Night Game (3 page)

Early the next morning
Marquez met his DOJ crime lab friend, Leon, at a coffee stand in Sacramento. Leon’s body language said he didn’t get what the big deal was over a bullet with no gun to match it to. He dumped sugar into a latte, mixed it slowly with a wooden stir stick, took a seat on a concrete planter box, and angled his face toward the sun, listening with his eyes shut as Marquez told him what he knew about the Vandemere killing.

“But this murder you’re talking about was months ago, and you’re saying these bears were poached this past week.”

“Yeah, but the bears weren’t far from where Vandemere was killed, and the bullet I pulled looks like it could be a .30-30.”

“Common enough bullet for bear, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Leon opened his eyes. “Besides, why bring it to me if you think it might be from the same gun? Why not turn it over to the detective?”

“Because if it doesn’t turn out to be a .30-30, it stays with us.”

“You don’t trust this detective?”

“I don’t know him, and we’ve got our own problem. We’re trying to find someone who’s treating the black bear population like a private herd.”

Leon was a big backpacker and fisherman with a real interest in saving wildlife. He might play devil’s advocate this morning, but he’d take it seriously later. Marquez handed him one of Kendall’s cards and left him nursing his latte, enjoying a few moments of quiet sunlight before entering the fluorescent blandness of the lab and a day of concentration.

Twenty minutes later Marquez threaded through a power breakfast crowd at Rex’s, the new hangout for the political set. The floor was highly polished black and white marble tile. Morning sunlight slanted through dark-stained windows. The chief sat at a round table in a corner, alone and out of uniform, dressed in neatly creased white chinos, a yellow linen shirt, and soft black loafers that probably had cost four hundred dollars. Other than the short trimmed hair, the faint hint of law enforcement there, you’d never guess looking at him that he had anything to do with Fish and Game.

“Have you eaten, Lieutenant?”

“I had coffee with a friend at Justice after I called you.”

“Take a chair and have breakfast. The chef here is something else.”

The SOU ate on the road all the time and way too much fast food, though they’d had a couple of dinners lately at safehouses that were pretty good, owing to Cairo’s new interest in cooking.

Marquez took a chair and watched Bell eat poached eggs on thick toast.

“We got another call from our seller this morning,” Marquez said. “He wants to do a deal tonight.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said we’re on.”

Marquez waited. He knew Bell was close to saying they weren’t going forward.

“It’s worse than I told you earlier,” Bell said. “Most of the department personnel files have been hacked. These hackers install a backdoor in files that then get transferred around the department. Eventually, it gives them access to everything.”

Marquez knew Bell didn’t know anymore than he did about how a backdoor was set up. Neither of them knew much about computer programming, but Bell sounded like he’d picked up some new jargon.

“This may be the time to pull back and re-evaluate,” Bell said. He leaned forward, spoke quietly. “Let’s put aside our jobs for a moment. How old is your stepdaughter?”

“Sixteen.”

“Captain Fong’s twins are eight. His girls walk to school every day. That CD made very specific reference to yours and Captain Fong’s families. The computer experts say that there’s a high likelihood the names, addresses, everything about the Special Operations Unit is in the hands of this person or persons.”

“I heard he didn’t get any photos of anyone on my team.”

“He has enough.”

“I think we stay with him a little longer. I told him today he sent the CD to the wrong person and he can have it back.”

“I’m talking about reasonable caution.” It occurred to Marquez that somewhere along the line Bell must have attended a seminar where they taught that good managers get those under them to agree to major decisions before they’re made. “Other tips haven’t been followed through on, other cases pushed aside,” Bell said. “And we never had enough going into this one. You told me last week you were going back to our original source. Where are we at with that?”

“I’ll see him in the next couple of days.”

Their source on the bear farmer was a thirty-seven-year-old San Francisco resident named Kim Ungar. Ungar claimed a cousin had given him the phone number he’d passed on to the Department of Fish and Game. Ungar was Asian American and had told Marquez that his cousin was full Korean and only distantly related to him. The market his cousin was selling bear parts to was Korean. After that the story got hazy.

Bell dabbed at a sticky spot of yolk, then examined the napkin.

Marquez rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. Nothing was said for a moment, and Bell laid his hand on the table. His nails were neatly cut, the skin smooth. Marquez glanced at his own big hand and wrist, the rough palm, scars along the back.

When he looked up Bell said, “We can take down the pair who’ve been selling to you.”

“That’s our last resort.”

“I’m not sure you’re hearing me, but excuse me a minute. I’ve got to use the rest room.”

When Bell returned he said he was out of time. As they walked out, Bell added that he wasn’t sure he could even get the buy money together, and that they’d have to talk later.

“And I’m not just saying that to stop you from going through with this tonight. I should also tell you that I sat in on a budget meeting yesterday that was very bad. Your whole team may be in jeopardy next year, John. The governor is asking for huge concessions.”

Blame it on whatever you wanted, the collapse of the economy, a state running on vapors, or even as one exasperated state senator had told Marquez during closed-door hearings, “Compassion exhaustion. People are sick of saving the goddamned animals, and California is broke. The money we have has got to go other places.”

Marquez changed vehicles, dropping off the damaged truck, and then drove to Placerville. He met Shauf at the office in town they’d rented for the operation, a second-floor space in a brick building with a couple of windows that looked down on the old water tower and hardware store. Cairo, Roberts, and Alvarez were back up in Humboldt County following up on a bear case that was going to court next month. They’d get back to Placerville this afternoon, barely in time to get ready for tonight’s buy, if it happened, if they could gather the money to do the deal.

He sat across from Shauf. A stack of business cards with his alias, the name John Croft, rested on the desk corner, and he had a driver’s license to go with the cards. Any officer running the license would get transferred from the Department of Motor Vehicles to the SOU officer at Fish and Game, keeping his cover intact.

“What do you think?” he asked her. “Is our operation blown, Troy tied in with him and they all know who we are?”

“I say we keep pushing.”

The rented office had a business name they’d concocted, TreeSearch, stenciled in white script on a smoky glass door. The heart of their cover was that they had a federal grant to study the effects of global warming on native red and white fir.

“We may have to put up personal money if we do this buy today,” he said.

“How long before we’d get reimbursed?”

“Could be a whole month.”

Each SOU member had an account, but all five were currently depleted, and he had the strong feeling he wouldn’t hear from Bell in time.

“I’m okay with that,” she said. “I’ve got five or six thousand in a savings account. How much do we need?”

“Ten grand.”

“I’m good for half.”

“I’ve got the rest.”

“Let’s make the call.”

She crossed the room, locked the door, and threw a dark grin at him as he punched in the numbers. He lifted one finger, then two, then three, letting Shauf know how many rings. After the fifth ring there was a pause, then the mechanical rasp.

“Identify yourself.”

“John Croft. I need directions for tonight.”

“Copy this down.”

When he finished the line went dead, and Marquez laid the phone gently on the desk.

“On foot out a fire service road off 49 south of here,” he said.

“I’m supposed to walk up a dirt road alongside a creek tonight at 8:00 with a flashlight.”

“So, we’re on?”

“Yeah. What do you say we go scout this fire road?”

Kendall called as they drove
toward the buy location, but the reception was poor and Marquez had to get Shauf to run her window up.

“Something to show you,” Kendall said, and then the call got dropped.

“He’s asking us to meet him,” Marquez told her, and waited for Kendall to call back. “He’s got something he wants to show us.”

“Everything except respect,” Shauf said.

“He called you?”

“Last night, and was all over Petroni.”

Marquez had told each of the team they were likely to hear from Kendall, explaining that the detective was investigating the Vandemere murder.

“What did he ask?”

“Whether I knew Petroni, how well, and what did I think of his character. You know, what dirt have I heard about him, like
he’s writing a gossip column, not investigating a murder. He said there are conflicts with Petroni’s statements regarding Vandemere.”

Kendall called back while she was still talking, and Marquez copied directions. It took half an hour to retrace their route from Placerville. They got on the highway westbound and exited a few miles later.

“Down that gravel road,” Marquez said, as they passed the tall windbreak of Lombardy trees Kendall had said watch for.

The road was dotted with yellow leaves. Shauf’s van rattled through ruts, and two county cruisers came into view, parked alongside an old pickup. Behind the vehicles was a yard seeded with engine parts and a house clad in unpainted cedar. Marquez saw a converted Volkswagen bug with a plywood dog platform built over the trunk space in front.

“Who’s the fat guy?” Shauf asked.

“Kendall’s partner, Hawse. I don’t remember his first name.”

“Let’s hope he’s different than Kendall.”

Kendall walked out of the house and blew snot onto the ground out of one nostril. He saw them, and turned his head, held a wad of napkin against his nose when he faced them again.

“There, he’s showing some respect,” Marquez said.

“What’s going on with his hair and skin?”

“Let it be.”

“Last night when I told Kendall I may have seen Jed Vandemere once in July but had never spoken to him, he started asking what Vandemere was like, and I think, oh, okay, he didn’t hear me. So I explained again that I might have seen him—nothing more than that. About ten sentences later he’s back at it, kind of slick like suggesting I’d talked to him and probably remembered him because he was a handsome guy. He said maybe I’d remember a conversation if I kept thinking about it.”

“Trying to jog your memory.”

“No, much greasier than that.”

Kendall walked up to them, and Marquez watched him size up Shauf, her solid in-your-face build, shoulders that said she pumped a little iron, her short blonde hair. He nodded at her as if they had already met and said everything they’d ever need to say, then directed his conversation toward Marquez, turning his back on Shauf as he gestured toward the dog runs.

“Let’s take a look,” he said.

“At what?” Shauf asked. Kendall was already walking toward galvanized chain-link fence enclosing concrete dog runs. The dogs, black-and-tan hounds, lay on the concrete, and Marquez knew immediately they weren’t sleeping. He heard Shauf murmur, “Oh, no,” as Kendall started explaining.

“The owner here called 911 at 11:14 this morning, told the dispatcher his dogs had been poisoned and two rifles stolen out of his house while he was asleep last night. He found the dogs earlier but was too shocked to make the call.” Kendall’s eyebrows arched slightly as he said that. “Or maybe he has a problem calling the government. He’s one of your crackpot survivalist types. You’ll see the literature from his favorite think tanks on the table inside, if you’re okay with going in. I understand if you don’t want to risk blowing your cover, and I can also move him to a back room.”

“What do you need from us?” Marquez asked.

“You know a lot more about bear hunters than I do. I want to know what you see here and whether you recognize him, if you’re willing to meet him.”

“What’s his name?” Marquez asked.

“Eli Smith.” He swept his hand at the yard. “This is his castle.

It’s all his, even the junkyard. He says he works as a roofer and does other odd jobs. He ought to do some of them at home.”

“Does he have any idea who killed his dogs?”

“If you ask me, yes, but he’s too ‘heartbroken’ to tell me what he knows.”

“Have you got a dog, Kendall?” Shauf asked.

Kendall stared back at her, said, “My ex-wife had ugly little terriers she fussed over all the time.” He blew his nose. “She didn’t give our son as much time as she gave those dogs.” He looked up at Marquez again. “Smith says the dogs were alive at 3:30. He went out then to stop them from barking at what he thought was a mountain lion. Somewhere between the time he went back to bed and 7:30 the dogs ate the hamburger balls and croaked.”

“Yeah, we’d like to take a look inside,” Marquez said, “but we’ll want to get a look at him before he sees us.”

Marquez stepped aside with Shauf and talked it over. Smith had survivalist literature, so she’d go in first and make sure he wasn’t one of the two Marquez had dealt with on the buys. A deputy led her in, and Marquez was left standing with Kendall.

“What kinds of guns were stolen?” he asked.

“A .30-06 and a .30-30. I’m wondering if there’s a bear angle I don’t know about? The dogs, for instance.”

“Could be. Bear hunters sell pups from the good strike hounds.

Those pups can bring five thousand each, and the market supports only so many breeders, so there’s competition and squabbles about bloodlines. Everybody is selling the best strike hound ever born. Ask him about his enemies in the hound world.”

Shauf came out and said Smith wasn’t either of the pair they’d been buying from, so now they worked out a crude cover story with Kendall. A vehicle leaving here had sideswiped their truck last night and broken the mirror, but they hadn’t reported it until this morning. They’d say they were dropping off a friend after coming back from a party, and they’d confide to Smith they hadn’t called the police earlier because they were drunk.

When they walked into the kitchen what caught Marquez’s eye was an old Westinghouse freezer alongside the refrigerator. A black power cord supplying it ran under a door and out to the garage. He nodded at Eli Smith.

“This kitchen looks just like mine. I mostly quail hunt nowadays, but I used to bear hunt with my dad when I was a kid.” He paused. “I’m sorry about your dogs. We’re trying to help out the deputies, but I don’t know what we saw, just taillights really.” He leaned closer to Smith, out of Kendall’s earshot. “We were pretty lit up or we would have called last night.”

Marquez took in the rest of the kitchen, the old sink, metal stripping lining counters built from what might have been the first piece of Formica ever sold. They stepped into a tiny living room. Smelling dogs, he saw the folded blankets on the floor. Smith pointed at the paneled gun case where the two rifles had been.

He described them, then added that at least they were insured.

Marquez caught Kendall’s skeptical look. You couldn’t stand here without wondering how the guy paid his mortgage every month, and here he was saying his hunting rifles were insured.

“They’re collector’s pieces,” Smith said, talking about the scope on the stolen .30-06. “9X scope, inlay silver on the gun,” keeping an eye on Kendall as he talked. “I had them appraised. They come out to do that before they insure you.”

“What’s that cost a year?” Marquez asked.

“It just adds onto the policy.”

Right, just adds onto the policy, and Marquez nodded he understood, then took the conversation to bear hunting, naming places in Virginia and Canada he said he’d been with his dad. He got a little interest from Smith, but not much.

“Ever hunt off bait piles?” Marquez asked.

“They’re not legal out here.”

“Not legal a lot of places.” Marquez nodded toward Kendall. “If he wasn’t around, I’d tell you a story.”

Smith pulled back at that, wariness showing, and Marquez knew he’d pushed a little too far. Smith moved to his dining table now, rested a hand on it, then lifted the hand after a few seconds
and rubbed his cheek. A small nervous man with bad teeth and worse breath. He wasn’t their seller. Marquez took a last look around. He put a hand on Smith’s shoulder, said he was sorry again and maybe he’d see him in town.

“I’d almost rather they killed me.”

“Maybe next time,” Kendall said and wiped his nose again.

Outside, Kendall said, “Not telling the truth, is he?”

“Not all of it.”

“And you don’t recognize him?”

“No, but Bill Petroni might.”

Kendall cleared his throat. “Petroni is coming in tomorrow morning, says he’ll clear things up.”

“Coming into the sheriff’s office?”

“That’s right.”

It surprised Marquez how much relief he felt hearing that.

They got back in Shauf’s van, and Marquez lowered his window as Kendall came around and thanked them for coming. Shauf let the van start rolling while he was still talking.

When they hit the main road she said, “Kendall doesn’t like women in law enforcement.”

“You get that from him?”

She turned and stared hard at him. “He’s an asshole.”