Death Roe (32 page)

65

Wednesday, January 5, 2005

PETOSKEY, EMMET COUNTY

Service called Glen Sheppard, editor of
The North Woods Call
, the state's small, most influential outdoor periodical. A Korean War vet, editor Sheppard was a longtime friend of DNR law enforcement, the kind of fearless and principled editor who took on any and all power brokers if he thought they were in the wrong—including DNR Law Enforcement. The paper's small circulation belied its influence among a broad cross section of people interested in everything from hunting to bird-watching. Sheppard, his wife, and their pets lived and worked out of his house on an isolated drumlin near Ellsworth, in northern Antrim County.

Service worried about waking up the old curmudgeon, who was an early-to-bed type, but he needed help, and Shep was the man to provide it. Service had originally considered giving the Piscova story to Shep, as the most influential outdoor editor in the state, but the man's publication ran on a shoestring, and he was known to be extremely close to certain elements in the DNR. Service felt this might have made it easy for Shep to accidentally reveal that Service was the source, so he'd gone with Beaker Salant instead. His reasoning at the time: Why put Shep in the middle of a shitfight he hadn't asked for?

“Sheppard,” a man's voice growled over the phone.

“Grady Service.”

“Seems I've been hearing that name a lot recently,” the editor said.

“Highly complimentary things, I'm sure.”

“Depends on who's doing the talking,” Sheppard said. “Why the call?”

“I need information on Angledenny.”

“L. Bradley or G. Wilson?”

“L. Bradley's old man.”

“That's GW. Term-limited in ninety-eight. His kid took the seat on his old man's coattails and GW's old man had it before him, a great example of political power as a family hand-me-down.”

“What's GW doing nowadays?”

“Mostly retired. He owns a construction company that builds high-end summer homes on the lakeshore. Got a grandson running the outfit.”

“GW sponsored the snagging ban.”

“Rammed it right through the legislature and pissed off a lot of people who couldn't understand all the fuss over a bunch of stinky, dying fish.”

“Black hat, white hat?”

Sheppard chuckled. “Gray, like most of them we send to Lansing. All his time as a solon aside, GW's a pretty good man. Not perfect—but who among us is?”

“What was the motivation for the bill?”

“The Michigan Salmon Society thought snagging was a serious problem for long-term salmon reproduction and with all the money salmon fishermen were bringing into the state, the state chamber of commerce and tourism bureau jumped on the issue.”

“Is it a coincidence that Piscova ended up with a monopoly on egg harvesting in the state?”

“You looking for a scrap with Quint Fagan?”

“Just asking questions. Where's GW live?”

“Bay View in Petoskey. Got a show house with a paint job that looks like somebody puked up a Christmas cookie.”

“He winter in Michigan?”

“Far as I know. He's a tough, outspoken old bastard. Don't think he ever got into that Arizona-Florida snowbird baloney; plus, the grandson who runs the construction company's young, and the old guy likes to keep an eye on him.”

“How old is GW?”

“Gotta think . . . mid-eighties, give or take, still sharp as a brand-new Swedish hand ax.”

“Thanks, Shep.”

“Want some advice from an old fart?”

“You bet.”

“You're a Vietnam guy. You can take the best damn GIs in the world and send them into battle, but if the civilians who give the orders don't have their act together, you can't win.”

“Copy that.” Service took this as a warning that it would be hard to find consensus in state government to pursue Fagan. He'd already seen the evidence.

It was late, and there was no point trying to find the retired lawmaker tonight. Service drove to the Petoskey state police post, checked in, and let the dispatcher know he'd be sleeping in his truck in the parking lot.

After a shower, shave, and coffee at the post in the morning, he drove to Bay View, a collection of expensively renovated Queen Anne homes in the northeast part of town. There had been two inches of fluffy snow during the night, and the neighborhood looked like something out of a kid's storybook. He found the house, which was red, green, and white, and noticed someone in a parka and pac boots stooped over a snow scoop, clearing the driveway. The scoop was like those used by Yoopers, but plastic rather than metal.

Service parked on the street and walked up the driveway. “Nice scoop,” he said in greeting.

“Neighbors think I'm nuts, but what the hell do I need a snowblower for? Work's good for the old ticker.”

“Is Representative Angledenny here?”

“That depends. Brad's in Lansing. I'm GW.”

“Grady Service, DNR.”

The old man laughed and wiped a pearl of mucous from his nose. The son looked nothing like him. Angledenny propped the snow scoop against a snowbank by the garage and took off his choppers.

“Service,” he said with a smirk. “I heard you rattled hell out of my son's cage, you and some female IRS freak. Game wardens still drink coffee, or have they sissified to latte?”

Service grinned, said, “We're still on coffee.” He followed the man through the garage and into a large kitchen with a breakfast nook. A small white dog began barking and the old man said, “Ignore her. She was my wife's idea. Lost Sally in July, inherited the dog. Lousy trade.”

“Sorry about your wife.”

“Alzheimer's; no idea what planet she was on at the end.”

No emotion, just straight facts. The old man poured coffee in mugs that said
hers
and
her dog's
.

“I know about you. A marine in Vietnam, state police, DNR; you've maxed out your pension nut and got more than enough time to retire, so what keeps you going? You one of them crusader types?”

Angledenny was nothing like his son. The man put an ashtray on the table, took a half-cigar out of his pocket, and said, “Watch this.” He flicked a Zippo lighter open and the dog came charging into the room, barking, yipping, snarling, hopping around like it had been injected with speed. Angledenny lit the cigar and blew a puff at the dog, which retreated, whimpering. “Beat it, ya four-legged cotton ball. The queen's gone. Long live the king.”

Angledenny took another puff. “It's a good thing to rattle my kid's cage. Do it myself as often as I can. I held that seat a long time, and he got it because of me, but he'll be out on his keister come next election. He doesn't believe that, but I know the voters here and he's done. Runs with a crowd of assholes and everybody knows it. You asked him about that stupid Costa Rica investment . . . I told him to stay the hell away from Horn and Fagan, but kids don't listen.” The old man tilted his chin and blew a perfect smoke ring.

Fagan's name had never come up with Angledenny. He and Leukonovich had talked about him, but not to L. Bradley. “You don't like Fagan?”

“Can't say I care about the sonuvabitch one way or the other, but a sleazeball is a sleazeball, and we've got some sad history. Term limits came in and I was six months out from my last election; my PAC got a check for twenty-five grand from an outfit called the Michigan Salmon Society. I'd held this seat so long I could tell you within ten the final vote count every time, and name the people who voted against me. I never spent more than ten grand for a campaign, and only spent that on radio spots just before Election Day, to make sure voters knew I was still interested. Twenty-five grand was way over the top and made me wonder what the hell was going on. I took the check, put it in my desk, never cashed it.”

Angledenny took another sip of coffee and kept talking. “Soon after I got that check, the MSS began a statewide PR campaign against snagging salmon. Good stuff, got your attention—so I told my people to call the MSS in to give me their spiel.”

A puff of smoke. “They come in, looking like good old boys in plaid shirts, but they put on the damnedest dog-and-pony show I ever saw, stuff to make Detroit's car ad boys drool. I was impressed, and the message made sense. They showed me graphs that talked about the estimated egg loss yearly from snagging, and what the long-term effect would be on natural reproduction by the fish. Even though I liked their cause, there was a disconnect: Here were these plaid-shirt guys, average Joes, giving me this high-powered, knock-your-socks-off presentation. It was too slick by half. Still, I supported them, so I called Legislative Affairs and they sent over a young sharpie who drafted the legislation for me. I introduced it and ramrodded that sonuvabitch all the way to Clearcut's desk. When he signed it without protest, I thought maybe he was beginning to have an outdoor conscience.”

More coffee; the man was in the groove now, talking, not bothering to see if Service was listening or getting any of it. “Bill got signed, MSS went out of business. I called one of the plaid-shirt boys and asked him what the hell was going on. He told me they'd run out of money, that their sugar daddy had pulled out. The guy says their main funding came from Shamrock Productions, the same outfit that did the dog-and-pony show and media campaign. I asked my people to find out who and what Shamrock Productions was.”

“A Fagan company,” Service said.

Angledenny looked at him and arched a brow. “Took a little pressure, but the plaid-shirt boys eventually told me that Fagan funded them, and gave them the twenty-five K for my PAC. So I called Fagan.”

“You'd met him before?”

“Never really met. Seen him here and there. The capital's a small place. Turns out that the analysis we did on the bill showed only the upside. We didn't know there was a connection between Shamrock, Piscova, and Fagan, or what a monopoly on egg harvesting meant. Our focus was on Michigan sportfishermen and the economy, and based on that, the ban was the right thing to do. I saw it as my legacy to the people of the state—until the Shamrock-Fagan connection popped up.

“So I set up a meeting. The greasy little bastard came to my office and I passed his check across the desk and told him to stick it up his ass. He just laughed at me, took the check, and left. A few weeks later Sam Bozian pulled me aside at a reception and told me he was disappointed. Said he'd signed the bill as a favor to me, and since then, he'd heard I wasn't a team player. Nothing more, no names—just that. I lost it. I told Sam he'd been a politician his whole damn life and had never had an actual job, but when his term was up he'd find life a little different than the damn cocoon he'd been living in. I learned later that Shamrock Productions created all of Bozian's political ads. Sam didn't give a shit about sportfishermen. He just wanted to support his pal Fagan.”

The man's bitter soliloquy was not at all what Service had expected, and he was trying to sort it out. His gut said the old man was telling him the truth, and either this was the way it was, or the man was the most accomplished liar he'd ever met.

“So,” Angledenny said, “what is it you want? You met my son, figured the apple wouldn't fall far from the tree?”

“Something like that.”

Angledenny laughed sarcastically. “I think my Sally-girl let the mailman get in her pants to make that kid. Always been different. You looking for dirt on Fagan?”

“Information.”

“You think he bribed me to push through that bill?”

“I didn't come here with a preset notion.”

“He didn't have to bribe me,” Angledenny said. “I bit on the line, pushed it through, and made it easy for him. I got snookered, and if you think that makes me feel like a dope, you'd be right.” Angledenny studied him for a moment. “You want dirt? I've heard that Fagan got his start with dirty money. He went to school at Florida International University and didn't have a pot to piss in. He took out student loans, did all sorts of odd jobs, did all that crap a starving student has to do to keep himself in school and afloat. Then he graduated, and within six months all his loans were paid off and his business was up and running. I called Fagan one time and asked him if the rumor was true. Know what the bastard said? ‘Your wife's got a cute little black dog.' A week later somebody threw mothballs on the lawn, the stupid dog ate them, and that's all she wrote. I said to hell with it; I'm not screwing with this guy anymore.”

“You never went to the cops?”

“With
what
, ‘Your wife's got a cute little black dog'?”

“According to the rumor, what was the source of his start-up cash?”

“What I heard is a guy named Amos Grenchev was his banker. Grenchev's an Israeli from the Ukraine, the moneyman for a crook named Lev Lazarus.”

“L-Two out of Tel Aviv.”