Die-Off (18 page)

As they drove out, the inspector asked, ‘Did you get what you need?’

‘I did and thank you.’

‘I’m big on trout fishing. We go up to the Feather River from here and I’m not one of those who waits around for the stocking dates. I like to work for it.’

Marquez understood what he was saying. DFG posted the dates on the department websites when a lake would get stocked with fish. Those stockings included trout big enough to take and a certain amount of fisherman watched the stocking dates and showed up same day or the day after. It wasn’t hard to catch regulation size fish that had spent their lives being fed in a tank.

‘The people I’m looking for aren’t growing trout.’

‘What are they growing?’

Play it close or talk to this inspector who was also a fisherman? He went with his gut.

‘Northern pike.’

‘That’s no good.’

‘Not good in any way.’

‘It looked like they knew you were coming and cleared everything out.’

‘It does.’

It did and could mean the pike project was more evolved and the situation worse than he thought, but more likely Barbara Jones was here today to make sure everything was out and shutdown and if that was true she knew what she was looking for. He thought about that a moment. He liked her and that disappointed him.

With the building inspector’s help Marquez gathered a lot more information before leaving. He got the name, Stream Systems Aquaculture, and later in the afternoon wrote a search warrant application to get back into the building, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to tip his hand with Jones yet. He did get scales and one small dead fish and that would get looked at this afternoon at the Fisheries Branch. He was still debating going back into the building today when Katherine called.

‘John, Maria is hurt and I don’t know how badly. I’m on my way to the hospital.’

‘What happened?’

‘She fell!’

‘Fell where?’

‘I don’t know where. She was skateboarding. That stupid sport! She may have a concussion and broken ribs. She was trying to find someone that inspector up in Yreka wants to talk to, someone she knows. I’ll call you from the hospital. Where are you?’

‘In Sacramento but I’ll leave now. Call me when you know anything.’

‘She shouldn’t have been looking for anybody. Why can’t you keep Voight away from her?’

‘Call me.’

W
hen Marquez got home the front door was unlocked and lights were on throughout the house. He guessed Katherine left in a frightened hurry. He had talked with her twice on the way home and learned that Maria had a good-sized bump on her head but no concussion. Her right clavicle and two ribs were broken and the road rash on her right shoulder and elbow was going to hurt for a while. Katherine called now as he walked through the house.

‘We’re on our way home but we’ve stopped to pick up a pizza. I’m inside getting it and Maria is in the car. She says she’s hungry but you know how she is. As soon as she gets hurt she tries to make everything normal. It isn’t going to work this time, but you and I can eat the pizza and at least she’s not bouncing around in the car and the pain pills should start working. They wouldn’t give her any painkillers until they were sure she didn’t have a concussion. She’s got a couple of Norco in her now.’

‘How bad are the ribs and the collar bone?’

‘The collar bone didn’t separate and that’s good and she says it doesn’t hurt or at least not right now. The orthopedist said clavicle breaks hurt some people a lot and some not at all. Two ribs are cracked and they definitely hurt her. The orthopedist said six weeks on the clavicle or collar bone and less on her ribs. Remember the tattoo on her right shoulder? It’s gone.’

‘Okay, tell me again what happened.’

‘She was skateboarding down a steep hill with Kevin and Ridley and a car ran a stop sign below them and she collided with Ridley and fell when they were all trying to avoid the car. Remember, these were the two guys she was never going to hang out with ever again. The Siskiyou inspector talked her into calling them and Kevin decided it would be fun to loan Maria a longboard she had never ridden and then ride some steep hills together.’

‘Like they used to.’

‘Exactly, except that Maria hasn’t ridden in years and they knew that. By the way they couldn’t stick around at the hospital because they had to get to a party. Hey, John, the pizza is ready. We’ll see you at home.’

Marquez opened a beer and sat out on the back deck looking out through the darkness toward the ocean and thinking about the conversation with Barbara Jones. When he heard a car out front and car doors open and shut he stood. He saw the sling and Maria limping but with her stoic face on, a look Katherine claimed she got from him.

‘What’s up, Dad?’

‘I’m having a beer and thinking about some new friends I’ve met. I just got home. How are you feeling?’

‘Crummy. My shoulder hurts and my elbow and the rest is a drag, but it was my fault. I screwed up. The board is a total carver and I kind of freaked because a car ran a stop sign and blew my turn. I haven’t been on a board in awhile.’

‘I thought you were done with boarding.’

‘I wanted to get Kevin to talk to me and he was pretty stand-offish. I kind of dropped these guys a few years ago and he hasn’t forgotten.’

Marquez couldn’t touch her head or put an arm around her. He put a hand lightly on her back.

‘Dad, don’t do that, it hurts my ribs and my collar bone. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

Maria showered and didn’t feel like eating when she got out. She leaned back on pillows on the couch with a blanket over her legs and studied him before asking, ‘You’ve broken ribs, what should I do?’

‘Not much you can do. Try not to cough, sleep on the other side, take hot showers, and breathe as deep as you can stand, a little deeper every day, but mostly wait it out and try not to whine too much.’

‘I’m going to whine.’

‘Aspirin works for me.’

She thought about that a moment. ‘This all sucks.’

‘It does.’

‘It’s because of Voight.’

‘Getting on the board is because of Voight?’

‘Kind of.’

‘I wouldn’t go there.’

She nodded then looked away and didn’t have any of the pizza or salad but sipped on a glass of red wine to mess with her mom who didn’t want her to have any because of the pain killers, and Marquez and Katherine ate most of the pizza and salad. Marquez talked about Voight and asked about Kevin and Ridley and Maria touched her wounds and glanced at him like she had something to say but wasn’t ready yet.

Her mom listened quietly and Marquez knew that Katherine’s view of Kevin and Ridley was that neither was ever going anywhere in life. They were both several years older than Maria and raised in well-to-do homes with a lot of opportunity but hadn’t yet done much with it, but mostly she never trusted what their interest in Maria was.

Marquez remembered the friendship of the threesome differently. It was strongest when Maria was a senior in high school. There was chemistry and a bond. Maria was killer at sports and Kevin and Ridley had liked it that she was quiet about that yet competitive. Both of the guys were natural athletes. They didn’t fit into organized high school sports but they were the pair who would snowboard down the steep chute and off a cliff or catch the big waves in January.

What Ridley and Kevin got in return was hanging with a cool girl who was on her way to becoming a woman. Maria grew more graceful but remained the same kind of tough and semi-fearless. Then something happened between the three of them but he and Katherine never got the full story. Maria pretty much dropped them. He had asked about it once and her answer was, ‘They’re too uninvolved. It’s like they’re always standing at the edge of the party.’

But there was something more and he thought it had to do with Kevin and guessed it was probably Kevin who had talked her onto an unfamiliar longboard today. It was Kevin who took the bigger risks and who might be dealing dope on a much larger scale than the joints he sold in high school. Kevin had a thing he threw off that said he didn’t care what happened. He took chances he didn’t have to. When he was fifteen or sixteen another boy surfing with him drowned and it wasn’t Kevin’s fault but parents learned to keep their kids away from him.

Later than night Maria made a half-hearted throw at saying she was going to drive herself back to the house she shared with five others in San Francisco. She asked him to drive her to her car which was at Kevin’s place and Katherine stepped in.

‘You’re not driving anywhere. Your dad and I will go get your car and bring it back here and you need to lie down.’

It settled that way and what they learned when they picked up her car was that Kevin was living by himself in a house that was probably worth two and a half million. He came out after they reached the turnaround at the top of the driveway: probably Maria had called him. He seemed to know they were coming.

Katherine looked at Marquez and said, ‘Guess he didn’t go to the party after all. How about if you talk with him and I leave? I think it’ll be better all the way around that way. I’ll get in Maria’s car and go.’

Kevin was in shorts and sandals and an Oregon shirt with a big green O on it.

‘Hey, Lieutenant, how’s the wildlife doing? How’s Maria?’

‘You saw her get hurt. How close a call was it?’

‘It could have been worse. I thought the dude in the Lexus was going to nail her but she made a killer turn.’

‘Did he run the stop sign?’

‘Totally.’

‘Did he see her go down?’

‘He hit his brakes and I saw him watching, but then he jammed.’

‘But he knew?’

‘Yeah, he knew.’

Kevin smiled for no particular reason, maybe just for the way people can be. His hair was shoulder length now and his face drier and with some lines. They looked at each other, Marquez just a little taller and both with the broad shoulders of a swimmer.

‘Did Maria talk with you about Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner’s road trip?’

‘She talked, but, you know, they’re dead. They’re gone.’

‘Did you know them?’

‘I knew Terry.’

‘What about Sarah?’

‘I met her a couple of times.’

He paused. He looked from Marquez to his open front door as if somebody was waiting there for him, then turned back.

‘Terry was pretty hot and Sarah was fun. It’s a bummer what happened to them.’

He pointed a finger at Marquez.

‘Maria said the detective dude thinks you killed them.’

‘I doubt he thinks that.’

‘Yeah? Maria said you’re pretty worried about it.’

‘Well, Voight is a question mark. I don’t know where he’s going with it. You knew Terry well and you spent time up in the area where they were going. Did you set them up with people to meet?’

‘I might have but like I told Maria I don’t remember, so I’m not going to remember for you standing in my driveway either. Terry was from up there. She knew all kinds of people. Her brother is a river rat.’

‘Know him?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure, I know him but Terry had her own friends up there. If they went to parties she knew who to call. She knew people through her brother. He blew off college and moved there and she was on the rivers with him in the summers.’

Kevin touched the O on his shirt. ‘Jack Ellis went to Oregon for a couple of years.’

‘What’s he doing when he’s not on the river guiding?’

‘No clue, dude, you gotta ask him.’

Kevin stared and then smiled as if he’d just thought of something funny.

‘Maybe you can partner with the detective dude Voight and help him solve the case. Maybe ask him if he wants your help. I mean, we used to say nothing scares Maria’s dad and we always thought Maria was like you. Like that board today, I knew she would ride.’

‘You knew?’

‘Yeah, and that’s a dangerous badass road.’

‘Did you know she would crash?’

‘I knew she might have trouble and it would be nasty if she fell.’

‘You were okay with that?’

‘She got on the board, dude.’

‘So her choice?’

‘Always is.’

‘And riding is much more fun than dealing with her questions.’

‘Dude.’

‘Yeah?’

Kevin squared off in front of him and stood in closer.

‘Voight talked to me way back when, and he’s called again. He left a message yesterday. He’s a dipshit working down his old list and I haven’t called him back yet, but I will and maybe I’ll remember seeing you more places and hitting on Terry or Sarah, and take it even farther back and come up with some memories of Maria’s stepdad hitting on her other friends. Shit that will really get Voight going, vague stuff that I make up as I go and that’s a warning to you. Do not fuck with me.

‘You sent your daughter here and she started asking bullshit questions and now you’re asking what I think about her getting hurt. Shit, I don’t think anything about it. To me she’s already dead. She blew me off. She blew Ridley off. She was done with us a while ago and coming around with long-time-no-see bullshit doesn’t change that.

‘So, yeah, if she crashed today and she was in a coma or if the crash took her out, I still would have said, “Hey, Mrs Lieutenant, your kid is inside in the hospital and sorry about all that work you did raising her, but I’ve gotta go to a party right now.”’

Marquez moved to his car and opened the driver’s door.

‘Oh, so you’re leaving, it’s getting too heavy for you and you’re not going to say anymore.’

Marquez looked over the top of the car roof.

‘There’ll be time, Kevin. I’ll be back one way or the other.’

‘Do not fuck with me.’

‘I’ve heard that before too. I don’t know how many times but a lot.’

Kevin was still standing there watching as he drove away.

V
ery early in the morning as Marquez made coffee he heard a noise in the darkness out on the rear deck and found Maria with a blanket wrapped around her and her legs up on the bench, her back to the house wall. It looked like she’d slept in her clothes.

‘It hurts a lot and I couldn’t sleep and I keep thinking about Kevin and Ridley.’