The Edge

Chapter 66

As soon as they were on the main road, Devine knew where they were going. The same spot along the shore. He was driving with his lights off, which wasn’t a problem even with the poor visibility. He just followed the taillights ahead of him to see the contours of the road.

The truck pulled off and Devine did the same, albeit a couple of hundred yards short and behind a stand of trees growing near the road.

He flitted along until he reached a good surveillance point in time to watch through his optics as Hal carried large plastic containers toward the water. Dak was hefting some other apparatus that Devine could not really make out.

Devine headed forward and then cut toward the beach. He looked out to the water and, though it was foggy and gloomy, he could see a solitary boat’s running lights slicing through the darkness out on the Gulf of Maine.

Devine crouched along a ledge of rocky shore, took out his optics, and surveyed the field in front of him. Once more, a smaller boat was lowered from the larger boat. It then traveled swiftly toward shore, breached the breakers, and came to a stop bow up in the sand. He could now see that the vessel was actually an RIB, or rigid inflatable boat, much like the kind he had used in the Army. There were two men on board. They jumped off the bow onto the sand, and greeted Dak and Hal with handshakes and backslaps. Then the four of them proceeded to unload the cargo; it was placed in the containers Hal had brought to the beach. Dak bent down and inserted the devices he had brought with him into each container.

Dak handed one of the men an envelope, and they parted ways. Dak and Hal hefted the first container. It must have been heavy, since both men struggled with the weight of it. They reached the truck, loaded it in the back, and then went back twice more to get the other containers. They drove off as the RIB was swiftly making its way back to the larger boat.

Devine had already gotten into his vehicle and was waiting. As they passed him Devine pulled out behind them. They drove straight back to Jocelyn Point, and to the same outbuilding.

They carried the containers into the building and had set down the last one when Devine appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, guys, nice gloomy night for some smuggling.”

Both men whirled around and Hal’s hand went to a pocket on his coat but then he was staring down the barrel of Devine’s Glock. He let his hand drop to his side.

Dak barked, “You’re trespassing, Devine. You have no business or right to be here.”

“I saw a suspicious act take place in a public area, and the fruits of that act are right behind you in those containers.”

“There’s nothing illegal with what we’re doing,” exclaimed Dak.

“As though all legal business is done in the middle of the night on deserted beaches and involving boats coming into shore with a payoff for whatever’s in those containers?” He pointed at one with his Glock’s muzzle. “What is it? Drugs?”

“We’re not drug dealers, for God’s sake,” blurted out a surprised Hal.

“What, then?”

Dak looked at Hal and then back at Devine. “It’s unagi.”

“Come again?”

“Unagi. It’s made from elvers.”

Devine cocked his head. “Elvers? Sounds like something from The Hobbit.”

“We’re buying and selling glass eels,” said Hal. He pointed behind him at dozens of large tubs set up on low tables. Devine could now see that they were all hooked up to aeration equipment. He assumed that was what Dak had been carrying on the beach.

“Is it illegal?” asked Devine.

“Not if you have a license,” said Dak.

“And do you?” asked Devine.

“Um, yeah. I do,” said Dak nervously.

“Bullshit. Then why the middle-of-the-night shipment? Why hide your operation here?”

“Do I need a lawyer?” said Dak.

“I didn’t come up here to bust illegal ‘elvers.’ I came up here to find out who killed your sister. So, did Jenny know about all this?” said Devine, pointing his gun around the room.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Devine shook his head. Had he been focusing on completely the wrong thing this whole time? He looked at Dak. “Tell me how this all operates. You tell me the truth and I’m not going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. But you lie to me, you’re done and your ass is going to jail. And his, too,” said Devine, indicating Hal, who seemed to be attempting to shrink into the floorboards.

Dak started talking fast. “Elvers are a huge market. The Japanese eat tons of eels. But overfishing depleted the Japanese populations. And there was an earthquake there about a decade or so ago that wiped out most of their aquaculture operations. So they turned elsewhere.”

“To Europe and America,” chimed in Hal, who now also seemed eager to explain things to Devine. “But the European elver population nosedived, and the eel was listed as an endangered species and exports from the EU were banned. So that left us and a few other countries in the Caribbean as the primary sources. And the prices skyrocketed. And that made for a big black market. Then that all came crashing down because the feds and the states stepped in. Most states banned the fishing. Here in Maine they started issuing licenses and imposing quotas and arresting and fining people.”

“Eels don’t breed in captivity,” explained Dak. “So all farm-raised eels have to be first caught in the wild. And there are lots of them in Maine.” He pointed behind him. “It takes up to two years to grow an eel to harvestable size. That’s normally done in an eel fishery.”

“How’d you two hook up?”

“Hal and I were in the Army together. He moved up here from South Carolina and told me about the eels. I researched it and we put a business plan together.”

“Where was the boat tonight coming in from?”

“New Brunswick,” said Dak. “Canada also has a lot of elvers.”

“So are you running an eel fishery?”

“We don’t have a license for that. And who wants to wait two years to get your money?”

“So how do you make your money?” asked Devine.

Dak looked at Hal. “Look, I think we need a lawyer. We’ve said too much already.”

“What if this is connected to Jenny’s murder?” pointed out Devine.

“It’s not.”

“She was a fed. She came up here for some reason. She was murdered. Are there bad people involved in this eel business? Is it enough money to kill over?”

Dak looked once more at Hal and closed his eyes for a moment before saying, “The price for elvers really sank during COVID, but now it’s back up to around $2,300 a pound. What you see in all those tubs are worth about $250,000.”

Devine stared in disbelief at the tubs. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. And you can make a lot more money off elvers than you ever can off lobster. And you don’t need a boat and all that other equipment. If you have a license you set big fyke or dip nets in a stream and you wake up in the middle of the night and go down there with five-gallon buckets and load up your catch, and then go buy a house or a fishing boat. It’s like Maine’s version of the California Gold Rush.”

“Okay. Who buys them from you?” asked Devine.

“Guys who come into town on a regular basis.”

“What kind of guys?” asked Devine.

“Mostly Asian,” said Hal. “Well, they’re all Asian, really.”

“How do they pay?”

“Cash. Bank wires and checks don’t really work in our business.”

“A quarter million in cash? What, do they bring it in suitcases?”

“Yeah, they actually do,” admitted Hal. “And they put the elvers in other suitcases. They typically put a legal export fish in refrigerated bags over them, like mussels. So long as they have an oxygen supply elvers are fine. They breathe through their skin.”

Devine walked over and looked in one of the tubs. He recoiled at the sight of what looked like hundreds of strands of bright white and yellow spaghetti — albeit with pairs of inky black eyes — flitting spasmodically through the water in massive hordes.

“So it is illegal the way you’re doing it?”

“Well, it’s not exactly legal, no,” said Dak.

“Why not just set up a licensed eel fishery? Or get a fishing license?”

“The fishing licenses are given out in a lottery and capped at around four hundred or so. Believe me, there are a lot more folks than that who want to do this.”

“And it ain’t fair,” interjected Hal. “They say it’s a lottery, but I say with that much money at stake some palms are getting greased, for damn sure.”

Dak said, “And as an elver farmer, it takes years to make your money back. And you have to have the capital to build a facility and buy the equipment and then you need to hire a bunch of people. And there’s a limit on how many pounds you can legally process each year. We can make far more money faster this way.”

“So this is how you get your capital to invest,” Devine said to Dak. “Not partners in Boston.”

“Yeah,” conceded Dak. “But I’m using that money to invest in local businesses that employ lots of people, and are bringing some pride and dignity back to Putnam,” he added in a defiant tone.

“Don’t go all altruistic on me. You’re doing it to get rich.”

“Well, that too,” admitted Dak.

“You got Coop Phillips and two other knuckleheads to come after me the night we first met in the bar, didn’t you?”

“I—”

“You believed I was really up here investigating you, right?”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” replied Dak.

“So this elver stuff is a big business?”

“Globally, it’s billions of dollars a year,” said Hal in a reverential tone. “And I’ve been to China and Japan. Once the elvers get there, man, they are dumped into this supply chain that is full of corrupt assholes, smugglers, killers. Chinese mafia has their fingers all over unagi.”

“And maybe some of them came over here because your sister was getting ready to expose them, and so they killed her?” said Devine.

Dak shook his head. “No way. I can’t believe that’s what happened.”

“Did she ever say anything that made you suspect she knew you were involved in this?”

“Never, not once. I swear.”

“Okay, so you get your supply from Canada? Why not here?”

Hal replied, “We also deal with people here, but Maine has gotten pretty good about ferreting out folks like us. And Nova Scotia is right across the Gulf and New Brunswick is just a little bit north.”

“Lock this place up,” ordered Devine.

Dak said, “Please, Devine, do not shut us down. I’ve got big plans for Putnam.”

“I could give a shit about that. And you said you were going to make millions off selling this property.”

“Hopefully, yeah, but that could take a year or two to complete.”

“Again, I don’t care. Now lock it up.”

Dak was about to respond, but he didn’t. Or rather couldn’t.

The bullet zoomed through the open doorway and hit Dak in the arm. He slumped to the floor bleeding, and screaming in pain.

Devine already had his Glock out and fired multiple rounds in the direction of where the shot had come before taking cover behind the wall.

Then, silence. Until he heard a vehicle start up. Devine was about to run to his truck and take up pursuit when Dak screamed, “Hal!”

Devine looked over to see Hal on the floor, blood pouring from his chest. He knelt beside the stricken man.

Only one shot had been fired, so it must have ricocheted off Dak and hit Hal, concluded Devine. He didn’t have time to even locate the wound before Hal gave a long rattling breath that Devine had heard before on fields of combat.

“Is Hal... is he going to be okay?” said a sobbing Dak, holding his bloodied arm, and crawling over to them. “Is he breathing?”

“No, he’s not,” said Devine curtly. “He’s dead.”