Shell Games by Craig Welch

Author:Craig Welch [Welch, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

Ed Volz tried to keep silent. He had always feared it would come apart. Now, thanks to Tobin, it had.

Outwardly, Severtson took the meltdown in stride, but Volz knew it was a tremendous blow. Severtson’s own agent, Dali Borden, had too quickly and passionately defended Tobin. Borden had gotten worked up in the U.S. attorney’s office. Severtson felt she’d grown too attached. Tobin had somehow spun her head around, a testament to the informant’s charisma. Volz shared the concern but saw denial, too. There was responsibility to go around. The one person Volz didn’t blame was the attorney, Micki Brunner. The prosecutor had done what she could. If their snitch sounded like a liar with her, defense attorneys would have chewed him up in court. Tobin hadn’t given her much choice.

Brunner in the end still salvaged a conviction, in part thanks to another case worked by Severtson and Volz. Volz had prepared search warrants for Henry Narte, the diver who had been featured in the Los Angeles Times story, and was pulling the rest of that case together. Brunner indicted the fisherman and his crew for funneling four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of poached clams to DeCourville and another buyer who sent them overseas. Narte had made 191 illegal shipments and would ultimately be given a five-year prison sentence. But the cops’ work tracking those sales also gave Brunner the leverage she needed to convict DeCourville. Brunner rattled DeCourville enough that he pleaded guilty to extortion and trafficking. She chalked up a conviction without ever needing Tobin. In early 1998 DeCourville would begin a forty-month sentence in federal prison.

The other cases involving Tobin were lost. Canfield, the bomb maker, and five other bit players would never face federal charges. Severtson pushed Agent Dali Borden to make at least some of the allegations stick, either using what she had without Tobin or by getting more information. But everyone else saw the odds against her. Borden would never get the information she had again without having someone inside.

Detective Kevin Harrington fumed. He’d wasted a lot of time investigating Canfield, and now it would go nowhere. He stormed around, swearing about the Feds. Harrington knew Tobin’s history was a problem, but he didn’t think it should have been enough to kill the case. Someone could have made more undercover calls, he said. Something else could have been done.

The rest of the geoduck investigators were still busy. Wildlife trafficking cases had only multiplied while they had been chasing after DeCourville. The agents investigated three separate groups, each of which took contraband valued above six figures. Agents Andy Cohen and Al Samuels and another state detective took on another peculiar and unrelated group of divers. One of these divers feared telephones. One threatened to force-feed dog food to his enemies and bury them in a backyard pit. Another suspect was the son of Officer Obie from the song “Alice’s Restaurant,” who arrested Arlo Guthrie for littering and kept him out of Vietnam. William Obanhein’s son

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