, waiting for him to open the door. When she moved to step by him, she stumbled against him and held the contact before recovering and walking ahead as if they had not even talked. When he found himself staring at her behind, he rolled his eyes and cursed himself quietly.

Halfway to the conference room she turned around and came back toward him. “To be entirely forthcoming, Zhenya would entertain invitations to fornicate, Detective, but you should be forewarned that as a wealthy man, you are going to have females and all kinds of people trying to take your money. You must learn to be very, very cautious.”

Her off-the-wall declaration finished, Leukonovich pivoted and went to the conference room, leaving him in the hallway with his mouth hanging open.

12

Saturday, October 23, 2004

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

The city reminded him of a Copper Country town—weary, worn, beat-up, and filled with feral people genetically wired to survive. He checked into a small hotel called Slimers. His room reeked of water mixed with vinegar and had the mottled color scheme of a rotten stump. He had gotten the phone number of Andriaitis from a group called United Fishermen of Alaska. Andriaitis hadn't seemed overly interested in talking, but had agreed to it so long as Service would “bring your sorry ass up from the Outside.” The chief approved the trip without questions, but Rogers got held back in New York for unspecified reasons—budget, maybe.

Service called Andriaitis from Michigan and again from the airport in Anchorage, and arranged to meet him at a joint called Polarpalooza, a converted warehouse with a hundred-foot-long bar and wooden floors worn to the grain by too many calked boots and too much wet slop.

Andriaitis had shaggy white hair and eyebrows, a permanently windburned face, hands the size of baseball gloves, and a voice that crackled like taut canvas in a high wind. He was short and wide with a jaw that stuck out like an invitation to trouble.

“I called King Kong,” Andriaitis greeted him. “He says you're an asshole with serious
bullchitna
, but he vouched for you.”

Service had no idea what the man was talking about. “He said the same about you.”

Andriaitis snarled, tilted back his head, and laughed. “I don't have all night to shoot the shit. I've got five crab rigs to get ready, and if you aren't on top of the help up here, they'll peel the Charmin right out of the crack in your ass.”

“Piscova,” Service said.

“About fucking time you people wised up. Piscova's been ripping off the state for years and nobody seems to give a shit.”

The man seemed too righteous out of the gate, and Service wondered if it was nerves, or something else. “You've known this for years and never said anything to anyone. If Piscova hadn't screwed you over, you'd still be working for them, and we wouldn't be sitting here.”

“You talk tough,” Andriaitis said, clenching the table. “Want to step outside and see who can back it up?”

Service said, “I'll break both your legs before you stand up.”

Andriaitis guffawed, released the table, and waved a hand at a bartender who looked like he wasn't yet sixteen. “Two beers here, and keep them rolling.” He turned to Service. “The IRS keeps bugging me to talk, but fuck them. You're right. Piscova and Fagan are shitpiles, but I couldn't say much. I had bills and responsibilities, all that shit, but it wasn't the money that finally got me pissed. It was Roxy.”

“The Caviar Queen, Roxanne Lafleur.”

“After I seen what that creep Fagan did to her . . . that was all she wrote.”

Service knew from experience that maintaining silence sometimes encouraged sources and witnesses to keep talking. He took out his small recorder and set it on the table. “You mind?” Andriaitis shook his head, and Service pressed the on button.

“Fagan was banging her like an apprentice carpenter with his first claw hammer. She's the loyal type, did everything he asked. And now this.”

“This?”

“Cancer. She sampled so many goddamn poison salmon eggs, the cancer got her.”

“That's why she left the company?”

“Fagan gave her some cash and told her to clear out.”

“The girl who took her place says the company pays pretty well.”

“It ain't the actual pay, which is okay, but when the new girl starts fucking Fagan, she'll find herself swimming in cash, and if she skims a bit for herself, who cares? It's all off the books.”

“Is that how Roxy got the big house?”

Andriaitis made a face. “Fagan's. He put it under Roxy's name to hide it from the IRS. He has all sorts of arrangements like that. But she managed to build herself a place up north of Marquette with what she got, and that's all hers. Out in the sticks, but that's what she likes.”

“Is she there now?”

Andriaitis nodded. “Getting treatment at the regional medical center.”

“You called the IRS to get justice for her.”

“Right. I knew I'd never get my money from that bastard, so the least I could do was find a way to kick Fagan's Irish balls.”

“Talk to me about Piscova.”

“How long you got?”

“As long as you can spare.”

“Not tonight. I've got work. Meet me at the Climate House at seven bells tomorrow morning. We'll have coffee and talk then, but think about this: The state Budget Audit Office audited Piscova years ago and found that the company owed money—a helluva lot of it—going back several years under the contract. As a result, the state let the contract go to another company, but it turned out that Fagan was a major shareholder in that operation too, and even though his other company got the contract, he began to threaten a lawsuit for breach of contract with Piscova, and the spineless state backed off. The sonuvabitch is like bad breath at an all-night poker game. Next thing, the BAO people decide there were no violations and they sent a bunch of seized records back to Piscova. Of course, there's no way your lot will be able to get them back for another look because they won't exist anymore.”

“You're telling me someone in BAO was on the take?”

“Yeah, if free and copious hair-pie and goodies count. So here we have this company screwing the state based on BAO's audit, and next thing you know, they weren't in violation, the records were sent back to the company, the BAO made no copies, and the auditor in BAO wrote an article for a state employees magazine telling everyone what a great fucking company Piscova was—the state's model vendor. Can you believe that shit?”

“What role does Vandeal play in all this?”

“Loyal soldier. You'll never get him to tip, but if Fagan can sell out Vandeal, he will. Fagan's the guy you have to put your laser sight on. And while you're poking around, look real hard at that asshole, Teeny.”

Teeny was the former governor's poodle, and still director of the DNR, despite the governor's departure.

Service watched Andriaitis drain his beer and get up. “Here's a good one to sleep on: Fagan got a contract with the state in which he more or less dictated the formula for measuring the fish runs and his harvest. One year Piscova paid less than a thousand bucks for millions of salmon eggs.”

Andriaitis took a step and turned back. “The BAO auditor met with Fagan to hammer out the contract before bids were submitted and a state legislator ramrodded a law through to outlaw snagging, which pretty much gave Piscova the whole market.”

“The auditor's name?”

“See you in the morning, tough guy.”

13

Sunday, October 24, 2004

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

Grady Service had expected Sergeant Miars to at least express some enthusiasm over the information he'd shared with him after meeting Andriaitis last night, but Miars only said wearily, “We've been looking at that for eighteen months and were told this is normal contract jockeying between the state and its vendors.”

“And Teeny's involvement?”

“
What
involvement? He and Fagan are sometime pals. That's not a crime.”

“Was Fagan a pal of Bozian's too?”

“Don't even,” Miars said.

“How the hell can there be so much rumor and so many weird events, and nobody seems to give a shit?”

Miars said, “The one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Go to bed. You're starting to foam at the mouth.”

His sergeant's dismissive attitude had made for an unexpectedly unsatisfactory conversation, but if Miars felt nothing was out of whack internally, maybe he was right—that a lot of this had been investigated and amounted to nothing. The deal with Piscova and New York eggs, however, was a different animal, and he wasn't backing off anything until he was convinced there was no case. He'd witnessed the egg sale. There was reason to believe the New York eggs were contaminated and being mixed with Michigan eggs. And Roxy Lafleur had cancer. He didn't need anything more to keep going until he got some answers. Miars could think what he wanted, but he was not backing off. No fucking way.

The desk clerk at Slimers was wearing a faded red USMC baseball cap with a golden globe and anchor.

“I need to find the Climate House,” Service told the man.

“Look at a map,
cheechako
.”

So much for customer relations. “Semper Fi, squidbait.” The clerk saluted him with a single finger.

He spotted a hooker outside the hotel and went over to her. “I'm about to be lost,” he said.

“Lost is my specialty,” she said. She was in her twenties, thin, wearing a peach-colored coat and a floppy-brimmed hat with a pheasant feather in the hatband.

“Not
that
kind of lost,” he said quickly.

“I'm not good enough for you,
cheechako
?” she challenged.

The day was not starting out like he had hoped. He pulled out his badge and flashed it. “Okay, enough nice-nice. Where's the goddamned Climate House?”

“Chill, big dude.” She pointed in a direction. “You can walk it, twenty minutes tops.”

“What the hell is
cheechako
?”

“Newcomer,” she said, “meaning green as snot. Have a nice day.”

The place looked out on something called Ship Creek, and Andriaitis was already seated in a booth and dumping sugar into a cup of coffee. He had bags under his eyes.

“Long night?” Service said, sitting down.

“One of my captains had his appendix blow up. We packed his butt off to the emergency room and I spent the night on the phone trying to find someone to take his place. Finding a body isn't hard. Finding a
good
one is. There's all kinds of politics around king-crabbing now. Lots of volunteers to get involved, most of them not worth a shit.”

“You want to put this off until you're rested?”

Andriaitis grinned. “I rest in Florida with the wifey. I'm in Alaska to make money, and that means work. You think about what I said last night?”

“Which part?”

“I'm in no mood to dance the smartass this morning, and I don't feel like spoon-feeding your dumb ass, so fire away, and if you're too fucking ignorant to know what questions to ask, tough shit. You want breakfast?”

“What's good here?”

“This joint ain't about good. It's about fuel.”

Service ordered scrambled eggs and elk chops, and after receiving permission from Andriaitis, turned on his recorder.

“Lafleur's cancer,” Service began. “How bad?”

“Stage three, which ain't good, but she's just finished a round of chemo and she's optimistic.”

“You're saying she got it from the eggs?”

“Seems like, but you know how that science shit works: There aren't many cases where the experts can or will say, Yep, A caused B. Fuckers can't agree on anything.”

“How could she not know the eggs were contaminated?”

Andriaitis shook his head. “In her mind, she was just sampling, know what I'm saying? When good money's involved, most people can convince themselves of anything.”

“What exactly does a caviar queen do?”

“Besides ridin' the boss's pony? She spent a lot of time at the New York plant and selected eggs to be sent to Michigan, where she supervised the caviar production.”

“Bait eggs?”

“They mix Lake Ontario eggs with Lake Huron and Lake Michigan eggs in Elk Rapids, and ship that shit to the East Coast and to Japan. Roxy tasted eggs in New York and tasted the mixed batches in Michigan—a real double dose. Fagan didn't trust anybody else and sent Roxy, whose main job was to haul cash. She'd taste eggs in upstate New York for shipment to Michigan, and go on to New York City to collect cash for shipments from Michigan to the customer.”

“What sort of quantities are we talking about?”

“Up to fifty tons a season.”

Service had once read that two hundred and forty hen salmon had to be processed in order to harvest a million eggs at a weir. He had no idea how much a million eggs weighed.

“Who bought the eggs in New York?”

“I don't know. She always met her contact in a hotel in Manhattan, took in a Broadway show, and flew home the next day. But if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on the Crimea Group. That outfit controls a helluva lot of fish-related business on the East Coast, and they have the Caribbean cruise-line caviar business sewn up tighter than an Arab virgin's snatch.”

Andriaitis inhaled a half piece of dry toast. “Fagan is a piece of work. Here he is shipping eggs filled with fucking mirex from New York to mix with our eggs, which the FDA says are still good for people, but he's no dummy, so he gets it written into the contract that in the event levels of contamination go up in Michigan eggs, he doesn't have to pay as much for them, which is peanuts to begin with,
and
he doesn't even have to dump those that are bad because it would be too damn dangerous for his employees. What a total crock of shit! He knew the EPA and FDA didn't do that much testing, and didn't test eggs at all—just fillets—so he hired some geek-ass science company in Detroit or Fort Wayne, or somewhere, to test Michigan eggs, and they spit out data showing higher-than-previously-reported PCBs. He presented the report to the state, and announced his payments to the state were going down. Meanwhile, he continued to sell the same salmon meat and eggs, but his cost had dropped and his profit had gone up. It's unreal; he'd worked both ends with the state whipsawed in the middle. I don't like the man, but you have to hand it to him: The sonuvabitch is damn good at what he does.”

Service was trying to take in all the information and having trouble sorting it out. “The state wrote this into the contract?”

“I told you last night—the auditor from BAO spent a lot of time with him, and they worked it all out according to Fagan's specs. Aren't you listening? Man, you wouldn't last five minutes on a boat in the Bering Sea.”

“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.