Kirk Russell - Dead Game

“We call it Eurasian Organized Crime nowadays. EOC.”

“That’s fine, but the story I heard was that these were Russians.”

“And where’d you hear all this?”

“I called a friend.”

“Okay, let me ask it a different way, what’s this have to do with sturgeon poaching?”

“I’m not sure yet, but we’re looking at the guy Beaudry sold his bait shop and boat to. I know it’s a long shot that you can help me, Charles.”

“It is a long shot, but I’ll check for you. No promises, okay? Is this the number to get you at?”

“It is.”

Marquez hung up with Douglas and turned the heater on high as he left Berryessa. He still couldn’t shake the cold that felt as though it had reached down to his bones. The sun was bright when he reached the valley, and he drove toward the delta on Route 12, running out through the low rolling hills where the B-52s had practiced touch-and-go landings for years, their shadows darkening the sky as they lumbered toward Travis Air Force Base. Douglas called back before he’d crossed through the low hills and reached Rio Vista.

“How long would it take you to get to San Francisco?”

“A little over an hour if I turn around now.”

“The head of our Eurasian Organized Crime unit would like to talk with you. Ask for me when you get here.”

“See you there.”

“Do you remember two Lithuanians picked up in Miami trying to sell nuclear weapons and anti-aircraft missiles? There were about forty missiles, and these weren’t the handheld fire-andforget variety either. We think most ended up in Iran. Fortunately, the nuclear deal never went down. This was in 1998.”

Ehrmann watched Marquez’s face for any reaction, probably wondering whether a Fish and Game officer would track something like that. Douglas had introduced Stan Ehrmann as their local EOC, or Eurasian Organized Crime, expert and Marquez as a warden who’d once swum from a poacher’s boat out in the bay and climbed out over the rocks in Sausalito like Godzilla. That while trying to break another poaching ring, and, though he hadn’t meant it to, Douglas’s telling made Marquez sound ill prepared, just escaping the boat with his life. No doubt Douglas briefed Ehrmann on the SOU and their friendship and what they’d worked on together.

Ehrmann was a tall man, reedy, professorial, not a guy you looked at and thought FBI. But then many of the Eurasian criminals he was chasing didn’t fit traditional stereotypes either. Some were Ph.D.s and highly educated.

“We estimate there are two to three hundred of these Eurasian crime groups active in the United States. There is some cooperation and communication with other Russian groups, but not any shared structure. You can’t compare them to the Italians. EOC groups are closer to terrorist cells. Some speak their own code within their language, so we have a hard time penetrating with undercover officers. You have to remember there are fifteen republics now where there was once the Soviet Union, and there are many different dialects. In California they’re into money laundering, drug trafficking, extortion, identity and credit card theft, car rings, prostitution, murder, and a whole list of other things. Do you remember the five bodies dumped in San Pedro Dam?”

“Sure.”

“The word we use is liquid , and I don’t mean the water in San Pedro. They’re very liquid as organizations. They’ll put together the group they need for a criminal enterprise and dissolve when they’re done. So, who would they need for an illegal caviar business?”

“A network of fishermen and a way to broker the fish, transport it, and with caviar the means to produce caviar from roe, package and ship it. The people selling may or may not know what’s going on.”

“Are any Russian immigrants suspects?”

“We’re looking at a Nikolai Ludovna.”

“I’ve heard his name before.” Ehrmann wrote Ludovna’s name down. “Let me see what I can find out.” Now he cleared his throat and got to it. “The Bureau investigated a fire resulting in the death of a woman named Sally Beaudry. Arson investigators determined it was deliberately set, and we got involved because we had her brother, Tom Beaudry, on tape with known associates of Russian organized crime trying to arrange a loan to pay gambling debts. We had a possible motive for killing his sister in that he was beneficiary on her life insurance policy. The payout would have more than cleared those debts.

“He was in the habit of visiting his sister and gambling after she’d gone to bed. He’d fly down from here, stay with her, and drive into Vegas at night. What I think happened, and this can’t leave this room, is Beaudry backed out of a loan with the Russians and somehow they became aware of the life insurance policy. Maybe he told them she was sick and to wait a couple of years for their money. I hate to think he did, but whether they hacked it or he told them, they figured out it made more sense to keep him alive and collect when she died.”

“I’m sure you sweated Beaudry.”

“Like sweating a small hard stone. He’s also got a lot of opinions about the government. He’d built up a debt he couldn’t service running his boat as a cash business and skimming the profits. The bait shop didn’t make any money, and he’d maxed out his credit cards. The sister had disability payments and a little bit of a retirement stipend, so he couldn’t go to her, and he sure as hell couldn’t go to a bank. He had to go to a unique lender and start negotiating, except that he wasn’t in a position to negotiate. They reached terms, but then he backed out of the loan, and we think he realized they were going to end up owning his business in short order.”

“You got this through wiretaps?”

Ehrmann nodded and continued.

“About two weeks later the fire kills Sally Beaudry. When the insurance company balked at paying, he hired a lawyer and fought them. In the end he got paid most of the policy value, and the Russians stopped looking for him soon after.”

“Have you ever looked at the guy who bought the bait shop and boat?”

“No. Give me his name.”

Marquez watched him write down Richie Crey. He wrote it without hesitating. He wrote like he didn’t have any question about how Crey was spelled.

“It’s possible,” Ehrmann said, “that organized crime fronted Crey the money to buy out Beaudry. They may have told Beaudry what the price would be as part of the whole package of getting forgiven on his late debt payment. You’d have to tell me that sturgeon poaching is worth the effort, if that’s what you’re saying they’d want the business to front for.”

“Over time it could be worth it. Crey’s an ex-con, and I’ve talked to a few people who wonder where he got the money to buy. There’s also a rumor Beaudry sold too cheaply.”

“A connection may have been made with Crey in prison. That happens. These deals have a way of getting complicated.”

Now Ehrmann glanced at his watch. He leaned forward and faced Marquez.

“We’re eighteen months into an investigation of a Ukrainian group operating along the West Coast. One of the locations we’ve had under surveillance is in Sacramento. We believe there’s some possibility of overlap with your sturgeon poaching investigation.”

“Are you telling me we’re tracking one or more of the same people?”

“No, and unfortunately I can’t talk much about our investigation. I have to leave things vague today, and I’m sorry about that. But if there’s an overlap we don’t want any confusion. I’m going to give you a phone number for me and would appreciate one in return that I can always reach you at.”

“Where would we overlap?”